Session 13: As it has been since the beginning, so it shall be unto the end.

Wolfsday, 14 Blooming, 998 Y.K.   Once the party had seen to its own safety and the immediate concerns of those they had rescued, everyone decided that a celebration was in order. As such, the first order of business was sorting out everything else they'd taken from the Temple. Cazha was a "collector," a keeper of grim trophies taken from those who ran afoul of her. In the box where Transom had so recently lain, the party found about a dozen coin pouches, as well as two burlap sacks, one quite heavy and unwieldy. Scattered across the money pouches, the party found 8 gold coins, 87 silver, and 76 copper. The lighter of the two sacks contained several obviously personal effects: polished bone cameo in a silver locket on a matching chain, a large gold bracelet, a brass mug with agate inlay handle, a gold ring set with a small emerald, and a bronze lion-head torc sized for a halfling. All of them bore inscriptions of one form or another, either To or From someone, suggesting objects of personal value. These the party turned over to Sharn Watch in hopes that they'd find their way home to next of kin.   The other sack contained objects of much more immediate interest to the party: a golden amulet on a matching chain, inset with a glass representation of an eye on one side and two rings of inscribed runes on the reverse, a pair of rings -- one silver inset with a sapphire and a ruby, one bronze delicately etched with a wind-and-leaf pattern -- and, at the bottom, a hammer forged of flametouched iron, covered in fire designs. Bell spent a good quarter-hour identifying the various finds and learned that she could will the hammer's head to wreathe itself in actual flames, and more importantly, that she could put them out as well. She also found with a bit of tinkering that she could change the flame's intensity and even its color, but it seemed to burn just as hot regardless. The bronze ring gave off a strong aura of haste and alertness, and so she passed it to Relic. The amulet wen to Zer, who identified the rings of runes as destinations for a teleportation circle. The silver ring carried no innate magic, but within it bore the inscription Teres and Meledri // Rebirth Eve, 979 YK. This last went to Sharn's Watch as well, in hopes of finding a better home.   Thus sorted, the party set about preparing for the coming "spa day" that Ploughshare had agreed to talk up for the Heart and Hammer. Bell spent the morning digging out an oil bath and tapping her forge to heat it, while Spark gathered cloths and Milli whipped together some alchemical compound and polish. By early afternoon, word had spread far enough that a few forged had begun to gather, and Medya broke out her spike-fiddle to kick off the party in earnest. Soon forged were streaming in and out of the Heart and Hammer; some just came for a quick buffing or to schedule more difficult repairs, but several dozen stayed to enjoy the company of fellow forged. Even Relic eventually grew comfortable enough to test his legs in the oil-bath.   Gears arrived soon after to celebrate Transom's safe return, bringing a hefty offering of dust for the gathered, and soon all the forged were sinking deeply into a gentle haze of comfort. Milli stayed well-clear of the stuff, opting instead to partake of her stash of Everglow glitterreed. That caught the attention of one of the guests, who asked Milli if the unicorn had ever been up in the Shadow Marches. As Milli listened, the forged regaled her with a tale of an epic march through terrible terrain, ending in a stop at a town far northwest called Zarash'ak, where they had smelled something very similar. Speaking of scents, it wasn't long afterwards that Medya lit some incense, and the evening got into full swing.   As Bell and Milli went about performing various minor repairs, buffing and polishing as they could, the gathered forged began to relax, and as they relaxed they began to talk. Soon the gathered were griping about their collective lot, how hard they worked and how little they all felt they had to show for it. At some point, the group turned to their collective displeasure at Nolan Toranak, seat on Sharn's council for the whole of the Cogs. The dwarven armourer routinely spoke on the campaign trail of both his admiration for the factory and foundry owners that lived so far above him, and his dedication to keeping the Cogs "running smoothly" for them, oh and also the greater good of Sharn and Breland. Milli resolved on the spot to ensure that the forged would have a say in their own leadership, but at the moment she had other business to manage.   One of the neighbors must have called the Watch at some point, because a pair of officers stopped by the shop to ask if any non-forged were around and partaking of dust. Bell invited the guards to have a friendly look around, and the pair quietly scryed the gathered, but on finding no trace of dust were it shouldn't be, they left with a few calling cards for the Heart and Hammer in their pockets. This seemed a good time to grow the party to meet the neighbors, and soon what had been a private affair became an impromptu block party for as much of Myshan Gardens as wanted to come. Bell passed a hat with a few silver in it, and when it returned to her, it was full enough to more than cover the expenses for the night. It looked as though a hundred silvers might could be in the hat, and Bell at first offered it to Gears for their donation of dust, but the old brawler told Bell to keep it for someone who really needed it.

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  Flamesday, 15 Blooming, 998 Y.K.   By morning, what few guests remained had staggered home, and Milli, Medya, and Zer had long since retired, and so the party greeted the new day resolved to head into the sewers one last time and speak to the enigmatic "Lem," the forged that Crucible had said wanted to hire Gears, the source of Sharn's dust. Once more, the party trekked down through the Sewer Reclamation Plant's system into the bowels of Sharn. They returned to the last junction before the temple, the one down which they had faintly seen torches, and proceeded further into the old sewers. Down further ladders, passed a sealed portal and a makeshift crypt, the party found a recent cave-in that had been partially cleared. Just beyond, someone had strung a tripwire attached to a small clay token that Milli recognized as the breakable component of an alarm spell. Not long after, the party heard echoes of voices, growing nearer, and the shuffle of feet on stone.   The party ducked around the first bend of the offshoot tunnel, but Spark was unable to dim the fire of her mane enough to hide its light, and when the hunting motley arrived to investigate their trap, they saw the group in hiding. The party approached and tried to parlay, but the crack of a whip canceled that plan. A gnoll in furs and leather barked some command at a pair of goblins unsteadily holding swords, and the two small beings charged Spark and Relic. Neither connected, but they made a good show of trying. In the back of the motley, a hobgoblin with a crossbow fired at Milli, but Spark caught the bolt and returned it home to its owner's chest. A second gnoll in robes and robes began chanting, but Medya was just able to send him to slumber before he could finish his invocation. Sadly, luck would not continue to be with the party, as an orc unslung his axe and charged, the blade cutting deep in Relic's shoulder.   Both groups fell to melee, but despite the heavy strengh of the hunting motley, the party soon had the upper hand. The warlock awoke just long enough to finish his incantation, cutting a hole in space through which ghostly tendrils of energy crawled, scraping across the party's soul. However, Bell soon had him dropping his sickle, and one of the milky-pale tentacles grabbed its summoner and hauled him back through the hole he had made. The whipwielder fell to Spark's and Bell's blows, while Milli helped the goblins flee their captors. After the brawl, one of the two goblins crept back past the party to steal the whip, then fled.   The portal to Lem's lair was obvious: covered in eldritch runes, yet dark, the door locked but the hinges in good repair. Beyond, the rough brick and stone gave way to an eerily cold space, the upper necropolis of Shaarat. Cold light cast from a few everbright lanterns, casting pale shadows across mausoleums and burial niches carved in the walls. At the door Crucible had said was Lem's, Spark knocked, and a voice within asked Cinnabar what she wanted. Spark replied that it was a friend of Gears, here to ask about dust. Several seconds passed, and the voice told the group to enter but be quick about it.   Lem had converted the inside of a lavish but forgotten mausoleum into a makeshift alchemical workshop of sorts. Potions and powders sat on hollows in the walls that had once held bodies, while the presentation slab had become a mixing table complete with mismatched glassware. A second door near the back of the space was locked. Lem was visibly nervous and distressed as the party talked with him. They asked if he was safe if they left, and he shook his head. They asked if he wanted help, and he nodded. In a quiet voice, he told the party that he'd been hired to do a job down here. Before Cinnabar showed up a few years ago, he'd been doing pretty well at it, only popping up to the surface for supplies. Then Cinnabar had shown up, and next thing he knew he'd been pressed into serving as her drug mule; she'd made threats he couldn't risk ignoring. Then Cazha had arrived from Droaam, and she saw the potential for mayhem in dust, so she muscled in on the trade, and Cinnabar just upped production to compensate. Meanwhile, Lem had had less and less time for the reasons he'd been down there in the first place.   When the party asked if there was anything they could do for Lem, the forged told them to go tell Cinnabar that he didn't want to work for her any more. He told them how to find her lab, and warned them that the hallways were full of undead goblins looking for revenge and they should stay absolutely on the path. Then he told them he had work to do, and he asked them to leave.   Lem's directions took the party deeper into the catacombs, where a stale wind made even the sparse and scattered everbright lanterns flicker and dance. Cinnabar's home was another repurposed crypt, one with an iron door at the front. At the party's knock, the voice inside called out to "Lemmy," asking him what he wanted. Spark once again said she was from the surface and she wanted to talk about dust. A moment later, the door opened to reveal a forge of startlingly-unique design -- clearly one Bell had never seen before -- suffused with a deep violet light. She scanned the party casually, but the moment her eyes locked with Relic's, the monk felt something deep within him say, unquestioningly, that there was something wrong with Cinnabar, and that whatever it was, it needed to be banished.   Clearly Cinnabar felt the same, for she drew a hand-crossbow from her belt as he warned the group and dashed forward. «It's good to see you again, Hope,» she told Relic in a language he didn't know he spoke. She pulled the trigger, her crossbow aimed at the ground, and a glass pellet shattered, followed by the billowing of harsh pink clouds. The caustic spell turned the party against itself, and they fell onto one another. Bell tried to strike Milli with her new hammer, but the unicorn threw up a shield just in time to block it. Milli, in turn, tried to shoot at Medya, but the bolt flew wide. Both alchemists were shocked to their senses by what happened, though neither had time to react.   Spark, meanwhile, had rounded upon the unicorn with all her fury, unleashing a flurry of blows that staggered the mare. Relic danced with Cinnabar, his guardsarm seeking the other forged at every turn. Zer' cast forth a wave of terror, seeking to drive Cinnabar away, but he succeeded only in turning Spark on her heel and setting her to run. The dustmaker shot a bolt of lightning at Relic to try to fry the monk, catching both Bell and Milli in its wake. The pair fought back, rebuking Cinnabar and distracting her long enough for Relic to finish his foe with a blow to her neck.   Cinnabar's lab was a wealth of alchemical lore, as well as almost a decade of diaries including research mixed with anecdotes of personal trauma, of being born into pain and of knowing contempt for her captors to the core of her being. Against one wall near her workbench sat a metal drum almost full to the brim of some violet glowing substance, likely the "raw" to which she referred in her notes. It looked, in fact, as if some part of her magical aura had crystallized and sloughed off, and she had collected the seepings for study.   Also in her notes was a another style of writing, a language that Spark remembered from her vision of the silk flag but still couldn't read. Relic, however, could at least make out several references to a wish in need of fulfillment before packing up the lab into Zer's pocketspace. Before Bell could scoop up Cinnabar's severed head to show to Lem, Milli stood before it, stamped one hoof, and said, "By the way, Lem wants out."   On seeing Cinnabar dispatched, Lem agreed to leave the sewers, on one condition: he needed the party's help to find a safehouse. There was a reason he'd been hiding in the sewers to do his job; it was the only place he'd felt safe enough. He promised to explain, but the party had to swear -- like, geas-level swear -- that they wouldn't cross him. The party swore, and Lem stepped into the backroom of his lab. "You need to get up," Bell heard Lem say. "We've got to get out of here. It's not safe to stay." And then Lem stepped back into the room, a human man's arm around his shoulder. He looked haggard and sickly, he stumbled as he walked, and his left forearm from just below the elbow down was made of metal, dimly lit from within by magic.