Sun 25-27

Since Kraylock is still petrified he is left at the church of Lothian where Est visits him regularly. Carsten researches the barbarians of the East in anticipation of them coming. Olosus's project in his workshop occupies much of his time. T'chour researches the spear he has acquired at the Joven temple and continues to train.

Sun 28

In the morning, Carsten heads to the Bull & Bear armory to get the armor, obtained from the medusa, fitted for him. He meets the owner and begins to make arrangements over the armor. As he does, the owner mentions Iltumar; Carsten had arranged accommodations for him to live in another town. The owner had apparently received word that the young man did not show up at the caravan's departure. Since the owner is concerned with Iltumar's well being, he requested a bard, Lavis Fellowmane, to investigate. He states that Lavis will be reporting back to him in the afternoon. Carsten takes the news back to the workshop and informs Olosus. While they debate these events, they send messages to T'chour and Est of Iltumar's disappearance.

Later in the afternoon, Carsten returns to the armory hoping to talk to Lavis. Unfortunately, it appears he has missed her; the owner explains that she reported back earlier in the afternoon. Lavis had access to Locate Object spell and she had used it to find Iltumar's jacket in an abandoned school in Oldtown with a warehouse behind it. She had informed the owner that she was going to investigate and report back later. Carsten decides to wait for her, but Lavis does not return. Deciding to do some of his own investigation, Carsten heads for Oldtown and is able to find the old school, called the Academy of Thought, with a warehouse behind it. The structure is boarded up and looks abandoned. Carsten returns to the Bull & Bear, but Lavis has not shown up.

Carsten returns to the Church of Lothian, where the company has gathered. They agree that they need to find out the fate of Iltumar and so they head to the abandoned school. Est has Vhord remain with Kraylock.

The Fellowship approaches the warehouse in the early evening. There are a set of double doors on the far side and a single door to a small extension close to them. Olsous checks for traps, but cannot find any. However, as he attempts to picklock the door open, a trap is sprung; acid is sprayed but Olosus luckily manages to dodge it. Examination of the trap reveals it to be a strange mechanical trap, possibly chaostech. Entering, they discover that the room is empty and has no exits. Olosus examines the walls and find a hidden door. Checking he finds another trap and this time is able to disable it. Again the trap appears to be of a chaostech nature; however the trap must be manually reset in order for it to work. Opening the door, it leads into a darken warehouse. But before they can enter, a lumbering figure suddenly charges from the dark room and attacks Olosus.

The creature appears to be a human, but he wears a strange harness that has 4 mechanical limbs with cleavers on the end. The arms are controlled by attachments to his cheeks. Olosus is attached; fortunately he is missed; Est retaliates by using Curse, but failed to affect it. T'chour counter attacks, but his blunt attacks do not affect the chaostech-man. His trip attack does succeed in sending the chaostech-man crashing to the ground; his impact is loud. Carsten is able to cast protection on the group while Olosus is able to take advantage of the trip to Sneak Attack with his short sword, injuring him significantly. The chaostech-man attempts to stand up, but after a series of AOPs and regular strikes, a trip attack lands him back down on the ground again. Dispite this, the creature injures Olosus, while Est misses with a Ray of Enfeeblement. T'chour switches to his kama and finally is able to inflict damage while Carsten is able to affect him with Inflict Wounds spell from his wand. The chaostech-man is able to stand and attack Olosus, Tchour and Carsten. Est is able to affect him with Chill Touch and T'chour trips him again. After several attacks, Tchour is able to finish him off.

Carsten tends to the wounds while Olosus examines the man. The harness appears to be chaostech, but appears to be removable despite being attached to his body. What's more he appears to have sub-dermal armor.

As they look around, the companions stand in a large, "L"-shaped empty room with 3 doors along the far wall. They try the far southern door, which opens to a bedroom, surpisingly occupied by a dwarf with a strange chaostech axe. He injures Olosus who returns the favor while Est casts Curse on the Dwarf and Carten uses Righteous Hammer. During the fighting, the Dwarf yells "Gideon, I cannot hold them!" Olosus manages to Sneak Attack and take him out. As they examine the dwarf's remains, they see that he is an acolyte of the Iron God.

Suspecting re-enforcements are on the way, T'chour covers the 2nd southern door, while Olosus attempts to picklock the northern one. It opens to a storage room, with 2 people in it: Iltumar and a woman who fits the vague description of Lavis. She informs them of many chaostech users here as well as the Surgeon of Shadows. After a quick discussion, Lavis agrees to escort Iltumar to the Church of Lothian.

Olosus moves to the middle door and picks it open. The door opens to a hideous operating room, with strange devices, chains, blood and chemicals. Standing in the middle is a man with a mechanical hand and a mask on. Nearby is a woman with large blades on arms. Carsten yells for them to surrender and the man sneers "Yes, I'll surrender!" He casts a spell and disappears. The woman attacks and injures Olosus. As the fight progresses, Olosus is injured badly, but in the end he is able to Sneak Attack (thanks to a trip) and renders her unconscious. She is "disarmed" and Carsten cuffs her. They check out the rest of the room. A south door leads to a bedroom with some chemicals shelved in it. An east room is a storage room. Further searching of the warehouse turns up some notes, but no locations, as well as Lavi's stuff. The notes talk about Iltumar, bringing about the Night of Dissolution, an event "eyes to the skies". It also talks about destroying the device in the kaleidoscope temple.

Est agrees to alert the church about this chaos hideout. Carsten wakes the woman and attempts to interrogate her, but she reveals nothing. The inquisitors arrive and agree to a controlled burn on the warehouse.

The fellowship breaks for the day. Each encounters rumors of Balkazarr's grandson who has gone missing and the reward for his return. Also news of an Asylum Breakout (covered in the Banewarrens Campaign).

Note: To this point Carsten has not revealed the opening of the Banewarrens to anyone.

Sun 29

Service is held at noon for a priest named "Pelalgri". T'chour escorts Iltumar to the caravan.

Sun 30

The church is able to cast Break Enchantment on Krylock and he is reacquainted with his companions (especially to an overjoyed Est).

Cost:

Shrink Item 375gp

Break Enchantment x2 450gp

While this occurs, as page delivers a message to the senior priest. Upon reading the news, he discusses the letter with Carsten. Apparently a priest of Lothian in Rivergate named Hetherth, is a traitor as he has dealings with the Pact Lords of Quaan. Carsten discusses these events with the companions.

Sept 22 2007

The fellowship returns to the dungeon of the Temple of Deep Chaos, with little trouble. Returning to the last junction, they take the southern corridor (where the medusa’s chambers where) which continues for about 100ft until the come to an open area. An ancient building with a stone door stands in the southeast-half of the area, half ruined; it has not been structurally re-enforced. The 2nd level of the building has collapsed and Olosus concludes that the building is not structurally sound. As they approach, both Olosus and T’chour can hear muttering from the other side of the door. Kraylock shoves the door open and before them stands a humanoid figure with a ram’s head and cloven hooves holding a battleaxe: a Rhodintor. This one is surrounded by a Blur effect.

Immediately it attacks Kraylock who is in the lead, wounding him. Olosus and T’chour manage to maneuver into the room (which they find has an unstable floor) to flank him, but the earth-bound daemon proves hard to hit, and it continues to attack Kraylock, eventually taking him down. Carsten manages to cast Vigor on him while Est is able to give him hit points through a necromantic spell. Seeing Kraylock getting backup, the Rhodinator growls in Infernal "Stay down damn you!" and after another hit Kraylock is taken down again. Thankfully, the Vigor keeps him alive. As the fighting continues, Carsten casts Dispel Magic and is able to remove some of the magic on the Rhodinator, but not the Blur. Fortunately it is enough for the companions to injure him, allowing an angry Kraylock to strike down the monster with killing blows. They examine the body and find little. Looking around they see that there are stairs that lead up to the 2nd level, but that floor has collapsed. There is another set of stairs that lead down. A search of the area finds nothing.

Treasure:

+1 Battleaxe

Taking the stairs to the basement, they find a hole which leads to a tunnel going north to south. Consulting the medusa's map, they take the southern half. The tunnel is winding, changing width, height and construction style (which catches Olosus's eye). Occasionally there are niches in the walls, none of which have anything of interest. As they continue they eventually hear sounds of battle. Rushing, the companions find a minotaur fighting 2 human females; a third male human lies on the ground. The minotaur is dressed in studded leather armor, using a large morning star. The 2 females are in scale mail, with shields and longswords. Carsten immediately cries "Halt in the name of Lothian!" to which the minotaur yells "Help me! I have healing magic that I can give you!" The women merely respond with "The minotaur is lying! He’ll betray you! Help us kill this monster!" Carsten then decides to cast his "special detect evil" (Ayailla's Radiant Burst) which sears and blinds both hostile parties, showing them both to be evil. The companions move into melee (including Est, which surprise everyone) with Kraylock attacking the minotaur, Olosus and Est attack one woman, and T'chour attacking the other. As the fight continues Carsten yells "Surrender and you will be spared!" to which the minotaur replies "You have a deal!" His next attack is aimed for one of the women and with a solid hit, sends her flying against the wall, smashing her skull. As that point everyone attacks the minotaur and he is killed. Before the woman can respond Carsten cries for her to surrender and T'chour trips her; she is bound and disarmed. As they examine the scene they see that the minatour had a black handprint tattoo on his left shoulder, sign of the Ebond Hand. The women are members of the Brothers of Venom. The third male human, also a Brother of Venom, is dead. Quickly interrogating the female it is discovered that she is a low ranking member; she was told very little. Although she is aware of increase activity in the cult, she knows few details. She is able to give rough directions to some of the other areas, but has not seen the rest of the complex. The companions loot the bodies and hide the prisoner in one of the tunnel's niches. A search of the area reveals nothing.

Treasure:

+1 studded (Minotaur size)

+1 morningstar

Elixir of hiding

Scroll of Cure Serious Wounds

Scroll of Cure Moderate Wounds

2 +1 scale mail armor

2 +1 longsword

bag of tricks

10 +1 arrows

2 +1 flaming arrows

Potion of Gaseous Form

140 gp

A set of heavy, metal doors stand before the companions, with sounds of machinery coming from the other side. After checking for traps, the companions head in. The room turns out to be a cylindrical shaft 100ft in diameter that drops down 300ft. In the center, running the length of the shaft, is a machine 50ft in diameter and 250ft high. There are several levels of rings of metal scaffolding 5ft wide, 20ft apart from each other. One set of scaffolding runs around the wall of the shaft, the other set close to the machine. Narrow 5ft catwalks connect the two sets of rings together. Ladders on the sides allow access to each level.

The machine is a bizarre sight; it has everything from pipes to pistons, cogs and levers, moving arms and antenna. Much of the machine is in motion, making any approach to it dangerous. Occasionally, steam vents from various sections of the machine making the room warm. As they take in this incredible sight, a venom thrall sees the companions from across the chamber and moves to attack. Despite the companion's range weapons, the thrall is able to move into melee. However, when Kraylock hits it with his axe, the platform is so precarious, that the thrall losses it's balance and careens over the edge, falling to it's death.

With nothing else to disturb them, they being to debate their next course of action. Olosus examining the machine from afar but cannot determine it's purpose although the possibilities of a generator, battery or weapon are likely. Despite the existence of ladders, the companions decide to take a quicker way down ("…don't I have a Potion of Fly?" Olosus mutters as he rummages through his bag). They will use Feather Fall and float down to the bottom; this way they will avoid any dangers and get quicker (they think) to the source of the matter. If they need to retreat quickly, they will use Fly. The companions prepare themselves: Carsten, because of spells he has been casting is weakened and he decides to removes his armor; he is too encumbered and places it into Olosus's Haversack. Olosus uses the wand of Mage Armor on him. Meanwhile, the companions use a rope to link everyone together. When they are ready they jump off the edge, with Est casting Feather Fall. On the way down, the companions noticed that various parts of the machine are able to bend and maneuver in impossible ways. What's more, there are areas or pockets in which reality seems to warp in strange ways: at one point the Feather Fall spell stops working, but resumes again ("as if we entered a pocket realm in which Feather Fall did not exist" Est deduces. Note that, even there, the light spell DID exist). At another point, the ropes around T'chour and Est change into snakes, but revert back to normal (although with different colors that before). All the while more steam vents gout out at various points from the machine. Some of it is scalding, but the companions manage to avoid the jets of steam.

As they pass the 3rd level from the top they see more venom thralls on this level. A hole in the wall appears to be a cave in which thralls emerge from. Since the companions are falling too quick, they cannot see much and are out of range before the thralls can engage. At the 5th level there is another cave, but the level appears to be uninhabited. The same goes for the 7th level. But as they begin to approach that level, Carsten is noticing shapes in the shadow. As they begin to pass, the shapes are becoming more pronounced, with vaguely humanoid forms to them. Carsten informs the group that the shapes appear wraith-like and Est begins to deduce that the barriers between the mortal world ("the land of the living") and the spirit world ("the netherworld of the dead") is weakening in this area. Carsten is unsettled by this, and states the blisteringly obvious fact that no good comes from this device. Olosus, despite his love of machines is forced to agree. T'chour is completely unnerved by this alien place and it's effects ("monstrosity of metal serving to corrupt harmonic order of the world"). Kraylock however, seems unfazed and Est is absolutely fascinated ("…and Magnus said Chaostech had nothing to do with necromancy"). Carsten yells to stop and T'chour manages to grab the railing of the 8th level. They are able to lift themselves to the scaffolding.

As they look around, Carsten notices on the ground level 30ft below that there is a figure sitting on the floor. The large creature is bloated figure with claws, wings and horns. It's disgusting flesh is covered with sores and decay; intestines hang out from pockets. Seeing the creature, Est is reminded from her studied of history of legend of a place inhabited by a horrible god. This deity resembled a mound of decaying flesh that spewed forth corruption and bile. Suddenly a wave of nausea comes over the companions; most are able to fight it off, but Kraylock falls victim to it. He becomes sick and vomits. The companions try to move him as far as possible from the creature, but it does not help much. The effects last for a few rounds.

The companions wonder what to do next ("We have expended ourselves much today and are ill-prepared to journey onwards, my friends" Carsten notes). Olosus reveals that he has noticed hatches at every level of the machine allowing access inside it. Spending this much time around the machine has allowed him to guess that he might be able to disable the machine, but only from the inside. Furthermore, he surmises that he will need to do it at every level. They are about to debate this, when suddenly, 2 dark figures appear before them. Est notices something about them, but the wraiths attack. Both strike Kraylock and Carsten; fortunate for them they are able to make saving throws to resist ability drain. Kraylock manages to keep his footing, but despite being unencumbered, Carsten is still knocked off the edge and careens to the bottom. Luckily, T'chour with cat-like reflexes is able to partially catch Carsten, altering his trajectory to the next level below. They take minor damage. The other companions continue to attack the wraiths allowing Carsten to use his enhanced turning ability. Although is appears to him that the wraiths are destroyed, Est sees otherwise. Using a ladder, Carsten and T'chour reunite with the companions. However, Carsten notes that his turning did not dispel the other shadows to which Est reveals that the wraiths appear to be confused. The two that attacked seems just as shocked as they were. They did not cross over willingly to the mortal world and when Carsten turned them, instead of destroying them, they merely returned to the other realm. This revelation threatens to turn into a theological debate as Carsten's faith holds that his greater turning always destroys the dark based undead, but they wisely decide to have this conversation later.

The companions wonder what to do next ("We have expended ourselves much today and are ill-prepared to journey onwards, my friends" Carsten notes). Olosus reveals that he has noticed hatches at every level of the machine allowing access inside it. Spending this much time around the machine has allowed him to guess that he might be able to disable the machine, but only from the inside. Furthermore, he surmises that he will need to do it at every level. They are about to debate this, when suddenly, 2 dark figures appear before them. Est notices something about them, but the wraiths attack. Both strike Kraylock and Carsten; fortunate for them they are able to make saving throws to resist ability drain. Kraylock manages to keep his footing, but despite being unencumbered, Carsten is still knocked off the edge and careens to the bottom. Luckily, T'chour with cat-like reflexes is able to partially catch Carsten, altering his trajectory to the next level below. They take minor damage. The other companions continue to attack the wraiths allowing Carsten to use his enhanced turning ability. Although is appears to him that the wraiths are destroyed, Est sees otherwise. Using a ladder, Carsten and T'chour reunite with the companions. However, Carsten notes that his turning did not dispel the other shadows to which Est reveals that the wraiths appear to be confused. The two that attacked seems just as shocked as they were. They did not cross over willingly to the mortal world and when Carsten turned them, instead of destroying them, they merely returned to the other realm. This revelation threatens to turn into a theological debate as Carsten's faith holds that his greater turning always destroys the dark based undead, but they wisely decide to have this conversation later.

Using the ladder they move to the 7th level and check out the cave to see if there is a shorter way out. The cave leads to a door with the sound of tool work coming from the other side. They enter into the room to find a man with a strange armor inside. "Who are you?" the man asks. Then he noticed Carsten with his symbol and attacks. "Hao!" he cries; at first the companions think it's some sort of alarm. Then it becomes evident that he is calling for someone, when another human male enters the room from the opposite door. After a brief fight, the fellowship manages to knock out the first man with sub-dual damage, and as Hao tries to flee, T'chour, with his greater speed, catches and trips him. They bound the men up and interrogate him separately.

Hao reveals that he is the creator of the tower. He's not a cultist (and seemed quite annoyed by the cults), simply a brilliant chaos-technician hired by a rhodinator lich named Aggah-Shan ("A giant new patron in the realm of chaostech!" Hao proclaims) to create the device. He goes on to claim the device "absorbs randomness", storing it as chaos energy. It gets the chaos from an above gambling den run by Aggah-Shan, situated right over the machine itself. Unfortunately he was never told what Aggah-Shan plans to use the energy for; Hao was so taken by the offer, he didn't care why. Hao also explains that the demonic creature at the bottom, the zaug, was what he used to power the device at first, but now they no longer needs it (when the companions suggest that maybe killing the zaug would stop the machine, Hao scoffs "Ha! Good luck with that folly"). He was quite delighted at the unintended side effects, and quite surprised at the weakening of the barriers of reality to allow the wraiths through, something he never anticipated. Finally, he details the other levels: the level 5th from the top is the storage level, parts and tools for the construction. The 3rd level is where they keep all their venom-shaped thralls when not being put to work. Last, he states that the only way out (that he knows of) is the way they came in.

Knocking Hao out they turn to the other man, who bears the symbol of the Ebond Hand. He reveals [insert interrogation results]

Treasure:

Various Chaostect Treasure

The companions decide to return back to the surface to re-equip and inform the church of their findings. Taking their 3 prisoners (including the woman from before) they return to the surface with little hassle (they bypassed the thralls easily). Carsten returns to the church of Lothian to make his report, while the companions hand the prisoners to the Knights of the Pale.

All character level up

April 26 2008