2022/12/21: The Vault Report
General Summary
Garrek, Othar, Shane, Malthoronam, Morros, Buzz, Union
The party flies down to the giant dome-shaped mountain under which lies the vault. There are no obvious castles, caves, dungeons, or other fortifications or openings. As they get closer, they see that the dome has been subjected to horrendous weathering and possibly even geological shifting over however long it's been here. You could hide a tower in one of the cracks.
The top of the mountain is cold and snowy, with little of note besides. The party looked around for any sort of entrance. Shane used Find the Path to try to find the entrance, but got nothing but a sense of doom; the mountain is not fond of divination. Morros's bones just spelled out "DEATH". Malthoronam's Irish arrow of direction (Happy Arrow?), even after being dunked in alcohol, just went point down in the ground and grumbled that "At least you bought me a drink before ye got me fucked!"
The party set about searching manually. The mountain seems remarkably lifeless. It's covered in tight crevices, divots, and dents, many of them filled with snow. Garrek found what seem to be ancient post holes, the first evidence of civilization on the surface, but there's no sign of what might have been in them.
Othar was coming back from another fruitless circuit of the mountain when he landed and promptly got his foot stuck in a hole. He turned back to human form and dropped into the hole fully, immediately beginning to sink rapidly into the oddly square pit of slush. Morros grabbed him before he could fully go down. They dug out the strange slush pile and discovered a square hole with brickwork sides and a leg bone. The shaft goes straight down into the darkness, but is blocked off by a thick iron grate about 10 feet down. Buzz set about clearing the slush via self-explosion.
Othar tried to pull the bars out in dragon form, but wasn't able to even budge them. Garrek, with his Ancient Mountain Hammer strike, proved more effective; he battered the grate clear against the wall with a few strikes while Othar held him up. Morros dropped a light-targeted snowball down and it fell for a long time. It's something like a half mile down.
After some discussion, the party decided the safest option was to just wait half an hour for Morros and Malthoronam to memorize levitate. While waiting, Buzz set up a screen preventing any divination or observers from noticing the group.
Levitating down, they came across another grate, which Garrek similarly smashed open. Next was a fan with sharp blades, rusted in place. There is a hole in the center of the hub that stored some sort of glasslike item, shards of which are scattered. Garrek smashed through that as well, then another few grates, and finally the group came out in a cylindrical room. There are bones scattered around the room from a variety of animals and humanoids, though all the humanoid skulls are missing. There is a porthole (or 10-foot-wide torpedo tube hatch) in the center of the room, and another pointing down and to the side. Nothing has moved in this room for centuries.
Buzz detected undead in the distance.
There are maintenance panels of various sizes on the walls. While Othar went to try the hatches, Garrek went to look at the panels and Union searched the rest of the room. The mica shards scattered around the room are odd; it's like someone shattered a large chandelier or something here. Union isn't sure what the purpose of this place was, but the crystal bits are somehow important. Garrek figured out that there are little divots that can be turned to open the maintenance panels. Inside is a circular framework that could hold onto something in the middle of the room. In some of the smaller panels, there are levers with labels indicating clockwise and counterclockwise rotations. Shane used patternweave on the collected mica shards, showing him that there are two separate constructs; one was a lens, which would have fit in the fan up above, while the other was a giant mica diamond, about six feet tall, which would have fit in the large holder that Garrek found behind a panel. Shane and Union set to trying to put the diamond together in a ball of liquid generated by Morros.
In the three hours or so that the reconstruction of the lens and diamond took, Othar investigated the bones. Little could be discerned, but it appeared that some of them had been chewed, probably while still alive.
The levers turn the crystal to different directions or cause the whole thing to be pulled back into a safe hatch in the wall. The group set a light source on top of the fan lens, and after some adjustment, they discovered the light could be focused towards one exit or the other. The light was odd, almost more a softly glowing mist than normal light.
With some oil and some elbow grease, Othar and Garrek got one of the hatches open. It leads into another half-mile tunnel, studded with mica that scatters the light further and brightens things more. As the adventurers troupe down the tunnel, they find maintenance rooms filled with useless remnants. At the end of the tunnel is a trapezoidal room much like the cylindrical room. Three exits, one at 45 degrees, one at 15 degrees, and one more. There is another crystal controlled by further levers. On two of the exit doors, there are odd locks, featuring repeating patterns of squares or triangles. Garrek suspected they would have to point the laser through a certain sequence of rooms, but Union figured out it was just a matter of adjusting the patterns so the symbols match in the proper orientation. Union got the first, but the second stumped him until Garrek muscled him out of the way and fixed the orientation of the dwarven runes.
The group tromped off down the leftmost path and found a square room, much like the last two. The crystal in this one was smashed; Buzz just went ahead and used fabricate to replace it. The group passed on to the last of the four utility rooms and got that crystal working as well. The only paths left were tunnels going downward at an angle, accompanied by odd ladders. They did also find a broken hand-elevator. The group repaired it, and it turned out the light from the crystals was its power source.
The group finally made it out into the miles-wide expanse of underground dwellings and fortresses and city under the dome, now well-lit and yet entirely devoid of life. There are signs of mass transit, a village on the far side of the cavern built in an entirely different style, and altogether a beautiful underground civilization (or even multiple civilizations).
The light source is being scattered by another crystal, but a portion is being focused into a narrow hole straddled by a 400-foot-tall colossus. It has soft features, a wide nose, and plate mail. It is astride a chasm that goes even lower.
The architecture appears to largely be humanoid, with much of it looking like orc or goblinoid construction. Perhaps they moved in after the dwarves and grey elves and whoever else was responsible for the creation of this place moved out. Or perhaps this was a giant enclave against some horrible threat outside.
The party set out for the hole in the ground via jetpacks and dragonback. And then the colossus took a swing at them.
A gigantic black stone axe appeared out of practically nowhere, nearly bisected Union, and nicked Othar.
"The axe was significantly larger than your body, it was basically a very sharp car accident."
Buzz hasted the party and readied to intercept the next axe with a wall of force. Morros had to act quickly to keep Union's blood cycling through his body so he'd last long enough for Shane to get to him. Shane withdrew, healed Union and Othar, gave Union a boon of chaos in hopes of preventing him from immediately dying again, and then ducked low to hide in the darkness surrounding him. Othar, for his part, went fully evasive. Time to be gone.
Apparently having escaped sudden death, Othar found a landing spot and the group disembarked. Before they could get far, though, they were attacked again. Four nine-foot-tall vaguely apelike beings wielding a variety of melee weapons charged from the shadows.
Buzz responded with a wall of magma backed by an elevated wall of force (so that if they tried to jump over the wall of magma, they'd go bonk and slide down).
There was a fizz and smack, and the two walls went down. One of the creatures was left on its back and the next on fire, but the remaining two got through. One tried to grapple Othar. Its first attempt was parried by his dancing sword. Its second got him by the neck, and it followed up by picking him up and smashing him into the ground twice. The smaller of the two creatures shanked Morros (who just looked down at him) and was promptly filled with arrows by Malthoronam. He looked down in confusion, appeared almost able to stay up, and then collapsed.
Othar cheerfully activated darkfire skin, and was surprised (and annoyed) to find that the creature did not let go, despite the burning. Garrek decided Othar was probably fine and set himself in front of the rest of the party, calling for the creatures to come and get him first.
Buzz pulled his Uzi and perforated the creature holding Othar, but it still failed to die. Shane hit it with touch of chaos, but instead of collapsing into a pile of flesh and sinew, it grew tentacles from its shoulders and continued to beat Othar against the ground.
The third creature charged Garrek. The bull rush failed to break through Garrek's shield, but it did toss him 20 feet. The fourth breathed out the wall of magma he'd eaten as a breath weapon that struck the whole party. Malthoronam once again responded with arrows, and the the one holding Othar died giggling.
Othar, tired and hurt, climbed to his feet. He looked over at the dwarf cheerfully facing off against the headbutting creature, pointed his finger at the eater, and said "DIE." Unfortunately, the creature ate the subsequent dark fire soul strike as happily as it'd eaten the wall of magma.
Morros, similarly grumpy, buried the creature in a shower of acid. Its mouth was full, so it wasn't quite able to eat this as well, but it certainly tried, dancing in the rain. Union followed up by using psionic control to try to keep the thing's mouth closed. Garrek countercharged the headbutter to no effect, and was launched backwards again (to similarly no effect).
The eater, dancing in the acid rain, tried to open his mouth to breathe death on the party. He failed. The party got to watch him twitch as black fire ate out from behind his eyes, and then he collapsed.
And then there was one.
Buzz chose the lazy option and cast missile multiplier x4 on Malthoronam. Malthoronam proceeded to replace the headbutting monster with an equal mass of high-velocity arrows.
Inspecting the bodies it, it turned out these were garn. Some sort of neanderthal things that can eat anything and gain power from it.
Rewards Granted
3 XP, some magic items from the garn.
Malthoronam
Union
Morros
Othar
Shane
Buzz Gizmo
Garrek Bardinson
Report Date
21 Dec 2022
Primary Location
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