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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 1931213" data-attributes="member: 9626">TIE's Trap: PyrodessyAs the party tried to figure out exactly where they were, there was a knock at the door.  An unfamiliar female voice called to them, “If everyone is decent and prepared, I would like to address my new crew.”    After exchanging panicked looks, Tal called back, “Just one moment!”  He then looked at the condition of his friends.  A few of them still nursed injuries from the battle, but they weren’t so bad as to be suspicious.  More troubling was Robin’s continued insane mumblings and Err acting more like a confused animal than normal for even him.  He silently waved to Scythe, pointing out that he should deal with it, then continued speaking to their unknown apparently captain to keep her from hearing.  “Sorry about the delay.  We’re still getting used to travel by boat.”    Once the spells were cast and Robin and Err were restored to near-normality, Tal quickly opened the door and saw a very strange woman waiting for them.  She looked like a mostly ordinary human from the waist up, and by her dress, she was likely extremely wealthy and important, yet was interested in keeping her clothing practical no matter how extravagant it looked.  However, the lower half of her body was much different, as it appeared to be a snake tail.  Danae audibly gulped behind him, as this reminded her too much of a demon she had researched, but the woman was smaller and lacked the many arms of that creature.  If the woman found the party’s looks suspicious, she didn’t show it as she immediately took command of the situation.  “Ah, that’s better.  And you shouldn’t have been so worried about a few cuts and scrapes,” she said dismissively as she inspected their injuries, “I’ve seen far worse than that in my days, and I’m sure that we’ll have you all ready to go by the time we reach our objective.  Now, I trust your guild master has already described the situation to you in the general level at least?”    Tal hesitated.  Appearing too ignorant at this stage of the game might be a mistake, but if they were going into danger, they can’t be ignorant of the risks either.  “Actually, our…guild master didn’t have the chance to tell us much of anything about this assignment, Miss…?” he paused, hoping she’d get the hint.    For the first time, the woman frowned and looked troubled.  “When I spoke to your guild master, she assured me that you would be more than capable of handling this assignment.  Your credentials aren’t lacking, certainly.  Yet you don’t even know who I am?”    “I...I apologize, madam,” Tal stuttered, desperate to save the situation.  “We have been gone from civilization for a very long time, and even at our best, we have never really been aware of the upper class of citizens.”    This made the woman laugh.  “Heh, the upper class?  I haven’t heard that one before.”  She then sighed pleasantly, making the entire party sigh quietly with relief.  “Well, it will be a few days before we reach our objective.  There’s time enough for a few introductions.”  After glancing carefully at her gloved hand, she extended it.  “My name’s Silrine, and I’m the captain of the Volatile, the most feared pirate ship to sail the seas of Pyrodessy.  And we’re about to perform the biggest heist the Salamander Empire ever saw!”    However, the mention of the word “pirate” made Scythe and Wong exchange a worried glance, and Wong spoke up with concern.  “I don’t know if I can perform this mission, after all.  I have made a solemn vow to work with the forces of law in all things, and I don’t think an act of piracy really fits the definition.”    Silrine made a dismissive gesture.  “Don’t worry.  I’m no enemy of law either.  Hell, I have a fellow follower of law among my ship’s officers, and he has had no complaints.  Yes, we are enemies of the Salamander Empire, but I have been given papers to make my actions legal and valid to all of the humanoid nations.  I am, to use a less exciting term for it, a privateer, not a pirate.”    This made Wong relax, and he and Scythe willingly followed Silrine to her briefing room.  However, Tal’s curiosity got the better of him as they walked, and he asked Silrine one more question.  “Um, if I may ask one more question, I confess I have never seen a creature like you before.  May I ask what you are?”    Silrine shrugged.  “Oh, I’m just a lamia.  Don’t worry, I’m of the noble variant, so I have far more control over my emotions than the more common variety.”    Eventually, Silrine led them to the briefing room, where she received formal introductions from the entire party and she introduced them to her senior officers: Tul-Wel, an Avoral Guardinal that serves as her second in command, Wellby, the ship’s Halfling cleric, Torgith a half-orc monk that Silrine mentioned earlier, and Hanim, a human sorcerer.  She then went over the complicated plan she had worked out.    “Now,” she began, “To understand the plan, you first have to understand where the Pyrodessy seas came from.  In recent years, adventurers discovered their origin comes from dozens of permanent gates to the Elemental Plane of Fire.  Now, there’s not much we can do to the portals, as they’re within the boundaries of the Salamander Empire and created using magic beyond what mortals can control, but we can still use them to our advantage.  You see, the Salamanders had discovered centuries ago that they can use these portals to their advantage.  They’ve been using magic to temporarily control the opening and closing of certain smaller portals, and then lodged tons of base rocks and metals inside them before closing them.  The heat and pressure has a powerful alchemic effect on the metals, turning them into a molten river of precious metals and fire-worked gemstones.  They then open the portal, let the molten metal cool in the relatively low-temperature heat of the Pyodessy seas, and make a fortune.  In fact, we believe that many of their most powerful magic items and recruits from outside the plane are hired or made using these materials.  If we can get to one of these gates before its scheduled eruption time, it might give us a less than optimal yield, but the results should still be staggering.  It will make all of us very rich, and devastate the Salamander economy for years!”    The premise explained, Silrine then explained what the actual plan was.  “Now, the gate itself is in the middle of a massive, hollow, stone cluster.  The interior of the rock is made of a metal much stronger than stone, however, and it has a number of other enchantments placed upon it, including the portal open/close controls themselves and a system designed to alter the gravity inside the spherical interior to set the “down” direction in any of six different directions.  This is necessary, because the molten metal hardens after only about twenty seconds of exposure to the relatively low temperature of the Pyrodessy fire seas.  The salamanders normally operate the portal by opening it, letting the molten river pour down one of the six drainage tubes and into a waiting collection ship outside.  When the metal is almost in danger of hardening, they close the portal, move the gravity until a fresh drainage tube is under the portal, and open it again and again until all six tubes have been used.  You’ll have to operate the system yourselves when we get there, while I fly the ship under each tube to collect the treasure.  Of course it won’t be that easy, since the Salamanders will definitely have powerful guards inside the sphere itself, and we believe they have other guards waiting on the other side of the portal, and they’ll attack immediately when they get through the portal.  You’ll have to fight them off while making sure the portal is open and closed when needed and that the gravity is set correctly.  And I don’t think I have to tell you what would happen if things went wrong.  If you keep the portal open after the molten river has hardened in a drainage tube, it won’t have anywhere to go, and will fill up the entire bottom of the sphere in a matter of seconds.  Even if you could survive the heat a molten river creates, you would be entombed almost instantly!  And make sure the portal is closed when you switch the gravity direction.  Otherwise, part of the river will splash into the room as the drainage tubes switch, and while that won’t be as bad as the entire lower half of the sphere overflowing, merely getting splashed with that much molten rock and metal will be very painful.”    With the plan explained, the group prepared their attack strategy, healing their remaining wounds from the last battle, and just relaxing and getting to know the crew a little better.  Wong in particular enjoyed cooking for the crew again, after feeling he wasn’t earning his keep in the job he wanted to do since Tal hired him.  Speaking of Tal, he and Danae spent the time trying to learn as much about this bizarre and fascinating plane as they could without being really obvious that they didn’t even know basic and common information about it.  Scythe, however, spent most of the time in a shocked stupor.  Despite his initial assertion that he would tirelessly seek the truth, he didn’t expect anything as surreal as the last two places he’s visited.  Robin, meanwhile, spent most of the time just relaxing, grateful to finally be rid of the nightmares that have been plaguing him since his encounters with the monsters of Roivas Manor and the city under it.  Err, of course, just sat around waiting for them arrive so he got to hit something.    A few days later, as scheduled, the party reached the target.  As far as they knew, the party was prepared.  Aware that the greatest danger the group could face was the intense heat and fire of the salamanders’ guardians, the molten metal, and the plane itself, Danae had prepared a spell capable of making the receiver immune to all fire and heat energy for each of her allies.  However, as soon as they burst into the sphere, they realized that even this might not be enough.  The room itself was just as Silrine described it.  There was a shimmering, almost liquid disc of rippling energy at the center, which was surrounded by a lot of machinery, including a switch that presumably would open and close the gate.  Six buttons were found around the room.  One was on the bottom of the spherical floor, one on the ceiling, and the other four were set at equidistant points on the walls.  Obviously, pressing each one will cause the room to shift, making that the new direction of gravity.  This wasn’t the party’s main concern, since they agreed to have Silrine wait under the starting floor at first, and thus they won’t have to worry about adjusting the gravity.  Their first concern was the room’s guardian, which appeared to be a statue made entirely of mithril!    None of them were surprised when the statue animated after the group entered the room, but none of them were prepared for just how powerful it would be.  For one thing, it was much faster than they anticipated, as if it was magically accelerated.  It also was stronger than they anticipated, as it pummeled the normally indestructible Err half to death before they could even respond!  Err immediately returned the favor, of course, but while he did some damage, almost nothing else even scratched the creature.  Danae and Tal’s magic seemingly had no effect, Robin’s arrows barely penetrated the creature’s extremely thick armor, Wong evaded around the fight so he could open the gate and start the process, and Scythe was busy healing Err.  After the fight went on for almost half a minute, however, it was becoming obvious that they couldn’t really destroy this creature.  Err was doing some damage, but it took Scythe’s most powerful healing magic to restore Err every time it took a few punches from the massive creature, and Scythe was already running out.  Finally, Danae hit upon a desperate plan.  Remembering that many creatures immune to magic are still affected by more environmental magic like walls of force, she erected a force field around the creature, giving the party a chance to breathe and focus on their actual mission.    With the guardian taken care of, the missions became much easier for a while.  Every time the gate opened, more enemies that the Salamanders had waiting on the other side burst out, but none of them were of the same caliber as the golem.  They included swarms of fire insects, but they were easily dispersed with electric spheres Tal rolled around the molten showers.  Dozens of flame snakes also poured out of the portal by the end, but while their size varied from tiny to many times larger than one of the party members, only one of them was as large as the last size, and the rest of them were destroyed almost immediately after arriving.  Even the one large one was unlucky enough to land right next to Err, who was more than eager to get rid of some of his frustration after his near-loss to the golem.  The only other enemies were some easily-defeated fire lizards, or at least until the end.    At last, when the treasure was almost entirely drained, a pair of worthy foes flew out of the portal.  They appeared to be spirits made of fire.  As soon as they entered the room, they sunk into the floor, only to burst out a few seconds later at the party.  Each one physically tried to enter one of the party members.  One made the mistake trying to enter Scythe, and when it failed, it was destroyed by the combined power of Err, Scythe, and Danae.  The other, however, was lucky enough to enter Robin, who lacked the mental defenses to resist the effect.  Robin soon was possessed by the creature, and while the creature slowly cooked him from the inside and sucked out his life force, Robin was forced to attack his own party members.  Unluckily for him, he first attacked Err, but luckily for him, he missed.  Err responded by merely pummeling Robin within an inch of his life instead of striking to kill as a result.  However, by now, the creature realized where it was and what was going on, and with a smile, it dashed towards the portal, intent on moving to a new gravity, or failing that, diving into the molten river, which will certainly kill its host body but will let it escape safely.  However, as he fled, Err managed to get in one last party shot, which knocked Robin unconscious, forcing the creature to flee the body.  Danae and Tal easily finished it off with magic, and Wong finished the last portal closing.    But before they left, they had one bit of unfinished business left to complete.  The golem still lived, and none of them wanted such a powerful creature to still serve the Salamanders.  Besides, after what it did to Err, it was personal, and maybe much of the golem could be salvaged for materials as well.  Of course, if they released the golem to kill it, it posed a threat to the party.  It was a dilemma, but Danae finally came up with a solution.  If she used magic to conjure something extremely heavy, like a stone block, on top of the field, then she could just dispel the wall and let it crush the creature!  The plan, once figured out, succeeded easily enough, but very little of the golem’s body survived the attack.  Still, the party realized, considering how much the rest of their adventure made, it was hard to be disappointed by the results overall.    However, as they began their journey out of Salamander territories and back to a safe harbor and a chance to divvy up the loot, it became obvious that the worst was yet to come.  A couple days after the raid of the portal, a panicked crewman summoned the party from their room to Silrine’s as quickly as possible.  When they arrived, they found Silrine to be more grim and worried than they had ever seen her.  She quickly explained the situation.  “I’m afraid we have a serious crisis.  We’ve been spotted by the enemy, and they sent a massive fleet after us.  I don’t know how many soldiers they’re bringing, but our lookout spotted a number of smaller craft, a flagship, and even at least one dragon!  We will not have a chance to escape them, so if we want to survive, we’ll have to fight an army.”    OOC Notes:  In case you’re wondering, Pyrodessy was one of my entries for the old “Campaign Setting” contest that Eberron eventually won.  I didn’t make it past the first phase with any of my ideas, though I can’t say I’m surprised now.  After all, considering how people got so upset about lightning rails, entire oceans made of fire was probably a little extreme!  Nevertheless, I wanted to get some use from my campaign setting idea, which almost became the official title for this adventure!</blockquote>

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