LogFellowship - The Clockwork Prince-Jason-4

Game log for the 2025/12/14 session of Fellowship - The Clockwork Prince, as taken by Jason

Baldric has fallen down the well. He finds himself on a stairway of sorts, but it's steep, so steep it may have been made for the legs of something other than humans. Also, since he fell, he's not climbing down the stairs, he's falling and bouncing down them. He falls a loooong way, and bounces around so many corners that he can not see the door he fell through. He works on making a small fire from what he's carrying, he hears whispers in the distance.

He improvises a torch out of his scabbard, and sees that every surface but the floor is covered in blades. He also sees that the stairs end 20 or 30 feet above the floor in the center of the room, so climbing back out will not be an option. He tries to move toward the whispers, hurting himself in the process because of all the blades, but he can't see anything. There's something out there, moving, but he can't tell what or where it is.

Up top, Vestrum ties a rope on, hands the other half to Raatma, and begins trying to wend his way down the stairs. He gets to a sort of landing, turns, and realizes that the walls of the stairway are covered in blades. Just then, a stair gives way, and he begins to fall. The rope snaps taught, the blades on the wall cut it, and the floor of the temple gets served one portion of pancaked dwarf. Ow ow ow ow ow.

Raatma calls down, and Vestrum is able to warn her about the walls of blades. She gets to the last section, where the stairs run out, and she executes a proper hang-fall. She checks her foe-sensitive axe, and finds it's hot.

Tanis, Geria, Bulgarath, and Hannar begin working their way down the stairs. Bulgarath uses his broom to gently float down. Tanis tries to use his elven gait to travel down safely, but falls, and gives the floor its third serving of pancakes for the day. Geria follows, but loses some of her cache of gems.

Bulgarath and Tanis both hear the whispering, and Bulgarath recognizes it as the language of Gastamor. Some of them are saying "come closer," others, "help us," or "that way lies only death." Bulgarath's glowing face illuminates two possible passages, and he chooses the one from which the whispers don't seem to be coming. This reminds Tanis of the shades of the Cursewood. Shades being incorporeal, it's very difficult to hurt them, but they can certainly hurt the living.

As we move down the chosen passage, moving very carefully to avoid bouncing off the wall when the corridor bends, we realize that some blades are also positioned as traps. Baldric lights a torch and begins walking offset from Bulgarath, to create some parallax for the light. Hannar ties off a rope up top and throws it down. The whispers say, "Sheer folly, the rope will not help you."

Tanis scans the area, and notices a spot where some low-positioned blades are casting a shadow, which tends to hide the absence of a floor ahead. He can feel this place's hatred of the living, and suspect the shades are following. The gap in the floor is a good 20ft across. Bulgarath grabs one end of the rope that had been tied to Vestrum's waist and flies it across, while Vestrum takes out his tools and anchors the rope on this side. Tanis climbs across, followed by Baldric. Just then, the shades attack.

Geria tries to run after Baldric, and veritably flies across the rope. A shade almost grabs Vestrum, but the light from Bulgarath's face drives it back. The other one moves to chop the rope in the anchor. Raatma bellows "don't do that" to the shade. It looks at her, and after a second, it begins speaking to her in archaic orcish. As it does, Vestrum swings his warhammer at one, and it goes right through, which causes him to stumble. Only his mithril armor saves him from impalement. The shade talking to Raatma asks what brings her to this place, because it suggests she's here to take what is not hers. She says that she's here to protect people from the Loknar. It tells her that the Loknar is all-powerful and there is no protection. As she tries to think of a retort, Bulgarath, speaking in old Gastamorian, tells them that they have no business among the living and may not trouble his people anymore. They heed the harbinger (one of them offers a salute) and fade into the walls.

To hurry things up, Raatma throws Vestrum across, and then runs across herself. She stumbles, and scrapes herself on a blade, but she seems fine. We continue onward.

Raatma looks to see how the blades are attached to the wall, and it looks like they grew there, probably an application of Gastamorian elemental magic. As they march, Baldric notices that something is reflecting green light across the blades. The Loknar may be close. Raatma tells Bulgarath about her conversation with the shades, and the wizard thinks that the shades actually sound uncommonly sensible, for the dead.

We come to a spot where the blades are so thick that it's almost impossible to get between them. Vestrum tucks himself behind is shield, takes a couple steps back, and simply crashes through. The blades turn out to be brittle, and he finds himself in a larger room, still spike-encrusted, with a sort of flower of blades in the center, coming from the floor and the ceiling, with one blade from top and bottom somehow holding a green glowing orb in between. Vestrum turns and blocks the path he just made, telling them that they will not have the Loknar. Everyone can see this is not really normal Vestrum behavior.

The dwarf keeps backing up, very slowly, one half-step at a time while feeling behind him with his foot. Bulgarath tells him he can have the Loknar, that's fine. Raatma reminds Vestrum of their history together, that they've been friends for a long time, and he tells her she can come across too. As soon as she crosses into the room, she realizes that this dwarven scum is between her and her Loknar.

Baldric asks Geria to get between him and Bulgarath, so she's trailing the group. As she steps up, she sees the Loknar, feels its call, and immediately realizes that the thing is evil, horribly evil, so evil it's got half the team in its spell. She leans in and looks more carefully, she can see that Raatma is circling behind Vestrum. As Baldric gets a look at it, he realizes that he has to protect Geria from the Loknar, by carrying it for her.

Tanis sees the Loknar, and knows he must have it. He tries to stab Baldric, but perhaps with a little help from the shades, Baldric steps aside.

Raatma slowly returns to herself, and realizes the peril everyone is in. She throws her hammer at the Loknar, hits it, and green lightning bolts begin to play between the points of the blade blossom. Vestrum snaps out of his possession, though.

Baldric, aware Tanis is going for the Loknar, goes hard at him, and gives him all he can handle.

Bulgarath drags Tanis out of the room, away from the Loknar.

Vestrum looks at the blade-flower, and thinks it was made to both power and protect the Loknar. It could be broken by someone getting in there and breaking things, and they will suffer much pain as a result.

Baldric recommits to making sure Geria never holds the Loknar. Tanis returns to his senses once he can no longer see the Loknar. Bulgarath tries to yank Baldric out of the room as well, but only manages to get the shield off his back. He dives for the Loknar, but Raatma tackles him and pins him. Vestrum bellows "you great green bollocks, you've messed with the wrong dwarf," and begins smashing the flower with his warhammer. There's a green flash so brigh they can all see Vestrum's skeleton, but he beats the lower spire until it bends, and then the Loknar falls and rolls across the floor.

Bereft of its protection and power source, the Loknar becomes vulnerable to Bulgarath. He hurls the Loknar at one of the blades. The Loknar shatters, followed by shrieking and cracking. Stones begin to fall, revealing a new passageway. While there are blades between us and it, the passageway itself has ordinary walls. Tanis can feel the shades coming for the party. Behind him, Vestrum once again charges through the intervening blades, but as he slows to a stop, the floor shifts, and suddenly he's pinned between blade and floor. Raatma rushes over to try to pull him free, but she can't.

Baldric and Geria scurry free. In the lead, Tanis and Bulgarath run ahead, and when shades menace Tanis, he just jukes out of their way. The shade that sees Bulgarath seems to decide not to interfere with him. Once free, Bulgarath realizes it's just the two of them, and and decides to go back for the rest.

Baldric sees a shade blocking his path, and tries to push it back with his torch while Geria gets past. Geria tries to use her royal symbol to command the shade, but it's not impressed. Baldric keeps the focus on it as Bulgarath comes up behind it and drives it back with his rune-covered sword. Baldric tells Bulgarath that Vestrum is trapped and Raatma is with him.

Raatma tells Vestrum that either they're going to die together or she's going to pull him free, and heaves with tremendous force. He pops free and they move down the passageway.

Hannar finds Tanis with the mounts, and the party regroups as another ash storm swirls overhead. The party mounts and rides off. Geria seems amazingly untroubled by the storm, but the rest of the party ends up riding their mounts to death to escape (except for Sparkles and Gregory). We come to rest just outside the storm, in terrible shape but alive, in the Frosthelm Beshar.