Session 3
General Summary
Previously ...
The Party had helped the kobolds inhabiting the main gem mine of Termalaine to make contact with the townsfolk and reach a settlement between them that would benefit both. Through this transaction, a spirit took over the body of Oarus Masthew in front of the party and carelessly drove the kobolds away. The party did manage to finalize the contract and dropped off the kobolds at one of the houses of The Miner's Guild of Termalaine. As they left the kobolds to their fate, the emotions were mixed, but tiredness called them all to rest..Calm afternoon meal
19th of Flamerule, 22:40 Tirten met back up with the party as they were leaving the kobolds, after his long day out in the forest, gathering herbs and chatting with the locals. He heard from a group of rabbits that the winters had become more difficult in the forest for some reason, as if it never ends.Guard duty
19th of Flamerule, 22:50 The party decided to take a detour and stop by the Town Hall to observe Oarus Masthew in his natural habitat. He appeared to be looking through various diaries and had a pile of books in front of him, but otherwise looked normal. It was decided that they would leave Exo'six a.k.a. EX-06 to guard the town hall to see what Oarus does during the night, and everyone else will head to The Eastside to get some much needed rest.A difficult night
20th of Flamerule, early hours of the night While Mervin was slumbering quietly, there were bizarre and worrying dreams had by multiple people. Hex had vivid reruns of the event in the mines and the consumption of his flesh by the grell, until, at some point in one of the dreams, he felt wide awake and saw the figure of a tentacle faced humanoid observing him as he was being eaten. As they gazed at one another, for a moment Hex felt like something was caressing the insides of his head, but he shrugged it off, and soon after, the dream continued. Minerva observed the world around her developing rapidly, as if watching the evolution of the lands through thousands of years. Aabel had a dream about a wolf chase, but woke up in the middle of the night, noticing a green glow coming from the bag he recently found. Pho saw a green haired clown tell him "We live in a society".Eternal Watch Paying Off
20th of Flamerule, 03:00 At some point, after being occasionally pestered by guards in the night, Exo'six noticed the light in the office of Oarus turn off and shortly after, he appeared on the steps leading down from the entrance.Exo'six decided to follow him. While following Oarus, he noticed a group of Auril's cultists heading outside of down, with two half-naked young men in between them, but decided Oarus is more important. Oarus eventually arrived at the Tower of Ingenuity, which is a partially destroyed temple to Gond. Oarus entered and opened up a secret entrance near a statue and descended somewhere, taking a good while, as around 15-20 minutes later, he emerged with a sizeable bag and returned to the town hall, where he stayed awake until the early morning, as his office was lit throughout the night.
Morning Troubles
20th of Flamerule, 09:00 During morning breakfast, the party notices a young decently dressed young human observing them, though they try to be secretive about it, but fail miserably. There's also Aabel in disguise, who is also observing the party at the same time and creating a tense situation in the table. After breakfast, they decide to set up an ambush for their trail, and it works. An individual called Saamuel steps right into their trap and is the assaulted from the back by Aabel. A short chase ensues, but they capture him easily and try to interrogate him in an old shed with some light torture through removing his pants.The man appears surprisingly armed and simply states it's for self protection or that he's always wanted to be an adveturer. After relocating his pants and giving him back what's his, aside from two strange vials he was carrying, Pho leads Saamuel to the guard office, where Saamuel is happy to go. Upon reaching the guard office and entering it, it becomes clear that the guard on duty today recognizes him immediately and reveals that he's a friend of Morgan Black. Pho seems fairly satisfied by it, though the situation does seem unclear, as it doesn't seem as if Saamuel has any indication of reporting the attack and subsequent torture, he simply states to the guard that everything is fine and it was simply a misunderstanding. The party then pick up Exo'Six and learn of what has transpired throughout the night and decide to head to the Tower of Ingenuity.
Tiny Gnomes come with large ladders
20th of Flamerule, 10:00 They arrive at the Tower of Ingenuity and find it in the same shambled state as it was in the night. There's a part of the wall missing and appears to have been blown out from the inside.While there is a door, there's an opening that could easily be climbed through. The party meets Gladells Irlin Glasshopper, the current High Craftsister of the temple of Gond and reveal to her the event that occurred last night and the state of Oarus Masthew. The diminuative gnome invites them inside for a deeper talk and brings up a small ladder chair to be on eye level with her new flock. There are some mentions of steam powered automatons, which Gladells appears very interested in, but coming back to the topic of Oarus, she seems somewhat surprised at first, but is willing to go down the secret entrance to take a look. Obviously she asks the party to look away as the opens the secret entrance through a button on the underside of the large statue holding the cogwheel. After not but a moment, she huffs and puffs right back and looks deeply concerned states that there might be a problem, as something important has been taken from the vault, something that was there for the protection of the town in case of attack. She seems to believe the party and asks them to wait as she grabs someone else and have a word with the captain of the guard. Soon after, she returns with a much taller, though still normal sized, if a bit chubby half-elf in tow, who fights with the door and tries to push something inside. After a while, the party sees a walking chair run from the broken section of the building and arrive right next to the new guy, who sits down on it in defeat.
After a short conversation, the party is led by Gladells and followed by a running chair, on which the other cleric is seated and head to talk to the captain together.
An audience with the captain
20th of Flamerule, 10:20 Under the care of Gladells, the party have no trouble gaining an audience with Morgan Black immediately. The guard at the front allows them entry to the back rooms and the party goes through a long hallway with 6 doors that ends at a common area with multiple guards who are playing cards or sharing a meal, who only throw passing glances at the party.Aabel was unwilling to enter the area for some reason, so he stayed back. From the common room, there were multiple doors leading on, but Gladells picked one of the central ones and barged right through, stopping the conversation Morgan was having with two individuals in the room with him. There was Saamuel, who had met the party just an hour earlier and another individual who seemed a bit more distinguished, but also fairly anonymous and disappeared from the conversation as Gladells started talking. Thanks to the help of Gladells and her explanation of the situation, Morgan was more willing to believe the party and they hatched a quick plan to lay and ambush to catch Oarus, should he be a threat as expected. The idea was that Morgan was going to have his planned meeting with Oarus a bit earlier and during it, coax him out of his office and into an overwhelming force, causing him to likely capitulate, while also giving Morgan a better overview on what he's dealing with.
Morgan also took an item from a locked drawer in his desk, which he placed on his arm, which supposedly offers protection from this particular threat. The party is asked to take up position in the perimeter, just out of eyesight of his office and the entrance of the town hall, along with a smattering of guards and other individuals. It seems Morgan's friends were happy to help out. In total, there were four distinct groups waiting outside the town hall:
Ambush in broad daydark
20th of Flamerule, 10:40 As everyone waited outside, eventually Morgan and Oarus stepped outside, and Oarus seemed jovial, even. Definitely not as he was last night, but seemingly more his usual self. As they descended the stairs, Oarus noticed the people lying in wait and immediately grabbed Morgan, but seemingly nothing happened.Morgan simply smiled and spoke out loud "You're under arrest", and attempted to subdue him. Alas, Oarus was slightly faster than Morgan and revealed a strange device under his sleeve, which he activated, yelling out "You fools, I would have helped this town!", shortly after which, a shimmering air appeared over him and the earth began to rumble, as a massive earth elemental and fire elemental emerged from right beside Oarus. What ensued was a short, but terrible fight, as the elementals attempted to take down his attackers, while Oarus seemed to focus on Morgan for some reason. During the fighting, it became clear that Oarus was protected by some form of field that would not allow any entry to projectiles of physical items.
At some point, the fire elemental engulfed Oarus completely and was barely visible within it, when soon after, right when the battle appeared to be turning as the elementals were losing form, the fire elemental and earth elemental were pulled strongly towards eahcother and merged in a bright flash of heat into a mix of the two, combining into a lava elemental which was larger than the two combined. Thankfully, the lava elemental was injured, as it seems the damage sustained by the earth elemental carried over in its form somewhat and it was leaking internal heat. Though it's questionable if this helped the group fighting it or not, as it used said lava flow as a projectile against it's opponents. The fight lasted a short, but intense period, as arrows pelted the elemental and the party tried to bring it down whatever way possible. At some point, it was becoming clear that it still has a lot of power left, while the party was constantly being burned by it's massive fists and waves of heat at seemingly random times or whenever they touched it directly.
Thanks to the paladins in the party and the clerics of Gond, the party was being kept alive, but slowly withered down until everyone was becoming exhausted. At some point, the clerics of Gond decided to take a chance to attempt to subdue the magical construct, and with their combined effort and a lot of luck, they succeeded, as the elemental opened up and ejected Oarus from within it, though he was still protected by a shimmering field around him. Seeing little chance of beating this, Oarus decided to try to make a run for it, but was stopped dead in his tracks by Mervin, who used a spell without physical form that bypassed the barrier and dropped Oarus like a sack of potatoes. Shortly after, a ghostly form emerged from the body of Oarus, but was trapped within the shimmering shield that was still active around the form of Oarus. With various individuals attempting to finish the fight, they ran after Oarus, leaving the lava elemental fixed in place as it was no longer being controlled. However, something strange happened, as suddenly, the lava elemental appeared in the middle of the air and crashed down exactly on top of the freshly downed body of Oarus and the ghostly apparation, causing an explosion of heat which almost killed everyone nearby, aside from the ghost, which was safely protected by the shimmering shield. However, seconds later, the shimmering shield ran out of energy and disappeared, causing the lava elemental to crush anything below it, including the unconscious, but alive body of Oarus and the bag around his neck, which burned, thus releasing the ghost from its earthly prison. Before the ghost disappeared, it seemed to have a sense of peace on it's ghastly visage, before being interruped by Mervin and going to the afterlife being quite upset. The fight was over and people were healed successfully before they bled out and nobody other than Oarus was killed. After the ordeal, Morgan Black thanked the party and asked them to stay in town for a while, as they figure out what to do with the situation and have things calm down a bit. He promised them a reward and an open tab in the local inns and taverns until they're ready to meet again, at which point they will be summoned.
The following days
20th-24th of Flamerule The party made The Eastside their home for a few days and did various things across town. The next day after the fight, the lava elemental disappeared on its own and the area was cleaned up.Rumours/news heard or bought by the party
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