DivineDetritusDraugh3CaveOfDestiny
Contents
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Prev: Draugh Empire, Part 2: Sands of History
Summary
June 3, 1236 AD
Scorpion Cave
Realtime: Dec 14, 2015-Dec 22, 2015
Another day begins. The Draugh Empire seems to be too distracted chasing Magmere to notice the party. The team gears up for another day. The wind has picked up and it's become overcast. It seems like the party is in for a rough trip. Everyone except Vegeta and Fleir seem demoralized by the entire trip. It also doesn't help that they seem to be caught up in a sandstorm.
Fi leads the party to a cave to wait out some of the storm - sadly said cave is also full of scorpions and goblin corpses. After killing the scorpions, the party notices several of the goblin equipment has the same symbol- it's not the Draugh Army nor Magmere Consortium.
Sheeva
Realtime: Dec 23, 2015 - Jan 2, 2016
After getting lost in the sand storm, Fi finds a clearing. Like the eye of a tropical storm, the air is relatively clear and undisturbed. There is a lone salamander in a rock pit, smashing rocks, shadow boxing and occasionally spewing hot sand into the sky. It seems she is responsible for the sandstorm. Nidri notes that she has aspects of the Salamanders on the Plane of Fire and elementals from the Plane of Earth. She suspects this is one of Petal Rose's sisters.
Vegeta senses a warrior's spirit, and smashes a boulder as a display of strength. She challenges him to a sparring match. Although his fists burn from touching a superheated creature, Vegeta is still able to defeat her. She thanks him for a good fight by healing his wounds. A large army of goblins led by an Iron Giant, led by electricity entered the desert, looking for something. They were quite hostile to Sheeva, so she put up a sandstorm to slow down their efforts.
Fi suggests they deal with the Iron Giant before heading to the destination, but Sheeva directions indicate the Iron Giant may be traveling to the same destination. Sheeva wishes the party good luck (and invites Vegeta for a rematch) before running off to deal with roving goblins.
Cave of Destiny
Realtime: Jan 3, 2016 -Jan 11, 2016
An hour after leaving Sheeva's Pit, the party arrives at a hole in the ground. A gentle slope goes into an impromptu excavation site. Sure enough, there are plenty of goblin gunners and alchemists blowing up parts of the cave, mining for large, multicolored rocks.
As the party fights the goblins, Nidri takes a moment to listen to a nearby chamber. She notices a huge golem drilling and digging into the walls. By the time the rest of the party finishes fighting the goblins, the golem finishes its drilling and begins playing with the gems like they are toys.
First Child: Calaminus, the Juggernaut
The Iron Giant known as Calaminus is happy. Daddy will love him for finding these gems. Luckily he isn't paying close attention and the party realizes they'll have to defeat him if they want to get access to the crevice full of the gems. Claire's fragment begins to resonate as they approach- their goal must be close! Vegeta moves up and notices Calaminus has trouble actually holding the giant rocks- he seems allergic? Nidri and Fi note he must have trouble touching Sendrine. Nidri notices that the cavern seems to be sprouting these Sendrine boulders on top of cliffs, directly above Calaminus.
It thinks Vegeta is a pet named George and begins hugging and squeezing him. Calaminus thinks Vegeta's screams are his attempts to sing, and he pins Claire down with a metal cage that gives similar "hugs." Nidri has a bright idea and climbs up and pushes one of the rocks directly on top of Calaminus. The rocks seem to weaken him, and Fi takes advantage of this with his Sendrine arrows, breaching the armor and striking through the power source.
Calaminus throws a temper tantrum as its power source goes critical. The stability of the cavern is threatened, and it's clear the entire thing will soon collapse. The team quickly grabs chunks of Sendrine and escapes as the cave collapses.
Back to Civilization
Now safe, Claire inserts the white crystal key into the orb. An image of Merki flashes before their eyes, warning them of his discoveries and his worries. Vegeta notices a hidden message as the image fades away.
Sheeva reaches the group and thanks them for clearing out the cave while she drove the goblins. She is able to escort the party to the outskirts of the Kingdom's capital. Fi notices the feeling of dread leaving him and the rest of the party. Hawk and Nidri overcome the scorpion poison and its effects.
June 6, 1236 AD
Knowledge is Power
General Johann leads a group of soldiers and the Princess to the party as they enter town. Here, the Kingdom formally apologizes for suspecting them of treachery. They conflated them with the Magmere Company. The princess is silent throughout this, but it's clear she's pulling the strings. General Johann then asks what else they know about goings on there.
The party mentions:
- Sheeva
- Rhino Mech
- Goblins with Guns
They specifically avoid mentioning:
- Do not talk about the cave
- Do not talk about BB
Merki's Cave message
An illusion appears from the large crystal, in the image of a half-orc. It’s about 3 feet tall. You recognize him as Merki, sitting on a chair. “Uh, is this thing on? Oh, it is? Okay.” He coughs. “If you’re watching this… well, thanks for doing this. Agent Midnight doesn’t trust many people, but she obviously trusts you. Or you did something bad to her, and her parents are going to hunt you down. Sucks to be you!”
“So, Sendrine. There was a sorceress from long, long ago. Big into transmutations and transformations. She was also a fan of the Material Plane- where we live. I don’t know the details, but she managed to merge herself with a whole island. If you lived there, you ate, drank or breathed her. A little freaky for my tastes. Anyway, I think that island sank at some point. Bottom of the ocean. That’s the earliest records of Sendrine I could find: the island remains crystallized somehow.”
“The Wailing Night was over a thousand years ago. That kind of planar invasion must have pissed someone off, because people have recently found these Sendrine crystals. Maybe that sorceress is still striking out against outsiders somehow.”
“Agent Midnight discovered this cave a while ago, but didn’t understand the significance until I took a look at it and did some experiments. This cave is full of Sendrine. Various colors that have different effects. I’m not sure what they do, but I do know a bit about the black ones. It’s extremely brittle, but outsiders hate them. You know, those born on another plane of existence who moved to this plane. Not the native kind.”
"Outsiders live among us. Some try to help. Some try to hurt. But they are all trying to fit in somehow. I have some work to do, to figure out who is on what side." Merki stands up. "I don't know what you're planning to do, but good luck."
"Are we done? How do you turn this off?" Merki stares curiously at the crystal. You hear Agent Midnight's voice. "Just-just stand there. I got this, Merki. You're worse than BB."
The image gives a bright flash, and the image is gone. The bright flash is actually text. You are able to read it in that moment.
“I’m alive- keep this secret, especially around the Mels.”
Developer Notes
Chat Log(Text Only)
Sheeva
I was wondering if you'd attack her as a party or challenge her one on one. She would scale herself appropriately in either case. For the duel, I didn't use her DR 10/magic because we would be here forever (although Vegeta has magical fists.) If you did challenge her as a party she would have DR and summon Fire Elementals. She fights with honor and would have provided some healing no matter who won.
Goblins can be annoying
Goblins have high AC. Gunslingers and Goblins with Dex-boosting mutagen can get their AC to 19. Plus all the enemies rely on touch AC with either guns or bombs. The alchemist goblins have the same statistics as Snock!, a goblin who lived in a garbage dump in Harvest Wharf and is not "employed" by the Mel family.
Calaminus
That fight went how I expected it too. Calaminus does not understand its own strength, and went to grapple the first thing in range. I'm happy that was right next to a cliff, because I didn't know how to you would lure him over to one besides letting him KO someone and looking for the next George.
First Major Decision: Do you tell Draugh Kingdom about the cave of Sendrine?
This is a pretty important decision that will have consequences. Only the party understands its importance, and it may be useful to get another kingdom to guard it from intrusion. Or maybe the Draugh Kingdom would abuse its power. It's not fully clear, but the decision will have ramifications.
