The Road Builder

Road Builder Wandering

Party

• Amelia Pendragon Halfling Ranger Scribe & M/S
• Barth Wader Human Warrior / Enchanter Leader
• Drovar Human Earth mage
• Gerald Human Illusionist
• Maryem Halfling Namer / Healer
• Shizane Human Fire mage
• Tor Dwarf Iron Priest

Guild Meeting Mortimer Graves asked for a group to find a lost road building machine and some people associated with it. Pay 1000 SP from the Academy who built the machine & 100 guineas from Mortimer

1st Fruit
Visited Mortimer’s farm (20 minutes from the Guild). Mortimer paid 10 gns, as an advance for expenses.

Mortimer had built a steam engine to power the Road Builder and shipped it up to Mittlemarkhaupstadt. The complete machine was being built by the Mittlemarkhaupstadt Maschine Aufbauakademie, a philosophic group of mechanicians. The primary mechanician is Guildmeister & Academician Wenzel Schloß (Schloss), who is now missing. There are at least 2 other people missing. The Academy has asked Mortimer to appoint guild people to find the missing people and the machine.

We spend the night at the farm {one of Petal’s special dinners}, and admire Mortimer’s steam engine.

2nd Fruit
We hire horses from the Guild and travel via the ‘slow portal’ to Elfenberg. We arrive just prior to lunch and travel for half a day.

3rd – 6th Fruit
We ride to MMHS staying in inns along the way. We arrive early evening and get lodgings.

7th Fruit
We visit the Academy and call on Werner von Ratzenburg who is the Treasurer, and our employer. He pays us 500 SP in advance. He knows little of the machine nor many other details but passes us onto other mechanicians who have been involved. Ancillary Engineers Gunter-volker Sinzendorf: elderly human male, working clothes Isentraud von Isenberg: dwarven female, long braids, working clothes These two made parts of the machine (wheels, blades & rollers) but were not involved in the final assembly or over all project.

The machine parts were all taken to Rabatzhof for final assembly & five weeks ago Schloss started the finished Road Builder south towards Carzala, expecting to reach there about 12 days later.

After 4 days a message was received that he had lost the Road Builder. His senior associates joined him to look for it but nothing has been heard from any of them since. The Missing Mechanicians Guildmeister & Academian Wenzel Schloss: this is his baby and he turned the theories into reality Graf Spangler Hohenlohe-Bassenheim: the designer Engelbertina Vendt: a binder

Consultant Designers Sir William & Baron Henri Mulberry: for the transmutation magic (aka William & Henry, or Guillame & Henri, or Wilhelm and Heinrich der Maulberre… whatever).

7th cont.
Messages in Metal, Tor talks to iron and the runes say: The Missing Mechanician: Copper <The Artist’s Metal>, Gold <Value & Wealth> and Silver <Faerie Poison> The Party: Quicksilver <flowing & moving>, Lead <both light and dark> and Steel <hard and resilient>.

Having got all the information possible from the Academy (and a letter of introduction for the workship in Ratzenhof), we break for morning tea {hot chocolate & cake} and stretch our legs around the town, then start down the hill to Ratzenhof. We arrive late evening and stay at the inn {venison}.

8th Fruit
The Academy have extensive workshops backing onto the Palantine River. The noise from the trip hammer dominates the village from after breakfast to late afternoon. There is a huge barn with large doors and no lofts. It has a packed earth floor and loose scaffolding lying around.

Hans Gruber supervises the workshops. He is human, middle aged, and looks serious and careworn (what do the apprentices get up to?). The planned route for the new road was to start near Fort Boris and go south west following the Old South Road. Rather than crossing the Palantine they planned to go through the north western end of the Ffenargh. From the timing of the first message Guildmeister Schloss noticed problems early on the morning of his 2nd day of road making.

After talking to Master Gruber and touring the premises we ride towards Fort Boris and stay the night at Schaftburg.

9th Fruit
Arrive at Fort Boris late afternoon and stay over. We hear stories of the new road and collateral damage as it has passed through villages. A sign for Seagate is made to encourage it to stop before running over a something (just in case).

10th Fruit
We find the start of the road a follow southward, stopping in villages to check their memories. About 2 weeks after the Kar went through the Royal Guard came up the road checking it (they haven’t come back this way) {rustic lunch}. We camp at Road 20 mls. Tor doesn’t sleep much but digs out the well.

11th Fruit
During the morning the new road wavers back and forth over the old south road until it is nearly line up due south again. We approach Champ Nevee about mid morning. Enquiries in town advise us that Schloss stopped the Kar east of the town and then stayed in town overnight. When he went back out in the morning the Kar had left without him. He followed on foot after it. We follow the road until late afternoon when we find a completely demolished village where the machine had loop around and around many times. No-one is here but we find traces of someone recently scavenging and trace these to a house in nearby woods. Eleanor the wood witch lives here, and she is very suspicious of people. We discover that Wenzel Schloss is injured in her house and she has been caring for him. He has broken bones and severe concussion.

12th Fruit
Marym takes a day to heal Wenzel’s concussion. We swap healing herbs and soporifics for a cooking pot with Eleanor. Tor builds a weir and swimming hole in her stream. (Tor seems to think that outside is where God ran out of building materials). Buy lunch time Wenzel is recovered enough to talk to us. Wenzel’s Story At first day the Kar went along OK but then it went around in a circle for no apparent reason. While he was at supper it also went through the village. After that he tried to correct the direction so the Kar was running due south along the road but didn’t quite succeed. By this point the Kar was not resonding to commands correctly. The Kar tried to go directly throught Champ ne Vey, so he disengaged one set of wheels and turned it aside. He then left it with both sets of wheels disengaged and went into town to send a message and see the town guard about the pigsty that was over run. Somtime during the night the Kar took off by itself. The next morning Wenzel followed after the Kar on foot. When he reached the destroyed village the villagers attacked him and left him for dead (he doesn’t remember the attack, we heard this from Eleanor). We find out heaps more things about the Kar <roast chicken and a midnight swim>.

13th Fruit We leave Wenzel with Eleanor to finish healing and follow the road south east. We pass through Charney and reach County Vole early evening. We briefly visit the the town and camp at the edge of Druid’s forest <cream buns>.

14th Fruit
Into the woods. Not far in we see Englebertina’s Dragon Car pushed to one side of the road. We see the signs of the the druid’s fight against the Kar. We met a druid called Mead. He tells us that the road building and two heroes went ‘away’. They went up Mabs Hill and into the cromlich and didn’t come out. We follow the road to Mabs hill, have a quick look around and then back off half a mile to camp <adulterated gruel>.

15th Fruit
Explore Mabs Hill. The hill looks like a huge barrow with a ring of 8 monoliths set symetrically around the crown (about 200 feet across). The hills is an earth place of power and the mana is high and gusty. Divinations etc identify that the place is millenia old and that it periodically becomes ‘elsewhere’. There is a hint of Fey. The Kar arrived during the night and waited until midday when it ‘went away’. During the investigating my ‘change’ starts and then stops partway through. Given it’s normal triggers, we take this as a forewarning of danger.

16th Fruit
We power up to go through the cromlich. As it opens there is a breeze redolent of spring.

Road 0 mls: The road is 30 foot wild and where needed 10 foot either side has been cleared. It is stone 18 inches thick, flat and level, with a smooth (but not polished) surface. There is no allowance for water run off. The texture of the road clearly shows what the machine passed over, grass blades, worms, even the remains of a cart. It follows the old south road exactly, directly south. Road 18 mls: the road loops around and continues in a slightly different direction (about 1 degree south east). Road 30 mls: the new road goes straight through buildings of a village next to the old south road. It ran over or demolished several buildings and covered the well. The village is deserted apart from one old lady. As the well is to one side Tor digs it out and constructs a wall and crossbar for the bucket to hang from. Road 37 mls: the road goes directly toward Champ Ne Vey and then turns sharply left on the outskirts. It veers around the outlying buildings but does go over a piggery (Jan Michel’s). It then turns directly east and there is a mark where the Kar was stopped. There are a few loops around here and then the road is heading south east and nowhere near the old south road. Road 60 mls: after travelling straight though farmland the road veers directly towards a village it otherwise would have missed. It loops over and over the village and not a single building is left standing. Eleanor the wood witch lives near here. Road 90 mls: continues south east through Charnee. It veres towards villages and occasionally loops. It passes into county Vole and is herded around the town with walls of iron cast by the archmage of the town. Once past the town it heads south west into the the Druid’s forest. Road 110 mls: in the Druid’s forest the forest fought back against the car. Woodland animals were run over, huge trees were protected with magic, ravines were created and bridged. Road curves all over the place and is already badly damaged by tree roots and diverted water undermining it. Deep in the woods it straightens and heads directly to Mabs Hill. It goes to the top of the hill and ends in the centre of the cromlich (circle of standing stones)

The Road Builder or Turtlekar(Part I)

1. About 40’ long and 20’ wide, running on overlapped 12’ high wheels.
2. It has rollers to compress soft ground, cutters and grabbers to clear trees and soil. It has a steam engine to make everything go, and transmutes trees & soil to make the road surface (and anything else it needs).
3. There are protective plates and a Gravesâ„¢ Steam Canon for protection.
4. There is a golem to control all the various functions.
5. It moves at 2 miles per hour.
6. The steam engine part needs water at least every 2 weeks (but can also collect water when it passes over streams).
7. The Road Builder cannot cut through rock, but goes around, however it can build fords and bridges.

The Road Builder or Turtlekar(Part II)

1. The scoops/grabbers are in the shape of cupped hands and the thumbs move across to hold things
2. The cutters look like arms holding flaming swords.
3. The Graves canon is mounted on the front. It has an effective range of just under 1 mile

The Road Builder or Turtlekar(Part III)

1. Dimensions are 30’ wide, 55 – 60’ long, and just under 30’ high. The ends curve down to base which is 5’ above the ground. The carapace is made of hardened bronze.
2. It can go up or down 40 slopes, and cross water up to wheel height (about 12’).
3. The front has an open maw for cleared materials, the opening is decorated to look like a mouth, there are decorative eyes above this. On the back is it’s name and the seal of the Academy.
4. Suspended from the front are the cutters and scoops, and a large roller of stone sheathed in metal (this roller is extremely heavy, around 100 tons and is lifted by magic). These things can all lift up out of the way when not required.
5. There is a much smaller ‘polishing’ roller at the rear, only 3’ diametre..
6. On top of the main body is a chimney for steam and towards the back a small stone cottage. This counter weight to the stone roller. Inside is housing for the driver and a manhole to reach the steam engine, on other machinery. There is a retractable metal ladder to the ground.
7. Also mounted on top are 4 artillery pieces, the Graves cannon facing forward and 3 arbelests facing side and rearwards. The Graves cannon has a rate of fire of 1 / 5 pulses, an incline of 90ï‚° and a decline of 0ï‚°, and a transverse of 120ï‚°. The arbelests have a rate of fire of 1 / 2 pulses, a range of 200 yards, and an incline of 90ï‚° and a decline of -50ï‚°, and a transverse of 120ï‚°. The only blind spots from the artillery are between the wheels and directly in front of the forward roller.
8. The golem senses stuff around it but doesn’t see. It takes any orders in Volkspracht from a speaking funnel inside the cottage.
9. To stop the machine manually (ie. If you can’t talk to the golem or it’s gone amuck) go down the man hole and use the manual levers for the gearing and wheels.
10. Inside the maw is the transformer, a sorter, and ‘nacht’ sphere for dross.
11. The transformer points down and petrifies the ground between the wheels. It can also build small bridges by petrifying logs and then pushing them ahead of it, then petrifying them in place.
12. Anything which has parts that might wear out has a mending magic running.

The Road Builder or Turtlekar(Part IV)

1. The best way of disabling the Kar is to go in the inside hatch and wreck things like the piston or pressure valve.

In the Fey Lands

16th Fruit
We go through to another plane. It is still high mana but not gusty. This plane is Tia Nam Bio, old Elvish for Land of Eternal Life. The cromlich and maybe the hill are the same place as on Alusia, ie. it exists in two places at once. It is not in the centre of the forest but on the eastern edge. The forest continues into the distance westwards up into hills and maybe mountains in the distance. East are rolling downs with plains beyond. To the north east is sparkle of water, a large lake or sea. The road is heading east and looks old and ruined. It is badly eroded and only the centre 10’ could be travelled on. Plants growing amongst the rubble are only up to 4 days old, though several look years old. We follow the road through the hills and by late afternoon have reached the plains. There were wild cattle and deer but few people. We had done some distance viewing to look for people. Nearer the cromlich there was one fort with a village north of the road in the hills and another hamlet 8 miles from the road. Both seem poor and primitive by our culture. All the people are human with pale skin and very light coloured hair, all shades of blond and nothing darker than mouse. During the night there are northern lights and one very distance wolf howl. A half moon rises at the normal time followed later by a ¾ moon, which is smaller and bluer. At midnight a gentle breeze redolent of spring flowers and spices wafts past, and the fire flares green. By the time we reach the plains there are hamlets about ½ a day’s walk apart.

17th Fruit
In the morning the road has decayed even further. We identify that 1 day here equals 1 week on Alusia. We travel on and next time we pass near a hamlet we stop to talk to the locals. They speak an elvish dialect that none of us can follow but the also speak Eldaren poorly. This is the ‘High Tongue’. From the Tia Nam Bio villagers • Mab’s Hill is Noc Aineigh • The Queen’s name is Evil (or possibly Afil or Aevfel) • Any language they don’t recognise is bad • Everyone with dark hair or skin is ‘fey’ regardless of race • Gerald is mistaken for Earl Gerald the Demon Hunter (… who would return when the lands needed him …). • Only one other stranger ahead of us • Women wore little jewellery but the men wore torcs of copper and gold for the headman.

Note – Rosemary (player for Amelia) was sick the last couple of weeks of this advernture and these notes were never finished. We all got home safely, some with minor leftover magic from our time in the fey lands.