Echolocation
Explorer
With Ella dead, I gave her player control of Vitus.
Session 80
Courtesy of Drift's player
Right from one chaotic bedlam to another… as we began our session not in the Bleak Gate surrounded by monsters, but in Ella’s family home watching her relatives squabble over dinner. Gran Clara set a place for an absent Ella, while Auntie Ana became increasingly exasperated with trying to serve Tinker pie. The engineer kept insisting that his piece be “smaller”, until Ana irritably informed him that any smaller and there’d be no slice at all! In an oddly calm voice, Tinker replied: “Now it’s as small as her.”
An invasion of chickens disrupted the scene and foiled Marcel’s attempts to question his brother-in-law, but through it all Tinker’s gaze remained fixed on the mantelpiece: where a small wooden glider - previously tied to Ella’s soul - sat slowly draining of magic. As Tinker watched, the last of its ethereal essence faded, and so too did the scene: cutting back to the scene of Team BAD stranded in the Bleak Gate.
Having exited the Ob palace they found themselves facing ghosts, guards and a hissing shadowlisk that seemed all too aware of their identities. Neither side had a chance to act though, before shattering glass heralded the arrival of a fifth Obscurati guard: this one plummeting from a second story window. A haloed figure followed them out, glowing with light as he jumped toward the falling guard and unleashed a vicious flurry of blows before slamming the guard into the courtyard below.
Not to be outdone, Angharad strode forward with all buffs blazing: showing off his scorched, elementally charged skin for all to see. Ghosts flew in, John’s bullets flew out, and combat was initiated.
The surprise Clergy entrant beelined for the shadowlisk: slamming his feet into it but having difficulty locating the creature’s flesh through its shrouding shadows. Meanwhile, Angharad’s short-lived attempt to 1-v-1 a ghost ended in possession, as the spirit seeped into his flesh and directed him to kill Leone, AKA Grappa. John summoned a swarm of dogs on the shadowlisk and Lisandra - seeing naughty word hit the fan - summoned magical protections to aid against both Angharad and the Obscurati.
Needless to say, things were not going well. The shadowlisk annihilated John’s hounds, Angharad slammed a fire blade into Grappa, and calls from the Ob guards to stand down were ignored as a ghost drained Grappa’s health and John shot Angharad unconscious. The ghost that had been possessing the kineticist slithered out and chased Grappa out of the room, and all the while Lisandra was desperately trying to keep people alive and destroy ghosts at the same time.
The shadowlisk entering the room was really just the cherry on top of the cake. Fortunately John’s expert marksmanship gunned it down before it could do much and Vitus crashed through a window to pummel one of the ghosts out of existence.
Between Lisandra’s mass cure spell, John healing Angharad awake, and Angharad stabbing the remaining ghost in the face, we suddenly found ourselves with only the four Obscurati guards to deal with. …Until four more arrived and pointed their guns at the other guards.
This confusion was compounded by the arrival of two more shadowlisks and their immediate execution by none other than Amielle Latimer and another set of Ob guards. The ghostly tiefling seemed unprerturbed by the infamous Team BAD’s presence and explained that she’d come to rescue the - clearly now very dead - Ob officers.
She followed up all of this with a calm comment to John: “Nice gun.”
“You should see my other one.”
“Oh, you toned it down for the evening’s affairs, did you?”
And thus, with the weirdest gunsmith flirting ever, we found ourselves out of immediate danger. Vitus Sigismund the godhand was awkwardly introduced and Amielle asked what the party’s plans were. Upon learning that we were trying to leave the plane, she suggested searching the lighthouse - all of the Ob’s most important magical items were kept there.
This discussion was briefly interrupted by a screaming man full of butter knives falling through a doorway with Alloquacious behind him and Angharad deciding to stuff a shadowlisk in a web.
Eventually though, we politely refused Amielle’s offer of a guarded escort, accepted her other offer of a convenient distraction, and set out in search of the lighthouse - Vitus tagging along at Lisandra’s invitation. We hadn’t made it far before we found Cula’s body hanging from a tree; a dark fey lurking in the shadows beneath. It grinned at us and vanished, leaving Cula’s blade on the ground.
Lisandra retrieved it, Vitus blessed John’s gun, and we finally wound our way around to the ocean side of the palace. Down by the beach a steamship was loading passengers, and Lisandra could still hear ghostly screams echoing from a rocky island, but we ignored all of that in favour of reaching the lighthouse as soon as possible. A quick opening of the door courtesy of Steelshaper, I mean Grappa, revealed four guards and a ghost waiting for us.
One of them swiftly raised the alarm, calling “They’re here!” and emergency anti-Team BAD measures were activated. These apparently involved Antonio the guard refusing to use a gun he didn’t know how to shoot as another guard scolded him profusely. While they were arguing, Lisandra instructed Grappa to bring down the elevators the guards were standing on and cast Serenity at Antonio and his companion. John then shot the revolver in Antonio’s hand for good measure.
The guards on the second elevator weren’t spared their share of humiliation, as Grappa tipped their elevator out from under them and they fell 60 ft to the floor, landing wounded but alive. Meanwhile, the ghost in the centre of the lighthouse had drifted down to ground level and Angharad looked ready to stab it with an angry fire blade.
Will Angharad burn down the ghost and the lighthouse with it? Will Antonio ever get to shoot his special gun? And will Team BAD make it out of this alive? (Well… most of them.)
Find out next time, on Zeitgeist.
Session 80
Courtesy of Drift's player
Right from one chaotic bedlam to another… as we began our session not in the Bleak Gate surrounded by monsters, but in Ella’s family home watching her relatives squabble over dinner. Gran Clara set a place for an absent Ella, while Auntie Ana became increasingly exasperated with trying to serve Tinker pie. The engineer kept insisting that his piece be “smaller”, until Ana irritably informed him that any smaller and there’d be no slice at all! In an oddly calm voice, Tinker replied: “Now it’s as small as her.”
An invasion of chickens disrupted the scene and foiled Marcel’s attempts to question his brother-in-law, but through it all Tinker’s gaze remained fixed on the mantelpiece: where a small wooden glider - previously tied to Ella’s soul - sat slowly draining of magic. As Tinker watched, the last of its ethereal essence faded, and so too did the scene: cutting back to the scene of Team BAD stranded in the Bleak Gate.
Having exited the Ob palace they found themselves facing ghosts, guards and a hissing shadowlisk that seemed all too aware of their identities. Neither side had a chance to act though, before shattering glass heralded the arrival of a fifth Obscurati guard: this one plummeting from a second story window. A haloed figure followed them out, glowing with light as he jumped toward the falling guard and unleashed a vicious flurry of blows before slamming the guard into the courtyard below.
Not to be outdone, Angharad strode forward with all buffs blazing: showing off his scorched, elementally charged skin for all to see. Ghosts flew in, John’s bullets flew out, and combat was initiated.
The surprise Clergy entrant beelined for the shadowlisk: slamming his feet into it but having difficulty locating the creature’s flesh through its shrouding shadows. Meanwhile, Angharad’s short-lived attempt to 1-v-1 a ghost ended in possession, as the spirit seeped into his flesh and directed him to kill Leone, AKA Grappa. John summoned a swarm of dogs on the shadowlisk and Lisandra - seeing naughty word hit the fan - summoned magical protections to aid against both Angharad and the Obscurati.
Needless to say, things were not going well. The shadowlisk annihilated John’s hounds, Angharad slammed a fire blade into Grappa, and calls from the Ob guards to stand down were ignored as a ghost drained Grappa’s health and John shot Angharad unconscious. The ghost that had been possessing the kineticist slithered out and chased Grappa out of the room, and all the while Lisandra was desperately trying to keep people alive and destroy ghosts at the same time.
The shadowlisk entering the room was really just the cherry on top of the cake. Fortunately John’s expert marksmanship gunned it down before it could do much and Vitus crashed through a window to pummel one of the ghosts out of existence.
Between Lisandra’s mass cure spell, John healing Angharad awake, and Angharad stabbing the remaining ghost in the face, we suddenly found ourselves with only the four Obscurati guards to deal with. …Until four more arrived and pointed their guns at the other guards.
This confusion was compounded by the arrival of two more shadowlisks and their immediate execution by none other than Amielle Latimer and another set of Ob guards. The ghostly tiefling seemed unprerturbed by the infamous Team BAD’s presence and explained that she’d come to rescue the - clearly now very dead - Ob officers.
She followed up all of this with a calm comment to John: “Nice gun.”
“You should see my other one.”
“Oh, you toned it down for the evening’s affairs, did you?”
And thus, with the weirdest gunsmith flirting ever, we found ourselves out of immediate danger. Vitus Sigismund the godhand was awkwardly introduced and Amielle asked what the party’s plans were. Upon learning that we were trying to leave the plane, she suggested searching the lighthouse - all of the Ob’s most important magical items were kept there.
This discussion was briefly interrupted by a screaming man full of butter knives falling through a doorway with Alloquacious behind him and Angharad deciding to stuff a shadowlisk in a web.
Throughout the convention, I played Alloquacious as both jealous and murderous. Beyond Angharad, he was the only colossus faction member to survive, as the party pointed out a vent for him to escape through.
Eventually though, we politely refused Amielle’s offer of a guarded escort, accepted her other offer of a convenient distraction, and set out in search of the lighthouse - Vitus tagging along at Lisandra’s invitation. We hadn’t made it far before we found Cula’s body hanging from a tree; a dark fey lurking in the shadows beneath. It grinned at us and vanished, leaving Cula’s blade on the ground.
Before voting, the party overheard Vicemi ask Macbannin to check the island wards. He wanted to ensure no monsters interfered with tonight's affairs. Naturally, Macbannin sabotaged the wards instead. Knowing it's only a matter of time before he is found out, he will fight alongside the party once the council arrives.
Lisandra retrieved it, Vitus blessed John’s gun, and we finally wound our way around to the ocean side of the palace. Down by the beach a steamship was loading passengers, and Lisandra could still hear ghostly screams echoing from a rocky island, but we ignored all of that in favour of reaching the lighthouse as soon as possible. A quick opening of the door courtesy of Steelshaper, I mean Grappa, revealed four guards and a ghost waiting for us.
One of them swiftly raised the alarm, calling “They’re here!” and emergency anti-Team BAD measures were activated. These apparently involved Antonio the guard refusing to use a gun he didn’t know how to shoot as another guard scolded him profusely. While they were arguing, Lisandra instructed Grappa to bring down the elevators the guards were standing on and cast Serenity at Antonio and his companion. John then shot the revolver in Antonio’s hand for good measure.
The Ob built a small compartment inside the lighthouse walls, shielding by thin glass stating: "Break in case of Team BAD". The Ob guards cracked this glass, which triggered an alarm spell. It contains a revolver and a letter from it's creator, Vicemi. The unique six-chambered +1 unholy revolver is loaded with three slaying (human), distracting bullets (distracting), one slaying (tiefling) distracting bullet, one slaying (animal) bullet, and one slaying (magical animal) bullet. The last two bullets were designed for the druid's animal companion and Ella's familiar, respectively (though, Ella's familiar died in Book Three). For those that don't know, the distracting property makes spellcasting more difficult for the target struck by the bullet.
The letter reads:
The letter reads:
To the unfortunate soul that happens upon this letter,
Please find encased this glass chamber uniquely commissioned weapons to combat the threat of Team BAD. Please distribute the revolver to the healthiest of your comrades. I have etched these bullets with sigils to disrupt the magics that sustain heroic physique and focus. Within the chambers are six bullets, one for each member of Team BAD and two for any accompanying animals. The white bullets are for humans, red for the tiefling, brown for the lion, and blue for the bird.
If the revolver chambers are emptied upon Team BAD, you may be lucky enough to succeed. Unfortunately, you cannot comfort yourself with statistics — it is unlikely you will survive to fire a second bullet.
I suggest fighting boldly. Otherwise, you will have the pleasure of answering to the council.
May your impending death grant you the mental clarity to maximise your utility,
Vicemi Terio,
Spectral Archmage,
Head of the Ghost Council
The guards on the second elevator weren’t spared their share of humiliation, as Grappa tipped their elevator out from under them and they fell 60 ft to the floor, landing wounded but alive. Meanwhile, the ghost in the centre of the lighthouse had drifted down to ground level and Angharad looked ready to stab it with an angry fire blade.
Will Angharad burn down the ghost and the lighthouse with it? Will Antonio ever get to shoot his special gun? And will Team BAD make it out of this alive? (Well… most of them.)
Find out next time, on Zeitgeist.