2023/08/02

Last time in the Iron Kingdoms: Steamjack revolt.

The party was returning from their journey to Ceryl and the Thamarite Library. When as they approached South Shore, they saw smoke rising from the sky above Five Fingers, When they asked what was going on, they were told that the steamjacks in the city had gone berserk and that they were causing chaos. As this was unusual, even for Five Fingers, the party made great haste and boarded the first boat back to the main islands in order to learn from the high captains exactly what was going on. As the party approached crane island, the high captains were already in a meeting concerning the current incident. From what anyone could tell, the steamjacks in the city had begun acting like drunken frat boys and began causing chaos throughout the city. Nothing actively malicious, though given that the jacks were taller than a man and weighed several tons there was quite a lot of property damage.

The party asked some other questions about the phenomenon, with Charlotte being concerned that Kitten would succumb to the effects now that she was in Five Fingers. Charlotte was slightly reassured that warjacks under the control of a warcaster seemed to be immune, though some of the other warcasters that were within Five Fingers had reported that occasionally their jacks would strain against the bond. In the inquiry the party was told that this had started about two days ago in the industrial district, and then seemed to spread to further jacks almost like an infection. Then the party had the concerning thought about Kita and Gavin, as neither of them were warcasters and both worked in a workshop filled with dangerous prototype warjacks. The party thanked the high captains for their assistance and promised to report on their findings in Ceryl once this current disaster was dealt with.

The party made great haste towards the Convergence temple and Kita and Gavin's lab within. On ther way there, the party saw some general revelry from the jacks, mostly involving the jacks acting like idiots and causing general property destruction. As there were members of the Fingers Watch trying to subdue the jacks and they had more pressing concerns the party left that scene to its own devices and pushed on towards the temple. Inside they found Kita and Gavin inside their lab with the cortex of Delta-1 removed from its body on a table. Every couple moments Kita would flinch or make a face in the direction of Notus. Gavin explained to the party that the lab wasn't unaffected by the insanity and that Delta-1 had gone insane, though Notus was able to subdue it before it could cause much damage. When the party asked how Notus was doing, Kita explained that he seemed to be suffering from the same thing, though due to her personal rune plates bonding her to Notus she was able to keep him on track, albeit at significant cost to her focus. The pair then went through their experiences with the sickness, saying that it seemed to start shortly after Kita and Notus went home for the night a day ago, and then the lab seemed to be infected. The current theory that everyone had was that Notus was infected during that outing and then brought it back to the lab. Since then Kita and Gavin were examining the cortex to see if there was any degradation in the rune plates, though it didn't seem to be.

With that checked on, Abe wanted to find Ozero and Cycles, as the two jacks were near to him. Ozero was under the command of one of the other warcasters and thus Abe breathed a sigh of relief that the bombard wasn't potentially aimed at Five Fingers. Cycles however was transferred to the Fingers Watch after the death of Shakes and thus was subject to the insanity. Abe found Cycles running through many buildings, seemingly for the fun of it. As mass property damage was bad, as well as Abe didn't want any harm to come to Cycles, he chased after the jack and was able to pin Cycles to the ground long enough for the rest of the party to catch up. After they had restrained Cycles Abe began to ponder what could be causing such a thing, and the idea of gremlins came up. Gremlins were little chaotic spirits that caused havoc on machinery and delighted in revelry. The only issue proving this is that Gremlins are invisible and incorporeal. Though the party remembered Ammit's House of Forgotten Mysteries, and sent Dmitriv there to see if she had something that could detect the little things.

Ammit came through for the party and Dmitriv came back with a strange contraption that when looked through would allow someone to see gremlins. Sure enough, Cycles was covered in the creatures, and when the party checked some of the other affected jacks they too had gremlins all over them. With the cause of the matter determined, the party then began coming up with ways to solve the greater issue at hand. Gremlins exist in almost every city and industrialized area in Immoren, though a plague of them like this was out of the ordinary. The party chalked the rough cause to the portal underneath Five Fingers though they were still at a loss as to what to do to get rid of the things. There were a number of alchemical solutions as well as religious rituals, though both of those were intended for the small scale, nothing larger than a house really. Still the party alerted Cynthia as well as the Church of Morrow to begin doing what they could, while the party went towards the source of the sickness to see if there was anything there that would help.

As the party entered the industrial district, they found that many of the jacks here were no longer just engaging in mindless revelry and destruction, but rather they seemed to be taking part in some sort of effort. Jacks were moving to and fro carrying loads of metal into furnaces so that they could be melted down. In addition to the even stranger actions of the jacks, the insanity seemed to be stronger here, with Charlotte occasionally feeling pulses of intrusive thoughts from Kitten. Eventually the party found the center of the chaos, a forge that many jacks were taking metals and materials into. As the party went inside, the oppressive heat hit them in the face. The furnaces were turned up as high as they would go, as the gremlins seemed to be making a large throne for the leader of the revel. Flanking both sides of the throne were two jacks that were glowing from the heat, as some of the brass and steel that made up the jacks was beginning to melt from the dangerous temperatures. A fight broke out and the party was able to destroy the jacks as well as the gremlin king that was leading the chaos. With the death of the king, the plague of gremlins began to go away during the next couple of hours, especially with the assistance of Cynthia and the Church of Morrow.