Session 2-0: Too Far, Too Deep
Activity Log - An ancient, alien evil returns, born from reckless greed
General Summary
It is midday when I received a letter from Dayne from a courier; I was busy volunteering in Ravensperch to the clean-up and reconstitution of the theater district there. The fires and undead plague that ravaged this part of the city thanks to Stryxis's fanatics was additionally a painful reminder that I had become far more wrapped up in the nonsense business my uncle’s Blackhearts were called upon to solve than I originally intended. It is only some miracle of long dead gods and the murder of his companions by Ian Becker that we stumbled upon this plot against the city in the first place, and though I was glad we could help thwart it, I had also lost sight of the reason I was here to begin with. Reading Dayne’s letter, which was itself a rare thing to receive out of the blue, I was forced to excuse myself from the company I was helping and traveled to his office. Its contents were curt and brief, but desperate sounding, and worst still, involved the disappearance of Horick and Cojitron, whom I had not seen since last night when we helped lock Tea Kettle in a cell in the sanatorium wing of Mercy Hill Hospital. His resurrection had come with very obvious costs, and the full moon, of which there was one last night, was beginning to force a transformation into the vicious bat creature that had become a part of him. Between that and Horick’s supernatural bonds, I wasn’t sure which was worse, though as long as they were alive I could see to it that they could eventually be helped. I just did not know how. Once I reached the office, I came across TK himself, who had not remembered the previous night’s events and said he woke up and was let out by Fez warily. He was back to his usual single minded self, so that was at least a relief. We entered the tiny waiting room and walked into his study to find Dayne surrounded by a half dozen angry people, noisily chastising him about the matter in the letter. Dayne did his best to placate them but clearly, he was still working through whatever binging he had partaken in last night. I immediately noticed the Rylander Steamtech augments on the six with him; not one of them lacked at least some measure of bodily replacement, whether limb, eyes, etc., and each was armed with various weapons. Rylan soldiers, it appeared. I had some experience with them in my time with the expedition. I did not much care for them or there distasteful practices and smoking city. Seeing us, Dayne ushered us in and told us what had happened. The previous evening, Dayne had somehow picked up on a Farspeaker SOS from one of Ryland’s vessels on Lake Tairos. Discerning where it had become stuck, he summoned Horick and Cojitron and sent them alone with a reporter from the Ghal Pelor Chronicler named Ordrekh Brogrom, whom he had invited over in order to write a fluff piece about his ruins business, to the location of said Rylan ship. Thinking it to be an easy repair of what the Rylander’s called a Class C hauler, he didn’t think to send the one member that had actual knowledge of machines and technology under his employ. Nor would TK be any condition to help anyway. I myself was involved in a late night organization meeting for today’s clean up work, and I imagine Dayen’s attempts to reach me ended with Horick and Cojitron not knowing where I had gone after we left the hospital. Naturally, they had then gone missing without a word since last evening. The six before us were a Lakewatch Rapid Response and Rescue Team that received the Farspeaker communique and somehow managed to figure out what Dayne had done and had come here to chew him out. Amusing as that may be, Dayne now volunteered us to rescue our companions and save their vessel, the Prospero, which was hauling timber most like to Ghal Pelor. Unable to turn down the assistance despite Dayne’s obvious blunder, the two of us joined them and traveled to the docks to leave right away. Though TK did not seem overly concerned, given his less than high opinion of Horick’s decision making skills, I worried they had gotten themselves into something far worse than a simple vessel breakdown. The rescue squad had a mechanized skiff that we piled into and we began our trip to the where the Prospero was sending from. The trip would take several hours, given the size of Lake Tairos. I did not have many memories of the lake despite having grown up in the city; trips to it were rare. Ironically I would spend more time near Lake Bask. That said, the water made me nervous. Too many unknowns. The team was led by a veteran named Lt. Kevaleno, a very serious man who gave us as much information as he had, which wasn’t much. One of Rylan’s governing trusts, Sabol-Raos Mining Corporation was leasing the Prospero hauler to Ghal Pelor currently. He then surmised that river halflings might have been the culprit in the Prospero’s current condition, given their opposition to Rylander technology and its effects on the environment. I couldn’t say I blamed them, though naturally I kept that to myself. A private named Gavra seemed overly eager for combat, and given the number of modifications he had, I hoped I wouldn’t have to be around him too much to get caught in his over-zealousness. The rest of the team were somber but otherwise courteous. It was early evening by the time we reached the Prospero. For whatever reason the lights on the hauler were inoperative and our skiff nearly crashed into the enormous vessel. TK, fortunately, mans the controls and keeps us from suffering that fate. Anchoring the skiff, Kavaleno remarks that not a single sign of the eleven crew, or our friends, could be seen here, which was highly unusual, especially given that everything seemed mostly powered down. He points to the command tower of the hauler and indicates that we should make our way over there to look for the last recorded records from the crew to help our investigation while they enter the Prospero from a lower entrance to begin their sweep. He sends a private named Ana Da Vega with us just in case, a young woman whose “only” modification was her left arm. I manage to get a rope over the railing and we haul ourselves to the deck. Da Vega remarks that no sign of river halfling attacks could be seen so that possibility seemed less likely now. She also admitted to not knowing much about the Prospero other than the general layout these haulers might have. From the deck, we could see the distant orange light of the Colossus I Offshore Production Platform oil rig on the lake. Though I had never seen it myself, I imagined it an ugly, brutish thing. worse, a heavy fog was obscuring our vision tonight . We enter the command center and find traces of fresh blood, though no apparent signs of a struggle. TK marvels for a bit the technology here, then gets to work operating the diagnostic scribe, pulling from it the state of the Prospero. His normally chattering voice does not disguise his concern, as he reports that the ship is damaged practically everywhere. The heat was building up in the boiler room deep within the bowels of the ship, and it was taking on water that was not being pumped out due to those also being damaged. The ship was in no danger of sinking any time soon from the hull damage, but he tells us the readings tell him that the ship’s builders would explode very soon, which would speed that process along rather quickly. TK restores lights where he can and we use the Proseperos’ internal speakers to inform Kavaleno of our findings. We then head deeper in, deciding to head to the boiler room to see if we couldn’t keep the ship from exploding. Da Vega was, to put it mildly, worried about this news. We cross through several hallways and find ourselves at the door to the med-bay. We could hear some frantic talking and noises coming from within, and we entered cautiously. The walls here were covered by a strange, slimy goo. Running my finger across some of it, I discover it to be some sort of anti-fungal gel. Such a concoction was not uncommon in the wilderness. Why smear it on the walls though? At the other end of the med-bay, a Rylander was holding the secondary door closed, yelling that he couldn’t let them in. We approached, and when he noticed us almost jumped in fear. Seeing Da Vega, he relaxes and asks if we were the rescue team. Affirming, I look through the porthole at who he was keeping out, and I spot Cojitron accompanied by an unknown elf. Not far from them was some sort of monster I had never seen before, and they were desperately trying to get inside. Objecting to this, saying something about how they could be infected, TK and I ignore his warning and while Da Vega holds him back, we open the door and the two of them spill inside. I get a closer look at this thing; a floating, human sized orb of dark flesh housing a central eye and several stalks ending in smaller eyes. It was something out of a nightmare. It charges us, but as it nears the door, it becomes repulsed. Cojitron, TK and I fire shots at the thing, eventually bringing it down, though not before it fires strange beams at us from its eyes. Each one seemed to have a different power, and though we escaped any major injury, I suddenly realized that this was only the beginning. Cojitron in a rare display of anger accused the Rylander of abandoning them. The man, a business representative from Sabol-Raos Mining named Angelico Ramone, claims he was doing the right thing for the company and everyone’s safety by keeping the potentially infected at bay. I defuse the situation, though I had thought about throwing this putrid man overboard for almost allowing my friend to die, especially considering they couldn’t even be infected by anything. Demanding an explanation, Angelico begins a long winded rant about how the ship’s engineer, a man named Kip, discovered something within several bottles in one of the company’s dig sites, under some giant, ancient tree, and brought it aboard the Prospero. There, he drank it thinking it to be some sort of fine spirit, and after a short time, fell into painful convulsions that the ship’s Doctor Zeno Naephinea could not cure before a hideous thing burst forth from his chest, birthed somehow from the sample he drank, while his head tore itself from its body to form another monster. The thing then went deeper into the ship while several other crew members were attacked and similarly infected and implanted with the spawn of these eye beings. Looking over at the elf, I was surprised to find Cojitron’s companion was a drow, based on her appearance. I had never seen one before, and Angelico accused this woman of attacking the crew at the dig site, wounding several and killing a few. They managed to subdue her and took her to the Prospero with plans to interrogate her. In the meantime, she was locked in a box in the hold, before finally being let out by Horick and Cojitron when they arrived to find the ship in the state it was in, and under attack by these aberrations. Angelico attempted to claim that she herself could be infected if not Cojitron, but a quick once over by TK, confused though she was, confirmed she was healthy if undernourished from her captivity. Unfortunately, communication was near impossible as she did not speak any language known to the crew or indeed, us. Even my fluency in my father’s language allowed me to pick up only one every fifth word at best. I tried to tell her she was safe with us and asked her name and what had happened. Pantomiming in part, she introduced herself as Phyrae, a hunter of the sacred site the Rylanders had dug into. She attacked them to keep them from releasing the things that now had spawned from Kip and the other infected crew as they were exceedingly alien and dangerous, and were used by her people in hunting rituals under very controlled circumstances. She called them “Eye Tyrants” or “Beholders”, and she was hunting at the time when they got through into the Tyrant Vault. That’s what I managed to piece together. I am loath to admit my father would have been very helpful in this situation. No doubt his knowledge extended to her ancient dialect. I asked Cojitron what had happened to Horick, and they explained that Horick, rather impressively, was the one to discover their extreme weakness to anti-fungal salve. They had brewed as much of it as they could within and used it to cover the walls of the med bay to create a stopping point against the beholders. When last Cojitron saw him, he was in the middle of devising a trap to kill the main Beholder birthed from Kip using the ship’s machinery, but was captured and hauled away in the attempt. This meant time was counting down on not just the boilers but also Horick and the captured crew; the beholders clearly needed them to create more of themselves. Da Vega makes an announcement across the ship to warn Kavaleno and the others about the beholder spawn, and we then warn that the ship is going to explode because of the heat build up in the boiler room. Angelico predictably begs us to save the Prospero considering how valuable of an asset it was, before quickly adding that the crew as well needed rescuing. We planned to do exactly that regardless, and would need to make it to the hold first. I notice Angelico acting somewhat strangely while we spoke, and when his back is turned, I lift from his clothing several packets of anti-fungal salve, incensed that he had held out on us. I gave some of it to TK and Pyrae for their weapons, and after taking the map of the ship from the wall, we set out. Not several minutes into our trek towards the hold, we are set upon by three of the parasites in the hallway, nasty, small eye creatures that attempted to infect us. We overwhelm them with spells and arrows, finding them to be far less resilient than their full grown beholder kin. Angelico suggests that he make it to the command tower and man the controls from there and wait for our and the rescue squads' successes. I glance at Da Vega and ask her to guard him, hoping that she would read my wary tone to watch out for him. I’m not sure if she did. Angelico was easy to read, people like him always were. The two go back the way we came as the four of us descend deeper. We enter the enormous hold of the Prospero, and hear a commotion in the deck below us. We spy Private Gavra firing recklessly around him, his pistols seemingly striking nothing. Apparently his eye modifications did not extend to being able to see in near darkness, ironically. I could make out a number of the eye parasites closing in on him from above and around. We are much too far, unfortunately, to make it to him in time as he is overwhelmed and taken down by the creatures. We make our way over moments too late but avenge him by killing the distracted parasites that were attempting to drag him away from infection. I take his name tag and then burn his body in case we were too late to prevent him from becoming a host. We quickly cross the hold towards engineering, as TK wants to check the pumps. It is here that we realize the boat swooning and loud noises coming from around us. TK warns that it is the heat becoming too much for the Propsero to bear as it attempts to expel the excess. It was only going to get worse as it continued to build, of which he estimated possibly less than half an hour depending on factors I couldn’t begin to understand. We made haste. We throw open the latch to engineering and find it flooding, micro-cracks in the hull having allowed water up to our waists to come through. Standing on several crates deep within, was the ship’s cook Elroy and a halfling worker named Foggle. We beckon them to come over but they say that parasites lurked the water and they didn’t dare leave the spot. Cojitron, with a light source, submerges themself and spots the culprits. Watching carefully for surface tension, we manage to catch them in their attempts to infect the two in the room, felling several more of them as they emerge from the water, leaping at the poor crew. They eventually make their way over and after identifying ourselves, Elroy exclaims that we had to save his brother, the captain of the Prospero, Tayte Landis. They say that they must have been taken to the boiler room, as that was what happened to Horick before he could finish his trap. TK got to work on the pumps, managing to make enough repairs to get them started again while patching the cracks in the hull enough to keep more water from being taken on. While we waited for TK to make his repairs, feeling the ship groan once more, I spotted a small form racing past the door to engineering. I told the rest to stay put while I investigated with Cojitron. I saw whoever it was flee into the restroom, and followed them, calling out. This was a poor decision as a parasite and a fully grown beholder got the drop on us and attacked us. Fortunately for us, Cojitron’s magic made quick work of the parasite while I put an arrow coated in the anti-fungal into the beholder. It shrieked in pain and fired off its rays, striking and injuring me, though I resisted its other abilities. Cojitron sent waves of fire at it and with some effort managed to kill the orb. Catching my breath, I knocked on the door to the restroom and told whoever it was it was ok to come out. Emerging was Ordrekh Brogrom of the Ghal Pelor Chronicle, the reporter embedded with Horick and Cojitron, and he was very relieved to see the latter, as he nearly was caught by these monsters if not for our intervention. We reunite with the others as TK finishes his repairs. Saying that we needed to get to the boiler room to prevent the imminent explosion, the cook says Horick, his brother and the remaining crew has certainly been taken there by engineer Kip’s beholder, the one that started this mess and effected the breeding of these other beholder kin and these parasites. A combination of ship’s crew and site workers had fallen victim to this, and they surmised, including the couple we had slain and “Kip”, at least half a dozen of these beholders had been born with even more parasites. In time, more could emerge from the captured victims. We arm up and head towards the boiler room, instructing the other three to keep safely behind us. Once we reach the entrance to the enormous room housing the four massive boilers, we spot the eye tyrant born from Kip; it had grown to immense size, several times larger than the others we had fought to this point. It floated around the room, surveying as it went. I snuck in, hoping to find the captives and, fortunately, evaded the gaze of this aberration and a few of its smaller tyrants. I was able to spot Horick closer in, as well as five of the crew including Captain Landis. I made it to Horick, and quietly moved him behind some cover to check him. He was out cold, and looked worse than I’d ever seen him, and I’ve seen him in some sorry conditions before. Using my ring, I peered into his body, as well as the others in the boiler room, and discovered that they were all infected and were nearly on death’s door once they were grown enough to force themselves out. As well, beyond the cover of darkness and machinery, I spotted three other tyrants with “Kip”. I signaled to the others their positions and, responding to my gestures, Phyrae made motions that Kip would continue to grow to even larger size, making him far more dangerous than he already was. Finding no way to move Horick back to safety without alerting the monsters, TK came up with a plan of his own while I remained hidden. Knowing that the beholders do not react to non-living entities like Cojitron as enemies, he cast a spell to disguise himself as a clanker and, with his own defender construct, marched into the boiler room. They paid him little head, and good thing too, as the gaze of Kip’s central eye could nullify all magical effects. Putting himself on the other side of the room, across from my position, he pulled the cube that he used so effectively on the spirit of Stryxis and called on its power again. A cascade of rainbow colored energy flooded out, bathing Kip and two other beholders caught in its cone. Two of them become badly injured from elemental magics, while Kip is hit by an indigo beam, holding it fast to its spot between the four boilers. Its movements stymied, it began to steadily petrify, stone flaking over its already grotesque and hard flesh. Of great concern is the fact that after the cube is used to unleash its potent magic, a black orb with a shining rainbow center, emerged from the cube and hovered near TK. It changed shape occasionally, rippling in strange patterns, but did little else. This was soon forgotten as Kip, roaring in anger, began the battle in earnest. Taking refuge at the doorway, Phyrae and Cojitron attack at range to cover TK’s move behind the boilers to take cover beyond the deadly gaze of the Kip tyrant. Stuck as he was, he was forced to fire his deadly beams of ocular energy at the rest of us, while his three minions moved against us. Fortunately, they were drawn to the rest of us. I emerged and struck an injured tyrant down with an arrow coated in anti-fungal gel, while the other caught in the rainbow beams was defeated by return fire from the door. TK began working on the boilers as the Prospero groaned once again; time was running out and even a neophyte like myself could tell. Kip's eyes threw strange energies at us, causing fear and confusion and even charming Elroy, who took up his fry pan against us. Fortunately for us, he was clumsy and we didn’t have to worry too much about him distracting us. Much more concerning was that Foggle was caught by a painful ray of harm, and was nearly killed but for my quick intervention in making my way to him and slipping our ring of regeneration onto his finger and stabilizing him. TK was making great progress, and he had all but one of the boilers stable in just a couple minutes. I take the time during all the chaos to pour a potion of vitality in Horick, which causes him to expel the black tar like substance that they infected him with. He began to look much better, but was still unconscious from his ordeal. I moved and decided to try the anti fungal on one of the crew, choosing another worker named Luvagret to test it on. He too vomited the black tar up as the parasite withered and died, unable to survive this substance. I needed to thank Horick when he came through for his foresight in concocting so many uses of this stuff. The battle fortunately came to a close as Kip, despite his raging and flailing beams of energy taking its toll on us and the crew helping us, eventually petrified to solid stone, unable to move from his spot during the battle to stop us. He stood still and silent, crashing to the floor from his previously floating position. TK wiped his brow as he finished repairing the last boiler and the heat build up halted completely. We destroyed the final tyrant and helped feed the remaining anti fungal to the rest of the crew before they could be turned. helping everyone to their feet, we moved steadily back to the med bay to rendezvous with Kavaleno and his team. The mysterious black orb remained near TK, emitting a strange light. He threw it into a bag for the time being, a problem to be concerned with at a…hopefully not too late a date. Helping the injured and in his case, still unconscious and heavy Horick, we find that Kavaleno encountered heavy parasite infestations and lost half his men team in the fighting, counting Grava, whom I returned his tag to. Still, meeting back up with the relieved and loathsome Angelico, he promised us a reward for having saved nearly the entire crew that was captured (less of course, the poor souls that were initially taken and turned, which was close to half of the occupants on the Prospero to start). Brogrom was excitedly pointing out that he would write a glowing article detailing our and the rescue team’s heroics in saving the crew and himself from the monsters Kip unwittingly brought aboard, though I wondered how much would be ***revealed about the mysterious shrine they unearthed that started this disaster. As for Phyrae, Angelico was willing to forgo the bureaucracy that would ensue with keeping her prisoner and let us take her to the constabulary. I had other plans, and communicated to her as best I could that we would take her to someone that could maybe help. What she knows about these things could prove useful to preventing future appearances of these things, much as I wanted to forget this horrifying incident. Perhaps Khelan at the university could help, given he is a student of Professor Galen’s. I would sooner avoid the latter as drow are not looked upon kindly by my father’s people, reportedly. Returned back to shore, where I hoped that news of this rather spectacular rescue mission would not make it too far beyond Ghal Pelor. My alias, as it were, was surely not strong enough to hide my identity from my own parents at New Sanctuary. Bogrom’s enthusiasm, though, did not fill me with hope on that end; Uncle Dayne would get his good publicity at great cost. The End for Now, ~Bayour S.
Rewards Granted
A cargo package containing the following items
- 350 Aurins for the rate of 50 per rescued
- A New Balmoran chain shirt
- A Rylan Auto Saw made from New Balmoran Steel
- Two Rylan longbows
- Two pieces of Manacite
- 1 Greater Healing Potion
Missions/Quests Completed
The Prospero and as many of the crew as we could save were saved. Whatever other cargo they were hauling is, as well, saved.
Character(s) interacted with
- Lt. Kavaleno, leader of the Lakewatch Rapid Response and Rescue Team out of Rylan
- Private Ana De Vega, an unsure young woman with a mechanical arm
- Private Grava, a soldier eager for combat with numerous modifications. Deceased
- Angelico Ramone, representative from the Sabol-Raos Mining Corporation
- Ordrekh Brogrom of the Ghal Pelor Chronicle
- Phyrae, a drow hunter that was taken from her home after she protected a sacred site. Language barrier
- Various Prospero crew members including Foggle and Elroy the cook
Related Reports
Notes
Hunting undead is dangerous business and unpleasant. Now, greed has produced the possibility of yet another horror that could come to Ghal Pelor. I hope those more learned than I can find out more about these tyrants and how to keep them from spreading if another as foolish as Kip brings them back. There are enough distractions.
