Sunday 7th May 1854 - Day 5 part 1

Mythical London shared universe.

Dramatis personae:
Kerryn - [Leece] - Adventurer who has lived among the Inuit.
Augustus Abelgoff - [Rob] - Antiquarian, surveyor and amateur mountaineer with experience in Scandinavia.
Sam (Samantha) Drydale - [Elaine] - Hunter and explorer with arctic experience.
Aseir - [Gary] - A young noble of the Winged Folk (a GURPS Fantasy race) with temperature tolerance and great ambition.
Chris Heyerdahl - [Richard] - Hunter and prospector with arctic experience.

Overnight, the temperature dropped back below freezing and the rain briefly turned to snow before drying up. Kerryn had a restless night as his watchdog alarm kept going off long after the spell should have expired. In the morning he went aboard the Great Western and put together a trade package of attractive foods to possibly make contact with the white haired locals. Then he was off to one of the druids to see if there was a cure for his locked spell. "I don't suppose you know Dispel Magic? No? Hmm, how about Counterspell? Of course not, no-one learns that any more. Okay, try this then, go back to the location, you do remember the location? Good, then re-cast the spell over the top of the original casting. If that doesn't unlock it then go see my colleague this evening."

The party gathered together with their Marines ad headed off back to their entry point of yesterday. Sam noticed that the family of white furred people had been out to inspect the snow fort. After splitting off their entrance guard the party proceeded to the site of the watchdog spell so that Kerryn could re-cast it. The casting went well and only time will tell if it was successful. Then it was off to the building that the group visited yesterday. Almost 30' square with about 10' above the surface and about 5' buried. A ladder was placed against the side of the building and the roof was quickly gained. In one corner, protected by a slanted slab was an opening just over 3' square. Another ladder was set up and the interior was explored. The top floor was divided into 5 rooms and the lower floor was a single room. In the largest room of the upper floor were some human remains wrapped in a cloak but everything was crumbling at the slightest touch. The lower floor was empty and the party spent some time examining the metal door. The metal was silvery with very little corrosion and did not deflect a compass needle. Eventually the corpse was disturbed and crumbled to dust but a belt buckle and a knife were recovered. The buckle looked like viking work but the knife was of the heavy black metal and was an unfamiliar design with a wavy blade.
The party then headed Northeast to another building they could see about 700 yards away. Two (two!!) of the party have danger sense and started getting uneasy as they neared the building. There was some mucking around including a brief scuffle while the party investigated a patch of bare ground that was disturbing the sensitives. Eventually after dragging a ladder on a rope across the patch it was deemed possibly dangerous but non threatening. Proceeding to the new building the party found another square building with the same layout but this time cut off at the first level but with a a basement. Nothing interesting was found inside but some experiments were tried with the door and it slid open for a couple of inches before sticking. Eventually the party backtracked to the first building and pushed on to a third building around an equal distance to the Southwest. This building was a ground floor and basement like the second building but here the door was open by about a foot. Inside the ground floor had been used as a camp possibly within the last decade or two. There were bones from snow hares and the skull of a dog sized carnivore that the naturalists decided was like an oversized weasel. Among the other bones was a possible human femur that had been sharpened on one end and decorated. It was similar to tools that the humanoids were carrying.
After this the party backtracked again to the first building and headed off to the tower. Aseir did some reconnaissance and spotted two statues at the top of the stair and a door that they were flanking. He also spotted movement on the ground to the East and West of the tower. Strangely, all of the humanoids that he has encountered here have well developed and effective responses when they spot a person in the air. After a quantity of mucking about a detail of 4 Marines was left in sight of the base of the stair while the rest of the party headed up. Again everything stopped when they came within sight of the statue with glowing green eyes at the top of the stair. After more mucking about Aseir managed to ascertain that there was a glowing green band around the door and both statues had eyes glowing green. Non-players can read more about the original versions of the statues here. My version are somewhat smaller and have different powers. Incidentally Gary is a stonemason and has a weight calculator on his phone. My version are about two meters across and a similar amount high and come out to around 30 tonnes.
It was determined that the statues can track people out of direct line of sight and divide their attention between multiple groups. At some point the party heard rifle fire from below and found out via a shouted conversation that someone had been creeping around the base of the tower towards the base of the stair.
About this point the session ended. Being GURPS players, the party has a tendency to demand infinite detail for everything they examine. I had to remind them that most locations have only a one line description and while I will build additional detail if requested everything past that first line is not significant. The day will continue next week.
#rpgplay #gurps #blackcity