Quick facts
Campaign: Campaign 2 · Session: 73 of 83 · Arc: Coghaven · Where: The Underdark; Coghaven
Deep in meditation, Ellery followed the rivers of energy she knew. Nappa and Kale were there. Vegeta and Kakarot were absent. At last she caught a faint trickle of Cabba. A sharp vision followed of Cabba thrashing in his pod as jolts of electricity forced him still. Ellery gave Kip her overshirt and begged him to scry. Kip found Cabba in the same water-filled chamber as before, now weaker and thinner. When Ellery sent him a message promising she was coming for him, Cabba’s head jerked in response.
From the ridge where The Whisper had once brought Wilbur, the party approached Coghaven. A small orb greeted them at the gate, followed by Wiz Tillywig, liaison for visitors. Wilbur explained that he might have been born there, though he had been raised by a half-orc clan. The party received the city’s mandatory visitor bracelets, which barred them from restricted areas such as the main forge. Wilbur gave Wiz one of his metal flowers. She stared at him as if trying to place him, then had an automaton seal the flower away in a baggie. On the tour, Wiz showed them the statue of the five founders who dreamed up the Engine That Provides, and explained that Coghaven manufactures goods for Arlia’s largest companies, including Capsule Corp, KrawlMart, and the Velvet Truffle Company. From a balcony over the factory floor, the party watched cheerful gnome workers assembling everything imaginable. Wiz was then called away, and while the party made excuses about needing the bathroom, they noticed eight security droids gathering in the hallway outside.
As their automaton guide ordered them into the hallway single file, a dart struck its neck. Smoke bombs burst on the balcony, gnomes dressed in black rappelled down, and the party followed them through a secret passage in the factory wall. Their rescuers were the Black Parade. Gen Way told Wilbur he had all but announced himself as a terrorist, since the metal flower he handed Wiz was the resistance’s emblem, and only a spy among them had warned them in time. The Black Parade took its name from the darkest day in Coghaven’s history, the first public executions of gnomes convicted of treason for crimes as small as printing pamphlets. When Wilbur produced another flower, Gen demanded to know where he got it, because it was just like “his.” She raged that they had waited years because Goric said it would make a difference, and that if Wilbur was the difference, they were doomed.
The resistance explained the truth about Coghaven. The founders had built a machine to help with daily life and kept handing it more responsibility until it controlled everything. A few gnomes at the top lived comfortably as long as they kept up the charade, led by Chancellor Fenwick Ansible. Every time the Black Parade gained ground, the machine adapted and invented new technology. In the last month and a half, it had found a new energy source powering its security forces, buried deep in the mountain where the resistance had never been able to reach in decades of trying. Nearly every gnome had been forced into labor, except those paid or blackmailed into line. Then the resistance revealed that Wilbur was Goric’s boy, and that Goric had died during a raid on the forge. (He had in fact been captured on that raid, taken to the forge, and ended up in Dr. Wheelo’s vats; see Session 78.) Gen was Goric’s sister, making her Wilbur’s aunt, and she blamed herself for his death. Ellery connected the two-month timeline to Cabba’s disappearance and became convinced he was the machine’s new power source. She insisted they move immediately before the group finally settled in to rest.
← Session 72 · Campaign 2 · Session 74 →