Session Recap: Enter The Doomed City!

Session Recap: Enter The Doomed City!

The party climbed the steep stairs over the stables to crowd into the Child witch Adrianna's cramped apartments. All the furniture had been moved out. Guttering candles lit a complex diagram in powders of various hues. The pages from Evocations of the Doomed City, retrieved by the party as some expense, were nailed to the wall around the room. The cloying smell of incense mingled with the smell of horses. Adrianna explained to the party what they were in for.

She would begin with the Song of Six, calling forth the six vessels that would transport the party to the location of the Doomed City. She explained that as the party members stepped forward into their chosen vessel, their souls would meld with these potent individuals. The union would provide them with the powers of the vessel, but should the vessel be slain, the soul of the traveler might be lost (save vs. death). When questioned she indicated that although physical injuries and maladies would not travel with the soul back to its body original body, curses or mental effects might. She also explained that each party member who went was permitted by the magic of the Evocation to return with one item only (what that means to be interpreted by reasonable DM fiat). She claimed to be able to keep the evocation going for up to 3 days. She also said that each person could only travel to the Doomed City once, and that any wizard could likewise act as its conduit one time only.

She beseeched the party to return with items or knowledge that might help her in the contest of apprentices. She informed them that the Doomed City is a place of unimaginable wealth, and the sorcery of its cursed race, the Gringlings, far outstrips that of man. The trouble will not be finding something, but choosing what is most valuable. She listed some legendary objects of value that various texts mentioned as contained within the Doomed City: Amooyan's Bejewelled Nightingale; the Collar of Asoom Jan Tanu, heavy with chrysoberyl, turquoise and gold; something called "proxy bodies" of a mysterious nature; wondrous herbs and medicaments including the "Apples of Samarkand"; various Gringling spells, otherwise lost, including, "Xezbeth's Indigo Tongue", the terrible necromantic enchantment "Transfuse", a queer spell called "Aglogoth's Transcendent Box" and several others.

When questioned about the nature of the city and the dangers that might be faced there, she mentioned several fabulous locales mentioned cryptically in the book itself: the colored pavilions of the Forsaken Bazaar; the slumbering manses of the Dreaming Noblesse; the library of Xinraedaal; the Ruby Mosque of the Temple Hill; the Garden of Al'akwan, and the Palace of the Painted Dawn. Of foes and perils she had only some cryptic references: the dreadful Golden Dzo; a demon called Ma'atuum, Eater of souls; an ancient red dragon; and Anqa the Burning Peacock. But these were just names to her. Her reading had also indicated to her that the Gringlings had congress with demons of various sorts. But who hasn't?

As she evoked the six vessels, the party members stepped forward one by one, melding with their chosen vessel, their body falling limp, and dragged away by Valtropis to rest on thin matts around the edges of the room. When the party awoke in the form of the six vessels, they found themselves in a strange setting, a desert, with lavender sands underfoot, and a bleak colorless sky overhead. There was an acrid, chemically smell in the air that burnt the nostrils, and dried out the skin rapidly, and breathing the strange air left a slight throbbing pain in the temples.

Before them stood a brass statue of a Lamassu, one paw shielding its eyes, the other pointed to the horizon. It stood on a cracked dais, before it a basin. An inscription read: "O thou that comest unto me, if thou know not the way that leadeth to the Doomed City, offer up some object of great value. The this lamassu will turn and point. And in whatsoever direction it pointeth, thither proceed without fear, for it will lead thee to the Doomed City."

The philosopher Abu Farazi sacrificed a potion, and like lightning, the lamassu swiveled, pointing across the desert in a new direction. The hunter Yazid al'Salehi led the party thus, searching here and there for tracks, but finding none. They passed the desiccated skeletons of alien beasts, and crossed this blasted desert of pastel sand, until they came up the black walls of the Doomed City.

It sat just off the edge, barely kissing the mighty cliffs that spilled down to a sea the color of a sunset, with incandescent plumes like pale flames springing from its roiling surface. The city seemed to float above the water on a cloud of white vapor, lit by flashes of lightning at the exact level of the plateau. Its vast 120' walls were made of black glass, covered in dust. When approached they were seen to be filled with regular perforations, 2 inch tubes at regular 2 foot intervals. When the dust was wiped away, the glass was seen to be partly transparent, reflected a distorted image of the onlooker. In the center of the wall sat a massive gate, rising to vast heights. A golden valve, set with windows looking into a strange contrivance of gears and glowing wires. Above it was a tympanum of stained glass, depicting a peacock that glowed forth with some inner illumination in blazing glory. On either side of the gate, rounded black towers rose even higher than wall, topped by gleaming domes of rose brass.

The thief Baiba Addiq inspected the area in front of the door and the door itself for traps. When she grew impatient with his careful examinations, the monk Marjanna bint Ismail knocked-setting off an explosion of lightning that her incredible speed allowed her to evade. Baiba was temporary deafened and blind, but recovered eventually. [MEA culpa: I was supposed to mention that Baiba's hair stood on end when he inspected the door closely. What can I say: there is a lot of information to keep track of here!]

Trying a new tack, Marjanna scaled the wall, securing a rope from the top that reached most of the way down. At the top she immediately noticed a refreshing and pleasant change of environment. The air was rich and clean, with a fragrant smell in the background, and the fresh spring breeze was temperate. Overhead, the sky, instead of a colorless hue had taken on a deep, almost impossibly vibrant blue. Up on the walls, she could see that there were doorways into the rounded towers that rose above either side of the gates. The walls themselves were thick, and provided a sort of road to walk on. It appeared that past the towers, the walls led on to other towers deeper into the city. The towers were carved with depictions of enslaved Efreet.

Peering over the edge of the wall down, she saw an enclosed courtyard. Just before the gate was a lovely blue moat, wide and deep, floating with white flowers. Past that steps rose to a higher level of the courtyard, where there was a fountain of deep blue, the front of which was carved with something-perhaps a face? At the far end of the courtyard, there appeared to be three sets of arches leading to the north, west, and east. Down in the moat below, 3 bathing maidens called to her beckoning for her come join them. She felt an influence reach out to her mind, but repeating to herself the 99 names of the Compassionate One she cleared her mind of the influence, and the enchantment receded.

The rest of the party, growing impatient, decided to float up under the enchantment of Abu Farazi's Crook of the Five Winds. So up they floated in groups of two, rising slowly under Farazi's enchantment. Afeerah and Farazi were 10' ahead of the others, and so they were the first to trigger the walls defenses at about 30 feet of elevation. From the black holes poured strange glass arrows, 16 of which sailed towards the two floating individuals. Farazi had cleverly prepared an enchantment in advance to protect him from missiles (this may have saved his character's life). Afeerah, however, took the full brunt of the missiles (mechanically: 8 missiles launch per round, doing 4 points on a blow, save vs. breath weapon or take 6 additional points acid damage). Farazi immediately reversed course, and back on the ground, Afeerah spilled the sand from her bag, that assumed the might churning form of the Breath of the Simoom, her legendary spear. Under her commands it extended and became a ladder, long enough to reach Marjanna's dangling rope. And up the party climbed to reach the walls.

Avoiding viewing the courtyard, the party decided to enter the tower. There they encountered a brass man who was firing some kind of energy bow at them. They easily slew this mechanical guardian, seizing his bow, a magical lead tablet, and a strange energy source. They opened, but did not enter a central room in the tower. Within they saw a room with a glass ceiling and seven circular, pictorial, glyphs on the floor: (1) spear&scepter, (2) spear&star, (3) Spear&coin, (4) Spear&skull, (5) Scepter&coin, (6) Hand&scepter, (7) Star&coin. There were two other doors out of the tower, one to the north and one to the west.

The party headed west, finding itself on the out wall headed around the western edge of the Doomed City. Ahead they could see the wall curved around towards another black tower with a rose brass dome, this time supported by carved white marble statues of some sort. Below they could see a new area far below. There were several buildings, and colored silk pavilions. The ground of this entire area, instead of being the white marble of the enclosed courtyard, was a glass surface. Beneath this glass surface, strange pastel ruins sat, narrow streets, and buildings, and cramped courtyards, etc. could be glimpsed below, in places melted or burned. From up there they could also see several arches leading back into the enclosed courtyard they originally looked down on to the east, and a glass bridge leading north over the strange sunset sea, and through an archway in another section of the wall to the north.

Other things seen from above included some small glowing structure, a blue pool, and directly below, a vine-hidden alley, in which some sort of female form (tiny down below), with a serpent's body instead of legs, and a crown or tiara on her head, sat curled up, eating a piece of fruit while she flipped the pages of some book. This is where we stopped.

Aleksandr Revzin Chris P. Eric Boyd Shemek hiTankolel Maxime Golubchik Dave Sealy Evlyn M