Off Season Event: Threat to Torria (Recap)

Scene 1 – “A Secret Meeting”

  The 5th of October has come and the people that Tovian wrote letters to (and some that have heard about this meeting through other means) have traveled in from all over Ashnuw to meet Tovian in the small Southern border town of Fen Dale. Even Donindor himself came to help. Tovian eyes the new faces with suspicion. They explain who they know and how they heard of this secret meeting before Tovian trusts them.   As Tovian gives a recap of what he has seen going on in Torria and explains that the man behind this all has lived hundreds of years. He was an old enemy to Torria long ago, but has been silent for many years. Now he is back with a powerful potion that is able to make someone loyal to the person that gives it to him. His name is Bronus and he has worked his way into the highest positions, even to the King himself. All of the government officials and military leaders are now somehow loyal to Bronus.   Tovian knows Bronus has spies everywhere so has secretly called this group (the people that he trusts) to help him covertly take down Bronus, undo the damage that he has done in Torria and prevent him from going any further.   Tovian explains that he knows that Bronus is somewhere near this town today and that this is a perfect time to catch him off guard and put an end to this illegitimate reign.  

Scene 2 – “Ambush Bronus”

  Outside of town the group stealthily comes upon Bronus and his guards. They see that this is a site where a new well has been constructed and by its looks, it is a deep one. For what purpose, they can only guess. The group surprises the guards with a lethal attack. The guards fight to the death and Bronus alone is left alive. Bronus is backed against a wall and has no choice but to use his untested time machine device. He tells the group that he will kill them all before they ever had a chance to meet. He specifically calls out Tovian and vows to kill him first. Just as Bronus raises a shield to protect himself Donindor jumps at him and gets inside the shield. Bronus activates the time machine device. The air shimmers and fluctuates around the device. Some in the party try to advance toward Bronus, but the air seems incredibly thick and their movements are very slow. Even an arrow shot through the air will fly very slowly toward its target.   Light and sound are bending and slowing around them. No one can move. A sudden flash of intense light from the device blinds them all. Everyone in the party is momentarily dazed and blinded. They fall to the ground.   (players are blindfolded and lead to a new location.)    

Scene 3 – “A Twist of Time”

  As the dizziness and blindness wear off, the group finds themselves in a room that looks like it might be a laboratory. It has a table with scientific equipment on it and many ticking clocks all over the walls. They look up to see a younger looking Bronus staring at them in surprise. He quickly smashes a button on a desk that he stands near and bars drop from the ceiling to surround them. They find themselves in a cage. The cage is surrounded by a shield wall..   The younger Bronus laughs and says, “Well, well, this thing actually works after all. Who are you lot and where did you come from, or rather ‘when’ did you come from?”   None of them answer him. He continues, “No matter. You’ve served your purpose. I now know that my time machine works and just so you know before I kill you, this is the year 1149.   “Now, as much as I’d like to have you stick around and chat about what’s to come, I fear that I can’t have anyone else knowing about this.”   At that moment a few in the party double over with a splitting pain in their heads. More follow. Bronus watches curiously and says, “Interesting. I theorized that there would be some ‘adverse side effects’. Perhaps I will keep you around a little longer to see what happens to you. If I am correct, I won’t have to kill you at all. In fact, you only have a few hours to live.” He laughs loudly and says, “This should be fun! I hope you like a good game, because this is the last one you will ever play.” Bronus reaches for a lever near him on the floor and pulls it. As he pulls the lever, the floor beneath them opens and they fall through a chute that dumps them outside the castle that they were just in.    

Scene 4 – “Out with the Trash”

  The party falls out of the chute and lands in a pile on the grass outside. Nearby they see the large entrance to the castle and some guards standing in front of it. The castle gate is closed. The guards are armed with pistols and swords. Both groups survey size the other up and are hesitant to attack. Tovian and his party retreat without a fight.   Tovian states the obvious, “Apparently Donindor was able to interrupt the time machine and somehow it sent us back instead of Bronus. He said this is the year 1149? That means we have traveled back almost 600 years. This is only about 150 years after the Pale war. I wasn’t quite born yet.”   Tovian closes his eyes and winces as a searing pain courses through his head once again. He looks up and says, “If what Bronus says is true, we only have a few hours to live. I overheard Bronus once talking about something that didn’t make since at the time, but now I think I understand. He said that when he goes back he would only have a few hours before he had to return or else he wouldn’t survive. I didn’t know he was talking about going back in time, but now it all makes since. I believe that the only way for us to survive is to return to our time. We must find another way into that castle. We must get to that time device.”    

Scene 5 – “Let the Games Begin”

  The party, led by Tovian, circles the castle and spots a small side door. They approach and find that it is locked. They break through the door and find a few surprised guards that quickly turn to meet them and attack. A few more guards come into the room from the other side and join the battle.   The party eventually dispatches these guards and moves quickly and quietly into the castle.   They pass through a small room and cautiously into a larger room   In this room are found many trunks and supplies. It appears to be a storeroom of sorts. A locked gate bars their way up the stairs into the rest of the castle.   Suddenly the iron door behind them that they just entered through slams shut and across the room a large gate slowly lifts up only enough to allow three vicious dog-like beasts made completely of rock to into the room. The three rock hounds have collars and chains preventing them from advancing. The hounds are fighting against their chains to attack the party, snarling, snapping and growling at them, but are only able to advance about 10 feet into the room from the gate they came through. They have what appears to be metal teeth. Someone spots a note on a trunk in front of them and quickly picks it up to read it. The note says, “If you want to live, you must play the game.” They look around the room and spot papers on the walls and other clues to some kind of riddle or something.   The rock hounds are slowly being allowed more ground as a mechanism beyond the gate slowly releases more of the chain every few minutes. Before long the party will be faced with a fight they cannot win. Some in the party try to attack these rock hounds, they quickly find that their hide is as strong as rock and the hounds bite their swords as they get near.   As the chains holding back the hounds have allow them to advance far into the room, almost to the gate the party figures out the puzzle and opens the two combination locks on the gate to allow them out of the room (just in time). Just as they exit through the gate, the rock hounds are released and leap at them. The party shuts the gate behind them to keep the hounds back and hurries up the stairs.    

Scene 6 – “Game 2 – Ticking Clocks”

  At the top of the stairs the party finds themselves in a hallway that goes to the right and left. To the left is a door with another combination lock on it. To the right are more stairs that lead up up into a room. Without knowing the code to the combination the party is forced to go up the stairs.   As they enter the large upstairs room, they recognize it as the very same room they first appeared in earlier and met young Bronus. The clocks are on the walls are ticking loudly. As they all enter the room, the door behind them slams shut and is locked, barring them from exiting back out that way. A hissing sound is heard coming from the ceiling. They look up and see a green gas being pumped into the room through several vents in the ceiling. The gas is obviously lighter than air as it is staying high in the air, filling up the entire ceiling. It is clear to them that the room will fill entirely up before too long. They look around the room and spot a chest near the wall locked with a combination lock. They then spot a small note half hidden under something on the desk. The note reads, “The second clock is to the left of a clock with gears on it.” They look up at the clocks and spot several clocks with gears on them. As they continue to search the room they find more such notes hidden around the room. As they work on piecing together the clues the gas is filling the room from the ceiling down. They eventually won’t be able to stand up anymore without breathing the toxic gas.   Many in the party are feeling sick and are lying at the ground, but a few stayed diligent and were eventually able to solve the puzzle and figure out the combination. When they open the locked box, they find two notes, a mechanism with a button and a few strange looking torches. The first note reads, “To go forward, you must go back.” And the second note reads, “Only in darkness will you see the light.”   The press the button on the device and two things happen simultaneously. The door swings open and the green gas is sucked out of the room replaced by clean air. They inhale deeply and their heads begin to clear. They go back down into the hallway. They still can’t get out the door with another combination lock on it and realize that one of the notes said, “To go forward, you must go back.” They realize that they must go back down into the room where the rock hounds were.    

Scene 7 – “Game 3 – Things that Lurk in the Dark”

  As they cautiously open the door back down into the room where the rock hounds were, they see that the room is dark and the rock hounds are nowhere in sight. The room is silent. As they cautiously proceed, they bring out the strange torches that they found in the trunk upstairs and light them (black light flashlights). They shine them around the room and find that writing on the walls and trunks is now revealed that was not able to be seen before. The words that they read are clearly another one of Bronus’ games. One of the ladies in the party screams as something falls from the ceiling and lands on their shoulder. The object that fell from the ceiling is some sort of large crawling insect-like creature that grabs hold of the ladies shoulder and starts to sting her. She frantically smacks at it to get it off while the thing is clinging with all 6 legs. Someone comes to her aid and they get it off and smash it on the ground. They shine their lights up at the ceiling and notice holes all over the ceiling (that weren’t there before). The party is now very nervous and begins to solve the puzzle as fast as they can.   As they try to solve the puzzle, the insects keep dropping from the ceiling at an increasing rate, occasionally landing on the players and stinging them. The sting is very painful and quickly swells up. As they get closer to solving the puzzle the insects are dropping from the ceiling by the dozens and there are so many on the ground that they are getting out of hand. The little beasts can jump at their legs too. They finally solve the puzzle and get four numbers. They quickly use the numbers on the combination lock in the hall above while fighting off dozens of little insects jumping at them. The insects are coming up the stairs after them. They are able to escape through the door and close it quickly behind them. They find themselves in a lit hallway with stairs that go down. They go down the stairs and take a moment at the bottom to rest and recover from the stings.  

Scene 8 – “Free the Prisoner”

  The party moves through the hall and turns the corner to find a prisoner locked in a cell. The prisoner has a metal prosthetic hand that has no joints. He also has a metal shoulder that allows him limited range of motion in that arm. As they talk to the prisoner, they learn that something is not quite right in his head. He seems to have lost his mind to some extent. He tells them that he thinks that Bronus is going to eventually replace all of him with metal parts. They learn that Bronus has been experimenting on him in some way and it seems that that may the cause of both his metallic body parts and his mental state. The prisoner is frantic and pleads with them to free him. A guard comes to see what all the commotion is about. He is about to casually tell the prisoner to shut up when his eyes go wide as he sees the group in front of the cell. He draws his sword and retreats to raise the alarm. Tovian turns to the group and quickly tells them to free this prisoner while he goes to “silence” that guard. Tovian takes off after the guard and uses stealth to disappear as he turns the corner after him.   The party tries to shut the prisoner up and looks around to find a way to get him out. They work on the hinges of the door and work at smashing the lock. They are able to break the cell door and get him out   When they open the cell door, the prisoner is at first so happy he does a dance, but then quickly changes his countenance and is frantic to escape the castle and begs them to get him out of there. Soon it becomes clear to the party that the prisoner is little crazy or something. He is frantic and too loud. They knock him out to shut him up and decide what to do with him. They eventually wake him up tell him to keep quiet or they would put him back in that cell and leave him there. He promises to be more quiet and points down the hall past the door that the guard and Tovian went through explaining that the exit is that way.   They cautiously peer around the corner to see that the coast is clear, and proceed. Not far ahead they come to an alcove in the hall that the prisoner directs their attention towards. High in the alcove they see an opening that appears to be a small dark tunnel that angles up into darkness. It appears to be an air vent or something. The prisoner says that this will lead outside. He turns to them, thanks them and gives them three keys on a key ring explaining that they are very important, but he can’t remember how. He asks for a boost and crawls into the tunnel. He disappears into it still talking to himself as he goes. The party turns and heads back down the hall to catch up to Tovian.    

Scene 9 – “Bronus’ Throne Room - One Last Game”

  The group cautiously passes through two dark rooms (green room and garage bathroom) before coming to a large room that has eerie lighting. They see a large throne in the center of the room with Bronus sitting on it. Behind him are several guards. A strange green fire burning on the floor comes from behind the throne and creates a fire wall between them and Bronus. They cannot get through this wall of fire. If they shoot projectiles, the fire leaps up and incinerates the projectile as it passes through. Their ranged abilities cannot get through the fire either.   Bronus laughs at them and asks, “How have you been enjoying my games so far?” He cranes his neck to look closer at them and continues, “I see you met my little insect friends. They leave a nasty mark don’t they?”   “Rest assured that for you this game is coming to a close very soon. I have one last very simple game for you.” He motions to two small trunks on either side of the room against the wall. “You must choose a trunk. One of them holds the key to your lives and your way home, which of course is the time travel device that you are so desperately are seeking, if you choose incorrectly, you will face certain death.”   The party starts asking Bronus questions in an attempt to get him to reveal something, but he becomes impatient and as one among them (Toumthin) asks an impertinent question he points his powerful pistol at him and attempts to fire, but the weapon does nothing. Bronus looks at the weapon, turns it this way and that in his hand and curses it in frustration. He bangs it a couple of times and the thing fires a random round into the wall. Bronus smiles and points it at Toumthin once again and says, “Now, what was it you were asking?” The group stops askig questions and talks amongst themselves trying to decide what to do. Bronus gets frustrated at how long they are taking and tells them that if they in order to speed them up, he is going to shoot one of them every minute they delay. He starts by aiming at the man from Vachelou in the front and fires a shot, but one of the strongest warriors in th egroup quickly jumped in front of him and took the bullet in his armor. It knocked him back, but did not penetrate.   At that point the group decided to open both boxes at the same time; although their timing was a little off and the box on their left was opened seconds before the one on their right. As soon as the chest was opened a huge explosion filled the room, threw them back against the wall and knocked them unconscious.    

Scene 10 – “Execution”

  The group awakes to find themselves outside sitting against a stone wall, bound with their hands behind their backs to the wall. Their weapons have all been taken from them. They try to use their abilities and cannot. The bindings have somehow prevented them from using abilities.   A few guards with weapons drawn stand over them and as they come to. One of the guards tells them that they are fools for trifling with Bronus. He goes on to tell them that it’s too bad that they won’t live to see the day that Bronus sits on the throne in Torria and shows this world what they do not see.   One of the people in the party says, “And what might that be? What is it that this world does not see that Bronus will show them?”   The guard smiles, makes a laughing humph sound and responds, “Simply that death is not something to be feared. These bodies are mere vessels that carry us and can be replaced.” He laughs louder. “You will soon find out. He looks up to the castle and then turns to the other guards to say, “They have released the rock hounds, let’s get out of here.”   As the guards run off the group hears the all-too-familiar sound of the rock hounds that they had seen in the puzzle room earlier coming at them from the castle. Just after the guards rounded the corner Tovian suddenly materializes right in front of their eyes out of thin air. He quickly begins to free them from their restraints and explains that he had been captured, but was able to escape. As he frees one, they both start working to free the next and so on until everyone is at last freed just before the rock hounds round the corner and start running at them. The group runs for their lives.   They find cover in the nearby trees and keep running. They lose the rock hounds and make their way back towards the castle. Tovian has a few extra daggers that he managed to get his hands on before he rescued them. He hands them out to some in the party. By this time the searing pain in their heads has gotten worse and more frequent. It seems that they don’t have much time before they will be overcome by the pain of it and will certainly die. They must get to that time travel device quickly.    

Scene 11 – “Sneaking Back In”

  They get to the castle and spot a metal grate on the ground.   Tovian tries to lift the grate off and asks for help. Others join him and they are able to lift the grate off revealing a tunnel angled down into the ground. The group recognizes this as one of the air tunnels that the prisoner went up through. Tovian says, “This will take us into the lower rooms of the castle, but we must not be seen. We must move silently and stay to the shadows.” One at a time they follow Tovian in, sliding slowly down the angled shaft, bracing themselves on the walls to slow their descent. They quietly gather at the bottom in a lower room in the castle.   A couple of nearby guards are seen wearing some kind of goggles. Tovian spots these goggles saying that he has seen these before. He explains that while these goggles limit their peripheral vision, they allow them to see better in the dark and also allow them to see anyone that is using stealth or camouflage abilities. The party quietly sneaks by most of the guards, silently killing a few making their way to the stairs at the end of the winding passage and goes up. Another guard or two is in the hallway at the top of the stairs. They sneak past those guards and make their way up the stairs to Bronus’ lab.    

Scene 12 – “Bronus in His Lab”

  The group enters Bronus’ lab to find Bronus there working on something disturbing. There is a body on the ground between two strange columns. Bronus turns in surprise and says, “What are you doing here? You should be dead in a thousand pieces by now.” He calls loudly for his guards and starts to fight them. They see a couple of weapons lying on the ground in this room not far from them and get them, arming themselves. Tovian tells someone to close the door and lock it. They try to take Bronus alive, but he avoids capture at first and wounds a few of them with a pistol as he holds them back. Bronus’ guards are heard banging on the door trying to break it open to come to his rescue. One guard opens a secret doorway in the side of the room and bursts in to fight them, but is quickly overpowered by the group.   Finally Tovian picks up Bronus’ pistol and shoots him several times. Bronus falls to the ground and laughs at them with halted breathing. They ask him where the time travel device is, but he only smiles at them and says that they will all be dead soon, but he does not fear death. The knight from Vachelou leans over Bronus and whispers to him, “That is the only thing that you and I have in common” as he runs him through, extinguishing the last breath of life from the man.   The guards continue to bang on the door to get in, hacking at it to break through. Someone points out the secret passage that the guard came through earlier and the group quickly exits that way before the guards break down the door.    

Scene 13 – “The Final Battle”

  The group has escaped through a secret passage in the lab and finds themselves in a hallway in the castle. They round a corner and come to a door that leads down some stairs. The stairs lead them down to a dark room where, to their surprise, Bronus stands waiting for them alive, well, almost. His body is half constructed of what appears to be metal and machine parts. He also has a ticking bomb attached to him as well as the time machine device. The room is very dark   Bronus is very upset at them. He yells, “You fools! My invention was not fully tested. I cannot sustain this body for very long, but with my dying breath I will take you all with me! You have robbed the world of unparalleled technology. You have no idea what you have done! Know this, I have rigged this entire castle to blow at the last beat of my mechanical ticking heart. You can either choose to live your last few moments outside in the sunlight or die with me here in the darkness of my castle.”   As the group advances to attack Bronus, he steps back and his guards come out of hiding from behind him. The battle is fierce. Bronus has his pistol and opens fire from behind his guards. The group eventually defeats the guards and gets to Bronus. They see that the time travel device is locked to the chains on his body and remember the keys that they were given by the prisoner. They try each of the three keys and one of them unlocks the lock. They take the time travel device from Bronus as he reaches to stop his heart to trigger the bombs. One of them holds Bronus’ hands back to prevent him from stopping his own mechanical heart, but it is too late. The heart is slowly ticking its last few beats. The group rushes out of the castle with the time device just in time to be thrown by the mighty blast as the castle erupts into explosion and flame. As the searing pain in their heads becomes a constant pain now, they quickly inspect the device and try to figure out how to activate it. They activate it and experience the same light and sound disturbance that they experienced the first time. They are once again dazed and blinded momentarily.      

Scene 14 - “The Journey Home”

  After they regain their site and hearing, they find themselves back in their own time near the site where the well was, but there is no well this time. A villager is seen passing by. Tovian runs to them, grabs them by the shirt and asks them rather abruptly, “What year is it?”   The villager, wide eyed and very confused, responds “1701”.   Tovian asks, “What is the tax on selling a pig?”   The villager looks puzzled and asks, “What are you talking about? There’s no tax on selling pigs here. Where are you from?”   Tovian releases the villager and breathes a sigh of relief. The villager runs off. Tovian turns back to the party and says to them, “We’ve done it! We’ve changed everything! Bronus died 700 years ago and never came to take over Torria. None of it ever happened! I can’t thank you all enough. Come, let’s get something to eat. I’m famished.”       The End