- GM’s note: This session carries on from our messed up Duskwall adventure which was covered in Sessions 224 and 228. We return to Ethan and Grant in the present, with Ethan being hunted by the Dragon Highlords.
David and I had already talked about how this plotline could end, and what Ethan might be able to do to bring this to a close. This session was about finding an artefact that would give him an edge.
The Dragon Orb concept is, of course, from TSR’s Dragonlance.
Part 1 – The Other Thief
- Grant and Ethan spend considerable time talking to the Dragon Lord Ugin, learning about how his brother Nicol Bolas slew his mortal form. It seems that Bolas had an artefact which could be used to influence and even control other dragons – a Dragon Orb. It is doubtful that even someone as powerful as Ethan would be able to directly control a Dragon Highlord, but it may be possible to influence them.
- Time passes. Grant and Ethan split up. Grant searches for clues as to where such a device might be held and who might currently be in possession of it. Ethan spends time in the Forbidden Library trying to learn more about the artefact from old, lost historical records and what it is capable of doing.
- After some time, Ethan is able to locate where this artefact is (via Divination). It is in a vault, in a pocket dimension. He is able to find the Door that leads to the Vault. He is pretty sure that no Icons will work in the Vault itself, and the Vault holds many ‘precious’ things. The realm itself will be hostile to them – the draconic inhabitants were and are still loyal to Nicol Bolas.
- The Orb itself is normally 2-3 metres across, but it can be shrunk with the correct commands.
- The two friends plan an approach with Isabelle and then put the plan into motion. Grant runs interference while Isabelle and Ethan make their way to the central room that contains the Vault itself. The Vault door should be no challenge for two Lords of Gossamer but they are astonished to find that someone has beaten them to it. The Vault is open and leaking coins. There is blood on the floor and a trail of blood droplets leads away. Frowning, Ethan realises that someone else has already come for the Orb.
- The alarms go off elsewhere in the complex. Soon there will be guards everywhere.
- Ethan calmly uses Mental Invisibility to shield both of them. Remote cameras will still pick them up but not the guards in proximity. Taking a sample of the bloodstain on the ground, they begin tracking the thief.
- They find some doors have been opened and traps have been disabled. They realise that the thief is someone small, and rather than heading for the exit, the thief is heading deeper into the complex.
- Hurrying after the thief as they presume that he (or she) has another way out, they hear a high-pitched scream ahead and find a large silver mirror lying on its side. There is a single dragonfly wing on the ground – it looks like the thief is some sort of fairy, and he (or she) has lost a wing trying to escape through a mirror portal.
- Ethan is unwilling to follow the thief through an unknown portal (given that he is being hunted). Frustrated at the coincidence of two groups of thieves hitting the same target at about the same time, Ethan and Isabelle lay into the first group of reptilian guards that arrive in the mirror chamber. They take them out easily.
- Isabelle asks what they should do next and Ethan grimly tells her that they have to withdraw. Despite the multitude of guards that are looking for intruders, the trio are able to slip away without being detected, but the mission is a failure.
Part 2 - Recovery
- Ethan looks over the small dragonfly wing and decides that the thief is a pixie rather than a member of the true fey. He thinks that the thief should be relatively easy to trace given that he has one of the pixie’s wings. Also, he has a feeling that he’s seen this sort of magic before.
- Ethan uses Divination to trace the source of the familiar magic and he concludes that this thief comes from another Trollworld. (first seen in Session 49!) Scrying on this world, it seems that this society is thriving, and there seems to be a magical broadcast going on – a TV gameshow where the contestants are going through magic mirrors to steal things from other worlds.
- Ethan shares what he knows with Grant and Isabelle. They judge it too far to traverse the Stair via the normal means so Grant uses his Mastery of the Stair to establish a closer connection to cut down the travel time. Ethan has a bad feeling about this – he has the feeling that the pixie may be a Warden, or a potential Warden.
- After a number of hours, they reach the Door to an alternate Trollworld. There are many cultures here – humans, demihumans, orcs. They arrive in a city street of what looks like some sort of classical fantasy world. Ethan takes some time to re-establish the magical wards to prevent the hunters from tracking him down. He senses that he is not the only powerful magic user here. Sorcery is powerful here.
- Sitting down in a park, Ethan takes time to find the thief via scrying. He confirms that the thief is still carrying the Orb, and in the complex that is being used for the gameshow. Ethan watches as the one-winged pixie thief runs into a multi-headed hydra on what looks like a beach (despite this ‘beach’ being inside the complex).
- Ethan shares the location with Grant and Grant turns a door into a Door to reach the room where the pixie thief is fighting. The hydra discharges lightning bolts from its mouth while the pixie dodges here and there, trying to avoid being fried. The hydra is completely unaware of Ethan and Grant as they are under the cover of Ethan’s spells. The hydra is abruptly slain by the pair, and Grant uses Umbra to incinerate it for good measure.
- Conscious that they are now probably ‘on TV’ and this will make it easy for the hunters to find him, Ethan grabs the pixie and tells the others that it is time to leave. They retreat to the Stair, literally walking out of the realm and ‘off the map’. Grant switches Doors to conceal their path and they head to a safe realm of red vegetation in which yellow-fanged orcs dwell. There they go through the pixie thief’s things – he seems to have a lot in his backpack. Far more than what the backpack should normally hold – artefacts, weapons, a lot of gold and jewels, documents and a change of clothes. There is also a puzzle box which, oddly enough, none of the Lords of Gossamer can open.
- By this point, the pixie thief has fallen unconscious from the strain of it all. Ethan heals him and restores his wing. Guessing that this pixie may be a Warden or ‘almost a Warden’, he decides to make a crude Icon sketch of him to keep an eye on him in the future. Then he uses a mind-to-mind contact to figure out how to open the puzzle box. Persuading the pixie doesn’t seem to work so he needs to trick him within a dream into revealing the secret.
- Sleepwalking, the pixie thief opens the puzzle box and the Orb is found. There are also other precious things inside like a tiny pixie size filigree brooch.
- The three Lords of Gossamer peruse the pixie’s possessions but decide to take nothing except for the Orb. Isabelle is a little bit annoyed – she would very much like to take some of the treasure for herself.
- The Orb itself is bigger than expected – almost a metre across – again, far too big to believably fit inside the backpack which is tiny. Ethan wonders how it works.
* Image sourced from Google Images
- Grant quickly figures out how to shrink it down to a pocket size and they decide to leave the pixie thief with the natives. They don’t seem hostile or likely to eat him.
- Ethan is pretty sure that this Orb is the artefact that he has been looking for, but he has absolutely no idea how to use it.
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