Session 7: A Mysterious Device
With the guards closing in, the PCs hesitate, caught between the choice of retrieving Fancy Boy in the street or escaping into the portal. Suddenly, Riya, who had mysteriously vanished earlier in the day jumped down from a nearby roof, grabbed Fancy Boy and sprinted toward the house. One by one, the PCs entered the magic portal, PPP going last as he rummaged through the pockets of the fallen thugs.
On the other side of the portal, the PCs found themselves in some kind of gnomish workshop with walls of rough hewn stone along one edge and smooth and curved stone along the others. Inventions in various states of repair and construction or deconstruction were sprawled across several benches and a cauldron set in the corner with two potions sitting on a bench near it. Stair led up from one corner of the room and out of sight, while another door led into what appeared to be a kitchen or a pantry. Above this door was an open window looking into a bedroom above.
The portal dimmed as PPP came through and became solid stone. As some of the PCs turned to deal with the unconscious Fancy Boy, a curious Terlis began to head up the stairs. No sooner had he set a foot on the first step then a whirring noise came from one of the walls as a large metal globe detached itself from the wall and plonked down in the middle of the room. it then whirled in motion and extending two feet and two arms that ended in scything blades. Clearly, the party had set off the workshop’s guardian.
Everything was a blur of motion. Kiki and Zhang Min both attacked the orb but found that their blows could not break through the heavy metal plating easily. Suddenly, the orb spun again, scything away with both of its arms. Kiki raised her shield in time to doge the blow, but Zhang - who had been injured earlier - was caught full force and flung against a nearby wall to tumble to the floor and slowly begin to bleed out, unconscious.
Meanwhile, Riya and Terlis had both headed up the stairs where they were able to look out at the scene from the window. Terlis cast spells of freezing that seemed to barely effect the monster. Riya prepared to leap back into action, but then noticed writing on the orb that said:
Strange writing on clockwork device
Hust Nowd: llory loppy, post!
Riya realized it was a riddle of some kind but couldn’t understand the meaning. She shouted out the words to her compatriots, most of whom were too engaged in battle to figure it out. Then Riya leapt from the window, coming down with a rolling sumersault and attacked the construct, her ninja-to having difficulty penetrating its armor.
While Kiki and Riya wethered another spinning attack, PPP was able to use soothing words to get Zhang back on his feet although he looked very pale. Meanwhile, Clancy rushing up the stairs to join Terlis, puzzled over the riddle and suddently realized it was an anagram. Reaching the top, he shouted out of the window: “rolly polly, stop!”
As he said the last word, the orb’s legs and arms suddenly retracted and it pulled itself back up into the wall. The threat appeared to be over.
As the PCs recovered, Clancy led an interrogation of Fancy Boy. Fancy Boy was a member of the pirate gang run by the infamous (so he claimed) Captain Tusktooth. They “acquired” a myserious device from a raid on a merchantman some weeks ago. Not understanding its nature, but with the possibility of it being a powerful magic item, they had taken it to Alston Fapplestamp so that he could figure out what it was. They had given it to him a week ago and haven’t heard from him. Concerned that he took the device for his own, Captain Tusktooth sent some of her crew (led by Fancy Boy) to track him down.
As Clancy interrogated Fancy Boy, the remainder of the party investigated the workshop. They quickly realized from looking out the window that they must be on a small hollowed-out asteroid somewhere it the belt. Among all of the various junk in the workshop, Mid found an interesting crossbow of unusual design that seemed usable. Kiki made an even more important discovery in the kitchen area where the words, “say the name of my love to return” on the mantle were written. Most importantly, PPP found a piece of correspondence on Alston’s messy desk. It was from a librarian named Helene at the Great Library of Bral. She explains that Alston’s book entitled “A Treatise on the Nature of Arcane Mechanical Devices for Storage” had arrived in the library and he was welcome to come pick it up at any time.
With no further leads, the party decided to head for the library. After tying up Fancy Boy, they said “Nix” to open the portal and headed through, ending up in a pile of garbage in an alleyway. Cleaning themselves off they headed for the library.
At the library, the party made the acquaintance of Helene, a rather stern looking older human woman. PPP pretended to be Alston’s brother while Terlis pretended to be his nephew. PPP explained that he was looking for Alston and had not been able to find him anywhere. Although Helene was initially suspicious, PPP’s charm won her over. Alston was an important contributor to the library and so she was worried that he had been out of touch.
Helene led the pair of gnomes to Alston’s private reading chamber on the second floor. In the chamber, they did not find Alston, but they did find numerous books splayed out, all having to do with arcane storage devices as well as a mysterious device on the reading desk. It was something like a tall candle holder made of gold. At the top, four spokes shot out at right angles to each other. Each had a gem of a different color: red, blue, green, and yellow.
PPP convinced Helene to find another library specialist in arcane devices and when she left, the gnomes stuffed the mysterious device into Terlis’s bag of holding, while PPP cast a minor illusion of it still sitting on the desk. When the subject specialist returned, he immediately made a move to the device, but the intervention of Fat Bat was able to distract him in order for the gnomes to quickly say their goodbyes and leave. The librarians left the room, none the wiser.
Meanwhile, Zhang in full barbarian regalia, was hunting down a book on the Elder War. He was able to find one, and tried to sneak out with it, but a guard noticed and he was forced to check it out formally.
Not sure of what to do next, the party returned to Nyx to ask her further questions, but she had very little information of use. She did mention that Alston sometimes visited a magic dealer named Kuku. Following this slim lead, the party headed to Kuku’s Curios, where they met a strange crow-like creature who spoke in an odd and not particularly helpful way. Stymied again, the party returned to Alston’s workshop to assess their situation.
As Clancy once more interrogated Fancy Boy (and gave him a few goodberries for sustenance), Mid experimented with the strange device. She found that if she touched a gem, it would light up as if from some internal light source. If she touched it again, it would turn off again. Thinking perhaps it was some kind of passcode, Mid tried a particular sequence of all four colors.
Instantly, with a flash of bright light, the entire party (but not Fancy Boy) were transported somewhere else entirely. They found themselves in a 30x30 foot room that was entirely empty except for some runes drawn into the ground that glowed with a light blue light that was slowly dimming to nothing. Unfortunately, none of the PCs could decipher these particular runes. One exit led out of the room into a hallway.
Not one to be deterred by sorcery, Zhang Min led the way out into the hallway. Taking a right, he strode confidently down the hallway until he entered another slightly larger but also almost barren room. In the corner of the room, he heard heavy breathing and turning his head, saw a rather large demonic ape creature looking intently at him. Suddenly it bellowed out a challenge and began to charge the party. Zhang was the quicker however and met it midstride with his mighty maul. Suddenly, everything was chaos as the demon ape struck out with its huge fists and the party fought back with maul, sword, ninja-to, and arcane energy. Zhang took some hits, but grinned through them refusing to show this demon dog his pain. His obstinancy angered it further and it focused all of its rage on Zhang. This was a mistake as suddenly Riya leaped through the fray and in mid-air, buried her ninja-to in the beast’s chest all the way to the hilt. Black blood oozed out. The beast snorted and collapsed dead.
As the party regained their senses, they noticed that all three entrances to the room were marked by similar runes, although they could not understand them. Suddenly, they heard a humanoid voice shouting at them from the doorway to the west. Rushing out, they found an older gnomish man with goggles, holding some strange contraption. He was situated inside a pit trap that he had turned into battlements with some spare wood.
After some initial tense moments, they learned that this gnome was indeed Alston Fapplestamp. He had also been caught here by pressing in the wrong code to the device (“Shoulda known better, but curiousity gets the better of me sometimes!”). The object he held was a “blunderbuss” that apparently could shoot powerful “bullets” at his foes. After the PCs related their tale, Alston explained that they were most likely in a trap the designer had made for people who tried to steal something from his arcane storage chamber. Only by pressing the gems in the correct order would anyone be able to reach the treasure chamber of the inventor (most likely a powerful mage).
It was agreed upon that the only way to proceed would be to trudge onward and hope to find some kind of exit. As the PCs proceeded down the hallway, they came to a door. They opened the door and found a chamber with two mad-looking gnomish creatures with blood-red eyes holding giant scythes. The two creatures giggled and began to move toward the party.