Chasing the Sunset and the Second Battle of Sunpeak

Stella made another pit where the first pit dropped her and dropped again to level 3.

She’s in a big room, 100 feet on a side and thirty feet tall. Metal boxes are set up as obstacles. A line of windows overlook the room from the top of one of the walls. Signs of battle are everywhere: ice blasts, cut and bent metal. A deep, frost-covered hole was been bored into one ball. Stella hears an inquisitive metallic chirp from behind one of the boxes. Stella wall-walks closer to look over the box and a Climbing Spider Drone climbs the other wall to look for her! It chirps angrily.

• Climbing Spider Drone: It looks like a Riding Spider, but with a shell of steel instead of chitin.
  • Wall-Walker: It can walk across any solid surface with ease, no matter the surface’s orientation.
  • Ensnaring Ice: It can spit freezing water at its enemies, pinning them in place.

It’s not a real Beast, so she can’t order it around. She walks down the wall to see if it follows. It walks on the ceiling towards her, but an obstactle breaks its line-of-sight.  It chirps inquisitively. Stella starts free-running across the room. The Climbing Spider Drone spits freezing water, but she evades and leaps up on wall with the windows. She wall-walks the rest of the way up to the windows and looks in. It’s an observation room. She’s in the room that’s being observed. She sees someone disappear down stairs at the end of the room.

She wonders how to open the big rollor doors on the south wall of the obstacle course. There are buttons and levers inside the observation room. Surely one of those open the doors. She just needs to get through the window before the Climbing Spider Drone can get to her. She puts the signet (given as payment by Mr. Marrough) on one finger and uses it as a single brass knuckle, focusing all the energy of her punch onto one hard point. The glass doesn’t shatter on the first blow. Before she can strike again, the Climbing Spider Drone freezes one of her hands to the glass with a burst of freezing water. It sits there, watching her. She tries to break with window with her sword in her other hand. She bangs on the window several times, and someone enters the observation room and stares at her, confused. She’s an Elven woman, wearing cold-weather gear like the other residents of the base, but without headgear, revealing her bluish skin. Aarlack, the Vapire wall-walker is right behind her.

Aarlack: That’s one of them right there.

The bluish Elf touches the window with a finger and frost spreads to form a circle surrounding Stella. The Elf places her other hand in the middle of that circle. Frost covers her hand, binding it to window. She pulls, and the window neatly breaks at the frozen circle, lowering Stella neatly onto a table inside the observation room. This is Petra, the leader of the expedition, and the avatar of Frost’s Breath!

• Petra she/her Vampire Avatar of Frost
  • Icy shell: When she takes damage, a chunk of ice falls off and becomes a hazard on the ground. The first time she would be destroyed, damage this stat as her whole body shatters, but it was a decoy! Petra is somewhere else nearby.
  • Freezing Touch: Anything touching Petra will rapidly lose all heat, becoming coated in a thin layer of ice within moments. Anyone frozen this way cannot use any frozen parts of their body, and if they become fully frozen, they are Taken Out.
  • Dangerously Sexy: A Vampire’s beauty is beyond compare. If your Sense is damaged, you can not willingly cause harm to a Vampire, no matter what they try to do to you. You can still do as you like, as long as your actions do not cause harm to the Vampire.

Petra: You’re a real go-getter. In the Danger Room already.

Stella: I like to get ahead of the game. As you can see, I took the shortcut down here. Would you mind showing me around?

Petra: Aarlack, pry her out of that ice, would you?

Petra operates the controls and the Climbing Spider Drone goes back into a box. Once Aarlack has freed Stella, Petra takes her downstairs into the main room.

Petra: Those are the stairs you are supposed to use.

Patra doesn’t mention the doors to the north. She leads Stella into the southeastern room, which is a workshop. A different-looking Spider Drone lies on a table, its panels opened and artificial guts spread out. Charts cover the wall and mechanical parts cover the tables. There’s some metal ore in a bin next to a furnace.

Petra: This is where the magic happens. This is where I do most of my research. Since you’re new, you’ll have to scrub the floors and count the parts. It’s a challenge to get metal up here, so we can’t let screws and washers wander off.

Next, Petra shows Stella a large room with overhead cranes and run on tracks in the ceiling. It’s empty except for a few boxes that used to contain supplies.

Petra: Wrangler has already taken the big boy out. Your first job for is: go up to the first level and fetch the Recruiter. It’s the big day. We should all be here for this.

Stella: Big day? Would you remind me what the big day is? It slipped my mind. I was having so much fun with the spider.

Petra: This is the day that we finally collapse Sunpeak. Off you go!

Petra creates a patch of ice under Stella’s feet and gives her a tap to send her sliding towards the stairs. Once she’s out of the room, Stella looks back to see if she’s being watched. Petra is going about her business with the air of someone who expects obedience from her subordinates. Stella looks at the northern door that Petra avoided. It’s labelled “Petra” and there’s a big lock on it. Stella shrinks until she can fit her hand inside the lock and tries to open it. Aarlack drops down from the ceiling and grabs her!

• Aarlak he/him Vampire Wall Walker:
  • Death From Above: Walkers can climb along walls and ceilings as quickly as they can run, and as silently as a ghost. When the Walker drops down on an enemy from above, they can either kidnap them or deal damage to them as a Hard Cut, their choice.
  • Patience: The Walker is Secret until they make a Cut. When they escape or hide, they become Secret again until they make a Cut.

Aarlack: Hey, what are you doing? Also, why are you small?

Stella: The answer to your question is why the Recruiter brought me in, and I thought this was how I got to the Recruiter.

Aarlack carries Stella up the stairs to Level 2.

Aarlack points down the big tunnel.

Aarlack: Last I saw she was heading this way. Well, off you go.

Stella wants to explore more, but doesn’t want to blow her cover, so she goes down the big tunnel.

Outside, Buckle and Cyana (a Shadow Rain) have been pushed out a chute by Nunatak and into the shallow water under the ice shelf just off the shore. Nunatak told them to bring him 500 pounds of fish. The water is extra-cold, so it doesn’t violently boil like water usually does against Buckle’s fiery body. He gets out of the water and wants to get reinforcements from the Miranda. The Blizzard reduces visibility to almost nothing, so he tries to sense the boat through electrolocation.

He finds the boat, but doesn’t know the way back. Cyana stays aboard the Miranda because she’s beat up. Buckle brings Skimbleshanks (the Mountain Lion) and Silk (Stella’s Riding Spider) because they both have natural defenses against freezing weather.  They set out into the blizzard to find the Minions In A Trenchcoat, which were stranded on the surface when the entrance to the caverns collapsed.

Back underground, Stella walks down the long tunnel for miles. She hears a “sssssss” and turns to see Petra sliding on a layer of ice that she creates in front of herself, like a moving sidewalk at an airport. Petra tells Stella to join her on the ice-way and they zoom to the end of the tunnel. Along the way, Petra and Stella have a chat:

• What can Petra tell me about the Recruiter?
  • The Recruiter is great. The members of the expedition could not keep up with the pace of my research and the Recruiter was able to make up for their mortal frailty. (By turning them into robots) Each one is quite important. There aren’t many ships that come by. We don’t get much chance for re-inforcements. It’s great that you volunteered!
• What can Petra tell me about her goal?
  • Since you’re here, you must hate Dragons, and know the Dragons used to live on Sunpeak. After decades of meditation and study, I have mastered the power of Frost’s Breath. Collapsing Sunpeak is the final test of my mastery.
• What does Petra want next and how can I help her get it?
  • Collapsing Sunpeak is the public announcement of my arrival as a world power.

Stella thinks that Petra shouldn’t want to collapse Sunpeak. Sunpeak is always in the sun, and the Ice Fields are always in its shade. Without Sunpeak, the Ice Fields may melt. Petra doesn’t seem to care about the Ice Fields. THey are just the staging area for her current project.

The tunnel opens into a big chamber ungerground, all basalt columns and obsidian. (Those rocks are formed by rapid cooling of magma.) More eye-catching is the Spider Tank, a house-sized armored vehicle held aloft by an octet of metal legs. The huge drill bits stored in the room on Level 2 are sized for its terrifying face.

• The Spider Tank: A walking fortress atop eight mighty legs. Petra can focus her power through this machine to freeze the lava in Sunpeak, making the mountain collapse. She must use it on 3 of 4 weak points to cause Sunpeak to collapse.
• Nightmare Engine: The Spider Tank is a giant, unstoppable, eight-legged mecha robot, able to walk along any surface and go anywhere it pleases, tearing through enemy defenses with ease. If either of these stats are fully damaged, the Spider Tank is destroyed.
  • Multi-Legged Nightmare: The Spider Tank’s 8 legs carry it wherever it needs to go, can smash through any walls or defenses in its path, and allow it to walk along walls and ceilings with ease. The Spider Tank can continue walking with as few as four legs remaining. If this stat is damaged 5 times, the Spider Tank falls apart, and everyone near it risks being crushed. When you would destroy the Spider Tank by Finishing Them from the outside, instead damage this stat once, and also damage one stat from either Web of Destruction or Advanced Defenses.
  • Power Core: The Spider Tank has a weak point deep inside of it – a mechanical engine core that powers it. You cannot even get into the engine core’s room unless the Spider Tank is missing at least one leg. Anyone near the core risks being set on fire by its intense heat. If this stat is damaged, the Spider Tank explodes shortly afterward, and everyone inside it risks being burned up in the fireball. The Recruiter is here too, complaining to Wrangler, a humanoid Spider

Stella is a very in-the-present being. She’s informed by the past, but the present takes precedence. She wonders if Sunpeak matters to living beings. Is it worth evening fighting this plan?  Everyone she met when she climbed Sunpeak was dead. If Fafnir was still there, she’d feel differently.

Back on the surface, Buckle and company end up back at the boat. The Blizzard is very frustrating. Stanlee, a mariner, advises Buckle how to run a search pattern to find the Minions In A Trenchcoat. It works, but the map blows out of Ugg’s hands. They can’t find their way back easily. Buckle melts through the collapsed snow and ice that blocked the entrance. The party descends to Level 1.

Buckle warns his companions to walk in his footprints as he burns a path through carnivorous lichen to reach a room with stacks of scrolls. Buckle reads some scrolls to see what this collection is for.

• What do my senses tell me?
  • The scrolls are well-organized and go back many years. Mostly weather data, but also records of passing ships. Sometimes there’s data from the same day in two different places.
• Is there something hidden or out of place?
  • The two records for the same day were a control group and test group as Petra experimented with Frost’s Breath (an artifact of power). The shipping observations helped the team kidnap sailors to add to their team.
• Tell me about the people in these caverns. What are they doing? What will they do next?
  • No one’s on this level. Everyone is on the lower levels right now.

Buckle checks the magi-fiche reader, which has information on Artifacts of Power. Frost’s Breath is similar to Buckle’s Heart of Earth. Petra has absorbed it inside herself. Removing it would be difficult and painful. Putting Frost’s Breath and Heart of Earth together would probably annihilate them both.

Buckle: I know what we’re getting into now. Let’s go!

Buckle leads the party down the ramp to Level 2 and right into Nunatak!

Nunatak: Where’s my fish?!

• Nunatak he/him Arctic Primordial Beast: A blubbery beast that wears ice for armor. It is sealed away deep in the ice of the coldest part of the world.
  • Primordial Beast: A primordial beast is ancient and perfect. Its attacks are Giant. It cannot be harmed by standard weaponry. It cannot be destroyed – if it would be, it takes damage instead. This stat functions even while damaged.
  • Arctic Champion: This primordial beast has Protection from the ice and cold. The thick ice
    growing on its body give it (Armor, 2 Uses).
  • Pure Power: The arctic beast can smash through anything in its path. Nothing without
    equivalent power can Keep It Busy.

Buckle scrambles away, back up the ramp, and falls into the same hole that Stella found earlier. Skimbleshanks lands on his feet. Silk walks down the walls. Buckle falls, tries to tuck and roll, but falls flat on his face. They’re in the room of old drill bits. Buckle’s fiery body casts a light through the door, alarting Nunatak. Shimbleshanks pounces on the mighty walrus’s head, but doesn’t even slow him down. Silk nudges Buckle, urging him to climb on. Buckle rides Silk up a wall, Nunatak sweeps them with his mighty tusks and just eats Skimbleshanks! Buckle is angry. He blasts Nunatak with Dragonfire! Deep under the ice, Dragonfire isn’t as hot as usual. Half of Nunatak’s ice armor is vaporized. He charges, knocking the drill bits aside, hoping to pin Buckle to the back wall. Buckle moves with the speed of lightning, dashing out of the room and sliding along Petra’s ice trail done the long tunnel. Silk was badly injured, so Buckle carries him. Nunatak is powerful but slow. He has no chance to catch them, but lumbers down the tunnel anyways.

At the end of the tunnel, in the volcanic chamber with Petra and the Spider Tank, Stella realizes that the Recruiter can reveal her ruse and identify her as an intruder. She tries to escape, but Petra freezes her in her tracks. Buckle arrives, obviously on fire, obviously Dragon-powered. He’s everything that Petra hates, so she ignores Stella and attacks Buckle. When they touch, they are both harmed. Bits of Petra’s icy shell melt and spatter onto the ground, freezing into sharp spikes.

Buckle: I didn’t choose this.

Petra: Fine, I’ll take your fire away.

Petra retreats to the Spider Tank, which powers up and starts to turn around.

• Web of Destruction: The Spider Tank causes massive damage to everything around it. Taking out its weapons will make your life easier.
  • Ensnaring Ice: The Spider Tank can spit freezing water at its enemies, pinning them down. Pinned enemies cannot escape without help.
  • Ice Shards: The Spider Tank can spit volleys of icicles (Ranged, Area).
  • Drill Face: The Spider Tank’s face is Melee and Piercing, and anything directly in front of it must pay a price to do anything other than Get Away from its terrifying jaws.
  • Secret Weapon: After the Spider Tank has lost two legs and one of these other weapons, reveal a new weapon of your own design. When revealed, the Spider Tank immediately uses this new weapon as a Hard Cut.
• Advanced Defenses: The Spider Tanks is difficult to harm while all of its defenses are still active.
  • Jumping Spider: The Spider Tank has rocket thrusters and can leap to anywhere it can see, whenever it likes, as often as it likes.
  • Swarming Phalanx: The Spider Tank starts with a Phalanx Drone riding on its back to protect it. When any of the the Spider Tank’s stats (other than this one) are damaged, a new Phalanx Drone is deployed.
  • Terrifying Aura: Companions and other allies will not willingly go near the Spider Tank. This stat is automatically damaged when the fellowship does something cool to make the Spider Tank look like a chump.

Stella runs to grab Buckle as the Spider Tank turns around and blasts them both with a spray of icicles. The Recruiter falls from the machine’s hull as it lumbers into combat. Petra stands under the Spider Tank, defended by its legs.

Buckle is hyperventilating. Touching Petra was the worst pain he has experienced in a long time. He’s freaking out, but he remembers that he has a talisman from Fafnir: one of her scales. She will come if he holds the scale aloft. Despite her amazing speed, she needs some time to arrive.

• Fafnir’s token: When you earn the Red Dragon’s Fellowship, they will allow you to direct their wrath, just once. You can revoke the Red’s Fellowship at any time to have them burn down a location of your choice at a time of your choice, causing mass destruction and devastation there. Once you have unleashed the Red, you have no control over its wrath, so choose your target carefully.

He holds up the scale and a bright beam of light burns through the ceiling into the sky, caling Fafnir from across the world. They are under Sunpeak, where the souls of dead Dragons rest uneasily, and they respond, causing Petra and the Spider Tank enough trouble that Stella and Buckle can flee back the way they came unimpeded.

GM note: This bossfight will be resolved without direct player involvement. I didn’t want to just decide how such an important event played out, so I rolled some dice to count successes. If Fafnir got 5 successes, she ripped off enough of the Spider Tank’s legs to destroy it. If the Spider Tank got 3 successes, it would freeze three of the four remaining lava tubes and bring down the mountain.

As the Spider Tank sets about its mission, Fafnir flies in at incredible speed. She dives into Sunpeak’s caldera and navigates its hidden channels, swimming through molten rock as if it was water, always seeking the talisman. She bursts into the chamber, and engages the Spider Tank in a titanic struggle.

The Fellowship doesn’t see any of this. They run down the tunnel back towards Petra’s base, and eventually, the Miranda. Whether Petra brings the mountain down or Fafnir sets it all on fire, they don’t want to be anywhere close. About halfway down the tunnel, they meet Nunatak coming the other way.

Buckle: Run, man, run!

Stella: You’re in charge now, bye!

Nunatak sees the tunnel collapsing behind them and turns to flee. Once again, the Fellowship outruns him. They run back into Level 2 of Petra’s base. Everything is shaking. Some of the annular stone drill bits roll out of the storage room and across the mouth of the tunnel. Stella shrinks and Buckle throws her across the room, then jumps through a rolling drill bit. Stella grows when she lands and catches Buckle.

Buckle: Stella, into the tube, come on!

Stella quickly pulls on her axolotl breathing mask and dives into Nunatak’s exit tube. They swim out under the ice floes until they reach and board the Miranda. The earthquake is shaking the ice floes, threatening to cut off the safe channel that Buckle created to get the Miranda to shore.

Buckle: Stella, strap me to the prow, and I’ll cut the ice while you’re driving.

It works. Buckle and the Miranda go through the ice floes like a hot knife through butter. Once they are clear of the ice floes, they look back.

Sunpeak has always been a looming shadow over the Ice Fields. As it collapses, sunlight streams in. The Miranda goes up and back down as a large wave goes under them. The blizzard is torn apart as a pressure wave flows out and huge boulders from Sunpeak fall on the Ice Fields like artillery.