A Sundered World: Episode 109

Scale reference.

Cast

• Iron Jack (male human Joshian warlord)
• Lothelle (female moon elf bladesinger)
• Danh (male goliath serpent shaman)

The characters make their way toward the glowing beacon, located in the center of a crater. They experiment with it using Arcana and the litmus test of "throwing things at it"; Lothelle is temporarily blinded by massive amounts of condensed magic, but it does not respond to their salvo of rocks. Jack touches it, causing an explosion. Lothelle and Danh are thrown back, but after the dust clears Jack is standing in the crater, his broken leg healed and glowing with a golden light under magical scrutiny. The rain stops and the clouds begin to part, revealing a blood red sky.

As they continue exploring the ruins, Jack feels himself being compelled towards a dwarven castle. They find a passage underground, and as they prepare to enter an ancient blue dragon flies overhead, apparently heading towards where the golden light used to be. The underground sections, formerly flooded, drain out as they explore. They find a cache of what Jack describes as "liquid sex", and deeper down the Axe of the Dwarven Lords. Deciding to wait for the dragon to go somewhere else, they continue to explore and eventually find a golden skeleton, orichalcum scale armor, and around 5,000 gp worth of ancient dwarven coins.

Unsure where the dragon is and loaded down with treasure, they figure that their only chance is to make a run for it. They load up the slaughterstone behemoth and make a run for the nearest edge, and see a 60-foot tall, metallic humanoid drifting towards the mountain crest. Its head has one glowing red eye, its mouth is a circular portal, and dozens of metallic, insect-like constructs flit about.

It was Autocthon.

Sprinting down the cliff in the vain hope of finding the ship, they are continuously intercepted by clockwork horrors that blast them with searing rays before trying to crash into them. They manage to dodge the brunt of the attack, but eventually find themselves surrounded. Danh activates the behemoth's blade array, causing it to grow six limbs armed with adamantine fullblades, and charging the line. Lothelle's fire shield deflects much of the damage, and the behemoth manages to break the line.

Then Autocthon lands.

It asks them to vacate the machine, as it would prefer to examine it for mass fabrication. They refuse, and it attempts to smash them. Jack throws the Axe, destroying part of its hand. It hesitates to examine the damage, and then proceeds to try and smash them again...

Behind the Scenes
The skill challenge of running down the mountain was epic. Lothelle kept her actions ready to dampen the searing rays, while Danh had to operate the controls. Jack gave bonuses to skill checks, as well as axed the horrors that got too close. They were really surprised to see what the blade array did, though I did borrow a page from Asura's Wrath.

The session ended with me saying something like, "Autocthon looks at its damage hand, and says Well that happened, and then continues to bring its fist down...aaand we'll call it for the night". They have no idea what is going to happen, but are all pretty sure that they are dead despite me telling them that they are level 9.