Help the Steelweavers

Run 1: The Wayward Tinker #

PCs: Jacob, Human Fighter. Mural, Kenku Rogue. Silq Aiwenor, Half-Elf Sorceror, Syllan, Half-Elf Druid, Talzan the Champion, Elf Rogue, Vermillion Spitz, Elf Monk.

Our heroes were wandering Spireling Hall when they witnessed a curious site. A group of Steelweavers attempting to approach the Iron Seat, being blocked by attendents from the Council of Elders. These were the students and assistants of the esteemed grand artificer Ozadrel K'zel, who was not in attendance. The Council of Elders had given Ozadrel permission to repair the Iron Seat, and without the Grand Artificer himself present, they refused to allow his students access.

The students had arrived in two groups. Ozadrel had been supposed to travel with the first group, but just before leaving he told them to go on without him, that he had to take care of something and travel with the second group leaving the following day. Both groups were surprised when they arrived to find him missing.

The Spirelings agreed to travel to the Ten Fingers to look for Ozadrel. With time of the essence, they sought passage aboard the Prince of Cats captained by the hot tempered Tiberius Capsule. Without an airship clan member to vouch for them they needed to spend their time aboard hard at work or keeping their head down to avoid the captain's ire. In this regard, they all succeeded. Upon arriving in Motherforge, a rusted joint almost caused disaster, with a crane almost collapsing and damaging the Prince of Cats, were it not for the Spireling's intervention.

They started at Ozadrel's home in Anvil Ward, where they met with his neighbor, the ill-tempered Standing Ox weaponsmith Heigh Teah, who cared so little for his tech-obsessed neighbor that he didn't mind them breaking in. The home was full of alarms that would have gone off if somebody tried to rob it, but none had gone off. Missing was his journals from his time as a Journeyman artificer. They also noticed numerous bowls from Jungo's Noodle Nook in the Market Ward. Visiting Jungo, they learned that Ozadrel had been in regularly the last few days, although apparently hard of hearing. Asking around they were taken to Toche's Tocks, a clock shop, where Ozadrel had been seen visiting recently. Toche confirmed that Ozadrel had been in recently to purchase a watch. While in the shop, every clock went off at once, and a short time later, the massive clocktower in the center of motherforge went off. Toche confirmed that HIS clocks were all perfectly accurate.

At this point Silq made the connection and instantly lost all respect they once had for the esteemed Grand Artificer, Ozadrel had spent days distracted by an ill-timed clocktower. Regardless, the party decided to stop by the office of the Grand Weaver Della Grish, a kindly old gnome with a number of Worlds Best Grandma mugs. Della was outraged to hear that Ozadrel wasn't doing his work in Spireling Hall, and gave the PC's her full support to retrieve him.

Upon venturing into the clocktower, they discovered the wayward tinker himself, as well as a curious gong with draconic runes that appeared to be the Clocktower's central sounding device. Upon confronting him, he apologized, but admitted that he had left some vital equipment at one of the secret labs. With Della unwilling to let Ozadrel out of her site until he was on an airship to Spireling Hall, the PC's agreed to travel to the lab and retrieve the equipment.

Taking a cable car down to the lab, something was immediately wrong. Nobody responded to semaphore hails, although the PC's had heard about pirate raids, there was no sign of an attack. The lab was built into the side of a cliff, and appeared undamaged. Upon entering the facility, they discovered all the attendents dead, many of them behind a shattered barricade in the dorms, and every piece of machinery, from spiderback rigs to coffee makers, smashed. The sounds of continued destruction echoed from the prototyping lab. investigating, they found a massive ancient door with one section rusted away, and creatures of the Green destroying the lab. After a battle with the Green, they investigated beyond the long-sealed door, finding a shaft extending down into a Green-infested cavern, and another similar door, this one unbreached and bearing a curious Flame-and-Cogwheel insignia. Opening the second door revealed an ancient Initiative storeroom with the body of a long dead Initiative engineer, from whom they recovered body armor and scraps of the Field Manual. unfortunetly, their actions in the room activated a Defoliator, and they fled, sealing the Defoliator in. Gathering what they could recover from the rest of the lab, they constructed a makeshift explosive to collapse the shaft and set out to return to Motherforge, confident that their task was complete.

If only it was so simple. As the cable car made it's return trip, a pirate airship dropped out of the clouds, unleashing three figures with glider suits and strange, rusted armor. Silq managed to delay one of their approaches with a well timed Thunderwave as the PC's unleashed a fury of ranged attacks, but two of the raiders made it, one landing in thier compartment and, spinning it's staff, unleashed a wave of entropic magic that rusted their weapons and armor. More worringly, another landed on the cable car's roof.

As the third raider used a grappling hook to join the fray, the PC's battled the rust adept, aware that with every moment they spent, the one above was working to rust away the cable car, sending them all plummeting into the Green, along with the notes and supplies they had recovered from the lab. Syllan conjured a pair of vultures to harass the rust adept above while Jacob slew the one below. The third rust adept, badly injured, chose to flee as the PC's made their way to the top of the cable car, where they drove off the third Rust Adept, Talzan finishing off their fleeing foe with a well aimed arrow. Having recovered one rusted claw corpse, they returned to Motherforge, giving their report to Della Grish and the Steelweavers, then escorted Ozadrel to Spireling Hall where the Grand Artificer finally got to work repairing the Iron Seat.

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