Awg Wahmn (Calmonari 7)
Chaff (Vivimancer 7), with familiar Pretty Bird and riding raptor, Sue
Kwinsea (Aquamancer 7), with familiar Hermes
Rodrigo (Swashbuckler 7)
Wilhelm (Musketeer 2) [NPC]
Glimpsing at least one other 'yellow man', plus a second figure lurking in the room beyond the stairs, Rodrigo sensed an impossible tactical situation and bellowed to everyone "down the stairs!" And down the stairs they went, jumping off the sides of the open metal staircase in their haste to get away. The party spread out in a circle around the base of the stairs and waited for their foe to follow. It soon did, or rather another automaton with a fully functional blast cannon did. Behind it marched the one with the mangled weapon. The first leveled it's weapon and fired a blast, thankfully missing. Kwinsea managed to get an angle where she was able to blast both with a lightning bolt. This blew the already damaged one into it's constituent pieces, and scorched the shiny armor of the second. Chaff then followed up with a web spell that trapped it on the stairs, and it then took just a bit more pummeling from Awg, Rodrigo and Wilhelm before it too was 'aggressively powered down'.
Meanwhile, Chaff had started casting a chimera spell, and summoned a mossy, be-tentacled, insectoid monstrosity. He ordered this up the stairs to attack whatever it found in the room above. The rest of the party, with Rodrigo once more in the lead, followed some distance behind. They emerged to see the monster lashing out at a humanoid creature. It was tall with reddish skin and black eyes, wearing some type of silver jumpsuit, and with a collection of golden chains across it's face. Its skin and flesh were very decayed and immediately everyone figured this thing was the undead or undying Armul Urthag. The creature raised a laser pistol and shot the summoned monster as the rest of the party charged in. Wilhelm walloped it with the butt of his musket, but Awg and Rodrigo could make no contact. Kwinsea cast spider climb to get above the fray, while Chaff tucked himself behind some machinery to start summoning another chimera. Armul cast a fan of magic missiles at Kwinsea, Wilhelm and the moss monster, all of whom survived. The party followed up with some hack and slash by Awg and Rodrigo. Kwinsea tried to help from above with a blast from her prismatic ray gem, but hit the unfortunate Wilhelm instead and thus permanently ended his employ with the party.
Having been badly beaten by Awg and Rodrigo, Armul's next spell caused him to disappear. Both Awg and Rodrigo lashed out again, assuming he'd just gone invisible. But their weapons hit empty space. Chaff by this time has summoned his latest creation, an ooze-like multi-legged, lizard headed nightmare with poison breath. But for the moment at least, there was nothing for the creature to attack. That didn't last long, for all of a sudden Kwinsea (clinging to the ceiling), noticed a roof hatch opening and the hideous face of Armul Urthag appeared. A few words of a spell from him, and the room the party occupied exploded into a fiery inferno. Everyone suffered hideous damage to within an inch if their lives; or in Chaff's case, an inch beyond. The little vivimancer stumbled out from behind the machinery and collapsed dead on the floor. But not before he'd directed his latest creation to breath its' foul breath on their foul foe. Kwinsea meanwhile had been trying to silence Armul, but the spell effect ended up centered on the hatch itself rather than their attacker. Awg had used his/her sword to levitate up to the hatch, and then planted a grappling hook into the creatures flesh. In return. Armul shot him with the laser pistol and Awg drifted away dead. Kwinsea, after quaffing a healing potion, cast another silence spell and this one stuck to Armul. Rodrigo for his part had rushed over to Chaff and rifled through the vivimancers pockets, grabbing the ebony fly, which he then summoned and flew up to take Awg's place in the air. Once there he tried to grab the grappling hook and haul Armul out of the hatch. That didn't work, so dodging laser fire he simply drove his short sword into the creatures face. Armul's skull split in half, and his body slipped through the hatch and fell to the floor below.
With a sigh of relief and a word of thanks, Kwinsea and Rodrigo searched their fallen friends for healing potions and tossed back the life giving liquors. They then respectfully dumped the bodies in the bag of holding for transport back to civilization and hopefully raising. But first they still had to find the "Null" so they could complete their mission. While Rodrigo set to ripping jewelry out of Armul's face, Kwinsea looked around the room, There were two KRYO-Tanks, one with the same types of hoses and needles as the ones in the room below. The second had been sealed shut at some point, and inside floated a mass of the blackest black. This amorphous material showed no features, but Kwinsea got the impression that it was moving and whirling about none the less. This, based on the description given by the sage, looked to be the "Null". But what to do now; there was no obvious way to get the primordial magic force from point A to point B. There was a connector on the KRYO-Tank that was matched by an identical one on the stasis cube, but there was no way to join the two. Kwinsea and Rodrigo started to search the room, but found nothing that matched the connections, There was a small locked metal cabinet next to one of the KRYO-Tanks. There was no obvious keyhole or lock, but Kwinsea did not a smooth shiny patch on the front. She tired pushing on it to no avail, before dragging Armul's corpse over and tried his fingers. This worked, and with a 'click' the cabinet opened. Inside there was no connector, but they did recover another laser pistol and 8 fully charged cartridges.
Having no luck on this floor, they climbed up through the hatch to check out the roof. There they were able to examine the collection of poles, round disks, and guy-wires they'd seen from a distance. But still no connector. They headed back down the tower, searching the tank room, fallen automatons, and storage room to no avail, They even questioned Gor, who was of no help. In the end the only place left was the floor with the elevator guardians. The two were very wary, knowing they stood little hope of winning a fight at this point, But since Rodrigo had been successful in sneaking behind them before, they decided to take their chances and get into the room with the door frame and weird machinery. Once there, they saw an obvious switch on the free-standing door frame. And after some hemming and hawing, Rodrigo reached out and flipped it on. The frame lit up and after a few moments a shimmery figure appeared in the frame. It looked like a young female of the same race as Armul Urthag, dressed in a similar silver jumpsuit and with the same golden chains on her face. The figure spoke, but in a language neither Rodrgio or Kwinsea understood. Kwinsea dug out Awg's mother of pearl egg in the hopes it would help. It didn't seem useful, but after Kwinsea had tried saying "hello, we come in peace" a few times, the hologram's speech slowly shifted to near perfect Common. "Greetings. How may I be of assistance? I detect that you carry a Mark 4.1 v2.3247 stasis cube, and four Mark 1.3 v1.112bis65a laser pistols. Do you need assistance with your technology?". Kwinsea asked quickly about connecting the stasis cube to the KRYO-Tank, and the hologram indicated it was simply a matter of using the correct dongle. She gestured vaguely to the left where a piece of machinery suddenly came to life. After a few minutes, the moving and shifting pieces stopped to revel a length of hose or wire with connectors matching that on the stasis cube. The hologram then helpfully informed the pair that the stasis cube could hold the full "4.7 uladecs" of null energy contained in the KRYO-Tank. Questioned about what that meant, and explaining the ultimate planned use of the "Null", the hologram indicated 4.7 uladecs was sufficient to form an anti-magic shield of 4.9 imperial square miles (4.2 Esarian standard miles). Which, after a few quick calculations, reveled an issue with the party's plan to save both Bellephrone and Xin from the Mists. There wasn't enough "Null" to cover both the Anchorage island and Xin.
But that was a problem for another day. After first getting the hologram to recharge all their laser cartridges, Rodrigo and Kwinsea headed back to the shore boat (recovering Chaff's dinosaur along the way) and made their way back to the "No Man's Sea". Once there, they directed Lynessa to raise sail and make haste for the Anchorage and Belleprone. They were especially urgent for now they could see an eerie creeping mist on the eastern horizon; it looked like they had little time to waste. Getting back to Belephrone after a weeks' voyage, they took the sorceress up on her offer to bring back fallen companions as her payment for their help in breaking the cycle of the Mists.
After couple of days stewing in the pot, Chaff and Awg returned more or less as before, and the party had to decide what to do. Bringing Bellephone into their confidence, they definitely committed to saving the sorceress. But they had hopes of also saving Xin, convinced now that it was the target of the returning Mists. No one really relished the thought of their home getting removed from this world to travel trapped through space and time for all eternity along with the rest of the Far Isles. Besides, all their gold was in the bank there. But they didn't really care much for the Faceless Inquisitor, and so hatched a plan. They would use a third of the "Null" to protect Bellephrone, and use the rest over Xin. But would ensure the Palace of the Faceless Inquisitor was outside the protective shield so the insane ruler would be sucked away with the rest of the Far Isles. This unfortunately, due to the geography of the city, meant several other districts of Xin would be lost (Blackmilk, UnderHulks and the Collegium). To save as many of the people from imprisonment in the Mists as possible, the party decided to throw a party like Xin had never seen before and invite everyone from those districts especially. Then they could make sure the people stayed under the protective "Null " shield and a least they would be saved. And since, if the plan worked, the city would be ruler-less, Chaff decided to go into politics. The little vivmancer with the intestine hand would try to woo the crowds, take credit for saving them, and take over the city with help from the rest of the party.
Within a few days, the Mist had crept within sight of the Anchorage. Bellephrone informed them all the islands to the east (the Jungle Isles, Coral Cays and others) were already engulfed. As the Mist started to lap the shores, Chaff mounted the ebony fly, and following the instructions given by the hologram, spread a protective semi-transparent magical shield over Bellephone's end of the island. With that in place, the party jumped aboard the 'No Man's Sea' and headed at top speed for Xin. There, they organized their party and Chaff quietly started paying bribes and clandestinely campaigning [19000gp total cost]. The party was a smashing success, and while the city was lost in a haze of celebration, Chaff once more use the fly to spread the "Null" shield. Everyone thought it was part of the party and cheered him on, but when the Mist moved on after a few days to reveal the missing parts of the city, they all sobered up in a hurry. Chaff, building on his new-found fame and connections, put out word of what happened and claimed credit for saving Xin. But the people saw only the gaping hole where their homes and lives had been. They instead rallied behind one of the city nobles to lead the city; the party's doppelganger enemy, Margrave Uhlan of the 30 Chains! Driven out of Xin by a raging mob, the party jumped aboard the "No Man's Sea" and headed out once more on the high seas ....
AND HERE ENDS THE 'FAR ISLES' CAMPAIGN ...
TOTAL XP
141980
2 laser pistols & 8 cartridges
18 jeweled chains (7460gp)
18 jeweled chains (7460gp)
KILLS/VICTORIES
2 Automatons
Armul Urthag
The Faceless Inquisitor and approx 40% or the population of Blackmilk, UnderHulks and the Collegium
Armul Urthag
The Faceless Inquisitor and approx 40% or the population of Blackmilk, UnderHulks and the Collegium
LOSSES
Chaff [temporarily]
Awg [temporarily]
Wilhelm [permanently]
Chaff [temporarily]
Awg [temporarily]
Wilhelm [permanently]
