Loose Threads: Drow, Skitterforge, Fleshwarps, walled Drow city out of power, Drow know more about the surface dwellers, Catchis has been brainwashed?
Participants: Diane Firalel, Kodzak, Geld, Reiko Amiri, Dolen Harven, Vhel and special guest Catchis Slake
Locations: Unexplored Continent, Giant Mountain, the Drow City.
Short summary:
The party traveled into the depths of the darkened caves beneath the Continent, destroyed a power plant via nuclear meltdown, and invaded a heinous torture facility known as the Skitterforge in the interests of retrieving the now horribly mutated Catchis the Tyrant. Along the way they discovered that the only real torture was the friends we made along the way.
Full report: Dolen
So it Begins
The meaning of this mission is mercy. Mercy in toppling the truth of one Tyrant, Catchis Slake. Since his unknown fate, it has been tough sleeping a solid night. This Unknown for one is thankful for the good hearts of these fellow guildmates in their aid to an ally.
Our travel started timid; a week of walking worked us to the wide mountainside, up to a very familiar tunnel filled with some sort of sorcerous lichen. A superb second of snooping from Vhel allowed us to catch the magic rune that would trigger the trap that we'd tripped last time. Reiko Amiri had a way of dispelling the rune-trap before we alerted our adversaries. That opened up our operation!
Tracking and treading, we threaded our way through twisting tunnels until one final turn treated us to a torn trail: a rope bridge, broken and battered, dangling off the side of a chasm. With the rope repaired, we crossed and collected ourselves to keep going forward.
We worked our way wandering through walled stone until the stone itself began to wane into this wondrous purple. And suddenly there we were, in a wide wondrous cavern with glowing purple crystal scattered around and a walled-off fortress-town. There wasn't much to be seen from outside the walls, save for a huge black tower of blackness and despair towering over smaller ramshackle buildings dotting their roofs over the top of the guard wall. A waterfall off in the distance powered a waterwheel in a mill that connected to the town with huge waving metal pipes. But even as the pipes pumped their produce, protrusions in the plating perceived purple glow just like the crystals scattered everywhere. At one point, I tried to examine the strange substance only to get seared skin!
Reconnaisance
We took time to travel to this watermill to try to trick our way into the tough fortress. Though we tried our best to be sneaky, incorporating a globe of invisibility, the guard did manage to spot me. So I did what I did best and caused a distraction for the rest of the party. We managed to knock the one guard out, but not before the rest got alerted. We ended up fighting every worker in the mill until only two survived. They told us about their... odd contraptions and use of these crystals. It sounded some scorching nonsense, but still, we talked through the technology. Turns out they were amendable to helping give us a distraction so they could escape. So a distraction we devised.
They told us that those captured were tormented in the Skitterforge, the large ominous black building in town. Armed with that knowledge, we shook hands on our agreement to let them go if they caused our distraction. They screwed up the treatment of these purple crystals to trigger, as I think was their wording, a "nuclear explosion"? At either rate, we put on some sort of protective suit and scattered from that spot. The explosion was... expressive. And we had our distraction.
The next few hours had us marching to the menacing town and tower, deciding determine discrete directions for entry. Dolen and Vhel went to scout the town and figured out guard structures while everyone else jumped a cart and picked up more uniforms. We met back up and devised a plan to sneak into the Skitterforge acting as a shipment. Us small folk scurried into the back of the cart with the rest of the... bodies... and thankfully, we managed to luck out with a little well timed nodding and stealth.
We had a little rough going with the guard but we landed in the employee entrance. It was just the opening we needed.
Infiltration
With the help of a minute in the Bag of Holding, us little folk were able to sneak into the Skitterforge through the employee entrance. It appeared to be yet another ancient Dwarven reworked fortress of some kind, though the occupants may have twisted its purposes just a bit. We ended up first sneaking through a break room, searching it for further disguises and contents. Not having found much of value to us in the moment, we climbed up the stairs to the next set of rooms.
What we found started to really color the reality of our situation. The Drow had a room full of apparent slaves stuffing more body parts into boxes. Why body parts? And why boxes? Either way, we weren't successful in sneaking past the guard, so we had to silence him. The body's collapse and fall attracted the attention of an attentive guard, who demanded action to alleviate the anxiety of the slaves below. With that Drow's subsequent death, we had to high-tail it out of there before we drew any more attention.
The next corridor brought us the option to try the maintenance access or the office level. The group grew fond of the maintenance idea, so off we went! We wrestled and wrangled with loose wiring, and we wrought its wrath through wretched shocks. Eventually we did egress the entangled mess, but we managed to attract attention from Fleshwarped Morlocks and mechanics. We dispatched them heartily and kept on our way.
After what felt like hours traveling the twisting turns of the pipes, we found our exit. Problem was, it was protected by protruding steam that needed to be punctured through. Some of us struggled to salvage a success, but we wound up with wins and took time to bandage up. Outside of a noisy hatch, we scouted through the ventilation to find the next room full of subjects stashed away in secure cages. We snuck in and had to fight these monstrosities that exploded when they died with a viscous stench. I'd never seen anything like them before. Thankfully we managed to handle them heartily as well, and the caged creatures were... uncomfortably eager to interact for their freedom. We managed to free one in trade for information, but we had to flee to find our friend, Catchis. We had a map. We were close.
Wasting little time, we barge in and see a doctor, a creature on the table, and yet another big monstrosity in the corner. The resulting battle was rough and tumble, a few falling in the fray, but in the end we found ourselves fighting with force and executing executions. It was pure luck that our lack of recognition for Catchis was rectified before we continued on to fight him too. We did it. We collected our comrade. But he was already changed. His body morphed, fleshwarped and changed, but also his very person seems to have changed. Perhaps lots of drinking is in order... for everyone.