[Day 42 – Dwarf located and spin-dried]
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened January 23, 2023.]
[SPOILERS! If you are likely to adventure through the Shattered Star Adventure Path from Paizo, this campaign will be spoilers all the way down.]
Player Characters
Marativy – female ratfolk 9th level Ninja
Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 9th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar
Roscuro – male ratfolk 9th level Monk
Swamprover – female grippli 9th level Wizard
Via Roll20
Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 9th level Summoner (Synthesist)
Winston – male ratfolk 9th level Gunslinger
NPCs
Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 7th level Wizard (Invoker)
Hrefna – female changeling 7th level Omdura
Ariphi – female tiefling 7th level Rogue
Autumn
Day 42
After spending a day on the surface in Kaer Maga to recover from the first expedition to the Thassilonian Workshop, the Ratpack was ready to return. They took the long sloping passage under the Therassic Spire all the way down to the Workshop.
At the first room Zitch stated he wanted to cast Detect Secret Doors to verify the Ratpack had not missed anything in the rooms cleared so far. As the previous Thassilonian dungeons the group had explored contained numerous secret doors, this was very reasonable. The question room, the chain room, the ex-couatl prison, and the orrery were checked in quick order and no secret doors were located.
When the group went to check the round room with the ziggurat, they found it now had an occupant. Sitting on top of the ziggurat going through his backpack was a corpulent gnome, recognizable as Luonin the Vast, a bloat mage and the third member of the missing adventuring party. In conversation gnome was singularly uninterested in where his traveling companions were. He seemed to be unaware of how long he had been down in the workshop. He was convinced this room was the only important one, being the center of the universe. He offered to show the Ratpack how it worked.
Suspicious [as usual], Roscuro agreed to a demonstration. He and Marativy entered the circular room, but Roscuro gestured for the rest of the Ratpack to stay in the corridor. As Roscuro and Marativy approached the central ziggurat, Luonin pulled the lever on top of the ziggurat. This started the room spinning!
As the room spun, the three equally spaced doorways moved out of sync with the doors, showing bare wall instead. The speed of the spin rapidly increased and it became difficult for Roscuro and then Marativy to keep their footing with some force pushing them out from the center of the room. Quickly the room reached a speed where they were forced out to the walls of the room and could stand on them, though they felt much heavier than normal. Luonin hovered over the central ziggurat, ranting about how this room was clearly the center of the universe with the rest of the universe rotating around it.
[The room was spinning like the Barrel Roll ride at Astroworld, which dates me somewhat. The force pushing them out was centripetal force from the rapid spin.]
Templeton, standing in the corridor and seeing the room was rotating, timed a jump to enter the room before it got up to full speed. Luonin turned invisible and started attacking Roscuro, Marativy, and Templeton. During the fight, Swamprover attempted to cast Magic Missile at Luonin – some missiles made it into the room on the first casting, but none from a second casting made it, splashing on the outside of the spinning walls.
Eventually the Ratpack knocked out Luonin and tied him up. Roscuro pushed the lever back into its starting position and the room slowed back down and eventually stopped [leaving those in the room a little dizzy and slightly nauseous]. At Templeton’s suggestion, Luonin’s unconscious form was relieved of valuables. This included a wand of Shield [5 charges left], a potion of Cure Moderate Wounds, a jar of fortifying leeches, Luonin’s notebook, and some reference books. The reference books included Magical Properties of Fae Lineages, Properties of Evocation Magic, and some books containing synopses on various Outer Planes.
Looking through Luonin’s notebook, there seemed to a definite point where he started going mad. Earlier entries were in a neat hand and cover things seen and done. At a certain point the writing started getting looser and then wild verging on frenetic. Those portions seemed more babbling and repetitious.
The Ratpack decided to take Luonin back to the surface now and get paid for returning him alive before he woke up and became belligerent again. Back at the Spire Luonin was turned over unconscious but alive and the Ratpack was paid the 2000gp bounty for a living member of the previous group. They then turned around and descended again. [This part was a little rushed as we were wrapping up for the night.]
Back at the dungeon entrance, Zitch put his Ward on Marativy and cast Heroism on Marativy and Roscuro.
End of Session
Rat Whispers
[Winston’s player contracted Covid at work and was sick, so he attended remotely through Roll20. This caused some logistics issues at the game as his laptop and monitor were the access points used for the table. He mirrors the play area on a separate monitor and we plug in an external microphone and speakers so Templeton’s player can hear the entire table clearly and be heard by the table. The other reason we do this is to limit the number of laptops at the table, which limits distractions and keeps the players focused on the game. I ended up booting up my laptop and a spare monitor to provide AV for this session. Mine do the job, but Winston’s player’s monitor is much better than my spare and his laptop is newer by years, making it faster and better able to keep up with load.]
Ratpack
Book 1: Shards of Sin Landing Page – Links to all Book 1 sessions
Book 2: Curse of the Lady’s Light Landing Page – Links to all Book 2 sessions
Book 3: The Asylum Stone Landing Page – Links to all Book 3 sessions
Last Session: Session 21
Next Session: Session 23
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