May 24, 2008 - The party cuts a swath through the first floor of the gnomish city and cut a deal with the Skulk leader.
(Jeppy is now Pimchi Also, Artanis never existed. Ishmael...is just gone. These changes are a result of Corey slightly changing his character, and Jamie and Shaun making entirely new characters.)
Blaze Carter and his friend he met while traveling in eastern lands (who he calls Ping Pong) have arrived in Cauldron and because of Blaze's history, he wants to try to find the missing children as well. Jenya tells them of the party and they head over to Ghelve's Locks to meet the rest of them.
Also meanwhile, Lord Humphrey spots Blaze walking through the streets and sees that he is carrying a net and a whip. Seeing what he assumes is a fellow weapon expert, he decides to follow and talk to him. He sees them enter Keygan's store, and sees two other adventurers also headed for the door. He decides to rush past them and enter first.
Humphrey dynamically enters the room, stares around and comments "...this isn't the weapon shop!"
Mike (as Humphrey): I NEED...A LOCK!!
Huron convinces Keygan to get him a hunk of cheese. After a few moments of confused/awkward silence, the two adventurers who were outside enter. Both are half-elves, and say they were sent from Jenya to check on the progress of the investigation. The party vaguely conveys that they've found out about Keygan/the Skulks. They ask if everyone here is planning on going down to find the children, everyone says yes. Satisfied, they say that because of Keygan's involvement they have to take and arrest him. As they lead him away, Keygan asks the party to please rescue Stargloom. One of the two half-elves say his name is Ario, and they can ask for him at the barracks when they are finished.
The party heads down the stairs into the abandoned gnomish city.
DM: Do you have Quickdraw yet? Corey: YEAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!
Approaching the bottom, they hear chirping and rustling leaves and other nature sounds. They find a room with two circular gear doors to the south and a passageway across the room, with a dozen large copper masks shaped like smiling gnome faces adorning the walls. One of the gear doors is slightly open, and Pimchi dashes up and hurls an alchemist fire through the opening. There is a fwoomp of fire and two agonized shrieks, and the door flies open and two skulks (now on fire) stumble out. The party cuts down the first one and the second drops his weapon and raises his hands...and the party cuts him down too.
However, they don't kill the second skulk - instead Blaze manacles his hands behind his back and Pimchi ties his legs together with rope. He then loops & ties the other end of the rope around his own waist. Other than the now-burned, tattered old cloak around its neck, the skulk is completely naked.
Meanwhile, Ping Pong has been trying to yank a mask off the wall but keeps failing.
The two southern rooms contain small cots and empty footlockers. While searching the room, the party is startled to hear a magical voice come from one of the masks (though the mask's mouth doesn't move) say "If you've come to plunder, beware The Vanishing." In retaliation (?) Humphrey and Pimchi grab a footlocker and smash it into the mask, destroying the face. They also find a secret room containing some gnome sized-equipment and mining picks. There is also a suit of gnomish half plate, which Pimchi dismantles to find "armor" for Pig. There is also a silver bracelet which Pimchi puts on, and a pouch with three citrines.
The continue on and find a series of empty bedchambers. They come across a locked gear door, and although the hallway continues south, they decide to go through the locked gear door. Ping Pong fails to pick the lock, and then tries to disable it by pouring acid into the mechanism, which just ruins it. So they grab the heavy pick and light picks from earlier and start bashing down the gear door. After 1-2 hours they FINALLY bash down the door, which falls through and...falls 20 feet down into a pit. Inside is a 30 foot long hallway with no floor but instead a 20 foot pit. Across from them is another gear door.
Pimchi checks for dangers by lowering the unconscious skulk down to the floor. Seeing no hazards, Ping Pong climbs down and climbs up to the lip of the doorway on the opposite side. In an amazing display of dexterity, he launches himself up into the air, opens the door mechanism and swings the door aside while in mid-air, and then lands in the now-open doorway.
The others start coming across. Meanwhile, Ping Pong examines the room he is in. There's an elevated landing with a throne, with a sleeping gnome wearing a silver crown sitting in it, snoring. On either side of the throne are tall pillars reaching up to the ceiling, shaped like a series of gnomes standing on each other's backs. Ping Pong rushes forward and coup de graces the gnome...except his blades go right through. It's an illusion. When he reaches the throne, a ghostly voice says "If you wish a meeting with the king, place your finest coin in my mouth," and the gnome king illusion re-appears. He searches the throne and finds a hidden compartment in the armrest containing 75 gp.
The others arrive and hear the ghostly message. Pimchi makes the unconscious skulk "pick up" a copper piece and put it in the gnome king's mouth. Immediately an angry voice shouts "Miser! What a paltry tribute! I curse you with clumsiness!" and a pulse of negative energy fills the room. Humphrey tries a silver piece and the same thing happens, and they find out it's a curse that gives Humphrey a -6 penalty to Dexterity. Horrified he puts in one of the citrines and is relieved to get a message saying he will be rewarded for his generosity, and the curse is removed.
Pimchi, Morate and Blaze go to open the north door, and Humprey, Ping Pong and Huron decide to open the south door.
The southern group finds what used to be an art gallery, with two rows of waist-height pedestals and a bunch of hooks on the walls for paintings. Ping Pong trips while exploring the room and knocks down a pedestal, which falls into the next one, etc. until a whole row is knocked over. While backing out of the way, Humphrey falls through a revolving secret door into a seemingly empty storage room. He searches around and finds by touch six large (4' x 3') paintings. He walks out and tells the others. Ping Pong goes through and once the door swings shut, sprays a bag of flour everywhere, coating EVERYTHING in flour. Outside, Huron and Humphrey see traces of flour drift out of the door frame. Ping Pong staggers out, Humphrey goes in and brings the paintings out, noting that as they leave the storage room they turn visible. He starts brushing them off. The paintings are: a castle, a dragon, an enormous green gem, clouds, a banana, and a fire elemental.
Meanwhile, the northern group open their door and are immediately surrounded by a grinding, clashing noise. They see a horse-sized automaton with two large spiked triangular spike-hands smashing a wall. Its torso is a large ovoid with a big circular opening in its "front" end. When the party opens the door, it stops smashing the wall and is still.
[dinner break...Shaun trades his hero point to corey for Corey's McDonald's fries.]
Pimchi rushes up and scoops up the unconscious skulk by the neck and junk and hurls it headfirst into the hole in the construct's front.
Corey: He was on his stomach, so I grabbed his wang.
It starts to whir and hum and smoke noisily. Pimchi then hurls an alchemist's fire into the hole, lighting the skulk on fire and scorching the metal. The automaton attacks, smashing the party and then trying to emit some sort of sonic attack from its front...except the now-dead skulk plugs the hole where the sound is emitting and deadens it. Pimchi had leapt up onto the construct's top side and was riding when this happened. Unfortunately for him, he was still tied to the now-dead, flaming skulk, which shot out of the automaton, pulling Pimchi with it. They both collided with Blaze. The party kept missing and glancing off the construct's metal surface, until Ping Pong (the others heard the noise and ran over) slid into the room in a cloud of flour, slashing a deep gouge into the construct's side and shouting something in Rokugan.
Blaze, translating for Ping Pong: That things looks like a big asshole! I want to stick my dick into it!
They finish off the automaton. Morate searches it and finds a deep blue gemstone inside it, through its sonic-beam hole. Humphrey then spends 20 minutes cutting off an arms, and then ties a rope to one of the shields found earlier to drag the heavy behind him. Also, Ping Pong spends 10 minutes dismantling an arm, then...leaves it on the floor by the exit door. Pimchi rips off a leg to use as a club??
They proceed down a hallway and spot another automaton. After a moment of caution, they see it is under construction and missing an arm and other parts. The floor is littered with metal debris and junk - it looks like an old metalworks shop. Ping Pong finds a bag of nuts and bolts.
Ping Pong and Blaze try to attach the arm Ping Pong had just removed from the first construct, onto the second one. Morate stays to watch while the the others proceed down another hallway to a 3 way intersection. Humphrey opens a door to find a semi-smashed, semi-usable alchemist's lab, with broken beakers and vials, an overturned table, and a pile of dirty rags on the floor. Across the hall, Pimchi cracks open the door and hurls in an alchemist's fire, killing four monstrous centipedes that were in the room. Huron proceeds down the hallway to check things out further, but is interrupted when...
...back in the automaton room, Morate spots a skulk that was hiding in the corner as it rushes forward to attack Blaze and Ping Pong. Morate notes that the skulk is wrapped in loose, dirty rags like a mummy. Morate summons a celestial badger to intercept the skulk. The badger bites it, and the skulk doesn't react at all, but the rags writhe and flutter about. The party attacks, with Humphrey, Pimchi and Huron arriving soon after. During the fight the rags separate from the skulk and attack Morate. The skulk seems confused, until it sees Morate and leaps forward, punching. Blaze knocks out the skulk using the flat of his greataxe, and they destroy the pile of rags.
They debate for a moment and decide to rouse the unconscious skulk. They converse with it and find out that the skulks are being forced to work for an "ugly dwarf" (uglier than Morate, the skulk points out) that lives "below" in the "citadel." This ugly dwarf, named Kazmojen, killed many skulks when he arrived, and now makes the skulks go kidnap people and bring them to some sort of lift, which brings the kidnapped people down. He also tells them that Stargloom is somewhere on this floor, and that the skulks are using it so the gnome wizard will help them by giving them keys to houses in Cauldron.
The party asks it if the skulks want to team up - save the kids and kill Kazmojen, solving both group's problems. The skulk says that they should talk to his leader, a skulk named Yothob. He says he will lead them to him. He asks them if they want the short way, which will mean a fight, or the long way. The party, who had been debating resting since Morate was almost out of spells, chooses the short way after asking what will have to be fought. The skulk says that they avoid one large room because of the "giant flying brain with tentacles" that lives there and has killed many skulks. Upon hearing this, Pimchi is excited. They go to the room he is talking about, and it is the room Huron was about to investigate before running back to fight the rags.
It is a large room with a 45 foot high ceiling, and a big wooden platform in the center of the room 25' above the ground. Above the platform just below the ceiling is a large 10' diameter wooden cog suspended by two ropes. The party doesn't see the brain thing, and the room is dark and gloomy.
Morate decides to summon a monkey on the edge of the platform, with instructions to "freak out" if it saw the monster. He mentally describes it to the monkey so it would know what it was looking for, guessing what it looked like from the skulk's vague description.
The monkey appears and instantly freaks the hell out, seconds before something huge swoops past and destroys the monkey. Blaze had readied a shot and shoots it as it flies by. They rush out but cannot spot it.
Pimchi dashes up to the platform, with the almost-dead skulk draped over his shoulder (much to everyone's horror). Eventually they lure it to the central platform, and as it flies around, pepper it with spears, arrows, and thrown greataxes. It flails away at the party with its ten tentacles but doesn't do very well. Humphrey throws a bola at its tentacles and binds three of them together. It starts hovering behind the cog to get some limited cover from the party's ranged attacks.
At one point Huron gets slapped by a tentacle and is paralyzed. However this doesn't last long because Blaze and Ping Pong both spend a hero point for Blaze to spin Ping Pong around like a hammer thrower and hurl him up at the monster, flying through the cog and attacking with his kusari-gamas. Ping Pong tries to embed both blades into it and swing up so he's on top; however only one blade hits so he ends up hanging underneath. The monster swoops down at Pimchi, however Ping Pong gets his opportunity attack and slashes right through the bottom jaw on its beak, which finishes it off. But it still crashes to the platform and slams Pimchi off to the floor.
Huron cuts off the rest of the beak and other party members remove tentacles. Humphrey makes a makeshift "tentacle whip" to...slap people with. The party rouses the now once again almost-dead skulk and they continue on.
They arrive in Yothob's room, and after a bit, they spot him standing immobile, watching them. They propose their partnership, and Yothob agrees, saying the skulks will not bother them, and he will return Stargloom to them when they show him Kazmojen's head as proof they have killed him. The party agrees. Yothob then adds that if they can solve a little problem for him, he will also reward them as best he can. He shows them that his skin is actually semi-translucent, and he doesn't know what is happening to him. The party assumes this is the Vanishing, but at this point have no real ideas on how to fix it.
Humphrey goes to a forge they passed by and starts working on turning four swords into a ...sword...shuriken, or something. Morate rests in the room. The return to the flying brain room and explore, finding a classroom, and a weaver's room. They find a secret room in the weaver's room and proceed into a hallway leading to another door, and almost fall through the illusion floor into a pit of dirty, scummy water. They cautiously investigate the water. Blaze lowers Huron down, who examines the water and finds that it is not hazardous. Meanwhile, Pimchi up above takes out the vial with the silvery dust he found earlier and starts to drink it. However as soon as he put it near his face he starts feeling dehydrated and weak and in pain. He takes a small amount of damage, which is actually enough to knock him out. Blaze hears a thump behind him and turns around to see Pimchi lying unconscious on the floor, clutching the still-full vial.
Huron pours half the vial (1 dose) of the dust into the water, which seems to disappear completely, leaving behind a small grey sphere the size of a marble. They wake up Pimchi and continue on. The door opens up into a small vault. They find some quart statues of shrews and an ivory/marble chess set, and some small pearls.
Experience points awarded: 1350
Hero Point awarded for "This thing looks like a big asshole!" quote to Tyson, especially because that wasn't actually what Ping Pong said, and Tyson made it up on the spot
Other random quotes:
Shaun: ACIDIC SPERM?! WHAT THE FUCK?! Morate: Why waste a torch when you have a femur?
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