Second Ptolus Campaign Journal, #54
8th of Wind
Down in the Generator Room of the Tower of Science, Barbatos, Feruch, and the Cobbledman ably disable the generators, but the small blue dragon is still all trussed up. The wizard tries to speak to him in Draconic, but all he can make out in response is a small voice that whimpers, “Mother…” Barbatos tries to teleport out again with the dragon and the others, but the spell fails. And then they hear banging at the door.
Meanwhile, far upstairs, the rest of us are pretty stunned at the arrival of an agent of Destor/House Dallimothan and his modified ethereal marauder. (It seems that up here was as close as they could appear to the delivery of the dragon.) Diethan agrees to help him free the blue dragon on the roof above us while we continue to work on the door to the aelectrical key. Diethan tries to get the armored man to go into the (nonoperative) elevator shaft with him, but the warrior is suddenly distracted by noticing Archinemus, who’s trying to pick a lock. “Who is that?” the man loudly demands. “Why does he have that aura about him?” Aura? We’re confused. During all this conversation, Calista opens the door with a spell.
“You have the mark of destruction upon you!” the warrior says to our sibeccai friend. Archinemus explained that he served Destor some time ago, but no longer serves as the Champion for that god. “You are the former Champion?” the man asks. “I have heard of your betrayal. You must die.”
A shocked Archinemus begins massive diplomatic efforts to save his skin, while Diethan and Calista search the room for the key and I stand guard. They find a locked cabinet labeled “aelectrical key” and Calista opens it. Meanwhile, Archinemus and I manage to convince the (slightly slow) fellow that the sibeccai hopes to redeem himself in Destor’s eyes by freeing the blue dragon. “Then we must go! The Champions of Destor will free the blessed one!” He races with Archinemus to the elevator and blasts a hole in the elevator’s ceiling with his lightning sword. Meanwhile, Calista and I work on creating a magical duplicate of the aelectrical key. With the duplicate stored in the cabinet, we close everything up and leave the vault the way we found it. Hopefully anyone thinking about this will believe we were all just coming up through here to get to the roof and muck up the delivery. They will have no reason to think about the key.
Diethan climbs quickly up the elevator shaft and runs right into a couple Shuul knights and an orc dressed as a technician. Also up there on the roof is a cleric of Teun and a half-dragon: It’s Sartoris, the one whose ghost we met in the future. “Guard the dragon! They’re after the dragon!” cries the priestess of Teun (how could she champion enslavement this way?). Diethan battles the orc (one of those recently sold by the Brotherhood of Redemption, I imagine), while Archinemus stuns several of the assembly with his flayer pistol, and the Champion finally makes it up to the roof.
Back in the Generator Room, Sir Feruch frees the dragon from its bonds while Barbatos calms it down and renders it invisible. Then the door opens and they see a sophisticated Shuul construct. “Saboteurs! Lawbreakers!” it calls out. Feruch launches himself at the creature and slays it while Barbatos fries a couple Shuul dwarves with a lightning bolt. Then the wizard disguises himself magically as a Shuul knight, and they depart the Generator Room and exit the Tower out into the street.
The battle on the roof continues, and my friends seem to acquit themselves very well. Priestess Assara of Teun remains stunned for much of the battle, and most of the knights fall. But then Archinemus gets severely wounded, and Shuul Chief of Security Arnor (the dwarf in powered armor whom Diethan heard about earlier today) rushes him on his armored boar mount. I fly up the elevator shaft with Calista just in time for her to enclose Arnor in a resilient sphere. I race forward to engage Sartoris, noting the bound and unconscious dragon on the floor nearby. “Tyrant!” I cry at the half-dragon. “Slave trader!” At the same time, a strange dispelling-bird up here on the roof manages to rid Arnor of his resilient sphere, and he charges Calista. Damn! And things were going so well!
Just then, the cavalry arrives in the form of a flying Barbatos (and the Cobbledman carrying the little dragon, still calling out “Mother…”) and Feruch. The wizard casts a great lightning bolt that takes out the dispelling-bird and a Shuul gunman. Diethan helps Calista polish off the crazed Arnor, and the force of my blows knocks the slaver right off the roof. “I’ll never forgive you…!” are his dying words as he plummets to the ground. Another lightning bolt from Barbatos slays our final Shuul foes and burns away all the bonds that were holding the dragon captive. The disoriented creature breathes a gout of electricity at Barbatos, though, and we all back off. Feruch levitates up from the ground and releases the (now healed) child dragon, and we think this is a good time to leave.
“Oh, holy one, House Dallimothan and Destor have sent me here to save you,” the Champion of Destor says to the blue dragon in Draconic. “It is through my actions that you are now free.” We all give him a dirty look.
The dragon replies only, “Fools.” It reaches out to grab the child and then flies off.
“My work here is done,” the windbag Champion announces. “It has been a good day. You have all served me well.” Then he fades away. Barbatos releases the dirigible docked up here and blows it up with a fireball. Exactly why he does this we’re not sure, but it makes a huge flaming wreckage that falls down onto the houses below. We fly down from the roof and help put out the fires and pull people out of the wreckage. Our spellcasters heal the victims and luckily no one dies; one house is completely wrecked, though. The Fire Brigade and City Watch show up quickly to help and we are able to slip away. I make a mental note of the addresses of the damaged homes; maybe I can do something to help these people out.
Session CIV – 14th of Wind
It’s been a week since the mayhem at the Tower of Science. During this time we hear that the Shuul have filed an official complaint against House Dallimothan, seeking reparations for the attack which caused destruction of property and deaths of Shuul members and locals in a terrible fire (but we know that no locals died). They claim it was in retribution for the Shuul’s having dealt with an evil dragon that otherwise would have harmed the city. House Dallimothan claims total ignorance of the event, but no one seems to believe them. Assara Guntemeyer, priestess of Teun, is representing the Shuul in this matter; the organization even printed up a proclamation of their side of the story. No mention of Savane comes up, even though he’s usually their spokesman.
We also hear that the fishing has been incredibly good lately in the bay of Ptolus. Authorities attribute this to a lack of predators. Aha, the sahuagin are gone, since the Covenant of Blood that bound them to the vampires here is gone. Wow, we actually are responsible for helping the economy!
Aprata Nachov this week delivers our three chaositech anti-technology bombs for our attack on the Great Drill. While seeking information on how mechanisms like the Great Drill works, I learn that in Kaled-Del beneath the city some dwarves have developed a mobile drill for going through rock. Diethan introduces me to some dwarf friends who tell me about Kaled-Del (but I learn very little about drills).
When we return to the house late that night, Feruch is there. He looks battered and filthy and reports sad news: The Siege Tower is in ruins. There was an enormous explosion and the whole top of the place was destroyed. He was buried in rubble in the blast. When he came to, he worked to help his fellow knights. Phadian Gess is dead, as are most of the other Keepers of the Veil. We had heard recently that someone (the Balacazars) bought a really big bomb from the Cinderpriest. We had warned the Keepers, though. In fact, Sir Feruch says that only two days ago, Phadian hired a wizard named Yula Phalass to protect the Siege Tower against magical intrusion and other assaults. Our friend thinks that leadership of the Order has now passed to Sir Navar von Kestrel, of Tarsis.
We all retire with heavy hearts, but I don’t think any of us gets much sleep. Well, maybe the Cobbledman.
