H&Y Infinite Open Table Session 33 (The Obsidian Palace)
Characters:
Bridget Southernbatch (Talison)
Tanzy (Duress)
Xiao (Laggs)
Sylvio (Reeves) + Tabitha
Autumn 37, 6023
The party sails east from Fort Venigni towards Dakton, hearing that undead from upstream are bothering Lord Vincent at the fort. They are attacked at sunset by a flight of obsidian gargoyles, who they manage to defeat.
Autumn 38, 6023
The party reaches Dakton and meets up with the local magnate, Harbormaster Peters. They learn that undead are assaulting the town relatively frequently and seem to be coming from the obsidian tower across the river at the edge of the desert. The PCs secure a local guide (Dakbrook the dwarf) and go exploring to learn the extent of the attacks.
The party learns that the Harbormaster is seen as incompetent by the local business class due to his inability to stop the undead attacks. They find a witch's house in the woods surrounded by dead trees and guarded by an obsidian monolith. They break into the witch's house but leave when they trigger an illusion, not wanting to anger her if they accidentally also triggered an alarm. The party also heads to the source of the River Dak, checking behind the waterfall for a cave system after hearing that there might be a king's tomb beyond the cliff face. They do find an inscription noting that "The Way will be opened when the Blood Of The King is presented," but are unable to move further in.
Autumn 39, 6023
Having exhausted all other possibilities, the party heads towards the obsidian tower to check it out. They find a spiral staircase heading deep beneath the sands in the tower and follow it down.
Below, they find a large cavern filled with an obsidian palace complex. The palace is guarded by metal dwarves and covered with undead, especially at the nearby quarry. Tanzy spots a balcony as a possible entry point but laments the dwarf standing there as they'll surely raise the alarm. She uses her Projectile Potion spell and spits a dose of poison at the dwarf, killing him instantly. An Erinyes (flaming devil valkyrie type) wails in horror and comes out onto the balcony, prompting the party to flee back up the stairs and collapse them behind them.
They guess that the Erinyes might have been the missing witch from the cabin they found in the woods yesterday and head back there to loot the place. They find evidence that someone was working with a ship capable of travelling into space to ship something out of Dakton and a few very suspicious magic items.
The party extorts a reward out of Harbormaster Peters for "solving their undead problem" and spend a few days talking politics with local business owners. They make a point of contact in Sergei Monroe, Dakbrook's father.
Autumn 42, 6023
The party heads back to Fort Venigni.
*Note: The dungeon crawl portion of this session ended almost as soon as it began. The dwarf on the balcony was actually the one sending the undead to attack Dakton, but the PCs had no knowledge of what was going on in the cavern. Tanzy's spell happened to have a range of "sight" allowing her to act spontaneously, and it happened to align with what they ultimately wanted. Just because its anticlimactic isn't a reason to prevent the character's action from taking hold and prompting a whole new series of cause-and-effect in setting!
It's a shame they blocked up the dungeon since I spent a while prepping it, but hey at least now I can share the map and key online.*