Another small night, with work conflicts and other miscellany.
- Slick - thief
- Orzu - gnome
- Jax - barbarian
Not a worry, let's mess around in Morn Kolduhr and get to know the Sea Dwarves. The Wolverine was undergoing repairs from its run-in with the Chaos ship, so everyone was sitting tight, anyhow.
First of all, they were excited to get to work experimenting with making ruby glass. Orzu, as a "cousin," was enlisted to pick the best rubies from the collection pilfered by the characters. Orzu has no idea what he's doing. That said, he had Jax hold up the selected gems while focusing a light spell through them using Slick's jewelers loupe. Somehow, he was able to discern gem quality via the various kaleidoscope patterns projected onto the walls.
Well then, he had to oversee the glass casting process, as well. Orzu was dragged off, deeper into the mountain's heart to somewhere near its volcanic core, where the special forges were located. Sweltering in oversized protective gear, he observed the dwarves mixing the rubies with optical sand and melting it down into a 1/3 scale prototype disk. Satisfied with their experiments, the dwarves led the desiccated gnome back to the main city. The PCs inventoried where lenses, either broken or intact, were located to the best of their knowledge along the Barrier strongholds, and how to contact allies to possibly retrieve them for recasting.
Durkan Dildran, tundra nomad and Slick's current hench, was getting a bit claustrophobic in the subterranean city, and a dwarf, Thorin Duskborn, offered to guide them to one of the city's several cliffside lookouts for a bit of fresh air and sky above their heads. While en route, the dwarf noted that Slick seemed to be of an 'acquisitional' nature, as he'd been poking around during his time in the city. Slick admitted as much, and the dwarf, amused told him not to worry, and that he and his brother had an ongoing challenge of making and picking locks. His brother, of course, being the exiled Urin Duskborn. Slick pulled out the lock gifted to him by Urin, and its craftmanship was immediately recognized by Thorin. In exchange, Thorin gave Slick a very nice set of lockpicks, to aid his middling skills...
The trio watched the sea and sky, and played with the lookout's telescopes. Soon enough, Thorin's ears perked up. "Ship! Sounds like a grain hauler. Bread and ale! Wanna come along?" Dumb question.
The three hurried to the docks and grabbed Jax and Orzu along the way.
Onto a large raiding galley and off!
The ship cruised towards its prey, sails full and rowers pulling. Slick noticed that his hat was flapping and jingling a bit more than one might expect from speeds capable for a galley. Thorin smiled. "C'mon down. You don't think we can row this fast with our stubby arms, do you?" And into the hold they went, to a compartment at the stern of the ship manned (dwarved) by several nervous dwarves in protective gear handling heavy riveted and welded metal spheres that rattled and spat steam. The spheres were placed and replaced in racks, adding whatever compressed forces to mechanisms driving the ship forward.
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| Like this, but dwarves |
