Split the Lark

Run 1: Split the Lark #

The Adventure of Spirelings Ji Ji; Toland, the Tome Wyrm; and Vagra (and Storm)

There appeared on the newly installed Community Board in Spireling Hall a carefully worded request for assistance from Steelweaver Artificer Viola Peregrine. There had been, she related, a 'grant proposal' brought up to the Ten Fingers from a researcher presumed dead for the past twenty years, asking for materials, funds, and students for a lab which had been presumed destroyed, also for the past twenty years. She included a copy of said proposal on the Board for perusal:

Dear Steelweavers:

Please accept this grant proposal for me to CONTINUE MY WORK in expanding our understanding of the fascinating phenomenon which we call the GREEN. I require 5-10 student researchers of the highest caliber and metal, glass, and ore sufficient to build a suit to enter the GREEN for the purposes of extended study within GREEN infected areas as there is much still to discoveR and I must INSIST that you do not SUMMON me from my laboratory as I am presently occupied and it is coming into view

Helio Justure

This letter had apparently raised some concerns about the researcher's intentions and sanity.

Thus, said Viola Peregrine, the Steelweavers and the offices of the Grand Artificer Ozadrel K'zal were seeking Spireling adventurers of "great discretion" to descend the Promise Spire (the "ring finger" of the Ten Fingers) to investigate Dr. Justure and his laboratory to ascertain the man's status as well as whether or not his current or intended work with the Green would be harmful to the Spires' survival.

Who better to pursue this quest of knowledge than members of the Nomadic Balloon Public Library* (*actual library status unconfirmed)? Three of the founding members of this exceptional organization decided to travel to the Promise Spire to answer this call: Ji Ji, the business-bird of the operation with INCREDIBLE FACILITY in the art of counting; Toland, the Tome Wyrm, who was definitely a Full-Sized Red Dragon and not a kobold wizard with a big, big cloak; and Vagra, an emerald kobold ranger with a brilliant golden eagle, Storm, as her constant and observant companion.

Arriving at the Promise Spire with the help of a rudely silent pigeon-kenku cable car operator, these three Certified Librarians met Viola, as well as her bug-shaped construct assistant and pet, whom the artificer had named Lavender. The three were immediately fascinated by Lavender and questioned whether or not the construct had free will, to which Viola did not have an answer that particularly resolved their concerns. After being reassured that Ji Ji, Toland, and Vagra were genuinely adventurers and that she would not simply be sending three confused Little Guys to their deaths, Viola led the three of them into a warehouse-like metal building, providing a demonstration of the machine affinity characteristic of Steelweavers by opening and closing the doorknob-less doors of the place without any physical interfacing.

Here, the adventurers gained a more complete picture of the history of the laboratory whose remains they would be visiting:

A little over twenty years ago, Helio had come from the Standing Oxes asking for support in building a lab to study the Green. He believed that ascertaining the properties of the Green and the creatures inhabiting it, and, in particular, determining its weaknesses, would prove critical in fighting against the Green should it one day threaten life even at the heights of the Spires. Ozadrel, then recently made the Grand Artificer, had been fascinated by this proposition and provided Helio with the resources and Steelweaver researchers necessary to make this work a reality. This group built a lab near the base of the Promise Spire, close to the shallowest parts of the nearby Green, and began their work, after which the eminently distractible Ozadrel found the next, new, shiny project and forgot about them entirely.

Less than two years after this research had begun, the Steelweavers received word from a passing airship that Helio's lab seemed to be 'almost completely on fire.' A small seek-and-rescue party sent down to the lab found the building to indeed have been mostly reduced to ash and cinders and discovered, in the place of any survivors, a host of humanoid Green monsters inhabiting the Green-infested land nearby. The Steelweavers concluded that no more research should be conducted at that elevation, reported the deaths of these researchers to their families (including the Justures of the Standing Oxes), and moved on.

PrinceCon 48 Summaries & Run Recaps: #

« Back to PrinceCon 48