October 28, 2023

Hook

From Long Slumber [Session 4] (Ruefang; Cayali)

Plot Synopsis

Dual Session with Zachary and Arielle (GM, Co-GM)
Co-GM: Spencer

The party, after wrapping up at the Wood temple, travels back to the City of Chongbai. They spend a day there, resupplying, getting appendages healed, among other activities. On the morning of the 27th the party sets off again, returning to the crude teleportation circle carved into the ground outside the eastern gate.

This time the portal brings them to another forest, though the trees here are less densely packed then the area that surrounds the Wood Temple. The Party continues for some time, Hunagdi once again leading the way though progress is not as difficult as it had been through the jungle. It takes about half a day's travel before the party arrives at a strange clearing. Similar to the one that the Wood temple resided in, this clearing had no boundary around the perimeter, and no obvious sign of a temple. The clearing itself was filled with several large hot springs, though the usual white steam that should be listlessly rising off the surface is not present. Within the center of these hot springs resides a cave opening, but other than it being a quite large opening, nothing else of significance stands out.

It is at this moment, upon arriving at this clearing that 3 people decide to fall out of the sky. The first falls into one of the pools, the second almost crushes Oswald, and the third lands in the trees above the party. While all of them are unharmed by the fall, the party is reasonably startled. After a quick round of introductions, the party learns that the 3 people are Oppenheimer, Guts Berkman, and Sooshi, who are here looking for some kind of dust that is a byproduct of the foraging process. With introductions out of the way the party heads inside of what is revealed to be the Metal Temple. The temple is quite unassuming on the outside, though upon bringing the key that Ujyaku closer to the entrance reveals a set of stairs descending down into the earth. The stairway is well crafted, though the steps hardly look worn. The walls and ceiling are decorated by pipes inlaid into the rock, they appear to be used to carry something to the surface- but are currently empty.

The party, now conjoined with the strangers- descend into what appears to be a darkened entrance chamber. A number of chairs, a rug, a few metal lights and a shoe cubby are all that decorate the space. Upon closer investigation, the hallway that leads deeper into the place has been marked by a number of deep gouges and scuffs, some of the lights that line the hall had been knocked askew. There is slight movement in the darkness, and the party continues on to investigate. Upon entering the main chamber, the party comes face to face with an injured Bai Long in his true form. The massive silver and white long is curled around the chamber, a number of deep gouges mark his form.

He informs the party about an attack that two spirits had held a few days prior. They, he tells them, had been there to disrupt his forage and to stop any future production of his spirit sealing weapons. And despite his best efforts to stop them- the two spirits, a weird Crane-bad abomination made of swirling wind, and a dragon turtle with the rainbow head and tail of an eel made of rushing water, had succeeded in their mission and had subsequently fled the premises. Leaving him to slowly recover in the darkened cavern. He tells both parties, if they wish to succeed in their combined goals, that within a tomb connected to the forge there was a piece of armor that was made of the same metal as the spirit sealing weapons that could be melted down and reforged into the weapons that the party so desired. The seal that powered the forge and the backup generator would also have to be repaired in order for the weapon to be forged as well.

So the parties split up, with Sooshi, Guts, Ujyaku, and Oppenheimer heading to the storage room to get materials to repair the forge, Oswald, Gilbert, NPC, and Ouros heading into the tomb. Rik stayed at the broken elevator, memlocking the place in order to make bad decisions later.

Within Bai Long’s bedchambers the party finds the place a mess. Bookshelves and tools have been strewn around the place as if someone was looking for something in a hurry. Though something that catches the party’s immediate attention is a small vermilion bird that is fluttering near the ceiling. After a struggle of trying to catch it, Ujyaku finally gets a hold on it- and Sooshi and Guts immediately try to lick the poor thing. Oppenheimer, and Sooshi somewhat, meanwhile have been actually attempting to search for the required materials and tools, and are able to find a decent number of them.

Beside this chaos, Oswald, Gilbert, NPC, and Ouros are met with their first challenge, a locked door. Across the top of the door in draconic reads an inscription, “The Tomb of Annihilation.” Gilbert takes the remaining mining charge and detonates it on the door. Maintaining their distance the party sees the door replaced with emerging spikes. Making their way past a barrage of deadly traps, the party eventually finds themselves in a room full of statues. Instead of dealing with any of this bullshit, Oswald just teleported through to the end of the next trail. As soon as all of our adventurers stepped foot into the room with the statues, iron bars trapped them inside and two of the statues came to life. Quickly dispatching the statues, the party continued to the next room, a trial of faith, a wide chasm. After a few minutes, Ouros attempted to jump across the chasm, failed to reach the other side, and landed on an invisible bridge. The party then continued to the next room, a room filled wall to wall with depictions of a great battle between dragons and thunderous birds, containing a simple button in the middle. The room had a built-in timer and began counting down. The party decided to hit the button in the middle, and the timer reset. As the timer continued to count down, the party kept hitting the button, trying to find a way to open the door at the other side of the room. After destroying all of the room’s art, and the timer only reducing its maximum time. The party decided to let the timer hit 0. The door then opened. (This canonically took 30 minutes.) Finally, the party made their way to the heart of the tomb where a dead adventurer laid, clad in the armor they needed to forge the weapons. Surrounding the adventurer were piles and piles of riches, which the party correctly discerned to be illusory. Taking only what they needed, the party safely made their way back out the tomb.

In the middle of all of this, Rik finishes memlocking the main cavern and decides to short-port through the grate into the abyss beneath the elevator. He falls… and falls… and falls… for around 800ft before reaching the bottom. Now finding himself in a darkened room, the main chamber not even a pinprick of light above him, he wanders until he finds a series of runes carved in a circle on the ground. Touching them causes them to sputter to life, and he rides a different elevator another 200ft to the floor below. Here- a different runic circle is carved into the rock, though this one appears to be broken. The tries to ride up the sputtering elevator, but only gets a few feet up before it peters out and falls back down. He tries to call up for help, but being 1000ft beneath the earth leaves his voice to fall short of its desired target, and leave him trapped within the darkness.

The party however is able to get the required materials to restart the generator and takes the elevator down the 800ft to the other opening that Rik had gone down. With the elevator unable to return, the party throws down the supplies needed to fix the rune circle to Rik so he can do it himself. After a while of carving, the circle is finished and flares to life. Suddenly it opens up a portal to the fire plane, and the party has to solve a puzzle of bridges in order to get Rik back up before a salamander that had escaped the plane could get to him. The party is able to get him up 120ft before descending a rope and pulling him the remaining 80ft. Guts breaks one of the seals which allows Rik to climb up through the grate and back onto solid ground. After succeeding in their task of fixing the forge, the group heads back up to meet with the other party.

Once back together, they all take the elevator down into the main forge area, and Bai Long glides down after the elevator has descended. The party begins to prepare the forging process once they reach the main floor.

Noteworthy Postgame Events