Eyes Unclouded - Session 9
These are the records of a lightly modified game of Cairn 2e that I am playing with an in-person group. I've expanded Eyes Unclouded, a now out of print collection of Studio Ghibli themed 5e adventures, into a more open-ended sandbox. You can find our last session here. I'll try to keep these spoiler free, so enjoy!
To the Boiler Suite
This week our dramatis personae were:
- Flame, tiny fire elemental in an automaton body
- Nanaki, "no-face" spirit and artificer
- Ambrose, mountebank with a cart full of sundries
- Madrigal, halfling forager and werebear
- Sir Percius, law-abiding knight
- September, a squirrel druid and practicing violinist
The party reconvened in the library of the Verdurous Court's west tower along with Airen and Sir Horsius (who I imagine had been laboriously hoisted there using the ropes). They decided to head downwards and find Igneous, the furnace spirit who had caused the Court to go into lockdown.
The group descended down a long spiral staircase that dropped five floors. Along the way were small apartments belonging to various wizards or currently left vacant. Ambrose teased Airen, giving her the tour as if they were on a college-visit. The party mostly left these apartments alone, but Nanaki did use her tools to carve a name placard for Airen.
As the staircase circled lower, the temperature began to rise until it was uncomfortably hot. Stopping just above what appeared to be some kind of storage room in the basement, they discussed what to do. September could talk to Sir Horsius, who said he would be happy to stay behind and "search for clues," whatever that meant.
Peeking down the stairwell, the party could see two smoke creatures standing guard below. There was a metal hatch built into one wall and a vertical ladder shaft nestled behind old boxes and tarp-covered statues. These creatures were larger than the ones they had seen before and seemingly burlier.
Flame took the lead, clanking down the stairs and ordering the smoke spirit to stand aside while they brought prisoners through. The spirits fell for it and made way. Flame asked what the fastest route was to Igneous and the two gestured towards a metal hatch in the wall. Flame ordered them to open it. As the hatch came loose, a huge gout of steam burst forth that would have scalded any of the other party members. Flame ordered the spirits to shut the hatch again immediately.
The Conveyor Belt
The party decided they would either need to circumnavigate the steam chamber or find some way to drain it to advance towards Igneous. September volunteered to make their way down the ladder to scout ahead.
The room below was dominated by a brass conveyor belt heaped high with cube of rocky ore. To the left, a circular portal filled the wall showing a swirling image of a magma filled landscape. Every few moments a colossal hand emerged from the lava and hurled a rock onto the belt. Ideally these chunks would have traversed to the east into a low shaft that cut horizontally out of the space.
September poked their head through the portal finding it too hot for more than a moment's visit. Flame went down next and, abandoning the automaton, jumped through as a mote of fire.
In the magma-scape, Flame called out for Igneous. This was enough to get the attention of what lurked below - a huge automaton in the style of the Giant sculptures they had seen before. This one, however, seemed to be made from black rock. Molten lava streamed off of it as it emerged. The automaton pointed them due east and agreed to slow the rock production slightly.
In the meantime, September crawled down the conveyor belt shaft and discovered it had two exits, though both were badly clogged. One went directly into crucible of molten slag, nearly overflowing. Another cut to the side and seemed to open into another hot but safely navigable chamber.
The rest of the party descended. Nanaki inspected the conveyor belt and used their artificing knowledge to determine what tweaks were necessary to optimize its flow. Soon it was moving again at a normal pace and the way was clear. They pocketed a chunk of the strange blue ore that the automaton had been mining for further investigation.
Internal Conflicts
The party crawled through the conveyor belt shaft and made it safely into the crucible chamber through the side exit. The room was circular, heavily buttressed, and directly underneath the steam chamber they had tried to access before.
September spotted a hatch on the far side of the room and found it wasn't dangerously hot to the touch. The squirrel and Flame opened it. As they did, they heard a thunderous crash.
This was a pump room. Water pipes traced every surface and huge dials controlled the flow. On the far side was a robed woman with long gray hair tied behind her head. Around her hovered two enormous fists, each the size of a human and made of blue, coruscating energy. As they watched, she wound up as if to throw a punch. The hands mimicked her movement. She slammed one into a heavily warded doorway to the north, creating another crash but producing little effect.
The party said hello and asked if this was Ophiane. She said she was and gave them a cordial hello. She asked for help getting Anais the conjurer out of the warded chamber beyond. She said Anais has been helping Igneous to revolt and that he was responsible for the smoke creatures that were sowing havoc throughout the Court.
The party knocked on the door and asked if Anais would talk. A timid voice came from beyond. He said that he felt bad for Igneous. Aviquin had tricked the fire spirit into a pact where each would provide the other power. The fire spirit didn't know that meant literally providing power to the Court by operating the boilers.
This triggered a dispute amongst the party. Flame, September, and Nanaki found it unconscionable that the Court had enslaved this spirit. Sir Percius didn't want to interfere in local affairs, especially when they didn't understand the power relations here. Madrigal and Ambrose seemed mostly to just want to get out of there.
While the others argued, Nanaki figured out how to operate the pumps and divert water away from the steam chamber, making it safe to traverse.
A Fight Then
September took action. The squirrel brandished their acorn-focus and demanded that Ophiane stop so that Igneous might be freed. Ophiane, for her part, was ambivalent about Igneous. She was, however, spoiling for her fight and she wouldn't be intimidated. With a grin, she moved to swing at them with her energy fists.
Immediately, the party scattered. Flame tried to calm things down, but the wizard wouldn't listen to reason. Nanaki clambered up a ladder on the far side of the room to escape, but was overtaken by Madrigal who was an expert climber. They found themselves in another storage room that mirrored the one they had entered by and the halfling threw herself into opening another hatch towards the steam chamber in the center.
Sir Percius readied his shield and tried to placate the wizard. He was surprised when Ambrose hefted his cane-sword and came to stand by his side.
September threw themselves into the wizard's face, blinding her temporarily. Ophiane flailed wildly, smashing pipes and only lightly battering Sir Percius and Ambrose. Sir Percius (I think) used the confusion to grab the squirrel and hustle up the ladder and the mountebank followed behind.
They made it to the next level just in time. Ophiane righted herself and with a single almighty tug, ripped the latter off the wall beneath them.
In the meantime, Flame, Nanaki, and Madrigal had entered the cooling steam chamber. The room was dominated by a huge boiler connected with pipes above and below. In the center burned Igneous, a fire spirit much like Flame but several times the scale.
They asked Igneous what the spirit wanted. It replied that it wanted to be free, to burn brightly across the sky and wood, to no longer be contained in some basement. The party decided to take the spirit with them to Aviquin. Nanaki produced the blue ore from below and with the help of Igneous was able to fashion it into a sort of brazier/bjorn to attack to Flame's automaton.
GM Notes
This session was not my best work. Folks seemed a little frustrated and a couple times mentioned looking for what they thought I had designed the path forward to be. I think there were a couple key contributing factors to this:
- The fire theming made it obvious that Flame should scout ahead. That means that the spotlight spent a lot of time on them and other characters more or less just followed behind.
- The steam chamber was so lethal a threat that it seemed too dangerous to just mess around and try things until they found a way through (the party's usual MO).
- Several players had been absent in the previous session and thus were less clear on and less invested in the situation inside the Verdurous Court.
What would I do differently?
- Back to basics: I should make a list of characters to keep in front of me and make sure that I am finding opportunities for each character to be engaged more frequently during the session. This is easier for me to do on the fly with a smaller party size but tricky with this number of folks.
- I let players handle the recap, but I should do a final line of summary, both to practice active listening and to highlight the key question of the session. In this case "Where is Igneous and why is he throwing the Court into chaos?"
- This space was partially from Eyes Unclouded material, but it needs another Jacquaysing pass. The characters can more or less safely traverse a U-bend around the room they need to get to, but that basically meant they only had one route at any given time without back tracking. Rather than going vertical, better to lay the entire space out horizontally and give more meaningful choices.
I don't mean to dwell unduly on the negative. I really enjoyed roleplaying Ophiane as a sort of off-type hotshot wizard and think I did an okay job clearly communicating when the party could no longer talk their way out of the situation without doing something to change the stakes. I like when a fight stems not from a miscommunication but from genuine opposed positions.
We're only 9 sessions in - baby numbers by most â„—OSR standard - but longer than the campaigns I have been running for the last while. I probably should have done this a few sessions back, but it might be time for a quick wishes and stars conversation just to see how folks are feeling as we enter into the final stretch of the summer.