Talons of the Horned King part 3

Last night we played the third game in the Talons of the Horned King adventure! We had a smaller party than normal, with Andrew, Anthony, Marc, Marcus, and Rebecca playing.

As the game opened, the party had made camp on a cliff side overlooking the valley of the Horned King. They saw the valley crawling with jungle, with the mysterious face and spires immediately to the North, and the ruins of some sort of structure about a mile and a half to the Northeast. Varin noticed that magic was strangely affected by the forces in the valley, causing the blue sphere near their camp, as well as other affects. Throughout the night, the warlock charted eight different effects, at which spells were more powerful than normal, less powerful, or didn't work at all!

The party was up before dawn, and decided to enter the valley at sunrise, leaving a large cookfire as a distraction. When they rose, magic was blocked entirely in the valley, but by the time they made it down the cliff wall all spells and artifacts were up to half strength. On the ground the spires were visible over the treetops, but only 100 yards away was a glitter of brass through some broken trees. The party cautiously made their way through the trees to check it out.

In front of you is a strange-looking mechanical device, vaguely resembling a nobleman’s carriage but adorned with many odd objects. The black metal carriage has no wheels, but instead has several immobile metal globes welded to its base. Attached to the roof of the carriage is a long, flowing strip of red silk cloth. The silk, which billows restlessly in the cold arctic wind, is nearly 100 feet long and some 60 feet wide. It is riddled with holes, as is the black metal carriage, which looks as though some cosmic giant picked up the strange contraption and hurled it into the jagged rocks upon which it rests.

Through the billowing silk and reaching vines, you can barely make out a flickering light inside the wrecked carriage. It looks as if there may be some metal chests inside the carriage, but it is difficult to tell without actually entering the contraption.

On the side of the object the party saw a nameplate reading "Gilded Gull." Written in Common, no less.

Mendas looked inside and found the source of the light: a sunrod-based lamp, laying on its side in the crashed carriage. The party tossed the area, and found a well-made spyglass, but nothing else. The seats lifted up and had plenty of storage space underneath, but nothing was present. Hermiad went through the immediate area and found tracks, but they were huge, circular depressions in the ground, twenty feet apart and with tons of weight behind them.

The party moved on, and quickly came to a clearing around the Horned King.

Howls fill the air as you reach the crown. Two humanoids are huddled near one of the massive metallic spires, near a strange dais inscribed with several bizarre symbols. The creatures hold their heads in their giant hands, as if in great pain, and do not seem to notice your presence. The dais appears to be made of metal, and is octagonal in shape. The symbols on the dais glow softly, and one appears to glow more brightly than the others.

The Dais seemed to raise more questions than it answered. The "Moon" icon was lit, which seemed to correspond to the randomness in present magic. Some debate led to Mendas pushing the "Rain" button, and Varin immediately felt magic change as it shifted to the half-strength stuff felt an hour earlier. Any other buttons pressed had no effect.

While they puzzled over the dais, Hermiad scouted up the face of the Horned King. He found that the area was like a rough stone, covered in vines and growth, but with nothing outside of moss and lichen taking root. On the crest the ranger could see the ruins in the far corner of the valley: from here it seemed like a temple, and just within was an obelisk of some sort.

Much closer were the eyes of the King... the right was green, and to Hermiad it seemed a hole slowly steaming with a dense gas over a bright green light.

Bright emerald green light pours forth from this hole in the ground. The hole, which appears at first glance to be one of the “eyes” on the Horned King’s face, is 10 feet in diameter and leads to a metal-walled tunnel that descends vertically. A metal ladder is attached to the wall of this tunnel. From looking down the tunnel, you can see that it leads down into some sort of chamber – but what (if anything) lurks within that chamber, you cannot be sure.

Next to this hole is a strange octagonal device, littered with strange symbols. It hums quietly, and the symbols randomly glow brightly, then softly.

Off it the distance, you can barely spot the other “eye” of the Horned King, which burns with a fainter, orange glow.

Hermiad got closer and caught a whiff of the gas: it was acidic and almost certainly poisonous. Mendas scrambled up and looked into the left eye, which at night had glowed orange. Here he found a similarly-shaped hole, but inside was a campfire surrounded by two mad Dragonborn. The rogue snuck off, with little to be gained by bothering them.

The party had all their notes about the Green Death, so they were not ready to go into that left eye. As the scouts descended, the Dais symbol changed on its own to "Lightning." Varin immediately figured out that spells were now supercharged: everything did an additional die, magic weapons had an additional +1, item daily powers were now encounter powers, holy crap! The party took advantage of their window of bad-ass to high-tail it to the temple.

You find yourselves standing in the vine-covered ruins of what may have been a temple some centuries ago. Shattered stones and tiny shards of colored glass are scattered all over the snow-covered ground. Piles of rubble lie where proud walls once stood, providing a skeletal outline of the ancient building.

In the center of the ruins stands a large, oblong stone, some 10 feet high and 4 feet in diameter. The surface of the stone is etched with symbols and words. Many of these symbols and words seem familiar to you. The symbols glow softly every few moments, lighting the remains of the ruined temple with an eerie crimson light.

At the base of the stone was written "Free the twin swords from glass prisons – And the Horned King shall be healed at last."

This monolith seemed to describe the buttons on the dais, but it was stone, could not be manipulated in any way, and might be a thousand years old.

The party fanned out to check out the ruins, but suddenly a giant figure shot over the horizon. What looked like a giant metal spider or crab made two more jumps and landed just outside the temple grounds. It was either an armored insect or a construct, but it looked more sophisticated and intricate than anything the characters had ever seen. "UNKNOWN PHENOTYPES DETECTED. REPRIORITIZING," it stated in Draconic as it ejected a figure from its body onto the ground. "OPERATION: ACQUISITION!"


We all rolled initiative, and the Steel Crab flubbed its roll, putting the whole party up in front. Hermiad fired off some shots, but didn't hit: the armor was tough. Varin prepared his encounter Flames of Phelgelos, and critted! That meant extra damage dice at maximum results, as well as the effects of his Rod of First Blood... his total damage was something like 68 points. Mendas clambered up on a pillar to try and jump on the robot's back, Erik gave the party a +2 AC for the rest of the fight, and Oddny fired a crossbow (that didn't make it through the AC). Still, massive first round of damage, nearly all from Varin!

The Steel Crab went next. First it sprayed the party with lightning, hitting three of them for some 15 damage. Then it vaulted over the party, ending up behind them near the doorway. The smoke cleared from the jump, and in its place was a squad of smaller robots! The party had to deal with two infantry hammer-wielding robots and one small hovering unit. And also some other robots that fanned out to give Bartix, Edgar, and Rurik something to do... One of the actual hammerers charged Oddny, and bloodied her. I think that was round 1!

The vikings started to mix it up and take down the smaller robots in the second round. Hermiad carved up one of the hammerers, but had to dodge a little hovering robot that tried to barrel into him and shock him with lighting that danced over its hull. The remaining hammerer charged in, and Varin met it with a spell to do some damage and grant combat advantage to allies. Ah, combat advantage, a siryn call to a rogue! Mendas jumped down from his pillar and stabbed the robot, presumably putting a dagger through hydraulics and wires. Erik helped get Oddny back to fighting status, and the paladin did the first bit of damage to the second hammerer.

The Steel Crab had been ignored all round, so it took the opportunity to fire into the crowd. It laid a lightning bomb, 5x5, into the crowd, doing 7 damage to Oddy and Varin, as well as both hammerers. I need to put more controllers and solo monsters into these fights, a 5x5 attack was awesome.

The hovering robot connected with Hermiad on the next round, delivering a few points of lightning damage. The ranger controlled himself and didn't try for direct retribution. Instead, he used his new Daily, Two-Wolf Pounce, to shift, shift, attack, attack, attack, shift, attack, attack. That's something like 5W, and I think there was a crit there... it shut down one hammerer, and brought the other to critical levels. Mendas went after the hoverer and shut it down, while Oddny used her On Pain of Death to end the last hammerer.

This left Varin free to curse the Steel Crab and Dire Radiance it. Even his At-Wills were doing crazy damage under the current magical environment.

The crab responded with another lightning bomb, which could now hit every viking but Mendas. My dice were on fire, hitting everyone (and critting on Hermiad). But then I rolled max damage anyway! 10 damage bloodied Erik, Oddny, and Hermiad.

The party had to scatter to heal... but at least all the fallen walls gave them boltholes to retreat to. Between potions, cleric powers, and second winds, they got back on their feet. Varin fired again at the crab, while Mendas moved up to perch on a wall.

The Steel Crab had been dealt over a hundred points of damage now, all by Varin. At the bottom of its mechanical soul it was pissed. It yelled "OPERATION: ANNIHILATION" and charged the warlock. This caused curse damage! which bloodied it by the time it got up to Varin. The warlock was then hit and bloodied by three close-in attacks: two giant claw swipes and a crackling taser from its mouthy bits.

Now healed and with just one opponent, the party converged on the crab. Varin shifted back a bit, and dodged the opportunity attack from its giant reach. He then pulled out the new level 5 Daily, Hunger of Hadar. Placed right on the crab, it ensured some 3D10 damage as soon as its turn started. Mendas hopped down and stabbed at the new darkness, doing Sneak Attack from the totally-blocked line of sight. Oddny and Erik joined in.

On the Steel Crab's turn, the chittering mouths of Hadar took its toll, and the robot shuttered. It still lashed out, hitting Varin, Oddny, and Hermiad, but couldn't do serious wounds. Hermiad finished it off with two battle-axes to the robo-thorax. Whoo-hoo!

This fight exhausted the vikings, and they needed a rest. They made a camp in the ruins and were ready to go again around 2:00 PM. It was a short walk back to the Horned King, where the gas still spewed out of the eye. With no options at the ruins, and each console played with, how to shut if off?

Varin had an idea: his Amulet of Health gave him a +5 resistance to poison, effectively acting as a magic gasmask. Sadly, the closest anyone else could come was protection for a single round. Varin had to descend alone, with the party clustered around the opening listening.

Inside, Varin found a curious room:

The ladder from the jungle above leads you down into a cold metal chamber. It is circular in shape with a 40-foot diameter. The chamber is empty, save for a circular metal hatch, 5 feet in diameter, on the western wall of the room. You passed through a similar hatch in the ceiling as you descended into the room.

Next to each hatch is a small metallic box. On each box are four small buttons. Each button has a symbol etched on its surface – one has the image of fire, while the others are water, lightning, and the moon.

He went to the console and tried to get in, using the clues in the various documents the party had found. The documents from Thargdar seemed to indicate that a combination of Lightning and Fire might defeat the "green death." Somewhat by accident, a combination of the buttons closed one hatch in the top, dispensed the gas, and opened the lower hatch. Varin looked out into a strange hallway, all metal, with a mysterious cabinet full of blinking lights.

Varin reversed the combination, called the party down, and opened the hatch again. Next week, into the dungeon!

Casualties:
One Robot Crab
Two Robot Hammerers
One Hover Robot
Like eight beers