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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 823075" data-attributes="member: 114">The party gazes down at the wreck of the construct in amazement. Even in its bashed-in condition it is still a thing of beauty and strangeness. A large crystal at the front slowly dims as the magical power that gave it life rapidly ebbs away. Vladimar stares at the wreckage of the two wagons knocked over like toys by the incredible strength of the landshark. Shaking his head in despair he strolls over to the small circle of musing adventurers. ‘What then do we have here’ he demands, pushing into the group. Carefully the party turn the object over, striving to find a way in. After a few minutes Troy stabs with a fine elven finger, pointing out a barely visible indentation.Careful manipulation with fine tools of questionable functionality soon have the object open, the torn carapace lying to one side in the scorched grass. Close examination of the inner workings of the machine reveal little beyond incomprehensible complexity, although a large gem in the centre is soon extracted as a potential device for incorporation into some future project. However, the inside of the carapace shows a fine tracery of strange script which after some study is translated as gnomish for ‘here is the fine work of his eminent artisanship Grobble-nar of Gorovia’. Aha, a gnomish invention from nearby Gorovia.Vladimar nods, knowingly, speculating that his arch-enemies in trade, the League of Gor may be behind this. The League are a powerful association of merchant nobles from the divided city of Gorovia, reputedly led by the Duke of Gorovia himself. The League has a virtual monopoly on products crafted from ore torn from the open cast mine that eats into the Black mountain looming over the city. One entire ward of the city is given over to a gnomish population, established in the city from it’s earliest history. These gnomes are tricksy, wily folk, much given to the crafting of strange devices and machines using ancient knowledge brought from places in the deep too long ago to remember. Human mining and gnomish crafting is a grievous insult to the Dwarves of the Black mountain. As a result, they refuse to treat with the people of the city, or anyone who deals with them. Vladimar and his mercantile allies see Dwarvish goods as a valuable generator of revenue, leading naturally to association with Bisigrad where the human relation with Dwarves is altogether much better. This closes his group to trade with Gorovoia and makes the powerful League of Gor an inevitable foe. The League is known to sharpen its competitive edge with direct action against trading opposition from time-to-time, using the services of a shadowy organisation known only as ‘the chain’. This group is based in the begrimed southern part of the city called Gorovia Bas, within which sit the gnomish workshops. Perhaps a team of Chain members using gnomish inventions is trying to destroy them?As they contemplate this information, it dawns on them that this object may well have been controlled from nearby and Dariol sends Sharpeye aloft to spy out possible miscreants. His search reveals little beyond the obvious trail though the grass left by the construct as it led the innocent landshark into unwitting confrontation. Resolving to chase down the source of the machine immediately, the party wave goodbye to Vladimar who remains to manage the clean-up operation as they head into the setting sun.Maintaining an intense pace the party trots through the descending gloom, following the infallible nose of Dariol’s wolf. The jingling of horse-harness and armour becomes hypnotic as they press on through the endless plain and pale moonlight turns the grass into a waving sea of grey stalks. In loose line-ahead the party, still led by the implacable wolf blunders straight into a circle of trodden grass with horses looming in the shadows, an unexpected camp. Crossbow bolts thud into the party from left and right as a landshark thunders out of the ground in the centre of the camp, fountaining a great gout of soil into the air...</blockquote>

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