Struggle and Strife- A scarred lands storyhour

[Lars Frehse]

I basically started out with creating the Keeper of Secrets. An online friend from another board is called that way, and I thought it would be a nifty name for a source of informations. So, once I came up with a raison d'etre for the name and the punishment involves, I was thinking of a way for the heroes to get to them. And suddenly it struck me: The apparatus of Kwalish. I had been thinking of integrating that thing into one of my campaigns for years now, and finally I had succeeded! In the meantime I had left the original plot idea presented in the Mithril sourcebook far behind, but who cares as long as everybody is having fun!

So, thank you. I am in fact very proud of myself!

 

[Lars Frehse]

A clever device- part 3

The pain in his head got worse and worse as he closed in on the complex. First, the humming turned into a throbbing sensation. A few seconds later, this throbbing turned into a hammering pain which soon became the very centre of his being.

As he was merely twenty yards away from the structure, he couldn’t go on any longer and swam away as fast as he could. Behind a building, he realized that the pain was gone again. For a short while Ben considered swimming up and telling his friends about what he had found, but eventually he came to the conclusion that he would have to come with something more than that.

So he steeled himself and swam with predatory elegance to the perimetre of where he expected the pain to kick in again. Then he thrust himself forward at full speed as the pain exploded in his head again. This time however, he kept on going until he saw a large, tunnel-like opening in the square structure that connected the two towers.

Blocking the pain from his conciousness, he swam into the tunnel which lead straight into the complex and turned upwards after a dozen yards. He followed it, swam up and after a few more yards, his sharkhead suddenly poked out of the water. He found himself in a small hall and to his relief, the headache was completely gone the moment his head left the water.

Ben changed back into his halfling form and pulled himself out of the water. The tunnel through which he had came was a pool of water of about ten feet in diametre in a square hall which was about ten feet long and wide. Under the ceiling, there were four incorporeal orbs of light, illuminating the hall with a cold, bright light.

It’s walls, floor and ceiling were equally covered with small lightgrey tiles, and there was one steel door which was apparently opened and closed by means of a big metal wheel which was fastened to it’s front. Apart from that, there wasn’t much of interest and Ben decided to pick up his friends before he would continue, and he jumped into the pool, changing back into his sharkform.

An hour later, he lead his friends, on whom he had cast a spell so that they could breathe water, into the hall. They had to hold to the shark’s body, since they were blind in the darkness of the ocean’s bottom. All of them had suffered from the pain again, and Jan was even bleeding from the ears, but he too was able to go on after a cure spell from Ben and a few minutes of breathing air again.

Behind the steel door, there was a short corridor with the same tiles as the first room. At the end of the corridor, there was another steel door. At first it seemed locked, but eventually they figured out that it could be opened if the first door was closed shut.

They entered a big room with a high ceiling. At the far ends, to the left and right, there were doors, and a huge marble spiral staircase lead up. In the centre of the room they saw the inhabitants of the towers for the first time.

There were six mansized humanoids with long arms and short legs and a frog-like head and they seemed oblivious of the presence of the heroes. Instead, all six of them were pushing and pulling on a huge iron lever which was connected to an wagon-sized hissing apparatus from which tubes lead to the floor and the ceiling.

While they were working on the strange machine, the six stared ahead with dead eyes and the only parts of their bodies that moved where their arms, which went evenly up and down. Not even once did they shift their weight or talk to each other- instead they were eerily silent.

Jan stepped towards them and raised his hand in greeting, but even as he cheerfully said „Greetings!“ in a voice that was way too loud in his own ears, they didn’t react. Cautiously he walked right up to one of the frogmen. All of them were uniformly dressed in light blue suits made from a slick and shining material.

„Maybe they are golems“, Jan said: „They are definetly not evil“.

Trepat shook his head: „Looks more like well-preserved Zombies to me. I wonder what this machine is for, though.“

„Maybe it pumps air“, Niklas offered. „We should leave them alone, I think.“

Ben agreed: „Sure. Let’s look around. I don’t think that they are any danger for us.“.

The towers seemed deserted. There were large messhalls with row after row of stonebenches and –tables, but the friends found no sign of any recent habitation. As they went up level after level, they occassionaly encountered further frog-zombies. All of those were as unresponsive as the ones they had encountered at the pump, and they were all doing simple menial tasks like cleaning the floor with a mop or polishing the stone furniture.

The only sounds they heared where those they made themselves or of an occasional undead janitor. It was all rather bizarre. „But why would anybody create those Zombies in the first place?“, Jan asked

„ Maybe Kwalish didn’t die those fourty years ago and settled down here insted“, Trepat said.

„That would make sense“, Ben said: „After all I could hardly imagine an archmage mopping up the floors. So he created things to do that for him.“.

Niklas looked around: „It doesn’t look as if he would be exactly euphoric about our arrival, then.“

„Either that“, Trepat added, „or he isn’t aware of our presence. Or maybe he is gone or dead. In any case, we won’t find out by sticking around in here!“.

They walked on, searching around and going higher and higher in the process. Eventually, after having swept through countless deserted hallways, rooms and halls, they climbed yet another iron spiral staircase. It lead them to one huge circular chamber which seemed to cover this entire level of the tower.

It was barren, apart from a spiral staircase in it’s middle and eight iron machines in front of it. Each of them was about mansized and mounted on two legs and they all looked roughly humanoid. Four of them had one arm which ended in a hammer which was about as big as it’s body and the other arm ended in an equally huge lobster-like claw. The other four had no heads- instead, their bodies ended in turrets and their arms ended in what looked like big drills.

Before the adventurers had time to fully take in that scenario, however, a greenish forcefield appeared around the spiral staircase in the middle of the hall and over the opening through which they had come. Then, a dark, full voice came from nowwhere: „You have one minute to utter the password. If you fail to utter it within this timespan, you will be destroyed. I am sorry about any inconvinience this my create.“.

For a few seconds, no one said a word. Then, Ben shouted: „Kwalish“ and seeing that nothing happened, everyone shouted the words that came to his mind, creating a kakophonia in which such words as „Apparatus“, „Mithril“ and „Donnangar“, among others were shouted at random. The friends frantically tried to come up with the word that would keep the automatons from coming to life- they looked bad enough as they were, and they didn’t intend to see them spring in action.

But then, just as the last syllable of the name „Captain Strohman“ was dying on Niklas lips, the automatons came to life. Their minute was over.

 

[Lars Frehse]

A clever device- part 4 of 4

The moment the automatons sprang to life, Jan charged forward, his bastardsword raised high over his head. He hacked at one of the hammerers and sparks flew where his sword hit the iron body. Then, however, the automaton swang his giant hammer at him and suddenly Jan realized that he had charged ahead on his own and that his friends were still several yards behind him.

As three of the automatons swung their giant hammers at the lonely paladin, pummeling him bad and denting his steelarmor as if it was nothing more than a can made of tin, one of the turret-shaped golems stepped ahead and uttered a deep, thundering booming shockwave, hitting Ben, who had just summoned a flame blade, throwing him back a few feet.

The remaining four golems started to move, about to shoot at the stragglers and hit the Paladin, but suddenly, they stopped in mid-movement, as if uncertain of what to do next. Meanwhile Niklas attacked the turret-golem that had attacked Ben while Trepat helped with his arrows and Ben struggled forward in order to heal the heavily injured Paladin.

As they fought, the automatons continued to act inconsistiently- one moment they would strike or attack with full force, moving around to get into battle, and on the next they would stop acting in mid movement, even if their foe was standing right in front of them. Then, apparently randomly, they sprang back into action, continuing where they had stopped several seconds before only to stop moving a few moments later.

Nonetheless it was a tough battle. The golems used their hammers with a force that could shatter the strongest stones or metals, let alone flesh and bones and the walking turrets repeatedly knocked the wind out of Trepat's lungs with their sonic attack, keeping him too stunned to fight back most of the time. When they weren't shooting, they used their drills to stab at the adventurers.

Just when Ben was done taking care of Jan, who succeeded in destroying two automatons, which shattered into motionless scraps, he had to run over to Niklas who took care of the turrets in attempt to help Trepat. Then, Trepat and Jan seemed to have things under control and Ben ran back. Trepat hadn't gotten back up after one especially vicious sonic attack and was now laying on the floor.

Sighing with relief as he saw that his friend was unconcious but still alive, Ben used his magic to revive Trepat. Now the elf shot arrows charged with electricity at the golems and Ben charged them with his flame-blade. The tide of the battle turned now, and the friends defeated the last of the golems. Each of them was wounded, but they all ignored their pain for the moment since they were still facing the dilemma that they were trapped.

Niklas cautiosly poked his glaive at the forcefield in the floor, but it was blocked as solidly as if he had hit the wall. Just as he was about to thrust with more strength, he wheeled around as he heard a voice behind asking:"Why have you come here?"

While they had concentrated on the opening through which they had come, a human had walked down the spiral staircase in the middle of the hall and was now standing ten feet high and facing them. He looked like a man in his fifties with well combed black hair that was greying at the temples, and he was dressed in a leathery robe of redish-brown. Instead of a hand, his left arm ended in a slightly oversized lobster-claw and he looked at the intruders expectantly.

Niklas was the first to speak:" Kwalish, I presume?"

The man nodded and his dark voice was more puzzled than menacing :" That's right.Now, tell me, what are you doing here?"

"We came here to look for the fabled apparatus of Kwalish, sir.", Ben said.

"Ah! Well, "fabled" sounds good to me... But first I have to know: where do you come from and what do you need it for?".

They told him about their quest and once they had mentioned that they came from Mithril he broke a smile: "Very well then! I have already figured that you couldn't be so bad, given that you have a paladin of Corean with you..."
He waved his claw and the shimmering forcefields disappeared:" In that case I am sorry you were attacked by my creations, but I really didn't expect any visitors and I had been busy myself. If you like, you may rest in my chambers upstairs, and tomorrow I will lead you to the apparatus. I have parked it somewhere outside and it has been a while, but I am sure I will find it again. You can have it to visit the keeper of secrets if you promise to bring it back when you are done"

They thanked him and after he had assured them that it would be the least he could do, he lead them upstairs into his living chambers. Here the floors were covered with soft rugs and the rooms were furnished with pieces of furniture from all over Ghelspad without any consideration of composition of style or color. For example, a heavy Albadian bench stood next to a light and intricately decorated Shelzarian cabinet which was filled with roughly crafted mugs from Darakeene.

Once they had settled down in a room with cushion covered floor Kwalish answered all their questions. He had originally come here to settle down with the original inhabitants of this underwater city. They were called "Kuo Toas" and according to the half-crustacean archmage they were "nasty people" but they had offered him a deal that had allowed him to work on his automatons and other inventions.

Ten years after he had settled down and shortly after the blood-monsoon, Pisceans attacked the city. He had offered the Kuo Toas to seek refuge in his towers, but they were eager to fight and in the process all of them, including children and the old, were killed. Some pisceans had entered the towers, but he had "persuaded" them to stay away.

Then he had reanimated some of the dead in order to take care of menial tasks around the towers and settled down for his research again. Ever since then, noone had come to visit him, and he had even forgotten about the password and the automatons.

"And what is the password?", Niklas asked.

Kwalish shrugged: "I don't know anymore. I bet I have it written down somewhere, though. But I think it is time to go to sleep now. You may settle down anywhere in this level. But please don't go any further up, since there are some experiments there which could prove fatal for you."

With that he waved them goodbye with his claw and went through the door. Finally alone, Jan said:" He seems like a nice enough fellow".

"Yeah", Ben said, "and still he almost had us killed. I think we should stay together tonight, lest we stumble over another of his forgotten inventions.".

 

[Talix]

Sure doesn't seem too upset that they just trashed his golems. Oh well, hope he turns out to be a good guy after all.

 

[Lars Frehse]

Oh, I forgot to mention that they had been faulty to start out with! I used the automatons from the MM2, and they have some sort of a "motivation-problem". Every round, you roll a D20 and if you roll below 11, they don't act!

So, for an archmage like Kwalish, those can be considered failed experiments, and he was actually glad to be rid of those embarassing failed prototypes.

I will definetly add a little line about that to the next update (which will be coming in the next hour) though.

 

[Lars Frehse]

Secrets- Part 1

On the next morning, Kwalish lead them through the ruins. While they were going down to the first chamber, he explained to them that he was actually glad that they had destroyed his constructs: „As you probably have noticed, they have some sort of motivation problems, so that they sometimes fail to act according to their duties... So, it is a good thing that you got rid of them in a way. You know, I think they are a bit, well, embarassing for an archmage of my standing.“

When they entered the pool, Kwalish cast a spell, and this time, the friends were able to go ahead without the splitting headaches of the previous day.

Two hours later, they were still walking through the submerged ruins. After walking around for a while, the archmage suddenly exclaimed that he now remembered where he had parked the apparatus. But as they turned around the cracked granite dome behind which he had expected it, there was nothing there but rubble and corals. All in all, Kwalish appeared like a man who had misplaced his keys somewhere in his messed up house, only that in this case, they "key" was an iron barrel the size of a wagon and the "house" was a ruinfield of several square miles.

This, of course, didn't make the search any easier. Kwalish was often distracted and soon the adventurers were having trouble at hiding their rising impatience. Suddenly, however, the archmage stopped dead in his track. He slapped his forehead in slowmotion- the water made everything much slower here than over the surface- and he cast a spell. Trepat recognized it as a divination spell that was used to locate objects.

With this magically gained knowledge, he now stepped ahead with the confidence of a carrier pigeon on it's way back home. Soon, under a broken marble collum, they saw it, apparently unharmed by the passage of decades and the destruction of the Kuo-Toa-city: The apparatus of Kwalish.

Kwalish walked up to it and pushed the heavy collum away with his claw, as if it were nothing more than a broken branch. Then he fiddled around a little with the hatch at the back of the machine and opened it. There was barely enough space in there for all five of them, and the front two would have to work the levers inside of the machine in order to move it around.

After reminding them to return the apparatus once they had used it, he waved them goodbye with his claw and walked away, already seemingly oblivious of them. Ben went up and after having lead the ship to a position directly above the apparatus, he brought down the rope between his jaws. His friends tied it around the rump of the machine, and after jerking the rope three times, the crew on the Nellie 2 pulled it on board.

Three days later, they were sailing along the ragged eastern coast of Lede. The wind was blowing and the waves were crashing against the black rocks which were jutting out of the water close to the hostile looking coast. Captain Strohman kept the Nellie 2 cutting through the water against the wind and then, as they circled around a cape of black rock, they saw the iron mountain Chel Azatan had told them about.

It was dark grey, cone shaped and it's peak was about three hundred yards over the water. It was hard to make out any details on the rock itself, since it looked uniformly irongrey and it was engulfed in misty vapors. As the ship approached the mountain and the mist, the friends noticed a roaring sound. With his elven eyes, Trepat realized that indeed the water ahead all around the mountain was boiling, creating the shroud of watervapor that covered the mountain like a cloak.

He told Captain Strohman about it and he gave order to turn around. Eventually, they dropped their anchor to the north of the mountain and away from the boiling water. Chel Azatan had told them that the entrance lay in the north at the base and so they lowered the apparatus into the water there.

This time, only Trepat and Torn had entered the apparatus, and it was already claustrophobically cramped inside. They were perched on a little bench next to each other, moving levers and alternatively looking through the periscope-eyes. The ocean floor was barren here and after some attempts at figuring out the controls, they found a way to coordinate their movements.

Since the apparatus was faster when it moved backwards, much like it's living counterpart, the lobster, they walked backwards to the mountain. As they were nearing the boiling water, it got hotter and hotter in the small barrel, and soon both of them were sweating profusely while the moisture of their breath and their sweat was condensing on the inside wall of the apparatus, which stayed comparatively cool.

When they reached the boiling water, it got even hotter, but at least it was still bareable in the apparatus and the stale air didn't get too hot for breathing. They were furthermore reliefed by how the ground remained solid under them. Due to the boiling water, their range of sight through the periscopes was naturally limited, but they simply went straight backwards until they felt the iron lobster bump against the base of the mountain.

Then, they began to feel their way around until suddenly they were able to move even further. Now it was dark, but turning on their outside lightsource, they saw that they were now in a tunnel and that the water wasn't boiling anymore.

Switching two levers at once, they moved straight forward until they saw Ben roaming through the water in his sharkform. Ben took the Nellie's anchor between his jaws and carried it over to the apparatus where Torn worked one of the claws with his levers and grabbed for the anchor. Then, holding fast, they were pulled up again.

Back on the ship, Trepat and Torn opened the hatch and scrambled outside, eagerly gulping the fresh air. Both were covered in sweat, most of which was Torn's, and after a few minutes of cool, fresh air on the rocking boat, all five of them crawled into the apparatus. It had been cramped with two in there, but now, with all five of them it was almost unbearable. They were pressed together and the Niklas' and Jan's knees were drilling into Torn's and Trepat's back while Ben sat on their legs, in the small space between the four.

Everytime Trepat or Torn had to move a lever, it lead to all kinds of contortions within the confined space of the lobster. As it got hotter, the air grew worse and worse and all of them were covered with the sweat of everyone else. Especially for the three behind, it was unbearable. Without having any way to find out just where the apparatus was positioned, they could only wait for the two in the front to tell them to wait just a little longer.

Finally, Torn told them in between moving levers and everytime he looked through his periscope:" We are in the tunnel now.. Going ahead... Still going straight ahead... I think we are going up now... Out of the water..."

Then his voice changed, and he shouted:" We are on land! Quick, open the hatch!".

Niklas, who had the lever of the hatch drilling into his back, reached behind himself and fell backwards as it opened up. Soon his friends tumbled out as well, all of them drenched in sweat and breathing deeply.

They were standing in a natural cave now and the apparatus had crawled out of what looked like small pool behind them. Even though it felt cool and dry to them, it was still as hot and humid as a Shelzarian steambath, and the walls of the cave were all wet from the warm water in the pool. Opposite of them, in the cave wall, there was what appeared to be an opening which was covered with a curtain consisting of beads made from little shells.

 

[Nightfall]

No offense Lars, but I hope you get Serpent Citadel soon. Something about finishing out the trilogy appeals to me.

 

[Lars Frehse]

Nah, no offense taken. If so, only a little.
As you will see, this will soon lead to a continuation of my "Orcs of Lede" storyline, so it does have a relevance for my campaign.

Anyway, for the following update, I had been using ideas from the book of challenges, so again, credit to those who deserve it!

 

[Lars Frehse]

Secrets- part 2

Behind the curtain, there was a dry and cool corridor that lead them to the middle of the mountain, where it ended abruptly. Instead, it opened into a shaft which lead roughly eighty feet upwards.

Ben transformed into his spiderform and scaled up, noticing that shortly before arriving, he felt weaker. Apparently, the bullstrength that Trepat had cast on him had been dispelled by a trap that was supposed to kill off people who went up the shaft by means of magical flight. While the effect was merely a nuisance for Ben as it were, it would have been downright lethal had a „fly“ or a „spiderclimb“ spell been dispelled.

The shaft lead to yet another corridor with three doors: One at the far end and one to the left and right in the middle of it. After the friends had climbed up on a rope which Ben had fastened to one of the doors, they first tried the left door. However, they found no apparent means of opening the door and so they turned to the right one which could easily be opened with a door handle.

Again, there was a corridor, this one turning left after a short while. However, the friends soon realized that unlike the previous corridors, this one was far from empty. In fact, as they followed it’s path, which was an inward spiral, they saw several traps that had been previously activated. There was a blade on a pendulum hanging from the ceiling, open trapdoors, scorchmarks where fireballs had been set off, and so on.

In the center of the spiral, there was a small room which was empty except for one thing: a big, iron lever that was attached to the wall.

„Well...“, Trepat said, slowly backing out of the room: „I think you can deal with that yourself, Torn. I will just wait outside.“

Torn nodded, his face turning sour: „Yeah, you’re right. If this lever really does what we both seem to think it does, you might as well. You couldn’t help me and so you guys shouldn’t take the risk.“

„Huh? What do you think the lever does?“, Jan asked.

Torn rolled his eyes: „I think we all think that if this lever is pulled the door opposite this spiral corridor gets opened. But probably the traps get primed again as well. So you might as well get out of here now and let me do my work.“

Jan’s face lightened up as he understood but then it darkened again. It wasn’t like him to leave a friend behind in order to face dangers on his own, but he was aware that there was nothing he could do to help. His strong arm and his sword weren’t able to fight more open enemies than those traps.

„I will stay behind though“, Ben said and as he saw the puzzled looks of his companions, he added: „I will stay at a good distance behind Torn, of course. But in case he is unlucky, he might need my healing abilities in order to make it through.“.

And so it was decided. Jan, Niklas and Trepat walked back past the traps through the spiral to the main corridor. Then, after having left them enough time to get out Torn pulled the lever and immediately, they knew that at least part of their theory was right: from the corridor behind them, they heard whirring, clicking and grinding noises, as whirring blades went back into their hiding places in the wall an, pits closed up again and every other trap got primed as well.

Not expecting any success, Torn tried to move the lever again, but it was stuck and all he could possibly achieve by pulling it any further would have been breaking it. Torn sighed, regretting for the moment that situations like this were his job, and then he started walking back the spiral walkway, carefully checking for tell tale signs of traps in the corridor while Ben leisurely stayed behind him.

He turned around the first corners when suddenly he felt the mental grip of a magical trap in his mind. He wrestled with this force for a moment, and then, he had conquered it. Then he continued on to the next corridor where he disabled a set of whirling blades, which would have cut him into many slices.

Next, around yet another corner, he went to where he remembered that there had been a pit before. Now, however, it was completely covered and as he hunkered down, trying to see where exactly the pit began, he suddenly felt the ground under him give away. Before he could react, he was falling down eighty feet, crashing right onto the spikes on the pit floor.

Severly wounded and aching, he climbed out of the pit again where Ben healed him. He grunted, leaving Ben to wonder whether it was meant as a thanks for the healing or a surpressed curse at Torn’s own profession and then he went on down the corridor.

Next, he stood at the corner where scorchmarks on the floor over the entire length of the corridor indicated that something dangerous would be triggered there. Carefully he bent into the corridor, not touching the floor and examined the corner wall for a mechanism that could have caused the marks. In an instant he felt his hair on his arms rising, and fearing the worst he rolled back into the corridor from which he had come as just at that moment a huge bolt of lightning cracked through the other corridor.

He closed his eyes and silently thanked Erias before getting up and continuing dorn the corridor. He turned right once again, but even though he carefully looked for signs and he had seen no traps there, he triggered yet another one. Again, he became victim of a magical trap and a shattering noise hit him from both sides, leaving him winded, bruised and a whistiling in his ears. Again, the unharmed halfing walked up to him again and healed him.

Eventually, after Torn had been slashed by a scythe, blasted by a fireball, and cut by a pendulum blade they made it out of the spiral. Their friends welcomed them in the main corridor, showing their concern about the bruised, scorched, cut and all in all badly pummeled looking half-orc.

The next door lead to another corridor which ended at a fork. Torn, who walked up front saw that the corridor there was a dead end. To his left, it penetrated merely ten feet into his mountain and to the right it was only twenty feet long and ending in a pit. Before he could tell his friends about that, however, an iron portcullis crashed into the ground, seperating him from his friends.

However, he now noticed that that wasn’t even the worst about his situation yet. To his left, where he had thought that the corridor had been empty, he now saw something moving. Something that was exactly filling up the corridor and which was transparent. There was a gelatinous cube moving towards him and there was no way for Torn to dodge that thing...

 

[Talix]

D'oh!

I love traps and challenges - they're difficult to work plausibly into the plot very often, but they're so fun!