Session Log 2023-09-12

Split party: Robin and Ignis present.

Robin studied the mechanisms of the Valve Station. She couldn't figure out the exact operation of the defaced machinery, but noticed piping leading both into and out of the city. She found, pinned to the wall and partially grafittied-over, a diagram depicting a central override station, located somewhere in Lord's Town at the heart of the city.

Ignis reasoned that he could feed something besides water into the irrigation pipes, but the controls in this station would require serious repair - and a few Aether Cores from the abandoned ships in the Hangar - to operate. He put the remaining Aether Core in his pack.

The two decided to seek out flammable materials for their scheme. They set out from the Valve Station east, towards the Sootcorner industrial district. They stuck to the shadowy base of the wall, opting for better line-of-sight over the mazelike alleys of Golarth. Robin remained wary of further undead, but could only hear the muffled sounds of those beyond the city walls.

Ignis, meanwhile, tuned into his drunkard's sense for sources of alcohol. He spied a broken-into tavern down the street. He and Robin investigated, and found a basement storeroom. Robin lit a torch to reveal the tavern's supplies largely picked clean. A lone barrel of wine, possibly too heavy for survival-oriented looters, had been left cracked open to gather dust.

The two continued following the wall towards Sootcorner, Ignis lugging the barrel as Robin remained on lookout. The wind stirred the overcast skies ever westward. The city was already as dark as a starless night beneath the Umbra of the Gray Steps, save for Robin's lone torch and the distant glow of burning buildings.

Sootcorner proved to be an uninviting neighborhood - the streets were narrow, ash-coated, and laid out with apparent disregard to the notion that anyone would ever need to travel them. Robin spied a figure moving further ahead. She climbed a tenement and readied a bolt with a flammable strip of cloth, only to find herself aiming at what appeared to be a living, burly, blue-scaled lizardfolk. He seemed to be lugging a heavy bundle of metal poles and planks, hurrying due south.

Ignis set down his wine and attempted to climb after her, but was deterred by the ash-coated handholds. Instead, she used whistles to guide his pursuit on foot, so that they might ask him where to find flammable materials. He caught up to the man quickly, unburdened by wine barrels or metal bundles, but stealthlessly. He realized that the man was not a lizardfolk, but instead a startlingly plainly-dressed part-dragon like Vicriax - an unusual sight, when most with dragon's blood lived at minimum lives of moderate aristocracy.

The part-dragon didn't seem to recognize Ignis, nor did either man introduce himself. Ignis asked if he was willing to help them take the fight to the undead dragons haunting the skies above, and played on the man's draconic pride, but was brushed off brusquely. He claimed to have his own people to take care of, and a barricade to reinforce, and no interest throwing himself into the stranger's fight.

Ignis, unable to recruit the man, asked if he knew where to find flammable materials. He claimed not to live or work in Sootcorner, and so he didn't know any particulars, but he did offer a suggestion to follow the smell of oil. He also gave Ignis the location of his holdout - an inn in the eastern city - if Ignis were successful enough to stage a rescue for "his people".

Ignis regrouped with Robin as the man headed south. The two of them followed his advice, and soon found a factory reeking of flammable oil. Robin's flickering torch revealed industrial machinery that seemed to be for building inscrutable, large metal constructions, with a large oil spill across the shop floor. A few other variously-full barrels stood between the machines.

Having found what they were seeking, the pair marked the location of the oil-rich factory and headed back into the city. They came across a burning factory, with Klaitos, Ekkels, Torrix, and the remaining Torch engineers standing outside and watching the blaze. The engineers seemed traumatized, one of them carried unconscious and bloody by Klaitos. Torrix, by contrast, wore a mad grin.