Session 59 - Windy Devon loses his Senses

Thu 27th Jan 2022 19:30 - 23:15

In-game timeline: Nightal 29 - Hammer 05 DR1490

ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!

Drogan is quick off the mark (or rather, the enemy is a little sluggish!) and both he and Devon are able to get an attack in early. Devon's attempt at making the cyclone of salt laugh doesn't work (some would say, unsurprisingly!) but Drogan's attacks land, and, potentially even more importantly, he is able to start RAGING before the enemy can get an attack in.

Which is lucky, as the enemy then tries to knock Drogan off his feet by smashing him with a wall of salt spray. Drogan in his raging state is able to stay on his feet and take less damage than he otherwise would have. Dwarrow starts to pull Drogan to the edge of the hole, using the rope that is tied around the barbarian - the other end of which is attached to one of the horses. Alwaith meanwhile curses the creature and blasts it with his reliable Eldritch Blasts. What looked like a worrying battle for an isolated Drogan seems to be turning in their favour with some quick decent hits on the enemy!

The playing field is somewhat levelled when our "Heroes" can only watch as two small impish creatures seem to form from the swirling salt of the large creature itself, and break away from it, heading directly towards Drogan. Before they reach him Devon quickly casts Gust of Wind to try to send them away from Drogan, and also hoping to send the large salt-creature further away too. Drogan meanwhile manages another hit on the swirling salt, though his attacks are being a little hampered by the fact that he is being dragged at the end of a rope by a horse. His RAGING makes up for it, though, and the creature takes some more damage from Cleave.

The impish creatures are both blown away by the gust of wind, preventing them from attacking Drogan. The salt-monster is less hampered - it is blown away but is able to fight against the wind and reach Drogan and slam him into the side of the wall. Twice.

Devon maintains his gust of wind, as it seems to be working. Trying to fire an arrow into this wind proves unsurprisingly difficult, though. Dwarrow is "busy" controlling the horses to pull Drogan up the side of the hole, which at least allows the barbarian to continue to attack the salt monster. Drogan and Alwaith pepper the monster with hits, slowly but surely disrupting the swirling salt.

Another salt-imp appears and as Drogan reaches the top of the hole, followed by the whirling salt creature, the imp manages to avoid the wind and attach itself to Drogan, injecting salt into his Dwarven blood for regular necrotic damage and requiring Drogan to use his next action to pull it away from his body. A second imp fights against the wind, but is unable to hit a writhing Drogan. The other salty-imp is swept up again by the wind and cannot attack. As the large salt-monster readies for another mighty slam attack, it is overcome by the attacks from the group and eventually dissolves into the ground. The imps manage a couple more attacks, but with the threat of the larger creature no longer present, the group manage to despatch them quickly.

A battered and bruised Drogan, thankful to have survived what could have been a difficult battle, brushes the salt from his body.

Our "Heroes" gather the large bones from the bottom of the hole with no further incident, and hide them under salt and canvas, intending to recover them on their way back. They decide to move away from this area, before setting up camp for the night.

The night is restless. The winds, and the noises on the wind, make all of them uneasy. Drogan and Dwarrow are both affected by the sounds and unnerving feel of this place, and actually take some psychic damage from the experience, and find it hard to recover any health from their rest.

The following day they travel to the approximate centre of the salt flats but see no sign of any tower. With four days to kill before the tower is supposed to appear, and with the salt flats being a very unnerving place to rest, and a place with very little sustenance, they decide to head for the woods on the eastern side to wait the next few days in a place with some food and water. Their 4 day wait is uneventful. At least it is in this part of the world. What is happening elsewhere in the land as they hunt rabbits and pick flowers is something they don't worry about. Yet.

On the fourth day they travel back into the Salt Flats, making their way to the centre. Resting overnight once again proves an ordeal for Dwarrow, who takes more psychic damage.

At dawn, Drogan is the first to see the tower appearing above the salt flats. That's right, ABOVE the flats. About 20' above in fact. A lovely looking clock tower, with intense coloured lights coming from the four clock faces, which unfortunately seem to be showing the wrong time.

The first challenge is to find a way to get up to the floating tower. A clever use of mage hand and seeing through Nige's eyes, with the aid of Ropey the sentient rope, enabled Devon to attach the rope to a hook at the base of the door and they all manage to climb up to the door and knock.

The door is answered by a clockwork automaton named Jeep. After some discussion, and some tea, it becomes apparent that Azkael has not been seen by the clockwork inhabitants of the tower for about… 300 years, after he disappeared up to his bedroom in the top of the tower one night. Our "Heroes" decide to send Nige up outside the tower to see if there is a way in, or a window to look through, on the outside. Devon zones in to look through Nige's eyes and ears.

This proves to be a disastrous decision. As soon as Nige gets a little higher than the hands on the clock face, he is suddenly frozen. In time. Devon tries to wrench his senses back from Nige, fighting the fact that 'his' senses are also frozen in place. He fails. He remains as blind and deaf as Nige.

The group try to knock Nige out of the time-freeze using magic and arrows. All that results is that the force blast and arrow are also frozen in place and time. The group retire back into the tower to consider their options.

Jeep informs them that Jarvis, another automaton constructed by Azkael to help in his engineering works, removed a key piece of equipment from the clock mechanism - for what purpose is unknown - and this may be linked to the problems with time. Jarvis is apparently a little mad, having been created using a batch of "bad" chinz crystals. And he apparently has built himself a guard dog.

Jeep unsuccessfully tries to dissuade the party from heading up to the next floor, where they have barricaded Jarvis after he went a little mad and had a destructive tantrum. Devon is left behind, in his blind and deaf state, with the clockwork creatures, including Jeep, whilst Drogan, Alwaith and Dwarrow clear away the barricade and open the door up to the next floor - knowing that an unpredictable Jarvis, and possibly Tock, his dog, may be there to greet them.

As they emerge into the brightly lit, and colourful, clock-face room, Drogan is faced with the sight of a large, well armoured and fierce-looking automaton rushing in his direction!

ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!