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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ilgatto" data-source="post: 9684414" data-attributes="member: 86051">Duergar & Daemons Part III: The Egg of KlopDay 44, continued: It must be around seven o’clock in the morning when our noble heroes leave the smithy for their third expedition into the Underdark. Sir Suvali has explained to his noble companions that the coven added some extra potions to the deal as a way of thanking them for their efforts in retrieving the Kettle of the Coven. Otherwise, he said, getting any of the potions at all would have been impossible. Well, well done and all that.With Navarre and Sir Eber taking turns to lead the way – their little game of who walks at the frontest apparently getting more serious by the expedition – our noble heroes reach the cavern with the giant egg around eleven o’clock. They advance to the egg in some trepidation but when there’s no demonic baying and no monstrous shadow dogs phasing in to the attack, they tentatively enter what they now call ‘the city’. They notice that the buildings lining the street are only slightly smaller than those they know from some areas in The Forest and thus likely high enough for humans to stand within. Their architecture is best described as ‛minimalist’ and they all seem to be grouped in sections centered on an empty space in the center, like pieces of a pie (A spider’s web, anyone?). Everything in sight is some shade of gray, running the gamut from almost black to almost white.“The light comes from the sphere on top of the egg,” Sir Suvali says, looking up. “Its lower half protrudes into the egg on this side.”“What’s with these murals?,” Sir Oengus asks, looking at the walls of the buildings to the left. “I get all lop-sided looking at them.”Sure enough, looking at the murals long enough does seem to lead to our noble heroes experiencing dizzy spells and even headaches. When they start inspecting them in stages, they notice that the glyphs seem to relate some sort of story about lithe dwarves in a boat. Sir Eber and Navarre discuss this for a bit and conclude that the story seems to indicate that the lithe dwarves came to the cavern from somewhere and settled in it.“Out of my way,” Sir Suvali interrupts their musings as he impatiently pushes past the noble duo now that nothing too untoward seems to have happened. “I’ll have a look.”“By all means, old fruit,” Navarre says, gallantly stepping aside. “Don’t let us break your stride and all that.”“Allô?,” comes the hesitant voice of the chevalier, getting nothing more than a faint echo.“Visitors!,” he tries again, a little louder and shining his lantern down the street.But nothing stirs.As some of the noble heroes turn their attention to the city again, they stand in wonder of what they see once again. The whole egg has an eerie quality about it – alien, trippy even, with its shades of gray and its mixture of organic and straight lines.Eventually, the chevalier advances further down the street and notices an alley to his right, between a taller and a lower building, the first built against the wall – the shell of the egg. To his left there is only a single building, divided into two sections with the one against the wall being taller than the one closer to the central – plaza? He passes the alley and notices a lacquered door in the lower building It seems to be made of long, interwoven leaves of some kind – or perhaps shoots of bamboo? He cannot be sure.While the others are discussing the murals again, the chevalier opens the door and has a look inside. There is a single, windowless room with a kitchen-like area, a workbench, and a metal staircase leading up to an open trapdoor in the ceiling. A few beakers and what looks like an alchemist’s tools and utensils are in various locations in the room. The home of an alchemist? A witch? A sorcerer? The room has obviously not been touched for quite some time. Was it looted and ransacked at some point? Hard to say, since most of what’s still in it is made of stone, carved from rock.He ponders the matter for a while before he decides to let the matter rest for now and advances to the central ‘plaza’.“A-ha-ha-ha!,” he laughs his falsetto laugh. “Do you see that? The walls facing the plaza are sturdy and thick, too! Pour des festivités forts on the city plaza, perhaps?”Navarre, Sir Oengus, and Sir Eber catch up with the chevalier and they, too, are now looking at the open space in front of them, a circular plaza of large granite slabs and measuring some ten yards in diameter. Cut into the granite are two concentric circles, one three yards in diameter and the other four. Both are centered on a circular central section with a strange symbol cut into it. A wheel with eight spokes? No, it is more like a mirrored double swastika – if the gentle reader will forgive the DM’s description – in a circle. Spiders, anyone?“Bizarre,” Navarre breathes. “What are the circles made of?”“It’s a ring of iron,” Sir Eber says, on his knees. “A ring of iron with runes stamped into it.”“It’s a magical language,” Sir Suvali says, who seems to take the discovery as his cue to appear out of nowhere. He starts following the perimeter of the circle and rolling dice, the latter because the DM tells him to.“Let’s see…,” he says. “There’s six of them in groups of three. Hmm…, hmm…, ah! Gate. Protection. Strength. Permanency. Hmm…, yes. Can’t read the other two.”“Gate!?,” Navarre asks sharply. “What does it all mean? Is it a prayer? Wasn’t there something like this in the giant’s cabin?”But, now, the sorcerer has managed to cross both the central symbol and circles – without mentioning this small matter to the DM and keeping a straight face when confronted by him – and he presently reports that the circle closest to the symbol contains powdered silver.It would be fair to say that our noble heroes have rather a lot to take in. Indeed, the alien, silent city has a dampening effect on their usual panache, filling them with a strange sense of foreboding as it does.Although perhaps less so in the case of the chevalier, who presently appears on the roof of the ‛sorcerer’s home’ – a roof terrace overlooking the plaza and surrounded by a low wall. A block of stone sits against the wall at the far end, with a torch holder on each corner, each somehow both ornate and minimalist in style at the same time.“There is an altar up here!,” he calls to his noble fellows down in the plaza. “And another one on the roof across the plaza! Ah! The black arts! Does someone have a chicken? Get things going? Eh.., tiens! C’est quoi ça?”He has noticed something glistening in mid-air to his right, which turns out to be a small metal chain leading all the way up to the top of the egg. Evidently mustering all of his strength, he manages to not pull it.Below him, Sir Suvali crosses the plaza again and peeks into the second building with an ‛altar’ on the roof. It turns out to be a temple or shrine of sorts, wholly empty but for a gray stone statue of a large, lithe if not gaunt, dwarf.Navarre advances to the center of the plaza and has a good look at the carved symbol, trying his damnedest not to think of spider ships and gates to the Abyss. The chevalier appears in the plaza again and starts walking around its perimeter, hollering that there are more murals on the walls of the buildings in the other streets. When Sir Eber and Sir Oengus join him in trying to make sense of them, the trio once more find it hard to focus on them without getting headaches.Back at the ‘temple’, Sir Suvali has finally mustered up enough courage to enter the building. Within seconds, he comes running out again, screaming at the top of his voice. Navarre, still in the center of the plaza, sees his noble fellow approaching fast.“What!?,” he yells at him.“I was attacked by my own shadow!”“And where is it now?,” Navarre asks, wondering whether the sorcerer has lost his mind but drawing his sword anyway.“In there!,” Sir Suvali yells, still running and pointing at the building behind him. “Over there! See for yourself!”Navarre crosses the plaza, closes the door to the building, and starts waking back to the center of the plaza, where most of his noble fellows have now gathered.“There seems to be something in there, chaps,” he says. “Best not get in there until we know what’s what.”Moments later – and somewhat to his amazement – he sees Sir Eber helping the sorcerer up to the roof of the ‘temple’.“And what are you doing?,” he asks the noble duo and the sorcerer in particular.“There is an altar up there,” Sir Suvali says. He has obviously forgotten that he left the building screaming just moments ago.Navarre notices Sir Eber glowering at him, shakes his head, and takes several steps back to make sure he will be in a good position for whatever may come next.“There is a stage up here,” Sir Suvali reports after some time. “For an orchestra.”“Search the houses!,” the chevalier cries, speeding off to one of the buildings.Realizing that the situation may have started spiraling out of control even sooner than he thought, Navarre tries to calm things down.“Perhaps we should do this in some organized fashion?,” he suggests. “Monstrous shadow dogs, aggressive shadows, that sort of thing?”But the chevalier has already entered another building, this one a shop of some kind, mostly empty, and he presently starts rummaging through the place. It isn’t long before he comes out again and starts handing out some strange ropes, lighter even than silk ropes and made of a strange, silvery white material. Navarre has a good look at his new rope and he has to admit that he quite likes it. It seems exceptionally thin and strong at the same time and he cannot, for the life of him, determine what it is made of. He looks up to ask the chevalier where he found the rope but his noble friend has disappeared again, no doubt off to search another building. He shrugs and has another good look around. How many… people?... would have lived in this city? Eighty, judging by the number of buildings?“Who lived here?,” he asks Sir Eber, who has joined him.“I’d say it was dwarves,” the ranger says. “They're on the murals and the buildings don’t look like they were made by men.”“Agreed,” Navarre says. “Still, the buildings seem too large for dwarves.”“Do they?,” Sir Eber asks. “Maybe dwarves like spacious rooms?”“Quite,” Navarre muses. “So this place was built by the gaunt dwarves. And then what? Why did they leave? Who broke into the city? Where are the intruders now?”“Perhaps the four dead dwarves in the garden out there where the invaders,” Sir Eber suggests.“Fair enough,” Navarre says. “So do these corpses belong to… what?... yet another ‘kind’ of dwarf? Are there three different kinds of dwarves? Oerknal, the attackers, and the gaunt ones who built this city?”“Voyez!,” the chevalier cries, charging into the plaza again and dragging along a strange, largish contraption made of leather. “La cavalerie!”Sir Eber and Navarre approach and inspect the contraption.“It is a saddle!,” the chevalier cries excitedly.“Indeed?,” Navarre wonders, looking at the contraption. He can make head nor tail of it, though he has to admit that it may be a saddle of sorts, featuring as it does all manner of leather straps and buckles and what seems to be a high-backed seat. A city laid out along the lines of a spider’s web? A stylized spider in the middle of it? He decides that all this, combined with the contraption, must be enough for him to start thinking of spiders.“A spider saddle?,” he suggests tentatively.“Exactement!,” the chevalier says. “Spider cavalry!”“Hmm…,” Navarre says. “I will admit that I’d rather avoid running into a spider large enough for me to ride.”What follows is a haphazard series of events, with people appearing at will wherever something seems to be happening or a new discovery is made. The chevalier discovers a pâtisserie and then Sir Suvali has teleported to the roof of the ‛sorcerer’s home’, where he has a good look at the metal chain. It seems to be attached to a metal latch high up in the top of the egg and he cannot help but identify it as some sort of mechanical ‘light switch’, to be used to close the latch and cover the sphere of light embedded in the top of the egg. When Navarre tries to determine whether the city was perhaps once a hub of trade or place of interest to visiting folk, he is told that ‘the place looks like it housed many people a very long time ago’. Fair enough, that may have been a bit of a long shot.Things calm down a bit – in a manner of speaking – when Sir Suvali calls out from one of the streets.“A dragon!,” he yells. “They work for a dragon!”He has found what turns out to be the last of the murals, this one depicting gaunt dwarves riding spiders, gaunt dwarves building the egg, gaunt dwarves arriving in an empty cavern, and, finally, a dragon. In all its weirdness, Navarre is amazed to find that the city can still throw up a serious surprise or two. A dragon? Surely not? He shakes his head, not so much in disbelief as in amazement. What else will this… world throw at him? How surreal will it get? Is it real in any way? Have our noble heroes ventured into a fairy tale world? Is he to accept all of this as reality? Dwarves on giant spiders? A dragon? Preposterous! And yet, all around him, right there, right in front of him, everything seems to point to all of these fantastic notions actually being true.Some time later, we find Navarre, sword in one hand and lantern in the other, on the threshold of the tall building directly to the right of the doors our noble heroes used to enter the egg some hours ago. It turns out to be a refectory or mess hall of sorts, a single room with a high ceiling and containing stone benches and tables, a stone counter, and some stone doors in the wall behind it, likely a built-in cupboard. Although the building is taller than the one next to it and closer to the plaza, it does not have a second floor.“Perhaps we should spend the night in here, whenever that may be,” he says to Sir Oengus behind him. “It seems easy to defend. Only one exit, no windows, no trapdoor in the ceiling, high enough for us to stand in.”He moves further into the room and then, in the light of his lantern and that of Sir Oengus in the doorway, he sees his own shadow come alive, rise up from the floor, transform into the shape of a grotesque dwarf and go for this throat.“Watch out!,” Sir Oengus yells behind him, involuntarily taking some steps back.“Chargez!,” the chevalier cries, drawing his sword, storming into the room and swinging it straight through the shadowy thing. “Mon Dieu!”As the chevalier start running out of the room again, Navarre swings his sword at the shadow – to even less effect than his noble friend before him. The shadow lashes out at him, its claws moving straight through him and chilling him to the bone. Indeed, our noble hero has to gather all of his, now reduced, strength to remain standing. Outside, Sir Eber starts pouring some of the magical weapon oil on his sword, while Sir Suvali launches a magic missile at the creature.“Get out!,” the sorcerer yells, when the shadowy horror seems to recoil for a second.Navarre starts moving back to the door at a slow pace, forcing Sir Oengus to make room for him so that he has to forego a straight shot at the shadow.And then three more of the shadows appear.“They are cursed!,” Sir Suvali shouts, taking his longbow from his back and getting 50 xp for the remark.Navarre is almost at the door when Sir Eber comes charging past him and starts hacking away at the shadow, chopping off whole wisps of it.“The oil works!,” he yells, while the shadow attacks Navarre again, fortunately to no effect.“Magic arrows work!,” Sir Oengus hollers when one of his dart-tipped arrows makes the shadow lose some more of its substance.Now, only Sir Eber remains in the room proper, with his noble fellows firing magical arrows and bolts from the doorway. Navarre fires one of his dart-tipped bolts into the first shadow to great effect, causing it to dissipate, and then Sir Eber makes one of his attacks count on another, which also dissipates.There are now only two shadows left, which start moving back into the room. Sir Eber charges after them and, now, Sir Oengus and Navarre also advance again. Sir Oengus makes two of his arrows count against one of the shadows but takes a chilling hit himself from the other. Sir Suvali, still outside, hits one of the remaining shadows with an arrow and the chevalier, Sir Eber, and Navarre also make their attacks count, with a shot from the latter resulting in yet another shadow dissipating. Sir Oengus shoots an arrow point-blank into the last remaining shadow (“20”), inflicting massive damage but suffering yet another hit. Finally, arrows from Sir Suvali and the chevalier make the last shadow dissipate.“Chargez!,” the chevalier cries, swinging his sword and charging into the room.“They’re gone,” Sir Eber informs him, sheathing his sword.“Does everybody feel as lousy as I do?,” Navarre asks, when everybody is in the room. He feels weak and numb – and cannot shake the feeling for the next hour. He stumbles about for a bit, collects his bolts and checks how the room can be defended for when night falls and millions of shadows will surely emerge. There is only one entrance, no windows, no secret doors, no trapdoors in the ceiling – but his mind is not really into it.With Navarre and Sir Oengus thus shivering and weakened, Sir Eber and the chevalier have a look behind the counter, where they find a small stash of wood and a stone trunk, from which they retrieve what seem to be a dozen loaves of bread. They somehow conclude – i.e., are told by the DM – that the bread must be around four hundred years old and that it was made from fungi and fish. They also find eight jars of a marmite-like substance – a fish paste?“Next!,” the chevalier yells, storming out of the refectory, much to Navarre’s exasperation. What is wrong with the fellow? Why does he persist in running in and out of buildings like a headless chicken? Is this excitable fop to lead a unit of cavalry in a war?The chevalier charges into what turns out to be an alchemist’s atelier or shop of some sort. Several shelves line the walls, from which our intrepid hero collects many pottery jars, some containing one of three kinds of granules (white, yellow, bluish) and others a thick, brownish paste. He takes his finds back to the refectory, where he opens and smells all of them, getting all excited when he finds that the bluish granules smell of lavender.“Bath salts!,” he exclaims. “Délicieux!”In the next hour, the chevalier, Sir Eber, and Sir Suvali inspect the rest of the buildings in groups of varying composition, with the first turning out be ‘a home’; then a small brewery, where they find some empty stone flasks with the word “Brow” on them, in Gaelic; and then a bathhouse in the building behind the ‛temple’, complete with basins, taps – the works. The latter gets the chevalier all excited and, when one of the taps starts spitting out a muddy, brown drab-like substance after a lot of gurgling and clunking, he runs back to the refectory to fetch his bath salts and some of the firewood. It doesn’t take long before he is splashing about happily in a hot bath, singing operettas in a falsetto voice. Blissfully unaware of most of this, Navarre is still in the refectory, huddled in his cloak and trying to shake his feeling of weakness.Around midday Sir Eber and Sir Suvali explore the last building of the city, in which they find some large, glass boxes on shelves.“Terrariums,” Sir Suvali says.“A spider farm,” Sir Eber agrees.“That was it,” Sir Suvali says. “The final building.”All of this means that our noble heroes have identified the following buildings, in order of discovery: the ‛sorcerer’s home’, the ‛temple’, the building where the chevalier found the ropes, a saddler’s shop, the pâtisserie (a bakery), the ‛refectory’, an alchemist’s atelier or shop, a ‛home’, a small brewery, a bathhouse, and the ‛spider farm’. They have also found a building described as ‛a small kitchen where pasta, marmite, and bouillabaisse seem to have been made’, but it is no longer known when this was. Indeed, as memory serves, there was some confusion as to what was what, where, and when, perhaps because of events unfolding in such a chaotic fashion.Our noble heroes now also have a general idea of what the murals are about. They seem to relate the story of two of the gaunt dwarves leading perhaps one hundred of their fellows and setting out in a boat, having some adventures, and eventually ending up in a cavern where they built the egg and ran into a dragon which, according to Sir Suvali, they ended up working for. They have also somehow concluded that the corpses in the tumuli are locals, which assigns the theory they were part of some invading force to the bin.It must be way past midday when Navarre and Sir Oengus feel up to some action again and the chevalier emerges from his bath, humming contently as he enters the refectory smelling of roses – pardon, lavender.“Don’t you smell delicious,” Sir Eber says, with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice.“Why, thank you!,” the chevalier sings.“Perhaps we should deal with the shadow in the temple before we get too pleased with ourselves?,” Navarre suggests.“Let’s do it,” Sir Eber says, drawing his weapons. They still glisten with the magical oil.“On y va!,” the chevalier exclaims, coating his sword with some of the oil.Our noble heroes move to the ‘temple’ and enter it in an orderly manner for a change, the chevalier and Sir Eber charging in under cover of the others with their dart-tipped missiles in the doorway.Navarre is the first to hit the shadow when it appears – this one featuring what appear to be shadowy robes and..., um..., horns? Sir Suvali’s arrows miss their target but the chevalier manages to deliver a massive blow. Sir Eber has to dodge a particularly vicious attack and misses the shadow and then Sir Oengus hits it twice, causing it to dissipate.“See that an orderly assault works much better than charging headlong into things at random?,” Navarre snaps at the chevalier next to him.“I never said it wouldn’t,” the latter returns stiffly.“Touché, mon cher!,” Navarre says, smiling despite himself.A closer inspection of the ‘temple’ reveals a space that was broken open some time ago and seems to have been a hidden safe. On the floor in front of it is a collection of musical instruments – cymbals, a small drum, a trumpet, a flute, a violin.“They rather seem to be a musical lot, these dwarves,” Navarre remarks.“Maybe we could organize une petite soirée?,” the chevalier smiles, pocketing most of the instruments.Now, Sir Suvali retrieves two jars containing some sort of milky white jelly from the safe.“Spider eggs?,” Navarre suggests, nudging the chevalier.When our noble heroes have returned to the refectory, the chevalier attempts to put a monetary value to the things they found so far. He estimates the wispy ropes to be worth, perhaps, one hundred gold and he also identifies the granules: the white ones turn to be table salt, the yellow ones smelling salt, and the blue ones, sure enough, bath salt.“In which case methinks I’ll have a bath, too,” Sir Oengus says, much to the delight of the chevalier.Epilogue: When the session ends, the DM informs our noble heroes that the white jelly from the safe in the ‘temple’ is actually fish eggs and that the brown paste they found with the salts is best described as an extremely potent sunscreen (factor 50), which functions for seven days and has some heat-resisting qualities.</blockquote>

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