c02s01e08 -- Expanding Influence later day 23 ------------ kicking their way out of the teleporter chamber, the team storms into the lab beneath cragwar temple Never having been here alone, the team starts picking their way through the room's contents, happening upon odd things like the eye tentacle that rapes your eye socket and gives you long distance vision during the intrusive coupling. another item of interest was the Red Button of Power. Tug pressed it immediately and caused a detonation flinging all the room's content -- team included -- twenty feet away from the button. the room is wrecked and Abbot Bobbi catches them asses-up among wreckage; a small green fire has began in the corner. some real fast talk has bobbi convinced that tug and the team was fucking around at Arcanix and a teleport gone awry led them here. Arv sent the rubble back to base while Ed piques Bobbi's interest for adventure with the idea that if they can get coordinates to other forgotten cyre circles, then there's potential history and treasure to be unearthed... but shhh. don't fuck it up for us free enterprisers, right? Bobbi is in with keeping it quiet and accessing the citadel's archives in exchange for being part of the team. An equal to adventure. before the team is ushered out the front door at bobbi's side, the Furies catch them in the open courtyard, frustrated and... bored. turns out the captain of Vanguard Keep got word from the cathedral here in Cragwar that there was a warlock running amok. Rumor had it it was Nero.. they had this conversation yesterday with the paladin and her cronies but after spending 3 days of no evidence, this team of action was feeling pretty led on. Rogar has the evil on him but it's more residual than an active pact. Frank steps in at this point and asserts that if her current mission is a scrub then she should help with his... and explains the night his family was annhilated. Rogar shares his memory of sacred flame soldiers with a summoned angel slaughtered him and Frank's parents.. but Frank is calling bullshit, because the rest of his family was killed-- along with his parent's business partner but his only remaining uncle is gone with no trace. It is his uncle that he seeks, and an explanation for why his whole family was so mutilated.. it doesn't sound like sacred flame's flavor to be so .. into gore. Laila is willing to serve if Frank proves to be her better. Fight starts, and ends pretty fast. she gives him a few hits but doesn't have the attack bonus to dig through his armor nor his bear rage endurance. He brings the axe down on her hard and before she bleeds out; tosses a healing onto her for stability and she concedes defeat. The three knights with her readily agree; clean kill. and they all take a knee to swear an oath of vengeance to Frank's family, and to find the truth of events. They've got to report back to the Captain of Vanguard Keep that the pact is gone and there's no threat at hand... that should keep Rogar from having to explain himself again any time soon. From there, They'll head back to Flame Keep and start asking around about any Exorcist Missions in the area during that time, and will report back when they have some leads THx and two of the knights get into theological discussions, and for the first time since setting foot in town, the cleric feels like he's making sense to someone that knows a thing or two about a thing or two. Speaking of which-- Laila suggests a ritual of atonement to purge the evil mark from Rogar's soul.. but he doesn't trust the whims of the divine to look out for his or anyone other than their own best interest... so he passes on the invitation. Maybe they're good kids. Maybe they'll just ask the wrong questions and get killed. day 24 ------- Next day, bobbi found his first set of coordinates, loads the team up and pulls the lever-- leaving himself behind. :/ sadface. Ed has magehand... so next time he'll pull the lever himself and give Bobbi his shot at glory. this place is at the south rim of what was once cyre. tucked in a broad valley between two unfamilar athasian mountain ranges... underground somewhere... team lands in a junk pile of a tinker's shop with enough random gear to put together all sorts of automated madness. There's a squad of floating construct octopuses that float over and start grapple-stabbing the heros. 5 rounds later and they've greased them and Frank starts wearing one like a backpack. The place has secret doors, so when they find one it opens up into an armory with many doors leading away that are all locked. The armory has all sorts of really old, but well-preserved, cyran armor and weapons. Enough for a full garrison. Frank squeezes himself into a full plate suit with the help of Tug, and they begin eptying the equipment through the porter back to the warforged fortress. Oh man, these guys trigger traps on doors like nobody's business... acid strays, lightning trapps-- all sorts of mess. lotsa locked doors too. iron, trapped locked doors. super obnoxious. when Rogar and Ed eventually take a long investigation of the tinker shop, they don't find any keys or clues about the installation but they do fish up 3 magic trinkets... an ointment of brassy coloring a fancy grenade a weapon augmentation crystal it'll take identification rituals to have more precise information, which the team can get to next sesstion. Time spent in game: about 18 hours. now level 5 loot obtained ---------------- - assistance from abbot bobbi to quietly probe for teleportation circles - an ointment of brassy coloring - a fancy grenade - a weapon augmentation crystal - tons of old, but viable armor and weapons from cyran war - 4 coordinates... 1. home base in cragwoods 2. under cragwar temple 3. southern mountains 4. untested destination .. and there may be more.
