Session 14

Hector listed several potential allies that Paris had been in negotations with and asked the Party for help sealing these alliances while he tended to the other tasks of running the Scioni. The party decided to follow up the lead of the Solon Rebels first.

Before leaving, Freyja Hrolfsdottir made contact with her mentor, who is a member of the Druidic Circle. She asked if it was possible to gather the circle and ask for the help of the druids in the impending invasion and her mentor promised to try. Caden Fariman suggested seeking the help of the Wood Elves as well, but that was a task for a different time.

When they went to retrieve thier mounts from the stables, they saw Fenris standing over the corpses of several dead Lucefe Clones whom had apparently attempted to attack thier mounts.

Zathras, who had recently perfected the art of teleportion, reccommended that they leave their mounts behind and allow him to trasport them to Stolle. He gets them as close as he can, but he can't teleport them into the city because it is protected by a massive anti-magic barrier. The city was too well defended to simply walk in while Sam Fariman was a wanted man there. Magical turrets fire upon those it sees as aggressors and there were many gaurds posted at the only entrance not blocked off with magic. They decided to store Sam in a bag of holding. Zathras and Freyja were able to use magic to alter thier appearances and Caden had a decent disguise ready, just in case Stolle had recieved word that they were associates of Sam. They were let through the gate, and a short trip up an elevator later they were in the city.

They went to the park where Hector had told them thier contacts would be waiting. When no one showed they began to walk away and noticed they were being followed. They went into a back alley and learned that their followers were their contacts. The Stolle rebels led them to their secret lab underneath an inn. Here they worked on technology without fear of it being put to the wrong use by the forces of Solon, whom they believed were leading the world to destruction with their war research.

The rebels explained their deal with Paris: Li'liok was in the process of developing a magical superweapon that could wipe out entire cities from right here and intended to put it to use destroying the capitols of Astraea and Vesta when it was complete. This rebels had agreed to put their new technology to work against the demon invasion in exchange for the destruction of the super weapon.

The tower, like much of the city, was heavily gaurded by both men and magic. Teleporting inside was impossible, and directly assaulting it was suicide. They learned that the tower mages were looking for new researchers and decided to send Zathras in as a potential wizard applicant. Zathras, actually being a sorceror, knew little about the technical aspects of magic, but came prepared with a few tricks, as well as a paper written by Sam based on things he remembered from his studies. He was interviewed by Lila, a little girl who was already an accompished wizard and researcher, under the guise of a kobold with different colored scaled. He managed to impress her enough to get the job and was able to take Sam, disguised as a dark elf, in with him as "his physical laborer."

To sneak the rest of the Party in they needed to disable to magical field around the tower. They learned where the tower was monitored from and where the controls for the magical field were. Sneaking down to the appropriate floor using a mix of guile and magic they eventually found the control room. They planned to assault it quickly and deactivate the field before the there time for a response team, but unfortunately the guards in the control room managed to sound the alarm. The guards were defeated and the field was disabled but the response team was already upon them, which included Li'liok himself. Fariman revealed himself and Zathras pretended to be just another quick responder. Fariman was captured and taken away to a Stolle holding cell.

Using the opportunity granted by the disabled fields, Zathras was able to teleport the rest of the party into the tower and on to the top floor, where the super weapon was being developed. It turned out Lila was the lead designer on the project, and after the shock of the party's sudden appearance ordered the scientists to defend the weapon. She herself began to blast lightning at the party, resulting in the death of Freyja's bear. The party managed to defeat the scientists and tried to disable Lila, though she proved to be a tough advesary with her arsenal of spells. Eventually she was knocked unconscious and captured.

The party proceeded to destroy the weapon and all the research notes related to it. Li'liok appeared all too late to try to stop them and Zathras teleported the party and prisoner back to the rebel hideout.

Through the use of a personal disguise generator the rebels helped free the imprisoned Sam, but where not able to recover his equipment. Sam was heartbroken at the loss of so many magical items, but there was little they could do about it. Their part of the deal with the rebels complete, the party escaped the city by fleeing through the front gate as they were chased by guards. Zathras teleported them out of harm's way the moment they were out of the city's antimagic field.