Today, we got Mass Dazed by a spider, tied up by zombies and all our CoolStuff stolen. oops. We bickered and grumbled about what to do for a while. Then, I introduced a "clever plan". "I will disguise myself as a Councellor, and hide one party member behind me. Then, the one party member will incapacitate the guards while opening the gates. Thwak was elected Most Likely to Beat Up Guards, so I cast "insignificance" on him, and the whole party went to just before the gates.
I disguised myself as Councellor Palpatine, and tried to talk my way through the door. The guard let me in the first gate, looking rather surprised. "Councellor Palpatine!? What are you doing out there??" I totally botched thinking on my feet, but managed to intimidate the guard after not being able to do anything creative enough for him to let (the councellor) through. Thwak moved the bar and opened the inner door. The party ran in and knocked out the guards, Thwak took the door-bar, and the party moved into the caer. I turned back to myself and made *myself* insignificant, then run stealthily to the back of the caer with Kenisha toward the suspended animation chambers.
We found the chambers and tried to figure out the magical mechanics. Some kind of life force is being pumped out of them, and something is being pumped in. They are different kinds of something. It's growing faster than it's designed to, Steven says it's sapping their wills. and if we cut the drain tubes it will help them do better. I was kind of nervous about this...
Thwak found 5 orks, 5 humans, adepts, and a nethermancer who look very tough. We prepared to break the "out" tube on an adept at the end of a chain. We plugged the crystal, but some of it has grown into him. His skin is yellowish, turning blue, so and he is covered in gook. Steven got him to start breathing, but he coughed, sputtered, and passed out.
Suddenly, the input feed for the room came gurgling down, so we started trying to remove all of them from their crystals. The darker yellow ones are slugs, and try to crawl off, so we skip those and free the others, with the Trolls smashing and the mages trying to heal the drowned people. Thwak cut the output feed, and it's a frenzy of first aid. One beastmaster heals very quickly, 6th or 7th circle, and starts shredding crystal after we quickly explain that we're racing to save them.
Many of the people appear to have made it out not-dead.
The dwarf-riders appear. Steven shouts "Get them" and the dwarf-riders are obliterated within a second.
I asked an elementalist-looking adept to close the door:
"Can you close that"
"Not sure. Should I try?"
"Yes, please"
"Er, okay"
(the door closes in a point fade)
"What circle are you?"
"Not sure"
"Oh."
At that point, I took a nap. I woke up long enough to say "don't let them cast any spells" and fell back asleep. I slept about 30 minutes before I woke to Thwak screaming. Tristain had come back reporting that one of the exits to this chamber went into the city, then Thwak and Gilad and Kenisha came back saying that there were dwarves making a new city down the other tunnel, using trolls as slaves with control collars. They rushed off with Donk and Steven to "fix things." chaos and bad stuff ensues Suddenly, Thwak is falling down the tunnel with a troll, I threw up a wall behind him, which starts taking a *lot* of skew. I had to drop it, and 8 seconds later trolls and yellow fluid flooded into the cavern. Thwak psyched them up to give them extra strength, heaven knows why. Suddenly, power swirled around Thwak... a Questor of Lochost? Oh dear. The collars start falling off of the trolls.
GM: "I just gave him the power to do *WHAT*???"