Siegfried paced
back and forth in the cave, mulling over the various threads of what seemed to
be a growing conspiracy that stretched from the Sword Coast to the Western Heartlands
to the frozen wastes beyond the Spine of the World. Dread rings,
devils in darkness, dread shadows, he thought. Shadows... Then he snapped
his fingers and turned to Erwen. “Small man!”
he said. “You’re a Circle of the Moon Druid, are you not?” Erwen
nodded. “Then you
would know when is the next solar eclipse set to occur, wouldn’t you?”
Siegfried asked. “Particularly one that will cast Selune’s shadow over the Sword
Coast, Neverwinter, Helm’s Hold and Thundertree?” Erwen chewed
his lower lip and shrugged. “Well, the Second Sundering has thrown off the World
Almanac a shade, but the next solar eclipse visible in this region should be on
15 Mirtul.” “Why is
this important?” Varien asked. Siegfried ignored
the paladin. “Well then, we either have to destroy the Thayans before 15 Mirtul,
or make sure we’re in Waterdeep by that date. Wearing protective eyewear, of
course.” “Why?”
Varien asked. Erwen
shrugged. “For more details you’d have to ask a cleric of Lathander.” “Varien,
the Thayans and Ashmadai are likely to take advantage of the darkness offered
by a solar eclipse to activate their Dread Ring and raise the dead,” Siegfried
explained. Varien’s
expression was grim. “I’ll kill them all,” he said. “That’s the
spirit!” Siegfried said, smiling to show his sharp teeth. “We’ll hang their
severed hands from the gates of Neverwinter.” “What was
that about protective eyewear?” Alec said, fishing around in his belt pouches
for Clockdrive’s Spectacular Spectacles. He put the goggles on and twisted their
knobs randomly. There was a clockwork ticking sound and milky white crystals
snapped down into an aperture between the lenses. He walked,
somewhat unsteadily, towards the mouth of the cave, and peered out at the mountain
range beyond. His glasses
had gifted him with eyes of the eagle and he could see far beyond normal
human range. He marveled at the incredible detail he could discern from the
far-off peaks and distant valleys. Alec frowned.
What was that in the distance? He could make out puffs of inky black smoke that
moved from west to east at regular intervals. Alec’s eyes
widened as he saw a flash and in an instant, a mountainside gave way in an
avalanche, snow, dust and debris rising to blot out the sky between the
mountain peaks. “What was
that?” Alec asked. “What are
you talking about?” Varien said obliviously. “I don’t see anything.” Erwen
padded over to join the barbarian at the cave mouth. His sensitive feet picked
up the slightest tremor. An unnatural tremor at that.
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“Alec!”
Erwen tugged on Alec’s pant leg. “I feel something, in my…my loins!” Erwen
hopped up and down. “That way!” He pointed in the direction of the black smoke. “I think I
just saw a landslide over there,” Alec offered. “By the puffs of black smoke.” “Where?”
Varien asked. Erwen shook
his head. “That was no natural landslide, my tall friend.” “What do
you think did it?” Varien asked, looking confidently in completely the wrong
direction. “Orcs?” “Black smoke
doesn’t come from landslides. I feel really, uneasy feelings,” Erwen said,
pointing in the correct directions. “Pleasurable feelings, mind you, but…” “That’s
enough out of you,” Varien said. “We must investigate!” “There’s
definitely someone out there,” Erwen said. “It’s time to take wing.” “Yes,”
Varien agreed. Erwen
conjured enough giant eagles to give his companions a lift over the tall
mountains. The party members scrambled onto the creatures and with a few
forceful flaps, the flock of giant eagles flew as one v-shaped formation to the
scene of the avalanche. “Tell me,
Varien,” Siegfried called out to his wingman. “Are there any ancient temples to
this Phoenix you worship whose ascetics specialize in crafting mining explosives?” “Not to my
knowledge!” Varien shouted back. The steep slopes
slipped away beneath them as the giant eagles bore them towards their destination,
looping ever higher into the thin air of the mountains. They came
upon a strange sight in the early morning sun. Some sort
of contraption was resolutely making its way down an impossibly steep ridge
that descended into a snow-packed bowl. The mechanical marvel was obviously the
source of the acrid black smoke that the party members could smell even from
their high vantage point. The smoke was belching from a steel chimney atop the
lead vehicle that pulled behind it several long carriages, giving it the look
of a tightly-arrayed caravan, but there were no draft animals of any kind
pulling the heavy cars – instead, great cylindrical pistons, powered by steam
from the vehicle’s elongated boiler, drove heavy wheels along a section of
track made up of ironshod rails with wooden stabilizers between them with enough
force to propel the lead vehicle forward in a heaving, chugging motion, each
carriage behind it linked to the next one by a series of heavy couplers. The
sound of the mechanized caravan was excruciatingly loud – metal on metal like an
army of sword-and-plate fighters on the march. “Fascinating,”
Siegfried said. “I must have it.” As the
party members watched, an articulated mechanical crane swung out to grasp a
section of track that emerged from beneath the wheels of the last carriage in
the caravan; a heavily-armored thing almost like a castle with a turret that
sported a short-barreled cannon that moved about like the sniffing snout of a bear
seeking prey. The crane’s boom swung the track section over the length of the
caravan and set it in front of the steam-driven, smoke belching lead carriage. Small-statured
workers wearing safety belts that lashed them to the crane’s boom and spar quickly
hammered long spikes through guide holes in the track, securing it to the rocks
beneath. With a clockwork clanking sound, the vehicle rolled forward onto the
new section as a large cog fit into a toothed rail in the centre of the track.
The small humanoids clung tightly to the crane as its arm swung back up to
repeat the entire process. Astonishingly,
this complicated, dangerous operation was being carried out while the caravan
itself was under attack. A band of marauders
mounted on dire rams, were racing towards the caravan, the raiders themselves
armed with crossbows, hammers, loops of grappling rope, and other heavy
equipment that gave them the look of mountaineers. The dire rams, their curved
horns fitted with sharpened steel sheathes, hopped effortlessly from
outcropping to outcropping as they closed in on the carriage train. Atop the
caravan, guards who stood astride the carriages were aiming curious-looking ranged
weapons at the oncoming attackers that fired not crossbow bolts but rather
bolts of crackling energy that sizzled in the sunlight. The
rear-facing cannon in the last carriage in the train spoke with a flash of
detonation, sending a projectile speeding towards the oncoming riders, who spurred
on their mounts out of the way. The cannon shot exploded against a rock face,
pulverizing several thousand pounds of mountain into dust. Erwen winced
at the reverberation of the explosion. “Do you want avalanches?” he called out.
“Because that’s how you get avalanches!” The ram-mounted
raiders were not the most serious of the problems facing the contraption and
its carriages. A hulking frost giant had thundered towards the caravan,
stomping unflinchingly through a barrage of projectiles fired by the guards,
and was attempting to deadlift the train from its track. The giant’s muscles bulged
and rippled, the effort visible even from the party’s high altitude. The giant’s
countenance was horrible to look upon – the creature’s upper lip had at some
point been torn off by some animal, giving the giant a permanent leering grin
that seemed at odds with the seriousness of the threat he posed to the train. Siegfried
had seen more than his fair share of contraptions, usually crafted at great
expense at the whims of a noble family for no clear practical purpose, and he
could work out in his mind’s eye the effect of the giant derailing this caravan
from its track – the vehicle would have no means of leveraging forward momentum
in the rocky waste it was traversing, nor, if it began to slide unbidden, would
it be able to arrest itself. “Are those…dwarves?”
Varien asked, referring to the goat-mounted raiders. Bob’s eyes
narrowed. “Are those…gnomes?” he asked, referring to the guards who were
protecting the train. He felt a strange kinship with the small humanoids,
recalling his visions of a mountaintop gnome village under attack by
dark-minded dwarves. They seemed familiar to him somehow, though he had never
laid eyes on them before. Two ram
riders threw their grappling hooks at the train, snaring one of the caravan
guards and pulling him down from the armored roof. The hapless guard disappeared
in a puff of powder. “Whose side
are we on here?” Varien asked. “Simple
calculus to be made,” Siegfried called out. “Two parties with whom we are
unfamiliar, however one of the parties is in possession of a magnificent
self-propelled engine…call it a locomotive…and sadly if said party is dispossessed
perhaps violently so, with no one left alive to drive it, well, who would drive
it for us? I say we protect this marvel and perhaps persuade its owners to let
us borrow it.” “Then let’s
go and introduce ourselves!” said Varien. “Dive!” he shouted to his eagle
mount. The bird
rolled its eyes and tucked its wings in, dropping out of the sky.