Session 6
Searching through the dead bodies of the three halflings, the party found little of interest. A few blaster pistols, some creds, and a cell phone.
“I wonder what the last number they dialed was?” Milo mused.
Pressing the redial button, the phone rang once. Twice.
“Williamton house. How can I help you?” queried the voice on the other side of the phone.
Milo tried to find out what he could but information was limited. Hanging up, he quickly set out for a nearby phone booth, the party following behind. Searching through a phone directory, Milo quickly learned where the Williamton house was, and the party again decided to do a little walking about the city.
Some time later, the party found themselves standing outside of an otherwise normal looking house. The party couldn’t tell if anyone was inside, and not wanting to do anything without some information, decided to head back to the hotel.
The days passed, and the group began to grow a little restless. Talk of returning back to the Williamton house was beginning to start when the call from Gyguul came.
“My sources have picked up some leads on the location of the drow. North of Caar is a secret military base. My informants say that the drow is somewhere inside the base. If you are willing to go, I can charter you a private plane to bring you there.”
The discussion within the party was short. If they could find the drow in this base, they had no choice but go there. Agreeing to the chartered flight, the party prepared to move the next day.
The following day at the airport, the party quickly found the access gate for private flights with a few directions. Walking down the long walkway, they encountered a small guard station.
“Names please,” the very bored sounding guard said.
As the somewhat unofficial leader of the group Milo supplied his. It wasn’t on the list.
“Maybe Gyguul put it under mine,” Syd reasoned.
It wasn’t under his either. Every party member tried their name, and they tried Gyguul’s too. None of the names were on the guard’s list. Who had Gyguul chartered the flight for?
“Oh hey guys,” a familiar voice said from behind the group.
“Sorry I’m late. Slept in.” Thrabon. That annoying little frogman. Gygual had chartered the flight under his name. You could almost hear the groan that was on everyone’s lips.
With Thrabon annoyingly chattering on, the party boarded the small plane. Orendil took the pilot’s seat, and soon the group was on their way.
Every now and then Thrabon would indicate a change in direction but the flight itself was pretty uneventful.
And then everyone saw it.
The secret military base.
The large floating hunk of rock, looking as if it had been torn from some unsuspecting world. The four large towers that stuck out at irregular intervals. The way that the base was continuously rotating in space, each tower spinning by in turn.
“No one mentioned a floating secret military base,” Orendil said.
Still somewhat stunned, the group landed their plane a short way away from the base in a small clearing nearby. By now, everyone had become accustomed to the practice of walking and so the group found themselves directly underneath the large structure in a short amount of time.
When the portions of the rock bearing the large towers would rotate overhead, the tower tips still remained around 100 feet above the ground. Getting up would not be easy.
“If I had known I could have prepared more Fly spells. But as is, I only have enough for one,” Syd explained.
And of course, Zoltan wouldn’t accept a Fly spell anyway.
Different ideas were discussed back and forth, but few were possible with what the group had brought. Gyguul definitely needed better sources.
“I could summon a giant eagle to fly us up to the base,” Syd finally suggested.
Alahandra had already confirmed that the towers had no windows to speak of, just empty openings. The idea had some problems though. He could only summon one eagle, and it
wouldn’t last long enough to fly them all above the base. It could only carry two at a time, and Zoltan refused to touch it much less ride it. And of course how everyone would get from eagle to window was still an unknown factor.
But it was the plan most likely to succeed, and so the Orendil soon found himself seated on top of a giant eagle. A rope had been tied to its foot and Zoltan was quickly winding the rope around his hands for a better grip. As the tower the group was aiming for began to dip down into view, the eagle launched itself into the air.
Zoltan hung on for dear life as the eagle raced up to the tower. Syd had told it to fly as quickly as possible, as its time was limited after all. Flying alongside the tower hanging over the party’s head, Orendil stood and shakily prepared to launch himself into the top most window of the tower. Orendil got ready and …
… missed. His fingers scrambled against the edge of the window as he suddenly began to plummet back towards the ground. As he fell he flashed by Zoltan, hanging from a rope tied to the eagle’s leg. Zoltan stretched, straining to reach out, and barely managed to snag Orendil in mid-air. Orendil breathed heavily as the eagle rose slightly to allow Zoltan an attempt into the building. Zoltan swung Orendil inside before following himself, both of them breathing heavily as they watched the eagle turn and dive back down to the other figure below.
Milo and Syd were the next up, with Alahandra already waiting inside for everyone. The eagle again came level with the tower projecting out and Milo and Syd prepared to jump. Milo hunched down and leaped, easily sailing into the small opening he was aiming for. Syd gathered up his possessions and bending low did the same.
Except that he missed. Hitting the wall with a soft thud, Syd quickly found himself plummeting to the ground. Remembering how Orendil look falling from the sky, Syd idly wondered how he looked doing the same.
Milo reached out to grab Syd as he fell, but wasn’t able to catch him. Syd began to go over the formulae involved in breaking the Laws of Gravity. Pulling up at the last instant as his Fly spell took effect, Syd flew back up and landed in the tower, his heart nearly leaping from his chest.
The group was in agreement that they definitely should have come up with a better plan.
Inside the tower was simply an empty span of tower that narrowed down to a smaller hole several feet down. Alahandra and Syd merrily flew down to the opening, while Milo, Zoltan, and Orendil used a rope to rappel down.
Through the opening were living quarters, obviously of a somewhat high-ranking individual. Directly beneath where the hole entered from the ceiling was another hole continuing down in the floor. Currently abandoned, the party crawled out, and finding that gravity did not hold on the ceiling, climbed down the rope to the floor. Searching through the room Orendil found a greatsword of master craftsmanship. Little else seemed especially useful, so the party began to investigate the hole in the floor.
Obviously the workers in the base didn’t rappel up and down these holes in the ground, and since the group hadn’t yet felt any effects from the bases rotation, some kind of artificial gravity was strongly suspected. Alahandra cautiously flew into the hole and attempted to stand on the side of the wall. Looking up at the party was strange, but she stuck to the wall. Walking about the inside of the vertical corridor, Alahandra quickly ascertained that all four sides possessed artificial gravity.
The rest of the party soon crawled in, with Syd and Alahandra flying straight down the middle.
The strange corridor led down a ways before entering into another room. Again there was a matching home on the exact opposite side. This time, however, the room contained two githyanki, both staring intently into a small crystal in one corner of the room. Jumping down quickly, the group opened fire on the two githyanki, catching them by surprise and silencing them before they could give alarm. Milo and Syd investigated the crystal the githyankis had been looking through, and quickly determined that it was some kind of magical sensor that peered through the point at the top of the tower. Since there were no alarms going off, the party assumed that the two githyankis had not noticed them, but how they had avoided notice remained an unknown.
The room and its two former guards were searched. Both guards had been sporting greatswords, a very strange choice of weapon in today’s age of guns and rifles. One guard also had a strange device in one of his pockets. Milo quickly grabbed it, always interested in new devices. Playing with it for a second, Milo figured out that the device extended hidden walkways, allowing easier access to the room from the corridor.
Nothing else remained of interest in the room, and so the party again started walking down the tower. Another story or so, and the party came to a branch. The corridor itself continued in the downward direction, but there was also a doorway in one side of the corridor. Activating his remote control, Milo caused a small walkway to jut from the door, allowing easy entry. Deciding to explore this branch the party walked down onto the small platform and them entered into the branch.
Now within a horizontal corridor the party quickly evaluated their surroundings. On the right hand side of the corridor was a door and on the left a small elevator. The corridor itself turned out of sight to the left up ahead. Deciding to leave the elevator alone for now, the party burst into the room on the right, guns drawn and aimed. Inside was a single unarmed githyanki, bending studiously over a few items scattered about the room.
Some quick interrogation at gunpoint later and the party had learned several things. This base was an outpost for the githyanki war machine, a research station to fuel their efforts. The githyanki they had captured in particular was a researcher who was investigating the nature of the items in this room for their use. Syd quickly rushed forward and gathered up all the items in the room, including a cloak, a large iron flask, and several scrolls.
Using some rope to tie the githyanki up, the party debated killing him for a short time. The idea of killing him in cold blood didn’t sit well with most of the party, however, and so the githyanki was left to his own devices.
Walking down the corridor and turning left, the group found themselves in front of a pair of double doors. The sound of a large gathering of githyanki was very obvious from the other side of the door. A few plans were debated, but the use of the large number of sleep grenades the party possessed proved the most popular.
Opening the doors, a flurry of sleep grenades flew into the room, releasing their contents into the room. Quickly everything was obscured by the rapidly thickening sleep smoke from the several grenades.
Busting the door open, Zoltan, Milo, and Orendil stood in the front. Only two githyanki remained standing and their greatswords proved ineffective compared to the party’s blasters. The slaughter of the remaining githyanki was quick and brutal. Syd and Alahandra stood back as the deed was done.
The githyanki had no idea who had entered into their base.
