The Dreadnought

"The Dreadnought" is episode 6 of SuperQuest Saga. Aboard an abandoned goblin battleship, Carter, Persephone, and Sebastian find the world turned on its side.

Introduction

 * Will Stark will be your chilling dungeon master for this evening.
 * Josh Freeland is playing Sebastian Crenshaw the half-orc paladin.
 * Your Special Guest Jake is playing Persephone Goldpetal a firbolg druid
 * Brian is playing Carter Huttenburg, the level 2 warlock.

Recap
Will left the group in the hallway of an enormous spaceship that Victoria called a Goblin Dreadnought. They broke into an emergency hatch and found themselves on what would normally be the left-hand wall of the hallway because the ship is on its side.

This is Where I Die
The hallway is dimly lit by emergency lighting on what would be the ceiling but is currently the left-wall. Ahead of them the hallway drops off at a turn. Victoria checks the device on her arm with a frown and decides they need to turn on the gravity generator before they can get to the engineering deck to the A-Reactor. Carter is very interested in the idea of gravity manipulation and tries to explain to Persephone and Sebastian. Victoria states there should be a gravity generator on each deck so they just have to find it.

Carter asks her about the device on her arm, Victoria explains it’s a bracer jack. It’s part of the reason she believes their story because everyone has one and the three of them do not. Carter and Victoria look over the edge of the hall that drops down into darkness. Persephone casts Produce Flame with a snap of her fingers and holds it over the edge and reveals more hallway before it gets dark. She tosses the small fireball down, and as it drops they spy another hallway they can climb down to and a doorway at the bottom.

They decide to use the grappling kit to climb down and Carter searches for a place to secure the grappling hook to the wall. Carter secures himself to one end with the best knot ever and prepares to rappel down. He starts to head down but he slips and falls into the darkness until he is stopped by his rope harness with a painful jerk. Carter asks Persephone to throw more fire down and Victoria interjects asking if anyone has a flashlight, which Carter does. Percy and Sebastian try to confirm whether Carter still needs the fire and he tries to cancel his request, waving the flashlight up at them. Victoria believes that this is how she will die.

Carter climbs his way up to the hallway and finds five doorways, three on the floor and two on the ceiling. Carter unties himself and calls for everyone to come join him. Victoria climbs down and Carter helps her up to the hallway. Sebastian rappels down like a pro and makes it look easy. Persephone gathers the rope and climbs down with the magnets.

The Smell Doesn't Bother Me Anyway
Victoria’s bracer can open the doors with her bracer jack because she has been on goblin vessels before. The first and second doors they try are dead and won’t open. The third door on the floor opens and the party sees a room and they are overwhelmed by the smell of dead bodies. They can see there are three dead goblins splayed out on the floor, the room appears to be a living quarters, there are bunk beds. Carter looks at the goblins and they look similar to Old World goblins, just in futuristic clothing. Victoria suggests they search the bodies for a key card. Carter is not bothered by the smell and volunteers to be lowered into the room. He finds a grenade, a cloth patch sealed in plastic that looks similar to the patches they used earlier, and a plastic card with Goblin writing and a black stripe. Under one of the bunks he finds another card that has a bunch of numbers on it. There are clothes, bits of armor, and pamphlets scattered around as well. He pulls the rope twice to get pulled back up.

Carter shows off his haul and Victoria confirms he has a key card that can get them into some rooms, a stun grenade, a hyper-patch that is used by warriors to put themselves in an overdrive mode during combat but has bad side effects after, and a cred card. She takes the cred card since it probably has money on it and promises to share with them later. Victoria asks for a lift from Sebastian so she can try the doors above them, but they are dead.

Carter makes a lasso and Sebastian lowers him down to the next doorway and he sees with the flashlight that there are a couple more hallways. Sebastian climbs down without securing himself and loses his grip on the rope, he is unable to recover himself and falls 50 feet, slamming into the door and falling unconscious. Carter checks to stabilize him as Victoria quickly climbs down to cast Cure Wounds on him. Persephone climbs down with the magnets but she loses her grip on them. She is able to catch herself on the rope but sustains some rope damage and slams into the wall. They take an hour to bandage themselves up and rest.

As a Player I Have a Really Bad Feeling About This
Victoria takes the key card and, with a swipe, the doors beep and open revealing a vast room with two sets of doors below. Carter asks if this is the place they need to go, and Victoria thinks it looks promising. Carter looks pointedly at Persephone and Sebastian in an effort to get them to recover the rope. Sebastian climbs up recovering both the magnets and the grappling hook, and returns safely. Victoria knows that the gravity generator is usually at the rear of the ship so they decide the room below looks like a good central area to get oriented.

When they climb down, they realize they are standing on a door, and there is a door to the south of them. Carter suggests they check the southern door and inside there is some sort of regulator machine on a wall and as a hatch on what would normally be the ceiling. Victoria doesn’t know what this machine does, but suggests the hatch might be a good way to get into a ventilator system or crawl space. She opens the hatch and confirms there is a tunnel they can crawl into. Before they enter the ventilation system Carter asks Victoria a little more about bone mites. She says they won’t find any in here, they usually feast on the flesh of the dead leaving only the bones.

Sebastian and Percy are squeezed tightly as they crawl along the vent. Carter whistles something dissonant as they make their way. Victoria eventually pushes out another hatch and steps into a much larger room. There’s an enormous machine taking up the entire right hand wall, the gravity generator. Victoria uses the magnets to climb up to a touch screen up on the machine, and manages to get it running. The room slowly starts to turn and everything is right side up.

Who Killed Them??
Victoria says they now need to find schematics so they can get to the engine room to get the Aetherium. The door is jammed so they need to climb back into the ventilation system back where they came from. Carter recovers the rope and suggests they head into the door on the western side of the room.

They start exploring hallways and end up in another room that appears to be living quarters. Carter investigates and finds a cred card that he slips into his pocket and a bottle of whiskey with a label written in Goblin. Victoria reads it and says “Big Mag’s Whiskey.” Carter asks if anyone needs a drink. Sebastian refuses because alcohol dulls the senses. Victoria takes a long draw, Persephone takes her first drink of whiskey, she drinks a lot and it goes down smooth, and Carter drinks some too.

Carter asks if he can swipe open the next door and Victoria hands him the key card. This room appears to be an armory, there are guns scattered on the floor and a clutter of armaments. Carter asks Victoria if any weapons are better than what he has, Victoria says they’re all dead. Carter and Persephone ask who killed them and Victoria explains that dead means they have no power. Carter notes that it sounds like Sebastian, since he’s losing power. Carter finds a belt with grenades, and Victoria verifies they are force grenades. Carter puts it on and adds the stun grenade he found earlier. Sebastian also searches around, muttering about Carter under his breath, but doesn’t find anything.

Further down the hallway there is a blockage, but they come across some elevators similar to those on The Brunhilde, Victoria’s ship. Persephone tries to say “Asimov” at the elevators, and Victoria explains “Asimov” is only the password to Artax and it won’t work elsewhere. Victoria cautions them against just pressing buttons in the elevator since the gravity generator is only working on this deck. She locates the button for engineering but when she presses it nothing happens, she deduces that a security card must be needed to access that area of the ship and they need to find one before they can get down there.

They head back towards the generator room, searching for areas they haven’t explored yet. At the end of a hallway they find four doors. The first one is a room with toilets in stalls, a restroom. Victoria doesn’t want to go in, and points to a similar door saying it is likely that is a restroom as well. Sebastian investigates and finds another dead goblin with some more money.

Victoria opens the next door and wanders inside. It appears to be an operating or monitoring room with several large screens on one wall. Persephone asks if this is where the schematics are. Victoria thinks it might be and tries to access the computers, after a few minutes it is clear they are dead. Sebastian is frustrated and destroys the screens with his axe. Persephone suggests he should try some of the whiskey to make him feel better. An angry Sebastian takes the bottle and takes a swig.

The last door in this hallway appears to be a small maintenance room with tools and chemicals strewn about. Sebastian grabs a pry bar.

Trying All the Doors
There’s one last door in a previous room they can try. Carter lets Persephone scan the card to open the door, which she does too enthusiastically. The doors jam and Persephone squeezes in to open them fully. Inside is a room identical to the room where they climbed into the ventilation chamber. A big machine fills the wall on the left and there is a ventilation hatch directly above them. Victoria examines the machine and informs the group that it looks like something to monitor power going to different areas of the ship. It looks like there is full power on this floor.

The party bickers about which way to go next, there’s another hallway they can explore or the ventilation hatch. They decide to go to the hallway and find three doors. Carter tries to open the doors but the scanner denies entry. Victoria says it looks like they need higher clearance. She suggests the vents might take them to another part of the ship where they can find the cards they need. This vent goes the opposite direction of the previous vent they climbed in and ends in a hatch. They push it open and drop down into the dark room. Carter uses his flashlight.

This room is similar to a room they saw earlier. There is an enormous black screen on the northern wall and there are bodies of two hobgoblin officers slumped in a chair and on the floor. Carter investigates the bodies and finds a broken cred card and a different type of key card. Victoria confirms it is a high clearance card that should get them through the doors. Sebastian searches the other body and finds another cred card.

Victoria opens the door with the new key card, and they find themselves in the hallway with the three doors they couldn’t open. They explore the other doors, the first one is exactly the same but with no bodies. They face the final door, Victoria opens it.

The room is enormously long and the entire northern wall is covered in torpedoes that look like they’re waiting to be armed. There are two large computer arrays at the far sides of the rooms. As they head towards one of the arrays of computers, Persephone spots the body of a dead goblin. They move towards it and an alarm goes off as a harsh language sounds over the intercom. There is a large grinding sound as the wall directly in front of them and the wall behind them open and 12ft tall humanoid mechs appear and fire up giant aether-blades.

The Party

 * Sebastian Crenshaw: A half-orc paladin. Succumbs to peer pressure.
 * Persephone Goldpetal: A firbolg druid. A giant woman who almost fell on her friends.
 * Carter Huttenburg: A human warlock. Proficient in knots.

NPCS

 * Victoria: A tiefling woman. Believes this party will be the death of her.

Music

 * SuperQuest Saga Theme - by Brian

Out of Character

 * Will makes it canon that Carter is proficient in knots.
 * Will got tired of calling The Brunhilde “Victoria’s ship” since no one has asked its name, so he just gave it to them.

World Building

 * The Second Goblin War was 25 years ago.
 * Victoria served in the Third Goblin War 8 years ago and can speak Goblin.
 * The Goblin language sounds suspiciously like German.

Nat 20's (1 total)

 * Brian (Sleight of Hand)