Session 4 - Donald crashes the tower

Session Date: October 15th, 2019

Recorded Stream: Part A | Part B

Session starts with the party in the tower of Zephyros still, awaiting answer from the griffons. They kind of tinker around in the base of the tower for bit, and decide there's little to do but go to sleep and await news.

Raloric meditates on the potion that he was given by Luscious, and identifies it as a Greater Healing Potion.

-- party takes a long rest --

In the morning, they hear landing outside the tower and peeking his head out to take a look, Drork sneaks out and sees 9 giant vultures with riders landing and approaching the tower. The riders have steel helms with stylized bird heads, and one carries a shoulderbag adorned with a smiling face. He pops back in to relay this news to the group. The riders enter the tower, led by two hooded figures -- a man and a woman. Seeing the party say that they come in the name of Yan-C-Bin, who wishes to return the world to a primordial state as it was at the dawn of time. He wishes the assistance of the master of the house.

Stats tries to pose as the giant's butler and get them get them to sign in, but they refuse and demand that he summon the master. Stats goes ahead and summons the giant. Hammerfeet helps to keeps them from coming any further in while Zephyros is summoned.

Zephyros comes down at his leisure, and levitates down to the group, flashing them briefly because he's only wearing a robe.

He gives the intruders his Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum bit and asks who comes. The female cultist replies, reiterating that they come in the name of Yan-C-Bin, and introduces herself as Amarath, and the other robed member as N'von, then rambles of a number of other names for the other folks Jilo, Bilger, Ashma, Shezak, Tamara, and Steve.

Zephyros asks what the party thinks, about whether he should help them, and Raloric says he doesn't think a return to a primordial state would be good. He says he'll have to go back up to his room and think about it for a while, but before he goes he asks Amarath "if you were made entirely of gelatin, what would you do?" she shrugs and replies with "gelatin is a primordial ooze kind of material and I'd be content just oozing around". Zeph laughs and levitates back up to his room.

Raloric approaches the group and asks where they're from. One of them says they come from the east in the sandy plains, they ask likewise and Raloric tells them a bit of his story. He asks how they tamed those birds, and he says "they're giant vultures and we tamed them carefully". He keeps asking questions until eventually N'von elbows him and he says "oh, i've said too much."

Stats tries to talk to one of the vultures and gets immediately attacked by one of them, but it's calmed quickly by its handler.

Stats does not continue the fight immediately but is super pissed. Amarath asks what's going on and Drork explains that Stats tried to talk to the vulture but got attacked, she inquires as to what the party is doing here.

Drork explains that they're here on unrelated business, and that Zephyros is giving us a ride, and Raloric backs him up, but they keep it vague. From upstairs Zephyros can be heard wailing, giggling, wailing more, and then laughing frantically. The two groups stick to their sides for the time being in uncomfortable silence. Stats is still very angry, and sends a message to the griffons above saying that there are asshole vultures and the griffons should come kill them because "free meat". The griffons fly down outside, and attack the vultures. He then messages the rest of the party individually about what he's done.

Outside, a guard screams out, and the rest of the group inside seems agitated and worried. Hammerfeet and the others persuade them that whatever is going on outside has nothing to do with the party, and that they need to wait for Zephyros to come back down.

Meanwhile the fight outside carries on between the Griffons and the Vultures. N'von asks Hammerfeet, what is the meaning of this? He tries to deflect the question, and the group inside seems to calm down a little bit. Drork and Raloric try to help with the persuasion, and it seems to help for the time being. The fight continues, and Stats messages Zephyros about what's going on and he falls (ungracefully) to the ground floor, landing in a heap, and seems pretty unresponsive thereafter, muttering some nonsense from time to time.

Eventually the fight between the birds outside makes it inside and the cultists join in and take the fight to the party. The battle rages on for several rounds, with the griffons having an obvious upper hand against the vultures outside, but with some of the vultures coming in to join the cultists against the party inside. Zephyros seems too dazed to do anything about any of this. Some magic comes into play with N'von paralyzing Hammerfeet with a hold person spell, and Amarath opens up her bag and some kind of spectral creature comes out and joins the fray. Fortunately the party is not without magic of their own and Stats casts Moonbeam to great effect on a cluster of the cultists. The moonbeam ends up killing N'von and Amarath, which ends Hammerfeet's paralysis and takes the three greatest foes out of the fight. With this, the tide of battle turns to the party's favor. Drork, surrounded by lesser foes, just slowly takes them out one by one with his greatsword, and at this point it's just cleanup duty.

During the fight Donnie goes up and touches an orb in Zephyros' room, and the tower starts shuddering and seems to be plummeting. Zephyros just yells something about pixie dust, so the party escapes on the griffons, but not before grabbing the smiling bag off of one of the robed cultists, and a couple change purses off of the two cultists nearby.

The griffons just barely make it out of the tower safely as the tower collides into a mountain and turns into rubble, with a burst of supersonic energy erupts from it.

(the change purses end up containing 250gp and three 100gp gemstones)

-- short break --

Flying through the clouds in the aftermath of the tower crash, Raloric requests that his griffon lower altitude and land outside the nearest town so we can figure out what to do next, get some information in the town and take a rest. The griffons set down after just outside Thornhold, in some foothills near town. It's a coastal fortress along the High Road with a castle of grey stone. The party dismounts and griffons fly off to find some food. Being a bugbear, Drork is hesitant to head into an unknown town where he doesn't know how he'll be received. Raloric asks if Drork needs anything from town, and is told to keep an eye out for a maul. Drork and Stats set up a small camp while Raloric and Hammerfeet head into town to get some information.

Hammerfeet recalls some lore about Thornhold, remembers that it's currently controlled by the Stoneshaft Dwarves but used to be controlled by House Margaster, a noble family of Waterdeep, and that the dwarves are seclusive and are constantly worried that House Margaster is plotting to regain their ancestral holdings. He also recalls some rumors of connections to the Underdark underneath the place.

Raloric and Hammerfeet approach the keep, and say they come seeking a place to fill their bellies and have a place to sleep. The guards ask if they are part of House Margaster (those pesky brigands to the south) and that they are welcome into the keep, but not to go into the mines -- that they're for "Stoneshaft Dwarves only". Raloric asks for a tavern and he mentions the town square with the name of the Southern Tip.

Raloric and Hammerfeet feel suspicious stares directed at them as they head to town square. Overall everything seems clean and fairly pleasant, but unwelcoming - the town square has some gallows and a gibbet with a rotten husk of a corpse inside, with buzzards feasting upon it, by his clothes he seems to be a horse rider of some sort.

The Southern Tip is on the north side of town with some stained glass of a human on a horse with a large banner, other windows seem to have been replaced with dwarves standing in line around the coast. Bartender is a dwarf - Hammerfeet greets him and they exchange some smalltalk. The bartender has two peg-legs, and claims they were eaten off by one of the Margaster warhorses, and gets suspicious, asking where Raloric is from. After being told that Raloric is from "North" he serves them some drinks and food. Hammerfeet orders some stew and a couple stouts.

From outside, a small dwarf child (Kipper) runs in and says there's trouble outside and there are men on horses, describes them as strange men from the south on horseback, they had fancy clothing with armor and their horses have armor and one shield has a horse prancing.

Hammerfeet and Raloric choose to mainly ignore the commotion and the apparent feud between the Stoneshaft Dwarves and the Margasters, they pay for their drinks and ask about a place to buy weapons. The innkeeper mentions the Fiery Furnace. Meanwhile back and camp Drork comes back with scavenged food and water, and Stats as erected a small wall in memorial for Donnie. At this point the griffons return, bloodied and apparently fed, and one of them has a bloody banner with the image of a prancing horse on it. Stats asks the griffons to patrol the area. Wishing for some meat, they set up a hunting trap that Drork carries.

Hammerfeet and Raloric finish up their stew and stout, and ask about getting some rations for the road and buying a good supply of rations for the whole party. They also ask about finding a map of the area. They head to the Fiery Furnace, and are attended by a mute smithy. They buy a maul for Drork, and Raloric buys a chain shirt for himself, and then head next door to find a map. The room is filled with smoking tobacco smell, and nobody seems to be around, so they leave and head back to Stats and Drork.

The hunting trap eventually snags the foot of a Yeti, and several other yetis are busy trying to get it freed. The party sees this and just backs away quietly, abandoning the hunting trap and fleeing on the griffons. The griffons fly down to pick them up and suggest stopping at a nearby stable for some saddles and tack so they could ride more comfortably. The party agrees to the griffons' plan, they fly a short way away from the stable and rest until dark.

-- party takes long rest -- The party sneaks around and into the stable and grabs some tack and saddles, as well as an entire chest that appeared locked. Raloric goes to open the bag of holding to store the stuff, and as he opens it, the wispy creature escapes and they recognize it somehow as an invisible stalker. The party makes a run for it, leaving the poor little farm or inn and stable or whatever to the whims of this creature. (They're all gonna die.)

-- party takes a short rest --

The party wakes to the laughter of Zephyros in the back of their minds, and they travel for a while longer. The next time they land for a break, Drork smashes open the chest he stone from the stables and finds a whole bunch of sandals. A newspaper flies out of nowhere and hits Raloric in the face. It's a wanted poster that shows the griffons circling over scared horses - wanted dead or alive, a group of wild griffons preying on Margaster horses and other horses in the countryside.

The griffons fall into a rhythm of flying for a while and resting for a while. The party flies for several more days north and finds themselves getting very cold, so they decide to stop and get some winter gear. Eventually stop off near Gauntlgrym. They land in a clearing in the forest nearby and make their way towards Gauntlgrym. Hammerfeet relays the lore he remembers of the place-  In ages past the subterranean city was capital of the Delzoun empire. it's cavernous halls, some large enough to contain entire surface villages, were carved with unerring precision and their ceilings soared scores of feet overhead. Their towering statues of dwarven gods and heroes stood vigil over chambers and thoroughfares, the least of which was wide enough to march 50 dwarves standing abreast. The mines produced endless tides of iron, silver, gold, and mythril and booming trade brought goods and wealth to the city from across Faerûn. But it was a great forge that was the burning heart and true treasure of the city. Deep beneath the settled levels of Gauntlgrym, dwarven crafting and elven magic bound a slumbering primordial Maegara, a being of fire and destruction, harnessing incredible power to heat the forge. Hammerfeet mentions the place had been taken by Drow, then taken back by Bruenor Battlehammer who is currently reigning here. They walk up the causeway and find great stone gates carved in relief with armored dwarves. Hammerfeet approaches and greets the dwarven guards. They report that their forges have gone silent, and that Maegara the Dawn Titan has been stolen. It's not easy to walk out of the gates with an immense creature of fire and primordial energy. They're not sure who could have stolen it, but he suspects the Drow have come and taken it back to the Underdark.

Asked what the party is doing here, Hammerfeet says they came to stock up on supplies and get some cold weather gear as they head north. The guard brings them to room filled with Yeti-hide jackets and blankets, which the party takes, and says to keep eyes peeled for information about the stolen Dawn Titan.

The party decides to stay a bit and see if they can help the dwarves investigate this problem.

Riding a minecart down into the caves, the party passes what looks like a group of ghostly/ethereal dwarves, and then a group of regular dwarves. The cavern walls become less rough hewn and more and more decoratively carved - mosaics of dwarves brewing, doing steelwork, carved and decorated with gemstones and gilded filagree. There's a fork with a sign saying left to the Great Forge and right to Gauntlgrym. The party takes the left fork to the forge. In the distance, some more spirit dwarves are mining right in the track and the cart passes right through them, and eventually comes to an end at the forge station.

Getting out of the train in the Great Forge area, the party looks for someone that might be a foreman or something. They find a dwarf leaning over a clipboard and Hammerfeet begins to talk to him, they learn his name as Gritty Labyrinth.

They learn that the dawn titan was stolen just a day ago, and there was a great shutter, and then a chill came over the place, and then the "lidless eye was no longer watching" He also tells them that in the days preceding this, the dawn titan had been "manifesting" strange effects around Gauntlgrym - torches would burn brighter, hearths would emit small flame creatures that had to be put out. He can't imagine what could possibly have taken it or for what purpose other than to forge something great. He says that the magic that held Maegara here was rune magic carved into the walls here so that his energy could be controlled and siphoned off slowly without him being able to break forth.

Stats asks if there's a library, and Gritty Labyrinth says its on one of the levels that hasn't been reclaimed yet, and that spirits and perhaps worse still control that area. Drork asks about the spirit dwarves, and he says he doesn't really know, some thing it's the same magic that held the dawn titan in place, others think that the dwarves just can't give up their work and will stay here forever.

The party discusses what they think about what could have happened and what they should do, and they seem to agree that the Drow were probably involved, but they really have no idea, so they decide to go seek an audience with the king and see what they can find out.

-- end of session --

-- party levels to 5th level --

Previous Session: Session 3 - The resurrection of Cats

Next Session: Session 5 - Adventures in Gauntlgrym