LogFellowship - The Clockwork Prince-Jason-3

Game log for the 2025/12/07 session of Fellowship - The Clockwork Prince, as taken by Jason

Having crossed the River Ebb, the Fellowship is on the long journey to Gastamor. Thanks to some kindly settlers, we use a series of tunnels to escape rampaging soldiers in Fairnam Downs. Unfortunately, as we work our way through the tunnels, we encounter a nameless terror of the ancient world, a formless darkness that attacked us with whiplike tendrils. We retreated, Baldric and Raatma and Vestrum forming the rear guard as the extremely unwell Geria, Tanis, and Bulgarath escaped. Bulgarath tells us it is called a Baneflicker, and that it's weak against magical light, but it draws strength from shadow. The rear guard holds the thing off, and as Bulgarath summons his power, his eyes and mouth begin to glow red, until it seemed like a beam of red light emanated from his face as he led the retreat. The Harbinger also draws his rune-covered sword, which he never does for an ordinary battle. When the Baneflicker's tendrils hit, they make a sizzling noise. When Baldric tries to throw his torch at it, the torch goes out... and the creature counters by sticking a tendril right through his arm. In desperation, Vestrum, knowing that it's daylight outside, suggests we need to smash the ceiling. Bulgarath uses his magic to levitate Vestrum, who goes soaring upward in a cloud of magic red sparklies, smashes the juncture of the vaults with his warhammer Correction, and the roof caves in. Raatma's axe breaks from the rockfall, but Baldric dodges like a pro.

On the surface, after a time, Bulgarath sees a flock of ash crows coming toward us. Baldric yells for everyone to hide, and finds a narrow defile containing a rocky outcrop we can shelter under. Ash crows don't caw, they shriek. It's a terrible sound. Baldric believes the crows mean something or someone is searching for us.

Later, we see a message left by a group of orcs, who were headed west. They had heard of Tarsynan soldiers taking slaves, and wanted to fight them. They also leave warning that the city no longer slumbers. Man, Gastamor was bad enough when it was quiet. It was called the Land of Death and Shadow. Whatever being awake means for a place like that, it can't be good.

Eventually, we catch sight of the city, across the plain of ash. We pause before moving on, and Tanis has his unicorn Sparkles use her holy horn to heal Baldric's wound. That's good, because that wound was an oozing pus-covered stanking mess. As we eat, Bulgarath asks Baldric who told him of ash crows and other monsters. Seems the wise woman of Tarsyna were on to something - as were the Dwarves who decided to live in tunnels, where ash crows don't go.

That night, camped on a hilltop overlooking Gastamor, Tanis thinks about how Gastamor is supposedly inhabited by the dead, and wonders what it means. Then he realizes that Kaius, Baldric, and Geria are gone. He begins kicking people awake. Vestrum doesn't feel like there's an ambush here, a least, but obviously this isn't good.

Baldric wakes to something dark and confining. Something is wriggling in his nose, possibly a worm, but he can't move to get it out.

Vestrum, attuned to the earth, feels things moving around down there. He gets down and begins feeling the ground, and notices that the earth where the humans were is softer than the other parts of the earth. Hannar unearths Geria's bedroll. These are probably wights, burying the humans until they're nice and rotten, thence to devour them. He feels Kaius, dead, though at least not totally rotting. That's a good place to start digging, angled somewhat toward Gastamor, and then Hannar orders everyone to stop and listen. We all hear something that time, and Hannar rushes to dig there, digging so fast that poor Baldric gets whacked with a pickaxe. As they pull him up, hands come from the earth, trying to pull the squire back down. Vestrum rushes to grab him and clings on for dear life, and Tanis rushes in to stab the hands with his elven knife.

We discuss how to manage our camp, knowing that the ground we lie on can be turned against us. We agree to have to people on watch, one to watch outside, one to watch inside. Vestrum talks to the earth and finds a nearby hill, with stairs laid into the side of it, which feels safer than the ground. At the top of the hill, 40 feet up, someone or something has laid flagstones. That should be a little harder for wights to soften. Bulgarath recalls that this place is called Helion's Watch, though not why. Raatma insists that if anyone needs to leave camp to dump out in the night, Gregory has to go with them.

At one point that night, as Raatma takes the external watch, she sees something moving around out there.

As the sun rises, painting the undersides of the clouds pink, one cloud seems lower than the others, pencil thin, and red. It turns toward Gastamor, reminding us that this is no place to be. We break camp quickly.

Gastamor is desolate. Every fall of foot, paw, or hoof kicks up a puff of powerdery ash grit, and it gets everywhere. Only Bulgarath, riding his broom, seems unaffected, though it still leaves a trail in the ash. Bulgarath begins to feel something from the City.

We're about halfway to Gastamor when the sun disappears behind a cloud... and then Gastamor disappears behind an ash storm... and we realize we're about to have a problem. Raatma thinks this grit is so fine it will get into our lungs. Vestrum improvises a microfilter that keeps him able to breathe, for the moment. The others hold up OK, except for Tanis, who simply cannot even with this filth. Bulgarath kicks in the afterburner on his broom and zoooms into the city at Mach 2 or so.

THe Harbinger takes cover in a ruined building, and finds himself in the presence of fellow Harbinger Neros the Unrelenting. Bulgarath advises Neros to let his companions pass and not try to find the Loknar, because interfering will be Neros' doom. Neros knows Bulgarath has doubts, and admits that he himself once doubted, but has come to believe that the Clockwork Prince is Melkor returned. Bulgarath remains convinced this is a pretence. Neros counters that Kaion turned the final key at their master's bidding, and that though they may not understand his plans, his plans are flawless. Bulgarath argues that Neros needs to open all his eyes to see the truth. Neros lets this pass, and refuses to be turned from his quest. Neros wears his flesh poorly, and seems to be concealing three legs under his robes. They're all for locomotion, you filthy perverts. Anyway. Neros offers Bulgarath a compromise: destroy the Loknar so that nobody gets it. Bulgarath accepts.

The rest of the Fellowship catches up just as Neros leaves by walking through the wall, leaving a reddish glow behind him. We pause for the storm to blow over, and that leads to an awkward silence. Geria asks if this will be a problem, and Bulgarath assures her that the obstacle has been removed. Vestrum just can't accept it, and tries to get him to spill the beans on what just happened, but all he'll say is that the Clockwork Prince knows they're here, and that he solved that problem. He's bent on recovering the Loknar. Eventually, as suddenly as it came up, the ash storm dissipates.

Lore break: Gastamor was a powerful kingdom of the previous Age, famous for strong elemental magic, and for standing firm against Melkor. They were building a weapon to win the war when Melkor moved against them... or so the Orcs think. The Elves think they lost control of their own weapon. Others think Melkor gave them the weapon.

Lore break over, we move deeper into the ruins. Everything shows fire damage, as though it was blasted. Baldric looks for a pattern in the fire damage that might tell him where the center of the blast was, and can't. It's like the entire city was wreathed in a cloud of flame. However, he can see a pattern in the way the taller buildings fell. They all fell away from a common center. As we close in on that center, there's something like a pyramid that's still intact, and which seems to be the center of the damage. It's tall, made with steep stairs on one face, and there's some sort of wreckage on the top, at least a hundred feet up. Tanis checks for magic, and feels that the entire pyramid is magical, impossibly old, maybe old enough that Gastamor was built around it, in an age undreamed of. Bulgarath says that there are two other pyramids like this one, but they have not been activated. As the Harbinger sees it, the pyramids are the bait, and the Loknar springs the trap. When we reach it, Baldric takes point, hurrying up the pyramid, and sees that it's the center of the blast. He sees that only briefly, though, because then the trap door opens under his feet.