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The Daring Dozen Go Through the Tunnel! "Who are these people??!!" Summary #1: Dangers of the Tunnel Party Roster:
and Gram, scholar, 56 hp, played by Kyle MacLea A quick rundown of the Daring Dozen, or those remaining: The Dozen began adventuring in 2172, right about the time Middle was founded. They traveled to Tan-El, and in early 2173, lost 3 members to the Sphinx in a deal gone horribly awry.
Since then they have decided to remain at no more than 12 members, particularly in light of the Stone Soules' explosion in party size. Two other original members were killed in separate later adventures.
The party is generally good, and quite unified. They do not have the agenda of the Stone Soules, merely a desire for adventure and righting wrongs.
They have replaced the 5 dead members with lower level people, ranging up to 4th level in 2186, which is the setting of this adventure.
Xavier has already left for parts unknown by this time. Eli, Theo, and Alegra work on the plans for the colonization of Tan-El, Eli from his Ziggaraut. Ludo and Theo are primarily disinterested, and Theo's conservatism weighs heavily in his opinions about the plans.
Sahrak has vanished to do something, perhaps start a travelling circus. Raven is patrolling the forest near Tan-El for threats. The party has essentially splintered.
Rangorn decided to join the expedition, primarily because he felt that his adventures, while frightening beyond belief, were not enough to satisfy his adventuring spirit. Since the Daring Dozen lack a woodsman of his level, Rangorn fit in smoothly, and acts as the governmental representative on this mission.
The Daring Dozen:
Laire, 8th level male human fighter. The party leader, Laire wields a powerful magic bastard sword.
Togull, 8th level female dwarven fighter. Togull is a heavy crossbow specialist, quite beautiful for a dwarf. She is also dumb as a stone, and never does anything except under orders from Laire.
Jessica, 8th level female half-orc fighter. Jessica is a hammer and shield fighter (much in the tradition of Felix from the Defenders). She is very difficult to hit in combat.
Nara, 8th level female Auroran cleric. Nara is a powerful cleric and warrior. She provides all the clerical powers for the group.
Nief, 10th level male human thief. Nief has risen to an exceedingly high level due to his willingness to take risks and scout ahead. He has done well in the Daring Dozen style of adventuring, which consists of wandering around and finding monsters to beat up.
Feagle, 7th level druid. Forgot the name. This character provides supplemental healing, and druidic powers. Unable to take the punishment that Nara can, the druid is more likely to remain in the back of the party. The Dozen have not found as much for the druid to do, and so he has fallen behind in level.
Hildebrandt, 8th level male human mage. Hildebrandt has many spells observers will recognize, and he and Eli did quite a bit of trading during their adventuring heyday. He is quite durable for a wizard.
Rangorn, 6th level male half-elven woodsman. Born in Cromwell but raised in End, Rangorn was a latecomer to the Stone Soules. He was the last in a series of mid-level woodsman, and a bow specialist to boot. Rangorn is very durable and is a good bow specialist and melee fighter, able to switch between both roles easily. His tracking abilities are valuable to the Dozen.
***
The Dozen made their preparations and entered the Tunnel in March 2186. Alegra had received the response from Konrad, and so the pressure doors and death fields which had plagued the Southern Waste groups caused little trouble for the Dozen. However, the problem of the all the doors remaining open at once was enough to coerce the party into anchoring themselves down each time a door was opened.
If the all the doors in the Tunnel are open at the same time, the huge pressure difference between the ends will cause horrible winds to rush down, often blowing hapless adventurers into death fields and such.
The party trooped down the corridor, and discovered that the first door was completely destroyed. Rangorn tracked about the area, and it is believed that the behir was responsible for this.
Fortunately, other doors were not destroyed. After slightly more than a day's travel hampered by fallen debris, the Dozen reached some sort of central way station with niches cut for campsite and such.
There were a number of bones in the area, which appeared to be creatures clawed to death, rather than smashed.
Astrologies from the beginning predicted the next encounter. Two bluish-gray golems came from the darkness and attacked the party. Fortunately Hildebrandt was able to identify them as flesh golems, and knew not to attack with lightning.
Hildebrandt threw up a Wall of Fire, which slowed the golems. An amazingly successful Dispel Magic from Nara stopped one of the golems in the flames. The other advanced slowly.
Rangorn shot the golem with a +1 arrow, which did affect it. Togull was also firing magical crossbow quarrels. The golem closed with Laire and Jessica, wielding twin axes.
Jessica hacked off one of the axes to avoid being held at bay, but was stunned by the golem. An Aid spell from Nara restored her to normal, and she and Laire proceeded to beat its head in. Both of them are devastating fighters, and virtually every member of the Dozen has at least some +2 weapon. Furthermore, there is a +3 and a +4 weapon among them as well. The +3 is called Tracker, and it lets the wielder know the location of the last creature hit until it hits someone else. I forget what the +4 was.
In any case, after Jessica hacked off the other axe, they finished it off, and Rangorn, Jessica, and Laire closed with the second golem, which had recovered and moved out of the fire. Along with a stab from Nief, they took the creature down without much trouble. One of the creatures fell back into the fire and was consumed.
The bronzewood axes were recovered, and one of the golems was examined. It bore no resemblence to the ones seen commonly around Tan-El, which was interesting. They had been created with a Manual of Golems, rather than at a lab.
After resting briefly, the Dozen pressed on... and found the behir's less portable treasure. It consisted of hundreds of thousands of copper and silver pieces, totalling around 15000 gp. They were dumped in the Castle Bah-Nareth in Tan-El, along with the magic gargoyles. The gargoyles turned actually to be the monster, gargoyle, though the triggering conditions are unknown.
After that pause, the Dozen returned to the Tunnel. We pressed on to the other half of the Tunnel, which consisted mainly of regular interval pressure doors. At one point, weird rock creatures emerged from the wall and attacked Nief, but missed, and Jessica smashed one apart easily. The others fled into the wall in a bizarre manner.
Up ahead light was visible, so the party set up camp, as it was getting late, and stood a careful watch. There was a faint sound of a tolling bell during the night, but nothing else.
In the morning everyone was still there, and we proceeded forward. We entered a huge room which appeared to be some sort of station and campsite again. An amazing Read Languages from Nief revealed that the sign there indicated this was like Customs at an port.
Rangorn noted with unease that there were signs of movement and action here dating only a few hundred years back, rather than the expected few thousand.
Light was streaming out of an opening up ahead, and we pressed forward.
There was the City of Gold, or City of the Gods, or City of Spires. It definitely was the City of the Ancients.
It was a city alien in nature. Up ahead was a wide causeway that led across a lake, which was blanketed in fog. In the center of the lake was a large black spire. The city was like half of a pie plate, with a raised center. The other half of the pie plate was set into the mountain. The four sections were split up by roads running toward the center of the mountain. The light was rather dim actually, and it appeared that daylight was something of a gloomy affair here.
The city itself had NO signs of ruin. It appeared to be just sitting there, waiting. There was an organization that went beyond that of Tan-El, which was more of a sprawling metropolis. There was a huge dam at one end that blocked the lake, and oddly enough, a PORT was located on the lake, which seemed far too small to support such commerce.
It was not cold, and although we had definitely gained significant altitude, we were not incredibly high in the mountains.
There was a huge building the center, perhaps twenty stories high and the size of a large city block. The land area was around 2/3 that of Tan-El, but with the height of the buildings it could perhaps hold MORE people.
Up above us on the top of this side of the Tunnel, was a sign that clearly indicated "Tan-El." There was no sign of a name for the city or anything.
This is where we left off. I hope this information has satiated at least a little bit of curiosity!
Joel/Rangorn (top)
The Daring Dozen return in Episode Two! Party Roster: Tobull, 8th level fighter, 103 hp, played by Kyle MacLea After the first panoramic view of the alien city of the Ancients, the Dozen decided to explore further. We headed down the causeway, and descended into the thick mists, reducing visibility to about 30 feet. The walkways (and for consistency, virtually everything else in the city) was built about of black stone, volcanic rock. It was noted that the water was warm and bubbly, and we could see weird shapes flying somewhere above us.
We reached the tower in the center of the lake. Thanks to Jessica's engineering knowledge, it was decided that it was impossible to build a structure like this tower, since it was ridiculously thin for its height. About 50 feet across, it rose entirely out of the mist and high into the air.
There was some sort of window, or arrow slit, about 40 feet above us. We also noted a small hole, 1/8" thick, by 1" deep. We moved on.
Around the tower, we could travel toward the city, or toward the hillside. We decided to check out the area away from the city first. We reached an archway similar to the one that said Tan-El where we came out. Near it was a neatly stacked totem of skulls, which we believed to be dwarven (dark or not). As we approached, a huge column of black flame came out of the causeway and passed over Jessica and Tobull. Fortunately they were able to remain unlit, and merely took moderate damage and wounds. They reported that they had felt negative material energy pass over them.
It was noted that below us on the shores of the lake was a perfectly intact dock, with a perfectly intact single square sail ship.
Discouraged by the powerful trap, we turned back and headed toward the city. Suddenly, the walls loomed before us. They were 30 feet high, out of the same volcanic material. The door itself was a pair of huge single slabs of rock. On them were all sorts of scratch marks and weird runes, which were definitely not in any known language, as Nief determined.
The runes had been carved at some point, and then polished over at some later point.
Hildebrandt cast a Comprehend Languages, picking up that the big runes were "City of the Gods" with a slight connotation toward "City of Your Gods." A small section of the smaller runes read something like "Umble servants, bow down before your masters." It actually said "umble," not humble.
The walls as far as we could see were magical.
We stopped being impressed at some point, and Jessica threw a grappling hook up for Nief to climb. He actually blew his first try (despite a nearly 200% chance of success) but made it up on the second try. Rangorn and Tobull climbed up, bows drawn. Nief went down other side, and discovered little drawer handles in the huge doors. They swung open easily, and for a moment everyone felt a flash of being in a weird tunnel, and then the feeling was gone. We clambered inside and shut the doors.
As the doors opened, a bell of some sort rang loudly two times, alerting the entire valley we were there. When it shut, the bell rang three times.
We moved through the bizarre city toward the nearest "building." The city was twisted and bizarre-it was almost as if it was made out of melting wax. There were no right angles and everything was bent and snakelike.
We checked out one of the buildings, a huge six story structure with numerous rooms, each with a single solitary window. There was no furniture of any kind, or anything at all in the weird rooms. Tracking revealed nothing.
A second building revealed the same sort of thing. At the top of both buildings was another one of those 1/8" by 1" holes, indicating a door that presumably led to the roof. Curious, Nief climbed out onto the roof of the building. He discovered weird blue-green plants growing there, neatly potted in twisted planters.
He walked between the planters toward the door on the roof, leading into some sort of sub-building two stories tall, but couldn't make anything out through the window.
We headed back down, and made a quick survey of another building, which was slightly shorter. In addition, it should be noted that in these buildings there was a central column glowing red that gave off heat, which we referred to as "central heating."
The next building had a stairs down, and we discovered a basement, behind another door.
Suddenly, we heard booted footsteps.
The party walked back up the stairs and tensed. A group of skeletal dwarves walked by, wearing tattered armor, leading a HUGE spider, also dead looking, along the road. When they reached the building, they stopped and stared at us. Slowly they all pointed at us.
We decided to exit by a back entrance.
The fog was so heavy that we couldn't see more than 15' in either direction. We heard a strange noise coming from above, and we went the other way. Navigating a maze of buildings and thin alleys, we eventually came out on the road again.
Weird yellow spotlights were searching for us. We headed toward the searchlights in an attempt to reach the gate, and spotted another slow moving dwarven squad. The spider's eyes were glowing yellow, and the beams were perhaps being controlled by the dwarves.
Realizing that we needed to get past them, Hildebrandt thew a fireball at them, and THEY SCATTERED. In a way completely unlike automatons or mindless undead.
We shrugged and charged toward the gate. It didn't open at our push, so we intended to climb over. The noise was getting louder, and Jessica tossed the grappling hook up the door. Suddenly, the door opened, and we ran out. The noise was close, and we shut the door behind us.
We walked back to the tunnel entrance, and spotted three seagulls there. Feagle spoke with them, and they revealed that there were weird bat things that smelled bad near the dwarf area, and attacking blue plants in the city. They told us not to go to either place.
We headed back through the Tunnel to set up a relay system, and will continue the quest next time!
Joel/Rangorn (top)
Adventure #3: Better Left Undisturbed? Party Roster: Tobull, 8th level fighter, 103 hp, played by Jack McKechnie Jessica, 8th level fighter, 79 hp, played by Alex Hubbard Laire, 8th level fighter, 73 hp, played by Kyle MacLea Nara, 8th level cleric, 64 hp, played by Katherine Plante Gram, scholar, 56 hp, played by Kyle MacLea Rangorn, 6th level woodsman, 56 hp, played by Joel Green Hildebrandt, 8th level mage, 39 hp, played by Alan Turnquist Nief, 10th level thief, 36 hp, played by Jack McKechnie Feagol, 7th level druid, 33 hp, played by Jeff Andreou
The Daring Dozen. All seven of them stand as one. Proud noble warriors. Abruptly aware that perhaps this Tunnel thing might not be their cup of tea. We pick up with a Divination cast by Nara, the 8th level Auroran cleric in the Daring Dozen. The result was that "the forces of Neutral Evil are unwilling to release their hold on this location EVER." The Dozen set out into the City of the Gods to determine the nature of various sounds and creatures we heard the last time out. First, a Speak with Dead was cast on the bodies of some adventurers we had spotted on our previous trek into the city. It should be noted that although many valuable things had been left behind, all of the magic items had been taken from the bodies. Conversation with a dead dwarf warrior revealed that the party had been hunting troglodytes and had been slaying them, when suddenly they were mysteriously attacked by the "water." He remembered nothing after that. Additional exploration of the city revealed that there were several of the creatures that made the scraping noise, but we couldn't seem to spot them until Feagol changed into a crow and flew on a search for them. The party had been heading into a section of the city that looked quite a bit more ruined than the rest, possibly through siege engine attacks. The buildings had been smashed and the road was uneven. Feagol heard the familiar crushing sounds and moved downward to investigate. He found himself staring at a golemlike creature, coated in metal. It moved like a gorilla, on one fist. The creature had a nine foot long blade for an arm, and probably would have stood 15 feet tall had it not been hunched over. It looked at Feagol, and then rocks shot out of its head, nearly taking the druid out of the sky. Feagol fled back to the party. The party retreated to its now customary point of retreat, the gate. The creatures didn't seem to follow, even though it was clear that at one point they had us surrounded. Feagle did a full scouting of the area near the gate, and we discovered that they didn't seem to come within 500 feet of it. However, there were five spotted immediately outside that radius. They seemed to cluster and sneak up on us whenever we wandered through the city, but they didn't attack. We hypothesized that they would, however, given the opportunity or a weakened party. During one of our treks through the ruined area we spotted a slime-covered group of dead reptilian creatures in a pile. It seemed reasonable that they were troglodytes. We decided to check out the other side of the city in the hopes of it being different. There we spotted another of the undead dwarf and spider parties. The dwarves were repairing the road. When we approached, they all pointed at us. This time we weren't buying it. Laire asked them who their master was. The dwarves just pointed at us. Suddenly, a strange-looking creature popped out of thin air near us. It identified itself as Melbourn, the imp. Despite being evil, the creature was very bored and talked with us at great length. We discovered that its master was the lich, Baelzar. Oh goody. [And no, we don't fight it during this adventure, so you can already knock it off with the skeptical looks!] The lich rules the City of the Gods, or at least is a major player. His headquarters is in the Citadel at the top of the city. There are four other important players here, though the imp would only reveal that the golem creatures were referred to as Guardians, and that they belonged to "the Necromancer." The imp himself had been working for Baelzar for three millennia, which we assume is about the time of the fall of Tan-El. His master had gained control of the city then. There was some sort of "Plan," but the imp was extremely frustrated for several reasons. First, this Plan never seems to end. The short of it is that his master and the others are fighting off the "invaders." But this has been going on way too long, and the imp regrets having accepted the "choice assignment." He's really annoyed with his "intelligence of a large dog" and hopes some day to become a pit fiend or something. Second, he gets a glimpse of pit fiend intelligence for about ten minutes every week when he communes with Baelzar, which essentially leaves the imp with a splitting headache and makes everything even worse. Third, undead dwarves just don't make good company. Neither do husks of spiders. The imp suggested that his poor mind couldn't understand the complexities of the situation, and that we should really being asking Baelzar and that he could set up an audience for us. When asked if we would survive the audience, the imp explained that our chances were currently running 1 in 4. What happened to the last party to get an audience? Well, after a few days the lich grew angry with something one of the party members said, and... "Zot!" said the imp. "And the few that survived the zot?" "Zot again! That took care of the few that were left." [So this "zot" thing seems like a bad idea. Since we didn't have Chono's wand or Fred's amazing open hand attacks or even the help of an Anarchist sphinx,] We decided against attacking the lich, and declined the interview. The imp described in a small amount of detail how the masters of the city (which he called Cuperilia) were battling the "invaders" and how their whole plan involved repelling and eventually defeating them. They had not yet been successful. He did note that the invaders attacked a lot, often nightly. This diminished our opinion that it might be the dark dwarves from across the way (at least alone) and suggested a farther reaching danger. If a lich, a Necromancer, and several other powerful beings (of Neutral Evil) cannot defeat something given 3,000 years and a lot of magic, then it is NASTY. Thoughts were given to the Kraken, though the lake was ludicrously small to have contained one (it might have HELD it, but it couldn't have swum around). Mention was made of "when the city was drained," some larger number of years before. The imp also mentioned that if we went to the dam at night, "all would be clear." Of course, he added, we also wouldn't survive in all likelihood. All of these things weren't likely to kill us during the day, just during the night "when all you goody-goodies run home to hide from the boogy men." The imp scolded Hildbrandt for having blasted some perfectly good workers the other day, and the mage apologized. The imp of course laid down the usual threats. He said that we could kill anything coated in slime, but that it would be dangerous for us to destroy anything else. Baelzar considered us unimportant right now, but if we caused trouble there would be disproportionate retaliation. When we asked more about "the invaders," the imp merely explained that they were the "bad guys." They attacked quite often and the dwarves were always hard at work repairing the city from the invaders' damage, while the forces of the various players in the city defended it. Finally, it should be noted that on two separate instances in the middle of the conversation, the imp's eyes briefly changed color (I believe to a reddish color). (It was assumed that the lich was using his link to his familiar to scan or view the party. The imp knew the party's alignments fairly trivially, and probably knew where all the magic items were as well.) We returned to the gate and then decided to talk to the seagulls about the dam. The birds said that there was nothing unusual about the dam or anything behind it, other than the fact that occasionally a gull would simply vanish into the lake. We had heard similar things about the main lake as well. Feagol flew over the dam in crow form. The dam itself rises 150 feet above the main lake of the City of the Gods (where the docks are). At the base of the dam on the lake side is a small dock with a path leading up. On the other side of the dam, about 70 feet down from the top of it, is a large area composed of soil with a decent sized lake away from the dam. There were several buildings of normal appearance, rather than the melted wax look. The windows and doors were all shut. There appeared to be several control devices for some flooding. If the dam were to burst suddenly, the water that would flow down would be enough to put the entire city other than the Citadel underwater. It all looked extraordinarily innocent. Finally, we decided to attempt a barrage of Speak with Dead spells on the dead party. We were able to reconstruct quite a bit. The party consisted of nine people, including two dwarven fighters, a thief, a half-elf wizard named Yorn, a human Nevronian cleric named Bill, a female elven archer named Topaz, and three others. Topaz's body was not there but it appeared that the others were accounted for. (Others had stated that Topaz was in the best position to escape, being at the rear. The party is definitely interested in tracking her down to ask some questions.) The party had been hunting troglodytes in Grimjaws Caverns, a cavern system 52 miles northeast of Macedon (almost due west of Tan-El and a little bit south), in the foothills of the Hadarna mountains. Interestingly, although the bodies had been dead for about a week when we found them, they claimed it was November 2184. During this game it was April 2186. The party had slain many of the troglodytes in a big battle, and killed their shaman. The creatures retreated and were pursued by the party until they reached a large underground cavern. There was a beach of some kind and a large underground lake. The first party member stepped toward the shore, and suddenly disappeared as he fell through the beach. The sand must have been some sort of illusion, and he dropped through without even any rippling. The wizard Yorn was next in line, and called out for the party member, but he had vanished. Suddenly, the wizard was grabbed by something and dragged onto the beach. And suddenly he was falling and found himself in water. Weird slimy stuff started choking him and he assumed he had been choked to death. The cleric, Bill, had turned to help a fallen party member at some point and had realized too late that the floor was an illusion. He fell through it and found himself in the water. To his shock he wasn't drowning, and that was all he remembered. One person (a dwarf?) actually saw the creature. He turned around just long enough to see a tentacled being. There were a lot of illusions that made it difficult to see the thing. The member of the party that we presume is the mage Yorn (or at least a smart member of the party without armor), described some memories from AFTER the falling into the water. He described being underwater, but not choking to death even though he expected to be dead. He observed some very large creature next to him, with luminous lights of some kind on it or near it. He was then smothered by some kind of choking slime. He assumed he died then. But here comes the kicker: Though it is spring of 2186, all of these party members agree that it is late 2184. The last member questioned pinpointed it to November 12, 2184. BUT: Nara's Speak with Dead can only reach back to those who have died in the past month. So, how did they "die" in November of 2184 but still remain within reach of Speak with Dead in 2186? Theories abound. There had been thoughts of time travel of some kind. But most folks agree that likely (though the dead have no memory of it) the party did NOT die until it ended up here in the CotG in the past month. The last member hinted at actions that came AFTER the pull into the water. This begs the question. Was the party kept in stasis/brainwashed/dominated etc. during this period, used as soldiers for this tentacled creature, perhaps in its attack on those members of the CotG? It has been suggested that the underground lake in the Hadarna mountains could theoretically link to the City of the Gods or perhaps magical transport could have been used. Alex suggested my favorite explanation. Some kind of creature with mind control or illusion ability, say a mind flayer or REALLY small Kraken, attacks people at various locations, takes them along the waterways, and brainwashes them. They are then used as shocktroops in this creature's (or his associates') invasion of the CotG. The invaders may be dark dwarves or the like or the dark dwarves may in fact just be a symptom of the problem or a part of a larger coalition. (Most of us had thought of this basic idea as well, but the "shocktroops" piece is the part of the puzzle that didn't make as much sense until you thought about it afterwards; the rest seemed very likely to be true, but not with any purpose). The lake is too small to fit a true Kraken, but perhaps a weird modification on one would be possible. Gram knew that the name the imp gave for the City of the Gods simply meant "slave city" and referred to the generic name of cities the Kraken (had) built for their servants. When the lake was filled, only the "Citadel" would have been above water. This is where we stopped. There are some serious questions about whether this mission should be done by the Daring Dozen or by the Stone Soules, a party much more prepared and willing to spend huge amounts of time scrutinizing the information and doing scouting. Though, it is clear that the powers in the City of the Gods are incredibly dangerous and at least rival Tan-El in difficulty. The hope is that a balance that has existed for 3000 years will remain that way long enough to find the power to dispatch these people. This definitely comes full circle. "Better left undisturbed?" Joel/ Rangorn |
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