The dark descent

ARTIFICIAL HEART // FOURTH, known by the episode title "the dark descent", is the seventh episode of ARTIFICIAL HEART, and the first episode of Act 2.

### Time (IC)

14:16 to 16:19 (6th of Neverwinter, 2466)

## The Dark Descent:

### What’s the Plan?

The session opens with the group of Rioters gathering at the Tartarus arena to form a plan on the infiltration of the HELL district. Azat tells the party a little bit about HELL itself, telling them that HELL is around 5 miles by 5 miles across. This will make HELL both easier than originally thought to infiltrate, however it raises a few more problems in finding Silvers’ family. HELL being larger than imagined means that there are likely more entrances than previously thought, and some of them are bound to be lightly guarded if not left completely unguarded. However, HELL having a larger population spread over a great area, this means that it will make it rather difficult to find the people holding Silvers’ family hostage. Azat tells the party that in the HELL district people aren’t really allowed to take prisoners and hold them hostage, which means that if they are found, they’re not likely to be protected by their allies.

Stroke, weighing the pros and cons and considering the risks the party would have to take, asks the group of rioters if it’s even worth it to go and rescue Silvers’ family. She points out that Silvers had been hunting them down in hopes of the death of Stitches until very recently. Diamant and Auntie both confront her telling her that the lives of the children are worth the risk and Diamant points out that Silvers was only hunting the party for the lives of his wife and children. Stroke admits she’s unable to put herself in his shoes, as no one she knows would be kidnapped in the first place, but agrees that it’s important to save them.

### The Search Begins

The party, accompanied by Candlewax and Azat and having made their plans of infiltration, leave the safety of the Tartarus arena to find the trail of the retreating drow from the morning before. Ringer, with the help of Stroke, eventually finds a trail of blood and grime left by an injured drow as they retreated to their safe place. The trail leads into a sewer entrance and with quietest members of the team, Ringer and Stroke, leading the way, the party follows in pursuit. Moving at a quick pace, the group of riots quickly notice that the area is somewhat submerged in water, and after a few minutes of travel, they notice that the water is slowly but surely getting deeper. As they continue through the underground entrance, Stroke is shocked when she is attacked by a bone leech, a small, slug-like monster, covered in spikes. She is quick to rid herself of the minor threat, and points out to the group that traversing through the water may not be the safest due to these monsters.

Quickly finding a dryer walkway primarily used for construction the group switches to traveling in a single file line, out of reach of the water, to avoid the bone leeches as they continue to become more and more prevalent in their travel. Traveling by the dryer route, the group is quickly met with an electric fence to keep out unwanted visitors. Ringer can clearly see that the drow continued through this way seemingly uninterrupted by the fence, however there are no signs of force or any tampering done to the fence. Regardless of how they managed to get through, Ringer is able to easily find the power source and deactivate it for enough time for Aunie to rip it off its rusty hinges. With the gate out of the way, the party is able to continue to the room beyond it and to the end of the tunnel.

### “This would be where something goes wrong”

As the party enters the room beyond the gate and realize quickly that this used to be an old train station, with a few platforms at varying levels, out posts and a lower dock where an old abandoned train car is parked. Near to the train are stacked various crates some filled some empty, and the footprint trail of blood that Ringer had previously been following ends somewhere around the trains. Ringer decides to investigate the crates, finding lots of old tools and uniforms never worn. During her search she finds a singular locked crate, and after breaking the rusty lock and hinges she finds an old skeleton of a human figure curled inside. It seems to have died in there, having been intentionally hiding from something. After briefly wondering if Stitches would have any use for the skeleton she leaves it in the crate. Meanwhile, Stroke goes over to investigate the train car in which the trail seemingly ends. Unfortunately she finds nothing but graffiti that she is incapable of reading, and decides to head back to the party. She and Ringer tell the group what they’ve found, Ringer remarking to herself this would be the perfect moment in a story for something to go wrong.

Deciding to investigate one of the outposts, Stroke and Auntie climb up the ladder and see that the door is left ajar. After checking to make sure no one is inside, Auntie pushes open the door, activating an old trap, and getting shot in the chest by an ancient shotgun. Her armor takes most of the damage and she is left nearly uninjured, and after only a moment of making sure everything was alright both Auntie and Stroke investigate the outpost, finding nothing but a few filing cabinets and an old vent. Deciding this was a waste of time the two of them return to the rest of the party, finding that Azat has found some abandoned Credits which Ringer is able to extract and give to Stroke. Ringer then goes to try and open the filing cabinets found earlier and see if she can find anything useful, but after nearly triggering an abandoned and deactivated landmine, she finds nothing. Frustrated at not having made any progress, Peppermint summons her Eadalon and commands it to destroy the wall in hopes of finding a secret passage. The Eadalon doesn’t find any passageways, but it does manage to scare off a red sludge that was hiding in the vents and cause it to run screeching onto the train tracks and down the passageway. At this point Stitches decides to investigate the graffiti that Stroke found earlier and is able to successfully identify the language as Undercommon, giving the warning “If you want to keep your skin, stay away from the vents.” Diamant then notices an imperfection in the wall and asks Azat to kick it down for her. He complies and after kicking it he reveals a secret passageway that had been covered by a false wall.

### Sewage and Sanity

To the group's dismay, the secret passageway revealed to them is an entrance to a sewer, and the smells that come from it are rank beyond belief. The few members who had neglected to put on gas masks up until this point quickly do so now in hopes of blocking out the smell to varying degrees of success, and the whole group proceeds to go into the tunnel in search of the drow. Not soon after entering, Ringer falls subject to a wire trap that slices her lower jaw. The wire is similar to the kind that Stitches uses, and recognizing the make of it, Stitches is able to quickly stitch up Ringers injury. The group, now put on edge, decides to go a bit slower and keep an eye out for more traps. Stitches leading the way with a wire of her own deactivates many more traps similar to the one that injured Ringer, before the group is met with a pit caused by magical means. After a moment's hesitation and a good while of problem solving, Peppermint orders her Eadalon to lie across the pit and uses it as a bridge. Candlewax decides to teleport to the other side rather than confront the height and Azat and Auntie jump to the other side as they are too heavy for the Eadalon to support them.

Not long after solving that puzzle Candlewax is suddenly stopped in his tracks gripped by terror and claiming to see hands in the walls reaching out for him. He stands there for a moment, stricken and horrified before continuing. Not long after this happens, Peppermint begins to see the hands as well and both she and Candlewax see the sewage turn into gore and faces screaming in agony appearing in the walls and ceiling. The rest of the party is unnerved by this, though they themselves are unable to see what is happening, and Auntie maintains a constant feeling that the group is being watched. Azat voices that he has heard of a sludge, a type of ooze-like creature that can cause this type of insanity to arise in its victims, and has cause to believe that this one is present here and causing the group to see these visions.

### Unknown Enemy

Following the passageway, the group is met with a door and beyond that a seemingly abandoned room. In the center of the room is a large grinder emitting a loud noise and seemingly functional. Piled in one area of the room, is a group of four drow corpses, all of which are holding guns and have bullet wounds in their heads. Diamant suspects that this was a mass suicide event, but Azat, investigating further, notices that the bullet sizes used on these drow are different than the ones in their guns, and the angle on the shots aren’t right for a suicide shot. Stitches, investigating the bodies, notices that they are still somewhat warm, and voices that this was done recently. This puts the group on edge and many of them search the room to make sure they’re completely alone, but find nothing.

Suddenly, a loud scream of agony and fear can be heard from an adjacent room, sounding similar to an orkish male. Drawing their weapons the group advances on the room, and when they open the door ready to fight, a single man rapidly approaches them, extremely hostile, and attacks the group or rioters. The party is quick to spring to action, but the enemy is using multiple chrome attachments that allow him to strike quickly and fatally. He uses a device that allows him to teleport across the room at the snap of his fingers, another that allows him to briefly stop time, and two blades attached to his arms that he uses when he becomes cornered. Ringer detects that this man has become shattered from the use of so much cyberware, and quick to react, deactivates his chrome that allows him to stop time. Terrified, the man attacks the first person he sees, Candlewax, and unloads on him. Candlewax quickly becomes overrun and collapses to the floor, bleeding out from his leg.

Seeing the severity of the situation, the group quickly becomes desperate to subdue the enemy. Stroke begins to attack the man using fire, and is able to weaken him by an incredible amount before Ringer turns off his ability to teleport. Stitches rushes to Candlewax’s side, diagnosing his leg unsavable, and begins to perform an emergency amputation before he bleeds out. Auntie, unable to do anything at a distance, closes in on him, and panicking, the man draws his arm blades and attacks her with everything he has. Auntie is left severely wounded after his attacks, but she doesn’t fall, forcing the man to face her. At this moment, Diamant, noticing that Strokes attacks with fire wounded him greatly, aims a Cinnamon Fireburst at him, catching him ablaze, and causing him to finally fall. There’s a short moment when the group gauges if the threat is over, before Azat, positioned by the door the party had come from calls over his shoulder that an enemy is approaching.