The Deep Dark

The Deep Dark
Date	7/8/26
Storyteller	Tire
Tier	Master, Hard
Player Characters	Swaying Petals, Rinazomi, Sanguine
Rewards	300 xp, 2333 gp, Adamantine Scimitar, Adamantine Full Plate, Echo Receptors, Giant Killing Rune, 2 Frenzied Quintessence, scrap of strange flesh
Result	Success
Author	Swaying Petals (Cloyster)
Downtime	10

(Associates infiltrate a Hryngar laboratory to stop production of their new weapon)

Day 0:

After the last time I visited the underground, I totally should have expected we’d need to go down there again. Sir Galahad made a request after hearing about the new dangers facing the underground. In particular, whatever that blind troll monstrosity thing was, we need to put a stop to them making more. A legendary team was sent into the front of the Hryngar settlement and knowing how much noise that would make, it was decided a second team would take advantage of the distraction and could sneak in elsewhere to strike at the heart of their weapon program. There’ll still be some security, so we need to be careful. I don’t like the underground very much; it’s honestly one of the worst places I could go, but since I’ve been down there with Sanguine before, I figured I needed to help out where I can. In total on this assignment are me, Sanguine, Valena, and Rinazomi. Sanguine still has her map she made last time we were down here to rescue captured spies, so at least it’ll be easy finding our way there again. Being unnoticed is another matter… (See Cave Oddity)

Day 10:

Even with my darkvision magic, it still seems so dim and gloomy down here. We all managed to find our way to the city. We can hear lots of commotion from down below, surely them getting ready to meet Onandbyr’s A team, so hopefully that’ll provide enough cover.

We approached the underground city and charted a route through what alleys we could find. One Hryngar guardsman spotted us, but Rina gave him a mean look and he just backed off! Afterwards, she said she was getting soft, but I’m like, didn’t she just do something so cool? Anyways, we finally got to the stone building that looked to be the laboratory we were looking for, but the doors were locked! None of us were good at picking locks, but luckily I spotted a set of mine cart tracks nearby and following it, took us straight into the back!

Inside was a huge chamber with walls lined with some vats filled with troll bodies, and at the far wall was this giant purple energy reactor that seemed to power the whole room! If that wasn’t freaky enough, there were two Hryngars conversing and standing around a table in the center of the room: one had a fancy hat and fancy metal (adamantine?) gear and the other was this sorcerer guy whose lower half was like a large worm! If that wasn’t gross enough, laying strapped down on the table was another one of the ‘jail warden’ monsters from last time! It had like a bunch of tubes and cables plugged into it and it seemed like it was being pumped full of the energy from the reactor in the center of the room! Eek! But luckily, it didn’t seem to be ready yet. We hid behind some supply crates as we listened in. I couldn’t speak Dwarfish, but Sanguine seemed to like, take offense to something they said? So she steps forward and starts bantering with him. I had casted Silence on Rina to help her sneak, so she didn’t say anything as she stepped out as well but grew to her giant size. She charged in and exchanged blows the the hatted dwarf, so it seemed pretty unsettling just to look at! Sanguine commanded Valena to jostle the creature strapped to the table, and some cables were disconnected and some energy leaked out that harmlessly dissipated. I was invisible since I was nervous taking center stage, but I made my appearance and did my best to rally everyone and distract the hat dwarf. The worm sorcerer guy healed the hat dwarf and went invisible, but didn’t stay like that for long. The hatted dwarf, wounded by Rina, ran to the central console and started flipping all sorts of levers. The other dwarf seemed to tell him to stop, as the creature wasn’t ready, and I'm like OMG listen to him, but before anyone could object, the creature’s metamorphoses rapidly completed.

The creature breaks free from its constraints and from its connections to the machines and grabs Valena, slamming her. Rina gets sick of the worm spellcaster healing the hat dwarf and slices him in half. The weakened hat dwarf was finally killed by Sanguine’s summon (some worm devil thing called a Sarglagon?). We focused on the Warden and my Fire Ray dealt a finishing blow to the creature! I started to celebrate but realized that like it didn’t get the memo, apparently? It just kept standing and continued attacking us! It definitely didn’t like my singing (must have poor taste, teehee), but I couldn’t figure out why it didn’t seem to go down! It wasn’t like a troll’s regeneration and it wasn’t even like the other modified troll we fought before either! It kept getting more and more damaged as Rina, Valena, and Sanguine continued to fight it, so we hoped putting it down enough times would do the trick.

Finally, after like the fourth time, the creature finally collapsed from its wounds, it’s head device rolling off it. We take a moment to rest and investigate the room. The center dome of roiling energy seemed to be somehow pulling energy from the outer planes Sanguine later explained it was the energy of Order and Chaos meeting, the moment before energy becomes something else. Idk how’d you even get that. Furthermore, Rina spotted a weird thing at the center of all this energy. I pulled out my holy symbol and tried to ask for guidance from Sarenrae, but all I could recognize was that it was some sort of weird, metallic meat. Mega gross!

Then all of the sudden, we were interrupted by a huge troop of Hryngar guards and two captains who shouted something to tell us to halt! I guess that one guy wasn’t too scared after all. On that cue, Rina eagerly smashes the glass dome containing the energy, letting it roll out and evaporate into a fog. The guards didn’t like that and opened fire at us! I used all my attack spells against the warden, so all I could do was to stay back and let Rina and Valena fight them. Sanguine summoned a hellhound to blow fire at the troop of guards and had Valena fly up to a crossbowman and try to push him off the scaffolding he was on. I wasn’t sure what to do, but with my shining symbol I remembered it was actually still dark around here, so I casted Light on Rina and blinded the captain and the troops! Rina critically hits the captain and horrifically harvests her blood! We finally whittle down their numbers until we finally defeat them all. Rina continued to harvest blood from our enemies and I like nearly hurled! Not that I hate the sight of blood, but just eating it… talk about grody.

Rina takes another look inside the smashed sphere and finds a pound of strange flesh. Sanguine takes it to give to others for further analysis. She mentioned it might be from the Axis Gigas. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s in better hands with Onadbyr than with the Hryngar’s weapon program. We look among the corpses and I find the hat dwarf had an Adamantine scimitar! I’m not much of a fighter, but I think Sarenrae would be happy that I take it and use it for good rather than the evil that was down here. We made our escape following the rail tracks. The commotion from the legendaries really kicked up by this point so no guards impeded us as we took another looooooong trek back to the crossroads. I’m really glad I had Sanguine and Rina to help me on this mission. I just hope I also carried my weight here. Either way, I hope we don’t see any more of those blind warden troll things. Darkness and hatred for singing is like the opposite of what I’m all about!