RM’s RPG Blog

Doldrum Deepthroat (Henry)

Pali (Zac)

Taryn Go’vena (James)

 

Doldrum, Pali and Taryn had a long talk with Genari. Genari kept trying to get them to go back to his shop so he could retrieve “some things”. Finally, the party admitted they had already found his secret vault and had both his spell book and the odd Orgoth device.  Ginari took back his spellbook, but said the party could keep the Orgoth compass.

 

Ginari told them he acquired the “Orgoth compass” in late 604 AR in a trade with a junk dealer, Elder Boggins, who had collected it on his travels up the coast of Cygnar. The compass, a sphere obviously old and almost certainly of Orgoth manufacture, had value. The trick was to figure out who would want it. There were collectors of Orgoth artifacts, even ones that appeared to be as useless as this one. So Ginari held onto it. Which is to say, it sat on a shelf of his antiques and arcane mechanika shop in Crucible Alley on Doleth Island.

 

One day it occurred to Ginari, out of the blue, that maybe the compass pointed to something interesting. Something  interesting right here in Five Fingers. He hired a few men to help him and he headed into the sewers and caverns of Hospice Island. That was early 605.

 

In late 605, with a few replacements for the men lost to various perils of labyrinth under Five Fingers–and more than a few Orgoth (and more recent) treasures to augment his collection–Ginari found himself in a treasure trove beyond his imagination: an Orgoth laboratory. There was a huge construct in the library, composed of metal spheres bound together and what appeared to be spider-like metal legs. There was no way to get that construct out without dismantling it, but Ginari didn’t mind. The rest of the laboratory was a treasure trove.

 

Over the next months, Ginari and his chief sewer stomper, Mikolo Rastov, made numerous trips to the laboratory, taking out carts and carts of Orgoth implements and equipment. Ginari made a lot of money. People noticed. Ginari said he believed that Rastov had sold him out, either to High Captain Waernuk or to the Cryx.

 

After the invasion, Waernuk found Ginari and offered him a “safe haven” in exchange for Ginari’s knowledge of the location of the Orgoth laboratory. Not trusting Waernuk (who didn’t seem to know about the compass), Ginari hid the compass in the once-secret vault in his shop and told Waernuk nothing about it. The compass no longer pointed to the laboratory, but it wasn’t necessary any more. The Cryx had blasted the existing Orgoth tunnels and sewer pipes and caverns to create a wide, direct path to the laboratory–and to take out the huge construct. The Cryx didn’t leave much behind, but they hadn’t found everything.

 

In the weeks since the invasion, Waernuk had Ginari on a short leash, pumping him for more information about Orgoth artifacts–especially about the huge construct. But to Ginari, all it looked like was a collection of spherical boilers on spider legs. He had never seen anything like it before.

 

Hoping to discover more information, the party had Ginari lead them to the Orgoth laboratory. They also discussed the possibility that the “compass” had never pointed simply at the laboratory, but at the huge construct which the Cryx had taken. And might be pointing at it still.

 

The Cryx had created a wide path starting in the Chatterstones, the crypts for the poor of Five Fingers, and extending in the underbelly of Hospice Island, heading down in a wide spiral. The party encountered Orgoth-style undead creatures, men and women who had been fused with various types of weapons. Then the party fought a hideous creature that used a still-living torture victim to attack them with waves of pain.

 

After that, they searched through the gutted remains of the laboratory. In what appeared to have been some kind of office, they found a secret chamber with an old scimitar and a collection of parchment plans nearly destroyed by time. Pali managed to reconstruct the parchments with magic, but they fell apart again when touched. The plans seemed to be mechanikal-like schematics, with corrections and Orgoth notes scribbled on them. Ginari told them that the plans resembled the huge construct. Using a book to keep the parchments intact, the party took them along with the scimitar.

 

No one wanted the scimitar because it’s blade seemed to absorb light, giving it a black aura. Taryn took the scimitar back to the Temple of Menoth and handed it over to her contact there, for investigation and destruction.

 

Ginari said he wanted to make a long trip inland, as far as Corvis maybe. The party bid him good-bye and went to the Cutting Board to discuss what their next step should be.