The Buzz

The crew venture off the beaten path, and discover an unexpected wonder, but all is not what it seems . Kharduum Steepmine (Hill Dwarf Cleric) Roza (Tiefling Sorcerer) Koronus (Human Rogue) Con'nor (Half Elf Paladin) Lizzy The Dragonslayer (Halfing Bard) Amber (Mountain Dwarf Fighter) Representative of the Pointertown Detective Agency The party has decided to make our way to the Treasure Vault marker on Radhu's map, it is off the beaten path and far beyond the reach of the burgeoning railway, we make our way as far as we can by train, at the end of the line we travel by horse and cart, with Amber's ever faithful steed, Barnaby. Far beyond the Kingdom of the sun we travel, encountering fewer and fewer signs of civilisation as we go, what villages remain have long since been abandoned. Days pass as we make our way to the co-ordinates, but in the distance we see something magnificent, a great dwarven stronghold built into the side of a mountain, we see forges and campfires, signs of life. I'd heard of this place from my mentor Lodrom Stoutbeard, Karok-Burr, prior to the Abjuration it was small for a Dwarfhold, specialising in Iron, but had managed to withstand the calamity, much like our Temple. As we got closer we could see the quality of the road improving, as the Dwarves were once more building outwards. As we approach, the guards call out in Dwarvish, I introduce ourselves honestly, and say how we've come to reach their town, they're happy to let us in and open their gates, as we enter we find ourselves in a vast industrious town, supposedly small for a Dwarfhold, it eclipses anything I've ever seen as a humble Hill Dwarf, growing up in the distant countryside. I'm busy standing in awe of my surroundings while Koronus starts scouting our vicinity, he notices a number of posters, missing Dwarves from all over town, all ages and walks of life. He also notices an unattended cart, bags of gold coins spilling out. The location of another Cannith workshop and people have gone missing, this isn't a coincidence, I approach a guard and try to convey our worries, some ambiguously chose words later he asks if we have anything to do with people going missing anywhere we turn up, a little flustered, I introduce Amber, a member of the Pointer town Detectives and we manage to clear it up, I persuade him to introduce us to the Detective currently handling the case, he says that we should head to the Tavern and the Captain will be over as soon as he can. Koronus disappears to "take care" of the bags of gold, hopefully it doesn't come back to bite him. The rest of us head over to the Argonhault, the back opening out to overview the great forges, a beautiful site and the symphony of hammer on anvil. I observe wonderful techniques I could apply to my own craft. Everyone settles down to some delicious smoked porters while Lizzy goes cruising for sexy Dwarves, she hasn't gotten far when Captain Balasco enters, there's a little bit of small talk, but he's quite quickly onto the case at hand. We broach the Cannith connection, he says that they did rent space for a workshop in town, but left about 5 years and they haven't been heard of since, Balasco is sure they didn't leave anything behind. They had a liason here though, a Dwarf called Hammerhand who lives outside the walls in the woods nearby, apparently he's a grumpy sort, they don't see much of him. We ask if we can see the records for all of the missing people, he says we're free to see all of the case files at the station and we make that our first stop, there's a board with locations for all of the missing and case files for each, there doesn't seem to be an obvious pattern and the case files aren't as detailed as we'd hope, so we're struggling to see a big picture here. When looking at the details of the missing people, the most recent is Lady Bronzehammer, she got up for water in the middle of the night and never returned. The party decides to make this our next stop and we head over, we're greeted by Mr. Bronzehammer, his story matches what we'd heard and he says we are free to fully investigate the house, he'll head to the study and stay out of our way. Koronus notices that the table has been moved by the soot residue, but there's no other signs of disturbance around it. I crawl underneath it and investigate the stone floor, checking joins in the morter, but it looks intact, everything matches and it doesn't look like there's any sign of masonry mayhem. Amber heads back to the study to check on Mr. Bronzhammer, but he's disappeared, there's no sign of him, casting detect magic and detect good and evil doesn't yield any findings either. Looking around, it seems that there's a book out of place, Amber walks over picks it, but as she opens it, there's no words, just rows of teeth, it lurches forward clamping onto her face and biting down, I run over and wrestle the book away, it snarls and spits, but I manage to keep a hold of it, Koronus runs towards us, pulling his swords, as I hold it at arms length he expertly pierces it with both, the toothy tome falling limp. Behind us in the hallway, the table has reared, it gallops towards Roza, slamming into her with a crash, she responds with a furious infernal rebuke, then forces it back with a shocking grasp as Connor runs in delivering a divine smite to finish off, there's barely time to regroup before Koronus cries out in pain, a liberated coin in his pocket has bitten into his thigh with needle like teeth, Lizzy grabs it with mage hand and holds it at bay. These are mimics, magically created monstrosities that mimic items to lure people to them, they strike when their guard is dropped, dissolving them with acid, this is why people were disappearing without a trace. We decide to head to Hammerhand house out of the city, he may know what happened if this is anything to do with the workshop. Healing up we head out for the stronghold and into the woods, we see the glint of platemail, dead Cannith soldiers, they've been dead a couple of days, but whatever killed them didn't dissolve them, they're holding some greater potions and the party divides between Koronus, Lizzy and Roza. Reaching the house I cast locate creature, there are definitely mimics in the house, using the gem of seeing, I cast clairvoyance and look inside the house, Mr. Hammerhand is there seemingly sleeping, Roza cries out with Thaumaturgy, but he doesn't wake, she insists that we just fireball the whole house and be done with it, but we implore her to wait as we approach the house and Koronus picks the lock, some of us head in, our guards up. Amber reaches Hammerhand and tries to wake him, her hand sticking to him, it seems they've mimicked his sleeping form, it dawns on us that we're surrounded by furniture. I raise my hammer and call down my spiritual warriors, through their divine sense they start crashing through the furniture, mimics springing to life as they do so, the spirits battering them back ferociously. Amber starts wrestling away from the mimic of Hammerhand as the rest of us start swinging our weapons, outside Roza and Lizzy look on in horror as the house starts raising out of the ground, the building is an enormous mimic, one of its enormous treelike limbs slams into Lizzy bringing her to the ground, Roza is hit by a boulder hurled by another limb and loses consciousness. Inside the house several chairs charge me, unleashing fury with their combined army of legs, I fight off most with my hammer, shield and armour, but they've 20 odd legs and I have but two arms, my focus turns away from my magic and concentration wanes, the spiritual warriors fade away. Floorboards are wrenched loose as the house moved, revealing flesh beneath, Koronus thrusting his rapiers deep as the house cries out in pain. Connor misty steps out of the house and to the side of Roza and Lizzy, hacking into the legs as he protects them with his shield. I break away from the chairs and get to the doorway, I manage to heal Lizzy before I'm violently assaulted once more by the fold of chairs. Koronus and Amber are busy fighting and smashing, things turn bad for Lizzy, the greater healing potion she picked up turns into a mimic and clamps onto her face, she furiously beats her own face with tiny halfling fists to try and free herself but loses consciousness once more. Con'nor puts his considerable might into a divine smite, carving into the legs and bringing the mimic down for good, those of us inside fighting for our footing as it collapses. Battered and beaten, I cast mass cure wounds on the party. A furious Roza clambers to her feet, exclaiming that next time she's just going to unleash hell regardless of how we try to talk her down. We search the remains of the house, it's full of Hammerhands research notes about mimics, it appears the Cannith workshop was experimenting with them, and Hammerhand was convinced he could carry on the research alone after they left. We also discover that Balthazar Cannith was running this location and went to great pains to keep it a secret from his family. Heading back to Karok-Burr, we tell Captain Balasco what we've found, he dispatches his men to take care of any and all potential mimics. We spend a little time in the city, setting up trade and allies for the future. A strong Dwarfhold could be a great friend for the Outpost.

Hi, Jordan 1 here, who played a few people at the D&D intro session last night and we spoke about arranging a game to continue the story. Hoping you're on this forum and we can look at booking in a date for it!

Terrifying toads and train side shenanigans, we find ourselves on the wrong side of Cannith carnage once again. Kharduum Steepmine (Hill Dwarf Cleric) Vas (Human Sorcerer) Violet (High Elf Wizard) Lizzy (Halfing Bard) Growbeck Boniface (Mountain Dwarf Fighter) Dusty (Gnome Druid) Representative of the Pointertown Detective Agency Since rescuing Lazlo we've been searching for a capable Artificer, but so far we haven't managed to find anyone with the expertise for our particular problem. We hear rumours that Balthazar Cannith has gone missing and Isabella is keen to locate him. We've also received a peculiar map from Lizzy's patron, Radhu, it seems to show the locations of a number of old Cannith workshops, apparently he got it from an auction in a far off city. Of the 4 shown locations, one isn't accessible by the newly established trainline, one is apparently very dangerous as powerful magic permeates the surrounding landscape, one is in a populated area we know little about, and the one Violet knows about is in Greenacre, by a small rural village, that was potentially experimenting with access to the Limbo plane. We make this our destination and jump on the train. Violet decides to head to first class for a snoop, and manages to bluff her way past the guard along with Lizzy using minor illusion, while Vas gets there with the help of an invisibility spell. Dusty and I are content in the economy carriage, and I strike up a conversation with train worker on his way home, he says that armoured Cannith troopers have been using the train line to get all over the country, he says that they're bad news and they have weird powers, he says a colleague was thrown through a window in a bar fight by one of them, with only the power of their mind. Somewhere further down the carriage, Dusty is trying to steal magical items from an Aarakocr, but her keen eyes are more than a match for Dusty and she has to back off, empty handed.  Vas uses message to get into contact with Dusty, she seems to have encountered a carriage full of these troopers, after some miscommunication, we manage to establish the stakes, we probably need to make sure these troopers aren't going to the same destination as us. Lizzy starts playing and gets the first class carriage bumping as a distraction, while everyone tries to figure out a plan to get the troopers to leave, luck seems to be on our side though, as they get up to leave, at least the train passengers got treated to a free gig from Lizzy the Dragonslayer, scourge of the Slime King. We eventually arrive at our destination, and as we enter the small village, twee and rural, with perfect Thatch roofed cottages, we're greeted by a halfling, huge ginger mutton chops and a smile adorning his face. We're ushered into the Green Dragon pub, and Growbeck quickly settles in with an ale or three. We learn his name is Walter and Vas asks if he's heard about any artificers, he says not, but he is aware of the nearby workshop, and asks if we're adventurers, he is very excited to learn that we are. Walter says that the nearby workshop has been producing eerie sounds, we ask if anyone from the village has been near, but he insists that they aren't the adventuring types and have all stayed away, it's still early, so we head off towards the location marked on our map. It doesn't take long to reach, we reach the crest of an incline and look down, a vast door is set into the side of the next hillside. We make our way down and Dusty approaches the door, it doesn't appear to be locked or protected in any way, very suspicious. We open the door and head inside, it is similar in layout and construction to the other Workshops we've visited, Growbeck leads the way, in the distance we hear clanking noises, they sound like automatons, similar to the ones we've seen used before. As Growbeck advances he notices a shift in the air, particles caught in the light, he pulls back just in time as the tunnel shatters, a perfect sphere is carved in all directions, must be more than 30 feet across. At the bottom is a pool of strange liquid, I pull an apple out of my rations and throw it into the water, it rises, suspended in a wall of force, Violet and Vas recognise these occurrences as Wild Magic, Growbeck starts grabbing rope and pitons, I do the same and together we start construction, forming a rudimentary bridge system around the sides of the wall to get us to the other side. The rest of the party pass the time by throwing objects into the pool, triggering a number of magical effects including Thunder. We pass through a memory airlock, like under our guildhall, the doors are broken so we continue without issue.  We enter a large room with a spectacular looking machine in the centre, it has six hand slots like the airlock, but looks like it serves a very different purpose, it's a vast cylinder, with hydraulic tube and presses moving up and down. The whole place is thick with Wild Magic, this is linked to Limbo, a plane of chaos, always in flux. Lizzy find some notes from Balthazar Cannith, it seems that this is his facility and from the looks of it, he's a capable Artificer. Vas discovers that Slaadi, giant toad like beings escaped from this location some time ago. We hear the machine start to rumble, we can feel the magic raising the hair on the back of our necks, when suddenly there a loud crash, I look at Violet, as the hair suddenly falls from her head, an unfortunate affect of the Wild Magic, I throw my hands to my precious beard, thank Moradin, it's still there. The rest of us seem unaffected, but we may need to act fast before the machine goes off again. As we're investigating, Dusty and Growbeck start calling into the void as Vas and Lizzy start searching through the paperwork, they find that this used to be Balthazars facility, and that a number of Slaadi, large toad like creatures, native to limbo have escaped. Upon hearing this, Dusty ribbits into the void, we hear the automatons stop, turn then and charge out of the darkness.  One of them crashes into Lizzy, landing some devastating blows and bringing her to the ground. Growbeck goes on the offensive and Dusty transforms into the form of a wolf, savaging one. I summon my Spiritual Hammer and crash it into the other, I run over and start healing Lizzy, bringing her back to consciousness.  Growbeck down one of the Automatons, its form appearing on his magical axe, it seems non-biological beings are also captured by its magic. The other falls to a combined assault, but it's not the time to celebrate a victory, the machine winds up once more and unleashes a terrifying aura, most of the party over overtaken by magical terror and and take leave of their senses, screaming and fleeing.  I pray to Moradin and cast dispel magic with everything I have, there's a lurch and the machine stops, the afflicted regaining their faculties. Together, Vas and I start investigating the machine, finding that it agitates the space between planes, and that the six hand panels were added later, if we had of used them we'd have been trapped in place, to what end we're not sure, forced transportation maybe, all we know for sure, is that it wouldn't have ended well. With nothing else to find, we make our way out, I take the memory stone as we go, it could come in useful seeing as we had to trade many of our reagents previously. Walter is there upon our exit to greet us, something about the smiling halfling is unnerving. I don't think he is exactly what he seems, but I can't tell for sure. We follow him back to the Green Dragon, where several halflings are ready to toast to the powering down of the workshop, there's singing, drinking and general merriment. I occupy the corner, sitting in front of a Dragonchess board, defeating the villagers one by one, watching, something is wrong, the others start to pick up on this too, Vas and Dusty start to question them, with Dusty getting increasingly agitated, when suddenly she reaches out and grasps Walter by the mutton chops, threatening to bite off his knackers if he doesn't tell us what's going on, he lets out a little smile, he starts growing, his skin stretching and changing as he transforms into a toad like creature, a Slaadi, the other villagers change too, Walter takes advantage of the shock and darts for the stage, pivoting, he casts a fireball and launches it towards Dusty and Vas, they desperately scramble out of the way, taking some burns in the process. My Dragonchess opponent jumps atop the table, pieces scattering and lashes out at me, but I fend him off and get to the door, cast Aura of Vitality and start healing the party. Dusty calls the lightning, it crashes through the window and into the closest Slaadi, as Growbeck starts carving a path through them. Vas starts casting banishment, targeting Walter and another Slaadi, sending them back to limbo with a sharp popping sound, he needs to keep casting though, to keep them gone for good. I shout for him to get behind me, protecting him with my body and shield. The other Slaadi start regenerating, the party goes on the offensive, to give Vas enough time to complete the banishment spell to keep their leader gone for good. Sacred flame burns divinely, axes arc into flesh, crossbow bolts fly, moonbeam obliterates as we bring the Slaadi down one by one, Growbeck adding to his increasingly crowded magical axe. By the time the fight is over, the place is a wreck and Walter has been banished, hopefully for good, I start healing those who were wounded, but something still doesn't seem right.  As we take the train back home, we mull over the events, maybe we need to find Balthazar, if he's trying to find a way to bridge the planes, we may be able to convince him to help us.