Dwarven Vault 1For the first two hours of the next session, the group played a bunch of Oathenor's kobold lackeys instead of their regular characters. It was great, in an ugly back-stabbing living in perpetual fear sort of way. I gave everyone a pre-generated kobold (courtesy of Jamis Buck's wonderful NPC generator!) of 3rd level. I tried to change the classes around a little; Sagiro got a kobold barbarian, for instance, dumb and strong. There was a paranoid female fighter, a pompous sorcerer loyal to the Dragonking, a sneaky rogue spying for the exiled Dread Lord Klixxit, a cowardly rogue on the verge of bolting, and a female sorcerer (played by Blackjack, Malachite's player) who was not so much a 3rd lvl kobold as she was a 11th lvl ghoul sorcerer mind jarred into a kobold's body. That was a secret, of course, as were her negotiations with Oathenor. The group slowly snuck into the palace area after the sound of the Dragonking kicking the upstart surfaceworlders' butts faded. They were more than a little surprised to see dwarves still alive. Melee ensued, of course, but dwarven reinforcements started to arrive - at about the same time that kobolds started to desert or (in the case of the barbarian) die in combat. The "kobold" sorcerer finally lost her temper. The rest of the group found out her secret - very briefly - when she tired of their incompetence and cowardice and cast cloud kill and a couple of fireballs down the hallway, killing every other surviving kobold and a couple of dwarves. She then escaped into the caverns. Presumably she's out there somewhere, stirring up trouble while the Defenders explore the vault. Blackjack: And then I realized that I had cloudkill. A nice way to kill some dwarves and cover my escape. The fact that the kobolds were all 3 HD creatures, meaning they'd die instantly, was a very, very pleasant side effect. After the fight, the Defenders take some time to regroup and heal. "Well, that was easier than I thought it would be!" remarks Nolin. "I didn't even get hurt! Can you believe it?" From under his blood-encrusted eyebrows, Priggle gives him an incredibly filthy look. One of the dwarven soldiers jogs in, panting. "Sir!" he addresses Splinder and Mara. "Something just tried to break into the palace. Kobolds, I think – and we were doing a fine job fighting them off. Then a fireball went off, some sort of acidic cloud slammed down, and I think we've lost three men." Splinder barely hesitates. "Right. We're on it." With a quick discussion to gauge people's capabilities, half the group heads for the palace entrance, clambering over and under rubble to do so. The other half stays by the dragon's corpse. "Now," ponders Nolin, "which bits might be valuable? I wish arcade were here. He loves this dissection stuff." From atop the dragon's body, balanced precariously and sawing away at a huge claw, Agar gives him a thumbs up. "Not to worry. I'm on it!" He smiles boldly. "It's fascinating; he seems to have elemental matter suffused right in to his body! It's making the dissection much more difficult. But I'll be plucking teeth, cutting off claws and scales, and if I can I'll dig out his heart." He looks doubtfully at the huge bulk rising next to him. "That might take some work. But at least I'll get these two rings off! I'm not so sure about the necklace; it won't fit over his head, and chopping off that neck will take hours." The other Defenders return, accompanied by a visibly distressed Glibstone. "Any luck?" asks Nolin. Malachite shakes his head. "By the time we got there, whoever or whatever cast those spells was gone. We recovered some kobold bodies, so we can speak with dead. He looks grim. "We recovered some dwarven bodies, too. Five dead, between the dragon fight and the kobolds." "It could have been much worse!" opines Glibstone, shaking his belled head as he gazes up at the dragon in awe. "I can't believe you killed that thing. After all, prithee, what's the difference between an insane asylum and a band of dragon hunters?" Malachite frowns. "Now is not the time." "Magic swords," finishes Glibstone seriously, and jingles. "That's funny," says Mara encouragingly. "Twice," says Nolin. "What?" asks Glibstone. "We killed it twice. We killed it, it healed, and we killed it again." He looks worriedly down at the small statuette in his hand. Glibstone looks at him with disbelief. "We'll tell you about it later. For now, let's look at that vault door." "Indeed! Say, what is" Malachite rounds on him, suddenly furious. "Not. Now. We are at a tactical disadvantage, with known enemies around probably summoning aid, and time is short. Stop telling jokes. Open the vault." He catches Glibstone in his withering glare, and the dwarven loremaster's spirit crumples slightly. "Do it." "Indeed," Glibstone mumbles, and sets to work. *** A few minutes later, the rubble has been cleared from around the vault door, and Glibstone is ready to proceed. More rubble hangs magically above his head, suspended by Velendo's flexible wall, but not due to fall for some time. "I've never been past the first room before, but I have the accumulated lore entrusted to me by his late Majesty. Please be patient." The dwarf moves up to the huge stone door of the vault. He places his lips to it and speaks quietly, too quietly for anyone else to hear. With a slight rumbling, gears turn and vibrate deep within the stone, and the door sinks down out of sight. Behind it is a vast black portal shimmering with magic. "Come on." Splinder steps through and disappears entirely. With a worried look, the rest of the Defenders also step through, accompanied by their two mounts and the 25 remaining dwarven soldiers. They enter a vast room shaped like a half of a donut – "I'm hungry," Nolin mumbles – and lined floor to ceiling with narrow slots for scrolls and stone tablets. The only thing breaking the document storage space is perfectly carved murals of dwarven battles. The portal they emerge from is on the room's curving left-hand wall. Ahead of them along the inner curved wall are seven black portals with dwarven runes above them. To the left and right, on a raised floor, workspace for dozens of scribes and stonemasons fill the floor. It's immediately clear that many of the worktables have been knocked over. 
The place appears empty. The paladins immediately begin checking for evil and undead, to no avail. Glibstone gives a cry of distress and begins picking up scrolls from the floor. Galthia gives the room a long, slow look and begins to methodically search. A few people join him. The rest of the adventurers, perhaps spoiled by the memory of the now-departed sharp-sighted Palladio of House Roaringbrook, don't bother to search methodically and instead wander about the room aimlessly. Only Priggle decides to study the scrolls and tablets, squirreled away in a corner and unnoticed by any of the dwarves. Agar has been studying the portals, using his innate gate sense to track where they lead to. "I think these all go directly into the heart of the positive material plane. One step through these before we've unlocked the lock, and we'll end up exploding from too much life energy. Neat, huh?" He looks up at the top of the portals. "Each of these seven portals are labeled with the name of one of the Seven Heavens of Mount Celestia, the plane of boring do-gooder fuddy-duddies." Mara and Malachite flash him a warning look, and he grins to show he isn't serious. Glibstone nods. "The Lore instructs that if we would ascend the paths of the vault, we would mount into heaven itself." Agar nods in understanding. "So, we take the door labeled with the name of the first Heaven, Lunia?" Glibstone shakes his head, bells jingling. "No. I think we are already in Lunia, the first of the seven heavens, since we're already in the first room. We should take the portal to Mercuria, the second heaven. As soon as I figure out how to activate the portal." From the left side of the room, Galthia calls out. "There is a pile of clothes here, and armor, hidden by this turned over writing desk." His long face twists. "There is also something that can only be described as gobbets. Little pieces of flesh." Nolin and Tao run over and look. Tao points. "You see this blood smear on the floor? And those marks in it?" She frowns. "Unless I'm mistaken, those are tongue prints. Someone or something was licking the blood off of the floor." Everyone blanches, and Tao digs out a circular disk from the bottom of her pack. "Let's see who or what this is," she says, and drops a tiny chunk of flesh into the disk. Immediately in the air above it, the image of a young, frightened dwarf appears. He is wearing the regalia of a royal dwarven soldier. Glibstone immediately takes notice. "That's Dorthuld!" he exclaims. "The King's second Squire, responsible for bearing His Majesty's extra axe." Nolin idly sorts through the loose clothing and armor, and his eyebrows rise as he uncovers a roughly written journal. "Hang on," he says. "Look at this." The journal reads: 
Tao looks up from over by the portals. "There are faint bloody footsteps leading in this direction. The dwarven King must have awoken as a ghoul, eaten his poor squire – and he's somewhere deeper in the vault." "Poor bastard," says Nolin. "So, Glibstone?" asks Mara, trying to change the subject to something more cheerful, "Any luck on figuring out how to make the portal work?" The dwarf gulps, fighting down horror. "Prithee, I believe so, yes Mum. The Lore tells me to use my knowledge of history to correct past mistakes." He gestures at the stone mural in front of him. "This is a scene from a famous battle. But there are a few things wrong with it! For instance, King Horox III didn't ride a giant spider, he rode a riding lizard, like Tao's." Standing on the ceiling, Newt looks down at the dwarf in interest. "And this banner is simply wrong! See, the symbol on it is of the wrong house." Mara shrugs as Glibstone strokes his beard. "I wonder." He reaches out his hand and touches the stone, and it ripples and twists beneath the end of his finger. "Flowstone," breathes Velendo. As the group watches, Glibstone concentrates, and the banner changes, followed by the stone spider transforming into a lizard. Nothing changes at the portal, though. Suddenly Glibstone smacks himself on the head. "Of course! It's so obvious! Aselgrim's shield is wrong, too. See? He should have a large spiked shield, not a buckler. A child would know that." Nolin rolls his eyes as Splinder makes a final change. As he does so, all the portals begin to glow with white light, and Agar squints as he uses gate sense to peer into the portal labeled "Mercuria." Agar's tentacular familiar Proty begins to wriggle frantically, swooping around the halfling's head, and Agar turns to the rest of the group with a doubting expression on his round face. "Well, it doesn't connect to the Positive Material Plane any more. That's the good news. The bad news is that it seems to lead to a big maelstrom of crunching stone and pounding hammers. There's enough space for two or so people to stand safely, but I don't think we should go rushing blindly through that portal with everyone following right behind." "The next room should be the traditional armory," cautions Glibstone, "designed so that an invading force can't enter it all at once. The Lore indicates that tradition will see you safely through, so long as you have been taught the dwarven ways." "Oh, great," signs Velendo. "This ought to be interesting." The Vault of Lore is silent for a minute as people look at the hissing, sparkling portals. Nolin speaks up. "I think Glibstone should go first." Glibstone looks startled. "What? Me?" Nolin slaps him on the back. "Don't worry, I'll come too. And," his eyes roam across the other Defenders. "Agar?" The halfling smiles broadly at being picked by his friend, and straightens his clothing. "Remember, if the portal deactivates, you guys know how to open it again, right?" Malachite nods, and Agar steps through with Nolin and Glibstone. |