Adventure 6: The Windmill
The captain of the guard is very upset to finally discover
the remains of his son, but he is able to thank the adventurers. He gives them
the dagger as thanks. He is positive about the Dragonflight Union and suggests
that, if the party want to talk to their representative, they head north to
John’s Watch and beyond.
He heard talk of a band of brigands who came through the
area; he mentions that Kali is an unusual sight, one so tall and… manly. They
had tall people, robed up; they were taller than the average, and their walk
was a kind of stumbling shamble. Now that he thinks about it, their gait could
have been much longer but they moved in a really odd way, and he didn’t stop to
think about it until he saw Kali move.
He also comments that he needs to get to work on the spate
of grave robberies that have been taking place across the city. He refuses to
tell the PCs anything about that as it’s under investigation.
Richard Lowell, the sewer worker, is resting in bed. He’s
not very rich; his job doesn’t pay particularly well, though the people of the
town give him food and things for free. However, he gives the party two
incredibly useful things; the first is Ooze food. This is a jar of the blue
lichen the party saw down in the cave; it glows with a pale light in the dark.
It can be used to attract oozes, stop them from attacking… he’s even used it
before to direct Bessie as to which rubbish to absorb. He says that, having fed
on the Kobolds, Bessie will be quiet for a long time now, but eventually she’ll
get back to her job.
His son comments that a friend of his has found a dead body;
they’re off to look at it and perhaps poke it with a stick. His father tells
him not to bring back any trophies. When the child has gone, he shrugs and
laughs about their imagination.
However, the boy really has found a dead body; it’s round
the back of the windmill. It’s not actually a dead body, but is instead an
unanimated golem, a body which appears to be made out of the pieces of six
other bodies, each one stitched together. The pieces come from different races,
as well. It is missing its head.
There is a windmill on the way out of town. If asked, people
mention that a tiefling engineer by the name of Professor Ingris Verstadt bought
it a few months ago and he is occasionally seen in town. People tend not to go
near it, citing an uneasy feeling. Closer inspection reveals that it turns
whether there is wind or not. This is because the motile force for it is
provided by an enslaved goliath left by the slavers; the windmill is powering a
rogue SIC engineer’s attempts to create life, which will eventually replace the
goliath, specifically a flesh golem that is being stitched together out of
stolen corpses. On releasing the goliath, it’s one of Kali’s family, Summerchild.
The goliath tells Kali that the entire family was dominated
by some of the strongest charm magic that they have ever experienced; they
never got to see their captors and were forced to endure a sea voyage, then to
walk for many leagues while hooded and chained together. Their captors were men
and women who rarely spoke; it was enough to hear that their accents were
foreign, from somewhere on this continent. One of them clinked every time they
took a step with one foot, almost like it was metal or there were spurs on his
shoes.
The engineer calls down, wondering why the windmill has
stopped, and the goliath agrees to continue the pretence of slavery if it will
help ultimately; the engineer is a tiefling who initially tries to convince Toofi
that if she were a real tiefling she’d join him against these interlopers. He’s
trying to restore the fortunes of the tiefling empire and needs an army to do
it. He is medium height, red skin, long horns and a pair of goggles on his
face. His robe is embroidered with alchemical sigils and he is armed with a
dagger.
He retreats to his lab if he can; the lab is an octagonal
room with a balcony which can be constructed. There are machines everywhere and
flashing lights. They explode when struck, throwing out lightning damage.
If the characters attempt to follow or attack or anything, they
are forced to take stealth checks. If they fail, they trip over a cable, or if
they succeed to dodge this, into a machine, or if they swing the engineer ducks
and they hit a machine. Essentially, something goes wrong in the process and
one of the machines in his upstairs area goes haywire. The sails of the
windmill start to go round incredibly fast and, suddenly, arcs of lightning
come out, striking at random. The room has several metal globes dangling from
the ceiling; these suddenly become tesla coils which strike downwards, first
moving from globe to glove each round until all are lit; four of the lightning
bulbs have flesh golems underneath them which are animated when their globe is
lit. Once all globes have been struck, a d10 determines which globes strike
(roll four times). Number globes 1-9; 10 means no globe lights. When they hit,
they deal 1d8 lightning damage. The lightning blasts begin in one corner; when
they hit the other, they arc into what appears to be a random pile of armour.
It stands up and stands ready; it is an exo-suit armed with a chainsaw. It is
empty, but automatically begins to walk forwards. It can be boarded. The
lightning continues to surge down until the plug is pulled from the wall behind
the generator, though this requires a skill challenge, complexity: 4 wins
before 2 failures to identify the correct machine which controls it all. The
skill challenge has an exp reward of: 600xp and succeeds in turning off the
lightning. Failure shocks the attempter, 1d8 damage.
The flesh golems, four of them, are level 6; the engineer is
a tiefling, level 8 Engineer. The engineer has a dagger which he gets out of a desk;
it is a standard dagger, no tricks.
The major benefit from this encounter is the information for
Kali; about two minutes after the fight ends, the exo-suit falls apart. There
is a Spark of Life which can be salvaged from it, it looks like an electrified
y in a picture frame.
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