SOTDL CAMPAIGN DIARY: INTERLUDE

The Cast:
·         Brother Aron: Human priest/cleric of the New God
·         Calista: Ferren rogue/thief
·         Perry Flaxseed: Halfing Hunter/Fighter
·         Nikolai Petrechko: Human Veteran/Fighter

Upon exiting the sinkhole, the group is met with a roar of applause and are immediately lauded as heroes and even given the name, the “Sinkhole Monster Hunters”.  They are celebrated that night by the Autarch, Amelia the Exquisite, and they are awarded their prize of 100 gold crowns.  Over the next few days, the group is sought after by the reporters from the Golden Chronicle, the town’s news media, and they receive invitation from a number of nobles and people in power to attend parties and dinners and such, as is the way of the aristocracy.  One such invitation comes from the casino owner, Blaine, who had intrigued Calista and who she suspects is the terrorist known as the Anarchist.  The Monster Hunters mostly ignore these requests, focusing on other concerns. 

Brother Aron and Nikolai spend their days in the Church of the New God, having been summoned (ordered) by the visiting Cardinal to aid in the recruitment efforts for the coming war against the orcs of Caecras, despite having been given numerous directives from the Autarch to stand down these activities, as the city of Kem is currently allied with Caecras.  But the Cardinal recognizes a higher authority, the Matriarch of the Kingdom of God, and so he continues his recruitment drive. 

Perry, Unit 1, Weezer and Gordie lock themselves up in their room at the inn.

Calista goes underground to learn what she can and she discovers a number of adventure opportunities, but also that the Autarch has commanded the church to cease the recruitment upon threat of treason.  But before Calista could go warn her companions, the church is raided by the Golden Protectors.  The Cardinal and Bishop are arrested and ordered to be sent to Caecras to face the Emperor for crimes against the Empire.  The rest of the church staff, including Aron and Nikolai, are arrested and sent to the dungeons below the Golden Protector’s tower.  Calista goes to the tower to scout out ways of freeing her companions and purchases supplies to aid her, including potions of invisibility.

Aron and Nikolai languish in their cell awaiting their trial, but then one of the guards recognizes Nikolai and turns out to be his former Lion of Caecras companion, Tiberius, who had also managed to escape Caecras and managed to find his way here and get a job with the Golden Protectors.  Although glad to see Nikolai, he is reluctant to aid him due to the fact that the mad orc, Gormak the Disemboweler, is in town to personally collect the Cardinal and Bishop and will be in the tower later that day.  Nikolai convinces Tiberius to help him and so he agrees to come back later that night, hide Nikolai and Aron’s belongings where they can find them, and cause a distraction to aid them in escaping. 

Unbeknownst to them, Calista had also planned their escape and uses a potion of invisibility to sneak into the tower and the dungeons that night, but finds the dungeons guarded by dogs and an icy mist that appears to be there to deter this type of escape attempt.  But luckily, the guards appear to be occupied with a card game and the guard she followed down to the dungeons came with fresh meat for the dogs to snack on.  The guard goes down the hall, checking the various cells.  Calista tries climbing along the walls to keep her invisible form from being revealed by the mist as she searches for Aron and Nikolai.

Tiberius returns to Aron and Nikolai’s cell and unlocks the door and their manacles.  He says that he will distract the guards and that they should make haste up the stairs and go through the door when the late guard’s snores are heard.  Nikolai thanks Tiberius for the aid and prepares him and Aron for their escape.

Calista sees the guard ahead of her go into a cell, then emerge shortly after and come back down the hall towards her.  She risks discovery by lifting the keys off the guard as he passes, which goes unnoticed.  She prepares to head down the hall when two figures emerge from the same cell the guard left and she sees that they are her companions!  She goes up to them and whispers that she is there to aid their escape and gives them the invisibility potions.  Just then, the door to the dungeons burst open and Gormak enters the dungeons with a cadre of orcs in tow demanding the prisoners.  He throws the human guards around like rag dolls as the dogs bark in anger at first then grovel at the massive orc’s feet. 

Using this distraction as their opportunity, the three invisible Monster Hunters make their way past the commotion and exit the tower, making their way back to the inn, where they immediately alert Perry and the others that it’s time to go.  As they pack their belongings, Calista tells them to meet up outside of town and she’ll catch up with them.  She then goes to Blaine’s casino and strikes up a conversation with him.  As before, he seems intrigued with Calista and a little saddened to be turned down for his dinner invitation, but understands given her companion’s plight.  He gives her his business card and says that he would like to meet at some convenient time for a business proposition, perhaps in another, less hostile city, as he has establishments in all but one of the cities of the Confederacy.  Calista graciouslyu accepts the card and departs the establishment to join her friends outside the gates.

The next couple of days are spent traveling south on Unit 1’s horseless wagons to Lij, the City of Wonder.  They pass a number of settlements between the two cities, and even spy the wondrous steam-powered locomotive that connect the Nine Cities.  When they finally arrive they find the city to be a marvelous spectacle, as the city has grown upwards rather than outwards as most other cities do.  Impossibly high towers reach into the clouds above, while massive factories litter the ground level of the city, enshrouding it in a perpetual chemical haze.  As they enter the massive gates they see ramps and lifts taking travelers up from the lower levels of the city, called the Gears, to the upper levels of the city where the workshop of Ronson the Artificer is found. 

When they arrive at Ronson’s shop, which is literally crawling with clockwork creations of many shapes and sizes, Unit 1 excuses himself to explain his failure to his master.  A while later, a strange looking dwarf with a shortly cropped beard emerges from the shop, wearing a leather apron adorned with belts and pouches and tools dangling all around his body.  He raises a pair of goggles off of his face and address the Monster Hunters, asking how they got involved with Unit 1 and why it came back with his farming machine and no sale.  The group explain how they found Unit 1 being harassed by goblins on the road and the troubles they encountered in Nor Egrets. Ronson considers the story and says that he owes them a debt and invites them inside his shop.  He gifts them with some of his creations and informs them that Unit 1 will be “re-purposed”, meaning he was to be dismantled.  The group convince Ronson to let them have Unit 1 in exchange for a service.  Ronson says that there is one thing they can do for him.

The artificer tells the group that he was given a commission to create a clockwork war machine for a noble.  He created a great iron titan, which was a masterwork of destruction, only to find that it was unstable when activated and had to be shut down and dismantled.  Ronson could not keep the failure in his shop and the noble did not want a crazed killing machine destroying his family and property, so Ronson disposed of the clockwork in the garbage chutes and though that was the end of that.  But he was visited this week by investigators from the Artificer’s Guild, stating that there have been reports in the Gears ward of a rampaging clockwork wreaking havoc over the last few days and wondered if Ronson had anything to do with that.  Ronson, of course, denied all knowledge, and now is in jeopardy of losing his artificer’s license if they find out that he created the iron titan.  He offers up Unit 1 in exchange for finding the iron titan, getting the identification plaque off of the clockwork and destroying it.  The group agree and head off to the Gears level to hunt a monstrous clockwork.

End of Interlude.