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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ajar" data-source="post: 6366525" data-attributes="member: 85901">Okay, so a LOT has happened since I last posted. We did finish Always on Time before GenCon, and [MENTION=63]RangerWickett[/MENTION] ran an awesome adventure for us that I'll cover in my next post, along with pictures! We left off as our erstwhile constables -- Viveen, Reginald, Murdok, Bela, and Vesta -- were rowing toward the cursed isle of Odiem. They made a point of pulling their boat up away from where Ottavia's boat was beached. Across the island they could see the ruins of a lighthouse, so they made for it. Partway along they came across tracks, but only a single set, which struck them as odd since Reginald had seen Bree, Luc, Ottavia, and Verzubak all get on the rowboat. Around this time, corpses began shambling ashore. As they approached the lighthouse, Ottavia spoke to them telepathically from its summit, asserting that Luc was acting for the betterment of civilization and that they had acted against you due to perceiving a threat. Several constables noted that perhaps attempting to murder them was a slight overreaction, but Ottavia countered by asking how they would have responded to having various members of their party be followed on several consecutive nights. Meanwhile, a mysterious voice rang in the constables' minds, inviting them to come 'downstairs,' and warning that the priestess' sermon would see them all dead. For the time being, they were puzzled. It soon became clear that neither party was likely to persuade the other, so Ottavia began a remarkably enthralling sermon that kept the constables quite preoccupied until the dead were nearly upon them. At that point, they realized what the voice had meant, and quickly began dispatching zombies and made for the ruined church at the foot of the lighthouse, with Ottavia sending blasts of radiance at them from above. Vesta was able to teleport through a crack in the church door and let the rest of the party inside. Ottavia continued blasting them through the gaping hole in the roof and while they struggled to climb the partly-crumbled lighthouse tower. They also found a set of bronze doors going deeper into the earth, but the voice's continued encouragement to enter whatever vault lay below made them skeptical. However, Reginald hid down there while sending consciousness fragments along with Viveen, Murdok, and Vesta. Bela stayed below to guard Reginald. During the ascent, Murdok fell from the second storey, but managed to stay conscious. Eventually, Vesta and Viveen managed to get to the top of the lighthouse and subdue Ottavia. They quickly set up some rope to bring her down into the vault for interrogation.The mysterious voice continued to entreat the constables to come deeper into the vault, but as they explored the first ruined room, they found text explaining what the vault was, the many evils it contained, and the fact that its central prisoner was Ashima-Shmitu, the Lady of the Forked Tongue, a key figure in the Demonocracy. They concluded that rather than enter they vault, they’d take their chances on being able to make it to Vendricce in the morning on either the train or their boat. With that decided, they set up camp right behind the bronze doors and listened to the soothing drum beat of the dead trying to break in. They interrogated Ottavia, who revealed relatively little — telling them essentially that she’d planned to delay them, that no one else was here, and that her work was more or less done. She revealed relatively little about the mysterious conspiracy known as the Obscurati, only that their aim was to improve society. In the morning, the party carved their way out of the vault through a crushed pile of corpses, made their way to their rowboat, and rowed back to Sid Minos. They left Ottavia on their boat with Bela as a guard and then headed for the train station. They made it in time, but were told that there was a problem with their papers and that they would not be boarding the train today. Accordingly, they turned and booked it for their boat. Bela had spent much of the trip sharing tales with an old sea captain, and as a result had acquired a bonus to various checks one might want to make on a boat. Accordingly, he took command of the constables’ boat, formerly Il Draçon de Mer, and with the aid of his fellow constables was able to catch a fair wind, avoid shallow reefs, and make it to Vendricce in time. All the constables had from Ottavia on the location of the meeting was that it was at a private rail station within the rail enclave, so they quickly headed for the enclave and split up to try and pin down the precise meeting location. Murdok headed for the train and the locomotive, finding Steeg getting chummy with Verzubak. Having befriended Steeg previously, he was quite happy to see her and they had a chat about local watering holes they might go to after Steeg parked the train. She suggested that she and Verzubak go investigate, and Verzubak wasn’t really in a position to refuse. Alone with Murdok in the enclave’s alleys, though, things quickly took a dark turn as she threatened him, and then when he refused to give up the location, grappled him, broke his finger, and swallowed one of his precious dice. Vesta went to one of the hotels and asked about locations of private rail stations within the enclave, and managed to get the locations (there were six). He went back to Reginald and had Reginald use an airborne consciousness fragment to see where Steeg’s locomotive ended up parked. The party regrouped and they headed for the meeting. ly dReginald hid his consciousness fragment inside the small station building where the train pulled up, and the party watched to see what would happen. They were unsurprised to see Luc and Bree emerge from one of the cars and head into the building. They were equally unsurprised when Luc unveiled his lantern, lit it, and shifted the area around it into the bleak gate. Reginald listened through his hidden fragment as Lya Jierre (!) and Nicodemus explained a couple of things about the Obscurati to Luc. At that point, Vesta teleported through Reginald’s consciousness fragment into the room, and it all went to hell.Everyone on the Ob side immediately moved to protect Luc. Vesta dropped a couple of other Ob members attending the meeting, then pursued Luc outside and engaged Lya as she moved to defend him. Poor choice — with Vesta as their only visible foe, the Obscurati agents in the Bleak Gate opened up a barrage of gunfire and arcane attacks, which weakened the eladrin enough that Lya not only dropped him, but used her focused severance technique to cut off his sword arm. Note that Vesta is a swordmage whose magic is contingent on him having a sword in his sword hand. And that Vesta’s player had spent almost a year growing her hair out and then dyed it blonde to match her character, and created an elaborate and very fitting costume based on the assumption that her character would (1) be alive and (2) have two arms. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devil.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":devil:" title="Devil    :devil:" data-shortname=":devil:" />While this was going on, Murdok, Bela, and Viveen crept up to the train. Murdok nabbed some bottles of wine from the dining car and then headed toward the locomotive to persuade Steeg to get it going. Viveen spotted Nicodemus sauntering around looking for enemies, and quickly engaged and dropped him. He smirked at her as he fell. She put mage cuffs on him and started to drag him away, but as he passed out of the lantern’s radius, he vanished. Seeing reinforcements arriving, the remainder of the Obscurati forces departed into the Bleak Gate with Luc, Verzubak, and Bree. They left the lantern, which the constables collected. Alarm bells were going off in the rail enclave by this point, so Murdok talked Steeg into getting the locomotive going, and the constables piled into it and headed for the nearly-completed connection to Elfaivar. Steeg asked how he should report this, and Murdok replied that Steeg should blame it all on Luc. Steeg was agreeable this and let them off at the edge of the construction on the coastline, where the constables’ boat was waiting. They returned to Sid Minos to talk to Wolfgang, who they had planned to meet there the night before but missed due to the affair on the isle of Odiem. He was willing to construct the same type of magical girdle for Vesta that Bree was wearing to keep her severed arm attached, provided they were willing to pay for materials and other equipment. Meanwhile, the constables searched for a way to remove the curse from Boone’s gun, which Vesta had alluded to although couldn’t describe in detail. They were able to figure out the very specific requirements of the ritual — bathing the gun in the blood of a sacrificed pregnant she-goat — and bribe Clergy priests to help them perform it, at which point they immediately destroyed the gun. Once Vesta had recovered, they sailed back to Flint with Ottavia in tow, and gave a report to Delft. It turned out that Lya Jierre would be in Flint in another couple of months for a peace summit, which presented a potential opportunity to deal with her. Delft assured the constables that he would speak to the King, and suggested they lay low for now. Phew! Next time, I’ll talk about what happened when we all met [MENTION=63]RangerWickett[/MENTION] for Rock Rackus and the Ruby Rod of R’Lyeh! (And sorry for the tease of not posting it this time, but this post is long enough and I'm out of time tonight!)</blockquote>

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