Under The Dome

Setting

A domed city, efficiently run by a cabal of four generals. It is said that forty years ago, demons attacked, and the mages erected the dome. Now, nobody enters or leaves.

The city runs like clockwork. There is virtually no violent crime, guards are present but never raise a weapon, many buildings are uninhabited, everyone has a home and almost everyone is provided for (though there is one slum for the destitute). Magic is never on display, and there is an anti-teleport field throughout the city.

The mages continue to labor, unseen, to maintain the dome. Everyone, or nearly so, is happy that the generals are doing such a good job at protecting the populace from the horrors without.

Characters

• Arcadius, Dio's volatile mage
• Rebecca, Susan's knight-in-training
• Reven, Ryan's soldier
• Sharone, John's healer
• Father Dante, Eli's priest
• Lucky Jack, Brad's acrobat
• Jace, Alex's Inquisitor (!)

What Happened

Earlier

The campaign had an earlier phase in which the characters were years younger, teenagers built on 80 points. They started an 'adventuring club', and found their way into the catacombs. This was discovered by people who could use an off-the-radar exploration team.

More recently, Jack, Dante, Arcadius, and Rebecca have all learned that their respective mentors/patrons believed that The Fall of the great city didn't exactly happen as the one authoritative history book asserts. The four mentors may have different goals or hypotheses, but the purpose is common: let's find out what happened.

A recent venture into the catacombs revealed undead creatures that almost killed the party. Grappling fire-zombies were tough. Also, a mystery -- the catacombs were scorched, charred, and upon entry, the old embers lit up. What could have created such a fire, so many years ago, that it yet burns today?

Also, a note, "It is time," though its author and intention are unclear. Discovering those may help unravel the mystery of what really happened 40 years ago.

Upon exiting the catacombs, the party was spotted, and there is concern they are all wanted, or suspected of trespass, or worse.

Investigation, Stumbling

Reven, a soldier and childhood friend of Sharone, shows up at her house to express his concern about rumors she's involved with some ne'er-do-wells and criminals. No no, she assures him, we are good and just and trying to reveal some important truths. She invites him to meet the rest of the party, and he confides that being a soldier without a war to fight is dreadfully boring, so he may as well try to help out.

Drinks are shared, and Jack has a history with Reven too, so the deal is sealed and a friend is made.

The party spends much time in the library, researching history and alchemy, and the Master Librarian surreptitiously slips young Sharone an alternative history called the Dark Days. Dante later 'borrows' the book so Sharone can read it.

The Elven Alchemist

Another lead brings Dante to visit with a beautiful elven alchemist. She offers to provide information if only the party can secure for her a rare mountain flower. Knowing that Sharone is a gardener, Dante agrees, and the party convenes to learn of this flower.

Sharone reports that it is a rare thing, growing near bird nests in the tops the trees high in the mountains. In other words, no longer accessible.

But Jack says his friends the Mistwalkers have a way to get outside the city, and after checking with them, the plan unfolds, and heads into the catacombs to the Mistwalkers' underground camp. The Jumpmaster prepares the magical gate, explains that they have exactly one hour, and in a flash of magical light, the party is transported to a mountain side in the sunshine. After some hiking and flying and harvesting and running about, the mission is a success, and the local monsters are evaded, at a cost only of discarded rations and camping gear.

Sharone plants two of the rare flowers in her garden while Dante rushes back to the elf. She accepts the barter and informs him that a great goblin alchemist assisted the military in the defense of the city during the assault. In fact, he may have been responsible for the fire. And he kept a journal, that has never turned up. And he disappeared after the war. And his great grandson is Micah, a fence and trader with whom the party has conducted business.

The party discusses what to do next in a tavern. Arcadius gets drunk. Jack and Sharone marvel at the experience of flying around on a outside the city, in the glorious sunshine. And someone hears them, and bolts for the door.

The party follows, but he gets away.

Dante and Arcadius eventually go visit with Micah and try to convince him to give them the journal by claiming they are rewriting history and wanting to laud Micah's family as heroes. Their appeals to his vanity and pride are not successful. He deals in gold.

Back to the library where, while Dante and Arcadius research alchemy and alchemical history, Sharone uses her pert feminine charms to persuade the Master Librarian to have a private conversation with her. He leads her to his bedchamber in the back of the library.

Sharone expresses her anxiety and need for a mentor. She tells of the recent adventure on the mountainside, and wonders whether leaving the city is so forbidden that she should be fearful. At first he cannot believe the amazing tale, but then confirms that yes, she has committed a grave crime, and his responsibility is to deliver word of it to the authorities. She begs him not to, and points out that he provided her with the forbidden book, attempting to get some leverage. He clarifies that the book is not on the 'blacklist', it is simply unknown. And, he cannot confirm anything about a goblin alchemist or his journal.

Sharone thanks him for his kindness and makes her exit, to his licentious chagrin.

The party reconvenes, and an elven Mistwalker is revealed to be following/spying on the party. Jack knows her and invites her in. She ridicules the group for its collective blunders, and asks who the hell is leading this trainwreck?

Sharone smiles pleasantly and reports that we're all friends here,and operate by consensus, provoking hearty laughter from those with military training. Reven, Dante, and Rebecca nod to each other knowingly, and Rebecca assumes the role.

Her first directive: Father Dante is to send one of his sneaky acolytes to track the movements and activities of the Master Librarian, in case he intends to create trouble.

Then, the party relocates to the secret clubhouse to get some rest.

Progress, Blood

Later that evening, the party is discussing next steps when Veer, Dante's elvish minion, appears ominously and chimes in with a report that the Master Librarian has paid a visit to The Magus. Because Sharone divulged so much to the former, the party decides an immediate visit to the latter is warranted -- but leaving Sharone and Reven behind.

The visit doesn't end well, as Lucky Jack loses his temper and wantonly insults the revered wizard in his home. The Magus strikes fear into the visitors' hearts with a stern glance and proceeds to chastise them for their ignorance, stupidity, insolence, arrogance, and ineffectiveness. He tosses a pouch containing sixty pieces of silver on a table and invites the group to take it, disband, and never speak of the matter again. You're fired.

Rebecca drags the ornery Jack out onto the street. However, Arcadius secretly wonders whether the apparent termination was a veiled invitation to continue the investigation, somehow. That perhaps the party was getting closer to sensitive truths, heretofore hidden.

The next day, both Reven and Sharone observe their dwellings being staked out by armed guards, and both avoid the confrontation.

The Inquisitor

Dante and Arcadius however, upon being approached by armed interrogators, proceed willingly to a government office, where they meet the Inquisitor.

Their respective meetings seem friendly, if a bit ominous, and each is given a special gift.

The party proceeds with providing business assistance to Micah, the goblin merchant, as barter for his grandfather's journal. Fastidious Sharone worries about the open-endedness of the arrangement, but nevertheless the party retrieves a stolen statuette from a thieves' hoard in the scummiest slums, and researches Micah's alleged shipping problems for much of the next day.

Reunited back at the clubhouse that night, the party decides again to visit the Magus. The hurry forth, arriving at his open door thirty minutes later. Arcadius dashes in, and slips in the vast puddle of blood in the entry chamber. As the others move in to investigate, Sharone turns and surveys the dark streets for a moment, and catches a glimpse of a hooded figure on the roof across the street, but the figure deftly retreats out of view.

A Lurch Forward

As Arcadius, Jack, Dante, and Rebecca rush into the crime scene, Jack scales the wall in pursuit of the shadowy figure while Sharone slips into the night. The figure is gone, but Jack remains on the roof and provides lookout.

Within the tower, the other party members are surprised to encounter a novice Inquisitor named Jace, who explains that he was in the neighborhood on another investigation, saw flashing lights and heard a commotion, and arrived minutes ago to find two bodies -- one of which is now gone. The other, of course, is the body of the Magus.

Arcadius and Jace proceed to conduct investigations, magical and forensic respectively. Guards arrive, but Jace shoos them away. One sergeant mutters something about having the instructions deviating from the rehearsal.

Jack hurls pebbles through the open window to warn the group that the grand Inquisitor seems to be approaching with a larger contingent of force, but the debate rages on whether and how to flee the scene. Jace declares that the party is to be his personal assistants in his investigation, which he mysteriously wants to conceal from his overlords.

Arcadius and Dante decide they want to remove the Magus' body and bring it to Dante's church, which Jace approves, and soon the group is on the way, just in time, and to the great concern of the waiting guards.

Jack witnesses the Grand Inquisitor apparently levitating one of the guards by the neck before scurrying away in the darkness to collect Sharone, who has stashed her staff and dressed down in street clothes.

Back at the church, the full party trades interrogations back and forth with Jace, who points out that if he was conducting an undercover entrapment on the party, just about the worst cover imaginable would be a criminal investigator. He also mentions that the reason he wanted to make away with the party was that he suspected that this would be the only way to truly solve the crime, because he suspects that his masters would simply sweep the matter under the proverbial rug.

While the group gradually comes to realize that Jace was in the middle of forsaking his vows of loyalty to the Inquisitors in order to solve the same mystery they're working on, Sharone fetches incognito clothing for all.

Eventually, Arcadius again announces that his spells have identified two locations:

• the blood on the floor belonged to a man currently undergoing painful medical treatments inside the palace
• the knife, now slipped out of the Magus' chest, belongs to someone in the merchant district

Sharone naively suggests that the party report the assailants' locations to the authorities. Arcadius replies that it might actually be a good idea, because these assailants successfully murdered a powerful arch mage and are not to be trifled with.

Eventually the party decides to at least figure out who the knife-owner is, and then decide how to deal with him or her.

The next morning, the group splits into tactical teams and heads into the merchant district. The location is quickly identified, and the confused and terrified woodworker who created the weapon's hilt claims to remember nothing about the person who commissioned the work. Suspecting some sort of magical interference, the party lets the man off the hook and reconvenes to discuss options.

Pursue Micah's commerce lead -- pay off his debt, promise to keep things rolling.

Micah sends the book. It's in goblin, need translator. Debate.

To the library, librarian translates last chapter -- evidence of malevolence in south tower!

Jace and Arcadius enter tower, but no good evidence found.

What next?