TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Everyone was punctually present again. They headed down the elevator and once again looked at all the doors in the central portal room, checking which were locked and which had warnings upon them before opening the one Fell-4 had indicated. When they did, they saw another Lord Fell, this one carrying a struggling Rei over its shoulder. It dramatically shouted "She shall be my bride!" before jumping through the portal. This obviously enraged the binder and she charged down the corridor and leapt through straight afterwards, with the others following the round after so as not to split the party. Surprise surprise, they had been suckered again, both Fell & Rei were illusions that briefly laughed at them before evaporating, (cue reality is often disappointing scene from Infinity War) leaving them stranded in Dis thanks to the portal being one-way, with a whole load of devils ready to check their passports in the most painful way possible. Of course, they had already dealt with that last session with their brief Limbo trip and rolled well on their initiative, so the devils didn't even get one round of attacks in before the githyanki & sniper grabbed the other two and did their double plane shift/teleport combo to take them back to the train station tunnel again. They then had to waste another casting of Air Walk as well to get up the tunnel in decent time again, leaving them unharmed but rather irritated at how this phase of the adventure was going, and very aware that less magically equipped parties would have had a much harder time of this.

Once back on the map, the binder stormed right to the very top to complain to the management. However, she forgot which of the Fells had given her those directions and went to Fell-3. When grabbed by the throat and accused of giving them false directions, he quite truthfully replied that he had not, she must have confused him with someone else. This commotion rapidly attracted the attention of the Azurax simulacrum in the adjacent room 1, who opened the door and demanded to know the meaning of this. When asked who he was, he followed his programming and declared that he was indeed Azurax the mighty and they were fools for trespassing on his domain who would soon meet a fate worse than death. This was obviously not the right tone to take with a group of pissed off PC's and the binder gave him a warning scratch, which screeched off the protection of his Stoneskin. Both simulacra tried to leap to the attack in response, but didn't even last a single round before the PC's annihilated them. They then looked around, somewhat confused that the fight had been that easy and suspecting there was a catch here. The binder threw their bodies in her enveloping pit for her minions to loot, and thankfully for them, they rolled well enough to spot the delayed blast fireball gem that's set to go off shortly after the simulacra dies, otherwise things would have got very messy in there. They did manage to throw the body back out in time and the binder tanked the blast while the other three retreated to the farthest corners of the room.

Having averted that potential loss of valuables, they peeked out the door. There, they saw they were looking out of a small building on top of the very tallest mountain in a large range of mountains, with most of the lower reaches covered by clouds. A few hundred feet down to the south side was a somewhat larger plateau with the prison complex on it, with plenty of devils manning the battlements. The air was thin and slightly polluted smelling. Not feeling like another big battle against hordes of lower level enemies so soon after the last one, they quickly closed the door again before they attracted attention and headed back downstairs to the library. There, Fell-4 once again asked them politely if there was a problem. They said that they’d followed his directions and wound up in hell, to which he responded that they were supposed to have gone west and then down the stairs, not through the portal. Doing his best to pre-empt the binder’s rage, the githyanki suggested that perhaps he had better show them the way. Helpful to a fault, Fell-4 took them down the elevator, through the secret door in room 19 and down to level 4, where he tried to open the door to room 28 and found it locked. He told them that clearly the master did not wish to be disturbed at the moment. Since he’d been nice to them, they decided they didn’t want him around for what they expected to be a violent final confrontation and told him they would wait, so he could go back upstairs to enjoy his books again.

After waiting a few minutes to make sure he was definitely gone and casting a few buffs on themselves, they used Knock on the door. This triggered the fanfare as the adventure states and they saw the massive throne room with a dinner table set in the centre. Around it were Rei, another three Fells, a winged snake woman and one Azurax, with another one seated on the throne and a third one taking cover behind the massive earth elemental near the door. To either side of the throne were representatives from his extraplanar forces, a grey slaad on his right and a logokron devil on his left. Rei looked around and gave them a sheepish wave. The Azurax on the throne proclaimed that they had caused him a lot of problems. Their servant had been quite forthcoming (what means had been used to ensure that were not specified, but it was clear from looking at her that she hadn’t been tortured) and he was fully aware of the upcoming invasion. As with the Fells, he clearly addressed the githyanki as the leader of the group, asking him if there was any possibility that he had enough influence on the lich-queen to change her path. (with the implied tone that he doubted it) Emac replied that he could try, but also doubted it and asked why he cared so much about the fate of one world, when he was clearly a wizard with the means to escape the conflict if he desired. Azurax replied that it was not so simple, he had not got where he was without many obligations, (nodding to the creatures at his sides) plus this world was where he keeps his stuff so it was in his interests to protect it. Speaking of which, they had better have something pretty spectacular to make up for all the gold they had stolen from him, otherwise this conversation would soon be at an end.

At this, the sniper piped up and stated that perhaps they did. How would he feel about receiving a magical book from beyond the known planes, a place where all the gods were different and even the strongest spells could not reach. (the book of infinite spells from the tomb in the red sun world) Since they had managed to evade his most powerful divinations for over a week, only being caught when they went back to the City of Brass a second time to spend more money, Azurax did not dismiss their claims out of hand, instead simply stating “Show me”. The binder insisted that they would, but only if Rei was part of the deal and moved to take her from the table. Azurax gestured to one of the Lord Fells, who allowed her to get up, but remained by her side as the binder led the two of them out of the room and into her enveloping pit. As soon as they were out of sight, she went full shredder on the simulacrum and then ordered a doppleganger minion to take his shape, hastily filling it in on the role it was supposed to play. They then came back out of the pit with the book and took it back to Azurax. He gestured to the logokron devil, which looked it over and visibly salivated with its massive, symbol-covered tongue. With that clear sign of assent from his creditors, Azurax said that their debts were settled and they were free to leave for now, although if they continued in their current course and went through with the invasion, they would likely find themselves on opposing sides again in the near future.

Before they left, Emac decided to admit that they didn’t know what the Lich-Queen’s ultimate goal in invading Pharagos was. (while not admitting that they were planning on betraying her, as they hadn’t told their minions, so he couldn’t have learned it from Rei and didn’t appear to have found out that part of their agenda) It couldn’t simply be material wealth, as there were plenty of worlds out there that would offer more of that with less opposition. Axurax responded that he had tried, but unfortunately the Lich-Queen’s power exceeded his own, so he had been unable to scry within her castle and find out more about her plans. But if he should discover more, he had means to contact them. At this the sniper told him that if they did prove impossible to find, he could leave a message with the frost giants occupying the monastery at the top of the Needlespire and it would get to them eventually. Their final question: What was with all the duplicates? At this, Azurax smiled and said that it was easier to find one loyal and highly skilled servant and duplicate them than train up many minions.

Since it appeared they’d run out of conversation, they decided it was time to get as far away as possible before Azurax changed his mind or spotted their mole. (if he hadn’t already) They headed up the stairs and elevator to the top of the mountain, activated Air Walk again and headed north at top speed. With the sniper navigating, it only took them a couple of hours of flight before they reached the Kadtanach and airship. From there, the binder finally got her night’s sleep to level up while the airship headed for the City of Brass to pick up some items they’d ordered 5 days ago but weren’t immediately in stock. Most of them were fine, but unfortunately, the githyanki had tried to procure an Ice Assassin scroll, the kind of thing that is extremely illegal in the City of Brass. The merchant had taken his money and ratted him out, so when he came to collect, he was led into the back room of the tent where there were four efreeti officers waiting to arrest him. They rolled well on initiative and managed to slap the manacles on him before he could even react. Suspecting something like this might happen, the sniper had been tailing him and used his standard tactic of wings of flurry to take out the enemies while keeping his allies untouched. The githyanki activated freedom of movement to get loose from the shackles and together the two of them finished off the officers, spent a few more rounds looting random scrolls from the shop before getting out of there as fast as possible, aware that a third shopping trip here would now be a really bad idea. Still, even if they hadn’t got everything they wanted, they had managed to make sure everyone was equipped for space travel. It was finally time to head back to the red sun world and make that moon trip they were planning before they were so rudely interrupted by the consequences of their own carelessness. What will they find there? Did they rescue the real Rei? What tricks does Azurax have to keep tabs on them and make things more difficult for the upcoming invasion? Just 34 days to go before the naughty word really hits the fan one way or another. Just how much longer will that take to play out in real world time and what twists will we encounter along the way?

 

[(un)reason]

The githyanki's player was off again, so his character stayed stealthily in the back for most of this one. The PC’s headed back to the Needlespire and through the gate to the red sun world. There, the moon was a thin crescent, not quite new yet, making it easy to see the small points of light on the dark side. They made one last check of all their magical gear, making sure everyone had protection from both lack of air and extremes of temperature ready to go before finally activating greater teleport, aiming to appear in the air above and slightly to the side of one of those lunar lights.

Fortunately, their worst case scenario did not come to pass. While chilly and thin, there was a breathable atmosphere on the moon. Beneath them was a strange hexagonal city covered by a glowing translucent force field, with a chasm just beyond that also protecting it. (using the map from Beyond the Glittering Veil, but this is one instance where the contents have been dramatically changed to fit the story ) There were only two gaps in the shielding, a physical bridge on the north side leading up into the mountains and an energy bridge to the east. Going back and forth along that bridge were humanoids that on closer inspection were definitely gith, but neither githyanki or githzerai. It appeared that having ruled for far longer, the illithid of this reality had managed to breed their slaves into all kinds of specialist breeds in the style of earthly dogs. There were big strong ones, fast skinny ones, squat ones with extra large hands for digging and unhealthy bulldog style ones where the loose skin on their elbows and knees had been exaggerated until it was at movement-impeding levels. They were loading supplies onto a disturbingly organic looking spaceship with four tentacles on the front. (using the image of the dreadnaught from Shadow of the Spider Moon, very pleased to be able to incorporate at least a little from that minigame into this campaign) There was a single illithid directing them, and as he invisibly drew nearer the sniper saw that both it and the slaves it was directing looked tired, like they had been pushing themselves to get ready as fast as possible.

Steeling himself against the weirdness that happened whenever they tried to access the ethereal plane in this universe, he Blinked through the walls into the ship. The SotSM material unfortunately doesn’t include maps for the interior of its spaceships, and the closest thing I could find was the map to Fedifensor, which I had intended to use at some point in the campaign, but wasn’t expecting it to be in this way. He found himself in the weird angles of upper section 21, which was obviously designed to be comfortable quarters for several creatures in zero gravity. From there, he skittered downwards into the octagonal central chamber of 6, up into temple area 8. (now dedicated to Maak Thuum Ngatha, to his extreme interest, and although initially appearing richly furnished, most of the stuff here appeared ancient and repeatedly repaired when examined closer, to his increasing consternation. ) He then slipped through the right door to treasury area 13, which did have a small pile of coinage, but was nowhere near full and found the secret door leading to corridor 12. From there, he sneakily watched the gith carrying things in from the rear loading bay and loading them into area 10, which when checked turned out to be the kitchen for the non-brain eaters amongst the crew, filled with preserved, reconstitutable food and high-tech cooking implements that would be familiar to the players, but not their characters. The rest of the exploration continued in a similar vein, encountering a few more gith in the upper watchtower and the operating point for the front tentacles, but not alerting any of them to his presence.

Having thoroughly scoped out the situation, he telepathically communicated with the others again. Since attacking the ship right now would alert the entire city, they decided the best move would be to stow onboard and wait until it lifted off, then sabotage it once it was safely away, so it would simply disappear mysteriously from the perspective of any outside observers, hopefully discouraging any further expeditions to the planet below for a while longer. The girls broke into the dungeon, knocked out the fattened slaves in there, stuffed them in the enveloping pit and used magic to disguise themselves as gith, pretending to be chained up. The githyanki hid in one of the little boreworm runabouts docked at the front end of the main ship. They had to wait around for another 9 hours before preparations were finally finished, but the other side wasn’t expecting any trouble at this point, so the guards weren’t looking too hard. Eventually, they closed up the loading bay, erected a forcefield around the front area to keep the air in and the ship started rumbling, slowly rising from the moon with several bumps.

Once the sound had steadied, the sniper made another sneaky round of the situation. Most of the gith were in their quarters in area 3-5, while the illithid was sitting in the big chair in area 7, with some kind of helmet on its head to direct the flight. (the players who have played Spelljammer before immediately knew what was going on here, but of course their characters didn’t) He sent the signal to the girls that it was time to act, and they should capture the illlithid for interrogation. (still trying to thread the needle between his loyalty to his religion and not giving the game away to the other PC’s) The binder, in her usual fashion, interpreted that as an instruction to go to full blender mode, which unfortunately one-shotted the flat-footed illithid priest. With him dead, the ship lost momentum and the gith in their quarters started to stir. Now they’re floating in space somewhere between the moon and the planet with some very interesting dilemmas on their hands. Can they persuade the very brainwashed gith slaves that a rebellion is possible, or are they going to have to kill them as well? Can the sniper persuade the priestess to raise the illithid, ostensibly for interrogation purposes, since she’s the one most suspicious of his motives? What will the rest of the party do if they find out what he really worships? One way or another, we’re reaching the climax of that character’s emotional arc and he’s going to have to make some hard decisions in the next session, that might lead to the character dying or leaving the group to become an adversary. This is all going to be based on PC decisions so I have no idea what direction we’ll be going in.

 

[(un)reason]

The githyanki & sniper were late, but eventually everyone was there and we got going. This was almost entirely taken up by roleplaying. Having slaughtered the lead illithid, the sniper rushed to alert the githyanki hiding in the small ship and get his help to deal with the confused gith slaves, since he would be the one most likely to be able to communicate with them. Although they had strong accents and the language had diverged quite a bit between the universes, he could make himself understood by speaking in githyanki to them. He told them there was nothing to be worried about, which wasn't a very good lie, but with his bluff score, it did manage to hold them for a bit. All 4 PC's headed back to room 7, where they debated their next move some more. If they could gain control of the ship, did they want to fly it to the planet or turn around, head back to the moon and cause some more devastation there? This was interrupted by the chef peeking in from room 10, seeing the dismembered body of his boss and screaming. This turned into a brief chase scene as he fled round several rooms and up into area 21 pursued by the girls, who managed to grapple him and reduce him to negative hp without killing him. They did not show the same mercy when an illithid acolyte showed up, immediately paniced and tried to mind blast them, and promptly get shredded the round afterwards.

Since it was pretty obvious that stealth was a loser at this point, they rounded up all the gith to question and attempting to convince that rebellion against the illithid was possible. This was a slow process, between the language barrier and the fact that they had obviously been bred for docility over any kind of original thought, but they did manage to gather that although the moon wasn't particularly densely populated, that still meant multiple cities, each with their own elder brains, thousands of regular illithid and many times that in slaves. Fighting their way through all that on their own, let alone other more hospitable planets, would be foolhardy behaviour, so it was increasingly obvious that their best course of action would be to keep the rest of the illithid on the moon from finding out the planet below them was no longer a fungus infested deathtrap long enough to find the remaining two chains needed to seal the gate again.

At this point, the priestess decided to bring up the elephant in the room. She'd recognised the flag that this ship was flying under, and the symbols that the sniper scrawled on walls and put two and two together. Didn't he serve Maak Thuum Ngatha, the opener of gates? At the mention of his name, all the captive gith fell to their knees and started chanting "the opener of gates" in unison in response. Nurhi responded to this with a lengthy monolog that his player had obviously been thinking about in advance, knowing that this moment was coming one way or another. Yes, he had been chosen by the Queen of Glass at a young age and put through terrible rituals that connected him to the whispers of the cant. (that many of the other recipients did not survive or went insane in a not so functional way) Yes, he had spent the past couple of centuries wandering Pharagos following those whispers, seeking the truth of the myth that the universe had been divided into a true and false reality by the great dragons of the past in order to trap something in the false reality. But now he had found something that almost matched up with those myths, he was scared. What would happen if the barrier between realities was destroyed? Would they continue to exist as separate universes, or would they melt into one, potentially causing everything in both universes to cease to exist in the process of creating the new one? This is a ridiculous responsibility for a little kobold to have thrust upon them without even asking for it. (the gith chorus started chanting "He is the choosing one" at this point, to his increased consternation.) This display of roleplaying was enough to keep the other PC's from engaging in any PvP for now, and they still had a few more practical concerns to deal with. They now knew that Maak Thuum Ngatha was worshipped as a god here, but just how common was that? The gith chorus was particularly hesitant to respond to these questions, as if they didn't want to admit it even to themselves, (as expected when you've spent your whole life under the thumb of mind-readers) but eventually they did admit that the nine-tongued worm was just a minor cult here compared to those of the great piper at the centre of all things, the ascended sleeping priest with the many-tentacled face or the king in yellow, and most of the other illithid thought their master was a kook for worshipping it. (which also explained the slightly dilapidated nature of some of the fixtures) If he disappeared mysteriously on this expedition the other illithid would assume the planet below was still deadly despite its recent colour change and there wouldn't be another one for quite some time.

It was only at this point that the sniper's player clocked something I'd sent him privately earlier. When he was Blinking through the walls, there was another large object floating in space besides the planet and moon, only visible during the brief moments he was passing through the Far Realm (and since they had to make will saves every time they did that, they obviously weren't looking too closely while they did.) Reading that, he did a double-take and stopped his monologing then went to doublecheck. It's hard to get a sense of scale in space, but there was indeed a third massive object in orbit just a small shift away in the 4th dimension, with nine smaller appendages coming out of one side. Whether it was the actual Maak Thuum Ngatha, or merely an avatar or aspect, this sign that his god was definitely taking a personal interest in this whole affair was enough to turn Nurhi's demeanour from merely highly stressed to a full-on freak-out. They had to get out of there as fast as possible. He sent a message to his Tsochar minions on the ground that there was great danger approaching and they should evacuate immediately. Before the team teleported away, they tried to convince the gith on the spaceship that they should pilot it to the planet and crash it at full speed, as that would serve their masters purpose and they would be miraculously saved at the last moment. (whether they fall for the lie doesn't really matter though, as they don't exactly have the skillset to survive for long on the empty world once their food supplies run out.)

With that done, they teleported back to the gate and headed back through it to their own universe. They'd expended a fair few spells with all the teleporting and stealthing they'd done on this trip, so it was definitely time to rest for a night back on their airship, but once refreshed, it was definitely time to hunt down those last two golden chains and seal that gate up again. They debated which side of the gate to use their final Discern Location scroll on, and eventually settled on the home side first. This revealed that Xhagevoxhab had indeed hidden one of the chains on their side, but sometime between when they'd killed him and now, it had been found by Kuo-toa from deeper down in the underdark investigating their fallen city and was now in Khazefryn. Guess it's time for some more dank cave exploring. Will they manage to retrieve it in a sneaky way, or turn the whole city into a bloodbath and go for the Deep Dragon's treasure hoards as well? We'll find out in a couple of weeks time, since enough of the players are away for Mother's day that running next Sunday seemed unadvisable.