20210831 - Run 14

We have repaired Arctilaeus Felginor. We have also survived the discharge of whatever he had been doing before he got disassembled and which then charged up for 800 years.

I asked him how would he like to go through a portal to a central location in a dimensional transport network that has a central nexus slash repository of researchers and knowledge. He was understandably psyched but asked if the connection was stable. I elaborated that we were sent through as a first recontact and exploration team, and the implications of that - if nothing was salvageable, we would be retrieving what we could and leave. So I suggested that he lock down the place and take what he found useful, and perhaps take care of the staff, etc.

He says “I need to pack” and hurries off.

Nyla starts to summon the phase spiders again (they made themselves scarce during the power discharge). D.va goes off to help Felginor with packing, since she has a bag of holding. There is apparently some comedy there. Chad and I go to help as well.

We spend most of a day packing up, and then everyone is ready to go. So we all walk out in a group. Felginor does something in the ‘throne room’ and a voice in Old Kraskyan says ‘Very well, Archwizard. Defenses are active.’

So we go out and there’s a goblin at the crossroads. Felginor is kind of surprised, so I quickly go over what lifestealers are and how goblins are made and such. Felginor pulls out some … pistol-grip wands … and sets them into holsters on the front of his chest. 

Goldfinger (the goblin) is waiting and asking Chadwick if he’s still going to send trade through; Chadwick replies in the affirmative. I mention if he wants to send a trade delegation through maybe he should get a move on; he’s gone before I finish talking. So now the only thing between us and what passes for civilization is a hill full of hell kudzu.

We figure there’s a 95-98% chance of the connection remaining stable as we get out of here.

I figure we could probably come up with some way to deal with the hell kudzu, but what the hell, there’s an archwizard here that we just un-sliced, so I tell him that we need a path through the kudzu and let him come up with a plan. He messes around with one of his wands and some other shit, a ring, whatever, and then he walks up a bit and does something and turns … fuzzy. Like, blurry. He kneels down at the edge of one patch of the hell kudzu, sticks his wand in there, and the hell kudzu starts to writhe as a lightning bolt comes out of the wand. I head towards him planning to pull him back if the hell kudzu decides that it likes getting shocked and it wants more of it.

But no, OK, he’s competent, and he has created a very narrow clear path through the kudzu that is now ash and is not burny. So time to go up the hill I guess. We head on up.

We explain to Felginor that the way this works, we get dispatched to a place and we can make one trip back, but after that there’s no guarantee we can get back. But hey, he’s a badass dimensional researcher slash wizard, if he can make a direct connection to the Hub, we don’t have that problem! We’re also kind of trying to stall for time to let the goblins send a trade mission. Felginor uses some of his vat of priceless ‘liquid unidirectional time’ and etches what he believes are the coordinates for the Hub on the platform, and then we try to go through. Goblins aren’t back, but they were going to take a while.

We activate the portal and we go from the heavy, humid air of Felginor and the goblins’ world to the thin, cold world of the Hub. We got back! We’re standing in the courtyard we departed from, and the courtyard monitor/guard rings the arrival bell (decently large handbell). Nyla starts asking if the bell is girthy and if the guard is shaking it, and if it’s heavy, and we all just leave her to her shit.

D.va introduces Felginor to the archaeological society and excitement is had. Chadwick and the church, same thing. Me and the research society, super excited. Archmage, multiple doctorates, portable library. Everyone very excited. “But where do we house him?” The researchers outbid the archaeologists to get him to come hang out with them, so there’s that. Caleb wanders off saying something about getting high, and we see him on a building later, so whatever. 

We get Caleb back and we go try to get back to goblin-and-Felginor-planet so that we can be there when the goblin trade caravan gets there.We get back in time to see a small number of goblins - 11 - with hand carts coming up the path Felginor cut through the kudzu. Chadwick gives a surprisingly eloquent briefing on how the transportation network works, and we get everyone on the platform and ready to go. We head back and the first thing the goblins say is ‘fuck it’s cold!’

At some point I went to Kartho with a request and an offer. The request was for some more cash - we each got a 200gp payout for setting up a new trade link, but that wasn’t even enough for Caleb to invest in rebuilding that suit of plate we picked up from the gelatinous cube, so I figured I’d try to find some more. The offer was to relocate Felginor back to his tower when he gets sick of the Hub. He seems OK with the request and he is thankful for he offer. We get some magazines and a bit of coin from Kartho; it comes to 226gp. (44gp to everyone but Caleb, 50gp to Caleb)