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Keys from the Golden Vault Session 16
Starring
Varrow, level 5 gnome Thief RogueStayzie Diamondz, level 5 orc Champion Fighter
Elowen Fernwhisper, level 5 wood elf Circle of the Moon Druid
Chéri Powder, level 5 human Illusionist Wizard
Taveen, level 5 aasimar Warrior of Mercy Monk
After nearly a week off, a new client shows up at Trollskull Manor with a Golden Key. Her name is Nyx, and she’s a deep gnome from the Underdark. Through broken Common (and then through Varrow speaking to her via Undercommon), she explains that her town has been overrun, and her people need help taking it back.
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Once again the circumstances of how she acquired the key are mysterious — she simply woke up one day while traveling with the key and a note with this location. Chéri is particularly intrigued that someone, or something, is delivering the keys that far away.
But the Golden Key is legit, as Mr. Trench brings over the music box, and it magically plays a song about a corrupted Security Overseer named Tockworth, and her army of clockwork automatons.
Nyx explains that their Overseer went crazy, and began turning her soldiers on her own citizens.
After evacuating the town and sealing the only entrance, Mayor Broadfoot sent several scouts, diplomats, and delegates out for help, and Nyx was one of them. She had no idea help would arrive in the form of a mysterious key, and take her all the way to the surface.
Mr. Trench warns that an excursion to the Underdark is quite the endeavor, and the party won’t get a chance to return and plan like their previous missions.
Thankfully they just had a lot of time off, and are stocked full of supplies.
Chéri, as the only human, realizes that vision will be an issue. He purchases a scroll of darkvision for 200gp, then makes a risky Arcana check (he’s a wizard without Arcana knowledge!) to scribe it into his spellbook. He’s forced to use Heroic Inspiration, but he is successful in the end.
Nyx leads the party down dark alleys, into the sewers, and through crumbling walls, down a winding path that takes the better part of a day before the air grows cooler, and they make camp. This party (and any of our campaign parties, I believe), has never been in the Underdark, and are surprised to find a relatively easy entrance in the city.
Nyx scoffs that there are entrances all over, and the people who know about them use them frequently for trading. Her own people are on friendly terms with surfacers, often trading gems, minerals, and mechanical devices for other supplies.
Still, Nyx is not overly friendly or talkative, asking only that they follow her lead as they travel. The way back should take several days, but the Underdark is dangerous and unpredictable.
On the third day of travel, she claims that the town isn’t far when she calls for everyone to halt, and keep quiet. The rest of the party begins hearing a clicking and clacking sound. She quietly hurries everyone to a small side cave, keeping a lookout. The cave ends in a small pit plunging into darkness.
As the clicking grows louder, Varrow creeps up stealthily to see what she’s looking out for, and spots it, a large bipedal monstrosity with a beak-like mouth and huge reaping scythes for arms. A hook horror, though none of the party can identify it.
It hasn’t noticed them yet. Suddenly, barbed tentacles shoot out of the pit in the back of the cave, wrapping around Chéri, grappling, poisoning, and paralyzing the wizard, as a floating brain emerges. A grell!
Elowen tries to free Chéri, but strength is not her, well, strength. Varrow realizes they’re still hiding from the hook horror, and throws a dagger down the cave, hoping to draw its attention away. The ruse works, and the creature turns away.
Taveen unleashes a barrage of quick strikes on the grell, including a stunning strike that releases Chéri, and the wizard is able to make his second CON save to shake off the poison.
Following Varrow’s lead, Nyx fires her blowgun down the cave, drawing the behemoth further away, as a second grell emerges, trying to grapple Taveen.
Elowen blasts both creatures with moonbeam, while Varrow returns to help, activating his dagger of venom and stabbing the second grell. Taveen once again smashes the grell to bits, while the first one sullenly retreats after another failed tentacle-grab.
Thankfully the party was relatively quiet, and had drawn the hook horror away. Nyx quickly calls for them to go down the cave it came from, creating more distance between them.
After a few more hours, they arrive at the refugee camp of the deep gnomes, where several dozen are clustered around tents and campfires. Guards block their path, but Nyx impatiently waves them away, introducing the party to Mayor Broadfoot, a more diplomatic deep gnome who speaks perfect Common.
The Mayor is suspicious at first, but can’t argue with people willing to help. She explains how Overseer Tockworth is a mechanical genius, creating clockwork automatons to defend them from outside and inside threats. But after a mining accident caused her to lost a limb, she replaced it with an artificial one.
A sort of madness infected her, as her new arm was a significant upgrade, and she began tinkering more with biomechanical engineering. She claimed that all citizens of Little Lockford should be similarly upgraded, and when the people refused, she began trying to forcibly round them up. If they fought back, they were cut down.
The people were forced to evacuate their own town, using magic to seal the only entrance.
Thankfully, there is a plan. Mayor Broadfoot shows a map of the town, featuring its unique structure of several island districts built on large stalagmites jutting from a lake of magma, and connected via mechanical bridges.
Within Tockworth’s workshop lies a fail-save that can deactivate all clockwork automatons. It requires two keys, one of which the Mayor has. The other, unfortunately, is carried by Tockworth. If the party can get her key and reach the workshop, they can disable all the soldiers.
Reaching the workshop requires reactivating the bridge controls at the power station, and Tockworth herself is most likely found at the central Security Center. And the entire town is crawling with her soldiers.
Mayor Broadfoot explains the three varieties they know about: the hound-like Defenders, the more humanoid Enforcers, and the flying, scouting Observers.
Once inside, the party won’t have any backup, as they will seal the doors behind them, using a code knock only after the deed is done. Broadfoot drops that Tockworth was once her friend, but is now unrecognizable, and if the party must kill her, then so be it. If they find any survivors still alive, she asks the party to help them, but their primary mission is to get the key and the fail-safe.
The party agrees, especially when Broadfoot okays their use of looting for supplies, within limits, and the promise of rewards of gems and minerals.
They head to the large stone doors as the Sergeant and their spellcasters magically open the doors, wish them good luck, and shut them inside Little Lockford.
Live post-session discussion:
Next session: Into Little Lockford!
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