Summary:
My time among these surface dwellers has shown me many things, foremost among them that they would not survive for long in the cold vast darkness which stretches silently beneath our feet in the stone and bone of the earth. They fight and squabble and seek their own desires above those of the clan. Perhaps it is because they know not but little of each other, but they should realize that our lives and safety depends upon us acting together with courage and discipline. I would be wise to seek companionship and trust in those who know of the struggles below, Roland and Ecknilki, even if they are drak and sniv. Beryl, the monDwar, is strange as he does not trust me and yet he aligns with fiendish MiTar, Cerberus, a half breed sheenfau, Glogfot, and a pair of patooks, calling themselves Zu and Kiaba, from beyond. Then there is the mabden priest, Forxar, and the honorable ha-fey, Banger, and the only trustworthy dwar, Nalin. Perhaps it is Dumathoin’s secret will that this seemingly disparate and ragtag troop become a force to unite together and seek to plumb the hidden mysteries of this strange, alien citadel of steel…
Thus begins my record of our time in this accursed keep that shall surely be the death of many, if not all, of our party. We have fought creatures of pure steel with weapons that are beyond even the ken of my people to craft. This day we continued to the east and north opening doors that require keys of colored horn to open and close. I have yet to discover the magic or mechanism that allows this happen, but we do know that the metal doors which show a light that matches the same prismatic shade of these cards we discovered will match up to cause a whirring sound and then the doors mystically slam open, only to close of their own volition moments later. We have fought strange beasts made of plants that we have begun to call veggshrooms, yet they do not seem to be as worrisome to me as the knights of steel and iron. I fear that we have yet only explored a small portion of the steel citadel in the few days that we have been here.
During our latest excursion, we made our way up through the ceiling of the metal citadel into a tightly cramped area with humming boxes of steel everywhere where I discovered this odd metal box which I began to experiment with to see what it does or how to activate the magic of it. No sooner than I did, but I looked up and saw myself across the expanse from me about eighty feet away, while Glogfot and Beryl were face to face with their doppelgangers. Glogfot immediately kicked his twin away from him as it gave him an evil grin, while Beryl stood ready to meet the mirror image of himself. The creature that looked like Glogfot flew helplessly into one of the large humming boxes and seemed to suffer severe lightning damage upon impact and, as it died, it transformed its likeness between that of a bug-like creature and a Glogfot-like form even as Beryl stabbed the other creature that looked like him upon the end of his new spear and that foul creature appeared to die as well. Eight others of the nomar creatures remained, looking like the rest of our company save the sniver, and one attacked our mitar beast hitting him once and another attacked Forxar, Zu, and myself damaging us in the process while others missed Kiaba and the rest of the fellowship. Banger attacked his own image and hit twice as did Roland and Kiaba, each attacking the one which mirrored themselves. This was when I took a different tact as I went to attack the false Banger and in the midst of the chaos of the battle almost hit the real one, but Dumathoin guided my blow and I was blessed to strike the false Banger and not the true. Nalin called upon the blessings of the Father of Battle, Clangeddin Silverbeard, to create a circle of magical protection around him and that seemed to be extremely effective in driving away the nomar that threatened him. Zu fired his bow into the melee with abandon and was fortunate to be able to hit the being disguised as himself as the sniv tried to attack the false Cerberus from behind only to receive a threatening glare from the actual mitar when the gnue’s blow came precariously close to striking our comrade.
Glogfot then attacked the false draksid hoping to attack the one that was not speaking the foul drak tongue and the sheenfau was able to hit once while missing with his follow-up attack. Forxar summoned the divine energies of his mabden deity to cast a violet light that illuminated the creatures and caused many of them to be covered in the pale purple fiery light in the same manner as the drak cast and that allowed Banger to attack the same one that Glogfot did, knowing that it was an enemy and not a companion. The drak and Kiaba, our chitinous companion, attacked the one that looked like Kiaba and I, not wanting to bash in the brains of a friend, copied the wise Nalin and summoned the protection of Dumathoin to keep me safe from the evil nomars even as Nalin threw his hammer at one of them. Ecknilki then went to sneak up on one that seemed to separate itself from the group as Zu in order to defend itself managed to work its way behind mine and Nalin’s fields of protection. Cerberus then charged one of the creatures at random and accidently hit Ecknilki as well but by the grace of Dumathoin did not drag the gnome along with him on his charge. The creatures were ineffective in their rebuttal against us and there were finally only three left and they began to flee from the battle admitting defeat before our superior numbers and abilities.
Glogfot and Cerberus, refusing to allow the creatures to escape, then charged as the ranger, Beryl, launched a hammer at the fleeing creatures and Banger and Roland launched arrows at them as Ecknilki tried to hit them with his sling as well. Beryl and Roland accidentally hit the mitar and not our fleeing enemies, but two of the creatures dropped anyway due to the onslaught by the balance of the expedition. Cerberus pushed the last creature into the electric walls and no sooner did that happen than a claxon rang out and red lights flashed in the room while the party began to take stock and heal each other among the smoke and chaos of this strange ‘tween deck. Thinking this area not safe for the time being, we dropped back down into the room from whence we came and sought after a room where we could rest and regain our strength. Roland recommended that we go back to the room where there was a divan past the sealed doors colored orange in hue. We made it safely back there and planned to rest and recuperate for about four hours. Forxar wisely cast a spell of Wyvern Watch and it protected us until about three hours of our rest was complete at which time one of the small shroom creatures with a colored fruit in its hand appeared at the door leading to the hallway. It immediately threw its spear at Nalin as Beryl reacted and stabbed at it with his longsword and almost cleaved the creature in twain. Ecknilki tried to slip into the shadows as Beryl stabbed at it and killed it. We discovered on the beast a purple fruit and a small apparatus connected to its wrist with a ruby tip on one end. Ecknilki pulled the item off the veggishroom’s wrist and we examined it. The device appeared to be a strange bracer with a wand attached to it with a ruby tip. Kiaba began to experiment with it to see how it functioned and the strange alien creature caused a beam of light to flash and burn a mark on the steel wall of the chamber. Kiaba continued to experiment with the strange artifact until it made a clicking sound and we determined that maybe it’s magic was spent so I offered my strange disk of magical energy to Kiaba when we discovered it already had something in the slot that seems to power the device. Ecknilki used his thieves’ tools to eject another disk that appeared spent. Kiaba attempted to load the disk I provided into the device but, whether through a lack of intellect or a lack of dexterity, could not figure it out, however, the sniv was easily able to figure it out in a manner of seconds. We completed our respite and our spells came back to us and, being recharged, we decided to continue to explore.
We left our resting spot and decided to retrace some of our steps to explore areas that we had previously passed over, so we went around the corner to the west and used Nalin’s black card to open a series of four rooms mostly with trash and offal in it and nothing of any worth. I cast Detect Magic to expedite our search for magical treasures and found nothing. However, Roland took the opportunity and looked for secret doors in the last of the rooms towards the east only to find a small two foot by two foot panel that slid open and contained a small horned box three inches tall and eight inches long by eleven inches deep. Roland attempted to open it and found white cylindrical objects, three of them in total, and we could not determine their purpose. It was determined that Roland, Forxar, and I should hold onto them for now.
Glogfot emphatically stated that he wanted a fight and we decided as a party to go back to the orange coded door but we would first check out the non color coded door to the west before the turn east in the hallway. Glogfot opened the door with pressure from his hand on the plate outside the room and we discovered that this room also only had detritus, offal, and other trash in the twenty by thirty chamber that contained a ten foot alcove in the far northwest of the room. We inspected the strange bars on the far side of the room and we discovered that they emitted heat and when Beryl investigated one of the bars by pulling upon it, a tray came up with good smelling items which Beryl and Glogfot promptly ate. Roland tried another white rod and three trays came up at that time and, like the others, he ate some of the strange fare and found it to be delicious. Some of our members began to eat the food on the trays and Cerberus and I found it to be not so appetizing as it was quite cold. Glogfot, having eaten his fill, disturbed the mushrooms growing from the trays with his weapon and just overturned dirt finding no treasure or other rewards. Deciding to continue east, we entered the divan room where we previously rested and proceeded through the warded door after Ecknilki listened at the door for noise hearing metallic squawking sounds. I cast Bless in anticipation of the coming battle and Forxar cast Prayer to his deity as we opened the door. Roland inserted his orange card in the door and we heard a snap and a hiss and we saw three unconscious orange knights and a barrel shaped metal man that appeared to be repairing the three knights. One of the knights appeared almost repaired while another seemed to be waiting for mending and the last seemed hopelessly destroyed. Without waiting for further discussion Banger charged in to destroy the repairing metal barrel creature. Glogfot and Beryl rushed the creature as well and attacked it as Roland opted to investigate the red hued door to the south. Much to our shock and horror, however, the metal knight gestured at Beryl and hurled him against the wall causing massive damage to the dwarven ranger. Foul sorcery for sure! Kiaba attacked it with fey power and it seemed to fall to the ground with lightning shooting out of it. The larger patook, Zu, waved and clicked and “whoosh” a fuzzy yellow tentacle appeared in midair grabbing the bug beast and she disappeared into the ceiling! What is with these wizard types? Roland and I flanked the red door to the south waiting for the inevitable creature that would be coming through it, joined by the sniv, as Forxar cast a Spiritual Hammer and missed one of the inactive orange metal knights when he launched the hammer of force at it.
Glogfot then attacked one of the inactive knights and damaged it as an explosion of light alerted us to the fact that it was protected from any real damage by a foul blue sorcery. Banger attacked it as well and discovered his weapon was a magical one of the first circle of enchantment variety. Roland also braced the knight as it appears that Banger took out its protective charm. Nalin called upon Clanngeddin to heal Beryl to a minor effect as Cerberus picked up and brought the barrel-like metal creature down hard upon the knight while Forxar missed with his Spiritual Hammer. The orange knight stood fast and then lashed out, almost killing Roland and paralyzing Glogfot. That was when the red door to the south opened up and a bigger, shinier knight glided through the door. Beryl continued the assault on the wounded knight and Kiaba and Banger decided to attack this new dread even as Ecknilki and I hit it several times to damage its charm circle. Zu attempted to stick its head out of the tentacles box only to find that something had gone horribly wrong and that was when Nalin called again upon the power of Clangeddin to make his heal spells more effective. Cerberus grabbed the wounded knight we had been engaging to try and aim its beam of light at the southern knight as Forxar uses the Spiritual Hammer to destroy the energy shield of the new knight. It turned and grabbed at Ecknilki and Glogfot to grapple them and then to attack the rest of the party with its other arms. It then used its conjuring ability to crumple Beryl into the ground, further damaging the ranger.
Finally, Glogfot and Cerberus decided to each grab a tentacle and hold the orange knight in place so that it could not grapple the party and so that the party could easily strike it. Beryl and Banger missed, but Roland unleashed eldritch drak power, shocking Glogfot and Cerberus but causing the steel knight’s head to blow off and making its limbs drop limp. Forxar and Nalin began to heal Roland and Beryl as the party looked past into a room beyond that appeared to be an arms locker filled with boxes. More healing ensued as the party realized that Zu was gone, the strange creature’s spell obviously not working as planned…
Carved in stone – Jack for TARP 2021