The keystone Chronicles

[Quarg]

Who said association?...the people who get in each other's way may be known to each other.

I am sort of thinking of Blondie and Angel Eyes from "the Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"

or Marco and the Colonel from "From a few dollars more"

[Theis2]

Seems I got stuck with babysitter duties tonight, so seems I won't make it sadly.

[M0rtimer]

There's been a delay in today's session (Blame Steven), but barring other circumstances, the show will be going on later today still.

In the meanwhile, I've prepared three doodles for the next three weeks- I figure if we fill in all of them, we can figure out what weeks we'd like to play/ what weeks we'd like to sit out..?

https://doodle.com/poll/5t2q3m5yxsafznti

https://doodle.com/poll/n3pr2m7eraawx53c

https://doodle.com/poll/hb6758pn25znnc44

[M0rtimer]

Another session complete! Ended up just being Quarg and Rodgeir because Steven could not make it, though they were helped along by a captain of the guard who was not aware he was wearing a red shirt that day.

The "big thing" happened this session... I'll try and get up a session summary soon, so everyone knows what to expect/what will be expected for next session

[Quarg]

It is sad that there is now a ballad to be written about the brave, Nobile, warrior elf who slept the day away when the call for Heroes was made...

[M0rtimer]

Alright, session summary is here. For the players that weren't there... I've put in two big horizontal lines. If you don't read what's between them, that should give you a decent perspective..? Might be best to read everything though... Even though I might have gone slightly overboard.

Session 2 summary

After the trip through the sewers, some of the party of adventurers was feeling distinctly unwell. Rohorn, having been force-fed some kind of poison by the Chuul, was still showing effects- While Gray himself was also realizing that some of the abberations must have done something to him as well, though not nearly to such extent. Tim meanwhile was struck with a different kind of fever, very much wanting to examine these creatures, that he was barely paying attention to anything else- Leaving only Uther in a fit state to continue.

Luckily for him, help would soon arrive, in the form of captain Leohorn, who had quickly enlisted the service of Dinnus Fenrind to help investigate what happened to the adventurers. After making sure Gray would help Rohorn to the surface, and leaving Tim to do... Whatever it is he was doing, the red-shirt captain allowed the other two adventurers to take the lead, while figuring out what has been happening in the sewer system.

---

Firstly, with no threats found in most of the sewers, they returned to the thugs in the earlier part of the caves, interrogating them further. Much was not to be learnt as it seemed they genuinely did not know much of the place, besides admitting they knew "bad people" of some kind lived further in the cave, and it had been just earlier that day they had come through, as well as some other superficial information.

Moving on, they freed the prisoners from their cages- As they revealed it seemed quite clear that they were intended to be sacrifices, at least according to them: "Others have been taken before, and never brought back." After setting them free- But keeping them in there until help would arrive later, their final subject of interrogation was the cultist.

An attempt at trickery against him sadly soon fell through... But it extracted some information from him- And joined with a more... Brutal interrogation method from Dinnus, got a fair amount. It seemed the cultists were worshipers of "The end", or the literal apocalypse- Though by what means seemed uncertain. In addition, it appeared more might lie further in the sewers, and they were likely in some way related to the death of the priest. For "He was the only one that could have stopped it- And now, it's too late."

After Dinnus' interrogation technique ended with a knocked out cultist, the party continued their exploration... And came upon the exit they believed the assassin to have made his escape through! Following the staircase up they found themselves in some warehouse... Though further exploration revealed that the criminal in question had been long gone by now, it's tracks lost in busy streets. The fact it was long dark by now not helping. The party turns back, deciding to finish their investigation of the sewers.

Continuing their exploration of the one avenue left unexplored, they found themselves beset by some more chokers, which were dispatched off without too much problems. Continuing onward, it did not take them long to notice what seemed to be a tunnel that had been dug out, leading down- And followed it.

At it's end, they found themselves no longer surrounded by what seemed like natural rock, but instead ornate, hewn stone. The room they seemed to be in had one exit, through which they burst.

It seemed they were just in time to disturb some kind of ritual- Cultists surrounding what appeared to be some kind of strange golem, most of it's main body used to house some kind of purple, glass-like crystal... Though the gate golem did not appear happy with it's current situation, and was currently chained up. The cultists were taken care of however, quite swiftly, at which point they had time to properly investigate what was going on... After looting, of course.

The golem did not seem to make complete sense- Either somewhat malfunctioning, or so old it at least no longer retained all of it's previous processing power. It told them how it must be "stopped"- How "Containment is breached", and that it was already too late... Briefly it spoke of four seals that were broken. But as the party continued to look around, for what else to do, or potential avenues to continue exploration... They discovered that "Too late" was no exaggeration- The clock struck 12, and for them they felt the world turn dark.

---

The last thing anyone seemed to be aware was a sudden pulse of dread, and then being struck as if with a hit that took all wind out of them... Only to be "snagged" away at the very last moment- And to find themselves on a small plateau of stone, among known "friends" from earlier, and perhaps some unknown. Surrounding them seemed to be a black void, a darkness- And way in the distance, at the very edge, they could only barely make out what seemed to be land, surrounding them into a large circle... As the darkness struck at it, slowly consuming it.

The gate golem was there as well, though now seemingly having accepted defeat... Until it came to realization the adventurers were still there. It's malfunctioning mind seeming to mumble something about the failsafe still functioning, he instructed the adventureres they'd need the help of the priest to learn how to stop the calamity. And with that, there was another "tugging" sensation...

And soon the adventurers found themselves waking, as if from a bad dream. But it all seemed too real to be a dream... Doesn't it? The items they had collected having found themselves in their pack would only be an even stronger indicator it was no mere dream... Leaving them to decide what to do next, as they hear outside the start of the festival.

[thinkslogically]

((Fuck yes! timey wimey shenanigans are the BEST damn shenanigans!))

[M0rtimer]

So, with that big infodump out of the way, some information for next session!

I think we'll probably start off "redoing" the last segment with the Gate Golem, to give a better intro to what happens next, and make it clear the timeline to everyone... We'd be starting the first day again from early morning- The assassination doesn't happen until near evening. Everyone should probably give some thought to where they'd be around just before the time the festival would be starting proper, and what they'd be doing with this new knowledge... You know, having just learnt it appears the world will literally be ending later that night.

[Quarg]

I thought we would be waking up at 6:00 am?
Because, well Uther would be in bed with his lady friend from the guard

[M0rtimer]

Still awaiting entries on the doodle so we can hopefully get this sorted!

https://doodle.com/poll/5t2q3m5yxsafznti

https://doodle.com/poll/n3pr2m7eraawx53c

https://doodle.com/poll/hb6758pn25znnc44

[M0rtimer]

Alright, looking at the doodle and... Well, it's not exactly looking great, is it?

I propose we skip this weekend, doesn't seem like many of us have time slots to make it work out. Next week though, on sunday starting at around 14.30pm EST?

Might be able to do the same thing the week after assuming Dusk is available, although Rodgeir would be missing two sessions if that happens...

[Rodgeir]

If this week is a skip I won't be able to play until the weekend of the 27th. If that is the case the potions in his inventory can appear in someone else's!

[M0rtimer]

Depending on whether we'd want to play in the third week, (Depends on why Dusk has marked himself as a "maybe", I'm guessing he's just not sure yet? Or we could do a skip week regardless, this doesn't necessarily have to be a weekly thing) if you're back the weekend of the 27th ideally you'll end up missing only session, at most two, so no issues there!

[thinkslogically]

I propose we skip this weekend, doesn't seem like many of us have time slots to make it work out. Next week though, on sunday starting at around 14.30pm EST?

Is that the right timezone?

[M0rtimer]

CET! I mean CET!

I keep thinking "European Standard Time" but it's "Central Europe Time".

[thinkslogically]

Hahaha! Ok cool, cos I was like 'there's only one person available then...' Sunday AM sounds like a plan if we can wrangle it. I'm excited to see where this goes

[Rodgeir]

Ya, that time I am scheduled to be hauling loads of dirt off. Good fun.

[Quarg]

Actually, looking at the Doodles it appeared this sunday we have more potential players...???

[Rodgeir]

That's what I was thinking too... 3 players right in my gold zone!

[M0rtimer]

Well, that's assuming Dusk can play Sunday because he's got the starting hours set to "maybe", so I'm assuming he might still be busy at the time. In addition I know it's too late for my friend to play, so we'd be looking at max 3 players, perhaps two... Which is why I proposed to cancel it for this week. Next week we'd have four players lined up for sure.

[Dusk9]

Yeah, I put maybe because I was unsure whether I'd be free.

Good(?) news is that I have an eye infection! So my weekend plans are probably all cancelled.

[M0rtimer]

Ouch..! Yeah, take some time and recover! :S

[Dusk9]

Honestly I'm more likely to be free for D&D now. I can't really drive like this, so chances are I'll be spending the weekend staying in with nothing to do

[M0rtimer]

We'd still have only three players... Do you guys want to continue with that knowledge? And that Thinks and Steven would be missing two sessions?

I'm always glad to do it within reason, but just trying to make things as "fair" as possible

[thinkslogically]

Apologies, I'm an idiot and got my dates screwed up for this weekend. This weekend is fine and I updated my availability on the poll.

Sorry about that!