D&D #44: More Dead Ma'ari

After driving through a river of lava in the previous session, the party landed on a large dark island. Lit only by the glow of the lava that surrounded it, the island seemed dark and barren. An excursion away from the ship revealed signs of cultivation, though, and soon zombified farmers appeared on the horizon--zombified farmers that were apparently content to ignore the party and focus on their farmwork.

This Realm of Stone was turning out to be very strange.

Buck the bard proceeded to clothesline every zombie the party encountered, meeting no resistance. As the party traveled across the island, more and more zombies appeared, toiling their withered fields in futility. After all, the air here was toxic, and the party required the aid of their Ma'ari acquaintance Miles to provide the runes that would purify the air they breathed.

After walking a while, the party realized that they needed to return to the Nexus for their pet spider, Arial Black. However, the trip back would take valuable time, and Kirtan hesitated at first. On the other hand, it would give Kirtan the opportunity to deliver Miles to his lord, which would be quite a prize. However, he would probably be returning to the Realm of Stone alone if he did so since, again, the party required Miles's assistance to actually breathe the air here.

The party reconsidered, and so they continued.

At the end of the island, where the zombies and farmland seemed thickest (a situation Buck remedied by continuing to clothesline the zombies), the party found a train. It was a sleek, silver train whose tracks apparently let directly into the river of lava.

Speakers near the doors of the train blared slow, calming music. While many of the zombies were working the fields, several of them simply stood motionless, staring toward the sound of the music. A few of them swayed in time to the music, more or less, before they were knocked over violently from the force of a half-orc's arm catching them in the neck.

Buck ran directly into the train, and the rest of the party followed.

Inside, there were clean seats along either side of the car, several of which were occupied by zombies, sitting motionless.

HELLO

A loud voice came from the speaker system.

I AM PERCY THE TRAIN. ARE YOU HEADING FOR THE CITY?

The party said that yes, they were. So, the doors closed, and the train took off, following the rails into the lava.

The party had many questions for Percy, questions which Percy was only too happy to answer for them. However, Percy had not had living passengers in over a century, and he decided to make things exciting: the train would take 30 minutes to reach their destination. If the party could answer three riddles, Percy would drop them off safely. If they could not, Percy would proceed to crash at the destination, killing them all, including himself.

The party answered all three riddles in less than two and a half minutes.

This left them plenty of time to interrogate this train. Here's some of the things they learned:

• Percy the Train is an artificially intelligent train.
• Percy is over 300 years old.
• Percy's primary function is to transport people to the farms along the river of lava.
• Percy hasn't had a living passenger in about 130 years.
• The zombified passengers are dead Ma'ari.
• There are also lots of Ma'ari living the the city.
• The only other thing living in the lava is something Percy calls a "hell dragon"
• The hell dragon is not as fast as Percy.
• Percy can travel up to 500mph.
• Percy's brain is big, taking up space in the forward, center, and rear cars.
• No, Percy can not come with the party.
• No, Percy does not recognize Miles (who was unconscious for the entire ride).
• This realm seems to be entirely underground.
• Its people do not recognize a "day" or "night" since there is no sun.

There was plenty more conversation, but I think that covers the important bits.

Anyway, Percy arrived safely at their destination and let them out, promising to come up with more difficult riddles next time. Meanwhile, the party, having grown attached to their new, somewhat murderous friend, tried to figure out some way to take him with them, but alas. Percy done once more into the lava, and the party gazed across a lake of lava toward a city of stone.

MVP for this session was Tyriron who solved two of the three riddles in record time~