Hi, I typed this up from my session notes as a way of getting my wife, Sarah, up to date for when she joined, Adam (DM) suggested popping it on the forum. Hopefully it's useful, I just thought it was a fun way to get people up to date on the story, I might pop up the notes from future sessions as we go.
Party Members:
Kharduum Steepmine (Hill Dwarf Cleric)
Ichabod (Human Wizard)
Kamakani (Half-Elf Paladin)
Vonmond (Dwarf Fighter)
Rhaenys (Wood Elf Ranger)
Shy (Half Elf Wizard)
The Adventurers Guild has sent us to this barren land to follow rumours of a weapons workshop dating back to before the Abjuration. We arrived 3 weeks ago, our shipment of supplies was meant to follow but has never arrived. Cursory checks of our surroundings found no food and our rations on hand have started dwindling. Rhaenys said she'd happily eat us if it came down to it, I thought Wood elves were supposed to be vegetarian.
We were tired of waiting and set off towards the rumoured site of the workshop, which was a few miles away. As we walked, a mist enveloped us, before we knew it 3 horrifying Ghast were upon us, Rhaenys was nearly overpowered by their stench, but we quickly dispatched them. We investigated the beasts and found a peculiar symbol with the letter C branded on their calves, Ichabod and Shy recognised this as the symbol of House Cannith, and said the family was still politically active in the capital.
House Cannith rose to infamy in the wake of the Abjuration, and rumours abound that they were manufacturing horrors.
We walked in the direction the Ghast came from and soon spotted a small island in the middle of a lake, it was a large building partly exploding with the pieces still hanging in the air, seemingly frozen in place. We approached cautiously and made our way inside. It had been utterly ransacked, but in the main hall we discovered a large orb, an illusion manifested before us in the form of a human woman. She was called 42-3B, or Di for short, we questioned her, but her responses seemed scripted and she couldn't tell us much, she kept insisting we "take the tour". We found out she was activated 34 years ago (before the Abjuration) and the head research was Balthazar Cannith (still alive and active in the city).
Ichabod and I detected magic on the large orb and found it to be a power source, an unholy melding of magical sources (illusion/transmutation/evocation) and it was dangerous to boot. We also discovered that the upstairs power source was damaged 22 years ago and that is what damaged the building.
We took the tour path that Di insisted upon and discovered a strange room, the floor was saturated with a peculiar sand and against the wall stood 6 empty tanks, it seems they housed the manufactured Ghasts, but there was no further sign of them.
As more party members entered the room, the sand shifted and up sprang 6 dust mephits, they quickly began casting a powerful spell, I fell into a deep slumber and had the best power nap in years, the rest of the party fought well, but when I came to, Vonmond and Kamakani were wounded and Ichabod was half blind. I healed them as best I could and we moved on.
We headed for the stairs up to Balthazars office, the door was guarded by an ominous looking glyph, and there was also a large gelatinous cube moving towards us, Rhaenys burnt her arm on its acid and Kamakani quickly healed her. We retreated to Di, who informed us it was used for automatic cleaning, we asked her to send it into Balthazar's office to clean, several seconds later the building shook with a large explosion.
When we went back upstairs the door was in splinters and the outside hallway glistened with cube remnants, inside we gazed upon the broken power source, the roof and parts of the upper walls had exploded outwards and were stuck in chronostasis, amongst the rubble we saw a ruined jar suspended. Using a lasso, Vonmond snagged and reeled in the jar. Through a search and some nifty magic detection we found the jar was filled with magical seeds, arcane magic mimicking druidic power. We searched the rest of the room and found a glyphed drawer. I wanted to use some finesse and my tools to try and take it apart and circumvent the glyph to see what was inside, but Ichabod was worried for my safety and insisted we use mage hand to open if from afar, unfortunately this triggered the glyph and destroyed the contents inside. If I learn the art of mending, maybe one day I can piece these back together, might be a long shot though.
On the way back to the outpost we spread a small handful of seeds, vegetation immediately sprang forth, within hours the outpost and the surrounding area was verdant once more, there is some very powerful magic at play here.
The next day, I set about ferrying stone from the abandoned workshop back to the settlement, and started work on an Almshouse, I also built a humble altar to Moradin. My noble Dwarf brother Vonmond helped throughout.
Kamakani set about forming a townsguard, Ichabod locked himself away to research House Cannith and began reaching out to his contacts, Rhaenys went out ranging, searching for whatever food she could find, which is great, as the threat of cannibalism has subsided a little…for now.
Shy became obsessed with Di and the orb, he regularly returned to the workshop, but after a while he disappeared, Ichabod suspects that his experiments with the orb resulted in it either destroying him, or it absorbing him. We don't know if it is possible for us to get him back.
We need to find a reliable food source soon though, we won't last long on what little we have to hand.