Episode 09: Final Safeguard

## Episode summary

Following Temple One's sudden but inevitable betrayal, the party rush to Supply Area B to grab DiCorso's Steward before the workers stop protecting him, killing a dog-sized tentacle thing on the way. However, as the hallway is still blocked by debris (which the workers are in the process of clearing, having returned to their default state in the absense of a controller), they decide the portal is the more urgent issue and return to the core, killing more dog-sized tentacle things and also some fairy dragonflies.

Upon arrival at the core, they find the old priest fighting a group of dog-sized tentacle things and fairy drogonflies using the electrical properties of his armour. He leads them down into the core, except for Little One, who stays behind to watch the door, which opens out into a 100-foot cone. At the bottom of the cone, he shows them the overloading portal and warns them that it will continue to generate energy until the waves of power saturate the surrounding area, possibly leading to Astral Plague. In order to prevent this, they must trigger the final safeguard, destroying the portal and dropping the cone (made from a cold-iron/Yttronium alloy) over it in order to contain the astral energy burst which will be released. However, there is no proper release mechanism, so their only recourse is to weaken the pillars holding up the cone, then destroy the portal and flee before a) the portal collapses and b) the core drops, sealing them in.

The only plan they have to achieve this involves destroying three of the pillars and damaging the portal, then leaving the old priest standing in it, keeping it structurally intact with Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere. They then destroy the fourth pillar from the exit, dropping the cone and trapping the priest inside. When the sphere expires, the portal will collapse, but it will do so inside the cone, mitigating the damage. Of course, this has the slight downside of killing him.

At Angel's asking, the priest reveals his name to be GE-7. He then sheds his armour, gifting it to Black, as he won't be needing it where he's going. However, Draven isn't happy about letting a centuries-old warforged packed to the gils with knowledge die just to act as a spell conduit, and instead volunteers his familiar, VII.

The plan goes off without an appreciable hitch and the party flees Ginaron, picking up the steward along the way. Tragically, he had been possessed by a fairy dragonfly in the moments between their escape from the fey lab and the party's arrival and had killed the other surviving member of his expidition. On their way out, Tirim dies in battle. The party also encounters (and slays) both the remains of the Deluvian raiding party (led by a priestess of Blibaal) and a Giant Mutant Fey-Fel Hybrid Fairy Tentacle Dragon Dog.

From the relative safety of just outside Ginaron, Draven telepathically experiences VII's apparent last moments, attempting to travel through the portal to an unknown destination. The portal collapses and everybody is dosed with a pulse of energy.

## Trivia

* This was the final episode to be based off the excerpts posted to demonac's website