Session 93

After salvaging the empty Flow Cells from the storage room, the party makes their way out into the hallway where they try to explore further, passing through a doorway. As Summer opened a door attempting to explore, she sees some beds with a Dwarf in one and hears a voice around the corner say "Hello? Someone need help?" and a Dwarf appeared, seemingly confused at the empty doorway. He scratched his head and closed the door. The group decided to try the next door, getting a similar reaction from a Dwarf in a small office before pressing onward, finding several doors locked behind Runelatches, devices Dain explained were similar to the security at the Runesmith College which required a Runelink to bypass. The party heard footsteps approaching after a door down the hall opened and saw a Runeguard approaching, who noticed a door the party had left open and seemed confused, but continued on. They let him pass and then pressed on, eventually reaching another hallway with doors they could hear some chatter behind from multiple voices. They decided to try the next door, hearing snoring. Initially Dain seemed reluctant to explore this room, not wanting to wake the Runeguard they found sleeping in what appeared to be the barracks. Merrick explored further finding a fourth and final hallway that wrapped around completing the circle of hallways connecting to the one they came from. This hallway seemed to have some sort of device mounted on the wall pointing downward and sweeping back and forth on an axis. Fearing that it was some sort of deterrent, he turned back. Just then, a Runeguard entered the hallway down the other end and Merrick noticed he seemed confused at the doorway, which the party had left open. He seemed suspicious and passed Merrick, commenting as he did that "just in case", he'd "go get his visor". Alarmed by this, Merrick joined the group in the barracks and cast Message to inform Dain of what he heard, wondering if this could be hazardous to them. Dain decided to move quickly, going to each of the Runeguard in the room and using his artificer's tools to remove their Runelinks and replacing the ones that the party had. They then left, avoiding another patrolling guard, and Merrick attempted to return to the hallway with the device that Dain had identified as a "Runescanner" to see if his new Runelink would allow him to pass without issue. However, the device appeared to track him and began to flash red. As this happened, a strip of crystalline glass on the walls began to flash yellow and a low volume klaxon sound began to ring out throughout the prison.

Panicking, Merrick ran back to the cave where they entered in an attempt to hide. Wanting to try to diffuse the growing level of suspicion in the prison, he entered the mineshaft and cast Mislead, having his duplicate illusory image taunt the Stone Dwarves working on the unfinished cave. The Dwarves, alarmed, sent one of their own to fetch the Runeguard. When the Runeguard returned, there were several, including the one who "went to fetch his visor", whose eyes were now glowing due to the helmet atop his head. Merrick ducked around the corner behind a loose rock and let the Runeguard charge past him into the mineshaft searching for his illusory double.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party returned to one of the previous hallways where they had seen a Runelatch on a single large doorway on the inner side of the circular hallway system. They each tried their Runelinks on it, each failing, until Summer's allowed them to open the doorway. Entering, it closed and locked behind them and they saw another circular hallway system with numerous entryways to what appeared to be prison cells, protected by energy barriers. Looking inside, the party did not recognize anyone inside or have any way of knowing if any of them were significant. However, Summer nearly stumbled upon a Runeguard who was patrolling the prison yard, stopping at every other cell to mock the prisoners inside. Keeping out of his sight, the party made their way around the yard, checking each cell to see if anyone looked familiar or interesting. Making a complete circuit without seeing anyone interesting, they decided to try to pass the doorway into the inner yard, with only Summer's giving them access again. Entering into the inner yard, the party was immediately put on edge, noticing three Runeguard facing a cell whose barrier was down, with one of them seemingly beating a Dwarf whose face they could not see. Summer made her way around trying to locate the Vesperkin man that Rogdar told them about, but did not notice him. There was a close call as a Runeguard from the guard tower in the center of the yard came out, telling the other Runeguard of the developing situation as the strips of light along the hallways began to glow red and the klaxon sound changed to indicate a high alert. He told them to keep an eye out, which they dismissed. Summer decided to attempt to assassinate the Runeguard closest to her, but her blade could not penetrate their Runearmor, and she became visible again. A fight broke out, with the other party members joining in, becoming visible again. They took some heavy hits from the Runeguard's incredibly powerful axes. Just as things seemed to be going their way, two more Runeguard and an additional Runeguard in more intimidating looking armor emerged from the guard tower, responding to the Runeguard's cries for help. The party, unable to use magic due to the resident Flow Condenser's draining the prison of Flow, faced difficulty finishing off the rest of the Runeguard, but managed to overcome them. Afterward, Dain quickly inspected the bodies, taking a Flow Cell with a very low charge from the Elite Runeguard's armor and then moving to the prison cell to tend to the beaten Dwarf. He had Dorin come to his aid, healing him, giving him just enough strength to stumble to his feet and push his hair out of his face, revealing that the prisoner was none other than Dain's father, Balvin Brawnanvil, a member of King Rangrim's advisory council of Runesmiths.

Shocked to see his father in prison, Dain questioned him and learned that it was his father that the Underminers had planned to meet and that he was betrayed by Glondor, Dain's uncle and Balvin's brother. Balvin said to save the explanations for once they get out of there. Summer took one last look to try and find the Vesperkin man who Rogdar had told them had been taken into custody for tampering with Runetech in Greentide. She found him, and he seemed rather calm and told her to look for a control panel in the guard tower, indicating that if they freed all the prisoners, they could cause a riot and give them a distraction long enough to escape. Seeing no other option, Summer and Dain entered the guard tower and took the lift upwards where they saw a lookout with several spot lights and a metal panel with a series of lights in a pattern that seemed to indicate they corresponded to each of the cells in the prison yard. All but one of the lights were red, with the one in roughly the position of Balvin's cell being green. Dain could not find any kind of interface and tried, but failed to decipher it. He called his father up to the tower, who explained how to operate it by unlocking it with his Runelink and then tapping each of the red lights to unlock them. As he did so, he could hear the sounds of the barriers losing power and being dispelled. There was a moment of silence before the prisoners began to shout, clamoring out into the prison yard. The group decided it was now or never and ran to the outer yard where they saw numerous prisoners rioting, with several attacking the Runeguard who had gone about taunting them. They then entered the main hallway just as Merrick went to open the doorway, with him appearing to tell Dain of what he had done. allowing the prisoners to escape. Just then, some Runeguard came charging down the hallway. However, the prisoners filtering out into the hallway ran to attack them as the party ran the opposite way in the direction of the mineshaft. As they made it to the mineshaft, several more Runeguard approached from the other hallway along with a couple Forgeborn Soldiers. Merrick, seizing the opportunity to draw upon the little amount of Flow filtering in from the mineshaft, used Hypnotic Pattern, disabling several of the Runeguard. However, the Forgeborn were unaffected along with one Runeguard, who chased the party down the mineshaft. Dain let loose a Fireball which was unfortunately ineffective. Merrick then managed to Banish the Forgeborn before Dain ended the encounter by hitting the Runeguard with a Lightning Bolt. The lightning bolt immediately stopped the Runeguard's heart -- however, the excess energy energized his Flow Cell, which began to arc with electricity and glow very brightly. Dain told the party to run as fast as they could, and as they got further down the shaft, they heard a tremendous boom and saw a wave of electricity roaring down the shaft at them. Just as they reached the end of the mineshaft where the remainder of the rocks they had tried to move to enter the mineshaft to begin with were piled up, the shockwave of the electricity hit them and blew them against the rocks, toppling them and burying the party under the rubble. As the dust cleared, the party could hear the sounds of the cave collapsing. They freed themselves from the rubble and could hear the klaxon in the distance as well as some voices shouting. They quickly turned south and began to travel towards Shimmerwind.

As they approached Shimmerwind, they wondered what to do about Jeryl, the Vesperkin man they had in tow. However, Jeryl solved that problem himself, revealing some magical talents of his own, performing some sort of magic Dain had never seen, tracing an Aurum rune in the air, causing his form to morph into that of a Dwarf. The group entered the gates, with the Runeguard seeming suspicious of Balvin's clothing, but with them not having received word from The Vault yet, they shrugged it off and let them pass. They decided to head to Marnia's house in the industrial area, and Gardain gave the secret knock and was let in. After explaining the situation to Marnia, she seemed distressed and said that it wouldn't be very long before The Vault sent word to Shimmerwind and the Runeguard would be crawling all over the city looking for Balvin. Balvin then piped up, telling the group that Glondor, his brother, was planning some sort of demonstration before he was arrested that would take place in less than two weeks in Greentide, and that they would be showing off Forgeborn to some foreign dignitaries which if successful would have Forgeborn deployed to cities all around the world. He said it needed to be stopped and asked for ideas. Gardain answered, suggesting that Dain could sabotage the Forgeborn so that they turn on the foreign diplomats and then they could step in and stop them so the foreigners wouldn't ever trust them again, but Summer suggested an alternative of having them turn on the operators. They agreed this was a better solution.

Meanwhile, Dain wanted to know exactly how Jeryl had managed to tamper with the Runetech in Greentide and what that magic he used outside the city was. He responded by telling him that he had met an Ashenfolk in Myr while traveling who had taught him a form of magic the rest of the world did not seemingly have access to, called "Runescribing", which involved manipulating energy to make contact with the plane of magic, "Sara'lor", to "scribe" runes directly onto objects, which could alter their properties, among some other wondrous things. Dain seemed to want to have Jeryl teach him this, but while it sounded simple in theory, Jeryl indicated it was much more complicated and would require years of practice. He said he would help them as long as they would protect him and get him out of Reshyk, and the party agreed.