Session Twenty Nine

The twenty ninth session of the Adventure of the Dragon Crag was on the 3rd August 2022. (Anniversary Eve!)

## Party Members Present

* Brandr Sigurdson
* Snorri Morgrimson
* Relnwe Adiath
* Professor Meino Osterhaus

## Synopsis

### Monorail!

#### Figuring out the Monorail

We found ourselves in the cab of the Silverscar Monorail. It was controlled by a pedestal that selected a platform and a lever that made the thing go. A dial showed which platform we were currently at (platform 6). Snorri pulled the lever, bringing the engine to life. All around were the sounds of cogs and machinery vibrating in a cacophonous throm. Snorri then pressed the button on the pedestal but nothing happened. After closer inspection of the pedestal, it became clear that the pedestal had to be turned to select a runic number. Snorri turned the pedestal to 5, Rel shouted 'All aboard!' and then Snorri pressed the button. The doors shut and the monorail began to move west.

#### Platforms 5, 8, and 1: Throne Room and Other Stuff

The Monorail came to a stop and the doors opened revealing a huge hall with a raised dais at one end. The was an enormous throne in the hall but it had been completely smashed to pieces. From this platform the track continued westwards but it also went north. Two passages also led westwards out of the hall. After commenting on how the Forgekeeper Hold had seven whole throne rooms, the party boarded the Monorail and set the platform to 8. Again, the monorail started to move and it brought us to what we assumed was the first platform that we came across - the one with the destroyed control block - as the doors did not open here. Thus went forth to platform 1. This was west of platform 8 and turned out just to lead to the entrance of the clan hold.

#### Platforms 2 and 3: Engine Rooms

We headed on to platform 2. This was to the west of platform 1 and the doors opened to reveal a room full of pipes coming in form outside of the hold. On the southern wall of the room was a large metal structure - it seemed to be boiling hot. We headed to platform 3 which was to the south. The Monorail slowed for a brief period and we felt the air grow colder and colder. As the door opened, a blast of cold air hit us. It was bloody freezing. There were runes etched on to every block of every wall that were glowing a faint blue. Along the northern wall we could see a similarly shaped metal structure like the boiling structure at platform 2. However, this one was freezing. As he is a brilliant engineer, Snorri instantly deduced that this meant that there was some sort of a Sturlag Engine that powered the hold.

#### Platforms 4 and 7: Holes in the Floor

As it was too cold, we got back in the monorail and headed for platform 4. The floor had been damaged in this room - there were a lot of large circular holes in the floor that seemed to go down to another dwarfen passage beneath. Rel saw that this was probably created by a very large rock worm indeed. We then headed to platform 7, the only station on the dial that we had not been to. This platform was well to the east, past platform 5 and 6. At platform 7 were various workshops. We gave them a real good look over, and found some shards of gromril but nothing else. There were also more rock worm holes here, but these were of a smaller size. We noted that the monorail had not taken us up the track that led north from platform 5 but that we had gone to all of the stations inscribed on the pedestal. Clearly, there was a secret platform 9 3/4! Snorri and Brandr examined the pedestal again and noticed a wee space for a sort of key, like the one that was missing from the silverscar lockbox.

### School's Out for Summer

#### Classrooms

We decided to go and check out the passages that led out of the throne room. We went to platform 5 and went thocrugh the passages on the western wall that led into another room. There was a large statue of a small dwarf with no beard - a dwarfling! On the wall were various runes - the runes for writing and thinking. In the northwest was a stairway that went downwards. Heading down the stairs, we came to a long corridor with many rooms on each side. Most of them were shut, but some were open. They were quite clearly classrooms and there were the remnant of childrens' drawing of cogs and levers and willys on slates. The passage branched north and south so we headed north. Here the classrooms were less organised. Eventually this passage came to a dead end so we went back the way and headed south. Here, there were more doors with contraptions outside of them. They were locked.

#### Puzzle me this!

We proceeded until we came to a rockfall blocking the passage. However, there was a door in the western wall. Upon the door was written *Equal Your Number*. There was dial on the wall that was stuck a 7. Brandr pressed a button next to the dial and the door swung open. Of course, we were 5, not 7, so we brought to dwarf-sized stones from the rockfall with us. We went through the door and came into a large room. Immediately the door slammed shut behind us. Two human skelingtons were slumped against the door whilst another was further into the room on one of many pressure plates. There were numbers on each wall, marking each column and row of pressure plates. We had to equal our number by standing on the pressure plates of course, which we did using the skelingtons and dwarf-sized rocks. As we completed the puzzle, the door behind us slid back open, but at the same time we heard a loud, bad crack, and the southern wall cracked open revealing a way to another room.

#### A Very Naughty Dwarf

Brandr left the puzzle room to go back to the classrooms to see if anything had changed. Nothing had. However, as he was about to return to us, he saw a fist coming towards him from the darkness. He parried the blow with his shield and shouted 'Bandits in the dark! To arms!'. The rest of the party heard him and ran to his aid. Brandr got a better look at his assailant. It was a scratty, scruffy dwarf. Brandr clonked him on the head with his hammer, knocking him out cold. Rel arrived on the scene first and helped Brandr tie up the dwarf. When Snorri saw the dwarf, he noticed that he was wearing the equipment of an engineer from the engineers guild, but that this was definitely not the dwarf that the kit belonged to. When he came round, the scruffy dwarf was not willing to talk, even with a gun to his head - he just stared at Brandr. Even when the prof made him forget who brandr was, he just stared at Snorri instead. After the scruffy dwarf tried to break his bonds, the prof put him to sleep. The prof sensed fire and ash and stone within the dwarf - the winds of magic seemed to flow through him. It was a chaos dwarf! Snorri then immediately killed him with his Azthrund. We took the engineer's kit from the chaos dwarf to return to the surface which included a cloak clasp and a set of full mail armour engraved with the symbol of Clan Flinthand. We thought the chaos dwarf might have soemthing to do with the darkness that dwelt in the lower levels of the Ruins that was outlined in *The Dark of the Hold*.

#### Valves and Organs

We returned to the crack we had made in the wall and went through it. It brought us into a room with three metal valves, a lever. and two tanks filled with steam. Brandr pulled the lever and saw within the plinth that there were mechanism that moved a thin metal strip. The strip, however was not attached to anything but could attach to two metal bars. To make them connect, we had to balance the tanks of steam so that they were equal using the valves. We did so and pulled the lever, opening the door in the room. We came into another passage that linked up to the blocked passage to the north with the rockfall. There were a couple of objects here, including the key to platform 9 3/4 of the monorail! The was also an observation room. Clearly these puzzle rooms were meant for snotty dwarflings to complete at school. The first had taken the lives of three grown humans, showing the inferiority of the measly human brain in the face of simple puzzles for children. Rel helped the party wriggle through the rock fall to the south and we came to a room with a small organ in it. Snorri pressed a key and a panel opened. It said *There is a false wall, play it in music to make it fall*. After trying various combinations of notes on the organ, we realised we just had to play 'it', it being the word *facade* spelled out in keys on the organ. The hidden door opened to reveal a smashed up room. Here there was clearly mining work going on - or rather there had been mining work going on 3000 years ago. Among the picks and shovels, Snorri saw one of the things that Morgrim Vathimsson had asked him to find: a listening device. It was sort of like a stethoscope with a socket in which one could put a kind of ore. It worked like a whitelist filter - when you put the earpiece to a cave wall and used a thumper, echoes would return to the listening device showing the location of the ore and the amount that there was. Snorri tried both gromril and sapphire - both returned a small sound.