The cloudship still had a few days of recharging left, so the party was going to have to leave by summoning a Chariot of Sustarre. With thri-kreen covering the surface exits from the dwarven complex, the tricky part was going to be finding someplace where Stealth could cast for a turn without getting a pile of throwing stars buried in various parts of his anatomy. Fortunately, the dwarves had a secret tunnel that opened onto the side of a mountain (where a 3' ledge passed for a trail up the side). Unfortunately, the tunnel was so small that the only way anyone could let someone past them would be to lie down and have the other person crawl over them, and in places it turned so tightly that weapons much larger than a dagger couldn't be used effectively. (Fortunately, Beeel had learned the compact nunchaku poking style in preparation for adventuring underwater.) Still, it was the only reasonable way out, so into the tunnel they went (with Krovac mindlessly ambling along toward the middle of the marching order).
The tunnel had lots of cobwebs and insects and little spiders and whatnot, but nothing interesting happened until the party hit an ascending corkscrew through some fairly porous rock. Said were made very nice burrows for some giant rats, who managed to pass a little rabies along to Thorongil and Ganeth. (Lorcan cured them with a cure disease scroll.) On the heroes' side, the main point of interest was that Zenig had to make some sort of check to let go of Eluna, which was too big to use in the tunnel, and start fighting barehand. After the combat, Eluna gave Zenig a painful (but not damaging) shock when he picked her up again.
Some time later, the party came to a section of passage blocked by thick webs (thicker than those an ordinary spider would weave). Stealth summoned six goblins to push through the webs, and Silvana cast speak with animals to listen to some deep spider conversation:
- Spider 1:
- "Wait! Why did these guys break all our webs?"
- Spider 2:
- "Let's not be rash. We have to obey the master, and he said not to bite yummy goblin."
- Spider 1 :
- "No one would know if we jumped this lot..."
- Spider 2:
- "No, we cannot risk it. Master sees all, knows all."
- Spider 1:
- "What do these goblins want? Why are they just looking at us?"
- Spider 2:
- "Probably because we're looking at them."
The party started going through, the goblins disappeared, and Silvana bluffed the spiders by saying the Master would be displeased if the party were delayed, but eventually the spiders' instinctive dislike of Zenig got the best of them, and they attacked. (Then they died.)
Eventually the party camped, which involved lying single file along the passageway and sleeping in shifts. Nobody bothered them.
In the morning, the party worked out their plan for summoning the chariot: Silvana and Thorongil would invisibly poke their heads out first (Silvana to detrap the ledge, Thorongil to cover her while she did it), then Stealth would invisibly head out and stop summoning, most of the rest of the party would invisibly provide cover, and Lorcan would hang back to make sure nothing came by to kill Krovac.
The plan got as far as step one. When Silvana and Thorongil headed out, they saw fires burning in the valley, along with a lot of charred thri-kreen corpses. (Based on the small amounts of smoke, they guessed the fires had started sometime during the night.) On see unseen, Silvana saw a small (8-person) githyanki cruiser hovering by the top of the mountain the party was coming out of. So much for the plan.
After a little deliberation, the party decided their best chance was to blitz the githyanki. Some of the more important discoveries:The githyanki had the usual assortment of interesting weapons:
- The githyanki were using electric-powered (probably lightning-powered) machinery to drill down into the mountain.
- The githyanki were able to electrify the area around their equipment as a defensive measure.
- The ship's main gun could target people hidden by imp invis.
- A githyanki ship can fire under cloak if the engines aren't active.
- The main gun's blast was hosed by gaze reflection (though the gun saved and failed to distintegrate itself with the relfected beam).
- A stun beam that caused some scary moments for the people with wings.
- A 6d6 electroblast, where hitting AC 10 is good enough (but there's a save for half). When firing into melee, a called shot (i.e., AC 6) is needed to land the full 6d6 on the target, but everyone within a few feet takes 2d6.
- A fire cannon -- six d6 shots, each independently hitting or missing the target's full AC (no save).
- Engineering monocles (I don't think we saw these used).
- Force swords.
After the main gun bounced and a githyanki fell to the Beeel maneuver, someone aboard the ship decided to demand a surrender (in Western Common) -- hardly standard githyanki procedure. When that didn't get an answer, the voice moved on to threats.
- Voice:
- "One of you shall be destroyed each round until you surrender. We are merciful and seek to cooperate. Observe -- the murderer in the robe will serve as an example."
- Beeel: [low on hit points and hanging on to an unconscious githyanki's neck]
- "Uh oh."
The surviving githyanki fired various guns at Beeel, who ended up barely reviveable at -19. Neither side had enough unengaged combatants to both continue fighting and help unconscious comrades, so the fighting paused as both sides tended the dying.
- Voice:
- "Why have you attacked us?"
- Silvana:
- "You're trespassing on this mountain."
- Voice:
- "On whose authority are you protecting this area?"
- Silvana:
- I'm Silvana, Champion of Good. This mountain is in the territory of the mountain dwarves."
- Voice:
- "Pleased to make your acquaintance. It appears that there has been a misunderstanding. We are here on a peaceful search and rescue mission. As you tend to your fallen, we will also retrieve our dead and wounded so that they may be cared for."
- Frankel:
- "This procedure will be carried out in a lightly supervised manner. You may retrieve people but not machinery."
- Voice:
- "On whose authority is the machine being confiscated?"
- Frankel:
- "If you wish to go along to get along, and have a chance of having your very serious violations of property and life overlooked or mitigated, you might wish to reduce your objections to our procedures until a later, more convenient date. Nothing is permanent."
- Voice:
- "We will cooperate as necessary provided that we recognize the authority."
- Frankel:
- "I assure you we are not bandits seeking operating revenues, but actually operating in lawful order, such as there is here at the moment. Your patience is requested."
- Voice:
- "Thank you for your assurances, but we require greater proof than is being currently offered."
- Frankel:
- "I felt I was being rather polite in requesting no proof that you were what you claimed -- namely, a peaceful search and rescue mission. I am glad that my politeness is so well responded to."
- Voice:
- "We are representing an inter-racial alliance of unprecedented scale. A true synergy of diverse skills."
- Silvana:
- "Where is this inter-racial presence? Are you referring to the All-Mother, perhaps?"
- Voice:
- "I am a human. My ship-mates are githyanki. In the past that would have been unthinkable. We will be pleased to invite one of you aboard for more comfortable discussions. As collateral, we will leave one of our crewmembers in your care. How do you feel about this?"
Meanwhile, Ganeth (still invisible) had flown up to the ship and parked himself right in front of the main gun. The gun consisted of a firing chamber and a retractable crystalline focusing lens (which appeared somewhat fragile).
Five or six years earlier, Ganeth had picked up a potion that had some function similar to tongues. The people who'd made the potion were into blood-based magic and didn't believe in preservatives, so after sitting in a gourd for half a decade, the liquid had no particularly interesting properties other than being densely congealed, smelling really bad, looking quite disgusting, and being extremely opaque. G figured that something very bad might happen to him if he touched the gun assembly or shattered the gem, so he took out that old translator potion and carefully squeezed it out all over the lens.
- Voice:
- "What is going on? What are you doing to our ship? My collegues inform me that this vandalism has seriously jeopardized our peaceful search and rescue mission by compromising our delicate sensors."
- Silvana:
- "You mean your delicate `search' mission to go `rescue' dwarven treasure? That's a nice drill you have there."
- Voice:
- "These are baseless accusations. Your technological naivete lead you to mistake our soil sampler for an instrument of siege. We are leaving now, to help our wounded. We shall return at a later point."
- Silvana:
- "Good, we look forward to it. Please convey my respects to your fellow druids."
- Voice:
- "It appears that you are being presumptious in your hypotheses. We look forward to seeing you again under more cordial terms. At that time we may become better acquainted."
- Frankel:
- "No matter. Next time we hear that you are here, we will expect to hear that you have obtained all proper permission -- voluntarily, uncoercively granted -- from the dwarven authorities, after fully informing them of the nature of your equipment and what you intend to do here, as you did not us, for instance."
- Voice:
- "The dwarven control of this area is not universally recognized."
- Frankel:
- "Meaning, not by you? Tough."
- Voice:
- "We will return with the necessary proof."
The ship departed, Silvana sabotaged the machinery (netting five blue gems), Thorongil scouted the valley and noticed an invisible human watching the proceedings from a crevice on Moradin's Beard (the really big mountain in the area, a few hundred yards away from the mountain the githyanki were drilling into), Ganeth ferried Lorcan and Krovac up to the mountaintop, Stealth summoned the chariot, and the party flew away.
- Ganeth:
- "Oh, shucky darn. I forgot to ask them for a new liason for Jute. I just get so distracted by shiny lenses."
The chariot set down on a hilltop, and the party spent an unremarkable night in their new shelter. In the morning, a hawk showed up during memorization to warn Frankel that the party was in potential danger. (Drusius had also assigned the hawk to watch over Frankel...yippee.) The most obvious potential risk was a large hill southeast of where the party had camped, so Beeel and Zenig flew out to have a look.
As they came over the hill, the scouts saw that the western side had been strip-mined, and there seemed to be some kind of rock or ore processing plant down there (along with various smaller huts made of earth and metal, a bunch of tents, and at least two hundred figures who could have been humans or orcs). The earth around the plants was scorched in about a half-mile radius. The site had clearly taken weeks or months to set up, though it was unclear how long the mine had been there.
The party decided to wait for nightfall and sneak away in the darkness. As the party moved around the hills, Stealth heard a low-pitched humming; Thorongil thought it was coming out of the earth near the mining complex.
The party arrived back at the Hollerith Library without further incident. Nomistrus speculated that the mining complex was controlled by "King" Hektor, an orc leader (rumored to be a half-orc) who had recently unified all the orc tribes and had a number of slave mines. (Most of the slaves were orcs, but there were some goblins and humans -- thought to be captured bandits -- in the mix as well.) Hektor's orcs were known to have access to githyanki technology, and at least one unit of his army was armed with githyanki weaponry. The orcs also had a machine they called the "Dragon" that spewed fire, perhaps explaining the scorched earth around the mine. (This information was provided by an unspecified "brave halfling". Lord Zarath was believed to have been deposed in Hektor's rise to power and would be a slave in a mine if he were still alive at all.)
While the party was at the dwarven caverns, a representative from the Organization had arrived to see Ganeth and try to talk him into joining the Pentat for their impending strike against Silverton. The representative was a half-elven NG Silverton bard called Sparkle (who'd been playing her strings for Nomistrus for quite a while but got nowhere with any special effects she might have been trying for), who seemed basically okay once she toned down her barrage of (not entirely accurate) flattery...
- Sparkle: [bowing deeply]
- "It is a pleasure to meet such an illustrious group of adventurers."
- Beeel:
- "Greetings. I'm Beeel."
- Sparkle:
- "Of course -- the renowned expert from the East -- as quick with his wit as he is with his weapons."
- Beeel:
- "Actually, the weapons are quicker."
- Silvana:
- "The pleasure is ours. I'm Silvana and this is Stealth."
- Sparkle:
- "I am awed to be in the presence of the Champion. Meeting you is the fulfilment of my dreams."
- Ganeth:
- "I'll assume my identity is self-evident."
- Sparkle:
- "People like you make me proud of my father. You idealize all that I strive to be...
You must be Zanig, the warrior sent to us by our gods. When I die for my final time, I would like my soul to return in a form such as yours...
You must be Frankel, the Lord of the Centaurs. On my way here, I heard tales of your greatness from your tribe...
And you are Thorongil, no doubt. The mysterious giant slayer from the Lodge. Your exploits have echoed all the way to Auramkil."- Silvana:
- "And what brings you to our humble area of the world?"
- Sparkle:
- "I was sent here to talk to you...or rather to try my best to convince you. To be honest, I want to implore you to help my cause."
- Silvana:
- "What aid could we humble adventurers render to the denizens of the mighty capital Auramkil, crown jewel of the Empire?"
- Sparkle:
- "You may be humble, but that is because the truly great hide themselves from the common folk. I confess that I have spent a long time trying to think of how I could enlist your help. Unfortunately, I am at a loss. Were I to try to argue with logic, I would lose to your superior intellect. If I were to appeal to your emotions, I would be rebuffed by your iron wills. And if, (heaven forbid), I tried to trick you... no doubt you would just slice me in two. I do not have great wealth to offer (not that you would be tempted), nor magics that compare to the wonders that you have seen..."
- Ganeth:
- "I'd go with a straightforward honest story in your place. Just a suggestion."
Sparkle was born in Silverton once upon a time. Her mother was the niece of the legendary Silverton bard Alonzo (who the party knew back before Khambeer), while her father was a high elf with an intelligent silver berserking sword that eventually took him over. (Silvana remembers the party meeting a high elf matching Silversword's description early in their careers, living with a group of high elves who'd left the Empire for a more peaceful existence.) Sparkle spoke of hoping to make her father proud, hoping he might overcome the curse on the sword, and so forth, staring at G the whole time as if she thought he might be her father and was trying to pick something up on Esense.
(Though Ganeth did have fairly complete amnesia regarding his early life until his memories returned several years into his adventuring career, he's pretty sure he doesn't have any children, especially given the difficulty of conceiving a half-elf.)
As far as Sparkle knew, the Organization was a coalition of wealthy Auramkil merchants that came into being about a year ago, and the Pentat was the Organization's elite team. Her mentor, Noctra, had joined the Pentat about six months ago, and she'd been sponsored by the Organization ever since. The Pentat had held several meetings ("They're mainly bold posturing, I mean, strategy discussions and introductions"), where the leaders of each finger presented their piece of a plan for a concerted strike against Silverton. Organization people had been present at these (sitting in a 3x3 block formation), wearing robes with magically darkened hoods. The four fingers already on board were led by:
Noctra or Selika: Yes, that Selika. She and Noctra were still fighting over who was in charge of the finger, but the overall plan was to disupt the spiders with high-powered magery. Noctra was planning to do a holding action against the void spider, using Mordenkainen's sword and a little-known companion spell, Mordenkainen's shield. (Sparkle thought M's shield was M7, or possibly M8 or M6, and was a defensive force-type spell.) Selika had a lot of ideas, including some sort of anti-venom plan, but she'd probably end up summoning a bunch of demodands.
Jute the Druid: Jute had a trained army of wasps who were going to steal some spiders, lay eggs in their bodies (Silvana figures), and hatch a second generation of especially cool wasps. He wanted his forces to engage first so that the second generation could be up and running when the main fight took place. He showed up to a meeting in a robe that appeared composed of living insects.
Kikulek the Traveler: Given the unfamiliarity of githyanki speech, it's hard to say if this is the same name Jute was calling the dead githyanki under the dwarven caverns. The travelers were very secretive, and Sparkle didn't know anything about their plan. Some of their minions were metallic golems.
Hektor, "King of the North": He's got a skull helmet, bone armor, an army of orcs (one prong of his attack plan), and a pack of undead spider-slaying assassins (the other prong). His second-in-command used to be Khandar, his nephew whom he'd very much like to avenge; his new second and leader of the spider-slayers was a juju zombie from the East packing a howling black sword who happened to be named Yves.
The Pentat's first choice for finger number five was aparantly Alpha, but he'd gone and gotten himself hosed at Marakeel instead. (But since the Pentat had tried to recruit the party several years earlier, Alpha may actually have been a fallback plan until some revisionist history kicked in.) The party's task would have been to penetrate deep inside Silverton and destroy some power sources, thus hosing a bunch of power conduits and making the void spider "lose form". (What kind of assignment do you expect from a group whose members would mostly love to get you killed, really?)
- Sparkle:
- "I think your team is the 'middle finger'...the one that goes in deepest.
- Silvana:
- "If you were in our position, would you join?"
- Sparkle:
- "I cannot imagine what it would be like to be at such a high level. I would not presume to second-guess your decisions. But deep inside, I really pray and hope that you guys will join. When Silverton is freed, I want you to be remembered. I'm going to write the ballad, and Hektor isn't going to be playing the starring role."
Sparkle's instructions were to wait around until she got a reply (which seemed fairly likely to be negative), but right after she met with the party, Nomistrus whisked them away somewhere, and she didn't see them again.