The Rainbow Chronicles: Mephistos and Laurence the Yellowlander

... as Dougal and Yolo enter our story the rest of the party had made it's way to a secret entrance at the back of Zhur Botu, an old dwarven mine.  We are tasked to route a camp of bandits under the leadership of Laurence the Yellowlander, and their camp happened to be around the front entrance. Zhur Botu had been abandoned after unearthing some strange horror in the depths (gasp!). What this horror was we did not know - but how bad could it be? So, instead of facing the bandits head on, the group had decided to look into entering the mine by this side entrance. Maybe we could turn that strange horror against the bandits? Maybe we could surprise them by entering their camp from the dungeon?

The secret entrance lead through a small grotto to enter a the dungeon through a cave system. The mines were deserted except for some strange sort of mechanically enhanced zombie. The dwarven machinery was of course still fully functional. Through experimentation we learned that the dwarven technological innovation here was spurred by a bureaucracy that shuns short lived media such as paper for their documents for words written in stone and metal. Delving into the mine we found our way to the main control complex. An unhealthy looking elf had taken up residence in these quarters. Assuming that is pallor and odd mannerisms were simply a result of an extended time being locked underground thanks to the bandits without and zombies within the mine we started a friendly chat with Mephistos. He was indeed happy to hear that we were panning to make our way out the mine and was happy to join us, as long as we subjected to a test: we must agree to be checked against corruption by the unholy machine god. We all passed his scrutiny except Grungar, the blood-thirsty fighter played by Konrad. He offered help to "purify" Grungar via a simple operation. Grungar volunteered, not wanting to be tainted by any strange machine evil. So he had his leg removed, and replace by ones that looked an awful lot like some steam-powered driven machine contraption. On the plus side the new leg doesn't get tired, so Grungar calls it a win. Yolo started suspecting that maybe not all was light and right with Mephistos.

We had also learned that the strange machine zombies emerged from a luminescent vortex deep in the mine. To aid our departure we played with the lighting system of the mine to guide the zombies to the main entrance. With minimal problems play one enemy against the other. Then the group together with Mephistos depart the mine. Yolo, feeling all is wrong here leaves the party and darts ahead to warn the bandits. Sneaking, or just running past zombie hordes Yolo makes it to the bandits a short time before the rest of the group. Met at first with skepticism he manages to convince the bandit leader, Laurence the Yellowlander (the Yellowlands are not Arabia, but rather more a spaghetti-western landscape, why not add spaghetti Arabia?). Laurence marshaled his forces just in time to meet Mephistos and the group. At this point it becomes clear that Mephistos is either a mage sufficiently powerful to turn into a dragon, or a dragon who had adopted a strange human. Judging by the time he must have spent in the mines, I choose to believe he is not human. Also he had pointed ears, silver hair, silver chainmail and silvery skin. Coincidence, I think not? At least there seems to be a metallic theme.


With this powerful "ally" we crushed the bandits. Yolo did manage to save and tame a mammoth that was kept by one of the bandits in the camp. With an awesome new mount we headed back to the Pueblo di Mesas. For your reference here is a map of the Yellowlands, all credit for the awesome map goes to Luka. We dropped off the few captured bandits to collect our bounty, though facing the uneasy truth that Laurence was a Robin Hood to the Yellowlands. Certainly an outlaw, but regarded widely as a freedom fighter. The same was true for many of his companions: there seemed plenty of evidence for their crimes of the past, but there were also many good things they did for the people. After some deliberating Sir Boring, our paladin of the Green god won through arguing that we had signed a binding contract to deliver Laurence and that we needed the money. Mostly so he could "invest" it for the party. Still not sure exactly what nebulous paper machination he employs to safeguard our monies. We did have an encounter with some Chimera's while our bandits had escaped (my memory is a bit spotty here). We defeated the mother chimera, and while having to put down one of her children, Yolo managed to tame the other. We were well on the way to make a better traveling zoo and freak show, rather than an adventuring group.

From previous adventures the party was in posession of a strange six-fingered hand. Contained in a jar, it was pointing the way towards the Oasis of Laurence ... where we would probably have to kep quite about our relationship to Laurence the Yellowlander. So after a respite at the Pueblo di Mesas we set off for the Oasis of Laurence, to see where the six fingered hand would lead us ...