We leave the wreck, now purged of spirits. Back outside and looking back, it’s a bit obvious to us that it’s a wrecked ship – then again, we have experience in ships like these, and most that enter do not exit. The mist is still there though, coming from the mouth of a cave up above the ship, like a mist waterfall.

It is a bit of a climb, but I think I might see a viable route. It still looks a bit treacherous though. Vayu and Jacques start climbing ahead of me. Vayu slips and starts falling (!), but Jacques catches him and swings him to safe spot! Jacques then proceeds to just walk up the face of the rock, having cast spider climb.

Once up there, they throw down a rope. I climb onto Aakpesh’s back, and he starts climbing. The first attempt doesn’t go as well, but at least we only fall 10ft. The second try though, does the trick. Once up there, we’re confronted with the smell of old death that Vayu and Jacques have been languishing in. And the air itself – the mist – feels almost greasy. And the mist is also quite thick – we can’t really see.

Since visual senses are reduced, I decide to by detecting magic. There is a sort of magic – more of a magical effect. And yet, I feel there’s more, so I detect poison. I pick up on several sources of poison from further than 10ft in front of us. We continue to move in slowly – Aakpesh is checking for traps by poking the ground in front of him with stick. Continuing to detect poison, it seems to have moved closer to us than we have moved towards it! Spiders! (I saved us from a surprise round)

It’s all but mayhem. Between the mist and the over-abundance of legs (why do they have so many???), safety is non-existent. I get bit by one (would have failed my fort save, but a prior run-in gave me a boost) that had dropped from the ceiling. These are bigger versions of the spiders from before – more like “teenagers” where earlier we encountered “children”.

Jacques is not having any of this though, and belches fires down the hallway. Spiders curl up in balls on the cave floor, and their thick webs are now on fire, burning away. We can see ahead that the tunnel opens into quite a large room. Being momentarily distracted by this revelation, a spider lands on my neck, leading me to gracelessly flail and fail to get it off me. I turn so Aakpesh can grab it, saying “getitoffgetitoffgetitoff!” Words aren’t exactly my strong suit right now, considering I’ve just been neck grappled by a relatively gigantic teen-aged spider. It’s a terribly spider, but not really an undead (some might argue that it is soul-less) creature or a robot, so I go into total defense. This goes on for a bit, but I feel something stab the back of neck followed by the spider letting go. Preston thankfully (finally!) knocks the spider off of me. My hands instinctively feel the back of neck – spider eggs. Ewwwww. It quickly wipe them off as fast as possible, grateful that it wasn’t able to turn me into a food source/incubator.

With the threat neutralized, we heal up and decide to head in to the large room ahead. It’s a ~20ft hemisphere cave and since it’s much larger than the tunnel, the fog is much more dissipated. It’s definitely the source, though – it seems to be coming from far side, and I’m getting a strong sense of necromantical magic. So, I try to dispel the magic, which briefly disrupts the mist. The source looks to be two figures laying motionless – perhaps asleep? When me move closer, we can see that they’re reaching towards one another. I can feel a sense of sadness, a lack of malevolence. Still being wary though, Aakpesh and I approach them. They’re wearing spaceship suits like we’ve seen before, but they’re heavily desiccated and spider webbed. We decide to bring them together, and when they finally touch we hear (feel?) a sigh, and they turn to dust. The mist disappears.

With the two seemingly at rest and the mist gone, we decide to look around a bit before setting up camp for the evening. Jacques points out two matching magical amulets in the shape of a teardrop. They apparently create a telepathic link between the wearers when they’re within 100ft.

We return to town the next day, telling the forgemaster of our exploits. Our scrapworth (10, maxed out) has certainly been increasing, and we’re told of and start hearing rumblings that Lords of Rust are aware of us. A number of their members want to avoid us, and the Lords themselves are now angry that there is another gang that may be able to challenge them. We talk to our friends, and Dinvaya tells us that the Lords have started asking around about us. We also learn that the lesser member are a motley group, recruited ad-hoc. Most are orcs, androids, and ratfolk. They tend to live in the rubble and ruins, mostly in the nooks and crannies of the  Scrapmaster’s Arena, and very few live in the headquarters.

Apparently, every few days the Lords invite potential members to fight in the arena. Some contenders fight against Helskarg herself. These fights are known to be unfair and cruel. We also learn more about the main members of the Lords of Rust:

• Draigs: The ettin Draigs wields two spiky chains with unnerving grace in combat. She’s the thug and executioner for the leadership-the one Hellion calls upon to mete out punishment to those who sin against Hellion.
• Helskarg: The troll Helskarg is a garrulous creature and something of the front face of the Lords. She guards the entrance to the gang’s lair, but more importantly, she orchestrates the fights in the Scrapmaster’s Arena.
• Kulgara: After Meyanda’s loss, Kulgara seized control of the gang as its commander, and now ranks just under Hellion. She increasingly sees the Lords of Rust as her own gang.
• Meyanda: This android was once the high priestess of Hellion and the leader of the Lords of Rust, and her loss has thrown the gang into disarray-though none outside of the gang miss her cruelty. Her leadership duties have been split between Kulgara and Nalakai. We defeated her in Torch.
• Nalakai: With the loss of Meyanda, Nalakai is the most powerful cleric of Hellion remaining in Scrapwall. Vexed by Kulgara’s cocky attitude and growing hunger for power, Nalakai hopes to find proof that Kulgara intends to betray Hellion so that he can engineer her demise and replace her in the role of commander of the Lords of Rust.
• Zagmaander: The most mysterious Lord of Rust is the crimson-skinned monster Zagmaander, who is something of a local bogeyman. Zagmaander serves Hellion as an enforcer and assassin, and even the other Lords of Rust leaders fear her.
• Hellion: Hellion is the lord and god of the Lords of Rust. Many have heard its voice or have seen its fiendish visage on the monitors found throughout the excavator, yet none can say they’ve seen Hellion in the flesh. Most believe Hellion to be a powerful fiend (a demon or devil), while others suspect it of being a Technic League agent using a fiend’s facade to sow fear. Others believe it to be an alien, the ghost of an ancient crew member from the Silver Mount, or even a trickster posing as a god. Possibly a trapped AI gone mad?

Fuckery, it would seem, is impending.

*level*

Session Date: 11/03/2016 XP: 1,805
Title: The misheard lyrics of TLC’s Waterfalls