Black City Game 8 - A Careless Transfixion

After what seemed like a month away from the role-playing table, we were able to get in another session this past weekend.  In fact, the weekend was a gaming bonanza - we also had a nice 4-player game of Dungeon Command on Sunday night, too.  But first, let's talk about how poor Arthur the Fair was transfixed by a giant lance and drawn into the mouth of a stone head and ground into a formless mass.

Breaking from the many delves in the giant tunnels beneath the city, the group finally started exploring the topside ruins.  Our last session ended with them finding a belt of levitation, which Arthur now used to float near the ceiling, clearing ice and debris and pulling open a pair of clamshell doors that led from their part of the dungeon level into the cool, crisp air of the surface.

Arthur floated higher into the air, so he could crane his neck around and get a nice 360 view of the surrounding ruined city hexes.  They now have the start of a surface map for hex crawling.  Not far to the north of their position was the edge of the great glacier that splits the northern and southern halves of the city, and the heavy mist and clouds that obscures the north half.  Immediately to the north of the dungeon entrance was a fascinating domed building, fully intact when everything around it was tumbled, cracked, and fallen.  Most interesting!

But as Arthur looked to the south, he saw a troop of Vikings a few streets over, pointing up into the sky at him, and clambering up rubble piles to get a better look.  Arthur quickly dropped down out of view with the levitation belt.

"Did they see you?  Are they coming this way?"  Those were the types of questions peppering Arthur when he got back below ground.  Since the 'voice of reason' in the group had to miss Saturday's game, the callous remnants decided that "dead men tell no tales"; the best way to keep their new entrance to the dungeon secret was to ensure the guys that spotted them never left the ruins... alive.  Climbing ropes were made to get everyone topside; the group scouted a good vantage for an ambush; a trap was laid for the other party.  Despite a careful approach, the Hersir and his guardsmen didn't stand a chance against the player's hail of arrows and brutal charge on foot.  The bodies were dropped down the long shaft after the useful gear and money was stripped off the corpses.

"Those guys were just in the wrong place at the wrong time", remarked Shamus.  "Under other circumstances, we might have tried to talk to them.  But we can't have word about our special dungeon entrance getting back to the camps."

While everyone was together on the surface, the party went to investigate the large domed building.  It appeared to be made out of a dull brown metal, apparently impervious; they could see where ancient obelisks and columns fell onto the building, shattering themselves, but doing aught to the structure.  Arthur was invoked to go scout the entrance.

As the thief approached the entrance, a pair of large ball-like structures, flanking the entrance area, rotated in their sockets and revealed (previously hidden) stone faces with large gem-like eyes. Each stone ball was around 10' diameter.  The eyes glinted with a faint orange gleam.

The group was cognizant that certain structures in the city would open to someone bearing the right color gemstone passkey, and they were fortunate to have an orange gemstone; Arthur held it out in front of himself, and approached the two round heads.  He was able to get to the door, which also had an orange flicker on a nearby panel, and his gemstone opened the door to the domed building.  Beyond, he saw a large circular place, dimly illuminated by occasional purple strobes of light.  They had discovered an untouched structure that had escaped pillage and ruin!

Greed got the better part of prudence, and Arthur stowed the orange stone to retrieve a chisel and hammer - he had every intent of looting those gemstone eyes from the rotating balls that flanked the doorway.  The rest of the party, a safe distance across the square, watched in horror as the stone ball behind Arthur opened a mouth, lanced him with a long, spear-like tongue, and drew the wriggling thief back to it's mouth, where he was crushed and mangled.  It looked kind of like the set of "watchers" in the middle row of this picture:

They spent some time with a grappling hook and rope, trying to snag Arthur's crushed remains and drag them back to a safe distance, in the vain hope that the orange passkey gem was still in serviceable condition.  No such luck.  They had no way to get into the metal dome or safely approach the watchers.  A cairn was built for Arthur, and the group returned to the dungeon below.

There's not much more to say; they explored a handful of new rooms in the Mist Dungeon, getting into a few simple combats, and not discovering too much of great interest.  We ended after the party chiseled their way into a frozen vault, and braved the chill mist in the frigid room to behold a number of 'specimens' in large upright tanks; there was a long-haired human, a muscular Neanderthal, a white-haired man-monkey, and a thing that was built like the Neanderthal, but had ashen skin, vicious looking sharp teeth, and appeared blind or eyeless.  They grabbed some electrum plates off the wall, covered in alien dot matrix script writing, and retreated to a camp site in the dungeon.