Smoke and Steel: Session 2

General Summary

Session 2: 15-11-2025

The party starts in the garage of a large manor in the Spire Heights. They travel speak with Lysandra and Tiberius, learning that they suspect a traitor. A likely suspect is a goblin by the name of Thresher who owns a brothel in the Smuggler's Alley behind the Merchant's Ring. But first they should secure the documents with compromising information on the city's nobles and the wealthy.

They move through the mansion and climb the stairs to the second floor. Seeing many strange devices some of the new electric lights, a phonograph playing a recording of an experiment and approaching from afar they see a robot, a Warbot, approaching. He offers them tea and biscuits while introducing himself as Destroyer Unit 21.

He takes them through the rest of the floor to a stairway leading up to the attic. They find all sorts of random equipment, cages filled with mice, a human cadaver in the middle of dissection, walls covered in notes and blueprints. The Professor, Theodosius Rasmuran, sits behind a desk and tells Celaena not to stand near the fumes because they're poisonous. Wulf stands mesmerized by the beauty of Death looking at the dissected cadaver. Meanwhile Celaena pukes in the exhaust of a machine and causes it to short circuit.

Annabelle asks Theodosius if he's working on any interesting projects and he takes them to see his new Lumen cannon project. A device that can harnesh light and focus it through mirrors and lenses to a powerful beam of light that can incinerate objects or creatures. Arnold asks if they can help the Professor with something and he mentions he'll have a mission for them later to travel down to the The Gnomish Republic by steam train and find out what happened to his workshops.

After viewing the invention they turn to the vault and the documents inside. Squeak the mouse tries to get a peek inside but gets chased away by the professor. They do see there's a substantial amount of gold in the safe, gadgets and documents. Theo removes the documents stored by Lysandra earlier and they start studying them.

• There's an organisation called the Circle that does shady business with nobles and magistrates.
• There's a Sir Aldric Dain who is making transfers to this shadowy organisation. Publicly he's known to be a philanthropist who is vocal about Universal Suffrage and runs orphanages across the city.
• Daxius Ferrum and his family have acquired a lot of wealth in mysterious ways. They seem to be connected with the Circle but have left th city 5 years ago for the Freestate of Saratoga.

Later at night Celaena sneaks into the laboratory and sets free the mice but to her dismay half of them run back into the attic.

They follow Destroyer Unit 21 to the rooms that have been prepared for them. Some get a strange bed filled with water, or one that can move mechanically in every direction. Wulf gets a sensory deprivation chamber to sleep in. In the morning they meet a robot sweeping the floors who offers to guide them to breakfast. Annabelle curious investigates the robot and reprograms it so it follows her. They see it has a name tag calling it Martha 292.

They head off to breakfast and find a man called Archibald who studies the new Arcanotech and serves as an apprentice of the Professor. Later Lysandra and Tiberius join them. She explains that Lord Dain is the man behind the collapse of the mine that killed her father and the party gets the sense she has a vendetta against him. She knows the Circle but there's not much known about this mysterious organisation. She suggest they go after the traitor first and its likely Thresher.

After breakfast by an intricate machine they set out to the Merchant's Ring in the Rovers in the garage with tinted windows to stay sneaky. They leave the vehicles at the Merchant's square and go into the Alley. After awhile they come upon the rundown building Satyr's Delight. They go inside and meet with an Orc in drag who has a flirtatious attitude.

Wulf screams "Down with the Patriarchy!" and rushes upstairs. They pass by closed doors until they find a door with 'Manager' above it and bust inside destroying the door in the process. They find a cowering Goblin and almost immediatly attack him. Wulf grapples him but he's too late from stopping him from injecting a strange purple liquid into himself.

Suddenly his body starts growing into strange ways and he transforms into a huge nightmarish creature that glows softly purple.

After a hard battle they claim victory and take a key from him that opens the safe door. They discover gold, a gold bond for 20,000 gp and a potion with the glowing purple liquid. Annabelle tests it and finds out it's some sort of mutagen.

They find letters from the Aldric Dain to Thresher explaining to him that Lysandra has a vendetta against him but she is secretly working for the Kingdom of Theresia as a saboteur and terrorist.

Another letter mentioned him working for the Circle and providing test subjects to them for the development of these mutagen potions.

Rewards Granted

2000 gp
20,000 gp bank bond
Potion with glowing purple liquid