Session #97 (part I) (1)
“It is all about the modrons,” Bastian said. “They maintained this place, so if they were broken and the machine was broken and Hurgun was not around to fix the machine and thus fix them, then that explains why the Maze began to malfunction.”
“Makes sense…” Martin nodded. “So we should wait and see what happens with the modrons we put in the machine (2) before moving on.”
Looking bored, Sergio drew a small file from his vest pocket and began to push back his cuticles with the tip of it.
The living machine was still throbbing and there was a collection of whooshes followed by a sound like a crank being turned at a high speed. It let out a blast of blue steam from one corner where some kind of kelp-like fins wavered back and forth in a tall box.
It was nearly twenty minutes later that the red and black sphinctered end of the machine began to gurgle and spurt as it stretched out to many times its normal size. Finally, a tridrone was squeezed out. It plopped down to the ceramic tiled floor and clicked twice and turned, seeming to take in the Keepers of the Gate.
“Modron Station repaired,” it announced in its cold flat voice, and it turned to make its ways through a nearby curtain and through a portal to one of the other great chambers of Hurgun’s Maze.
“Martin, perhaps you should converse with it?” Kazrack suggested.
“Or…” Roland purred. “We can just follow it.”
“I agree with Roland,” the dwarf said.
“What a refreshing change!” Roland replied, and he took off through the curtain. The rest of the Keepers of the Gate hurried to follow. The appeared back in the Dining Room, which Gilbart had led them through the first time they went to the guest quarters. (3)
There were several round tables surround by chairs, and two long rectangular tables, one a third longer than the other. There was a cloth screen on a track that could be pulled to divide the great chamber into smaller, more intimate eating situations. In the top right hand corner was a raised area with one smaller round table with three chairs. The walls were lined with long low cabinets that held silverware and dishware of many different styles and cultures. The lacquer of the wood paneled walls shone in the light of the crystal and silver chandeliers that hung low over the long tables. Gold lanterns and tapestries decorated the raised area.
However, the tables were cracked and many chairs were smashed and cast aside. There two injured tridrones fighting three of the blubbery dretches. There was a monodrone lying motionless on its side, and another trailing its pus-like ichor behind it, as it dragged its legless body with its arms. Occasionally, it would lose its grip and roll over helplessly, and have to steady itself before continuing.
Kazrack ran right into their midst, impaling one of the quivering gray and black fiends on his magical halberd and flinging it across the room, sending cracked plates and loose silverware to skitter the marble floor. It did not get back up.
Meanwhile, the other two turned away from their modron foes and charged at Ratchis, who hurried to meet them sword in hand. He knocked one back with a mighty blow, sending it flying into a group of wooden chairs. Bastian hurried in to flank the other, while Gunthar moved to cut down the one Ratchis had sent flying. A swift flick of his swords and the remaining dretch’s head was flying across the room to land atop a table with a disgusting pop.
The tridrone they had been following disappeared through the portal on the right.
They decided to gather up the dead and wounded modrons and bring them back to the Modron Station and feed them to the machine.
“The Modron Station is repaired,” Ratchis told one, and it did not need persuasion to make its way in that direction. Back in the Modron Station, after the two tridrones climbed in themselves, Ratchis and Kazrack fed the machine the modrons in one at a time (and the torn limbs they had also collected) waiting a full minute between each. The machine began to hum and throb once more.
“If we hurry we may still be able to find that first fixed tridrone,” Martin said, and do the Keepers of the Gate, hurried back through the portal into the Dining Room, and then stepped through the portal they had seen the repaired modron step through.
“Outsider! Fiend! Intruder! Outsider! Fiend! Intruder!” They heard the cold voice of many modrons saying the words over and over sometimes in unison, but occasionally in a disturbing dissonance as some ended abruptly. They were back in the Audience Chamber, also known as the Earth Room, beneath the carved stone tiered seats that made up the majority of the room. Shuffling and honking echoed around the chamber, and above it all was the voice of Ora-Amira-El shrieking with anger. “Tell me! Tell me!” she was saying. This was followed by the sounds tearing flesh and crunching bone.
They had come through on the left side of the balcony, the gate out to the central area of the chamber was open, as were the gates that lead led up into the seats.
“Lords and Lady, protect me from the evil of this demoness, and all else that might fall short of your judgment, and protect my companions, so long as they remain close to me,” Kazrack intoned quietly, casting his spell. He moved to the edge if the open gate, and Roland was close on his heels, still in panther-form. They could see the four-armed quadruple breasted demoness squeezing the ten-eyed decaton in her arms atop the balcony.
“I don’t think we’re ready for this,” Roland growled, but followed with a spell calling to Bast to grant him a shield of faith. The tiers were strewn with modrons, lying motionless and oozing their yellow pus blood, but others were gathered fearfully in corners, or moving in pointless circles, spinning uselessly, or dashing about chaotically, some whirring arhythmically.
Ratchis moved up to join Roland and Kazrack, casting divine favor on himself. “Kazrack, do you see any reason to fight now, or should we flee?” He stepped to the opposite side of the gate, craning his neck to look up at the fight. Bastian joined him. Martin moved up as well, casting mage armor on himself. Gunthar actually stepped out into the chamber, drawing both swords and putting his back to the wall.
The decaton spun and managed to break free of Ora-Amira-El’s grip and floated across to the lowest tier across from where the party stood. A pentadrone came blasting up to the balcony, spinning its five limbs, while expelling gas from beneath it to keep itself aloft. The demoness laughed and tore into the thing, sending it collapsing back down to the audience chamber floor. She looked down and noticed the Keepers of the Gate for the first time..
“Why if it isn’t my favorite killer and his band of pathetic friends,” she greeted, waving cheerfully with her lower right hand. “Do you have a preference as to which of them you’d like to kill this time?” Martin felt a presence try to push its way into his mind, but he fought it off, unsure what it was. (4)
“Bastian, Gunthar, stay close to me so your weak minds won’t be vulnerable to her evil control,” Kazrack said.
Ora-Amira-El moved to leap off the balcony and down to the ground level, but slammed into some invisible barrier and fell back without grace.
Gunthar laughed and Kazrack joined him.
“Heal the decaton if you can,” Martin announced to the party’s priests. “The wall of force must be its doing. It may be the only one who can stand up to her…” And with that he cast his alter self spell and his features melted and stretched and in a moment he was back in his winged half-draconic lizardfolk form.
Roland leapt up deftly to the decaton, it turned to look at the Bastite, and its eyes were red and bulging in its globe-like head “She’s contained! Let’s just get out of here while we can!” Roland suggested as he nuzzled against the chief modron to heal it some with a cure moderate wounds spell.
“Scaredy cat!” Gunthar laughed at Roland.
The decaton made a buzzing sound that swelled into a pained bleat, but seemed unable to speak.
“Modron Station is repaired,” a tridrone announced from the corner of the tiered seats. It was likely the same one they had been following, but who could tell them apart?
Ratchis and Kazrack ran towards the tunnel beneath the opposite tiers, but while the half-orc hurried to turn up the narrow steps up to the tiers on that side, the dwarf stopped to guard the passage and see if he could get a glimpse of the demoness.
Martin the Green hurried to follow the decaton as well. He flapped the stubby wings of his new form and landed next to it. The decaton turned its great spherical head and acknowledged the watch-mage with first one eye and then another, and then still another. Martin felt something push at his mind once again, and this time he let down his defenses.
“You are Martin the Green. You are the Keepers of the Gate. You should be in the guest quarters. You… You… Whirrr… Danger is loose in the Maze,” Martin heard the polytonal voice of the decaton in his mind, as the strange creature made a strange clicking humming sound.
“Great Decaton of Ptah! We have repaired the Modron Station and wish to aid you in expelling this fiend before it can take control of the Maze,” Martin replied. “Master Gilbart is missing once again. Tell us what we might do to aid you.”
“Repairs to the Modron Station. Self-diagnostic reveals motor and. .. Whirr-click-whirr. . . troubles," the decaton said. "Gather my charges so that they may be returned to the Modron Station and re-assimilated. We serve Hurgun of the Stone. Not Ptah. "
Gunthar and Bastian followed after Ratchis, while Kazrack waited below not sure which was the best way to go.
Above on the balcony, another pentadrone has made its way to Ora-Amira-El, but its blows could not break through her fiendish defenses.
Martin floated back down to the ground level and called out to his companions. “It wants us to help it collect the modrons!” He cast bull’s strength upon himself and began to drag a corpse away. “It seems to be damaged as well.”
Ratchis appeared among the tiers and Kazrack called up to him. “Throw some down and we can start moving them out!” Kazrack ran over to a spot below Ratchis, while Bastian and Roland hurried over to support him.
Martin felt another force come into his mind, and this one he could not resist if he wanted. Ora-Amira-El’s voice came echoing into his mind. “Do you think your pitiable alliance with that freak will help you? I will track each of you down and I will kill you all and each of these stupid creatures!”
The decaton kicked one of the dead modrons up on the tiers down to the lower level beside Kazrack and the dwarf was startled.
“Everyone beside Martin and Roland start collecting these things,” Ratchis said, lowering a monodrone to Kazrack. “Martin and Roland, watch our backs!”
Soon Bastian and Gunthar were up there as well, kicking dead and dying modrons of the tiers to bounce down around Kazrack. Sometimes they’d get caught on the edge of one of the tiers, forcing them to run down to dislodge it and throw it the rest of the way.
Sergio had climbed up to the tiers on the side the party had enter from and began to push modrons down as well, cautiously looking over at the balcony where the demoness slammed the invisible wall with all four of her fists.
She laughed from the behind the invisible wall and ceased her effort to free herself. Martin flew across to the other side of the chamber to push one a duodrone down to the bottom level.
Roland (who leapt back down) and Kazrack began dragging piles of the modrons in the direction they had entered from.
“Gunthar! You should come down here and help me,” Kazrack called. “She may attempt to control your mind and thus should be near me so my gods can protect you… for they are… merciful, even to such as you.”
Gunthar spat. “Why don’t you wear a leash so I can hold you by it, Stumpy? Then you’d never be too far away!” He laughed and chucked a monodrone over the side and then leapt after it.
“The wall of force will only hold for one minute more,” the decaton told Martin. “Bring those collected to the Modron Station. We shall attempt to bind her once again.”
Martin relayed this to the others and everyone hurried down to the bottom level to make piles of modrons to push out of the chamber. Ratchis laid his great hyenadon skin down and rolled several onto it, including a very large quadrone he had found shredded in one corner.
“He said the cubes are the most important ones to grab,” Martin continued to relay. “And then the pyramids and then the flat ones. The round ones are least important. We need the greatest number of integers re-assimilated.”
“What does that mean?” Roland asked.
“They are based on a rigid hierarchy of operations,” Martin began. “The more complex their shape the more total energy of the collective they represent…”
“Enough! It’s gibberish! I’m sorry I asked,” Roland responded. He had changed back into human form to more easily manipulate the many modrons.
Martin took flight again to get a glimpse of Ora-Amira-El up on the balcony. “Drat! I don’t know if she is invisible or went back down into the hall below the balcony, but she is not to be seen.”
“Be wary!” Kazrack said, continuing to drag modrons towards the portal back to the Dining Room. The others followed him. Bastian and Roland were dragging the skin holding five modrons, while Ratchis had a monodrone under one arm and dragged a tridrone behind him.
Soon, the Keepers of the Gate (along with Sergio, of course) had made it back through Dining Room and were back in Modron Station with its humming. The decaton remained behind. Two other damaged tridrones were here, moving to throw themselves down the chute into the machine, and soon Ratchis was chucking in the ones they had dragged into the chamber. The machine was humming and throbbing and squelching and farting, as it broke down and reworked the modrons to squeeze out more.
Three came out in quick succession, and announced they would be exploring the Maze in “retrival mode” to bring more modrons to be repaired. Two walked out through the portal nearest the platform, while the other walked all the way around left by the opposite one.
There were still many modrons to be fed to the machine when Ora-Amira-El stepped through the portal the two tridrones had just stepped out of.
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Notes:
(1) This session was played on Saturday, September 10th, 2005.
(2) See Session #96
(3) See Session #93
(4) DM’s Note: Martin had to make a will save (DC 16).
Next installment is final confrontation between the KotG and Ora-Amira-El. So stay tuned for the outcome. . .![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
