Following their adventures in Stormreach, where they foiled an invasion by an ancient, bodysnatching evil from the Age of the Giants and halted the zombie invasion, our inquisitives are informed that the papers have come in from official sources, allowing them to finally serve a writ of execution to Victor, who has been incarcerated in Hell's Heart. Baron d'Medani has requested their presence as witnesses and executioners at the proceedings, and the entourage visit the prison compound, which is suspended in mid air above Sharn via skyship. Along the way, they meet Khielas Mourn, a magistrate from the Citadel, who has also taken a personal interest in the proceedings.
Arriving at Hell's Heart, the inquisitives meet Warden Krebowski, a jovial gnome who takes great delight in showing the group around and pointing out the amazing qualities of the prison complex and it's amenities. The group also notices that all the prison staff are warforged, and that the gnome is the only living staff member - a curious fact indeed.
They are led to lunch, where a feast was prepared by the prison cook - a warforged with a chef's hat and painted on moustache called "Cook". However, it seems that the situation between the Baron and Khielas Mourn is tense and there is some bad blood between the two. Jacquesaurs attempts to find out more from Khielas by convincing him to step outside, while the rest of the adventurers continue to eat. Little did they know that treachery was afoot. Jacquesaurs was smacked unconscious from behind as he and Khielas visited the privy, while the party was disabled by magical spells and sleeping poisons in the feast hall.
Waking up, our inquisitives found themselves in the lowest level of the prison - the solitary cells, trapped behind a wall of force without their weapons or gear. As everyone attempted to find a way to escape, Jalros noticed that he could loosen a brick in his cell, which allowed Jacquesaurs to squeeze into his cell. Further scrutiny also revealed that there were loose tiles in the ceiling above Jalros's cell, which Jacquesaurs managed to dislodge with magic. Climbing through the hole in the ceiling, Jalros and Jacquesaurs retrieved the key stone lying in a corner, and freed the others. Together, the party entered the teleporter on this floor, and were sped into another layer of the prison.
This time, our inquisitives found their geared chained to a pillar beneath a grille, and a series of levers. Attempting to pull the levers randomly caused the chains to snap, and their items to fall into a pit to oblivion. With some clever manipulating, the adventurers managed to bust open the grille and retrieved their gear, and not a moment too soon. They were attacked by slime monsters as soon as the grille dropped, and barely managed to escape after fending them off.
Stepping into the teleporter, the adventurers found themselves in a blasted battlefield suspended in a black void. There, they encountered three former inmates - a duskblade, a wizard and a skilled dervish, and had to fight their way past to freedom. It was a difficult fight, and Jacquesaurs was knocked out, but the group eventually persevered. Securing their freedom, they stepped through the teleporter into the next area - a sea of floating rocks suspended in mid air, between the upper prison and lower prison.
Swimming through the air and dodging the revolving rocks, the inquisitives found their way to the upper prison chute barred by two cloud drakes. These drakes were initially non-hostile, but as they came closer, frayed nerves and paranoia took hold, and the party attacked. The drakes were quickly dispatched with Vicks's magic and everyone's combined effort, and the party made their way to the chute, and into the next area.
The next area was dark, and dimly lit. It was a circular chamber, with several sectioned off rooms. Picadilly stepped towards the room labelled garden, and sniffing apples inside, opened the door. It led to a large garden that was bigger than it seemed, with an apple tree in the very center. Sensing something amiss, Palladium instantly recognized it as an illusion. He alerted the others as well, but Picadilly was not able to resist the lure of the apples and stepped inside. And that was when enemies attacked, and not a moment too soon either. The apple tree was actually a giant meat grinder, and if Picadilly had stepped closer, she would have turned into corned beef.
Their assailants this time were a wizard and two spearmen, who wielded their polearms dextrously. A gust of wind stopped the party from escaping, while the threatening polearms tripped anybody who tried to make their way through the doorway. Vicks halted the meat grinding blade barrier with magic, and Palladium summoned up a wall of sand to disrupt the attackers, while Picadilly started pounding on the wall to make a hole the others could escape through. Jacquesaurs was trapped outside, but he managed to turn invisible. The wizard dismissed the wall of sand, and then proceeded to fling spells at the group, while the spearmen tripped and hampered their attempts to escape the room. Jacquesaurs attacked one of the spearmen with a sound lance, blowing him to bits, but also breaking cover. That was when the wizard struck. He hit Jacquesaurs with a disintegration spell, and turned the gnome to dust almost instantly.
Sir Colin charged the wizard, and skewered him, killing him instantly, while Vicks turned into a bear and mauled the remaining spearman. Scooping up the dust that remained of Jacquesaurs, the party pressed on while Vicks performed a ritual to bring the gnome back - as an elf.
The new elf Jacquesaurs quickly clothed himself, and the party proceeded to explore the rest of this level. The pantry proved to be stocked with food, while the laboratory harbored an actual prisoner in addition to lab equipment. Freeing the prisoner, the party discovered he was called Sigmund Fraud, a dwarf who had once worked at the prison before being turned into a lab rat. The party also discovered that said dwarf was probably crazy, even if he possessed some powerful spells. They released the dwarf, and convinced him, on pain of death and beard burning, to join the group and help them get away from the prison.
Searching the lab, the party discovered a vial of the warden's extracted memories, and Vicks drank it. He soon discovered Victor's nefarious plot through the warden's memories, as well as important details about how to utilize the prison's security features including the teleportation commands and the warforged. Armed with this knowledge, the party could now confront and foil Victor's schemes once and for all.
After overriding the warforged using the observation chamber, the party quickly commanded the entire garrison to go with them to the viaducts, where Victor was currently gloating about his soon to be complete victory. The Baron and Lady Zalina were trapped in an adamantite cage that was rapidly filling with water, and would drown if the device were not switched off. However, there was a bomb attached to the console, rigged to detonate and drop the entire prison colony on Sharn if it were tampered with.
Things looked bleak indeed. Picadilly used her cloak to translocate up to the grille where Victor and his accomplices were standing and gloating at the adventurers, while Vicks turned into an octopus and casted water breathing on everyone, allowing them to ignore the flooding chamber. The warforged garrison started making their slow way up the ladders at the sides, and both Palladium and Sigmund Fraud started hovering towards the platform. Jacqeusaurs conjured black tentacles to grope the villains, but only managed to grab the other gnome.
As it turned out, Khielas was in fact the changeling Vrinn, and he started pelting the unfortunate party with lightning from a wand. Warden Krebowski used his spells to free himself, and scurried away. Victor activated a scroll, and attacked both paladins with a prismatic spray. He cooked Picadilly halfway through with two magic rays, while Sir Colin managed to avoid the worst of the spell. Palladium then cast Silence on the holy cow, causing confusion amongst Victor and his cronies.
Sir Colin smacked Vrinn as the changeling tried to use his wand again, and this time, the changeling fell off the platform, plunging down onto the top of the adamantite cage and to his doom. Warden Krebowski retreated away from the silence, and used an item to cast a Polar Ray in the direction of Palladium. Palladium activated his protective ring, and caused the spell to rebound to Victor. Victor was surprised by the attack, and thinking that the warden had betrayed him, shot the warden with a poisoned crossbow bolt before doing the same to Picadilly. As Picadilly fell down, Victor retreated and brandished another scroll.
Down below, Vicks summoned elementals and arrowhawks in the direction of Victor, while Jacquesaurs casted dimension door and made his way up to the platform. Now outmatched, and bereft of his allies, Victor began to incant from his scroll, claiming that he would not soon be defeated. Meteors exploded from the scroll and rained down on the platform, knocking the party off their feet and collapsing the platform. Fortunately, having had their share of falling encounters, the adventurers had equipped their rings of feather falling. All except Jacquesaurs, who started plummeting to his death. Luckily, Vicks was able to get his arrow hawk to rescue the falling elf before he hit the ground and went splat.
Vicks was also able to raise the level of water in the room, and this cushioned the falling platform. Instead of crushing everyone down below, it only made a large splash. The impact also freed the Baron and Lady Zalina from the cage, allowing them to slip free. Sigmund Fraud finally made his way onto the platform, and tried to snipe Victor with a spell. But he missed!
The distraction though, allowed Palladium to drop a huge ice storm on Victor, battering the villain off the platform. Victor plunged down, onto the ruins of the cage, and was impaled. He was finally dead.
The adventurers had their victory, but they hadn't diffused the bomb. Quickly, the adventurers teleported out of the viaducts, and not a moment too soon. As they rushed to the Baron's skyship, explosions resonated through the lower prison compound. Flying away from the prison colony, the adventurers saw the upper compound catch on fire, and start plummeting towards Sharn.
In the days to come, it was discovered that the prison complex had missed Sharn by a hair, though it did scrape a new groove on Clifftop. The adventurers were lauded for their bravery and quick thinking, and their agency was given an award by House Medani, the city of Sharn, and the Citadel. Having finally established themselves, after numerous trials, tribulations and misadventures, our adventurers had finally come full circle.
They had solved all the mysteries that had come their way, overcome danger, had their share of alley and rooftop confrontations, and finally won through to be lauded as heroes.
And thus concludes the adventures of Jacquesaurs the Bard, Picadilly the Holy Cow, Sir Colin the Paladin, Vicks the Druid, Palladium the Cleric and Jalros the Ranger.
Thus concludes Eberron Mystery Theatre.
Thanks for playing!
-----
Experience, Loot and so Forth:
Everyone gains enough experience points to level them to 13th.
You are all also given an item:
1. Jacquesaurs - A Cli Lyre. (MIC p. 154)
2. Picadilly - A Overhead Shield (MIC p. 20)
3. Sir Colin - A Shirt of Ironskin (MIC p. 135)
4. Vicks - A pair of rings. Ring of Mystic Fire and Ring of Mystic Lightning (MIC p. 125/126)
5. Palladium - A Circlet of Rapid Casting (MIC p. 86)
6. Jalros - A Quiver of Energy (MIC p. 172). You choose what energy type when you draw the arrow.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment