# Consequences of the Quill (Restored 5/13/06)



## LordVyreth (Mar 20, 2004)

Prologue:

Today's Cast of Characters: 

Petrach Garrioth: A cleric of Nerull, the god of death, and a mid-ranking officer of the Malmoris empire.  He is known for being bright, ambitious, and greed, and brutal to those who oppose him.  He tends to travel with undead servants wherever he goes.

Torell Steelsmith: A typical noble warrior, and a celebrated adventurer.  He's a general believer in the classic adventurer attitude, which of course involves quite a bit of killing things and taking their stuff, but he has a good heart and always does it for the right reasons.  He's not especially bright.

Gurdal Stael: Gurdal is a half-elven archer, who has mastered the art of firing arrows that trigger arcane energy.  He is generally an amoral mercenary, but is currently adventuring to find a way to win the heart of his long-time friend, the half-drow Marian Styx.

Lyle Quickleaf: A wild halfling rogue.  He is a master of stealth, and has learned how to hide in shadows so well that he is in the process of mastering their secrets, letting him hide in them even when being directly watched, and create illusions and servants out of them.  He is chaotic and tends to perform acts of criminal activity just for the thrill and challenge of it.

Ka’drylog: A half-orc barbarian, who had the unfortunate luck of being captured and enslaved by a great wyrm red dragon.  He now adventures at his master, Fierypyre's, behalf.  However, he is eager to find a way to turn the tables and be the master himself.

The first adventure where are unlikely band of adventurers have gathered together for the first time.  Well, except for Ka’drylog, who hasn't yet arrived.  The five of them, as well as many other noted heroes and villains, have traveled to the legendary site of the most powerful of all artifacts, the Quill of Destiny.  Legends say that this device of incredible power will be able to literally let its owner rewrite the future as they desire!  However, they have also been told that some sort of mystical orbs are needed to actually use the Quill, and none of them have yet to find these orbs.  All of them collectively hope that the orbs can be found in the dungeon leading to the Quill itself.  

The four early arrivals look each other over, pondering how to best proceed from here.  One of them, Petrach, even suggested they form an alliance to get though the dungeon as safely as possible, but it soon becomes clear that many of their desires for the future of the world aren't necessarily in agreement, and no alliance forms.  As they looked around the entrance chamber, they saw two paths.  One had an illusionary battle axe floating in front of it, and the second had an illusionary image of a head.  Interestingly, each character saw the head as being from its own race!  There also is a plaque between the paths, which read: 

  "Welcome, you legends; you creatures blessed of courage and skill.  Know that simply standing here means you are judged worthy to strive for the Quill.  Now, we shall see if you are worthy to use it.  Complete the tests of this sacred place, and you shall be rewarded for your aptitude.  Be warned, however.  This is a place of honor, and while your actions here will not be resisted or undermined in any way, they will be remembered if you are destined to use the Quill.  Your statements can not be changed once written, but their interpretations shall be given the same respect that you have given to this place."

The characters pondered this and the few clues that they managed to piece together up to this point, and realized the left path (which had the battle axe,) was to be a test of power, and the other path judged the speed and cunning of the travelers.  Torell chose the path of power, and the other three initially investigated the path of speed.  The latter path led to a large cavern, which glowed red from the heat of a pool of magma that covered the center of the room.  Dark statues, carved in the likenesses of demons and other monsters, loomed above the three adventurers that chose this path.  Interestingly, the room looked like a normal cave chamber as they approached it, and changed into its current form only as the three of them set foot in it.  Believing that this change suggested that the entire pool is illusionary, Petrach sent one of his zombies into the lava, only to watch it dissolve in the heat.  Realizing this is a real threat, he decided to investigate the second path, and retraced his steps to the path of the power.  Lyle and Gurdal, however, had more than sufficient agility to bypass the pool, and simply use their skill at climbing and balance to cross the room on the wall or on a narrow, unstable beam that rested over the pool.  Both crossed the room in a matter of about twenty seconds, and reach received a few orbs for their trouble.  As they earned their reward, the room returned to normal; a featureless dungeon cave once more.  They advanced down the path beyond this cave to the next challenge.

Meanwhile, Torell and later Petrach were pondering the first potential challenge on their side; a tiny side-chamber which transformed into a bright, carnival-like challenge as they entered it.  Signs saying things like "Whack a kobold," and "Test your strength!" lined the walls, and as a kobold appeared seemingly out of nowhere in front of them, they realized what they had to do.  Petrach tried it first, easily slaying the kobold with his crossbow.  However, it was a small wound, barely enough to finish the pitiful being, and Petrach only received one orb for the effort.  Realizing how this worked, Torell used all his might, and was rewarded with a bounty of orbs.  Their first challenge complete, both moved on to their second challenge.

Both groups soon found that the paths split again.  The left side later branched to the path of Endurance and the path of Death, while the right side also converged to the path of Death, but also contained the path of Memory.  Though the clues the adventurers found up to this point suggested that path of Death was the most dangerous test in the dungeon, and the most likely to be fatal, it also promised some of the best rewards, and all of them but Gurdal chose to investigate it.  The three adventurers converged on the room from both sides at once, seeing that the room was filled with a pyramid of sand.  A dark, shrouded figure apparently stood at the top of the pile, and in a raspy voice, it spoke to the party.  "Fools!" it began, "Those who draw near me are already doomed, for I am the incarnation of Death!"  Unafraid, the trio advanced, only for the pile of sand to explode around them, revealing the true source of their demise: a blue dragon!

To be continued....

OOC Notes:  This is the first time I've done one of these Story Hours, so I appreciate any criticism and feedback you can give me.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 21, 2004)

*Prologue: The Test of Death*

When we last left our heroes, three of them were about to be attacked by a blue dragon of impressive power and stature.  What happened next was a clear lesson on what happens to a non-unified party.  Torell, being a traditional hero of the martial persuasion, entered into direct combat with his massive adversary as soon as he possibly could.  Petrach, despite his evil nature, demonstrated again his tendency to prefer an organized attack by using his magic to aid Torell.  Lyle, however, had no such interest, and while his enemy and two competitors were distracted, he spied the dragon’s treasure horde still partially buried in the remains of the sand dune, and dashed in to raid it!  A few rounds of attacks later, and Torell was no more, another victim to the endless might a dragon can focus on one target.  Lyle and Petrach realized that the dragon would focus on them next, and fled down a side chamber.  Since Lyle had only managed to obtain some of the dragon’s many orbs at this point, they decided to make one more attempt at the room.  Petrach summoned a hellhound to aid him, and while it and the remaining zombie distracted the dragon, Lyle made one last attempt at the dragon’s treasure.  The dragon, of course, made short work of his lesser enemies, and Lyle and Petrach fled again, after having only one more chance to steal from the monster.  Petrach launched one last spell, a plague of insects, on the creature as he fled, but neither of them bothered to stick around long enough to see if it had any effect on the dragon.  They soon caught up to Gurdal, who had reached the next test, the path of Memory.  The three of them pondered this strange test, where the three of them had to look at a map of a maze for a few seconds, and then send strange lizard constructs into a hole and through the maze.  Lacking any way to see the maze, they had to use simple guessing and what little they remember from the maps to remotely guide their tiny charges.  Each of them had a few tries, and earned some orbs after their last try based on their best performance.  As they left the room, the decorum, which was metallic and resembled a typical futuristic chamber, once again changed into a normal cave.  They moved on to the path of Accuracy, the next challenge of this path.  

Meanwhile, Ka’drylog finally managed to reach the dungeon.  Well aware that he was behind all those that he saw enter the cave much earlier, he pondered the initial choice for but a moment before choosing the path of Power.  There, his incredible muscles easily dispatched the kobold, earning him a bounty of orbs.  He continued up the path, saw the split, and hearing the angry roars of the dragon, elected to try the other route, the path of Endurance.  Back with the remaining three members of the original group, they had reached the path of Accuracy, which was another side cavern.  When they entered it, the area transformed into an outdoors setting, and was essentially little more than a large box canyon.  The test itself was basically a shooting range, which Gurdal not surprisingly easily did the best in, though Lyle ended the challenge with an excellent shot on the last target, which was both the hardest to hit and the most valuable.  With the challenge over, they proceeded to the final test.

Ka’drylog, meanwhile, had reached the test of Endurance, but realizing how far behind he was, he skipped it entirely, to try and reach the ending before the others could reach it and write in the Book of Destiny using the Quill.  He did, however, participate in the test after that one: the test of Persistence.  This challenge was a matter of simple violence, as the challengers had to hack through parts of series of rotating walls, to claim an orb in the middle.  Touching an orb also teleports the character back outside the outermost row of walls, forcing him to hack back in to claim another orb.  Ka’drylog managed to get three orbs before the challenge ended, and then hurried to catch up to the rest of the party, who was already working on the final test.

OOC Notes:  As you probably already guessed, the same player that played Ka'drylog played Torell earlier in the game.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 21, 2004)

*The Final Test*

The Final Test had begun.  Above the party, a set of raised platforms formed a set of bridges, and slowly, a line of zombies began shuffling across them.  The three of them soon realized that the zombies were heading towards a number of targets, some of which correspond to the characters.  After a few moments of confusion, as they figure out whether they are supposed to get the zombies in their targets or keep them away and force them into the other’s targets, they realize they’re supposed to attract them, and rely on both a set of switches on ground level, which alters the directions the zombies walk in, and more direct methods, like simply fire storming zombies heading to their rivals’ targets.  Soon, the battle destroyed the fragile alliance they had established, and Lyle and Gurdal in particular decided that it was time to remove the competition.  Lyle moved in for a sneak attack, but was soon disabled by Gurdal’s magic.  Gurdal then finished Lyle, using his many magical and elementally enhanced arrows.  Meanwhile, Petrach interfered a little with the fight using his magic, but he focused more on earning more zombies. 

As this was going on, Ka’drylog entered the room, but decided to avoid the fight entirely and just dashed up the ramped path at the end of the room, and to the finish.  Once he arrived there, alarms were set of, warning all involved that now that the first adventurer reached the finish, the others had a very limited time to get there themselves.  Recognizing this fact, Petrach ran up the path as well, followed by Gurdal.  Soon, all three reached the end.  They prepared to pass though the last doorway, but as they neared it, the walls around them simply vanished, and they were alone on small circle of rock, with nothing beyond it.  Surrounding the characters are thousands of stone statues, each of which is carved into the shape of a god.  All known gods are present here, and countless unknown ones as well.  There is a message carved in the door “You have done well in this game.  But the game is now over; the judging begins here.  No more games or competition will be tolerated here.”  Despite this warning, Petrach prepared to launch one last attack on his rivals, only to see the statue of Nerull staring at him.  Realizing his mistake, he ended his plan for aggression.  Each one was called from this area, in the order from the one with the most orbs to the one with the least, to write in the Book with the Quill, and each had the chance to use the Quill for ten seconds for every orb they collected.

Gurdal went first.  He wished for Marian Styx to be made into the elven form she always dreamed herself to be, and that both live the lives they dreamed.  They wanted to live in a far-off, enchanted place away from the stresses and strife on this society, ruling a kingdom of their own that passes to the end of time under their offspring.    Petrach was next, and his desires were far less pleasant.  He wanted to be a leader of a great undead army, which is completely loyal to him.  It would help him conquer this region.  He wanted to be divorced from all commitments except the one to his God, and to be most powerful cleric of his god.  Finally, Ka’drylog got to go.  He had little time, having only a handful of orbs.  However, he made his count.  Fierypyre, his draconic master, would now serve him.  Orcs in all lands shall rise into power, and light of the day shall be quartered.  After this, the three of them found themselves out in the open sky again, the dungeon and the very mountain the dungeon was in having vanished.  And while nothing appeared to happen at first, as the months and even years went on, things started to change….

OOC Notes: Thus ends the prologue.  After this, the official game begins.  It was a fun week after this game; I had to write the first adventure, and create the entire campaign setting more or less from scratch!  I ended up using an old Heroquest board to help with the final test; I especially found the many zombie miniatures handy.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 23, 2004)

BTW, with any luck, I'll be able to make the next entry tonight.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 24, 2004)

*The Beginning*

The new cast of characters:

Quercus: The product of a celestial and an elven union, Quercus was sadly abandoned by his family when his mother died during childbirth.  To further complicate matters, his mother was married to another man at the time, and the father blamed him for his wife’s death and abandoned him, while the celestial simply left, never to be seen again.  He was formally raised in the clergy since that point, and has been re-united with his half-brother Tsine. 

Tsine: Tsine is the only legitimate son of a noble elven family.  He was always interested in archery and other martial pursuits, but was forced into wizardry by his father when his mother died (see Quercus, above,) in the hopes that one member of the family who will carry on the family tradition.  He used to despise his half-brother, due to the rantings of his bitter father, but has since learned forgiveness and seeking a way to end the loneliness of the arcane life, bonded with him.  He works both as an archer and as a wizard now.

Tal Moinen: Tal is a half-elven member of another noble house.  This one is ancient, and claims to have been descended partially from dragons, specifically the amethyst gem variety, which apparently helped the royal family save their kingdom as it was being established.  The dragonic aspect of their bloodline has long since been diluted, but while Tal officially earns his livelihood as a musician and storyteller, his dragonic blood calls to him, giving him both magical power and the desire to become more dragonic.

Flix: Flix is a fairly typical halfling rogue.  He is known for his professional attitude in most things, but is a bit of a womanizer when in peaceful situations.  His life is otherwise a mystery.

Some time between 1000 and 1500 years later…

Quercus, Tsine, and Tal are resting one night, separately for now.  Each, however, has the same dream.  They find themselves adrift in space, while a mysterious female figure looms in front of them.  However, a bright light shines behind her, making it impossible for any details to be seen on her.  She calls herself Lady Memory, and claims that they are all truly her children.  However, she then says that those who loved her most have betrayed her, and that she is giving them the task of restoring her name, and destroying the usurpers.  The characters then all wake.

Now switching back to past tense…

Each woke up separately.  Quercus was staying in a room at a temple, Tsine was waking up in his nobleman father’s home, and Tal was staying at an inn, having just returned to town.  However, all of them felt very disoriented, like they were just waking up from a dream that was all too real, and suddenly realized that while they remembered the basic histories of their lives, they couldn’t remember any of the details!  They knew, for example, their number of siblings, but not the names of their siblings, or their names, or even the name of the city they were in.  As they struggled to figure out what was going on, they all ended up outside, and discovered that the city they were in was inside a hollowed out mountain.  The place was still lit like an ordinary day, presumably because of the three giant lenses affixed to the ceiling.  About half of the city was on a giant pillar in the center of the mountain, which often widened to as it went farther down into the mountain.  Quercus was near the very top of the pillar, in what looked like a very prestigious part of town.  A level below that was Tsine’s level, which was apparently the noble district.  The next level below that was the largest, and contained what appeared to be an entire forest.  Far below that, below the surface level of the mountain, Tal was at his inn, and didn’t even realize the city was inside a mountain until he left the dark depths of the lower parts of the city.  

Soon, all three got their basic memories back.  They were in a city called Methosilang, the capital of the local empire, and all of them were supposed to meet at the main temple for some sort of ritual.  As they traveled through the city, they noticed all the typical humanoid races, but they also noticed that much of the cities elven population was drow, and no one even seemed to notice this fact or find it strange.  To the characters, however, something about this fact just felt wrong, like it was against the way things should be.  

Eventually, all three reached the temple at the top of the city, which was apparently called the Central Temple of the Sisters.  Quercus, of course, was the closest, since his temple, the Cathedral of the Sun, was on the same level, but all three of them got there with time.  The temple itself had a circular central room, which contained statues of the eleven Sisters, which were apparently the goddesses of this realm. Quercus realized with a start that Bha-Ael, the creator goddess, was the one that he himself worshipped.  All of them were a little suspicious that the goddesses’ statues were arranged like the numbers of a clock, but that the ninth one was suspiciously empty.  Tal asked a cleric about it, and learned that there was a mistake structurally when the temple was built, forcing them to stagger the positions of the statues.  After mingling for a while, acolytes of the church arranged the people in the Temple (and there were at least hundreds of them,) into small groups of three or four people.  Tal, Quercus, and Tsine ended up together, along with Flix, a halfling trained in the arts of stealth.  Soon, an elven man and drow woman took places at a stage on the far end of the temple, and the party recognized them instantly as Berin Stael and Malthos Stael, the King and Queen of the kingdom.  They explain how pleased they are to be presiding over another Day of Initiation, when those who have trained for all their lives underground are finally ready for their first missions on the surface.  The characters heard a nervous tittering among the crowd, and despite their confusion, felt excitement at this prospect as well.  As the two continued their speech, they suddenly stopped and looked up as a massive series of bells sounded across the city.  Soon, everyone around them was reciting a prayer in thanks to the Eleven, as the lenses went out and were dragged away by a system of pulleys, while the top of the mountain itself opening up, letting true daylight into the city.

OOC Notes:  A lot of confusing parts right now, I know, but it will get clarified in the next few updates.  Don’t forget that the players were just as confused as you are at this point.  And yes, I did let a half-celestial with one level of cleric enter a 3rd level party, giving it only a total ECL of 3.  This was years ago, remember, before anyone knew what Savage Species or Level Adjustment was, and ECL was still a vague concept.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 25, 2004)

*Exposition HO!*

After the daylight flooded the city, the ceremony at the temple continued.  The other groups were led out by the temple’s acolytes, and given their missions.  When it was time for the party, however, the high priestess, Shanna, shook her head and sighed with resignation, and passed on their assignment until everyone else was done.  At this point, she summoned Quercus to her chambers in private.  Once there, Shanna explained a few things to Quercus.  She began, “Now, Quercus, as you already know, today is an important day for you.  To start with, though I know you have given your attention to all eleven of the sisters, today is the day that you must confirm your faith and dedicate yourself entirely to the one that you truly believes is your guardian and ruler of your heart.”  Quercus, although he had many questions he wanted answers to, at least had a quick response to this issue.  He gladly selected Bha-Ael.  Shanna then continued, “Now, there is something I must explain to you.  The time has come to reveal a secret to you that has only been revealed to the clergy who have reached a certain level of ability.  We openly claim that there are only eleven gods, the Sisters, but there is one more.  That god is Nerull, the lord of death, and he is the one responsible for the dark tidings that drove us underground.  He is not a true god like the Sisters, and has not been in existence since the beginning of all things, but he rose to power in the dark ages, and remains even now a threat to us, through the power of the armies of the Puppet.”

Quercus was instinctively troubled by this, but his first concern was still the partial amnesia that affected him and some of his comrades.  He pondered this for a moment, and decided to bring it up to Shanna.  He began, “Shanna, before we discuss this or the mission, there is something I should warn you about.  When I woke up this morning, I couldn’t even remember the name of this temple, your name, or even my own family’s name!  I forgot all the details of my life, and even though they’re coming back to me slowly, I can remember anything about this city, including why exactly we live underground.  I spoke with my companions, and all but one of them are experiencing the same thing.”

Shanna was deeply troubled by this, and while she offered to provide any magical healing she can, if that doesn’t help, she was willing to at least explain some of this kingdom’s history, to prepare him for the mission ahead.  “Over a thousand years ago,” she began, after calling the other characters (except Flix,) into the room, “The people worshipped false gods, and forgot the Eleven Sisters, the true creators of all.  They became cruel and immoral, and in their foolishness they created an evil god, Nerull, who sent two demonic beings to terrorize the people.  They were called the Puppet, who rules a massive army of undead servants, and the Head that Rules the Claw, who commands dragons, and has united the evil humanoids to his banner.  The two of them worked together to turn the realm into a wasteland, and were even planning on using moons tainted with dark magic to blot out the sun!  However, the goddesses saw their children and took pity on them.  They returned, and with their aid, the normally evil dark elves formed an alliance with the surface races, which fled under the ground to avoid the armies ravaging the world above.  United, they were able to destroy one moon before it could be launched, buying us a precious three hours of daylight every day, which we have learned to store and then project in magic lenses, lighting some of our cities for even longer.  Large cities like Methosilang can maintain normal day and night cycles as a result.  Also, the goddesses protect the identities and locations of our cities, so enemies of the kingdom cannot use divinations, magical charms, or other magic means to locate our cities, or teleport into our cities.”  Her story finished, the characters pondered this strange reality they live in.

OOC Notes:  While my players were kicking themselves as they realized who the Puppet and Head that Rules the Claw are, and why they only have three hours of sunlight a day.  There are times when it’s good to be the DM.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 26, 2004)

*Mission: Incredulous*

As the players pondered all of this, Shanna continued.  “However, we have little time for this right now, as you still have to finish your rite of initiation.  Unfortunately, you were selected to undergo the most difficult task we currently have available.  Perhaps the Sisters have a special purpose for you, which explains both receiving this mission and your amnesia?  The mission concerns Lerissa Turivain, a noblewoman and a longtime friend of the crown.  She is also known as an expert on the wilderness of the surface, and obtaining plants and animals with unusual and useful properties.  However, she left recently on a routine surveying mission, and has yet to return.  You mission is to follow her trail, and try to find out what happened to her.  If she is still alive, you have to do all you can to rescue her.  If not, you must either retrieve her body for burial at the Necropolis, or have her burned, so she isn’t forced to suffer the curse of undeath.  You have until the beginning of Second Light to get ready and meet at one of our exit points out of the city.”

The party left, to gather supplies, explore the city some more, and figure out what the heck Second Light is anyway (Flix later explained it was when the sun passed behind the second moon, prompting the lenses to come out for the second time in the day.)  They had little time to fully visit the city, and presumably regain memories on the way, so they just explored the Temple some more, spent time introducing each other, and then made their way to their exit point.  It looked like there was nothing there, at first, but a few agents of the crown soon stealthily made their way to them.  After confirming their identities, the agents revealed a secret passageway, and explained how to leave the city from there.  It took a few minutes of wandering through a labyrinth of tunnels, but eventually, the party made it to the surface.  For the first time in their lives, as even the forgetful members of the party realize, they are feeling the sun directly, and not through lenses or the magical filters of the mountain.  But they also see the two black moons, hanging ominously over the countryside.

The party began their journey, using the limited directions Shanna provided them with.  The first day was largely uneventful, but slow.  Since they left at second light, the sun was already passing into the range of the second moon, creating a sunset at the functional equivalent of two in the afternoon.  This stopped their journey fairly quickly for the first day.  Early on the second day, the party discovered the remains of a camp.  It was clear a fight broke out here; there were many dark stains on the ground, a disturbing pile of ashes near the edge of camp, and two strange sharpened stakes with painted lines on them, with a third non-sharpened one next to shoe.  They were familiar to the party, but couldn’t figure out what they meant until Flix spoke up.  “Well, we know that there were two sentient beings killed here,” he indicated the two sharpened stakes, which had red bands on them, “and six animals.  Probably Lerissa’s horses.”  He indicated the blunt stake, which had six gray bands on it.  Seeing the party’s confusion, he sighed and tried to explain.  “We have this system, where those slain are burned, and markers are used to indicate exactly what died.  It’s largely an assurance that those killed were taken care of, and not turned into members of the undead horde.  We even agree to share this practice with the orc empire.  They might be tentative allies to the undead, but even they hate the idea of becoming trapped between life and death, and forced to serve the Puppet as a slave.  And the undead, despite that alliance, have been known to casually ‘forget’ it from time to time, when it suits their needs and they need a few quick recruits.”  

The path branched here, going both southeast and northwest.  The eastern path was the one that the map suggested Lerissa was going to take, but if her camp was actually attacked here, it was possible that her captors took her nest instead.  However, the party lacked any way to determine which way she went, and continued eastward.  They only traveled a few hours before the northern sky was lit up with fire, suggested a battle in that direction, and one involving great magic.  They decide this was worth investigating, and reversed their course to try the second path.  However, it was getting late again, so they made camp.  However, this night, their rest wasn’t as peaceful.  Around midnight, as Quercus was on watch, he noticed three figures sneaking into camp.  He barely was able to sound an alarm when the three beings were upon him.  As he looked at them in horror, he realized they were not living creatures, but the walking dead, and clearly smarter and fasters ones than mere zombies.  Before he could even draw a weapon, they slashed at him with their claws, and he collapsed in a bloody heap.

Fortunately, his friends woke up with a start.  Seeing their friend bleeding on the ground, with three abominations in above them, they reacted instantly.  Tsine was there first, his blade at the ready and an enraged yell at his mouth, knowing that he might lose his brother so soon after he became close again.  The ghouls surrounded him, but his elvish blood protected him from their paralyzing touch.  Flix joined the fray, while Tal, afraid that Quercus would not survive long enough for the others to defeat the ghouls and heal him, snuck over to Quercus’s body, retrieving a wand of healing that he had purchased before they left.  He touched it to Quercus, provoking attacks as a result, but Quercus managed to open his eyes, and rejoin the fray.  It was still a long, hard fight, and the monsters managed to drop Quercus and Tsine before it was done, but the heroes managed to finish their foes.  They used the wand to recover from the many injuries they all suffered, burned the corpses of their enemies, and Flix left a sharpened stake with three black marks, indicating to future travelers that three soldiers of the army of the undead have again found peace.

OOC Notes: There actually was a way for the party to select the right path, back at the fork.  Besides basic track checks (which were irrelevant in this party,) they could have found a secret note buried under one of the stakes, but no one made the check to see that there was something unusual about the stakes.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 27, 2004)

*Further Intrigue*

The party woke early the next day, eager to catch up to the scene of the battle they witnessed yesterday.  It doesn’t take very long.  Near the beginning of True light (so about 11 am, as the sun “rose” from the field of the first moon,) the party saw smoke rising off in the horizon, though this looked less like a violent fire, and more like a camp fire.  Flix offered to scout ahead of the group, and stealthily faded into the forest.  He soon came upon a small camp, where an ogre, two orcs, and a wolf were resting by a fire.  The orcs and ogre were loudly complaining to each other, in a fierce, warrior’s language Flix didn’t comprehend.  Flix also noticed a small pile of corpses near the fire.  There seemed to be mostly orc bodies, but there also was another elf, and even what appeared to be a red dragon the size of a pony!  Once he became aware of his enemies, he quickly retreated, and not a moment too soon, for the wolf’s ears perked up, as it caught Flix’s scent.
	Once back at the party, they quickly decided on a plan.  Quercus would ride in on his horse, while Flix and Tsine snuck back into the camp, and attacked from surprise.  Tal would bring up the rear, using his magic to help the party.  Again Flix approached the party, and again the wolf suddenly was aware of him.  Before he could warn the others, however, the party struck.  Flix expertly tumbled into the camp, and delivered a mortal blow to the ogre.  It roared out, enraged, and gained strength from his anger, but it wasn’t enough to survive the arrow that flew out at him from the woods, the orbs of energy Tal hurled at him, or Quercus’ deadly blow with his greatsword.  The other three enemies scrambled to defend themselves, but the fight was a short one.  Quercus cut one of the orcs, who was well armored compared to many of his kin, down, while Tal and Flix surrounded the wolf, and Flix drove his short sword through the wolf’s heart while it was focused on the larger, and presumably more dangerous foe.  The last orc was actually a shaman, trained in the art of primitive magic instead of combat, but his most useful spell sent enemies into a forced slumber, and was useless against most of the elven enemies that surrounded him.  He tried it anyway, and while Flix and Tal looked drowsy for a moment, both quickly recovered, and helped Quercus cut him down.
	The party surveyed the enemies.  The ogre and wolf were clearly dead, but while the two orcs were unconscious and bleeding heavily, they still lived for now.  Realizing they needed information about the fight that occurred here and what happened to Lerissa, they agreed to stabilize their wounds, disarm and bind them, and interrogate them.  At first, Tsine, the only one in the group who could speak orc, pretended to hide this fact, as he let his hatred of the foul race overcome his judgment, but reason soon won out, and he admitted he could translate for them.  It became a moot point, for when the soldier orc war recovered, he spoke to the party in perfect Common!
	“Oh, wonderful.  Like anything else could’ve gone wrong on this trip.  I suppose you’re looking for the dark elf?”
	Surprised, Tal took the lead in questioning.  “That’s right.  What have you done with her?”
	The orc shrugged as well as his bindings would allow, and glared at the party.  “Why should I help you?  I know your kind well.  You have no honor.  Once you get what you want from me, you’ll just kill me.”
	Everyone in the group, save Flix, was surprised to hear an orc talk of honor.  Tsine was about ready to put both of them to the sword and be done with it, but Tal held up a hand.  He was trained to change the minds of others, and he intended to make some use of this talent.  “Look, our only concern is the woman and her surviving escorts.  I give my word as a noble of Methosilang to release you and your companion alive if you help us.  Look at my companion,” he gestured at Quercus.  “He is not just a fervent believer in the faith of Bha-Ael the creator goddess, but he is kin to the higher powers of goodness themselves.  If he also swears to let you live, you have no reason to fear.  However, if you don’t help up,” and he now gestured to Tsine, “I’d be happy to turn you over to someone who will ensure that your death with be both certain and painful.”
	The orc sighed, and began his story.  “Very well, I see I have no choice.  Yes, we took the elf, and her entourage.”
	“Why?  She was doing nothing to warrant this fate.”
	“Why?  The same reason as always.  With luck, we could have forced her to reveal where one of your cities is.  Besides, she took something of great value to us, and we wanted it back.”
	This last part bothered Tal, who was told that she just was gathering supplies, but he continued, “And what did you do to her since?”
	“We….well, lost her.  We were ambushed by these zealots in yellow robes.  There were humans and elves, but they weren’t the worst of it.  They had three specialists in their force.  One was an emaciated humanoid, with a strange scorpion tail.  The other was also humanoid, but was covered with thorns and brambles, and had shifty eyes.  The last was this man with dark hair, but the hair had these strange yellow spots in it.  He looked normal at first, but turned into a strange, furry monster.”
	“And the dragon, was it part of the attacking force too?”
	The orc looked at Tal like was an idiot, and responded.  “No, don’t be stupid.  The dragon was our escort.  But the man killed him, single-handedly.  Fortunately, once it had the elf, her surviving bodyguards, and the treasure she stole from us, they left, leaving the survivors like myself alone.”
	“Where did they take Lerissa and the others?”
	The orc gestured with head towards a crude path in the woods to the west.  It looked fresh.  Realizing time was of the essence, the party quickly untied the orcs, and sent them on their way.  Before he left, though, the orc turned and looked at the party.  “This isn’t over.  You made an enemy of the Dry’Log orc clan, the rulers of Fierypyre.  We don’t forget our humiliations.”  Before the party can reconsider and chase after him, he fled down the path.

OOC Notes: The fight with the orcs was supposed to be much harder than the one against the ghouls, but I didn’t know the racial makeup of the group before I planned this fight.  The party’s attack from surprise also helped a lot.  The ogre had a level of barbarian, and the orc was a fighter, albeit a first level one.  But I make up for the relative ease of this fight in the next encounter.
	By the way, I’m interested in any responses people have so far.  This is my first Story Hour, so I appreciate questions, comments, criticism, or whatever you want to contribute.  I apologize that the fights aren’t as detailed as they are in, say, JollyDoc’s Shackled City, but keep in mind the events of this adventure occurred almost two years ago, real-time.  I remembered things as best I can.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 27, 2004)

*Quercus Jones and the Temple of Doom*

The party continued on this new path, hoping to catch up to the strange cultists before it is too late.  As they traveled, True Light ended, and Second Light began, throwing the region into perpetual near-twilight again.  But the party didn’t have the luxury of an early rest tonight, so they pressed onward.  Suddenly, a few hours into Second Light, they were surprised when a pair of glowing crossbow bolts emerged from the darkness in front of the path, flooding the area with light.  Four yellow-robed figures stepped forward, and wordlessly attacked.  The first two, which appeared to be one human and one elf from what the party can tell, raised long swords and charged the party, while the other two held back.  Quercus and Flix entered melee, while Tal and Tsine held back to attack with long ranged attacks.  Yet something about this fight felt wrong to the party, for while their adversaries were clearly less experienced warriors, the heroes were barely able to land a hand on them.  It was as if the shock of this strange new life, coupled with all the things they learned today, has finally caught up with them.  And in the rare instance where they could harm their enemy, one of the yellow robed figures would just heal them, while the other used arcane magic to keep them at bay.  Again, Quercus fell to the combined attack of the wizard’s magical orbs and the fighter’s blades, and Tal was almost killed when the yellow robed figure, finally out of magic, tried to stop his heart with a mere touch.  However, the party finally was able to put their improved training with weaponry and skill at dodging potentially lethal attacks to use, and outlasted their enemies when their spellcasters simply ran out of magic and joined the first two enemies in melee.  When all of them were killed, they were stripped of their belongs, which included the typical weapons, armor, and mundane items most neophyte warriors used, along with a strange pair of scimitars as large as a needle for each of the four cultists.  The party also took their robes, thinking they might be used as a disguise or a tool for further research on this cult.  They followed the footprints of this group farther down the path, and then noticed that it ended at a strange mound of earth.  At first, they thought their journey was essentially over here, since they didn’t see any other tracks leading to or from the mound.  However, their senses told them that there must be something here, and after taking an extensive amount of time searching the area, they found a secret door inside the mount itself.  They couldn’t, however, find a way in, so desperately, they simply tried knocking.  Fortunately, they had the foresight to put on the robes first (though Flix’s was clearly too long for him, and he hid behind the rest of the party an attempt to hide this fact,) for the path below was guarded.  One of the guards looked at the party.  “What happened?”

Thinking quickly, Tal responded, “We, um, ran into some problems.  A few people followed our trail, but we took care of them.”

One of the guards nodded, and looked to Flix.  “And what happened to him?” 

Flix was the one to speak up this time.  “Um, I got caught in a reduction spell.  It should wear off pretty soon.”

The guards, remarkably, bought it.  “Well, come in and hurry.  The high priestess is holding services in the audience chamber.  But before you go, you will of course have to make the sign of respect.”

The party silently panicked, before Tsine remembered the miniature scimitars and that the cultists all had a few strange scars on their forearms.  Desperately, he stabbed his own arms with the blades!  The guards looked on nonchalantly, and there were a few tense moments before one guard spoke up.  “Okay, but remember, the priestess is pretty strict about how this is supposed to be done.  You got to do it the right way or she’ll regard it as insubordination and well, you know what the punishment for that is.”  He pantomimed a sweeping motion on his own forearms, and the rest of the party gratefully followed suit, though it was painful and added to their already deep wounds.  The party proceeded down the stairs, and into the underground temple.  From there, they followed the sounds of noise to one doorway, and cautiously opened.

Inside, there were fifty or sixty cultists.  Most were wearing yellow robes, though some had red, black or gray robes.  All were looking upwards at a balcony, where a woman in a red-trimmed yellow robe was exhorting towards the crowd.  Behind her was a strange man with black, yellow-spotted hair, a shriveled-looking humanoid with a strange tail, a spiny, nervous humanoid, four more yellow-robed figures, and one orc, which was bound and currently lying on an altar.  The wounds and soft groans he was emitting indicated he was in great pain, but the party could only look on in horror.  The final thing on the ledge was a statue of a woman with dark hair and a deep blue gown.  The statue was also wielding two scimitars, and had a cruelly wicked grin.  The priest continued whatever sermon she began before the party arrived.

“We, the Devoted of the Great Bas The Despot, wish to offer you a sacrifice!”  At her words, the orc was strapped to a wall.  The priestess continued, “We offer this one to you today, and, forty-eight hours from now, we shall offer an even greater present.  One of your own betrayers has been given to us, and we shall offer her to you!”  At this point, the other priests started chanting prayers to Bas, though it looked like the red and black-robed cultists were less enthused than the others, and the gray-robed ones looked genuinely uncomfortable.  The priestess then spoke one more time, “All power to Bas, the least appreciated and greatest of the Twelve!”  With that, she and the four other robed figures drew scimitars, and simultaneously stabbed the orc, killing him!

OOC Notes: Thus ended the first real adventure of the new party.  The next one turned out to be far shorter than the last, but it had some good moments, and introduced a new player.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 29, 2004)

*Rescuing people from an evil cult made easy*

The party was horrified to watch a creature, even an orc, get slaughtered in front of their eyes, but since they’re outnumbered at least fifteen to one, they could do nothing for now.  Instead, they blended into the crowd, and hastily left the meeting room.  They also first noticed that Flix was no longer with them.  However, they had little time to worry about this, because as they first started exploring the temple, they were stopped by the Spotted-Haired Man!  At first, they thought that they where caught, but the man doesn’t seem to recognize them as imposters.  Instead, he ordered them to help him, and not wanting to cause a scene, Tal, Quercus and Tsine agreed.  He took them back to his room, and then made them carry his equipment out of the temple for him.  Once outside, he met with the spined creature, put his supplies on a griffon that was waiting for him outside, and prepared to leave.  The three heroes briefly considered launching a surprise attack on him, but noticed that they were still being watched by the guards at the door and thought better of it.  With a brief “thank you” and a suspiciously knowing not, he set off, and the heroes sighed with relief, hoping that these were at least two powerful foes they won’t have to deal with right now.
	Meanwhile, two more prisoners were waking up; the survivors of Lerissa’s bodyguards.  One of them, Rudyard, is trained with wilderness encounters and an expert on the weak points and fighting techniques of orcs, and the other, who goes by many names but is affectionately called Raz, is an expert warrior but focuses on the bow.  Raz has had a few other unusual properties, including a strange dream about a mysterious woman who called herself Lady Memory…
	As they ponder how to get out, they are suddenly discovered by an extremely short “cultist.”  When the coast was clear in the hallway, he broke in, and rescued the pair.  After a bit of wandering, he led the two to Quercus, Tal, and Tsine, who were themselves busy figuring out the layout of the temple and gathering information.  They learned where the armory is and where they hid Lerissa, and because of the raid earlier that day, the guards are currently understaffed until those wounded in the raid can recover.  They take advantage of this fact to find Lerissa’s prison, and then have Flix pick the lock and sneak in when the opportunity presented itself.  Lerissa took one look at her rescuer and uttered the inevitable line, “Aren’t you a little short to be a cultist?”
	In a matter of minutes, Lerissa was released from her chains, but she insisted they couldn’t leave until they retrieved the supplies she stole from the orcs that she believed could be used to totally shift the balance of the war.  They managed to reach the armory, where they not only gained Raz, Rudyard, and Lerissa’s equipment, but also various other impressive and magical items the cult was hording, and a strange barrel full of mysterious black powder.  Finally, they were ready to go.  However, when they reached the exit, the guards weren’t exactly eager to let them go, and after trying to bluff their way out (and failing,) the party finally put an end to the non-violent approach and attacked!  The first cultist dropped quickly, but the second was able to retreat into a small side-room and ring a warning gong.  Realizing that reinforcements would soon arrive, which possibly included the high priestess herself and that tailed monster, the party finished the other cultist off quickly and prepared to run, but not before Lerissa pour a small amount of the black powder into an empty sack, and then lit the barrel itself on fire.  The party ran out of their as quickly as possible, at Lerissa’s urging, and escaped the corridor mere moments before the barrel exploded, causing that entire corridor to collapse!
	But the mission wasn’t over just yet.  Lerissa began to lead the group to the nearest entrance to the underground tunnels that would eventually take them back to Methosilang, but before they could reach it, the scorpion-tailed monster appeared.  It looked wounded, possibly as a result of being too close to the blast, but it was still able to fight!  No sooner did it arrive than half the group ran in fear, and the non-magical weapons most of the party was carrying did almost nothing to it.  However, Rudyard used a sword he found in the armory that radiated magic, and with the help of Lerissa and Tal’s magic, the creature was destroyed, and the party could begin the journey home.
	OOC Notes:  This was the worst case of DM overkill I ever had.  I planned for this mission to last for two days, with the party members hiding out in the temple, working guard shifts while pretending to be the people they killed, and so on.  And they finished the whole thing in a matter of hours, game time and real time.  Eh well, c’est la vie, or however that’s spelled.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 30, 2004)

*So, what next?*

After defeating the strange creature, the party reclaimed their mounts, which they hid before first visiting the temple, and began the trek home.  It took a couple of days to return to Methosilang using the underground tunnels, and it wasn’t for Lerissa’s help, they would have been completely lost.  The path branched every few hundred feet for the entire trip, and it was becoming increasingly obvious to the party members exactly how Methosilang has stayed in existence this long.  Between the protection of the gods and this constant labyrinth of tunnels, no invading army would get very far before getting split into hundreds of smaller forces or herded into a dead end, while being attacked by guerilla forces constantly.
	As the party traveled, Lerissa explained about the powder.  Apparently, the orcs called it Spark Powder, and it is used primarily as fuel for a unique variety of orc weaponry.  These devices can propel an explosive blast at an incredible range, and is capable of puncturing even heavy armor with little difficulty.  Lerissa is a devout worshiper of Ordhari, the goddess of knowledge, and while their church has been trying to duplicate this weapon for centuries, the best that they can come up with is a slow, unreliable imitation, but if they can discover the secrets of this powder, they might be able to improve upon their designs by quite a bit.
	Apart from this, the party rode largely in silence.  All had their own concerns.  Quercus, Tal, Tsine and Raz were still trying to figure out the strange world they are in, and why it’s both so familiar and so alien to what they think is “right,” while Rudyard and Flix are trying to understand this Bas figure, and if she’s a real goddess or a fraud.  And if she is a real goddess, then why has the church never mentioned her?
	The party soon arrived home, where they received the gratitude of the church of Ordhari, the Temple of the Sisters, and Lerissa’s family.  In addition, with their test completed, the party had the freedom to pursue their own missions, provided it theoretically works in the best interests of the kingdom.  However, before they could make a decision about it, Quercus realized he had to speak to Shanna about what he saw at the temple.  When he finished his tale, she was very quiet, yet was clearly very angry about something.  She carefully responded, “Whatever this Bas is, it’s clearly a fraud.  There are only eleven sisters.  However, there were Bas cultists before in the past.  Centuries ago, these madmen and women endangered the kingdom, and in fact helped destroy the original city of Methosilang, forcing us to move to a new home.  But they worshipped a lie!  There never was a Bas; I don’t know what they really worship, but it can’t be one of the sisters.  Perhaps it is Nerull, or the false, faceless god of the orcs?”
	Hearing this, Quercus took his leave of the priestess, and gathered together with the rest of the company to discuss their next move.  He also came to a difficult decision.  Though it might compromise his position in the church if it became known, he revealed to all of them about the existence of Nerull, proving that there is at least one god beyond that of the eleven sisters.  Now that they’ve heard of a second potential new goddess, it was time to get some answers.  Flix suggested that they go to Delaspie, the last bastion of pure good left in this world.  Its capital apparently has a library which contains books and other relics of the time before the Two Plagues (the Puppet and the Head the Rules the Claw,) and while they worship the eleven sisters there as well, they’re not as certain about the theory that the sisters always existed, and just returned in this new age.  They have a theory that the goddesses inherited their powers from an old set of gods, which Nerull was a part of.  Finally, the party agreed to this mission, and eager to travel in the world above after a lifetime of living underground, and to prove themselves further as adventurers, they decided that instead of a long and boring trip underground, they would work adventuring missions above ground as they went.  With a decision made, they decided to rest in town for tonight, and look for a job in the morning.
	OOC Notes: Not much to say.  This was actually one of the more in-depth role-playing adventures we had, between the temple sneaking and the party-based decision to advance the plot in a specific direction.  It also helped quite a bit because the actual adventure ended earlier than expected, as I mentioned above.  And, for those wondering (assuming anyone actually reads this thing,) the reason Flix and Rudyard are out of the whole “Lady Memory” thing is because they don’t have players.  They were NPCs added to help fill gaps in the party, but the PCs control them in combat.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 31, 2004)

*Race For Life*

The party woke up early the next morning, but before they began their next journey (or even began to look for their next journey,) each spent the morning quietly pondering the events of the last week, and their hopes for the future.  Quercus wondered what his stepfather thought of him now that he was an accomplished hero of at least some regard, and considered asking Tsine if he heard anything.  At the same time, though, his thoughts drifted again to his real father, the celestial.  Who was he?  What type of celestial was he, and was he still a good being, or a fallen?  And if he was good, why did he abandon Quercus and the entire plane?  As he thought of these things, he had a premonition that he would soon find out.  Meanwhile, Tsine was also pondering his future, and his father, but his reaction was that of disdain.  He was tired of his father forcing him to take the arcane road.  He wanted to take the fight to his enemies, especially the orcs, who have so humiliated his people so over the millennia, and still mock their goddesses at every opportunity.  He was also disappointed partially with his teammates.  Why did they show mercy and honor to the orcs, who would never have done the same if the situation were reversed?  The orcs will never be stopped if they are constantly coddled.  Tal’s plans were less conflicted, but no less ambitious.  He was always the black sheep of the family, and his parents and other relatives always insisted that the Moinens were nobles, not entertainers or wilderness-trudging soldiers.  But he would show them.  With that, Tal got up, eager to practice his art at the local inns, to tell the tales he and his new friends have been on, and maybe earn an honest coin or two, and the eye of a charming lass.  Raz didn’t have any clarity at this point.  The loss of his memories affected him deeply, as did the captivity and the knowledge that just as he was getting his memories back, they were becoming a lie.  He wanted the truth about this world more than anything, and while he is willing to travel with the group for now to find them, if they diverge from this plan, he’d also be happy to abandon them, and do whatever it takes to learn of what they are and what their purpose is.
	As morning drifted into noon, the four of them met up with Flix and Rudyard, and sought out the typical places of employment.  After a half-dozen false leads or missions that were too easy or difficult for them, or that led them in directions they didn’t want go, they finally found something promising.  A noble merchant named Randall Pillora was killed recently by undead, but the death was a strange one.  He wasn’t brought back as an undead, which often happens, but he also couldn’t be brought back by normal means.  It was like he was cursed.  Radmackis, a gnome cleric who has been taking care of him, did some research, and discovered a possible solution.  About a week to the southeast of Methosilang, there is supposedly a shrine dedicated to Nelkiss, the goddess of dead, or more accurately, the post-death judgment and afterlife.  Apparently, the shrine somehow judges those who go to it, and those who are deemed worthy are blessed with a free, and extremely powerful form of resurrection magic.  It could be enough to break the curse, but it is a dangerous journey.  The area is completely controlled by the orcs, and there are few if any tunnels in the area, so most of the trip will be overland.  But all of the members of the party are eager for glory, revenge, or a chance to prove themselves, and readily agree to the cause.  A grateful Radmackis gave them 500 gold in advance, and prepared a gentle repose for Randall, so he would last until the end of the journey before decomposing.  After buying the supplies, the party got directions to the shrine, and further instructions to go from there to Necropolis, where Radmackis will be waiting for them, either to reward them if they succeeded, or to help prepare the body for burial if they failed.  As they left the town, however, they heard an unusual song that an unfamiliar drow bard was playing to them.  After hearing and pondering it, they turned to ask the bard about it, but he had already gone.  (The song itself can be found at the end of the update, btw.)
	The first day was spent underground, as they traveled towards the surface exit that was closest to the shrine.  It was silent, for at least a few hours, though surprisingly, it was Quercus who broke the silence.  “So, Tsine, did your father ever, ummm…” he began awkwardly, before trailing off.
	Tsine sighed, having heard this before.  “No, Quercus, he never mentioned you.  I honestly don’t see why you feel the need for his approval, anyway.  The man hasn’t had a dignified thought in his body since, well, you know…” he trailed off, not wanting to bring up a what was a painful memory to both of them.  He suddenly changed the subject, “And I want to make something clear before we move on.  If we have to pry information out some other humanoid, fine.  But I am not helping you deal with the orcs any more.  They long since lost any right to mercy or forgiveness, and I won’t strike any more deals with them.”
	Rudyard grunted his approval.  “I agree.  I lost my family to those arrogant monsters.  I’m sick of them and their dragon lackies ruining our world.  The only good orc is a dead orc, as far as I’m concerned.”
	None of the others seem concerned about this, save Tal, ironically, who is the first to admit he cares the least about the intricacies of abstract morality.  That being said, extremism at every level concerns him far more, but since he also wasn’t known for being confrontational, he rode on in grudging silence.
	They rested that last day underground, and emerged on the surface at the beginning of First Light.  However, they didn’t travel for more than a few hours before danger struck.  In the sky above them, a half-dozen hippogriffs, a strange spider/wasp creature, a giant eagle, a monstrous bat, and even two white dragons were approaching!  Well aware that this was not an enemy they could face, the party dove into the bushes, and hid while Rudyard and Flix tried to watch their flight stealthily.  Luckily, they apparently passed without incident, but a grave Rudyard informed the group that they were headed straight towards the shrine of Nelkiss.  This simple mission might have become a race!

	OOC Notes: For this adventure, you should be aware that I’m using house rules for resurrection.  Basically, instead of the standard results of the raise spells, the raising cleric has to make a check based on a new skill, Knowledge (afterlife.)  The results vary a lot.  Besides level-loss and no effect at all, the raised being could have an alignment change, an ability score drain, or various mental effects, or they could come back with or as an undead, or even gain a template as a result!  
	Oh, and the song the party heard was this.


Out of the darkness came the Four.
The Hand and the Lady, the Prince and the Blade.
Now, gentle travelers, gaze at this world,
And look at all the trouble they’ve made.
And the Blade, trouble they’ve made,
And look at all the trouble they’ve made.

The Hand ruled armies and conquered cities,
But Fate twisted it into a Claw.
The Fury overthrew order’s rule
And so Chaos sprung forth from law
Into a Claw, forth from law,
And so Chaos sprung forth from law

The Lady’s past hides beyond the stars.
The Queen of Darkness her mother served.
Blood she spilled, but her own drove her mad.
Fear not! Her fate will be deserved.
Her mother served, will be deserved.
Fear not! Her fate will be deserved.

The Prince of Nightmares rules the Fallen’s Valley,
A relic of ancient evil his only friend.
He betrayed she who gave him his gift,
But justice was served in the end.
His only friend, in the end.
But justice was served in the end.

There is mercy in the Blade’s cut.
She believes her cause is right.
But her brilliant mind cannot pierce the lies.
Twisted minds lead to unjust might.
Cause is right, unjust might.
Twisted minds lead to unjust might.

This is why the evils lament,
And in their mistakes the Evil dies.
But will the world survive their wrath,
Or join in their despairing cries?
The Evil dies, despairing cries.
Or join in their despairing cries?


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## LordVyreth (Apr 1, 2004)

*They really should be using more attentive guards.*

About two hours after the flight passed overheard, the party neared a clearing.  Even from a distance, it looked inhabited, so Flix and Rudyard approached carefully, while the rest of the party withdrew, ready for danger.  They came upon a small camp, that we clearly set up very recently, possibly even by the riders of the creatures from earlier that day.  A tall but rickety watchtower stood in the middle of the encampment, with about twenty or so tents scattered haphazardly around it.  A hyena-headed humanoid was at the top of the tower, watching the clearing for danger.  Luckily, it didn’t look like it noticed the two heroes just yet, so they cautiously withdrew to report the situation.  Once back with the rest of the party, they collectively planned their next move.  “With twenty tents that are as big as you say they are, they could easily have forty or more troops there!”
	Tsine shook his head.  “If these are the same people that were with those fliers a few hours ago, they couldn’t have that many.  They’d never fit on the mounts.”
	“We could just try to sneak around the camp,” Tal offered.
	The others grumbled about that idea.  “Even if we sneak past undetected, if these are the same creatures, they have access to flight.  We have to take them down now before they can rest and get the rest of the way to the shrine.  And if they’re another group, we can get information about the fliers.”
	The others agreed, though Tsine pointed out again that he won’t interrogate any more orcs.  The group came to a plan, and Flix and Rudyard quietly snuck back to the area of the camp.  There, they both fired at the gnoll before they could be spotted.  Flix dagger went wide, but Rudyard’s arrow flew true, giving the creature a nasty gash in his harm.  However, he was still alive, and before the two of them could finish the job, he howled at the top of his lungs, immediately alerting the entire camp!  Realizing that the time for stealth is over, Quercus flew in from above, while Tsine, Raz, and Tal rode in.  Rudyard followed them into camp, while Flix danced around the perimeter, ready to ambush whoever came out.
	They didn’t have to wait long.  Out of various tents, three orcs, a lizard woman, a hobgoblin, and a wolf stepped out to meet the invaders, while the gnoll fired one shot at Quercus, and then started climbing down the tower’s ladder to engage the enemy in melee.  However, he didn’t make it.  Another arrow hit punctured him, and he lost his grip on the ladder, falling to the earth headfirst and with a sickening crunch.  One of the orcs didn’t fair any better, for he was sandwiched between Tsine and Flix’s attacks, and was gutted from behind with an expert shot by Flix.  Another orc was killed by Raz’s arrow and Tal’s magic, while Quercus went to engage the hobgoblin.  However, the remaining enemies demonstrated that they weren’t so easy to defeat.  The hobgoblin immediately erupted into a screaming rage, and hammered Quercus with a vicious blow from his great axe.  Quercus’ blood flowed freely, but he was able to take advantage of his enemy’s reckless behavior, and slashed him across the chest with his greatsword.  Only anger help the creature on his feet, and a volley of magical orbs launched by Tsine finished the job.  Meanwhile, the reptilian woman began to chant in a guttural, but strangely natural tongue, and her pet wolf’s teeth and claws suddenly extended.  It rushed at Flix, but the little one was able to roll out of the way of the bite, and then reverse with a thrust of his own short sword.  Rudyard went to help the fellow scout, while Tal focused on the final orc, who was dressed in lighter armor and was much faster than his fellows, and Raz tried to attack the lizard woman, only to repeatedly fail to penetrate her surprisingly thick armor.  She made it even harder immediately after this point, when she summoned a thick fog around her, making it almost impossible to see where she was exactly.  Soon, the tide totally turned against the humanoids, as Rudyard distracted the wolf long enough for Flix to pierce the animal’s heart, while Quercus and Tsine joined Tal in dispatching the final orc.  Realizing she was outnumbered six to one, the lizard woman sighed with regret, and dropped her weapon.
	While Flix and Rudyard searched the camp for valuables, Tal and Raz checked the fallen enemies for survivors, and Tsine and Quercus interrogated their prisoner.  Tal noticed that one of the armored orcs still drew breath, but realized that he couldn’t tell Tsine this.  He helped bind the creature’s wounds, while singing a song of renewal softly to speed the healing process.  The lizard woman, meanwhile, began her story.  Her name was Setisth, and she was part of one of the many humanoid tribes that serve the orcs as second-class citizens of their empire at best, slaves at worst.  However, she will not betray them, for she believes in the truth of their religion and doesn’t think any other force can truly rule this empire besides them.  She will, however, explain about their mission here.  Apparently, an orc cleric of some renown has come down with a strange affliction, which is literally spread over his body, taking it over!  The orcs learned of this shrine, and also that it refuses none who come to it in need, even orcs.  Desperate to save their leader, a group of his followers left to find this shrine, and potentially heal him, or at least bring him back to life if the disease claims him.  However, those left in the camp are just the rear guard.  The rest of the force already left to find the temple.  After hearing this, the party freed her, but told her to remain in the camp, and not follow the party or try to help her comrades.  She agreed, and almost thanked them for their humane treatment of one of their own, but was silenced when Tal but his finger to his lips while standing behind Tsine.  Meanwhile, Flix found a small cache of treasure hidden in one of the tents, so after distributing the wealth, the party set off in a hurry.
	The second day had no other interruptions, and their journey on the third day was mostly quiet.  The only exception was when they heard a large creature flying overhead once early in the morning, before True Light began, and then again in the afternoon, well after True Light.  Between the darkness and the foliage, the party couldn’t really see what the creature was, but they knew it was flying towards the enemy camp in the morning, and then back in the direction of their destination the second time.  
	That night held a few other surprises, and few of them were pleasant.  Again, it was Quercus’s watch when all the fun began.  As he studied the woods around them, trying to keep an eye out for hidden enemies, he suddenly heard singing, like that of a beautiful woman.  After taking a few moments to try and discern where the music his coming from, he silently roused his party members, and then approached the music.  However, he only was able to go about fifty feet when the singing stopped, and that same female voice quietly said, “It begins.”  He then heard the sound of wings flapping, and saw a hideous walking corpse and a field of living darkness in the shape of a man heading towards the camp, and he realized he had bigger things to worry about at the moment!

	OOC Notes:  This adventure has quite a bit of foreshadowing, as that song from the last recap would indicate.  The singing woman and the disease afflicting the orcs are also future plot points.  By the way, all the characters are fourth level, or at least ECL 4 at this point.  Quercus is a cleric 2, Rudyard a ranger 2, Tsine a Wizard 3/Fighter 1 I believe, Tal a Bard 2/Sorceror 2, Flix a Rogue 4, and Raz a Fighter 4.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 2, 2004)

*Battles in the Night*

The two undead horrors shambled into camp.  One, that living shadow, quickly closed with Quercus, while the other undead, which reeked with the stench of death, charged into camp with surprising speed.  Quercus held up his symbol of Bha-Ael, and shouted, “Goddess of creation, make these unnatural abominations cower at your might!”  However, while his faith was strong, he lacked understanding in the true power of his goddess, and the undead laugh at him scornfully.  The shadow then plunged its hand deep into Quercus’ chest, bypassing his armor like it wasn’t even there.  Though the touch was painful, it chilled Quercus to his very bones, making his muscles sluggish and tired.  Meanwhile, the other five adventurers converged on the ghast, and between Rudyard’s blades, Raz’ arrows, and Tal and Tsine’s magic, the creature was brought down quickly.  However, the shadow proved more resilient; Flix moved in to help Quercus deal with it, but his weapon passed through the creature’s body like it was nothing but air.  Quercus tried his weapon as well, but had the same result, and was rewarded for his bravery with another debilitating touch.  As he struggled to recover, the dark creature’s body was buffeted by energy blasts from Tal and Tsine, and Rudyard closed in, using a magical sword that was found among the treasures in the Temple of Bas.  It hit the creature true, and its body unraveled into strands of darkness, which quickly faded into the night.  But the creature’s damage was done, and they had no way to heal Quercus’ lost strength, nor could they afford to wait for it to heal naturally.  Btu Quercus barely seemed to notice, and as soon as the undead were destroyed, he was searching the forest, looking for some signs of the singer.  All he could find was a small set of humanoid footprints, which apparently appeared and disappeared without further tracks.  “You know, Quercus, if you want to go back to Methosilang and just meet us in Necropolis later, we’d understa…” Tal began, but Quercus merely held up a hand to silence him.  “No, you’ll need me to perform the ritual of raising if they can’t finish the job at the Shrine.  And I don’t want to leave until I solved this little mystery, either.”  With that resolved, the party finished resting for the night, and continued on their journey.	
However, the next night wasn’t any more peaceful.  Near the end of their day’s journey, while the party was traveling further down the path to the shine, they suddenly noticed a small team of skeletons coming up the road.  There were two normal skeletons, and a third that wielded a long sword, and was riding an equally skeletal horse.  Again, Quercus raised his voice high, exhorting his goddess, and this time, he was rewarded as the two skeletons on foot turned to flee.  Meanwhile, Rudyard moved up to engage the mounted skeleton, while Tsine, Tal, and Raz stayed behind to lend magical and missile support.  Flix dove into the undergrowth, with the intent of sneaking up behind the undead to help surround the enemies, only to suddenly stumble upon another undead, which appeared to be the remains of a six-legged cat of some sort.  The cat immediately pounced on Flix, taking a chunk out of his leg with a bite, but fortunately, it looked like it could have been worse.  The creature shifted some strange bones in its shoulders, as if trying to slap him with a long-rotted natural weapon, but the effect was useless.  Meanwhile, Rudyard and the others concentrated their fire on the skeletal warrior, easily finishing it, but the horse then focused all of its attacks on him, and despite being nothing but a walking pile of bones, the horse was still able to attack effectively with both hooves and a bite.  Both hooves struck true, knocking Rudyard to the ground.  Quercus and Tal prepared to help their fallen friend, only to hear Flix’s screams, and instead charged into the bushes to help him.  Quercus got a strong hit with his great sword, but the effect merely chipped at the creature’s hard bones, and Tal’s magic had little use as well.  Flix also got an effective but minor shot in, before again being ravaged by the creature’s bite.  Things were going slightly better on the road, as Tsine hurled an arrow of pure acid at the creature, dissolving much of its shoulder.  Raz’s arrow bounced off harmlessly, but Rudyard was able to flip himself onto his feet, and with one strong blow, finish bisected the horse’s shoulder.  The remaining bones collapsed into an unmoving pile, and the heroes were ready to help out their friends in the bushes, when a shot rang out behind them!
Everyone turned, and saw Tsine, who now had a gaping whole in his chest.  They looked around desperately for their new enemy, and saw a dark figure in the sky above them.  Quercus knew he was the only one who could easily attack this new threat, and took off, leaving the undead beast to uselessly bite at him.  When he climbed above the lowest branches, he saw an orc woman, riding a hippogriff and wielding a strange weapon.  It looked like a crossbow, but had a tube where the bow should be, and it was currently leaking smoke.  Tal and Flix resumed fighting the remaining undead creature, and Rudyard, not wanting to switch weapons, joined them and gave the creature a telling blow with is magical blade.  Meanwhile, though he could barely speak above a whisper because of the pane, Tsine wanted revenge.  He hissed a few arcane words, and launched a few orbs of pure magic at the rider.  Raz fired at the creature as well, but hit the mount instead.  The woman flew higher, while trying to reload her strange weapon, but Quercus followed, and cut deep into shoulder.  She cried out with pain, but in a feat of strength, managed to keep her grip on both her weapon and the saddle.  Meanwhile, Flix and Rudyard surrounded the undead creature, and finally managed to cut into the creature’s spine so often that it just disintegrated, causing the creature to collapse in a heap.  Another one of Raz’s arrows pierced the creature, and then Tal released his own magical orb, sending it streaking towards the orc woman.  Tsine fired one more volley of his own magic, which struck both mount and rider.  The mount finally couldn’t remain conscious anymore, and crashed into the ground.  The rider, already heavily wounded, was sent flying when her mount plummeted, and landed hard on her back.  She did not get up again.  Quercus, who was best able to track her descent, flew down to investigate.  He picked up her strange weapon, and was taking a few moments to try and figure out how it worked when it exploded in his face!  The shrapnel also cut deep into the orc woman, emptying her of what little blood she had left.  While her weapon was destroyed, the party was able to salvage her equipment, along with the few coins and minor items the humanoid skeleton had among its tattered scraps of clothing.  Quercus used his powers and wand to heal the party’s wounds, and then continued on their journey.  All of them were mostly silent after the fight they just survived.  Only Flix broke the silence until they made camp.  “So, that was the kind of weapon Lerissa was talking about,” he observed.

OOC Notes:  This was the first time I used templated monsters to fight the party.  This was still back in 3.0, where the skeleton as a template concept was still not core, but was introduced on the Wizard’s web site.  This was also the first time I introduced orc firearms into the game.  They were only used rarely, but I did have to change the system at least once after this point, eventually creating a system that combined a few other types that I found online.  I’ll post the relevant details of the new system if anyone’s interested.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 3, 2004)

*Battle of the Bridge*

The fourth night passed uneventfully as they rested, and they began the fifth day of their journey.  It was quiet until near mid-day, as the sun was crested over the sky, well between the magic of the two dark moons.  Once again, the party saw the telltale signs of an orc camp, and Rudyard and Flix quietly made their way over to investigate.  This one turned out to be much smaller.  Only two tends were set up here, with a small resting log and campfire between them.  An orc was currently slouched up against the log, apparently oblivious to both the party and the noonday sun, which is normally painful to orcs.  However, Rudyard didn’t want to take any chances, especially with his hated enemy, and fired a pair of arrows into his back.  The orc barely responded, except for slumping over even more, and oozing a vile fluid that looked a little like blood, but was far too black to be normal.  Now more curious than alarmed, Rudyard carefully crept up to the orc, while Flix retreated to bring the rest of the party forward.  After looking closer, Rudyard was certain the orc was dead, though it looks like it was his arrows that finished him off.  However, he clearly wasn’t too well off before that point, since his body was strangely mutilated.  Parts of his skin have been ripped off, to be covered with some sort of metal plating, one arm and a foot were replaced with some more metal parts, and even one of his eyes was made of some glassy substance.  Killing him was almost an act of mercy, Rudyard thought to himself bitterly.  The party didn’t seem to think so, however, when they arrived.  “We could have gotten some information out of him, you know!”  Raz barked.  “Now we have no idea what did this to him!”
Tsine shrugged.  “It’s probably the same thing that happened to their chieftain.  This looks like a typical grunt, so they probably abandoned him.  They’re animals, they don’t care what happens to their own unless they’re of some use.”
The party gave him the standard cremation, and set up the alert marker, then did a rudimentary search of the area.  The tents were empty of everything but a few misshapen sets of clothing, so they quickly returned to the trail.  They still had to make up for some time, after all.
The rest of the day, passed uneventfully, as did the night and the morning after.  However, on the evening of the sixth day, the party finally reached the shrine.  It was built on a tiny spike of rock, some two hundred feet from the end of the trail.  The forest ended here, and the party finally got a chance to notice how deep into mountainous territory they got since they entered the woods.  This was a rocky, dangerous area, and while there was a bridge between the cliff and the shrine, anyone who slipped and fell in would fall for hundreds of feet, and almost certainly be killed by the impact.  They also noticed that the orc forces are still here, and they posted guards.  An ogre was standing about three quarters of the way down the bridge, a massive spear in his hand.  Behind him, a pair of tiny lizard-like creatures that could barely be seen in this light and distance were hiding.  And another orc waited on top of a hippogriff, ready to take flight at any moment.
The party realized they had little time to prepare, since the orcs inside the shrine could be ready to begin the ritual of raising at any minute, so they charged forward.  The hippogriff and orc sprung into action, and Quercus took off, preparing to intercept her attack.  Meanwhile, Flix and Rudyard sprinted towards the ogre, while Tal, Tsine, and Raz prepared their long-range attacks.  Tal strummed a few notes on his lute, singing a song of peace and friendship at one of the lizard-creatures, which were obviously kobolds now that they’ve been seen up close, but the creature merely laughed.  “You can’t fool us that easily, point-ear!” it sneered in Draconic.  As Raz and Tsine’s arrows flew towards the ogre, resulting in one near miss and one grazing shot that merely gave the ogre a scratch, the taunting kobold muttered a few words of enchantment, and a pool of slippery black fluid appeared in front of the ogre.  Meanwhile, the second kobold began a bloody but inspiring tune, promising his allies that they will inflict pain and death on the cowards and slaves of the false gods.  Emboldened, the orc rider drew a sword, and flew past Quercus, giving him a brutal cut with her blade and flying past him before he had time to react.  Angrily, he followed her, desperately trying to score a hit with his own blade, but the pain of the cut and the sudden lost of so much blood gave him a bit of vertigo, and nothing could connect.  Rudyard tried to maneuver through the grease to reach the ogre, but lost his footing, and had to grip the railing to avoid falling over.  The ogre laughed and seized the opportunity, thrusting his spear with all his might.  Rudyard was able to partially deflect the spear with his own sword, but it still penetrated deep into his shoulder.  He gave a yelp of pain, then retreated from the ooze, ready to try again if he got the opportunity.  Meanwhile, the kobold that created the grease took advantage of the moment of peace and began chanting again.  Tal drew a wand, and fired a magical orb out of it, hitting the creature squarely in the chest, but it withstood the pain, and finished his spell.  A strange mystical symbol appeared in the air, and a black eagle flew out.  It screamed evilly, and dove straight for Tal.  Meanwhile, the mounted orc whirled her mount around, driving her blade straight through Quercus’ chest.  The half-celestial gasped in pain, and the world went black as he began the long plummet to the ground below.  However, as his friends watched in horror as he fell, then were even more shocked when an elven woman, with magnificent bird wings similar to Quercus’ own, dove towards him from out of the forest.  She caught him in mid-drop, then began to carry him back to the cliff-side.  
The party gave a cheer, and emboldened from the dramatic rescue, they turned their attacks on the bird the kobold summoned and the hippogriff.  The orc rider was able to whirl around Rudyard’s arrow, but a full volley of Tsine’s magical missiles struck it, and not wanting to share the fate Quercus almost suffered, she rode her hippogriff back to the shrine, sent it out to attack Quercus, and then retreated into the shrine herself.  The kobold bard did likewise, as did the spellcaster after finishing one more bird summon.  The pair of birds harried Tal and Tsine, before finally being killed by Raz and Tal’s long-range attacks.  Meanwhile, the winged elf woman had sent Quercus down on the forest side of the cliff, healed some of his wounds, and then flew off again just as Quercus was recovering.  However, while partially healed, Quercus was caught unprepared by the hippogriff’s sudden attack, and was again on the ground, barely fighting it off as the creature bit deep into his arm.  Seeing their friend was again in trouble, Tal and Raz fired at the bird/horse amalgam, wounding it heavily and causing it to flee over the horizon.  Their attention now focused entirely on the ogre, the part turn on him again just as the magical grease pool vanished.  The suddenly panicky ogre managed one more stab at Rudyard, then was attacked himself by Rudyard’s blade.  Flix tumbled between the creature’s legs, and dealt a telling blow to the creature’s back, while Tsine drew his own bow and fired a shot deep into the creature’s leg.  It stumbled, and gave an angry roar, but it now lacked the room to effectively swing his spear, so he dropped it and drew his greatclub, then tried to slam it into the halfling.  But Flix was too quick for him, and he and Rudyard simultaneously attacked, catching the orc in a pincher attack.  Flix’s short sword cut deep into the ogre’s neck, and with one last gurgling cry, he slumped onto the bridge, and moved no more.  Quercus managed to catch up to the group by this time, and after giving the wounded (including himself,) a few shots of the wand of healing, the party dashed into the Shrine, intent on preventing the ritual.

OOC Notes:  This was the first time I made a fairly serious mistake in combat.  In this case, I forgot the duration of the grease spell, causing it to last a few rounds longer than it should.  No big deal; the kobold sorcerer would have just re-cast it instead of creating another summoned fiendish eagle, but still.
And before you ask, no the winged elf that saved Quercus was not a deus ex machina by me to save an early character.  I planned on using her already for the first player to fall in, though I didn’t actually expect it to happen so soon into the battle.  Anyway, you’ll see more of her in the next few updates, as you probably expected.


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## Lela (Apr 4, 2004)

Came in, had a look around. You've asked me to give some feedback, so why not?

I've mentioned grammar before and I think you need a little help here. Don't rely on Word to do it for you (as it's wrong about half the time). There was a noticable improvement towards the later posts but you may want to reread the first few posts to correct.

Also, don't forget when JollyDoc said, "Write these story behind what happens." I don't know these characters. Nor do I care much about what happens to them. All I know is that "This happened, then that happened, then this."

Reediting the first few posts should help keep readers going through the thread and adding story should help readers want to keep going.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 5, 2004)

Lela said:
			
		

> Came in, had a look around.  You've asked me to give some feedback, so why not?
> 
> I've mentioned grammar before and I think you need a little help here.  Don't rely on Word to do it for you (as it's wrong about half the time).  There was a noticable improvement towards the later posts but you may want to reread the first few posts to correct.
> 
> ...




Hmmm.  Well, ouch!  I didn't think I needed that much help.  Well, I'll take another look at what I wrote so far, though if I take too much time editing and not enough advancing, I'll never catch up.  I'll still bug my players to check out my SH, but since many of them haven't been introduced at this point, they might not be too willing just yet.  

Well, can you think of any positives I have?  Is the story itself at all interesting?  Or the setting?  Do you think I've been doing better with the characters in the last few updates?  I've been taking the advice from the Shackled City thread, and have been including more dialogue, character impressions, and so on.


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## Lela (Apr 5, 2004)

Oh, there's definitally a good story in there.  Rereading the last update (post 15), I see a lot of improvement.  I feel a deeper connection with the world and understand, through the chacters eyes, what's going on around them.

Seems like a classic adventure:  Go through dungeon, find artifact, keep artifact out of the hands of evil doers.  It's good and will get readers.

Don't spend too much time improving the earlier updates.  They'll always make a good hammer to use on writer's block.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 5, 2004)

Lela said:
			
		

> Oh, there's definitally a good story in there.  Rereading the last update (post 15), I see a lot of improvement.  I feel a deeper connection with the world and understand, through the chacters eyes, what's going on around them.
> 
> Seems like a classic adventure:  Go through dungeon, find artifact, keep artifact out of the hands of evil doers.  It's good and will get readers.
> 
> Don't spend too much time improving the earlier updates.  They'll always make a good hammer to use on writer's block.




Well, glad you noticed my attempts at improvement.  You might be pleased to know there's a lot more character development coming up, especially for Tal and Quercus.  The plot gets a bit more complicated as well, and Lady Memory's plotline will come into play a bit more.  When you mention the artifact, though, are you referring to the current Shrine adventure, or the overall campaign, with the Quill of Destiny and all?  And what do you think of the way the Prologue was set up and affected the setting as a whole?  I'm just glad I didn't get any comments on the whole good drow thing; that seems to be a real love-hate concept with people.  Oh, with luck, my next update should be coming up tonight.


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## Lela (Apr 5, 2004)

Prologue is fine.  You have a style of writing somewhat like P-kitty's initial adventures: Part story and part campaign log.  It worked for him, I hear.  Something about 500,000 views or so. 

Don't be afraid to break your writing up into paragraphs.  Especially with dialog.  That solid block of text can be intimidating.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 6, 2004)

*Intra and Inter-Party Strife*

Khat’Shir’Mol was growing impatient.  The sounds of battle have been heard outside for the last minute, and he knew that the pursuers that killed his rear guard and scout were here.  Yet the shrine keeper refused to start the test!  “Why do you delay, point ear?” he roared.  “Our enemies are right outside the door!  I won’t have them interfere in the restoration of our leader.  You know, the emperor has been very kind in allowing you to live and maintain your shrine, despite being an enemy race and a worshipper of a false god.  I would suggest you do whatever it takes to remain useful to us.”

The shrine keeper, an extremely pale elven woman with jet-black hair, was unmoved.  “If I live, so be it.  If I die, so be it.  I have no fear of either possibility, but I sincerely doubt that your emperor would be willing to lose a resource as valuable as me because one of his clerics was afraid they would lose a challenge to a band of elves.”

Khat scowled, but shrugged his shoulders in defeat.  Very well.  If this was to be resolved by the contest, then so be it.
*****************************************************
The party burst into the shrine, ready for a fight, but was surprised to see that the orcs, while in a defensive position, did not immediately enter the fight.  There were quite a few of them.  Besides the kobolds and orc rider that fled the earlier fight, there were two more orc warriors, and a third orc wearing the strange holy symbol of the orcs (an unfathomable pattern arranged to resemble a circle of energy, like a sun, ironically.)  Behind this front rank, there was another wolf, and a powerful-looking orc wielding both a long sword and another strange tube weapon, though this one was much larger.  He also wore a holy symbol of the orc god.  There was a third apparent cleric, lying on the ground.   Like the orc they found earlier, he was altered beyond belief, with metal grafts, missing limbs, and strange metal tentacles emerging from his body.  He looked like he could move slightly, but he looked very weak, and appeared to be in constant pain.  Between the party and the orcs was a thin elven woman.  She held up a hand to the party, and quietly whispered, “Hold, brave adventurers.  Before you decide to resolve this conflict with violence, may I recommend another method?  The shrine does not give its power freely; those who desire it must be judged worthy, by engaging in a contest.  Those with the most knowledge of life and the world beyond it will succeed.  Normally, this test is a formality, since it’s rare that more than one group desires the power at the same time, but it is designed for multiple challengers as well.  Will you consider this method of resolution?  I must warn you, if you were to fight, you could damage the shrine or myself in the process, and no one will gain the power.”

The party briefly considered all this, and then Tal spoke up.  “How will this challenge work, exactly?”

“Well, one among you will be selected; one who has knowledge of the afterlife.  That champion will be transported to a pocket realm, where he will compete with the other side’s champion.  The challenger must gather the components of a successful attempt at resurrection, including the magical power, the monetary components, and the intelligence needed to understand the world beyond.  Using these things, each challenger can try to raise sample dead creatures, which reside in a central chamber of the plane.  The one who can raise the most beings, and do so with the greatest degree of success, will be the winner.”

The party again conferred.  Tsine and Rudyard, not surprisingly, were against it.  “We can easily take them, and without doing anything too damaging to the shrine, either.  I’m sure the elf was just bluffing about any risk to her.  And she has to help us when the fight breaks out; no elf would ever willingly help an orc.”  

However, Quercus, Tal, Flix, and Raz decided against it.  “We can’t risk harming or offending this shrine keeper.  Now that we discovered this shrine again, it could be an invaluable resource to Methosilang.  We can’t let our mission endanger the city’s long-term success.  Besides, I want to see this challenge for myself.”  Quercus said.  The others quietly argued and muttered for a few moments, and then he stood up and said, “We have agreed to the challenge.  I will go for our side.”

The woman nodded, and soon Quercus and Khat’Shir’Mol, the orc’s leader, were teleported away.  The party and orc teams both crowded around a strange table in the center of the room, and the Methosilang side at least was shocked to see Quercus and the orc inside it!

The plane was a tiny labyrinth, filled with glowing orbs.  Both Quercus and Khat materialized in the central chamber, where six strange chambers, each a different color, were resting on the sides of the room.  Quercus noticed that the orc immediately tore off, grabbing as many orbs as he could, so Quercus went off in the opposite direction, doing the same thing.  He discovered that each orb either added 100 gold to the components of one of the resurrection spells, a bonus to his knowledge of the afterlife, a bonus to his intelligence, or simply damaged him without providing any real benefit.  After gathering as many of these as he could, he dashed back to the central chamber, to try raising one of the creatures apparently put to rest there, and noticed that Khat was doing the same thing.  He chose the silver tomb, and focused all of his mental energies towards the task of entering the world beyond, finding and grabbing this creature’s soul, and guiding it safely back to its body.  He ended up raising a tiny fey creature, which he later learned was called a grig, and which was apparently brought back to life without difficulty.  As he did the raising, Quercus noticed that the process was much faster than most resurrections, but that his own knowledge and intelligence did nothing.  He had to rely on the power granted by the orbs.  While he was doing this, Khat managed to raise a lizard folk, and seemed equally successful, if not more so.  Soon, the pair dashed through the maze again and again, bolstered occasionally by their new allies.  Quercus later managed to resurrect a tiny white dragon, which looked like it was only a few minutes out of the egg and then somehow he “raised” a ghoul, though surprisingly the creature ignored the inherent nature of its kind and served Quercus.  Khat managed to raise a wolf in the same time frame, but Quercus raised vaguely reptilian humanoid, though it looked more like a twisted, monstrous frog than a normal humanoid.  With a score of four to two, and generally more successful raises with the possible exception of the ghoul, Quercus emerged the champion, and both he and Khat were sent back to the shrine.

While all this was going on, the two sides looked through the glass roof of the table at the events being played out.  After a few moments of tension, one of the kobolds suddenly spoke up, “Well, we can still help him, right?”  

While the party was trying to figure out what he meant, the orc woman (who rode the hippogriff earlier,) snapped, “Of course we can still help him!”  So speaking, she nudged a tiny square in the glass, and somehow was able to move the hole across the glass’s surface.  She then scooped an orb up from elsewhere in the maze, and set it down next to Khat, letting him pick it up with ease.

Seeing this, Tal quickly searched the board, found another hole like the one the orc woman used, and tried using the same tactic to help Quercus.  Tsine, however, had had enough.  It was bad enough he had to make peace with the orcs.  Now, he had to sit back and let them use their obvious advantage (having studied this shrine beforehand,) to cheat them out of their mission’s success.  He would have nothing to do with that.  The orcs were all watching the glass.  It would be easy to cast a simple spell to take out half the enemy team, and basically force the issue on the rest of the party.  He quietly muttered to himself while gathering some sand…

Within seconds, the room broke out into chaos.  One of the orc warriors slumped unconscious, but the other fighter, along with the healthy cleric and the hippogriff riding woman and the wolf, immediately leapt into the fray.  The kobolds, seeing how things turned against him, dashed out of the room while the bard played a quick, “Sir Gebby bravely turned around and fled” on his lute.  Rudyard eagerly switched to this new plan, and dropped the orc cleric quickly, while Flix and Raz entered with more reluctance, but were able to easily fell the wolf with a slash across the face and a surprise thrust to the kidneys.  This just left the rider and the last fighter, but both held on to the end.  Met’Tir’Sith, the lower-ranking orc rider, was able to get revenge on Tsine with a brutal slash across the chest, dropping him to one knee from the pain, while Girme’Dry’Log, the orc warrior, went against Flix, Rudyard, and Raz simultaneously for what seemed like forever, giving as many sword thrusts as she was taking.  Their diseased orc shaman, however, could do little.  Though he tried to use his magic to aid his allies a few times, every time, the pain would be to great and he would collapse on the floor, pleading with both sides to end this fight.  During all of this, a confused Tal, who was having trouble that the truce would be broken so easily, tried to help Quercus using the table holes, but soon gave up as he saw the chaos around him.

As the fight neared its end, Quercus and Khat returned.  Khat took one look around the room and drew his tube weapon, shouting, “What is the meaning of this?!”  Rudyard merely chuckled as he turned his weapon on him, saying “Oh, nothing important.  Just killing some orcs!”  

Khat put up a valiant fight, but Girme soon fell, and he was surrounded.  He died fighting, while cursing elves and their lying, honor less ways.  Soon after, his weapon exploded as well, while Rudyard finished off the helplessly sleeping orc and the diseased cleric.  During all this, the elf shrine keeper watched emotionlessly, and then, as if this never happened, she spoke.  “Well done, Quercus.  You have won the challenge, and earned the right to use the shrine’s blessing to aid your diseased friend.”

While Quercus made the preparations for the spell and the others did the standard looting (the shrine keeper assured them that she would take care of the bodies,) Rudyard went outside, and noticed that both the kobolds and two of the party’s horses were gone!  Shouting a curse to all orcs and their allies, he spent the day tracking them down.  He soon found that they split up, but was able to catch up to the kobold bard, Gebby, easily enough, and then brutally killed him.  However, while he was chasing Teggif, the kobold sorcerer down, he learned that creature separated from his mount, and Rudyard chose to retrieve the horse and let the creature go for this day.  However, as he returned to the shrine, he swore that he would find the creature one day, and bring it to judgment as well.

Back at the shrine, Quercus finished resurrecting their charge.  The power of the shrine was indeed impressive, for he was actually better than normal after being raised!  The party left that very same day, eager for the hospitality of a Methosilang city, even if it was only Necropolis.  It was a mostly silent few days, however, as everyone shot each other accusing glances.  It was obvious that Tal and Quercus had something they wanted to say to Tsine, but decided to let it rest until they were safe in the city.  Similarly, Tsine and Rudyard looked at Tal and Quercus with scorn, since the mercy they were willing to show the orcs was pitiful.

At Necropolis, the party was paid by the grateful Radmackis, and since they arrived late, they decided to head right to the inn, and plan their next move in the morning.  However, as he was resting that night, Quercus heard a familiar voice singing outside.  He bolted up, and dashed outside to discover who it was.  What he found was an elven woman; the same one that rescued him at the bridge, though he didn’t know this at the time.  The woman turned to him, and smiled.  She stopped singing, and explained herself to Quercus.  “Welcome, Quercus.  I am pleased to meet you.  You may call me Shedell.  I have been watching the progress your group has made for these past few days, and you have succeeded admirably.  Though I have to question some of your choices of allies.  Some of your group seems too focused on revenge to truly care about justice.”

Quercus grunted reluctantly, “Well, some of them are a little over-enthusiastic, I suppose.  But they have their hearts in the right place.  I’m sure I’ll help them on the path towards true righteousness as we travel.  But tell me, woman, why have you been following us?  Who are you?”

“Well, Quercus,” the woman began, “I’ve actually been looking for you for decades now.  And I wanted to make sure what kind of man you’ve grown into before meeting you.  But now I am finally sure you are a good man, and I am glad to finally meet you, my brother.”  As she said this last party, she partially removed the cloak she was wearing, revealing a pair of brilliant white wings much like his own!

OOC Notes:  I was genuinely surprised at how the party handled the orcs at the shrine.  I especially thought they’d at least left the wounded, diseased, pacifist orc cleric alive, and I had to make a few small changes to my next large adventure as a result.  Still, I got a few good future adventure seeds from here, including some I just developed writing this recap!


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## Lela (Apr 6, 2004)

The best laid plans fall apart when confronted by the PCs.  It's a DMing Truism.

Wonderful improvement LordVyreth, I really enjoyed it.  I can't wait to see what happens next.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 7, 2004)

*Bugs and Backstory*

As Quercus looked at her, speechless, Shedell continued her story.  “Yes, we share the same father, though a different mother, making me your half-sister.”

“But, how?” Quercus spluttered.  “When was this?  Do you know who our father is, then?”

She sighed, sadly.  “I’m afraid not.  My father married an elven woman over a century ago, but there was an…incident when I was still very young.  There was a fire at our home, and it killed my mother.  I thought my father died as well at the time, but he merely disappeared, apparently because he thought I died as well.  It was so long ago that I can’t even remember their names, or even what they look like except for the vaguest of details.  I tried to remember more clearly, and even used magic to help, but I think part of me is blotting out the incident, refusing to grant me any more details out of fear of the horror I experienced that day.”

Quercus looked at her solemnly.  “I’m sorry you have suffered so.  But what happened to you after that?”

“Well, the early years after that are still very sketchy, probably for the same reason I can’t remember much about my parents.  Eventually, I grew up, and started training myself with martial weaponry.  I also performed occasional odd jobs for the people of Delaspie and Methosilang.  Eventually, I joined a group of adventures, and even got to travel to the capital city itself.  Once there, I spent a few months trying to determine what I want to do with my life, and I became fascinated with None, the goddess of strength and labor.  I believed that if I gave her my worship, I would be given the power to discover what killed my mother, and avenge her death.  I also eventually learned of the story of your birth, Quercus, and realized that the celestial’s story and my own matched up.  I waited for you to grow up, like I said before, and busied myself helping Methosilang fight its enemies.”

“Where is your adventuring party now, Shedell?  Would you like to travel with us for a while?”  Quercus asked.

Shedell’s eyes widened with worry upon hearing this.  “No, for my time right now is short.  In my journeys, I have made an enemy, one who won’t rest until I am destroyed.  She calls herself the Lady of Blood, and she is one of the Malefactor drow, who refused to ally with the surface dwellers a thousand years ago, and traveled even deeper into the earth, planning their revenge.  Even worse, she appears to be the spawn of a demon, much like we are the children of a celestial.  We have fought many times, and often I was captured by her, only to narrowly escape.  I believe she has some sort of magical means of tracking me, which penetrates even into the cities of Methosilang.  Because of this, I have to be on the move constantly, and when I can sense she is getting close, I have to flee to protect my comrades.  I just got a chance to meet you, Quercus.  I won’t risk letting you die because of me.”

Though disappointed to hear this, Quercus was happy to talk with his sister after finally meeting her.  They spent the rest of the night bringing each other up to date on their lives, and when the morning came, he introduced her to the rest of the party.  All of them were surprised as well, and thanked her for saving Quercus’ life back at the bridge.  However, soon after meeting them, a worried look crossed Shedell’s face.  “I can’t stay much longer.  I sense the Lady of Blood will come soon, so I must flee and prepare to defend myself from her.  Don’t worry, Quercus, I’ll live long enough to see you again.  But if you do see this woman, do not fight her!  She is beyond all of your ability to defeat at this point.”  With that, she flew off, deep into the city to gather her supplies and depart.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party decided it was time to look for work, which will lead them the rest of the way to Delaspie.  They eventually met discovered two hirelings, Jack, and Eric, who were looking for some help.  They are the only survivors of a posse of heroes from Delaspie, who were trying to catch a thief who managed to sneak into the country, and steal some precious valuables.  They were sent behind to guard the pack animals while the trained heroes pursued him.  After a few moments, they heard an explosion, and when they went in to investigate, the thief was unconscious, and all of their employers were dead.  Desperate to complete the mission they started, they bound the thief, took the bodies back to the animals, and since they were almost to Necropolis at this point, they decided to go there, leave the bodies there for a burial on safe, consecrated grounds, and seek out adventurers to finish the task they started.  However, their plan won’t be ready until tomorrow, so the adventurers agreed to meet with them again the next day, and set of for some quick work inside the city.  They found some when they found the cleric proprietors who run Necropolis.  There were rumors of a monster hiding deep within the Necropolis.  There have been sounds of motion, strange clicking and buzzing noises, and coffins being knocked over.  It all started when the clerics buried the warhorse of a paladin.  They believe the trouble is related to this creature, and want some capable adventurers to investigate.  Eager for a challenge, the heroes agreed.

Hours later, the group was deep within the bowels of the city.  As they journeyed, they discussed what could be waiting for them.

“What if it’s some kind of undead?”  Tsine asked, nervously.

Quercus shrugged.  “Doubtful.  The entire city of Necropolis is consecrated, and much of it is hollowed.  The horse itself would never rise as undead here, and any undead that stowed away with the creature would have been detected and turned away long before it was buried.  Hey, Tal,” he and others looked at Tal, who actually negotiated this deal, “did they say what the horse died from?”

“Yeah, actually, they did.  The paladin and his company were attacking by these weird wasp thingies, but with legs like a spider.  He claimed there was something unnatural, or perhaps even evil, about them.”

The party pondered this, until they reached the crypt of the warhorse.  All of them looked at each other nervously for a moment, silently daring each other to go and open it.  Finally, Quercus sighed, and walked up, though he ordered the others to cover him.  When he got close to the crypt, he noticed it was partially ajar already, as if something has been entering and leaving it.  He never got the chance to open it all the way, however, for when he got a little closer, a pair of giant wasp creatures flew out!  The smaller of the two was fired at by Tsine and Raz, and it panicked, and flew off into a side corridor.  The larger one, however, literally stank of evil to Quercus’ trained senses, and it gave a strange, chirpy laugh as it flew at him.  It stung him with its needle-like stinger, and Quercus felt a wave of evil wash over him.  At the same time, his insides were becoming numb.  He took a swing at the creature, hitting solidly, and Tal and Raz used magic and arrows to continue hammering the creature.  Meanwhile, Flix dashed around the corner to try and catch up to the beast, and Tsine and Rudyard watched for the second one warily.  Their sharp eyes soon caught a movement above them, and Rudyard dove out of the way as a coffin was almost pushed on top of him!  Above him, she saw the second, smaller bug, and uttering a curse, he fired on the thing while Tsine hurled an arrow of acid at it.  Flix saw it as well, and scampered up the crypt wall reach the creature.  However, the bug reacted first, and both stabbed and bit into the unfortunate little halfling.  It yelped it pain, but responded with a stab of his own, while Tsine and Rudyard finished the creature off from the other side.  Meanwhile, Quercus and Raz continued to attack the first monster, while Tal began a song extorting the bravery of the group and encouraging to fight at their best, then began to attack the creature with his rapier.  Soon this monster also fell, and after tending their wounds, they investigated the tomb.  It appeared that the horse’s chest was burst open, and Rudyard speculated, “I bet this creature lays its eggs inside the bodies of other beings.  The eggs must have gone undetected by the clerics, and hatched shortly after the creature was entombed.”  After seeing the look of panic on Quercus and Flix’s eyes, he continued.  “Don’t worry.  I don’t think either of you would make a large enough host body for the eggs.”

Flix sighed with relief.  “Good,” he began, “I was worried for a moment the…ugh!” he suddenly said as he froze in place, the creature’s poison finally taking effect on him.  

The others prepared to return to the city, but Rudyard stopped them, and pointed out something else about the horse.  “Look at the size of that thing!  It’s at least twice as large as a normal horse.  We should ask the priests about the cleric who rode it.”

The others agreed, and carried their friend back to the city itself, where the clerics were happy to restore the paralyzed halfling to normal.  Once he was taken care of, Tal asked, “Do any of you know about this paladin that we just helped?”

“Of course,” the cleric they were speaking to replied.  “We never got his name, but we know he’s still staying in town.  Would you like to meet him?”

The party agreed, and got his current residence.  When they met his paladin, they were shocked at his appearance, for not only was he a half-orc, but he was the largest half-orc they’ve ever seen!  Even more strangely, he appeared to have strange, ruby-red scales, and a slightly reptilian expression.  Seeing what he was, Tsine and Rudyard immediately grew silent, letting Tal take the lead.  “Good sir, we were the band of adventurers that helped your horse rest peaceful.”

The man looked glad.  “Ah, that is welcome news!  I heard of the trouble at the church, but I was too heavily wounded to investigate myself, and I didn’t want to enter it alone.”

Tal continued, “Um, sir, if it isn’t too personal, could you explain a bit about yourself?  We are all a bit surprised at your strange appearance.”

The paladin laughed.  “Yes, I can understand that.  I didn’t always look like this, however.  On a mission long ago, my company and I discovered an ancient ruins, filled with bones of long-dead beasts.  However, I slipped off of a precarious perch, and ended up falling on some of the bones.  The fall and sharp edges of the bones killed me, and when I was revived, I came back…strangely.  I looked like this ever since.”

The party thanked him for his time, except for Tsine and Rudyard, and returned to their inn to rest for their journey tomorrow.  Tal lied in bed for a while before drifting off to sleep, however.  There was something about that man, something familiar, and right about him.  He felt something within his own blood as well, and remembered how he felt when he first could manifest his magic without the aid of bardic music.  He then made a decision about his future; he would become like that paladin, and embrace the path of the dragon.

OOC Notes:  The purpose of this adventure was initially just a short filler plot set up before a few later players arrived.  However, by the time the prep work was done for the game, they did show up, and thus we had a full house for the actual battle.  The whole thing with the ruby-scaled paladin did come up quite a bit more often, however.  I originally thought ruby was one of the five standard gem dragons, and only learned it was the color of the gem dragon god later.  But improving details like that is part of the fun of being a DM, I guess!


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## LordVyreth (Apr 7, 2004)

*Treacherous Journey*

The next day, the part met up with Jack and Eric again, and the two of them unveiled their plan.  As a criminal of unknown origin, their prisoner (who has been calling himself Paul,) is not allowed to use the underground tunnels connecting Delaspie to Methosilang.  Thus, they have to go overland, but the area between Necropolis and Delaspie is right on the border between the orc and undead empires and both forces patrol heavily.  To get through the area with maximum speed and efficiency, the two of them have built a small boat on a river that flows very close to Necropolis and the wall of Delaspie (the giant fortified wall that circles the entire kingdom; think the Great Wall of China but curved.)  The party can use the river to get past the worst of the border quickly and reasonably quietly.  It’s dangerous, of course, but the party is eager to try despite this fact, and they take the job.  The party receives a few hundred gold for starting supplies, and are told that they’ll receive the rest when they reach Delaspie’s capital (Jack and Eric will take the underground passage and meet them there.)  

A few hours later, the party, plus Jack and Eric, leave the city and travel to the river, where the boat is being finished by a few laborers from Necropolis.  Jack and Eric handed over both Paul and some of Paul’s possessions, including some of the items that he stole, which mostly consist of ceramic art.  These are placed and locked in a treasure chest, which is then bound to the raft the part will take to get down the river.  Paul is also bound to the raft, though he has given the party no trouble yet.  Once the final preparations are made, Jack and Eric wish the party luck, and warn them that while this is the safest route, the undead in particular are known to guard this river, so parts of the journey may be hazardous.  With that warning, the party sets off on their next adventure!


Tanos watched the group leave while under the guise of invisibility.  Those meddlesome adventurers!  First, they ruined the experiment he began on the orcs, and they didn’t learn exactly what happens when the process was completed.  And now he has to deal with the witnesses both here and with the survivors of the orc tribe they experimented on!  Others have been called to take care of the orcs, but it is his duty to ensure that this party never tells anyone about what they witnessed.  If he fails, he knows his life is forfeit, so he will never rest until they are dead.  And besides, killing such unsuspecting fools could be entertaining….

The party rafted in silence for a few moments.  Finally, Tal spoke up.  “My friends, I have made a decision.  Seeing our paladin friend yesterday has made me realize that I am incomplete myself.  My family came from a lineage of dragons, and I believe that it is my destiny to become one myself.  I will try to begin this transformation once I have developed my knowledge and become more attuned to the magical nature of my heart.”

Rudyard chuckled.  “Well, at least you picked the right half to try to emulate.”

Finally, Quercus had enough.  “What is wrong with you two?  I understand your desire to fight the orc empire, but this is ridiculous.  What reason could you possibly have for insulting our friend, who the Sisters themselves regard as being worthy enough to hold the title of paladin?  And your behavior back at the shine was inexcusable!  We gave our word to work for a peaceful solution.  I won the game anyway; we didn’t need to fight, and we risked losing the mission, the shrine, and even our lives needlessly!”

This time, it was Tsine’s turn to respond.  “No, what is wrong with you?  We are at war with these monsters!  We are supposed to be warriors of the city, not diplomats!  If we insist on talking to our enemies every chance we get, we’ll never prove to ourselves that we are real heroes of Methosilang.”

At this, Quercus said quietly, “Are you sure you’re trying to prove this to yourself, and not your fathers?”

After listen to all of this, Paul secretly smiled.  These fools will be easier to manipulate than he thought.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence after that, broken suddenly by chanting.  Tal and Tsine recognized it instantly; though they couldn’t see who it was, someone was casting a spell!  The party prepared for anything, which proved wise, when a pair of strange, mosquito-like birds appeared out of nowhere.  Quercus could sense immediately, however, that these weren’t ordinary birds; they hailed from outside of this plane initially, and were somehow summoned here.  To make matters worse, as soon as the party saw these birds, they noticed a tower guarded by skeletons on the east bank.  They’ll soon be attacked from there as well.  The party springs into action.  Before the birds can react, Quercus unsheathes his sword and slices one in half, while Tsine uses magic to repeatedly bombard the second.  It also collapses.  However, as soon as they finished, they were nearly hit by a swarm of arrows from the tower.  At the same time, they heard the chanting again.  Raz and Rudyard took control of this one, firing a pair of arrows into the tower.  They hit two of the skeletons, but the tiny arrows had little effect.  Tal used his magic to finish those two off, while the chanting stopped, and a giant mantis, with the same aura of evil, appeared in the center of the raft.  Quercus and Flix focused their attacks on it, but it survived both of their strikes, and turned to bite and slash at Flix.  Fortunately, he seemed unconcerned about the evil energy of the claw, but it nonetheless left a brutal slash across Flix’s chest.  Tsine noticed things were going badly behind him, so he fired an arrow of acid at the creature, which finished the beast off.  Tal, Rudyard, and Raz finished off the remaining skeletons on the tower, and the party sighed in relief, thinking that the worst is behind them.  Their opinion changed quickly when the geyser of water shot up in the middle of the boat! The party tried to get out of the way, but Tsine was caught in the full blast of it, and was shot into the air, and then overboard!

Fortunately, the geyser disappeared as quickly as it appeared, so it wasn’t a leak.  But that meant someone created it nearby, and there was no chanting this time.  Despite the danger Tsine’s in, the rest of the group didn’t have time to worry about him right now, for they were approaching a second tower.  This one was staffed by skeletons as well, but they were arming a ballista!  Even worse, a strange monster was on the tower, and as the boat neared, it suddenly rose to attention.  It had a lion-like body, but a vaguely human head, wings, and a spiked tail.  It was also clearly dead, and was in the process of rotting away.  It started its attack by launching some of its tail spikes, but the muscles in its tail had decomposed too much, and they fell short.  It then took often, and began to fly towards the boat.  Meanwhile, even Quercus and Flix drew missile weapons, in a desperate attempt to destroy the creature before it could get on the boat.  They got a few good shots, but as they were firing, the ballista struck the boat.  It avoided all the heroes, but it gave the boat a nasty crack.  A few more shots like that and it could sink!

Meanwhile underwater, Tsine saw his attacker.  It looked a little like a ghoul or some other undead monster, but around its rotted hide, it had a strange armor formed out of coral, shells, and what looks like solidified water itself.  The creature lunged for him, slashing once with its claw.  Tsine winced from the pain, and even worse, felt like his very breath was being stolen by the creature.  He held it in with an effort of will, and realized he had to get out of the water quickly, but he was too laded down with items to swim easily.  Desperately, he drew his sword, and plunged it into the front of the boat.  With a feat of strength, he pulled himself upwards, until he was halfway out of the water.  Suddenly, he felt something bite and tear into his legs, and his mouth involuntarily open and released everything in his lungs.  Using his last bit of strength, he finished pulling himself onto the boat, and then collapsed on the floor, panting and heaving.

Meanwhile, the party continued their attack on the flying monstrosity.  Well, except for Tal, who instead focused his magic bolts on the skeletons controlling the ballista, in the hope that he can destroy enough to delay the reloading process.  A few fell to his blasts, while the others finished destroying the undead manticore just seconds before it reached the raft.  They were all startled as another geyser jerked the raft, but remembering what happened to Tsine, everyone was able to grab onto something before it was too late.  With their most dangerous enemy dead, all six of them concentrated on the skeleton ballista operators, and a second set of archers that started to fire at them from another tower.  This lasted until the creature that attacked Tsine finally leapt onto the raft itself, and launched another.  The party got a good look at this time, and saw that the geyser literally ran out of the creature’s arm, draining the armor around it in the process, and then turned into a geyser when it flowed into the right position.  But the party was again prepared for this, and Quercus immediately switched to his sword, and he and Tsine finished the creature.  The two sets of skeletons fell quickly as well, as were another pair of the sunken monsters and one last tower of skeletons that attacked shortly after that point.  Finally, it looked like the party managed to pass the undead’s checkpoint, and concentrated on healing and resting as the raft coasted into a lake at the end of the river.  This period of relaxation lasted all of ten seconds, as a giant, reptilian head surfaced about twenty feet from the raft, saw the party, roared in hunger, and then dived for them!

OOC Notes:  The monster that attacked the party from underwater was the first monster I made up for the game.  It is called a Sunken, and was actually based on a video game monster for an idea I designed, and one day hope to produce.  If anyone wants the stats, I can email them or print them here, but I haven’t used them since the 3.0 days, so you have to wait for me to update it or update it yourself.  I also would ask you to give credit to me if you do use it, since I’d rather not have someone claim it as an idea I ripped off from him or her if the game idea ever gets off the ground.  Paranoid, I know, but better safe than sorry.

The party got through this area more easily than I expected.  All the enemies were in the CR range from ½ to 4, and half the party was 5th level by this point.  The quantity almost made up for the lack of quality, but too many enemies started with a distance disadvantage.  If I could do it over, I’d probably bump a few of the baddies up to CR 5.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 8, 2004)

*Surf and Turf*

The party quickly took up a defensive position, while privately worrying about the fight ahead.  What was that thing?  Could it be a dragon?  Could they possibly fight a dragon that size?  A moment later, the creature’s head popped out of the water again, right next to the raft, followed by another three heads.  The party sighed in relief.  It was a hydra, and a four-headed one by the look of it.  Certainly a powerful threat, but it was not a dragon by any means.  The creature nonetheless began the fight ferociously, as it bit repeatedly into Quercus and Flix.  Quercus countered with a swing of his greatsword, severing one of the beast’s heads instantly.  Tsine followed with another arrow of acid, which managed to melt another head away.  Tal fired a series of magical orbs, while Raz and Rudyard fired arrows.  Tal and Raz’ attacks connected, but Rudyard’s bounced off the creature’s thick hide, as did Flix’s sword thrust, since he was unable to move to a position that took advantage of his subtle technique.  The creature bit again with its two remaining heads, focusing entirely on Flix.  He narrowly dodged the first bite, but the second bit deep into his chest.  Enraged after seeing his compatriot injured, Quercus swung again with his blade, severing a third head, and a rain of arrows from Tsine, Raz, and Rudyard finished the last head.  It sank back into the sea with a defeated roar, as Quercus and Tal went to heal their halfling friend.

The party briefly discussed taking a return trip up the river to gather the equipment and treasure their enemies might have had, but a very panicked Paul pointed out that if the undead knew they were there, reinforcements would arrive, and they’d probably be far more powerful than a few skeletons with bows.  The rest of the party grudgingly realizes that prisoner or no, he does have a point, so they tied the boat ashore, and began the next stage of their trek on land.  The first day, the trip was mostly uneventful, but the same can’t be said about the night.  

While Rudyard was on watch, the sounds of some large charging toward the camp at high speed could be heard.  The party woke with a start, and prepared for battle.  However, when the apparent foe, a wounded dire wolf, burst into the camp, Rudyard help up a hand to restrain his party.  He used his training to study the animal’s emotions.  It wasn’t angry or hungry; it was scared.  He slowly began to whisper to the creature, “It’s okay, boy.  Settle down.  We’re here to help,” while offering his hand.  The creature, while still scared, stopped growling for a moment to sniff his hand.  However, a moment later, he began growling again, but this time it was directed at the path he just came from.  He stumbled to get behind the party as a small team of undead burst into the clearing!  There was a gaunt, pale humanoid corpse, a skeleton made from an ogre or a similarly sized, creature, and a skeleton that could only have come from a giant, judging by its size.  Quercus had had enough of the undead at this point!  He shouted to them, “by the power of Bha-Ael, I order you to no longer defile us with your presence!”  The smaller of the two skeletons suddenly cowered at his form, and tore like heck down the forest pathways the first chance he got.  But Quercus already noticed they had other problems.  He recognized the pale undead as a wight, and that it can steal a creature’s life force just by the slightest touch.  “Focus your attacks on this one!” he yelled, and the others quickly responded.  

Rudyard charged the creature, eager to protect his new friend, and slashed it with his magic sword.  The creature stumbled back, but gave a roar and lurched forward while slashing.  Rudyard narrowly evaded the slash, and then watched as a volley of magic missiles from Tsine wounded it further, and Raz’s arrow dropped the creature.  That left only the huge skeleton, and Flix and Tal were already circling it, looking for an opening.  The skeleton pummeled Tal with its fists, but left a weak spot for Flix to strike.  He only could chip the bone, and Tal’s attack wasn’t any more effective, but Quercus’ slash did a little more to the beast.  Tsine’s acidic arrow and Rudyard’s blade also cut into the creature, but it still had enough strength to attack Rudyard, by grabbing his arm and slowly crushing it into powder.  Raz tried to save his friend with another arrow, but it had little effect, as did Tal’s magic orb.  However, the wolf finally developed the courage to enter the fight again, and it leapt on the skeleton, biting its spinal cord in half, and causing the entire thing to crumble into a mess of bones.  The party slowly got back up, and did some healing of themselves and the wounded wolf.  Rudyard asked the party, “Would it be okay if we brought the wolf with us for now?  I don’t know if he’s safe around here by himself until he can recover his health.”  The others shrugged their approval, and the happy animal began to follow Rudyard.  Though Tal silently wondered why he was so willing to forgive and understand a common animal, and not other intelligent beings.

The next night, the party was under attack again, but from an entirely different source.  Tal was on watch this time, when he heard a strange noise out into the woods.  It seemed peaceful somehow, and as Tal strained to listen, he heard a voice whisper, “Tal….”  Was someone calling him?  He quietly went off to investigate.  He found himself in another clearing.  Above him, a small dragon was flying, but it was obviously covered in ruby scales.  “Tal, I have heard about your new quest, but before you can proceed, you must be judged worthy of your ancestors.   I will look deep into your soul, and see if you are worthy of becoming one of us.”  

Tal gulped nervously, but replied, “I accept your challenge.”  He felt the dragon’s eyes looking him over, peering deep into his soul.  Finally, after a few moments, the dragon spoke.

“You have failed, Tal Moinen.  One as pathetic as you deserves to never be part of our species.  In fact, you don’t even deserve the power your blood gives you right now!”  With that, a ruby ray flew at Tal, and Tal, stunned into shock at his failure, sank to his knees. 

The rest of the party woke to the sounds of strange, evil laughter.  Raz woke up first, and dashed over to see Tal still being “drained” by the dragon.  Seeing the threat to his friend, he fired an arrow into the creature, and it suddenly turned shadowy and transparent.  An illusion!  Tal noticed it, too, and quickly got to his feet.  After checking to make sure he still had all of his sorcerer powers, he and Tal rejoined the party at the campsite.

When they returned, they saw something else was going wrong.   Surrounding the campfire, a trio of ghostly children had linked hands and was dancing around it.  As they danced, they began singing a ghastly song.  The first two lines changed each but always revolved around someone doing various nasty things to the listener, and the last two lines were always, “And no matter what you do/ The nightmare prince will torture you!”  As the children sang, they slowly looked like they were being attacked.  Their skin would be flayed of at places, limbs would be removed, and deep stab wounds would pierce to their internal organs.  The party could only look on in horror as the song continued, and the children finally vanished in one long, last, mocking laugh.  What was that, and who was the Nightmare Prince, they wondered?

OOC Notes:  Thus a major villain was introduced to the plot, and one of my favorites.  He doesn’t come up as a regular for a while, but he is eventually responsible for one of my favorite adventures.


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## Lela (Apr 8, 2004)

What was the response from Tal's player when the dragon told her she had failed?


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## LordVyreth (Apr 8, 2004)

Lela said:
			
		

> What was the response from Tal's player when the dragon told her she had failed?




Um, Tal's a he.  I sadly had yet to recruit any female gamers for my group at this point   , and none of my players were that experimental.  As for the response, confused shock more or less covered it!   He was just quietly accepting it until it was made obvious that it was an illusion.  He was still a little confused about it, and still might be, but he realized fairly quickly that something odd was up when the ghost children appeared.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 10, 2004)

*Town Held Hostage*

The day after the strange images tormented the party was a peaceful, but solemn one.  No one spoke much, and Tal especially seemed out of sorts.  Eventually, Flix worried so much about his friend that he spoke up.  “Tal, are you okay?  That dragon-thingy didn’t have any permanent effect, did it?”

Tal shook his head.  “No, I don’t think so.  I don’t think my magic has even been affected.  But even if that was an illusion, what if it was right?  What if whoever is tormenting me can look into my soul, and finds it lacking.  What happened to me felt like my worst nightmare coming true.  What if this Nightmare Prince could make it happen?”

At that, Quercus smashed one of his fists into the other out of frustration.  “If that little display of his was any indication of what he’s like, once I get my hands on him, he’ll be lucky to be alive.  He sounds like a monster that deserves destruction.”

Soon, however, the party had to stop their chatter.  They were nearing Delaspie.  They were given instructions back in Necropolis on how to handle this.  First, they had to take to the forests as much as possible.  Then, they had to blow a horn given to them earlier the instant they see the first tower of the wall rise over the tree line.  They then had to run as fast as they could, and get through the nearest gate immediately!  The party, obviously nervous after receiving such ominous instructions, followed them to the letter, and as they made the last sprint, it soon became apparent why they were instructed to run.  Hordes of undead were slowly chasing them!  It looked like they would be overrun, but the forest suddenly ended, and the party could see the wall in all of its grandeur.  The didn’t really have time to appreciate it right now, of course, so they continued the race until they made it inside the outer gate.  As they ran, arrows rained down from the top of the wall, silencing any undead that were too close to the party.  Once they got into the first gate, armored knights closed the gap behind them, and fought off the undead long enough for the portcullis to lower and the massive gate doors to be closed.  One of the knights immediately turned to the party and simply uttered the word “Password.” It was a simple message, but clearly indicated the intent that if the password was not given, the part was going right back outside the wall.

But the party had been briefed on these as well, and after Tal gave it, the guards visibly relaxed, and the second gate was opened for them.  It took another four gates before they were actually able to get past the wall, though after seeing the army that constantly waits outside the wall, none of them were going to complain about the excess security!  They now had many days of travel ahead of them before they reach the capital city of Delaspie, which is also just called Delaspie.  However, the journey was mostly peaceful, since few things could get past the wall or its army of defenders.  The party stayed at small towns and inns every night.  Finally, the party reached Keddindale, a village just a day away from Delaspie.  There, they stayed at the Lion’s View Inn, which Jack and Eric specifically mentioned is an excellent way to rest before the final trek into town.  In fact, when they arrived, they found their room was already paid for!  They settled in for the last night of their long journey.


Tanos looked on, smiling.  This should be the perfect time to finish these fools off, and have some fun with the helpless locals as well.  But something was troubling him.  That prisoner of theirs looked familiar from somewhere….


It was the screams that woke the party.  As one, the group leapt out of bed, and dashed to the windows of their respective rooms.  The inn was facing the town square, and it looked like all the chaos was focused there.  In the center of the square, a human with a dark cloak was standing in the center, laughing.  Behind him was a strange creature.  It looked a little like a giant jellyfish, but it only had four tentacles, and its “head” was a self-contained pod of fluid.  The tentacles were hooked and barbed, and the entire creature was a sickly dark green color.  Worst of all, however, were a number of ghostly green heads floating in the creature’s pod, which were frequently opening their mouths in anguish, and it soon became clear that many of the screams that the party heard was coming from those faces.  A flock of strange bats filled the sky, and the area around the square was filled with the bloody remains of humans.  The man, after noticing the party was watching, turned to the inn and shouted.  “Heroes of Methosilang!  You have attracted the attention of my master!  I am here to see to it that the secrets you have learned will die here with you!  I want you to appear before me, so we can finish this.  If you do not, I will have my pet here kill one citizen for every hour you delay.  And I will start,” as he says this, he looked to the creature, which obediently grabbed a cowering figure huddled in the crowd, “with this town’s mayor!”  The party could see a struggling halfling woman now being lifted fifteen feet off the ground by the hovering monster.

Quercus and Raz started to put their armor on as quickly as possible, knowing that they had a few minutes and that they’ll need to be at full strength to survive such a fierce foe.  Flix, Rudyard, Tal, and Tsine had only minimal armor that they put on as quickly as possible, and then dashed out of the inn.  Flix quietly moved to blend in with the crowd, while the others pushed their way to the front of the crowd.  Tal got their first, and shouted at the creature, “We’re here.  Now, who are you, and what do you want from us?”  

The man looked on with amusement.  “No, I mean all of the heroes.  I only see three of you now.  I assume the…small one is trying to sneak around in this crowd as we speak, though I wonder why your other friends couldn’t be bothered to appear and help as well.  Are they selfish beings who don’t care about these villagers, or merely cowards?  And if you want my name, Tanos will suffice, I think.”

Tal tried to ignore the taunts.  “You gave us an hour; I’m sure they’ll be here before then.  But why worry about them?  Whatever business you have with us can be handled with just the fo…three of us.”

Tanos laughed.  “My business with you is to ensure that you never see the light of day again.  I’d rather ensure that you’re all here to start instead of getting involved in a pointless melee and having to a headcount afterwards.  Especially since I doubt all of your heads will still be intact at that point.”

Flix, hiding in the corner, finally had enough.  His restraint temporarily snapped, he leapt out and threw a dagger at the floating creature.  It pierced the fluid bag, causing it to ooze a vile liquid.  The others were about to join in the attack when the creature held up the tentacle holding the mayor, and even with its alien features, its intent was obvious.

“Now, that was hardly sporting, now was it?” Tanos began.  I’m sure you noticed the flock of bats above you.  If you come to me in a group as I ordered earlier, I give you my word that they won’t interfere.  If not, well, they may get enraged when they see their leader has been attacked, and suck the blood out of the nearest villager they see.  The casualties would be quite excessive, wouldn’t you think?  Now, run along and find your friends, so we can settle this already.”

Realizing they had no choice, the party retreated back to the inn to find Quercus and Raz.  As they did, Rudyard noticed the creature disappear from the town square for a moment, but he had bigger concerns.  He also held back for a moment while the others looked for their missing friends, and a gut feeling told him to check on the prisoner.  As he looked into the room they were keeping him, his worst fears were confirmed: Paul was gone, and the chest containing his possessions and the stolen items was opened and nearly empty.  Even worse the ceramic shards of many of the treasures littered the floor, as if Paul broke them before escaping for some reason.  Tanos will have to wait for a moment, Rudyard thought, as he burst out the door and began tracking his quarry.

Though his skills at tracking were learned in a forest, Rudyard found them just as useful inside a human settlement.  He soon was able to spot the footprints Paul made when leaving the inn, and follow them outside.  Even with the crowds of people and the mess they made of the path, he was able to track Paul for blocks before finally spotting him trying to sneak over the wall.  A strange humanoid-shaped being made out of an ectoplasmic ooze was scaring away the citizens in the area.  Rudyard gave them little heed as he charged at the odd creature.  It tried to pound on him, but he easily sidestepped it and slashed at it with his sword.  Paul realized this new threat had to be dealt with, and simply glared at Rudyard.  Suddenly, a scream erupted in Rudyard’s head, as if his very mind was being pummeled.  It took every ounce of will he had in him, but he resisted the effects, and finished off the green monster.  He then charged at a suddenly very scared Paul, who threw up his hands in surrender.  “Wait,” he yelled.  “I won’t resist any more!”

Rudyard growled.  “You’re lucky they want you alive.  But a few smacks from the flat of my blade would make sure I’ll get no more trouble out of you!”

Paul trembled, but was able to respond.  “Hold on!  I can help you.  I know about those things that are attacking the village.  I can help you fight them if you spare me!”

Rudyard thought it over for a moment.  “I won’t free you if you agree to help us, but I will speak on your behalf at the trial.  But you must swear not to betray us or try to escape us again.”

Without hesitation, Paul assented.  “I swear by the Eleven Sisters that I won’t try to escape or harm you again.  But let me stay hidden in the crowd until the fight begins.  If Tanos sees me, we’ll lose the element of surprise.”

Rudyard, eager to get back to his friends, agreed, and went back to the inn with Paul.  By now, Quercus and Raz were finally ready, and the group went back to square as one.  Though Flix again snuck into the crowd as they approached.  The green monster had returned as well, and it looked fully healed from the wound Flix gave it earlier.

“We are all here now, you murderer!”  Quercus yelled.  “Let’s end this mess so we can put you to justice!”

Tanos looked at the group with a frown.  “And where is your sneaky friend this time…”

“Right here!”  Flix yelled, and this time charged the square, just as the other five charged in from the other side.  The floating creature didn’t even have time to threaten the mayor further, or perhaps it didn’t care to now that his prey were all gathered in front of him.  Flix was the first to strike, however, and he prepared to stab his sword straight into Tanos’ heart.  But something made him pause.  The way he spoke about Flix earlier, like he tried to emphasis or gloss over his size, made him change his attack, aiming for where his heart would be if he was closer to Flix’s size.  His intuition paid off, and Tanos screamed from a much lower area than expected.  Flix noticed the “man’s” form immediately vanished, to be replaced with a shadowy figure.  Another illusion!  Quercus saw it, too, and cast a spell to purge invisibility and reveal Tanos’ true form.  With a flash of light, a halfling appeared inside the illusionary man.  However, he wasn’t a normal halfling.  His body was altered, much like the orcs were, to have metal grafts and implants, including a tail, and insectoid wings.  But he didn’t appear to be in any pain, except for the obvious gaping chest wound, of course.  He appeared to be fully in control of his implants.  Meanwhile, the strange jellyfish-creature floated over the rest of the party, slashing at them with all four of his tentacles.  Tsine was outside of his range, but Tal, Raz, Quercus, and Rudyard all took a deep gash from the creature.  Tanos, meanwhile, looked surprisingly happy.  He yelled at the bats to destroy everyone they see, and then took off into the air.  Flix tried to stab at him as he flew, but his attack bounced off his thick metallic skin.  Laughing maniacally, he tossed a fireball into the area of Tal and Tsine, and caught Raz in the blast as well.  Already, everyone but Flix was heavily injured.  Raz fired at the jellyfish with his bow, but the creature regenerated nearly all of the wounds it took.  Tal and Tsine fired at him, but while Tsine’s acid arrow struck true, Tal’s magical orb vanished inches from the creature.  Rudyard drew his bow and fired at Tanos, only to have his arrows bounce off his metal armor skin.  It was looking very bad for the party.

Flix tried to continue his attack, by throwing a dagger at Tanos, but it veered off wildly.  Quercus disengaged from the jellyfish to attack Tanos, but took another slash from the creature as a party shot as he flew.  The jellyfish ignored him after that, and instead suddenly spun in a circle, gathering dark orbs of energy around it, and then released them outward, catching Rudyard, Raz, Flix, and Tal in the blast.  The orb heading towards Rudyard caught him in the head, and he uttered one last, agonizing scream, and then collapsed on the floor, unmoving.  Suddenly, a jet of strange white fire appeared out of literally nowhere, scorching both Tanos and the jellyfish.  Both screamed in pain, and Tanos yelled out, “Traitor!  When I tell my master of this, he’ll make sure you’ll never see a moment without misery for the rest of your long life!”  But he couldn’t spot his new enemy, so he instead fired an arrow of acid at Tal.  It sunk deep into him, and he collapsed from the pain.  Realizing they had to kill these creatures quickly, Raz fired on Tanos, and scored a perfect shot between his armored plates and deep into his chest.  Meanwhile, Tsine fired a volley of missiles at the jellyfish.  They pummeled its pod, and as it tried to recover, Quercus suddenly spun around in the air to target his remaining foe.  It weakly tried to slash at him, but his attack went wide, and Quercus drove his blade straight into the pod and out the other side.  It burst like a water balloon, causing the creature to hang limply from his sword for a moment, and then dissolve into ash.  The screaming faces inside the pod flew out, shrieking a cry of happiness and joy before disappearing into the night.  The bats saw that their master was defeated, and flew off as well.  The party quickly moved to gather their wounded friends, and try to find Paul.

OOC Notes:  The jellyfish monster is called a Lipido, and is from the same video game idea that the Sunken came from.  Tanos, on the other hand, used the half-machine template from an old Dungeon article.  It won’t be the last time that template gets used, either.

This game was another one I over prepared for.  I had an elaborate timetable, plans for Paul after his escape, an order of hostages killed, and so on.  Fortunately, unlike the temple adventure earlier, we started this one midway through the session (everything from the hydra battle up to now was one night of gaming,) so when it ended quickly, it actually felt well timed.


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## Lela (Apr 11, 2004)

Gotta love it when the game puts itself together.  So, did Tanos die or get away?


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## LordVyreth (Apr 12, 2004)

Lela said:
			
		

> Gotta love it when the game puts itself together.  So, did Tanos die or get away?




He's been imprisoned, and as of now has been written out of the plot.  Theoretically, he could have been executed, but it's also possible he escaped.  He's a convenient plot point for now, that I could re-spring.  One thing about this story hour is that it gave me a lot of potential characters and plot developments to bring back.  Oh, by the way, expect a small update later tonight, but my party just finished a new adventure recently, so the number of updates will be reduced for a week or two until I can write up the new adventure.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 12, 2004)

*Delaspie, land of opportunity*

The party searched through the crowd for a few moments, but Paul was nowhere to be seen.  Instead, they found a note.

Sorry to have to break our little verbal contract, but my need for anonymity outweighed the value of such an oath.  Don’t act too betrayed; without my help against Tanos, he and his pet would have surely killed you.  Best of luck when you meet with your employers again. 

							Palfrin

Rudyard grumbled in frustration, until Tal called out from behind him, “Hey, Tanos is still alive!”

The party soon surrounded their fallen adversary, and were debating what they should do, exactly.  Quercus drew his blade.  “I think we should finish the villain off, after all the people he’s killed in this village.”

But Flix stopped him.  “We need more information.  If this guy is a servant of the Nightmare Prince, we need to know exactly who we’re fighting.  Besides, we’re so close to Delaspie.  I’m sure they could look after him as a prisoner.”

Quercus reluctantly agreed, and healed Tanos enough to stop the bleeding, but still keep him from waking up.  They then stripped him of all useful possessions, and proceeded to beat his metal wings, tail, and other weaponry into scrap.  Among the standard magic items, spellbooks, and other typical equipment of a wizard, they were disturbed to find a pair of tiny scimitars.  So Tanos, and possibly the Nightmare Prince as well, are more servants of Bas?  This little cult could be stronger than they expected.

After Tanos was restrained, the party helped heal wounded townsfolk, repair the more serious damage done to the town, put out fires, and just generally act useful.  By the end of the night, the village had a new collection of heroes.  They were rewarded with a large collection of masterwork and magical items, along with a generous amount of gold.  Though initially reluctant to take the funds, Raz pointed out that their reward for escorting Paul to Delaspie is probably completely lost now, so they had to make up for their losses somewhere.  The next morning, the party, along with their new prisoner Tanos, finally made it to Delaspie.  However, before they left, Flix announced that he wasn’t going to travel with them to Delaspie, at least not immediately.  “I don’t know what it is, but something about this town is compelling me to stay behind for a while.  I want to help with the rebuilding process, and learn to become a part of this town.”

Tal nodded solemnly, and then asked, “So, who is she?”

“Err, the mayor, actually.  Don’t worry, I’ll be along pretty soon, before you leave Delaspie at the latest.”

A day later, the party arrived at Delaspie.  The Delaspie government was disappointed that Paul/Palfrin was lost, but was willing to pay them for both the information they gained about his powers, and for Tanos’ capture after the havoc he wreaked in Keddindale.  They also explain that they captured another one of the thieves, and this information could be helpful when interrogating him or at least keeping him prisoner.  Eric and Jack are less sympathetic, however, especially after the party reached the consensus that they don’t deserve any of the money for Tanos’ capture.  But eventually Tal decided to at least even things out with them, and gave them their original 400 gold back, plus a little extra for their troubles.  They stopped their complaints, but were clearly not very happy about it despite, and left for Methosilang immediately.  Meanwhile, Tanos wasn’t talking.  He appeared to be too loyal to his master, and more than a little afraid of what would happen if it became known that he talked.  The Delaspie courts agreed to keep him prisoner until he could be judged for his crimes at Keddindale.

With all loose ends covered, the party prepared to explore the library, but learned that this was easier said than done.  Delaspie was a good city, but it was also a massive beauracracy.  Getting anything done takes weeks of filling out papers, waiting for said papers to be processed, and then processing the permission forms.  Access to the exclusive ancient part of the library would take about three weeks, and over a hundred gold pieces in processing fees!  The party could easily afford it by now, of course, and looked for ways to make themselves busy until they were allowed to enter.  Flix was still in Keddindale, so he was fine.  Tsine and Quercus decided to use the time to explore the local magical and religious scenes, respectively.  Tsine paid some gold in dues to enter the royal League of Practioners, the local mages’s guild.  He then took some time to scribe the spells from Tanos’ book into his own, and purchase a few new ones.  Quercus learned of a strange church called the Sole Church of Wejiss, which is the only church dedicated to an old, pre-orb god.  He also spent time in the Neopantheonic church, which was dedicated to the Sisters.  It seemed like a good church, but he was a little suspicious about the high priestess, a woman named Katarina.  She ascended to the role of high priestess only after many of her superiors died in accidents, but Quercus couldn’t find anything that linked her to their deaths.  

Tal took some time creating a new spell, which could strike a group of undead with one attack.  After that was done, he spent some time in the local bars and inns, honing his skill as a performer and earning some coin in the process.  One admirer of his music, a benefactor drow named simply White, was very interested in his music, and later in him.  Tal wasn’t the kind of guy to let an offer like this pass him by, so the two began a brief but intense relationship. Meanwhile, Rudyard set off for the wilderness.  His adventures to date have impressed him on the benefits of mounted combat, especially when used in the air, and his recent experiences with the dire wolf have taught him to focus again on the natural aspects of his training, and to seek out a creature to establish a bond with, if not necessarily a normal animal.  In particular, a griffon would be ideal creature for both roles, and he decided to head into the mountains near Delaspie to find a willing creature.  Raz went with him, since he had little else in town that interested him.  About the time they left, Flix returned, and he also was interested in seeking out a new way to grow.  He learned a bit about Rudyard’s experiences with Paul, and was curious about the power he possessed.  Perhaps he could get some information out of him.  However, when he approached the guards with this request, they refused to let Flix see him, as they were still deciding on how to best contain a criminal who had powers that they didn’t really understand.  However, they were willing to let him see the other prisoner they captured, who has yet to make an attempt and didn’t appear to be as powerful as Palfrin anyway, once Flix bluffed the guards into believing it was part of an elaborate set-up to trick him into revealing information.

He was let into the room where the prisoner was held.  The prisoner was currently held in place in one chair, by over a dozen chains.  Unlocking even one would create enough noise to get the guards running, and there are usually some in the room anyway, but Flix had them leave to help with his “plan.”  Once they left, he quietly spoke to the prisoner.

“I know about you,” Flix began.  “I was part of the group responsible for bringing Palfrin to Delaspie, and I didn’t succeed because of his powers.”

The prisoner shrugged.  “If you expect me to tell you how to find him, you’re sadly mistaken.  I won’t have anything to do with it.”

Flix shook his head.  “I’m not interested in that.  I want to know more about what you’re trying to do, and what if you’re also part of those Bas worshippers.  And I want to know about the powers you have.”

The prisoner looked at Flix intently.  It was as if he was examining Flix’s soul.  Finally he responded.  “There is something…different about you.  I will tell you a bit more about us, but you must not tell anyone about it.  I can tell you desire the power we have, but if I have any reason to believe you betrayed my trust, I can promise you that you’ll never get a taste of it.”

After Flix swore he would tell no one, the prisoner responded.  “Yes, we are followers of Bas, but do not misunderstand us.  Our intentions are not malevolent.  Restoring Bas to power in necessary to restore balance and justice to the world.  Without her, the Sisters are not able to regain their power, and she deserves to be a full goddess again, just like the others.  As for our power, it was a gift from Bas; something that she discovered in her fallen years.  If you really have an open mind, here is what you must do.  Go to the Reign of Dusk Inn.  You will see a man with a red scar on his cheek, and wielding a sword that looks like it is made of some kind of crystal.  Give him my description and tell me that I have been captured.  We will get in touch with you from there.”

Flix nodded, and prepared to leave.  He admitted to the guards that the plan isn’t complete just yet, but it should yield results soon.  A couple weeks later, the prisoner was gone, having possibly escaped, and Flix received a strange letter.  It told him to meet at a temple located about a week away from Methosilang (not the one he’s visited earlier, though,) and to come alone.  Flix put it away, wondering if he will risk exploring this possibility the next he’s near Methosilang.

Meanwhile, after a week of traveling and hunting, Rudyard found an appropriate mount.  It was a young but strong-looking griffon, which was currently grazing on some small shrubs in a small mountain valley.  Carefully, Rudyard approached it, and slowly began speaking to it in calming tones.  The creature looked nervous, but allowed him to get closer.  After a few minutes of this bonding process, however, they were interrupted by what looked like a flying lizard, except it had horns where its eyes should be.  It took one look at the tiny griffon, and though it might make a good meal!  Not surprisingly, the griffon tried to fly away, but Rudyard held on tight, and was dragged along with it into the sky, with the monster in hot pursuit.  Raz, who was watching the whole thing, stepped into the open and started firing at the creature.  However, it ignored the minor-looking wounds the arrows inflicted, and flew right at the griffon, then grabbed it in its claws.  Of course, Rudyard was still there, and he wasn’t about to let his new mount become some big lizard’s lunch, so he began to hack at the creature’s legs.  This, along with more of Raz’s arrows, finally convinced the creature to seek an easier meal, so it let go of the griffon and flew off.  However, the wounded griffon was weak from the fight, and not used to a rider, and it began to plummet to the ground.  Rudyard used every ounce of his will to control the creature, and try to get it to pull up before hitting the ground.  With only a few feet left, the griffon finally recovered, and it pulled up in an impressive reversal.  Rudyard and Raz returned home with Rudyard’s new friend, and between his later library work, he began to train the creature to take a rider in more controlled circumstances.

OOC Notes: Not much to say here that I didn’t cover with Lela above.  All of this took about a third of the game, plus the behind the scenes buying and selling of items.  Pretty much all of the events above actually happened, though.  It was a good role-playing experience all around.

Apologies for the tardiness of this response.  I wanted to post it last night, but ENWorld was having problems.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 14, 2004)

*Tome Raider*

“And we are now entering the ancient writings section of the Great Library of Delaspie.  It is said that this entire wing was discovered buried below the surface of the earth centuries ago.  The wing was eventually refurbished into a library, designed to store the very books discovered in it.  The library itself has been built above and around it, though this wing is still separated from the others by hundreds of feet.”  Olivia Neddle, the head librarian, continued her speech in a bored, monotonous voice.  It was obvious she had given it hundreds, if not thousands of times before.  It was the first time that Tal, Quercus, Tsine, Flix, Rudyard, and Raz heard it, however, not to mention the dozens of other scholars who were finally granted entry to the ancient writings section after waiting for weeks.

After descending the stairs for a few minutes, Olivia continued her spiel.  “The library itself is five stories high.  It only has one actual floor, but it has a central pillar that has existed since the library was found, and a number of walkways around it and the outer wall, granting access to the higher four levels of books.  The books are arranged alphabetically, and separated by large gems with the letter of that section carved into it.  These gems were donated by an anonymous philanthropist 18 years ago.  We are now entering the library.  If you look to the ceiling, you’ll see a mural by the famous gnome inventor and artist Tepedin, depicting the old gods giving away the world to the new ones.  Now, before we end this tour, I have just one precaution for all of you.  We’ve trapped the mural and many of the decorative suits of armor in the library with alarms.  Interfere with these or other works of art inside the museum, and we will not hesitate to cancel your reserved time in the library, and punish you to the fullest extent of the law.  Which is a lot, trust me.”

The group shuffled into the library, and following Olivia’s cue, looked up.  On the left side of the mural, a number of men and women were gathered.  There was a one-eyed orc, a lich of some sort, a drow woman, a mysterious dark-haired woman, a dwarf man, an elf man, a halfling man, a gnome woman, and many others.  The dark-haired woman was handing something that looked a little like a tiny blue and green marble to a dark woman on the right side of the mural, that looked like she was made of space itself.  The party recognized that as a common form given to Bha-Ael, and noticed the ten women around her were obviously representations of the other Sisters.  To Flix, Rudyard, and the other visitors, the mural was just a work of art, but as they looked at it, the other four party members suddenly felt a strange, and incredible headache building.  It was like there was something that was fighting to get out of their heads, or to burrow its way in…

After the headache resided, the party finally began to research some of the questions that they had, starting with the whole Lady of Memory thing.  Unfortunately, days later, it looked like their quest was going unfulfilled.  On the other hand, they got some important information.  They learned, for example, that according to some theories, gods possess a physical and spiritual half.  The spiritual half is away in the outer planes, ruling as normal, while the physical half is more or less permanently manifested somewhere on the Material plane as or through an avatar.  Most gods manifest their other half inside a worshipper or other being of a compatible nature.  They also received a list of the old gods, and a description of their traits.  For some reason, Nerull is entirely absent.  The most common theory is that a goddess called Wejiss was the ruler of the old pantheon, and likely was the dark-haired woman of the mural.

But none of this was helping the party at all.  Finally, out of desperation, the party tried some of the strange items within the library itself.  They hit pay dirt when Tal started fiddling with the gems that separate the library sections.  Touching “L” caused it to glow for a second.  Shocked at this discovery, he quietly gathered everyone together, and had them touch the other gems.  Nothing happened at first, until Tal tried the “L” again after it went out, and then Raz got to the “A” in time.  It didn’t take a genius to figure this one out, but they couldn’t run around the library touching the gems while there were other people around.  They decided to hide a few of their own inside the library until it got dark, and then try it out when everyone left.  It took forever, though, mostly because Olivia didn’t leave until hours after the last of the other patrons did, and the rest of the group (led by Flix) didn’t even see her leave the library, so never tried to sneak back in.  Meanwhile, Quercus and Rudyard, who were still inside the library, went to work.  They soon spelled out “Lady Memory” in the gems, and were rewarded when a secret passageway appears in the library floor.  Part of the floor turned into a ramp, which led to a door.  Quercus and Rudyard investigated, and discovered a hallway filled with bookshelves.  However, as they got close to it, the books suddenly sprung to life, and flung themselves at the duo!  However, though well outnumbered, Quercus and Rudyard easily slashed the books apart, without suffering anything worse than a bruise or paper cut.  They reached the end of the hall, and found another door.  Inside, there was a chamber about thirty feet long and wide.  Inside, there was a missing chapter of the book they found earlier, about the dual identities of gods.  According to this chapter, Bas does exist, but she was sent to the plane following a war between the goddesses centuries ago.  She became a fallen goddess, with her spiritual half trapped in a new, physical body.  Said body was itself trapped underground, buried as a result of the crater she made upon impact with the ground and the debris that landed around her.  

The party also found a second, even older book.  It claimed to be the secret diary of Wee Jas, which the party assumed was another spelling of Wejiss.  According to this book, Wee Jas was inspired to create the Twelve Sisters, which meant that they aren’t eternal like the church taught.  She got the idea from some being that the book describes only as TIE.  There appeared to be more written in both books, but they are extremely old, and much of them are too worn or faded to be legible.  Despite this fact, Quercus and Rudyard decided to find the rest of the party, and lead them here to make some sense of all this.

OOC Notes:  This is the first part of what will end up being one of the longest adventures in the campaign.  It took at least three weeks to finish this area alone, which was a record for the time.  It also gets a lot more into puzzles and story moments from here on.  
And I do apologize for the title of this session.  I usually use my original title for the adventure as the heading of at least one of the story hour recaps that cover it.  I was just in a punny mood for this one.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 16, 2004)

*You have to be sharp for this riddle*

Meanwhile, Flix, Tal, Tsine, and Raz were getting impatient.  As they waited by the front gate, there was no sign of their friends, or of Olivia.  Meanwhile, they still had to get past a pair of guards at the front door.  Finally, they noticed that one of the guards had fallen asleep, and were tired of waiting.  “Let’s just go,” Raz insisted.  “We can take this one guy out without doing him any permanent damage.”  Tsine gave a half-hearted protest, but the others quickly acquiesced.  

Speaking of the other guard, he wasn’t exactly a normal guy either.  His name was Deladane, or just Dane for short.  He transferred here as a guard a few months ago.  Up until that point, he was with the border military, and had seen more than his share of fights in his days.  However, a few months ago, he had a strange dream involving a mysterious woman called the Lady of Memories.  Haunted by the dream, he decided to try and find answers at the library.  He hasn’t been able to get the forms completed to explore it personally, and he has never had much of a heard for research anyway, so he took a job that would let him stay close to the library, and hopefully something will turn up.  He’s already aware there is something strange about the library; weird sounds emerge from it some nights, and Olivia Neddle almost never has been seen actually leaving it.  So he wasn’t too surprised when an elf, a human, a half-elf, and a halfling suddenly leapt out of the shadows and charged at him.  They, on the other hand, were more than a little surprised to see the conscious guard suddenly turn and whap the sleeping one on the back of his head with the flat part of the blade, ensuring that his sleep would be much longer and much deeper.

Tal was the first to recover.  If you could call it that.  “Yeah, um, what?”  He stammered out.  Dane shrugged.  “Look, I remember you guys from before.  Outlanders who were doing research from the library, right?  I’m guessing that you are here looking for answers, and I’m hoping they’re the same ones that I’m looking for.”

Tal decided to trust his gut on this one.  “You didn’t happen to have a strange dream about a mysterious woman recently, did you”

“How did you know?”

To make a long story short, Dane introduced himself to the rest of the growing group, and they discovered that they all (except for Flix and Rudyard,) had the same strange dream on the same night.  Now more curious than ever, Dane agreed to help the party discover what was going on in this library.  About this time, Rudyard and Quercus returned, and led the party (plus one) down to the secret room they discovered.  While walking, Quercus explained everything that they’ve seen to the party, and Tal explained the rest of the party’s recent activities, except for anything about Bas.

Soon, they returned to the secret passageway, and began to study the ancient texts once again.  Suddenly, Tsine keen elvish eyes noticed something odd about the north wall.  “There is something here,” he whispered to the others.  Flix and Rudyard began a more careful investigation, and discovered a secret passageway leading into a new tunnel.  This area looked different from the last room, as if it was carved more recently, and by a different worker.  At the end of the tunnel, six swords of masterful craftsmanship and ornate design hung on the wall.  There also was a short poem carved into the dead-end wall.

The armor here honors loyal guards;
But not all of the guards obeyed.
Six guards were corrupted by dark promises
And through them the others were betrayed.
The first guard stood watch at the library’s entrance.
He was silent as the invaders passed, but was betrayed himself by one of them.
Stabbed through the heart by the last of the invaders; show his memorial the same respect.

After reading it a few times, Quercus spoke.  “So, what does this mean?”

Tal reached into his repertoire of storytelling and poetry, and stumbled upon an idea.  “I think I have it.  Those ceremonial suits of armor around the library are supposed to be arranged based on the actual position of guards who died when this library was attacked a long time ago.  If this poem is right, then six guards that died were actually traitors.  If we stab the right suits of armor, we should get a clue as to what to do next.  And since we have six swords as well as six suits of armor to stab, we’re probably supposed to use those.”

Quercus gulped nervously.  “But aren’t the statues supposed to be trapped?  If we damage them, we could set off alarms.”

Raz glared at him with scorn.  “And I suppose you have a better idea on where to go from here?  Now that we found this secret passage, I don’t entirely trust those books we found earlier.  I want to know the truth, and I’m not about to abandon that quest because we might get in a little trouble.  Besides, whoever set up this puzzle probably knows about the alarms, and as long as we only stab the right statues, we should be fine.”

Quercus was still reluctant, but he was easily out-voted.  The clue suggested that they stab the first statue from the entrance, so they decided to give that a try.  There was a brief argument over which sword to use and where to stab it, but the swords all look identical, and after seeing the statue, there was only one small hole in the armor that looked like it would fit the sword, so they inserted it there.  They were rewarded by two more secret doors opening, one in the west wall, and one in the north wall.  They decided to try the west wall opening first, but found it was only about five by five feet in size. Flix cautiously entered, checking for traps as he went, and found the room appeared safe, but there were a number of buttons on the wall next to the door.  They were labeled “1,” “B1,” “B2,” “B3,” and “B4.”  At the moment, only the 1 and B1 buttons were lit up. After a brief conversation, they decided to try the B1 button.  After Flix pressed it, the wall that opened up to reveal the secret door suddenly closed again, and Flix suddenly felt himself sinking with the entire room.  Just as he had time to start getting worried, the south door opened, revealing a twisting passageway made out of metal.  Not especially eager to explore that way by himself, he pressed the “1” button, and was relieved when it caused him to rise back into the library.  “Um, guys?” Flix said.  “Why don’t we forgo tactical advantage just this once and go together?”

The others agreed, and piled into the elevator, which took them again into the first basement.  After following the winding tunnel for a few minutes, they ended up in a water-filled room.  Actually, they were on a metal walkway that was above a pool of water.  A waterfall was pouring into the room from above, but it was also apparently draining somewhere, as the water level wasn’t rising.  The entire room looked man-made.  At the end of the metal walkway, there was a strange kind of machinery made out of metal.  The party headed towards it to investigate, but as they did, the water itself suddenly rose up around them!  It soon coalesced into a pair of vaguely humanoid forms, which began to pound on the party!  Tal was the first to be targeted by the creatures.  Both of the elementals pummeled him mercilessly, causing him to crash to the floor in a heap within moments!  The others were finally able to respond.  Quercus, Rudyard, and Dane drew their swords, and even Raz realized this might not be the ideal time for long-range combat, and drew an axe.  Tsine, however, had no real choice, but he was able to carefully prepare one of his bolts of acid without letting his guard down, and let it fly at one of the elementals.  Quercus and Rudyard attacked the same one, while Dane and Flix focused on the other.  Dane revealed for the first time exactly how he survived on the front lines as long as he did.  Effortlessly lifting his massive blade, he hacked at the elemental with such skill and ferocity that it barely could hold itself together.  However, both survived the party’s initial volley, and while one grabbed Tsine, and began to tear him limb from limb, the other punch Flix with such force that he went sailing into the water!  It was about to submerge and go after him, when Rudyard changed targets to attack it, and another barrage from Dane caused it to collapse in a heap.  Meanwhile, Tsine tried to shut out the pain by thinking of his father.  If he faltered now, he would be embarrassing his father and entire family name!  With that thought as his focus, he cast a spell that sent a volley of missiles at the other elemental, and coupled with Raz and Quercus’ attacks, it also collapsed backing the water that spawned it.

OOT Notes:  This is an earlier indicated that technology would have a roll in this campaign; the mechanical disease and Tanos were other early signs.  This library gets a lot more complicated from here.  This Story Hour is making me dig out my old notes and try to figure out all the puzzles for a second time!


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## Lela (Apr 16, 2004)

You do like to use a lot of puzzles.  Good ones too.  Think you might be able to pass a few my way?  I had a player ask me to put a few in.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 16, 2004)

Lela said:
			
		

> You do like to use a lot of puzzles.  Good ones too.  Think you might be able to pass a few my way?  I had a player ask me to put a few in.




Well, I could just email you my notes from this adventure, but when I went back to them to write this story hour, I noticed that they're fairly garbled.  They worked when I wrote the adventure initially, sure, since it was still fresh in my mind, but I've had to do some work to figure it out again.  You might be better just using the SH here as I update it to figure out these puzzles.  I'd be happy to help you write up a new puzzle, though.  Can you give a setting and general level and class range for your party?

Incidentally, though I liked the library, my favorite puzzles are the more stand-alone ones coming up later in the "Ancient" Dungeon and TIE encounters later on in the adventure.  I could give you more info on them, but I'd have to email them, since they're a bit too far in the future of this Story Hour and I don't want to spoil them.


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## Lela (Apr 16, 2004)

I'm looking at a level 3/4 party of around 6 (depending on the day).  They're headed to a small town, where they'll be stopping do to very harsh weather.  After that, they're trying to reach the elves (forest, big surprise).

Something in a cave having to do with the four elements would fit right in and could progress a plot line or two quite nicely.  I appreciate the help.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 16, 2004)

Lela said:
			
		

> I'm looking at a level 3/4 party of around 6 (depending on the day).  They're headed to a small town, where they'll be stopping do to very harsh weather.  After that, they're trying to reach the elves (forest, big surprise).
> 
> Something in a cave having to do with the four elements would fit right in and could progress a plot line or two quite nicely.  I appreciate the help.




When do you need it by?


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## Lela (Apr 16, 2004)

Would be nice by tomarrow but there's really no rush.  I can drop it in anywhere over the next few sessions.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 17, 2004)

*For Lela*

I tried emailing you, but it said the administration locked that function.  Just for those vollowing along, this has nothing to do with my campaign.

Anyway, what about this?  The cave's central chamber has four locked doors.  There are also four keys in the room, or they could be found by the PCs in an earlier adventure or set of adventures.  The keys each have an elemental property.  Behind the doors is a labyrinth, which descends very quickly at first so that much of it is below the starting room.  Characters can make skill checks to notice the central room is disconnected from the rest of the cave by a small set of cracks. Directly below the central chamber, there is another room with a pit in the center of the room.  At the bottom of the pit is a gateway to the negative energy plane. There can be a ladder in the pit, in case a player falls or jumps into it.  The rest of the labyrinth eventually splits into four side passages, with elemental themes.  To get through them, the party can use the keys, which not only unlock the first four doors, but also have limited powers of their own.  For example, the air key can let the user feather fall at will, the fire key can produce flame, the earth key can produce a solid block of stone, and then store this block of stone to be transferred to someplace else, and the water key can create obscuring mist.  These powers can be used to get through obstacles or puzzles within the side paths.  They'd also be a good place for small combats, with mephits or low CR elementals (or non-true elemental creatures like arrowhawks.) The goal is to reach the end of each chamber, which contains a switch that opens and closes a portal to the corresponding plane.  Opening the portal will send a solid sheet of fire, a river of water, a ball of sand, or a blast of wind down the passageway and into the maze.  The goal is to release the four jets with correct timing and positioning to direct the fire and water into the lower chamber.  To do this, the air blast has to move the fire sheet, and the sand has to block and redirect the river.  This will make the fire and water mix in the lower chamber, creating steam that will last and rise through the ceiling, instead of pour into the negative energy portal.  The goal now is get back though the maze (while avoiding the damaging jets of elemental power,) reach the central chamber, and let the steam actually push this room upwards, to the exit, a major magical item, or some other plot point.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 18, 2004)

*The sound-barrier breaking arrows, but the saner version*

After defeating the elementals, Quercus healed the seriously injured, especially Tal, and then went to look at the machinery in the corner.  There was some writing on it, but it wasn’t in a language that any of them recognized.  They did see a switch, however, and an arrow that was pointed at a multi-hued arc of color.  At the moment, it was pointing at the very bottom of green area of the switch, and there were also tiny yellow and red areas on the far right side of the arc.  The party discussed what to do with it.

“I think we should flip the switch,” Tsine began.  An eager Flix nodded his head in agreement.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Tal responded.  “I can’t read the letters, but the way they are written suggest that it’s trying to tell us something important, like it was a warning or something.  We can always try it later, but we should learn more about it first.”

“If we wait a day, I can use magic to understand it,” Quercus volunteered.

Raz frowned.  “But do we have a day?  What if we can’t close these secret doors up when we’re done tonight?  The kingdom would probably step in and investigate, and we might lose our chance.”

Dane had an idea.  “Well, what about this?  We go back to the main library, and try to remove that first sword from the knight.  If it closes the doors again, and we can find a way to close that first secret tunnel, then we know we can be a little more cautious about all of this, and try the pump later.  And either way, we should try that northern secret door before experimenting with weird machines.”

They agreed to this plan, piled back into the elevator, and were relieved to see that the first secret tunnel already closed itself while they were gone.  They tried removing the sword from the armor, and as they hoped, the secret doors closed up again.  Safe to explore again, they replaced the sword, and then went towards the northern door.  This area also appeared to be made out of metal, and it was extremely well crafted.  There wasn’t a crack, hole, or seem to be found between the metal plates.  The path forked again here, going left and right, but when they went left, all they found was a shaft leading down.  Quercus flew down to investigate, but all there was at the bottom was a long metal tunnel going south, which led in a dead end.  He flew back to rejoin the party, and they went east, where they found a staircase going up.  Cautiously, Dane and Raz climbed up the stairs, but just as they reached the top, the entire stair collapsed into a ramp, and spikes rose up at the bottom of the stairs!  Raz barely caught himself in time, but Dane was sent tumbling back down, where two of the spikes penetrated his armor, catching him painfully in the hip and leg.  Raz couldn’t help but chuckle a little as he jumped safely off the stairs, causing the trap to reset.  Dane just glared at him as Tal used a healing wand to repair the wounds, and then Flix carefully examined the steps.  A few moments later, he rejoined the party.  “I found the trigger.  There’s a step that will cause the whole thing to shift.  I could try disabling it if you want.”

Dane just shook his head.  “Nah, we know it’s there now.  We can just step over it.  Why risk setting it off again.”

Everyone decided that if he trusted Flix’s assessment, there was no real cause for concern, and carefully climbed the stairs again.  The found themselves in a larger chamber, which was mostly wooden and elaborately furnished and decorated.  The only real items of note, however, were a huge stone statue of a dragon, and a transparent window in the north wall.  While everyone went to look at the window, Rudyard stared up at the dragon.  He gave it a cynical look.  “I bet that will animate and attack us at some point,” he said sarcastically.  He then joined the rest of the group at the window.  There was another shaft on the other side of the window, but it was made of stone.  Two bright fires lit up a plaque with a message, but the rest of the shaft was shrouded in darkness.  Quercus used his ability to create light at will to try lighting the rest of the shaft, but was rewarded with nothing.  Tsine investigated.  “There is some strong magic in the shaft.  I think it’s causing the darkness.  We need stronger light magic than what we currently have to cut through it.”  

With their other options now gone, the party read the message on the plaque:

The second guard comes from a wealthy, noble family.
His family was so well trusted that no one suspected him of betrayal.
When he proved their loyalty misplaced, he was justly betrayed himself.
An invader crippled him with a stab to the leg, and he died in agony.
Such is the fate of one who would betray house Balidar’s honor.

This wasn’t too hard a puzzle to figure out.  Many of the armors had shields or other items that contained heraldry, and while only Dane lived in the area and had reason to see Delaspie heraldry regularly (and he was no expert,) they were in a library, after all.  They took a few hours to investigate, found a book that described the symbols of the Balidar house, found an armor with a similar symbol and a suspicious hole in one leg, and pierced it with the second sword.  A door opened up on the south wall of the second floor of the library as a result.  Acting on a hunch, Flix checked out the elevator again, and as he suspected, the “B2” button lit up this time.  After a brief discussion, they decided to start in the second floor basement, so they piled into the elevator again, and pressed the “B2” button.

The east and west doors opened up this time.  The west door connected to the corridor at the bottom of the shaft they found earlier, but the east door led someplace new.  It also was made of metal, and while the corridor itself ended about twenty-five feet from the elevator, it had another branch midway down on the south side, which had a door.  Leading the way, Dane carefully opened the door.  There was another room on the other side.  It was also made of metal, was about twenty-five feet long and wide, had a strange machine in the center of the room, and four orbs connected to the two side walls.  Carefully, Quercus and Dane led the way into the room, with the others closely behind.  Unfortunately, they followed a little too closely, for as soon as Dane got a little too close to the machine, the four orbs detached from the walls, sprouted little legs and arms, and charged at the party!  

One went for each of the front-line fighters, while the others went for the rear of the party, which unfortunately consisted of Raz and Tal.  The ones in the front did little to affect Quercus and Dane, due to their thick armor, and even Raz was able to avoid the blows.  Tal wasn’t as lucky, however, and one of creature’s claw-like hands slashed at his face, giving him a deep gash.  Worse, a surge of electricity ran through the creature’s arm, sending him reeling as his heart skipped a few beats.  The party responded, with all four of the endangered party members attacking their new targets, while Flix moved to help Tal, Tsine stood in the middle to try and target the machines from long range, and Rudyard started to help Raz.  However, as they started attacking the creatures, they learned they had another problem.  In addition to generating electricity when they attacked, the creatures apparently channeled electricity naturally, shocking the heroes every time successfully damaged the monsters.  This was no problem for Quercus, of course, who gave the creature a nasty first blow.  However, as he attacked, he noticed another problem.  The creatures were using some sort of field, which slow their attacks, reducing the effectiveness of their weapons.  Both problems gave Dane trouble, which was shocked both times he successfully attacked his Sheen.  Tal, perhaps fortunately and perhaps not, missed his target completely, and Flix couldn’t hit as well, though Tsine helped them out by firing an arrow of acid into it.  Meanwhile, Rudyard and Raz attacked their machine, and got more shocks for it while still failing to do any real damage.  It was then time for the machines to get revenge.  Quercus’ and Dane’s machines only gave telling blows, and due to Quercus’ immunity to electricity, even that had little effect.  Raz wasn’t so lucky, as the creature ripped into him twice, giving him heavy wounds.  But Tal was the one who suffered the worse.  The creature pierced him twice in the just, catching a lung once.  He gave once silent gasp, and collapsed, barely breathing.  But it was only a temporary setback for the party, as Quercus and Dane finished their foes off, and Dane’s sheen was apparently out of electrical charges, for he suffered no further injuries as he finished the thing.  The same thing happened when Rudyard and Raz finished their sheen, and Tsine’s magic missiles destroyed Tal’s attacker.

After again healing from their wounds, the party investigated the machine.  It had three holes one the side, which look like they could fit some ball-shaped device in them.  There also was a lever, and a glass-like tube leading from the machine into and through the ceiling.  Again, the party decided to leave the machine be for now, and went to the last secret doorway currently unexplored, up on the second floor of the library.  This room was made of metal as well, but it wasn’t as spotless as the earlier corridors.  In fact, they are filthy, and covered with mold of various colors.  It also was very cold.  Flix choose to take point, fearing a trap, but only learned that when he neared the other end of the hallway, it got so cold it was literally painful.  Teeth chattering, he fled back to the party, and Quercus chose to take the lead.  His heavenly blood warmed at all times, so the cold was meaningless to him.  He reached the other side of the hallway easily, and found a strange metal pool, which was filled with water and a number of tiny metal balls.  There are also a number of holes in the floor and ceiling.  He tossed a few balls experimentally into the holes, and had the party check the room with the cylinder machine to see if any ended up there.   The didn’t, but the size of the holes and the size of the orbs looked nearly identical, so Quercus grabbed a few and decided to check if they would fit.  As he grabbed them and held them for more than a few seconds, he noticed that they radiated a fairly strong electric charge, but again he had little to fear from that.  However, before he could get halfway to the machine room, the charge disappeared, and after placing the orbs in the holes and pulling the lever, nothing happened.  

The party pondered this.  They were out of options, so they had to find someway to get the orbs there faster.  Finally, Tsine had an idea.  “What about archery?  And that shaft we found earlier?  How about this?  You grab an orb, Quercus, and then dash to give it to me.  I fire it across the length of the library, and then someone catches it and drops down the shaft.  Someone else fast can fire it down the hallway to the elevator, who dashes to the machine room, and drops it in?”

Crazy as that sounded, it also sounded possible, so a plan was made.  Quercus was official orb retriever, and Tsine was ready to fire the first arrow.  Tal, despite a growing fear of electricity, would grab the orb, and drop it down the shaft.  Raz would fire it from there, and then Rudyard would catch it and carry it into the machine room.  Dane, being heavily encumbered, and the short-legged Flix chose to just stay out of the way and give moral support.  Though it proved painful to everyone involved but Quercus, the plan was a success, and soon the machine was lit up and humming, as if it was not active.  Rudyard pulled the lever, and was so surprised that the fell backwards when a beam of light so bright it was blinding flashed up through the cylinder.  Flix, who was observing this, commented, “Wow, that thing is bright!  Wait, maybe it can be seen from that window room!  Get everyone together!”

The party quickly gathered, and met back underneath the stairs.  They were just about to climb the stair to check out he window when they heard roaring and stamping from above them.  Something big was up there, waiting for them.  “I told you so!” Rudyard bitterly announced.

OOT Notes:  It wasn’t a good set of fights for Tal, which sadly is one of the only things I remembered about the fights originally.  I also remember it taking forever for the group to figure out the orb and machine problem, including the solution that was used here.  But I might have gotten the order of the rooms they investigated wrong.  They never figured out what was making things so cold, either, so what can I say?


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## Lela (Apr 18, 2004)

Well, that seems a tad complicated, especially when it's one of my first puzzles. Maybe something a tad easier (for both me and them)?


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## LordVyreth (Apr 19, 2004)

*The inevitable killer statue*

Rudyard, despite his pessimism, let the charge up the stairs, and was bitten on the way up as a result.  But he was able to return the blow, slashing the statue’s neck, and causing a few rocks to crumble off of it.  It also proved to be a useful distraction, letting Dane, Raz, Tal, and Quercus up the stairs before the draconic statue could respond.  Dane and Quercus engaged the creature up close, while Tal shot an orb of magic at it and Raz fired at it from a distance.  However, the dragon responded with a strange breath weapon.  It was shaped like a wave, and shone in many different colors at once.  Tsine gasped when he saw it, after hearing horror stories about such things, but was relieved when he thought about it for a moment, and realized it wasn’t a prismatic effect. The end results weren’t much better, though.  Rudyard was blasted by a sonic force, which cut deep into his skin, giving him multiple lacerations.  Dane felt like his whole body was trying to pull itself apart, and it was only the most intense effort of will that kept him together.  Raz suddenly fell through the floor, and ended up back at the bottom of the stairs, and Quercus disappeared completely.  Only Tal was unaffected, which broke his streak of bad luck.  At the same time, a book flew out of one of the bookshelves in the room, floated over the dragon, and opened all by itself.  A strange, transparent image of an archer materialized above it, and it fired at Rudyard, giving him another nasty wound.  Tsine realized that things were getting serious, and let loose with a new spell he just mastered, shooting a bolt of lighting at and through the dragon.  Rudyard got his own revenge by slashing at the dragon, while Flix impressively tumbled up the stairs, leapt onto the dragon’s back, and plunged his sword into the dragon’s back.  It roared at him and tried to bite the tiny target, but before he could get the chance, Dane neatly sliced the dragon’s head off, causing the entire thing to crumble into a pile of rocks.

While Quercus was healing Rudyard, the rest of the party was looking for Quercus, only to have him appear exactly where he was standing moments later.  He immediately prepared to attack the dragon, before realizing the dragon was already destroyed.  He looked extremely confused, like he lost all the time he was gone, or just jumped into the future.  Regardless, the party noticed that the light was, in fact, revealing another part of the shaft.  Another clue could be read in the area around where the light was striking, but most of the shaft more than a few feet away from the light was still shrouded in darkness.

He was also betrayed as he betrayed.
	The invader’s magic caught him by surprise,
But at least the mage tried to preserve the books, for the fireball he used damaged None of them.
The knight was knocked out by the blast, then his throat was slit where he lay.

Tsine snorted.  “Well, that’s easy.  Just find a statue that can be hit by a fireball without damaging any of the books.  And if it also has a neck wound, we can be certain.”

It only took a matter of minutes for Tsine to figure out the next statue, and as expected, more secret passages opened.  The observation room’s south wall opened up, connecting it to the second floor of the library.  Another passageway opened up on the fifth floor, but before exploring that, Flix eagerly dashed back to the elevator, only to return to the party disappointed.  “None of the other buttons lit up this time.”

Tal tried to look sympathetic.  “Well, maybe we can check the other floors again.  Something might have opened up on one of them.”

Quercus groaned.  “Maybe we should wait on that.  I’m almost out of spells, and I think Tsine is too.”  Tsine nodded his agreement.

Tal pondered this for a moment.  “Yeah, I agree.  I almost am out of magic as well.  But before we go, we have to make sure we didn’t do anything to alert the staff of what we did here.” 

All they could find, besides the swords of course, were some rocks from the dragon statue that rolled into the library after the secret passageway in that room opened, so they took a few minutes to gather those and toss them back into the observation room before removing the swords and leaving for the night.

A few hours later, a dark figured entered the library, and smiled.  The party was doing surprisingly well so far.  Well, for mortals anyway….

OOT Notes: The dragon in this fight is yet another creature I made up.  It was called, appropriately yet embarrassingly titled a Book Wyrm.  I always enjoyed these creatures, especially its weird breath weapon, but whenever I used one, it had a tendency to die too quickly.  As always, I’d be happy to share the creature with anyone who wants to take a look at it.  It has a CR 8, and unlike my last two monsters, it has been updated for 3.5 already.


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## Lela (Apr 19, 2004)

Hmmmm, that is an interesting Breath Weapon.  Could you throw that one my way?


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## LordVyreth (Apr 21, 2004)

*Water, Water, Everywhere...*

The next day, the party decided to start by humoring Flix, and try the two basements they can already reach.  Surprisingly, they found a new passageway leading north.  Before exploring it, though, Quercus pointed to the machine.  “Since we’re already here, I might as well take another look at the machine.  I prepared magic that will help me understand it this morning.”

The machine was apparently a giant pump, if the writing could be trusted.  It could be turned on by the switch, but it warns that the pump can’t be turned off here once turned off, and if the pump isn’t disabled at the pump release console before it reaches the end of the “overload” level, it could be destroyed!  After explaining all of this to the party, Flix nodded thoughtfully and then said, “Let’s turn it on!”

One shocked silence later, Raz quietly said, “Um, I vote we wait until we could find this pump release thing first, so we don’t pump thousands of gallons of water to some unknown place very close to hundreds of priceless books and then destroy the whole thing.”

“I think I agree with the second idea,” Tsine commented, and everyone else also concurred.  

Rudyard turned and went to the head of the group, as he explained his plan.  “Well then, let’s investigate the new passageway on this level, and maybe we can find something related over there.  I’ll take point; I don’t want any more monsters surprising us the way the elementals and machine things did.”  He then began traveling through the new passage, and immediately walked into the solid block of ooze.  I really should stop leading the way, Rudyard thought as the acid began to eat into his flesh.

Realizing quickly that things are going very wrong, Dane stepped up and slashed at the now-obvious cube, while carefully avoiding Rudyard with his sword.  Meanwhile, Tale fired a ball of magic at the creature, and Rudyard tried to escape the blob, but felt something flooding his body as he moved.  He suddenly felt very numb, as if his limbs were made out of rubber, and his movement stopped.  Meanwhile, the cube charged toward Dane, who considered attacking it first but wisely chose to dive out the way instead.  Suddenly very concerned after seeing his friend stop moving, Flix tumbled in to slash at the creature, while Raz took careful aim and fired into the creature, right past Rudyard, and then through the other side.  It was a telling blow, which nearly de-stabilized the creature immediately.  Quercus moved up next, and with one careful slash, it was destroyed, and Rudyard was free, though still unable to move for another couple of minutes.

The room beyond the cube was another metal one.  It has dozens of mirrors, and a number of holes in the walls and ceiling.  There was also one right in the middle of the floor, and a corresponding hole in the ceiling.  “So, what do you think this is for?”  Tal asked.

Suddenly, Tsine looked thoughtful.  “Wait here, I have an idea.”  He dashed out of the room, and a minute later, he could be heard shouting up from the hole in the floor.  “Can you hear me?”

Quercus bent down to the hole.  “Where are you?”

“I’m in the light generating room.  It’s right below the room you guys are at now!  I have an idea, but close your eyes and look away from the hole first!”

The party obeyed, and were glad they did when the light burst from the machine blasted up through the floor and then into the ceiling.  Even with their eyes closed, they could see a little bit of the light.

“I think I know what this room is for!”  Tsine continued.  “We can use these mirrors to redirect the light someplace else.  Someone go back to the window room, and someone else go to the library.  We can see if the light turns on somewhere else from there.  And we can get someone fast to run the messages.”

Dane chose to go back to the library with Flix, while Tal and Rudyard went to the window room.  Quercus elected to run messenger service, while Raz moved the mirrors.  It took a lot of exploring and trial and error, but they figured out what a few of the other paths of the light were.  One appeared from some grating at the bottom of the metal shaft, the second had no apparent effect, the third shot through the library itself, from a crack in a wall into the room with the batteries and fountain, and the fourth also appeared in the dark shaft with the first two clues, but it only illuminated a blank wall.  The fifth shot straight across the third floor of the library, and the final one proved useful, for it revealed the forth clue, which was also in the dark shaft.  

In the end, the merciless invaders spared nothing.
	They even flooded the library with acid somehow, destroying much.
	The cowardly guard knew of this, and stood to avoid the flood,
But it did no good, for he was stabbed in the back while he watched his comrades Die.

After reading the clue, the group converged.  Raz looked especially worried.  “We have to flood the library to figure this one out?  We can’t do that!”

Tsine looked around the library.  “Well, it might not be too bad,” he said.  “Look at the book shelves; they all have protective screens at their tops, as if to prevent the books from being damaged in case this exactly sort of thing would happen.  I guess they learned from the event this clue pointed out.”

Raz didn’t look too appeased.  “Can’t we just try to figure it out by the layout of the library?”

They tried that, but the ramps and wooden floors of the library were so full of odd bumps, curves, and cracks that it looked impossible.  They finally resigned themselves to the more desperate tactic, but the question was still how.  There was always the pump of course, but they haven’t found the release valve for it yet.  But there still was the last new passage on the fifth floor, so they decided to investigate that first.

They found a staircase up behind this passage, which effectively took them above the top floor of the library.  There was a pair of switches here.  Quercus translated the writing by them to learn that one switch was used to empty the reservoir after the pump was finished, and the second was designed to turn off the pump once the reservoir was full.  However, there was some sort of black screen in front of the switches, preventing the party from reaching them.   Quercus identified it as a negative energy field, which he could potentially disable by channeling positive energy.  He promised to disable it, while the rest of the party went down to the pump room to activate it.  Quercus got ready to channel the energy.  However, because he could only temporarily disable it, he had to wait for just the right time to start.  He watched the machinery carefully, and the identical color arc that it had.  When it entered the yellow area, he quietly raised his holy symbol, and shouted as loud as he could and as much as he could in praise of Bha-Ael.  The room glowed with an effervescent light, and after a few moments, an exhausted Quercus was relieved to see the screen was gone.  He quickly shut off the pump.  A minute later, the rest of the party arrived, and had to make a quick decision.  “So, do we release the water now, even though we don’t really know where it will go?”  Tal asked.

Flix nodded, and even Raz seemed excited to try it out.  “Look,” Raz began, “We have know by now that somebody was planning this challenge for a long time.  Whoever he, she, it or they are, it has to be expected that we can actually solve the riddles without damage to the library.  We have no choice if we actually want to find the truth.”

The others agreed, and Quercus flipped the switch.  There was a rumble below them, and everyone else hurried down the stairs to see a cascade of water rush into the room from out of a hole in the mural.  Quercus, suddenly panicking about the whole scenario, turned off the cascade while the reservoir was still half-full, but that was enough.  Unfortunately, some stuff also fell out with the water, including some small treasure, but also a pair of filthy tentacle monsters.  But there were no real threat to the party, since they were trapped on a pair of the platforms, letting the party easily pick them off from a distance with arrows and ranged spells before they could get near enough to actually hit someone.  They also looked a little disorientated, like the bath they were just subjected to was a new and entirely unpleasant experience.  After they were destroyed and the treasure was gathered, the party easily identified the correct statue as the only completely dry one, and Raz especially was relieved to see the books were all unharmed.    

After placing the fourth blade in the correct statue, another secret passageway appeared in the south wall of the fourth floor.  “Let’s check to see if more passageways opened up below us!”  Flix yelled happily, and dashed to the elevator.

“What’s with you and that elevator, anyway?”  Raz asked, annoyed.

“I…just think it’s neat.”  Flix said, while looking a little confused and crestfallen.  

Tal took over the discussion.  “Let’s use the elevator first.  After all, it helped us last time.”

Quercus agreed, but looked worried.  “Let’s try to finish up earlier tonight.  Most of the water drained away in the grating underneath that shaft, but it’ll take us a while to clean up the puddles and damp floors anyway!

OOC Notes:  The two fights in this game went pretty much here as they did in the original.  Nobody did spot the cube until it was too late, and the otyghs died extremely quickly.  To be fair, though, I expected them to use all the water in the reservoir, and two more otyghs would have fallen out if they did.  That also meant that only about half of the treasure fell out, so it’s a plus and a minus for the party.  Oh and to help out Lela, and anyone else who might be interested:

Book Wyrm
Huge Construct
Hit Dice: 10d10+40 (95 hp)
Initiative: -1 (-1 Dex)
Speed: 30 ft.
AC: 17 (-2 Size, -1 Dex, +10 Natural, 7 touch, 17 flat-footed)
Base Attack/Grapple: +7/22
Space/Reach: 15/10 feet
Attack: Bite +12 (1d6+7,) 
Full Attack: Bite +12 (1d6+7,) 2 Claws +7 (1d4+3)
SA: Metaphysical Breath Weapon, Fiction to Fact
SQ: Construct, Fast Healing 2
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +2, Will +3
Abilities: Str 25, Dex 8, Con -
Int -, Wis 11, Cha 1
Climate/Terrain: Any land or underground
Organization: Solitary or gang (2-4)
Challenge Rating: 8
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 15-16 HD (Huge) 17-34 (Gargantuan)

Book Wyrms are a kind of specialized golem that are often used to guard places of great knowledge, especially libraries.  They resembled large, stone dragons, and even have a breath weapon, like the famous creatures that they share a likeness to.

Combat: 
Book Wyrms are mindless fighters, but will never intentionally damage its immediate surroundings, as it often is constructed for the sole purpose of guarding delicate objects like books.  It usually starts combat with its Fiction to Fact power, and re-uses that power whenever the current book is destroyed.  Otherwise, it uses its deadly melee attacks or breath weapon.
Metaphysical Breath Weapon(Su): The Book Wyrm’s breath weapon is a line of energy thirty feet long.  The energy is multicolored, and affects incorporeal and ethereal creatures as easily as material ones, but it only affects living beings.  The energy itself is a constantly shifting force of chaos, that forcefully rips the target away from part of reality.  For every person in the breaths area of effect, roll 1d8 and consult the table below to see what effect the breath has.  All saves are at DC 15 (10+half the creature’s hit dice.)
1.  A sonic pulse rips apart the character’s molecular bonds.  Damage is 5d6 points of damage, with a Reflex save for half.
2.  The character’s body tries to forcefully rip itself apart.  The damage is again 5d6 points of damage, but a Fortitude save negates the effect.
3.  The character must make a Will Save or be temporarily lost to time.  They are sent 1d4 rounds into the future, where they reappear at the exact point they vanished at.  If that area is now filled with a solid object, they are trapped until that area is again open.
4.  The character loses connect to the magical flow of energy for a moment, effectively having a Dispel Magic spell as cast by a 5th level sorcerer cast on them.
5.  The character loses connection with his or her mental energy.  They have to make a Will Save or be under the effects of a confusion spell.  The duration is 5 rounds.
6.  If the character fails a Fortitude save, he or she disconnects with spatial boundaries, and immediately falls through the new incorporeal floor.  This only lasts for a moment, long enough to drop the character down one floor, and take falling damage as normal.  If there is not floors below the character, they are immediately shunted back upwards when they return to normal space, but take 3d6 points of damage.
7. The character has to make a Will Save or be unaffected by gravity for 1d4 rounds.
8. The energy is in a state of flux when it hit the character, so the character suffers no effect.
Fiction to Fact (Su): As a standard action, the Book Wyrm can pull any book that is within five feet of it to its body, then materialize something from the book.  This item then works under the command of the Book Wyrm each turn.  It lasts until the book or the construct is destroyed, or until dispelled.  The effect can be determined randomly using this table, or it can be created based on the situation, but the attacking item can’t be of a CR that is higher than half that of the Book Wyrm, rounded down.  To use the table, roll 1d10.
1. A fighter swings a sword at a melee target (+8 to hit, 1d10+3 damage.)
2. An archer fires an arrow at a ranged target (+8 to hit, 1d8+2 damage.)
3. A wizard casts a random 2nd level arcane spell (DC 15 where applicable.)
4. A wyrmling dragon of a random color breathes at the nearest character, but won’t attack it its breath would damage an unattended inanimate object.
5. A spider bites a melee target (+4, 1d8+3 damage, poison is DC 13, 1d6 Str/1d6 Str.)
6. An Aristocratic noble issues a command, as the 1st level divine spell, at one target within 20 feet. (DC 14, duration is one round.)
7-10. Only numerical information is in the book. These numbers fly around the Book Wyrm, giving it a +2 bonus to attacks, AC, damage, and saves.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 23, 2004)

*A fall avoided, and a fall unavoidable*

The elevator did have a few new options, sort of.  The “B3” button was lit, and on the second basement, the hallway extended far past the light-generating room, and went down a ramp to reach the third basement’s depth as well.  It appeared that this floor was made out of a kind of gem that is worthless to sell, but nonetheless very strong.  However, both routes ended in dead ends, and as far as the party could tell, the hallway from basement two and the hallway that the elevator opened into from basement three were right next to each other when they ended.  Fortunately, there was one clue at the end of the hallways.  There were tiny holes at the far wall of both hallways, and the party could peek into the next room from there.  It looked huge, and dark, but since none of them had darkvision, they couldn’t make out much for than that.  However, there was some writing on the floor, in some sort of glowing substance.  It looked like the fifth clue.

The next traitor tried to avoid combat entirely.
	He waited away from the battle, but a strange light in the ceiling caught his eye.
He looked up, and as the light caught his eye, it proved to be the perfect target for One of the invaders’ arrows.  

“I bet that light generator has something to do with this!”  Tsine pondered.  “And the mirror room as well.  But none of the holes seemed to get especially close to one of the armors.”

“Well, maybe we’re missing something,” Raz suggested.  “What about that new path on the fourth floor?  Let’s check it out before we try to figure this out.”

A few minutes later, the party was about to travel down the new path behind this passageway, which turned left and started climbing almost immediately, bringing the party level to the fifth floor and then higher still.  Their journey was only interrupted once, when a horrendous wailing came from out of nowhere.  “It’s some sort of magical trap!”  Flix yelled at the top of his lungs!  “But I don’t know if I can disable it now that it started!”

“Let me handle it!”  Quercus replied, and he willed himself to ignore the pain he was feeling long enough to cast a spell.  Suddenly, the hallway was enveloped in total silence.  Flix tried to thank him, only to realize he couldn’t talk either.  The group had a silent laugh about it, and then climbed to the top of the path.  

They appeared to be over the entire library again, and possibly very near the pump release room.  There were some holes in the floor, which corresponded to dark spots in the mural below.  There was also another mirror, a lever on the wall, and what was very obviously a trap door right below the lever.  Raz pondered this, and quickly said to the party, “Wait here, I want to check something out.”  He dashed out of the room, and a minute later returned.  “As I expected,” he said.  “That trap door is right above the central support of the library.  If this trap door opens above a hollow spot inside it, who knows how far down it goes?”

“Let me check it out, “ Tal said, and used magic to pull the lever from a distance.  The trapdoor opened, as expected, and Rudyard and Flix leaned over it to get a better look.  Wisely, neither of them actually stuck their heads into the hole, since the trap door slammed shut moments later.

“I couldn’t see a bottom,” Rudyard told the others.  “And there is some sort of goo on the walls.  I wouldn’t recommend climbing or flying down.  You could get stuck in the goo, Quercus, and then fall and hit the bottom before you would free your wings.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway.  This mirror should give us our answer.  I’ll adjust it.  Quercus, you can get to the light room fastest, so you go down there to turn it on.  Drop Flix off on the way, and he can take the elevator to the mirror room.  Everyone else, go into the main library, and let me know if you see anything.”  Tsine finished explaining his plan, and everyone left to get ready for their tasks.

A few minutes later, a light shone into the new room out of one of the holes.  Tsine sprung into action, and started adjusting the mirror to shine in each of the other holes in the floor.  He stopped when he heard Dane shout, “I think I found it!”  

The party converged on him, and he was pointing to a suit of armor.  “The light shone right where the visor is pointing, and there’s a large gash in the visor where the eyes would be.  It has to be this one.”  When Dane finished his story, Tal took the fifth sword and plunged it into the armor, causing two more passages to open on the first floor.  Excited, the party went down to investigate, only to stop in horror as they got close, for out of the passages, another two of the stone dragons appeared!  Quickly, the party prepared for another fight.  Remembering well the dragons’ unusual breath weapons, they elected to spread out a bit this time.  Raz held back, and began shooting at one of the monsters, while Quercus flew in, sword in hand, but the dragon he attacked was prepared for him, and bit him in the leg as he flew in.  He returned the favor, though, with interest.  Meanwhile, Flix tumbled in between the dragons, and took advantage of the first dragon’s momentary distraction to drive his sword into the creature’s neck.  Of course, as a statue, the monster had no real need for an uninjured neck, but the hunk of rock he took off slowed it down regardless.  Rudyard drew his sword and charged the second dragon, narrowly evading being damaged himself as he leapt at the dragon, slicing at its rock hide with his sword.  Tal chose to stay in back, and launched a magic missile at the second dragon to help Rudyard out, while Tsine launched a bolt of electricity at the first dragon.  However, it was their turn to respond now.  One book wyrm breathed on Tal and a slow-to-react Dane, while the other breathed on Rudyard.  In addition, books surrounded both of them, with numbers materializing out of the second dragon’s book, and a warrior out of the first.  The armored fighter swung a sword at Flix, catching him with a minor but painful gash to the foot. Meanwhile, Rudyard suddenly began to stumble around, suddenly confused, while Tal felt something strip away his magical powers, but fortunately he didn’t have anything up and running at the time.  Finally, Dane was ready to get revenge.  He began to charge the first dragon, while shouting, “Prepare to diiiiieeeeeaaaaugh!”  The last party was actually a terrified scream, for as soon as he took one step, he literally pushed himself off the ground, as if gravity itself lost interest in him!  He was send wailing towards the ceiling as the fight continued.

Raz was lucky enough to avoid being caught by either breath, and continued pelting the first dragon with arrows, and Quercus attacked the same foe.  Between their attacks and an acidic arrow from Tsine, the first of the dragons fell, but the other was barely injured still.  Flix slashed at it and Tal fired more magical orbs at it, but Rudyard did little but stumbled around, confused.  The second dragon focused all of its attacks on Flix, leaving the unfortunately little halfling in bad shape.  It appeared that the dragon was suddenly faster and more powerful since the numbers started appearing around it.  Dane could do little but bounce around the ceiling and yell a lot, but Raz was able to focus his fire on the remaining dragon, just as Quercus flew in to block the dragon, keeping Flix safe. The dragon bit into him as he flew in, but Quercus struck back, and Tal finished the creature off with one more volley of orbs.  Rudyard and Dane were both still in trouble, however, at least at first.  However, the party was able to deal with Rudyard just by getting out of his way until the confusion wore off.  Dane’s problem had a similar solution, but it was hardly a pleasant one for him, as he fell screaming to the ground, landing with a sickening thud.  It was time, once again, for Quercus and Tal to perform some healing.

After destroying the dragons, the party investigated both the passages that they came from, but could find nothing.  A rudimentary search of the rest of the library revealed nothing either.  “Well, let’s try another sweep.  I’m sure we can find something this time,” Tsine suggested.

However, Quercus stood up with a disgusted look on his face.  “No, I’m getting sick of playing games with whatever joker made this place.  I vote we carve out our own solution this time.  You with me, Dane?”

“You know it.  That last plummet was enough to convince me.”  The two fighters began striding purposefully towards the elevator, leaving the rest of the group to catch up.

OOC Notes:  I anticipate it being two more updates before I finish this story.  With luck, I’ll be done with both by the weekend.  Next time, watch as our heroes find an alternate solution to one of the last puzzles!


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## Lela (Apr 23, 2004)

> OOC Notes: I anticipate it being two more updates before I finish this story. With luck, I’ll be done with both by the weekend. Next time, watch as our heroes find an alternate solution to one of the last puzzles!



Now that's always fun.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 24, 2004)

*The fighter's lock picks*

WHAM!!

“Is this really…”

WHAM!!

“I just don’t think we should be doing this…”

WHAM!!

“I mean, I’m sure there’s a real way to do this.  We can figure this…”

WHAM!!

“Oh, forget it.”

Tal finally gave up on trying, unsuccessfully, to talk Quercus and Dane out of their latest plan.  Finally sick of the puzzles, they had been hacking at one of the walls that lead into the dark room containing the fifth clue for an hour.  Finally, the wall could stand no more punishment, and crumbled.  Tsine gave them a glance as they prepared to explore.  “How did you even know that there is something else in here to find?”

“Well, it’s the only place we didn’t really explore yet,” Dane replied without a hint of hesitation.

The room itself was still almost pitch black, but Quercus easily fixed that now.  Once he cast a half dozen light spells, the layout was far easier to determine.  It essentially had a deep pit in the middle of the room, with a grating on the floor, and a hole in the ceiling.  There was another elevated ledge, like the one the new “door” the party made opened into.  That side had a lever and an opening in the east wall.  Quercus volunteered to try the lever, which caused a bridge to appear between the two ledges, and opened both the entirety of the wall they destroyed and an opening to the second path.  As they walked across the bridge, Tsine looked up and remarked, “I think we’re just above that trap door on the sixth floor.  If we had filled this room with water first, I bed someone could have survived the fall.

Dane chuckled.  “Yeah, that sounds SO much easier than what we did!”

The path on the other side maintained the crystal motif, but it was brighter somehow, and there was a faint but obvious throbbing noise coming from the walls, like the beating of a strange alien heart.  The party eventually led to another crystal room, with a crystalline statue attached to the far wall.  As soon as Dane, who was taking point, entered the room, the eyes of the statue glowed ominously.  Dane signaled for Flix to check it out, but as soon as he entered the room, three strange monsters appeared out of nowhere!  They looked humanoid, but were made out of some strange goo.  Flix and Dane were already in the room, and thus the first to react.  Flix made a quick thrust at one of the creature’s torsos, but his expert blow was a waste, for the creature had no organs.  Dane noticed this as well, and simply used his muscle to slash one in half.  Raz and Rudyard burst into the room, and Raz finished off the one that Flix attacked, while Rudyard started attacking the statue itself.  Tsine entered next, and used a magic orb volley to destroy the third statue, but as soon as it faded, another one took the place of the first three, and it was larger than the earlier creatures.  Realizing that attacking these lesser targets is having no real effect, Tal and Quercus targeted the statue itself when they entered the room, and Flix and Dane did the same when they got the chance.  Dane easily shattered the chipped and damaged statue with one blow, causing the last of the ectoplasmic creatures to simply vanish.  

Behind the statue was an opening, which led to a tiny alcove.  It was empty, except for the sixth and final clue.  

The last was not a betrayer, but a betrayed.  
His body was controlled magically, forcing him to stand against his comrades.
His armor lies in the lower left of the fifth floor, 
And there his soul remains as well.
Stab him where you will, but make sure the blade strikes true in the end.

	Raz chuckled.  “Well, at least this one is easy to figure out.”

	Rudyard groaned.  “Yeah, but it sounds like a fight, and I don’t think we’re in good shape to handle it.”

	Tal nodded.  “I concur.  Let’s use the rest of this time to clean this place up, and then finish this tomorrow.”

	As they left the third basement, Flix noticed that the crystals darkened, and the beating noise stopped.  “Wow,” he thought, I hope that doesn’t mean anything.”

	It took a few hours and the rest of their spells, but the water was all cleaned or dried up, and the party returned to their inn one more time, ready to finish their adventure off in the next night.  Flix in particular had an interesting night.  He had been pondering the decision about his future since he met with the criminal.  He finally realized he was meant to use this strange, new power.  He could pick up the basics from what he learned from the criminal, but when they have some time free after returning to Delaspie, he’ll have to see what that temple was about.

	Meanwhile, in the fourth basement, Kulpathi stirred.  How long has it been since he was first captured?  There was no way to tell.  But it appeared that the effect that has had a hold on him for so long has finally worn off.  He looked to his companions, who were also recovering.  Kulpathi smiled.  It would take some time to get their bearings, but after that, it was time for revenge….

	OOC Notes:  Tsine pretty much nailed how they were supposed to do the puzzle.  I have to admit, in retrospect, it was pretty esoteric.
	Anyway, I expect to get through the final update of this plot on Sunday, no matter how long it takes!  Well, hopefully, at least.  Wish me luck!


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## Lela (Apr 24, 2004)

Good luck!

And what new power is Flix working on?


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## LordVyreth (Apr 26, 2004)

*Tome Raider: The Last Revelation*

As expected, as soon as Tal stabbed the sixth statue with the final sword, something unpleasant happened.  An ethereal voice called out “Who awakens me from my centuries of slumber?”  Suddenly, a transparent version of the knight they just stabbed emerged from the statue, and floated above them.  However, his helmet wasn’t empty, like the armor’s was.  It had a human face in it, and it was twisted in an image of rage and despair.
	Flix waited anxiously under the statue, ready to attack a soon as it got closer.  Tsine, however, wasn’t willing to wait, and fired a volley of magical missiles into it.  Their energy was able to penetrate event he veil of life and death, solidly striking the creature.  Quercus was equally impatient, and flew up to meet his opponent.  However, his weapon wasn’t as useful, for it passed right through the ghostly figure.  The same thing happened to Raz when he fired his arrows into the creature, and then it was the creature’s turn to attack.  He drew his sword and struck Quercus with it, and it struck true despite being transparent.  Tal followed Tsine’s lead and fired a magical bolt into the being, and Rudyard and Dane drew their bows to fire at the flying opponent, but their arrows also had no effect.
	Flix was getting tired of waiting.  He drew some daggers, and tossed them into the spectral being, but they also passed right through their opponent.  Tsine tried switching to stronger magic, but his acidic arrow passed right through the monster.  Quercus was able to get a powerful strike, but the creature struck back, and then fled through the walls to deeper in the library.  Tal, Rudyard, Dane, and Flix fired uselessly at the creature, but Tsine finally had enough, and silenced the creature with one last volley of magic.  It almost looked thankful as it faded away, and silently whispered, “Finish this, and free me,” as it disappeared.

	Quercus flew down to meet the others, and noticed that nothing seemed to open this time.  “So, now what?” he asked.

	Flix brightened up.  “There’s still the ‘B4’ button in the elevator.  It has to be lit up now, there’s nothing else left!”

	The party piled together again, which proved to be a mistake this time.  They had gotten too comfortable in the library, and let their guard down, which they realized just as the bolt of lightning struck all of them.  Flix, who was normally able to dodge such things, slipped on the floor as he tried to this time, and was flat on his stomach when the bolt hit him dead on.  It not only damaged him immensely, but it shredded his cloak.  He stood up in a rage.  “I just got that!” he yelled as he looked for his attacker.  He soon saw his enemy; a strange creature had just appeared out of thin air in the middle of the library.  It had an upper body like a drow elf, but the lower body of a drider.  Yelling in rage, he charged the creature, only to miss by inches.  Realizing they were an easy prey when together, Tal ran out of the elevator, and fired another magical orb at the creature.  It returned the favor, by launching a volley of his own orbs at Flix and Tal.  The attack floored poor Flix, and as the others struggled to leave the elevator, it ran up a nearby wall, out of range of easy weapons.  Dale left the elevator while drawing his bow, and grazed the creature with an arrow, and Tsine decided to switch to heavier magic, returning the creature’s lightning bolt with one of his own.  Raz already had his bow out, peppered the creature with multiple arrows, while Quercus flew up to it and sliced it with is sword.  Rudyard finished the creature with one of his own arrows, but though the creature was dead, its very existence was a mystery.

	“What WAS that thing?”  Flix asked angrily after Quercus healed the worst of his wounds.  “How did it get here?  We know the entire library above the fourth floor.”

	Tal shrugged.  “We might find an answer when we explore that floor ourselves.  But we should be prepared this time.  There’s no telling how many of these things are around.”

	This time, the party carefully examined the area before using the elevator.  As they explored, Rudyard peeked over the metal shaft.  “I found the answer!” he called to the others.  “Check a look at that grating.  It looks like it was pried open.”

	After confirming that there weren’t any more of the spider-things near, they took the elevator down, but went down in smaller groups, which guards around the elevator whenever it went down.  After everyone was at the lower level, they continued on.  The walls of this floor were made of stone, and were kind of slimy.  They were very damp, possibly because of the earlier deluge the party sent down here.  The party eventually came to a larger room.  Four strange black backs were hanging from the ceiling, but they looked like they were split open.  Black pools of a strange sticky fluid were scattered throughout the ground.  Of course, the party’s main concerns were the room’s occupants.  Another drow-spider was waiting for them at the far side of the room, while a simply giant spider was waiting for them near the entrance.  Tal responded to the new threat first, by stepping into the room (to avoid keeping the party clustered again,) and then fired an orb of magic at the spider.  Rudyard was prepared as well, and charged at the giant spider.  However, by the time he got within striking distance of the creature, the spider was prepared, and bit him as well.  The wound was a vicious one, and Rudyard felt his strength being sapped as his muscles burned in pain.  Nonetheless, he was able to finish his swing, lightly scratching the creature.  Tsine was interested in doing something slightly more useful, and launched another volley of magic and the drow creature in the back.  Quercus also focused on the drow, flying around the spider safely while it focused on Rudyard, and slashed into the creature.  The drow creature responded by casting a spell.  She soon vanished completely, leaving Dane to focus instead on the spider.  He caught the creature with a telling blow, but while it was weakened by the attack, it had strength enough to again strike Rudyard, infecting him again with its vile poison.  However, it soon fell when Flix tumbled into the room, leapt onto the creature, and stabbed in the back, while Raz fired a number of arrows in the creature’s front.

	The party waited anxiously for their other foe to make a move, only to hear more casting.  Tsine and Quercus recognized the spell as a healing spell!  Realizing they can’t wait for her, Quercus told everyone to prepare, and then cast a spell of his own, which revealed everything hidden by magic.  The drow-spider was again a target, and soon fell to the combined might of the party.

	The tunnel continued to the east, but the party hesitated.  “If these creatures came from those bag things on the ceiling, then we still have two more of them left.  Or maybe only one, if the spider came from one of the bags as well,” Tsine explained.

	Quercus nodded.  “I don’t think we could survive another battle if we get caught unaware again.  We should rest up for tonight, and then finish things tomorrow.”

	Raz looked shocked.  “How can you say that now?  We’re so close to the truth!  And if we leave now, we’ll lose any element of surprise we might have now.”

	His protests fell on deaf ears.  Rudyard and Flix in particular were severely wounded, and the rest of the party prepared to leave.  Raz followed behind reluctantly, muttering to himself that he can’t put up with creatures so reluctant to find the truth for much longer.

	The next night, the party returned, rested and prepared, only to find that the body of the female drow-spider was gone!  They carefully approached the east path, only for it to get engulfed in darkness as they got close.  Quercus frowned, “This darkness is too strong for most magic to counter.”

	Flix chuckled.  “No problem,” he said, and he beamed with excitement, literally, as lights emerged from his eyes.  As they began to glow, the rest of the party thought they heard a faint scream in their heads for a moment.  

Tal was about to ask Flix exactly what he just did, but stopped when he saw how hard Flix was concentrating.  “I can ask later, once we solve our bigger problems,” he thought.  Only Rudyard had an idea what was going on, since he fought Palfrin earlier.  But how did Flix gain such abilities?

At the end of the passageway, they found the body of the drider woman, held in a standing position from a rope.  Carefully, Dane took point, and cut the rope, while expecting a trap or something else to appear.  Nothing did.  Nervously, he and the others stepped over the body, so full of dread that something will happen that they almost wished that whatever it was would appear and get it over with.  The party found that beyond the body, there was a narrow stone bridge over a massive pit. The walls of the chamber were forty feet from the bridge, and crisscrossed with so many small holes and tunnels that it looked like an insect hive.  It was then that the party got their wish.

The area around the entire front ranks was filled with an inky, black cloud, which was then immediately followed by a fireball.  The first cloud was repellent to the party’s more noble members, though it was only slightly chilling to Tal.  The fireball was far less discriminating, and when it cleared as well; at least half the party was barely able to walk.  The party looked for the source of the attack, and found another drider hiding in one of the holes.  He looked maniacally at the party, and laughed.  “You fools!  You fight Kulpathi, the chosen of Lolth herself!  I will make all of you a sacrifice to her name!”

Quercus looked at the creature.  There was something strange, even sinister about it.  He suddenly realized this was no normal mortal creature.  It had the bloodline of a fiend, and perhaps even had one as a parent.  This realization came too late, however, for Tsine and Tal already fired their first magical volley.  Tsine’s acid arrow struck the creature, but he just grinned as it bubbled harmlessly on his skin.  Tal’s magical orb didn’t even reach him; it simply dissipated when it came within a few inches of the monster.  He responded by chucking his own acid arrow at Tsine, who gasped as it struck him.  The pain was too great for him, after the earlier volley of magic, and he fell to the ground groaning.  Meanwhile, Kulpathri wasn’t done.  With supernatural speed, he already finished a second spell, which split him into a five identical forms.  Rudyard and Leo fired at the creature, but many of their attacks didn’t reach him, and those that hit merely caused some of his forms to dissipate.  Rudyard looked at the party’s wizards.  “We need flight!” he yelled.  “We’ll never be able to hit him from here!”

Flix threw a dagger at the drider, but it also went wide, and he came to the same conclusion.  Quercus, meanwhile, wasn’t eager to remain an easy target, and he cast as spell of his own.  Immediately, the laughter of Kulpathri stopped, even though he was still trying to laugh.  Scowling, the creature retreated deeper into the tunnel.  Dane took advantage of the break in the action to drink a potion and heal himself.

Tal could do little, since he couldn’t fly, but he prepared to fire at the creature when it returned.  Flix forced a potion down Tsine’s throat, stopping the bleeding, but it wasn’t enough for him to wake up, especially since the acid from Kulpathri’s last attack gave him one last singe before vanishing.  Quercus was finally ready to take the fight to Kulpathri.  He grabbed Flix and Rudyard, and flew over to the cave that Kulpathri fled down.  Dane and Raz, meanwhile, still prepared to strike the creature when it came out.  However, when he did return, out of another cave, he ignored the attacks of Tal, Dane, and Raz, and fired a volley of magic orbs at the three.  Tal and Dane merely staggered backwards from the blows, but Raz was hit right in the head.  Barely standing already, he collapses in a heap.  Rudyard and Flix charged through the tunnels, but couldn’t catch up to him.  Quercus was in a better situation, though, since he could fly.  He yelled to Dane, “Get the wounded out of the area,” and then flew straight at the monster, giving him the first wound of the fight.  Dane obliged, and started to drag Tsine and Raz to safety.  Tal wasn’t ready to back down, and he fired one last time at the drider.  This time his magic missile struck true, but all it did was finish the last of his illusionary doubles off.  He growled and carefully cast a spell at Tal, filled the area around him with stinging insects, and then fled down the tunnel, narrowly evading an attack by Quercus on the way.  Soon, however, he was surrounded by Quercus from one side and Flix and Rudyard on the other.  However, barely anything they could do was able to hit him, as he evaded most of their blows, and his magical armor blocked the rest.  He was able to cast a spell that made his attacks more accurate, and used it to claws Flix across the face, sending the unfortunate halfling to the floor yet again.  However, this attack was just enough of a distraction for Quercus to land a perfect attack.  He slipped his massive blade into Kulpathri’s back, and he looked down on it in amazement, cried out to Lolth one last time, and was silent.

After healing from the almost deadly battle, the party finally crossed the bridge, where they came upon a tiny room.  A familiar voice called out to them as they approached.  “Well, get in here!  It’s about time you finished up.  We were getting worried,” Olivia said.

Nervously, the party entered the tiny room, which was filled with metal junk that looked similar to the monsters they fought earlier.  Olivia was hunched over a few pieces of it, trying to assemble them into some new form.  Without turning or even looking up, Olivia continued when they entered the room.  “So, I suppose you’re wondering what all this is about, huh?”

Tal took the initiative.  “I guess so.  Did you build this dungeon?”

“Yes and no.  I mostly just scrapped the pieces together from some of the ruins around here.”

“But how did you find them?  How did you accomplish this?”

“Oh, I had my friend help me.  She’s interested in meeting you as well, but first we have to get the two hangers-on out of the room.  This conversation is only for those who had the dream.”  She turned to glare at Flix and Rudyard.  Rudyard in particular wanted to protest, but something about the eyes suggested that she was not one to cross.  They reluctantly let themselves out.

“Now then, now that that’s out of the way, I’ll summon my friend.”  She stood up, and suddenly, something about her changed.  She looked the same, but there was something better about her now, as if there was a presence within her.  

Quercus figured it out first.  “You’re a goddess!”

“Olivia” smiled.  “Well, Olivia isn’t.  But she is my avatar.  And yes, I am one of the Eleven Sisters.”

“You mean twelve, right?” Tal replied.

The being inside Olivia grumbled.  “Yes, there are twelve of us.  As you might have guessed, the church doesn’t know the whole, official truth.  Bas is real, and she is still alive.  She has, however, fallen out of the outer planes, and is trapped on this plane.  For years, her physical form has been trapped as well, and she was helpless.  But about a century ago, either she managed to escape or something helped her get free.  She’s still mostly trapped, but she is growing in strength every moment.  However, she is not a concern that you can worry about directly just yet.  We have something else to worry about for now.”

“Lady Memory?” Raz asked eagerly.

“Precisely.”

Quercus wasn’t ready for that talk just yet, however.  “But what about what the books above said?  Were you and the other Sisters really created?”

“Olivia” looked troubled, and replied.  “Yes and no.  It is complicated, and not really something that you are ready for yet.  Do not worry.  We are real goddesses the same way any other could be.  Do not be troubled; your faith has not been misplaced.”

“But what about Lady Memory?” Tsine asked.  He among the five had felt the call of her the strongest, and wanted to know more about this potential leader of his.

“Well, I can’t tell you much for now.  You see, there are rules even among the gods that must be followed.  Too much information cannot be freely given away.  However, I am at liberty to give one answer to any question you as a group could pose to me.  Before I let you decide what that will be, however, we must discuss other things.  I can tell you this.  I did not build the first part of this dungeon, including the magic letter gems, the first secret tunnel, or the flying books, nor did I place those books there for you to find.  I believe Lady Memory or her servants did so.  The Eleven of us decided not to interfere directly with this puzzle that she wanted you to discover.  Instead, we decided to create a second test, and talk to you directly.  Now then, what is your question?”

The party discussed for only a few moments, but there was no need.  They wanted more answers about Lady Memory.  The goddess, after hearing this request, responded, “I can answer that as best as I can, but first there is one more test you must pass.  I need you to tell me my name.”

This caused confusion, but only for a few moments.  Tsine led the argument.  “Olivia’s a spell caster, and obviously a hoarder of knowledge, or she never would have become the head librarian.  She has to be a worshipper of Ordhari, the goddess of knowledge.”  The party conceded to him, and the avatar nodded her approval upon hearing the answer.  

“That is correct.  I am indeed Ordhari.  Now, as for the Lady of Memories, I have to admit with some shame, considering my focus, that I don’t know exactly.  Though that alone gives us some clues.  She can’t be a mere mortal, if she is hiding her form from the goddesses.  She could be another god.  One of the old gods is possible, or perhaps a god from another plane, coming to claim or reclaim her standing on this world.  It could also be Bas, which is one of the reasons the Eleven of us do not quite trust this Lady Memory.  It could also be a being as powerful as a god, but that exists outside of what we know of divinity.  Such beings are theoretically possible.  Now, that is all I can tell you, but the other avatars are also scattered across the continent.  Like me, if you can find them and guess their names, they will also answer a question.  There is also one more boon that they and I will provide you with.  You know that your earlier memories are scattered, and still lost to you to a degree.  We can offer you one memory shard, however slight, of events that you will not remember naturally.  I shall grant you mine now.”

Each of the heroes suddenly found himself in an unearthly place.  Each was in a state of total contentment, but suddenly they had to leave it for some reason.  Suddenly, the memory ended, and the party was back with Ordhari.  She continued talking.  “Now, I must leave here.  But Olivia still has a few issues she’d like to discuss with you.  I’ll let her take the floor.”

Olivia “returned” to her body, and began speaking.  “Now, I have one last offer for you.  I want this place kept a secret, for obvious reasons.  I can do my research here without public prying, and I might be kicked out of the library if they discovered this place.  They might even close the library down while they excavate all the strange ruins from around here.  So I’m willing to offer you 20,000 gold in ‘hush’ money.  And as a final reward, I’ll let you keep the six swords you used to get here!  They’re not magical by themselves, but they are of good quality.  You can get a good price for them.”

The party agreed, and returned to the surface to rest after their long journey.  Rudyard prepared to finish training his new mount, and the rest prepared to rest after a long week of adventuring.  However, when they returned to the inn, they received a letter.  Apparently, Lerissa sent them a note, saying that there are problems at home.  She wants them to come back as soon as possible, and even pre-paid for a teleport for them when they are ready!

OOC Notes:  Well, that adventure was finally over.  The next one should hopefully go up a bit sooner.  I don’t have to work on a new adventure for a few weeks at least, so I can focus on this again.

The fight with Kulpathri was about as long and difficult as it sounded.  Ah, the days of 3.0 haste.  I don’t really miss them that much!  The party was really glad to finish him off.  Only a few villains gave the party such a long and tough fight since.

Oh, and Lela, I’m sorry I ran out of time for your dungeon.  I’ll get it worked out tomorrow or Tuesday.  What level of detail are you looking for?


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## LordVyreth (Apr 29, 2004)

*The End of the Beginning, part 1*

As urgent as Lerissa’s note was, the party still had to finish their preparations before leaving.  Dane decided that while he was a loyal Delaspie citizen, this Lady Memory enigma would have to come first, and he formally quit his job at the library to join the group.  As usual with Delaspie bureaucracy, this took a few weeks.  Just as importantly, Rudyard had to spend some time finishing up his new mounts training, and everyone had to spend some time and money buying new equipment after the windfall of treasure they received in the library.  Finally, Tal realized that he wasn’t really in a position to be in a relationship until he quit this hazardous life, so he decided to break things off with White for now.  However, when he went to meet her, she had already left, with no word where she was going or even a goodbye to Tal!  

Once everything was finished, it was almost a month after they finished their dealings with the library.  The party returned to Methosilang using Lerissa’s teleportation spell, and went to look for her, only to find her manor locked and guarded by royal forces!  Tal looked incensed.  “What is the meaning of this?”  He demanded.

The guards looked at him with disinterest.  “By order of the royal crown, the noble title of Lerissa Turivain has been temporarily suspended.  Her royal manor has been barred from residency until her formal hearing can decide what to do with her.”

“What reason could the crown possibly have to take such a drastic measure?  And show some respect!  I am of house Moinen, and my friend Tsine here is also of noble birth.”

The guard suddenly straightened up, and his tone of voice became more serious.  “She was accused of heresy, good sir.  She was trying to convince the populace of an twelfth god that the church was hiding the existence of, and thus inciting a riot among the populace.”

It occurred to Tal that maybe he would have to censor some of his new stories a bit before performing them.  “Where can I find her now?”

“She is currently staying at the Fluid Temple,” the guard replied, referring to the human-run temple dedicated to the goddesses that are currently portrayed most often with human avatars.  “As a worshipper of Ordhari, she has sought aid from her fellow worshippers.”

The party hurried to meet their friend.  She looked in less than perfect condition, but considering they first met her when she was a prisoner, she wasn’t that bad off comparatively.  She also had a look of defiance and determination.  She greeted the party with a warm but hurried voice.  “Ah, I’m glad you finally could arrive.  I was worried that something happened to you after you took so long to return.  Things have gone badly in Methosilang this past month.  Two villages at the very bottom of our sphere of control were attacked by an army of Malefactor drow, and other monsters.  The first one was finally ended a week later, when the military finally arrived.  Most of the invaders fled as soon as the military came close, so the town was easily retaken, but by then, many townsfolk were killed or taken into slavery.  Even worse, almost two weeks later, and during a full moon, many of the survivors suddenly transformed into horrible rat-like monsters.  They tried to flee the city, but were killed.  However, a second invasion occurred the same day.  When we thwarted it three days later, there were no survivors.  Everyone was killed or taken away.”

The party was silent for a long moment after her story.  Malefactor drow?  They haven’t attacked Methosilang in centuries!  Many thought they were extinct, or even a myth.  But Quercus knew better, after his talk with his half-sister.  In fact, hearing about this invasion was already giving him a sick feeling in his stomach, like he knew what was coming.  Tsine, however, was the first to speak.  “What is the crown saying about this?”

Lerissa spit with contempt.  “Bah!  They don’t accept the truth.  They’re insisting that the malefactors are league with the orcs!  That’s absurd; the orcs would never willingly work with elves, whatever type they may be.  However, we’ve learned that the invaders are mostly wearing robes, both red and yellow colored, and carry tiny scimitars.  We know what that makes them, don’t we?  But try telling the royals that!  They never found any holy books or other evidence of Bas, so they refuse to believe it.  I was warned once to stop spreading what we saw at the temple, and the second time I complained, they stripped me of my title and sent me and my family here!”

“Was all this the reason you sent for us again?” Raz asked.

“Well, no, actually.  We got some good news just before the invasions began.  We found a defector from the Orc Empire.  Fortunately, I was among the group that discovered her, so we were able to keep her prisoner as an official prisoner of the church before the royals could get their hands on her.  I sent for you because she was asking for some of you specifically.”

The surprised party was led to another room, where a familiar lizard woman was waiting for them.  “Greetingsssss,” the woman hissed.  “I believe we did not exchange names the last time we met.  I am called Setisth.”

Rudyard recognized her as the lizard woman they captured at the orc camp earlier, and then released.  “What are you doing here?”

“I had to flee after what happened to Teggif.  You know, the kobold that apparently was the only survivor of your later attack.  Well, he was a survivor, at least.  He was killed by some human with metal parts attached to him.  It looked like the same thing our chieftain suffered from, but this one was in no pain.  He slaughtered poor Teggif without mercy.  I realized I would be next, but I couldn’t just desert the empire.  They would have killed my entire tribe to set an example.  I was able to fake my own death, and then flee here, hoping that I could be protected here.”

The party was about to finish the conversation, but an aid walked in, whispered something to Lerissa, and left.  Lerissa nodded, and stood up.  “We have more concerns, I’m afraid.  A third invasion has begun.  We can’t afford to let them make fools of us again.  Fortunately, I have a plan this time.  Since the invaders flee from a direct invasion, I want a party to try sneaking in, or at least do minor damage to their army so they don’t simply run again.  The reason these raids have been so successful is because the enemy has been using some sort of magical device that blocks all divination and teleportation magic we try to use to reach the city.  This has slowed our armies immensely, as you can imagine.  Your goal is to find this magical item, and destroy it.  I have used what few contacts I still have to get a retaliatory strike prepared, and all you have to do is alert us when the item is destroyed, and they will teleport in to catch the enemy unprepared.  I will give you a scroll with the sending spell to use to contact me when you are finished.  Now, your secondary objectives include defeating their leaders, if you can find them and they look like they are within your capacity to fight them, and of course to find any real evidence that these invaders are really cultists of Bas.  Just helping the enemy defeat these zealots should help our standing in the city, but if we can prove Bas is a real threat, we might be able to get the kingdom to destroy to this cult before they get much stronger.”

“What do we know about the enemy?”  The military-minded Dane asks.

“Well, few specifics.  There are a lot of cultists, and possibly more of those were-monsters in their ranks.  The Malefactor drow are mostly the ones in the red robes.  We have heard reports of a giant bat-like monster that leads their air attacks, but it apparently has the face of a silent, pale-white elf.  We also got some information about their leaders.  One is a dark-haired man, with yellow spots in his hair.  The other is a drow woman, but she is clearly not pure drow.  She has horns, red eyes, and wings, and rides a flying, black horse.  She has been described by survivors as a brutal woman that begins a fight for any reason, against here enemies or her own servants.  The only ones she treats with any respect are the black-haired man, and a drow woman who apparently is a powerful cleric.

Tal, Tsine and Flix gulped nervously after hearing the black-haired spotted man was involved, but Quercus was more interested in the demonic drow.  It was as he feared.  The Lady of Blood, the one that his sister warned him about, was here, and is another servant of Bas apparently.  Between her, the spotted man, and the Nightmare Prince, she had a number of powerful servants already, and that’s just the ones they already know about.  Can such a foe even be stopped?

OOC Notes:  The session that included this part of the story was not the most well planned one from the party’s perspective.  Fortunately, I planned a timeline that describes events based on how long it took the party to arrive, so I knew exactly what has happened up to the point the party arrived.  If they arrived much earlier, Lerissa would still be a noblewoman, but if they waited much longer, they would have missed the adventure entirely!  Tune in next time when one of their enemies couldn’t even keep a straight face while fighting them!  And no, I don’t mean the Tasha spell was used.


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## Lela (Apr 29, 2004)

Oooo, it's either a demon clown (writes that down) or the party screwed up muchly.

Either way, it should be entertaining.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 30, 2004)

*Good preparation will get you anywhere.  Bad preparation, well....*

After learning of their mission, the party took another few hours to prepare their equipment, spend the rest of the money on new items, and so on.  Time wasn’t yet a major concern, since Lerissa told them that there would be six days before the army arrived, and she was able to again provide them with teleportation to the front line.  However, slightly surprisingly, the party spent all of their new money on magical combat equipment, like better weapons, rings of protection, and so on.  Shortly after they teleported to the front line, and began to sneak through the tunnels leading to the city itself, they realized their mistake.

The path they walked on was pitch black, and branched frequently.  Fortunately, they were told which paths would lead to the city, but they had no idea where any enemy patrols or guards would be stationed.  Of course, they had lights to use, but since they were attacking drow, they realized they would be obvious targets to everyone within sight of them.  But they had little choice at this point, and began their journey.  It was a surprise to no one when the first enemy patrol ambushed them.

They appeared to have only one drow in the actual patrol, but he was guarded by two evil-looking wolves, and a strange hyena-like creature with a vaguely humanoid stance.  Dane charged the hyena monster, though he was more than a little worried after hearing the stories of were-creatures that served the enemy.  He nonetheless gave the creature a brutal slash into its back, but the monster responded with a bite of its own.  The drow withdrew slightly, sinking into the shadows and out of sight.  Quercus and Raz began fighting the wolves, but Raz found that his arrows were having little effect on the creatures.  Their wounds were healing as fast as they formed.  Quercus was having more luck, but by the time he reached the creatures, he could only get one swing off before the two monsters leapt out of the path of his sword.  One was a little slow, and was grazed by Quercus’ sword as it moved.  Tal targeted the hyena with magic, only to have his magic orbs vanish right in front of the monster.  Rudyard chose to help out Dane, in case it really was a lycanthrope, to make sure it died before it could potentially infect anyone else.

Flix tumbled in behind Quercus, and neatly severed one of the wolf’s leg muscles, leaving it writhing on the floor.  Tsine noticed the trouble Tal had with the hyena, and focused his lightning bolt on the wolves, finishing both of them off before they could regain their balance and leap at Quercus.  Dane finished off the hyena monster as well, leaving only the drow.  For a brief second, the party searched the tunnel apprehensively, wondering if the scout fled or if he was still here.  Their question was soon answered when the drow leapt out from the shadows, blade pointed at Dane’s back!  He tried to move out of the way in time, but was a second too late, and the drow sent an expertly placed rapier wound right into his back.  The wound was agonizing, but the drow’s victory was short lived, and Quercus, Raz, and Rudyard quickly surrounded the villain and ended his life.

The party carefully continued down the path, but before they could reach the city, another patrol just like the last found them.  They were able to defeat this one as easily as the last, but this time, the drow leader did not return after disappearing into the darkness.  The party waited tensely for a few minutes, but then cautiously continued on when they were not attacked.


Tulivaron almost chuckled to himself.  This was too easy.  Though his patrol was wiped out, these fools clearly didn’t see him, or even know he was still there.  As they began meandering aimlessly towards the city again, he waited for the perfect moment to strike, or perhaps to sneak past them when they were distracted.


Finally, later that day (if the term had any meaning this far underground,) the party neared the city.  They were entering a large chamber just in front of the city limits.  Once again, the party realized they were at a disadvantage, when chilling howls rose up all around them.  Suddenly, they were surrounded.  There was a half-dozen scrawny dogs, but the fact that they were able to fly clearly indicated that they were no ordinary dogs.  Even worse, they seemed to have a pack leader; a much larger dog-like creature, that was hidden in shadows even more than expected considering the environment.

Flix was the first to realize the danger they were in.  He tumbled towards one of the six dogs, and quickly stabbed at it.  Surprised that their prey would recover and attack so quickly, the creature couldn’t avoid the blow and yelped in pain.  Quercus saw an opportunity and slashed at the same dog, finishing it quickly.  Rudyard and Raz double-teamed a second dog, while Dane slashed at a third.  A second and third dog fell to their attacks and Tal’s magic, while Tsine wounded a fourth.  However, just when things were looking up, all four of the surviving dogs howled, loudly.  The effect was terrifying.  Flix, Raz, and Dane looked at each other, with panic in their eyes.  Surely, these monsters will be the death of them!  Guided by little but fear, the three of them panicked and ran back the way they came, with Dane taking a nasty bite for the shadowy dog as he fled.  The fight suddenly looked far worse.  To make things even worse, while this was going on, a humanoid figure behind them saw his chance, and shimmied his way across the edge of the cavern.  He then made a dash for the city, eager to report the party’s arrival, just in case the dogs’ howling wasn’t enough of a warning.

With half the party now gone, Quercus and Rudyard decided to focus on their most dangerous threat, the shadowy dog.  They flank the monster, and begin slashing at it.  Quercus especially gave the creature a vicious blow that sliced one of the creature’s ears off.  Meanwhile, Tsine also realized things were going badly, and used a volley of magic missiles to drop the wounded dog and a fifth one.  Tal began to fire at the last of the smaller dogs, but it wasn’t enough to finish the creature.  The dog then leapt at Tal, biting him ferociously on the neck, while the shadowy dog bit Rudyard and then dragged him to the ground.  Quercus aimed carefully at the distracted dog, and sliced into his back while Rudyard tried to crawl out of the monster’s claws.  Tsine made the effort irrelevant, as another volley of magical orbs silenced the dog, and Tal attacked the last dog with his own sword.  Though hardly an expert, his blade nonetheless pierced the creature’s heart.  As one, the four remaining heroes dashed backwards, trying to find their three friends before they got horribly lost in the dark, or even worse, were discovered by another patrol.  Fortunately, the fear of the dogs wore off in only a few moments, and the three stopped on their own volition, letting the party catch them quickly.

Still, the party had little hope of entering the city unnoticed by now, and they knew it.  Realizing they had to get an idea of what was up ahead, they sent Flix out to scout.  He still couldn’t see, of course, but as they neared the city, they saw some torch fires ahead, so they hoped that would be enough.  Flix carefully began to work his way towards the city, unaware that as he did so, a shadowy figure had caught up to him going the other way, and began to trail him as he approached.  Flix knew that things were already against him when he was approaching.  So when he slipped and fell with a loud and audible clang, he realized it was time to through in the towel.  

Fortunately, he was close enough at this point to at least see what was in the torchlight.  There was a wooden wall blocking the cavern, and it looked recently built.  It was guarded by more wolves, at least one drow on top of the wall, and more of the hyena monsters.  However, it sounded like there was a whole army behind the wall.  Even worse, he soon saw a drow woman riding a black horse through the sky above the wall.  The horse was leaving flaming hoof prints in the air, which Flix just knew was a bad sign.  And then, horribly, the dark, spotted-haired man also appeared on top of the wall!  Flix couldn’t risk being here any longer, so he fled back to the party.  And was being tailed as he did so, though he was unaware of it.


Tulivaron was having the time of his life.  He listened with amusement as his quarry was actually briefly considering a frontal assault!  Sadly, they came to their senses and began a hasty retreat.  Despite their speed, Tulivaron was still able to follow them, and they still didn’t even know he was there!  Finally, about halfway back to their camp, they paused for a rest.  “You know,” the big stupid fighter with a sword said, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say someone was watching us arrive.”

Tulivaron finally couldn’t contain himself any more.  He let out an audible chuckled before catching himself and holding a hand over his mouth.  Remarkably, the party responded instantly, looked around intently for a few moments, and then shrugged and continued on!  He had to hold both hands over his mouth as he continued trailing the party until they finally reached their camp, and then returned to the city satisfied.  It was a shame that he couldn’t have had the party wiped out before they could flee, but at least they were driven off with ease.  Let that be a lesson to the traitorous drow who abandoned their principles a millennium ago, and all who serve them!

OOC Notes:  No, that really wasn’t embellished.  Well, much.  I really did try to warn them about the need to treat this as a stealth-based mission, and was amazed that they didn’t use any of their new equipment to that effect.  That being said, they really missed a lot of rolls near the end there.  Flix’s player rolled a one on his move silently check to reach the wall, and no one was ever coming close to figuring out they were being followed.  Well, they had an idea when he laughed at them, but they still couldn’t find them.

Fortunately for them, they did much better the next time through.  I was afraid it would take a couple more sessions just for them to get through the front gate for a while!


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## Lela (Apr 30, 2004)

Ouch, I've got to have someone start following my group and see if they do any better.


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## LordVyreth (May 1, 2004)

*Time to get serious*

After returning back to the camp, the party felt defeated, at least at first.  However, they knew that they still had a job to do, and quickly began planning for a more intelligent way to sneak in.  After a few hours of research (a passing soldier at one point overheard Tsine yell, “Wow, I never knew darkvision lasted that long!” at the tops of his lungs,) the party gave Tal a shopping list of supplies they needed, and he used his natural charm and investigative skills to scrounge up what they needed at the military camp.  The next morning, the party began their second attempt.

The main difference this time was that Flix took over scouting duties, after downing a potion of darkvision.  Rudyard drank a second, and used it to lead the party through the tunnels without a light.  It was terrifying for the rest of the party, who had to stumble through an enemy-infested cavern without even knowing where the walls and hazards on the ground were, but it appeared that it paid off, since they reached the wall again without running across any more patrols.

As they neared the wall, it was time for step two of their plan.  Tsine drank a third potion of darkvision, and quietly cast a spell, that shrouded the group in illusion.  Meanwhile, Tal used a spell to alter his form, appearing as a dark elf.  He put on the red robe they looted off of the dark elf rogue from the first patrol, and quietly led the invisible party to the gate.  The gate guards were similar to the ones they saw earlier, and both of the leaders had mercifully left long ago.  This left the drow on the wall, another by the gate, two wolves, and two hyenas.  However, as the party neared the gate, the drow on the floor asked Tal a question as he raised the gate.  Tal, sadly, didn’t speak the language, so he only stood there, uncomfortably.  As the drow got suspicious, Tsine realized this ruse lasted as long as it would, and the party sprang into action!

Before any of them could go though, the rogue who realized something was up charged at Tal, catching the unfortunate bard/sorcerer by surprise.  His blade pierced deep into his stomach, causing him to wince with pain.  Dane screamed with rage and leapt out of the area of the illusion, slashing the rogue.  The rest of the group saw this, and easily realized they had been duped.  They saw through the false terrain Tsine created, and realized they were under attack by a strong enemy.  Tal stumbled around, but gritted his teeth to stand the pain.  He knew there was an enemy right in front of him and many around them, but he looked up and saw there was a warning bell by the drow on the wall.  “Focus on him!” he croaked, and fired a volley of magical orbs at him.  However, they vanished inches from the drow, leaving him unharmed.  Rudyard noticed the problem as well, but he decided to let the experts of distant attacks handle it, and instead attacked the rogue.  His blade sliced into the enemy easily, and the nimble but fragile dark elf went down.  Tsine focused on the drow on the wall, and sent a bolt of lightning at him.  The attack easily hit him, but while he staggered from the blow and was shaking spasmodically, he still moved.  Quercus decided to let someone else finish him, and flew at the nearest wolf, cutting into it.  Flix maneuvered behind the same wolf, and stabbed it in the heart, sending it crumbling to the floor.  Raz realized it was up to him to finish the other drow, and since his bow as already how, he fired repeatedly at the wounded dark elf, skewering him and causing him to collapse.

With the element of surprise lost, the three remaining monsters prepared to strike.  However, the party was already reacting.  Dane and Rudyard double-teamed one hyena, and Tal fired at it with more magical orbs.  The three of them easily dropped the monster, while Tsine hurled an arrow of acid at the second hyena and Quercus charged at the remaining wolf.  He gave it a light slash across the shoulder, and while the wolf frantically tried to bite at its new opponent, it couldn’t get through Quercus’ armor.  The hyena was a little luckier, as it leapt at Tsine, giving him a nasty bite wound on the arm.  Tsine looked at it, panicked, and worried that this creature might be a lycanthrope.  Flix helped Quercus on the last wolf, and Raz finished the hyena with his arrows.  Dane easily gutted the remaining wolf as soon as he got the chance, and the party was free to enter the city without anyone apparently noticing.

The city was almost as dark as the tunnels leading to it, but at least a few fires gave the party members without magical aid some light to see by.  At this point, Rudyard and Dane were also dressed in the red robes after taking them from the gate guards, but they knew any patrol would probably see though their disguise easily.  Because of this, they continued without light, letting Flix and Rudyard take the lead again.  Of course, they had no real idea where to go, so they decided to explore for a while.  At one point, the party passed a large, three-story inn, which was heavily guarded, but decided against investigating, and raising an unnecessary alarm.  However, when they saw the temple (dedicated to None, the goddess of strength, which is often pictured as a dwarf,) they decided it was time to take action.  For one thing, they remembered that one of the leaders Lerissa mentioned was a high priestess.  Even if the Lady of Blood was elsewhere, that priestess might be here, and she also might have information about where the other forces were in the city.  Even better, maybe the magic item sealing this town from magical aid was here.  If nothing else, the temple was likely desecrated, and restoring it was a noble act.

The party charged into the temple as one, preventing any enemies inside from quickly reacting.  Four figures, all wearing yellow robes, were waiting in the central room.  They looked surprised to see the party, but reacted quickly, and got into defensive positions.  However, Tsine and Rudyard were faster, and Tsine sent a volley of magic at one of the robed figures.  Rudyard charged at the same one, cleaning slicing off his head before he could even say a word.  One of the three remaining figures attacked Tsine, surprisingly striking him with his bare hand!  The attack proved far stronger than expected, though, and seemed to strike at a very sensitive part of Tsine’s back.  He felt part of his body go numb, but was able to stagger around a bit, and the numbness wore off.  Flix entered the room next, and he and Dane charged the monk that attacked Tsine, while Quercus flew at a third cloaked figure.  The monk was wounded, but survived Flix and Dane’s attacks, while the robed figure attacked by Quercus managed to avoid the blow entirely.  He responded by casting a spell, and then uttering a command at Quercus.  “Die!” he yelled at him, but while Quercus felt some force of magic compelling him, he just laughed at the silly order.  A volley of magic orbs by Tal helped soften the unlucky cleric up, and Raz finished the job, leaving only two robed figures.  


Matkela heard a noise below her.  There was fighting going on in her temple!  Well, her temporary temple at any rate.  She prepared a spell that gave her the might of a bear, and prepared to engage her foes.  While she prepared, she called her pet to her side.


Back on the first floor, the last robed figure, which hadn’t entered the fight yet, attacked Quercus with his bare fists, but couldn’t even dent his armor.  Tsine turned on the wounded monk that attacked him before, and helped Dane and Flix deal with him by sending a volley of magic missiles at the foe.  He was still on his feet, or at least he was until Rudyard turned and finished the job with one stab.  Flix and Dane were free to turn their attention on the last robed figure, which was still futilely trying to land a hand on Quercus.  Dane gave him a quick cut to the leg, and while he was stumbling forward, Flix darted up behind him and buried his sword into his skull.  However, just as they were recovering from the fight, an evil-looking leopard jumped down from the top of the stairs, landing on Flix.  He screamed in terror, as the leopard started slashing him apart, all while biting him.  Quercus quickly began attacking the creature, while Tal fired another magical volley, but neither dropped the creature.  Raz was about to fire at the creature when he heard a noise upstairs, and decided to train his bow on the stairs instead of fire at the leopard and risk hitting his friends.  Just then, a drow woman wearing heavy armor walked down the stairs.  Raz fired his prepared shot, but it shot bounced off her armor.  She responded with a spell.  “I call upon the dark powers of Bas.  Transform my enemy’s light into endless dark!”  Suddenly, Quercus’ eyes turned pure white.  He screamed in fear, yelling that he couldn’t see.

Tsine accessed the situation, and realized that the drow was a bigger threat.  He fired another volley of magic at her, wounding her slightly.  Rudyard focused instead on the leopard, swinging his sword with such force that it broke a bone in its leg.  Flix, despite being stuck under the creature, was able to draw a dagger and stab it, but was shocked when the wound healed immediately.  Meanwhile, the leopard continued its ferocious assault on him, and Flix’s screams suddenly and horrifyingly ceased.  Dane roared in vengeance, tearing into the creature.  It was bleeding profusely and stumbling about, but it was still up.  Quercus tried to hit it, but missed completely.  Finally, Tal finished the creature with his blade.  With the first threat gone, Raz continued firing upon the drow cleric, hiding her with two arrows, but only slightly.  She countered by casting a spell and touching Rudyard.  For a moment, he felt like some sort of disease was entering his body, but he felt his immune system fight it off.  Angry at the possible death of his friend, Tsine drew his bow and fired at the drow, but his attacks went wild.  Rudyard was more successful, and cut into her side.  She screamed in pain, but Dane ran up to her, sword aimed at her head, and ended her screams permanently.  Well, so they thought…

OOC Notes: I’m not entirely certain that illusion spells could be used the way it was used here, but I didn’t want to waste time with a long debate about it, and it was a pretty clever idea.  Besides, I didn’t want another entire game to be just about getting through the main gate.

The odd bit of foreshadowing at the end there won’t come into play again for a while.  Just don’t forget about it.   

Oh, and Lela, did you want any more detail for your puzzle, or is what I gave you enough for now?


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## LordVyreth (May 2, 2004)

*Interlude: Excerpts of the Goddesses Part 1*

In order to better capture the nature of the world and the goddesses, I wrote up a bit of the holy texts of each of the eleven sisters and gavet hem to the party.  The excerpts told the complete story of the origins of the universe by the goddesses, or at least as it was told by the church.  Each excerpt captured the personality and nature of the goddess that the book was based on.  The first one they got was of the book of Bha-Ael, the creator goddess that ruled the pantheon.  I'll probably post others as I go, usually when I can't post a regular update that day.

The Creation of the Universe
(Excerpt from the Book of Bha-Ael)

And in these times, there was nothing but Bha-Ael
And Bha-Ael, in her all-encompassing wisdom, ordered the creation of the universe.
All the forces of the universe formed as by her wishes
And her will was done.

Then, Bha-Ael knew that the universe was useless unless it was inhabited
So that others may know of the works of Bha-Ael and be glad.
Bha-Ael again spoke to the forces of the universe, and ordered the creation of life.
Again, the forces complied with her will, and life was brought about.

However, Bha-Ael realized that living beings could no fully appreciate her works
For their minds were simple, and lacked advanced thought and emotion.
Bha-Ael, to better maintain the order of the universe, would not give them this herself.
And she knew that a link was needed between her and her people.

Bha-Ael, in her infinite mercy, chose to sacrifice of her own power.
In doing so, she would bring about others who could understand her people better.
These others would watch the people of the world, and bestow upon them gifts
And the first of the Sisters was born.


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## LordVyreth (May 3, 2004)

*Excerpt Number 2.*

Expect an actual update some time tomorrow.  It should be a big one, too.  I'm already almost finished, but I noticed it wouldn't get done in time tonight, and I didn't want to end today with no updates at all.  This is one of my favorite excerpts, actually.  It feels very different from the first and pretty much all the other excerpts, and I was able to capture the personality of this goddess better than most.  Anyway, this excerpt is from the book of Khrista, the goddess of pleasure, chance, luck, and such.

The First Sisters
(Exerpt from the Book of Khrista, family edition.  The uncensored version has been reviewed to be unsuitable for under the age of 17 or the demihumans equivalent.)

Okay, so I was the first of the new Sisters, so I knew there was a *butt*load of work to get done before life would even be livable.  It was a *freaking* mess, let me tell you.  So, I took a few millennia, got to know the locals, worked my way into their tiny brains, that kind of stuff.  Eventually, I realized the main problem.  Everyone was completely, *freaking *  boring!  They never had any fun at all!  They didn’t even know what the *Goshdarn* word meant, and they wouldn’t know a good time if it was stuck up their *posterior*.  I decided the most important thing to add would be fun, pleasure, that stuff.  I started with the most obvious place, *procreating*.  I mean, since they had the average life span of a mayfly, they had to be *procreating *  all the *procreatin’ *  time, anyway, so why not make it fun?  Then I gave them games, and other things to do in the rare moment when they weren’t eating each other or dying of exposure.

Then, that *procreating *  *female dog *  Ordhari came into existence, and spoiled my fun.  “Oh, there must be order,” she said.  Never mind that they were *procreating *  happy now, of course.  She just reworked the entire universe so that every single thing made perfect logical sense to her weird mutant brain, and insisted that this would eventually make everyone happier.  I was just about to kick her *posterior *  so bad that her mouth would get athlete’s foot, but Bha-Ael stopped me.  I was glad when Lore came into being, created magic, and spoiled all of that *female dog’s *  fun.  She created a system that was based solely on the idea that it can’t be explained, which *Number Oned *  Ordhari off.  And, as you might have expected, an epic war broke out between the followers of both of them, resulting in millions of deaths on both sides.  Yeah, they’re a lot happier now, you stupid *procreating *  *female procreation organs*.


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## LordVyreth (May 4, 2004)

*Battle Royale*

After searching the body of the high priestess, the party spent some time exploring the temple.  The main altar of the temple has been stained with blood, and all the holy relics and statues of None have been destroyed or replaced with statues of Bas.  However, any further information couldn’t be found.  Quercus did what he could to clean up the place, and then said a silent prayer to those killed by the cultists, but they had to move on quickly before they were discovered.

Since the temple was on the west side of town, the party turned east in search of anything new.  They eventually found a huge metal fence, which was clearly created very recently.  However, as they watched it, they saw a patrol of three drow in armor, a yellow-robed figure, and two leopards pass by the fence.  Clearly they were guarding whatever was behind the fence, so the party retreated, and conversed in silence about their plan.

“We have to get in there!”  Quercus insisted.  “They might be hiding the magic item there, or established a base of operations.”

“But how do we get in unseen?”  Rudyard asked.

Tsine looked excited.  “I have an idea.  I’ve been studying a new spell that should come in handy here.  It lets multiple people turn invisible at one time.”

The party soon worked out a plan.  Quercus drank one of their few remaining potions of darkvision, and then Tsine made the whole group of them vanish.  They carefully neared the gate, and then got up right next to it as soon as the patrol passed.  Quercus then worked quickly, carrying each of his friends over the wall as quickly as he could.  The only exception was Flix, who insisted on climbing it himself, and since this gave everyone else more time to work, they readily agreed.  Soon, all of them were over the wall, and they quickly dashed to find a hiding spot.  There were a number of houses on this side as well, so they all ducked behind one before the patrol passed by again.  After a bit of exploring, they discovered a house that wasn’t abandoned.  Carefully, they crept inside, ready for battle, when they discovered they were surrounded by – dwarves.  Beardless dwarves, but dwarves.

Before the party could respond, one of them spoke.  “Who are you?  What do you want with us?”

Tal took over the party’s end of the conversation.  As he did, he noticed that all the dwarves looked badly injured and hungry, as if they’ve barely eaten for days.  “Are you the inhabitants of this town?  We are from Methosilang, sent to rescue you and fight back the enemy.”

The dwarf that spoke the first time responded.  “We are, or what’s left of us.  Most of our number has already been taken by the drow or those yellow-robed fiends.”

“Can you tell us more about what has happened here?”

The dwarf gave Tal a suspicious look.  “Well, mebbe we can, and mebbe we can’t.  How do we know that this isn’t another trick?”

In response, Tal began a song.  It was “The Strength of the Mighty Ones,” a popular dwarf song often song in None ceremonies.  It soon had the desired effect; these beaten people were soon regaining their pride, and learning to trust him.

The first dwarf, who obviously was a leader of this group, began speaking again.  “Ah, you are with Methosilang.  None of these monsters would know the songs of our kind.  Even the yellow-robed ones are all of the tall races; there’s not a dwarf among them.”

The leader gave his name as Gurand, and he was once part of this town’s cabinet.  According to him, the assault was focused primarily on the town’s capital building, which is built into the southeastern wall of the town’s main cavern.  According to him, the two leaders of the invaders were staying there, and it was where the big flying bat monster slept.  It was also were all the “special” prisoners were taken.

“Special?” Quercus asked with dread.

“Yes, our leaders, our elders, are priests, and anyone with the courage to resist them.  They take some of us daily to be sacrificed at our own temple, but the demon Lady handles the special cases in the capital building.”

“Can you tell us about these leaders?”  Tal asked.

“Well, the demonic Lady is a winged drow that rights a nightmarish horse.  She’s crazy.  She kills with impunity, but always is always ranting about something.  She always is yelling that her archrival is looking for her.  Some sort of holy elf or something, from how she describes it.  I only wish that one was here to help us.  The other guy is dressed really simply.  He has black hair with yellow spots in it.  He’s actually really polite, at least when speaking.  But he’s hiding something.  The way he looks at people, it’s like he’s sizing them up for a meal.  I think he’s staying at the top floor of the capital building, up on the seventh floor.”

This gave Tsine a shock.  “Seventh floor?  There’s a seven-story capital building in a town this small?”

Gurand gave Tsine the proudest look he could, considering the circumstances.  “Well, we are dwarves after all.”

The party was watching the first floor of the capital building.  It was suspiciously sparsely guarded.  There were two drow archers watching the area from balconies, a huge leopard in front of the gate and a strange six-legged puma with tentacles growing on his back next to the leopard, but the door itself is open.  The party decided to try and sneak in, but they needed a plan how.  They had rested inside the slave pens that night, to replenish their magic and heal their wounds.

Tsine had a few suggestions.  “I could use the invisibility field again to sneak us in, but I don’t trust that leopard.  He could smell us out.”

Tal had a funny look on his face.  “I have an idea.  What about an illusion to lure it and that puma-thing away?”

No one objected, so a few minutes later, an illusionary pig was sauntering down the street.  The Displacer beast gazed at it hungrily, but reason overcame desire, and he remained by the door.  The leopard, on the other hand, immediately got up and began to follow the pig down the street.  Realizing this was their best chance, the group tried to sneak in through the gap, but when they got within sixty feet, the two drow suddenly looked alert, and began firing near them!  The shots didn’t hit near them, but they were clearly discovered.  “How did they find us?” Quercus frantically whispered.

He got his answer moments later, as a horrible humanoid monster with a scorpion tail appeared in the doorway, and lunged at Dane.  It was identical to the type of monster they fought back at the Bas temple they discovered way back at the beginning of their travels, though of course this one wasn’t injured.  With the element of surprise spoiled, the party began one very, very long fight to the top of the building.

Round one.  The bone devil, displacer beast, and even the dire leopard (who had returned after Tsine cancelled illusion) surrounded the party, and the two drow began firing at them from above.  The bone devil was able to give Dane a light injury with his tail spike at the beginning, but while a strength-sapping poison was injected into him with the attack, he was able to fight off the effects.  The party’s vengeance was fast and ferocious.  Quercus gave the devil a pair of deadly attacks, and wile the leopard was still returning, Raz and Rudyard killed one of the drow in the balconies, while Tal struck at the displacer beast with another volley of magic.  The surviving drow fired at Dane, but couldn’t get past his heavy armor, and while the devil managed to bite Dane one last time, he responded by cutting the monster’s head off, while Tsine finished the second drow off with a volley of magic.  The displacer beast pummeled Flix, but he responded with a direct but ferocious assault that cut into the monster’s neck, and Quercus finished the creature off.  The leopard finally returned, but only had a chance to swat at Rudyard once before Tal, Rudyard, and Raz finished it.  Eager to push their advantage, the seven heroes ran into the tower to prevent their enemy from mobilizing.

First floor.  Seven robed figures were waiting for them.  But the party had no interest in a length battle.  A volley of arrows by Tsine, Raz, and Rudyard, and more of Tal’s magic orbs, took out most of them before they could even respond.  Of the four survivors, two of them that were close to the stairs up turned and fled, leaving only the two closest figures from the door.  Quercus and Dane easily dealt with one of them, who was unarmed like the ones they encountered back in the temple, while Flix wounded the last.  He gave one pathetic attempt to return fire, before being shot by Tsine.  Raz and Rudyard gave the room a cursory once-over, finding stairs down to the basement among other things.  “Guys, before we finish this place up, maybe we should explore the basement?  It’s possible they’re hiding something there.”  Raz suggested, but it fell on deaf ears.

Second floor.  Sixteen enemy troopers were here: fourteen yellow-robed warrior types, and two drow.  Tsine got up the stairs first, and decided it wasn’t even worth bothering with these foes.  He tried out another one of his new spells, the infamous fireball.  Fifteen of the enemy forces were reduced to ash instantly, leaving only one “lucky” drow whose inherent anti-magic defenses blocked the effect.  Of course, his luck lasted as long as it took for Raz to climb the stairs, and fire a single arrow through his neck.

Third floor.  Because there was no sign of the two enemies that fled from the first floor, the party realized that their enemy would be prepared for them now, having been warned by those two.  As a result, they didn’t climb the stairs until all of them were prepared. At first, it appeared that there was nothing but a quartet of evil-looking leopards on this floor, but as soon as the party climbed the stairs to engage them, they were suddenly caught in a web, as four magic missiles fired at Flix and Raz, the current point men of the party.  Three yellow-robed figures materialized, and they looked like wizards based on their possessions.  Flix was the only one of those high enough up the stairs to be caught in the web to escape them, but that only made him a target of two of the leopards, while the others prepared to attack once the webs were cleared.  No one was willing to put up with being used for target practice by some neophyte wizards, so Tal used magic to set the webs alight, giving Raz and the other leading party members some nasty burns and subjected Raz to the attacks by the remaining leopards, but giving the party room to maneuver.  Dane and Rudyard ran up the stairs to give Flix help with the two leopards on him, while Tsine pelted the wizards with magic orbs, killing one and wounding another.  Quercus flew at them, killing the remaining undamaged one.  The surviving wizard carefully cast a spell, and then pointed a finger at Quercus and ordered him to laugh, but the only laugh Quercus gave was one of smug power.  Meanwhile, the two leopards formerly on Flix ceased mauling him to turn their attentions on the new attackers.  This proved to be a mistake, as one was immediately stabbed in the back by an angry Flix, and the other was killed by Dane.  Rudyard switched to a bow to help attack the leopards on Raz, and Raz had drawn his axe to engage them in melee, for once.  Tal and Tsine helped them, so the leopards were easily dispatched, while Quercus slew the last wizard.  He and Tal took a few moments to heal themselves, and continued their march.

Fourth floor.  This floor was obviously set up to be a shrine to None, but like the town’s main temple, it was desecrated and contained a stained sacrificial altar.  Only one yellow-robed cleric was here, but another one of the hyena monsters was also waiting for them.  In addition, as the party moved to engage their enemies, a thick cloud of smoke from a sputtering candle in the center of the room suddenly took the form of a hideous monster, and joined in the battle.  While the enemy was expecting them, they were clearly shocked to see them so soon, so the entire party (except for the slightly slow-witted Dane,) got up the stairs and ready to attack before they could even get into a fighting position.  Tal fired a volley of magic at the cleric, and Flix and Raz surrounded him.  The cleric was obviously casting preparation magic for a while; his body was indistinct and blurry, and he had a floating, magical version of his weapon (a scimitar,) waiting next to him.  He nonetheless took a few nasty cuts from their two attacks, and a fearsome cut to the chest from Rudyard.  Meanwhile, Quercus flew at the hyena monster, and Rudyard joined him.  Tsine fired another series of magic missiles at it as they began their attack, but even the might of the two warriors combined wasn’t enough to make the monster drop.  It bit Rudyard right in the chest, and the ranger panicked, again afraid of being transformed into one of these monsters.  Meanwhile, the smoke monster tried to enter Rudyard’s mouth, but he was able to cough the creature out, where he then set up on by Dane.  The cleric tried to attack Raz with his floating sword while casting a spell himself, but while the scimitar did manage to connect slightly, the spell, which would have frozen Raz in place, failed utterly.  Tal struck him with another magic missile, and Flix easily finished the unfortunate cleric, while Quercus avenged the attack on his friend by destroying the hyena creature.  This left only the smoke creature, which the party easily sliced to smoky ribbons.

Fifth floor.  Before entering this floor, the party had to deal with a door that was recently constructed between this floor and the last.  It probably could have been broken down, but that could have taken forever, so Flix moved up to pick the lock.  Unfortunately, he was too reckless, for he forgot to check for traps first.  He was then surprised when a poison needle flew out of the lock, striking him in the face.  He staggered around, as he felt the needle’s poison dampen his senses and numb his reflexes, making him clumsier than normal.  However, he was able to unlock the door the next chance he got.  The fifth floor was largely wrecked, and turned into the next for a giant monster.  “This is likely that flying bat-elf monster’s lair,” Tsine surmised.  The party gave the area a quick look, but it appeared that the creature was currently out on patrol in the city itself.  They hurried to the next floor before it could be called to help its masters.

Sixth floor.  The party noticed that the walls for this floor look new, as if they were just moved around to create a new path.  This new path was forcing the party into a side room, and then into a corridor.  In this corridor, there appeared to be three foes waiting for them: the spiky humanoid that the dark-haired spotted man traveled with, the spotted man himself, and the Lady of Blood!  Tal noticed that there was something “odd” about the two leaders, as if they weren’t real, but the others bought into it without any problem.  Raz fired at the spotted man, but it looked to him like he got out of the way, and Tsine used up his final powerful spell, a bolt of lightning, to strike the spined monster and the Lady of Blood.  The lightning hit the barbed devil right in the chest, hurting it quite a bit, but it seemed to go right through the Lady.  Instead, a strange, high-pitched cry suddenly sounded, and it looked like a tiny monster was disintegrated near the ceiling.  Tal surmised that there were invisible monsters hiding near the ceiling and creating the illusions, but one was accidentally caught in the bolt’s effect.  The others didn’t draw the conclusion, but with the exception of Raz and Dane, the others were able to guess that this wasn’t really the Lady of Blood and spotted-hair man after seeing this.  Rudyard charged at the bared monster, giving it another wound, while Dane rather foolishly attacked the spotted-hair main.  The surviving Imp realized the trick was mostly ruined, so he canceled the illusion (to Raz’s continuing surprise) and caught Dane in the chest with his stinger.  It wounded Dane slightly, but his powerful body barely noticed the venom in the wound.  Quercus and Flix surrounded the barbed devil, and sliced him apart, and the surviving Imp easily fell to some of Tal’s magic orbs.  The party went down the corridor to enter the main chamber of the floor.

The central chamber’s most notable feature was a pedestal in the middle of the room, with a large black gem placed on top of it.  It was filled with a sickening-looking ichor.  Tsine looked at it for a moment, and suddenly shouted, “That has to be the magic item!  If we destroy it, we should be able to call the reinforcements!”

However, the gem wasn’t the only thing in this room.  A woman was chained to the gem.  When the party arrived, she was kneeling on the floor, with a mask on her face.  Even without seeing her face, party could tell there was a sense of sadness and loss about her just by looking at her.  There also were two dark alcoves in the walls, which were blocked by metal grating, and a door to the south.  As the party entered the room carefully, a voice boomed at them from above.  A voice that Quercus and Tal recognized.  “Ah, finally, my bag-boys have arrived,” the voiced taunted them.  “I really have to thank you for what you did there.  You see, while that was my temple, I wasn’t the one who selected its leader.  I needed a way to test her, and unfortunately she failed.  Didn’t you, Kessine?”  The figure on the floor looked up at this.  “But I believe in giving everyone a second chance to be useful to me.  Now, Kessine, the people before you are the ones who helped destroy your temple, and caused you to get…punished by me.  Now, how does that make you feel?  What do you want to do to them?”

The woman stood up, and ripped off her mask.  Quercus, Tal, Flix, Tsine, Raz, and Rudyard instantly recognized her as the high priestess that led the temple they rescued Lerissa from.  And her face was twisted into a form of pure rage, as her body began to change.  At the same time, the two gratings in the walls open up, revealing two pairs of dark, angry, and large eyes.

Fortunately, the party was getting into position as the spotted man was concluding his speech.  Tal and Raz closed in on Kessine.  Tal tried using a new spell he just discovered, which sent a blade of frigid ice at his target.  It struck Kessine right in the chest, leaving multiple cuts while numbing her whole body with the cold.  Raz charged up to attack her, relying again on his axe due to the tight quarters of the room.  He got one quick hit, and then a second as she finished changing into a werewolf.  Meanwhile, Tsine fired a volley at the creature behind the nearest grating, and Rudyard prepared to engage the monster in melee while Dane moved in to keep the second one at bay.  As they moved in, however, the two monsters, a pair of huge, demonic leopards, leapt out, knocking both Rudyard and Dane to their floor as they started ripping them apart.  Quercus moved to help Dane, while Flix tumbled in behind Kessine, and dug a short sword into one of her kidneys.  Tal was running low on magic at this point, so he moved in to help Raz, and the two of them gave her another few nicks.  However, despite her many wounds and the blood that was now clotting her fur, she was still standing.  It looked like she was receiving magical aid in addition to the strength her now-bestial form granted her.  She slashed at Tal with her scimitar, while biting him ferociously on the neck.  The bite was a deep one, and she suddenly shifted her weight to make Tal lose his balance.  He fell to the floor, while Kessine maintained her bite on top of him.  Tsine realized what a threat she was becoming, so he split his next magic missile volley between her and the leopard that was on Rudyard.  Rudyard and Dane both struggled to get out from under their attackers, but only Dane was successful.  He and Quercus surrounded it and began to attack it, but not before the leopard could get bite another chunk of flesh off of Dane.  Meanwhile, Rudyard was still getting ripped apart under his leopard.  A pool of blood was expanding out from under him, and his breathing was getting weaker.  Tal wasn’t looking too good, either, but Flix saved the day by leaping onto the wolf-woman’s back.  She struggled to throw him off, but he held on tight, and with one swift motion, slashed her throat.  She gave one last gurgled scream, and then fell to the floor, barely alive.

Tal nodded his thanks, and then he and Raz moved to help Rudyard.  Both swung at his leopard’s neck simultaneously, and in one swift motion, decapitated the creature.  Tsine, almost out of magic, drew his sword and helped Dane and Quercus finish the second leopard, and then while Quercus and Tal healed the wounded, the party contemplated the gem.

“So, how do we destroy it?” Flix asked.

“Let me examine it for a moment,” Tsine began.  “I’m sure there’s some way to reverse the item’s arcane properties.”

“Or,” Dane suggested, after finishing Kessine with one final stab, “We could just hit a lot.”  The party agreed to this plan, and soon the gem was shattered, and the black ichors that floated inside it dissolved into a sickening smoke.

After using the scroll that Lerissa gave him to call the reinforcements, the group was ready to climb the final staircase and put an end to the spotted man once and for all.

Seventh floor.  Unfortunately, he had apparently already left.  The room was full of luxurious furniture, but except for the corpses of the two guards who ran back on the first floor, the room was empty.  However, there was a door leading outside to the balcony, and it looked unlocked.  After giving the two corpses a quick examination (it looked like their throats were bitten out,) the party threw open the doors to see if the spotted man was still there.  He was absent, but they were not totally without an opponent, for floating in front of them was the Lady of Blood and her steed.  She looked at them with a barely controlled rage.  “You ruined everything!” she yelled.  “I will personally see you all dead!”  

Before the party could respond, she concentrated, and a thick black cloud of sickening, evil smoke surrounded them.  The smoke however, had little effect on Tal and Flix, who were unconcerned with the evil nature of the cloud.  The others didn’t handle it so well, though mercifully Raz and Tsine were out of its range.  Tal and Dane ran to the front of the party, and fired at the woman, but only Dane’s arrow hit.  All the others drew bows and began to fire at her, except for Tsine, who managed to hit her with a magical missile, and Quercus, who flew straight at her, intent on bringing the demonic villainess down with his own blade.  She looked at him, and her eyes widened.  “You!” she screamed.  “You are related to HER, aren’t you?  I can tell just by looking at you!”  She pulled out her scimitar, and plunged it into Quercus’ shoulder, just as he cut her with his sword.  

Just then, the spotted man rode up on what looked like a griffon.  He shouted at the Lady of Blood over the sounds of battle below.  “Kulstra!  Stop this fight for now!  The town is lost!  Whether or not you kill these whelps, we’d be destroyed as well in the battle!”  He then turned his griffon around and fled down a side passage.”

Kulstra looked at Quercus, with hate in her eyes.  “Very well, but tell your sister that I will be coming for both of you,” she hissed at him, as she turned her own mount away.  But Quercus wasn’t done yet.  As she fled, he chased after her, oblivious to the melee around them.  However, while he got another few hits in, she was able to surround herself with too many reinforcements, and Quercus couldn’t cut through them all in time.  Before he could focus again on the Lady of Blood, she was lost in the smoke and darkness.  Quercus cursed his luck, but swore under his breath that he would be the one to destroy her and give her sister a chance at peace.

And, at last, it was over.  The reinforcements swept over the surviving enemy forces, taking prisoners as needed and putting the others to the sword.  But it was hardly a total victory.  Most of the town’s residents were killed or taken into slavery already.  The two main leaders of the enemy got away.  No evidence of Bas herself has been discovered, though the reinforcements later investigated the basement, and discovered a strange, eye-less lizard had destroyed hundreds of books (Raz would later remark smugly to the party that he told them so.)  However, nothing of the books was salvageable.  And while the magic item that blocked the town from magical aid was destroyed, the party has no idea how it was made in the first place, though Lerissa would theorize that if Bas truly is one of the goddesses, it’s possible that she could use part of her essence to provide areas with protection, just like the Eleven Sisters block the main cities of Methosilang from invasion by the orc and undead empires.  At the very least, the invading force was destroyed, but even it seemed less like an invading force, and more like a test run, to determine the defenses of Methosilang for a real invasion.  Lerissa warns, and the party members know in their hearts, that the real danger is just beginning…

OOC Notes:  Yes, this was all one game.  We ended up gaming until 2 in the morning to finish this one!  Which was awkward, as one of the players brought his eleven-year-old stepson to try the game out this time.  Surprisingly, he was allowed to play in future games, and didn’t even mind staying up late.  Yep, he’s one of ours!  He played Raz this time, since his player had essentially left the group by now.
Expect big changes in the next few games.  Like I just hinted, we’re losing some characters, but adding two new players, including the above-mentioned stepson.  And the party’s level takes a huge leap the next game, so the challenges will get tougher as well.  I hope everyone enjoyed the first part of my campaign, and expect the next part as soon as tomorrow, with any luck.


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## LordVyreth (May 5, 2004)

*March of Time*

“So, what’s our next plan?”  Raz asked, after meeting with the party the next morning.  He was the last to arrive, after doing some shopping in Methosilang earlier.  “I’m thinking we should pursue that avatar angle.  If Olivia, or should I save Ordhari, was telling the truth, we could get quite a bit of information about what’s going on with the world or even who Lady Memory is if we find the other avatars.”

The party looked a little uncomfortable, however.  Tal cleared his throat, and then said, “Actually, we were planning on staying in town for a while.  This whole Bas issue is just too much for us to ignore, so we decided to help the country for a bit.”

Raz looked crushed.  “Wait, you plan on sitting here and just waiting?  We can’t afford to just stand around.  We have to find these avatars before it’s too late!”

Quercus gave him a patronizing look.  “And how do you propose we do that?  We don’t even have a lead on who any of them are.  We could waste months of our time doing nothing, while The Lady of Blood and Bas’ other servants sabotage our entire kingdom.  At the very least, we have to find proof.”

Raz was fuming at this point.  “Well, fine!  Waste your time with politics and pointless battles!  We’re talking about the truth of reality here!  We’re being contacted by some godlike being, giving us strange instructions, and we don’t even know who she is!  We don’t know who this Bas is either, and we’re not going to find out by hacking a few of her servants apart.  She might even be our real master, and we’re foolish enough to fight her!  And what about the goddesses? After what we read and heard in Delaspie, do we even know if they’re really goddesses?  How can you trust them, or their priests, or even the entire nation of Methosilang at this point?  Forget it.  Do what you want.  I’m going to find the truth.  Maybe if I’m feeling generous, I’ll share the answers I find with you.”  With that, he turned to leave.

The rest of the party spent six months in or helping Methosilang.  In addition to just dealing with minor threats in and around the city, they went on raids against the orcs, tried playing politics, and rooted out any Bas spies or temples that they could find.  They fought lycanthropes, cultists, and more of the strange half-machine creatures like Tanos.  While it was dangerous work, they were well rewarded, earning many priceless treasures (about half of which they immediately sold,) and learning much of their enemies, and how to fight them.  Here is a brief summary of the major events of the six months.

Flix disappeared for the first month of so.  He said he had “business” elsewhere, but wouldn’t elaborate.  Rudyard had his suspicions, though, and warned the party to be extra careful around Flix from now on.  He realized that Flix was developing more of his psychic powers, and didn’t know how far he would have to go to do so.  What if he was willing to join Bas to gain power?

Meanwhile, it was a difficult period for Methosilang.  Despite the party’s best efforts, a number of fairly difficult problems struck.  A building in the capital city was “accidentally” destroyed, there was a fire, a plague, and a military revolt that swept across many of their cities (though, fortunately, none of their major cities that were protected by the protection of the goddesses.  However, the worst thing that happened in Methosilang was a sudden worsening in relations with Delaspie.  Things started when a band of orcs apparently snuck into the city using one of the underground tunnels connecting Delaspie with Methosilang.  The Delaspie government blamed Methosilang for their poor security, Methosilang denied involvement, and things worsened from there until the former close allies were merely neutral.  It was obvious to the party that this was the work of Bas’ servants, but they still couldn’t prove anything.

But not everything that happened to Methosilang was bad.  The most unusual event occurred a few months in, when a band of surface travelers were surrounded by a vastly larger and more powerful undead force.  The travelers were ready to fight to the last, but the undead indicated they were ready to parley!  One of them gave the group a message, which was delivered to the king and queen after being tested for magic and poison.  According to the message, the undead empire was willing to enter into a truce with Methosilang, effective immediately!  This strange event, sadly, only lasted a few months, before it ended as mysteriously as it began, but to the party, this meant something significant.  It meant Bas’ servants were interfering with the undead empire as well, but that the undead are aware of it as well, and perhaps were even more willing to fight Bas than Methosilang itself!

The other major positive events occurred because of the party directly, and were focused on the orc empire.  In between attempts to stop Bas, the party led Methosilang raids into the orc’s territory, sneaking into their weapons development facilities and dragon hatcheries.  They managed to recover two very important items as a result.  First, they gained some of the guns that the orcs have been able to use, and information about how to make them.  The Ordhari temple and its followers were very grateful for the information, and promised that they would have weaponry as advanced as the orcs very soon.  Even better, the party raided a special breeding center for the dragons, and came out with dozens of strange eggs that have never been seen before.  Some looked tainted with evil magic, but others were as large as a house, and either partially transparent, or radiated many different colors.  A few looked like standard dragon eggs, but were multi-colored, and had properties of two different types of dragon eggs.  For now, the party handed all of the eggs over to the royal family of Methosilang, until it can be discovered what they are.

However, these setbacks didn’t make the orcs any more cautious.  In fact, emboldened by Delaspie separation from Methosilang (and perhaps by a few choice words in the right ears,) they declared all-out war on Delaspie.  Though logic would dictate that the undead empire and Methosilang would enter the war on the appropriate sides, both stayed out of it, owing to their brief cessation of attacks and the undead and orc empires having a similar broken alliance.  Despite the party’s best efforts, it looks like Bas and her servants were succeeding in wreaking havoc across the continent.

The party had a loss among their own, as well.  Near the end of the six months, the party was gathered together, mostly, when Rudyard suddenly ran in.  “Guys, come quick!” he yelled.  “It’s Flix.  Something terrible has happened.”

“What?” a suddenly concerned Tal asked.

“He’s been murdered.”

As the party rushed to follow Rudyard, he explained the story.  “Flix was working to improve his social standing in town while earning a reputation in the local ‘guild,’ when he suddenly collapsed.  He had been poisoned, and the only one who could have done it was someone with a lot of prestige and power.”

The party arranged for the body to be taken to Necropolis and paid for the costs to have him raised, but it was not a total success.  When he returned, he was groggy and confused, even more than one would expect considering the circumstances.  The priest who performed the raising took the party to one side and explained.  “I’m afraid there were some problems.  He came with me back to his body willingly, but at the last moment, he suddenly turned his thoughts back to the realm we were escaping from.  His mind became literally locked to that realm, and though I could free him, part of his mind remained there.  He lost a lot of his intelligence as a result.  I don’t think he’ll ever be as smart as he was before.”

The concerned party rushed to Flix’s side.  Though he was glad to see them, he also was obviously trying to say something he didn’t want to say.  “Guys, I, uh, know what happened to me.  I can’t think as well as I used to, but I think I know one thing.  I don’t want to adventure any more.  Don’t be upset, it isn’t your fault.  It’s just that I can’t take the risk any more.  I don’t want something even worse than this to happen to me.”  Though the party accepted what he said and understood his reasons, it was nonetheless a tearful goodbye.

Tal and Tsine, on the other hand, did very well over this period.  Not only did they help fight back the enemies of Methosilang, but also they let the nobility know how integral the party was in the country’s defenses.  They were soon rewarded for their work with official noble titles.  Being of noble families but too far down their respective family lines to benefit from it normally, this was a real boon.  They pooled their resources to establish a new manor in the noble sector.  It wasn’t too impressive, admittedly, and odd that two nobles were forced to share a house, but they were just starting out, after all, so it was no big concern.  This manor became the new base of operations for the party.  Tal, however, wasn’t satisfied, and he decided that once things clamed down a bit, he would try to become even more important in the city.  He even tried to court one of the princesses of the kingdom!  Though she barely gave him the time of day.

Finally, the six months ended.  With war breaking out, it was becoming obvious to the party that they couldn’t just try to stop the plans of Bas’ servants when they see them.  They need to take the fight to her, or at least her main officers.  But how to find them?  As they pondered this, Quercus realized that with Shedell’s help, they could find at least one of them: her archrival, the Lady of Blood.

OOC Notes:  All of this basically happened over the course of one game.  I created a system that was fairly complex to let people decide what to do with their time, and then roll on random tables to get the result.  These results combined with various other factors to determine the events that occurred in each kingdom over that time.  The results, after quite a bit of abridging, were what you see here.  I’ll probably take a break and post just an excerpt tomorrow, but I’ll have a full update again on Thursday with any luck.


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## Hjorimir (May 5, 2004)

LordVyreth, just thought I would drop in and give my 2 cents.

From my quick read, I have seen an improvement in your writing. My only writing advice (avoiding the differences we have with DMing style or technique) would to be more liberal in your use of paragraphs. Those huge blocks can be hard on the eyes and uncomfortable to read.

You may also want to commit to either a story or campaign log approach as well. As the writer you seem to be switching between an impartial observer and a performing storyteller.

If you go the way of storyteller (as I did) I’d like to see you slow down a bit and really explain the action. Don’t be in a rush to gloss over the details.


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## LordVyreth (May 6, 2004)

Hjorimir said:
			
		

> LordVyreth, just thought I would drop in and give my 2 cents.
> 
> From my quick read, I have seen an improvement in your writing. My only writing advice (avoiding the differences we have with DMing style or technique) would to be more liberal in your use of paragraphs. Those huge blocks can be hard on the eyes and uncomfortable to read.
> 
> ...




Well, to be fair, a big part of the problem is that I started this campaign over two years ago, so I'm still playing catch up.  Hence the slightly rushed pace.  And that last adventure had to be a storytelling system, because I basically created an extended-time simulation sequence for that game to get them through six months of advancement in one night.  On the other hand, such a large back log to get through means lots of regular updates, plus I can work foreshadowing into earlier plots since I know well in advance what will happen.

Anyway, here's the third of the goddess excerpts for tonight.  Tomorrow, with any luck, expect another real update.  This, like the last one, was another favorite of mine.  Ordhari, the goddess of knowledge, was easy to write for.  Just imagine a Vulcan without the emotionless bit but with a lot more arrogance.

The Middle Sisters
(Excerpt from the Book of Ordhari, abridged version.  Full version only recommended for advanced readers/mathematicians/theologians/physicists/oh look, you’re not bright enough to read it!)

Lamentably, the ideological conflict progressed for an estimated 3.76 millennia without any indication of respite.  Ironically, only the massive depopulation that was a consequence of this constant hostility was successfully in renewing peaceful interactions between the philosophically opposed societies.  It was this environment that Nelkiss witnessed after making the transition from a theoretical being to an overt entity.  She made the illogical but compassionate decision to exert her divine prerogative by creating an alternate existence for those who have exceeded their biological consciousness.  Or, to put it in terms more commonly used by mortals, she created an afterlife to give shelter to the recently deceased.  She herself served as judge to the arriving intelligent entities, and transferred their remaining conscious energies to various environments of her own creation, based on their behavior while still biological compounds.

Disappointingly, the next divine entities of the anime nature, or goddesses, were determined to repeat past mistakes.  None, the goddess immediately following Nelkiss in sequential order, dedicated her own ambitions to making humanity and its immediate biological relatives progressive species.  They were to use both advanced intellectual functions and crude physical prowess to establish an order in the chaos of their overwhelming natural surroundings, and establish dominance over nature.  However, Tregfillia, the following goddess, followed in the anarchic footsteps of my immature sibling Lore, and became an advocate for the exact opposite position.  She insisted on the importance of the bond of the intellectual beings with nature, and insisted on the maintenance of a symbiotic relationship between the two.  Fortunately, near-total warfare was not the end result of this opposition, but a rivalry was developed between these two beings and the acolytes of the positions that they support and encourage.


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## LordVyreth (May 7, 2004)

*Second Beginning*

As the lights outside dimmed, bringing about the start of the second crystal cycle of the day, Dane shifted nervously.  It’s been three hours now, and still nothing.  Shedell had arrived a week after Quercus sent the letter to her, asking her for her help.  In the time it took for her to arrive, the party sold all of the treasure they found in their recent journeys but no longer needed, and purchased a number of new goods.  Dane personally bought himself a belt that greatly enhanced his physical strength and improved his magical blade, and others bought staves, magic rings that almost totally negated the need for sleep and food, and even magic wings that let the wearer fly.  Quercus has also purchased a winged horsed commonly called a Pegasus.  

Right now, however, all of them could do nothing but wait, while Quercus was alone with his half-sister.  They had decided to let him discuss the issue of the Lady of Blood alone, after she initially refused to provide them with any information about her nemesis, out of fear that they would all be killed.  The discussion was a strange one, and it was obvious to Dane that it was as much a family reunion as it was a debate.  This was the first time Quercus could talk to his sister for more than a few minutes, after all, and they had a lot of catching up to do.  There was shouting, laughter, sobbing, and moments of profound and total silence coming from behind the door, and Dane had absolutely no idea what they would decide.

Finally, after the fourth hour, the two came out.  Quercus quietly said, “Shedell has agreed to give us the location of the Lady of Blood, or at least of the temple directly above the city she has her home in.  However, she agreed to help us on two conditions.  First, she insisted on coming with us for as long as she can.  Second, she wants to bring two her party members with us.”

The party had been hurting since Raz and Flix left the group, so they readily agreed to have a few new allies.  Shedell left for a few moments, but came back with a pair of figures.  Once was a human, dressed all in green, and the second was a Benefactor drow.  She introduced them.  “This is Robin, a trained warrior.  I discovered him a few years ago living in a small elf village near the surface.  Apparently, orcs discovered a way into his village when he was still a child, and left him an orphan.  He was forced to live among the elves, while learning their ways.  I discovered he had a heart full of confusion and rage, but with potential to become a hero.  We had quite a bit in common, as you may guess.  He’s officially trained as a tracker and hunter, of both animal and larger than animal prey, if you know what I mean.  And this is Seldszar,” she said, indicating the dark elf.  “I must admit that not even I know much about him.  He found me over a decade ago, though, when I was trying to escape the Lady of Blood for one of the first times.  He helped keep the enemy at bay while I escaped, and he agreed to join my party.  However, lately, the fights with the Lady of Blood have gotten worse, and they have gotten closer and closer to being captured along with me or worse.  I have since forbid them from going with me when I can sense the Lady of Blood has a lock on me and is in pursuit, but this means they have been spending more and more time simply waiting at my base, doing nothing.  They asked if it would be okay to leave me for a while, to seek out more consistent adventure, and I agreed.  Of course, once they learned what mission you were to go on, they insisted on coming along.  I still think it’s a mistake to send you off to fight her, but at least you stand a chance of catching her unaware, an opportunity I would never have.”

She gathered both new and old party members around a table, which had a map of the continent.  “Now, her temple is about a two-week journey from here.  Fortunately, you can travel through most of it underground, by going towards Neverest.”  She indicated a city dedicated to None, the goddess of strength and de facto war goddess.  “However, you can’t leave directly from that city.  It’s right in the middle of undead territory, after all, and the only exits from the city are only allowed to be opened during the Final Battle, whatever that happens to be.  However, there is an exit to the surface a few days away from the city.  From there, it’s a four-day journey due north to the temple.  I warn you, it won’t be an easy path to travel.  That area is right in the middle of the Long Waste, where nothing grows and no normal animals exist.  The area is filled with undead, and the only living things around will be savage predators capable of surviving in such a hostile land.  Though nothing there will be nearly as bad as the temple of Bas itself, and what lurks beneath it.”

With a plan in place, the group did some last minute shopping, and then began their journey.  As they left, the traitor watched.  “It was a shame that they couldn’t have been killed in one of those foolish raids they were undergoing lately,” the figure thought.  “But no matter.  This little delay will let me begin preparations to have them eliminated when the time was right.”

OOC Notes:  There are two new players that entered the game at this point.  One of them, Robert, was the same eleven year old that was the game two weeks earlier.  Yes, his character was modeled after Robin Hood.  How creative were you at eleven, huh?

The other is Chris, who eventually became my roommate.  Thus, I expect him to show up on this board pretty soon.  He DMs for me sometimes as well, which as usual means he knows how to make some sick characters.  However, they also have a tendency to not last very long.  Seldzar is his first character in my game, but he won’t be my last.

I should also point out that I gave the group a tad too much treasure as a reward in the last game.  This will prove problematic for a few fights, but I mostly balanced it out.


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## LordVyreth (May 8, 2004)

*The Dead, and the Death-Bringers*

The journey through the tunnels was again uneventful.  The party, along with Shedell and her two allies, traveled during the day, even when it was impossible to determine night from day here, and stayed at small towns in the night.  Finally, after ten days underground, the party reached the last exit to the surface on the road to Neverest.  Carefully, Rudyard opened the door, while watching the outside world through the ever-growing crack.  He didn’t see any enemies, but what he saw outside was almost as shocking.  There was nothing, as far as the eye could see.  Not the smallest bush, not a scrap of grass, not a single buzzing insect.  It was nothing but cracked earth, rocky hills, and endless horizons as far as the eye could see.  Rudyard involuntarily shivered when he saw it, and Robin, who was the youngest member of the group, literally gave a yelp of surprise and despair when he saw it.  “How could anyone do this?  What would be the point?”

Quercus shook his head sadly.  “The undead empire has no use for anything living unless is can be used as food or new recruits.  Making this area livable would just give their enemies an opportunity to attack.  As it is now, if we wanted to attack them, we’d have no cover, we’d have to carry all our food or supply it magically, and we’d be attacked by hungry and desperate predators the entire way.”

Robin could hardly move at first.  And for that, millions of plants and animals had to die?  As bad as this Bas was, he knew who he wanted to bring about the destruction of more.  This empire of unlife must fall.

A few hours later, the party saw yet another sign of death, albeit a far more mundane one.   A team of wagons was arranged in a circle in front of them, but they had been obviously attacked.  Eager to find survivors, Tal and Robin sprinted towards it, while Seldzar followed cautiously behind them.  All of them were ignoring Shedell’s warnings that the creatures that did this could still be nearby, and that this caravan was likely a Bas supply line in the first place, and any survivors could possibly be their enemies.

An initial search turned up nothing living.  There were half-eaten bodies scattered throughout the wagon, and all were drow, but there was no way to determine if they were Benefactors or Malefactors.  On the plus side, if the bodies were still here, that means it wasn’t done by the undead.  Dane and Quercus began to build a fire to burn the bodies, and Rudyard began a search of the camp.  A few minutes later, he dashed out of one of the wagons, yelling, “I found something!  Or rather, someone!” 

The party gathered around him, and he led them back to the wagon he was investigating.  Underneath a concealed trap door in the wagon, there was a little girl.  A little drow girl, and one who obviously had quite a bit of trouble with the light.

“A Malefactor,” Tal said nervously.  

Seldzar spit with disgust.  “Wonderful.  So now what do we do?  Little girl or not, I see no need to help our enemies.”  Quercus looked troubled as well, and conflicted over what to do.

Tal and Robin looked at them like they were crazy, and Shedell in particular looked horrified.  “How could you say that?  Her parents are dead, apparently killed just a few hours ago, and you want to abandon her?  She is far too young to be dismissed as lost cause!”  She turned to the girl, and looking as friendly as possible, asked, “What’s your name, little girl?”

“….” The girl replied.

Tal, sensing she was nervous, began to play a calming song.  This had an appreciable affect on the girl, but she still seemed unable to speak.  Instead, she started scrawling a simple picture on the ground.  It looked like a picture of her, with a strange figure next to her.  The girl looked sad in the drawing, but the other figure looked happy.

Tal stared at it for a moment, before giving up.  “I can’t figure it out.  Look, I know she could be a hindrance to us as we travel, but we can’t just abandon her either.  I promise I’ll look after her if we bring her along, okay?  She won’t cause any trouble.”

Seldzar look reluctant, but agreed.  “Fine.  But don’t expect me to help at all.  I won’t have her get in our way and get us all killed.”

The party spent a few minutes scavenging what they could from the wagons, and then finished burning the bodies.  The girl looked on for a few moments, as if compelled to understand what was happening, but soon fled behind a wagon in tears.  Tal tried to keep her calm while Dane finished the horrible work, and set up the now routine stakes.  “Though I doubt any living being will be around to see them,” he muttered to himself.

The rest of the day and night passed uneventfully.  Since almost half of the party could now spend a night with only two hours of rest, the party watches at night were well-rested and plentiful, and they had little to fear from attacks.

However, the next day was nowhere near as easy.  As the party wandered through a valley early in the morning, before the sun left the influence of the first sphere, two dark figures rose up from behind a hill.  Rudyard glanced at them for just a moment before realizing what they were, and his eyes grew wide in fear.  “Dragons,” he whispered.

OOC Notes:  Sorry, I planned on a longer update, but then Gen Con pre-registration came online, and the panicked dash created by that came into play.


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## LordVyreth (May 11, 2004)

*Excerpt number four*

I apologize for the lack of updates lately.  Gen Con registration took longer than expected, and I had plans for Mother's day tonight.  I hopefully will have a new one tomorrow, but for now, here's another excerpt the players received.

The Final Sisters
(Excerpt from the Book of Lore.  The priests would again like to quell rumors that parts of this book were censored to remove information about a twelfth, evil goddess.  Obviously this isn’t true, so there was nothing to cut.  Now never speak of it again.)

The universe continued to grow, as the brilliant tendrils of perfect energy flowed through all beings, further establishing the world’s peaceful state.  However, while the balance of the body has been established through the benign gifts of the former goddesses (in spite of attempts by one such goddess to codify the unknowable, define the indefinable, and render the wonders of the universe into a simple formula,) there was still a sense of loss in the souls of the wondrous beings of the universe.  They had a way of life, certainly, but lacked the means to express the joy that they felt, or to give any long term meaning to their thoughts and emotions.  However, the great forces of the universe released more energy to its people, and it formed Merida and Tepedin, the two goddesses of the Muse.  After coming into being so quickly that they were nearly twins, the first gathered the hopes of the people, and formed it into the beautiful tapestry that is music.  The other took their thoughts and gave them a form, so that others may look on the wisdom of ages and be amazed.  Through them, music, art, and literate was born, and the people would finally show through art the greatness of their souls!

Finally, the last two Goddesses gave the people greater meaning in their own emotions.  Jolia saw that human interactions were base things; designed for mere procreation and simple pleasure.  She realized that the soul of a living being needed more to be free, and she bestowed love upon the people!  Soon, they knew each other in a more intimate way, and formed permanent bonds.  Finally, Tsykie, the last of the Sisters, emerged from the Chaos.  She seemed smaller than the ones before, as if there was only a tiny amount of power flowing out of the great Spiritual Font, and she could only take the small amount remaining.  As the last and the least of the goddesses, she choose to maintain a sense of simplicity in her own mind and soul, and chose to become the guardian of the weakest of mortal beings; the children.  She gave them a sense of innocence and joy, and gave people a desire to protect them in their youth, so that they could appreciate the world in full wonder and without danger.


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## LordVyreth (May 12, 2004)

*Death From Above*

It was already too late to run; the dragons were coming in fast.  Shedell looked at the two dragons.  One was red and looked slightly younger than the second, which was blue.  She quickly turned to the party and said,  “I’ll lure one of them away.  You try to deal with the other.”  She then quickly took flight, and veered off from the party’s current position.  As she hoped, the blue focused on her, leaving the red to the party.

As the dragons neared, the red roared to the party, “Nothing personal, but we have to kill you.”  This was a bit confusing to most of the group, but they had more important things to worry about for now.

Quercus took flight, much like his sister did, but not before he looked back at the party and yelled, “Get the horses and the girl out of here!”  He then made a beeline for the dragon, but couldn’t reach him just yet. 

Tal followed Quercus’ directions.  He started to move the noncombatants to safety, but while he did so, he began to sing of the party’s earlier heroic exploits and the odds they went up against, only to survive each time.  This bolstered their courage, a needed thing in a fight like this.  Tsine meanwhile, attacked the monster using one of his newer spells, a torrent of crushing ice.  The red dragon roared with frustration, and to Seldzar and Rudyard, it sounded like there was a second voice that screamed in pain, but they didn’t notice who made the noise.  Seldzar tried to fire on the dragon, and scored one good shot on the creature, but it barely got past its naturally regenerative skin.  Finally, it was the dragons’ turns.  The red flew in close, and attacked Quercus with a vicious bite while passing by.  He then did a flip in mid-air, and began to close for a second attack.  Meanwhile, the blue flew towards Shedell, and as he drew closer, he exhaled a bolt of electricity.  Of course, Shedell’s angelic blood dampened the effect completely, and she was unscathed by the attack.  Now that the red was within range, Rudyard took off on his new mount, and charged past the dragon, while using his training and momentum to deliver a telling blow.  Robin was content to fire at the creature from below, while Dane used his new magical wings to fly up behind the dragon, and slash at its back.  His enhanced blade and muscles proved their worth already, as the dragon screamed in fury when a deep red gash formed.  However, Dane also noticed something else as he closed on the dragon.  It had a passenger; an orc with one of those damned gun-thingies.  The rider pointed the gun at Quercus, and the bullet screamed as it easily pierced his armor and burrowed into his skin.  The scream hit immediately after, buffeting the hero with an explosive blast of noise.

Shedell and the blue, meanwhile, were finally ready to fight.  Shedell was just so fast and well armored that even the vicious dragon could barely penetrate.  However, it did get a few lucky hits, giving Shedell a number of wounds that tarnished her perfect armor with bloody red streaks.  Shedell returned the favor with her axe, while taking advantage of her improved ability to maneuver in the air.  The fight was almost over a few seconds later, when she was able to distract the dragon with a feint, and then plunged the heavy blade of the axe deep in the monster’s neck.

Back at the party, the dragon and orc were suddenly shocked by the ferocity and mobility of their enemy.  Quercus, Rudyard, and Dane circled around the creature, often double-teaming it from both sides at once to keep the dragon distracted, while Robin and Seldzar hammered it with arrows, and Tal and Tsine attacked it with lightning blasts, volleys of magic, and orbs of acid.  The dragon, however, made sure each hit was hard-won, especially when he released a jet of flame at Dane and Rudyard, with Tsine unfortunately at the edge of the blast back on the ground.  Dane was able to avoid the worst, and got away with only minor burns, but Rudyard and his mount were caught in the worst of the jet.  He quickly landed his mount, which was emitting a nauseating odor of cooked meat and could barely support them.  Tsine was even worse off.  The blast caught him right in the face, frying all the hair off of his head, and he screamed with pain and collapsed, unable to bear it.  Tal redirected his focus on helping the unfortunate mage.  Meanwhile, the orc gunner had shot Dane and Quercus repeatedly with hollow rounds, which gave them especially nasty wounds that continued to bleed heavily.  Finally, Quercus finished the evil orc with one perfect slash with his gigantic sword, while a final volley of arrows by Robin caught the creature in the eyes and mouth.  One arrow pierced the creature’s brain, and it fell to the ground with a sickening thud.  Any chance that it was still alive quickly ended when the orc’s weaponry exploded, sending bits of the dragon’s hide flying outwards for hundreds of yards.

Meanwhile, the fight between Shedell and the blue dragon eventually became grounded, as the dragon tried to rely on his multiple attacks to get through the his enemy’s armor.  Seldzar took advantage of this chance to sneak in behind the creature, and tried to deal it a final punishing blow in a vital organ.  However, his blade couldn’t get past the creature’s hide, and seeing that he now had a much softer-looking target, the dragon shifted its focus on the unfortunate drow.  One series of brutal attacks later, he was bleeding on the ground, and barely twitching.  Rudyard, however, saw an opportunity to avenge his dying friends and regain his honor, and urged his mount to make one final attack.  He rode up on the dragon, and plunged his sword right down the creature’s throat, ending its miserable life.

Quercus and Shedell focused on healing, while the others discussed what the dragon could have meant earlier.  “What did it mean nothing personal?  A dragon wouldn’t even feel the need to apologize to attack an enemy of the Orc Empire!” Tsine mused.

Tal gave him a quick glare to indicate he didn’t appreciate the implication that all dragons served the Orc Empire, and commented, “Maybe they were forced to attack us.  After all, this is too far into undead territory to expect patrols of this strength, and if they had a specific mission here, they wouldn’t have wasted their time on us.  But who could be powerful enough to control dragons?”  They all looked at each other, afraid to say what their first thought was.  Is Bas or one of her servants this strong already?

The rest of the day passed uneventfully.  The bodies were looted, stripped, and burned, and the stakes were established as etiquette required.  The party rested for another night, though this one was even scarier than the last.  The total absence of any trees or other cover made them feel very isolated and exposed, especially after the last fight, and a night of total silence, with no birds, bugs or other animals to be heard, was enough to drive any trained adventurer crazy.  

The next morning wasn’t any better, as midway through breakfast, Shedell suddenly sat up.  “She’s coming!  I have to go RIGHT NOW!” she screamed.  She finishes putting on her armor as quickly as possible, and then took off.  Quercus made one last attempt to encourage her to stay with them, and fight her together hear and now, but she acted like she barely heard him.  Within a few minutes, she flew off over the horizon.  Quercus had to briefly fight the urge to chase after her, but he realized this probably was for the best.  The only way to defeat a threat like the Lady of Blood was with a surgical strike, not when her entire army was following her.

The third day was about to pass out of True Light, as the sun began to enter the domain of the second moon, when trouble struck again from above.  A massive bird, larger than any the party has ever seen before, was flying straight at them with a hungry look.  Rudyard also noticed it had a strange look in its eye, but it couldn’t tell any more from here.  He and Dane began to fire at the creature as it flew towards them, but the distance was initially too great for them, as only a few arrows reached the creature.  Tsine, meanwhile, used a bolt of lightning, but the creature avoided most of the blast, and was only singed a little in the wings.  Finally, the creature reached the party, and soon everyone could determine what Rudyard noticed earlier.  The creature’s eyes were not normal by any means.  They were far larger than even its massive body would need, and they appeared to be mostly made of some crusty, rock-like material.  Even worse, they were crawling with bugs!  The creature merely gave Tsine a look, and a swarm of insects flew out of the eyes, and surrounded him, stinging him and making future spellcasting far more difficult.  Tal guessed that this must be some strange new undead, and used his trademark anti-undead spell on the creature.  Sadly, he guessed wrong, as the creature, horrible as it was, still lived.  Seldzar, Robin, and even Quercus joined in the missile barrage, since nobody wanted to get near the giant monster.  But even the five of them could not drop the massive beast.  Tsine, no longer able to cast spells, considered switching to arrows himself, but he had prepared a spell that let him fly shortly before the bird reached them, and decided it would be silly to waste it.  He drew his sword and charged the creature!

A few seconds later, he realized this was probably a mistake, as the creature effortlessly caught him in one of its massive claws, and then began to fly away, having earned what it thought was enough of a meal for one day.  However, to try and discourage the other members of the herd from bothering it, it turned and squinted at Dane as it flew away and started to crush the life out of its meal.  As it squinted at Dane, a volley of insects, which glowed with eldritch energy, flew out of its eyes and homed in on him like magical missiles.  Fortunately, he had purchased a magic item earlier in Methosilang that deflected these types of missiles, and he survived unharmed.  Desperate to save their friend before it was too late, Tal began firing magical attacks while Seldzar and Robin pressed the ranged attacks, and Quercus finally ended the fight with one aerial charge, where he drove his blade into the creature’s abdomen, spilling blood guts and causing the creature to plummet in a fatal free-fall.  Tsine was saved, if you don’t count the pain of the fall and being crushed by a giant bird when he fell in the first place.  Well, at least he was alive, which most of the party though was enough for them to thoroughly chew him out and mock him for flying right into the claw of a giant bird.

OOC Notes:  The dragon’s quick death was a clear indication that the party was a little over-equipped right now.  Though it was only a CR 9 (in 3.0, though, so probably CR 10 by now,) so dragon exemptions or not, 7 9th level characters should have dealt with it without too much trouble.  The bird was a Hive Bird, another unique monster I created out of a video game creature I though up.  As always, I’d be happy to post the stats for it if anyone is at all interested.  And Tsine’s actions in that fight were not embellished at all; that really happened as I described.  Hilariously, the exact same thing happened with another character when I tossed an advanced Hive Bird their way over a year of gaming later!


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## LordVyreth (May 13, 2004)

*Surprising Situations.*

The party continued on after defeating the strange bird and saving Tsine.  As the false night began, the party entered a forest.  Well, a forest of sorts.  All the trees were petrified, which did nothing to settle the nerves of the party.  If anything, it was even more alien than the wasteland they just left.  

Soon, true night began, but as the party pulled out their continual light coins and lanterns, they attracted an even more dangerous band of predators.  One who literally appeared out of thin air around them.  The monsters, an unusual band of extraplanar spiders, attacked immediately.  One of the larger ones lunged at Rudyard, giving him bite and injected a deadly poison.  Soon, Rudyard was coughing up blood, and developed a fever that made him barely able to move.  Another attacked Dane’s horse, easily killing the poor creature.  The other two Spiders attacked the rear of the party.  One killed Robin’s unfortunate animal companion, a leopard that Robin didn’t even have time to name.  The last of the four spiders attacked Tal, but he was fortunately able to fight off the effects of the poison, at least for now.  The party was slowly preparing to react, but one of the two largest spiders was still right next to the near-dead Rudyard, and was almost ready to pounce on him again.  However, Dane saw his friend was in danger, and reacted with nearly super-human speed.  Ignoring the smaller spider that was even now preparing to attack him, he lunged at the creature while swing his massive sword.  The first hit was a brutal thrust that nearly cut the creature in half, and a few more cuts finished the job.  Meanwhile, the surviving large spider in the back struck at Tals’s horse, killing it easily.  An angry Tal fired at the creature with a bolt of lightning, and Tsine further hurt it with a lightning bolt of his own.  Seldszar tumbled behind the spider next to Robin, and gave it a serious but not fatal wound in the back while Quercus flew at the wounded large spider, and drove his sword through the creature’s belly, killing it.  The two small spiders finally got a chance respond, but while the one Seldszar was flanking got one hit off on the drow rogue, he resisted the effects of the poison for now, and the one attacking Dane could contribute nothing.  Robin finished the spider next to him, and then Rudyard and Dane easily killed the last of the little spiders.  Quercus immediately began to heal the wounds of the injured, and used his magic to drain the poison that was still lingering in their bodies, and then bring Rudyard back to a healthy state.  Since it was already so late and they needed to rest, they decided to end their adventure right here for tonight, and set up camp.

It was a restless night.  The two monster attacks over the day reminded them that they were not in a safe place, and the dead trees that surrounded them from all sides gave them all a sense of foreboding.  Seldszar especially could swear that someone was watching him, but he dismissed it as paranoia.  Which was a stroke of luck for the scouts who were even now aware of the party’s presence.

Despite this fact, the party survived to the next morning, since the scouts didn’t want to reveal their location in case this group was near the temple just by accident.  But the party’s defense squads were roused, and ready to attack.  

The party continued their journey, and as they neared the temple, they forest around them sudden became more alive.  Most of the trees were still dead, but there were a few small saplings that looked like they were planted within a few months, and even some grass and bushes.  The surviving party horses appreciated this last part, obviously, but it made the party nervous.  Finally, they got so nervous that they sent Rudyard and Quercus to fly ahead and investigate.  They soon came to a lit clearing, which had a large lion and two equally unusually large wolves waiting in it.  However, Rudyard sensed there was something else here, but it was a moment too late, as a ball of fire appeared out of no where and exploded in their faces. Hearing the blast, the party moved in to investigate.  Dane and Seldszar got their first, but only could see the lion and wolves.  They charged the lion as a result, and it was quickly killed.  Robin entered the clearing next, and Robin fired at one of the wolves while Quercus told his wounded mount to flee and then charged at it, killing it just as easily.  Tsine arrived next, and fired a magic missile volley at the last wolf, also easily killing it.  However, just because all the obvious enemies were defeated doesn’t mean the fight is over, a fact that was hit home very quickly when the living part of the forests rose up, and turned into a wall of thorns that blocked Robin, Seldszar, and Dane from further movement.  As this happened, a red-robed man appeared.  Tal arrived as he appeared, and targeted him with a volley of magic that slightly wounded him.  Rudyard also flew at the man, and gave him a powerful wound to the side as he rode past.  However, he was himself then cut by a robed woman, who was wielding two swords and suddenly appeared right after cutting into him.  Tal, meanwhile, was suddenly pummeled by a volley of ice that rained down out of nowhere.  He actually looked relieved, however, since he had told the little girl to stay back and hide behind a tree, and their enemies didn’t seem to notice her left.  As he was lost in though, another fireball struck Quercus, who was started to seriously hurt.  Rudyard wasn’t doing any better, especially after another robed figure appeared out of nowhere behind him, and gave him an expertly placed wound in his intestines.

Dane realized the entire team would be killed if he stayed trapped, and since he was already at the edge of the wall, he managed to drag himself out of it, though the thorns gave him dozens of cuts as he did it.  Seldszar and Robin weren’t as lucky, and their struggles to escape only got them hurt more.  Quercus decided that the rogue that appeared next to Rudyard was the current most dangerous threat, so he flew up to attack him, but while he was able to slice into the rogue, he avoided the worst of the blow and kept on his feet.  Tsine briefly considered attacking him as well, but realized the rogue would probably dodge most of his best spells, so he fired a deadly bolt of lightning at the ranger, nearly dropping her.  The druid responded to the attacks on his comrades with a rain of divine fire, which further damaged Dane and Quercus.  Tal moved up to attack the rogue, and luck was with him as he caught the rogue in mid-feint, and gave him a perfectly placed stab wound to the neck.  As he did so, the sonic energies he infused the blade with during the last few months suddenly grew more intense, and reverberated through the cultist’s head, causing it to literally burst from within.  Rudyard, now able to concentrate on his other enemies, turned to attack the ranger, and gave her a number of serious cuts.  She collapsed on the ground, slowly bleeding to death.  However, the party’s invisible assailant wasn’t done yet, and ten magical missiles struck Tsine in a row, dropping him to the ground instantly.  Dane, now freed of the thorns, charged at the druid, cutting him in half with the force of his attack.  Sal and Robin continued to struggle, while Quercus was finally able to focus on their aerial danger.  He cast a spell that purged all magic that tricked the eye, and their enemy, a red-robed spellcaster, appeared to them in the air.  He was not only flying, but also extremely fast, which explained the speed of his spells to date.  Tal fired a volley of magic missiles at him, but a magical shield next to his target pulled all the missiles into it, leaving their enemy unscathed.  Rudyard drew his bow and fired at their foe, but the speed and magical protections of their enemy kept him safe.  He fired another two volleys of magic, and one dropped Rudyard, while the other put Quercus in critical condition.  However, Dane and Quercus could easily fly up to meet their foe, and both wounded him heavily, leaving Tal to finish the job with another dagger of ice.

Though they were victorious, the party exhausted nearly all their resources already, and realized that they obviously lost the element of surprise.  They decided to make a tactical retreat for the day, and fled entirely out of the petrified woods, and safely away from the prying eyes of the enemy scouts.  There, they rested, to make a more effective plan the next day.

OOC Notes:  After worrying about the party’s strength last game, I was relieved that I could challenge them this time.  Things change a lot when the enemy has surprise, especially when one of them is a flying, hasted arcane caster with shield and improved invisibility.  In 3.0.  Oh, and the drow rogue’s name is Seldszar.  I misspelled that a few times earlier.  Sorry about that.


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## Axegrrl (May 13, 2004)

Your paragraphs are still to long, and I'm at a loss to explain some of the breaks compared to places where there should be breaks but aren't any. If you want to start a sentence with the word "finally", as in something finally happened, start a new paragraph. 

The back-and-forth in the dragon fight scene was a bit jarring.  

Also, your verb tense slips to present tense every once in a while, and I still see some grammar, spelling, and usage errors. All of those make it difficult to read more than one post at a time... 'course, the fact that I'm trying to do this at 2:35 am probably doesn't help....


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## LordVyreth (May 13, 2004)

Yeah, I noticed the extended paragraphs when I looked back on it.  I want to keep the story moving forward at a brisk pace, to catch up to current events a little faster, but a few days of revision work might be in order pretty soon.  I think I was trying to capture the entirety of a combat round in one paragraph a few times there, but I'll probably break things up further from now on.

I'm also interested in any comments people have about the story or game itself, beyond just my writing ability, or lack thereof   .  Any questions on the plot or characters?  Input on the battles or monsters, especially my various unique ones?  Also, Lela, are you still reading this?  I haven't heard from you lately.  Did you get a chance to try that elemental cave idea I sent you, or did you need more information still?


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## Axegrrl (May 13, 2004)

An occaisional update of character classes and levels might help add some perspective. 

And honestly, I'm more interested in the story line than the details of the battles.


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## LordVyreth (May 16, 2004)

The next morning, the party made their second attempt at raiding the temple.  Once again, they used magic to enhance their stealth ability.  Tsine made most of the party invisible, but left the mounts (including Rudyard and Quercus’ special mounts) outside.  Tal insisted on bring the little girl, however, since she so far lacked any tendencies towards self-preservation.  At least the horses could run, and the Pegasus and hippogriff could fight back a predator or lead the horses away to safety. 

The party invisibly snuck towards the center of the forest, and then to the temple.  It was a large, stone building, and about two stories high.  However, if the Lady of Blood really did live in a drow city under the temple, the area underneath the temple was potentially endless.  The group quietly gathered together and worked out a plan.

“Well, a frontal assault would be a mistake,” Seldszar pointed out.

“But all the windows are too small to get through,” Dane complained.

Tal grinned (like anyone could see it.)  “I have an idea.”

While he explained his plan, he withdrew a staff, and quietly made his way to one of the sides of the temple.  After nearing the temple, he peeked through the window, and noticed that it was connected to a hallway.  He then used the Staff of Earth and Stone he recently purchased to temporarily create a hole in the wall.  The group quietly entered the temple, and began to explore.  Soon, they found the entrance, if the double doors, position in the temple, and pair of foreboding Bas statues were any indication.  Tsine pondered the statues, and had an idea.  “Maybe we can get some information out of the statue.  I’m sure there’s some kind of magic that lets you talk to inanimate objects.  If nothing else, this could be further proof of the existence of Bas.”

Dane snorted.  “And how do you propose we move a heavy statue like that with us?”

Tsine responded by simply unrolling a portable hole.

“Oh,” Dane replied, looking foolish (which again, fortunately, didn’t matter.)

Unfortunately, while the plan didn’t have the first most obvious downside most adventurers dread (the statues animating,) it did have another problem, for no sooner did Dane, Quercus, Robin, and Rudyard heave the statue over the hole, then two cultists casually began to walk down the hallway towards them.  The party was still invisible, but the suddenly vanishing statue made both of the cultists realize something was up.

The party sprang into action, but realized that a loud fight would be a mistake, and that they needed information, they moved quietly and tried to avoid doing lethal damage.  However, Seldszar still overcompensated, and hit one of the cultists so hard in the back of the head with a sap that his neck completely snapped!  Rudyard had a little more luck, and he sent the second cultist on a brief nap with the flat of his blade.  However, two of the party were now visible, and they had bodies to deal with.  A hurried Tal cautiously opened the first door that he saw, and sighed with relief when he learned it was a storage closet.  He whispered for everyone to go in through that door, and they all dashed in, dragging the bodies along.

Once safely inside the closet, Quercus healed the surviving cultist into consciousness.  He woke up with a groan.  “Where am I?” he croaked.

Tal cancelled his invisibility and took over the interrogation.  He pulled out his sonic rapier and held it to the man’s throat, while letting him notice the vibrations of the blade.  “It doesn’t matter who we are or where you are.  If you don’t give us the information we want, you’ll suffer the same fate as your friend here.”

The cultist’s eyes went wide, and Quercus and some of the other more “ethical” members of the party were about to step in to restrain their friend, but Tal looked back and gave them a “don’t worry, I’m just bluffing” glance.  The cultist easily started talking; he apparently wasn’t among the highest-ranking individuals here.

“Look, I don’t know much.  I’m new here.  They don’t tell us anything!”

Tal sighed.  “Look, we just need to know where the Lady of Blood is.”  However, as he was saying this, Rudyard and the other more observant heroes noticed there were screams coming from outside.  Something was happening nearby that was throwing the place into a panic.  Were they found out already?

The cultist continued.  “Oh, she’s in the drow city, way below us.  You have to go down eight floors, and then cross the underground lake to even get to the entrance to the city!  And I don’t know where she is beyond that.”

Tal, who also heard the shouting by now, quickly asked his last question.  “Where are the stairs down?”

“In the northeast and southeast corners of this floor.  They’re in the hallways, so they’re easy to see.”

After hearing this, Tal hit the cultist across the head with the side of his blade, knocking him unconscious.  He and the rest of the party burst out the door, and prepared to make a run for it.  

Shouts were all around them, and people were yelling about an attack, but at first, no one really paid much attention to the party, even though they all were essentially visible at this point.  They made their way quickly to a staircase, and began their descent down.  It was only after they cleared the first floor that the rushing cultists finally took notice of them.  What followed from here was a bloodbath.  Any cultists dumb enough to try and stop the party were cut down without effort, so soon all of them either fled up using the other staircase, or down ahead of the party.  

After going down five floors’ worth of residential floors, the party entered a far less structured floor.  The two staircases and the corridor between them was more or less the same, but the entire right wall was gone.  Beyond the gap, there was a massive cavern, filled with plants and apparently all kinds of animals.  Rudyard paused for a moment as he looked at it.  “Apparently, the Bas worshippers are keeping nature preserves underground like we do.  Does that mean they also have the secret to the sun-storing crystals?”

The eighth basement only had the stairs and corridor, and one door in the middle of each wall.  Trusting to Krista, Dane tried the east door first.  He apparently guessed correctly, for there was a trap door in the floor here that led further down.  However, the room wasn’t empty.  A large, hideous female humanoid with splotchy purple-black skin was here, and she drew her scimitar as soon as Dane opened the door.

Dane didn’t hesitate for a moment.  He charged right into the room, but the woman had both very thick skin and full plate armor, and his weapon was just deflected against them.  Quercus and Seldszar had the same problems when they tried to attack her, and Rudyard and Robin chose to wait in the hallway, and respond to any attacks that might come from behind.  Tsine and Tal fired at the hag with magic, but only Tsine’s lightning bolt penetrated her magic resistance.  Finally, the hag was able to respond.  She swung at Seldszar with her scimitar, wounding him slightly with a grazing cut.  However, Rudyard and Robin’s hunch was soon proven right, as the door behind them burst open.

Behind it, there was another nature preserve, but the trees and ground were black and bloodstained, and the few monsters they could see were just as twisted and evil.  Just behind the door, there was a second hag, which is dressed in hide armor.  She was being guarded by a wolf and a strange monster with a body like a monstrous bulldog, but a strange multi-level mouth with many layers of teeth.  Before she could respond, however, Rudyard and Robin took advantage of their intuition and attacked their nearest foe, the wolf.  It died almost instantly.  “My beloved pet!” the hag yelled, and then took a swing at Rudyard.  Meanwhile, the dog-thing wrapped its tongue around Robin, and began to pull him towards its mouth!

Dane realized things were going badly and quickly, and his awareness of the danger he was in helped hone his skills even more.  This sudden burst of determination was enough for him to find a weakness in the hag’s armor, and he used it to cut the foul creature’s head off.  Quercus immediately turned around, and moved to help Robin fight the dog.  Seldszar tried to help as well, but couldn’t find room to tumble in behind the dog and second hag.  Rudyard and Robin continued to attack the hag and dog creature, and Tsine killed the dog, but Tal still was unable to get past their spell resistance.  The hag looked at the group with a face twisted by horror and rage.  “My…sister!” she wailed, pointed at the pile of dust that the first hag turned into.  “You will pay for this some day!”  With that, she suddenly vanished.

The party quickly gathered up the treasure the first hag had, and then moved to the trap door.  In a rush to get to the lake before a proper defense could be mounted, they lifted the door up without checking for traps, causing an alarm to ring out.  Of course, they were already noticed long ago, so it had no appreciable effect.  Below the trap door was a massive circular stairway down, that was carved out of a natural fissure of stone.  Soon, the staircase led to an underground chamber with an entire dock built into it.  Beyond the chamber itself was nothing but darkness, but presumably that was the lake the prisoner told them about.  Unfortunately, the boats were almost all gone, as the cultists used them to flee to the drow city already.  However, there was one left, but it looked like it was designed for a crew of twenty!  Still, beggars can’t be choosers, the party decided, and they quickly ran down the stairs and towards the boat before the survivors in the temple could catch them.  However, as they neared the boat, a pair of guards was alerted to their presence.  

The guards, a pair of bipedal insects, slowly stalked the party.  Finally, just as they boarded the boat, they struck.  Both released clouds of a deadly, corrosive gas around the party, then charged in with their spears.  However, once the party was aware of them, they easily made short work of the two unfortunate guards, and then fled the boat until the gas cleared up.  Once it was gone, they untied the boat, raised the anchor, and began their very slow journey across the lake.

OOC Notes:  The dog and bug monsters were yugoloths, from the Manual of the Planes.  The surviving night hag druid will be used again.

The alarm the party thought was them was actually an undead attack on the temple I had planned on having before the game.  I thought it might be one way to get into if they continued watching the place for a little longer.  And I pretty much skipped the fight in the residential floors in the game as well, since it really was pointless to run with a bunch of 9th and 10th level characters.

Axegrrl, the problem is the events I'm recapping here are so old, I don't really have a handle on what class and level everyone is anymore.  I know the basics, though.  Quercus is a half-celestial cleric, with a level or two of paladin, and he's thinking of taking the hospitaler Prc (which I didn't look at very carefully, apparently.)  Tal is a 2nd level bard, he has a level or two of Dragon Disciple, but is mostly a sorceror.  Tsine is a wizard with a couple of fighter levels.  Rudyard is a ranger.  Dane is a fighter, Seldszar is a rogue, and Robin is a ranger.  All of them are around 9th or 10th level at this point.


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## LordVyreth (May 19, 2004)

*A Death and a Dastardly Deal*

The hours passed, as the boat slowly drifted across the lake.  The party tried to help row it, but while they sped things up a little, most of their efforts had to go to towards just keeping the boat upright and pointed in a straight line.  To make matters worse, every few seconds, the water around them bubbled and churned, and it was quite clear that something was down there, waiting for them.  Tsine, who was the official navigator of the group, also spent time examining the boat itself.  He noticed a strange red circle in the middle of the boat, which was very obvious and even glowed slightly, as if it was painted with a luminescent substance.  Tsine figured the circle meant something, but no one was willing to break it or stand in it, so experimentation has been pretty minimal.  For now, the party was happy just trying to get across the lake in one piece


Above them, a strange, elven head looked up, and saw the boat approaching his upside-down perch.  There was no sacrifice in the circle, so the toll has no been met in the normal way.  No matter, the creature thought.  There are other ways to extract payment.


The attack came swiftly and without warning.  Leading the enemies were a pair of giant bats with heads like pale elves.  These were apparently the same monsters that the Lady of Blood had with her during the raids underground six months ago.  There was also a pair of evil, giant bats with a feral look to them.  Before the party could even react, the bats flanked the boat on both sides, and then beat their wings so fast, it caused a pair of windstorms!  The boat began to rock back and forth, sending people flying from one side to the other, but fortunately everyone was able to hold on to something before the could be knocked off the boat, and into the waters, which were again churning and foaming, as whatever monsters within it were circling with anticipation.  Even worse, the wind was tainted with dark energy, which ripped through the party, but especially was painful to the good party members, who felt the evil of the magic burn their very essence.

Seldszar began the attacks, by getting to the far side of the boat, and hopefully out of the way of further gales, and then firing at one of the elf-bats, wounding it slightly.  Tal fired a volley of magic orbs at the second bat, and Robin and Tsine helped strike the creature with arrow and magic.  Meanwhile, Rudyard charged the first of the three giant bats, which had closed in on the ship while the party was distracted by the elf hybrids.  He wounded the creature, but couldn’t give it a fatal blow.  The two hybrids then landed on the boat, with one attacking Tal and the other on Robin.  The one attacking Robin tried to bite it and beat on him with its wings, but couldn’t get a decent hit on the nimble archer.  Tal didn’t fair as well, and to the party’s horror, as one of its wings sent Tal sprawling to the ground, the creature started to heal his earlier wounds!  What they didn’t know, but Tal unfortunately found out, was that when its other wing hit him, it began to drain the magical power out of the endangered sorcerer as well.

Dane and Quercus couldn’t stand to see their friend in danger, so they charged at the half-bat.  Quercus went low, stabbing the creature in the leg, while Dane leapt over Tal’s prone body, and plunged downward with his sword into the monster’s neck.  Not even the health that it stole from Tal was enough to save it, and it died and plunged into the water, which soon bubbled and started sending up pools of blood and ripped apart bits of the creature.

However, while the party concentrated on Tal, Seldszar was put in danger.  Two of the giant bats surrounded him, and began to rip him apart.  While he was an agile rogue, Seldszar was lacking any real armor, and was soon bleeding from a number of very deep wounds.  Meanwhile, the bat that Rudyard attacked concentrated on him, and bit deeply into his shoulder.  The bite was especially grievous, for it was tainted with evil, which seemed to feed on the goodness remaining in Rudyard’s soul.  He screamed in pain, and looked at the creature in rage.  He was beginning to wonder if having such a pure soul was anything but a hindrance to his cause, if it just meant being destroyed by evil attacks and holding back when he should be focusing on the death of his enemies.

Robin dropped his bow and switched to his blade, and began to attack the bat with it, while Tal and Tsine provided magical cover fire.  Dane moved to help Rudyard, and between the two of them they were able to kill Rudyard’s bat.  Quercus flew over to help Robin, but because Tal and Tsine were limited to their weakest of magics at this point, even his help wasn’t enough to defeat the second elf-bat.  The elf responded by further attacking Robin, but only was able to give him a fairly minor bite wound.  The same couldn’t be said of Seldszar, for one bat bite into his leg, and while he was forced to stumble back and sink to his knees, the other ripped into his stomach, giving him a giant, bloody wound.  He tried to fight back, but weakened by the blood loss, he could barely lift his sword.  Realizing their friend was in trouble, Tal and Tsine tried to defeat his enemies with magic, but Tsine’s blast was insufficient, and Tal’s couldn’t even penetrate the magical barrier the creature had.  Robin wasn’t really able to ignore his foe, and he concentrated all his efforts into finally killing the foul beast, and sending him to the black waters below.  Rudyard, Dane, and Quercus all charged the bats, but were only able to kill one of them.  The other ignored its new foes, and concentrated on finishing off his prey.  While others looked on in horror, it bent over the near-helpless drow, and in one quickly, almost effortless motion, it bit into and ripped through his neck.  Seldszar gave one last look to the group, and then collapsed onto the deck, never to rise again.  

Screaming with rage, Tal led the charge on their last foe, and together, they easily overpowered it.  Their enemy was dead, but at what cost?  They were exhausted, out of magic, and all alone in the middle of a lake in enemy territory, and one of their own was dead.  Robin in particular was taking it hard, since he was the only one who knew Seldszar for more than a few weeks.  As Tal consoled him, Quercus gave the last rites to Seldszar.  However, they soon came to the horrible conclusion that they couldn’t take a body with them, and they’d rather not abandon it, letting the cultists and drow do unspeakable things to it and possibly even raise it as an undead.  Realizing they had no other choice, they were forced to give him a “sailor’s funeral,” even though it meant he would certainly be eaten by whatever lurked underwater.

The dreadful deed done, the party had another horrible decision to make.  They clearly didn’t have the strength to attack the city now.  Resting here would be dangerous, but it looked like they had no other choice.  The party chose watches, and began to bed down and try to somehow get to sleep, despite the horrors they faced that day and the dangers they were sure to see tomorrow.

However, not an hour into their rest, Quercus, who was on watch at the time, noticed a strange fog rolling in towards them.  He sensed there was something strange about the fog, and fired a warning arrow at it.  His guessed appeared to be right, for it suddenly stopped approaching the boat, and began to retreat again.  He kept a sharp eye out for the rest of his watch, but it never returned, so he soon woke up Tal and Tsine, the next watch, and began his meditations, though he did warn them of what he saw.  They were nonetheless surprised, however, when less than an hour later, a voice suddenly and quietly said, “Please, like I couldn’t attack you unnoticed if I wanted to.”

Tsine moved to wake the others, but the voice said, “Wait, we have much to discuss, and it would be better if that one wasn’t awake to hear it.”  They couldn’t see the speaker, but it sounded like she was indicating Quercus.

Tsine hesitated for a moment, but was about to wake the others anyway when Tal spoke up.  “Very well.  Reveal yourself, and we will discuss whatever you have to say.”

At his instruction, a strange, very pale woman appeared on the boat.  Tsine saw her for what she was instantly.  “A vampire…” he gasped.  “What could you possibly want to discuss with us?”

“We have a mutual goal, actually, or at least a mutual enemy.  We have been trying to understand who these cultists are and what they think they’re doing in our territory for a while now.  However, we recently sent a spy in, and we haven’t heard from him in weeks.  He has been undoubtedly captured.  We want to get him back, but our…limitation regarding where we can enter might be a problem once we find the prison, and they certainly will have other anti-vampire protections ready.  However, they won’t be expecting you to rescue him.  That’s our proposal.  If we help you, you will help save our spy when the time comes.”

Tal was under whelmed.  “What could you possibly do to help us?”

“Well, for starters, we could warn you that resting here is a death warrant.  They know that you’re here, and can determine where you are fairly easily.  You were able to sneak in without alerting their most dangerous guards before, but now that they aren’t trying to repel our forces, they’ll be sending their best after you right here.  You need to at least get into the city to find a place to rest.”

“How do you propose we do that?  Won’t they be waiting for us at the other dock?”

“Not with our help, they won’t.  We’ll distract the main force, which should also provide you with enough light that you could reach the dock without having to create a light of your own.  Now, once you do dock, you have to get into the city, and you can probably rest by posing as cultists and sneaking into their inn.  We can find you from there.  Well, do we have a deal?”

Tal and Tsine looked at each other cautiously.  “We really can’t make this decision by ourselves,” Tsine said nervously.  

Tal considered this brief, then said, “Fine, but only wake Rudyard and Dane.  Quercus’ code prevents him from helping evil forces, but he that doesn’t mean we can’t help them without him being involved.  And Robin might have issues with helping the undead.  From what he’s said, he’s being trained to fight them at the level of their souls, so he might have developed a level of hatred towards them that’s even greater than is normal.”

Tsine agreed, and in whispered conversations Tal, Tsine, Rudyard, Dane, and the little girl (who had gotten herself up as soon as Tal started to move towards the others,) agreed to the vampire woman’s plan.  Well, the little girl obviously contributed little, but she did listen to their discussion intently.  After hearing their answer, the vampire woman nodded and said, “Excellent.  Be sure to keep an eye out for one of my allies after you enter the inn.  Oh, and of course you won’t betray us, but just in case you or one of your friends entertains the notion, just remember that we would be happy to alert the proper authorities to your location.  You wouldn’t last a minute of the Lady of Blood, all of her servants, and the best the drow city had to offer descended on you at once.”

With that, she flew off, leaving the party alone to contemplate what they have done.  Tsine quietly said, “Um, so who gets to tell Quercus the plan?”

OOC Notes: The player of Quercus was actually out of the room when the party made an agreement with the vampire.  He was understandably upset when he heard the plan.

We are now up to the first death for Chris’ characters.  This episode was the beginning of the week’s game, so he had a new character ready by the time the game ended.

The bat-elf monsters are Swift Prides, another unique monster that I made up.  As always, I’d be happy to send the stats to anyone interested, though it seems doubtful after the last few times I made the offer.


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## LordVyreth (May 21, 2004)

*Excerpt number five*

Expect a full update tomorrow, and a second one some time over the weekend.  For now, here's another excerpt to tide you over.  This one is from Nelkiss, the goddess of death.  Basically, think of Kelemvor, if he was reincarnated as a female goth.

The New Creation and the Betrayal
(Excerpt from the Book of Nellkiss.  Again, we would like to remind you that great force of evil doesn’t mean another goddess.  No revision was necessary or performed.  We don’t know where these rumors come from.  Thank you.)

And so, the eleven of us, we who were blessed and cursed to live forever and look on while others slowly wasted away and died before our eyes, acted to join our strengths, so that future beings would be partially eased in the sufferings that serve as the very definition of life.  They pooled their energies, and created new civilizations on the world, which started their existences armed with all the mental weapons of the gods at their disposal.  We hoped that our powers combined would be enough to create a truly content society, that is immune to the inevitable destruction and entropy that the universe continuously forces upon its terrified inhabitants.  Alas, it again was demonstrated that no force could possibly withstand sorrow’s dark touch, as no sooner had we created our masterpiece than dark forces overwhelmed it in War and Strife.  Soon, the people, once loyal believers of our claims, were led astray by the constant turmoil of their lives, and they surrendered to cynicism.  They denounced us, and created new images that they worshipped as gods, in the mistaken belief that they could rescue the world.  But in their foolishness, they created two powerful monsters that fed off of their weakness and desperation.  They were called the Puppet and the Head the Rules the Claw, and they tore the world asunder in their arrogance.  The good people were scattered, and had to flee from the very sun that gave them life into the cold, dark tomb of the underworld.  Still the two despots schemed, and they combined their power in an attempt to bind the sun entirely, and suffocate the world’s people.  With the mortal forces powerless, even the slightest chance at salvation seemed utterly, utterly hopeless.


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## LordVyreth (May 22, 2004)

*Drow City Urliz-Val*

“You did WHAT!”

Quercus, as expected, was not pleased.  “How could you make a deal with a vampire?  They’re among the greatest evils of the undead empire!”

Tal sighed.  He knew this would be difficult.  “What choice did we have?  She already saved our lives once by warning us not to sleep on the lake.”

“And how do you know we can trust her!  She might be Bas’ enemy, too, but she might be eager to get both groups of us killed!”

Tsine decided to be pragmatic about this.  “Look, we don’t have a choice about this now.  If we betray them, they’ll just turn us in.  We might as well see it through.”

Quercus looked disgusted at the entire group, but sighed.  “Well, it’s too late for the rest of you, I guess.  But while I’ll help you guys survive this, don’t expect me to lift a finger to help the vampires.  You’re all lucky I want to make sure Shedell would be safe.”

The conversation ended when the party saw lights in the distance.  They were near the docks, and the vampire and her servants were apparently seeing to it that the guards were distracted, judging by the jets of flame being fired into the air.  Slowly, the party’s boat drifted to a corner of the dock, and the party disembarked.  Carefully, the crept between the boats and the crates piled up behind them, until they spotted a cavern wall, with an opening that led to a staircase leading downward.  Unfortunately, the area was guarded by four drow, and a strange monster with a body like a gorilla but a head like an insect.  As soon as they saw the party, all of them made a beeline for the exit.

Fortunately, the party was prepared for this.  Robin and Quercus moved to take down one of the unarmored drow, (who appeared to be a wizard,) while Tsine created a wall of ice around the entrance to the cavern.  Two of the surviving drow drew weapons, and began to help attack the wall, while the last wizard launched a ball of flames at the party.  They had managed to use the last of their healing wands and potions to recover their wounded before this fight, but everyone was still hurting, so the blast managed to almost stagger everyone!  Dane moved to attack the second wizard, and Tal helped him finish the enemy off.  Rudyard began attacking one of the two remaining drow, while the umberhulk finished brining the wall of ice down.

However, it was too late for the enemy’s scouts.  Robin finished the wounded drow with his bow, and Quercus and Tsine finished the second one.  Before the umberhulk could even move to get down the stairs, Dane and Tal had finished him as well.  The unfortunate insect was so fixated on removing the wall that he couldn’t even get a good look on his attackers, and use its infamous confusing gaze on them.

Quickly, the party descended the stairs, while slipping on the robes as they went.  With luck, they would be able to enter the city and find the inns, or wherever the cultists were staying, before they were noticed.  At the bottom of the stairs, they were greeted by little but darkness.  Of course, since this was a drow city, it made little sense for it to be lit.  Fortunately, there were a few lit areas.  One especially unusually building, which was a school or guild of magic as Tsine judged it, had a wall of fire around its entire perimeter, but there were also a few large buildings that were lit up and flooded with torch lights around it.  Tal whispered, “We should try to get there.  If there really are a large number of red-robed refugees from the temple, they probably are gathered where they can see.  And since we’re clearly of the same temple, at least as long as we have these robes, than it would make sense for us to use lights as well.”  

The party agreed, and pulled out their lanterns and continual flame torches.  As they traveled the city, they noticed that very few red-robed beings were around.  In fact, there were few people at all that were dressed in the standard robes of the Bas worshippers.  It became apparent why that was as soon as they were stopped by a group of drow guards on the way.  While they were willing to let the party pass, they all had to give the familiar sign of the scimitars first.  The party members each winced as they felt the scimitars cut into their forearms; after the wounds of their many fights, this was the last thing they needed.  Considering most of the cultists probably aren’t as trained to deal with pain as the party is, it was no wonder they feared to travel the city!

Finally, the party made it into the first lit building they could find, and the drow who was running the place didn’t even bat an eyelid when they requested.  They were halfway up the stairs before they finally noticed something: the girl was gone.

Rudyard was furious.  “How could you let her go?” he shouted at Tal.  “You were supposed to look after her.  For all we know, she could be a spy for the enemy.  We could have the entire city at our throats within an hour!”

Tal looked defensive.  “Oh, relax.  I was watching her for days.  There’s nothing suspicious about her.  She probably just tried to get back to her home, or to find someone she knew.  This is probably her home city, after all.”

Quercus moved to stop the fight.  “Look, it’s too late to worry about it now.  We can’t track anyone in this city without drawing too much attention to ourselves, and none of us could survive a fight anyway.  We’ll post guards during the night and look for some other ways out of the inn, but we don’t really have a choice now except to rest here anyway.”

Rudyard shrugged, and moved to one of the beds, but he did his best to indicate that he wasn’t taking a watch.  After all, it was Tal who let her go, and Quercus and Robin were the only other ones so eager to keep her around in the first place; let them do it.

A short time later, during Quercus’ watch, he heard a rapping on the window.  Very carefully, he moved towards the window, and peeked out.  There was a bat there, and oddly enough, it looked like he was gesturing with a claw to open the window.  A puzzled Quercus obeyed, but even when the window was opened, the bat gave him a funny look.  Finally Quercus realized who this was.  “Fine, I invite you in,” he said, but he put one hand to his sword and the other two his holy symbol while he said it.

The bat fluttered it, and suddenly transformed into a dwarf.  “About time you caught on,” he complained.  “Now, it’s time to finish your part of the deal.  If you help us free our ally, we tell you where the Lay of Blood lives, and how to deal with her.”

Quercus shrugged.  “I never agreed to your help, but I will help my friends no matter how dubious some of their decisions are.  If you want to deal with them, speak with them directly.”

The dwarf muttered in annoyance while Quercus woke Dane.  He copied down the location of the jail that the dwarf gave him, and they agreed to meet afterwards at an entirely different part of town.  The dwarf vampire then flew off, and Quercus slammed the window shut, and then went downstairs to see if the inn had a kitchen, and if it did, if they had any garlic he could borrow.

The next day, the party finally finished healing their wounds, and after preparing their magic, they prepared to find and raid the prison.  The prison itself was found at the end of a long tunnel near the end of the city.  The first part of the tunnel was unguarded, but soon, a number of pungent smells filled the hallways.  At first, the party backed away after first smelling it, out of fear that it was some sort of poison gas, but Robin got a good whiff of it, and turned back to the party.  “Garlic,” he said with amusement.  “And a bit of belladonna, for some reason.  I guess they were just being thorough.”

After a few minutes of traveling, they found a door, which had a note attached.  It was from Solamand, who is described as the mayor of this city.  The note insists that his authorization on property supercedes that of anyone else in the city, and that without his direct permission, no one is invited into this area of the city.  Quercus whispered, “Obviously, another way to keep any potential vampire rescuers at bay.  They can’t enter without being invited, and they can’t even mind-control a guard into inviting them in.

The door itself was locked.  Since the now lacked a thief, Quercus and Dane decided to use their much larger and sharper lock picks to open the door.  However, by the time they were done, the guards on the other side of the door were prepared for them, and attacked immediately!

The largest foe in the other room was a strange, hunched over figure with red-tinted gray skin.  He roared and slashed at Quercus, giving him not only a powerful cut to the chest, but also a dark, sickening feeling in his chest, and he knew that this monster was no ordinary creature.  It was tainted with evil, and could deaden the soul of a good being with its very presence!  Meanwhile, a drow wielding a bow fired repeatedly at Dane, giving him a pair of deep wounds to the chest.  While he was firing, a bear moved up to help guard the drow.

Robin was the first to react after the sudden attack.  He dashed into the room, though this meant he would be an easy target for the hunched-over monster.  He received a slash to the shoulder as a reward for his bravery, but it appeared the creature was unable to infuse him with evil energy like it did with Quercus.  Ignoring his wound, Robin stabbed the bear, in an attempt to bring him down and reach his master.


	Fnipper was dashing down the halls of his prison.  Just when he finally managed to escape, things went crazy.  There were sounds of battle reverberating down the halls.  He didn’t know where they emanated from or how to get out of here, so he just began to run and hope for the best.


	Meanwhile, Tsine launched an explosive ball of flames at the bear and ranger, destroying the wounded bear and causing serious damage to the ranger.  The ranger responded with another volley of arrows, right into the nearby Robin.  Robin was already looking wounded, but with the gray monster in the way, the rest of the party had another concern to deal with first.  Quercus began to strike at the monster with his blade, but the creature was so large that he couldn’t get more then a few minor flesh wounds past its thick armor and powerful muscles.  Tal helped Quercus out with a volley of magic, but only a couple of his missiles survived to reach the creature.  Dane also helped fight the giant monster, though he shouted a few choice curses at the ranger who fired at him earlier.  Rudyard couldn’t get up to help Dane and Quercus, so he followed Robin’s lead and dashed around the monster.  Fortunately, it was too big and slow to react to another sudden threat, and Rudyard reached the drow ranger safely, though by the time he reached his enemy, the ranger saw him coming and easily dodged his sword.

	Suddenly, another enemy appeared out of the shadows.  He was another drow, and he suddenly tumbled in behind Robin to stab him in the back.  Robin groaned in pain, and collapsed to the floor, bleeding but still alive.  Meanwhile, the giant monster continued to rend into Quercus, who was now bleeding from a massive chest wound and many cuts and scrapes.  

	The fight suddenly was interrupted when a small, gray gnome appeared from the door on the far side of the wall.  He looked at the fight with surprise, and then turned and ran in the opposite direction.  The party gave him a funny look, but it was obvious that they had bigger concerns.

	Tsine realized that Rudyard, and possibly even Robin, were doomed if they didn’t receive help, so he sent a volley of magical orbs that split and struck both of them twice.  The rogue was seriously wounded by the blast, and the ranger wasn’t looking much better.  The ranger howled with anger and struck at his nearest foe, Rudyard, with both of his swords.  The wounds were serious, but not fatal, and they just gave Rudyard even more anger to channel into his attacks Quercus, Tal, and Dane meanwhile finally finished off the giant beast, when Quercus charged his legs, causing him to buckle, and Dane leapt up and slashed the creature’s neck.  Rudyard was also ready to finish things.  He took a light step to get right in between the ranger and rogue, and his blades were a blur as he finished both of them of at once!

	After binding and healing their wounds, the party examined their foes.  One of the drow, the rogue, still lived.  Rudyard was happy to put him to death, but Tal intervened, saying he could be helpful if they have trouble finding their way through the prison.  They decided to bind him and brink him along, and they continued deeper into the prison, where they eventually found the strange gnome again.  He looked at them fearfully.  “Goaway,” he said quickly.

	“Easy, little one, we don’t want to hurt you,” Tal said.  He was looking at the creature carefully.  He looked like a normal gnome, but it was bald, and had rock-like skin.  He thought he heard stories of these gnomes, but they were supposed to be extinct.  Maybe some of their villages still were hidden deep under the domain of Methosilang?

	“What are you doing here?” Tal continued.  “Don’t worry, if you’re a prisoner of these drow, we’re here to rescue you.”

	The scared gnome paused for a moment, and then continued.  “Name’s Fnipper.  My village was attacked by the drow.  Most of my family was taken prisoner or killed, including me.  Now I don’t even know if they’re still alive!”  There were tears in the earnest gnome’s eyes, but they soon ceased.  “Now I’m going to kill every one of those evil drow!”

	Rudyard was impressed, but also worried that he’d attract attention in this city.  Tal decided to handle this.  “Well, we’re in a drow city right now.  We can’t attack them all; we’ll be killed.  However, we are trying to go after one of their leaders.  If you want to help, we could use the assistance.”

	The gnome nodded.  If these strange tall ones could help him get revenge and maybe find his family, it would be worth traveling with them.  Even if they were all really weird looking.

	OOC Notes:  Chris’ second character has now been introduced.  This one was a lot more effective than poor Seldszar.  I mean, he was death.  A deep gnome’s AC is sick already, and he eventually got a Ring of Blinking!  Combine that with his sneak attacks and Expert Tactician feat, and he was almost unstoppable.  Note, however, that I did say almost.


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## Axegrrl (May 22, 2004)

LordVyreth said:
			
		

> Tsine realized that Rudyard, and possibly even Robin, were doomed if they didn’t receive help, so he sent a volley of magical orbs that split and struck both of them twice.



Waitaminit... Tsine sent magical orbs at Rudyard and Robin? Say what???


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## LordVyreth (May 22, 2004)

Axegrrl said:
			
		

> Waitaminit... Tsine sent magical orbs at Rudyard and Robin? Say what???




Oops, typo.  I meant both of them, as in the rogue and ranger they were fighting.


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## LordVyreth (May 24, 2004)

*Excerpt number six.*

Yeah, I know, sorry about that.  The next update will have to wait a day or two, I'm afraid.  I underestimated the scope of this update, and I've been having some back problems all weekend that really killed my motivation.  

The Mercy of the Goddesses
(Excerpt from the Book of None.  Again, long O sound; it isn’t the book of nobody or anything.)

However, just as the two despots finished construction, a thundering force from the heavens crashed into the earth!  The power of the goddesses erupted from the earth, for the goddesses have put aside their differences and loudly made their presence known!  The people first cried out in fear, but they soon stopped lamenting and instead yelled out in triumph, for the goddesses have joyfully announced that they will show mercy on the world, and will release their power to partially deflect the dark powers of the evil ones!  

The despots were just finishing their centuries of a toil so extreme that if it was put to virtuous deeds, it would be sufficient to create paradise.  However, they instead warped toil with their corrupting will, and instead carved gigantic stones; monoliths to evil!  They then poured their unholy magic into them, and with a forceful blast the orbs were sent skyward!  These orbs, fueled by their dark energies, shot into the air at an amazing velocity!  However, as they neared the end of the world’s power, they slowed, and deployed themselves around the world to serve as fiendish sentinels, daring the great energy of the sun to sneak past!  Just as the last one was slowing into place, the mighty hand of Bha-Ael thrust out from the heavens, and struck the orb.  It crashed downwards with a deadly force, and upon striking the earth, it created a massive explosion that devastated all around it!  Soon, the forces and lands of the Puppet were ravaged, and he howled in anger and agony as he saw the futility if challenging the goddesses!  The humans cheered and made a merry noise for weeks, as they rebuilt their ruined kingdoms; not as separate countries, but as a new empire, under the glorious rule of the returned goddesses!


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## Lela (May 24, 2004)

The gnome rocks and I'm really getting to know Quercus.

The fight scenes are a little scattered though.  Try following one character for a few rounds rather than going via inititive.  It gets confusing and there's little emoitonal bond.


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## LordVyreth (May 26, 2004)

*Confrontation With The Lady of Blood*

Tainara, a gray-robed servant of Bas, and a powerful cleric, was waiting with Beggity, a strange blue-furred goblin that also worships her.  Beggity was also known for his ability to harness the powers of the mind, to control a power similar to but entirely different from magic.  The two had been assigned to work in the drow city, but having found most of the drow’s tasks distasteful, Tainara elected instead to pull standard guard duty for an unusual prisoner, and Beggity went with.  However, the future plans of the duo were soon rendered irrelevant, as they were suddenly ambushed by a huge party of heroes, who were eager to save a vampire for some reason.  Tainara was killed in the initial fireball volley and the arrow swarm that followed it, while Beggity survived long enough to partially burn the front row of their enemies with ectoplasmic fire, before he two was killed.

	The party investigated the two guards they just killed.  Tal noted that they weren’t normal guards for this area, but the party had bigger concerns.  One notable item that the gray-robed priest had was a portable hole that was filled with treasure.  Fnipper recognized some of it as the stuff he had when he was captured, and immediately reclaimed it.  The rest of it was unknown, but included a coffin, which suggested that came from the vampire.

	Behind the guard station that the party just penetrated, there was a shallow river running through a cross-cavern.  Quercus nodded knowingly; this was the ideal thing to help trap a vampire.  Though the drow were obviously taking no chances, as the area was also covered with more garlic.  Behind the river, the hallway continued for a few feet, before abruptly ending at an airtight door made of metal.  Dane unlocked the door with a key he found on the gray-robed cleric, and then he and Quercus entered the room, with Quercus’ holy symbol at the ready.  

	On the other side of the door (which had a note on the inside, similar to the one at the start of the prison,) a depressed, pale figure was sitting hunched over on a fragile wooden coffin.  A small pile of desiccated rat bodies was in the corner of the room.  The vampire looked up with surprise when he saw the party arrive.  His eyes narrowed with suspicion as he saw Quercus’ holy symbol.  “Who are you?  You’re obviously not with the cultists, but somehow I can’t imagine you care greatly about my imprisonment.”

	Quercus glared at him with a “don’t press your luck” look in his eyes, but Tal moved up to speak.

	“This isn’t a normal situation.  We have agreed to a temporary alliance with some of your allies.  We have a common enemy in the leader of these drow.”

	The vampire looked interested.  “The Lady of Blood, you mean?  I have heard much about her.  If you can defeat her, I would be very impressed.  Now, I’ll need your help to get me out of here.”

	The party removed the sign on the door (and the door itself, actually,) cleaned up all the garlic, and then took out the vampire’s coffin from the portable hole, and let him ride it over the river.  However, there was a bit of a conflict when he asked for the rest of his equipment from the hole.

	Quercus sniffed arrogantly.  “Actually, I think we’re going to keep that.  Our agreement is only that we help you escape, not that we get you re-supplied.”

	The vampire hissed.  “And how is that different?  Without my equipment, I wouldn’t be able to escape anyway.”

	“Your allies will meet with you after we leave the prison.  I’m sure they can help you escape.”

	The vampire paused for a moment, and then changed tactics.  “You know, I could make it worth your while.  The shorter of the two guards here that you…slaughtered,” he pauses for a moment, with a hungry look in his eyes, “Had quite a few conversation with me over the weeks, and told me a lot about the layout of this city.  Despite worshipping the same god, the four sects of this cult don’t have much love for each other, so he had little reason to protect the Lady of Blood.  He told me a few secrets about her.  If you agree to return my equipment, I’ll share them.”

	Quercus paused, pondering if this could be considered a violation of the oaths he had taken.  He finally decided it would be fine as long as he wasn’t the one dealing the monster, so he tossed the hole to Tal and let him finish the transaction.  Satisfied, the vampire began talking.

	“Apparently, the Lady of Blood has the enemy that is following her.  She usually stays at this mansion in town, but when she thinks this enemy is getting close, she flees the city through this secret passageway in the ceiling of the cavern.  She usually travels with an entourage, including her mount, her personal servant, at least some sort of monster bodyguard, and her latest of consorts?”

	“Consorts?”

	“Yes, apparently violence isn’t her only passion.  And while she’s not too picky about the race or gender of her companions, she tends to attract powerful friends, so you’ll have to worry about them as well.”

	“So what do we do?”

	“Easy.  Instead of trying to attack her at her mansion, go to the secret passage, and lay a trap.  She’ll be there sooner or later, and you can ambush her that way.  It will still be a nigh-impossible fight, but at least then you’ll have a decent advantage.”

	“Interesting.  Well, if that’s it, we have to be on our way.  We have many preparations to make.”

	“Err, before you go, I did have one more request.”

	“And that is?”

	“I haven’t had any real food for ages now.  And I couldn’t help but notice that you had a prisoner…”

	Needless to say, Quercus re-entered the negotiations at this point, and the vampire was forced to make do with the spilled blood of the enemies the party killed.  He then departed, to meet with his allies and discuss their escape plans, while the party immediately went to find the secret passage.

	With the vampire’s directions and a little help from some magic, they were able to find an illusionary part of the ceiling, which led into a winding cavern.  The party began to explore it, so they would be prepared for when the Lady of Blood arrived.  However, it became obvious that exploration would be discouraged about ten minutes in, when a dark cloud of pure evil suddenly appeared all around them.  The party quickly decided that this was as good a place as any to prepare, and they started making a plan.  Eventually, they had Tal use his staff to create alcoves in the walls, where they would rest and then hide when they finally hear the Lady of Blood coming.  They would also use the staff to make a pit just in front of them, to trap them or split them up during the fight.  Finally, Tsine will use an illusion to block the wall openings and pits, letting them hide safely until they were ready to attack.

	A few uncomfortable days’ later, it finally began.  Off in the distance, the sounds of chanting could be heard.  One voice sounded like the Lady of Blood, but they couldn’t place the others.  Quickly, Tsine created his illusion, and the party watched anxiously.  The chanting grew louder, and they were afraid that it was some sort of complicated spell ritual.  Finally, a group arrived in front of them.  The group was lead by a strange, green giant with three hands, but he was so big that the rest of the group couldn’t be seen from their position.  The giant wasn’t the most observant creature, however, so it missed the pit entirely, and fell into the hole.  However, he was so tall that he was still five feet out of the hole after falling into it!

	The party prepared to attack.  Tsine, Tal, and Quercus fired their most powerful magic at the enemy group, to take advantage of their surprise, while Robin fired at the giant, since he couldn’t get a good shot at anyone behind it.  Quercus, Fnipper, Rudyard, and Dane meanwhile all tried to rush the giant at once, but only a few of them could close to within melee.  The creature still stood after this onslaught of violence, however, and while there were a few grunts of pain coming down the hallway behind the monster, there were no dying screams.  Their enemy still lived.  

	The party continued to press their attack, even though they heard the sounds of casting coming down the hallway.  The giant quickly fell to the combined attacks of the seven heroes, letting our heroes get a good luck at their true enemy.  Besides the Lady of Blood on her nightmare mount, there was a familiar-looking drow priestess, and the group (save Robin and Fnipper, of course,) realized it was the same priestess they had earlier killed at the dwarf town!  The Lady of Blood was also accompanied by a slightly old, but extremely powerful-looking, human man, and a surface elf dressed in wizard’s robe.  He was smiling smugly, for reasons that became obvious when Dane flew over the pit to attack, only to bang painfully into an invisible wall!  Realizing immediately what happened, Tsine prepared to create his own wall of force.  That way, even if they can’t get to their enemy, they can’t be suddenly attacked by them, either.  However, the wizard apparently saw what happened, and he whispered what happened to the others.  The Lady of Blood’s panicked expression indicated that she believed she had to escape quickly, and made Tal suspicious.  There was more going on here than he thought…

	Suddenly, the enemy party’s area was engulfed in darkness, as the drow priestess used her natural magical talents to blot out the corridor with magic.  Realizing they were planning something, and aware of the nature of the mount that their nemesis was riding, Quercus prepared a spell that would let him see invisible and ethereal creatures.  His intuition paid off, for he saw the shadowy form of his enemy galloping upwards through nothingness.  “Follow me,” he yelled.  “We can cut them off a little farther up!”

	He led the way as Tal, Tsine, Robin, and Rudyard followed.  Dane and Fnipper weren’t as fast, however, and they began to lag behind their friends.  For a few desperate minutes, the party dashed through the tunnels, guided only by the occasional glimpse of their quarry.  Finally, fortune smiled upon them, when the desperate Lady of Blood ran through a part of the corridor instead of the stone that surrounded them.  “Quickly, Tsine, block off that corridor!”  Quercus screamed.

	Tsine obliged, and created the second magical wall of pure energy that he could cast for that day, and the Lady of Blood ran right into it.  Though she could have just ridden around in the wall, panic and fear had made her desperate, and she elected to return to the material plane, and be rid of these nuisances so she can escape without risks.  However, before she could respond to her attackers, a volley of magic and arrows flew at her horse.  The brutal attack destroyed it almost instantly, and it suddenly reverted to a strange black and white striped horse before crumbling into ash.  Realizing that her only real chance of escape was just destroyed, The Lady of Blood broke down into a fit of rage.  “You fools!  You made me an easy target for my rival! I will destroy all of you before she can arrive and you can help her!” she fumed, and she drew her scimitar.

	Though she was partially wounded by Tsine’s next magic volley, she still was very healthy, but that didn’t stop Robin and Rudyard from charged in to attack her, only to repeatedly fail at even scratching her!  She was just too fast, and her armor and even her skin were incredibly thick.  She responded with an unearthly ferocity, cutting first into Rudyard’s arm, and then stabbing him in the gut as he was recoiling in pain.  The second blow stunned him for a moment, and she used it as the perfect opportunity to finish her foe, and cleanly cut off his head with one swift cut!  As Rudyard experienced his last moments of life, his last thoughts were of rage.  “Why?” he screamed inside his own head. “Why should it end like this?  I deserve a worthy death, fighting the orcs, not buried in the earth fighting some pointless dark elf!  I want my chance for a true death!”  But it was not to be, for he then slipped from this mortal realm.

	Realizing finally how powerful their foe was, Tal, Quercus and Tsine were panicking as they fired more magic at her, but Quercus had little offensive magic left, Tsine’s lightning bolt had no effect on her for some reason, and Tal’s Ice Knife was able to cut into her slightly, but she shrugged off the cold of the knife without difficulty.  She then turned to nearly eviscerate Robin, who had been futilely trying to hit her without any success.  As he backed off to try and heal his wounds, Tal decided it was time to try something desperate, and charged at her with his rapier.  Remarkably, his attack managed to catch her unaware, and it was aimed perfectly at her heart!  Unfortunately, her armor managed to magically shift at the last minute to deflect the attack into a less serious part of the body, but the power of his rapier still was able to reach its full strength, and it sent her reeling back with the sonic waves that pummeled her from inside.  As she was about to get her revenge, Quercus entered the melee combat just as Dane finally caught up to the advance guard of the party.  He caught up to Quercus, and the two strode up to her as one.  Dane gave her a brutal cut to her legs, and as she was forced to kneel, Quercus lowered his great sword, and ran it through her chest.

	Kulstra, The Lady of Blood, gave one last look to the party, and then slumped to the ground.  As she fell, she dropped her scimitar, which suddenly twisted into a perfectly ordinary iron bar as soon as it left her grip.  She then began to change as she went into her death throes.  A second pair of wings appeared above her demonic bat wings, which were black, but feathered.  Her face began to contort, and her body subtly altered as well.  In the end, she resembled a new woman, and while this woman was clearly Kulstra, she also looked just as much like Quercus’ sister, Shedell!  She then breathed her last breath, and then collapsed into dust.

	OOC Notes:  Okay, who saw that coming?  Only one of my player’s did; the player of Tal had pretty much guessed it.  Apparently, the fifth season of Buffy had a similar concept, though I haven’t yet watched that year’s episodes, so I still can claim it was original, right?
	The fight more or less ran like I described it.  I was disappointed that I couldn’t use the rest of Kulstra’s servants for the fight, but it was a pretty intense fight anyway.  With one exception, the fights with the Strife Masters tend to be long and exciting, though the PK amounts have been a little disappointing.  I can only imagine what JollyDoc would have done to the party in this same situation.


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## Lela (May 26, 2004)

Good move by Quercus there.  Did the group follow by spell or did she run alongside the tunnel?


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## LordVyreth (May 26, 2004)

Lela said:
			
		

> Good move by Quercus there.  Did the group follow by spell or did she run alongside the tunnel?




She was basically running alongside the tunnel.  It basically was curving in on itself as it was ascending, so since she was going straight up, she was basically right next to the tunnel, and eventually would have intersected with it for a brief time.

So, did you guess the Shedell/Kulstra thing in advance?  Or was it a suprise for you?


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## Lela (May 26, 2004)

LordVyreth said:
			
		

> So, did you guess the Shedell/Kulstra thing in advance?  Or was it a suprise for you?




Complete Surprise.


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## Axegrrl (May 27, 2004)

It was pretty much a surprise. But we're getting the abbreviated version. 
The situation is also sorta like the skeksis/mystics from Dark Crystal and a couple of other plots I've read. But there are enough differences from any of those that I didn't spot it.


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## LordVyreth (May 27, 2004)

Well, what did you think of the plot twist?  Did it sound like it made sense? Don't worry, a further explanation of why and how it happened is forthcoming in tonight's update.  I thought the nearly irrational fear each one had of the other suggested that it wasn't just a matter of two arch-enemies.  Sadly, the players missed a helpful clue earlier in the campaign.  Shedell had a necklace that printed out "runes" which were actually the lower half of her full name.  Kulstra had the upper half on her necklace, but it was hard to spot it on her since she never was near the party except when fighting them.  Quercus had a few chances earlier at the fight with her at the dwarf town, but he missed some Spot checks by a wide margin.


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## LordVyreth (May 28, 2004)

*Time of Judgement*

There was nothing but silence for a few minutes after that, but it felt much longer to the party, especially Quercus.  “What have I done?” he thought.  “I did all this to help my sister, and all I did was kill her!”

	He was soon brought back into consciousness by Fnipper.  “We have to get going,” he said.  “The survivors will bring help quickly.”  He seemed unfazed by the entire experience, but since he never met Shedell, that was to be expected.  After looking at Quercus, not to mention the equally devastated Robin, and the rest of the group who were mourning Rudyard, he quickly said, “I’ll just take the lead, then?”

	The journey to the surface was short, but filled with hazards.  The unholy cloud they encountered earlier was not the only magical trap that protected this tunnel, and Fnipper and the others were in too much of a hurry to check every step for traps.  The next trap summoned a pair of fire-wreathed monsters with snake tails, but they were quickly dealt with.  The next separated the party with a wall of force, and then filled the front area with a corrosive gas.  Tal used his staff to open a passageway through the wall, letting the party’s front ranks escape, and they fled down the corridor to wait for the gas to dissipate.

	Next, there was a simple pit, and a locked door behind it.  The door was easily destroyed using Dane’s open lock skill (aka, his sword,) and everyone just jumped the pit.  The next trap wasn’t even noticed except for Fnipper, who briefly had a strong but fortunately resistible urge to turn into a herring.  Finally, an especially nasty trap summoned a rain of ice blocks, then a bolt of electricity that fired down the corridor, and finally a ball of fire.  All of this was painful to the party (except for Fnipper, who deftly avoided all of it but a few chunks of rock,) but Quercus had healed everyone before they left, so they survived it with ease.

	Finally, the party found the exit, and for the first time in days, they saw the light of the sun.  Granted, it was the light of the sun being almost entirely blotted out, but even that was a welcome improvement.  The party quickly looked for their mounts, which was fairly easy since they were only a few miles from the temple in the first place.  Once they gathered their mounts (and let Rudyard’s go, though he was eager to leave anyway, having sensed his companion’s death,) they began to flee to the southwest as quickly as possible.  The first half-day of travel was easy enough, but night was a different story, for they had a visitor: one they never thought they’d see again.

	It was during Robin and Fnipper’s watch.  They took a quick look away from the fire to look for danger, and when they looked back, there was a familiar little girl.  Seeing a drow and reacting on instinct, Fnipper was ready to attack her instantly, but Robin was able to intercede in time.  The girl, meanwhile, didn’t even seem to notice.  Robin quickly woke the others, who cautiously surrounded her.  “Hello?” Tal asked?

	The girl stood up, and suddenly there was an aura of power around her.  “Hi,” she said back. “So, what are you going to do to her?”

	The party was taken aback by her sudden ability to speak, and all of them didn’t understand the question, with the exception of Quercus.  “I – we haven’t decided yet.”

	The girl moved to sit down next to the fire again, and without showing any interest in the party, continued speaking.  “It wasn’t her fault, you know.  She didn’t ask to be that way.”

	Quercus nodded, and Tsine asked, “What was she, exactly?”

	“A half-fiend drow, and a half-celestial elf.  When she was younger, she was both at once.  Her father was a celestial, but her mother was a half-fiendish drow elf, who gained her traits by a favor from her goddess, and passed it to her daughter.”

	“Her goddess?  You mean Bas?”

	The girl hesitated.  “No, the drow was not from this plane.  She fled here to be with the celestial, and start a family.  But when her mother was killed and her father disappeared, it shattered Shedell/Kulstra’s, or should I say Shekuldellstra’s, mind.  She was an easy target for Bas, who encouraged her mind to split into two forms, and turn the evil half into a loyal servant.  She spent the years since that point literally in a constant battle with herself, causing her to manifest different parts of her personality at different times.”

	“But how can we help her?  Can she be helped?”  Quercus asked, with a hint of desperation.

	The girl thought for a while before replying.  “Maybe.  If you bring her back from the dead, she’ll have experienced both halves of her soul at once when she was dead, so she’ll know what her true nature is.  However, the two opposing moral foci that she has will be in conflict.  They will struggle for domination, and one could come out the winner, or they could merge into some chaotic new personality.  When the time for the conflict comes, she will mentally seek out friends to help her make the decision.  You might be one of those friends, Quercus.  However, the choice will be yours to make.”

	“Why are you so worried about her?”

	“Well, various reasons, but also because of this girl here.  Her parents were killed horribly just like Shekuldellstra’s mother was, and like her, it has disturbed her mentally.  Without my help, she would never become mentally stable again, but I should be able to restore her with time.  Oh, her name is Mazziden, if you were still interested.”

	Tal suddenly realized who this was.  “Wait, so that means you’re one of the avatars!”

	“Exactly.  Now, what my sister told you earlier is true.  If you can guess who I am, I can give you some help, and an answer to one of your questions.”

	Quercus shrugged.  “That’s easy.  You are Tsykie, the goddess of joy and children.”

	“Tsykie” smiled.  “Of course.  Now, here is your boon.  First, a memory of the past, just like what my sister gave you.”

	Each party member again found himself remembering strange things.  One found himself on a strange battlefield, while the other felt himself sitting in bed, while surrounded by relatives.  These scenes were brief, however, and soon faded to nothingness, bringing the party back to reality.  

	“Now,” Tsykie continued.  “What is your question for me?”

	The party considered this for a while, but soon came to a consensus: this was Quercus’ mission, so he should ask the question that already was weighing him down.  “What should I do with my sister, in your opinion?”

	Tsykie thought long and hard about that.  “If it was up to me, I would try to save her.  Believe me, I know what it’s like to have a loved one that fell.  And yes, I did love and even still love Bas as one of my own kin.  But she is too far gone for us to save, after endless years of hatred and anger.  Your sister is different.  She was as much good as she was bad.  Yes, she committed great evils, but she literally was fighting against those evils as she performed them.  If you have any love for her, you would do what you can to save her.  However, you must only do this if you can do it without endangering the city and kingdom of Methosilang.  Do it outside of city limits, and use as powerful a magic as you can afford to raise her.  If you try to raise her and fail to turn her soul to good, you must be prepared to destroy her again, for she cannot be allowed to return to Bas as a servant, and if she turns to evil again, it will be permanent and with all her heart.  Now, if that is all, I must be going.  This girl has to find some relatives that can help care for her until she grows up, or at least no longer needs me any more.  Good luck, and I hope you can find the rest of my sisters.”  With that, she was gone.

	The party solemnly began their journey home.  There was only one more interruption, but it was a doozy.  A colossal zombie, which was as tall as some castles, was being led along with a skeletal dragon by a humanoid skeleton with a writhing intestine-like organ inside it.  Attempts to engage the creatures in melee soon proved to be a mistake, as the zombie and dragon were both far stronger than typical undead of their kind.  Fortunately, Tsine had time to rest and get his magic prepared again, and he was able to block them in with a pair of force walls.  The skeleton and zombie were too stupid to climb over it (or even step over it in the zombie’s case,) so they were led around it by the strange skeleton (which the party later learned was a mohrg.)  Meanwhile, the party was firing arrows at the zombie, arcing arrows over the wall at the dragon, and firing magic over the wall, so by the time the three got around the wall, they were nearly destroyed already, and were finished off before they could catch the party again. Their bodies were burned and a stake record was set, and the party continued their journey to the south.

	Weeks later, they finally arrived home.  “This is getting ridiculous!” Dane complained.  “We’re powerful heroes by now.  Can’t you just use magic to teleport us home next time, Tsine?”

	Tsine pondered this for a moment.  “Theoretically, yes, but I have to take some time to learn the magic involved.  But it doesn’t really matter anyway, in this case.  Fnipper isn’t an ally of the city officially yet, so he couldn’t have teleported back in anyway.”

	“Well, we could have just teleported a few hours away from the city, but I see your point.  We’ll get him registered as soon as we return.”

	“Oh, and don’t forget to give them that statue we found,” Tal reminded them.  “We could get some clues about Bas from it, or at least prove that our story is true.”

	However, when they arrived, it turned out that they didn’t need to go to the guard to get registered.  The guard was there, waiting for them.  Apparently, they just had a few questions to ask them, but Tal and pretty much the whole party (except for Fnipper, who was busy absorbing the city and wasn’t that good at judging character anyway,) could tell that they had something on their mind, and it wasn’t necessarily a good thing for the party.

	When they arrived, they were greeted by Prince Lancaster Stael himself, one of the three children of the king and queen of Methosilang.  He sat them down, then took his usual seat (which, oddly enough, was the back of a giant elk that also served as his personal heraldic symbol.)  He told them, “Look, I know you just got home, and you want to relax, so I want to make this nice and quick.  Let’s start with the easy stuff.  Who is your new friend here?”

	Fnipper responded, “I’m Fnipper, the deep gnome!  I helped these guys fight evil!”

	Lancaster nodded,  “I see.  And what will you be doing now?  What is your purpose in this city?”

	“To kill all the drow.”

	There was a long, long, silence, and the guards in the room tensed up (especially the ones who were drow.)  Lancaster sighed.  So much for this being a short night.

	OOC Notes:  Yes, he really said that.  Fortunately, no one was killed as a result.  Overall, I really liked this whole overall plotline.  The Shedell/Kulstra and the drow child concepts both led to some interesting role-playing situations, and there was some nice foreshadowing to future events.  There will be another couple updates before this plotline completely ends though, and we finish the second stage of this game’s progression, leading me to make some changes, including some unplanned and unfortunate ones.


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## LordVyreth (May 29, 2004)

*Excerpt number 7*

Just a few left to go.  With luck, there will be a real update tomorrow.

The New Kingdom
(Excerpt from the Book of Tregfillia.)

With evil held at bay at least partially, the people were gathered.  Much of the world was trapped in permanent night, freezing the plants, causing the starvation of animals, and rendering the natural order apart.  Oh, and the people of those lands died, too.  The goddesses chose to preserve the natural order of the last continent, with the ungrateful humans as its caretakers.  They established a new kingdom, under the rule of the wise Gurdal Stael and his love, the half-drow Marian Styx.  With much of the surface world spoiled by the greedy orcs and merciless undead, it was up to the drow, once the hated enemies of the surface races, to help establish this new civilization, for only they knew of the underground flora and fauna that the abstract races needed to live.  They created new cities near the surface, for they knew that if any race was to survive the evil of the two fiends, they all had to work together.  The other races saw their wisdom, and over the centuries, even the most hated enemies of the drow grew to respect them.  The races were wiser in their new kingdoms, for not only did they learn at last to work together in peace, but they learned of the importance of obeying the forces of nature.  The goddesses gave them knowledge which they used to create the first Collectors, who used their power to gather the sun’s rays, and use it to light the city when the sun was denied entry, and the wizards of the land found magic that would let the sun shine underground.  Between them, they were able to form a thriving ecosystem within the earth of surface plants.  At the same time, they guarded the surface from undead forces, to prevent them from destroying the surface life before it had a chance to adapt to their new existence.  Thus, three independent ecosystems all thrived as one, with a peaceful alliance of abstract races to guard them: the underground ecology, the adapted surface ecology, and the old surface ecology that is being treated inside the cities, in the hopes that it will one day be returned to an again fertile surface.


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## LordVyreth (May 30, 2004)

*Corruption at Home*

It was going on into hour 6 of negotiations.  The party was still trying to convince the guard that despite Fnipper’s slip of the tongue, he wasn’t really a threat to the entire kingdom, including the prince’s own mother and sisters.  Not surprisingly, it wasn’t going well.

	“Look, fine, I understand that he hasn’t been aware of the events going on in drow society for the last thousand years.  We all thought deep gnomes were a myth as well.  And yes, I can understand that he would be upset with drow after his entire village was wiped out by them.  But we still can’t have him endangering lives because of this.  Until this cult or whatever it is can be stopped, we are in a dangerous situation as it is.”  Lancaster chose his words carefully.  Negotiations have almost broken down repeatedly because he has refused to believe it really is a cult to a mythological fallen goddess without proof, and Tal and the others have been understandably upset about this.  Even the statue that they pulled out and gave to the guards for examination wasn’t enough.

	Finally, Tal had an idea, “What if we promised to watch him at all times, and kept the guard updated to his whereabouts?  I understand you are worried about him, but I think you owe us a little trust at this point.  Whether these Bas people are cultists or not, they are a real threat to the kingdom, and we have been risking our lives to fight them.”

	Lancaster thought long and hard about this, and finally sighed.  “Very well, I agree.  I do trust you, you understand, but I have to think of the kingdom as a whole.  I don’t want to start a riot or anything.  We had enough trouble involving insurgents just a few months ago, remember.”

	Finally, the party went home, and spent almost a month preparing to make their next move.  The treasure that they earned fighting the Lady of Blood and her many allies and henchmen was split up, and the unneeded equipment was sold to pay for more useful items.  Tal and Tsine also had to finish building their manor, which they started work on over the six months they mostly stayed in the city.  At the same time, the party learned the local news that had passed since they left.  The most important news was that Larissa had been placed under house arrest!  Apparently, she had said something that the church or the royal family didn’t like, and using her previous claims about the existence of Bas against her, they made a case that she was a threat to the city.  They also took Setish, the lizard woman defector that the church of Ordhari was keeping up to that point.  Concerned, the party went to her to see if she was okay, and while she said she was fine for now, she warned them that they should be very careful about what they say from here on, especially about Bas or vocal denouncements of the government or church.  

	The other major rumor lately has been about the Malefactor drow.  Only a few days ago, a defector from that group came to Methosilang, seeking asylum.  Up until a week or so earlier, the drow attacks on border villages have intensified, but then they suddenly stopped, and the defector allegedly claimed that this was because of a battle for leadership among the drow, following the assassination of their old leader.  However, the rumored drow defector was taken in by the government just recently, and there hasn’t been any word of or from, or even confirmation on the existence of, the drow since then.

	Even on the streets, the party was starting to notice that the people were getting suspicious.  The heroes, when recognized, were hailed as heroes by some, but others think they might be paranoid rabble-rousers who were escalating the threat and endangering the city.  Some even said they were conspiring with the so-called cultists to fool the city into thinking there was a threat that didn’t really exist.  Oddly enough, Fnipper was one of the few that they didn’t suspect, though that was because he so unassuming that he was practically invisible.  Still, the party got worried and decided to keep him at home more often when he disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a spyglass that he apparently took off of a nearby noble’s house!

	However, the danger to the party wasn’t always so hidden.  One day, when the party was out eating at one of the finer restaurants in the noble district, there was a sudden noise just outside of their room.  The party all sat up with a start, and heard the much more obvious sounds of someone running.  Fnipper was the first to react, and he opened the window, and then climbed out of it.  He saw a man clad in dark clothing, running away as quickly as he could.  Quercus flew out the window and began to catch up to the man from the sky, while Robin crawled out and started firing at the fleeing man.  However, it soon became obvious that he had friends, when a man on a nearby roof shot a ball of fire at Quercus.  It exploded, but while Quercus was caught in the middle of the blast, he was able to concentrate on the problem before him and ignore the pain.  

	Dane, Tsine, and Tal each got out the window or out the door of the restaurant, and Tsine fired magic at the running man while Dane began to charge after him.  Dane received a spell from Tal before he started, though, that sped up his motions until he was a blur.  Though he didn’t catch up to the spy yet, it wouldn’t be long now.  

	The spy continued to run, as Quercus changed directly to attack the rooftop man, and Fnipper, Dane, and Robin continued to chase the spy.  Twice during the race, first Fnipper and then Robin were distracted by two more apparent friends of the spy, who suddenly attacked them from the darkness.  Fnipper easily evaded the attack of the first one, and stopped running to engage him.  Robin had less luck dodging the second foe, but was able to respond with such a powerful blow to the man’s head with the flat of his blade that he turned and fled immediately.  Robin moved to give chase, as Dane caught up to the runner.  However, just as he was about to strike him with the blunt side of his own sword, the man suddenly turned, and tried to trip him, then pummel him with his fists.  Fortunately, Dane was too strong and heavy to trip, though the two punches to his head left a ringing in his ears.  Before he could recover, the man danced backwards a bit, and suddenly a wall of ice protected him from Dane.  Dane looked for the source of the new obstacle, and saw the man Quercus was fighting grinning down at him.  The spell-caster’s victory was short-lived, however, as Quercus pummeled him with his blade.

	Dane was pondering how he could remove the wall when magic orbs and a sphere of flame appeared in front of him.  Tal and Tsine had managed to catch up, and while their previous attempts to hit the agile spy failed due to his speed, they were able to almost shatter the wall.  Dane chuckled as he reduced it to fragments, and then simply stepped through the cold air that was left behind, and tore into the surprised spy.  He soon crumpled to the ground, ready to be arrested by the authorities.

	Quercus then took off to help Robin find the thief that had fled earlier.  It took a few minutes, but between Robin’s sharp eyes and his aerial perspective, they were able to corner him in an alley, and then beat him unconscious when he still resisted.

	A few minutes later, the guards came, and took away the spies.  Tal asked if they could be there for the questioning, but the guards declined.  “These are just thief guild members.  They were probably looking for an easy mark among the nobles, and obviously picked the wrong group to look for.  I doubt we can hold them for long, however, since they didn’t really do anything to you except bother your meal.  Unless we can connect them to some other crimes, and we certainly will look into that possibility, we can’t really charge them with much.  But we will be in touch with what we learn.”  They soon took off with the prisoners, leaving a suspicious Tal behind.

	Finally, the house was finished, and it was time to plan their next move.  But it was up to Quercus to make that decision.  He had been pondering what to do with his sister for a month now.  Finally, he has made a decision.  “My friends, I think that Tsykie was right.  She is my sister, and I owe her a chance to redeem herself.  If you will help me, I will try to revive her.  My plan is to leave the city, consecrate the land around us, and then revive her myself.  I could use your help, though, in case, she, well, you know, converts the wrong way…”

	Everyone was supportive, except for Fnipper, who agreed to go on the condition that he gets to kill her if she turns evil.  Quercus was happy to have them help, but there was something he didn’t tell them.  If she does turn out good, he would have fulfilled the main purpose of his adventuring for almost a year.  If he finally has a chance to have that part of his family with him again, he wants a chance to be there for her, and maybe find their father with her help.  Either way, after this adventure, he will have to tell someone he cares about goodbye.

	OOC Notes:  Any comparisons to real-life politics are, for the most part, coincidence.  The Fnipper/spyglass thing was real.  I was starting to enjoy the character myself.  
	Sadly, the Quercus thing is real.  Basically, at the end of this game session, the player of Quercus had a few issues with the game, and quit the campaign.  The details will not be gotten into, but let’s just say they were unpleasant and leave it at that.


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## LordVyreth (Jun 1, 2004)

*Hello and Goodbyes*

The next day, a few dozen miles from the city in a small cave near the surface, the party prepared to cast the spell.  To be extra careful, they consecrated the ground beforehand.  Finally, Quercus performed the deed.  The ashes of Shekuldellstra slowly began to throb, and then they suddenly joined together, and then grew to form a perfect replica of her body.  She appeared to be alive, but she was still in a coma, as if her soul wasn’t totally in the body yet.  Quercus looked exhausted as well.  “It was a rough resurrection,” he panted.  “I think I caused her to move a little too far towards the lawful outer planes on our journey back, but she seemed stable when we returned.  I think it’s just a matter of time now.”

	They chose to wait there for that night, and instead of his normal meditations, Quercus fell completely unconscious.  He woke to find himself in a strange realm.  There appeared to be only one solid piece of land in the entire plane, and his sister was currently lying on it, and slowly regaining her consciousness.  Quercus was floating, in spiritual form, over the rock, and there was another figure near him.  She was a dark woman with a pair of scimitars, and as soon as he saw her, Quercus was relieved that this was only a spiritual realm, and that he wouldn’t be able to accidentally relieve himself here.

	Bas saw his fear, and smiled with triumph.  “Don’t worry,” she said condescendingly, “My true power is not here.  This is just my personality.  Your utter helplessness before me won’t be an issue, yet.”

	Quercus slowly concentrated, and began to understand how this would work.  Shekuldellstra would re-live a particularly traumatic and influential moment of her past.  After witnessing it, Quercus and Bas were able to speak to each other for a few moments if they wish, to settle on a mutually beneficial course of action, plan strategies, or just trade accusations and insults.  Then, Quercus and Bas would each choose one of five ways he can influence her.  The choices are Love, Justice, Victory, Horror, and Dedication.  Successful efforts by the influencers will create avatars of the good and evil halves of Shekuldellstra, and further choices will make their moral avatars grow.  When Shekuldellstra finished her mental examination, the stronger of the two avatars will gain control, and she will use that avatar to make a decision on how to live her life.  However, this battle for her mind could potentially have a damaging effect on her psyche.  If the battle creates too much conflict, or if the two avatars are of equal strength in the end, she may well go mad from the strain!

Aware of how this contest will go, Quercus and Bas prepared to start watching the events.  As they were about to start, Quercus went through the tactics he would have to use in his head.  Trying to influence her with a totally opposite response to her current mind frame would be useless and often counterproductive.  Instead, he would try to cultivate strong convictions even when her mind was warped to evil, and strong positive responses when it leaned to good.  

	The first scene was of Shekuldellstra as a young girl.  She was living with her fiendish mother and celestial father, though to Quercus’ frustration she didn’t give her father a good look during the entire flashback.  Of course, it was only a few minutes into the flashback that the horror began.  There was a loud whooshing sound, and suddenly the entire house was engulfed in flames.  Her father couldn’t even be heard after a few moments, but she could still hear her mother, buried and slowly dying in the rubble of their home, screaming at her daughter to run away as fast as she could.  After a few moments of hesitation, she did, and was able to escape the house with only a few cuts and bruises.  She slowly watched her house burn down, now orphaned or at least she might as well have been.  Quercus chose to enhance her emotions of love, and to remember her parents as best as she could.  Bas made her feel hatred for whatever caused this, but while both avatars grew as a result of this, Quercus’ avatar was larger.

	The second flashback occurred many years later.  Shekuldellstra had been wandering the wilderness as she grew up, and scavenged or stole whatever she could to survive.  Her inherent powers and resistances to nearly all of the elements made her far more powerful than even most trained warriors, but the years were very hard, and were already damaging her sanity.  It was in this state of mind that she was discovered by Bas.  Slowly, Bas corrupted her, and when she was unable to destroy the good part of her mind, she split it in half, and slowly developed the evil half into her first Strife Master.  Quercus chose to make her feel horror at this change in her mind, and (present) Bas made her feel a sense of victory, as she had a clear mind for the first time in her life.  Both were excellent choices, and both the good and evil avatars grew equally.

	The third flashback was her first fight as a Strife master general.  She was tearing through a nearly defenseless village with the other three Strife masters.  There was their dark-haired spotted man, who was now half-leopard.  He was fighting anyone who got near with impunity, and he was trying to so with in as calm and deliberate manner as possible.  However, he often would look at those he was killed hungrily, as if the animal inside was trying to get out.  There was also a warrior woman with crystal equipment.  She was fighting impassively, but was focusing on only the village’s defenders, and ignoring the helpless residents.  The same couldn’t be said of the third Strife Master, a human with metal wings and various other mechanical parts.  He was raining magical destruction on everyone he saw, and laughing the entire time, as if he found all this destruction to be a joke.

	As for Shekuldellstra, she was the Lady of Blood by now, and her fighting style lived up to her name.  She would attack anyone that got near her with a blind ferocity, regardless of who it was.  Quercus could barely stand to even watch this scene, and he tried to impose the horror of this situation on her despite her then-evil nature, and Bas tried to focus her on the dedication to her new mission and loyalties.  Quercus’ choice wasn’t as good as his first two, but it was a positive one for him, while Bas failed entirely on altering Shekuldellstra’s mind to evil.  Quercus’ lead grew.

	The fourth scene was of Shedell first meeting Quercus almost a year ago.  It was just as Quercus first remembered it, but it was strange seeing himself through her eyes.  He chose to focus again on love, while Bas tried to distract her by encouraging her to focus on her dedication to her greater mission, especially since that mission technically was to destroy her own self.  These had equal and profound effects, and both avatars grew equally.  Meanwhile, the real Shekuldellstra’s mind was being torn apart by the conflict, but with only one scene left, it should hopefully hold until she could make a decision.

	The final scene was of Kulstra’s loss at the dwarven town to Quercus and the others.  Again, Quercus saw himself, but this time it was a picture of himself at his most violent, as he was trying to stalk and kill his hated enemy, while unaware that it was really his sister.  Quercus tried to focus on the horror of that situation, while Bas emphasized the hatred she would feel to her enemy.  Bas was able to influence her slightly, but Quercus couldn’t get her to recognize the horror.  However, Quercus’ lead from earlier still held, and the good avatar was able to drive out the evil avatar.

	Quercus and Shekuldellstra both awoke.  The party surrounded her, looking worried and prepared (and eager in Fnipper’s case,) but Quercus quickly spoke.  “Don’t worry.  I have succeeded.  I will even test it to make sure.”  He cast first detect evil and then good, and confirmed that there was nothing but goodness left in her heart.

	Shekuldellstra looked as much like Kulstra as she did like Shedell, and was a drow elf in appearance.  She still had two pairs of wings: a pair of bat-like wings, and a pair of black-feathered wings.  She then began to speak.  She looked to the party and said, “I thank you all for your help.  While you were trying to just kill me, you helped me from escaping the trap that has held me for years now.  Even if I had to stay dead, it would have been preferable to that.  But this is far better!  I have a chance to make amends for my actions, and to live my life free of that constant fear of my own dark half!”

	She then went on to help the party in their fight with Bas by explaining everyone she could about her and her organization.  Unfortunately, she already had forgotten her physical location (as a result of the magical protections her divine nature gives her,) but she was able to mark the location of several temples.  She warned that Bas already must know that she had been converted to good, so the temples will probably be abandoned quickly.  

She also described the other three Strife masters.  The black-haired spotted man is named Fellis Mune, and is a were-dire leopard.  He rules the law-themed tyrant sect of the Bas cult, and uses her power to prevent him from giving into the chaotic nature of his alternate form.  The one with the metal wings is Khaspar, also known as the Nightmare Prince, who the party had already dealt with earlier through his minions.  He was pure chaos, and he also was in charge of the groups machine-based servants, which Bas discovered buried near her own crater.  He himself is half-machine, and he releases swarms of mechanical insects that transformed others into beings like him.  This was the cause of the disease the orcs that the party discovered earlier had.  He also is a powerful wizard, and lately had been using a spell to capture creatures and force them to fight his enemies for him.  This reminded the group of the dragons they fought earlier.  They may have to deal with this Nightmare Prince fairly soon.  If nothing else, Shekuldellstra said he was the most depraved of the group, and his evil sickened her even when she was Kulstra.

The last one, Tesserill Requien, is known as the Blade of Minds.  She is a half-elven psychic warrior, using a strange magic-like power called psionics, which Bas also discovered buried.  She is the only non-evil Strife Master, and led the neutral sect.  She worships Bas not only because Bas gave her the power of psionics, but also because she is convinced that Bas has to rise to preserve the balance.  Without the twelfth sister, she believes, the goddesses are not complete, and they can’t possibly defeat the Puppet and the Head that Rules the Claw without being complete.

After giving the party all the information she could, Shekuldellstra asked if she could leave to find the rest of her former friends and allies, and try to determine what they should do now.  She asked Robin if he wanted to come back with her, but he declined.  “This is my group now,” he said.  “I believe I was meant to be with them from here on, especially since we share that strange dream and the strange effects it had on us.”

Quercus, however, surprised everyone by asking if he could come with.  Though the rest of the group protested, he stood by his plan.  “I’m sorry, but for now at least, my first task is to help my sister.  It’s not just for me.  She has spent her whole life clinging to this hatred, and now she has to accept the being she hated is part of her.  I helped her through the worst of it, but it could take months or even years for her to recover.  She needs me, and I need to help her, to be the last part of that family she lost so many years ago.”

After hearing Quercus’ decision, Shekuldellstra offered to help the party, by seeing if Fenthrip, the cleric of her old party, would be willing to help them until they could find someone else to help heal their wounds and serve as a connection to the goddesses.  They agreed, and she said she would send him as soon as she could.  With that, she and Quercus flew off, and the party returned to Methosilang.

As they were planning their next move, they received a letter from Raz!  Tal quickly scanned it, and then read it to the others: 

You fools!  While you played hero, I sought the truth.  And I found it!  I know it all now!  You poor, blind creatures!  We saw so many before our eyes, yet we could not see them!  But I saw them!  I know almost all of them now!  I found eight, and only four remain, and they taught me the ways of the truth!  How little we knew!  How little YOU know!  But there is still time.  I seek the ninth here.  Find me, if you can, and I shall share what I learned, before it is too late….

Raz

Tsine sighed after reading it.  “Well, he’s as arrogant as always, isn’t he.  So now what do we do?”

Tal looked at the directions in the litter, and gasped when he finished.  “He wants us to go to the southern end of the continent, and then continue going south-east!  He wants to meet us off the continent, somewhere in the sunless realm!”

OOC Notes:  This marks the slow transition from phase two to phase three of the game.  The absence of Quercus’ player is just the first of three people that end up leaving the game, though the other two did it for the more traditional lack of time reason and we remain on good terms.  In addition, to prevent DM burnout (I was understandably bummed at the sudden and hostile loss of a player,) we moved to a bi-weekly schedule, which slowed the game down a bit.  Fortunately for me at least, it means I’ll finally be able to catch up a bit faster with these updates!  Also, it was helpful that Quercus ended up leaving the group at the exact time his main storyline was wrapped up.  I half-expected Shekuldellstra to become a major enemy up until the end of the campaign, with her possibly going insane and leaving Bas to form a more chaotic new player in the campaign after learning of her dual nature.  But you know how the best-laid plans of DMs go sometimes.


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## LordVyreth (Jun 3, 2004)

*The Sunless Sea*

“The Sunless realm?  He must be even crazier than that letter makes him sound.  No one leaves the continent.  Those that try never return!”  Tsine angrily shouted.

“Well, if we want to know what Raz is talking about, we don’t really have a choice,” Tal pointed out.  He looked fairly despondent himself, though.  He and Tsine were the only ones left from the original party, and the only other party members they still had were Dane, Robin, and Fnipper.  Well, Fenthrip might join, but that wasn’t guaranteed.  Still, that was even more reason to find Raz.  Not only was he an old friend, but it sounded like he had answers to the mutual mystery most of them share.  

“It’s not like we have anything better to do right now, anyway.  Bas’ forces will be in chaos for months after our raid.  They won’t do anything until we get back.  And if you do some magical research before we leave, you can just take us home magically if things get too difficult.”

Dane, however, had other ideas.  “What about the temples Shekuldellstra told us about?  We can try to raid them.”

Tal shook his head.  “It would be pointless by now.  We’ve been busy for an entire month since the raid.  Bas must have prepared for the possibility that Shekuldellstra would turn to our side.  Either she has the temples ready to be abandoned at a moment’s notice, or she’ll use them for traps.  We can’t go near her forces for a while until her defenses calm down, so we might as well help Raz.  After all, if it’s as hostile as you say it is, then he might need us to rescue him, and he is still a former comrade in arms.  And if he really knows the truth about Lady Memory, it’s worth the risk to find out.”

Tsine still looked reluctant.  “The wizard’s guild still remembers the last time an expedition was sent to this continent.  It was led by Joddark, a dwarf arch-mage decades ago.  They were never heard from again, and he easily had the same means to travel instantly that I will have.  But if you want to go on this fool’s errand, I might as well tag along.  If nothing else, it should be good for our reputations.  But you better survive long enough to write about it, Tal.”

Once they had a plan, the party wanted to make sure they were prepared for the ordeal.  Tsine learned teleport, in case they needed a quick trip home.  Everyone in the group who could afford one bought a ring of warmth or a similar item if they couldn’t use any more magic rings.  They then spent a few days traveling to Majestic, the southernmost city of the continent.  It was built inside a hollowed-out volcano, which had been inactive for centuries.  As a result, the city is the only one of the major metropolises of the nation that had natural sunlight at times.  It was also the patron city of Jolia, the goddess of love, and was known for its great culture and nobility.  This often tends to manifests in noble houses out-doing each other for prestige, which doesn’t really correspond to the overt intentions of the city.  It also has the only port of the major cities, which was the main reason the party went there.

After taking a few days deciding on what kind of boat to make, they basically decided it wasn’t worth the risk and hassle, and just bought a magical Folding Boat instead.  They also had to find someone to pilot it, of course, since none of them had any experience piloting a boat that wasn’t undermanned, surrounded by darkness, and floating on a very still lake.  They eventually chose Rothaire, an expert who had completed his initiation a few years ago, and thus could travel on the surface.  Of course, traveling the Sunless Sea was another story, but Tal was a highly trained speaker and motivator by this point, and they had enough spare money to let it make a convincing argument as well.  The final agreement was that Rothaire would pilot the boat for them until they reached the continent, and then they’ll provide him with all the supplies they needed to stay safe, full, and warm and leave him there until they returned to pick him up.  He decided this was a much better plan than actually crossing the frozen, hostile wasteland with them, and agreed for a sum of money that was larger than any he’s seen before in his life.

After just a few more days of basic training and gathering supplies, Fenthrip arrived, having been directed to Majestic by Tal and Tsine’s house servants from Methosilang.  Though he admitted he wasn’t nearly as well trained and experienced as the rest of the group, he was happy to help the group for at least a while.  Finally, after everyone was ready to go, they went out to port, magically enlarged their boat, and then set off for unknown lands!

The journey was a long one, however, before they would even reach the continent.  The first few days were fairly easy, but after five days of travel, the weather got steadily colder.  Worse, as their position under the moons began to change, the days began to change.  First, the daylight hours that were free from the moons got later and later, and soon intersected with normal nighttime hours.  Meanwhile, a new dark moon was coming up over the horizon to make up for the one they were leaving behind.  By the time they reached the continent, they would have three moons in the sky above them, and absolutely no sunlight!

Another problem occurred eight days into the journey.  As the group was continuing to sail south, the sharp-eyed Robin noticed something heading at them from underwater on all sides!  Quickly the group moved to the edges of the boat, ready to attack any potential danger, as their enemy arrived.

They looked like turtles, but their head was closer to the top of the shell, and had a strange vertical mouth.  They also had a pair of strange claws in addition to the normal flippers.  There were four “turtles” the size of a human, and an especially large one that was twice that size!

Fnipper was the first to react, but since they didn’t reach the boat yet, he could only fire at one with his crossbow.  Tsine also was quick to react, and fired a lightning bolt at the largest.  It singed the creature slightly, but it seemed to partially absorb the damage, suggesting that it had some resistance to electricity.  The four small ones then closed in a bit more on the boat, but instead of attacking the boat or its passengers, they squirted jets of ink at the heroes.  Fnipper deftly evaded two of the jets, but while Tsine was lucky enough to block one with his hand, the other got into his eyes.  Cursing, he began to stumble around blindly, while complaining that he just has no luck in boats.

Dane, Robin, and Tal still couldn’t get close to their enemy, so they fired at them with arrows and magic missiles.  Meanwhile, Rothaire and Fenthrip panicked and hid inside the boat.  Finally, the largest of the turtle-creatures got next to the boat, and tried to bite the appetizing-looking Fnipper.  However, the nimble gnome was able to carefully sidestep the bite at the last minute, and then retreated to the middle of the boat to activate one of his new magic items, a ring that made him rapidly blink into and out of the material plane.

While Tsine continued to thrash about uselessly, the smaller four turtles decided that the threat above was too great for a direct assault, and began to bite chunks out of the hull of the boat.  Dane and Robin busied themselves by attacking the largest turtle, and while they did some decent damage, unless they could get at the turtles that were destroying their boat, the situation looked dire.  It was then that Tal had an idea, and he dashed below deck.  Back when he was building his manor, he spent some money to purchase a Lyre of Building.  The item helped him build the manor quickly and inexpensively, since they didn’t have to pay for much labor.  However, the Lyre had another use that suddenly became very useful.  

Tal quickly came to his stored equipment, and with strum of the lyre, all inanimate objects around him, including the boat, were immune to attacks!  As Tal’s friends cheered, the largest turtle noticed that the attacks of its allies were doing nothing, and then retreated to try temporarily disabling one of the heroes with another blinding jet of ink.  However, Robin, the unfortunate target, was able to shut his eyes in time.

Fnipper was able to get close enough to the largest turtle for one last set of attacks.  His constant appearing and disappearing made it hard for the turtle to concentrate on him, giving Fnipper a chance to make a perfect attack at the neck of the confused turtle, and then his perfectly honed tactical skills gave him another opportunity.  The two attacks easily killed the monster.

Seeing what happened to their leader, the four smaller turtles quickly began to retreat, while being shot at with arrows and blasted with a fireball by an angry Tsine.  At first, it looked like this was the end of the encounter, but a minute later, the four surviving turtles appeared again about thirty feet away.  The party prepared for another defense, but this time, they didn’t attack.  Instead, one of them said something in a strange, hissing and dripping language.

“Does anyone know what that means?”  Tal asked.  Everyone shook their heads.  

Suddenly, Fenthrip raised his hand cautiously.  “I can use a spell to understand them, but it won’t let me talk back.”

After a few moments of whispered debate, Fenthrip cast the spell, and then looked at the creatures.  “They said they were just looking for food.  There aren’t enough fish in these waters for them to be happy with normal hunting.  They want to know if we can spare any.”

The group soon decided to give up a bit of their rations to the monsters, in the hope that they’ll go away.  However, while the monsters greedily slurped up the prepared food, they continued following the group, though they didn’t make any more hostile actions.  In fact, they looked almost tamed and happy to be with the group.  Since they could make decent bodyguards, the group continued to feed them regularly for the rest of their trip.

OOC Notes:  The monsters were Tojanda, and for once the group didn’t know what they were despite being in the core book.  This was not a common occurrence, so I enjoyed it, even if they were thoroughly trounced.  I especially liked Tal’s Lyre of Building plan. 

Fnipper officially started his awesome stage around here.  He slows down a bit when fighting constructs later, but against living things, he was getting at least two sneak attacks almost every round.


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## LordVyreth (Jun 4, 2004)

*Mechanical Attack*

The hours stretched on and became days.  With the sun appearing at different hours each day, it was getting increasingly difficult to determine just what time it is, and only the regular replenishing of the spellcaster’s energy and the pangs of hunger in their stomachs was telling them how much time had passed.  Finally, the boat reached the shore.  It was just as cold as expected here, and with the snow and the lack of a sea to block the cold, it would probably get even worse on their journey.  They set up a small camp here, and then left Rothaire behind as agreed upon before.  They even gave him quite a bit of extra food, and suggested that he feed the turtle monsters regularly with it.  After all, they could help protect him from any enemies that might stumble upon him.  Of course, if he was running low on food, they recommended that he move the camp a bit closer inland, so the monsters don’t attack him!

The party began the long, slow journey.  Even with their warm clothing and magic protections, the cold was slowly sapping their strength.  Once the night fell (as best as night could fall in this sunless land,) they had another predicament: how to set up camp at night?  Fortunately, Tal’s spree of clever planning continued.  He recommended that they find an area that was blocked by hills or cliffs, and thus had less snow than the area around it.  He and Tsine would then magically melt the snow to the ground, and then Tal would use his staff to carve a hole in the ground.  To protect them from the elements during the night, the folding boat would be activated in its smaller form, and then used to cover the hole, blocking out the snow.  This trick seemed to work pretty well on the first night, though it was a cold and uncomfortable night for all involved.

The second day began much like the last one, but it was noteworthy for two discoveries.  First of all, shortly after they began the day’s journey, they noticed a very faint light far off in the distance.  It was impossible to tell how far away it was, but it was at least one clear target for their path, and it looked like it was on the path that Raz told them to go.  Granted, it also could be a trap, but with nothing but blinding snow and endless tundra in every direction, none of them really seemed to care.

The second discovery was far less helpful.  Midway through the journey, the party suddenly heard a strange whirring noise in the sky above them, and strange clanking and rolling sounds all around.  Fnipper whispered, “Should I try to scout ahead?”

Tsine shook his head.  “Nah, they’re already all around us.  And no offense, little one, but you haven’t been able to move very quickly in snow this deep so far.  No, I have a better idea.”  He prepared an illusionary spell, and had it conceal the party and their footprints within the area.  It didn’t do anything for the prints they already made, but the snow as already filling them, and hopefully their attackers wouldn’t be smart enough to figure it out.

A few moments later, a metal creature waddled up right next to them.  It looked just like the creatures the party encountered under the Library of Delaspie, except they were slightly larger, and had a strange white sheen to their metal skin that seemed to block the cold all around them.  It stopped near the party, and started making confused beeping noises, as its “eye” light changed to a curious yellow color.  The others froze, daring to not even breathe, but Tsine was too busy concentrating on the illusion.  He didn’t count on the fact that all the snow falling around them would fall different without them there, and was trying to adjust the entire snowfall’s appearance to correct for their absence.  However, it was a night-impossible task, and soon the walking machine noticed this and the footprints behind them, and uttered a much lower, warning beep as his eye light turned red.

Realizing the jig was up, Dane and Robin charged the machine, and reduced it to scrap metal almost instantly.  But this alerted the rest of the monsters friends, and soon the area was filled with more of the metal monsters.  There were five more walking monsters, four rolling machines with shovels for hands, and eight flying machines.  

The group quickly moved into a defensive position, with Tsine and Fenthrip in the middle and Dane, Robin, Fnipper, and Tal near the outside.  The monsters began to surround them, though Robin and Tal were firing at them as they approached.  Tsine, however, didn’t look worried.  With a few words and a gesture, he created a ball of fire that was hotter and stronger than any they had seen before.  He casually fired it into one side of the advancing monsters, and it easily decimated a third of the monsters.  He noticed with some satisfaction that these creatures not only lacked any resistance to fire, but they seemed confused by magic.  Their attempts to evade the fireball were slow and clumsy, as if they were wasting precious time trying to understand how the fire should be there in the first place.  

The survivors, however, showed no fear.  The fliers focused on distracting the front ranks fighters, trapping them for the more powerful attacks of the walkers and rollers.  However, even with this advantage, the heroes were just to well armored and experienced for the machines to regularly hit them.  Dane and Tal took a few hits, but even those were mere scratches to our heroes.  However, they took a little damage when they swung at the walking and flying robots, as the electricity in their bodies ran through their metal weapons.  Luckily, the rolling machines didn’t have the same effect when attacked.

It less than a minute, there was nothing left but broken parts and pools of oil.  Tal scavenged a few bits of the machines for future testing and a trophy of their victory, and they then set out before the snow that melted from the fight could freeze over ahead, freezing them there.

The next day, they had yet another strange group of interested natives, though possibly a more welcome one.  At first, it looked like they were being attacked by hideous, furry monsters, but it was soon obvious that they were just humanoids who were dressed in piles of fur and other warm clothing.  They seemed more curious than hostile, but one, who was obviously the leader, was still keeping his group at bay.  He was shouting something at the group, but the language wasn’t one anyone in the group recognized.  Despite that, the group was willing to listen to him carefully for now, especially when Robin pointed out that while the two leaders were people in furs, the rest actually were giant apes!

OOC Notes:  This marks the second appearance of the sheens, from a pair of old Dragon articles.  The Walker and flying (called Flitter) sheens were adapted from the version in the Creature Catalog, but I had to convert the Roller sheens myself.  Considering it was the first 2nd ed monster I had to adapt, they weren’t so bad, but they were only CR 6 even after a bit of HD advancement.  Since the party members were in the 10th-11th level range around now, they were still not much of a threat.


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## LordVyreth (Jun 7, 2004)

*Excerpt Number 8*

Okay, expect a real update tomorrow, but here's another excerpt for now.  This is another one that I liked a bit.  Here we have the Excerpt from the goddess of music, appropriately enough.

The Great Betrayal
(Excerpt from the Book of Merida.  To the tune of American Pie.)


Once our patron goddess sang
In the city of Methosilang
Our home for a good many years.
And I thought we would stay there for
Centuries, or even more,
But our joy would soon be turning into tears.
One leader, who we did hail
Did bring us ruin with betrayal.
He sold us to the evil.
And our lord, he did kill.
My eyes, they opened wide
When I heard them say that our hero lied.
Our great land was ripped aside
When our rulers died.

Oh why, why, did you fall to your pride.
Once warrior, once a savior
Now we scream for you hide.
The temptation was great, an opportunity you spied.
But what made you decide?
What made you decide?
(continues for 48 more pages.)
(editors note: We don’t know, but it certainly was not an evil goddess, that’s for sure!)


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## LordVyreth (Jun 8, 2004)

*Lost Creatures, Lost Age*

“Fenthrip, cast your spell so we can understand him!” Tal whispered.  

	“Errr…,” Fenthrip hesitantly replied.

	“Wait a minute, you don’t have it prepared?”

	“Well, I was using my magic to make the rest of you resist the cold around you.  How was I supposed to know that there were actual inhabitants here?”

	The leader of the primitives shouted at the party, putting a quick end to their little discussion.  He then began to yell at them in some unknown language, and while Tal still didn’t understand a word he said, he was able to infer that the leader wanted them to follow him.  Since he doubted they would just have the party killed if they didn’t attack already, Tal advised the group to follow.  However, as they prepared to leave, the leader turned and in an intimidating voice, he apparently warned them that they shouldn’t try to attack or escape, or they would suffer dire consequences.  To emphasize his apparent point, the second human figure fired a warning shot in the form of an explosion of flames at a nearby snow bank.  The group followed them, but Tal couldn’t resist a warning shot of his own in the form of a ball of sonic energy, which he shot at another snow bank.  Their barbaric friends were apparently impressed.

	They soon arrived at a small village, which at first appeared to be nothing more than a few small stone huts surrounded by a wall.  Once they were led into the village, they were soon surrounded by far more creatures, from warriors similar to the ones that surrounded them earlier to curious children.  A woman walked up to them.  She appeared to be only middle-aged, but years of difficult living has made her older than her chronological age would suggest, making her appear to be an old woman.  After speaking a few words to the party and getting only confused looked in response, she sighed and cast a spell.  “Can you understand me now?” she asked.

	The group collectively sighed in relief, and Tal responded, “Yes, thank you.  Would you please explain where we are, and what you intend to do with us?”

	“My name is Erica, and I am the village shaman here.  We call this town Grath.  Don’t worry, we have no hostile intentions for you.  In fact, we had found another traveler a few months ago, and we thought that others would come looking for him.  He said as much when we found him.  Do you know a Raz?”

	Tal looked exuberant.  “Yes, we are friends of his.  Can you take us to him?  Can we speak with him?”

	“Well, I can lead you to him, but I don’t think you can speak to him.  He died shortly after we found him.”

	Erica led the devastated party through the village to the resting place of their friend.  She led them to a hill in the middle of the village, and then through a tunnel in the hill to a series of tunnels below the village.  They passed small hot springs, which suggested how this village came to settle here.  Small caves full of vegetation and ponds filled with fish branched off from their tunnel.  Finally, they took him to a larger, frozen lake.  Embedded in a large ice block was the body of Raz.

	They group was shocked at seeing this.  Dane asked, “Why would you do that to his body?”

	Erica shrugged.  “It was his request.  He wanted us to do what we could to make sure his body wouldn’t deteriorate.”

	Fenthrip said, “We should try to raise him, right?”

	Tal shook his head.  “Not yet.  We need to speak to him, first.  We don’t even know if he wants to be raised.  Do you have the means to speak with the dead?”

	“Not yet, but I can tomorrow.”

	At Erica’s permission, the group was allowed to spend the day here.  In fact, the village was happy to provide them with shelter for longer than that if they want, for they were eager to hear of the world outside of their land.  The party spent the rest of the day and a few after it trading stories and cultures with them.  Robin and Dane trained with the barbarians, and Fnipper looked for some fellow gnomes.  He found a few surface gnomes, but no deep gnomes like him.  Tsine and Tal spoke with Erica and the village’s other spell casters, which included druids and sorcerers but no clerics or wizards.  Fenthrip discussed religion with the druids, and learned that these people never learned of the Sisters, and had an inherent mistrust in gods as a whole after they disappeared ages ago.  He tried to spread the word of the goddesses, but had little luck.  They also learned much of the “metal ones” which apparently roam across the plane quite often, destroying all living beings that they see.  They often travel in groups far larger than the ones the group encountered, and sometimes much bigger ones can be found as well.  

	Finally, after a few days of resting and making new friends with the villages, they were ready to speak with Raz.  Fenthrip cast the spell, but warned that Raz might not be willing to speak to the party and will have to be compelled, and this wasn’t always successful.  Nonetheless, they got some important information out of him.  For one thing, he didn’t want to be raised, but would appreciate being buried in Methosilang territory and at Necropolis when the party was done speaking to it.  He had apparently spent his time searching out the avatars of the various gods while the party was helping Methosilang and fighting the Lady Blood.  In addition, he managed to find all of them except the Avatar of Bha-Ael (the creator god that birthed the others,) Bas (for obvious reasons,) Tsykie (who the party had themselves already met,) and Lore (the magic goddess, who Raz believed was Joddark, the dwarf mage that led the last expedition here.  However, he couldn’t tell them what he learned, as they had to meet the avatars themselves to ask them questions.  He could provide them with some information about where the avatars are, but Fenthrip’s questions ended before they could learn about them.  The party decided to use magic to preserve the body for now, until more questions could be asked of him, and then have him entombed at Necropolis when they were finished.

	It was time for the party to plan their next mission.  Their business with Raz was finished, after all, but if Raz was right, the avatar for Lore was still on this continent.  Even better, the light the party had been following was apparently first set up years ago, and about the same time that Joddark had made his expedition.  The villages haven’t traveled there yet, as they believed it marks a new “forbidden” area that the “greater ones” restricted them from, so none of them really know what’s there.  With that information, the party set out to finish their journey to the light, though they were understandably apprehensive after hearing about the “greater ones,” especially since none of the villages had ever seen one, and no longer can describe what they look like.

	A few cold, miserable days later, the party finally found the light, which disappointingly turned out to be just a very powerful magical beacon which permanently emanated the daylight spell, and was placed upon an adamantine pole.  On the plus side, such a powerful magic item was likely created by Joddark himself.  “Well, let’s try to dig up the area,” Tsine suggested.  “This area has had years of snow, and if there was a camp or other signs of the expedition here, it’s probably buried.”

	Hours of backbreaking later, the ground had been reached, and it only took a little exploration to find what looks like the remains of a camp.  There was little but tatters of the mundane tents and other equipment, but the could find a few crudely dug graves, an iron chest, and a journal that looked magically preserved.  The chest was easily broken into, and contained various treasures, including magical items!

	The journal was far more interesting, however.  It was Joddark’s personal diary, describing his experiences since he arrived on the continent.  He explained of his harrowing journey across the Sunless Sea, the fights against the metal “demons” that killed many of his fellow travelers, and a final, sorrowful entry.  In this entry, he explained that he was the last survivor of the expedition, and that he built the graves here and the light tower, in the hope that future travelers would find this camp and possibly recover the bodies.  He then explained that though his situation was almost hopeless, he would still continue onward, to the mountains, which were a short trip from the camp.  He explained that the only reason he went on this journey in the first place was because he sensed an incredible source of magic somewhere on this continent, and that he felt it was very close.  With luck, he would find this source of magic.  If he failed to do so, or if the source of magic ends up killing him, the reader should consider this his last words.  

	“So, now what?”  Dane asked.

	“Let’s go home.  I’m sick of being cold,” said Fnipper, whose voice was muffled by the fact he was up to his face in snow still.

	Tsine, Fenthrip, and Tal looked at each other.  A source of incredible magic?  Sure, the danger was great, but the party hasn’t had any real problems so far on their journey, at least not when compared to Joddark.  “Let’s go on,” they said as one.

	And so the party traveled forward from here, into the mountains.  As they didn’t have an exact idea what they were looking for, Tsine would sometimes send his familiar, a raven, out to scout for them.  The days wore on, as the flat plains they were traveling on turned into hills, and then mountains.  Finally, one time, Tsine’s bird didn’t return.  The party was ready to charge forward to investigate, but Tsine stopped them.  “No, let me sneak in invisibly.  I can sense my familiar’s location, so I should have an easier time finding him.  I’ll come back if I need help.”

	He left, while the party stayed back to plan their next move.  “So, what should we do until he gets back?” Robin asked.

	Fnipper responded, “What else?  Hide, in case whatever got his bird comes back for us.”

	The party quickly concurred.


	Tsine carefully continued forward, but it was hard to see with the snow, and he was half-frozen after his long trek through the snow.  In fact, after he crested the next mountain peak, he initially thought he was hallucinating!

	The entire other half of the mountain was gone!  So were the connected halves of surrounding mountains, creating a shaft out of the entire valley in the middle of them.  The entire area was made out of metal.  Huge metal spires rose out of the bottom of the shaft, which was obscured by a thick cloud of steam or smoke.  These spires climbed as high as the mountains, and Tsine wondered why he couldn’t see them before, in spite of the snow.  Metal ropes were connected all the spires and the mountain walls, and huge globes were attached at various intervals.  Also rising up out of the steam was a huge metal dragon statue, which was a tall as the mountains and spires.  It was standing on its hind legs, and had its head pointed downward, as if it was going to breath on the floor of the shaft, assuming it had one.  The dragon statue’s reason soon became obvious, for the entire shaft was filled with dragons!  Tsine was terrified at first, until he noticed that all of them were gem and metallic dragons, and he remembered those were neutral and good.  But he thought they were almost extinct.

	Carefully, he began to descend into the shaft, while still looking for his bird.  As he descended (using a convenient system of ledges and ladders,) it was getting both warmer and brighter, as there were many strange lights shining throughout the bottom of the shaft.  He soon had to shed his winter clothing as he climbed down, to avoid getting exhausted from the sudden temperature change.  Finally, he discovered his bird, which was hiding, terrified, at the back of one of the ledges.  Apparently, his bird didn’t study dragon classifications, and only saw a huge flock of gigantic flying lizards that could eat it in a matter of seconds.

	As Tsine was beginning to climb out of the valley, he suddenly saw a dragon with amethyst scales flying directly towards him.  He briefly pondering fleeing, but decided it would be pointless, and let the dragon arrive.

	“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” it boomed at Tsine.

	Meekly, Tsine responded, “I was just looking for my familiar…sir.”

	The dragon didn’t look pleased with that response.  “Then why are you on this continent?  You’re obviously not from one of the primitive tribes, and they would never come here anyway!”

	“We-we were looking for someone, sir.  A dwarf that was lost here years ago, and also a friend that disappeared from this land recently.”

	“We?  Did you say we?  Did you come with others?”

	“Yes, my party and I.  They should be right back there, on the other side of this mountain.”

	Without another word, the dragon left to investigate.


	Hiding in an underground cavern that Tal carved out of the cliff with his staff, the party saw a shadow pass by them and heard a great booming sound.  It passed by a few times, but then left.

	“Whew,” Fnipper whispered.  “I’m glad we hid when we did.  That thing almost got us!

	OOC Notes:  This re-cap, and the one following it, were all one session that didn’t feature any combat whatsoever.  This was, I believer, a first at this point in the game, though there were a few sessions with little combat, usually because they also were the sessions with the most loot to divvy up and items to sell and buy.  Fortunately, everyone enjoyed it, largely because there was a lot of interesting role-playing and new story hooks coming up.  The dragon city mentioned here will be described more thoroughly in the next update, which will hopefully get finished up for tomorrow.


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## LordVyreth (Jun 10, 2004)

*The city of Dragovigis*

After waiting for almost half an hour without any response from Tsine, the group decided to carefully leave their hiding place, and after making sure the monster was gone, they continued onward in the hopes of finding their friend or at least learning what happened to him.

	After a few minutes, they too reached the other side of the mountain, and saw the dragon-filled shaft.  However, they were spotted almost immediately, by the same amethyst dragon that earlier saw Tsine.  He flew up to them, (with a number of other dragons to provide back-up,) and began to interrogate them.

	“What, more of you?  Maybe that other one wasn’t lying after all.  Do you know an elf named Tsine?  He had a bird with him.”

	“Yes, he was part of our group,” Tal responded, though he was barely able to speak.  The sheer giddiness of meeting other dragons and the instinctual fear that comes from being near so many powerful beings was making it hard for him to talk normally.

	The dragon noticed him too.  “Wait, those scales on your body.  Are you the child of one of us?”

	“Not directly, no.  Did you hear of the Moinen family of Methosilang?  We were related to dragons by kin a thousand years ago.  I have been magically enhancing my ties to my ancestors as of late.”

	The dragon was suddenly very interested in Tal and the rest of the party.  “Why, there are still some who can trace their lineage to the Moinen alliance among my kind!  I must have you speak to them.  Oh, but first, you should meet the king.  He is currently questioning your friend, and we need to reveal the truth before it turns serious!”

	So saying, he and the other dragons offered the party a ride, and then plunged deep into the mist at the bottom of the shaft.  They went straight to the floor of the shaft, and then even deeper through an underground tunnel, which like everything here was made of metal and was lit with a number of strange glass lights.  The tunnel stretched and curved for a number of minutes, and it slowly grew in proportions as they got deeper.  Finally, the path ended in a hallway a mile long.  As they passed through it, Tal noticed there was a gigantic dragon from each of the five known species of gem dragons guarding the hallway from alcoves.  At the very end of the hall was a chamber that dwarfed even the last hallway in size.  A dragon with scales as hard and brilliant as diamonds filled most of the hallway, and sat on a bed of diamonds.  Fnipper did some quick math in his head, and decided that even a couple of those diamonds would ensure that he would never have to work again.  However, one look at the dragon made him realize that there had to be easier ways to earn it.

	After a closer look, the party also noticed a number of strange flexible tubes were stretching from the dragon’s tail to the walls around the room.  They also noticed a terrified Tsine, who was currently being held by the dragon between two of its massive claws!  However, when the dragon saw the party arrive, and after one of the dragons that flew the party here whispered something in his ear, the dragon put Tsine down and addressed the group.  “Well, it seems that this one was telling the truth after all!  I apologize for my behavior, but we have to be very careful here about our security.  Allow me to introduce myself.  I am Facetous, the Diamond Dragon.”

	For once, Tal wasn’t the first to speak.  Dane tried to pick up the slack.  “We are a band of heroes from Methosilang.  We came to this place by accident, and we didn’t mean any harm.  We were looking for Joddark, a dwarf that disappeared years ago on an expedition here.  If he’s not here, we’ll be on our way.”

	Facetous nodded.  “Ah, I suspect you mean the Sage.  Yes, he lives here.  I’m sure some of my servants can help you find him.  But I’m afraid that you will not be able to leave here now that you are aware of our existence!”

	Dane spoke up again.  “WHAT!?  What do you mean we can’t leave?  We’re trying to save the world from the rise of Bas!  We can’t afford to stay here forever, even if we wanted to!”

	Facetous shrugged.  “Bas is a threat, that’s true, but there are dangers even greater than the one she poses, and many of these can be unleashed if this city has any chance of being known to the world at large.  But I can explain further later.  I have little time for such a discussion now, and I’m sure you have much to see and do here.  You should speak to the sage you traveled so far to see, and I heard that one of you even has kin here.  Once you had some time to explore, I can explain more about this city and then we can negotiate how to handle your presence here.”

	The party was led all the way up back to the surface, where they split up.  Tal initially wanted to meet his relatives, but he was told that it would take time to find them and for them to prepare for his arrival, so he asked to see the Sage, which was apparently Joddark’s new title, first.  Tsine and Robin went with, and Fnipper went along just for the sake of seeing another small one, but a disgruntled Dane decided to drown his irritation at the local pub, and Fenthrip decided to go with, since he didn’t really care about the mystery that bound the rest of the party.

	Tal, Tsine, Robin, and Fnipper were taken to one of the suspended metal spheres, which had a small opening in its side.  One of the dragons that took them to the sphere knocked on the side, and was answered by a jovial “Come on in!”

	Nervously, the party entered, and almost bumped into an elderly dwarf that was entering the main room of the small home.  The friendly look in the dwarf’s was suddenly replaced with shock when he saw the decidedly humanoid guests.  “Lore bless me, but these are wondrous guests!  Please tell me, are you from Methosilang?”

	Tsine beamed.  “Yes we are.  Well, except for Fnipper here.  I’m of the wizards guild as well!”

	The dwarf laughed happily.  “Oh, you must tell me all about the world since I left!”

	Tsine spent hours telling the dwarf the party’s story, and the events in Methosilang since Joddark left.  The dwarf grew somber, especially when he heard about the rise of Bas, the breaking of the Methosilang/Delaspie alliance, and the war between Delaspie and the dragon empire.  “Aye, so it has already started.  She warned me about this.”

	Tal suddenly realized who “she” was.  “You mean Lore?  Then you are her avatar!  We have been looking for you!”

	Joddark looked shocked again, and then suddenly he grew wiser and more powerful.  “Ah, I didn’t expect you to find me so soon.  This does complicate things.”

	Fnipper snorted derisively.  “You’re supposed to be a goddess, and you didn’t know we’d be here?”

	Joddark/Lore angrily retorted, “Well, I’m not Ordhari you know.  I don’t think it’s important to gather every little bit of information.  Now, I’m sure you understand what boon I can grant you.”  Instantly, Tal, Tsine, and Robin felt another memory return to them.  

They were in a vast, alien land, with a being of immense power.  They were speaking to the being, and agreeing to the being’s request.  However, the request was apparently vocalized before this flashback, as they never learned the details of this request.

Lore continued, “Now, I’ll try to answer a question for you, as the rules will allow me to do.”

After a brief negotiation, Tal replied, “Perhaps you could tell us more about the spheres of darkness that cover our world in darkness?  Are there any ways to destroy them?”

Lore thought for a while, and then replied.  “There are only three ways that I know of.  First of all, the city of Fierypyre, the capital of the Orc Empire, is not just a city.  Once, it was a real dragon of immense power, whose soul was placed into a mammoth metal shell when the original body was too old to survive any longer.  The creature is dormant now, of course, to let the city survive.  However, while it would ruin the city, the dragon can be briefly re-animated.  The resulting creature is a being of immense power, which could potentially destroy at least a few of the orbs before its power ran out and the dragon finally died.

“The second possibility is some sort of powerful magic-draining spell or item.  The spheres only remain suspended by the magic of Nerull, so if the magic was removed, they would plummet.  Of course, depending on where they land, it could cause massive devastation on the planet just from the impact!  This could turn the spheres into a weapon in the hands of a very powerful and unscrupulous being.”

“And the third way?” Tsine asked, after Lore hesitated for a few moments.

“Well, that’s something that only Facetous could tell you about, I’m afraid.  Suffice to say that he has something in his power that could destroy one sphere, but it is a very powerful and dangerous weapon.  But you have to ask him about it.”

“Yeah, speaking of Facetous, we really have to talk to him.  He said that we couldn’t leave the city.”

Lore shook his/her head.  “That cannot do, you are too important to the world right now.  Don’t worry.  You explore the city a bit more, and I’ll speak with him.  Maybe we can work out an agreement.”

After this, Tal left to find his relatives, while Tsine remained behind to discuss magic with Joddark and possibly trade some magic, and Fnipper and Robin hit the bar.  Tal eventually was led to a door built into one of the sides of the chasm.  Inside, there was a luxurious home, which was made out of the same metals as the rest of the chasm, and was illuminated by the same glass lights.  There were also strange picture frames on the walls, which projected moving illusions of images of his draconic relatives in action, and seemingly random stories about humans in strange garb, who were speaking an unknown language.  For some reason, random disembodied voices would laugh after every few words spoken by one of the humans.  While watching these strange images, Tal was surprised by a large amethyst dragon that entered the room.  “Ah, you are the long-lost relative I was told about?” the dragon said.  “I am Lavaldur, the eldest member of our family of dragons.”

Tal introduced himself, and they spent a long time reminiscing about the past and comparing their family histories, but Tal sensed there was some sadness in Lavaldur’s tone.  “What’s wrong, Lavaldur?”

Lavaldur gave a half-hearted smile and responded, “Call me uncle, though it isn’t an entirely accurate definition of our family relation.  I’m afraid you came at a sad time in our family.  My son, Zuriden was among a group of explorers who had discovered a new ruin in our chasm just recently.  It was a huge find, but there was an accident, and some of the paths in the ruins were destroyed by a landfill.  Zuriden was lost behind one of these landslides, and I fear for his life.”

Tal pondered this for a while, and then said, “I think I have a way of solving both of our problems.  I will gather my friends, and then meet us at Facetous’ chamber.”

Tal found Tsine, and then went to the bar.  However, when he got there, Dane and Fenthrip were out cold.  Fnipper and Robin were on their feet, but feeling a little tipsy.  “Okay, what happened?” Tal asked.  “Did they drink too much?”

The barkeep, a brass dragon, snorted. “Too much?  They barely had a sip each!  They asked for the strongest drink in the place, so I gave them dragon ale.  One sip later, and they were like this.  I guess humans really shouldn’t drink stuff this strong.”

Fnipper, who was the most sober of them all, responded, “The barkeep warned them.”

The party, with the exception of the still-unconscious Dane and Fenthrip, went to Facetous, to learn more about the history of this place and try to bargain their way to freedom.  Facetous greeted them, and began to tell the story of this city.  “Millennia ago, we were driven off the continent by the growing draconic army.  Many tried to fight back, but none of us expected all five draconic families to unite so quickly and with such loyalty.  Between them and their humanoid masters, we were overwhelmed, and those who fought back died.  Soon, the survivors fled here, where they spent many years shivering in the cold among the ruins here.  However, they also explored the land, and started to delve deep into the caverns around the mountains.  The cold caused a minor ice age, which destroyed some mountains and caused cracks in others that were miles deep.  Eventually, we found that among this very mountain range, there were ruins of a civilization older than even we know about.  The dragons soon began to excavate the mountain, and found more and greater wonders of this era.  However, not all the creations were helpful, and many were hostile creatures that destroyed all living beings on sight.  Many such ‘sheens,’ as we call them, have escaped from other fissures like the one we found, and now roam the surface, destroying any living thing they can find that the cold and darkness didn’t already kill.  We, meanwhile, turned the wonders we found into this very city, using our combined intellect and experience to discover, at least to a limited degree, how they work.  I myself was summoned here by the dragons, when I realized the power of the objects here.

“However, we also know of the dangers of these devices.  Many of them would totally alter civilization if they were discovered by outsiders.  Warfare would become deadlier than we have ever seen, and the fragile balance of power would be destroyed.  Could you imagine if Bas ever heard of this place?  She would have the power to annihilate all who stood in her way.  And of course there’s the case of myself.  Nerull has forbid all other gods of the old order to come here, and he could banish me easily if he learned I was here.  I am not sure the ruler of this city: I also am providing it with power using my own divine aura.  If I were forced to leave, this city would die.

“Be that as it may, we may be willing to let you leave, for I have spoken to the Sage’s ‘friend.’  She believes you are indeed instrumental for the fate of the world, as a result of the Lady of Memory you speak of.  Therefore, I will let you leave after you complete two conditions.  First, you must prove your trust to the city by completing a task for us.  I have also spoken to Lavaldur, and he has told me about his lost son.  If you find him, not only has Lavaldur pledged that he will reward all of you handsomely, but I will consider you friends of the city.  The second condition is that you must never speak of this city to outsiders under any circumstances.  If these conditions are met, I will let you leave.”

Tal, however, had one more question before he could agree.  “I’m afraid that we will not be up to our normal fighting effectiveness.  Two of our comrades have fallen under the power of the ale you produce in this city.  Would it agreeable if we wait for them to recover before we begin?”

Facetous shook his mighty head.  “I’m afraid not.  Zuriden might be a dire situation, and could be dead if you wait for the liquor’s effect to wear off.”

Despite this new, the party was eager to take the dragon god’s offer, and thus escape the city to continue the fight against Bas and the twin evil empires.

OOC Notes: The next couple of adventures are probably my favorite ones in the entire set up to this point.  It also introduces some new players, who will be introduced in the next game.  Yes, that was a Gamers reference up there, by the way.  Of course, the DVD wasn’t even out yet by the time of this game, so it was a bit of artistic revision.


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## LordVyreth (Jun 11, 2004)

*The Ancient Dungeon*

As the party rested for the night in preparation for the expedition the next morning, a pair of figures were speeding their way to the city in pursuit of them.  One of them was Galeron, a cleric of the church of Bha-Ael, the ruler goddess.  He had heard about the party’s exploits, and was surprised to learn of a rumor that many of them shared the same dream he did over a year ago, involving a mysterious creature called Lady Memory.  He decided to follow them and hope that they will share any information they had about this figure.  On the way, he encountered a drow named Tebryn, who was lost in the snow and ice of the Sunless continent.  He claimed he had no idea how he got here; he just fell through a strange portal, and was in this new land.  Galeron was suspicious, but he used his powers to sense him, and he didn’t have the moral taint of evil, so Galeron offered to let Tebryn join him on the quest to find the party.  Slowly, they neared a familiar mountain range…


	The next morning, the four near-sober members of the party began their journey through the ancient “dungeon.”  They traveled at first through a series of narrow tunnels through the mountains, which presumably was once a mere crack that the dragons excavated and turned into a reasonably sized passage.  At the end of the path, there was a gigantic cavern, which was bisected by a huge metal gate.  It was fifty feet high and just as wide, but the dragons had already broken through the gate enough to crate a five-foot wide hole in the middle of the gate.  Carefully, Fnipper led the group towards the hole in the gate.  Once he neared the gate, he peaked through the hole, and saw a well-lit, metal room.  There was no immediate danger, so he quickly darted into the room, only to find that the room wasn’t as uninhabited as he thought.  Four of the rolling “sheens,” much like the ones they encountered among the army of them back on the surface, were here.  But the ones here were at least twice the size of the earlier ones!  

	Fnipper was feeling unusually brave after he remembered how easy the last of these creatures were, and charged the first one just as it was activating.  He got a few quick hits in, but since he had no idea how these creatures worked, he couldn’t find a weak spot.  The rest of the party was about to enter the room to help Fnipper, when they heard a sound behind them!


Galeron and Tebryn were cautiously entering the tunnel that the party had just left.  They had arrived late last night, and after speaking to the Sage, they learned of the earlier arrival of the party.  Though the shock was as great for them as it was for the party, they were able to control themselves enough to work out a deal with Facetous.  Since Galeron was of the same group as the rest of the party, he would be allowed to join the group, and the honor was extended to Tebryn once Galeron insisted that his new friend would not be left behind.  Suddenly, Galeron and Tebryn had to throw caution to the wind, for there were sounds of battle ahead of them!  They quickly charged up the rest of the tunnel, with Galeron taking the lead despite Tebryn’s ability to move faster as a result of his lighter armor.  

Robin whirled around to respond to this new potential threat, only to see that it was apparently a cleric and a holy warrior of Bha-Ael.  Deciding that questions can wait, he drew his bow and began to fire into the room at one of the rollers.  Tebryn, however, didn’t think he would be as welcome because of his race, and used his innate magical powers to draw a cloak of darkness around him as he skulked into the room.  He wanted to help, but had to time it so they wouldn’t think he was a threat.

Meanwhile, Tal and Tsine had bigger concerns, like saving their friend.  Both of them also got to the edge of the room, and began to fire magical projectiles at the rollers.  However, the simple-minded rollers still considered Fnipper their primary threat, and three of them surrounded the unfortunate gnome while the other moved to the front of the doorway to engage Robin.  Despite his incredible dexterity, Fnipper was surprised by the speed of these creatures, and though he activated his ring of blinking before he entered the fight, fortune was with the metal creatures, as he was always in the wrong place (by his perspective,) when they connected.  Desperate, Fnipper tried to use his ring to phase through the wall and to safety, but again luck wasn’t with him, and he materialized within the wall!  This caused him to get shunted back into the room.  Gasping for air and trying to ignore the dozens of cuts he got from leaving parts of himself inside the wall, he looked up to see the three giant monsters closing in on him.  He carefully downed a potion, and hoped he would have more luck dodging these things from now on.

Meanwhile, Galeron charged into the doorway, to help Robin fight back the monster.  Between the two of them and with Tal and Tsine’s magic supporting them, they were able to destroy the monster, but they didn’t have a chance to help Fnipper.  

Fnipper concentrated and focused on his family, and how he would never see them again if he died here.  With his focus renewed, he was able to evade his foes far better, and his sense of timing lasted long enough for him to jump through the wall a little more carefully this time.  Though he again materialized inside the wall, he was almost on the other side, and the momentum carried him to the safety of the outer chamber despite the pain it caused him.  Unfortunately, Tebryn used this exact moment to try to help, and Fnipper came face to face with a strange drow elf that was forcing (from Fnipper’s perspective) a vial of strange liquid upon him!

Galeron entered the room to help engage the three surviving monsters, while Tal and Tsine moved to the far side of the room to continue the magical barrage, and Robin remained in the doorway to fire on the machines from a distance.  Galeron heard the screams from outside, and a strange, high-pitched voice yelling “Help!  It’s a drow assassin!  He’s trying to poison me!”

Suddenly realizing what was going on, Galeron yelled back “It’s okay!  He’s a good guy, and he’s with me!  He just wants to help!”  Robin, after realizing that Fnipper never actually saw Galeron yet, shouted that Fnipper should trust him as well, and Tal and Tsine echoed this claim.  

Dubiously, Fnipper drank the liquid, but even after it healed some of his wounds, he looked at the drow with suspicion.  “Don’t think this means I trust you, drow.  I don’t have faith in any of your stinking kind.”  With that, he phased through the wall again to help his friends.  Tebryn went around the wall and into the room to help as well, though he did so with less than good intentions.  He was used to others mistrusting him because of his race, but he hoped it was different here, and this gnome was really the first to show him any discrimination.  He began to dislike the gnome already.

At any rate, now that they were surrounded and overpowered, the remaining rollers soon crumbled when Tsine used up some of his more powerful magic to blast all three of them with flames.  The party soon gathered, and began their introductions.  Galeron explained that he came from Methosilang to accompany the party, after hearing that they shared a similar dream.  He told a bit about his past.  Most importantly, he explained about his motivations for adventuring beyond the Lady Memory issue.  Notably, he talked quite a bit about his missing mother, who was lost to an orc raid years ago, and who may or may not be alive any more.

Tebryn’s story was even more unusual.  He claimed he was from a city called Menzoberranzan, a drow city under the watch of a goddess called Lolth.  Tal and Tsine remembered that latter name from the records of the old gods, but this drow city and the idea that one of the old gods is still in control are new concepts for them.  Tebryn was just as amazed when he learned of Methosilang, the drow alliance with the surface dwellers, and the creation of the Benefactor drow.  Tsine, who did some research on planar theory, suggested that Tebryn was from an alternate plane and somehow ended up here on accident.  Both of them were accepted into the group, at least by a majority of the group.  Fnipper gave him a look that clearly suggested he still didn’t trust this drow, especially since he wasn’t even from the relatively good drow civilization of Methosilang, and Tebryn’s hatred for the little gnome grew.

OOC Notes:  And thus we have our two new characters.  Galeron is a cleric/paladin, with a strong emphasis on the former.  He also has a dwarven cleric cohort, but he wasn’t written up in time for the game, so he essentially is waiting at home for Galeron until he can be written back into the plot.  Tebryn is a normal drow, with SR and spell-like abilities, from the Forgotten Realms.  He is a fighter/wizard.  Both will be part of the group for a decent amount of time.


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## LordVyreth (Jun 13, 2004)

Well, I did plan on giving you a new update this weekend, but my Word program is giving me grief, so it looks unlikely at this point.  

Well, it might be for the best, because I have a bit of a confession to make.  I'm seriously starting to burn out.  I mean, I've averaged something like four updates a week for months, and I don't think I can handle it any more.  Plus, it seems to be killing any discussion among readers.  I don't expect to be as often-read as Jollydoc or anything, but it's a little depressing seeing an entire page of almost nothing but my own updates.  I'm not quitting or anything, so don't worry, but I'll probably only update on Wednesdays and Sundays from now on.  Hopefully, this will encourage some speculation and questions, which I will answer between updates.  I'll also finish posting the Excerpts and other campaign info between large updates, as soon as I get my Word working again.


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## LordVyreth (Jun 17, 2004)

*Microsoft DungeonPro v5.1*

After introductions, the party continued into the dungeon through a corridor in the far end of the guard-room.  The corridor was ten feet wide and made of metal like everything else inside the ruins, and it looked like took a little damage from the cave-in, but was nonetheless mostly intact.  At the other end of the corridor, there was another room.  There was a door in the north wall, but it was also made of metal and was well-sealed.  Also in the room was a strange box that was attached to the wall.  There was a window in its front, but the only thing on the other side was some strange, glowing letters in an unknown language.  A strange slab made of an unknown material was in front of the box, and it had dozens of buttons that were labeled in the same unknown language.  Another lump of the material was lying on the slab, and it was attached to the box with some strange wire.  It was resting on a soft substance, and had a few unlabeled buttons. 

Tal and Tsine started to investigate the strange box and slab, but the rest decided to look at the door.  Galeron tried to open it, but it didn’t even have a doorknob or any hinges, so he had no idea where to start.  There were some funny knobs and holes in the door, but Fnipper’s attempt to lock pick them proved absolutely useless.  Finally, Robin sighed and said, “I’ve had enough of this.  Let’s just open the door down the old-fashioned way.”  He drew his sword and heaved it into the door with all his might.  However, he soon realized that wasn’t the best idea when the door countered his attack!  Robin, Fnipper, and Galeron were all overcome with pain by some unknown source, but Tebryn said he thought his sensitive ears picked up something, suggesting the source of the pain was a kind of high-pitched sonic wail.  All three of the victims weren’t seriously injured, but the pain of the blast left them all shaken and barely able to move, and Fnipper actually collapsed from the pain.  Weakly, Robin asked, “So, any luck on that box yet?”

Galeron went to examine the box as well.  Tal asked him, “I don’t suppose you have any magic that will let us translate the letters, do you?”  Galeron shook his head.

Tsine sighed, amused.  “It’s almost like still having Fenthrip around, isn’t it?”

By now, Fnipper managed to stumble back to his feet, and went over to investigate the machine himself.  He tapped into his ancient gnomish powers and started to randomly pressing buttons while moving the lump around.  His actions cause a map to appear, with strange writing inside each room.  Impressed with his success so far, he started pressing more buttons, and moving the lump, until he noticed that moving the lump moved a little light on the screen.  He eagerly tried pressing the lump’s buttons, and somehow caused more screens to appear.  Finally, after enough fiddling, he somehow got a strange picture of some metal insects to appear.  They looked huge!

“Um, Fnipper…”  Tal said, as he saw what he caused to appear.  “Maybe you should quit now.”

But Fnipper didn’t seem interested in stopping.  He moved the little light onto the bugs, and pressed a few more buttons, and suddenly, a few little lights appeared on the map.  They looked like they were moving towards a room at the bottom of the map, which looked suspiciously like the one the party was in…

“What did you do, Fnipper?” a terrified Tsine asked.  “You summoned those bug things here!”

Robin quickly took the lead by the door, with his sword out, and Tebryn and Galeron took offensive positions to the sides of him.  They tensed, and prepared to move as the door slowly slid open…

And a half dozen sheens the size of insects scurried out, and went immediately to the box and slab.  “Well, they looked big in the picture,” Tsine mumbled.

The sheens spent a few moments examining it, and then cleaned a few smudges of dirt that the party got on it.  The continued examining it for a few more minutes, and then they moved to the party.  The lead one gave a low-pitched, sinister buzz noise, and then they all left the room again, shutting the door behind them.  “I think we just got yelled at,” Robin said.

Tsine pondered this for a moment, and then responded, “I bet those things were supposed to fix the slab.  That’s why they spent so long looking at it and cleaning it.  They expected it to be broken!”

Fnipper chuckled.  “Well, this time, let’s cheer them up!” he yelled as he repeated his last few button presses, summoning the bugs again.  This time, however, he then immediately pulled out his sword and drove it into the window, then yanked the lump out of the slab entire.  He was still busy wrecking buttons when the door was about to open again.  This time, the bugs immediately went to work putting the strange device back together.  Fnipper looked on triumphantly and then dashed through the now open door.  “Quickly, before they finish, let’s go,” Fnipper yelled, and the rest of the party followed.
The party only got as far as the next hallway before running into a door to the north, and a second one to the west.  But there was an unusually large and elaborate glowing light on the wall.  Fnipper decided he was on a roll and gleefully tipped it over as well.  The insects came automatically this time, and they dashed through the north door as it opened.  They ended up in another hallway, with two closed doors on the west wall and an open one on the east.  The hallway continues to the north for a while, but it ends abruptly at a pile of metal and rubble.  The party went over to investigate.  "This must be where that cave-in that Lavaldur was talking about," Tal muttered.

"Can we force our way in?" Galeron asked.

Tsine, as always, looked worried.  "I don't think so.  If we do, it might cause even more cave-ins.  But maybe Fnipper can help us find a way to do it safely. Fnipper?"  But as he turned around, he, and everyone else, noticed that Fnipper was no longer there.

"I KNEW there was something we couldn't trust about him!" Tebryn growled.

Fnipper meanwhile, had gone through the door to the east before it closed again, his natural curiosity and the general momentum of the exploration driving him onward.  He ended up in a fancy room filled with wooden chairs, fancy paintings, and a large table.  There also was a small counter in one corner of the room, with a large metal depression built into it.  There were strange knobs and a lever of some sort, and a strange button next to those.  Fnipper fiddled with the knobs, and suddenly water poured out of the lever like magic!

After hiding under the table for a few minutes, he went over and tried the button, causing frozen water to appear out of the lever.  After a few more minutes of steeling himself up, he tried pulling the lever that was producing all the water, only for it to break in his hands!  He quickly went back to hide under the table as a puddle began to form on the floor, but soon more bugs came in from the east door to fix the broken lever, and he dashed through the door to find himself in yet another hallway.  He saw another door to the west north of his new position, and a branch in the hallway and two doors to the south.  However, he focused instead on a light at the north end of the hallway.  Breaking it caused more bugs to arrive from the northern door, and he dashed through to find a strange lab.  It looked like the place a wizard would use to brew potions.  He continued his smashing tactic by breaking a few of the weird devices in the room, and more bugs poured in from the west, even though the western door was already open.  He dashed through it to find himself back in the big table room, but the door he first went through was open as well.  

"Fnipper, what happened to..." Tal said, but Fnipper held up a hand to silence him.

"Quiet, I think I figured this thing out," he replied, and after seeing that the northwest door of this hallway was also open, he went through that, with the party hurrying behind him.  They went through one more barren and near empty room, and then found themselves in a damp, filthy room with a hole in the floor and a ladder leading down.

No matter how advanced this place was, Tal could figure out this area quickly enough.  "This is the sewer access," he said with disgust.  "Well, at least we could use the sewers to try bypassing the cave-in."  He sounded disappointed.  This was a fascinating place, and he wanted to explore it further.  But on the other hand, he couldn't fail his cousin, either.  Slowly, the party descended into the depths, and deeper into the strange complex.

OOC Notes:  The "habitation" puzzle is one of my favorites.  The idea was that there were three types of devices that could be broken, and the repair-bots came in three directions to fix it.  They were able to find a few shortcuts to get through it faster than I planned, but they also fiddled with the first computer longer than I expected.  It was funny trying to explain a computer's functions in a way that the characters would see them while the players tried not to metagame.

Ah, my first update in the new system.  Word is still working funny for me, but I can at least start it up in safe mode, which will have to do for now.  Now, hopefully we can get some a real dialogue going between updates.  Are there any questions or comments about the campaign so far that anyone has?


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## LordVyreth (Jun 22, 2004)

*The campaign's second-biggest portable hole mistake*

The sewer, while largely ruined from the passing of time and the damage done by the cave-in, still had one accessible tunnel.  While dingy, it was comparatively clean for a sewer, but the same couldn’t be said for the room at the end of the tunnel.

“Phew.  What IS that?” a disgusted Galeron asked as he looked at the massive room, which was filled with garbage to the point where the floor couldn’t be seen.

“I don’t know.  Maybe some more of those worker sheens were given some food preparation jobs, and they didn’t quit for centuries, even though the actual people to eat the food are long gone,” Tsine speculated, in between gagging breaths.

However, Fnipper, who was barely aware of the concept of bathing as a theoretical notion, merely shrugged.  What was the problem, really?

Obviously, no one wanted to actually walk through the crud, so everyone prepared magical means to get through it.  Fnipper used a ring that let him walk on the wall, while Tsine and Tal used magic to fly across.  This didn’t help Galeron, Tebryn or Robin out, though, but Tal had an idea.  “What if the three of you waited in my portable hole?  There’s enough air to last a long time, and it shouldn’t take more than a few moments to cross the room.”  Tebryn and Robin agreed, but Galeron decided that was too risky and decided to tough it out by walking across.  

Everything was fine, at least at first.  However, after Galeron waded halfway across the room, there was rumble below him.  Before anyone could react, three hideous creatures emerged from the filth.  Two looked like giant centipedes, with a number of strange tentacles growing out of their faces.  The third, however, was far worse.  It was a colossal purple worm, and was about the size of half of the room!

Tal reacted first.  Though the danger in front of him was great, he chose not to flee, and instead hurled a blast of sonic energy at the worm.  Fnipper also chose to help. He leapt into the garbage with a disturbed glee, and then crawled over to the first of the little centipede-creatures.  As he crawled, he activated his magic ring and began to blink in and out of reality.  Tsine managed to fly a little closer to the other side of the room, and then followed up with a bolt of lightning directed at the second centipede.  However, the little centipedes were quick to react, and while the first couldn’t get near the elusive Fnipper, the other was able to repeatedly slap Tsine with its tentacles.  The pain was minimal, but to Tsine’s horror, he felt himself slowly go numb.  He was terrified beyond belief as the monster dragged him into the garbage, but was helpless to resist.

The worm was even more effective.  Seeing an easy prey near its head, it almost casually lunged at Tal, who was nowhere near fast enough to dodge.  He began to struggle with the worm, as its dagger-length teeth began to dig into his flesh.  Meanwhile, Galeron managed to reach the end of the room, but could do little to help from here.  Suddenly, he had an idea, and began to cast a spell.

By the time he was finished, things were steadily getting worse.  Fnipper had managed to dispatch the first centipede, but the other was still gnawing into Tsine.  Even worse was the microscopic threat, however.  Though they were unaware of it at the time, a disease that had been festering and growing stronger for a millennium festered in the waste, and it managed to get into Tsine’s system through his numerous wounds.  But Tal had it even worse, as the Worm finished swallowing its prey!  Tal began to struggle to escape, as he was being crushed by the creature’s stomach lining and slowly dissolved by digestive acid.

Meanwhile, Robin came upon a brilliant play, and chose to draw three cards.  Tebryn dealt them to him, as they tried not to think about what’s going on outside.  “What do you think is taking so long?” Robin asked.

Tebryn thought about it the question for a minute.  “I don’t know, but I hope they didn’t forget about us.  There can’t be that much air in here.”

Galeron’s spell had summoned a celestial creature.  It was a lantern archon, the least of the holy beings, but Galeron knew it had powerful long-range weapons and a magical aura that struck fear into its enemies.  Sure enough, its appearance caused the worm to shrink back, and it began to fire at the second centipede as Galeron summoned another magical ally.  This one was a flying sword, which flew through the air guided by the divine might of his goddess.  Between his magic blade, his own sword, and the archon’s beams, the second centipede also soon fell.  

However, it was Fnipper who saved the day.  He saw the purple worm lunge towards him, and deftly leapt onto the creature’s head, while simultaneously bringing his blade down in a perfectly-placed blow.  He had managed to plunge his sword into the creature two more times before the worm could even turn around for a second attack.  Fnipper laughed as he saw his enemy come for him, and ran towards the wall.  He rebounded off of it just as the worm’s head passed under him, and he was leap straight at the top of the creature’s head.  The momentum of his leap plus the perfect timing of the attack was enough to catch the creature perfectly, and he was able to keep the blade in as the creature passed under him, nearly slicing the top of the creature in half!  It collapsed, and began to sink into the muck as Fnipper helped dig the near-dead Tal out of the belly.  Bedraggled, the heroes shambled out of the room, and decided to rest one last time before they finished their exploration.  After all, it doesn’t matter if they find Zuriden if they get killed rescuing him.


	Meanwhile, deep in the complex, Zuriden was waiting.  But he was neither trapped nor in any particular danger.  In fact, he found truths deep within the structure that made changed his mind completely about the nature of his city and the actions of those inside it.  He wanted to change everything, and he didn’t especially want to be disturbed while he did so.

	OOC Notes:  Okay, so I embellished Fnipper’s actions just a little, but not by much.  He did more or less single-handedly destroy that worm with a series of sneak attacks.  Galeron admittedly helped a lot with the penalties his archon gave the purple worm, but otherwise he might have saved the party from a TPK.  Especially when the worm essentially swallowed half the party in one gulp!

	This and the last two updates were all from one game, and it was a great one.  Two close combats, some great role-playing with the new players, and the fun of watching them figure out the habitation.  If I had to pick, I’d say this was possibly my favorite game of the campaign to date.

	Sorry about the short update, btw.  I lost all of yesterday to Father’s Day festivities, and with a Wednesday update so close, I didn’t want to go overboard for this one.  Expect the next one to finish up the ancient dungeon and start the next adventure.


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## LordVyreth (Jun 24, 2004)

*Confrontation in the Danger Room*

After a night’s rest, the party woke up, ready to finish their quest.  However, it soon became obvious that Tsine wasn’t feeling in perfect health.  He was chuckling madly to himself, and Galeron immediately put his training as a healer to work.  “He must have caught some sort of disease from that muck we all fell in yesterday.  I can fix it easily enough.”  He channeled the healing power of his goddess into Tsine, and immediately removed the physical effects of the disease.  Unknown to all of them, however, a more powerful, magical strain of the illness had infected him, and it grew ever-stronger despite Tsine showing no further symptoms.

The party continued exploring the sewer, but it only takes a few minutes before they reach the end of the last tunnel not blocked by rubble.  Fortunately, there was a ladder leading back to the surface of the base here, and they cautiously climbed it.  They found themselves in another hallway, which was blocked to the south by more rubble, but continued on to the north.  The party prepared to go north, but Fnipper stopped to examine the rubble first.  “Something isn’t right about this,” he said.  “I’ve seen natural cave-ins before, and this isn’t one.  It looks like it was deliberate.”

The party looked worried, but Tal looked devastated, since he knew that this meant that either Zuriden was attacked, or he purposely caused this.  He desperately asked, “Maybe it was just a result of the rubble collapsing into this place?  Some of the walls and ceilings are really strong.”

Fnipper looked at his friend and sighed.  “Maybe, Tal.  Maybe.”

The northern path continued on for another 100 feet, and ended at another door.  However, this one looked different, like it wasn’t built for security.  Fnipper offered to investigate, but Tebryn pushed him aside.  “No, I’ll handle this one.  I’m still annoyed that I couldn’t help more in the last fight.”  

Of course, Tebryn was far more interested in not letting Fnipper show him up again, but he obviously didn’t say that.  He neared the door, but before he could investigate it, it suddenly opened automatically!

Behind the door, there was a massive room.  It was at least fifty feet wide and just as long, and it was quite tall as well.  The top half of the entire western wall was made of glass or some other transparent substance.  But the floor was even stranger.  Most of it was metal and tiled in five foot squares, but the entire outer perimeter of the room and a line going through and across the middle were made of strange metal strips.  As soon as the door opened, the room changed further, as parts of the floor randomly began to electrify, and the metal strip parts of the floor began to move!

The room’s inhabitants looked just as dangerous.  Six little metal insects skittered about on the floor.  Three were made of a strange silvery metal, two were gold, and one looked like it was made of, or at least plated with, platinum.  But the worst of them all was a large vaguely bipedal insect that waited at the far end of the room.  It was brimming with sharp hook arms and metal rotary blades, and electricity crackled along its form.

Robin and Tsine were the first to react.  They fired at the giant sheen with arrows and a rain of ice, but both merely helped freeze the creature.  Fnipper then ran into the room, and began to attack the nearest of the silver robot bugs.  However, while he did destroy the first of the tiny robots, he suddenly found the surprisingly quick giant sheen looming over him.  Even with his agility, Fnipper couldn’t avoid the creature’s giant mandible-saw blade, and it gave him a brutal gash to the chest.  Galeron moved up to help Fnipper with some healing magic, but as soon as he finished, the conveyor belt moved him back towards the door.  Tebryn and Tal also remained in the hallway behind the door, and used their magic to further wound the sheen and the gold bugs.  Eager for vengeance, one of the silver horrors skittered up to attack Fnipper, while the other went after Galeron.  However, the gold and platinum bugs stood at the head of the hall, and began to shoot bolts of lightning at the party, who was neatly arranged to get caught by every single bolt!  

Suddenly, with a crash, Zuriden burst through the left window.  Tal was overjoyed to see his cousin, but before he could speak, Zuriden looked at the party, and shouted at the sheens in Draconic, “Destroy them all!  We can’t risk being discovered yet!”

Shocked at hearing his cousin’s words, Tal stopped paying attention to the rest of the fight.  “Zuriden, wait!  I am your cousin from Methosilang!  Stop this fighting, we can resolve this peacefully.

This gave Zuriden pause.  He looked troubled for a moment, but continued.  “No, I’m sorry, but this is too important to let family get in the way.  I won’t let these wonders get destroyed.”  However, he and Tal continued to talk, as Tal desperately tried to find a way to resolve the situation peacefully.

As they talked, the fight raged on, though Tal’s conversation with Zuriden mercifully kept the dragon out of the battle.  The giant sheen was eventually brought down by a combination of Tebryn and Tsine’s magic, but not before it could breathe a plasma line into the hallway.  This was enough to convince the rest of the party to take the fight into the room, even if it meant being moved constantly by the conveyor belt, and one wrong move causing electrocution.  A well-placed fireball by Tebryn later was enough to finish off all but one gold, one silver-ish, and the platinum bugs, and Galeron and Fnipper were able to destroy the first two easily enough.  

However, it was at this point that Zuriden noticed his allies were being destroyed.  “No, I won’t allow this!” he shouted, and exhaled a blast of concussive force right into the middle of the group.  This was enough to knock Tsine and Tebryn off their feet, and while they still breathed, they were steadily getting weaker.

Tal also realized that negotiations had broken down, and yelled to the group, “Take him alive!  We have to learn what’s going on!”  He fired a magical blast that struck the platinum bug, and the rest of the group surrounded the dragon.

Zuriden focused on his smallest, and he thought weakest threat.  However, even with all of his draconic might, he couldn’t land a single blow on the nimble gnome, especially since he had used his magical ring to blink in and out of reality constantly.  Robin and Galeron took their friend’s advice, and began to pummel the relatively young dragon with the flats of their blades.  Fnipper wasn’t so merciful, and let his dagger sink perfectly into the dragon’s back time and time again.  However, despite these massive wounds, Zuriden remained standing, but he bowed his head.  “I surrender.  I can’t fight you any longer like this.”

Tal led the interrogation.  “Why?  Why did you fake the cave-in, and go into hiding.”

Zuriden shook his head sadly.  “You must still be new here.  Since we first discovered these ancient treasures, Facetous and the others have been planning what to do with them.  We could use them to help defeat the dragons and regain our honor, but they would have none of that!  They think that these weapons would unbalance the power structure of the world!  In fact, if the empires were ever defeated, they planned on destroying the entire city to ensure it would never be discovered by anyone else!  You know that giant dragon statue in the middle of town?  Inside of the mouth, there is a MIDAS weapon, which we discovered in our explorations.  We don’t know how it works exactly, but apparently it can destroy everything within a few miles of it when used!  They plan on detonating it if the city is no longer needed or it if is sufficiently threatened.

“When I discovered this place, I realized it was the largest find we’ve ever had.  From here, I could have discovered other ruins, and program an army of sheens.  But I knew it would never happen if the elders explored this place first, so I tried to hide as much of it as possible while making them think I was dead.”

Tal sighed.  “Honestly, I think I agree with you, but this isn’t the way to do it.  And I’m afraid that we need to return you to your father if we ever want to leave.  

Zuriden nodded.  “I understand.  It’s too late for my plan now anyway.  But could you at least do something for me?”

“What?”

“Don’t tell the others what I have been doing here.  I couldn’t bear to hear their reactions, and I would be forbidden from ever exploring again.”

After some debate within the party, Tal replied.  “Agreed.  We hope you can find a way to convince your people to help us.  We need all the help we can get in our fight.”

OOC Notes:  Another fight where Fnipper shined, at least when Zuriden began to attack.  Otherwise, this was a very rough one for the party.  Getting bunched together in a hallway is a very bad idea when nearly the entire enemy party has breath weapons!  I purposely had Zuriden wait a few rounds before fighting to avoid a potential TPK.


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## LordVyreth (Jun 29, 2004)

*Tie*

The heroes returned with a sullen but cooperative Zuriden, and were welcomed upon their return.  Lavaldur in particular was overjoyed to see his son safe, and gladly paid the party the money he agreed to give them.  While Tal spent some time reminiscing with his relatives, Tsine went to visit Joddark and introduce him to Tebryn and Galeron, and then explain to them what they learned so far.  Meanwhile, Fnipper and Robin went to retrieve their friends Fenthrip and Dane, so they can meet with Facetous and hopefully get permission to leave the city.  Surprisingly, Fenthrip was still bedridden.  “They said I’ll be okay pretty soon, but I can’t even stand up without getting sick.  If it’s okay with you, I think I’ll just wait here until you’re ready to leave.”

	Dane, however, had an even stranger tale to tell.  “It was amazing.  While I was unconscious, I had a strange vision.  I imagined myself flying on glittering red wings, and sharing my mind with the collective wisdom of millennia.  I always thought Tal was little freaky, but I finally understand what he’s been doing to himself.  If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to spend some time here, to try to understand what I must do.”

	Robin looked shocked.  “But why not come with us and learn as we adventure, like Tal?  We need your help to defeat Bas.”

	Dane shook his head.  “I’ll be there for the final battle, don’t worry.  But I need to take some time and plan for my future first.”

	And so Robin and Fnipper left, alone.  As they left, Robin was devastated at losing another friend, even if it was peacefully and hopefully not permanent.  But Fnipper was more thoughtful than anything.  Didn’t Tal once mention a half-dragon with glittering red scales?

	The party regrouped and went to meet with Facetous.  He looked at them proudly.  “I have heard of your heroism and bravery, and I believe you to be worthy heroes.  Very well.  Since Joddark’s “friend” insists that you will be of utmost importance back at your home.  I will allow you to leave.  But there is once condition.”  He leaned very close to the group.  “I want you all to swear an oath to whatever goddess you worship that you will never, EVER speak of this place to outsiders.  Do you hear me?”

	They all nodded their assent, but Tal, who had been talking to Fnipper on his way here, had a question.  “Actually, there is one person I met you might be interested in.  He was a half-dragon, with ruby red scales.”

	This gave even Facetous pause.  “What?  How is that possible?  My son died over a thousand years ago.”

	“Yes, but this man claimed that he died when falling onto some ancient bones, and became a half-dragon when he was raised.  Maybe these bones are tied to your son?”

	Facetous thought for a long time, before finally saying, “Very well.  If you see this man, you may send him here.  But make sure no one else hears you, and only tell him as much as he must here.  Now, if that is all, you should leave as soon as you can.”

	However, Tal, being ever inquisitive, felt a strong urge to ask one more question.  “Is there nothing else on this continent?  Just this city and a few primitive tribes?”

	Facetous nodded.  “Essentially, yes.  Well, and the blue man…”

	“The blue man?”

	“Yes, he’s a strange man that lives at the base of a nearby mountain.  He looks like a normal human, except for a slightly blue-tinted hue to his skin, and he wears only simple clothing, but doesn’t look like he is suffering from the cold at all.  He says that he is guarding someone called ‘TIE,’ who the man claims is his master.  However, when some of my followers see him, he always says that this master is not available at the moment, and to come back later.  He doesn’t even respond to threats, and any amount of force just makes him vanish, only to return an hour or so later.”

	At the words “TIE,” a powerful headache built up in Tal, Tsine, Galeron, and Robin’s heads.  Tsine suddenly remembered that the word TIE was also used in the writings of Wee Jas, back in Delaspie’s library’s hidden passages.  He also realized that…

	“We must go meet this man,” Galeron suddenly said, finishing Tsine’s thought.  This came as a surprise to all of them, including Galeron, who hadn’t heard the full story of Delaspie yet.

	But the other three nodded immediately.  This, like perhaps Delaspie itself, is a clue to their shared memory and the nature of Lady Memory.  Tebryn looked around confused, and Fnipper shrugged.  “This isn’t the first time they’ve done this, but it was profitable this time, so I’m inclined to go along with it.”  

	Tebryn sighed and mentally resigned himself to going with.  After all, he had nowhere else to go, but this was already very aggravating to him.  He felt like a mere spectator to this strange puzzle.  Well, maybe this TIE, whoever it was, could give him some answers as well.

	The party left the next day, minus Dane and Fenthrip, and began a three-day trek through the mountains.  However, before they left, Galeron had a request for Tsine.  “I’m starting to worry about my friend and trusted cohort, Thorrun.  He is a worshipper of Bha-Ael, like myself, and I believe he could be a boon to our group.”  

	Tsine agreed, and they were gone and back again in a matter of minutes.  Now, they were accompanied by a short but stout dwarf, who wore the same priestly garments and symbols of Galeron.  After a brief introduction, he was ready to join the group on their journey.

	The next three days were harrowing, but except for the general danger of the mountain journey, it was fairly safe.  The only exception were a pair of brief fights, once against bulky humanoids made of ice, and the second time against dragons again made of ice.  But they were both very easy foes, and were dispatched in a matter of moments.  But Tsine was nervous.  It was as if something was testing them…


	Meanwhile, another story began over a thousand years ago.  In a noble and heroic kingdom that once was at this exact same spot long ago before the dark moons, Grockith lived.  He was a hero of the time, and himself was a half-dragon.  He was a holy knight for his god, a paladine (as it was spelled at the time,) of the highest order, and struck fear in the hearts of his enemies with a rhinoceros steed.  However, shortly after the problems began as the two evil beings rose to power, he decided to go on a quest to learn how to stop them.  He soon found himself speaking to a plain-looking man, much like the one the party was going to meet, and who told him that TIE would meet with him, but soon, and that he could wait here until it was time.  He then waited a little while, until he was instructed that it was time to pass the first test now that he had some new allies that could help him actually succeed.  He was teleported out to begin the test, unaware that TIE was having a little fun with him, and that he had been waiting for over a thousand years!  Though he had some idea when he noticed how cold and dark it was.


	Meanwhile, the party had reached the mountain, where the blue-hued man was waiting for him.  He looked them over, and spoke to them, “My master is in fact ready to speak to you.  However, before you can meet TIE,” which caused everyone to suffer more headaches, “You must pass a number of tests.  The first one is simple: you must defeat me.  Do not worry, I have been instructed not to threaten your lives, though some of the later tests will be dangerous.  Also, before we begin, you must meet one last ally, who has been waiting here for a long time to receive the help he needed to pass the tests himself.”

	With that, Grockith and his mount appeared out of thin air, and after some initial confusion, both groups realized the other was here to help.  With that, the test began!  

	Robin started with a volley of arrows, but the man was far more dexterous than he appeared, and his skin was like iron.  Thorrun began to prepare defensive magic, while Tsine and Tal hurled more offensive spells at him.  However, before the fight started, Tsine noticed that the man’s skin turned from blue to red, and realized that this might mean he developed a resistance to fire.  He switched over to his less powerful lightning magic, which nonetheless had a powerful effect.  Strangely, though, the man didn’t bleed when injured.  Instead, where he was wounded, his body began to turn blurry and indistinct.

	The more combat-related members of the party didn’t have the time to worry about such things, however, and Fnipper, Grockith, and Galeron charged the man.  However, only Grockith and Fnipper could even reach him before he disappeared.  Fnipper noticed before the man vanished that even though he was able to stab the strange creature, he didn’t find any actual organs inside!

	The party wandered around confused for a moment, before a red ball suddenly landed among them, and exploded in a blast of incredibly painful fire, which somehow left no serious injuries on any of them!  The guardian was standing on the mountain, and it looked like he was invisible!  Tal quickly sent his familiar, a pseudodragon named Violet known for her ability to see invisible creatures, up to find him, and then saw through her eyes to continue firing at him.  He was rewarded by another blast of subduing flames, and then a volley of energy missiles which had an equally painful effect.  Oddly, he saw through Violet’s eyes that the man was creating these effects out of strange metal tubes that emerged out of nowhere from his body!

	By now, Thorrun finished a spell that let some of the party see invisible creatures, and Robin joined in the distance attack with his bow, while Tebryn tried to dispel the magical effects on his foe.  Surprisingly, nothing happened, as if all the strange powers the man had weren’t even magical!  They were in for another surprise when the man realized this attack was failing, and teleported in front of Grockith.  Instantly, he set upon the surprised warrior with a pair of blades, and attacked the poor paladine a half/dozen times in a matter of moments.  Before he even knew what was happening, the unfortunate warrior was reduced from perfect health to being barely able to stand!  Fortunately, the attacks once again were painful and disorientating, but not deadly.  

	Now that he was again among the party, the strange man was soon set upon by a half-dozen trained warriors.  Between the party’s many spells and attacks, he soon was defeated, but even this was a strange effect.  He didn’t so much die as completely disintegrate.  Fnipper thought he saw a strange shimmer where the man once stood, but before he could warn the others, the shimmer was gone.  No sooner did the man “die,” than the path opened for the party.  In fact, the entire mountain rumbled as it partially split open, leaving a dark tunnel!  Cautiously, the party entered, ready for their next test.

	OOC Notes:  Lots of stuff for this update.  Grockith is a new player, though a short-lived one.  He was mostly there to replace Dane’s player, who had to leave the group for time reasons.  And yes, he did pronounce it “paladine,” and we never really learned why.  We soon learned that wasn’t the only odd variant he brought to paladins, either.

	TIE is a major figure in both this campaign and my other ideas.  It also was the cause of one of the major running jokes of the campaign.  Whenever the name was used from this point on, at least one person would hold his or her head in mock pain, much like the characters suffered the first few times they heard the name in this game.

	The guardian was actually a NAHULI, a creature of my own creation.  Essentially, it’s a person made of a swarm of advanced nanomachines, which let him change his body into almost any shape, letting him changes his abilities and defenses on a round by round basis.  It was a pretty good fight, despite the non-lethal nature of it.


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## LordVyreth (Jul 1, 2004)

*The ol' Switcheroo*

Tal sighed.  “Okay, let’s try this again…”

	He had been trying to explain where they were to Grockith, but he doesn’t seem to be getting it.  At the end of the tunnel, there was nothing but a well-furnished room, with a wooden motif that seemed totally out of place with the mountain they were supposedly inside.  Tsine, Thorrun, Tebryn, and Galeron were investigating the books of a nearby bookshelf, Robin was napping, and Fnipper was repeatedly stealing some of the many art decorations of the room, running back down the tunnel, and returning disappointed after all the decorations somehow teleported back into the room.  This let Tal with the unfortunate task of explaining things to Grockith.  Tal had figured out that he was from an earlier time fairly quickly after Grockith explained how he got here, but Grockith was clearly having trouble with the issue.

	“I’m afraid Tal is telling the truth, Grockith.  You have been waiting here for over a thousands years, I’m afraid,” a mysterious voice said from the middle of the room.  Everyone turned as one, and saw the guardian standing there.  His skin was now a normal hue, and he didn’t look like he had a scratch on him.

	“But how?  It barely felt like a few days.”

	“Merely the master’s powers at work.”

	Grockith finally looked like caught up, but the shock of it had hit him suddenly.  “But that means everyone I know is dead!  My friends, my family, the very kingdom I came here to save!  Why would you do this to me?”

	The guardian continued to show no emotion, and simply responded, “You did agree to wait a while for a chance to speak to the master.”

	“A thousand years is a while?”

	“It’s barely an eye blink to my master, I assure you.  Now, maybe you can get some help from my master about this, but you must speak to him first.  And to do that, you must finish the test.”

	“How are we supposed to do that?” Tebryn, who also wanted some answers about why he was stuck on this plane, asked.

	“Why, use that door,” the guardian replied, and pointed at a door that wasn’t there a few seconds ago.  “You may rest here as long as you like first, but as soon as you pass through the door, the test will begin immediately.

	After taking a night to recover from the injuries and spells lost in the battle with the guardian, the party prepared to cautiously go through the door, with Fnipper and Grockith taking the lead; Fnipper for his scouting ability, and Grockith because he really wanted to kill something at this point to a degree that paladins really shouldn’t want to kill something.

	The room they entered looked like the interior of a castle.  In fact, it looked like a bedroom, but the décor suggested the owner wasn’t the most pleasant person.  The entire area was very dark, with only a few candles lighting the entire room.  There was an unlit fireplace, black curtains on the walls, blood red carpeting and most ominously, a wooden coffin where the bed should be.  Fnipper and Grockith were coming to the obvious conclusion about the room’s owner when Tebryn pushed his way in after getting impatient.  

	“A vampire, eh,” Tebryn comments, having grasped the situation almost instantly.  “Okay, Fnipper, you get ready to attack.  Grockith, you move to the side and prepare to charge with your…mount, and I’ll ambush him with a fireball.  If he survives the fireball, you two attack, okay?”

	The other two nodded, and took their positions.  Both tensed as Tebryn tossed a fireball, destroying was apparently a very empty coffin.  Suddenly, Grockith was pelted by arrows from the real enemy, who had been hiding behind the curtain.  However, despite being totally unaware of the attack, his thick armor and hide blocked all the arrows.  The three warriors whirled around to face their new foe…

	And realized too late that it was a medusa.  Tebryn, who was waiting by the door, was out of range of her potent attacks, and Grockith was able to resist the power of her gaze, but Fnipper wasn’t so lucky.  He barely had time to utter a few choice gnomish curse words before turning into a statue!

	Realizing what this enemy is capable of, Tebryn summoned a sphere of darkness around him, which proved problematic when the rest of the group arrived moments later.  Galeron, Tal, Tsine, and Robin prepared to leave the sphere as carefully as possible, but Thorrun was still stuck in the sphere when everyone left, and because the rest of the group was busy fighting, he spent the entire fight wandering in circles in the dark!

	However, it wasn’t a very hard fight at this point, now that everyone knew what their enemy was.  The entire group quickly scattered while trying to avoid both the darkness and her devastating gaze, and attacked her en masse with missile weapons and magic.  She was clearly trained at defensive maneuvers, for she easily and completely dodged Tebryn’s fireballs and Tsine’s lightning bolts, but the volley of arrows and Tal’s magic missiles finished her off quickly enough anyway.  

	As soon as she was defeated, a doorway appeared in the far wall.  But before the party went through it, they of course had to deal with Fnipper.  “Can’t you do anything?” Tal pleaded with Galeron.

	“Nothing orthodox.  I’m not prepared to handle the incredible divine energies needed to restore a petrified being back into the flesh.  But perhaps I can cure him with a more all-purpose spell?  I have one that can break any enchantment placed upon a being, but it will be difficult.”

	Nonetheless, he tried his best, but failed.  Fortunately, Thorrun also knew that spell, and he was able to restore the now very confused gnome back to his true form.  The elated party traveled through the second door, and this time everyone went through more or less as once.

	Surprisingly, the area beyond the doorway had nothing to do with the earlier location.  They appeared to be in a sunny hillside garden, covered with beautiful trees, stone artwork, and a giant reflecting pool at the other side of the forest.  The only suspicious object they saw was a strange pile of dust located near where they entered from.  As soon as they entered, the pool began to ripple, and then turned into a portal.  

	This was puzzling.  Had they finished this test already?  Suspicious, Fnipper took point, and carefully began to cross the garden, this time ready for any enemy that might appear.  However, once the rest of the party began to follow, they were suddenly stopped by a strange force that clearly wasn’t there when Fnipper crossed.  They began to feel around the wall, and found it had enclosed them on all four sides!  Even worse, as soon as they realized this, Fnipper and the rest of the party were simultaneously attacked!  Fnipper was caught at point-blank by a force of overwhelming goodness, manifested in one simple word!  The rather amoral Fnipper was unprepared for it, and began to stagger around, blinded and deafened by the experience.  Despite this, he still knew which direction the portal was, and broke into a run for it.  The rest of the party, meanwhile, was struck by a cone or prismatic energy!  Robin was almost electrocuted by the cone, and Tebryn was almost teleported to another plane, but the rest of the party was lucky enough to get through with only minor burns or corrosive wounds.  

They realized they had to get out of there quickly, but no sooner did they begin to make plans, then yet another magical attack got them!  This time, it was a pair of strange lions, which seemed to glow with a holy energy.  Finally fed up, Robin, Tebryn, Tsine, and Tal used magic or their natural climbing and jumping abilities to scale the wall, while Galeron, Thorrun, and Grockith made short work of the lions.  Another trio of lions appeared on the other side and tried to attack Fnipper, but he didn’t even seem to notice, which was just as well as the lions’ attacks went right through them.  They were obviously illusions, but Fnipper’s current condition ironically made him unable to even recognize the threat!

Finally, he managed to reach the pool, though even that was well-guarded.  A nearby tree fired a lightning beam at him, which he expertly evaded despite his total inability to even see it.  Robin, Tebryn, Tsine, and Tal weren’t so lucky, as parts of the lightning curved around and hit them!  Fnipper didn’t seem to notice or care, and continued his run.  As he neared the pool, he evaded a giant saw blade that also appeared out of nowhere, and again despite having any way to know it was there beyond a few vibrations in the air and his own finely-honed danger sense.  He narrowly dodged a beam of life-draining light as he dove into the pool, safe.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group wasn’t doing so well.  The group trapped inside the walls didn’t have any more threats, but they still had to get out of the box, which took the strength and general height of Grockith and his rhino to easily perform.  Meanwhile, the illusionary lions vanished almost as quickly as they appeared, but they were replaced with a strange man whose lower body was made of nothing but clouds.  He saw the party, and immediately transformed into a whirlwind before attacking them!  This caught the unfortunate Tebryn, but as he struggled to escape, the rest of the party fired on the living whirlwind until it safely dissipated, and the group was able to collectively escape.  Well, they were able to escape a few minutes later, once the saw blade over the pool finally vanished.

OOC Notes: Ah, I love magical traps.  The party was convinced that they were under attack by invisible enemies.  But that happens next game…

It was a mixed game for Fnipper.  On one hand, he was blinded, deafened, and turned to stone in one day.  On the other, he was perfectly dodging traps while totally unaware of their presence, which has to count for something.

Oh, did you figure out how the challenges in this thing are set up yet?  Here’s a hint: think about the dust pile in the garden.


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## LordVyreth (Jul 4, 2004)

*Campaign in Crisis!*

Okay, I just came back from a game, and we're in a serious jam.  Two of my oldest players will be moving out within a month or so, and taking a number of other players with them via links, car rides, and such.  This will essentially mean the end of the campaign unless we move it to online, which all of us are eager to do, since none of us want such a long campaign to come to such a sudden and depressing end.  However, most of us don't have much experience with this sort of thing, so we need some help to get this off the ground.  I'll continue my updates for now, but to be honest, if we can't figure out a way to make this work and the campaign ends, I don't know if I could handle further updating the campaign when I know it will have no real ending.  So, if you are a fan and want this Story Hour to continue, or just generally want to give me some advice, I appreciate any comments you can add to my advice board in the main page, found here.


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## LordVyreth (Jul 6, 2004)

*Fiendish Interlude*

Exhausted, the party stumbled into the next area, to find a shivering Fnipper waiting for them.  He had long since recovered his sight and hearing, since he was stuck waiting for them for a few minutes.  “So, did you figure out where we are now?” Tal asked.

Fnipper shrugged.  “I think we’re inside a small cave on the outside of the mountain again.”

“The same one we started from?”

“It looks that way to me, but I barely went to the edge of the cave so far.”

“Well, do you want to check it out for us again?”

Fnipper looked at Tal like he was crazy.  “After the last two times I did that here?  I’ll pass.”

Grockith sighed and got back on his rhino mount.  “Fine, I’ll do it then, but you come right behind me.  Forward!”  

Grockith and his “steed” bounded forward, and ended up on a mountain path just outside of the cave.  He carefully ascended it, and ended up on a much larger ledge about fifty feet up.  The rest of the party followed, while using healing magic to recover from the damage they took in the last room.  Eventually, the whole group made it to ledge, only to find that the path ended there.  As they were planning their next move, the entire ledge suddenly lit up, and Fnipper noticed that there was something slowly winging its way towards the party.  Quickly, the party took up defensive positions, and prepared whatever was coming there way.  As it got closer, they saw that it was a strange monster with the upper body of a dwarf and the lower body of a giant bat.  It neared the party, and announced to them, “Nothing personal, but I have to kill you.”   It dawned on Tal, Tsine, and Robin that this was the same thing the orc and dragons that attacked them earlier had said.  Before they could respond, however, they were suddenly attacked by more enemies that appeared out of no where!

There was a small humanoid with red claws, a winged monster that was wreathed in flames, and a bulky winged humanoid with a red, glowing third eye.  Fnipper’s sharp senses noticed that there was a fourth being in the middle of the other three, but it was invisible and it left again almost immediately.  

The party quickly split up to deal with this new threat.  Grockith, Galeron, and Thorrun charged towards the little one, which was the closest of the three, while Robin backed into a corner and started firing at the three-eyed one, and Fnipper tumbled into combat with the flaming monster.  This left Tal and Tsine to deal with the initial threat, who was getting ever-closer.  Tal and Tsine pummeled him with magic, but it wasn’t enough to slow him down.  Tal then made the mistake of sending Violet out to attack, since he didn’t own her long enough to know what her real level of strength was.  The creature managed to hit, but her poison didn’t even slow the powerful warrior down, and instead it gave the dwarf-bat an easy target.  Without even slowing down much, he attacking the unlucky dragon with his axe, causing the dying creature to plummet to the ground far below them!  Lucky for her and Tal, she landed in on a smaller ledge just below one the party was fighting on, and didn’t plummet down the entire mountain to certain doom.  

While Tal scrambled to help his endangered companion, the fight raged on.  Fnipper easily defeated the fiery monster, since he was too agile a target for the slow-moving monster, and though the creature’s flames licked at Fnipper every time he got close, the agile gnome evaded them every time.

Surprisingly, the smaller demon proved to be one of the greatest threats.  Grockith, who reached the monster first, certainly had no trouble hitting it, but every time he it, it released a wave of negative energy which slowly sucked the life out of Grockith, Robin, Galeron, and all the rest of his companions that were nearby.  Grockith has had years of training as a warrior and easily shrugged off the wounds, but some of the others weren’t as tough, and pleaded with him to stop attacking the creature.  Grockith considered this, until he noticed the creature was slowly recovering from the wounds it just received.  “We’ll have to kill it eventually,” he thought.  “If I don’t do it now, all the damage we took already would be wasted.”  So thinking, he continued to attack the monster, killing it, but it died laughing as Grockith and almost all of his friends winced in pain.

Robin wasn’t having an easy time of it, either.  Besides the damage he was slowly taking from the small creature’s negative waves, he was cornered by the large monster.  Even worse, there was something very strange about the creature’s third eye.  Robin tried to avoid looking into it, but as the fight wore one, he soon found himself staring right into it.  As he looked at it, he could feel the creature peering right into his very soul, and pulling his life force right out of him…

Suddenly, the nightmare ended, as Fnipper plunged his sword right into the creature’s back and out his chest.  All three of his eyes glazed over, leaving Robin drained but alive.  However he would need magic before he recovered completely, and those eyes would haunt him in his nightmares for months.

With the rest of the party victorious, the dwarf-bat monster was an easy target.  He had been mostly harassing the party’s spell-casters up to this point, but wasn’t able to get close to them and stay close enough to really tear into them.  But now Grockith and Fnipper were bearing down on him, and eager to take out their anger on something that didn’t hurt them back whenever it got stabbed.  The creature soon died, and plummeted down the mountain to the ground below.  Luckily, Violet was still breathing at this point, and Galeron was able to stop the bleeding and bring her back to consciousness.  

“What was that all about?” a confused Fnipper asked.

Tal grimaced.  “Well, I think that whoever sent that bat-thing after us also sent a pair of dragons at us earlier.  I think he’s either hiring mercenaries or forcing them to attack us.”

“And those reinforcement of his were demons, albeit some more obscure variants,” Tsine said, now that he could look back on his old school research with a clear head.  

“I bet this is more of Bas’ doing,” Tal grumbled.  “She’s worked with all kinds of evil outsiders before.”

“But we can’t do anything about it for now,” Robin admitted.  “Hey, maybe we could ask Shekuldellstra when we get back!”

“But where can we go from here?” Grockith asked, before suddenly noticing that another cave opened up at the end of the back.  “So, we’re still being tested,” he grumbled.

The party took a few moments to heal their wounds, and prepared for the next challenge.  

OOC Notes:  I got the Monster Manual 2 right around now, like you couldn’t tell.  Hence the use of the Tauric template, and the new demon types.  Jovocs are so much fun to use!  

Sorry for the small update, but it’s been a hectic weekend what with the Fourth of July and all.  Plus, after the events that I mentioned last time, you can imagine I’m not in the most enthused mood about this update anyway.


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## LordVyreth (Jul 9, 2004)

*Final Excerpts.*

Wow, I finally hit a thousand views!  Thanks for everyone who has been following the story so far!  Unfortunately, this has been a very busy week for me.  Today's my birthday, so I've been visiting family and such, which has been taking up my nights.  Expect a double-length update this Sunday, but for now, I'll just post the final three excerpts, from the goddess of art, love, and children respectively.  Sadly, the last excerpt worked better with a different font, to represent that it was, well, written in crayon.  Again, goddess of children!

edit: Well, the Book of Tepedin had to be altered, too.  It originally was designed with a more visual style, but the formating wasn't working right, so I had to change it.  Eh well, at least the story came across.

The Long Flight
(Excerpt from the Book of Tepedin)

So away we fled to new lands, to make a new home, where we could live in peace.  But the road was long, and the journey took us over mountains and through twisting caverns.

As we journeyed, many of us fell to the elements, to disease or monsters, or to the fires of war.  Once, we tried to reestablish Methosilang, but it was again discovered, forcing us to flee again after less than 100 years.  Our hope was fading, and our people seemed lost….

The Final Home
(Excerpt from the Book of Jolia)

	And so, it appeared that the seeds of immorality and sin which destroyed our world had almost completely destroyed us.  Little hope remained for our careless minions, whose selfish desires so often overrode both genetic and environmental views of love and sacrifice.  Even now, instead of turning to compassion and understanding of each other for strength, they relied on an ancient myth.  According to the first rulers of the kingdom, their land was eternally guaranteed to exist.  We realized that even if that was true, the prophecy only stated that the kingdom would have eternal peace, which could best be achieved if the kingdom was dead, but they still clung to the empty hope.  

In the end, however, they were able to break their addictions to self-absorption and control issues.  Apparently, having their kingdom destroyed twice and years of exile and wandering was just the kind of “tough love” that they needed.  At last, they found a new place to live: a large mountain, that would make the perfect home if hollowed out.  Decades of labor and cooperation was needed to make this dream a reality, but at last, they finished building their new home.  And so it is, and so it shall remain, as long as they resist the temptation to slide back into sinful and hedonistic ways.

The End
(Excerpt from the Book of Tsykie.  Despite the tense of the this script, it actually is intended to be a prophecy of things to come)

	And we made the new home, and we all shared and were nice to each other, so when the bad guys tried to hurt us again, we all beat them up, and the bad guys all ran away crying, and we all cheered, and broke the dark balls, and fixed up the land.  And we all lived in joy and peace forever and ever.  The end.


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## LordVyreth (Jul 12, 2004)

*TIE, the Final Tests*

The next area appeared to be a natural cavern, but one without any apparent exits or entrances.  It looked a little unstable, but there were nearly a half-dozen stone pillars that were holding up the ceiling.  However, after looking at them for half a second, it was obvious that the base of each pillar was composed of a statue of various beings.  The statues were frighteningly realistic, which was especially unnerving considering the medusa the party had fought earlier!

	But there were bigger concerns at the moment.  A sixth pillar apparently stood near the middle of the cavern, but it was toppled over, and was being held up by an apparently living giant.  Seeing a potential enemy, the party drew their weapons, but the giant only laughed at them. 

	Confused, Tal asked, “What are you doing?”

	The giant replied, “Well, what does it look like? I’m trying to keep the ceiling from crushing me!  Heh, not that it matters anymore.”

	“What do you mean?  How did you even get here?”

	“Well, I’m one of TIE’s servants.  When he first recruited us, he gave each of us a habitat of our choosing.  However, when the test began, he tried to make the challenges less predictable by teleporting each of us to another habitat.  I got stuck in the medusa’s room, and the ceiling was too low.  I accidentally knocked the main pillar out of place, and I’ve been trying to hold it up ever since.”

	Fnipper shrugged.  “Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to kill you and pass this test, should it?”

	However, after hearing this, she only laughed again.  “Sure, if you all want to be crushed along with me.  As TIE’s servant, I’ll be restored to life.  But I doubt he’ll extend the same benefit to you.”

	Realizing they had a dilemma, the party decided to explore the cavern a little more, and hope they could find a way of defeating their opponent and thus passing the test without being instantly killed in the process.  Eventually, Robin found the medusa’s personal equipment, including a larger number of sashes in many different colors, and a few pages of her journal.  Unfortunately, it was largely destroyed in the initial cave-in caused when the giantess toppled the pillar, and the few pages remaining were out of order.  The journal pages read as follows:

…It appears that the central pillar in my room is weakening.  My master has agreed to help me support it, by indicating where a stone column should go next to ease the stress on the main column whenever it looks a little weak.  I decided that I could finally start a new collection of interesting figures this way, by using the subjects as part of the columns.  However, he warned that if they were set up or brought down in the wrong order, it could shift the balance of the ceiling a lot, and it could bring the whole place down.  I can only set them up in the right sequence to safely support the main pillar, and if I ever changed my mind about a subject, I’d have to first remove all the ones that I set up after that subject in reverse order to prevent a cave-in!  I guess I just have to be really certain about each subject before incorporating it into a pillar…

…In retrospect, I’m glad the sashes got arranged the way they did.  I prefer my male figures to have a little more color, and the gray one was too plain.  Not that is matters anymore…

…I was a little worried when I added the Yak-man to the collection.  After all, I had added the ogre mage to the other supports already, and two horned humanoids might clash.  Still, I suppose beggars can’t be choosers…

…What a great birthday!  I was able to add a third statue to my collection today.  Even better, I was able to force a sash of my choosing on my subject first.  I decided to celebrate by having the sash match my eyes…

…I always liked the color purple, so I’m glad I was able to get one on one of my subjects.  None of the statues that I could have brought in from home had one, but at least one of the recent gifts from my master could have one…

…I think the red sash was a good choice.  It suited his horns and brown fur well.  Too bad no one but me will ever appreciate it, but such is the curse of the artist, I guess…

…This was an amazing way to finish my collection!  This again proves that the aura of beauty, no matter how great, is no match for the aura of power I possess.  I wasn’t able to force a sash on her before the fight, but luckily she picked up a sash in the only color I didn’t use yet before the fight started.  I guess she chose it because it matched her eyes.  They were a pretty color, I guess, if a little to close to a typical human’s for my taste.  Of course, they’re forever brown now…

…My master was nice enough to summon the statue for my first support column from my old collection, though he warned that after this, I’ll have to take what I can get.  I know exactly which one I’ll ask him to bring.   After all, she was one of my finest pieces, and so hard-won as well…

	Using this information, the party looked at the five statues, which consisted of a female warrior woman, a small dragon, a monstrous horned woman, a furry horned man, and a beautiful woman who looked very angry.  Using the journal entries, and the party’s knowledge that the dragon was a male (based on Tal’s experience with dragons,) and that the medusa had gray eyes (a fact that Fnipper will never forget,) the party was able to defeat the giant by slowly forcing the weight of the entire ceiling on her already-taxed muscles.  She soon was crushed by the strain, but her body was still able to hold up the ceiling long enough for the portal to the next area to open, which the party dove through at high speed.

(By the way, the details were sparse in this area so you could try to solve the puzzle yourself.  The answer is in the OOC Notes at the end.)

	The party ended up in a forest, but the trees were gigantic.  The smallest were comparable to redwoods.  “I’m guessing that this was where that giant came from,” Tsine commented.  

	Suddenly, Fnipper turned and said, “Shhh!”  He sensed that there was someone else here, but it couldn’t be seen.  His instincts were almost immediately rewarded.

	“Greeting adventurers,” a voice out of nowhere said.  “I am Mintran-Thrain, and I currently serve the being you call TIE in exchange for my life, which he rescued from certain death many years ago.  I have no personal quarrel with you, but I must fight to test your strength.  En guarde!”

	Fortunately, the party was mostly able to react faster.  Tal saw through his familiar’s eyes to see their foe, which looked at the moment like a brilliant and powerful elf.  He pointed out the creature’s location to the rest of the party, and then fired at the creature with his magic.  His effect vanished near the creature, but Robin, Grockith, Galeron, and Fnipper used his directions to charge at the creature.  However, with the exception of Fnipper’s, who was protected by his own anti-magic resistance, all of them were stopped short when they came near him.  Tsine noticed that this was similar to a spell he heard about, that creates a shell which prevented any living thing to come close.  Fnipper got a decent hit off when he did get close, however.  Realizing this small one might be a threat, Mintran flew about ten or fifteen feet away, and created a wall of force between him and his enemies, so he could pick them off at his leisure.  This tactic easily blocked Tsine’s latest spell, but Thorrun had more luck with his spell, which stripped all invisibility effects in the area.  

	Now that they could see their enemy, the party could attack more effectively.  Of course, they had to first deal with the wall, so everyone tried to climb, jump, or fly over the wall, or just try running around it.  Robin, Grockith, and Fnipper managed to get to the other side, while Tebryn, Tsine, and Tal used magic to fly over it.  Galeron and Thorrun were having more trouble, however.  The party’s fighters soon were punished for their enthusiasm, however, for the now-visible Mintran fired a prismatic spray of colors at the three of them!  No one suffered any permanent injuries, but Robin was almost killed by a massive bolt of electricity, and Grockith was injured almost as badly by acid.  However, they were prepared for the fight now.  Tal and Tebryn’s magic failed again, but Robin was able to hit him repeatedly with arrows, Grockith wounded him slightly with his breath weapon, and Fnipper got another hit in as well.  

A panicked Mintran used magic to heal all of his injuries, but Tsine was able to dispel his anti-life shell, and Grockith was able to finally get close to his enemy.  He and his rhino devastated their foe, and the rest of the party was able to finish him off easily.  Mintran dissolved into sparkling dust, and one of the tree trunks opened up, revealing a path.

They found themselves back on the mountain where this mess started, but they were much farther up it now.  They were on a ledge, and a giant gate carved out of the mountain itself stood in front of them.  It opened automatically moments after the party arrived, and with some apprehension, the party went through it.  They found themselves in a long corridor filled with luxurious items and artwork.  At the end, there was another opening, which led to a gigantic bedroom.  Inside, there was large dragon with dark gray scales sleeping on a large bed.  It was apparently oblivious to the party, when they entered the room, it suddenly spoke.  “Well, it’s about time.”

Tal nodded.  “TIE, I presume.”

“Yup!  You finally passed all the tests needed to speak to me.  Congrats!”

Galeron, however, looked troubled.  “What about the creatures we killed to get here.  You forced us to fight a creature of good for your own amusement?”

TIE laughed.  “Oh, them.  Don’t worry, they’re fine.  I rescued them each from otherwise certain death, and they agreed to serve me for a while in exchange.  It was only fair.  And I already brought them back to life, with no ill effects.  Though, it was all for my own amusement, to be honest.”

“But why?”

“You try living for five million years, and see how bored you get sometimes.  Besides, heroes are supposed to fight challenges like this.  It’s character building, so stop whining about it already.  Now, you may be wondering why you’re even here, right?”

“The loot, I’m hoping,” Fnipper replied.

Tal quickly stepped in front of him.  “Well, actually, we have been having these mental compulsions every time we’ve been hearing your name.  And they have been very painful actually.  We thought you could explain why?”

TIE smiled.  “Yes, actually I can.  I have a message from The Lady Memory for you.”

“Well, what is it?”

TIE shook one of its massive, claw-fingers.  “Tut tut.  I’m afraid you’re not ready for that just yet.  There is one more test to complete first.”

The entire party groaned, and Tal asked, “What’s that?”

“You must fight me.”  As it said this, it suddenly got up out of its bed.  As it did so, it uncurled its tail, which was previously under its body.  This alone was very unnerving, as the tail appeared to be made entirely out of energy, glowed, and didn’t so much end as fade into infinity.  “Don’t worry.  I won’t use anything near my full power, of course.  Gods would fall easily to it, so expecting a much of mortals to go against it would be pointless.  Plus, fighting at full power takes effort, and you guys aren’t that amusing.  So, are you ready?”

Without waiting for a reply, it curled the end of its tail into a circle on the ground, and then somehow leapt into the hole, causing it to disappear.  Apprehensively, the party followed, and ended up in a strange new landscape.  The sky was a strange purple color, and except for various ruined stones, the landscape was completely featureless.  TIE leapt into the air, and took flight.  Robin opened fire with his arrows, while Tal, Tsine, and Tebryn fired with magic.  Fortunately, unlike many of their earlier foes, TIE didn’t seem to have any spell resistance.  Strangely, their attacks merely struck a force field a few feet from its head.  “Hey, what’s with this thing?”  Tebryn yelled.  “How are we supposed to fight you with that thing?”

“Don’t worry.  It takes energy and effort on my part to keep it maintained.  If you do enough damage to me, I’ll concede defeat” TIE replied.  It then dove behind a stone column, and as it flew, it released a dozen energy spheres.  These appeared to be arranged at random, and initially didn’t seem to do anything.  However, when Grockith and Fnipper followed its path, the orbs suddenly turned and flew at them whenever they got close.  Fnipper was able to easily evade them, but a few struck Grockith and his mount hard.

Robin, fearing the future effects of these orbs, began to direct his fire on them, while Galeron moved to follow Grockith and heal him, and Tebryn caught up to Grockith to catch a spell on his mount, that would let him fly to face their foe.  Meanwhile, TIE flew from one column to another, while firing an energy ball from its tail at Tsine, whose magic was doing the most damage to it.  The energy orb struck Tsine hard, and almost knocked him off his feat, but he kept his focus.  

Grockith charged at his foe, while much of the party was forced to watch impotently from the ground.  Galeron and Thorrun were able to heave a few ranged spells and crossbow bolts, but poor Fnipper couldn’t even get close to their enemy.  At one point, he tried to taunt it, in an attempt to lure it to within fighting range.  “If it were up to me, you wouldn’t even be allowed to exist!” he yelled.

At the time, he didn’t realize the foolishness of this tactic, since if he actually said something that did make TIE mad, it might forget about holding back and turn the poor gnome into a smear.  Fortunately, TIE retained its light mood, and replied, “Well, it isn’t really up to you, now is it?”  However, it was sufficiently annoyed enough to attack him with its tail.  Instead of striking him with it, however, TIE wrapped its tail around his legs, and then lifted him into the air!  It then flung him at Robin, giving them both a very painful injury when they collided.

However, this didn’t affect Grockith, who was now right next to TIE and was beginning to tear into its shield with his weapon, or Tsine and Tal’s continued magical assault.  TIE flew out of the way of Grockith, evading his party shot as it flew, and then ducked behind another column.  Suddenly, its tail flew into the sky and seemed to split and grow until it filled the sky, and then created multiple portals in the air.  Tons of seemingly random junk rained out of it, striking the entire party multiple times, though some of them were able to partially or totally evade the dimensional debris.  Angrily, Grockith, Robin, Tsine, Tebryn, and Tal converged on TIE, and even Galeron and Thorrun were able to fire bolts of searing light at it.  Under the torrent of blows, TIE finally rose up and shouted “Enough!  The test is over, and you have passed!”

It created the portal with its tail again, and flew through it, and the party again followed.  They were again in TIE’s bedroom.  “Okay, now that you have proven yourself, I will give the message.  The goddesses, the Twelve Sisters that you worship, are not the original versions of themselves.  In my journeys across other dimensions, I met the original Twelve Sisters, and was admittedly interested in them.  I mean, you’d be surprised how female-exclusive pantheons there are in the multiverse.  Now, much later, I ended up on your dimension again…”

“Again?” a suspicious Tal asked, but TIE just continued its story like it didn’t hear the question.

“…and I noticed that things were not going well as of late.  This was shortly after the two empires first started to come to power.  Now, I decided to take some time to relax and see what was going on, and I began to occasionally visit the old gods.  At one point, I was speaking with Wee Jas, and I mentioned these Twelve Sisters.  Wee Jas was fascinated, and the two of us came up with a plan.  To counteract Nerull’s power, we needed to create gods that drew power from him.  Eventually, shortly before she had to flee the plain, Wee Jas set actions in motion that would create Bha-Ael, who would then create the other goddesses.  In other words, not only are your goddesses completely made up, they’re tied intrinsically to Nerull, the god of death!”

“But why would Lady Memory use you to give this message?  Why does she care at all?” a shocked Galeron asked.

“Well, I’m nigh-omnipotent.  I have no good reason to lie.  And like I said, I was pretty instrumental to creating your gods, so it makes sense to her that I’m the one to tell you.  As for why she’d want you to learn this, well, I guess she just has reasons for you to know the truth about your gods.”

Suddenly, Tsine had an idea.  “Wait, does this mean you know who she is?  Can you tell us?”

TIE shrugged.  “Can I?  Sure.  Will I?  Nah.” Seeing their hostile looks, it quickly continued, “Oh, save your outrage.  I’ve done more than enough to help your stupid plane already, and your struggle to learn the truth should be far more amusing to me.  And it’s really for your benefit anyway.  These heroic struggles for the truth don’t work unless you actually work to earn it.  If some random pretty-much-all-knowing being gives you all the answers, it cheapens them.  You have to learn to solve your problems by yourself.

“However, that doesn’t mean I won’t help you at all.  You lot have been far more interesting than most of the things I’ve had to deal with.  I’ll be happy to answer a few questions for you before you leave, and if you really need help later, you could come in later to ask.  Or maybe I’ll get bored again, and I’ll come asking for you.  I’ll make it worth your while.”

Robin had the first question.  “I have a good question for you.  Who exactly is it that has been trying to kill us with those stupid ‘nothing personal’ guys?”

TIE nodded.  “Ah, that would be the Nightmare Prince.  He’s recently discovered a new spell that lets him bind others to his will, and has apparently been having a lot of fun with it lately.  If you want to put a stop to it, I’d suggest you talk to Quercus’ sister.”

Tal then asked, “About Bas.  What should we do about her next?”

TIE pointed at Robin.  “Pretty much the same thing I told him.  Seek out her Strife Masters, and try to learn more about Bas’ organization from them.  If you can prove Bas’ existence to your kingdom, that would be helpful as well.  Oh, and Fnipper, you have another reason to go after the Nightmare Prince.  He has a few of your family members in his home, as slaves or prisoners”

Tebryn then asked, “What should I do?  I don’t know anything about this Lady Memory thing, and I have no idea who Bas is.  Why am I here?  How can I find my place here?”  Grockith nodded.  It was clear he had the same question.

“Well, in your case, I’m guessing you were sent her by the goddess you call Lolth.”

“Why?”

“I think she’s trying to taunt you somehow.  If you could figure out what Lolth has to do with this plane, maybe you could use this knowledge against her.  As for you Grockith, it’s pretty much impossible that you could save your kingdom at this point.  Even if you could go back in time and somehow stop the empires from forming, the temporal paradoxes and destiny re-writings it would cause would be cataclysmic.  However, you can find a life here, and after discovering much about the events that destroyed your kingdom, you could work to rebuild your land, and possibly even revive some of the people you remember from you past from the dead.”

Only Fnipper remained, since Galeron and Tsine were happy with Tal’s question.  “I don’t suppose you could tell me more about what is happening to my family, can you?”

TIE responded, “Not without penetrating Bas’ divine barrier.  And I could do that easily enough, but not without getting involved in the politics of this world to a degree that I’d rather not be.”

“Well, then, my question is: where’s our loot?”

TIE smiled a big, toothy grin, which is easy for a dragon to make.  “Yes, some reward for passing all my tests would be appropriate.  I think that, say, one copper piece would suffice.  Now, where would you like it?”

Fnipper thought quickly and responded, “Since I’m guessing this is a trick somehow, place it right in front of me.”

TIE chuckled.  “Clever little gnome.  Right, here’s your reward.”  It curled its tail into a portal again, and a solid block of copper five feet high, wide, and deep landed on the ground with a deafening thump.  

“I don’t suppose you’d mind moving it to our home back in Methosilang, would you?” Tal asked.

“Certainly” TIE replied, and created another portal under the block.  “Now then, you can rest here for longer if you like, but I’m guessing you’re currently in a hurry, so I won’t insist.”

“We agree,” Tsine replied, and prepared to teleport the party away from here.  Even now, however, he was feeling dizzy and feverish, as the magical aspects of the disease he caught in the technological dungeon began to take effect on him.  However, he wasn’t the only one who was getting sicker.  Unsatisfied by TIE’s answer, Tebryn began to harbor thoughts of destruction, and getting revenge on this whole stupid plane.  Grockith wasn’t much better.  His mind began to get disturbed, as the code he swore to follow began to fade as much as every old symbol of the home he lost was.

OOC Notes:  Told you this would be a long one!  Of course, much of the puzzle was just copy/pasted from my original notes, but still.  Anyway, as mentioned before, TIE is a character I’ve been working with for a very long time by this point, so I could handle its personality very well by now.  Hopefully, that came through a bit in the writing.

	I was just a bit disappointed with the fight with TIE, however.  Mostly because it had a few moves I didn’t get around to using in time (including a breath weapon!)  There will, however, be another fight with it later in the campaign, which was handled a bit better.  I was also a little disappointed with how they handled the coin question.  Not that I’m sorry they got the money or anything, but it would have been amusing if they either were annoyed by the amount and gave it to the poor or something, or if one of them asked to put it in his hand!

	Oh, and the puzzle solution was (spoiler tags ahead) :


Spoiler



1.	Female paladin woman, black sash.
2.	Male wyrmling crystal dragon, purple sash.
3.	Female ogre mage, gray sash.
4.	Male yak folk, red sash.
5.	Nymph, blue sash.

So the party had to remove the statues in reverse order from that.


If you have some questions about the puzzle, I can help you figure it out, though you may have to give me a few minutes, since I haven’t had to actually figure it out myself for a while!


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## LordVyreth (Jul 15, 2004)

Ugh, apologize for the delay, but a lack of time and writer's block got to me.  Expect the next update tomorrow, with any luck.


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## LordVyreth (Jul 19, 2004)

*The Hunters of Nightmares*

The party returned home, stopping only briefly to pick up Fenthrip, who was running low on food and was getting fairly desperate at this point.  Tsine teleported them just outside of the city, since Tebryn and Grockith weren’t officially citizens of the city, and thus couldn’t be teleported straight into it.  Once there, the party spent almost a month identifying and selling the treasures they earned during their long journey, and then buying or making new supplies.  They also had to wait for Shekuldellstra to receive their message and respond.  During this time, they rarely even left the city, since they knew the Nightmare Prince and his servants will be looking for them, and they preferred to wait inside the protective barrier that their goddesses (regardless of their origin) provided.  However, the town itself wasn’t much better.  People were far more suspicious of the party and of each other compared to last time, the interview process needed to get Tebryn and Grockith into the city took almost as long as Fnipper’s did (which was impressive considering that neither of them threatened to kill a large percentage of the city,) and Lerissa was never apparently available to see them.

	After about a month, the party received a note from Quercus’ sister.  In the letter, she admitted she was worried about Quercus, who was growing increasingly distant since he started living with her.  He was becoming obsessed with their father, and she was worried he might soon leave to find him.  However, she also had some help for them.  Her sources were starting to dry up now that she has been reformed for an extended period of time, but she does know of a Bas temple that is still active as of a few days ago.  However, it was two weeks away and far to the northwest, near the center of the Undead Empire’s area of control.  It was even inside a swamp fed by a putrid river known as The Corpsewash, which was filled with undead monstrosities.  Nonetheless, she believes that they might be able to capture a cultist there and force it to reveal the location of the Nightmare Prince’s manor, which he almost never leaves.  Once there, they have to look for black-robed cultists, as they are in the same sect of the Bas worshippers as The Nightmare Prince is.  However, Shekuldellstra warns the party to be very careful when dealing with him.  Even when she was evil, she was afraid of his sadism and the twisted genius behind his plans.  He might even be the most evil of all of Bas’ Strife Masters!

	Despite this fact, the party had many personal reasons to deal with him, and after making a last few purchases and plans, they left for this next journey.  The first week could be spent underground, safe in the tunnels, but they soon had to return to the surface right in the middle of the Long Waste, where again anything could be waiting for them.

	However, the first hints of the danger the party was up against began long before that point.  While still in the tunnels, and even when resting in the various village inns that dotted the path, the party began to have nightmares.  It began the same way for each of them, suggesting that these nightmares might not be totally coincidental.  Each party member, in his dream, was wandering through a dark forest, and was being pursued by something.  The “something” was vague and unknown, but in their dream-state, each of them knew it was hostile and would certainly be their death.  Finally, each one came to a forest clearing, which a strange box was set in the center of.  Each of them felt compelled to open it, and was immediately set upon by the darkness within, which coalesced into his greatest fear!

	Robin thought of the Zhovvut, the strange three-eyed monster that it had fought back at the mountain.  The way it was able to look into his mind and steal his very soul terrified him.  Tsine feared losing control of his magic, which was an ominous portent indeed since the magical disease was growing ever stronger within him. Grockith thought about his mother, a gold dragon, and was terrified of the thought of her death.  Fnipper took longer to get the dream than most, but when he did have it, he thought of the drow that destroyed his village.  Tal feared the possibility of the world becoming further unbalanced.  Thorrun had the fairly simple fear of vampires, apparently since he had a nearly deadly encounter with them shortly before meeting Galeron.  Galeron himself simply was afraid of letting down his church, and failing them in the quest against evil.  Finally, Tebryn feared Lolth, the evil goddess that terrorized his race back on his home plane.

	Besides the nightmares, there was little danger in the trip, at least at first.  On the second day of their journey above ground, they fought a few of the fairly weak undead generally called wights, but it was a quick fight that posed no threat to the party.  However, a second battle on the fourth day was far more dangerous.  As they were traveling, a massive rumbling was suddenly getting closer behind them, as if a group of larger creatures were running at them at high speed.  The party quickly set up a defensive position, and sure enough, a small army of ogres and hill giants rose up behind them!  They appeared to be led by an unusually strong-looking hill giant with black scales for skin and a vaguely reptilian appearance, and a troll with metallic skin in places and metal needles for teeth and claws.  Their giant leader merely bellowed, “Nothing personal, but I have to kill you,” before he and his entourage charged the party!

	Leading the attack was the mechanical troll, who began to yell in a furious, but metallic and hollow, voice as he ran up to the party.  Robin and his latest animal companion, a wolverine, moved to the front of the party and began to fire at the throng of giants, though he focused on their giant leader instead of the troll.  Tsine also began to fire into the horde, though he used a storm of magical ice instead of arrows.  Grockith, meanwhile, moved to intercept the troll, and struck him with one powerful attack before the troll could respond.  However, the injury began to heal almost instantly, as wounds usually do on trolls, and it appeared that the creature’s mechanical parts partially absorbed the blow, making it a fairly minor injury overall.  Thorrun also moved to the front of the group, and prepared to attack the lesser hill giants, ogres, and dire wolves, that made up most of the enemy team.

	Almost immediately, the ogres and giants swarmed over Thorrun and the rest of the party, though Galeron’s unfortunate cohort received the worst of it.  Galeron quickly moved up to help his struggling friend, but it didn’t look good.  Tebryn, who knew Galeron far better than he did the rest of the party, also moved to help his friend, but he preferred to stay a few steps back, and attack the giants with magic whenever possible.

	Meanwhile, Fnipper tried to sneak behind enemy lines, to help Robin fight the half-dragon giant.  However, when he got near, he was suddenly cut by something, but he couldn’t tell where the attack came from.  He warily moved away from the giant, to engage his invisible opponent.  However, while his training gave him the uncanny ability to evade attacks without even seeing his attacker, he didn’t expect the sheer volley of attacks that came at him.  Massive, invisible clubs were trying to slam into him, and succeeded once, more of the strange blades flew at him, and just when he thought it was over, he was almost knocked off his feet by a giant tail that struck him just across the chest.  Fnipper was terrified by this point.  Was he surrounded by an army of invisible warriors?  Unknown to him, all his attacks came from one enemy, a half-mechanical ettin who had four tentacle blades and a giant metal tail grafted to him, vastly increasing his already impressive number of attacks.

	The fight soon broke down to these miniature battles.  Robin fought the giant leader, Grockith did battle with the troll, Tebryn, Galeron and Thorrun tried their best to keep the rest of the horde at bay, and Fnipper attacked his invisible foe, all while Tsine and Tal tried to weaken their foes with an almost endless number of lightning bolts, magical volleys of missiles, fireballs, and any other bit of magic they could find.  Very slowly, the tide was turning against the horde or lesser servants, but at a heavy cost.  Fnipper’s luck finally ran out, and one of the tentacle blades went straight through his chest, leaving him alive but with little time remaining.  Robin’s companion was crushed by the giant’s mighty club, and even Grockith’s unusually strong rhino was killed when the enraged troll leapt on top of it, grabbed onto its head with both of its claws, and literally sliced it off with one mighty rend!  Curiously, this happened after Grockith leapt off the rhino, and left it to fight the troll alone to help Robin finish the giant.  This struck Galeron as strange.  It was noble to help a comrade in arms, but leaving a beloved and loyal companion to face certain death alone was not normal paladin behavior at all.

	Between Grockith and Robin, the leader of the giants was killed, and the Ettin was revealed for what it was shortly after this point, thanks to Tsine’s magic.  Suddenly surrounded by a half dozen angry foes who were eager to avenge their lost companions and rescue the dying Fnipper, the creature was quickly blasted and ripped apart.  That left only the troll barbarian, who was barely scratched at this point.  However, just as he was about to do to the same thing to Grockith that he did to his companion, he was stopped by an invisible wall.  Tsine smiled.  His spell worked perfectly.

	Now trapped by a wall of force, the troll could do little but howl in anger, while the party healed itself.  Finally, when they were ready and the troll had tired itself, Tsine removed the wall and the party charged at it as one.  It too was soon torn apart, but the party, having heard about the regenerative properties of trolls, wasted no time in trying to destroy the remains.  Frustratingly, it seemed to resist fire, possibly as a result of defenses built into its mechanical armor, but Tsine was able to finish him with magical fire, finally ending the threat.

	However, this deadly badly temporarily delayed their journey.  Tsine took some time to memorize the terrain around them, then teleported the party to Necropolis.  There, Grockith hoped to have his mount restored to life, while the party divided up the treasure that they earned from their attackers.  Grockith was able to find someone capable of restoring his mount to life, but the process didn’t go precisely as expected.  When it was restored to life, his rhinoceros mount was suddenly covered mechanical parts, much like the troll that killed it was!  The rest of the party was understandably suspicious, but Grockith liked the changes to his mount, especially the now much larger steel horn!  The party decided to rest here for the night, and then have Tsine teleport them back to the site of the battle tomorrow, where they can finish their journey.  As they went to their rooms, a tired and still wary Fnipper told the others, “If I get another one of those nightmare dreams, I think I want to change my answer!”

	The next day, the party prepared to continue their journey.  Despite Fnipper’s comments, none of them received another one of the strange nightmares, though after his latest attempt to kill them, the Nightmare Prince wasn’t far from anyone’s mind.  The next two days of travel were uneventful, except for one thing.  Right in the middle of the first day of their renewed journey, Tsine suddenly started to look extremely sick.  Galeron and Grockith both tried to use their powers to cure this disease, but neither of them seemed to have any effect.  After repeated attempts to stand up failed, Tsine groaned, “I don’t think I can travel any more with you until I can recover from this.  I want to help you, but I think all I can do now is slow you down.”

	Tal calmed his friend down.  “Don’t worry, Tsine.  Take all the time you need to recover.  We can at least find this temple without you.  Will you be all right by yourself, though?”

	Tsine tried to nod, but gave up.  “Don’t worry.  I still have enough strength to teleport me back home.  And I have a friend in town that can take care of me, and if worse comes to worse see if the temples have any stronger magic that can heal me if time isn’t enough.”

	And so, for now, Tsine left the party.  Tal, however, had a horrible feeling, like this would be the last time he would see his friend like this again.

	In the third day of their travels, the Long Waste finally started to end, as the swamp began.  Though the party as a whole, and Robin in particular, were relieved to see wilderness again, the swamp was so foul that it wasn’t much improvement, and the entire place reeked of death.  This also reminded them that they were still in a very hostile realm, which was proven later that day, when the weather turned foggy and they passed a series of shallow pools.  The faces of the dead appeared in the water around them, but unlike a similar scene in a different story (heh heh,) these faces were attached to still active, and very hostile, undead!  As the monsters rose up around them, the fog itself coalesced before them, turning into a humanoid figure made entirely out of fog.

	Robin was the first to react, and he led his new companions, a bear and a wolf, into battle against the first of the undead.  Tal, however, realized that these were just larger versions of the drowned, breath-stealing monsters he had fought back at the river battle long before, and since he was now the last person from that group to still be in the party, he shouted a warning to the others about what to watch out for.  He then fired at the fog monster, only for his magical ball of sonic energy to fly right through it, without any noticeable effect.  However, his warning was hardly needed.  Thorrun, Grockith, and Fnipper attacked the swarm of giant sunken, while Tebryn helped with magical artillery, and almost half of them were already dead when Galeron finally was able to finish his prayers to his goddess, which destroyed most of the surviving sunken in a blast of holy energy.  Only the fog creature posed a threat at this point, when it managed to grab Tal in a fog tendril, and began to suck the blood out of him, turning the creature a deep crimson color.  However, by now, it was surrounded, and it was soon reduced to a bloody pool by the combined forces of the party.  The party spent some time to search the area for treasure, and then continued on.  They knew that at this pace, they’ll find the temple in a matter of hours, and that was where the true danger began.

	OOC Notes: Yes, I know, another missed update.  Fortunately, I don’t have much to do to actually update the current adventures for a few weeks, so I won’t get nearly as burned out with the campaign for a while, I think.

	However, to speed things up a bit, I’ll probably be removing these OOC Notes from now on, at least as a regular feature.  I thought that it would help encourage discussion, but I fear it might have done just the opposite.  I’ll probably do at few of them as needed, but not as a regular feature. 

	Oh, as you might have noticed, this will be Tsine’s last game for a while.  The player had to quit for time reasons.  However, I found a new player very quickly this time, so the party will get back to full strength very soon.


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## LordVyreth (Jul 23, 2004)

*Temple Raid*

Finally, later that day, the party reached the temple.  However, the door was guarded both by yellow-robed clerics, and by strange black orbs.  Though he lacked the experience in arcane matters that Tsine had, Tal had heard of floating black orbs that meant instant death if touched, and while it was doubtful these were the same things, he wasn’t going to take that chance!  Instead, he suggested that a few of the party members try to sneak in while posed as fellow cultists.  Robin and Tebryn were “volunteered” into the position, since few other party members looked as, well, normal at the moment, and Galeron wasn’t really built for stealth or deception.  The two donned some of the yellow robes that the players have been accumulating, and then walked up to the guards.  Following Tal’s instructions, they carefully emulated the painful self-mutilation ritual that Tal was taught back at the first temple they had raided, well over a year ago.  It seemed like it worked, at least at first, but they were led into a small sleeping chamber, and instructed to wait here until their superiors are ready to speak to them.  When the guards left them, Robin tried the door, and wasn’t too surprised to learn that it was locked.

	Meanwhile, Fnipper was watching the doorway for any activity, while the rest of the party waited a distance away.  After waiting over an hour, there was no response from Robin or Tebryn, but at the same time, there weren’t any sounds of battle.  However, Fnipper soon returned and quickly had everyone get even farther back into the swamp.  “More cultists are coming to the door!” he urgently whispered!

	The rest of the party fled deeper into the swamp, except for Tal, who wanted to see the new arrivals’ exchange with the guards.  The two carefully crept up to watch the exchange, with Violet scanning the emotions of the guards as they watched.  The new arrivals did the same forearm cut that Robin and Tebryn did, but they then cut their faces as well!  Even worse, they also gave the guards passwords, even though the guards didn’t explicitly ask for them!  It was clear that Tebryn and Robin have walked into a trap.

	Meanwhile, this same fact was dawning on Robin and Tebryn.  Finally, Robin asked, “Can you pick this lock?  I didn’t want to raise suspicion before, but this is taking too long for everything to be normal.”  

	Tebryn looked at the look, but frowned.  “I might be able to pick it with time, but it will be difficult, and I can’t make any guarantees.  I never said this before, but I wish Fnipper was here.”

	Robin pondered this for a while, and then said, “Maybe we should wait a bit longer, then.”  This plan ended, however, about the time they started hearing the screams and smelled the fire.  It was clear to them that the rest of the party was tired of waiting, and tried to take the temple by force.

	Meanwhile, Tal and Fnipper were waiting by the temple, when they saw flames rising out of it and sounds of battle.  It was clear to them that Tebryn and Robin were tired of waiting and tried to escape, or they were attacked.  Obviously, they were all wrong, but that’s an issue to be dealt with later.

	Fnipper quickly withdrew to get the rest of the party to help, and soon Grockith was leading a charge at the front gate, with Tal, Fnipper, and Galeron close behind.  Thorrun was coming as well, but a dwarf in heavy armor with no mount can’t exactly keep up with such a fast attack [remember, it was still 3.0 at this point.]  In addition, Robin’s animal companions suddenly froze as they neared the entrance, and refused to go further.  The party decided to leave them, and have them attack any fleeing cultists.

	The group easily overpowered the guards, and even destroyed a pair of the strange dark creatures, which to Tal’s relief only fired beams of black light and tried to attack with claws and teeth that were hidden within their dark bodies until they actually used them.  The party soon made it into the temple, only to find that most of the cultists were eager to ignore the party completely and run away in stark terror.

	Meanwhile again, after repeated failed attempts by Tebryn to unlock the door, Robin simple riddled it with arrows, and then kicked out the remaining frame.  They found themselves near the entrance, and witnessing the same chaos that the rest of the party just stepped into.  They were about to join in when they saw a strange, dog-like humanoid preparing to attack them from the other direction.  In an attempt to control the chaos and try and capture a few cultists alive, Tebryn webbed the hallway connecting them and the entrance, and the two of them attacked the dog.  However, as they got close, a number of the dark orbs flew around a corner to attack them as well, but they were able to handle both groups with relative ease.

	The rest of the party continued their own rampage down the corridor.  They killed a few cultists as they went, since they were looking specifically for black-robed cultists, and the rest were expendable.  However, they mostly focused on maintaining a forward momentum, and let Robin’s animals and Thorrun finish the rest.  They were soon confronted by the rest of the temple’s guardians, including a few more black orbs, another dog humanoid, and a strange bird-like humanoid with ugly, fleshy wing-arms that looked like they were plucked of their feathers.  The latter was able to get a few good hits in using lightning bolts, but it too soon fell, as did the rest of the attackers.

	Both sides of the party’s attack force quickly investigated the temple, looking for either black-robed cultists or evidence of Bas’ existence.  However, it was soon obvious that they were almost completely too late.  Most of the cultists were killed already, and while asleep by the looks of it.  In addition, most of their belongings were gathered in piles and set on fire.  Tal looked on the fires with regret.  A few pages might be salvaged, he thought, but there was just no time.  They had to find the black-robed cultists, if any of them have survived, and fast!

	Finally, when both groups were about to connect in the rear hall of the temple, a door burst open, and a few cultists (including two black-robed ones,) fled through the hidden back exit of the temple.  The party quickly regrouped, and pursued.

	However, when they left the temple, they realized that the difficult part was only beginning.  The undead had apparently sent a combat unit out to find and destroy whoever eliminated their swamp guardians earlier that day, and then were attracted to the temple after seeing the smoke from the fire.  At least that was the best explanation the party could come up with after seeing the massive army of undead that greeted them at the exit, including a strange, smoky monster, an armored and mounted skeleton, and a giant bat that seemed to be made of pure darkness!


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## LordVyreth (Jul 26, 2004)

*The characters completely lose it.*

As the party and the undead horde prepare to swarm each other, a third party watched from a nearby hilltop.  She is called Danae, and she has come from Methosilang, seeking the heroes.  It was she who Tsine sought for help when he could no longer travel, and she did what she could to care for him.  Unfortunately, things recently took a turn for the worse.  Instead of being merely weak to the point of uselessness, he developed a kind of strange hysteria, and while laughing, he teleported away!  Danae tried to find him, but by the time she could find someone with the right magic prepared, he was impossible to find.  However, before he lost his mind, Tsine told her about his friends, and asked her to find them if anything should happen to him.  Danae agreed, and has been trying to track them ever since.  She finally succeeded in finding them, just as it looks like they needed her help.  She smiled.  Well, she may not have much experience with the gritty and dirty parts of adventuring, but she has been studying the Arts for a long time.

	As for the party, they regarded this new figure with curiosity, but she at least appeared alive, and they had far bigger concerns to worry about.  Their major concerns were the smoky monster, armored skeleton, and bat.  The bat slowly moved towards them, and cast a spell on Fnipper.  It seemed to confuse him, and in his mentally-addled state, he saw everything as an enemy, and fled in terror.  Robin began to fire at the bat, and Tebryn and Tal used magic on the same creature, but all of their attacks seemed to do nothing.  While they party was distracted by them, they were surprised when a trio of strange-looking ghasts attacked.  They each touched runes that were carved all over their bodies, and used them to cast spells!  One became incredibly fast, as if it was hasted, and the others respectively fired arrows of flame and a lightning bolt at Grockith and Galeron, wounding them both slightly.

	Just as things were looking bleak, the mysterious figure at the top of the hill entered the fight.  She cast one simple spell, and suddenly two of the ghasts and essentially the entirety of the army’s lesser minions were destroyed!  This let the party focus on the heavy hitters of the enemy team.  Grockith took the initiative here, and charge the remaining ghast, killing it instantly.  However, this left him wide open for the armored skeleton, which rode his horse towards the paladin, and attacked him repeatedly with his sword.  Most of the attacks couldn’t penetrate Grockith’s heavy armor, but a few lucky strikes found openings, leaving painful cuts in the half-dragon's skin.  Meanwhile, the smoky monster suddenly vanished, and then re-appeared near the party’s rear, where it could pose as a potential threat to Tal and the party’s other spell casters.  Finally, Thorrun used magic to enhance Robin’s arrows, in the hope that this will let him hit the bat, and Galeron tried to drive off the remaining undead using his holy power, but since only the most powerful undead remained in the battle, it did nothing.

	The bat, meanwhile decided to focus on what seamed like the greatest threat on the field, the strange wizard.  It flew up next to the creature, and managed to bite her.  The bite was extremely painful, but even a cloistered mage like Danae had some training on how to minimize attacks, and she was able to easily survive an attack that would have felled a lesser wizard instantly.  However, unknown to her, a hideous transformation was beginning inside her.  

	The party began to split up to deal with their threats.  Grockith and Galeron began to attack the Death Knight, though when Tebryn closed to help, he was suddenly overcome by fear, and fled into the temple just like Fnipper did earlier.  Robin and Tal focused on the smoky creature for now, while Danae tried to stop it using magic.  However, though her training taught her that these creatures easily ignored all but the strongest magic, even the best spells she could muster did nothing.  Even worse, after a couple of tries, she suddenly realized the horrible effects of the transformation she was undergoing, and transformed into a giant bat herself!  She immediately went to look for a reasonable meal, and her now animalistic mind picked up a small but appetizing purple lizard with wings.

	The smoky monster proved to be a fairly minor target.  He managed to emit one cone of mind-numbing psychic force, but the trained heroes easily resisted its effects, and then ripped it apart with arrows and a blast of sonic force.  However, no sooner did it die than they were faced with both the bat of darkness, and a new bat that was attacking Tal’s familiar.  Robin focused on the new bat, but Tal had a new moral dilemma.  He saw this strange figure helping them earlier, so he didn’t want to simply kill her, but she had to be stopped.  Fortunately, he was able to hold her in place with a spell, and then tried to help fight the bat, though his spells did nothing to it.  

	However, Robin’s arrows were another story, and Grockith used magic to fly up and engage the creature directly.  In desperation, the bat pointed at Grockith with one wing, and fired a beam of pure negative energy that could kill with a touch.  But Grockith withstood the power of the magic, and ended the creature’s life with one blow.

	The fight was over, but a far more disturbing one was continuing in the temple.  While the rest of the party worked to capture the surviving, fleeing cultists and then restored Danae to her true form and heard her story, Fnipper and Tebryn ended up deep in the temple.  In his confused state, Fnipper recognized Tebryn as an enemy, and made one clumsy attack at Tebryn.  While it was obviously caused by a mind addled by magic, and posed no real threat to the drow, Tebryn had finally had enough.  The chaos of these past few months, the growing uselessness he felt, the sudden onslaught of enemies far stronger than anything he’d ever seen before, and his increasing and mostly irrational hatred for this strange gnome had finally drove him mad.  He entered a state of pure violence, and simply began to wail into the gnome.  Though Fnipper normally could resist such an attack, he was confused and totally unprepared, and barely reacted as Tebryn repeatedly attacked the near-helpless gnome.  The rest of the party returned just as Tebryn was about to drive his sword straight into Fnipper’s heart.  Tebryn ignored their cries of protest, and finished the shocked gnome!  In his rage, he then turned to the party, and seemed to regard them as more possible victims for his madness.  However, this would be the last thing he would see, for Grockith was already riding up to this clearly evil force in their midst, and decapitated him with one strike!

	The rest of the party members were beside themselves with shock and grief.  To think that they would survive the threat of the undead, only to lose two of their own to fellow party members!  Galeron in particular was upset, since he knew Tebryn the longest, and never could have imagined him doing such a thing.  And everyone was further shocked when they turned again to the body, only to see Grockith neatly cutting them into parts and shocking them and their equipment into a bag!

	“Grockith, what are you doing?” a shocked Galeron asked.

	“Well, I couldn’t fit their bodies into by Bag of Holding, so I had to cut them into pieces to fit them in,” Grockith said, in a strangely hollow voice.

	“That’s awful!  What paladin could do desecrate the body of a comrade like that, so soon after they died?”

	Grockith shrugged, as if he didn’t really care about them one way or the other, and continued.  Only Tal had the clarity to speak up and point out another flaw in Grockith’s plan.  “You know, that’s really not such a good idea.  Fnipper also has a Ba…nowaitstop!”

	BOOM!	

	It was too late.  Fnipper, who also had a Bag of Holding, just had his equipment tossed into Grockith’s Bag of Holding, with predictable effects.  Soon, all the remains of Fnipper, Tebryn, Fnipper’s bag, and Grockith’s bag were scattered across the Astral Plane, lost forever.

	The party could do nothing but sit in stunned silence after the madness and loss that they witnessed.  Some mourned friends that died and/or revealed deeply disturbing sides of themselves, some regretted the loss of so much treasure, and Tal in particular came to the horrible realization that Raz himself was in Fnipper’s bag, and thus all the answers they intended to get from him have been lost.  And Danae watched these friends of her own friend turn on each other, die, and make terrible mistakes with magic items, and wondered what she got herself into.  Ironically, she had also already lived out her own worst nightmare before she even heard of the Nightmare Prince, for she had always feared losing her amazing intellect, and she had already been reduced, albeit briefly, to the intellect of an animal.

	OOC Notes:  Okay, I won’t regularly do this feature any more, but this game needed some explanation.  Basically, we have one new player (Danae being her character,) who will essentially replace Tsine.  We had two players who wanted to play new characters, and thus killed their characters off (hence the deaths of Fnipper and Tebryn.)  This bothered me quite a bit at the time, especially since Fnipper played a big part in the plot of the next adventure and the player didn’t tell me he wanted to switch, but this is water under the bridge from over a year ago, and things have long since been resolved.  And we had a paladin who acted really strangely, and we still don’t know why.  This isn’t exactly the last or worst of his odd behavior, either.  At any rate, I was worried that all the other strangeness would drive away the new player, but she would later tell me that the whole thing was just part of the strangeness that she expected from a gaming group!


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## LordVyreth (Jul 30, 2004)

*The Nighmare Prince: Part 1*

The party had just lost two of its own.  Two members had been killed, two have possibly gone mad, and one had been exposed to her worst nightmares.  Not surprisingly, when they decided to interrogate the captured cultist (since only one ended up surviving the undead fight,) they were eager to find someone to take it all out on.  The cultist, seeing all this, talked instantly.

	“I don’t know where the Nightmare Prince’s manor is exactly, but I can tell you how to find it,” he hastily added, after seeing how quickly the party was about to respond to the first part.  “There’s this tunnel a few days from here, which we used all the time to get there.  It’s northwest of here.  I can give you a map, if you want.”

	The party members quickly looked at each, and then Tal said in a quiet but menacing voice, “Why don’t you just show us?”  The cultist readily agreed to this plan as well.

	The first day of travel felt longer than normal.  Tebryn was not that well known to the party yet, but his death, and especially the mad way that he died, was felt by everyone.  But Fnipper’s sudden death was even worse.  The slightly-crazy but lovable gnome had found a place in everyone’s heart, and he had saved the entire party more than once.  And now they had nothing to even remember them by, and with Tsine gone as well, it didn’t even feel like the same party any more.  Tal looked sadly at his journal, which at least had some memories of his days with the others, and remembered that Fnipper only wanted to fight the Nightmare Prince because he heard that some of his family was enslaved by him.  Looking up to the sky, he said, “I don’t know where you are now, Fnipper, but I swear I’ll find them, and save as many of them as I can from that lunatic.”

	Things were so melancholy in the party that when there were signs of movement up ahead, suggesting another undead patrol had found them, everyone was eager to fight, and work out some of their loss and hatred in a more constructive way.  Their eagerness changed, however, when their captive pointed at the cloud that was growing closer, and screamed, “That’s a Propagator Swarm!  The Nightmare Prince uses these to create his half-mechanical servants!  If you get caught inside it, they’ll start to transform you as well!”

	Sure enough, when the cloud loomed closer, it was clearly made of thousands of tiny metal insects.  Even worse, it was accompanied by what looked like a giant reptile with tiny forelegs but a gigantic mouth, and it looked like it had already been altered into a half-machine by this or another cloud.  Grockith was the first to react to this threat, and prepared to charge.  This wasn’t regarded as good news, however, to Danae and Robin, who were riding his out at the time.  Danae in particular was upset about this.  “Wait for me to get off before you charge in!” she yelled.  “You might be sufficiently armored to fight them, but I wouldn’t stand a chance!”

	However, Grockith ignored their pleas and charged right at the cloud.  Despite his eagerness, his weapons were almost useless against so many foes at once.  Tal tried to help using a magical blast, and while it targeted an area and was actually fairly effective on the insects, it wasn’t enough to disperse the swarm.  It easily engulfed the rhino and all of its riders, who were all attacked by the swarm.  All of them had nasty insect bites, but the insects were also able to burrow into Danae, Robin, and Danae’s mephit, potentially dooming them all.  The giant lizard also stomped up to the group, but didn’t get a chance to get near the party yet.

	Danae and Robin got out of the cloud as quickly as possible, and responded with a fireball and an arrow respectively.  The fireball was very effective on the cloud, but Robin’s arrows passed through the cloud with little appreciable effect.  The only exception was the acid that his bow added to each of his arrows, which left streaks of disintegrated insects as they flew through the cloud.  Galeron and Thorrun moved to heal the wounded wizard and ranger, while the cultist wisely stayed out of the way.

	Grockith realized that he was useless against this threat, and moved to engage the dinosaur instead.  However, he barely got close to it when it breathed a strange gas on him.  Grockith suddenly felt incredibly sleepy, and collapsed in the saddle, while his mount looked up at him with irritation.  The creature hungrily moved up to his now helpless meal, but before it could take a massive bite out of him, Tal responded with a flurry of magic missiles that hit both Grockith and the monster.  It was barely wounded, but Grockith was shaken awake by the attack, and began to slice into the beast while his mechanical mount impaled it with its horn.  The creature was caught by the surprise by this renewed attack, and while it tried to bite its foe a few times, its attacks were clumsy, and couldn’t get past his strong armor.  Grockith finally silenced his foe with one last attack.

	Meanwhile, the cloud moved again to engulf Thorrun, who ran screaming out of it while more robotic insects began to burrow into him.  However, before it could attack again after this, a combination of Robin’s arrows (or more appropriately, his arrow’s elemental properties,) Tal’s spells, and attacks from Galeron blade (despite their near-uselessness,) were able to disperse the swarm, destroying it.

	But was it too late?  Galeron looked at the wounds on Danae, her familiar, Robin, and Thorrun, and tried using everything he could to cure them.  Cure spells removed the initial wounds, but they still felt the insects moving inside them.  Even Cure Disease did nothing, nor did a desperate lightning bolt by Tal to electrocute the creatures, even though it would also hurt his friends.  Finally, the next day, Galeron was able to cure his friend with a Heal spell, but he shook his head when looking at the others’ wounds.  “I only prepared one spell of this power for today.  I can’t do anything about these other wounds until I had a chance to speak with Bha-Ael again.”  

	The party decided to continue on for now, and recover the wounds as they traveled.  Galeron was able to Heal Robin the next day, but that was also the day they reached the tunnel their guide told them about.  He revealed its hidden entrance, and the party marveled at how well-hidden the entrance was.  However, with Fnipper and Tebryn gone, they had to admit they didn’t really have anyone who could find even the simplest of hidden passageways, rendering the point moot.  As they traveled down a long into the ground, the cultist explained the path they will take further.  “We don’t really walk to the manor from here,” he explained.  “The Nightmare Prince helped discover a strange hollow, metal snake that he has been calling a ‘subway.’  It travels along a path all over this area, and at the end, it will take you to the Servant’s Tunnel that leads to the manor.  Now, once you get there, I don’t know how prepared he will be for you, so you might have to fight your way in, but you should try to follow all security measures as well, just in case.  I don’t know exactly what these tests will be, though.  He changes them all the time.  Now, at the end of the Servants tunnel, there will be other paths called the Slaves’ Tunnel and the Warriors’ Tunnel.  If you want to live, don’t go those ways, or you will definitely alert the Prince that you’re here, and he’ll have his most powerful forces waiting for you.  Instead, there is a strange metal platform called an elevator that will take you out of the tunnel and into the Manor itself.  Specifically, you’ll end up in the Mundane Sector, where low-level worshippers like me will stay.  Try to hide there.  Now, I haven’t seen much else of the manor, so you’ll have to find your way to him from there yourself.”

	Shortly after he finished, a giant metal tube arrived from a side tunnel.  The players had already put on the appropriate robes, but they still tried to look as inconspicuous as possible as they entered the subway.  The doors closed behind them, and they disappeared into the darkness, ever-closer to their deadliest enemy yet.


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## LordVyreth (Aug 3, 2004)

*Nighmare Prince: The Journey to the Manor*

For hours, the metal serpent weaved its way through the underground tunnels.  Periodically, it would stop, and some black-robed figures would get on or off.  At one point, the party’s guide up to this point left with the crowd.  Everyone saw him, but couldn’t do anything to stop him, since it would attract too much attention to themselves.  They just let him go, and hoped that he feared the Nightmare Prince and was as repulsed by him as he had seemed up to this point.

	A few stops later, a few more unusual cultists entered their “car.”  Oddly enough, they appeared to be dwarves, which were nearly non-existent among the cultists from their experiences so far.  They couldn’t see any more about them, however, since the cultists’ hoods were designed to hide the face (a fact the party has used to their advantage on more than one occasion.)

	What the party didn’t know at this point was that these were not ordinary dwarves, either.  They were Viett and Roryn Holderhek, dwarf brothers whose paths had crossed with Bas before.  Viett, in fact, is an ex-cultist of Bas, albeit in the non-evil sect that advocates neutrality and trains all of Bas’ psionicists.  Viett actually first joined the cult because of this, when they offered to help him when he first discovered his powers, and was exiled because of this.  However, while he still respected the Neutral sect, he became disillusioned with Bas worship when he learned of the other sects.  In fact, the sect led by The Nightmare Prince so horrified him that before he left, he obtained information relating to how to find him, and then found his brother Roryn, a wild warrior who’s chaotic and vengeful fighting style has made him a village outcast as well, to help him stage an assault on The Nightmare Prince.  The two brothers are united by one other thing: they had a strange collective dream.  Surprisingly, though, it had nothing to do with Lady Memory.  Instead, it was a gruff, dwarf man, who complained that this (whatever this was,) didn’t feel right, and technically broke a lot of rules, but they had to do something to counter her (whoever she was.)  They lost their memories for a while after that point, just like the various Lady Memory dreamers, but gained them back all the same.

	Before the groups could formally introduce each other, however, they saw something that distracted both groups.  The subway passed a cavern, and a horrifying scene could be witnessed through the windows.  What looked like a giant gold dragon was being attacked and horribly killed by dozens of creatures that appeared to be vampires.  Thorrun quickly moved to the other side of the subway and turn his head in fear, but the normal cultists who were in the subway with them looked on the seen casually, and with some enjoyment.  One even commented that it was a particularly good show today!  

	All of this was making Grockith not scared, but enraged.  He was about ready to burst out of the subway already, and hearing the way the cultists spoke about this scene, which reminded him profoundly of his own mother, drove him mad.  He stood up and was just about to breathe his fiery breath on the three cultists, when Tal, Galeron, Thorrun, and Robin all grabbed onto him from behind, holding him back.  The two dwarves saw this and thought they might be some of the Nightmare Prince’s men, who discovered their presence, so they drew weapons and prepared to fight the party.  This caused Danae to respond by webbing them, which fortunately gave everyone time to calm down.  The three confused cultists caught in the middle of all this looked around, terrified.  Tal, trying to think of a quick excuse, said, “Sorry about that.  My friend here just thought he heard somebody insult his mother.”

	The cultists nodded understandingly, but one of them said, “Hmm.  He should know better by now anyway.  He won’t last long if he’s still concerned with that useless creature.”  The cultist then turned to watch the “show” outside, while Grockith’s internal rage further grew, and as she noticed there had only been male black-robed cultists so far, Danae just grew very thankful for the bulky robes the cultists all wore!

	Finally, the subway reached the party’s stop.  They all departed, and noticed the two dwarves were leaving as well.  Since they were the only two groups to get off here, they decided to finally get some answers.  “Okay, I can tell you’re not really Nightmare Prince cultists,” Viett said, having noticed the half-gold dragon Grockith and Thorrun, not to mention Danae.  “Who are you?”

	The group exchanged glances, and had Thorrun step forward to speak for them, due to the racial bonds he had with these dwarves.  “We’re enemies of him, seeking to stop him.  Are you the same?”

	Viett nodded, and replied, “Yes.  I’m a…bard, who learned of a way to access these tunnels.  My brother and I decided to try and defeat the Nightmare Prince as well.”  After what happened in his home village, he decided that very few people could be trusted with the truth of his power.

	The party quickly discussed these newcomers.  “I think they’re telling the truth, but there’s something this Viett is hiding from us,” Galeron said.  “We should let them come along with us, but watch them very closely.”

	The dwarves agreed that there was strength in numbers, especially in a place like this, but they were equally suspicious of the party.  Eventually, the now merged party continued down the tunnel from the subway, only to find the first test of the tunnel.  The next cavern was extremely long and had a river of lava flowing through it.  Only a few narrow bridges and ledges provided a safe path through the area.  To make matters worse, as soon as they neared the river, it started to churn, and the lava periodically would form into a wave.  It was like the river was being partially dammed and then released.  Of course, the bridges weren’t safe whenever a wave formed, forcing the party to hide in small alcoves on the sides of the cavern periodically.  To make matters worse, when they neared the middle of the tunnel, they were suddenly attacked by three statues with strange runes where their faces should be, and a tentacled monster that lived in the lava itself.  The statues weren’t too bad, though they proved dangerous simply because they blocked essential parts of the paths, exposing people to repeated waves of lava.  In addition, they could fire blood out of their runic “faces,” which tried to warp the minds of those hid by it, confusing them.  Fortunately, the party members struck were able to resist this effect, and destroy the statues.

	The tentacled monster was a greater threat.  For one thing, it had a weapon in each of its many arms, and could attack one target almost a dozen times!  In addition, it seemed to be tied to the elemental of fire, and even put up a wall of fire down the middle of one of the bridges, making it impossible to continue until it was brought down.  It also could grapple party members in its tentacles.  It managed to grab Tal, and was slowly dragging him towards the edge of the ledge he was on, and into the lava!  Tal was almost forced off, and into the almost certain doom of the river, when the monster was finally brought down through a combination of Danae’s magic, Robin’s arrows, and Viett’s “bardic lore.”

	After the monsters were defeated, the party was able to cross the lava room slightly more easily, though Robin’s animal companions and Grockith’s rhino gave them some trouble.  From there, the party had to cross another tunnel, and encountered even more dangers.  As they went down the corridor, they found a pair of stone statues, which were carved to resemble cultists.  When the party neared them, they suddenly moved, shouting words of praise to the Nightmare Prince, and then kneeling while instructing the party to do the same.  Since they were still attempting to reach the manor without alerting it, they follow these instructions.  A little farther down the corridor, they saw a second pair of statues, who instructed the party to praise Khaspar.  Everyone followed this one except Galeron, Thorrun, and Grockith, though the latter was growing increasingly disturbed at this point.  He was beginning to mutter to himself, and seemed to sometimes draw his weapon and stare at unseen enemies, but he never explained these actions to the others.  Regardless, the others’ actions seemed to satisfy these statues, for they didn’t respond to the party after this.  The third set told the party to cut themselves with the holy symbols of Bas, which most of the party had grown used to by now.  However, the final test was stranger, and more disturbing.  The two cultist statues attacked a third statue of a seemingly innocent person, and they instructed the party to attack an unwilling target in the same way!  This was too far for the entire party, and they decided to take their chances at this point.  Surprisingly, the statues didn’t respond to this refusal, but Danae knew that there were many ways magical traps could be devised, and was afraid that they still alerted the guards to their presence of caused something even worse to happen.

OOC Notes: Viett and Roryn are the new characters for Fnipper and Tebryn’s players, respectively.  This makes the third character to date for Chris, for those still keep track.


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## LordVyreth (Aug 9, 2004)

*The Nightmare Prince: The Party Is Split*

Beyond the statue tests, the party finally reached the central hub that their mostly involuntary guide told them about.  They were leaving from a tunnel that was labeled the Servants’ Tunnel, and two other tunnels labeled the Slaves’ Tunnel and the Warriors’ Tunnel also branched off here.  There was also an opening in the ceiling here, but it was totally obscured by a strange metal machine.  Tal nodded.  “This must be the ‘elevator’ that we were told about.”

	The strange machine was too small for more than one person to fit through at a time, and they had no idea how long it would take for one person to reach the top.  Whoever went in first would be taking a huge risk, and with a group that largely didn’t trust each other any more (especially with the two additional near-strangers,) few were willing to take that risk.  However, after only a moment’s hesitation, Galeron stepped forward, and boldly said, “I’ll do it!”

	Tal looked worried, and responded, “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.  We need someone who would make a better scout, and is capable both of determining what danger might be up there quickly, and keep hidden until then.”

	But Galeron shook his head.  “With Fnipper and Tebryn…gone, we don’t really have anyone capable of that anyway.  Well, Robin maybe, but at least if things get ugly, I can keep myself alive until help arrives.”

	Upon hearing this, Tal let him go first if he still wanted to, with reluctance, and except for the worried Thorrun, and an eager-to-please Robin, everyone was happy to let him go.

	However, that proved to be a mistake, for Khaspar, the Nightmare Prince, was better prepared for the party’s arrival than they thought.  The elevator slowly rose for a few minutes, before its door opened to a very dark room.  Galeron cautiously stepped into the room, only to for the room to be enveloped in even greater darkness, suggesting an obviously magical source.  Suddenly, a strange, unfamiliar voice echoed across the room.  “Welcome, ‘heroes’ of Methosilang.  Or, more likely, hero, since your friends are likely waiting below, ignorant of the horrible death you will soon experience.  But at least you’ll have the enjoyment of being defeated by the best.”  The voice began to laugh, but it echoed away.  Meanwhile, a terrified Galeron heard the elevator door slam shut, and felt water rush into the room at high speed!

	Galeron tried a spell, but his voice didn’t seem to work.  He also realized he no longer heard the sound of water rushing into the room, and realized he was trapped in a zone of silence!  It soon ceased to be an issue, however, for the water filled the room with almost supernatural speed, preventing him from casting most spells anyway.  He did have one spell that let him enhance his muscles, however, and it didn’t require a saying anything.  He found the elevator door, cast the spell, and began to attack it with all of his might.  However, being underwater slowed his movements and limited the impact on the door.  He was able to put some good dents in the door, but he nonetheless lost consciousness, and he cursed the name of Khaspar as he prepared to embrace his goddess…

	Meanwhile, the rest of the party was still waiting at the bottom of the elevator.  A few minutes passed, and still the elevator didn’t come down, nor did they hear anything from Galeron.  Finally, the gears of the elevator began to move, and they moved into position around, hoping to send Tal up if it was empty, but prepared to fight if there was something hostile in the elevator.  Just then, they noticed that a pair of figures was coming from the Warrior and Slaves’ Tunnels.  The one from the warrior’s tunnel was a drow man wearing light armor and carrying a lute or similar instrument.  Tal, Robin and Danae actually recognized him as Alkurvas, a bard that lived in Methosilang, and Tal even remembered that Alkurvas once sung a strange song to the party, though he couldn’t remember the exact words at the moment.  The other figure was much smaller, similar in size to a gnome or halfling, but it was wearing a black robe like the other cultists wear.

	The party prepared to fight them, but Alkurvas held up a hand in friendship.  “Be at peace, my friends.  I can’t speak for this other figure, but I’m here to help you, not fight you.”

	Upon hearing this, the other figure spoke.  “Nor am I your enemy.  In fact, I was a slave here, but I managed find a way to escape.  Even so, I didn’t dare to take it until I heard the rumors that you would come, and I heard that my son was among you.”  The figure removed her hood, to reveal the face of an aged deep gnome.  “Now, where is Fnipper?”

	Tal tried to respond to this woman to this, but his mouth was numbed from the shock of meeting Fnipper’s mother and the horror of what he had to tell her.  Grockith looked even paler, and from here on, he was unable to express any emotion at all.  It was as if he was a construct, going through the motions of life while his mind was locked in a battle for his very sanity.

	Tal tried to respond as best he could.  “Um, I’m afraid I have bad news for you.  Fnipper was killed in…an earlier battle while we were searching for The Nightmare Prince’s home.  He was hoping he could find and free you and the rest of his family.”

	Fortunately for Tal, she didn’t have time to respond nor could he elaborate, for Alkurvas spoke up, “I’m afraid we don’t have time for conversation.  Khaspar knows you are here.”  He waited for the initial shock and fear to die down, and then continued, “As we speak, he is gathering the most powerful forces he has, and they will come down the Warriors’ Tunnel in a matter of minutes to finish you.”

	“How long did he know,” a worried Robin asked.

	“Since you arrived, though he expected you would attack from before that.  He wanted you to come so he could capture at least one of you alive for information, but now that he has what you want, the rest of you are expendable.”

	Viett and Roryn, however, were getting suspicious.  “How do we know you’re not working with him to trick us?  How do you even know all of this?”

	Alkurvas shrugged and replied, “I’m a wanderer and spy of sorts.  I go almost everywhere to seek a new audience.  If I can help spy on Methosilang’s enemies as I go, I have no problem with that.  And if I really am a spy for Khaspar, what would be the point?  He clearly knows you’re here if that was true as well, he still has an army that can kill you far more easily than I could, and he could just let you go up the elevator one at a time until he has you all captured or killed.”

	The party thought this out for a while, and Danae asked, “So what do you propose we do about it?”

	“I know another way in, and it’s actually very close.  Not even Khaspar would suspect you’ll use it, since he personally made it and told no one else of its existence.  I can take you there if you like.  However,” and he looked to Robin and Grockith for this part, “the path is too narrow for your animals.  I can take care of them for you, though, and make sure they are safe.”

	It took some discussion, but Robin reluctantly parted with his current animal companions.  Grockith, surprisingly, let him take his unusual rhino without any protesting or emotion at all.  Alkurvas then prepared to lead them to the portal, when Fnipper’s mom spoke up.

	“Just a minute.  If my son is truly dead, I would like to go with you.  He died trying to fight Khaspar, after all, so I blame him for Fnipper’s death.  And if killing him will save more of my family, I would be happy to help you save them as well.  Oh, and we haven’t been formally introduced, I believe.  My name is Nathee.”

	The party members introduced themselves, and they were on their way.  Alkurvas led them partially down the Warriors’ Tunnel, and then to a tiny secret door in the wall.  Behind the door, there was nothing but a ladder and a shaft leading upwards.  Each of the heroes climbed the ladder, and found a second secret door at the top.  They found themselves exiting a painting (appropriately titled “The Void,” which is apparently just a black canvas that easily hides the secret door when opened,) and entering the most twisted art gallery they had ever seen.  The entire floor is an elaborate fresco depicting a pit to the Abyss or a similar hellish land, creating an unnerving illusion of walking on nothing.  The room was filled with various other odd and macabre artworks, from twisted machines of war to elaborate sculptures and paintings of tortured creatures.  The room’s most notable sculpture was a giant statue made of what looked like the corpses of dozens of women stitched together into one massive human form, with arms raised in sorrow.  Above the room, there were dozens of hanging sculptures, along with a small maze of catwalks.  The room also had a pair of doors, on the east and west walls.  Roryn and Viett, using their dwarfish direct senses, determined that the Mundane Sector they were told about by the party (who had of course learned it from their cultist prisoner,) was to the east, but since Khaspar already expected them, Viett suggested that they go west instead, in an attempt to trick him.  However, they couldn’t even go near the door before they were attacked.

	Arrows and magic rained down on the party from the catwalks, as a number of figures emerged from hiding to attack.  Even worse, Lamentation itself suddenly began to move, and charged Tal!  Grockith, with some encouragement, moved up to the hideous monster and begin to attack it, while being the only one in the party to show no signs of repulsion at the hideous creature.  Roryn roared his enraged battle cry, and moved up to help Grockith, while Viett stood behind them and started to psionically disintegrate parts of the monster, which was extremely confusing to Tal and Danae, who had learned that this was just a massive flesh golem, and should be immune to magic.  However, the two of them were far more concerned with the cultists firing at them from above, and they teamed up with Robin to fire up at them.  Meanwhile, Nathee moved behind the golem to attack it, only to learn that her sneak attacks were useless on the creature, and Thorrun worked to heal everyone as best as he could.  It was a difficult fight, especially since all of their attackers were using the catwalks as cover and were so nimble that they could avoid all of Danae and Tal’s fireballs and other area magic without even being harmed by them.  However, when the party was able to actually hit, each hit connected easily enough, and the villains all died with only a few strikes.  Meanwhile, Lamentation was mercifully brought to rest by Grockith’s blade.  However, the room still had one surprise left for the unfortunate heroes, when one last black-robed figure suddenly dropped to the floor using some sort of machine similar to the elevator they saw earlier, and stabbed straight at Roryn’s heart with the speed of a trained assassin.  Roryn was able to keep his heart away from the assassin’s blade, but the attack was still a deep and painful one.  Viett, seeing his brother’s near-death, angrily fired one last ray at the assassin, and in one moment, he was turned into nothing but dust.  The party quickly gathered the equipment
of the enemy while Roryn destroyed the west wall, and continued onward.



	“Wakey Wakey!”

	Galeron groaned as he regained consciousness.  He was stripped of all of his equipment and clothing, save for a simple prisoner rags, and some strange metal bracelets around each of his arms and legs.  He was attached, apparently by magnetic force from the bracelets, to a metal rack of some sort.  Three creatures were looking at him. One was an elf, who was playing some sort of instrument.  The other was a hideous demonic creature, which was covered with spikes and strange scars.  As it realized it was noticed, it opened its mouth in an unnaturally large and toothy grin, and a massive bladed tongue that was almost as long as the creature’s body rolled out.  Finally, there was a half-mechanical man.  He seemed to be far more elaborate than other half-machines that Galeron had seen so far, however.  He had wings, a tail, and even horns, to give the impression of a strange mechanical half-demon, rather than the mechanical mess most half-machines were. 

	“The Nightmare Prince, I’m guessing?”

	The half-machine man smiled.  “Correct!  Now, I’m willing to start this process easily enough.  As you already guessed, you still exist for a reason.  You still have information that will make me very popular with Bas, and I intend to get it, one way or the other.  But we have plenty of time, especially since your friends will be killed soon enough, and no one else will come to save you.  Let’s start with the basics.  You know, name, brief family history, and so on, and we’ll see where we go from there.

	Galeron, however, was defiant.  “You won’t get anything out of me.”

	The Nightmare Prince sighed, but suddenly smiled.  “It’s just as well.  This is a far more entertaining way to do it, anyway.”

	Suddenly, Galeron’s rack lifted off the ground, and was taken over the room’s far wall through a window-like opening.  On the other side was a pool of a bubbling green fluid, which Galeron guessed was acid.

	“Now then, would you like to try it again?  Let’s try your name at least.”

	Galeron looked down, and knew that if he was dropped in the acid, his death would be certain.  Still, he persevered.  “Taunt me all you want, Khaspar.  I know that my friends still live.  And whatever happens to me, they will kill you.”

	Khaspar shrugged.  “So you say.  But that’s enough for now.  I need you rested for the fun we’re going to have over the next few days.  But here’s a little something for you to remember me by.”  He then instructed the demon to lower Galeron into the acid briefly, and then pull him out again.  He then left to rest for the night, seeming oblivious to Galeron’s screams.


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## LordVyreth (Aug 12, 2004)

*The Nightmare Prince: Discovered!*

Meanwhile, the rest of the party had another setback.  Grockith’s internal battle with his own madness had ended, with him the loser.  He was now trapped in a comatose state, with his soul gone to who knows where.  For now, Tal shrugged.  “We might as well take him with us, in case he comes to.”  

Viett and Roryn looked extremely uncomfortable about this, but eventually conceded defeat.  “Just don’t expect us to be so friendly if he comes to and almost gets us all killed,” Roryn warned.  “I’ll make his little nap permanent that time.”

	Roryn then worked on the door, which fell after only a few good swings of his axe.  The door opened into a hallway, which turned to the right after only about fifteen feet before turning to the right again.  The path continued in that direction for about seventy feet before turning right again, but there were a pair of doors on the right wall, and curiosity got the better of the party.  Roryn moved to open the first door, with Robin taking point.  He kicked it open, and found a grisly torture chamber on the other side.  There was a terrified and agonized man bound to a table, and a vulture-headed humanoid looming over him.  The room was filled with other horrid creatures, from more of the flame-wreathed demons like the one they fought at TIE’s mountain, to strange demonic hyena-like creatures, to a creature with the upper body of a man and the lower body of a scorpion.

	Roryn wasted no time in charging into the room, with Robin cautiously following behind.  The two of them easily destroyed the hyenas, while Viett, Tal, and Danae hurled magic (or at least what they think is magic, in Viett’s case,) at the other demons, and Nether crept into the room from behind.  The demon often called a Vrock responded by seeding Roryn with some painful spores, but he laughed off the pain, while the party easily surrounded and slaughtered the scorpion demon and the fire demons.  However, the Vrock was wearing some sort of black chain mail, which when combined with his naturally hard skin and agility made him much harder to hit.  In addition, he had used his magical powers to create a small army of illusionary clones, which the party often accidentally hit instead of the demon itself.  Roryn and the others surrounded the Vrock to begin the slow process of destroying the strange demon.  Thorrun, meanwhile, waited out in the hallway to guard and heal injured allies as they retreat, which turned out to be a mistake, as there was still the other doorway’s inhabitants to deal with.

	Speaking of which, the door suddenly burst open, and a pair of giant apes emerged.  They had strange blood-red fur, and enough strange artificial attachments to clearly label them as more of the half-machines.  The two of them were also moving so fast that they were blurs.  The two of them charged poor Thorrun, and in a matter of seconds, ripped him limb from limb!

	While Nathee, Roryn and Robin finished off the Vrock, Tal led the others out to deal with the apes.  They were fierce opponents, but they nonetheless fell quickly to the magical and psionic power of the party.  However, none of them expected that this was the limit of the enemies in the other room, and they ran up to the other door to prevent another ambush.  Inside, there was what appeared to be a chapel.  There also was black-robed cultist, wielding a Morningstar and the miniature holy symbol scimitars, suggesting that he was an actual divine cleric of Bas, and possibly a powerful one.  He was being guarded by another black-robed cultist, but he was more bulky, and had the build of a fighter.  He also appeared to be a trained bodyguard, for he was constantly moving to get in front of the cleric.  The cleric was the first to respond, and with a few simple gestures and an exhortation to his goddess, a wall of incredibly powerful flames rained down on the party’s most fragile warriors!  None of them were killed by it, but they could barely stand up after the attack. 

	Fortunately, Robin and the other more combative members of the party had finished the Vrock, and were coming to help.  However, even their attacks couldn’t come close to the cleric, for the guard was willingly throwing himself in front of all of their attacks, and the cleric responded to this attack by healing his bodyguard.  Fortunately, Viett had an easy solution to this problem, when he simply concentrated, causing a green ray to strike the bodyguard, reducing him to dust!  With him dead, the party easily killed the vile chosen of Bas, but the damage was already done.  Most of the party was too wounded to survive another fight like this, and now their only cleric was dead.  Danae was especially terrified, for Galeron didn’t get a chance to remove the mechanical parasites from her or her familiar yet!  And to make matters even worse, it was about this time that a loud siren began to blare throughout the building.  It was clear that Khaspar knew the party was in the manor, and it was only a matter of time before they were discovered.


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## LordVyreth (Aug 17, 2004)

*The Nightmare Prince: The Restless Night*

The party had to escape quickly, but no one was willing to let the victim they found in the torture chamber remain Khaspar’s prisoner either.  Robin and Roryn freed him, while the others quickly explored the Chapel for clues or treasure.  While there, Tal noticed something strange about the chapel’s altar, and motioned for the others to help him investigate.  He soon learned that while the top of the altar was caked in blood, it was normally transparent, and with a bit of magic, he was able to clean most of the blood off.  To his horror, he learned that the altar itself was hollow, and that the top could be removed.  Inside, he found the cultist that had led them to the subway in the first place, though he was now completely unarmed and appeared to be half mad.  Tal quickly realized what the point of all this was.  “As a punishment for helping us, The Nightmare Prince made him witness the sacrifices from here, unable to move or do anything but watch from as close as possible.”  Tal grabbed the unfortunate man, and managed to drag him out of the room in time as well.

	The party continued down the corridor, towards the last door.  They came to a room that was larger than even the art gallery, and that was filled with boxes of all sizes.  Some where only a few feet in length, width, and depth, but others towered over the heads of the party.  As they were exploring the room, they noticed that one of the boxes in the middle of the room was starting to shake.  Before the party had time to even react, it burst apart, revealing a gigantic dragon-like creature with eleven heads!  Danae studied the creature quickly.  “It’s clearly a hydra, and the colorings around the heads reveal that it is of the cryo- sub-species.”  The party nodded as they prepared for this foe, but all of them were also aware of the fact that the creature was half made of metal, just like many of Khaspar’s most powerful servants!

	Nathee was the first to respond.  She began to tumble to the other side of the room, while Danae, Robin and Viett fired at the creature using magic, arrows and psionics from a distance, and Tal moved to the edge of the room to begin firing on the hydra from a distance, though he was attacked by many of the creature’s heads in the process.  Roryn had his usual response to the battle, while the man they rescued from the torture chamber (who seemed unable to speak at the moment, possibly due to the pain of the torture,) helped move their crazed friend out of harm’s way.  The hydra responded by breathing on the party, as expected, but the nature of the breath was unusual.  Most of the heads breathed cold, but one head breathed a lightning bolt instead, which flew straight at the surprised Robin, and another breathed a strange gas on Roryn, which seemed to numb his senses, causing him to seemingly move in slow motion.  

	It was a brutal attack, but the party wasn’t interested in seeing any more of them.  Though none of them had much strength left, they used what was left of their spells and powers to finish the brute off.  No longer able to fight even the weakest of enemies, the party decided that they stood a chance of hiding in one of the boxes, so they had Nathee and Robin search the area for one that had potential.  Eventually, they found one that was filled with strange chemicals and preserved body parts, but it appeared to be safe.  They all squeezed into the box, and had the most restless and unsettling night of their lives.  Often, the sounds of people outside of the box could be heard, and each time the current watch (if that’s an accurate word for people trapped in a dark box,) waited breathlessly, afraid that this would be the patrol that found them.  Even though they weren’t discovered, the contents of the box and the constant awareness that they were currently sleeping in the home of someone called the Nightmare Prince made it a restless night.  Ironically, had they known how often they had trusted their lives to traitors this day, they would be even more restless.

However, as uneasy as the party’s night was, Galeron’s was far worse, for he was not allowed more than a few moments of rest.  Though he now lacked his holy symbol, Khaspar wasn’t about to let him have even a chance to pray for his spells.  In addition, in the middle of the night, it was time for another interrogation.  He was again led to the room next to the acid pool.  Khaspar approached him with a triumphant look, and threw a strange chunk of meat at his feet.  It looked horrible, like it was the remains of an animal after predators had eaten their fill, and yet it also looked terribly familiar to Galeron.  A sense of nausea and dread filled him, when he realized it was Thorrun!

	Khaspar smiled.  “As you can see, your friends are being dealt with.  Your closest friend is little but a meal for my creatures now, and I have learned that another has fallen to a coma.  And a third is slowly becoming another one of my servants.  You have no hope of rescue, and your continued presence here is just endangering your friends further.   Answer my questions, however, and I will let all of you leave my Manor.”

	Galeron, however, just gave him a look of disgust.  “I still have faith in my friends.  With the aid of our goddesses, they will kill you.”

	But this only made Khaspar laugh.  “The goddesses?  You expect that those feeble creatures will be able to save you?  I have long since become the master of all of their so-called gifts.  With my domination, they will be revealed to be the useless beings that they are.  I have mastered Lore’s magic and Ordhari’s science.  I have turned the love of Jolia into hatred, driving families against each other and rendered the weakness of love pointless.  I have turned the pleasure of Khrista into far greater joy in the suffering of others, and bended both the work of nature and the work of strength to my will.  I have turned even art and music into tools to torment the world.  Even Bas, who I currently serve, shall be useful only until she has cleansed this world of my enemies.  And then I shall destroy her, long before she even becomes aware of my treachery.  And as for Tsykie, the protector of children, well, perhaps I should show you.  It is one of my greatest triumphs.”

	So saying, the scarred demon and elf bard began to move Galeron’s rack out of the room.  Soon, he was facing a window, which overlooked a sort of enclosed courtyard a few stories down, and apparently somewhere in the middle of the Manor.  There, about twenty children were playing in the fairly lovely gardens.  Suddenly, Khaspar turned to his minions, pointed at a child at random, and simply said “That one,” prompting them to operate some controls in the wall.  The courtyard grew dark, except for a spotlight that centered on the child.   A loud buzzer sounded, and the children stopped playing.  The other children quickly surrounded the terrified child in the spotlight, and began to attack him with their toys, their tiny fists, or even biting into him!  After a few moments, the buzzer stopped, and the children suddenly ceased their attack, and wandered away from the barely-breathing victim.  A blacked-robed cultist entered the room, and gave each of the other children some food and water, before dragging the comatose boy out of the room.  Khaspar laughed at the performance.  “As you can see, your goddess is useless to stop me from destroying the safety and innocent of even children.  I’ll let you think about what you have seen, but you have another busy day tomorrow, so try to get what little rest you can.”

OOC Notes: This will be the last update until next wednesday.  I'm going to Gen con, and I'll probably be burned out on D&D for at least a day or two after that, but I should be able to get started again after that.


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## LordVyreth (Aug 26, 2004)

*The Nightmare Prince: The Journey Upwards*

Surprisingly to some members of the party, the group was not discovered and was able to awaken the next day safely.  However, everyone remembers being awakened, if only for a few moments, by the sound of a loud buzzer coming from somewhere nearby.  The next morning, Danae and the party’s other wizards prepared their spells, while the others spoke with the man they rescued from the torture chamber.  He said his name was Sigmund, and he was an escapee from the undead empire’s breeding grounds, where vampires and similar undead ate, and others were transformed into undead en masse.  He had just managed to escape when he discovered this place, and was subsequently captured by Khaspar.  He was being tortured for information about what he knew when the party arrived to save him.  He managed to see a lot about the manor before his capture, and he’d be happy to help the party find their way through the manor if it meant escape and getting revenge on The Nightmare Prince.

	Once the party was ready to go and the coast was clear, the next day of exploring this twisted place began.  There were two unexplored paths to take from the Storage room: a door to the south and one to the east.  Sigmund, remembering what he learned while imprisoned, said “I know there’s some way to the second story to the south.  And Khaspar himself is will almost certainly be waiting at the top of the Manor.”  The others weren’t so certain about this latter conclusion, but the eastern path likely doubles back to the residential part of the Manor they worked so hard to avoid the first time around, so going south made as much sense as anything.

	At first, the area they entered was peaceful, and completely out of place with the rest of the Manor so far.  It was an indoor courtyard, filled with plants and even children of various races playing.  Oddly enough, though, none of them were playing together, or even reacted when the party arrived.  At one point, Nathee gasped slightly, when she saw a little girl who was also a deep gnome.  “I think that’s my granddaughter!” she whispered.

	The party had a brief debate about what to do next.  “I think we should take them along,” Tal insisted.  “We can’t leave them here.  Who knows what the Nightmare Prince will do to them?”

	Danae shook her head.  “It’s one thing to take a few prisoners with us, but a couple dozen children?  They’d just get us all killed.  And they don’t appear to be in any immediate danger.  We can rescue them with the rest of the slaves later, once Khaspar is dead.”

	The debate continued for a few minutes, but eventually a compromise was reached, where they would at least find a way out of the manor itself, and try to get the children out using that.  There were only two other doors in the room, and both of them connect to a square of wall that enters into the otherwise square nursery.  However, when Robin tried the door, the room suddenly turned dark, except for a spotlight that caught Robin and the rest of the party.  A buzzer sounded, and all the children suddenly paid attention to the party for the first time.  Suddenly, all of them rushed the party to attack them!

	Fortunately, despite the horror of the situation, it wasn’t as bad as it first appeared.  Though no one wanted to hurt children, everyone realized the main priority was to escape without killing them, so they quickly switched to non-lethal attacks.  Though even knocking children unconscious with the blunt end of swords was horrifying, it was accomplished with no permanent injuries.  The attack was further proof that the children can’t accompany them now, but Tal insisted on at least bring Nathee’s granddaughter with them, in an attempt to make up for the death of Fnipper.

	Once the attack was over, getting the door open was fairly easy.  It appeared to lead into a dark room, with a stairway that led onto metal walkways above them.  It appeared that this was the way to the next floor, so the party led the way, with Sigmund leading their crazed cultist friend and carrying Nathee’s daughter.  As they began to traverse the room, it became obvious that much of the darkness in the center of the room was magical in nature, making it impossible to know exactly what was in the center of the room, especially without any real clerics left in the group to remove the darkness.  Nathee and Robin listened into the darkness, but after failing to hear anything, the group tried to just reach the staircase up as carefully as they can.  They only got about halfway up, however, before the screams began.

	Tal, at least, recognized them for what they were.  They sounded just like the strange jellyfish-like demon that accompanied Tanos, over a year ago.  As expected, mere seconds later, the screams rose to a deafening level as a pair of the hideous demons appeared in the room.  However, both of them were given the now nearly omni-present metallic implants, and while both of them were larger than the one Tal saw earlier, one of them was double its size!  Even worse, as the monsters appeared, the sound of another monster arriving could be heard coming from the other end of the room, though the darkness in the center of the room prevented anyone from seeing what it was.

	Nathee responded first.  She sprinted up the stairs, and tumbled to the side of one of the Lipidos, hurting it, but only slightly.  Her heroism was rewarded with a strange, deafening screech from the other end of the room.  Nathee narrowly dodged out of the way, and the sonic attack left a hole in the wall where she once stood.  The larger of the two Lipidos responded next, by releasing a circle of dark energy right into the party.  Surprisingly, Sigmund managed to avoid the blast entirely, using far more agility than an ex-slave would be expected to have.  This was good news, especially since he was still protecting Nathee’s kin, but it was suspicious nonetheless.  He still quickly got out of the way of the fight, as Tal, Robin, and Roryn converted to attack their enemies.  Danae and Viett, meanwhile, fired instead in the direction of the screaming monster with their most powerful attacks.  The screams they heard suggested that their plan succeeded admirably, but before Danae could respond again, the smaller Lipido grabbed her, and injected her with some horribly fluid from an artificial tail.  The poison had a profound effect on Dane’s constitution, which was already at its lowest point from the mechanical infestation on her body, and she lapsed into unconsciousness.

	Meanwhile, the larger Lipido managed to grab both Viett and the cultist they rescued from the chapel, and in a flash, it sucked the life force out of the poor man.  He screamed in agony, and that dying scream seemed to enter the Lipido itself, along with his very soul.  Viett, meanwhile, demonstrated why trying to grapple a psion was a very bad idea, and fired a disintegration ray at the creature even as barbed tentacles were rending his flesh.  The monster avoided the worst of the blast, but the continued assault by Tal, Robin, and Roryn was already weakening the monster.  The lesser Lipido responded by dropping Danae, and firing a dark circle of energy at the party just like the larger creature had done earlier.  But it wasn’t enough to save the larger monster, who finally fell to the might of the enraged Roryn’s axe.  As it exploded in an eruption of vile fluid and the smoke of souls, the party turned its aggression to the smaller creature, who wisely fled after seeing how this fight had turned against them.

	The party was victorious yet again, but now there were less of them than ever.  Galeron was captured, Thorrun dead, Grockith in a coma, and Danae unconscious, the only conscious party members left were Tal, Robin, Roryn, Viett, and technically Sigmund.  As they continued on, Robin and Tal exchanged glances, and both silently realized that the only people around them that they really trusted were each other.

	The dark room they were in was mostly empty.  However, as they continued down the walkway, it suddenly gave way in front of Roryn, the party’s current point man, sending him into the darkness below, which apparently contained numerous spikes.  He was able to escape the pit with minimal damage, but Nathee understandably took the lead after that, and found all the other traps on the way to the other side of the room.   They found two doors leading west there, and chosen the Southern door after Sigmund mentioned he heard about an armory that The Nightmare Prince had in that vicinity.

	Meanwhile, the third stage of Galeron’s interrogation had begun.  To start this part of the interrogation, Khaspar didn’t have to say anything.  He just had to show Galeron the view from his manor.  It was overlooking a huge, dark valley that appeared to be currently (if not eternally) caught in a thunderstorm.  Galeron could see little inside the pit itself, but occasionally lightning would flash, letting him catch a glimpse at something inside the valley.  It appeared to be the upper half of a vaguely humanoid form.  Judging from the distance to the valley, it would have to be almost a mile tall at full length, and the way it seemed to be trapped and futilely struggling to free itself did nothing to remove the dread Galeron was feeling.  For as he looked upon the figure in the comparative safety of Khaspar’s Manor, he knew that he was watching Bas herself.


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## LordVyreth (Sep 1, 2004)

*The Nightmare Prince: Not So Beautiful Music*

As Galeron looked on in horror, Khaspar continued his ranting.  “You do realize that no matter what happens here, you and your country are doomed.  You could escape, or you could even kill me, and for what?  As you can see, my goddess is unstoppable, and growing more powerful by the second.  Soon, she will be free, and able to destroy your empire by herself.  And when she does, I’ll be there aiding her until the end, where I shall take her place as the deserving ruler of this world.  And what can you do to stop it?  You can’t kill Bas and all of her servants by yourself.  And good luck getting Methosilang to help.  Nobody of worth believes your stories of a twelfth goddess.  Our spies have seen to that.  You will be all alone, unable to do anything until your inevitable deaths.  Only by helping us now will you spare yourselves from a long and painful demise.”

	Despite all of these threats and prophecies, Galeron would not talk, so Khaspar again took him away.  He chuckled as Galeron was taken back to his prison, and said, “You should know that next time we speak, you shall see my worst.”

	Meanwhile, Galeron’s friends and rescuers were being led through a hallway by Sigmund.  Eventually, he stopped at a door and said, “The treasure should be in there.”  Roryn used his favorite method of door-removal to enter the room, and found a number of strange and clearly magical objects, including a pair of wings, a ring, and a bastard sword.  The party decided to deal with them later, however, and placed them in a bag of holding for now.  On their way back to the other door, they checked the other doors in this hallway, but they all appeared to be just bedrooms, albeit far nicer ones than normal cultists would be expected to have.  Tal speculated, “These probably belong to Khaspar’s Elite soldiers, like that assassin we fought back in the art gallery, or that priest from the chapel.  At any rate, they all had little but their normal furnishings, possibly because any servant of the Nightmare Prince would likely be far too paranoid to leave anything of value off of their person.  The party continued on after a cursory examination.

	The second door from the stairway, however, was far more interesting.  It led to a hallway with four more doors.  The first two were just more bedrooms, but the third appeared to be a very strange prison.  After Nathee took a few moments to easily pick the lock (Tal and Viett had managed to restrain Roryn this time,) they found their way into a room filled with tiny cages, which each appeared large enough to hold a single prisoner of human size.  Most of the cages were inhabited by people, but all of them appear to have been reduced to emotional vegetables by Khaspar’s tortures.  They hide their eyes from the party as soon as they open the door.  

However, there was one exception to these prisoners.  One angry-looking woman was trapped in a cage that was itself surrounded by a magical circle of protection, which Viett realized was used to prevent a creature from teleporting or plane-shifting away, and was usually used for summoned outsiders!  As soon she saw the party, she immediately turned much friendlier, and directing her response specifically to Robin, she called out, “At last, I am freed!  Good sirs, can you help me escape from this cage.  If you do, I promise I will help you get revenge on The Nightmare Prince!”

This obviously struck a few of the heroes as a little suspicious.  Tal, however, couldn’t perform his normal role as party diplomat, as he was working to try and calm the other prisoners.  Instead, Robin took over, with Viett providing him with information as he spoke.  “My, err, bard friend here says that you appear to be trapped in a summoning circle.  May I ask why?”

The woman responded, “First of all, the name is Veran, and I won’t lie to you.  I was once a worshipper of Bas.  However, she betrayed me by agreeing with Khaspar’s request that I assist him on a project of his.  He merely wanted a chance to abuse and humiliate me, since he wouldn’t dare try this against the Lady of Blood or Blade of Minds.  He is a sadist and a misogynist of the worst sort, and he just wanted a chance to prove that he was my superior.  I’m a decent sorceress myself, but I couldn’t oppose him and his entire force, and Bas never once responded to my please for aid.  As a result, I decided to reform and serve her no longer, and I’ll start by killing that bastard Khaspar.  However, I will only help you if you swear on the names of your goddesses that you will protect me both here and afterwards.  If we do kill Khaspar, Bas will label me her enemy, and she always spares no effort to make an example of traitors.”

After hearing her story, the party disengaged to discuss the issue.  Nathee and Sigmund were both a very suspicious, and Sigmund in particular thinks that she’s really working for Khaspar herself, but everyone seemed convinced by her story, though it also looked like she was hesitating or hiding something.  However, she also seemed to have a slight speech impediment, and she deliberately tried to hide her mouth when speaking, and Viett speculated that Khaspar must’ve done something to disfigure her that she’s ashamed of, which could explain her attempts to hide something.  They eventually decide to free her.  Viett destroyed the circle and dissolved the cage’s door, free her.  The delighted Veran said, “I think I have a way to help you already.  I notice that all of you are extremely wounded.  I can use magic to hide us in a number of small planar pockets, where you can rest in relative safety.”

The party hesitated at this as well, since they knew Galeron can’t wait forever for them, but they also realized that the Lipidos took a lot out of them, and they’d be no good to Galeron if they were killed while trying to rescue him, so they took her up her offer.  They hid their portable holes, bags of holding, and other personal pocket dimensions inside a wall that Tal stone shaped a hole into using his staff, and rested for the night.

The next morning, as they left the prison, they were surprised to find someone waiting for them outside.  Fortunately, it was Alkurvas, their bard friend whose help got them into the Manor and let them bypass the trap that claimed Galeron.  “It appears that you have been having quite a lot of problems reaching Khaspar.  Fortunately, I will be able to help you from here on, if you want.  Your animals are safe, and you are very close to Khaspar and Galeron, but there are still many obstacles left.  In my travels, I have learned some secrets of the art of magical healing, which I can use to aid you a little.”

The party readily accepted his aid, and recovered as many of their remaining wounds as they could.  However, Alkurvas could do nothing to improve the condition of either Grockith or Danae.

At Veran’s direction (and the simple fact that it’s the last way to go,) the party entered the last room of the hallway, and found themselves in perhaps the most complicated and bizarre room yet.  The room was elegantly furnished, and a light but catchy music filled the air.  Tal, relying on his years of bardic practice, noticed that there was a strange, repeating nature to the song, but he couldn’t exactly place his finger on what it was exactly.  Meanwhile, the room also was filled with strange mechanical figures, similar to the figures that animate on a cuckoo clock, though much larger.  Each figure also was far more horrible than the typical clock’s, and appeared to be ready to disembowel each other, flail around while being burned by a carved fire, laughing at suffering victims, and so on.  A lever was set in the far wall of the room.  Understandably distrusting, Viett moved the lever telekinetically while the party was safely on the other end of the room.  As a result, the walls around the middle of the room folded inward, blocking the area with the lever from the rest of the room.  The music’s tempo picked up considerably, and the party could here a rumble from the blocked side of the room, as if a large machine suddenly began to operate.  “I think I heard of this device,” Veran commented.  “I never got a chance to use it, since I was imprisoned by Khaspar too quickly, but I think it operates as an elevator to the third floor.  But be careful!  Khaspar would never create something this complicated for no reason.”

The party waited about ten minutes, and the apparent elevator returned, for the walls pulled back again.  Cautiously, all of them entered the elevator side of the room, and pulled the lever.  The walls again closed around them, so only twelve of the figures were on their side.  The room began to rise, and it felt like it was also slowly circling around them.  As the party prepared for whatever could happen, one of the statues suddenly slid to the side, revealing a tiny, but apparently empty, alcove.  As the party pondered what this meant, the statue slid closed, and two more statues slid open.  These, however, were not empty, and each appeared to hold a strange man with horns and red eyes.  One of them suddenly cast a spell, which apparently tried to transform Robin, but it failed.  Before the party could respond, the statues slid close again, and then two more opened, revealing an empty room and a three-eyed demon, identical to the one fought on TIE’s mountain.

The gaze of the monster had a number of immediate effects.  Robin suddenly screamed in terror, and was shaking for the entire rest of the fight, as his worst fears suddenly came to life again.  Veran was caught in the gaze of the creature, and screamed as her life force began to get sucked out of her.  Even worse, Fnipper’s daughter also was caught in the gaze.  Her eyes widened in a look of ultimate terror, and she immediately dropped dead!

The fight continued like this for a long time.  Every few seconds, the doors would open to reveal one of the three-eyed demons (and there appeared to be two of them) or one or more of their fiendish wizard enemy.  To make matters worse, only one of the wizards appeared to be real, and the others were apparently some kind of illusion.  And then things got even worse when Fnipper’s daughter stood up again, apparently as some form of undead, an attacked the party!  However, Roryn showed little concern about the issue and destroyed her, theorizing that she was already dead, and she couldn’t be resurrected nor could her spirit find peace while trapped as an undead monster.

Things started looking up for the party when Robin, desperate to avoid the eye monsters, dashed into one of the openings as soon as it moved, without even looking who was in it.  He ended running headlong into the wizard!  Obviously, it was too tight in the space for either to perform normal tactics, but the far stronger and more skilled Robin was able to grapple the wizard and then pummel him into unconsciousness.  As the sounds of fighting reverberated from the walls around them, the rest of the party realized that Robin clearly got the real wizard, so they ignored the illusions and concentrated on the demons.  Things also improved when Tal finally was able to recognize the pattern in the song, and could start figuring out which alcoves would open at any given time, and what would be behind them.  The party was able to finish the demons with ease at that point.  Shortly after both of them were killed, a tired Robin exited the alcove, carrying a bloody and beaten wizard with him.  He looked at the corpses of the demons, and felt his fear finally leave him.  Meanwhile, as the party got their bearings, Nathee walked up to the beaten wizard and brutal slit his throat.  The others looked at her with shock, but she shrugged.  “He and his group were responsible for killing my grand-daughter.  He deserved to die.”

A minute later, the elevator reached the next floor, and the wall again slid open, revealing a new room.  The party continued on, knowing that they were finally getting very close to their nemesis.

OOC Notes: Okay, here’s the deal with the party’s many coming and going players.  Galeron was captured as part of the plot; anyone would have been captured if they took the elevator, unless they had a really good plan.  Grockith fell into a coma because his player just didn’t get along with the other players.  There were some fights, and he just decided to stop coming.  Danae’s illness actually came from her player missing a game.  Normally, I just let other players take over for them, but she was updating her character over the week, and we couldn’t find it.  Roryn’s player also went missing, but we didn’t know why, so for now, he was being played by Chris, who also was playing Viett.  Galeron’s player was playing Nathee until he could be rescued.  She was a character I created, so the party still didn’t know what her deal was.  Sigmund, Fnipper’s daughter, Veran, Alkurvas, and the crazed cultists were all NPCs.  All of them were placed into the game beforehand, though I didn’t expect Alkurvas to return to help the party when I first made the adventure.  He was more an NPC out of necessity, after losing so many players and characters for a few games.  As for the new characters, well, they were all recruited in a Manor dedicated to evil.  Anyone care to guess if all of them are really trustworthy, and if not, which one or ones are traitors?


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## LordVyreth (Sep 3, 2004)

*The Nightmare Prince: Final Trials*

As the party came within minutes of finding Galeron, he found himself facing interrogation at the hands of Khaspar one last time.  “Now, my dear priest.  You have admittedly impressed me with your resolve so far.  You have endured pain, you have witnessed the death of your best friend, you have seen the depths of despair and depravity that my very presence causes, and you have even beheld the form of my goddess, living and present on this very world, yet you stay strong.  However, remember that I am the master of fear.  I have seen into your very nightmares.  You fear letting down your church, and failing to live up to its expectations, do you not?  You tremble at the thought that they would judge you unworthy, and expel you.  You would have no where to go, a living failure, unable to deal with the scorn and shame of your life, wouldn’t you?  I could make that happen, but I could do far worse as well.  As you know, I can infect beings with my mechanical insects, and after days or even weeks of agonizing pain, the creature dies, only to rise up again as a cyborg under my total command.  Normally, the process deforms the creature horribly, making them a pariah in society forevermore.  However, I can make alterations, and ensure that the victim’s mechanical parts are hidden.  I could do that to you, making you my absolute slave, and from there, who knows?  I could force you to, say, return to your church, and kill everyone in it?  Or how about we just butcher a village or two on the way back?  Well, not the entire church and village.  We need at least a few survivors to escape, and tell everyone about the former priest who turned to evil, committed all these atrocities, and laughed while doing it.  I assume that might get you excommunicated.  In fact, I’d assume they’d label you far worse than a mere heretic.  They’d call you a villain, a monster, and a traitor of the highest order.  Your evil would be written in books and told in tales for centuries to come.  In time, you might even become a legend, and as mythology is want to do, your story would be exaggerated with each telling.  You might even be described as a demonic lord in a future, or some sort of foul half-fiendish monster, whose power and evil are second only to that of your master, me.”

Galeron pondered all this.  His choices were hard but clear.  Either willing betray his church, or his body will be used as a living puppet, and he will be forced to betray every value he has and be vilified by the forces he regards as his heroes and by the organization he has vowed his life to serve.  It was his greatest nightmare, and he came very close to surrender…

But then he began to think about the one person that would know the truth about him no matter what Khaspar forced him to do: his goddess.  She would surely know that he sacrificed his life, his honor, and everything he held dear to protect his home.  Using what little strength he had left, he looked straight at Khaspar, and spit in his face.  

Khaspar, as expected, was not pleased.  “Very well.”  He looked to his bard minion, and said, “Prepare the machine.  The swarms take too long to make the transformation, and aren’t precise enough for my desire.  My personal transformation machine, however, is far more advanced.  Delay the other prisoner’s transformation for now, until we can finish things here.”  

With that, Galeron was taken to his prison, for what was likely to be the last time.

Meanwhile, Galeron’s last hope was drawing ever closer.  They now found themselves in a library, and honestly, except for the strange metal screens that were blocking all the book shelves, it looked reasonably normal, at least at first.  The only really unusual part of the room was a strange diorama located right in the middle.  Viett quietly told the others that it looked like a planetary model, except it wasn’t for any planets he ever heard of.  However, about the time the party noticed the diorama, the library’s guards noticed them!  A panicked scholarly-looking cultist ran to the edge of the room, while a far, far more violent-looking cultist roared and charged at the party.  From behind a bookshelf, a stone dragon rose up and roared, making Tal groan as he recognized the creature.  Finally, the room was enveloped in a cacophony of screams, as the Lipido that ran from the earlier stairway fight return for vengeance!

Roryn roared and met his equally enraged opponent head on, while Nathee moved to get behind him.  Tal, however, remembered what disasters Book Wyrms can become if left alone, and he yelled to the party to help him destroy it.  He launched a sonic orb at the creature, followed almost immediately by a magic missile by Veran and a disintegration ray by Viett.  This did quite a bit of damage to the beast, yet it still lived for now.  Sigmund, as usual, fled to the corner while the fight progressed.

Robin and Alkurvas moved to engage the Lipido, when suddenly, the sun of the diorama lit up, shining light on the planetary spheres around it.  Remarkably, all of the spheres were transparent, and when the sun’s light shone into them, a beam of colored light flew out from the planets.  Some of the beams were blocked by other planets, but the others flew out from the diorama and into the combat around them!  One of them, which shone through a dark planet, struck Robin, draining him of some of his health.  Another struck the enraged Roryn, and since it went through what was apparently an ice world, it seemed to freeze Roryn!

Meanwhile, the monsters struck back.  The enraged cultists suddenly got even angrier, until he entered a battle frenzy, and began to tear Roryn apart.  The dragon moved up to engage the party, but made the mistake of taking some time to summon a book around it first.  A wizard appeared out of it, and tried slowing Tal down, but he was able to resist the simple magic of the book-based simulacrum.  The Lipido had more luck, and grabbed Robin with its many hook arms.

Roryn and Nathee futilely continued to attack the frenzied cultist, but though it looked like the wounds they did could have killed a normal being, the cultist didn’t even seem to notice!  Meanwhile, Tal and the others “magic”-using party members finished off the dragon, and began to focus on the Lipido.  However, they dared not get too close, for that fight was right in the area of the sun’s rays, and the planets were constantly rotating, threatening the party with new rays and potentially new traps every few seconds.  Alkurvas was a little more daring, and nimbly evaded the beam as he moved in close to aid Robin.  Soon, they had finished the distracted creature once and for all, and before Robin could be harmed too badly by the creature.

The same couldn’t be said by poor Roryn.  Eventually, Tal and Viett joined in on the fight against the frenzied cultist, but even though they managed to strip the flesh from his bones at places, something was still making him fight.  Finally, Viett fired a disintegration beam at the warrior, which caught him by surprise, and reduced him to nothing but dust (thank you, 3.0.)  The party then turned on the surviving scholar, only to initially lose track of where he was!  They searched the library frantically, while dodging around the beams of the sun trap’s rays, until they found a lever, which deactivated the sun when pulled.  Meanwhile, Tal managed to find the scholar, who was hiding under a magical field of invisibility near the lever, but couldn’t fool the senses of Tal’s familiar violet.  The desperate sage tried to attack the party with illusionary magic disguised as more powerful spells, but he was cut down with ease.  

From here, the party explored the rest of the library and beyond it.  To the south, there was nothing more than a hallway with two more bedrooms, leaving only one more door in the room that led north.  The party steeled themselves and healed as best they could, for they could sense that Galeron’s captors were beyond this door, but they had only minutes to spare.


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## LordVyreth (Sep 8, 2004)

*The Nightmare Prince: The Final Battle!*

Beyond the library, there was a gleaming metal room, though any relief about the room’s sterile appearance and general lack of horrifying decorations was ruined by the metal racks leaning against the wall, the pool of acid, and the hideous, scarred, demonic creature that was waiting for them.  Roryn and Viett charged towards the creature, while Robin fired a hail of arrows at it and Tal supported them all with magic.  However, when Nathee tumbled into the room as well, she suddenly attacked Viett!  He was so shocked by this sudden treason that he barely resisted the full attack of Nathee’s, which consisted of almost a half dozen perfectly-positioned shots to vital areas, and somehow included a tail.  To make matters worse, as Veran and Alkurvas struggled to enter the room to help, Sigmund suddenly started chuckling behind them.  His body suddenly grew and warped, until he resembled a hideous, tentacled demon!

Meanwhile, the original demonic threat had a few surprises of its own.  All of the “scars” it had suddenly opened, and the party realized to their disgust that its body was actually covered with dozens of tiny mouths!  About ten massive, bladed tongues started lashing out of the mouths, and it used another pair of tongues on the soles of its feet to stride towards Roryn, and begin flying him with its tongues.  Roryn and Robin began to attack the creature, while Viett did the best he could to hold of the sudden attack of Nathee, and Tal tried to help.  However, she was literally too fast to even be touched, and all they could hit was her cultist robe disguise.  However, after it was ripped a bit, it was clear why Nathee had turned on them, for her entire body was filled with mechanical implants!  Mostly likely, she had been using illusions and the robes to hide her alterations, and the deep gnome’s ability to avoid magical detection had prevented the party from noticing.  She managed to repeatedly attack Viett yet again, and finished this series of attacks by driving her mechanical tail right through Viett’s throat, killing him!

Meanwhile, Alkurvas was surprisingly holding his own against the monster that was once Sigmund.  Even when Sigmund is able to hit, Alkurvas just shrugged off the blow like nothing happened.  Just then, Veran demonstrated she had some surprises of her own, when she concentrated, and apparently summoned a Balor into the room!  The party was just about to attack her for being yet another traitor, when the Balor started attacking Sigmund!

Meanwhile, Roryn and Robin were still fighting the many-mouthed monster.  The creature had managed to retreat to the corner of the room after being almost killed by Robin’s arrows and Roryn’s enraged attacks.  He did this easily enough by springing himself across the room by retracting and suddenly extending his feet tongues, but Roryn charged right after him.  The demon responded by taking a deep breath, and then breathing fire out of every mouth at once!  However, Roryn didn’t slow his charge at all, since he still remembered the death of his brother, and wanted revenge.  The sooner this demon was destroyed, the sooner he could focus on his real enemy.  He leapt right into the dome of fire that surrounded the beast, and finished it with one last decapitating cut.  However, no sooner did he finish off the monster, than the tentacled creature teleported into the room, in a desperate attempt to flee the Balor!  Roryn didn’t bother dealing with this new threat, but Tal and Robin were able to end the life of the miserable creature, letting the entire party plus their very unusual Balor ally focus on Nathee.

Despite this seemingly unbalanced situation, Nathee managed to hold her own for what seemed like forever.  Even the Balor couldn’t get any good hits in, though he did prove himself useful when he was able to dispel the many magical effects her mechanical implants granted her, letting Robin and Roryn finally finish the creature.  And so, the attempt by the party to avenge their fallen comrade has resulted in the death of two of his relatives, although in Nathee’s case, it was almost merciful to save her from enslavement by the Nightmare Prince.

The party had to continue on, but before they did, they had some questions to ask Veran.  She had clearly seen this coming, for she began her explanation without prompting.  “Yes, I know what you’re going to ask.  My real name isn’t Veran, it’s Venymaran.  Though it goes against my better nature, everything else that I said is true.  But I did leave one thing out.”  As she said this, her form changed as well.  Wings grew out of her back, and horns grew on her head.  

None of the surviving party members knew what she was, exactly, but Alkurvas was able to identify her immediately.  “A succubus,” he said with a strangely satisfied tone, as if he always really knew.

“Correct.  However, I am not your enemy, as I said.  I want Khaspar dead even more than you do, and after he is, I need your protection to survive Bas’ vengeance.  You can imprison me, or do whatever you want, but I’m happy just not being brutally killed by Bas’ minions for now.  Now don’t think you’ll be rid of me now; you swore to your goddesses you’d protect me, and my true nature doesn’t change that.  Besides, you need me if you ever want to defeat Khaspar.  I know his weaknesses.”

Reluctantly, the party agrees to take her along for now.  After all, only Roryn, Robin, and Tal remained of the original party, and only she and Alkurvas was left among their other allies.  They were in no shape to turn down any aid.

Beyond the interrogation chamber, there was a spiral staircase that led up and down.  Venym commented, “Khaspar will likely be at the top floor by now, preparing his defenses against you.”  With that in mind, the group decided to head down.  In the floor below them, they found what looked like another prison, but it was currently empty.  Further down, there were a number of strange iron chests, but there would be plenty of time to investigate them later.  Finally, on the floor below that, which was a basement at least a few hundred feet below the rest of the Manor, they found a strange cavern dominated by a strange machine.  And there at the top of a chute that led into the machine, they finally found Galeron!  Roryn and Robin quickly broke him out of his restraints, while Alkurvas investigated his wounds and confirmed that he was not another shape shifted or mechanical enemy.

	“Galeron, I’m glad to see you’re safe!” Tal enthusiastically said, after Alkurvas confirmed he was who he appeared to be.  However, his expression soon darkened.  “Um, we do have some bad news, however.  I’m afraid that Thorrun…”

	“I know,” Galeron curtly said.  “The Nightmare Prince bragged about it.  We can bring him back later, however.  Our first task is to finally bring justice to Khaspar.”

	Venym nodded.  “However, we can’t do it today.  Those enemies in the library and interrogation chamber weakened all of us, and your priest will be useless in a fight unless we can get him his equipment back.  I propose that we search the treasure chests from the room above us, and then rest here tonight.  Khaspar will be prepared for us, of course, but he’s too arrogant to run from the fight itself or let his minions finish us off.  He’ll give us our chance.”

	Introductions were made between Venym and Galeron, which went about a poorly as expected, and then the chests were looted.  Even they weren’t safe; the chests themselves were magnetized and released blasts of ice and transformative magic when opened, but a few appropriate spells made short work of the chests’ defensives.  Galeron’s equipment was indeed in the chests, and once he was freed, Galeron was able to finally restore Danae and her familiar to health, though Grockith was still completely comatose.  In addition, the mechanical implants had so infected Danae’s mephit familiar that when he was healed, he found he was missing an eye, a leg, and an arm!  Danae decided to tuck the poor maimed familiar into a magical planar pocket until he can be healed.  Galeron was also able to use his remaining spells to heal the health and life force lost by various party members, though he refused to heal Venym.  She snarled at him angrily, but there’s wasn’t much she could do.  After all, she needed the rest of the party, and it’s not like Galeron made a vow to help her like the others did.  She again let them rest in her rope-tricked hiding spots, and as they rested and prepared for the next day, she explained what she knew about Khaspar to them.

	“Khaspar is a wizard, but he has many special powers.  For one thing, he is a half-machine, like many of his servants.  He also had made a pact with elemental beings from the plane of water, and is now nearly completely composed of water and ice.  He isn’t so powerful that he totally transformed, so he lacks any weakness to water, but he is nearly immune to cold effects and many other things.  Also, his own cold magic will be much more powerful, so expect him to surround himself with freezing temperatures and use a lot of ice magic.  If you have any way to set up elemental defenses to cold, I would use them.”

	With that, the party rested for the night, with the exception of Alkurvas.  He explained he had to leave for now, to prepare for the fight as well, but he’ll be back in the morning to help the party finish this.


	Meanwhile, back in the storage room, another, much different prisoner of Khaspar was just regaining consciousness.  His name was Sinael, and back in Methosilang, he was known to be a master thief.  He had heard about this Nightmare Prince through rumors, and decided that anyone with the power to call himself royalty must have some really valuable treasure.  In retrospect, this was probably a mistake, as he was easily captured.  Khaspar had him shipped into storage, after bathing him in a chemical that kept him frozen and unconscious, with the intent on performing some terrible experiments on him when the time comes.  However, he had forgotten about Sinael when the party first rose to greater strength, and Sinael had been trapped here ever since.  Well, he had been trapped until now.  He suddenly regained consciousness in the tube, which had broken and slowly started leaking the preservative fluid in the fight with the hydra.  It now was empty, so Sinael easily but cautiously escaped it and the box it was in.  From there, he heard a strange music to the south, and was compelled to follow it.  It soon led him to a strange drow bard, who introduced himself.  “My name is Alkurvas.  I had heard about your plight recently, and helped engineer you escape.  Right now, I am traveling with a party that seeks to end Khaspar’s reign personally, but their last expert on stealthy and the hidden blade was, well, not on their side in the literal sense.  They need someone who can help them, and if you do succeed, not only will you have your freedom and your revenge on the man that sealed you away here, but also a goodly sum of the wealthy he possesses.”

	Sinael was interested, especially after hearing this last part, and willing let Alkurvas lead him to the party.  Once the party woke, Alkurvas introduced the party to him and him to the party, and then vouched for his trustworthiness.  The party still performed a very thorough series of tests on him, of course, but finally accepted that he seemed true enough, and he too was ready for this final battle.

	After final preparations, which included Galeron providing energy resistance spells on nearly everyone in the party (except for Venym, of course, and Alkurvas, who said he didn’t need one,) the party again climbed the spiral stairway, until it ended at the fourth floor.  Carefully, the party opened the door, and was immediately blasted with stinging cold air.

	The room beyond the stairs was freezing, and gave the same hum of the strange technology that much of Dragovigis had.  Four glass windows line the right wall, and though the cold of the air has made it impossible to see through the windows, there were clearly four dark shapes on the other side.  Khaspar’s elven bard cohort was leaning against the left wall, seemingly unconcerned about the fight at all, while it appeared that Khaspar himself was standing in the middle of the room, waiting for the party!  However, when the party poured into the room, ready to fight, Galeron (who had prepared a True Seeing spell before the fight started out of concern for just this sort of problem,) realized that it was an illusion, and the real Khaspar was flying in the air above them!  As he warned the party about this, Khaspar responded, and the fight began in earnest.

	Before the party could react further, the glass walls on the right side opened, and four creatures emerged from them.  Two of them appeared to be failed experiments, and they fell out, apparently dead.  However, the other two were far more active.  One appeared to be a chimera, except that it had the now standard mechanical implants, and the normal goat head was replaced with a bull-like head, similar to those that gorgons have.  The other monster looked like a salamander, except made of ice instead of fire, and it had another eight strange snake-like heads in addition to its normal head.  Sinael began to move towards and then up the wall, to tray and catch Khaspar, while Danae and Tal fired long-range spells at the gorgimera.  Roryn also charged the gorgimera, while Venym flew over it to help by using magic from above.  However, she flew a little too close, and the monster breathed a jet of strange gas on her.  She tried to scream, but it ended immediately, as her body turned to stone, and she went crashing to the ground.  Meanwhile, Khaspar chuckled from above, and cast a spell on Roryn.  Immediately, the mind of the enraged dwarf was snapped like a fragile twig, and he began to look on both friend and foe with an expression of insanity.  The fight had only begun, and two members of the party were lost.  It wasn’t looking good.

	Meanwhile, Mortanis, Khaspar’s cohort, took one look at Alkurvas and shrunk back with an expression of hatred and fear.  Alkurvas walked up to him while unsheathing his sword, and the two spent essentially the rest of the fight attacking each other.  Alkurvas ended up being out of the fight as well as a result, but at least he was able to keep one of Khaspar’s most powerful allies out of the fight.

Elsewhere, Galeron moved up to attack the Salamander, and Robin and Tal hammered at the gorgimera from a distance.  Khaspar used the delay in the party’s rush to fly out of the room through a hole in the eastern wall.  He fired a cold-substituted delayed fireball into the room, but Danae knew it for what it was and yelled for everyone to quickly get out of its way.  She also created a wall of force around the upper hole that Khaspar just escaped out of, forcing him to make any further attacks through the normal ground-level door.  This proved to be a wise move, for while Roryn was still insane, he currently was mad with hatred, and attacked the first thing he detected, which turned out to be Khaspar (though still invisible, Roryn was able to hear him.)  The attack so caught Khaspar off guard that he fired one last attack, a cold-altered chain of lightning, and fled out of the room entirely.  

This gave the party the chance it needed to finish off the gorgimera and salamander.  The latter was doing massive damage to Galeron, but nearly all of it was cold-based, so Galeron laughed it off.  Further, Galeron had prepared a fire shield before the fight, which not only minimized the cold damage he took, but burned the salamander with flames every time it tried attacking.  Soon, both it and the gorgimera were dead, and the party was able to continue on, while leaving the mad Roryn, petrified Venym, and distracted Alkurvas behind.

The next room, however, was no safer than this one.  The floors were all sloped downward, and the entire place was filled with a strange gas that not only blocked their vision, but also ate away at them like acid, though it appeared to be entire cold.  The party stumbled carefully around the room, as they watched their cold defenses slowly get eaten away.  Fortunately, all of them could either fly at this point or were very careful and lucky, for none slipped on the ice as they made their way down the slope.  This proved to be very fortunate, because the bottom of the slope was filled with spikes, which would have undoubtedly pierced anyone who was sliding involuntarily down the slope!  At the bottom, however, they discovered that Khaspar had left them another surprise.  The wall to the next room was blocked by another wall of force, and the only one would had the means to destroy it was Danae.  She didn’t prepare any disintegration beams to destroy it, but as a guilded mage, she could draw from the spell pool periodically, and use that to gain the appropriate magical power and destroy the wall.  However, it took a while, because it was very hard to concentrate and draw from the pool, not to mention actually use the spell, as the cold from the room and the fog started to get past her magical buffers and sting her skin.  

Finally, however, she got through the wall, and the party dashed into the next room.  Finally, they had found a room that was a normal temperature again.  However, Khaspar wasn’t in the room.  Instead, there was a hole in the ceiling with a ladder that presumably let them reach the fourth floor again (after the sloped room dropped them back to the third,) and another one of the short demons like the one seen from the ambush at TIE’s mountain chained to the floor.  It looked at the party with both hatred and a little bit of fear and sorrow, perhaps because it was trapped by the chain.  Very carefully, the party explored the room, fearing more traps or Khaspar’s reinforcements.  This fear was well justified, for as soon as Robin got near the demon, there was a “click” noise, and a massive weight dropped out of the ceiling and onto the creature!  It died instantly, and released a massive wave of negative retributive energy, which further struck everyone in the already weak party.  As the party was recovering from the damage, and the disgust of the thought that Khaspar would slaughter his own minions to harm the party, Sinael continued to walk across the ceiling, and thus was the first one to get to the ladder and start climbing up the shaft.  Tal, his familiar, Galeron, and Robin were also near the ladder, when Khaspar leaned over at the party, and smiled.  He cast a spell while holding up a strange magical rod, and it enhanced the strength of his already powerful cone of cold, which blasted down the shaft and expanded at the bottom, hitting Sinael and all of the gathering throng around it.  Sinael was able to evade the blast by suddenly diving between the ladder rungs, but while many of the other heroes were able to partially dive out of the way of the blast, all of them were caught in it at least a little.  Tal and his familiar were hit by the blast the worst, and the cold completely seared a few layers of skin of Tal, while numbing him completely.  He collapsed on the ground, dying, and his familiar was even worse.  The ice had frozen her completely solid, and she fell to the ground, and shattered in a number of broken, and quite dead, pieces!

As Galeron healed Tal, Sinael and the others quickly scrambled or flew up the shaft, desperate to finish this before things got even worse and more of them were killed.  Khaspar had anticipated their charge, however, and flew farther back into the next room.  As soon as they reached the top, Galeron immediately recognized it for what it was; the viewing chamber where he first saw Bas.  The window was currently open when the party arrived, so all of them got a chance to witness the horror of Bas first-hand, but the room also contained a new addition by Khaspar: a hideous golem stitched together from the flesh of dozens of dragons.  The party prepared to deal with this new threat, when another figure joined the fray, and for once, it was an ally.


His name was Zethar, and he was a Ghaele Eladrin.  Or at least he will be one day, but for now, he was still merely an apprentice.  However, before he could finish his training, he was called by his superiors.  “Zethar,” they said, “It’s time for you to go to the plane that we have been assigned to watch over.”

“But almighty ones,” he said, “I haven’t finished my ascension yet.  Can I handle the threats that exist beyond our home yet?”

“It appears we have no choice.  The plane is in mortal peril, and the best chance that we have of saving it could soon be destroyed.  Now, I want you to help them, but try to avoid showing all of your power for now.  Try to work as their guardian for now, and avoid revealing your heritage to others.”

“I understand,” Zethar replied.  His superiors worked their magic, and soon he was speeding towards the manor from above.


With a loud crash, the window that was watching Bas shattered, and a strange figure flew in.  He looked to the party, and said, “Don’t worry, I’m here to help.”  So saying, he began to rip into the dragon-flesh golem.  Galeron and Robin helped finish the horrid thing, while Danae and Sinael went after a surprised Khaspar.  Now finally heavily wounded, he fled while creating another wall of force in front of him.  With Khaspar again gone, the party turned entirely on the golem, destroying it quickly.  The wall of force was still a problem, however, and Danae no longer had any magic left to destroy it.  However, the windows were still there, and Zethar was able to carry Galeron out one window and into another on the other side of the wall.

While the others climbed, flew, or walked (in Sinael’s case,) between the windows, Galeron and Zethar confronted Khaspar again. Desperately, he fired another blast of cold out of his staff, but it didn’t even slow down the two resolved fighters.  Both struck him hard, but he suddenly disappeared in the middle of Galeron’s killing blow, and laughed as he faded away.  The party quickly regrouped, to try and find him before it was too late.

Just then, Alkurvas had managed to catch up to the others.  After hearing of Khaspar’s escape, he quickly realized where the Prince could have gone.  “The machine in the basement; he must have gone there!  We have to hurry, before he can repair or even improve himself using it!”

When the party had reached the basement, they saw Khaspar already in the machine, being altered by dozens of strange instruments.  “You haven’t won yet!” he yelled.  “In a matter of minutes, I’ll be back, and more powerful than ever!”  Just then, some of the instruments started behaving erratically, as if they were malfunctioning.  Blades that previously were used to attach new parts with care instead were cutting him to pieces, and other machines were ripping apart his limbs, burning him with acid, and attaching new parts to him that were so heavy, they were crushing him.  Finally, the machine expelled Khaspar again, but he was barely alive.  He was little more than a twisted, warped husk of humanity wrapped in a now-useless metal shell, but that didn’t stop Galeron from finishing him off once and for all.

“What happened?” a confused Robin asked.

“I think I know,” Galeron replied, as he heaved the remains of Khaspar unto his back.  Onto Khaspar’s chest, words were burned with the acid.  “I always knew,” Galeron read.  “I guess Bas had the last laugh after all.”

OOC Notes: And finally, so ends the longest adventure I’ve ever written.  There were a lot of weird plot twists in this one, as you can tell.  Here are the final details on everyone’s player and character’s relationships.

Eric played Galeron, and also played Nathee when he was captured.  He knew that she would eventually betray the party from the start, but managed to keep the secret for over a month of playing.  He even was disappointed when she finally died, and though there were better places that would’ve killed the party much more effectively.  I also have to give it to him for playing the tough role-playing choices that Galeron had to make very well.

Chris played Viett, and eventually Roryn as well when his player left.  He also played Zethar in the final battle, since Viett was killed the game before and Roryn was a non-entity in the final battle after being driven insane.

Danae, Tal and Robin were more consistent during the game, and nothing really happened to them, except for Danae’s player Jess being absent for a game, and Danae’s subsequent coma during that period.  She frequently reminds me, however, that her familiar had never left the pocket since being healed by the swarm maiming!

Sinael was played by Rob, a new player.  He doesn’t show up too often in the later games, though, but he’ll play a few characters for the next few adventures.

Alkurvas, Sigmund, and Venym were NPCs.  The secrets for Sigmund and Venym have more or less all been revealed, but Alkurvas’ secret will have to wait.

Again, I was just glad the thing ended on a high note.  The ending was more or less as I planned, and it lasted forever.  The battle itself took an entire game session to finish.  It was rough, but it could have been a lot worse if Venym didn’t tell them how to prepare defensively for the fight.  The fact that they owe all their lives to a succubus will come back to haunt the party again.

Oh, and the tongue demon is a Canor Factum, another creature I created.  Like my other unique creatures, feel free to ask for the creature’s stats if you are interested, but again it’s based on a video game idea I had, so I want you to keep my name on the creature and mention who made it when you use it.


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## LordVyreth (Sep 15, 2004)

*Aftermath and A New Threat*

As the party was examining Khaspar’s remains, not to mention removing anything of value from the body, Tal noticed a strange, black fluid was leaking from the broken machine.  It evaporated as it leaked out, and Tal realized it was the same as the essence of Bas that he helped destroy in the dwarven village, so long ago.  He quickly told the others, “I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that we can now use teleportation magic while in the Manor.  The bad news is that Bas likely knows that we are here and that her servant is dead.  She’ll be sending her most powerful forces to finish us very soon.”

With that news, the party hurried to finish their investigation of the Manor.  They first examined Khaspar’s machine, and were surprised to find another person was still in it!  He appeared to be unconscious, but he woke up shortly after they pulled him out of the machine.  After waking up and realizing where he was, he thanked the party and explained how he was.  “My name is Jarrle, and I’m a wizard of Methosilang.”

Danae suddenly took interest.  “The same Jarrle who’s famous for his research in shadow magic?”  Jarrle nodded.  “Yes, that is I.  I was studying the undead for research, when I was captured by some of the Nightmare Prince’s minions.  He was trying to get me to reveal Methosilang secrets until a few days ago, when he seemingly forgot about me.  I guess you made sure he had bigger concerns,” he said, while looking at Khaspar’s broken body.

The party took Jarrle along with them as they fled the manor.  When they reached the stairs, Tal used his staff to open a hole in the wall, letting them all see what was happening by Bas.  Already, the sky was getting dark with clouds of flying demons and other monsters, and they knew this place would likely be wiped clean by the demons soon enough.  Escape suddenly became a concern, since they can’t use the subway by now.  However, Alkurvas had an idea.  “The subways were running using the same power that the machine provided, so they’re likely out of order by now.  We can probably escape the immediate area using them, and then get home after we find our way back to the surface.”

The party quickly fled, though they did stop long enough for Tal to disconnect the planetary trap from the library, remove many of the protections blocking the books, and pile both the trap and the books into a portable hole for future investigation.  In addition, they grabbed Venymaran’s petrified body, and brought it along as well.  They also stopped to get the children from the courtyard, and then to rescue the slaves from the Slave’s Tunnel.  They encountered no resistance so far.  As Alkurvas explained it, the destruction of the machine didn’t affect the bodies of Khaspar’s many half-machine slaves, but it did free them from his control, and most of them were probably currently getting revenge on The Nightmare Prince’s remaining followers.

The next few days were tedious, but they were fairly easy.  Danae periodically teleported their supplies back to Methosilang, but the party themselves went with the former slaves, at least until they safely reached the nearest Methosilang city.  From there, they parted ways, and the heroes returned once again to Methosilang.  However, before they began their journey, they had a discussion with Alkurvas.  Tal began, “Alkurvas, I suspect I know why you have been so knowledgeable about this place.  You’re another avatar, aren’t you?”

Alkurvas smiled, and Tal got excited.  He already suspected who this was, and as a bard, it was quite the honor.  “You’re Merida, the goddess of music, right?” he asked, and Alkurvas nodded, and changed appearance slightly.

Now, he/she was ready for their reward, and this time, the heroes who saw Lady Memory in the dream so long ago had an image of themselves wandering in darkness, or fighting a roper or some other underground monster, or just traversing some strange caverns.  At any rate, all of them imagined themselves underground, and they appeared to be someplace that was no where near Methosilang or any other community of the kingdom.  “Now that you had your lost memory,” Alkurvas/Merida said, “What is your question?”

The party discussed this for a while.  Danae in particular was hoping she could learn more about her own past.  She knew that her mother died the same time she was born, and yet any attempt to raise her had failed.  She, like her father, needed to know if some force was preventing her soul from returning.  If so, what?  And if she refused to be raised, why?  What would make her want to avoid seeing her husband and daughter again?  But Danae also knew that this wasn’t the time for selfishness.  Bas was the priority, and finding a way to stop her was the priority.  The others agreed, and the question of how to stop Bas was asked Merida.

He/she replied, “That’s not an easy question, I’m afraid.  After all, if we had an easy answer, we would have stopped her ourselves.  The problem is really a matter of solving three riddles: how to find her, how to defeat her, and how to destroy her permanently.”

Tal smiled.  “Well, at least we have an answer to the first question now.  We saw her body personally.”

But Merida shook his/her head.  “And?  You saw a valley, nothing more.  Teleporting directly into the valley is impossible, for the same reason you couldn’t teleport directly to Khaspar’s Manor, and our enemies can’t enter Methosilang just as easily.  And you still lack a sufficient visual target to teleport to nearby.  The Manor would work now, sure, but now entering it would be suicide, and the Manor itself will surely be razed to prevent exactly an attack of this sort.  You still need to find a way to learn Bas’ physical location, and it won’t be easy.”

He continued, “Second, you need to defeat her.  First of all, you’ll need an army, or you’ll be simply overwhelmed.  Delaspie is no longer strong enough to withstand her forces, and of course the undead and orcs will be no help.  That means you will have to mobilize Methosilang.  Of course, they’ll need your help to stop Bas’ most powerful servants, including the Strife Masters, and any other allies of power that you find will be most helpful.

“Finally, destroying Bas will be needed to prevent her from gaining strength again.  If she manages to totally emerge from the crater, she’ll be nearly unstoppable, but as long as she is trapped, she can be destroyed, though it will be very difficult.  Remember, we gods need two elements to survive: our spiritual body, and the mortal connection through an avatar.  Bas is a fallen goddess, so in many ways these two bodies have become one with her.  When she fell, her spiritual form became a physical one, and both were nearly helpless.  Somehow, she regained enough of her spiritual might to attract worshippers, but still she remains trapped in her physical body.  If you can destroy it, you might be able to destroy her.  At worst, you’ll sever her last way of accessing the Material plane, making her totally helpless.  But that, I’m afraid, is all I can say for now.  When you continue on your journey to Methosilang from here on, I won’t be coming with.”  He said his goodbyes to the party, and began his preparations to leave.

However, the party first had two other friends to say goodbye to: Roryn and Viett.  Roryn, though still insane at the end of the battle, was fatigued after his period of rage, and was subdued by the party long enough for Galeron to finally heal him of his insanity.  With their mutual enemy defeated, Roryn realized he had to move on.  “I will take my brother with me, if I may,” he said before leaving.  “My people should be the ones to bring him back from the dead, if indeed he wants to be brought back.  Thank you for helping us defeat The Nightmare Prince, but Viett was always the one to choose our battles for us.  If he truly won’t be coming back, I will have to spend a long time deciding what to do with my life now.”  

As they left, however, Alkurvas had one last thing to say.  “Those two are similar to you in some ways.  Like you, they had a very strange dream, but it was not the same person, nor for the same reason.  Whoever sent that dream apparently broke some rule to do it, and their current fate demonstrates the fate of those who break the rules.  I’m not sure if your Lady Memory broke the same rules, but if she did, she was far more subtle about it.  Still, be careful.  The fates have a way of correcting divine crimes.”

With their final goodbyes said, the party returned home.  After their long journey on foot, everyone was eager to return home using teleportation magic.  Back at Methosilang, both old and new friends of the party decided to stay in Tal and Tsine’s manor, while planning their next move.  They, as always, had a lot of shopping to do, and spent the next few days unloading most of the equipment they found in Khaspar’s lair, and buying new equipment.  The only three noteworthy items were the ones they found in the armory that “Sigmund” directed them to.  Not surprisingly, these didn’t turn out to be as reliable as the party hoped they’d be.  One of the items, an intelligent sword, was actually quite beneficial.  Its moral alignment was dedicated to both freedom and good will towards others, so it was clear why none of Khaspar’s minions could wield it.  However, it and Robin got along very well, and Robin immediately took it for his blade.  The cape and ring that were also in the room were less helpful.  The cape was apparently Wings of Flying according to all magical examinations, and Robin decided to take that as well.  However, when he tried to test it out in the courtyard of the manor, though he thought he was flying freely in the skies of Methosilang, the rest of the party noticed that he was actually prancing around like a ninny inside the courtyard, and Danae immediately realized the cape was cursed.   Robin refused to listen to them when they explained that his experience of flying was just a delusion, though even he couldn’t explain how exactly the entire party was flying right behind him!  Eventually, though, they were able to get it off of him (especially considering how futile his attempts to fly away from them were!) and he spent some of his money to get a real pair of Wings of Flying.  The other item from the armory, a Ring of Protection, was kept in storage at the manor, and its effects will prove humorous as well when finally used.

However, as they explored the town, it was also even more obvious than normal that things in town were becoming worse as paranoia further gripped it.  Many people were even treating the party with overt hostility, and apparently many of the town’s nobles have been tried for treason!  Some have already been judged and even executed, but everyone is being very quiet about the details, and it seems the crown is keeping everything quiet at the moment and strongly discouraging the populace from talking about the trials.  Fearing the worst, Tal tried to track down Lerissa, and found that she was also arrested, but apparently hasn’t been tried yet.  The reason for the arrest is still being kept quiet, though, as are all details of the arrest itself.

Finally, a few days after their initial arrival, the party itself was the victim of the law.  They were all resting at Tal’s home, when suddenly a voice shouted from outside, “Tal, Galeron, Thorrun, Robin, Fnipper, Danae and Tebryn!  We have your house surrounded!  We are placing your under arrest for treason!  We request that you come out and surrender without a fight.  Resist and we will use the full force of the army of Methosilang to arrest you!”

Tal looked out the window, and realized that they weren’t kidding about the full force.  The police knew how powerful the party had gotten, and they weren’t taking any chances.  The speaker, in fact, was Princess Amira Stael, the eldest daughter of King and Queen Stael, the current successor to the throne, and a paladin of no small regard herself.  With her were a couple clerics of Bha-Ael and casters from Danae’s spell guild, and strange creatures that resembled polygonal pentagons.  Meanwhile, Jarrle, who noticed that his name wasn’t called and realized that his already poor reputation would be tarnished even further if he was caught here, checked to see if the back way was clear.  When he peaked out of a window, he saw a strange cylindrical creature with five arms, a number of tiny spherical monsters, and more of the odd shaped creatures with varying numbers of sides.  Meanwhile, circling above the hose was a number of mounted knights, who were riding griffons that themselves looked odd, like they were some sort of improved or flawless-looking variety.  Also waiting in the air, though he was invisible and thus unseen except by the newly-resurrected Violet, was a strange wizard.  When Tal described him to Danae, she immediate recognized him.  “Damien,” she simply said.  “He’s a strange one, he is.  He was actually discovered in an expedition to a recently-excavated tomb from the olden days, before the Puppet and the Head that Rules the Claw.  However, despite his strange origins, he adapted to the new world around him very quickly.  He’s been working towards a position in the royal family for a while now, but he doesn’t seem to be totally allied with them either.  Still, he is very powerful, and if he was recruited for this arrest, he won’t hesitate to strike us down if we try anything funny.”

The group quickly met to plan their next move.  There were plenty of concerns; the statue of a succubus that was currently in their house being among the most problematic, as were the piles of books that they got from Khaspar’s library and that now litter the floors of the rooms!  Danae had already gotten a good look at them, and they included some very interesting tomes, including one that seemed to be research on the trajectory of extremely large objects over very long distances.  Between this book and some of what they heard up to this point, this could suggest that Bas is getting very close to using the moons as cataclysmic weapons!  However, it was currently buried with piles of far more disturbing books on dark magic, torture, and demonic creatures, and they really didn’t have time to hide them all again!  

Finally, Tal came up with a plan.  He noticed, for one thing, that Sinael was practicing in the training room below and that the police apparently didn’t even know he was with the group.  He quickly sent a message down to him using the buildings communication tubes.  “Sinael,” he began, “There is a secret room near your current location.  Go there, and don’t come out until tonight.  Once you do, try and hide the books and Venymaran’s statue if you can.”

Next, Tal tried to stall for time.  He called out, “Amira, we won’t resist, so don’t worry.  However, in light of the many years of service and great good we have performed in the service of Methosilang, would you consider letting us arrive at the prison under our own power, instead of losing our dignity in this way?”

There was a pause, but not a long one, “While I do personally recognize and appreciate your service to the city, the evidence that we have gathered casts even some of your greatest accomplishments in a new light.  Further, you know that we can’t trust adventurers as powerful as you to remain free.”

Tal tried negotiating this point a few times, but Amira would not budge.  Finally, Zethar had an idea, though he clearly seemed reluctant to use it.  “Let me try to speak to them,” he said.  “I will reveal my true nature to them if it will help you, and they don’t think of me as a member of your team yet.”

He walked outside, and spoke to Amira, “People of Methosilang,” he shouted, “I am Zethar!”  As he said this, he revealed his true, Eladrin form, and Amira and many of the other spell-casters of the group knew what he was instantly.  “As you know, it is a product of my very nature that I am a good being, and I have traveled with this group and found now ill upon them.  Does not my witness give them some right to have dignity in this situation?”

There was another pause, and a longer one this time, but Amira finally said, “While we recognize the truth of your nature and respect your claims, I’m afraid the court of law still takes precedent in this situation.  Also, while we know that you are a bastion of goodness by your very nature, your kind are also known for their tendency to ignore or defy laws for the sake of the greater good, and thus we can’t recognize your vouching for them as a legitimate form of law.  However, as you are not charged with any crimes, you are allowed to go free if you so desire.  In addition, if you want to bear witness to the party at the trail, you are of course welcome to.”

Zethar returned to the party to decide what to do next, and Tal said, “It’s okay, just go.  If we go quietly, we can at least keep the house from being searched for a while.  Watch it, and take care of Venym at least when you can.  But despite your prejudices, don’t kill her!  We gave our word that we would protect her, after all.”

Reluctantly, Zethar agreed, and left the manor as a free man.  Tal, Robin, Thorrun, Galeron, Danae, and even Jarrle were led outside, and taken to a nearby wagon which was protected by an anti-magic field.  The party, after finishing their greatest mission and again helping make the world a safer place, were taken to prison for treason.  And all Galeron could think of was “Not again!”

OOC Notes: Unfortunately, no one could remember exactly what Alkurvas told the party, so I had to improvise here in the story hour.  As you noticed, we had yet another new player, who is currently playing Jarrle.  Meanwhile, Roryn’s player Jared will be playing Damien for a short time.


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## LordVyreth (Sep 17, 2004)

*Pre-Trial Planning, or Tal's Boo Boo*

A few hours later, the party was trapped in jail, waiting for their legal council to arrive.  Jarrle was separated from the group at some point, and has yet to return, and the others are concerned that something might have happened to them.  Tal was already getting suspicious; this whole thing felt like it was more than simple paranoia, especially after Galeron pointed out that Khaspar mentioned Bas had agents in Methosilang.  Most likely, there was a traitor.  Of course, they were also concerned about the giant, scaly half-ogre who they were sharing the cell with them, especially the way he was just staring at them, grunting occasionally.

Meanwhile, Zethar was still watching the house.  For now, the guards left to ensure that the party was taken to their cell safely and won’t try anything funny, but the house will likely be examined soon.  Using his inherent magical powers, he turned invisible, and then snuck into the manor.  His first concern was Venym, which was still petrified in the middle of the mansion.  Zethar used an alternate form of magic to render her invisible as well, and then began the long, painful process of dragging her out of the city.  Fortunately, his ability to fly and turn ethereal sped the process up a bit.  Once safely out of the city, Zethar briefly pondered just destroying the wretched being right there.  But no, he couldn’t.  His goal was to watch over and help the heroes, and he won’t betray their trust so easily.  Plus, as they said, they did largely owe their lives to this creature.  Sighing, he worked his magic and undid the petrification effect.

Venymaran recovered almost instantly, and was just about to continue attacking Khaspar when she noticed that he, the rest of the party, and the Manor itself were no where to be seen.  She grew suspicious, and then hostile when she saw Zethar.  Before she could attack him, however, he spoke up, “Do not worry, demon, I am not your enemy today.”

Venym calmed slightly, but she was still clearly suspicious.  “Who are you?  What happened to me since I was transformed?”

“For starters, you had your vengeance.  Khaspar is dead, and his Manor is likely a ruin by now.  Fortunately for you, the heroes of Methosilang decided your help make you worth saving, and took you to Methosilang with them.  However, they have run into some legal trouble, and no longer can protect you.  In fact, your continued presence near the city would have endangered both them and you, so I acted in their stead to remove you before that could happen.  Now, go, before you endanger us further.”

Venym bristled at this claim.  “Why should I trust you for this?  I know you kind to lie before.  My deal with the party was that they would protect me further following the death of Khaspar.  If Bas discovers me, I’m as good as dead.”

This just seemed to make Zethar angry, however.  “Now listen, fiend.  You’re not dealing with the party any more, you’re dealing with me.  The only reason I decided to save you and let you leave alive was because I respect the heroes and their choices, but if you insist on causing a problem, I will do what I must.  Now go protect yourself if you can!”

Venym was still angry, but Zethar had his sword out now, and she knew she couldn’t defeat him in a straight-up battle.  “Very well,” she hissed.  “But this isn’t over, between us or the party.”  With that, she flew off to the west, and out of sight.  Zethar prepared to return to Methosilang, and keep watch over Tal’s house.

Back in Methosilang, Damien was at the guild house of the Arcane Order, where he has residence despite not actually belonging to the order.  Since the arrest, he has been thinking about the party and what they found on their journeys.  He was getting suspicious.  The increasing paranoia of the city, the rise of so many factions that are opposed to Methosilang, yet seemingly have no allegiance with the orcs or undead, the splitting of old allies, and the increasing arrests of people at all social levels were just too much to be coincidence.  And when he thought about it, many of the problems started a few months ago when those two Malefactor drow allegedly defected.  Everything was tied together, and the heroes of Methosilang seemed to be the only people who were actively stopping it.  He decided it was time to enter the game himself, and went out to speak to the party.

Speaking of the party, they were finally ready to meet their defense attorney for their trial.  They were given objects which bound their magical powers, and led out to the courthouse itself.  What they saw there wasn’t exactly heartening.  It appeared that there was a struggle between the attorneys, who were each trying to get out of defending these “lost causes.”  The party watch in despair for a few minutes, when the doors behind them burst open, and in strode Lancaster Stael himself!  As usual, he was riding his pet/mount black stag, and didn’t even seem to notice the outrage this was causing.  He looked to the party, smiled, and said, “I will defend these innocents personally.”

The other attorneys certainly didn’t have any trouble with this, and were still shouting their thanks as he led the party out of the room to plan their strategy. 

Tal was the first to speak up.  “Your majesty, thank you for helping us.  We believe that we are the victim of some elaborate attempt to frame us, and that there might be a traitor that is leading the entire plan.”

Lancaster looked troubled by this possibility, “Who do you think it could be?”

Tal shook his head, “At this point, I wouldn’t trust anyone below the king and queen.”

Lancaster was suddenly even more disturbed.  “Well, I didn’t want to even consider it, but there is my younger sister, Hestine.  She never really seemed to care about the kingdom, but in the last few years, she has been getting worse.  Consorting with strange people, sneaking out of the palace at random hours, and who knows what else?  Some even think she has ties to the Thief’s Guild!”

The discussion continued for hours, with the heroes thinking of every ally and scrap of evidence they knew of.  They asked for Lerissa, the drow noblewoman they rescued so long ago, and Setisth, the lizardwoman who once served the orcs, but had long ago defected.  They asked for Quercus’ sister Shekuldellstra, and for the half-dragon orc paladin that apparently had ties to Facetous.  They even asked about Rothaire, the sailor they hired on their expedition to the south, and Shedell’s friend Fenthrip, who helped the party throughout much of that expedition.  However, while Lancaster promised to try and find Shekuldellstra, Rothaire, and the paladin, the rest of their suggestions were less promising.  Lerissa, as they already knew, had been arrested, and Setisth had long ago been considered military property.  As for Fenthrip, he had also been arrested months ago, and he already been tried…and executed.

Galeron, who personally knew Fenthrip through their religious studies, was beside himself.  “Executed!?  For what?”

“Treason,” Lancaster said sadly, and then said, “The same as you.  And most likely, over far less evidence than your conspirators might have fabricated for you.”

The party prepared to rest for the night, and try to think of some way to save themselves, but Tal had something to say before then.  For the first time, he despaired about the trial, and though it meant breaking a very important vow, he decided that he had to let Methosilang know about one of the few allies they may have.  “Lancaster, I have to tell you something…” he began.

Before long, he had told him everything about Dragovigis, from its location to Facetous.  He also told about the eggs that the party had helped Methosilang steal from the orcs, and that he did some research on while in Dragovigis.  “Those eggs that we recovered, they’re not normal eggs,” he began.  “The large ones belong to a couple species of special dragons, which rarely if ever can be found on our plane.  The dragons are extremely powerful, and a fully-grown one could defeat even the most powerful of the dragons from our plane.  The others are even stranger.  The multi-colored ones are apparently part of some strange breeding project, which tried to combine the powers of multiple types of dragons into one being.  The ones that radiate evil actually are from dragons from the planes of the demons and devils, and are just as fiendish as the other natives of those planes.  I implore you to destroy the eggs, especially the ones of the fiendish and multi-colored dragons.  And the others may be too dangerous to keep around as well.  If the creatures in them hatched and they proved unfriendly, they could decimate much of Methosilang even as hatchlings.”

Lancaster nodded when Tal finished, and said, “Don’t worry.  I will guard this news with my life.  And I’ll make sure that those eggs never fall into the wrong hands.  I vow as a champion of the city that I will keep them safe.”

Satisfied, Tal returned to his cell.  However, in time, he would discover that speaking of things he vowed to keep secret would be his greatest mistake.

OOC Notes: Yes, breaking a vow to a god who also happens to control an army consisting off all the good and neutral dragons on a planet and who also have access to advanced technology is indeed a very bad idea, though I’ll save the reason why for another day.


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## LordVyreth (Sep 20, 2004)

*True Heroes: The Trial of the Century*

Later that night, back at Tal’s manor, Zethar was busy making his greatest mistake.  He saw some lights in the manor, and decided to investigate.  The fact that he could turn invisible or go ethereal before investigating did not, sadly, cross his mind.  Meanwhile, Sinael finally had enough of waiting in the secret room, and also heard the strange noises coming from upstairs.  He prepared to investigate as well.

Unfortunately, Sinael chose to investigate a little too late.  Zethar flew into the manor through a window, only to find a pair of rogues searching through the books the party found from Khaspar’s manor.  Zethar silently congratulated himself on at least getting Venym out of the way in time, and then prepared to deal with the intruders, relying on his protections against evil to help him.  What he didn’t know, however, was that the rogues in question were not evil, and they were much faster than he was.  They quickly surrounded him, and while he was confused by the attacks from many sides, they attacked his most vital points repeatedly, killing him almost instantly!  

While they looked in wonder as his body dissolved into glowing particles, Sinael finally entered the room.  The two rogues prepared to deal with this new threat, until one of them was suddenly attacked by what was clearly a very experienced drow rogue.  With their advantage gone, the rogues grabbed a bag full of books and other suspicious items found in Tal’s house, and fled.  

Sinael, who didn’t know Zethar was even there and didn’t see anything odd about the pile of particles, thanked his savior.  “I owe you my life, sir.  But may I ask who you are?”

The drow nodded.  “My name is Annaryl Truesight.  I am what your culture calls a Melefactor drow.  I first came to this city a few months ago.  My kingdom was once under the de facto leadership of a being called Kulstra, or as she’s better known, the Lady of Blood.  After years of living without any understanding or need of gods, she brought to us knowledge of the goddess Bas, who gave us the power of divine aid once again, and had us make war on the Benefactor drow and the surface races again.  However, she was killed recently, and when she died, the alliance between Bas and our people broke up.  There was a power vacuum, and many were killed in the wars for control that followed.  I finally had enough, and decided to defect to the Benefactor drow of Methosilang, in the hope that they would grant me sanctuary in exchange for information.  However, while Bas lost her alliance with the drow race, she did still have some individual followers, and many of them tried to get into Methosilang as well while posing as refugees.  By the time I arrived, they learned about this plan and no longer trusted any of the refugees.  However, I soon discovered things were even worse than that.  There was another refugee who arrived at the same time as me, but he was one of Bas’ spies.  We were both discovered for what we were, but instead of freeing me and imprisoning the traitor, both of us were taken into military custody.  The spy had been given considerably more freedom than me, and I believe that he is working with at traitor very high up in your government.  They have some sort of plan to contact Bas with information about Methosilang’s location!  I finally was able to escape a few days ago when they focused all of your security on capturing the Heroes of Methosilang, and when I realized that they were the very group that killed the Lady of Blood, I decided to seek out their allies to help them, as I believe that only they can reveal who the traitor is.”

Sinael nodded.  “I understand, but we need more help if want to aid them.  For now, we need a place to hide for the night.  If those thieves were also working with the traitor, they’ll report both of us, so it won’t be safe to hide here any more.  What about the Arcane Order?  One of the Heroes is a very prominent mage of the order named Danae.  She might have friends that can help us.”

Sinael and Annaryl fled into the night, and when they reached the Order, they found Damien.  Neither of them was initially concerned, since neither of them was there to actually see who was in the arresting party, and Damien further made them relax when he explained that he was also interested in helping the party.  He let them hide at his place for the night, where Annaryl told him his story as well.  

The next day, the military were ready for their legitimate investigation of the Hero’s manor, when they found Zethar’s remains.  Unlike Sinael, they had someone who recognized them as the remains of a good outsider, and suspicious about who it was and what he (or she) was doing in the suspect’s manor, they had him raised.  Zethar returned without incident, but the return had a serious effect on his physical health.  He was questioned by the law officers, but was given a room to recover from his ordeal after he told his story.  Again, he wasn’t really considered a suspect, but the rogues that killed him weren’t caught either (not surprisingly,) but an investigation will be underway.

As he rested in his room, Zethar mediated on his recent performance.  He was supposed to be the guardian for the heroes, and yet here he was, away from them without any way to help them.  Of course, the shame of being killed by a pair of random thugs didn’t help his performance.  He decided that while he did want to help the party, he might not be ready to do so just yet, and he decided to return home to seek further advice, which proved that he wasn’t ready yet in the field of planar studies either.  In a matter of moments, he was gone from this plane.

A week passed.  Lancaster and the heroes desperately planned their defense, while Damien, Sinael, and Annaryl tried to discover who the traitor was and how to rescue the party if the trial failed.  Finally, despite attempts by Lancaster to delay the trial, the court couldn’t wait any longer.  People wanted closure and for justice to be done, and the royalty was eager to find someone to lay the blame.  The trial began, even though neither Shekuldellstra nor the half-dragon paladin responded to their summonings from the church, and for some reason, Rothaire was a witness for the prosecution!

The trial began.  The party still had Lancaster as their lawyer, which at least lent some credibility to their cause, while the prosecutor was an all-business dwarf named Thrat Lawhammer.  From the opening statements, Thrat was full of confidence, as if aware of the own inevitability of his victory, and Lancaster seemed doubtful and worried, and the jury picked it up.  The evidence didn’t help either, and the case against the party was very well orchestrated.  First of all, there were documents found at the party during the “investigation.”  More likely, of course, the same visitors that killed Zethar and stole many of Khaspar’s books planted it, but despite Zethar’s report, that angle was never explored.  Next, there was a letter that was discovered at the Delaspie/Orc Empire battlefield, and which was apparently written for the party by none other than Phellis Mune, their leopard-headed Strife Master friend.  It read:

My friends, I have heard about your attempts to defeat our rival for Bas’ affection.  Tal, I know about your magical prowess, and I recommend you prepare fire magic against him.  Good luck sneaking past his forces, I admit your attempts to infuse yourself with draconic elements might make you stand out.  Robin, your bow may do well in this battle, since he is fond of using flight magic.  Galeron, I know you’re new to this organization, but I’ve heard much of your might and ability to mercilessly our enemies, no matter who they are.  That ruthlessness will do you well here.  Again, I wish you well; if you pull this off, we will easily become Bas’ favored servants.  I will remain here in the south, and make sure the Prince’s Death will not have too unbalancing an effect on the war.  After all, we want Delaspie ruined, but not too quickly!

					Your friend,
					Phellis Mune


Again, things weren’t looking good.  The prosecution also had the previous trial of Fenthrip, who was accused and successfully convicted on many charges that the party now shares, and then the testimony of Rothaire, their hired sailor.  According to him, they left the continent to meet with agents of Bas and perform dark rituals, not to mention summoning undead, training orcs, leading armies of orcs, and basically accuse them of helping every force that Methosilang has opposed for years!  But the worst testimony had yet to come, for Lerissa herself was a witness against the party!  She told the jury, with total sincerity and without any seeming doubt or hesitation, that she and the party were working together since before the time they supposedly rescued her at the Bas Temple!  They were the ones to rig the trial to take over the temple, they spent the whole time rescuing Lerissa to really formulate their plans, and they have been solely responsible for uniting various enemies under the banner of a false god for years now, all while playing as heroes and making the public afraid of this false god of theirs!  

There was little the party could do to stop this carriage wreck.  Most of their best witnesses never showed up, were ruled ineligible (like Setisth eventually was,) or turned against them.  The best they could do was try for all the information they found on their various Bas raids, but it didn’t do much.  They never did manage to find a book of Bas, and their cloaks weren’t considered compelling evidence.  They tried to get the statue they recovered from Kulstra’s temple to be considered valuable evidence, but the statue radiated no magic, and they had no real way to know where it was or who made it.  Finally, Tal, having had enough, speaks up during his own questioning.  He says that the public and the jury know him, and they know the heroes.  They know that Galeron and Therron have dedicated years of public service to the church, they know that they have saved the people of Methosilang on many occasions, and they know that their adventures have cost them many of their friends.  He glares at Lerissa and Rothaire as he points out that some of the people he saved were those in this very room, and chose to speak out against him for some reason.

It was a very good speech, and it appeared to have turned at least a few of the jurors’ opinions around.  However, in the end, it was too late.  Of the ten jurors, eight ruled them guilty, one said innocent, and one abstained.  At least 7 were needed to actually convict them, so there officially judged guilty of treason!

And that’s when things first went to Hades.  His eagerness to help overshadowing his reasoning, Sinael leapt out of the audience, and tried to single-handedly free the party!  This lasted for about five seconds, however, for while Lancaster (who was still riding his stupid stag,) might be on the party’s side, he still respected the law of the land first, and he was NOT about to have someone commit such a crime in the city’s highest court.  Without even exerting himself, he ran Sinael down, a lance in hand.  He easily ran him completely through, and tossed the dying thief off to the side.  However, while Sinael’s actual attack was totally ineffective, it was a convenient distraction, and that was when Damien struck.  He flew out of the audience, literally, and grabbed the first two heroes he could find, which turned out to be Robin and Danae.  The three quickly used the chaos of Sinael’s attack to get out of the crowd, and Damien was able to quickly teleport them out of the city!

OOC Notes: This was Chris’ fourth character death, but his next character will last quite a bit longer than poor Zethar.  In fact, you already met him (thanks to the miracle of Story Hour artistic license,) but I won’t formally introduce him until the next update.


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## Neurotic (Sep 24, 2004)

LordVyreth said:
			
		

> OOC Notes:  I was genuinely surprised at how the party handled the orcs at the shrine.  I especially thought they’d at least left the wounded, diseased, pacifist orc cleric alive, and I had to make a few small changes to my next large adventure as a result.  Still, I got a few good future adventure seeds from here, including some I just developed writing this recap!




I read your adventure with great interest. It is one of few home made adventures in which you cannot guess what happens next 

While not so detailed in descriptions as Shackled City (understandably after 2 years  it is still captivating. Especialy as you heed ever more advice from Lela  I cannot judge your grammar as I'm not native speaker but style is definitively improving. Keep up the good work!


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## LordVyreth (Sep 27, 2004)

*True Heroes: The Jailbreak*

Wow, thanks Neurotic for the kind words.  Honestly, I was just about to get disgusted with this project over all.  It didn't look like anyone was reading this at all, between the total lack of comments and the tiny number of views, and I was thinking of just ending the Story Hour entirely.  But it helps to know that there are still some people interested in this, and I'd like to hear some comments from my other readers as well, just so I know how I'm doing, what parts interested you lately, and where you think the story's going.  I still have over a year of backlog to catch up on, but considering that I got about a year and a half's worth of games into the Story Hour already, I'm not doing so bad!

Anyway, on to the next update...

The next night, back in the cell, Tal and the other captives received an unusual visitor.  There was a guard exchange, and the new guard wasn’t one that they’d seen before.  He looked around carefully, before speaking to the party.  “Don’t worry, I’m here to help.  My name is Annaryl.”

He then told the party the same story that he told Sinael and Damien earlier, but he included some new information that he had discovered that very day.  “With Damien’s help, I was able to access some classified files.  It appears that the military has been constructing a strange magical transport.  Apparently, it contained materials scavenged from the towns that Bas’ forces attacked over a year ago.  I fear that the materials might be a few drops of Bas’ essence.  It won’t be enough to block out an entire town, but it should be enough to protect the vessel itself.  Ever since the town got paranoid, they’ve been guarding the ways out of town very carefully, and clearly neither the drow nor the traitors of Methosilang were trusted enough that they could just teleport into Bas’ properties.  I suspect that the traitor will be using this vehicle to pass out of town undetected.  If successful, he will be able to reveal the location of Methosilang to Bas, where it will be easy prey, especially since the traitor can trick the army into an ambush or into abandoning the city at a critical time.  We have to find him and escape before the vessel is completed!

“Fortunately, I have been in contact with Robin, Danae, and Damien, who agreed to aid in your cause.  At around two AM tomorrow, I’ll be able to gain access to the generator that is creating your cell’s anti-magic field.  I’ll be able to disable it, but only for about ten seconds.  Use those seconds to escape your cell any way you can.  From there, you can reach the armory on the floor above you, to regain your weapons.  Your friends will be using this opportunity to attack the prison and distract the guards, so resistance shouldn’t be too bad at first.  Once you’re re-equipped and reunited, I recommend you find some authority figures in the jail, who might explain better who’s in charge here.  I even heard that Hestine Stael has been staying here lately for some reason, which alone makes me suspicious that she might be the treacherous force at work here.  If you can interrogate her, you might be able to get some idea just what is going on here.”

Annaryl then entered the cell, and replaced the party’s chamber pot with a new one.  He winked at the party, and turned over the new one, revealed a hiding spot.  “I’ll be able to sneak some items to you using this pot.  If there are any light items from your equipment, I can get them hidden in here before tomorrow.”

The party spoke, and agreed to get some of Sinael’s Potions of Fire Breath, and Galeron and Thorrun’s holy symbols, letting them use magic to escape.  Annaryl nodded, and sure enough, by the next night, the items were there and ready.  In the meantime, the party had to decide what to do with their scaly, half-ogre cell mate.  Tal decided to interrogate him.

“Um, listen, um, err, what is your name exactly?”  Tal began.

“Err,” the ogre replied, making it hard to tell if that was his name or if he was just repeating Tal.

“Well, um, Err, what exactly are you in here for?”

“Don’t know,” Err said.  “Me enter city, and they bring me here.  Don’t know why.”

Tal turned to the party, “Probably another victim of the city’s paranoia.  I think we can trust him.”  He looked back at Err.  “Well, we’re planning on escaping tomorrow.  Do you want to come with?”

“Can me get big sword back?” Err asked.

“Probably, yeah.”

“Okay.”

With that settled, the party prepared for their escape.  The plan was a simple one.  Galeron will turn himself and as much of the party as he can ethereal, where they’ll float into the armory to re-supply, rescue anyone still trapped in the jail, and then find and deal with Hestine.

At almost exactly two AM, Galeron suddenly felt the presence of his goddess’ power again.  He looked at Thorrun, who returned an affirmative glance.  At the same time, the sound of battle could be heard from above.  The rescue party had arrived, and it was time to go.  Galeron, Tal, and Thorrun escaped while ethereal, but Err and Sinael remained behind to try and deal with the guards.  That didn’t go very well, though, because Sinael either severely underestimated the strength of the guard or overestimated the potion’s power, because it barely singed the well-trained warrior.  The guard gave a yell, and soon another guard burst in from a side room.

Meanwhile, Galeron and the others reached the Armory, and began to re-equip.  Outside of the armory, Robin, Danae, and Damien had their hands full with the front gate guards.  Robin, as the only one among them with any real combat ability, chose to stand in the doorway and absorb the attacks, despite his general preference for archery.  Fortunately, with two powerful spell casters backing him up, the enemy didn’t last long.  The two initial guards fell almost instantly to a chain-lightning blast and a fireball, and when two more guards arrived, Damien trapped one in a wall of force almost instantly.  Robin concentrated on the last of the group while Danae went into the armory to get her own stuff.  After all, she had been captured and stripped of her gear before her rescue, and she and Robin had been relying on lesser, spare equipment that they didn’t sell from the Manor incident.  Damien started to look for a way to the lower level where the rest of the party was.  About this time, Galeron and the others finished getting their equipment, and prepared to go back to help their imprisoned friends.  He and Tal floated back into the cell, while Thorrun left through the door to help the rescuing team.

As soon as they returned, Tal and Galeron realized they had a flaw in their plan.  Namely, as soon as they returned to the cell, they re-entered the anti-magic field, which had long since re-activated, and fell to the ground in heap!  The guards, who had been laughing and playing target practice with Sinael and Err using their bows, were suddenly aware that they had two more, far better equipped allies.  Thinking quickly, Galeron dove through bars with his hand outstretched, and thus let his hand leave the effect of the field.  He used his magic to magically hold the guards in place, while Tal emulated his trick and used his outstretched hand to magically unlock the door, freeing all four of them.  They quickly pummeled the guards into unconsciousness, and Sinael and Err took whatever they could use of their equipment for themselves, before being rendered ethereal from another of Galeron’s spells and led up to the ground level.

Damien, who thought there were still people left to be rescued, was the first to find the staircase between the basement and ground floor, but he rushed down it before anyone from either group could follow him.  He ended up running headlong into a group of spell-slinging defenders, who were hiding behind shutters in a side room.  They quickly charmed the surprised wizard, and ordered him to help them.  He was confused about how his allies were, and spent the rest of the upcoming fight futilely begging both groups to stop their aggression.  Fortunately, the far more useful Tal, Galeron, Thorrun, and the newly-equipped Danae and Robin found the stairs as well, and a magic battle between the two groups erupted.  The wizard of the defenders managed to slow the party down by magically coating the stairs with grease and filling the room with webbing, but a few doses of alchemist’s fire by Tal removed both obstacles quickly enough.  The party easily burst down the door leading to the defenders, and Galeron and Thorrun attacked the spell casters up close while Robin and Danae attacked them from through the shutters.  Err, meanwhile, spent the entire duration of the fighting getting his sword and other equipment back, and then attacking the guard that was trapped in a wall of force, without ever noticing the invisible wall that was blocking his shots.

“Err, stop attacking that guy,” Galeron ordered as the party returned from the basement.

“Okay,” Err said, beginning a long history of Err doing exactly what the party suggests.

After just a few minutes of rest and healing, the party was ready to continue their exploration of the prison, in an attempt to find Hestine and get some answers out of her.  The first floor was empty at this point, with the exception of the door from the entrance way that the first guard reinforcements came out of, so the party went that way.  They found the stairs immediately from the corridor, and ignored all other doors in the hallway to get up the stairs as quickly as possible.  

The second floor was guarded by more of the strange polygonal creatures that had previously been a part of the arresting team, but these resembled spheres with ten thrashing tentacles.  They appeared to be well-prepared for the party, but despite this and some strange hesitation by Damien (possibly second thoughts from helping convicted criminals, or an aftereffect of the charm magic,) the party overpowered them easily, and then went about searching the rooms on this floor.  They found what appeared to be the control room for the anti-magic generator, but left it alone, since it no longer mattered to them.  

Finally, when exploring one of the bedrooms found on this floor, the party was surprised by a sudden attack from Hestine herself, who apparently was very good at stealth and brutal attacks on unaware enemies.  However, despite her ambush and the fact that she was willing to use lethal force while the party generally concentrated on subduing her, they quickly forced her to surrender.  She was nonetheless still royalty, and she had her pride.  She confidently said, “You do realize that reinforcements are coming, right?  And if you do anything to harm me, my family will make your punishment that much worse.”

Tal shook his head, and tried to persuade her.  “Don’t worry, we’re not the villains here, despite how this looks.  Practically all the evidence at the trial was fake, and we think that there is a traitor very high up in the city’s authorities.  In fact, your brother even hinted that he was suspicious of you, and we’d like some answers.”

Hestine looked shocked, and stammered out, “I can’t believe my own family would suspect me of treason!  But you’re right, there has been something going on lately.  Both Lancaster and Amira have been incredibly suspicious lately, and I don’t know if either of them is hiding something.  I will admit that I haven’t exactly been honest with my family lately, though.  I have made some new…”contacts” with the local thief’s guild.  Well, what do you want from me?  Do you have any idea how boring it is to be confined to a castle your whole life?  At least Amira and Lancaster were able to enter the military, and go out and do something with their lives.  But as the youngest of the family, they had to protect me to ensure that there will be someone to succeed the king and queen if my brother and sister both died, so I was never allowed to do anything!  And anyway, I think I got some information that could help you.  My “training” came in handy when I was wandering this place, and I noticed a very well-hidden secret passageway in one of the cells in the basement.  I decided to stick around to investigate it, but that plan was obviously shot to Hades by you people.  However, if you are telling the truth, maybe you can investigate it and do what I can’t.”

She and Tal spent the entire conversation watching and listening to each other carefully, since neither trusted the other at all, but both seemed honest to the other.  To further seal the deal, Hestine said, “Look, the guards will come for you shortly.  You hide here for a few minutes, and I’ll tell them you escaped out the window.  That way, you should be able to reach the secret passageway in relative peace.  Does that sound okay?”

The party dubiously accepted the plan, and a few minutes later, Hestine was as good as her word.  However, just to be on the safe side, Danae suggested the party reach the basement again by using her magic to “hop” into and out of the Plane of Shadows, making sure they won’t have to deal with any stragglers among the guards.  They agreed, and soon they reached the basement and discovered the passageway Hestine mentioned.  They opened it, and carefully entered the dark path, not knowing what was waiting for them or who their ultimate enemy would be.

OOC Notes: Err is the newest character for Chris.  He actually didn’t have a name, but I spelled out his grunt as best as I could.  His intelligence, charisma, and possibly even wisdom were all sixes, I believe!

Expect the finale to this adventure and an announcement from me about some changes to my update schedule next weekend.


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## Neurotic (Sep 28, 2004)

Lela said:
			
		

> Ouch, I've got to have someone start following my group and see if they do any better.




I've tried it. We don't usualy play D&D but GURPS (GULLIVER rules) so mechanics are somewhat different but still.... If you don't put their noses to it, they won't see it   

Anyhow, great work LordVyreth. I tried something similar to Quill of Destiny, but my players were much more mundane. One asked to become High Priest of Mask and didn't specify timeframe, another just asked for lots of gold, again not specified and third refused a challenge   

They were mostly newbies (all played for less then 5 sessions) but still...


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## LordVyreth (Oct 4, 2004)

*True Heroes: Reloaded (heh)*

The tunnel ended fairly quickly, and beyond it was a massive shaft that led far above them, beyond what anyone of them could see.  A stone staircase, which appeared to be carved from the walls, spiraled around the outside walls of the shaft upwards, but no one was really interested in being the first one up the stairs and straight into whatever was waiting for them.  Finally, Damien, who was finally recovering from the effects of the magical charm and was feeling pretty bad about what he did to the party, sighed and volunteered to scout ahead.  Of course, before he did so, he turned invisible and began flying, and then quickly went up to investigate, while the rest of the party followed on the stairs.  The only exceptions were Robin, who used his Wings of Flying, and Sinael, who literally walked up the wall using his magical slippers.  It wasn’t long before the first few lines of defense were encountered, but it was a brief fight.  

The first defenders were a trio of rogues, probably from the thief’s guild, and another of the polygonal, ten-armed monsters, which were modrons according to Danae.  Damien simply incinerated the Decaton with an enhanced fireball, and then continued onward to let the party fight the rogues.  The rogues tried to attack Damien as he flew upwards, but this only revealed themselves to the party, and they were quickly cut down by Robin’s arrows, Err’s blade, and Danae’s magic.

While they were distracted, Damien reached the top of the shaft, with Sinael close behind.  The defenses were a little better here, but not much.  Another ten-armed modron, five pentagonal modrons what Danae believed were a weaker variety, one of the military’s griffon-mounted knights, and a pair of a wizard and cleric were there to greet them.  Damien easily destroyed the four lesser modrons with one chain of electricity, and then simply pointed a finger at the larger one, and fired a black beam out of it.  It struck the creature right in the “chest,” causing it to drop dead instantly.  Meanwhile, Sinael reached the wizard, and managed to sneak up on him from the wall.  However, he decided to try and use another potion of fire breathing, and while it singed the wizard, he was able to stay on his feet, and responded by causing black tentacles to rise up around Sinael, where they immediately began to squeeze the life out of him.

Elsewhere, the knight took of with his mount, and dove down to attack the party members he could actually see.  Of course, it was him and his mount against Tal, Danae, Err, Robin, Galeron, and Thorrun, so the odds were against him.  Err, Galeron, and Thorrun concentrated on getting up the stairs in time to help Sinael, so Robin, Tal, and Danae easily defeated both of them in a hail of arrows and spells.  They flew or dashed up to help the others.  By this time, Err had reached the wizard and the tentacles around him, and finally decided to start flying, letting him easily reach the wizard.  Once within striking range, he dismembered his unfortunate foe in one swing.  Finally, while the rest of the party caught up, Damien had enough time to imprison the wizard inside a wall of force.  With no way out of the prison, he surrendered, and Damien turned him over to Tal for interrogation.  

Unfortunately, after a lengthy interrogation, Tal learned nothing about who their enemy was, as he or she only spoke with the cleric and the other guards through intermediaries.  Damien canceled his spell, letting Err and Galeron pummel the cleric into unconsciousness, and they then bound and gagged him, so they could turn them over the proper authorities when this was all over.  The party then concentrated on where to go next.  At the top of the stairs, there was a small ledge but no apparent way to advance, but there was a very strange statue carved into the wall.  It looked like an angelic woman, who was wielding a sword and had her mouth open as if she was singing.  Suspicious, Sinael investigated it, and quickly found a hidden switch.  “I think we can use this to get out of the tunnel,” he said, while pointing to the switch.  “Should I push it?”

However, the others were hesitant.  “I have very little magical power left,” Damien said, and Tal and Danae nodded their heads in agreement.  “We dealt with the guards, and obviously nobody knows we’re here, or they would have already come after us.  We should rest here for the night, so that we’ll be better prepared to face whatever is beyond this door.”

No one objected, so the party rested and prepared to finally inflict justice on whoever betrayed them.  The next day, however, didn’t get off to a good start.  Though Sinael found the way to open the door, he missed the many potent magic traps that were also on the statue.  As he pushed the switch, the statue screamed at Sinael while simultaneously releasing the sword.  It began to spin on its own, forming a blade-like trap in front of the statue.  Finally, the floor began leaking a slippery black fluid.  Sinael took the full brunt of the scream’s sonic energy, but was able to scamper out of the way before slipping on the grease or getting caught in the blade trap.  However, his injuries were the least of the party’s concerns at this point.  That scream reverberated throughout the shaft, and it was almost certain that whoever was beyond the statue’s passageway also heard it and knew the party was here.  Even worse, the blade barrier was blocking the passage, so they couldn’t even leave to retain some element of surprise.  Finally, in desperation, Tal used his staff of stone to move most of the stone wall next to the barrier out of the way, revealing a wooden wall beyond it.  Err had no trouble making that crumble, and the party charged into…a bathing chamber.

	Though confused by their surroundings, the party realized it had no time to lose, and dashed out of the only door in sight (besides the obvious other side of the secret passageway.)  They found themselves inside a very well furnished and elegant hallway.  There was a stairway to the lower levels of whatever building they were in, another door on this floor, and a shorter and more expensive-looking staircase leading upwards to an equally expensive door.  Taking an educated guess that the more elaborate doorway led to the master’s residence, the party dashed up the stairs and through the doorway into what looked like some sort of record room.  Rows of bookshelves lined the walls, but they look like they were recently emptied, and a pile of books and other papers was still burning in a pile in the center of the room.  There were two other items of note in the room.  First, there was another modron, though this one had only five arms.  However, according to Danae, this meant it was actually more powerful than the ten-armed ones.  Also here was an official seal of the house; a seal which contained an image of a black stag.  Their betrayer was none other than Lancaster himself.

	The shock that their so-called savior was the one who had planned their downfall from the start, not to mention Tal’s realization of what secrets he told him, was enough for the modron to get the jump on them.  He only uttered one word, but the word was so filled with power that it engulfed the senses for the less lawful members of the party.  However, as most of them were stumbling around after being deafened or slowed, Damien, Galeron, and Thorrun casually dispatched with the creature.  Tal then put out the fire, but there was little time to investigate the remains.  Lancaster must be found.  

	The next room looked similarly ransacked, though there was no fire here.  There was also a strange wall of darkness blocking the doorway to the balcony, but there was a lever right next to it, and they didn’t need Sinael’s help to figure out what it did.  Sinael was nonetheless the quickest to react, and he quickly sprinted to the lever and pulled it down, disabling the balcony.  He and the others rushed to the balcony.

	As expected, Lancaster was escaping.  Less surprisingly, his black stag mount was using some form of magical wings, letting him fly to safety at high speed.  However, the bigger concern for the party was a strange floating vessel that was also exiting the mansion.  It looked a little like a coach, but it could fly, and the party immediately realized that Lancaster was risking an earlier completion of his plans and trying to let the drow escape the city now!

	With little time to lose and two crucial targets, the party split up to tackle both targets.  Robin immediately after Lancaster using his wings, and Sinael ran after as well, relying on his magic slippers to track his foe wherever the fight leads.  Damien prepared a spell that let much of the remaining party fly, and then Galeron, Err, and Tal took off after Lancaster as well.  Danae, however, decided to focus on the magical craft and Lancaster’s guards, which included a number of Griffon Knights that had allied themselves with Bas.

	Lancaster had a significant lead over the party, and made it over the top of the noble sector’s private plateau before anyone could reach him.  Undeterred, Robin plunged over the edge, and began firing at the fleeing villain while entering freefall.  Elsewhere, Sinael had just managed to reach the plateau himself when a number of the Griffon guards surrounded him.  Thinking quickly, he attacked the saddle of the nearest knight, quickly separating him from his mount.  The knight cursed the party before beginning his long drop, which ended almost a minute and thousands of feet later with a sickening thud.  Damien, who was hovering between the two groups, further helped Sinael out by using a spell that turned a second knight to stone.  With his rider’s weight significantly increased, the griffon also plummeted.

	Meanwhile, Danae wasn’t even considering getting close to the vehicle, since it was being guarded by several more griffon knights.  Instead, she began to assault the group and the vehicle with disintegrate and chain lightning magic.  She had just managed to destroy most of the vehicle’s back, exposing the drow and the driver, when the griffon knights managed to double back to deal with this new threat.

	Back in the empty space of Methosilang, Galeron managed to pass the freefalling Robin by letting gravity aid him and charging downward at high speed.  Lancaster, already getting sick of Robin’s arrows and Tal’s magic, suddenly stopped his own descent and fled into the maze of stalactites around the sides of the mountain.  Galeron carefully followed him in, only to be the next victim of Lancaster’s dire charge.  With one attack, he had almost killed Galeron just as he once did to Sinael.  However, Galeron managed to focus his thoughts on his goddess to cleanse the pain from his mind, and maintained his consciousness, preventing him from falling to certain doom.  Satisfied, Lancaster turned to continue his escape, when Err managed to catch up to him as well.

	Meanwhile, the knight escorts for the vessel had reached Danae, and they began to attack her.  Though she was in little immediate danger from such relatively inexperienced enemies, Danae was distracted from her real target, forcing Damien and Thorrun (who wasn’t part of the fly spell and had to stay behind anyway,) to take action.  Between the three of them, the knights were quickly dealt with, and with one last lightning spell, the driver of the vehicle was killed instantly, though it wasn’t immediately certain what had happened to the drow.  When the vehicle went out of control and crashed into the royal castle, plateau, though, it was obvious that no one survived the crash.

	Meanwhile, Err was making sure that Lancaster wasn’t going anywhere, either.  Lancaster again wheeled his mount around, and gave him the same brutal attack that Sinael and Galeron suffered.  However, Err wasn’t as quick to back down, and he responded with a series of attacks that were even more brutal.  In a move that was actually very clever considering the source, he attacked Lancaster’s mount first, and after a volley of blows reduced the poor creature to a few bloody chunks, he knocked Lancaster unconscious as well.  Realizing that a royal family member, even a traitorous one, would be better off alive than dead by their hands, Galeron swooped down to grab the unconscious Lancaster before he died in the fall, and healed him enough to prevent his immediate death when they landed.

	By now, a crowd had gathered around the party.  They looked shocked at first, and then blinded by rage, that this party of “traitors” would dare escape and commit near-regicide.  In fact, a massive military contingent was arriving, with Amira taking the lead.  Realizing he would be quickly executed by Lancaster enraged sister, Galeron quickly spoke.  “Before you judge me, look at the papers Lancaster is carrying,” he said, hoping that Lancaster really did bring incriminating information and correspondence with Bas with him.

	Amira did so upon arrival, and after reading some of the papers, her anger didn’t decrease, but it did change targets.  Wordlessly, she let the party read some of them, and saw at last the scope of the plan against them.  Rothaire, as expected, was bribed to testify against them, but Lerissa suffered far worse.  After her latest arrest, she was captured, giving mind-numbing drugs and magical curses, and then forced to receive a Helm of Opposite Alignment, which made her a willing servant in Lancaster’s conspiracy.  Of course, none of the people that Tal asked for as witnesses were even contacted.  Surprisingly, the letter from Phellis was not a forgery, suggesting that their spotted friend was, as always, more aware of what was happening to them than they thought.  The worst news, however, was a report that the dragon eggs were recently confiscated by Lancaster’s forces, and shipped to parts unknown, and information about a location on the Southern Continent.  Tal’s worst fears had come true.

	Damien had another fear.  “If he was giving Bas this much information, we can’t ignore the possibility that he revealed our location to Bas as well.”

	Danae shook her head.  “If that was true, he wouldn’t have been so desperate to get that drow out of here.  Apparently that was the only source Bas trusted with this news.  But he might have given her enough evidence for her to make a few educated guesses.  She might have narrowed it down to a few possible locations by now.”

	Amira and the crowd at large was hearing all this, but they seemed too numb to respond.  Instead, sobbing, shouts of anger and anguish, and the cries of desperation could be heard.  Some were in denial about the whole thing, but many others seemed on the verge of giving up.  “Even our own royal family has worked against us, and our church has been lying to us,” one of them said.  “Bas is real?  How can we fight a goddess that can attack us physically?” another person asked.

	Tal and the others had arrived by now, and Tal realized that what these people needed now was answers, and even more than that, hope.  “I understand how hard this must be for all of you.  It was hard for us when we first learned of the forces against us as well.  But we fought on still, despite this.  And we won many fights against Bas.  She may be here on this world, but she is nowhere near as powerful as the eleven sisters that protect us.  And look at the tactics Bas has used against us.  Fear, deception, trickery, these are her weapons.  That’s because she fears our strength.  She knows that she lacks the power to match us in a fair battle, so she has tried to drive us and her other enemies against each other and themselves.  We can still beat her, if we work together.  It will take some new ideas, though.  We can no longer be content to fight from hiding, and rely on stealth.  When the time comes to defeat Bas, and defeat her we will, we must march boldly together, on the surface and as warriors.  We will reclaim our strength, our glory, and when the time comes, even our homes.  And we will do it together!”

	His words were just what the people of Methosilang needed to hear, and a cheer went up from Amira and the crowd.  The next stage of their careers as adventurers was ready to begin, as the true heroes of Methosilang.  But first, it would take months of preparation to raise an army in Methosilang.  The party set out to build this army almost immediately, aware that when it was finally prepared, the final battle against Bas would begin.

	OOC Notes: I should warn you now, expect more sporadic updates in the next couple of months.  I can probably pull off about one a week for the rest of October, but November is Nanowrimo, an online writing challenge which will take up much of my free time.  Expect at most another update or two for the entire month.  Because of this, once again, I request more comments fro my readers.  I know some of you have some questions or comments, and I would really like the chance to talk to some of you.  To be honest, I have been getting frustrated with the almost nonexistent response to my Story Hour lately, and any sign of interest and support will go far in encouraging me to keep the updates coming at what has been one of the fastest rates I’ve seen on ENWorld.  I hope to hear from some of you soon!


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## Neurotic (Oct 11, 2004)

finally have I caught up with you. Must read at work so not much time for it. But still, after month and then some, I'm here. 

I enjoyed your story very much. Looking forward to the next update.

Could you post characters so we can know details?  As I understand, you are not so far behind now, maybe you could crounge some info or history or some other tidbit about the characters ??


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## LordVyreth (Oct 13, 2004)

Sorry about the lack of an update last week.  I was feeling a little under the weather last Sunday, which greatly reduced my enthusiasm for writing the update.  However, you should expect another update this weekend, with any luck.

Actually, I'm still about a year behind on updates, though that does mean that I got about a year and a half's worth of games updated in the last six months or so.  I can try to find what I can about the old characters, but for now I'll just give you some general info.  At the end of this game, everyone was about 14-15th level.  However, between this and the next adventure, I did another "time jump" similar to the one before the Lady of Blood adventure, raising everyone to the 17th level range.  I know at least one player who has a copy of their character sheet from that era, and I'll ask the others about it as well.  I could also post he info for characters that were basically discontinued or killed around this point, like Zethar and Damien, if you like.


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## LordVyreth (Oct 19, 2004)

*The Final Months of Peace*

Sorry for the delay.  ENWorld's extended absence could us all by surprise, I'm sure.  Anyway, this plot will use a lot of references to old adventures, so if anyone's confused about an old plot point, let me know, and I'll spare you from going through the entire archive.

Six months passed, and just like the year between the party’s liberation of the dwarf village and the death of Shekuldellstra, they were relatively peaceful.  The party spent most of their time training the forces of Methosilang for the upcoming battle with Bas, and while they got into occasional skirmishes, they never fought anything as dangerous as they normally see, or even as bad as the forces that they fought the last time when they took a year off from standard adventuring.  There were a few noteworthy exceptions, however.  The first was when Err, who the party effectively “adopted” into the party, was given some of the treasure from the Nightmare Prince’s manor, including some found in his special armory.  The Ring of Protection that he was given should have been helpful, but when Err woke up a few days later to find he had been turned into a turtle, the usefulness of the ring was reconsidered.  And since Err’s intelligence was barely equivalent to a turtle’s in the first place, it took a long time for Err’s friends to figure out what happened.  Eventually, though, the mystery was solved, and Err was restored to his normal form.

	A more serious issue came from Tal’s plans.  He realized that by confiding in Lancaster about Dragovigis and the eggs, he has endangered both, and broken a vow to a god while doing so.  He knew that if he told Facetous about what happened, the god might very well kill him, but he also knew that he owed it to them to warn that they might be attacked and soon.  Anxiously, he went to visit the dragon god, and told him the truth.

	Facetous, needless to say, was not pleased.  With one fluid motion, he snatched Tal up in one claw.  The divine creature was so angry he could barely speak, and all that came out was the slightest whisper.  Even so, Tal could hear every word the god said.  “I trusted you to leave, even though it was law that all who found this place could never leave.  And you threw away that trust as if it was nothing!  I should kill you right now and crush your soul into dust!”

	Just then, Facetous was interrupted by a familiar ruby half-dragon.  “Grandfather,” he began.  “I understand your anger.  But remember, if you didn’t let him leave, I would have never known of my heritage, and you would have never learned that your son’s legacy wasn’t lost.  Show him your mercy, and he and his companions may yet redeem themselves.”

	For a long time, Facetous said and did nothing, as he pondered his next choice.  Finally, he said, “Very well.  Your life will be spared, but you owe your life to my kin here.  However, I will ensure that you won’t do any more damage to our city.”  With that, he raised one claw, and drew across Tal’s chest, ruining his armor in the process.  Facetous continued, “This claw is infused with my divine might.  With it, that scratch would have killed you if it was my desire.  I let you live, but the power of that scratch will remain with you.  Leave this city immediately, and if you ever return or speak of it again, the claw will finish the job, killing you instantly.”

	Tal, too afraid to speak further, agreed and left to gather his companions.  Surprisingly, he found them at the same tavern that Dane and some of his other companions drank themselves into comas the last time they were here.  Even more surprisingly, not only was Err downing a tankard of the dragon liquor, he didn’t look at all uncomfortable about it.  In fact, he looked more intelligent than normal.  “Ah, Tal, so you came back to us alive, then?  Good show, how did you get the old man to grant your salvation?”  Err said, using more syllables than the party has seen him use so far combined.

	Too confused to respond, Err continued.  “Ah, you are confused about my mastery of vocabulary, correct?  Yes, it was quite the surprise when I arrived as well.  It turns out that I am indeed a native of this land myself, and left shortly before your first arrival.  Lamentably, it was the environment here that allowed my dragon heritage to balance out my ogre blood, granting me my normal intelligence.  When I left, my intellect abandoned me, until I had completely reverted to my natural state.”

	Tal seemed sad by this.  “Does this mean that you will be remaining here, to avoid losing your intelligence again?”

	Err, or whatever his real name was, shook his head.  “While that would be preferable, I can’t simply abandon your cause now that I can say I truly comprehend it.  I will make the sacrifice of my greater intellect as long as it takes to earn peace for my brethren here and on your continent.”

	His mind made up, Err rejoined his companions, and the group left before Facetous could grow even more impatient.  

	The rest of the six months passed uneventfully, though the party’s power grew substantially as they trained the army of Methosilang and fought some of its enemies.  Finally, their period of rest came to an end when they one of Methosilang’s scouts discovered a strange announcement among the items earned in an orc raid.  It read:

It’s the challenge to end all challenges!!!!!!


The fight to end all fights!!!!!!!

If you miss it, what will you tell your grandchildren when they ask what it was like!?!!?!?!

In the emperor’s own arena, a clash of the titans!!!!!

In one corner, the most successful gladiator in recent history, a woman who defied all who stood in her way, Elayna!  At her side is the man you love to hate, the wizard that defines all that’s wrong with the lesser races, the betrayer, Tsine!!!!

And their enemy, the very man Tsine murdered, the resurrected hero of vengeance, leading the best and bravest gladiators who volunteered to stand at his side, Khat’Shir’Mol!!!!

In one week, two teams will enter, but only one will leave!!!!  Will the heroic warriors get their vengeance, or will the methosilang cowards sneak their way out again!!!  Be there and find out!  You’ll pay for the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge!!!!!

	Finally, the party had an answer to what happened to Tsine!  The orcs had him, and unless they could get to him soon, he would be butchered in the gladiator pits of their capital city!  But Galeron seemed to be angrier about this than the rest of them.  “What’s wrong,” a concerned Tal asked.

	Between gritted teeth, Galeron replied, “Elayna is my mother!”

	That more than decided it.  The group took only a day to prepare, and then began to the journey to Fierypyre, the capital of the orc empire.  Admittedly, they didn’t have any idea what they’ll do when the finally get there, but it was a long journey, and they were sure they’d think of something before they got there.  However, before they could arrive, they would have an encounter with another old friend of theirs.  

	The encounter occurred in Dreggit’s Hollow, a fairly nondescript town near the edge of Methosilang’s western arm of control that is populated primarily by gnomes and only uses the lenses to provide the city with one hour of sunlight a day.  The party planned on staying a night here, and then moving on.  However, when they reached the inn, they found a familiar man waiting for them.  This man had dark hair with yellow spots, and was known to the party as Phellis Mune.

	The party prepared to fight him, but Galeron stopped them.  He cast a spell of true seeing as soon as he saw Phellis, and learned that they were surrounded.  Dozens of diabolical foes were all around them, hiding invisibly or disguised as normal humanoids.  Phellis realized that they knew of his advantage, and smiled broadly.  “I’m so glad your friend Galeron is as wise as they say,” he began.  “Now, I’m not saying with perfect knowledge that if a fight broke out here, my forces would be the victors.  However, such fights tend to be very destructive, and I’m certain that in such a battle, most if now all of this poor little town and its innocent people would be killed.  And that would be such a shame, don’t you agree?  Now sit and share a meal with me.  We have much to discuss.”

	Reluctantly, the party agreed, but it was obvious none of them trusted Phellis.  “What do you want?” Galeron quickly said, eager to get this business behind them.

	“I was merely wondering why we should be enemies.  I think that an alliance between Bas and the Sisters would be advantageous for both of us.  When it’s all said and done, all that Bas truly wants is to rejoin her sisters.  Combined, Bas and Methosilang will easily wipe the orc and undead hordes off of the earth.  Bas may be the ruler, but she treats her loyal servants with respect.  Khaspar and Kulstra never truly were loyal to her, and when they planned to betray her, they were justly killed, but it was Bas that let me keep my humanity despite my animalistic…nature, I suppose you could call it.  I have nothing but obedience in my heart for her.  When Bas rules, and have no doubt that she will rule, I will be regarded as her most loyal advisor, and will be allowed to handle most of the day-to-day work of her empire.  We all admire order, do we not?  Why not join with Bas’ order, and save the city?”

	Sensing some of their hesitation, Phellis became irritated and continued, “Oh, come now.  I know well how little you owe the Sisters.  Bas told me of the heritage of the Lady of Memory that most of you share.  You never truly belong to the Sisters, and by now, you are also aware that the Sisters are not the true creators of Methosilang anyway.  They’re creations of necessity, not your true mothers.  If you will follow artificial gods, as we all must now if we wish to combat the god of death, then Bas is no less real than your gods.”

	However, Galeron had heard enough.  “I won’t listen to another minute of this!  I may no longer know exactly what makes us my goddess, but I know that her beliefs and nature are nothing like the evil being you worship!  You goddess demands sacrifice and misery, while mine works towards healing and life.  I will never ally myself with the likes of you.”  Slowly, the rest of the party nodded their heads in agreement.

	Phellis looked insulted by this, and sniffed as he stood up.  “Very well.  I am a man of honor, and will leave you in peace for now.  However, you’re just dooming your land to chaos and destruction if you continue this way.”  He turned to walk away, but as he did so, one of his traveling pouches caught on a loose nail, seemingly by accident.  It tore open, and Phellis didn’t seem to notice as he left.  As he left, a small piece of paper fell out.  Once Phellis left, the party carefully approached the paper and picked it up.  Written on it was a strange poem of some kind.  It read:

When they who once knew death again return…..
……never-sleeping eye finally closes…
…….finds that which it never did when open, destroys what it always sought to destroy in life…….
………the chance to change destiny…

……………….history to be re-written…..


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## LordVyreth (Oct 26, 2004)

*Proof of Power*

Despite the unusual events seen here so far, the party chose to rest in the town, and prepared to continue their journey the next day.  However, when they were getting ready to leave that morning, they had another unexpected guest.  A strange half-dragon, half-orc came running up to them.  “Wait!” he said.  “Me am Keth, from Drag…Drago…”

	“Dragovigis?” Tal supplied helpfully.

	“Yeah, that place.  Me heard of you getting kicked out, so me decided to leave too and help friend…friend…”  He started to say as he pointed frantically at Err.

	“We just call him Err,” Danae said, realizing that Keth here was apparently suffering the same intellect loss that Err was, but to a slightly lesser degree.  But only very slightly.

	“Well, we can use all the help we can get, so you’re welcome to come along,” Tal said, after Galeron and Thorrun did the standard alignment check and found him to be safe.  “But we’re going someplace very dangerous, so you might not be safe.”

	Keth nodded enthusiastically.  “Me not care.  Me want to help still!”

	And so, Keth joined Tal, Robin, Danae, Galeron, Thorrun, Sinael, and Err on their quest to rescue Tsine and Elayna.  However, their trip only now got dangerous, for they had to leave the protection of the Methosilang tunnels, and travel across the surface, and through orc empire territory!

	The first two days, nothing uneventful happened.  However, on the third day, just as they began the day’s journey, they heard an unmistakable sound no more than a couple hundred feet above their heads.  A dragon’s roar, and by the sound of it, it was a big one!  To make it worse, they still couldn’t see it, suggesting that it was invisible.  To make things even worse still, in response to the roar, four more dragons responded to the roar, and began flying in very fast from behind nearby hills.  They were soon surrounded by an entire flight of dragons!

	By the looks of, there was a white, red, black, and blue dragon, leaving only a missing green to have one dragon of each of the major chromatic dragon types.  Of course, there was still the invisible dragon to worry about, and it likely completed the set.  The party was quick to respond, especially Sinael, who used the opportunity to run and hide!  

	The rest of the party was a little more courageous.  Danae and Tal prepared utility magic as Keth moved up to take a defensive position, just in time for the blue to arrive.  It landed right next to Keth with a crash, and bit hard into him.  Robin started firing at the blue while Err ran up to help Keth and Thorrun started to run around the field, healing anyone who needed it.  Finally, the other dragons arrived.  The White landed and stung Err and Keth with its freezing breath, while the Black flew past Tal, taking a large chunk out of him with his teeth as he went, the Green lost his invisibility by breathing on Thorrun and Galeron, and the Red, oddly enough, remained high in the air and cast a defensive spell.  Galeron quickly healed many of the injured party members, and the party prepared for a long fight for their lives.

	But the fight rather quickly proved far easier than they expected.  The red was the first to fall, which led Danae to theorize that it was actually the youngest of the dragons.  Regardless, she quickly took advantage of her massively increased powers to literally shatter a solid chunk of the creature’s body using one enhanced cone of cold.  A bit of magic from Tal and a few arrows from Robin, and it was all over for the beast.  The blue didn’t fair much better.  Though it fought well and was able to give Keth a number of serious wounds, the combined might of the hulking half-dragons, a k a ERR and Keth, was just too much, and it was cut down so fast it didn’t even have time to realize how outmatched it was and flee.

	Despite losing 40% of their strength, the remaining three dragons pressed on.  The black dragon closed in to breath on the party, but by now they had mostly realized the situation and scattered, preventing the dragons from inflicting serious damage on them.  The green and white dragons landed to continue fighting their foes in the meantime.  The white dragon was the next to fall to Danae’s terrifying power of the art, as she pummeled him with four direct hits with flaming meteors.  Again, it took just a bit of help from Tal and Robin to finish it off.

	Now, the dragons were truly afraid, but they chose to remain and fight for now.  The green dragon didn’t last much longer than its kin.  It was the next target of both Err and Keth, and even Sinael finally developed the courage to return to the fight and help, which he did with great success by grabbing the distracted dragon’s neck and furiously hacking at it to “slit” its throat!

	This left only the black, who saw the writing on the wall and turned to leave.  It was too late, however.  Keth and Err got parting shots on the great beast as it lifted off the ground, and it was peppered with magic by Danae, Tal, and by arrows from Robin as it fled, causing it to come crashing to the ground a few hundred feet away.  The party had won, and without any serious losses, but they had to get away from the bodies and quickly, before their presence was noticed by the dead “scouting patrol.”

	OOC Notes: Well, if I wanted to know how tough the party had become, this was a good way to find out.  None of the dragons were Snatch-sized, and their main goal was eliminating the threat, not carrying them off one at a time anyway.  That being said, they were all in the CR 14-17 range, and the party itself was only 17th level on average, so I thought a flight of dragons would be more of a threat.  Well, I end up catching up with the party’s actual level of power pretty soon, so don’t worry, heh.


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## LordVyreth (Nov 1, 2004)

Sigh, sorry about the lack of an update this week.  I wanted to, but writer's block and the craziness of Halloween just made it impossible.  Unfortunately, this month will feature a signifigant reduction in updates in general.  It's National Novel Writing Month, an online challenge to write a 50,000 word fictional novel in only 30 days, and that will likely take up most of my writing time for this month.  I'll try to get at least one update that finishes the current adventure, though.  In the meantime, I'd be happy to answer questions or reveal more about the storyline in general, if anyone wants more information.


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## Neurotic (Nov 25, 2004)

Hey, LordVyreth! When do we get another update? I'd like to see this one through. When I caught up with you, I started reading others and returned periodically, but still no update. 

Will there be more? Please?


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## LordVyreth (Nov 26, 2004)

Yes, the updates will be returning this December, probably in the first weekend.  I was hoping to update once or twice this month, but the writing project I mentioned in my last post became more time-consuming than I thought, and I didn't even get any Q&A questions that I could answer to keep this thread updated in the meantime.


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## Neurotic (Nov 30, 2004)

That's OK. I follow several other SHs. Try reading Metamorphosis 

There is little we can ask without a) spoiling future updates and b) asking for details about characters since you are still some time behind.

Ask your players to post their char histories or char sheets if they have them...

Tnx


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## LordVyreth (Dec 1, 2004)

Yeah, I do read Metamorphosis, along with Wizadru and Jollydoc's Story Hours, plus the occasional one that updates less regularly.  Well, besides details about the adventurers and characters, I would be happy to give more details about adventures so far, or about the unique monsters that I made, or some of the behind-the secenes table events.  Really, just hearing more about your opinions on the events would be nice; like what parts people liked and disliked about the game so far.  At any rate, it won't matter for long, because I plan on having a real update this weekend, but still, I always appreciate more feedback.


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## LordVyreth (Dec 6, 2004)

*The Winners*

The party had defeated the dragon scout patrol, but their adventure still wasn’t over.  Later that day, they finished the travel to their destination and reached Fierypyre, the capital of the dragon empire.  Of course, getting there and entering the city were different things entirely.  The city itself was literally one massive dragon, dozens of miles long and over a mile high, and while a sort of shanty town had built up around it, the entirety of the city proper was located inside the dragon!  This meant, among other things, that the city was completely protected from attacks and can only be entered through the mouth.  (Well, theoretically, there was another entrance, but that was blocked by the ground anyway!)

	It was this very mouth that Tal and Danae, magically disguised as dragons, approached.  The rest of the party was there as well, but they were stripped of all weapons and bound as prisoners.  The party reached the mouth, and an armored bugbear at the gate examined them critically.  “Who are you?” he sneered.

	Without hesitation, Tal replied, “I’m here to bring these gladiators into the town for the big tournament coming up!”

	Tal continued his story.  He and Danae were passing themselves as lesser dragon nobles from another nearby city in the orc empire.  Their story wasn’t air-tight, as they only had limited knowledge about the orc empire, but with a few thousand gold pieces and a convincing enough story that the bugbear and other guards thought they were merely shady, not outright invaders, they were able to enter the city without too much difficulty.

	Once inside, they were quickly in awe of the sheer scope of the city.  Most of the buildings were built for dragons, and were thus both very large and designed so that flying creatures can enter them, but land-bound creatures could not.  In fact, many of the buildings weren’t even connected to the ground at all, instead being built attached to the top of the city-dragon’s body.  But the size of the city was not the only impressive feature about it; the city also possessed incredible technology.  The mostly Methosilang natives of the party knew that the orcs had guns from a few painful earlier experiences, but this was far more extensive than they thought.  Flying ships, which didn’t seem to require magic to operate, were floating across the top of the city near it’s ceiling, and the poorer inhabitants of the city tended to travel on massive rope-based railways which lined the city’s walls and rooftops.  

	Of course, the party had more important things to do than gawk at the wonders around them.  With some questioning by Tal and some money changing hands, the party was able to discover the whereabouts of the gladiator pens, where presumably Tsine and Elayna would be waiting for them.  They immediately traveled to the pens, which were actually found below the city in a number of underground tunnels mostly inhabited by lowly humanoids like goblins and accessible through a scar in the “city’s” belly.  Once the reached it, they began to case the place, getting information about how the slaves were held and the best way to get them out.  This was easy enough, since the entire party was already posing as gladiators and gladiator dealers, and most of the party was quickly incarcerated while Tal and Danae got further information with the forces in charge of the pens.  Unfortunately, not only did they learn something that made a standard escape attempt impossible, they might have learned it too late to prevent their friends from suffering the same fate!

	“Tell me more about these slave tattoos,” Danae asked the pens administrator with what she hoped sounded like interest and not like she was terrified about her friends.

	“Ah, yes, the slave tattoos.  We’ve been using it for years, and have been improving the design every few years.  The latest version has been crafted by our finest dragon and kobold wizards, and then permanently imprinted on a machine in the coliseum itself.  Anyone who fights in the games will have to get one on before they’re allowed to fight, and it almost guarantees there will be no escapes.  Even if one of them manages to leave the confines of the city, the tattoo will immediately be activated.  They’re really quite brutal; they first suck the slave drive, then release a word of death, and assuming that kills the slave, and it always has so far, it then pulls the soul of the slave back to the city and permanently binds it into a gem, so we get to decide if they’re worth the cost of raising from the dead!”

	Tal was also concerned about what this meant for his friends.  “I’m not too certain about this.  We use our gladiators for fights back in our home town as well, but they’ll be worthless to us if they can’t leave the city!  Can’t we make an exception for our property?”

	The administrator shook his head, but smiled.  “I’m afraid not.  But don’t worry; the tattoos can be removed again after your business is done in the city.”  

	Their plans suddenly changed, Tal and Danae quickly excused themselves and left to find their friends.  Meanwhile, Galeron (who was getting sick of being imprisoned at this point, considering this was his third time in a row,) Thorrun, Err, Robin, Sinael, and Keth had better luck, despite their imminent branding.  They soon discovered that Elayna and Tsine were indeed staying in this same pen, and were able to reunite with their old friend and Galeron’s mother.

	While there, Elayna and Tsine explained what happened to them.  “After I was captured by the orcs,” Elayna explained, “I was taken here for questioning.  I refused to show them where Methosilang was, of course, and was soon going to be executed as an example to others.  However, nearly before I was going to be executed, I was able to escape my cell and retrieve some of my old equipment.  I was later recaptured, but not before taking down some orcs,” she said with some satisfaction.  “Instead of executing me, they decided I deserved a more worthy death, or at least one that was more entertaining for them, so they forced me into slavery as a gladiator.”

	“But that was years ago!  I tried to find you, but all attempts to scry you failed!”

	“That’s not surprising,” she replied.  “These pens generate an anti-magic field, and the arena itself is protected against all scrying, presumably to prevent anyone from watching for free.”

	Tsine’s story was less complicated.  “I don’t know where I got that magical disease at,” he began, “but I think it was related somehow to Dragovigis or that “dungeon” we investigated there.  Anyway I apparently became completely mad for a while there, and managed to escape Methosilang.  I remember just a bit about what happened, but I think I was wondering the forests around the surface for days before orcs captured me.  It turns out that I had a price on my head.  I mean, we all do by now, but they were looking for me specifically.  Remember that orc captain that we fought at the Shrine of Life?  Well, we killed him, but apparently someone had him raised, and he’s wanted revenge against me and Rudyard in particular.  Now, Rudyard is dead, but they still had a chance to get revenge on me, so he personally had me forced into the gladiator games, and wanted to lead what they are sure is the final battle against me.”

	Meanwhile, Tal and Danae arrived to try and get their friends out of there before it was too late, but it was, well, too late.  Imperial guards arrived at the pens to specifically escort the party, both captors and captives, to meet someone they called, “The Savior.”  With little choice, they agreed.

	Soon, both groups were ushered in the noble district at the top of the city.  They soon were led before a female half-dragon, half-human woman.  She nodded at her “guests,” and told her personal guards and the imperial ones that brought the party here, “Excellent work.  Now leave me.   I want to speak with our guests personally.”

	They complied, and The Savior’s haughty tone suddenly changed, becoming much less arrogant.  “It’s about time you got here,” she said.  “I was worried you wouldn’t make it in time.”

	The party looked understandably confused, prompting the woman to suddenly shudder, as her entire shape changed.  When it ended, an entirely different woman stood before them.

	“Venym!” Tal gasped, as he recognized the succubus that helped them fight the Nightmare Prince.  “What are you doing here?”

	“What do you think?  After your celestial friend forced me from your city, and by the way, I’m very grateful you didn’t bring him here, I didn’t have anywhere else to go.  Bas still wanted me dead for my part in killing one of her Strife Masters, and I couldn’t leave the plane, so I took my chances with the dragons and orcs.  It wasn’t too hard to fool them.  Killing the Nightmare Prince actually gave the dragons a big victory in their war with Delaspie, since he was hindering their forces while Phellis Mune hindered Delaspie’s.  I was able to convince them that I was responsible for this victory, which you have to admit was largely true.  And then I helped them discover the Bas forces in their own kingdom.  All this help made me into a heroine for them, hence the nickname.”

	“If things are so good, then why were you looking for us?” Tal asked, as most of the rest of the party was too disgusted to even talk to such an evil creature.

	“Well, I tried to get the orc empire to mobilize against Bas, but they’re too slow-moving to make decisions, and now it’s too late.  You have to understand, Bas has been manipulating the orc and undead empires into greater hostility for a while now, and it’s about to descend into total war.  The undead will hit the orc empire soon, and hard.  I want to be out of here before it happens, so I made sure there were a lot of those flyers that I’m sure you found, and that they were very specific with who was fighting.  I knew it would lure you here.  And I want you to again honor your agreement with me, and take me back to Methosilang with you.”

	“Why should we?” Galeron gruffly responds.

	“Well, if you don’t think the original deal is enough, how about because I can get you and your mother out of here safely?”

	“How do you propose you get them out of here before the fight?”

	“Oh, I won’t be able to do that, but I can get you into that fight, and make sure they don’t know how strong you really are until it’s too late.  You fight back against your opponents, and win, and we’ll be able to get them back into the tattoo machine to get them removed while we’re there.  They’re free to leave, you teleport home, and I come with.  And I can even make sure that the rest of you get fake tattoos, so that you can at least escape if something goes wrong.  That’s already better than the position you’re in now.”

	“And if we refuse?” Galeron, who didn’t want to make any more deals with demons, asked.

	“Well, I don’t have to do anything, but I could just reveal that the lot of you are frauds, so all of you are forced to spend the rest of your lives as gladiators, and you’ll be condemning your mother and friend to die.”

	The group quickly discussed this plan, and while Galeron and Thorrun refused to actively help Venym in any way, they did reluctantly accept the plan itself.  


	And so it was that a few days later, the entire group, including Elayna and Tsine, were at the coliseum a few days later, ready for the battle for their freedom.  As per arena regulations, none of them were allowed to magically pre-enhance themselves before that battle, but they had their tactics ready for when it was time.  Galeron, Thorrun, and Elayna in particular were excited about this, because Galeron had used a specific item he had been saving for just such an occasion earlier that morning…

	The arena itself was an impressive affair.  It was massive, and while the battle arena itself was only a hundred feet long or so, the seating and the rest of the coliseum stretched hundreds of feet more in every direction, and even farther straight up!  Above their heads, the arena was partially enclosed, but there was still a lot of room to see the typically darkened skies.  However, their view was blocked a bit by the dozens of dragons of every size and color that rested on special perches, watching the fight.  Finally, it was time for the games to begin.  The arena’s announcer, an orc with magically-enhanced voice abilities, read off the names of the heroes (or the heroes alias’ in the case of those who already were known to the orcs,) with obvious boredom.  Of course, his excitement rose greatly when he first announced Elayna and Tsine, who received the expected boos and insults, and then even more when it was time for the arena favorites.

	“And in this corner,” he began, “we have Criostix!”  A huge, imposing frost giant entered the arena.  “A favorite in this arena, he has been hand-picked by the team’s leader to back him up and prove to the world how much more powerful our empire is than these…elves.”  The crowed roared, literally in the case of the dragons.

	“Next up we have Zenithor!”  A nervous-looking hobgoblin, dressed in traditional cleric garments and wearing a strange holy symbol, arrived.  “The personal cleric of the team’s leader, he also personally brought him back from the dead to challenge those who killed him the first time!

	“The team’s personal mount will be Sulfistat,” the announcer continued, as a very strange dragon entered the arena.  It looked mostly like a red dragon, except it had two heads, and the second head was clearly green!  “A product of the empire’s research to make ourselves even more powerful, he contains the best aspects of two of our most powerful draconic citizens!”

	“Aaaaaaand finally, the leader of the team.  You know him, you love him, I give you Khat’Shir’Mol!”  A familiar orc entered the arena, and climbed onto the back of the dragon.  “Butchered by these inferior beings, when he was just trying to save his sick and dying chief.  A man so willing to save his hero that he was willing to call a truce with these savage just so he could be cured, only for them to break a truce with him!”  The crowd was in an uproar.  “But now, at last, he shall get his revenge!”

	With that, both sides had entered the arena, and only one person was missing from the games for it to begin.  The crowd began to chant his name, quietly at first and then louder and louder.  “Ka’Drylog.  Ka’Drylog!  Ka’Drylog!! KA’DRYLOG!!!”

	And, on cue, the Head that Rules the Claw, the emperor of orcs and dragons, entered the arena and sat on his personal throne.  He was being guarded by two of the oldest of dragons, and even let Venym sit on his royal enclave during the fight.  He also was no longer an orc, exactly, but rather a massive, twelve-foot tall metal creature, carved in the shape of a massive orc.  He looked at the arena below him, and in a metallic but brutal voice, shouted out “Let the games begin!”

	Before the fight itself, though, both sides were allowed a few moments to prepare some enhancement magic, which they happily used.  Before the first attack, both sides were largely flying, hasted, protected were various energies, and far more.  And then, what was going to be the most epic fight the arena had ever seen began!

	Or at least it was supposed to be the most epic fight.  It certainly appeared that way to Sinael, who was the first to respond when the fighting officially began.  When he saw the dragon and giant charging at him, he lost his nerve and immediately fled to the edge of the arena, where he remained for the entire fight!

	For Galeron, Elayna, and Thorrun, however, things looked a lot less bleak, for one simple reason: that morning, Galeron burned an incense of meditation while they prayed for their spells.  Since all three worshipped the same goddess, all of them were affected, and this soon proved to be devastating to their enemy.  While Robin, Danae, Tsine, and Tal focused their energies on taking out Zenithor the cleric before he could start healing his companions, the three clerics unleashed an endless rain of heavenly fire, which was all enhanced to maximum power by the incense, on the unfortunate frost giant.  Between their power and the attacks of Err and Keth, both Criostix and Zenithor were dead before they could even swing a weapon or cast a spell!

	If Khat’Shir’Mol was worried about this, neither he nor his mount showed it.  Sulfistat the dragon charged right at Err and Keth, brutalizing both with his double heads full of razor-sharp teeth and unnatural strong claws, wings and tail.  Meanwhile, Khat fired upon them both with his gun, a magically enhanced version that he had been specially trained in ever since his death.  It was enough to wound both the half-dragons, but it was too little, too late.  The party followed through from their first incredible round with a wave of green slime from one of Galerons’s spells, which sucked much of Khat’s strength away, and a ray of dark magic by Danae, weakening him further.  The rest of the party closed in around the dragon, beating him down with weapons, of fired on it or Khat from a distance with arrows and magic.  The duo got one last chance to respond, but even then, the dragon was forced to waste the stronger of his two breath weapons to destroy the green slime on his master (who was magically immune to fire at the moment and thus otherwise unaffected by the breath,) and barely damaged the heroes around it with the other.  The party continued to hammer it with attacks, until it finally died.

	And then exploded.

	In a move that shocked everyone, the dragon immediately entered death throws upon dying, and released a massive blast of both fire and acid on everyone near it.  Only Err and Keth were close enough from the hero’s side to be affected, but while Err’s draconic nature let him resist most of the effect, Keth wasn’t so lucky.  Wounded heavily already from the dragon attacks, the fires of the blast consumed him, killing the unfortunate creature.  However, in a twist of irony, Khat’Shir’Mol was also fatally wounded by the acid of the blast.  As he died, he gave the party a look of utter contempt and hatred, and though he died that day, the party knew that a creature with as much power and resources as him would be able to get revived, and that he’ll never stop trying to kill the party.

	It was about this time that the party noticed something else unsettling.  The crowd didn’t seem to be reacting to the fight at all.  There were no cheers for when their champions attacked the party, nor were there cries of outrage and sorry now that their heroes all lied dead.  Instead, they were murmuring nervously to themselves, and looking around, and especially up.  The party also looked up, and realized exactly what was making everyone so worried.  The coliseum, and potentially the entire city, was under attack.

	OOC Notes:  Wow, it feels kind of good doing this again!  Sorry about the cliffhanger, but don’t worry.  The conclusion to this story and the denouement after the climax will be dealt with later this weekend, probably on Thursday.  This will be a one-time thing, though, so don’t expect me to start going back to mid-week Story Hours all of a sudden.  Anyway, I was pleased with how this one turned out.  Maybe writing fairly regular fiction for a month helped me get more into the spirit of writing these than I was before.


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## LordVyreth (Dec 10, 2004)

*In the Wake of the War*

Above the coliseum, the sky was even darker than normal as a result of the battle being fought above.  Hundreds of undead creatures, from spectres and wraiths to truly powerful entities like bats made entirely out of darkness and destruction, were flying into the coliseum, and the upper levels of dragons flew up to fight them.  However, many of the incorporeal undead simply ignored them, and even the mightiest of dragons were being checked by their magical threats.  Soon the entire stadium was in chaos.  The Head that Rules the Claw was on his feet, fighting back swarms of undead with magical beams of light, and he was so distracted that he didn’t notice The Savior fleeing as fast as she could.  An undead that resembled a mournful elf maiden floated through the audience, wailing in agony, and all around her dropped dead as she passed.  Meanwhile, a skeletal figure riding one of the bats pointed a finger at the battle arena itself, and a beam of green energy struck something invisible midway down.  The protective barrier of force that originally protected the audience from the combat down, swarms of undead began to fly straight towards the surviving members of the party.  Leading the group, however, was perhaps the most repulsive creature of them all.  It was little more than a sphere, but it appeared to be made entirely out of hundreds of corpses!

	Not surprisingly, the party decided this would be the ideal distraction for them to use to find and use the tattoo removal machine.  As they fled, the floating sphere shuddered, causing dozens of bodies to dislodge and plummet towards them.  To make the entire scene even more horrific, the bodies were enchanted to scream in fear and misery as the fell!  A few of the heroes were struck by falling bodies as they fled, but they realized time was of the essence, and continued.  The undead were just about ready to get on their feet and pursue them when the party made out of the arena floor.

	As they got closer to the machine, things just kept getting worse and worse around them.  As they reached the nearby building it was enclosed in, they saw a blue dragon flying about wildly, apparently burning from the inside out by a fire spirit that possessed it.  As they ran into the building and towards the machine, the stable doors burst open behind them, as a morbidly obese zombie-like undead dashed out, looking for its next meal.  As they passed the armory, six of the swords seemingly rose up by their own power, and then began to spin around in a whirlwind, as another undead in the center possessed them.  Finally, they managed to reach the machine, and Tsine and Elayna got their tattoos removed while the rest of the group stood guard or prepared to teleport everyone away to safety.  As they stood guard, however, Tal noticed a strange book strewn on the floor.  Tal took it for later perusal, and before the undead could reach the room, the tattoos were removed and the party was ready to go.

	Of course, before they could leave, they did have one semi-unwelcome arrival.  “Are we ready to go?” Venym asked.  “See, I told you this would be a really unpleasant place to be very soon.”

	Galeron tried to protest, but Danae wouldn’t hear it, and she was the one doing the teleporting!  Soon, everyone, including Elayna, Tsine, and Venym, were safely on the outskirts of Methosilang, where unofficial members like Venym could be transported in through physical means without being affected by the divine protection of the city.

	So ended the adventure, but for two notable events.  The first came when Tal read the book he found.  It appeared to be a standard history book, perhaps left there by the machine’s operator to alleviate the boredom, but the minor coincidence that led them to find the book turned out to be more like fate when they actually read it.  It was actually a book about the times of the founding of the two empires and Methosilang, and the arrival of the dark moons.  According to the orc scholars who wrote it, Bha-Ael, the head goddess of the pantheon, was once a mortal who willing absorbed some of Nerull’s power to become a goddess.  She used this power to form a new pantheon, opposing Nerull with his own strength.  However, if that was true, that means that their goddesses and the god of death are inherently tied together.  That could mean that if the undead empire was truly defeated and Nerull lost his dominance on this world, their goddesses could be lost as well!

	The second notable event occurred that night.  Galeron and Tsine, though with the results of the rescue, were troubled about what they learned from the book.  They were so troubled, in fact, that they were visited that night by Lady Memory again!  She told them that she was indeed responsible for letting the party find the book, and wanted to reward Galeron and Tsine by offering them the chance to serve her directly as more than mere mortals!  Both Galeron and Tsine, though initially reluctant, chose to serve her.  Though happy to see his mother again, Galeron’s faith in his goddess was shaken by all the strange things he learned about her, and he no longer believed they could truly be the salvation of his people.  As for Tsine, he had to admit that he never really felt he was part of this world, as demonstrated by the way he was torn between his martial and magic talents, and the months of illness and captivity just made things worse.

	The next day, the party awoke to learn of the loss of their two friends.  Though the church and Tsine’s family were devastated, the members of the party who were also visited by Lady Memory years ago could sense that they were someplace where they were happy.  

	OOC Notes: This was a very important game, which featured the end of three characters (four if you count Tsine, who had reached NPC status by now,) and two players.  The characters were Keth, who died and whose player opted not to revive him, since he was so similar to Err, Sinael, whose player was getting bored with a rogue at this point, hence his lack of activity in the major battle, and Galeron.  Galeron’s player unfortunately had to move after this game, which was why the game was a little rushed.  Originally, there was going to be a preliminary arena fight before the main event.  And as you might have guessed, the undead fight was rushed as well, as most of the undead mentioned were going to be in the way of the party as they fled and would have had to be fought en route.

	The other player to leave left due to lack of interest and inter-party conflict.  He played Damien and Roryn before, but had to leave the group for a while, and never could really get back into the game afterwards.  As a result, expect some new players fairly soon into the plot.

	As for the game itself, well, the arena battle went much more easily than I thought it would.  Just as a general hint?  Incense of Meditation is very overpowered for its cost! The original plan was for at least a few of them to be left when the undead showed up, forcing the party and the survivors to form a brief alliance, or at least a three way battle, to survive.  The undead monster at the end, called a Granfaloon, was borrowed from the video game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.  And though I couldn’t use one in battle this time, expect me to give it a few more tries later!


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## LordVyreth (Dec 10, 2004)

Neurotic said:
			
		

> I've tried it. We don't usualy play D&D but GURPS (GULLIVER rules) so mechanics are somewhat different but still.... If you don't put their noses to it, they won't see it
> 
> Anyhow, great work LordVyreth. I tried something similar to Quill of Destiny, but my players were much more mundane. One asked to become High Priest of Mask and didn't specify timeframe, another just asked for lots of gold, again not specified and third refused a challenge
> 
> They were mostly newbies (all played for less then 5 sessions) but still...




Btw, Neurotic, how did this game turn out, anyway?  How did you turn the requests into the campaign world?  And what challenge was refused, exactly?  One of mine or did you add your own?


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## LordVyreth (Dec 13, 2004)

*TIE's Trap: Roivas Manor*

For a few days after their successful mission at Fierypyre, the heroes of Methosilang just relaxed, and took care of unfinished business.  This included the now routine task of selling the treasure they managed to earn during their last journey, and the purchase of new equipment.  This time, they also had to settle the accounts of Tsine and Galeron, and do their best to comfort their friends and family, and show them that their loved ones are not dead, but merely elsewhere.  Of course, this was easier said than done, and the church in particular had problems with it, ironically enough.  

They also had to deal with the losses within their own group.  Keth was dead and Galeron was gone, leaving them with noticeable gaps within their abilities.  In additions, Sinael had made a decision.  While he was happy helping the party so far, he had to admit that he just was not prepared to handle danger at the level that the group was seeing now.  After all, he had made a name for himself in the town’s thief’s guild, and he could probably have a very comfortable life just staying here in Methosilang, where the greatest danger he could face were the city guards.  

So the group had to find both new allies to assist them in their quest, and then decide what exactly they should do next.  The first goal, at least, proved to be fairly easy to complete.  The church was still upset at the loss of one of their best priests, and despite Thorrun’s assurances that his former mentor willingly left this world, the church was still suspicious, and decided to have one of their own accompany the group.  That cleric was a dwarf worshipper of None named Scythe, who brusquely arrived one day just as the group was meeting to plan their next move.  “Now, I know you lot are supposed to be heroes and all,” he began, “but don’t think that I’ll be going soft on you because of that.  I want to know what’s really going on, and I’m not going away until I find out what it is.”

Of course, the group, though worried about Dragovigis, Lady Memory, and the other secrets they had, welcomed the healer into the party, hoping that the experience will convince Scythe and the church of the essentially benevolent change Galeron made.  Plus, traveling into dangers like they now see on a usual basis without any kind of magical healing was suicide!

The second new recruit was gained through pure luck.  Tal had to hire some new staff for his manor now that Tsine couldn’t handle any of the duties, including a new head chef.  When an applicant arrived, Tal noticed he looked familiar.  Finally, it came to him.  “Aren’t you Wong Fe Hong, the traveling adventurer?”

Wong looked embarrassed and nodded, “Well, yes, but I wanted to try something different for a while.  I’m also an expert chef, but I never really did it professionally.”

“Well, if you’re interested, we’re looking for powerful warriors like yourself.  We’re currently looking for ways to better prepare the country for the upcoming war with Bas, and ultimately we believe the salvation of the world.  Would you like to accompany us?”

Wong thought for a moment, and replied, “Can I still be a chef in between missions to save the world?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“I’ll do it!”

Their need for personnel fulfilled, the party’s next objective was finding out how exactly they will help Methosilang prepare for the war, but easily enough, this goal also walked up and knocked on the door.  Literally.

Their new guest appeared to be exceedingly plain at first, but Robin recognized him easily enough.  “You’re the guardian for TIE, right?  I almost didn’t recognize you without your blue skin.”

The nameless figure nodded, and addressed the group, including a confused Scythe and nonchalant Wong.  “I was ordered to inform you that TIE, my ruler, has expressed an interest in visiting you again.  It wanted to assure you that this time, it had nothing to do with The Lady Memory.  TIE personally believes it can provide you with something crucial, though what it is I can not say.”

Remembering the information they got from TIE last time (not to mention the solid block of copper,) they decided to pay it another visit.  Scythe, of course, protested when they prepared to leave and wanted to know what was going on.

“We’re going to meet an old friend,” Tal replied.  “Don’t worry, only Robin and I remain from the group that first met it.”

“It?” Scythe gasped.

“You’ll understand in time,” Tal simply said, smiling.  “You’re not going to back out already are you, after promising that you won’t go away?”

Scythe quickly hushed, and soon the entire group (minus Venym, who was seeking sanctuary in Danae’s guild until they could figure out what to do with her,) had teleported back to the lost continent, and specifically TIE’s mountain home.  However, when they arrived, Tie’s room had again changed.  This time, it was completely empty, save for a small pillar where a scroll rested.  Tal quickly opened it and glanced through it, but noticed most of the writing was magical.  With a quick spell, Scythe translated the magical writing into the runes needed to cast various spells of restorations, and Tal continued with the more mundane text in the school.  “I’m glad that you decided to take me up on my offer for more information,” the note, apparently from TIE, read.  “However, before we can speak, I decided it would be more appropriate if we had a little fun first.  I found a slight imbalance in the planes recently, and decided to isolate the problem until it could be corrected.  Since you’re here and all, though, I’ll let you take care of this one.  Figure out the problem and eliminate it, and we can go from there.”

Tal finished reading it aloud, and then looked up, and was shocked by what he saw.  The cave they were in was gone, and they were instead standing outside of what appears to be some elegant manor.  It was raining, and so dark that they could barely see more than about fifty feet away from the porch, so they had no idea what was beyond the boundaries of the house.  No sooner did Tal and the others arrive, however, than the manor’s front door was thrown open, and a human dressed in formal attire greeted them.  “Ah, the masters of the house!” he said.  “We were so worried about you, what with the weather and all, especially with you being so late.  We’re glad you’re safe.  Come in, and warm yourself.  I’ll have one of the maids draw a bath.”

The perplexed party entered the manor, and surveyed what they saw.  The manor was certainly impressive, but at the same time there was something strange and oveworldly about it, as it didn’t seem to be built in a way that reflected any customs or culture that they heard of.  Conversely, the manor’s servants, who were gathered around the front door in a crowd of dozens, were all human, yet didn’t seem to be the slightest bit concerned with the elves, dwarves, half-dragons, and other strange creatures in the party.  

Despite their unusual arrival, both Err and Scythe took it in stride fairly quickly.  Err began to look for the kitchen and started asking the servants “Me hungry.  Make us dinner.”  Scythe, meanwhile, was still not used to adventuring again and asked to see one of the bedrooms so he could rest and recover from the headache he got from the apparent dimensional travel.  

The others, however, were less willing to accept the situation.  “What do you mean the masters of the house?” Tal asked.

“You are the new masters of the house, are you not?  We were told you were coming.  And if you’re not the masters, what are you doing here?”

Tal and Danae quickly conversed while Robin examined the manor’s decorations and Wong followed Err into the kitchen.  Finally, the two decided to just do this the easy way.  “Yes, of course we are the masters of the house.  Now, I want to know what’s been going on here,” Danae said, getting information the verbal way while Tal and Danae examined the manor itself.

They soon discovered quite a number of strange objects in the house.  Paintings of members of a family called Roivas covered the walls, suggesting that they owned the manor.  The people generally looked noble in the paintings, but there was something unsettling about them as well, as if each one was disturbed.  Tal possibly discovered one reason for this when he found a family tree of the family in the manor’s library.  According to it, the family’s history included criminals, mental patients, heretics, scientists of strange and forbidden lore, and even a member who was burned as a witch!  Meanwhile, Robin found a strange globe, which gave some clues that the manor truly was from another world.  According to the globe, this manor was inside a country called the “United States,” which Robin of course never heard of.  He did find it strange, however, that he could even read the globe, since there was no way he knew the language of these people.

Meanwhile, Danae was told about the recent events of the manor just as Tal was doing research on the same subject.  Apparently, a few decades ago, the then-current owner of the house, a retired doctor, went mad and killed off all his servants, and was then committed at a local insane asylum until his mercifully quick death.  Tal discovered the same doctor’s notes, which consisted mostly of rantings about how all of his servants were really disguised monsters, and some sort of city of demons that resided below the manor and can be accessed from the manor’s basement.  This struck Tal as odd, since in his initial investigations of the manor, he didn’t even find a way into the basement!  His ruminations were quickly over, when he heard a maid scream, and it was coming from the room he was in!

Fortunately, many of the others heard it as well, and Robin, Danae, and Wong were there to help.  Err and Scythe, however, were still absent, with Err wandering around the house in an attempt to get some food while Scythe continued resting.  The rest of the party found the maid standing frozen in a state of shock, while a strange line of blood was being pumped from her through the air to a strange creature about five feet away.  The creature was built vaguely like a gorilla, but it had massive tusks like an elephant, and razor-sharp claws.  None of them knew what it was, but they didn’t really think that was relevant, either.  Tal quickly struck the creature with his sword, causing the line to break.  As soon as the creature’s attack finished, however, it completely disappeared!

The party tried to figure out what happened, but they soon heard the sounds of heavy footsteps and felt something invisible push past them!  The creature was still there, apparently, so except for Tal, who stayed behind to check on the maid and make sure she was okay, the group chased the creature.  They followed it up the manor’s stairs to the second floor, and then near the bedrooms, where Scythe finally heard the sounds of combat and awoke to help the group.  Danae, however, broke off the chase when she heard Err call out, “Come here guys!  Found thing!”  

Soon, Robin, Wong, and Scythe had the invisible creature cornered in the bedroom, where Scythe used his magic to purge the area of all invisibility effects, revealing the creature in all of its horrible glory.  In fact, as he was preparing to attack it, Robin met the creature’s gaze, and felt some force attacking his very mind and sanity.  There was nothing but personified madness behind the creature’s eyes, and though he resisted as best as he could, he nonetheless felt his mind surrendering slightly to the insanity.  However, this did nothing but increase his desire to destroy the damned thing, so he, Wong, and Scythe began to wail on the now-invisible thing.

This went on for a few minutes, in fact, even though the creature lost consciousness after only a few attacks.  They soon discovered that even after doing enough damage to normally kill such a creature, it was still slowly regenerating.  Even after chopping it into little pieces, it was slowly putting itself back together again.  Finally, Wong and Scythe quit out of boredom, and left to find Err while Robin continued to hack away at the creature in frustration. 

Meanwhile, the group converged on what Err found, which turned out to be a very strange doorway into the attic.  It appeared to be made of adamantium, and thus it stood out quite a bit from the rest of the manor’s surroundings.  It was also locked, a fact that Err was trying to remedy by smacking the door repeatedly.  “Um, sir, please don’t do that,” one of the gathered servants said.  “We do have the key for that door, but we strongly recommend you don’t go in there,” he reluctantly admitted.  

“Why is that?” Scythe asked suspiciously.

“Nothing important, but the floor up in the attic is very weak.  It’s hazardous walking around up there,” the servant replied.

Regardless of the warning, the party opened the lock and investigated the attic.  Contrary to what the servant said, the floors looked acceptable, but the inhabitants of the room were far more dangerous.  Three of them looked like strange, mantis-like creatures, but they were the size of humans and had vaguely human faces.  The other two were as large as an ogre, seemed to be made entirely of muscle, and instead of a head, it had three giant eyes where a neck would normally be.  All five appeared to be guarding some strange slab of stone, and charged as soon as the party arrived!

The worst thing about this fight was, just like the invisible creature before, as soon as these creatures got close to the party, they met the looks of a few party members and immediately sucked their sanity away!  The ones who suffered the worse from this onslaught were Robin (again,) Wong, who really suffered from the sudden loss of insight, and Tal’s familiar Violet, who’s normally alert nature proved a hindrance this time.  Nonetheless, the fight went quickly from this point, after Danae cleared away many of the foes with a simple fireball and the party’s many melee fighters finished the job.  Remarkably, after Wong killed one of the creatures with one quick neck-snapping punch, he felt his mind partially stabilizing, as if defeating these creatures helped the brain reconcile their existence with the world.  Sadly, by this time, the unaffected Danae and Err wiped out most of the enemies, forcing Scythe to use his spells and the restoration spells on the scroll to heal most of the party members.  He decided that Tal’s familiar, however, could wait until the current crisis passed, which proved to be distressing for both Tal and his familiar, who began to get very distressed by the loss of sanity, and spent much of her time in a demented daze.  And Robin still wasn’t near 100% effective, either.

After killing the monsters, the party examined the stone they were guarding.  It looked fairly simple, except for an unfamiliar rune carved onto it.  For now, the group decided not to damage it or affect it until they knew what it was, and while it was too heavy for most of the group to even lift, Err hefted it onto his back with almost no effort.  As they left the attic, though, a worried servant ran up to the group and cried, “There’s been another attack!  One of the servants is having its life sucked out by a monster!”

Err thought long and hard about this situation, or at least as hard as he could, and he came to one logical conclusion.  “Me leaving!” he yelled, as he sprinted towards the door of this crazy place!

As the rest of the party went to deal with the threat, Err ended up outside, with a worried servant tailing him and begging him to come back in and put that rock in a safe place.  Err didn’t even pretend to listen, though, until he reached the end of the manor’s lawn…and found nothing.  Literally.  Beyond the house’s property, the ground ended in an abrupt cliff, and beyond that was oblivion!

After spending a few minutes sitting down and crying, Err got up and spent a few more minutes walking around the manor, making sure that there wasn’t another way out.  Meanwhile, the rest of the group had caught up to the fight, which was taking place right next to the manor foyer.  Once again, it was one of the life-draining monsters, but this time, it ran as soon as the party arrived.  The party tracked it as it moved towards one of the walls of the Foyer, and then abruptly vanished, even though Scythe had again removed its invisibility!  Following a gut impulse, Scythe enhanced his magical vision to gain the sight of absolute truth, and then examined the “wall” that the creature escaped, and sure enough, there was an open door there, into what looked like the basement!

“So, do we go in?” Danae asked.

A worried Robin shrugged.  “I don’t think we should yet.  I don’t think we’re prepared.  We should go outside, set up camp, and return to this crazy house tomorrow to finish things off.”  This was much more cowardly than Robin normally acted, but then, the rest of the group wasn’t seeing the place through his eyes.  From his view of things, the entire house was filled with an eerie red light, everything looked tilted about 15 degrees, the paintings were replaced with gory scenes of violent hellscapes, the statues were all turning their heads to watch him, and he was hearing ghostly laughter and footsteps every few seconds!

The group reluctantly agreed, so they grabbed Err when he finished his circumnavigation of the Roivas rock, and Tal set up one of his new magic items: a portable, instantly-assembled, fortress!  Though it took up the entire lawn of the manor (and theoretically threatened to tip the rock over,) it was perfect for giving the entire group the rest it needed.  Well, everyone rested except for poor Violet, which spent most of the night suffering from horrible nightmares.  

The next day, the group refreshed, healed Robin and Violet’s minds a bit, and ventured into the manor again.  They entered, however, to find almost the entire manor staff waiting for them.  This time, they were not enthusiastic to meet the party, nor were they, apparently, breathing!  In one voice, they said in a monotone, “You abandoned us last night, and the creatures murdered us.  But they gave us a chance to get our revenge in the name of our new lord, Ulyaoth!”  Again as one, they charged.

However, the party had more important things to do now.  Wong reached the door first, but stopped short when he found an invisible barrier where the door should be.  Tal was ready for this, however, and quickly fired a green ray of disintegration at the wall, shattering it instantly.  He, along with Err, Robin, Danae, and Scythe, ran into the basement, while Wong waited behind to deal with the undead servants, which fortunately didn’t apparently have the same mind-draining ability that the other creatures had.

Meanwhile, the group descended into the basement, where they found a second runic stone, and apparently both the second life-sucking monster and the nearly fully-healed first one that Robin had chopped to bits!  Also in the room was a pair of strange, tiny, bug creatures.  They seemed oblivious to the group so far, however.  

The group charged down the stairs to confront the beasts, but when they got too close, the two bug creatures suddenly noticed the group, and started emitting high-pitched chirping noises to express their awareness.  Unafraid, Err and Robin led the group to the basement, and were rewarded when the two bugs released strange pulses of energy, which seemingly caused both Err and Robin to completely vanish!  Fortunately, this also apparently killed the bugs, which used up all their energy in the attack.

This just left three party members to deal with the creatures.  Fortunately, it appeared that the one that Robin and the others wounded last night suddenly stopped regenerating as soon as Err vanished, so Danae, Tal, and Scythe focused their attacks on him, killing him quickly now that he was no longer able to heal from his wounds.

Meanwhile, Err and Robin found themselves at the end of a series of floating islands.  They seemed to be connected by a series of teleportation circles, with a final exit circle at the end of the chain, but since both Err and Robin could fly, it was irrelevant.  However, as they flew towards the exit, a number of zombies on the islands noticed them and futilely started walking towards them.  Robin shot a few of them out of habit, and except for each one having a strange habit of screaming out the word “Ulyaoth” and exploding shortly before dying, there was nothing unusual about them.  However, Robin found that he regained more of his sanity with each one he killed, so he eagerly finished off the entire group.  Meanwhile, Err noticed that in addition to the teleportation circles, the islands contained a number of brightly-glowing shafts of light.  Finding a blue one pretty and shiny, he flew over to touch it, and immediately found his intelligence had returned.  “Ah, a most remarkable development!” the formerly-titled Err said, being grateful to use actual grammar again.

The two eventually flew into the teleportation circle, and out of the strange pocket dimension and back into the basement of the manor, where the rest of the party was finishing off the second life-creature.  As soon as he arrived, Err noticed that the first one was killed, and then realized the stone he was carrying had also just crumbled to dust.  Eager to give deductive reasoning another try, he realized that the two were related, and it was the stone who was granting the creatures their endless life force.  He was about to reveal this to the party, but before he could, Danae fired a ray at the second lifethief, which struck it dead instantly anyway, making its relation to the stone pointless.

After the second monster was dead, its stone also crumbled, revealing a small well in the basement.  The party examined the hole, and discovered a ladder leading further downward.  Tal and Danae looked at each other with shock and dread.  After noticing the curious glances of the others, Danae explained, “Apparently, one of the old owners of the manor thought there was an ancient, evil city under the house.  They thought he was crazy, but now I have my doubts.  And since we’re still here, I bet that whatever the imbalance is, we can find it there.”

OOC Notes: This adventure introduced Wong, the new character of Sinael’s player, and Scythe, who was a bit more complicated.  Keth’s player was absent this game, but one of my players had a friend who was interested in joining, so he made Scythe.  However, he only showed up for the first game, but Keth’s player arrived the next game, and we decided that for now, if he was willing to accept it, he could play Scythe until we reached a better point to introduce a new character.  Besides, we still needed a cleric in the group!

As for the adventure itself, it was ripped off most thoroughly from the video game Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, for the Gamecube.  It’s a typical survival horror game, but it had an innovative feature that caused you to lose sanity every time you saw a monster, and get some back every time you killed one.  For this game, I used a template based on these monsters, many of the game’s monsters themselves, the setting for three of the game’s chapters, and even the main plot points for two of those chapters!  Of course, translating all those monsters and rules into D&D format took as much time as a regular adventure write-up would take, but I did it for fun months before, so I could relax a bit for this game.


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## Neurotic (Dec 14, 2004)

I used your Quill od Destiny dungeon as template, but added challenge branching so you couldn't just walk away from challenge. Also, challenges were different (such as hacking through the jungle or running underwater; for mental side, riddle solving...Dragon was center point for both paths Mental and Physical. Also, I had only one literate character so introduced pictures like those on the start. Entrance to QoD dungeon was a mirror found as treasure in another dungeon quest. One of the players never entered it, exploring outside instead. Others survived by avoiding the dragon, taking alternate paths.


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## Neurotic (Dec 14, 2004)

I thank you for the idea. It had much less epic impact in my world, it was never ment as intro, but as part of existing adventure and path to quick power for players.


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## Neurotic (Dec 14, 2004)

As for monsters, I find them exciting for reading, but most of the powers would make them too strong for low point GURPS adventure. Chars are 150pts (around 3rd level in D&D terms - but about CR1 for monsters, it doesn't translate well)


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## Neurotic (Dec 20, 2004)

My challenges were as follows:
Strength - Exactly as killing the kobold
Health(Endurance/Constitution) - Running through jungle knee-deep in water(First solved by dice)
Persistence - Rotating walls - I made my player run through five doors round through the house carrying tennis balls 
Death - Dragon(young) - no body went in
Reasoning(Intelligence) - 
Intuition(Wisdom) - I set some riddles and two questions from an IQ test
Dexterity - same as yours


                               Endurance
              Strength   /                 \ - -Persistance
            /                \                 /                    \
Start  --                   --Death----                        ---- Quill
            \                /                 \                    /
             Dexterity                         ---Wisdom---
                             \                  /
                               Intelligence

Orbs had meaning: 10 sec worth of writing (those who were illiterate learned how to, but players had to write in CAPITALISED letters to simulate slowness.


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## LordVyreth (Dec 20, 2004)

Heh, I never even considered the literacy thing.  Of course, in D&D terms, the only illiterate PC race is the barbarian, but Ka'Drylog was a straight barbarian, so he theoretically might have been challenged by that.  I'll have to see if I still have his character sheet around, and see if I gave him the literacy skill, or if I just have to hand-wave it away with a "The gods let you see here" similar to what you did.

I can imagine it would be tough using this setup in a pre-existing campaign.  I wouldn't risk using except at the start or end of a campaign, myself, in case someone uses it to become a god or gain complete control over the world or something like that.  It could make the Deck of Many Things look balanced by comparison!   

Anyway, sorry about the lack of updates this week.  I planned on getting one out yesterday, but got writer's block/distraction and ran out of time.  Expect one today, with any luck!  This one will finish up the Eternal Darkness part of the TIE's Trap plotline, but there will still be a few more updates to go before that bit is done.


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## LordVyreth (Dec 21, 2004)

*TIE's Trap: Sanity's Requiem*

The terrors that were attacking Roivas manor were dead, but at a heavy cost; every servant in the house had been killed and briefly turned into an undead abomination by the creatures while the party rested for the night.  The party was understandably horrified by the result, but some of their reactions beyond that were surprising.

	“Those poor people,” Robin said.  Wong, who was forced to fight them during much of the last battle, nodded his head in agreement.  

	However, Tal shrugged.  “I’m sorry it came to this, but there wasn’t that much we could do.  We had no idea what we were up against here, and we already read the reports by the house’s former owner that some of them were really monsters inhabiting corpses.”

	“Yeah, but the man who wrote that was a committed madman!” Robin retorted.  “How can you trivialize the deaths of so many people like that?”

	“Well, how many servants were there, exactly?”  Danae spoke up as she entered the conversation.

	“Well,” Robin thought carefully, “About twenty, I think.”

	“And how many of them were undead out there?”

	“About fifteen,” Robin replied.  He then realized what Danae meant.  “You don’t think the others…”

	“Were the monsters, precisely.  And we have to stay on our guard, because there’s no guarantee that the monsters we just killed didn’t know that.  If they spared the monster-servants, they could be still hiding here somewhere, ready to strike when we least suspect it!”

	Concern for the immediate danger they were in settled the issue for now, as the party carefully descended the ladder, leading to a balcony at the top of a massive spiral staircase.  They climbed down the hundreds of steps, until the stairway finally opened to the gateway that led to the ruins of what might have been a great city.  However, much of the city now looked ripped away or buried with stone a very unnatural way.  “This must be near the edge of the cliffside at the end of the manor,” Tal commented, caused Err to sob just thinking about it.  “Only a bit of the city was brought along, it looks like, so whatever the disturbance was, it has to be here somewhere.”

	Before they could enter the city, though, they had to deal with the gatekeepers.  As they neared the gate, they could see two more unusual creatures waiting for them.  The first mostly closely resembled a blue manta-ray, but it had the usual number of bizarre limbs and features that a creature of this realm has, including an uncanny ability to fly a few feet off the ground.  The other creature looked like a bipedal bird creature, but it was emaciated to the point of being literally nothing more than skin and bones.  It had thick wings, however, that seemed as sharp as steel.

	Nonetheless, the party wasted no time on their new enemies.  Err charged at them, with Scythe and Wong close behind, and Danae and Tal fired at them from a distance.  However, both creatures died before even Err could close on them.  Tal simply disintegrated the bird-creature with one attack, while Robin managed to wound the ray creature, which changed to a ball of light for some reason when struck.  It floated a distance away, making odd “coughing” noises all the while, before returning to its normal form.  However, it only remained in this form for a matter of seconds before Danae finished it with a ball of fire.  It seemed like the fight was already over at first, but that changed abruptly when a rumbling began under them and a wall of stone suddenly rose in the middle of the field, separating Err, Wong and Scythe from Robin, Danae, and Tal!

	Soon, the threat emerged behind the wall.  The creature looked vaguely like a turtle, except it had a huge gaping maw where a head should be and four thorny tentacles.  It also had the typical blue, deformed skin of all the creatures of this realm.  Robin took one look at it and again felt his mind being pummeled.  This time, however, it was too much for him to stand and he began to get wracked with living nightmares.  He imagined he was on a different world entirely, or a different person, or that he was suddenly dying of a strange disease, and worse.  He always quickly shook off the effect, realizing that it wasn’t really happening, but the nightmares came again almost as soon as they ended.

	Meanwhile, the rest of the group fought the creature.  After a few of her best spells failed against the creature’s magic-resistant hide and she received a number of wounds that sucked some of her magical power away, Danae realized she couldn’t face this beast, and protected herself with a wall of force.  Tal didn’t fair any better.  He was grabbed by one of the creature’s tentacles, and it immediately through him into the Ethereal plane, hoping to trap its meal there.  However, something was wrong, and as soon as he entered the plane, he was assaulted with incredibly painful forces and then thrust back into the material plane, barely conscious from the ordeal.

	Fortunately, the rest of the party wasn’t idle during this.  Wong scaled the wall while Err and Scythe simply burst through it, and while the creature tried to hide in the ground, when it emerged moments later to ambush the party, it was the party who was prepared to ambush it.  Its thick armor was able to absorb incredibly punishment, but the creature still fell regardless.

	Once the gatekeepers were dead, the party was able to enter the city itself, or what was left of it after so much of the city was left behind in the home’s original dimension.  The only remaining landmark of note was a cave that led deeper into the rocks that surrounded the city.  In only a few moments of travel, the party reached what must have been the disturbance.  They appeared to be in a massive circular cavern, which appeared to be made of a different material than the rest of the tunnel.  Inside were three familiar creatures, which appeared to be twisted by their exposure to this place.

	Two of them were horribly scarred demons, and resembled Prince Khaspar’s many-mouthed pet, but with blue skin.  Indeed, as the creatures saw the party, their scars again opened to reveal the horribly mouths and human-length barbed tongues that served as their major weaponry.  The third creature, however, was even worse.  It was a sphere of corpses, just like the one that attacked Dragovigis when they were there earlier.  However, all the corpses were blue, as always, and were bloated and rotting, and looked like they were victims of drowning.  The party came to an important realization as one: if all of the creatures of this realm could suck a creature’s sanity with a look, what if the sphere-creature released dozens of the monster?

	The party sprang into action, with Tal again leading with his favorite new spell, the disintegration ray.  He targeted one of the Canor Factums, and luck was again on his side, as the unfortunate creature dissolved immediately into dust!  Robin and Wong focused on the second Canor while Danae hurled magic at the other creature, which her research told her was a Granfaloon.  However, the hideous creature survived her onslaught, and then floated towards the group, raining screaming zombies as it flew.  Robin was almost struck by the plummeting creatures, and while he also had to deal with the suddenly-charging, his first fear was still being around when those zombies recovered from the fall and got a chance to look around!

	Fortunately, they didn’t get that chance, because Scythe and Err were there to help.  Scythe quickly dashed towards the undead, then shut his eyes and shouted out to his god, using the strength of his faith to destroy the undead.  It seemed to kill them, but the bodies didn’t fall immediately.  Just like in the pocket plane, they instead began to grown out the word “Layton,” and Robin soon knew was would happen!

	Meanwhile, Err and Tal focused on the sphere creature, and soon began to rip whole chunks out of the shield, scattering a few more zombies around the battlefield but giving them access to the true creature beneath it, which appeared to be a floating brain-like ball of flesh with a number of writhing tentacles dangling from it.  Robin meanwhile tried to hold back the surviving Canor Factum, only to face the full force of the creature’s retaliation.  Almost a dozen of the bladed tongues struck at the unfortunate ranger, and each attack drained away at more of his intelligence, just as the creature’s gaze drained away his sanity.  Again Robin fell into a catatonic stupor while Wong ran over to help his friend.

	Danae used a fireball to wipe out the remaining zombies that fell out as the shield was getting destroyed, just as the granfaloon got revenge on Err by firing a ray of light out of one of its tentacles at him.  The light struck him, searing his flesh with the intense heat while simultaneously draining Err’s intellect.  And since the power of the fountain had long since drained, there was little left of his intellect to spare.  He wailed on the shield like an enraged animal as Scythe helped Robin and Wong.

	But it was Tal who finally brought down the barely-injured creature.  Once again, he used his disintegration beam, and mighty as the creature was, it couldn’t withstand the strength of the spell.  It quickly dissolved away, letting the remains of the shield fall apart and splatter on the floor in a sickening mess.  Meanwhile, Wong and Scythe distracted the Canor Factum away from the easy meal of Robin, and then finally cut the creature down.

	After the last of the creatures died, only one item of note could be found in the remains.  A strange book, which appeared to be made out of some creature’s skin and was titled the Tome of Eternal Darkness, was found among the ashes of the granfaloon.  Realizing the threat such a book could present, Danae refrained from touching it with her bare skin as she collected it, but still she was suddenly assaulted with strange visual images as she put the book away.  She saw images of the books previous owners, who all seemed to suffer horrible, grisly deaths or worse, but she also saw a useful image among the terrors, of a secret passageway back at the manor, which the book was once placed.  Realizing the book must go back there for the balance to be obtained, she quickly gathered the party and dashed out of the city.  By the time they reached the manor, it was obvious they overstayed their welcome, as the surviving “servants” charged at them, weapons drawn!  Realizing what was really inside these servants, the party thought it would be best not to provoke them, and instead dashed past them as quickly as possibly, finding the passageway in a matter of moments.  Once there, Danae carefully returned the book, and soon the entire world around them began to fade away…

	When they came to, they found themselves inside a room made entirely of wood.  An occasional creaking noise could be heard, and Tal realized where he heard it before.  “It sounds like we’re in a ship of some sort!  TIE’s test must not be over yet!”

	As the party planned their next move, however, Wong removed the steel hatch by one of the porthole windows, and took a look outside.  His eyes went wide at what he saw, and he gravely turned to the party.  “I don’t think we’re on a normal ship,” he said.  “There’s nothing but fire outside this window.  We might be sailing on a tour through the Hells themselves!”


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## Alrik Valentin (Dec 23, 2004)

So this was definitely challenging as a player having played the game Eternal Darkness not to use outside knowledge.  It was entertaining and was very well adapted from the game, i thought, and enjoyed the sanity rules immensely.  Stay tuned for the next chapter... it just gets better!


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## LordVyreth (Dec 28, 2004)

*TIE's Trap: Pyrodessy*

As the party tried to figure out exactly where they were, there was a knock at the door.  An unfamiliar female voice called to them, “If everyone is decent and prepared, I would like to address my new crew.”

	After exchanging panicked looks, Tal called back, “Just one moment!”  He then looked at the condition of his friends.  A few of them still nursed injuries from the battle, but they weren’t so bad as to be suspicious.  More troubling was Robin’s continued insane mumblings and Err acting more like a confused animal than normal for even him.  He silently waved to Scythe, pointing out that he should deal with it, then continued speaking to their unknown apparently captain to keep her from hearing.  “Sorry about the delay.  We’re still getting used to travel by boat.”

	Once the spells were cast and Robin and Err were restored to near-normality, Tal quickly opened the door and saw a very strange woman waiting for them.  She looked like a mostly ordinary human from the waist up, and by her dress, she was likely extremely wealthy and important, yet was interested in keeping her clothing practical no matter how extravagant it looked.  However, the lower half of her body was much different, as it appeared to be a snake tail.  Danae audibly gulped behind him, as this reminded her too much of a demon she had researched, but the woman was smaller and lacked the many arms of that creature.  If the woman found the party’s looks suspicious, she didn’t show it as she immediately took command of the situation.  “Ah, that’s better.  And you shouldn’t have been so worried about a few cuts and scrapes,” she said dismissively as she inspected their injuries, “I’ve seen far worse than that in my days, and I’m sure that we’ll have you all ready to go by the time we reach our objective.  Now, I trust your guild master has already described the situation to you in the general level at least?”

	Tal hesitated.  Appearing too ignorant at this stage of the game might be a mistake, but if they were going into danger, they can’t be ignorant of the risks either.  “Actually, our…guild master didn’t have the chance to tell us much of anything about this assignment, Miss…?” he paused, hoping she’d get the hint.

	For the first time, the woman frowned and looked troubled.  “When I spoke to your guild master, she assured me that you would be more than capable of handling this assignment.  Your credentials aren’t lacking, certainly.  Yet you don’t even know who I am?”

	“I...I apologize, madam,” Tal stuttered, desperate to save the situation.  “We have been gone from civilization for a very long time, and even at our best, we have never really been aware of the upper class of citizens.”

	This made the woman laugh.  “Heh, the upper class?  I haven’t heard that one before.”  She then sighed pleasantly, making the entire party sigh quietly with relief.  “Well, it will be a few days before we reach our objective.  There’s time enough for a few introductions.”  After glancing carefully at her gloved hand, she extended it.  “My name’s Silrine, and I’m the captain of the Volatile, the most feared pirate ship to sail the seas of Pyrodessy.  And we’re about to perform the biggest heist the Salamander Empire ever saw!”

	However, the mention of the word “pirate” made Scythe and Wong exchange a worried glance, and Wong spoke up with concern.  “I don’t know if I can perform this mission, after all.  I have made a solemn vow to work with the forces of law in all things, and I don’t think an act of piracy really fits the definition.”

	Silrine made a dismissive gesture.  “Don’t worry.  I’m no enemy of law either.  Hell, I have a fellow follower of law among my ship’s officers, and he has had no complaints.  Yes, we are enemies of the Salamander Empire, but I have been given papers to make my actions legal and valid to all of the humanoid nations.  I am, to use a less exciting term for it, a privateer, not a pirate.”

	This made Wong relax, and he and Scythe willingly followed Silrine to her briefing room.  However, Tal’s curiosity got the better of him as they walked, and he asked Silrine one more question.  “Um, if I may ask one more question, I confess I have never seen a creature like you before.  May I ask what you are?”

	Silrine shrugged.  “Oh, I’m just a lamia.  Don’t worry, I’m of the noble variant, so I have far more control over my emotions than the more common variety.”

	Eventually, Silrine led them to the briefing room, where she received formal introductions from the entire party and she introduced them to her senior officers: Tul-Wel, an Avoral Guardinal that serves as her second in command, Wellby, the ship’s Halfling cleric, Torgith a half-orc monk that Silrine mentioned earlier, and Hanim, a human sorcerer.  She then went over the complicated plan she had worked out.

	“Now,” she began, “To understand the plan, you first have to understand where the Pyrodessy seas came from.  In recent years, adventurers discovered their origin comes from dozens of permanent gates to the Elemental Plane of Fire.  Now, there’s not much we can do to the portals, as they’re within the boundaries of the Salamander Empire and created using magic beyond what mortals can control, but we can still use them to our advantage.  You see, the Salamanders had discovered centuries ago that they can use these portals to their advantage.  They’ve been using magic to temporarily control the opening and closing of certain smaller portals, and then lodged tons of base rocks and metals inside them before closing them.  The heat and pressure has a powerful alchemic effect on the metals, turning them into a molten river of precious metals and fire-worked gemstones.  They then open the portal, let the molten metal cool in the relatively low-temperature heat of the Pyodessy seas, and make a fortune.  In fact, we believe that many of their most powerful magic items and recruits from outside the plane are hired or made using these materials.  If we can get to one of these gates before its scheduled eruption time, it might give us a less than optimal yield, but the results should still be staggering.  It will make all of us very rich, and devastate the Salamander economy for years!”

	The premise explained, Silrine then explained what the actual plan was.  “Now, the gate itself is in the middle of a massive, hollow, stone cluster.  The interior of the rock is made of a metal much stronger than stone, however, and it has a number of other enchantments placed upon it, including the portal open/close controls themselves and a system designed to alter the gravity inside the spherical interior to set the “down” direction in any of six different directions.  This is necessary, because the molten metal hardens after only about twenty seconds of exposure to the relatively low temperature of the Pyrodessy fire seas.  The salamanders normally operate the portal by opening it, letting the molten river pour down one of the six drainage tubes and into a waiting collection ship outside.  When the metal is almost in danger of hardening, they close the portal, move the gravity until a fresh drainage tube is under the portal, and open it again and again until all six tubes have been used.  You’ll have to operate the system yourselves when we get there, while I fly the ship under each tube to collect the treasure.  Of course it won’t be that easy, since the Salamanders will definitely have powerful guards inside the sphere itself, and we believe they have other guards waiting on the other side of the portal, and they’ll attack immediately when they get through the portal.  You’ll have to fight them off while making sure the portal is open and closed when needed and that the gravity is set correctly.  And I don’t think I have to tell you what would happen if things went wrong.  If you keep the portal open after the molten river has hardened in a drainage tube, it won’t have anywhere to go, and will fill up the entire bottom of the sphere in a matter of seconds.  Even if you could survive the heat a molten river creates, you would be entombed almost instantly!  And make sure the portal is closed when you switch the gravity direction.  Otherwise, part of the river will splash into the room as the drainage tubes switch, and while that won’t be as bad as the entire lower half of the sphere overflowing, merely getting splashed with that much molten rock and metal will be very painful.”

	With the plan explained, the group prepared their attack strategy, healing their remaining wounds from the last battle, and just relaxing and getting to know the crew a little better.  Wong in particular enjoyed cooking for the crew again, after feeling he wasn’t earning his keep in the job he wanted to do since Tal hired him.  Speaking of Tal, he and Danae spent the time trying to learn as much about this bizarre and fascinating plane as they could without being really obvious that they didn’t even know basic and common information about it.  Scythe, however, spent most of the time in a shocked stupor.  Despite his initial assertion that he would tirelessly seek the truth, he didn’t expect anything as surreal as the last two places he’s visited.  Robin, meanwhile, spent most of the time just relaxing, grateful to finally be rid of the nightmares that have been plaguing him since his encounters with the monsters of Roivas Manor and the city under it.  Err, of course, just sat around waiting for them arrive so he got to hit something.

	A few days later, as scheduled, the party reached the target.  As far as they knew, the party was prepared.  Aware that the greatest danger the group could face was the intense heat and fire of the salamanders’ guardians, the molten metal, and the plane itself, Danae had prepared a spell capable of making the receiver immune to all fire and heat energy for each of her allies.  However, as soon as they burst into the sphere, they realized that even this might not be enough.  The room itself was just as Silrine described it.  There was a shimmering, almost liquid disc of rippling energy at the center, which was surrounded by a lot of machinery, including a switch that presumably would open and close the gate.  Six buttons were found around the room.  One was on the bottom of the spherical floor, one on the ceiling, and the other four were set at equidistant points on the walls.  Obviously, pressing each one will cause the room to shift, making that the new direction of gravity.  This wasn’t the party’s main concern, since they agreed to have Silrine wait under the starting floor at first, and thus they won’t have to worry about adjusting the gravity.  Their first concern was the room’s guardian, which appeared to be a statue made entirely of mithril!

	None of them were surprised when the statue animated after the group entered the room, but none of them were prepared for just how powerful it would be.  For one thing, it was much faster than they anticipated, as if it was magically accelerated.  It also was stronger than they anticipated, as it pummeled the normally indestructible Err half to death before they could even respond!  Err immediately returned the favor, of course, but while he did some damage, almost nothing else even scratched the creature.  Danae and Tal’s magic seemingly had no effect, Robin’s arrows barely penetrated the creature’s extremely thick armor, Wong evaded around the fight so he could open the gate and start the process, and Scythe was busy healing Err.  After the fight went on for almost half a minute, however, it was becoming obvious that they couldn’t really destroy this creature.  Err was doing some damage, but it took Scythe’s most powerful healing magic to restore Err every time it took a few punches from the massive creature, and Scythe was already running out.  Finally, Danae hit upon a desperate plan.  Remembering that many creatures immune to magic are still affected by more environmental magic like walls of force, she erected a force field around the creature, giving the party a chance to breathe and focus on their actual mission.

	With the guardian taken care of, the missions became much easier for a while.  Every time the gate opened, more enemies that the Salamanders had waiting on the other side burst out, but none of them were of the same caliber as the golem.  They included swarms of fire insects, but they were easily dispersed with electric spheres Tal rolled around the molten showers.  Dozens of flame snakes also poured out of the portal by the end, but while their size varied from tiny to many times larger than one of the party members, only one of them was as large as the last size, and the rest of them were destroyed almost immediately after arriving.  Even the one large one was unlucky enough to land right next to Err, who was more than eager to get rid of some of his frustration after his near-loss to the golem.  The only other enemies were some easily-defeated fire lizards, or at least until the end.

	At last, when the treasure was almost entirely drained, a pair of worthy foes flew out of the portal.  They appeared to be spirits made of fire.  As soon as they entered the room, they sunk into the floor, only to burst out a few seconds later at the party.  Each one physically tried to enter one of the party members.  One made the mistake trying to enter Scythe, and when it failed, it was destroyed by the combined power of Err, Scythe, and Danae.  The other, however, was lucky enough to enter Robin, who lacked the mental defenses to resist the effect.  Robin soon was possessed by the creature, and while the creature slowly cooked him from the inside and sucked out his life force, Robin was forced to attack his own party members.  Unluckily for him, he first attacked Err, but luckily for him, he missed.  Err responded by merely pummeling Robin within an inch of his life instead of striking to kill as a result.  However, by now, the creature realized where it was and what was going on, and with a smile, it dashed towards the portal, intent on moving to a new gravity, or failing that, diving into the molten river, which will certainly kill its host body but will let it escape safely.  However, as he fled, Err managed to get in one last party shot, which knocked Robin unconscious, forcing the creature to flee the body.  Danae and Tal easily finished it off with magic, and Wong finished the last portal closing.

	But before they left, they had one bit of unfinished business left to complete.  The golem still lived, and none of them wanted such a powerful creature to still serve the Salamanders.  Besides, after what it did to Err, it was personal, and maybe much of the golem could be salvaged for materials as well.  Of course, if they released the golem to kill it, it posed a threat to the party.  It was a dilemma, but Danae finally came up with a solution.  If she used magic to conjure something extremely heavy, like a stone block, on top of the field, then she could just dispel the wall and let it crush the creature!  The plan, once figured out, succeeded easily enough, but very little of the golem’s body survived the attack.  Still, the party realized, considering how much the rest of their adventure made, it was hard to be disappointed by the results overall.

	However, as they began their journey out of Salamander territories and back to a safe harbor and a chance to divvy up the loot, it became obvious that the worst was yet to come.  A couple days after the raid of the portal, a panicked crewman summoned the party from their room to Silrine’s as quickly as possible.  When they arrived, they found Silrine to be more grim and worried than they had ever seen her.  She quickly explained the situation.  “I’m afraid we have a serious crisis.  We’ve been spotted by the enemy, and they sent a massive fleet after us.  I don’t know how many soldiers they’re bringing, but our lookout spotted a number of smaller craft, a flagship, and even at least one dragon!  We will not have a chance to escape them, so if we want to survive, we’ll have to fight an army.”

	OOC Notes:  In case you’re wondering, Pyrodessy was one of my entries for the old “Campaign Setting” contest that Eberron eventually won.  I didn’t make it past the first phase with any of my ideas, though I can’t say I’m surprised now.  After all, considering how people got so upset about lightning rails, entire oceans made of fire was probably a little extreme!  Nevertheless, I wanted to get some use from my campaign setting idea, which almost became the official title for this adventure!


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## LordVyreth (Jan 3, 2005)

*TIE's Trap: The Battle of the Salamander Armada*

The party, who Danae had wisely chosen to keep enchanting with fire immunity as long as they were in this plane, quickly dashed to the deck, to see what they were up against.  It looked bad.  Among the fleet, from what they could see, there were four smaller scout ships, two strange floating creatures with a number of tentacles and red scales, a dragon that appeared to be made out of pure fire, an older red dragon, and a massive battleship that seemed to lead the fleet, but mercifully was also the farthest ship away from the group.

	Silrine, who had followed the party up to the deck, gasped.  “Our ship will be destroyed!”

	Tal, however, suddenly looked up, and had a big grin on his face.  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said, and dashed back to his room.  Half a minute later, he found what he was looking for: his Lyre of Building, which worked fine for protecting his last ship, so it should be fine here!  One strum of its strings later, the Volatile was safe from any damage from this battle.

	Of course, the crew, including the party, was another story, and they sprang into action to deal with it.  While Tal dashed below deck, Wong prepared to lead the charge on the nearest scout ship.  He used a pair of magic wings and took off.  Robin began to follow, but he paused a little way in.  You know, he thought, those ships aren’t that far away.  Maybe it would be better to just shoot from here…

	Meanwhile, Danae used her magic to become a silver dragon, and took off to begin raining magical destruction on the ships.  Err also took off, but he was going no where near the enemies!  Instead he flew towards a cluster of floating, formerly molten rocks, and began to push one towards one of the ships, apparently hoping he could make it crash into the rock.  “That boy has no sense of distance, does he?” Scythe muttered, bitterly.  He was apparently a little jealous, however, since he lacked both flying ability and a long-range attack, and had to wait on the deck and prepare for the enemy to reach him.

	Robin, meanwhile, was having the best luck at the start.  The scout ships weren’t very big nor, and as he soon learned, very durable.  In fact, the first arrow he fired at a ship went through the front of the ship, and then crashed through the back as well, leaving potent acid along the entire hull!  Three arrows later, and the first scout ship had a massive hole through it, and began to crack apart!  Robin smiled, and began to work on the second ship.

	However, though the ship was destroyed, its crew wasn’t done.  Before the ship could be totally destroyed, three Salamander officers drank potions, and then flew out the hole and right at the ship.  This didn’t help the remaining Salamander crew, who plummeted screaming into the endless flames below, but a few seconds later, after Robin finished off the second ship, the officers in that ship also took flight, but they grabbed a few of the Salamander crew to save them before their ship and the remaining crew were lost as well.  The small unit of flying Salamanders continued flying towards the ship, and though Danae was able to take out a few of them, the rest were relentlessly flying towards the ship, with nothing but Wong to stop them!

	Of course, Wong laughed at this threat.  He flew towards the group, causing two of them to break off and confront him while the rest flew on.  His laughing was abruptly cut short, however, as the two immediately flanked him while keeping him at bay with his massive, super-hot spears.  He wasn’t able to get near one of them without having the other one poking him at his back, and both seemed to be experts at attacking vulnerable spots.  Before long, though he managed to get a few good hits in, he was bleeding from a number of serious wounds, and realized he had to escape.  He channeled his inner ki, summoning his inherent knowledge that space is illusion, and shifted his personal reality back into the ship for some healing!

	Meanwhile, Tal had returned to the ship’s deck, and decided to deal with the odd, red-scaled masses of tentacles and eyes.  Considering the odd environment, he realized he had the perfect spell to deal with these freaks.  He pointed a finger at the nearest creature, and channeled his magical energies into the creature’s body, numbing its nerves and locking its muscles into one held position.  The creature suddenly stopped, and was unable to continue flying.  It plummeted downward, and whether it finally crashed into dry land or it finally recovered from the spell miles later was irrelevant.  It was out of this fight either way.  Tal, shocked at how well that went, tried it again on the second creature, and this one also immediately froze up and free-fell into the depths of the plane!

	However, about this point, things got tricky, for both the surviving Salamanders and dragons were about to reach the Volatile and her crew!  Realizing the danger, Danae landed on the group and asked, “Does anyone want to come with me?”  Tal nodded in agreement, but Scythe and Robin chose to stay behind and fight the invaders with Silrine’s crew.  Danae nodded and took off, only for the red dragon to see the enemy dragon, and fly right at her!  Meanwhile, Err finally gave up on the rock thing and flew towards the ship again, causing the fire elemental dragon to fly towards him!

	Meanwhile, Wong healed himself a bit using his ki, and then set off to look for a more specialized healer to finish the job.  He remembered that Silrine had an official cleric among her crew, and sought out Wellby.  When he found the Halfling cleric, however, Wong found him stuffing as much of the hard-earned treasure party stole from the Salamanders into an escape ship!  “What are you doing?” a shocked Wong asked.

	Without any seeming regret or concern, Wellby replied, “I’m getting the hell out of here, what does it look?”

	“How dare you?  How could you betray your captain just when I-she needs you most?”

	Wellby shrugged slightly, “I never cared about her or her ship.  I was just waiting for her to make a big and bold enough score that I can use it to rat her out to the Salamanders, get money from them, steal as much of the haul as I can, and be set for life!”  He then turned to Wong.  “And I won’t let you ruin things so close to my victory!”  Unaware or uncaring that a few of the less experienced crew have heard the shouting and got close enough to hear his whole confession, he prepared to engage Wong, starting with a spells designed to suck the very life force out of him.

	Wong, however, had his righteous fury raised at this violation of oaths and breaking of trusts, and his ki negated the spell easily.  He was so furious at this false priest that he prepared to utilize one of the secret arts only the masters of his combat form have learned.  He slammed an open palm straight at Wellby’s heart, striking with so much force that it not only went through his armor, but crushed the crucial veins and arteries around the heart.  Wellby looked down with a shocked look on face, uttered only one surprised squeak, and then fell over, dead!

	Meanwhile, despite a valiant effort, the fight on the deck was a lost cause.  Even with the help of Torgith the monk and Hanim the sorcerer, Robin, Scythe and the crew couldn’t disperse the advancing hordes of Salamanders, especially now that the other two scout ships were nearing as well.  They dashed underground, relying on the currently indestructible doorways and hoping that the enemy would be repelled well before the power of Tal’s Lyre ended.  As they dashed down the stairs, they met a triumphant-looking Wong waiting for them.  Before Scythe could heal Wong, however, another threat appeared.  A small fountain of magma poured into the ship from a small hole, and soon formed into a massive hill of lava with the image of a glowing, dead sailor in the center.  Hanim gasped, “It’s a Molten, one of the deadliest spirits to haunt the fire seas!”

	Back outside of the ship, Err had managed to make short work of the elemental dragon, while Danae was holding off the red dragon with Tal’s help.  Once Err finished off the fire dragon, he flew in to help Danae deal with the other dragon, and not even the might wyrm could withstand Err’s mighty attacks.  Full of confidence, Err flew on while Danae focused on the remaining scout ships.  Err knew that there was only one place he could go to find a worthy challenge: the Salamander’s flagship, where the admiral of this fleet would be waiting!

	Meanwhile, the Molten had set its sights on Wong and Robin.  Growing massive blades of lava and magma tentacles, it oozed towards them, while spewing a cone of magma.  Of course, it had no effect on the group due to Danae’s magic, and meanwhile, Scythe moved up to the creature.  He quickly summoned the strength of his god to create a spell of ultimate holy healing, which would of course be almost deadly to an undead monstrosity like this.  Sure enough, the merest touch of Scythe’s hand caused the creature to scream in pain, and Hanim finished off the beast with a few magic missiles.  The group then prepared for the final part of this long battle.  “I can take you to the main battleship of the Salamanders if you want,” Hanim offered, and Wong nodded his agreement.  

However, Scythe and Robin had another idea.  “I think we can take this ship back now,” Scythe suggested, “Once I heal us up.  You go ahead, and we’ll liberate the deck.”  They prepared for another battle on top of the ship, while Hanim was about to cast his spell.  

Before he could leave, Silrine burst in.  “I had Tul-Wel take the wheel.  I want to go to.  I want to see the admiral myself!”  Hanim agreed, and soon he, Wong, and Silrine were ready to join the fight on the battleship.

Before they arrived, however, Err managed to reach the ship, where both the admiral, a Noble Salamander trained to deal with both the wilds of the fire seas and to specifically hunt humanoids named Kral-Geath, and his head officers were waiting for him.  No sooner did Err land than he was surrounded by Kral, a strange three-headed, three-armed, and three-legged demon of fire, and more of the Salamanders of the same rank as the once that attacked Wong!  Danae, having finished off the ships, flew in to help, and soon Silrine’s group was there as well.  But it was too late.  As both groups arrived, they both witnessed Err being beaten down by the admiral’s twin blades, two of the demon’s swords, and the swords of the officers.  Finally, unable to stand after so many wounds, Err finally collapsed to the floor, dead!

Back on the Volatile, things were going just as badly.  Scythe and Robin didn’t know that the survivors of the remaining two scout ships arrived while they were under the deck, and by the time they realized it, it was too late.  They were surrounded by dozens of powerful Salamanders.  Soon a worn Scythe was too slow to dodge from the killing thrust of a spear longer than he was tall, and he was impaled right through the chest, and casually flung into the mast!

However, after watching the brutal death of their comrade, Err’s comrades struck back with a vengeance.  While Kral bound off to do battle with Silrine as soon as he recognized her, Wong charged the fire demon, and after a few brutal and enraged punches, Wong had crushed its tri-facial skull, stopping it forever.  Meanwhile, Danae and Tal flooded the other officers and the ship’s wizard backups with magic and even Danae’s new dragon breath weapon, which frozen the fiery creatures easily, killing many of them.

However, they still had to defeat the admiral, and soon, for not only was Robin still in danger back on the Volatile, but Silrine was losing badly against her opponent.  In the end, though, it was Kral’s single-minded determination to defeat the pirate that humiliated his empire so often that was his undoing.  For while pursed the evasive lamia across the deck, he was quickly surrounded by Wong, Tal, Danae, and Hanim, and after being beaten almost to death, he finally accepted the inevitable.  His fleet was destroyed, his beasts of war and dragons were dead or at least lost, and his first mate and officers were all slain.  “Very well,” he said sadly.  “I surrender.”

Seconds later, the flag of surrender was raised on the flagship, and as soon as they saw it, the invaders of the Volatile hissed one last time, and fled back to the battleship, leaving a panting and barely alive Robin counting his blessings.

An agreement was soon made with Kral and his surviving crew.  They would have their lives spared, but they will lose all of their magical gear, almost all of their weapons, and can only retain enough supplies to reach the nearest port.  Kral was clearly enraged to the point of madness by all of this, but he was a Salamander of his word, and did not betray the Silrine or the party further as they gathered his equipment and left as quickly as they could.  After all, even if Kral remains honest, reinforcements could always arrive, including those creepy eye/tentacle creatures!

However, the rest of the trip home to a safe port was uneventful.  The party reached the port, a massive floating rock capable of supporting a small country and possessing its own safe atmosphere and water supply, and then split up the treasure earned both from the portal and taken from Kral and his minions.  After resting for a few days and giving a friendly farewell to Silrine and her crew, they prepared, knowing that TIE would soon be ready for their next, and hopefully their last, test.  As they rested, though something strange happened.  They couldn’t put a finger on what happened exactly, but Danae said she sensed a slight change to the magic weave, and Robin in particular began to behave slightly differently.  It was as if the very fabric of the universe changed.

OOC Notes:  And that’s my subtle way of saying that I finally incorporated 3.5 rules into the game!  Well, it was closer to 3.25, since I kept some stuff from 3.0, but if you take a look of the last few games and noticed how much heal and disintegrate, not to mention the omnipresent haste, affected the game, I can’t say I can complain too much.

Ugh, I was hoping I could do all of this update over the past week, since I was off the whole time, but I got sick last Monday and am still in recovery.  Sorry about that, but sometimes real life interferes with these things.

Anyway, this was the longest battle we had to date, and it took up the entirety of two game sessions!  It was pretty nuts, and after the first session (about when Wong had to retreat,) I was afraid I made this one too hard.  I did end up killing 1/3 of the party anyway, and it could have been more if the admiral didn’t surrender when he did.  Still, it felt good to know that I could still threaten the party when I had to.


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## Neurotic (Jan 7, 2005)

Excellent update! And fight didn't seem that long when reading 

Hope you get better soon.


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## LordVyreth (Jan 10, 2005)

*TIE's Trap: TIE's Final Trap*

It was about this time that the party was given another present by TIE, and a welcome one at that.  It was a block of purest gold, similar to the copper they received earlier, though this was slightly smaller.  Even stranger, it looked like about 1/3 of it had been cleanly cut off, as if TIE reduced the reward it felt they earned.  It didn’t matter really, since between it and the reward from the pirates the party had easily earned over a million gold on this trip, but still they wondered what happened to the rest of the money…

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city, one of the strangest but most powerful inhabitants of this plane received a very strange gift.  His name was Xalem Goodspotter, and despite a history of fighting off hordes of demons, sending Moltens and other great undead monstrosities to their final peace, and holding back entire armies of Salamanders, he carried no weapon, or any magical items or gear of any sort for that matter.  In fact, even if he had a weapon, he would refuse to use it, for he had also made a vow to do no harm to any living being.  For example, as he was on his way to meet some of the new local heroes, on the instruction of the higher powers he regularly communed with, a solid gold plate appeared out of no where in front of him, with a message addressed to him by someone named TIE, telling him he can do what he wanted with it. After confirming that the gold wasn’t recently lost or stolen and was indeed his, he took the gold, which was worth a couple hundred thousand gold and could supply the average adventurer with unimaginable artifacts, and used it to begin construction on a new building.  “Wow,” he thought, “Imagine how great this orphanage is going to be!”

At the same time, another, ever stranger figure was wandering the city in search of the heroes.  Her name was Bath Qol, and she was an astral deva from the plane of Mount Celestia, or at least an apprentice astal deva who was nearing her final ascension to the ranks of the celestials.  However, before she could reach this point, her superiors had called her in for a special assignment.  “Bath, I’m afraid things have gotten worse on the Forbidden Plane,” he explained ominously, as he gestured at a globe indicating the party’s home world!  “It pertains to one of our own, or at least he belonged to our order millennia ago.  However, things have greatly changed since then.  He succumbed to the temptation of an evil god, and it corrupted him into an evil, twisted shell of his original form.  When this god’s power was lost, my former compatriot was lost as well, trapped in the labyrinthine outer planes.  However, the god is regaining its power, and my companion has been allowed to return.  I know little of his current plans, just that he is again traveling on the surface of this plane.  He must be stopped.  Now, normally I would send one of my own to do it, but because we’re talking about the Forbidden Plane here…” he hesitated, as if afraid to continue.

Bath merely nodded.  “I understand. You can’t send one of your own, because who go to this plane are not likely to return.  I am not afraid to do my duty!” she shouted.  “Shall I leave immediately?”

The superior angel shook his head.  “No, not alone.  Instead, you should seek help.  A party of heroes from that very plane has somehow managed to temporarily escape it, but are planning to return soon.  Their virtue has been confirmed, and we know that they are fighting the forces of evil on this plane as we speak.  You are to find them on the plane of Pyroddessy, and try to join them on their quest, until you can find our fallen enemy.”

“And what should I do then?” Bath eagerly asked. 

“Well, I want you to assassinate him,” the solar replied.

“I see…” Bath replied, with some hesitation.  It was rare that her superiors were so direct about such subjects.  They must really hate this fallen guy, she thought.

And so, she was in the same city as heroes, seeking them out, when a block of gold appeared before her as well.  After reading the personalized message to her, she eagerly took it, and continued her journey.  She did have one other unusual meeting before she reached the party, however.

A strange, white, metal box on wheels was roaring towards her.  It was huge, larger than the largest horse by quite a bit, in fact, but it has a very strange, pleasant call.  It was almost like it was singing as it moved, and it wasn’t moving very fast.  The box stopped next to her, and her opinion of the box’s hostility changed when she saw that it had apparently swallowed a minotaur!

However, before she could attack the strange metal beast, the minotaur leaned out of the creature through some sort of glass eye socket, and in a fearless and cheerful voice said, “Ah, hello there!  You look like you’d like some ice cream!”

This puzzled Bath to no end, but the minotaur was neither hostile nor apparently being harmed by the box-beast, so maybe they had some sort of symbiotic relationship.  She graciously accepted, despite not knowing what ice cream was, and the minotaur reached into the back of the creature and pulled out a strange globe of some cold frozen liquid on top of a brown cone.  Despite the fact that she might have been eating food the box creature had already eaten and that her kind don’t ever need to eat, she gave the ice cream a try.

It was the best thing she’d ever tasted.  This wasn’t hard, admittedly, since she never ate food before, but it was still very good.  She turned to thank the minotaur and box beast, but before she could, the minotaur simply nodded, and the box beast rolled off and disappeared without a trace.

The material planes are very strange, she thought as she walked to the inn the heroes were supposed to be staying at, while eating her ice cream.

Eventually, both Xalem and Bath found the party, and after the initial confusion, both were eager to join the party, Xalem to spread his message of peace and love to other planes, and Bath to defeat her enemy.  There were some rough patches at first, especially when the naïve proudly declared herself to be an assassin to a mostly good party, but once that misunderstanding was worked out, the group accepted to duo, and then prepared to deal with TIE.  All of them (except for Xalem, of course,) purchased new magical items, and meanwhile explained the situation to their new allies.  Finally, mere seconds after they finished re-supplying, they once again were involuntarily forced form the plane, and in a new dimension.  

It appeared that the only physical land in the entire dimension was a cylinder made of a strange metal, and set on its side, so the party was standing on the curved part.  After wandering for a few seconds, they quickly discovered that the entire curved part had its own specific gravity, letting them circumnavigate it safely.  Suddenly, a woman appeared before them.  She had dark brown skin, black hair, and was wearing a form of simple leather armor, which looked like it was designed for neither protection nor physical appeal, but just to make wearer comfortable.  But the most notable item the woman had was what looked like a whip that appeared to be made out of pure energy, just like the dragon form that TIE previously took had for a tale, suggesting that this was just another one of TIE’s forms.

“Well, it’s about time you’re ready,” she commented as she appeared.  “It took you weeks to finish getting your equipment improved.”

“Yeah, we get it, TIE.  Now, do you have anything of value to say to us or not?” Tal gruffly replied, upset that this game of hers cost him two of his friends.

TIE looked hurt.  “Of course I have information for you.  And this was more than just a game, you realize.  I had to make sure you were prepared and worthy for what’s about to happen.  The task that you may be forced to do to save your world has never been done before in the long history of this dimension.”

“But what is it?” Danae, who had never met TIE before, asked in a way that barely contained the millions of other questions she’d like to ask a creature of this power.

“Oh, but I’m afraid I can’t say yet.  You see, there’s still one more test you must accomplish,” she said, as she rose into the air and drew her weapon.

Robin and Tal nodded to each other, grimly.  They saw this coming.  “Same conditions as last time,” Tal asked.  “We don’t have to physically defeat you; we just have to weaken your shield enough to make you feel like we earned it, right?”

“That’s right,” TIE replied, and Xalem sighed with relief.  “However, at this point, your group is so strong that such a fight would be a little unbalanced.  After all, six against one is hardly fair.  So I decided to bring along just a bit more support.”  As she said this, the whip’s end extended and formed a circle in the air, creating a portal.  Out of it, a massive creature crashed onto the cylinder.  The strange beast was about sixty feet tall, and it had a humanoid upper body, though its hands were closer to cat-like claws.  In addition, it had the head of an alligator, horns like some great elk or stag, and its lower body was like the body of a gigantic wolf.  The whole thing was like some sort of colossal, bestial, abominable centaur.  “This is an Instant Murdean, a particularly nasty creature from another dimension that I visited.  It was a terrifying beast there, similar to a creature from your realm that you call a Tarrasque, though they’re not unique creatures there and they are just a little bit weaker.  I’ve trained this one to assist me in combat, and you’ll have to deal with it as well as me this time!”

Wong was the first to react to the dual threat.  He charged right towards the instant, tumbled expertly out of range of its snapping teeth, and pummeled its massive legs with far more force than one can expect from such a small warrior.  Meanwhile, however, TIE was almost as quick, and she spiraled her whip before slamming it into the ground.  From where it struck, waves of energy flew at the party, slamming into any of them too slow to dodge between the waves.  Xalem starting healing those who were struck by the waves, while Tal released a ray of disintegration at the giant Instant.  It shrieked as the ray created a gaping hole in its flesh, but the wound was still too small for a great beast to worry much about it.

However, it was ready to retaliate.  It looked at the tiny figure punching at its legs and with incredible quickness for its size, it snatched him up in his gigantic reptilian jaws.  He began to struggle in a desperate attempt to escape the creature’s jaws while the rest of the party moved to help him.  Bath flew up to begin slashing at the creature’s massive torso with her own great sword, while Robin fired at him with magically acid-coated arrows, and Danae blasted both him and TIE with a chained bolt of lightning.  However, while all the physical attacks hurt it a little, the energy damage seemed to do more harm than good.  The acid did nothing to it and the lightning barely affected it, but the attacks apparently caused its horns, hooves, and claws to glow with electrical energy and drip acid, as if the energy got transferred to its attacks.  Meanwhile, TIE cracked her whip towards Robin, but instead of actually striking him with it, she instead wrapped it around his legs, and with no effort, raised her hand and sent Robin flying skyward!  She slammed him into the ground a few times, and then sent him flying at the airborne Bath!  Because she was too focused on the Murdean, she didn’t see her own ally being hurled towards her as a missile, and Robin slammed right into her.  Fortunately, she was quick enough to react to grab his hair before he fell back to the ground, since he didn’t get the chance to activate his magical wings yet.

Meanwhile, the Murdean managed to pin Wong against the top of its mouth long enough to gulp him down, then turned its attention to Bath.  Her thick angelically armored skin, regular armor, and incredibly agility let her avoid some of the attacks, but a few managed to penetrate and give her a number of wounds.  The rest of the party continued to slash at or fire upon the creature, save Danae, who realized this would a good time to fight defensively and created a barrier of scintillating colors around her.  Meanwhile, after trying to fire at the Murdean while being held up by his hair in vain, and after hearing Bath threaten to drop him if he didn’t start flying under his own power, Robin activated his wings and got out of Bath’s way.  

Meanwhile, inside the Murdean, Wong realized that this was not an ideal position to fight in, and used his ki abilities to alter his position in reality again.  This time, he decided to appear in the one place that the Murdean can’t bite him from, on the top of his head!  However, the Murdean was too busy to realize its meal just dislocated himself out of its stomach.  With a roar, it decided to trample Tal, Xalem, and Danae, who were all still on the ground and easily clumped together.  Of course, while this was a reasonably good tactic to crush the fairly weak Tal and Xalem, Danae’s prismatic sphere wasn’t a very wise thing to run over, but the Murdean didn’t appear smart enough to know that.  It stepped on Tal and Xalem, wounding both of them, but when it stepped on Danae’s sphere, ribbons of fire, acid, and electricity coursed through him, and at the same time it gave a gurgling, insane cry as the sphere shredded his sanity instantly.  Of course, all of this proved to be irrelevant an instant later (no pun intended,) as the creature vanished, forcing it to run madly throughout the Plane of Shadow until TIE bothered to pick it up.

This was quite the victory for everybody in the party, save for Wong, who was still on the creature’s head.  His excited woops as he struggled to hold onto the running creature was replaced by a scream of terror as the creature vanished underneath him, and plummeted into and right through the sphere!  Fortunately, his training as a monk made him well-prepared for such an effect.  His agility let him avoid the flames and other energies that emitted as he neared it, his body has long since resisted any form of poison that could infect him, and he was able to turn his body and mind into a fortress, blocking off the other effects, and letting him land safely (if you ignore the damage a 60 foot causes,) inside the sphere.

With their first threat dealt with, the party could focus on TIE herself, but even this was by no means an easy task.  For one thing, she was still in the air, and had been firing incredibly powerful orbs of energy out of her whip ever since she flung Robin into Bath.  In addition, the whip was proving a powerful defensive tool, as Robin soon learned.  It twirled around her constantly, and she was using it to block and even completely reflect his arrows.  At the same time, while she didn’t seem to have any resistance to magic, she was fast enough to completely evade the fireballs and other large spells that Tal was hurling at her.  Only Bath, with her strong melee attacks that struck her force field like thunderbolts, was doing any serious damage to her.  Wong used his ki powers to become immaterial, letting him safely pass under the sphere to help his new friend, while Xalem desperately tried to keep up with healing everybody.

Danae, meanwhile, decided to try her most powerful offensive spell on her threat.  She carefully stepped out of the sphere, and while preparing to dash back in as soon as she was done, she hurled four flaming meteors at TIE.  They all went straight at her, and one was a perfect shot, but when TIE began to catch even these with her whip, the horror of what she just did struck Danae.  As did the perfectly fired meteor, which TIE caught and hurled back at her with equal accuracy!  The meteor struck and exploded right on Danae’s head, sending her flying and leaving her sprawled on the ground, slowly bleeding and dying!

Xalem was horrified at how things were going, until he had an idea.  What if he could disrupt TIE’s powers, even if it meant sacrificing some of their power?  He dashed under TIE, and then created a field around the area that nullified all magic!  However, his plan’s follow was soon revealed, for while it looked like TIE’s power was slightly disrupted, she was still able to fly, project her force field, and attack with almost as much strength!  However, his friends in the area, including the magically Robin, were not so lucky.  Robin became the second party member to plummet screaming to the ground this fight as a weakened Bath nonetheless pressed on against TIE.

Robin quickly dashed out of the field, and began to fire again at TIE again, even though the arrows were once again deflected.  Desperate to at least contribute something to the fight, Robin decided to draw her fire, and began taunting TIE.  TIE, however, just smiled at him and asked, “You think you’re so smart, do you?”

Robin, not sure where this was leading, reluctantly replied, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Well, let’s see how smart you are,” TIE said, and fired a portal at him out of her whip.  Unable to dodge out of the way of the instantaneous attack, Robin found himself sucked into a strange labyrinth.  He began to explore this strange land while the fight raged on without him.

Finally realizing his mistake, Xalem cancelled his own field, and left to tend to the dying Danae, letting Wong activate his own flying magic, and he joined a renewed Bath in attacking TIE in close combat.  Finally, their combined strength satisfied TIE, who suddenly announced a few attacks later, “Okay, that’s it.  You have proved your worth.  This battle is over.  Let me take you to more pleasant accommodations.”

So saying, she created a portal, and stepped through it.  After a healed Danae retrieved Robin from his maze plane, the rest of the party followed, and found themselves in TIE’s familiar home.  She began to explain her motives for bringing the party to her a second time.

“For me to explain what’s been going on, I have to tell you a little bit about the history of your dimension.  In my millions of years of studying the multiverse, I learned that there is only one true constant.  All things must, sooner or later, end.  Sometimes it ends in an apocalyptic battle, sometimes in a beautiful utopia, and sometimes things just run out of energy and fall apart, but ever world, universe, and plane must inevitably end at some point.  It has been my goal to correct this problem, but I don’t even know if it’s possibly to correct it.  However, one attempt to correct it is important in this case.  Eons ago, about when I first found your plane, I tried a new tactic to solve it.  You see, I discovered that most of these endings involve creatures growing in power until they end up destroying the world in a climactic battle or ascend into a higher being, giving them absolute control over a plane and the ability to shape it into its own personal paradise.  However, if I created a system that lets relatively low-powered creatures completely destroy the power structure every few hundred or thousand years, things will never be locked into one final fate like this.

“That was my plan when I created an artifact known as the Quill of Destiny.  Every time things get to hectic in this plane, it calls a few moderately powerful heroes and villains, and lets them reorganize the world.  As a result, your world has been in existence for countless years, and has hosted everything from magical empires to psionic, alien worlds, to technological super-civilizations.  It has included humans, artificial creatures, demons, angels, other outside beings, and other creatures far weirder.  It’s a brutal system in ways, since entire civilizations have been lost to time, but at least your world has lived on.

“Or, at least it has so far.  Even the Quill is imperfect, and keeping it powered for so long is starting to weaken it.  This loss of control is manifesting right now, in the form of Bas.  Normally, the lost civilizations have largely been just that.  However, from her crater, Bas has been able to discover and gain access to the powers of many different times, mixing powers that should not be mixed.  If she is not stopped, her rise to power could disrupt the flow of power the Quill has bestowed upon your world!

“However, if I tried to intervene to stop her, I would be putting my power into the mix, disrupting things further.  I can only help indirectly, by aiding those who can stop her, including you.”

“How can you do that?” Danae asked.

TIE smiled.  “What, a solid block of gold isn’t considered helping?  But I can do more than that as well.  The most important thing I can do to help is give you these.”  As she said that, she produced a number of strange talismans, which bore a strange marking resembling a wolf with a long, monkey-like tail.  

“What are these?” Robin asked.

“These are device that you will soon need to gain the power you need.  Let me explain.  There’s a natural limit to what level of power mortals can gain, which varies from dimension to dimension.  In your dimension, the power limit is relatively low, and while fighting powerful creatures from other dimensions would eventually let you break that limit, it’s too long and risky a process, and requires me to intervene to unbalance things further.  The other way to break the limit is through divine power.  Gods can break it, obviously, as can avatars, the most powerful servants of gods, and creatures with a spark of the divine within them, like dragons and many of our planar monsters.  Your gods, sadly, only have the power to make their own specific avatars break that limit.  However, I can grant you the power you’ll need to reach this limit, which I believe your kind calls the “Epic” limit.  In addition, I’ll give you one more boon.  I believe you still lack knowledge on where exactly Bas is, is that correct?”

After seeing their glum nods, TIE continued, “As I thought.  Well, I can’t help you there directly, but I can give you an item that lets you find one of her most powerful servants, the Strife Masters, at any time, even when they’re within the fields of divine protection.  Of course, I recommend you use it to wait until they’re on the move, since if they’re in a place that’s protected, they could either be with Bas, or they could be in their sect’s temple or some other place that Bas has a personal interest in.  Once you catch one on the move, you can capture him or her, and force the information about Bas out of him or her.  All I need is to know which one you want to track.”

After some discussion and a quick explanation for Bath and Xalem about who the Strife Masters are, Tal responds to TIE, “I think we’ll go with the Blade of Minds.  We killed the Nightmare Prince and essentially eliminated the Lady of Blood, and we don’t know their replacements yet.  And we’d rather not go after Phellus Mune at the moment.  Plus, the Blade of Minds is supposed to be the only Strife Master who isn’t evil.  She might be easier to persuade than the others.”

TIE nodded, and produced a strange magical device.  “And now, if you’re ready, I can take you back to my home on your world.  You can go home from there, or visit Dragovigis if you wish.  After all, you might want to hurry.”

Tal had to choke back a sob after hearing the name of the city he unintentionally betrayed, but Danae had bigger concerns.  “Um, wait, why should we hurry?”

“Well, because it’s currently being attacked by Bas’ forces,” TIE said, almost casually.  “They’ll probably have the place destroyed in a matter of hours.”

OOC Notes:  That fight with TIE was a lot better, in my opinion, than the last one.  The defense-heavy TIE lasted a lot longer than the more offense-based dragon form.  This was also a big exposition-heavy game, especially with two character introductions.  I especially liked Bath’s, who some of you might recognize as being loosely based on Flonne from the PS2 game Disgaea.  The Minotaur Driving An Ice Cream Truck, however, is my own creation, and one of my favorite running jokes!


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## LordVyreth (Jan 18, 2005)

*Dragovigis' Destruction: How to Create Nuclear Annihilation Through Pacifism*

The party, with the obvious exceptions of Bath and Xalem, were shocked.  “It’s what?” they gasped.  

TIE shrugged.  “Yes, they started a few hours ago, and things aren’t going well.”

“But why would they attack…” Danae started to ask, before stopping as realization came to her.  And she simply stared at Tal.

“They must have heard about it from Lancaster,” Tal finished.  “This is all my fault.  Facetous should have shown me no mercy.”

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,” TIE said.  “There’s still plenty that you could do.  Just get in there and stop them.”

“You don’t understand,” Tal shouted.  “I can’t do anything to help!  Facetous said that if I ever set foot in that city again, I’ll be killed instantly!”

TIE sighed.  “So what?  He’s just a god.  Look, if you want to help, just ask.  I can prevent him from even noticing you until the attack is over, and you can try using your assistance to earn his good favor again.  And if you fail to stop the attack, well I doubt re-entering the city will be a big concern for anyone.”

Tal thought about this, and though he didn’t exactly trust TIE, his need for redemption was too great.  “Use your power to protect me,” he said.  “I’m going in.  Can I count on the rest of your support?”

Robin, Danae, and Wong easily pledged their support, but the new additions to the heroes were less reluctant.  “I’m not sure I want to get involved in this fight,” Bath said.  “I have to look for my assassination target,” she said sweetly.  “What could this have to do with it?”

“Well, the Bas forces often use evil outsiders.  You might be able to…”

“I’M IN!” Bath shouted, her crusading zeal at the idea of smiting fiends overruling her reluctance.  

“What about me, though,” Xalem asked.  “I want to try and end conflicts, not take sides in massive warfare.”

Tal shook his head.  “If we don’t help, hundreds of creatures will be slaughtered, an entire city will be destroyed, and wholes races of dragons will go extinct on this plane.  Even if you are unable to help us actually fight the monsters, can’t you help us prevent a tragedy of that magnitude?”

Xalem pondered this, and then nodded.  “I’ll see what I can do.”

So prepared, TIE returned to the party to their world, and very close to the border of Dragovigis.  Quickly they dashed into the city, only to find much of it in ruins.  Dragons were flying about, combating what appeared to be armies of the mechanical sheens, but there were far less than the party expected considering how many dragons they saw on their previous visits.  Either the dragons were elsewhere, or the casualties were already incomprehensible.  

Desperate for answers, the group approached what looked like a medical camp, where injured dragons were healed for the next wave of attacks.  Not wanting to attract attention, Tal blended into the back of the group while Danae took over the questioning.  She approached what looked like the dragon in charged, and asked, “What’s going on here?”

The dragon looked at them with alarm and panic at first, but quickly calmed once it recognized them.  “Oh, it was terrible!  The problems started a few hours ago, when a massive dragon was sighted near the city.  We first thought that the orc empire had finally found us, until scouts reported that it was one of the outsider dragons.”

“Outsider dragons?” Danae asked.

“Yes, the dragon races so powerful that they have transcended the planes.  This one is partially made of pure force, as is her breath weapon.  It was coming right at us, so our most powerful warriors left the city to intercept her, and they haven’t returned, at least not yet.  Meanwhile, swarms of sheens piled into the city from below.  They’ve just been overwhelming us.  And that’s not the worst news?”

“What is the worst news?” Danae reluctantly asked.

“That,” the dragon replied, as it pointed at the statue in the center of town.  “Their most powerful forces have converged there, including evil humanoids in red robes, demonic creatures, and their leader.  He’s a strange one, though.  He looks completely ordinary, even plain, and he’s not carrying anything magical or any equipment at all really, but the other attackers have deferred to him without question.  I believe the enemies know about the weapon we have stored in the statue, and are either trying to steal it or detonate it!”

“We have no time!” Tal says, forgetting his plan to remain inconspicuous.  “We have to get to the top of that statue as quickly as possible.”

“Er, that’s not such a good idea,” Danae replied.  She pointed up at the dragon’s head, where three giant creatures were circling it.  “It looks like they have guards around the head, and powerful ones too.  If we attack from that direction, the whole place will know we’re coming.  I suggest we enter the statue from the base, and work our way in.  Since they’ve been fighting dragons, they’ll never expect a land-based attack.”

Tal sighed, but agreed.  “Oh, very well.  But we have to be quick!”

The party agreed, and began to approach the statue’s base.  However, as they tried to leave the camp, the dragon officer called out, “Wait!”  When they returned, it explained, “If you are really going to try to stop them, you need this.”  It dug a strange device out of one of the bags dangling from its body.  “This machine can be used to disable the bomb if these monsters have decided to arm it for some reason.  Now, it’s not too complicated a piece of technology, but I don’t know if any of you can understand it without any training whatsoever.”  Nevertheless, he taught them all how to operate it.

Danae, with her extensive knowledge of nearly any subject and incredible intellect, was the only one who really could understand the device, so the dragon officer gave it to her before sending the party on their way.

As they got closer to the statue, Tal had an idea.  “Hey, what if we didn’t charge in from the front door?  I can disintegrate a small hole in the statue’s back, and we can sneak in that way and bypass any guards watching the door.”

The group readily agreed, and Tal was able to easily make a hole at the literal foot of the statue that let them access what appeared to be a shaft leading right up the entirety of the statue, and which seemed to contain a strange machine used to help them ascend it.  However, from the “elevator” shaft, the party could see the guards at the front door, and overconfidence struck.

“They don’t even know we’re here!” Tal said.  A desire for revenge and redemption rose in him, as he said, “I bet we could take them before they even have time to respond!”

“I don’t know about this plan,” Wong said.  “I mean, that one guard’s legs are straddling the doorway we have to take!  We don’t even know how big, or what, it is!”

Bath, however, was looking at the creatures at the far end of the room.  “What are those things?” she asked.

Danae took a closer look.  “I think they’re called Yagnoloths, of the Yugoloth race,” she speculated.  “They hail from the evil plane of Gehenna mostly…”

That was all Bath needed.  “Charge!” she yelled as she flew down the hallway at the creatures, entering the fray so quickly that whatever the large-legged creature was, it had no time to react before she slammed into the first of the fiendish creatures with such force that she nearly killed it with one swing!  

The decision made for them, Tal, Danae and Robin moved to enter the fray, while Xalem remained behind to provide curative magic if needed, and Wong, who was never pleased with this attack in the first place.  “I’ll…just guard the elevator,” he said nervously.

As it turns out, though, Wong was right on this one.  Though momentarily surprised by Bath’s charge, the enemy group recovered quickly, including a half dozen dogs that were surrounded by shadow and an obese demonic creature that they later learned was a demodand.  However, as Bath fought the group off, with the occasional assistance of Tal and Danae’s magic, the rest of the group had to confront the massive guardian, which apparently was a massive statue carved out of some strange black stone.  The real problem was that it was right at the end of the hallway, and after it was able to recover from the attack, it realized that there were more enemies in the corridor, and with its extremely long arms, it could attack the party if they got anywhere near the end of the hallway.  But if they didn’t get near the end of the hallway, they couldn’t see what was happening in the room.  Eventually, as the battle between Bath and the fiends got fiercer, Danae and Robin decided to risk getting a little closer.  However, no sooner did they choose to close the statue’s half dozen fists shot down the hallway, striking them both repeatedly.  The attacks were powerful, but the real danger of the attacks was revealed moments later, when to Danae and Robin’s shock, they felt their bodies slowly solidify, until both were nothing but stone statues!

	Finally, Wong realized he had to get involved with the battle, and reluctantly closed with the statue.  This proved wise, as his training made his fists as strong as the strongest of metals, and more than powerful enough to cut through the thick skin of the statue.  However, the power of the statue was greater than even seen so far, for the statues that were Danae and Robin began to animate, apparently under the statue’s command, and attack Wong!

	Xalem also decided to get involved at this point.  “I can’t directly harm them, but I have a way to stop them from attacking us!” he said.  “I have a spell that will cause anyone who makes an attack on another to suffer retribution.  They won’t dare attack you at that point.”

	Tal, however, paused when he heard this plan, for he saw a noticeable flaw in this plan.  “Um, if the statues of Danae and Robin were to be commanded to still attack us, what would take the retributive damage?”

	“Well, they would.”

	“And this damage would destroy their statues, and therefore them, right?”

	“I suppose, but…”

	“And that includes all of their items?”

	“Sure…”

	“Including the device that we need to disable the potentially-armed ultimate weapon that could go off at any moment?”

	Finally, Xalem realized this not the best idea.  “I see your point.  Never mind.”

	Meanwhile, Wong finally destroyed the statue.  “At last,” Tal said, “we can finally help…Bath,” he finished lamely, after looking at the state of the room.

	The entire room was covered with the remains of fiends and demonic hounds.  Only Bath stood, barely injured, around the carnage.  “Don’t worry, I’m okay,” she chirped.  “Now, can we move on?”

	Xalem used his healing powers to restore Danae and Robin to flesh, healed everyone, and the group returned to the elevator, intent on suffering no more distractions in their quest to reach the top of the statue and save the city.

	OOC Notes: In case you’re wondering, neither Wong nor Xalem were played by their regular players at the end there.  Wong’s player left halfway through the game, and though he told us his character was going to just guard the elevator the whole fight, when things got rough, I took some creative liberties with that decision.

	More notably, Xalem was gone the whole game, and the player controlling him didn’t really know much about the Book of Exalted Deeds that he was based on, hence the near apocalyptic mistake that was almost made.


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## LordVyreth (Jan 24, 2005)

*Dragovigis Destruction?: The Final Countdown*

The journey to the top of the statue was a long and difficult one.  Despite what the success of the Bas forces might suggest, the dragons were very concerned with the security of the statue, and lined the only route to the weapon that they thought the enemy could take (since they figured any flying enemy would be in the open and easily defeated by the city’s citizens) with traps, guardians, and gates.  As the elevator ascended, this became obvious when a half-dozen of the wheeled sheens that they had fought long ago in their earlier explorations of the continent dropped onto the elevator via chutes.  They weren’t too much of a challenge by themselves, but as the party fought them off, weaponry periodically emerged from the walls around the elevator and attacked the party with beams or swords of pure energy, which cut through their armor as they struck.

	Finally, the elevator stopped, but it was only another challenge.  The way above was blocked by a metal door, and the elevator stopped next to a room which apparently included the puzzle to unlock it.  The room was circular, and contained three grooves in the floor which formed concentric circles.  A number of light generating columns were attached to the circles, and the lights seemed to be linked to light-sensitive receptacles attached to the walls.  To solve the puzzle and unlock the door, the party had to move the columns so that one of them was focused on each receptacle, while making sure that one column wasn’t blocking the way of another column’s light.  Because the lights themselves were so bright and intense that they physically burned anyone who got caught in the way of a light, and all the columns attached to one circle were physically linked so moving one would move all of the columns in that circle, it wasn’t an easy task.  But they completed it quickly enough, and were again on their way.

	The journey proceeded like this for a while, and stopped twice for more puzzles of the same nature, but that got more complicated each time.  In addition, besides more energy traps and swarms of sheens, more threats challenged the party during their trip.  The traps from the walls included cables with electrified the floor of the elevator, shocking everyone who was standing on it, and technological traps that emulate common magical effects, from Magic Missiles to Disintegration rays and Prismatic Sprays!  The party also had to deal with a flock of flying fiends that Danae defined as Nycaloths.  Here, Xalem at last proved his worth, for he was able to use his divine power to drive away the creatures, just like most clerics can do to undead.  This way, he was able to defend the party without causing actual damage to their enemies.

	Finally, the elevator reached the top of the statue, and only one room stood between the party and the statue’s head, where the weapon was kept.  Of course, as the elevator reached its peak at this floor, the party learned that it too was well-guarded, as can be expected.  Among the guards were two of the massive roller sheens, similar to the ones that guarded the Ancient “Dungeon” the party had explored long ago, three more of the shadowy hounds, and what looked like a giant earthworm with arms, bat wings, and glowing red eyes!  However, none of them were little more than a speed bump to the party at this point.  Thinking that its guards might protect him for a while, the worm creature began a very long spell, but Wong and Bath cut through the dogs in a matter of seconds, Danae and Tal easily destroyed the machines with their magic, and Robin was able to fire at the worm and disrupt his spell just moments before it could finish it.  Now surrounded, the worm was quickly put to death, and the party pushed onward.  

	They found themselves in the dragons’ head, which was enormous (about 150 feet in diameter,) and completely hollow.  At the bottom, a shaft which apparently ran parallel to the elevator all the way to the floor opened up, and the only places to safely stand in the entire room are a ledge right next to the door they just went through, a stairway that rose to the front of the statue, and a disc-shaped platform at the front.  The bomb itself was attached to the wall, where led directly the front of the statue’s mouth.  There also were a few small ledges near the top of the head, which were barely large enough to be a dragon’s perch, which presumably was what they were originally for.

	However, the ledges were now empty, save one, which contained a plain-looking man in black clothing and with a short goatee.  He looked at the party and sighed.  “Well, I didn’t think we would be able to retrieve the bomb.  This should be just as satisfying and helpful, however.”  So saying, he took out a small mechanical device and pushed a button on it.  Suddenly, the bomb, which a red-robed figure was trying to disarm at the moment, activated and began beeping.  An emotionless, mechanical voice suddenly reverberated throughout the statue, “Warning, bomb is armed.  Auto-destruct sequence engaged.  Detonation will occur in one minute…”

	Realizing they had to hurry now, the party quickly sized up what they had to get through to reach the bomb and disarm it in time.  Besides the leader, who didn’t seem especially interested in stopping them anyway, there were two massive sheens that were, except for their size, identical to the one guarding the Ancient Dungeon.  There were two red-robed cultists, plus the one disarming the bomb.  There were two gigantic tigers, but they had a dark, evil look to them.  Most ominously, there was a third mechanical creature, but it was a different variety than they had seen before.  

	Wong and Tal took the lead up the stairs while the dark-haired leader merely shrugged and began to watch the fight from his ledge.  Their first challenge came from the two tigers.  However, Xalem again used his divine powers to drive one away, and it spent the fight cowering in the corner while Wong began to attack the other and Robin fired on it from a distance.

	Bath, however, had no interest in wasting time on the lesser foes, and simply flew to the disc, where most of the guards were gathered.  With almost chilling speed, she killed one of the cultists, and began to work on the second.  Meanwhile, Danae had noticed that the leader wasn’t actively getting involved, but didn’t want to take a chance on that.  She fired a swarm of flaming meteors at him, only for him to react as if prepared for such an attack.  Another strange machine extended from his arm, though it was hard to tell if it was just hidden in his clothing or literally rose out of his flesh, and it apparently projected some sort of force field a few feet from Danae!  The shots harmlessly burst on impact, and Danae sighed with frustration, but also was relieved that she didn’t use a fireball or a similar spell that would have created an explosion with her in the blast radius!

	Meanwhile, the red-robed figure stood up from her position next to the bomb, and got a look at the party for the first time.  As she did so, it was obvious that she was at least twice as tall as the other cultists.  When she saw the party, she flinched as if shocked, and drew back her hood, revealing the face of an ugly, purple, horned woman.  “You!” She screeched.  “I remember you!  You killed my sister!”  Tal and Robin realized they remembered her as well.  She was the night hag druid that the party had fought back when they went after The Lady of Blood!

	Meanwhile, the two Render Sheens, the normal robots encountered earlier, rose to meet the threat on the stairway and from Bath.  Both responded by firing a blast of searing plasma energy.  One struck Bath, lightly injuring her, but the other flew down the stairway and struck at Wong and Tal.  Wong effortlessly danced out of the way, but the blast caught Tal directly, searing some of the skin from his body!  Finally, the last robot responded by, surprisingly, casting a spell!  It suddenly rose into the air, as the leader of the enemy forces smirked.  “You really should thank your friend Joddark for his contribution to our latest servant.  He really gave so much to make it what it is today.”  As he said that, he pointed to a dome on the robot’s body that was filled with blood and other vile things, and Tal was almost sick when he realized that the remains of the Avatar of Magic was being used to power the creature!

	While Wong easily finished the second tiger, Tal was enraged and charged up to deal with Joddark’s killers not with magic, but with weaponry.  He didn’t get far, however, before one of the Render sheens blocked his way.  He angrily attacked it with his sword, doing some reasonable damage to it, but it was no where near enough to bring down the massive creature.  In response, the creature tore into Tal, slicing him with its massive saw blade mouth and a half-dozen tentacle blades!  Robin and Danae ran up to help him, while Xalem prepared to heal him if he could only get close enough to be saved.

	While the rest of the group was dealing with Tal, Bath was making mincemeat out of the remainder of the defenders.  She sliced through the second cultist effortlessly, and then turned to begin cleaving into the arcanosheen.  The night hag druid and the sheen both tried bringing her down with magic, only to learn that it was very hard to stop an avenging angel, even a young one, with magic.  Energy blasts like chained lighting harmlessly bounced off her, lesser spells simply failed to penetrate her natural resistance to magic, and when the arcanosheen tried to ravage her mind with magical insanity, it learned that her constant angelic aura protected her from mind control as well!

	Tal, meanwhile, had come to his senses after being so brutally pummeled by the render, desperately tried to escape with his life.  However, the creature was huge and its tentacles were very long, making it hard to escape unscathed.  And after all the blood he lost, even one scratch could kill him.  Desperately, he did a quick summersault backwards, then changed directly mid-roll to make a leap from the disc to the stairway where Xalem and his salvation awaited.  He made it by inches, and clung to the side of the stairway with all of his might while Xalem dashed over to help him.  However, it still might have been too late, for the render was already moving to follow Tal to the stairs, where it could devastate both Tal and Xalem!

	Just before it could make the leap, though, unexpected help arrived.  Roaring from the shaft below, a familiar purple, scaly figure rose up.  It was Tal’s cousin Zuriden!  It quickly interposed itself between Tal and the render, and began to slash at it while Wong distracted the other and Robin and Danae fired on both using arrows and magic.

	Things were going well, but time was running out, with less than thirty seconds before the bomb went off!  The group at the head of the stairway finally finished off the renders, and arrived to help Bath finish off the arcanosheen and night hag.  However, these enemies knew a lost cause when they saw one.  The arcanosheen simply teleported away and the Night Hag shimmered as her body became ethereal.  Screaming threats of vengeance, she fled out of sight.

	That left only the leader, who watched the entire battle as if it was nothing more than a phenomenon to be observed.  Zuriden was the first one to reach him.  The man expected his arrival, however, and produced yet another machine which seemed to freeze the very flow of time around Zuriden!  Zuriden managed to resist the effect and began to tear into the man, but he merely shrugged and vanished, leading Zuriden and the others to wonder what this man was, and how he could produce such power without any effort.  

	Everyone except Danae wondered, actually, for she broke into a run towards the bomb as soon as the enemies fled.  Quickly but carefully, she manipulated the device the dragons gave her, and everyone sighed with relief when the mechanical voice, which had been counting down methodically the whole time, said “Bomb has been disarmed.  Situation normal.”

	And so the heroes saved the town of Dragovigis from destruction, but the party wondered what their next adventure was.  Perhaps it was time to finally find Bas?  After all, they now had the relic that TIE gave them to find one of her servants.  If they can capture her, they can finally destroy the evil goddess!  Tal, however, had other concerns.  Mostly, now that he helped save the city, will he finally get the redemption from Facetous he so desires?


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## LordVyreth (Feb 2, 2005)

Sorry about the lack of updates this weekend.  There were issues with relatives, and time was short, and everything.  I'll start up the updates again on a regular weekly basis next weekend.  However, we're finally closing in on the current events, and I suspect that by the end of March or so, I'll be so close that I'll switch to updates every two weeks instead of every week.  Just giving a warning for what's to come.


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## Neurotic (Feb 3, 2005)

That's OK. I had three days fighting computer parasites that somehow penetrated my firewall and anti-spy and anti-virus software, didn't look for more then a week.

Do you know where is Metamorphosis? I can't find it on the list of story hours. Thanks!

Good update. Tense 'till the end. Good you didn't waste too much time on fighting the minions. Didn't PCs know who the master is?


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## LordVyreth (Feb 3, 2005)

Neurotic said:
			
		

> That's OK. I had three days fighting computer parasites that somehow penetrated my firewall and anti-spy and anti-virus software, didn't look for more then a week.
> 
> Do you know where is Metamorphosis? I can't find it on the list of story hours. Thanks!
> 
> Good update. Tense 'till the end. Good you didn't waste too much time on fighting the minions. Didn't PCs know who the master is?




No, they still aren't sure about him, I think.  Regular readers to this thread might have an idea what he is, though, if not necessarily who.  Do you have a guess?  If so, please mark it in spoiler tags or just PM me, since some of my players sometimes read this thread.


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## LordVyreth (Feb 8, 2005)

*Critical Knowledge*

“For your honor, courage, and sacrifice for the sake of our city and our people, I thank you,” Facetous continued, as a day of honor to the heroes proceeded.  The invaders had been routed, and while the extraplanar dragon survived the fight, it was driven away by the city’s most powerful defenders, who returned to the city to help drive the enemy out.  However, though many of the attackers were killed, the leaders, including the plain man who seemed to be in charge and his night hag and arcanosheen followers, managed to escape.  

	The speeches, banquets, and congratulations continued all that day, broken only by the occasional memorial service to Joddark and the others who fell in battle, and a moving ceremony where Err’s body was returned to the city and then buried at home.  While all of this was going on, however, Tal was getting more and more nervous.  The people of Dragovigis didn’t respond to his continued appearance in their town, and it’s possible they didn’t even know about his earlier exile, but Facetous would certainly have to deal with the situation soon.  The fact that Tal still lived so long after Facetous became aware of Tal’s presence was a good sign, but Tal couldn’t relax until he heard from Facetous himself that he was safe.

	At last, the time of judgment came later, as the false night of the moons became true night.  Tal received a message that he was to speak to Facetous, in private.  

	Upon his arrival, Facetous gave Tal a curious look.  It didn’t seem especially angry, but it was strange enough to be frightening to Tal.  Finally, Facetous looked away and asked Tal, “Do you remember, Tal Moinen, what I said the last time you were in my city?”

	Tal gulped and said, “Yes, sir.  You told me if I ever returned, I would be killed instantly.”

	“And yet here you are, again in my city.”

	“…Yes, I am.”

	“Tal, I don’t know how you have returned to my city without my awareness, though I have my suspicions.  However, I imagine that, once again, the powers that be in this world have given you and your friends an exception to my rules.”  Facetous sighed bitterly at his.  “I admit I’m growing weary of this game.  If indeed you are part of a plan to change the current state of things, then I suppose it would be worth it to rescind my previous orders.  Besides, you did work to save this city when you could have turned your back on it.  That should deserve some mercy.”

	Tal sighed with relief, and then decided that since he owed Facetous his life, he should tell Facetous what he knew so far.  Besides, Facetous might be able to help with their next move.  “Thank you, my god.  You are correct in your assumption.  We are working to help save this world.  In fact, we know what is threatening this world, specifically.  It involves an object known as the Quill of Destiny…”

	Before he could even blink, Facetous had grabbed Tal, and was holding him so tight that he nearly squeezed the life out of him.  With a tone of urgency, but not anger, he said, “Now listen to me.  I don’t know how you learned of this item, but you must never, EVER mention it again!  Every god this world has ever had is forced to protect the secrecy of this object at all costs.  I don’t care what your destiny is.  If you even risk spreading knowledge of the Quill, the gods will unite to utter destroy your very existence.  You will not only be annihilated; your very memory will be gone.  It will be as if you never existed.  I can’t protect you from this, and neither can anything else.  Now, do you understand?”

	Shocked, Tal numbly nodded.  Facetous visibly relaxed and let Tal down.  “Good.  Now, I don’t want to hear another word of your plans.  The danger is just too great.  I only advise you do what you think is best, provided it involves not mentioning my city or the Quill to anybody.  Now go.  You must prepare to depart with your friends as soon as possible.”

	Tal hurried off, and soon he and his friends teleported back to the area around Methosilang, where Bath and Xalem became official citizens, giving them the ability to teleport into the city later.  From there, they prepared for their next mission: capturing The Blade of Minds and learning the location of Bas herself.

	After taking a few days to again sell the treasure the obtained in the dragon statue and buy new equipment, they began to use the device TIE gave them to check on their prey.  However, in the first few days of their surveillance, she apparently didn’t move more than a couple hundred feet from one spot.

	“Maybe she’s with Bas now?” Robin asked.

	Danae shook her head.  “Based on what we saw with the Nightmare Prince and the earlier battle you two fought against The Lady of Blood, it’s likely that each of the Strife Masters has its own temple, lair, or base of operations.  She’s likely there, and if so, attacking it would be a suicide mission.  We should wait until she’s moving.”

	It took almost a week, but finally, she began to travel across the continent.  Realizing that this was their chance, the party mobilized immediately.  After determining the path The Blade of Minds was starting to take, Danae quickly teleported the entire group to a spot about a mile ahead, where the area became hilly and their prey would probably have limited mobility if she chose to walk between the hills.  With a little time to prepare, the entire party became invisible and gained the ability to fly.  They then waited for The Blade of Minds and her escorts to come into view.

	She was far from alone.  Besides the Blade of Minds herself, who wore gem-based armor and carried a sword of the same material, there was a short humanoid in a gray robe (probably a gnome or halfling,) a strange humanoid that appeared to be made out of gold-colored clay, a demon with a bony, brain-filled protrusion that extended from the back of its head to the ground, three human-sized gray robed cultists that traveled a bit away from the Blade and seemed to be of a lower status, and four stone giants who didn’t wear the standard robes but did have a number of crystalline objects.  

	Bath was already fighting the temptation to dive right at the demon, but the party was interested in a more tactical approach.  Wong and Tal began the attack by focusing on the strange gold creature and The Blade herself.  Wong moved up to try and strike her at a critical nerve juncture, stunning her and making it easier to capture her, while Tal fired a ray of disintegration at the gold creature.  However, while both attacks struck true, The Blade and the creature were too powerful to be defeated so quickly, and both moved to respond to their sudden attackers.  Before they could, however, the rest of the party continued the ambush.  Danae in particular was brutal.  Before their enemy could react at all, she rained a volley of meteors down on them.  The attack instantly incinerated the small cultist, nearly killed the four giants and three regular cultists, and even heavily wounded The Blade of Minds herself!  Danae looked a little worried at that last part.  After all, the last thing she wanted to do was accidentally kill their target.  That would make everything much more complicated.

	But as she pondered this, the rest of her friends continued the attack.  Bath began to attack the demon, while Robin started picking off the giants and lesser cultists.  By the time The Blade of Minds could react, only she, the gold creature, and the demon remained, and it was obvious to all of them that retreat was their only chance.  The demon and gold creature simply teleported away, and The Blade of Minds somehow disappeared into thin air!  As they fled, the demon warned the party, “I’ll be back, and with reinforcements!”

	The party was again alone, but they realized they didn’t have time to gather all the equipment of the fallen.  If the demon was telling the truth, then they’ll be outnumbered on a massive scale in a matter of seconds.  They quickly fled to Methosilang, and then examined TIE’s device.  For the first thirty seconds or so, it didn’t show her at all, as if she simply disappeared.  After that, however, she reappeared back at the battle site, then immediately returned to her original position.

	The group looked at each other with embarrassment and despair.  They had failed to catch her, and now that she knows she is a target, there’s no telling if they’ll get another chance.  They began to wait, hoping that they would get another chance, but afraid that it might never come, or worse, if it did, that it would be a trap.

	OOC Notes: This part of the adventure was pretty open-ended.  I honestly didn’t know if the party would be able to capture her, and it was pretty close for a while there.  But after this game, I had to think of a new way to handle the fight, since a half-dozen ambush battles would have gotten tedious quickly.


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## LordVyreth (Feb 16, 2005)

*The Semiplanar Rift.*

A week passed, and still The Blade of Minds didn’t flee from her temple.  Of course, they still weren’t certain her regular location was the temple, but they knew that their quarry would never visit Bas as long as she knew she was being tracked.  Finally, she began to show signs of motion again.  She suddenly disappeared from her current location to appear in a valley hundreds of miles away, which indicated a likely teleport.  From there, however, she just stopped, and didn’t move for over an hour.

	“This has trap written all over it,” Tal grumbled, as the party decided what to do with this sudden change.

	“Maybe, but what choice do we have,” Danae sighed.  “We have no other way to find Bas, and we can’t lead Methosilang’s armies until we know where to lead them.”

	“Well, what if I went ahead to scout?” Bath asked.  “I can turn invisible easily enough, and I should figure out the situation before they can stop me?”

	After remembering how even Bas’ most powerful servants couldn’t hurt Bas before, the group agreed, and Bath used her Plane Shifting ability to repeatedly jump towards The Blade’s location until by sheer luck she arrived close enough to her target to fly there.  As she used her powers, she noticed that there was some sort of strange interference every time she tried to leave the plane, but it wasn’t anything she had trouble with.

	Finally, she reached the Blade’s location, only to notice things were…unusual.  Though the device to track the Blade was certain she was right in front of her, Bath couldn’t see anything.  Realizing they might be invisible, Bath used her magic to gain the sight of truth, and saw strange, blurry lights in the vague shape of The Blade and her many servants.  Bath was afraid this was part of the ambush, but the lights seemed frozen, as their target and her servants were held here.  Bath investigated the area further, and found a message carved into the ground nearby.  It read:

To the “heroes” of Methosilang:

	I am well aware of your intentions at this point.  Obviously, you need the location of Bas’ body if you hope to change destiny.  Of course, there is a location I want from you as well.  But I’m not interested in massive casualties on both sides of this war.  Sure, you could try another ambush, but we both know that I won’t be surprised again, and the battle would likely cause massive casualties on both sides.  Or, you could simply lose patience and launch a siege on my home, which would obviously be a brutal fight, with deaths on both sides.  Therefore, I have decided to end this simply.  As you can see, I went to the Rift.  I’m sure you know the way there, and the way out.  Our intelligence indicates that you left the plane, after all, so it’s the only logical conclusion.  I will be waiting in the gateway out of the Rift.  There can be no escape there, so only one of us will walk out free.  Both I and the other Strife Masters have an obligation to keep the Rift guarded, but if you Jump past the puzzle foyer and the final room before the gateway, you can bypass them quickly enough.  I expect you to be there as soon as possible.  If not, we could continue this little chase, but we both know that it would likely be futile. 
Tesserill Requien.

	Finding this curious, Bath returned to the party.

	“Well, is it safe?” Danae asked.

	Bath looked confused.  “They’re gone, and went to some place called the Rift or something.  I don’t know what that is, though.”

	Danae thought for a moment, and then looked shocked.  “She’s in the Semiplanar Rift!”

	After noticing how confused everyone looked as they stared at her, she sighed and explained.  “The Rift is a sub plane that exists around the entirety of our plane.  It blocks all attempts to leave the plane, at least for extended periods of times.  Planes connected to ours like the Shadow and Ethereal plane are allowed, and even quick jumps to the Astral plane like those used for teleport spells are fine, but anything more than that will cause you to get sucked into the Rift.”

	“But that makes no sense, we’ve been off-plane to buy and sell magic items all the time!” Robin complained.  

	“Yes, but we’ve been given special treatment, I believe.  Remember what happened the first time we tried leaving the plane, not counting all those weird tests TIE put you through before I joined you?”

	Robin thought for a second, and then replied, “We ended up in some bar in a place called Sigil, right?  I never understood why that happened.  You were trying to take us to Union, right?”

	“Right, but I felt the resistance of the Rift as I left.  I was worried about this, which is why I was so reluctant to leave.  But instead of getting pulled in, something saved us, and we got redirected into the bar.”

	“Then what happened,” Xalem, who never heard this story before, asked.

	“Well, first of all, we were cheered by the bar attendees.  Apparently almost nobody has made it out of the Rift and therefore escaped our plane lately.  The last ones to do so were, well, Phellis and the other Strife Masters according to the descriptions the Bar Patrons gave us.  We asked them about why our plane is so hard to leave from, but they immediately shut up.  If we can trust their story, eons ago, a being calling herself The Indigo Entity appeared and ordered the entirety of Sigil into a vow of secrecy about this plane.  Nothing about it can be discussed under any circumstances.  Now, a place like Sigil isn’t exactly good at following rules like that, so there was a protest.  The Lady of Pain, who is a godlike super-entity that rules Sigil, even intervened.  However, this Indigo Entity privately showed The Lady something that absolutely terrified her.  The Lady of Pain was so universally feared and respected on Sigil that when they saw her scared, the population became far more interested in following the rule, and that’s how things have been ever since.  I believe that The Indigo Entity is our friend TIE, and that she was responsible for the Rift as well.  If so, then that explains why we’ve been given an exemption from the Rift.  We’re too important or amusing or something to TIE, so we get to leave.  I assume the same exemption was passed onto Bath and Xalem when they joined us.”

	“So THAT’s why this place is called the Forbidden Plane!” Bath exclaimed.

	“But you said that the Strife Masters left before you did?”  Xalem asked.

	“Yes, which likely means they’ve already been into the Rift, and they managed to survive it.  Since they probably weren’t aiming at that same bar that we turned up in, I think everyone ends up at that Sigil bar the first time they survive the Rift.  We’ve been able to travel the planes normally ever since, so it probably only happened to them the first time as well.  That means that The Blade will have an advantage over us; she knows the environment, and no longer has to fear the tests.”

	“But how can we even enter the Rift if we automatically bypass it?”  Tal inquired.

	“Oh, we still feel the resistance of the Rift when we leave; we just can get through it easily enough.  To enter the Rift, all we have to do is not fight the resistance, and let it pull us into the Rift.  However, once we’re there, I suspect that we will be forced to follow the rules of the Rift.  We won’t be able to leave until we pass the test as normal.”

	“As we though, it is a trap then,” Tal growled.  “Well, let’s go in and get this over with.”

	After a day or so of preparation, the party was ready to see if this Rift was really as bad as it sounded.  “Are you sure you don’t know anything about the test itself?” Tal asked.

	Danae shook her head.  “It’s been years since the last person who entered the Rift returned, so they were either killed in the Rift or on the planes beyond it.  And the Rift’s test apparently changes over time, so any information I have would be unreliable anyway.”

	With that, she and Bath prepared to take the party off-plane, and as the resistance of the Rift closed around them, they relaxed their focus, letting the Rift take them in.  They found themselves in a massive room with walls covered completely with large mirrors.  Immediately, they began to investigate the room.  They found what looked like a door easily enough, but the mirrors were just too intriguing to ignore entirely.  For one thing, a couple of them weren’t showing their reflections!  Instead, a group of people that looked like humanoids made out of mirrors were watching the party from those mirrors, and occasionally were scribbling notes about them in little books.  

	This last effect seemed to irritate Wong in particular, who has been quiet ever since the start of this mission.  “What are you doing” he yelled at the mirrors, which only made the mirror creatures scribble in their books fasters.  “Stop writing about me!” he continued.   He finally got so frustrated that he punched one of the mirrors, causing it to shatter.  However, as he stood over it, panting with anger, the pieces slowly floated back onto the wall, forming the mirror again.  Soon, it was good as new, and the mirror creatures were back inside the mirror, same as always.

	“Wong, we can figure this out later.  We have to get going,” Tal said with exasperation, as he investigated the door, but that was proving to be harder than expected.  It didn’t seem to have any handle or knob, so he had now obvious way of even opening it.  However, when he touched the surface of the door, it rippled as if it was liquid.  Realizing that this was the way in, he called out to the rest of the party, “Over here!”  Carefully, each one stepped through the door and further into the rift.

	Beyond the portal door, the party found themselves in another large room, though the walls seemed to be a more solid blue color here.  More troubling was the group of creatures waiting for them.  The note that The Blade of Minds left (or Tesserill, as the note named her) suggested that they just teleport to her location at the end of the Rift, but she never knew that the party had previously used a system to bypass the Rift, and now had to fight their way through it as normal.  And because Bath never told the party at large what the note said, just the general information, they didn’t know that Tesserill expected them to bypass the guards in the first place.  Therefore, when they saw the Cerebrilith demon, the golden creature (called a Rilmani,) a giant bird with strange eyes that looked like insect hives, and a floating, slug-like creature of massive proportions, they assumed that Tesserill set her guards up here to kill or weaken the party before their fight, and responded accordingly.  In other words, with violence.


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## LordVyreth (Feb 21, 2005)

*Semi-Planar Rift: Getting the Lay of the Lands*

As the two groups closed for combat, Danae was the first to respond aggressively.  She fired a ball of flames at the floating slug creature, only for it to suddenly vanish a few feet from the creature’s body.  “It has some kind of anti-magic field!” she gasped.

	Meanwhile, the hive bird was nearly as fast, and a swarm of insects surrounded Danae, distracting her and making her spells harder to cast.  The psionic demon was also quick to respond, but as he charged at the party, a righteously furious Bath crashed into him and began to slice at him with unrelenting force.  Wong went after the gold man while Tal assisted with long range spells, and Robin flew up to engage the hive bird.  Xalem, as he typically did in these situations, looked confused and tried to heal the others whenever he had a chance.

	Robin, it turned out, made the biggest mistake at first.  By flying right at the bird, he just became its most obvious target, and it easily flew at him and snatched him in one massive claw.  Tal tried to help his friend, so the bird casually whirled around and snatched him up in the other claw!  In the meantime, Bath had defeated the demon with almost no effort, but when she turned to help Wong fight the gold man, it didn’t turn out as well.  Though the gold man’s weaponry struck her with the full force of both chaos and evil, he didn’t appear to be evil or chaotic himself, and whenever Bath tried to strike at him with her blade, a suit of full plate armor instantly materialized around him, making him very hard to even wound.

	Danae, meanwhile, was busy dealing with the bird, since it had already neutralized a third of the party and was firing insects at Xalem with force greater than the strongest arrows.  However, she had to bob and weave to evade the swarm following her as she did so, but a wizard as experienced as her could easily focus her mind to ignore a few insect bites.  She hurled first fire and then electricity at the bird, until it screeched in pain and dropped its victims to claw more viciously at this new thread.  However, Robin barely got a chance to stand up before suffering a worst fate.  The slug monster wasn’t just watching the fight this whole time.  It was a psionic creature as well, and thus could penetrate its own anti-magic field to bombard its foes with power.  It was striking Robin with massive concussive forces every chance that it could, and now that its wounded foe was free, it could finish the job.  It implanted an alternate psionic reality in Robin’s mind, trapping him in a state of perpetual bliss.  Normally, Robin would be strong enough to fight such a force, but he was just too weak at this point from the blasts and the effect of the claws, and his mind was easily entrapped.

	Bath and Wong had managed to nearly finish the gold man when he simply smiled and used his magical powers to completely heal himself!  “Okay, that’s it!” Bath yelled, and she flew off to fight the flying slug.  As soon as she got close, she felt all of her magical power drain from her, but she could fly naturally, so she was unconcerned.  Even without its magical enhancements, her blade was able to easily slice into the monster.  However, when the creature was able to respond to its new threat, it was able to swat at Bath with a number of monstrous tentacles with equal ease, now that the magic of her armor was gone.  

	Back on the ground, Wong was forced to deal with the gold man by himself.  He was worried for a moment, but he sighed with relief when he saw that Tal and Danae had finally finished off the bird.  His relief abruptly ended, however, when he saw that its body was crashing directly towards him!  He tried to flee, but couldn’t escape in time.  The body of the massive creature crashed on top of him, and while he barely survived the impact, he was unable to crawl out from under it.

	Tal moved to help Wong while Danae turned her attention to the gold man and started to rain deadly magic on him.  In the air, meanwhile, the slug managed to grapple Bath with its tentacles, and then swallowed her completely!  This proved to be far less effective than the creature thought, however, since Bath was totally immune to the creature’s stomach acids.  She took out a dagger and began to cut through the creature’s belly, doing almost as much as she was when she was fighting the creature from the outside!

	Finally, both the slug and the gold man had enough.  Now heavily outnumbered, and with Xalem using his healing magic to undo the damage they inflicted earlier, they fled.  The way that they vanished, however, was very unusual.  Instead of the normal teleportation effects, it was as if they walked behind invisible walls and never emerged.  Bath even appeared out of nowhere as the slug slowly disappeared.

	With the foes taken care of, at least for now, the party was free to explore the room more carefully.  At the far end of the room, there were three pillars that each contained some sort of container or vessel: an earthen mug, an animal skull formed into a bowl, and a jeweled chalice adorned with what looked like pictures of the party on it!  There was also a mural on the far wall which contained a poem.  It read:

The Riddle of the Rift

Every beginning requires an ending; every birth a death; every celebration a tragedy.  Before you are the dead remains of past worlds, realities that expired, much as a living being does.  Some still hold the souls of their survivors, trapped in their new, endless afterlife, while others are simply bereft of life.  Exploring new worlds requires the responsibility of knowing the fate of worlds that fail, and indeed of all worlds with time.  All save one, perhaps.  

Take the vessel of land, made of the elements of the world and filled with the breath of creation.  Take it to the land between the world of blighted nature and the world of terrain made into industry, and speak the words “The breath of the living beckons you to come forth.”  The first challenge shall call for you there, a monstrosity of angry nature, come to life.

Take the vessel of lost life, carved from a being as great and noble as you are now, and look from the world of those trapped by bliss to the entrance of this rift.  Travel in that direction until you find the loyal fools, doomed to die for their masters until they gain redemption, and then turn left, and travel through the worlds in this direction as far as you can go.  Speak the words, “The beating heart of those who live has an offering.”  The second challenge, angry at the destruction of worlds he himself helped destroy, will summon thee.

Take the vessel of shadows from here to the world where the restless dead give escape to all by themselves, and then to the world where the angry living impart the same gift, with the same consequences.  Say to the realm “My soul is cleaned, I am prepared.”  However, this vessel begins empty.  Before these words have meaning, the vessel must be filled.  When your shadows first seek you out, you must be willing to come to them.  After one of your own visits this world and returns, one way or the other, use him or her as a guide for the rest of  thee, and cleanse your souls of the shadows.  This shall fill the vessel.  Seek the end of this final path, and when your shadows have no more power, the way to freedom shall be revealed.

	“What does all this mean?” Robin asked.

	Danae peered at it for a moment, then sighed and shrugged.  “I have no clue.  I guess we can figure it out better once we’ve explored this place a bit.”

	With that, the group traveled through a door at the far end of the room, and found themselves in a hallway.  The walls are completely mirrored, just like they were in the entrance room.  There were three doors on the far wall, but before the party considered which one to go through, they were curious about another feature in the room.   It was filled with clocks of all kinds.  Bath, as usual, was the first to have the courage to actually do anything to them.  She looked carefully at a clock, found a button on it, and pushed it without hesitation!  Immediately, everyone in the room felt unbearably tired, and fell unconscious.  Even Bath, who normally doesn’t need sleep, felt too tired to keep her eyes open.  And so, as the party slept, they began to dream…

	In the dreams, all the characters were forced to answer a question.  They had to decide what is would they choose, uncertain death or a life of imprisonment.  Those that selected uncertain death wound up in what appeared to be a dark forest.  Those that chose imprisonment found themselves in a massive prison.  Fortunately, they were not in one of the cells, but the people in the cells were shouting and pleading at them in the hope that the party would release them.  As for Wong, he didn’t appear at all.  It was as if the Rift had swallowed him up.

	And so began the wanderings of the party, as they struggled to find each other, only to get split up and lost further with time.  As they wandered, they found that the majority of the Rift consisted of nine little micro-worlds and a hallway between every set of worlds.

	The first world, the forest world, appeared to be a forest of the dead.  Ghostly souls wandered freely throughout it.  Though the clearing the party started in was safe, walking through the rest of the forest slowly drained away their life force.  Fortunately, the way to safety could be found by tracking some of the souls to a series of doors, which each led out of the forest in a different direction.

	The prison seemed almost as endless.  The prisoners, if their information could be trusted, made themselves immortal, but their civilization died anyway due to warfare.  The only survivors, ironically, were the prisoners like those in this world.  Exploring the prison was hazardous, as it was filled with traps, but the prisoners knew the way out.  It was just a matter of knowing which ones could be trusted.

	Another world was made of little but an ocean of a toxic fluid.  The remains of a city, which was apparently destroyed by the sea, occasionally pokes out of the sea, and crossing these ruins was the only way to the next set of doors.  Of course, since so many members of the party could fly at this point, there was little danger in this realm.

	Similarly, another world was nothing but a massive tree that was at least miles high.  It appeared to be warped and twisted, and now was full of spikes and thorns.  Climbing it was possible, if risky, but fliers made short work of this obstacle as well. 

	A more dangerous obstacle was found in a more mechanical world.  The party found themselves in what appeared to be the interior of a massive machine, though the part they were in was more like a massive, transparent tube that served as a hallway.  The doorways to escape were within sight, but the rest of the tube was flooded, forcing the party to make a difficult swim through the water to escape.  A few of the less physical members of the party were forced to get help from the local wildlife, a form of reptilian sea-horse that could be ridden to the doorways.

	The next world was a desert, and the numerous craters that cover the ground suggested this world was destroyed by massive warfare.  Strange metal things floated above the desert, sweeping it with searchlights.  Not eager to find out what would happen if the lights caught them, the party carefully crossed the desert, using magic and their own stealthy ability to stay hidden.

	Another world appeared to be entirely underground, and was made out of tunnels carved out of solid stone.  Somehow, much of the stonework appeared to form some sort of massive mechanical machine powered by steam, and the party had to carefully evade massive superheated geysers, stone valves and pistons to escape.  

	The last two worlds were slightly stranger.  The first appeared to be a bar of infinite size.  The party found themselves just outside of it, and had to find the way out within the bar.  This wasn’t easy, as the patrons weren’t very helpful, and the place seemed to have a draining effect on the minds of those inside it, reducing them to drooling nitwits in a matter of hours.

	The last one looked a little like a standard image of hell, complete with fire, slightly cavernous surroundings, and demonic artwork.  The only exceptions were the inhabitants: a race of strange, demonic penguins that were blocking the way out.  Talking to them was frustrating, especially since they had an odd habit of ending everything they said with the word “dood,” but fighting them proved to be even more of a mistake.  The first time the party tried that, the penguins tried advancing, tripped all over themselves, and immediately self-destructed when they hit the ground!  It left the party alive but very injured, and they wisely retreated while they could.

	As they traveled, the party discovered a few other noteworthy individuals that appeared to be fellow travelers in the Rift as opposed to the trapped natives.  A few were even familiar faces.  These include Quercus, who was trapped in the desert ever since he left the plane to find his father.  Also here was Zethar, the young eladrin that journeyed with the party briefly before suffering a brief and violent death.  After being risen from the dead, he left to determine if he was really ready to help the party, and was trapped here.  Another celestial was found in the bar, though he was a Solar, the most powerful of the celestial races.  Bath was in the group that first found him, and insisted that a fellow celestial be given the chance to escape this trap.  Finally, there was Theaven, a powerful druid who was separated from his own adventuring party when they tried to escape the Rift themselves.  He’s been searching ever since, but since he hasn’t found them yet, he’s pretty sure they were killed, so is happy escaping with the party.

	Eventually, the party, along with their four new friends, reunited.  Now that they understood the place a little better, the puzzle began to make more sense.  “That first part should be pretty easy to figure out by now,” Danae pondered as she again led the conversation.  She looked over a rough map that went over the relative position of all the worlds.  She pointed at the world with the warped tree.  “Now, if this is blighted nature, and this,” she pointed to the world of the stone machine, “Is the terrain made into industry, then the space between it should be where we speak that invocation.  And that location is the desert of warfare.”

	The plan established, the party made their way in that direction, and then spoke in unison, “The breath of the living beckons you to come forth.”  Suddenly, they began to sink through the very ground.  Quercus and the other celestials remained behind, apparently because they weren’t part of the test the party began, but surprisingly, Theaven was allowed to travel with them, as if he took the place for the absent Wong.  They sank further until the world they came from disappeared completely, and they prepared to face the first great challenge of the Rift.

	OOC: That fight at the start of this section was another one that took forever.  Between the hard to hit self-healing enemy, the enemy in the anti-magic sphere, and much of the party being immobilized at any point, progress was slow.

	I was also a little worried about recapping the main areas of the Rift as well.  The party wandered them for a large part of a couple sessions, and it was too long since I played this part to remember who was where and in what order.  Thus, I just summarized the area in general.

	The penguins in the last area are called Prinnies, and are from the humorous Playstation 2 tactical RPG Disgaea.  They don’t really play a large role in this plotline or other recent ones, but I liked the game so much that I wanted to toss them in somewhere.


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## LordVyreth (Feb 28, 2005)

*The Semiplanar Rift: The First Two Challenges*

When the party finally landed, they were in a new realm entirely.  They were standing on a massive plateau.  It was impossible to tell how tall it was, because they appeared to be in the middle of a storm and nothing but clouds could be seen in any direction.  As they were examining their immediate surroundings, however, a massive storm cloud separated from the general strata 200 feet away and charged at the plateau and the party at high speed!  The party quickly realized that either the cloud was hiding the first challenge or the cloud itself was the challenge and moved to intercept it.

	Danae was the first to react.  She fired a massive fireball at the cloud, and it seemed to be effective.  However, when Robin followed through with a volley of arrows, about half of them passed through the cloud harmlessly!  Realizing the danger this cloud posed, he ordered his animal companion, a raptor named Rex, to go into hiding.  Tal fired his own magic into the cloud, but it too seemingly had no effect.  Before the others could react, the cloud had floated into the middle of the plateau and attacked!

	The cloud, which was later discovered to be a creature called a Thunder Worm, initially attacked by generating a massive thunderbolt within its body, then releasing it outward in a shockwave of sonic energy and electricity.  This attack alone was enough to nearly kill half the party, with Xalem and Theaven in particular being heavily injured by the blast.  Theaven retreated a bit to begin healing, while Xalem focused on healing the others to the point where he was neglecting his own health.  

	After the initial thunderclap, the party set upon the cloud from all sides, but while the fight was simple, it was brutal.  The cloud itself was nearly impossible to dissipate, especially since only half of everything done to it even seemed to affect it.  Meanwhile, the cloud moved among the party, engulfing them inside its body and pummeling them with lesser strikes of lightning and sonic booms.  Finally, they nearly finished it, but as they were ready to finish it, it began to charge a second thunderclap!  The party looked at each other with panic in their eyes.  Between Xalem’s original injuries, which still remained untreated, and the damage the others took since the start of the fight, it was unlikely they would survive another blast of this source.  As the creature was nearly ready to fire, salvation seemed to come from the most unlikely of sources: Rex.  Though ordered to hide, it instead chose to try and save its master, and leapt onto the cloud.  However, it leapt right through it, with none of its attacks connecting!  Just as all hope seemed lost, however, Xalem shocked the entire party by attacking the creature!  The holy energy he rained down on the creature was enough to finally stop it.  As they looked at Xalem, he looked a little embarrassed but said, “Don’t worry, it was non-lethal damage.  I couldn’t let it hurt you farther, but there was no reason to kill it.”

	“Is that so?” Theaven asked, as he finished the unconscious creature off with one blow!  As the creature died, the plateau and clouds seemed to disappear, and the party returned to the desert they disappeared from.

	“Why did you do that?” Xalem shouted.  “It could do no further harm to us!”

	“We had no choice!” Theaven responded.  “Didn’t you notice that we escaped that place only after I killed the beast?  It was obvious that the challenge wouldn’t be over while that creature still lived.  Besides, it was just a test spawned by the Rift.  It was probably purely artificial, and the Rift could easily revive it or make another.”

	“That’s not the point,” Xalem protested.  “My friends respect my wish to avoid killing the harmless.  They wouldn’t have killed the creature so quickly and with so little thought and remorse.”

	“Well, don’t consider me your friend, then,” Theaven replied.  “I’m only here with you so we can mutually escape this death trap.  After that, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

	The discussion, at least for now, was over, and the party decided to return to the hallway and rest, despite the risks resting brings in this place.  After another set of dreams and some navigating through the rooms of the Rift to reunite, the party planned their next move.

	Also, Bath noticed something interesting.  “I think that Solar is starting to heal!” she said, pointing at their new, mostly incoherent friend.  And indeed, the effects of the tavern appeared to be wearing off.  He was still unable to talk or act on his own, but there was a little more surety in his steps, a little more intelligence behind his eyes.

	Xalem pondered this.  “You know, I think I can magically speed his healing process.  He might be able to explain who he is and why he’s here.”  After the others agreed, he used magic to restore the Solar’s mind and soul.

	The effect was immediate.  The Solar suddenly looked around with clarity in his eyes, and instantly the realization of what he did struck him.  “Oh, what have I done?” he asked.  “Who knows how many years I wasted in that trap?”

	Quercus, sensing something familiar about him, asked, “Excuse me, sir?  We were wondering who you are and what you were doing here.”

	The Solar sighed and said, “Well, you seem to be the ones responsible for saving me.  I suppose I owe you at least some answers in exchange.  My name is Galatron.  Years ago, I first came to this plane with the woman I loved.  She was a servant of an evil goddess, a humanoid tainted by her demonic nature, but she revolted with my guidance.  She chose to live a life of peace and benevolence, and I was granted leave to be with her.  We soon began a family.  Our daughter was a beautiful creature, but she possessed both my divine nature and the demonic powers of her mother.  Still, we did our best to raise her to be a good creature, until the…incident.”  With that, the Solar choked back a sob.  It was obvious, even years later, that remembering this hurt him.  

	Quercus, however, was starting to realize who this was.  “Your daughter, would she be named Shekuldellstra?”

	Galatron looked surprised and nodded.  “Why, yes she is.  Have you heard of her?  Please, tell me what happened to her!”

	But Quercus shook his head.  “First, tell me the rest of your story.  What happened after the…incident?  And don’t worry about explaining it in detail; I think I know what happened, though we don’t know what evil caused it.”

	Galatron replied, “Sadly, neither do I.  The attack just came out of no where.  One moment, we were a happy family, and the next…well, you said you knew.  After my wife died, I felt like I had little reason to remain on this world, but I felt I had to do something to help the world after living in it for so long.  I decided to create another half-celestial child to one day become a leader in the world, and possibly to one day oppose my daughter if she turned evil without our guidance.  However, the plan was a failure.  Not only did the elven woman who agreed to bear my child die during childbirth, but my son, Quercus, was a stillborn.  He too was dead.  After this second tragedy, I couldn’t bear to remain on this plane any longer.  I fled, but was caught in this trap when I left.  I have been here ever since.”

	Quercus, shocked to hear about his own history and that he should apparently be dead, was about to speak up and tell his dad the truth when Danae put her hand on his shoulder and shook her head.  She turned to the Solar and said, “Galatron, we should get going to complete the second challenge.  There’s something that I need to speak with…my associate about, but he’ll return here after I am done.  Can you and Zethar wait for us here?”

	Galatron nodded, and the group left the hallway they had regrouped in.  “What was that about?” Quercus demanded.  “Why won’t you let me tell him that I am his son?”

	“You can if you want, but before you do, we should try to figure out why he thought you were dead.  I believe that your very existence, and perhaps that of the rest of us,” she said, as she indicated herself, Tal, and Robin, but not Theaven, Xalem, or Bath, “is owed directly to our mysterious guide.”

	“Lady Memory?” Quercus guessed, and Danae nodded.

	“I believe that somehow, she altered reality so that we lived, and made it seem to the rest of the world that we always were alive.  However, I suspect that before that dream we all had years ago, we didn’t really exist.  That’s why your father still remembers you being dead.  He wasn’t on this plane of existence when we came into being, so he wouldn’t have been affected by the memory modifications.”

	“But what should I do?  I can’t just lie to my father now that I found him!”

	“Tell him what you want.” Danae said.  “I just wanted you to be aware of the situation before you said anything.   To be honest, I don’t really know what to think about any of this.  Once all of this is finally over, I expect to spend a long time figuring it out, but surviving this place is our first objective.  If you want, you can return to your father and Zethar now.  We have to figure out the second riddle.”

	After staring at the riddle for a while, Tal nodded and said, “I think I got it.  The world of those trapped by bliss is obviously the tavern, so we have to go there, and then walk towards the first hallway we entered from the room with the puzzle.  From there, we probably have to go that world with the demon penguin things, since I think they’re the loyal fools, especially with that doomed to die thing.  From there, we turn left, and go as far as we can, which leads us to that ruined city with the acid ocean.  If we say the words there, we should be fine.”

	After a brief discussion, the others agreed, and the party began the now-routine task of wandering the worlds.  As expected by now, they reached the acid world with ease, and after uttering the words “The beating heart of those who live have an offering,” they were again pulled out of the world and into a new battlefield.

	It was a ruined city, much like the one the acid oceans had overrun, but this one was dry and the remains of the buildings were more solid.  Once again, the threat arrived just as the party was getting its bearings, but this one could be heard before it could be seen.  Footsteps like earthquakes reverberated all around them, until a creature the size one of the ruined buildings stepped out from behind a particularly large pile of debris.  It looked vaguely like a typical Chimera, but it was at least ten times its size and was far more powerful looking.  The lion’s eyes glowed red, as if lit with an internal fire, and acid constantly dripped from the dragon head.  As the party members came into view, all three heads turned to watch them, and with a deafening triple roar, it charged right at them!

	Robin was quick to react.  Afraid to get anywhere near such a massive creature, he began to pepper it with arrows, but when Tal tried to follow through with a magical ray, it harmlessly dissipated when up against its field of resistance.  As he tried to figure out what to do about this, a more courageous (and reckless) Bath happily flew up closer to engage the creature in melee, only to be crushed in the massive jaws of the lion head.  Her angelic might kept her alive and relatively strong after the bite, but she wasn’t prepared when the creature then spit her out, sending her flying to the ground some thirty feet away.  Clearly, she realized, closing with this creature will be harder than she expected.  

	Danae, Xalem, and Theaven meanwhile prepared to assist the party with magic.  Danae’s own offensive spells managed to get through much more easily, but it was still not nearly enough to stop the creature.  Xalem meanwhile began to prepare defensive magic to aid the party while Theaven noticed the dark and overcast sky, and prepared to emulate the last challenge by creating a lightning storm.  However, as they prepared their attacks, the creature was ready to fight back.  It first tried keeping its distance as well, and instead fired the fiery eye rays the lion head possessed at Bath and Robin.  Both were partially immolated by the powerful rays, but neither attack proved lethal.

	As Robin resumed firing at the beast, Tal had an idea.  He recently gained a spell that let him partially break down the magical resistance of creatures, and used it to make the creature accessible to his magic more often.  Theaven took advantage of this by firing the first of many lightning bolts at the creature, but Danae was getting a little nervous about how close the creature was getting and erected a prismatic sphere to protect herself.  Bath tried getting close again, but again was forced back by the creature’s blows.  After so many injuries, she chose to heal herself and figure out a new plan.

	Meanwhile, the beast was again closer, and this time it breathed a cone of acid at as much of the party as it could.  Once again, however, it wasn’t enough to fatally harm anyone, and Xalem was there to help.  This volley of distance attacks continued from both sides for a while, and the chimera managed to even throw its goat horns like a boomerang at one point!  Finally, though, Danae tired of this nonsense.  Realizing the creature was even dumber than most chimeras, it created a wall of force to block it in, and when Bath realized what Danae did, she smiled.  When the creature finally realized it was being blocked by an invisible wall and tried to find a way around it, Bath was waiting for it, and carefully squeezed in between the wall and the creature.

	No longer able force Bath back, the chimera was forced to engage her directly in melee.  Even so, and despite Bath’s skin that blocked damage from all sources but the purest of evil, it was a fierce battle.  As hard as Bath normally was to hit, to the massive creature’s two bites, goat’s horns, and paws, she was as fragile as a paper doll.  Her sword, on the other hand, was capable of doing just as much damage to the monster, and with healing from Xalem and magical and missile assistance from the rest of the party, it was finally brought down.  Again the party faced one of the Rift’s challenges, and again they returned victorious.  This next one, however, appeared to be different.  The riddle mentioned that they had to fill the last vessel before it could be used, yet the vessel was empty.  How could they finish this last challenge if they didn’t know how to even start it?

	OOC Notes: Okay, I want to make something clear.  I didn’t see Buffy’s fifth season before I made this campaign.  That being said, I do admit there were a lot of coincidental similarities so far.  The whole Shekuldellstra thing was similar enough to Glory that one of my players commented on it, and now I’ve gone and made most of the PCs into Dawn.  It seemed so original when I first planned it.   

	Kari-Lasti-Null, the chimera challenge, came courtesy of the Kaiju template from an earlier Dragon magazine article.  To describe it simply, it’s the Godzilla template.  It’s very fun, and I highly recommend it if you have a high level party and the issue containing it.


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## Neurotic (Mar 6, 2005)

HAARRGH!! I'M BACK!  Sorry for screaming, our ISP locked all our outgoing lines, we couldn't call or use Internet for some time now  All because some beaurocrat forgot to send us a bill.

Story: I have some ideas, but I won't post it. Besides I'm not sure and don't have time enought to read back several chapters to be sure. You made quite an update. Or maybe I just didn't read for some time 

I look forward to the big ending...


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## LordVyreth (Mar 8, 2005)

*Semi-Planar Rift: The Shadow! The Shadow? The Shadow.*

Before worrying too much about the third challenge, the party decided to rest for the night.  After all, the battle against the supremely powerful chimera had taken a lot out of all of them, and if they had to face another challenge like that the next day, it would be better to be prepared for it.  They went to the nearest mirrored hallway and again used the clock to make a day pass, letting them recover their magic.  Tomorrow, they would find the solution, they thought.  However, it turned out the solution would find them that evening!

	Or at least it found two of them.  When Xalem and Bath both woke up with a start, and when they found the party after the usual sub-world exploration routine, they explained that they both had the strangest dream, and that both of their dreams were identical!  “I felt like I was about to be attacked by my own evil self,” an exhausted Bath explained. 

	Xalem looked troubled and clarified.  “It was worse than that, actually.  I felt my own shadow wretch away from my body, taking a little piece of me with it.  It was about to attack me when I woke up.  I still feel like part of me is missing,” he continued, as he glanced around.  As soon as he looked into a mirror, however, he froze and shouted, “There he is!”

	The others looked at the mirror he was pointing at, and saw that Xalem wasn’t being reflected in it!  Instead, there appeared to be a mad berserker that looked disturbingly like Xalem.  Similarly, a strange monster stared back at Bath.  It looked like a unicorn, but it was larger than normal and had numerous snake heads in addition to its normal unicorn head.  

	“Well, I think we know what we have to fight to fill that last vessel,” Danae comments.

	“But how to we actually get there?” Xalem asks despairingly.  “They’re on the other side of the mirror.”

	“Why don’t you try walking through the mirror?” Tal asked.  “That’s how we left that first room, after all.

	Bath and Xalem both looked doubtful, but tried passing a hand through each of their mirrors anyway.  Surprisingly (to everyone but Tal,) their hands passed right through.  Even he was shocked when both of them were violently pulled into their mirrors, however!

	Suddenly separated from the party and each other, Bath and Xalem were forced to fight their shadow clones alone.  For Bath, this was fairly easily even in the weakened state she was left in after the shadow stole her power.  A few quick strikes of her blade later, the beast was defeated and she was again at full power and returned safely home.  Xalem, however, had a more difficult time of it.  After all, he was dedicated to nonviolence, which greatly limited his options when fighting a frenzied, frothing mad version of himself!  However, he had an idea.  He couldn’t directly attack him, but some of his spells would cause others to be harmed if they continued their attacks, making it self-inflicted.  After preparing one of those spells on the berserker, he simply allowed himself to be hurt and healed himself whenever possible until the berserker finally collapsed, freeing Xalem as well.  

	After the two returned, healthy but still confused about what to do next, Tal took out the chalice.  “It looks like it’s only a little filled,” he said with disappointment.  Maybe we all need to fight our shadows.”

	Danae groaned.  “That could take forever; we still don’t know what finally got Bath and Xalem to produce shadows.  Maybe they’re the only ones who can even do it.  After all, they’re the most obvious examples of good, so it makes sense that they would create evil clones.”

	Tal took out a copy of the clue and tried to figure out if they were missing something.  Finally, he shouted “Aha!”

	“You got something?” a confused Robin asked.

	“I think so.  It says that after the first of us fought the shadow, he or she could be used as a guide for the rest of us.  Maybe Bath and Xalem could lead us through the mirror?”

	They decided to give it a try, so they joined hands with Bath and Xalem taking the lead.  The line of heroes passed again through the mirror and ended up in the same barren realm that Xalem and Bath already experienced.  As soon as they arrived, Tal, Robin, Theaven, and Danae had the same sense of losing their own shadows and a part of their life force with it, and their opposites took shape.  Tal’s was a storm of elemental emerging that was seemingly composed of equal parts fire, water, air, and earth.  Theaven’s was a frost giant of immense power and dark wisdom.  Robin had a giant, flying, manta ray-like creature, but it seemed warped and twisted in the same way the creatures from Roivas Manor did.  Finally, Danae created a Bookwyrm like the ones fought in the Ancient Library and The Nightmare Prince’s Manor, but it was much larger and had two heads.  The four prepared to attack their creators, but this time, Bath and Xalem were there to give the party a distinct advantage.  

	Initially, everybody went after their own shadow in an attempt to regain their lost life force.  Meanwhile, Bath started by helping Theaven fight the frost giant and Xalem went back on healing duty.  Tal and Danae fired magic, Robin tried to keep his distance to avoid the sanity-draining gaze of the creature while firing arrows, and Theaven entered melee with Bath.  Unsurprisingly, the giant was the first to fall, but before Theaven and Bath could move to help their friends, the others monsters began to wreak havoc on the group as a whole.  Danae’s Dread, the bookwyrm, summoned three books to rotate around it, gaining additional strength and the aid of a fictional warrior and wizard who were made slightly real.  It also launched its powerful breath at the party, causing Danae to lose any magical preparations she made before the fight and sonically damaging Robin with one head’s breath, and using the other to strike Theaven and Bath.  Fortunately, Bath was able to resist the effects, but Theaven’s mind was partially disrupted, leaving him in a state of confusion for the rest of the fight.  Meanwhile, Tal’s Terror began to rip through the unfortunate sorcerer, and Robin’s Regret flew close enough to begin sucking away at his mind while simultaneous biting him.  His massive jaw clamped around him, trapping Robin as the creature prepared to swallow the ranger.

	Despite Tal and Robin’s dilemmas, the rest of the party decided that the Bookwyrm was the most serious threat, and Bath charged at the creature while Danae destroyed it and its books with a spell and Xalem provided magical support.  Since the creature was a construct, Xalem felt no need to worry about preserving its artificial life, and with offensive support from Xalem as well, the creature was quickly destroyed.

	Of course, while they were finishing the Bookwyrm, two of their own were in greater danger.  Tal was barely holding on against Tal’s Terror, and Robin was now swallowed by Robin’s Regret, not to mention being driven half-mad by the beast.  Xalem moved to heal Tal while Bath, who was immune to mind-affecting effects and thus had nothing to fear from the creature’s gaze, charged the Regret while Danae began to fire upon it with magic.  It tried attacking Bath, but it soon found that she was no where near as easy a target as Robin was, and it was soon chopped to bits, freeing the unfortunate ranger.

	This left only Tal’s Terror, but now that it was outnumbered six to one (whenever Theaven was lucid enough to help,) the end was inevitable.  The powerful creature was soon whittled down to nothingness, and with Tal’s shadow destroyed along with the others, the party was returned to the semi-normal part of the Rift.  

	All that remained now was figuring out the last riddle, passing the last challenge, and then finding The Blade of Minds.  Danae shrugged after reading the riddle and said, “This is getting too easy.  The restless deads’ land is that forest with the spirits that lead us to the end, and the angry living must be that immortals’ prison.”

	After another rest and regrouping from the dream-based shifts, the group met at the forest, traveled to the prison from there, and spoke the final incantation, “My soul is cleansed; I am prepared.”  Again, the party felt themselves sinking into a new realm, but this time, they were not in the realm of a challenger.  They were in another mirrored room, and were surrounded by a half dozen hideous beasts, creatures, and monsters.  

As they all began to converge on the party, Tal realized who these creatures were: more guardians of the realm; set up by Bas to prevent others from escaping the plane.  Unlike the ones fought earlier in the foyer, they were not tied to the Blade of Minds’ church, but seemed to be servants of the other three sects.  Before the party could even determine what half of them are, the guardians leapt into battle!

OOC Notes: Glad to see you again Neurotic.  I might still be a bit away from the campaign conclusion, but I am at least almost caught up!  Hopefully, that means that the SHs might be more detailed, since I don't have to rush to catch up and the details of what happened will be more fresh in my mind.  Let me know when you finished the updates since your previous post, and what you think so far.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 21, 2005)

*Semiplanar Rift: Things don't go according to plan.*

The party quickly tried to figure out exactly what they were fighting as the battle began.  There were six enemies, and each was unique and very powerful in its own way.  The first was perhaps the most terrifying: it was a beholder, one of the most dangerous and bizarre creatures known to exist.  Its reputation as a walking arsenal of magic was well known, and to make matters worse, this one appeared to be unusually large for its kind!  Next, there was a huge woman.  She had some sort of black rocky hide, a pair of wings that ended in sharp blades, and a scythe for one hand, and her overall appearance was very diabolical.

	The neutral evil sect was represented by a strange black insect creature.  It was wearing some sort of mask that hid its face.  The other creature was also a bipedal insect, but it looked more like a soldier compared to the more flimsy, academic appearance of the first bug.  The chaotic sect, finally, was represented by two more well-known creatures.  There was a marilith, the infamous demon with six arms and the lower body of a snake; and an umberhulk, though the umberhulk was larger and armed with much better equipment than its kind usually have.

	Both sides quickly moved to gain any advantage they could, and Tal was the first to react.  He decided to attack the more arcane-looking insect and fired a green disintegration ray at the creature. The ray caught the creature right on the chest, causing it to wail unearthly screams.  Meanwhile, Danae and Robin realized their greatest threat was the beholder, and began to pummel it with both magic and arrows.  However, the beholder was also quick to react, and mere moments after Xalem began to give the party enhancing magic, the beholder opened its center eye, draining nearly the entire party of their protections.  It then unleashed its many eye rays on Theaven, Bath, and Robin, since they were outside of the antimagic effect.  Fortunately, the rays had only minor effects, but the party knew enough about such creatures to realize that their luck would soon run out!
Meanwhile, the blade woman, who the party later learned was a devil called an ashmede, advanced on the party.  She began her attack against Theaven, but soon learned the hard way that while Bath normally considered killing demons to be a priority, any evil fiend would work in a pinch!  She began to slice the devil to bits while Theaven moved to help her, just as the rest of the villains made their move.  Both the warrior insect (a yugoloth known as a mezzoloth) and the umberhulk suddenly worked themselves into violent outbursts, though the mezzoloth’s was more like a battle fury than the typical mindless rage.  The yugoloth began to attack Tal while the umberhulk start to attack Danae.  Meanwhile, the arcane insect (called an ethergaunt) quickly cast two spells.  It first sent waves of strength-draining negative energy against everyone in the party that managed to evade the antimagic cone, and then fired another negative energy ray at Robin that drained much of his life force.  Finally, the marilith used less subtle tactics.  She merely began to slither towards Robin, intent on slashing him to bits with her many swords.

Despite the many threats around them, the party quickly realized the beholder had to be stopped.  With its antimagic cone, the party was without the benefits of its magical equipment, making them easy targets for the less item-focused enemies.  Besides, the longer the creature lived, the more likely someone would finally fall victim to one of its more deadly eye beams.  Tal and Danae carefully escaped the cone of antimagic to fire at the creature with their most powerful magic, while Robin attacked it with arrows despite their decreased effectiveness within the cone.  Bath and the ashmede continued to concentrate on each other, but Theaven also broke off the fight to help finish the creature.  With a few words, fire rained down from above, incinerating the wounded creature at last.  One down, five to go!

Of course, with their intent focus on the beholder, the mezzoloth, marilith, and umberhulk were able to freely rip into Tal, Robin, and Danae, and Robin was unlucky enough to be twisted up in the serpent woman’s tail.  He struggled futilely as the demon laughed and began to shred him with her half-dozen swords.  At the same time, the ethergaunt rained more magic down on the party.  He sent a slightly weaker life-draining ray at Bath, but she was able to dissipate its effects with her inherent magic.  The creature was not discouraged, however, and tried to suck the very moisture from her body.  This had slightly more of an effect, but the angel still stood her ground.

While Xalem desperately tried to keep his wounded allies healthy, Tal backed away from the mezzoloth and helped Danae focus on her enemy, since the creature’s great strength and ability to confuse its enemies was his first concern.  Bath finally finished off the ashmede and was about to turn to fight the marilith when she saw Danae get struck by the umberhulk.  The blow was almost lethal, and as bad as Robin was doing at the moment, she sighed and charged the umberhulk.  The demon would have to wait.

Theaven quickly maneuvered to block the mezzoloth, and was rewarded by being ganged up on by the ethergaunt and his fellow insectoid.  The ethergaunt was sick of fooling around and fired a dark ray at the druid that was designed to snuff out the life with one touch.  Theaven fought against the dark magic and survived, but even being that close to the sensation of death was painful to him.  Once aware of how dangerous the ethergaunt was and after seeing how Bath nearly finished the massive umberhulk with one series of sword swings, Danae left the giant monster to her and Tal while they finished off the spellcaster.  Since the creature was still heavily wounded from Tal’s earlier disintegration attempt, so Danae was able to finally finish off the beast just as Bath killed the umberhulk.

The fight was finally in favor of the party, but Robin and Theaven were still in dire straights.  Bath almost laughed as she finally focused on her racial enemy: the marilith.  Meanwhile, Tal and Robin helped Theaven by bombarding the mezzoloth with spells.  Bath, not surprisingly, was the first to finish his prey, and Robin was saved before the creature could slice him to bits.  The mezzoloth wasn’t much better, and soon the combined assault of the rest of party sent him to the brink of death.

Tal, realizing they had a potential source of information, tried a bit of battlefield diplomacy.  “Surrender or be destroyed!” he ordered.  “We may be able to come to an agreement that will compel us to spare your life.”

However, the mezzoloth just hissed, “I won’t give you the satisfaction,” and teleported away.  He seemed to collapse in pain just as he did it, but the party realized that he if managed to find allies, he could be healed, and would likely face the party again some day.

For now, however, it was time to rest.  The battle took a lot out of the party, and they seemed to be in another mirrored room with the time-changing clocks.  This might be their last safe place to rest before confronting the Blade of Minds, and they eagerly took it after looting the bodies of their enemies and disposing of their corpses. 

Finally, the next day, they party took some time to prepare their magic and whatever enhancements they wanted for the next battle.  When ready, they left through the room’s only doorway to confront their third Strife Master.

As expected, they found Tesserill Requien waiting for them beyond the doorway.  The room she waited in had mirrored walls and a strange, almost liquid feel to the floor.  Below the floor, a strange amorphous blob of shadows was shifting and pulsing.  On the far side of the room, a circle of light extended up beyond the sight of the characters, and the room itself also seemed infinitely tall.

As the party arrived, the gold man and the flying, psychic slug monster appeared to assist their mistress.  Tesserill regarded them with curiosity.  “When you attacked my servants in the riddle foyer, I thought you had no interest in honoring my proposal, but it seems I was wrong.  This is the first time you’ve been through the Rift, isn’t it?”

The party was largely unwilling to engage in discussion with a Strife Master, even one that wasn’t openly evil, but Danae and Tal were less judgmental.  Danae nodded as Tal said, “Yes, we found an … “alternate” method of traveling to other worlds.  But how did you know that?”

“Well, because the Rift is still testing you.   I was a little worried when you first attacked my servants, because I hoped they would give me an equal number of allies in our battle.  But this situation has given me a suitable replacement.”

“What do you mea…,” Tal began, but he stopped when he noticed the shadow blob.  Slowly, it rose through the floor between Tesserill and the party.  To Tal’s horror, he realized that they weren’t finished with the third challenge after all, and the Blade of Minds was going to fight them while they were in the middle of the last battle!

Tal opened the battle by firing a spell at the black blob, but the ooze seemed to resist the magic entirely.  Robin, however, had a different target.  He remembered being psychically pummeled and then violated by the slug in the earlier fight, and decided it won’t happen again this time.  He began to fire rapidly at the creature.  His arrows lost their magic as they neared it, but they still struck true, and he began to wear down the monster before it could get to him again.  The slug (known as a windghost) tried to telekinetically wrest Robin‘s bow from his hands to stop the onslaught, but Robin held on and kept up the attack.

Meanwhile, Xalem helped the party maintain their health while Theaven helped Tal fight the shadow blob and Bath charged the Blade of Minds.  Though Bath knew she had to take the Blade of Minds alive, she used lethal force on her now on the assumption that they could knock her unconscious when she was a little weaker.  As the gold man (known as a Rilmani,) moved to surround Tal and Theaven, Danae decided she was too close to that blob and erected a prismatic sphere around herself.  However, Tesserril expected this plan, and as soon as Danae escaped into the sphere, Tesserril seemed to take a step and vanish, much as her servants and the mezzoloth did earlier.  She smiled at Danae and said, “Surprised?”

The fight with the blob, meanwhile, was going poorly.  The creature was a product of pure dimensional chaos.  Random magic fired off all around it, and portals to unknown locations opened at random.  Robin already had to duck out of the way to avoid being sucked in by one.  Tal, however, was the latest victim of the creature’s direct aggression.  The creature wrapped a massive tentacle around him, and then warped his body with entropic magic.  Soon, his very form began to warp until he was an entirely different being.  More specifically, he was turned into a tree!  With their primary quarry temporarily out of reach, Bath elected to help Theaven and Xalem deal with the strange blob.  

Within the sphere, however, Danae did something that, well, complicated things.  Though she didn’t expect to be attacked within her own sphere, she also realized what a great opportunity it was.  She magically altered her shape to become as large an elemental as she could be, and then moved to push the Blade of Minds through the sphere!  Tesserill desperately attacked Danae to keep her at bay, and did a massive amount of damage to her foe with just one sword swing, but she was soon forced through the sphere.  Danae thought that her enemy would come out the other side severely weakened by the energy of the sphere, or even petrified or insane.  She didn’t expect to see The Blade of Mind’s poisoned, lifeless corpse flop onto the floor.  As it dawned on Danae that they were supposed to take The Blade of Minds Alive at all costs and that she just killed said target, she said the only thing one could in this situation.  “Oops,” Danae said, having temporarily lost any capacity for a more elaborate response.

But there was little time to deal with this catastrophe at the moment.  Robin finally killed the wind ghost, but the blob was still wreaking havoc.  Tal was the next target for the random portals, and since he was still an inanimate tree, he had no way to dodge out of the way when it pulled him out of the room and into the earth machine.  Meanwhile, the blob attacked Rex, Robin’s pet dinosaur next.  It suffered a worse fate than even poor Tal, for the blob pulled it into its body and completely absorbed it, leaving nothing left!  It went after Bath after that and managed to transform her as well.  Fortunately, Bath retained her angelic magic powers, so she was able to return to normal on her own.  And then, finally, the creature was destroyed.  With the entire surviving members of the party surrounding it, it was unable to withstand their attacks for long.

As soon as the blob was killed, the Rilmani, who was largely ignored up to this point and was barely wounded, tried to escape.  However, defeating the blob was enough to finally finish the Rift’s challenges, and the characters were flooded with information about the truth of the Rift.  The entire place wasn’t completely real.  It was more like the imagination of the plane itself at work, as its memories of past civilizations clashed with each other.  The party was inside those imaginations, but they were also outside of it.  All of this was excessively metaphysical to them, but the practical benefits made up for any confusion.  They could picture the entirety of the Rift at once by focusing their minds, as if looking at a perfect map of it while floating above it.  They could also simply walk to any point in the Rift in a single step, just like Tesserill and her servants were doing to quickly teleport and escape away.

With this knowledge, the party was able to corner the Rilmani in the desert wasteland with the hovering security lights from above.  They teleported there using their new power, only to see the Rilmani calmly walking towards the nearest security light.  “Stop!”  Danae yelled. “You don’t have to do this!”

The Rilmani, however, merely shook his head and continued walking.  When he entered the light, the nearest security orb suddenly fired a strange projectile at the creature.  It moved so fast that the party couldn’t even see it, but they did see a little smoke trail that spiraled from the orb into the Rilmani.  The Rilmani himself was killed instantly.  He collapsed on the sands, and the security orb was able to blast his body multiple times as he dissolved into ash.

“Well, now what do we do?” a glum Tal asked as the party gathered the equipment Tesserill and her minions and after they found Tal and restored him to his normal form.

“I don’t know,” Bath sighed.  “There’s no way that The Blade of Minds will let us resurrect her.  I don’t think Bas would let her soul go anyway, assuming she didn’t just obliterate it moments after she died.”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” Danae snapped.  “I didn’t think a Strife Master would be killed so easily.  I thought she’d be as hard to kill as the Nightmare Prince or that Lady of Blood from before my time.”

“Well, I have an idea,” Xalem said, though he had a disturbed look on his face.  “What about asking TIE?  She helped us before in dealing with The Blade of Minds.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Bath replied.  “To be honest, I’m hoping to meet with her anyway.  If she is responsible for making this horrible place, she has a lot to answer for.”

Theaven’s response was less supportive.  “What are you talking about?  Who’s TIE?  What about this place?  Look, I’m glad you were able to help me out of there, but to be honest; I think I’m in way over my head on this one.  I wish all of you luck on whatever this quest of yours is, but I must follow my own path.”

The group said goodbye to their latest ally, and then did the same to Quercus, Zethar, and Galatron.  “What will you three do now?” Tal asked.

“We decided to try and perform the three challenges ourselves,” Quercus said.  “After that, assuming we survive, I don’t really know.  I think all of us want to return to the celestial planes.  Zethar and my…my father want to meet with their superiors again, and I’d like to see where the other half of myself came from, even if my own birth might have been a life.” Quercus said with an odd mix of emotions.  He was clearly happy to be with his father, but he seemed more disturbed by the revelation Galatron told them about their origins than the party.  “After that, I might try to contact my sister again.  She should know the truth about her father as well, and maybe we can finally work together to learn what killed our mother and drove our family apart from there.  But don’t worry; if you guys ever really need me, I’ll be there.  I want to finish this as much as you do.”

The party finally departed the Rift, and after dealing with the loot the acquired and getting new supplies at Union, they sought out TIE.  Bath was the first to ask her a question.  “How could you create such a place?” she angrily asked.  “Why would you let souls suffer for eternity in such a place just for the sake of a test?”

TIE sighed when she heard this question.  “I had hoped you would figure it out already.  Those people weren’t real.  Nothing there is.  Whatever afterlife the original beings went to was unaffected by their images in the Rift.  The entire place is nothing but a dream created by the plane.  Now, the events that you saw images of did indeed occur.  Your world was once home to demonic penguins, advanced machinery, a race of immortals, numerous world-devastating cataclysms, and much more.  But all evidence of these events is lost now.”

Tal prepared to ask about what to do next, but before he could get one word out, TIE was already responding.  “And no, I can’t help you figure out what to do now.  I can help you some, and I already did quite a bit for you, but if I get too directly involved, I’ll ruin the very thing we’re trying to do here.  You have to be the ones to stop Bas.  If I do it, I’ll just be countering a great power with an even greater power, which will just spiral the universe to a final clash of ultimate powers, from which it can never return.  Look, you know that souls in this dimension don’t just vanish at death.  Find out where her soul went, and question that if the living person is no longer available.  But figure out her location yourselves.”

Discouraged, the group returned to Methosilang.  “Well, what about magic?  Xalem, can you use some magic that will help you learn where she might be.”

Xalem thought for a moment, and then replied.  “It’s possible, but to be honest, most attempts to decipher the mysteries of the cosmos that way tend to be pretty vague.”

Suddenly, Danae had an idea.  “There is a way, though.  I know a spell that lets me contact greater planetary beings like gods directly!  There is some risk involved, but it might be our best chance.”

The party agreed to this plan, but as they made their preparations, Xalem looked troubled.  Contacting gods?  Killing their enemies even when they’re supposed to take them alive?  Perhaps it was time for him to return home, now that he can do so safely without help by that TIE abomination.  Without saying a word to the others, he vanished, happy to return to the poor but simple streets of his hometown on Pyrodessy.

OOC Notes: The unexpected death of Tesserill changed the path the story took quite a bit.  The next two adventures were designed to make up for this change in the storyline, as the players have to find another way to finally find Bas.

A few players and characters changed in the end their.  Xalem’s player got tired of the character and asked to have a new one.  And Theaven’s player had to leave the game for at least a couple of months.  Rather than figure out what to do with Theaven during this period, we decided to let him leave the party and have the player introduce a new character when the time came.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 26, 2005)

*The Price of a Soul: Having a Bit of Fun*

Hours after she initially contacted some sort of god or similarly powerful extra-planar entity, Danae returned to the party with what she knew.  “I was able to get some leads, so I don’t think we’re completely out of options,” she explained.  “I now know where Tesserill’s soul has gone.”

“To Bas?” Tal asked, but Danae shook her head.

“No, it’s not that simple, fortunately.  Bas might be regaining strength, but she’s not a full goddess yet.  She’s still trapped on this plane in her physical body, so she doesn’t have a domain on the outer planes.  Thus, her followers don’t go to her when they die?”

“So where do they go?” Robin wondered.

“Well, the various evil sects end up in appropriate planes, where they have to wait for Bas to ascend before they are allowed to leave.”  She grinned.  “With any luck, we can make this a very long wait.  However, the neutral followers don’t really have an appropriate place to go.  It turns out that when this kind of thing happens, a new afterlife is created for them until they can be taken to a more appropriate place.  It sounds like the Bas worshippers ended up in some place called the Crystal Glade.  Now, this place doesn’t have its own demi-plane.  Instead, it’s located somewhere on a plane called the Outlands.  And before you ask, The Outlands is a plane believed to be located at the very center of reality!  Remember Sigil, that weird city we ended up in after exiting the Rift?  It’s theoretically located at the very center of The Outlands.  The Glade is no where near the center.  It’s supposed to be close to this city on The Outlands called Glorium.  I don’t know exactly the Glade is from there, but I think we can get more information if we go to this city.  Is everyone good with taking a look?”

Everyone agreed, and after taking a few days to make final preparations, the party was ready to go!  However, before they could, they were subject to another delay, albeit a pleasant one.  This one came in the form of Tiana, a member of the anti-undead Delaspie guards, and Azat, a strange cleric from an alternate Prime Material Plane that somehow ended up in Delaspie and also joined their guards.  However, the two have been less busy lately since the war between Delaspie and the Orc Empire heated up, leaving Delaspie in ruins.  The war ended almost a year ago at this point, but Delaspie was still in recovery, and with the undead being so quiet lately, Tiana and Azat were suspicious.  They heard of the party’s exploits and decided that if anyone could help them get to the bottom of the undead’s plans in time to save Delaspie, it would be them.  Eager to go, the party did a quick check of their backgrounds, found their stories checked out, and simply brought them along.

 The city of Glorium was, in a word, strange.  Danae told the group before they left that the city was a good place, but it also tended to be pretty wild.  But they knew she was understating this last part when they learned that the town was ruled over by a slaad!  To make things worse, it was a black slaad, which most of the party didn’t even hear of.  According to Danae, though, they were incredibly powerful beings that even balors and pit fiends feared.  

After exploring the town for a few hours, the party finally learned that one of the locals had knowledge of the Glade and where it was located.  His name was Blediggs, and he apparently spent a lot of his time in a local tavern called the Gleeful Tankard.  The party entered the strange tavern and began to search for their hopeful new contact.

Of course, keeping adventurers on track at a tavern is like herding cats in the best of situations, and extraplanar taverns are not the best of situations.  While Danae tried searching for Blediggs, the rest of the group explored the strange bar.  Robin was interested in one of the bar’s more interesting attractions; a combat pit in the middle of the bar that holds daily non-lethal fights.  Tal was interested in proving himself as well, but not in battle.  He noticed that there were a lot of bards trying to ply their craft here, and wanted to see how he stood against the competition.  Finally, Bath noticed that despite being a mostly good town, there were a lot of demons that seemed to live here.  She instinctively put a hand on her sword, but for once she decided that restraint would be the better choice.  Besides the fact that attacking the local patrons would probably get her run out of town and seriously hurt her friends’ plan, this was one of the rare opportunities she could get information from a demon on neutral grounds.  After all, she wasn’t just in the party to hunt demons; she was there to hunt a very specific demon or some other kind of evil outsider.  She was an assassin, after all…

Danae, meanwhile, had finally found someone, but it wasn’t Blediggs like she hoped.  Instead, she located a githzerai named Amon, or more accurately, he found her.  “Are you Danae Loreweaver?” 

“It’s Runeweaver, actually, and do I know you?” A distracted Danae asked.

“No, but I know about you guys.  You’re awesome!  I mean, I don’t know that much about you, because of you-know-who,” he says, while clearly avoiding even mentioning The Indigo Entity, “But what I heard about you was really cool!  Did you really save a city full of dragons?  And team up with pirates?  And discover a lost continent?”

“Well, I wasn’t there for that last one, but otherwise yes,” Danae muttered.  “But I’m kind of busy right now.  Is there something you want?”

“Oh, yeah, I heard about that.  You’re going after the Crystal Glade, right?  You’re so on top of what’s new!  I want to help you!  I can be a big help!”

“Well, I don’t know,” Danae said.  “I’ll talk to the others about it, and maybe we can figure something out, okay?” 

Meanwhile, Robin was the first to try out the arena.  He decided to try fighting the toughest guy in the bar.  What he didn’t learn until it was too late, however, was that the toughest guy in the bar was a white slaad that was one of the black’s personal bodyguards!  White slaads aren’t as powerful as the black variety, but they’re still far more powerful than normal outsiders.  They have evolved to contain a bit of the divine power, letting them reach epic proportions of power.  And since Robin couldn’t use his bow since it was nonlethal combat, the fight was a little stacked in the slaad’s favor.  It easily pummeled Robin into unconsciousness.  While the party healed Robin’s bruises, Amon decided this would be the perfect chance to prove his worth to the party, and he challenged the white to fight him next.  

Danae sat down to watch with an amused look on her face, convinced that this adventurer fan would last even less time than Robin did.  Both her and the slaad’s amused looks faded, however, when Amon immediately pummeled him with a blow that left the frog-thing stunned!  Unable to evade the githzerai monk’s attacks, the frog was an easy target and got repeatedly stunned every time Amon had the chance.  Eventually, it recovered and the battle turned back in its favor, but while Amon lost the fight, he had earned Danae’s respect.  She decided that he could tag along with them until they at least got through the Crystal Glade.

Tal, however, was having more luck with his own challenge.  He found the most popular (and snottiest) bard in the tavern, strode up to him, and said, “You think you’re better than me?”

The bard looked at the competition and sniffed dismissively.  “You’ve barely left your plane, haven’t you?  I can defeat you without breaking a sweat.”

Tal didn’t skip a beat.  He threw a few thousand gold down at the table and asked, “Want to back those words up?”

The two musicians each played three songs.  It was obvious from the start that the local bard had more experience, but he was also overconfident.  Tal had something to prove and he gave it his all for every song.  The bard was struck speechless when the tavern erupted in applause after ever one of Tal’s songs!  Realizing he was defeated, the bard quickly tossed a bag of money at Tal and ran out the door before he could be humiliated further.

By now, Bath managed to strike up a conversation with a local succubus.  To gain an edge in negotiations by making the demon overconfident, she used her traditional human disguise as a naïve young human woman (as opposed to a naïve young angel, of course.)  “Hi!” the cheerful Bath said to the demon as she approached.  “Can you help me with something?”

The succubus, eager to find a mortal to corrupt, happily replies, “Of course, young one.  What do you want?”

“I need you to find some information about an enemy of mine.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard.  But my help comes at a price…”

“Okay, how about this?  If I can beat you in a fight, you tell me?”

This suggestion was a bit of a surprise for the succubus.  After all, though her kind weren’t known for their combat abilities compared to others of her kind, she was nonetheless still a demon, and no mere human should stand a chance.  “Very well,” the prideful demon said.

The two quickly entered the tavern arena, and just as quickly, Bath revealed her true form and beat the succubus into the ground.  When she had recovered, the embarrassed demon asked Bath, “Who are you looking for?  And could you make it quick?  I want to get out of here; I’ll never be able to live down being fooled that easily.”

Bath described the creature she was instructed to hunt down, and the succubus agreed to go “home” and get what information she can.

While all this was going on, Danae finally found Blediggs.  It turned out he was a Death slaad that works for Ur-Gaxx, the black slaad.  He was ordered to investigate The Outlands after a swarm of strange monsters attacked Glorium.  His group tracked the survivors to a strange crystal forest, but the monsters inside wiped out the rest of his band.  He fled home, and explained to Ur-Gaxx that the problem will solve itself very soon.  While he was there, he saw that the monsters were coming from a tear in reality itself forming in the middle of the forest.  Apparently, this temporary afterlife was imperfectly established, creating a portal to the area beyond reality; an area known as the Far Realm!  This portal is growing and it will soon engulf the entire glade, sending it to the Far Realm and dooming Tesserill and other dead followers of her sect to a hellish afterlife!  

With little time to spare, Danae realized she had to negotiate a contract with Blediggs and get to the Crystal Glade as soon as possible.  By the time negotiations had begun, Tal joined Danae in discussing terms.  Blediggs is willing to travel with the party, but his services won’t be cheap.  He wants 20,000 gold up front.  In addition, he has figured out that the glade is an afterlife of sorts, and he wants the rights to half of the souls present!  A more noble soul would be morally opposed to giving away souls, even souls who were once enemies of the party, to a slaad who would most likely use them to create more of the bizarre frog monsters.  Tal and Danae, however, were happy with the deal for now, and figured this part of the agreement could be kept secret from the more noble souls in the party!  After all, they only care about one soul in the first place.  Danae, in fact, considered selling Blediggs the rest of their half of the souls, but thought that would be going too far for now!  Once their plans were made, the party gathered so Danae and Tal could explain the situation, Amon was introduced to everybody, and the party set out to traverse The Outlands.

OOC Notes: Lots of new people this game!  Tiana and Azat are new characters for new players who joined us in this adventure and have been generally consistent in making the games since then.  In fact, after a few problems early on due to changes in living situations and such, I don’t think they missed a game!  Amon is the new character for Xalem’s player.


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## LordVyreth (Mar 30, 2005)

*The Price of a Soul: The Crystal Glade*

The party, including their guide Blediggs and their new allies Tiana, Azat, and Amon, only traveled for about half a day before running into further complications.  But unlike most of the creatures encountered lately, the group they’ve run into weren’t necessarily enemies, though it remained a distinct possibility!  As the wandered the flat, alien landscape of the outlands, the party spied a band of creatures.  They include a gigantic eagle and ape, but the leader of the group was more noteworthy, for they were led by an enormous gold man!

“They’re Rilmani!” Danae gasped, but before the party could discuss the ramifications of this when considering their role in the former gold Rilmani’s death, the group of violently neutral outsiders has spotted them.  The giant eagle flew overhead to investigate and watch for any sign of trouble as the Rilmani band approached.  Bath was about ready to attack them simply for being allies of Bas, but Tal stood her hand.  “We don’t know what these Rilmani think of Bas, and besides, we don’t have time for this.  We have to find Tesserill’s soul without delay!

Bath stood down as the gold leader of the Rilmani hailed the party.  “Well met!” he said, but he had a suspicious and weary tone in his voice.  “May I ask what you’re doing so close to Rilmani territory?”

Tal was surprised to hear this.  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware the Outlands were the domain of the Rilmani.”

The gold man smiled smugly.  “We are the center of the philosophy that guides the planes.  Would we not rule the center of the physical planes, then?”

Blediggs tried to avoid any further conflict.  “We have no conflict with the Rilmani.  We just want to get to the Crystal Glade.  We’re looking for something valuable there.”

This statement didn’t increase make the Rilmani hostile, but their leader did get a dangerous edge in his voice after hearing this.  “The Crystal Glade, you said?  You had something to do with that?  We lost a lot of our own to the creatures that come from that place…”

Tal realized what the creature was insinuating and quickly spoke up.  “No, not at all,” he responded, which wasn’t entirely true.  “In fact, we have some good new for you.  The same phenomenon that is creating those creatures will soon destroy the entire forest.  You should be safe then.”

The gold man relaxed noticeably when he heard this.  “That’s a relief.  I apologize for being so accusatory.  Things have been difficult for us these past few days.  Besides the losses from the Crystal Glade spawn, we recently lost one of our elders on a Material Plane.  It was a great and tragic loss.”

Amon, Tiana, and Azat looked sympathetic, but Danae and the others started to sweat a bit.  “Yes, that’s…that’s very tragic,” Tal said before the Rilmani caught on or Bath tried defending them.  “But we must hurry to reach the glade in time.  Good luck on your travels.”

The party journeyed for another couple of days before finally reaching the glade, which was an awesome sight.  Even ignoring the material the plants were made of, the forest stretched as far up as the eye could see and the trees looked like they were hundreds of years old!  It was so thick, in fact, that it was nearly impassable.  The party had to carefully weave between trees and even the way forward was sometimes impassable, forcing them to backtrack to take a new route.  Finally, the party was fed up.  “Crossing this place on the ground is getting ridiculous!” Tal shouted.  “There has to be an easier way.”

Robin had an idea.  After all, this was a forest, making it his area of expertise.  “I noticed that the branches in the forest seem incredibly think and strong,” he said.  “I think if we find a low-hanging one, we can use it to climb up to the upper branches and walk across them.  It should be a little easier than the ground level, at least.”

The group quickly agreed, but the branches proved to be almost as labyrinthine as the ground.  The branches were so close together that it almost like they were wondering through a corridor in a dungeon.  Finally, the group came to a central “cavern” where many of the paths merged on a massive central branch.  Blediggs halted the party for a moment while he tried to figure out which path to take from here to get to center of the Glade.  However, a few minutes after the party began their rest, a loud sound came from two of the corridor branches.  It sounded like an army of massive creatures was coming from the party!  They quickly took up defensive positions in front of the two caverns, though they also had Bath guard the other openings to make sure reinforcements or more stealthy adversaries didn’t ambush them.  Finally, their adversaries came into view.  Fortunately, it turned out to be only two enemies, not the dozens they initially expected.  Unfortunately, the two enemies were gigantic scorpions tainted by chaos!

Amon prepared to charge one of the scorpions with Tiana and Azat right behind him.  Tal assisted them with magical assistance and Robin fired at them with his bow.  Bath was about to help them when a flash of motion flew right at her.  Before she could react, a monstrous insect stood before her.  It quickly struck her with a claw before dashing out of range again.  As soon as the claw touched her, Bath felt her strength leave her!

“What is that thing?” Blediggs asked as he helped the front ranks fight the scorpions.

Danae looked at the creature for a moment, and then responded with dread in her voice.  “It’s a thorciasid!” she yelled.  “Think of them as the cockroaches of the gods!  A few touches of its forelimbs or antennae and even the strongest of creatures will be sucked dry!”  Realizing who their greatest threat was, she fired on the creature with her most powerful magic, but it was no where near enough to slow the beast.

An enraged Bath charged the insect while the rest of the party continued to fight the scorpions.  Both were quickly being brought down by the collective might of the near-epic heroes, but not before they were able to strike back.  One of them struck Azat right in the chest with its stinger, injecting him with a lethal poison, and the other caught Tiana in its claws.  Azat and Danae both had unusual responses to the threat, however.  After being poisoned, Azat simply backed out of range and then yelled at the top of his lungs while his body began to change.  When he was done, a were-leopard stood where Azat was!  Robin and Tal, unsurprisingly, had a less than positive response to this.  After all, the only were-leopard they knew was Phellis Mune, the Strife Master.  They decided to let this strange figure handle this by himself for now and turned their attention to helping Bath.  However, Azat wasn’t on his own for long, for Blediggs had no prejudice towards were-creatures considering all the strangeness he saw on the outer planes.  He hopped in (no pun intended) to help.

Meanwhile, Danae had a very good idea after seeing the thorciasid.  She was a powerful wizard, after all; if she had to fight an enemy as powerful as that beast, she might as well use it for inspiration.  She magically transformed into a thorciasid herself and moved to help Amon!  With her help, the second scorpion was quickly killed.  The first one was also defeated eventually by Azat, but at a high cost.  Blediggs was stabbed repeatedly by the scorpion’s stinger and now was bleeding to death on the ground!

The original thorciasid wasn’t exactly waiting around during all this, either.  Bath was able to get some good hits in when she charged the creature, despite her reduced strength, but the monstrous insect had a way to deal with such active foes.  It fired a strand of incredibly strong webbing at her.  She narrowly evaded the first one, but the second blast caught her.  As she struggled to free herself from the cocoon prison the bug trapped her in, Robin and Tal moved in to help Bath.  The distracted creature left Bath alone until it could deal with the interlopers, giving Bath the time she needed to escape.  Tal didn’t fair as well when the divine cockroach turned its attention on him, but before it could finish off the sorcerer, the rest of the party finished the scorpions and helped defeat the creature.  It was especially confused when one of its own kind began to attack it, but it was killed before it could figure that one out.

With their enemies defeated, the party then had to figure out what to do with its allies.  They slowly moved towards Azat, who was healing Blediggs despite still being in his half-animal state.

After seeing the looks the others were giving him, Azat sighed and answered the question before it was even asked.  “I know what you’re thinking.  Yes, I am a were-creature, but does that really matter?  I’m sure experienced heroes like yourself have seen weirder by now.”

“It’s not that,” Tal awkwardly began as Bath tried to detect evil as inconspicuously as possible.  “It’s just that, well, the only were-leopard we know is one of our greatest enemies.”

“Well, even if they’re evil in your world, they’re not in mine.  Leopards are revered as servants of our gods, and those who have bonded with such creatures are honored ones.  You can even check with the Delaspie records; they know I’m trustworthy.”

Since he didn’t do anything to harm them, he just saved the life of their guide, and Bath didn’t pick up anything on her detection spells, the party decided to drop it and move deeper into the forest.

OOC Notes:  Well, that’s the last of the weekly updates for a while!  The next update (in the Saturday after this one) will finish up this adventure, and then I’ll just be about an adventure or two behind the current plotline.  And things kind of slowed down after this adventure for reasons I’ll get into more thoroughly at that point, so catching up will be extremely easy.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 13, 2005)

*The Price of a Soul:  Strategic and Not So Strategic Misdirection*

The party traveled farther into the strange forest, and eventually they found themselves in a massive “room.”  The branch path they’ve used since Blediggs got his bearing after the thorciasid battle took them into a relatively clear area under the canopy.  However, Blediggs stopped the party at the entrance to the canopy and pointed at a strange fungus growing in the middle of the chamber.  “That’s no ordinary fungus,” he warned.  “That’s a mu spore.  It’s like that cockroach we fought before; it’s an ordinary nuisance to the gods, but a catastrophe to us.”

That being said, the party had to get past this creature if they wanted to reach the center of the Glade in time, so they quickly prepared for another battle.  Danae and Tiana weaved powerful magic around themselves, Azat changed into his alternate were-form, and Bat and Amon got ready to charge the beast as Robin, Tal, and Danae moved to be in an ideal position to attack from a distance.  As soon as the party charged, the fungus grew a pair of gigantic legs and moved to defend itself.  It tried to bite at the heroes, but Bath and Amon were both too quick for it.  It managed to release a few sprays of razor sharp spores at the party and a couple more of the giant, chaos-tainted scorpions were attracted by the noise of battle and tried to make a meal of them as well, but collectively the three were no match for the party.  They quickly finished the creatures and hurried to reach their target in time.

Finally, hours later, the party began to descend from the branches, for they were near the center of the forest.  Shortly after they reached the ground level, Blediggs took a more direct approach to guiding them again, since he knew this area by memory.  Finally, he directed the party to a giant clearing in the woods.  “Here we are at last,” he said as he gestured towards the clearing.  “The resting place of lost souls.  It would be their final resting place, I’m sure, if there wasn’t the whole tear in reality thing to complicate things.”

The party looked over the clearing.  There were two noteworthy objects in the clearing.  First of all, there seemed to be approximately a hundred tall slabs of crystal arranged grid-like in the middle of the clearing.  Each crystal had a spectral form floating lifelessly within it.  Most were human, elf, or benefactor drow, but there was a smattering of gnomes, halflings, goblins, demons, and giants as well.  It only took few moments for the party to notice the cerebrilith demon they had killed in the Rift, along with the gold Rilmani, some of the giants that were killed in their first attempt to capture Tesserill, and a few other gray-robed cultists encountered in their journeys.  She wasn’t immediately within sight, but the party had little doubt that the Blade of Minds was resting here as well.

However, the other notable object in the clearing was more disturbing, if no less surprising.  A strange, disc-like ripple filled much of the sky above the clearing.  It was hard to see what exactly was on the other side of the ripple, but what they could see was out of some sort of mad and terrible nightmare.  Strange beasts seemingly randomly composed of vaguely organic parts floated over, watching the glade with mad desire.  The sky above them boiled, oozed, churned, shifted colors and consistency, and was filled with twisted flying monsters at various places.  And the ripple was expanding before their very eyes.

Time was running out, but the party still didn’t even know how to free their target.  Should the try to break the prison?  Would that save her or irrevocably destroy her soul, sending her to eternal oblivion?  For now, though, they had to at least find her.  As they began to search the slabs, however, some of the creatures peering at them from the Far Realms took notice.  Two of them pressed against the portal, hungry for this strange new food, and they landed in a sickly heap in reality.  

The party quickly became aware of these new threats and mobilized to fight them.  One was vaguely humanoid and slightly resembled a gorilla.  However, it had four arms and two legs that all ended in tentacles, and a seventh weapon grew out of the top of its head.  The other had a snake body and a human-like head.  Its tail was another tentacle, and another four of the hideous protrusions grew out of the middle of its body and seemed to move about on its body as it lunged at the party.

Tal prepared to attack the gorilla-thing, but his magic failed to penetrate the creature’s aura.  Despite this, Bath shrugged and charged the beast.  After all, strange as these creatures are, they’re not even as large as she was, let alone as powerful-looking as the fungus creature.  They can’t be that much of a threat.  She flew up to the creature and swung her sword confidently.  It was a well-aimed shot, but to Bath’s shock, the attack completely bounced off of the creature!  What were these things made of?  As she pondered this, the creature lashed at her using many of its tentacles.  Bath managed to evade a few of them, but a few were able to connect with Bath, and they wrapped around her, trapping her in its deadly embrace.

As Bath prepared to deal with this strange new threat, Tiana and Amon surrounded the snake creature, but they had no luck striking it either.  Danae prepared to help them, but realized that most of her remaining power spells were explosive in nature or otherwise affected a large area, and she didn’t want to risk attacking the crystal slabs and destroying the souls until she knew what it would do.  She helped fight the creature grappling Bath using some magic missiles, but it didn’t do much good. 

However, as Azat and Robin tried to help Tiana and Amon defeat the snake, which seemed a little weaker than the gorilla, Blediggs had an idea.  The monsters had nearly impenetrable armor, but they were also extremely fast and agile.  However, when they were distracted by grappling a party member, they weren’t able to evade enemy attacks.  He demonstrated this by attacking the gorilla thing and calling out to the others, “Hey, try attacking them while they’re busy grappling somebody!”

The others nodded as they realized what Blediggs meant, and Amon lured the snake creature to him and willingly let the creature grapple him.  Meanwhile, Tal decided to try a new tactic on the gorilla-creature.  He used a spell capable of weakening the spell resistance of a creature, letting his spells more easily attack the creature.  Bath continued to struggle against the creature, but failed to damage it or break away from it.  To make things even worse, she slowly felt her life force draining away.  The creature’s touch was corrupting her very body, making it succumb to chaos.  If this kept up, she would completely break apart as her very order was destroyed!

Realizing the threat to their strongest fighter, Danae carefully moved up to the creature and touch Bath, then used her magic to teleport a short distance away.  Bath was free, but the gorilla monster turned its attentions on Blediggs!  It quickly began to suck the life force out of him, forcing Tal, Robin, Bath, and Danae to attack it before it can kill their guide!  They finally finish the beast, leaving Blediggs alive but dying on the floor.  Bath quickly moved to heal him as best she can while the rest of the party prepared to finish the second pseudonatural monster.

While this was going on, Amon, Azat, and Tiana were focusing on the snake monster.  Amon was initially held, but Azat used magic that gave his movement complete freedom, letting him slip out of the monster’s grip.  He soon used the same magic on himself, and the two of them alternated being grappled by the snake while the freed one and Tiana attacked.  By the time Danae and the rest of the party were ready to help, they had almost finished the creature.  And when the party was able to completely surround it, it was quickly destroyed.

Though there enemies are dead, the party still had a problem to deal with; what to do with the trapped souls?  They were reluctant to break the slabs, but had no idea how to rescue them.  Finally, Bath had an idea.  “Let’s just break the slab of one of the trapped demons.  If it frees the soul, we know what we have to do to free the others, and if not, all we lose is a demon soul we didn’t care about in the first place.”

The others agreed (though Blediggs made a mental note that the demon they’re freeing can count for the party’s share if they destroy it,) and Bath shattered the slab with one swing of her sword.  To the party’s relief (but Bath’s slight disappointment,) the soul was unharmed and appeared to be capable of moving now, though it was extremely confused and seemed to have almost no will of its own.  The party quickly freed the rest of the souls, including Tesserill’s.  As expected, she was also confused when she was saved, but she recovered quickly when she saw the party.

“You!” she telepathically shouted.  “Haven’t you done enough to me?  Can’t you let my soul rest in peace?”

An ashamed Danae looked away, but Tal as always took on the role of diplomat.  “You misunderstand,” he began, “We’re here to save you.”  He pointed to the ripple over the Glade.  “This realm is doomed, and you will be as well if you don’t come with us.”

The Blade of Minds immediately recognized what that portal led to, but she wasn’t going to travel with her enemies so easily.  “And where will we go?  This was supposed to be our place of rest, and now it’s being destroyed.”

Blediggs shrugged.  “Well, according to the contract, half of you are coming with me.  Don’t worry, my master will treat you with kindness, and if you’re really lucky, you could be reborn as slaad like me!”

Tesserill gasped, and the rest of the party gave Danae an accusing glance.  Danae herself was having second thoughts as well.  After all, these people (except for the demons and other psionic monsters,) weren’t that much different from her in terms of what they believed in.  They might have been enemies in life, but they deserved a fair afterlife.  She sighed and asked Blediggs, “would it be possible for us to change the deal?”

Blediggs looked a little worried about that and said, “Well, I suppose, but it won’t be cheap.  You owe me 50 souls, so I’ll be willing to part with them at the cost of 5,000 per soul.”

“Done,” Danae forcefully said, but she quickly reconsidered.  “Well, I don’t think we’ll worry about those souls,” she said as she pointed to the cerebrilith demon that they killed earlier.  “You can keep the evil ones.”

A bit of magic let the party determine that 15 of the souls were evil, so Danae gave them to Blediggs and paid him for the remaining 35.  This obviously made the rest of the party feel a lot better about this deal, and it clearly had an impact on Tesserill as well.  Even she had to admit that saving all but the most evil of her followers from a fate potentially worse (and certainly weirder) than oblivion took great amounts of mercy, but they still have to figure out where exactly she and her fellow petitioners could go.

“Well, what else is on this plane?” a frustrated Robin asked, prompting Danae, Bath, Amon, and Blediggs to quickly figure out a solution.  

After a while, the group had a few ideas.  “What about Sigil?” Blediggs offered.

Tesserill shook her head.  “That place isn’t safe.  Remember, we’ve already been there.  Once they realize we came from the Forbidden Plane, we’ll either be forced to tell what we can remember or killed off to avoid provoking the Lady of Pain or The Indigo Entity.”

Amon had another idea.  “The Rilmani said they lived here, right?  They might welcome you in.”

This idea had some merit, but Blediggs shot it down as they were considering it.  “They’re too suspicious to let most outsiders into their land.  Besides, they live deep in the heart of the Outlands, where almost no magic works.  They’re protected from this effect because they’re natives to the area, but I don’t think you would survive it.”

Finally, Bath figured out a decent solution.  “What about the realm of Boccob the wizard?  He has a similar moral code to you and your followers, and he isn’t worshipped on your plane, so he shouldn’t care about the Bas situation.”

Tesserill and many of her followers agreed that this was a fine solution, and the others decided to take their chances on the planes as a while.  Blediggs offered to take them back to Glorium with him and the petitioners he purchased, and after Bath and Danae made sure he understood completely that they’ll be checking up on him in a few days to make sure he didn’t take these followers and give them to his master along with his purchases, they agreed to let them go.  The party then had to worry about physically bringing all the followers to Boccob’s realm.  After filling their portal holes with most of the followers, Danae tried to teleport the entire group to Boccob’s library based on what she knows of how it looks.  Unfortunately, she didn’t succeed.

They ended up in a library all right, but something seemed wrong somehow.  The party quickly investigated, but something found them first.  It was a strange, blue, creature of some sort.  It looked like it tried communicating with the party, but instead of a voice, it projected a strange balloon over its head filled with letters and symbols.

The party tried to quickly figure out what this means.  “The first word looks like a W plus a hat?”  Amon said with a confused voice.

“I think that means What,” Tiana said.  “And the next two words are just the letters R and you.  What are you…” she continued.

“I don’t get this next part,” Bath complained.  “It looks like wet grass?”

“Dew!” Robin shouted happily; glad to put his nature skills to use here.  “And it ends with the letters ING.  What are you doing?”

Azat finished the verbal riddle.  “The last word is the letter H plus an ear.  What are you doing here?”

Realizing this creature was upset and after finally figuring out what it was, Danae gasped.  “This thing serves the Lady of Pain!  I think we’re in her personal library!”  Turning to the creature, she apologized profusely.  “I’msorryi’msorryi’msorry!  We wanted to visit Boccob’s domain, but we got misdirected.  We’ll leave as quickly as possible, we swear!”

The creature seemed to understand, and it teleported the party to Boccob’s realm, successfully this time.  From here, getting Boccob to accept the petitioners was easy.  After all, his guests were from the Forbidden Plane, and while he understood that he couldn’t share their stories with the world at large, they could at least tell him and let him expand the general knowledge of his library.  

Now that the party took care of Tesserill, it was time for her to return the favor.  “Now that you’re at peace after death, can you please help us on our mission at home?  We need to know where Bas is.”

Tesserill didn’t seem to have any problems betraying her former goddess now that her ties to her life were finally allowed to fade, but her memories were fading as well.  “I don’t know exactly,” she admitted.  “But I know a way you can find out.”

OOC Notes: Find out the way in about two weeks (well, a week and a half; sorry for the late update.)  As of now, there are only two adventures between here and where the party is right now, so we’re finally almost caught up.  A lot of this adventure after the fight in the Glade was improvised, including the botched teleportation attempt by Danae and the bit with The Lady of Pain’s library.  Does anyone remember the names of those creatures that serve her?  I was in a Planescape one-shot adventure once that featured one, so I knew about the strange speech that they had, but I don’t remember their names.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 25, 2005)

*The Eye of Nerull: Gaining Access*

Tesserill began her idea for how the party can find Bas.  “Now, some of the details are a little unclear for me now.  I think I’m losing my memory of my life, and besides, Bas’ location is blocked by her divine will.  Even now it’s affecting my memory of her.  However, I have enough left to give you the basics of the plan.  For months, my temple has been planning to find a way to find your home, Methosilang.  Finally, we discovered information about the Eye of Nerull, an artifact the size of a building built by the undead empire.  It lacks the ability to bypass the divine protection of either Bas or your goddesses, but it can be used to indirectly track a target to it.  We managed to infiltrate the Eye of Nerull with one of our spies.  He’s an expert of incredible ability by the name of Palfrin.”

“Oh, no,” Tal groaned.  “Not him again.”

Tesserill ignored him as she continued her story.  “While he is there, he is researching a new psionic item that links to the Eye’s power.  It will allow a force in control of the Eye to track the items no matter where they are.  Once he finishes his research, he will build dozens of them, and then let them get discovered by Methosilang’s forces as treasure.  Since they radiate magic, they shouldn’t be treated suspiciously.  Once enough of them are captured, we were planning on sending a massive invasion force to briefly capture the Eye and use it to discover the location of the objects, and from there, Methosilang.”

“How does this help us?” a confused Robin asked.

“He should still be there for at least a week.  Once he leaves, his first stop will be Bas’ location so he can show her the objects and brief her on the mission’s status.  He’ll be there for at least a few minutes.  And of course he’ll have the tracking items in his possession at that time.”

Danae smiled as she realized what Tesserill was suggesting.  “You want us to track him with the very objects he planned on using to track us?”

“Exactly!  Of course, it won’t be easy.  You’ll have to find a way to sneak into the Eye yourselves.  And I don’t know exactly what Palfrin will look like or be doing there, so you’ll have to figure that out yourselves.   Once you know who he is, you just have to keep track of him until he’s ready to leave.  Of course then the hard part starts.  You’ll have to take control of the Eye’s tracking systems long enough to find Palfrin before he leaves Bas’ pit.  And you can expect very powerful forces to guard the Eye.  It will be dangerous, but if you can succeed, you can find Bas easily enough.”

The party considered this plan for a while.  “I don’t know,” Azat said.  “It sounds very dangerous, but Tiana and I have been specifically trained to fight the undead.  We should be able to help you greatly.  And if destroying Bas will help save our nation, we’ll gladly work with you.”

Amon, on the other hand, shook his head.  “Look, hanging with you guys has been fun, but going to the Forbidden Plane itself?  That’s just crazy.  If I go there, I know how hard it is to go back.  I think I’ll stay behind and try to learn about your adventures from here, okay?”

The party accepted Amon’s plea and prepared for their departure.  However, Danae had one last thing to do before she left.  She turned to Tesserill uneasily and asked, “Blade of Minds, are you now happy with this afterlife?”

Tesserill thought for a moment, but nodded.  “I think so.  It is peaceful here, and there is much to accomplish and do.”

Danae smiled as her conscience cleared.  “That’s good.  I know were enemies in life, but I honestly don’t think that we’re all that different.  I never meant to kill you, and I didn’t want to see you suffer a fate as horrible as the Far Realms or a servant of the slaads.  I hope we can leave here as friends.”

Tesserill held out her hand.  “I agree.  I wish you luck, and hope that whatever happens, our shared world benefits from it.”

Danae shook her hand gratefully, as did most of the rest of the party.  With this resolved, they left Boccob’s domain and took only a couple of days to sell the treasure they obtained on this journey and buy new equipment before returning to Methosilang and plan their next mission.

When they arrived at Tal’s Manor, they learned that they had a message.  Or, to be specific, Bath did.  “Milady, a magical message was sent for you recently.  However, we’re not sure if you should read it.  It has a strange feel to it, as if it came from foul and evil realms.”

“Ohh!” Bath squealed with surprising delight.  “I bet I know what this is!”  She quickly opened the letter and learned that it came from the Succubus she met in Glorium, as she expected.

The letter was short but to the point.  “Greetings, Bath Quol.  Much as it sickens me, I have performed the task I agreed to do for you.  I gathered all the information we had about your target, Allishira.  Contrary to what I initially suspected he is not a demon.  Rather he was one of the original servants to the goddess you call Bas.  He was even her ally before her fall, when she was still expected to have allies among the celestials.  Allishira was the most powerful of these celestials, and he was also incredibly loyal to Bas.  When she fell, he chose to ally with her against her sisters.  Most of her servants were killed, but the ones who survived until the end of the war were simply trapped.  When her divine domain was destroyed and the entirety of Bas’ essence was sent to the Material Plane, they were sealed away in a pocket plane between the two locations, unable to be found and destroyed, but unable to escape as well.  If Bas called Allishira back into reality, then she must be getting very powerful.  I wish you luck in your battle to destroy her.  We have enough competition down here as it is.”

After reading the note, Bath rejoined her friends, who were already discussing their plan for getting into the Eye.  

“Well, a direct assault is out,” Danae said after consulting her notes.  “The Eye of Nerull is 500 feet in diameter and made of evil-tainted stone.  It’s guarded by some of The Puppet’s most powerful forces.  Even worse, The Eye itself is a weapon.  It can sense nearly everything that comes near it, and can project rays of annihilation at approaching targets!”

Visible worried about this, Tiana asked, “Can’t we just teleport in?”

Danae shook her head.  “No.  The place is magically protected against outside teleportation.  We can probably teleport out again, but we need to get in the hard way.”

“So what do we do?” Azat asked.

“Well, the Eye works like a normal eye does.  It can only focus on one place at a time.  All we need is a distraction impressive enough to keep the Eye and its guards busy while we sneak in the back.”

“What will we use for that?” Bath asked.  “I don’t think you want to risk any of your forces now that they’re finally almost ready to attack Bas.”

Tal suddenly grinned.  “I have a great idea!” he said.

Later that day, the Tal, Danae, and Tiana were arriving at Fierypyre, the capital city of the orc empire.  “I still don’t think this is such a good idea.” Tiana grumbled.  “Aren’t you two wanted criminals here after the coliseum incident?  Are you sure you’ll be safe.”

“Relax,” Danae said.  “Tal and I made sure our disguises are flawless.  And considering the war the dragons are waging with the undead, it shouldn’t take too much goading for them to attack the Eye for us.”

The three heroes (chosen among the party because they had the best combination of stealth, magic, and negotiating abilities,) entered the dragon-shaped city and were shocked to see what happened to it since they were last here.  “Well, I guess we won’t have to worry as much about security,” Danae muttered.

The place looked horrible.  Many of the city’s largest buildings were reduced to crumbling ruins, fires burned unabated everywhere, and fights and looting were breaking out at the slightest provocation.  It was obvious that the undead were winning the war, or at least had a number of serious victories to do so much damage the empire’s capital.  Thinking that this could be even easier than they thought, the party slowly worked their way through the city, gathering information about recent events while simultaneously planting rumors about a deadly new weapon the undead were planning on unleashing.  Once the rumor spread throughout the city, the party began to claim that they were the group responsible for discovering this information, and that it was urgent that it be dealt with immediately!  Their ruse finally attracted the attention of the emperor of the orc empire himself, Ka’drylog, AKA the Head that Rules the Claw.  

Tal gave Ka’drylog the speech he had been preparing all day, but it was unnerving bluffing his way past one of the greatest enemies of his city.  “We were on a routine reconnaissance mission when we came close to the Eye of Nerull.  We only spent a few minutes there when we saw it suddenly shudder.  We quickly found a better hiding spot and watched it as it disconnected from its support wires and began to fly under its own power!”

Ka’drylog suddenly leaned forward with concern.  “You mean that…”

“Yes!  The undead have converted what was once a fairly innocent information-gathering center into a mobile fortress!  Can you imagine the damage it could do to Fierypyre if it made its way here?  Now, it only flew for a few minutes when we saw it, but I don’t think it will take them long before they can get it flying permanently.  We have to stop it before they can!”

“Yes, I agree.”  Ka’drylog replied.  But as good as Tal’s story was, Ka’drylog was to savvy to completely buy into it.  “However, I think it would be best if you participated in our attack.  After all, you know the capabilities of the Eye better than we do at this point.  I’m even willing to let one of my best spies assist you in your journey.”  He turned to one of his aides.  “Bring in Devlin!”

A few minutes later, a strange, pale man entered the room.  He was surprisingly human.  “This is Devlin,” Ka’drylog explained.  He was a product of twisted experimentation by the undead empire.  In an attempt to make better spies capable of interacting with living races more effectively, they bred their vampires with living beings to create crossbreeds.  However, these half-vampires were not necessarily loyal to their emperor like all undead are, and the project was terminated along with most of the subjects.  Devlin here escaped and offered his services to me.  He has been most useful, and I’m sure he’ll be just as useful to you.”

The party reluctantly accepted Devlin’s aide, though they realized that his “help” meant that he would likely means every move they made would be reported to Ka’drylog.  But they had little choice but to let him tag along for now and find some way to convince him to join their cause or just eliminate him when the time came.  Fortunately, they barely let the city before Devlin told them.  “I know who you are.  You’re not citizens of Fierypyre.  You work for Methosilang!  Please, you must let me join you when this mission is over!  I wish to defect from the orc empire!”

A surprised and naturally suspicious Tiana asked, “Why would you do that?  How can we be sure we can trust you?”

“Look, I never even wanted to be part of the orc empire,” Devlin explained.  “I just had no choice.  I needed help immediately after escaping the undead, and your city was designed to be nearly impossible to find.  Besides, at the time, I had little hope that you would even take me in.  I was afraid they would just destroy me for my half-undead heritage.  But I know that at least your band of heroes would tolerate me.  After all, you were willing to take in The Savior the last time you were here, and she is clearly an evil force.  I just want a chance to do good for one.”

Tiana looked nervously at Tal, but he nodded to indicate he trusted him.  When they returned to Robin, Azat, and Bath, Bath and Azat studied his aura as well and found him to be a good man, so they agreed for now to let him travel with them.

The next day, the three spies in the party and Devlin met up with the dragon assault force.  The party’s plan was simple.  The dragons make a forward assault on the Eye.  As soon as the fight starts, the four members of the party will join Robin, Azat and Bath on the other side of the Eye when they can slip away unnoticed.  The group will then magically fly to the rear of the Eye, disintegrate enough of the wall to create an opening, and slip in before the dragon attackers were routed.  Because Danae’s research taught her that much of the Eye was filled with a strange fluid, they also prepared magic that would give them complete freedom when swimming and let them breathe safely.

Surprisingly, this part of the plan went off without a hitch.  As soon as the dragons got even close to the Eye, it immediately whirled and fired a green ray at the lead dragon.  It was struck right in the chest by it, but it shook off the effects and flew on undeterred.  About then, however, dozens of incorporeal undead flew out of the eye, while other undead monstrosities rose from a resting point on top of the eye to join the battle.  Teleporting away was easy for the foursome, and they quickly rejoined their friends and infiltrated the Eye.  Of course, this was the easy part.  Now they had to fight their way through the Eye, somehow disguise themselves to avoid capture, and find Palfrin before he can escape!

OOC Notes:  This adventure turned out to be a long one; mostly because of a hiatus we started midway through it.  I’ll explain the details of that in the next update, because it will cover the rest of the games before said hiatus.  Devlin is a new character by the same player who ran Theaven before.  You might notice this kind of thing is fairly common at this point in the game.


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## OaxacanWarrior (Apr 27, 2005)

Well I finally finished reading your story hour and I'd like to say thanks for the great story!  The writing has improved throughout.  I especially like the OOC comments at the end of most of your updates.  I find those quite interesting, especially with all the player changes that happen in your group.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 28, 2005)

OaxacanWarrior said:
			
		

> Well I finally finished reading your story hour and I'd like to say thanks for the great story!  The writing has improved throughout.  I especially like the OOC comments at the end of most of your updates.  I find those quite interesting, especially with all the player changes that happen in your group.




Hey, thanks for the kind words.  I'm never certain how many people actually read my SH; it seems to be a bit of a lurkers' choice, to borrow Wizardru's terminology, and it's nice to hear from the readers from time to time.  Do you have any questions about the events in the campaign?  Or any particular favorite moments or characters?  Anything you didn't like so much?


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## OaxacanWarrior (Apr 28, 2005)

LordVyreth said:
			
		

> Hey, thanks for the kind words.  I'm never certain how many people actually read my SH; it seems to be a bit of a lurkers' choice, to borrow Wizardru's terminology, and it's nice to hear from the readers from time to time.  Do you have any questions about the events in the campaign?  Or any particular favorite moments or characters?  Anything you didn't like so much?




You're welcome.      I really liked how you created the entire campaign world from the first adventure with the Quill.  I have also enjoyed the many twists that have happened.  Most of my questions are more about the players and group interaction (like why did Quercus's player leave on such bad terms), but that's probably just my morbid curiosity coming out.

I don't usually like involving technology like the subway and computers in a D&D campaign, but I think you've done a pretty good job of doing that believably.

I look forward to seeing where the campaign goes from here.


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## LordVyreth (Apr 29, 2005)

OaxacanWarrior said:
			
		

> You're welcome.      I really liked how you created the entire campaign world from the first adventure with the Quill.  I have also enjoyed the many twists that have happened.  Most of my questions are more about the players and group interaction (like why did Quercus's player leave on such bad terms), but that's probably just my morbid curiosity coming out.
> 
> I don't usually like involving technology like the subway and computers in a D&D campaign, but I think you've done a pretty good job of doing that believably.
> 
> I look forward to seeing where the campaign goes from here.




Yeah, I enjoyed using the whole Quill thing myself.  I still wonder how the hell I managed to create an entire campaign world that had so many unusual elements (Methosilang, the two evil empires, the minimal sun thing) and the first adventure in about a week!  I'm still trying to figure out if I could ever use this gimmick again, though.  Certainly not with the same party, though I only have one person from that original party left anyway.

I can answer some questions about group and party dynamics, but I'd rather not publicly talk about the details of the uglier events in the game.  It tends to detract from the story hour.  Besides, though I don't know if any of my ex-players still post here, I'd rather not risk it.  After all, we already had one Story Hour closed this month based on this sort of thing!  I probably could email you some details if you wanted, though.

I'm glad you liked the technology aspects.  I was worried about that when I introduced that, but I have to admit I'm a big fan of juxtapositional worlds with some combination of magic, technology, and psionics.  Making the Quill a major aspect of the game world's history and not just a good way to start the campaign made mixing technology into it easy.  And then when TIE got involved, all bets were off...


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## LordVyreth (May 9, 2005)

Sigh...I'm sorry about the lack of updates this week.  I normally write up the story hour on sundays, but I've just been feeling sick all day.  I think I have eye strain or something, so trying to be creative while typing on the computer is about as hard as you might expect!  I can't really update over the course of this week because I'm working out the next adventure for the actual campaign; there should only be another three or four adventures until the end, so the write-ups have been a little more difficult!  However, expect another update next weekend.  In the meantime, I'm happy to answer pretty much any questions or listen to any comments you might have.


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## OaxacanWarrior (May 9, 2005)

LordVyreth said:
			
		

> Sigh...I'm sorry about the lack of updates this week.  I normally write up the story hour on sundays, but I've just been feeling sick all day.  I think I have eye strain or something, so trying to be creative while typing on the computer is about as hard as you might expect!  I can't really update over the course of this week because I'm working out the next adventure for the actual campaign; there should only be another three or four adventures until the end, so the write-ups have been a little more difficult!  However, expect another update next weekend.  In the meantime, I'm happy to answer pretty much any questions or listen to any comments you might have.




Wow...only 3 or 4 more adventures.  I am interested to see how this ends up.  Will the PCs be able to destroy the "moons" blocking out the sun?  Can they destroy Bas?  Will any of them survive?  Will any of the PCs from the original party still be around to see the end?

I suppose only time will be able to answer these questions.  Good luck on your gaming!  I hope you get feeling better.  I'll be waiting for the next update.


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## LordVyreth (May 10, 2005)

Well, keep in mind from your pespective that it's more like 4.5 to 5.5 adventures left, since I'm still trying to catch up to modern events!  The last adventure was a good one as well.  It actually managed to bring tears to a player's eye, and not in the "What did you do to my character?  You bastard!" sense, either.   

I'm starting to feel better, though I still don't know what was wrong in the first place, so I should be good for an update this weekend.


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## Neurotic (May 16, 2005)

I just want to say, I'm still reading 

I'm aware that mostly I just lurk around reading, but I fully agree with OaxacanWarrior, you're getting better as you go and couldn't just leave you hanging, thinking nobody reads  this SH   

I'll be changing firms in about two weeks, so probably I'll need to catch up again. Thanks for writing.


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## LordVyreth (May 17, 2005)

*The Eye of Nerull: The Outer Sanctums*

Once they got through the wall, the party quickly and quietly snuck into the Eye itself.  However, getting to the relevant parts of the Eye won’t be tricky.  Most of the Eye is filled with the yellow fluid Danae had studied earlier, and which corresponds to the vitreous humor found in a real eye.  The parts of the Eye containing the control room, various maintenance systems, power generators, and “living” conditions correspond to the more delicate components of the eye found near its front, and the party had to have the eye conveniently pointed in the other direction just to get in.  Thus, to reach their target, they have to swim through the vile fluid.

The swim itself was easy enough, thanks to the spells that were protecting the entire party.  However, the fluid was nonetheless slightly dangerous.  Dark clouds made of some unknown material billowed throughout the fluid.  Not only did they reduce visibility even further than the yellow goo already did, but the party was understandably worried about swimming through the potential biological threat.  Even so, one or more of the party got caught in one of the liquid clouds as they moved about in the fluid, and those trapped felt the very essence of life threaten to leave them.

In addition, the temperature of the fluid was very odd and extremely dangerous.  It remained at a relatively temperate level most of the time, but every few seconds, it would pulse with incredible heat followed by incredible cold.  Both extremes were intense enough to damage the party, and while the damage was minimal, the constant shocks to the system were getting both frustrating and dangerous.

“Are we almost there?” an annoyed Robin asked after yet another pulse.

“Well, the entire Eye is only –ow- five hundred feet in diameter,” Danae replied.  “It shouldn’t be much longer now, though I –ouch- didn’t expect us to have to wind our way there.”

Indeed, the eye’s vitreous humor was filled walls made of the same dark stone as the Eye itself, and that made the whole thing into a massive labyrinth.  Because of the very small range of vision the yellow fluid and clouds created, trying to find their way around the tunnels was proving more difficult than expected.  However, just as they were nearing the end of the trip, a much more dangerous threat revealed itself; some of the Eye’s guardians discovered them.  

From below, a massive squid-like monster rose up to meet the party.  However, it was clearly no longer living.  In fact, its entire body was transparent, suggesting that it might a spectral monster or a ghost.  In front of the party, a strange worm-like creature with numerous tentacles growing on its face blocked the path.  It was bloated and rotting, similar to the waterlogged Sunken undead the party fought earlier.  In fact, just to the side of the tunnel-blocking worm, there was what appeared to be a perfectly normal Sunken.

“A Sunken?  They’d actually use something that week to guard the Eye?” Tal asked with disbelief.  “We’ve fought creatures this weak since I first started exploring the surface!  Nothing powerful enough to get this far would even be scratched by such a creature.”

Danae, however, studied the creature more carefully and using her years of research on the anatomy of various monsters.  She suddenly gasped as she realized what this thing was.  This wasn’t an ordinary Sunken.  It was a rare, exemplary, nearly unheard of variant.  A creature of this level of power and ability only appears one time in a million, or possibly even one time in a billion.  In short, it was a paragon of its kind.

Before the party could mobilize the spectral kraken lunged at the party, striking Danae and draining some of its life force.  “Where are Tiana and Azat?” a panicked Danae screamed while she looked around the battlefield.

The rest of the party quickly looked around as well for their missing allies.  “Maybe they went down a side tunnel by accident?”  Tal offered.

As they talked, however, Bath had other concerns, in particular the tunnel worm that was guarding their best exit.  She charged it as Tal also recovered from the initial confusion of battle and fired a magic disintegration ray at the creature.  Surprised by the sudden attack, the tunnel terror could do little against the assault but flail about and futilely try to strike the avenging angel with its tentacles.

Meanwhile, Danae magically changed her shape to that of a massive dragon in the hopes that it would help her drive off the spectral kraken, and Robin and Devlin focused on the paragon Sunken.  However, the unusually strong Sunken easily evaded their attacks due to its unnatural dexterity and some sort of divine insight.  It lashed repeatedly at Devlin, who again regretted his human half when all the air was sucked from his lungs!  He was able to survive due to the magic that let him breathe water as if it was air, but was left gasping to fill his lungs while the Sunken bore down on him, ripping more flesh from his bones with each slash and frequently stealing his breath.

Bath and Tal quickly finished off the tunnel worm, and Bath moved to help Devlin and Robin fight the Sunken while Tal assisted his fellow arcane practitioner.  Danae was holding her own against the creature with her magic and her new form’s breath weapons, but the monster was draining more and more of her life force with every attack.  Finally, just as she was feeling her grasp of advanced magic leave her, one last breath coupled with a barrage of magical energy by Tal finished the beast.

That left just the Sunken.  It was having more trouble with Bath than Devlin because of the near impenetrable armor the angel both wore and possessed naturally, but she was also unable to hit it with any regularity.   However, Bath and Devlin managed to surround it and strike it with greater ease, and Danae and Tal’s magic finally helped finish the semi-divine threat.

With the guards dead, the party quickly located the lost Tiana and Azat and then moved on before the temperature pulses in the fluid damaged them further or more guards detected them.  They finally reached a ramp that lead out of the water and into a dark and gloomy chamber.  After Azat healed the party’s wounds and helped Danae partially recover her lost life force, he and Tiana carefully moved away from the edge of the chamber to explore it.  They quickly dashed back to the party moments later.  “We found some coffins in the middle of the room!” Tiana quietly hissed.

“Coffins?  But who’s coffins?” Danae wondered.

Tiana shrugged.  “Vampires, maybe?  Maybe they’re hiding in the coffins for protection but will spring out to attack us if we get too close or try to leave the room.”

“That’s possible,” Danae admitted.  “But there are a lot of other possibilities as well.”

Tiana concentrated while activating a magical power from one of her items.  “Let me detect the presence of evil in this room,” she explained.  “We should get some idea if there is indeed a threat here that way.”

After a moment, she gave a look of surprise and turned to the party.  “It’s worse than we thought.  Both of the coffins have something evil and powerful inside them, but the coffins themselves are also radiating evil!  Maybe there’s some dark magic based on them?”

“Well, there’s only so much we can do to investigate them without potentially setting whatever traps the spells might be tied to or alerting the coffins’ inhabitants.  I recommend we just try to dispel their magic and either charge the coffins or dash out of the room afterwards,” Tal recommended.  “We can’t afford to waste time; we have to find a safe place to hide before they investigate.”

The party agreed, and after Danae used her most powerful dispelling magic on the coffins, the party charged in the general direction of both the coffins and the hallway at the other end of the room.  As expected, the coffins were part of another guard force that reacted immediately when the party charged.  What they didn’t expect was the two coffins growing ghostly legs and moving to the attack the party themselves!

Before even the coffins (though sarcophagi is a more accurate term for the massive stone tombs,) could attack, however, a dark, shadowy form appeared out of one of the sarcophagi and attacked Tal!  Before the party could react to the sudden threat, the shadow ducked back into the same sarcophagus.  Tal responded by attacking the coffin with magic, but did only minor damage to the massive stone structure.

Meanwhile, it was the coffins’ turn to attack.  They moved almost like spiders on their ghostly insect legs and closed to attack the party.  One hammered Tal with a leg and another charged the other side of the party.  It struck at Bath, and her typical trust in her armor faded as the ghostly leg phased through her armor and struck right at her!  Though it wasn’t able to use the same trick on her natural defenses, it nonetheless struck true and damaged the shocked angel.  Eager to get revenge, Bath began to cut into the coffin, but it was difficult damaging the thick stone of the sarcophaspider with her blade.  As a result, she was only slightly prepared when a wraith flew out of the second coffin, attacked Azat, and then flew safely back inside the coffin!

“This will get old fast,” Azat muttered, as he called upon the holy light of his god and sent a spray of shifting colors at the two coffins.  One was seemingly unaffected, but the other was struck by a blue ray that caused it to turn to stone!  Granted, it was mostly stone already and the stone parts seemed unaffected by the spell, but it did freeze the creature in place, preventing it from moving or attacking with its now stone arms!  Seizing the opportunity, Devlin and Tiana moved up to help Tal deal with the motionless coffin.  

Robin, however, had another idea.  Over the past few weeks, he had been studying the inherent properties of undead, and as a result he learned how to strike their vulnerable focal points that bound them to reality much like a living being’s vital organs kept it alive.  As a result, his training against undead enemies will be just as useful to him against undead now as it is against his chosen living targets.  And since he didn’t know what those coffins were, he decided to focus his attacks on the sneaky creatures inside the coffins.  The next time the shadow burst out of the first coffin, he fired a volley of arrows at it with one shot!  The bolts largely struck true, forcing the surprised undead to flee back into the coffin.

Tal, meanwhile, took advantage of his enemy’s immobility by backing out of range and helping Tiana and Devlin with his magic.  However, the tables turned on the three of them and Robin when the creature opened it stone coffin lid “mouth” and breathed at them!  Well, technically the breath was a flood of ghostly spirits that flew right through the four heroes, draining some of their life and lancing their bodies with deadly negative energy, but the four heroes caught by the blast weren’t too concerned with technicalities.  

While the four heroes recovered from the deadly attack, Bath and Azat began to trade blows with the second coffin.  The sarcophaspider struck with both its legs and a ghostly tongue that rolled out of the lid opening.  The tongue seemed to be the most powerful of its attacks, for it kept on trying to grab hold of the duo and pull them into the coffin, but fortunately the same magic the party used to travel the Vitreous Humor pool with ease also helped them avoid being grappled by the creature.  Danae helped a little as well, but she also identified some magic on the exit from the room and tried to disable it in case they needed to escape quickly.

While Bath and Azat were getting a handle on their foe, the rest of the party was less successful.  For one thing, when the shadow again emerged from the coffin, it was largely healed from the wounds Robin inflicted on it!  It was as if the coffin somehow partially restored its health.  In addition, the coffin opened again the next chance it got.  This time, however, instead of firing a spray of spirits, it sent four more powerful spirits to hound the heroes.  Each one bit at its victim and tried to wrap it with ghostly bindings, freezing the target.  Tiana was affected by this strange attack, but the others ripped their ways out of the binding and attacked the coffin with renewed vigor.  Soon, both of the strange coffins were reduced to rubble, leaving the undead inside them defenseless.  They were soon destroyed as well, letting the party advanced down the tunnel Danae was trying to safeguard.  

However, as they traveled down it, they soon discovered that she didn’t completely eliminate the magic traps located down it.  They barely started their journey when ghostly eyeballs suddenly rained down at them!  They filled each of the heroes with unholy pain whenever they struck, and the eyes then continued to circle their victims, as if watching every move they made for a weakness.  Almost instantly afterwards, a word of blasphemy echoed down the hallway.  Fortunately, Bath and Azat, the only heroes from who were not natives of this plane, were outside of the effect and thus were able to avoid being banished!  However, it left the rest of the party dazed by the strength of the evil word.  No sooner did they recover from that then a third danger appeared in the hallway.  This time, it was a strange ooze that appeared to be of some dark, shadowy fluid.  However, while it seemed to have more luck in attacking the party than expected because of the eyeballs’ assistance, the party was able to destroy it and reach the end of the tunnel without much trouble. 

Once they were about to leave the tunnel, the party abruptly stopped to let the eyeballs finally dissipate and prepare for their next move.  “Now, we can’t use force from here on, at least not until we figure out where Palfrin is.  I don’t think we can single-handedly destroy every single undead in the Eye of Nerull, especially in the condition we’re in.  And if we do use too much force, Palfrin will likely figure out that we’re here and try to flee before we get the chance to find him,” Danae explained to the group. 

	“I agree.  We need to find a way to recover before we do anything, though,” Azat said.  “I have a spell that lets use become invisible to undead.  We can get use that and a regular invisibility spell in case they have any living allies or if we run into Palfrin.  With luck, we can search the personal chambers until we find an empty one to rest in.”

	The party quickly implemented that plan, and soon after they were searching the hallways of the Eye for a possible sanctuary.  However, as they turned a corner after exploring for a minute or two, they stumbled upon an extremely unusual resident of the Eye: a rakshasa.  Even stranger, it was a rakshasa who was totally without any form of disguise, a rare thing to find by accident indeed.  The party immediately froze, afraid that this creature might discover them and alert the entire Eye, but it merely walked right past them while laughing and smoking his pipe, seemingly completely obliviously.  The party released a collective sigh of relief, but they weren’t about to rely on the hope that the rakshasa didn’t really see them and was just bluffing.  They intensified their search for a safe haven, and soon found an empty room to rest in.  The next morning, they knew, the hard part of this mission would truly being.

	OOC Notes:  This update represents the last two updates before the group split to multiple states throughout the United States.  As a result, we took a few months off to let the moving players adjust, and then started up again online.  Of course, that wasn’t an easy transmission, and the first few games in particular saw little action.  In other words, the next update will cover about six months of in real life time!   

	This was another adventure that used a lot of unique or unusual ideas.  The shadow ooze was from a Dragon article, and the sarcophaspiders and the All Seeing spell (the ghostly eye one,) were unique ideas of mine.  I actually enjoyed using the spiders quite a bit, as they had a lot of unique features.  Notably, whenever they were damaged, negative energy filled their interior.  This let the spring attacking wraith and shadow heal themselves every round the coffins were damaged, but it also could have been a deadly trap to the party if they weren’t all safe from the grapple checks due to Freedom of Movement spells.


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## LordVyreth (May 20, 2005)

Oh, and thanks for the kind words, Oaxacan and Neurotic.  I appreciate your responses.  I really do wonder sometimes how many people generally read this thing, and it's good to hear from the readers sometimes.

As for the Dark Moons, let me just say the plotline just started revisiting that little story...


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## LordVyreth (May 31, 2005)

*The Eye of Nerull: Stone Eye Solid*

The next morning, the party prepared their spells and their disguises for the next day.  “I don’t think we can all appear as undead,” Tal pointed out, “even with magic.  We could try more mundane disguises.”

	Bath shook her head, “We can’t risk anyone mistaking even one of us for a living being here.  Maybe we can treat them as prisoners?  We can disguise that a lot more easily.”

	The party agreed, and soon everyone figured out whether they would appear as an undead or a prisoner.  Due to their magical talents, Bath, Danae, Tal, and Azat would appear as vampires or similar undead, and Devlin looked close enough to an undead to pass without magical aid.  Robin and Tiana, however, would be disguised as prisoners.  While Tal helped them prepare makeup so they appeared less dangerous and more beaten and disheveled, Bath had another idea.  “I think I can scout around a bit while we’re waiting.  I can polymorph myself into an insect.  That shouldn’t attract too much attention.”

	The rest of the party was concerned, but reluctantly let him go.  Bath quickly changed form to appear as a fly, and then left the room to find any noteworthy rooms in the residential section of the Eye.  She soon discovered two rooms that radiated intense heat and cold, respectively, a dark door that with mist that seeped out of its cracks, and finally the control room/bridge of the Eye itself.  The control room was dominated by a massive bone throne, where a skeletal figure sat watching the control room’s view screen.  The room also contained another stone coffin, a vampire who worked at a room’s control panel, and a massive undead minotaur in heavy armor.  As Bath continued to explore the room, the minotaur suddenly turned to stare at her.  “Master, we have an intruder!” the minotaur shouted as he swung a massive halberd at the surprised fly/angel.

	Bath quickly moved out of the way as the rest of the room, who didn’t see her tiny fly body, stared at the minotaur like he was crazy!  Bath narrowly evaded the halberd a few more times before fleeing the room terrified!

	“Kuurnok, what is the meaning of this?” the shocked skeleton on the throne asked after Bath escaped.

	“There was a fly in the room, master!  I’m sure it was a spy for the dragons or a polymorphed wizard or something!”

	The skeleton would have rolled his eyes if he still had any.  “Kuurnok, it was probably just a regular fly.  It must have been on or inside one of the ghasts when they returned from repelling the dragons.  Now stop worrying about it and watch for legitimate threats.”

	Kuurnok said nothing, but his eyes narrowed, or they would have if, again, he had any.  He knew no regular fly would be that good at dodging his weaponry.  This was the beginning of a greater threat.

	Meanwhile, the spooked Bath returned to the party.  “I found the bridge room.  I think if we wanted to move about safely here, we have to present ourselves to him.”

	Tal nodded.  “Good idea.  Even if we don’t get recognized as living beings, someone might realize we’re new.  We could claim to be a standard patrol that caught these prisoners trying to sneak into the Eye.”

	With a plan established, the party finished the make-up and marched directly to the bridge.  There, Tal presented himself and told the cover story he thought up earlier, with some typical embellishments.

	Kuurnok grunted.  “Our policy has never been to bring captured prisoners here!  And they still have some of their equipment!”

	The skeletal leader of the Eye, however, shook his head.  “Yes, but it makes sense to send us the prisoners who are trying to attack our base, does it not?”

	“Not if they were trying to break in…” Kuurnok protested, but to no avail.

	“Enough of this!  If it really bothers you, Kuurnok, we’ll have the prisoners thrown into the ghast chambers.  They’ll make sure the two prisoners don’t escape.  However, the prisoners are not to be harmed!  We want Emperor Petrach to receive them intact!”

	A vampire servant led Robin and Tiana out of the room, while the skeletal leader continued his conversation with the others.  “Will you be leaving, then?” the skeleton asked.

	Tal shook his head.  “Not yet.  We’ll wait to help you deliver the prisoners as soon as our Master is ready for them.”

	His presence established, the skeleton dismissed the remainder of the party, who realized that unless they find Palfrin soon and he will soon be ready to leave, they could be in big trouble if Petrach (or The Puppet, as the party more generally knew him) was ready to take the prisoners soon!  They began their investigation immediately while Tiana and Robin were unceremoniously dumped into a pit full of ghasts!  Robin was almost paralyzed with fear and by their incredible stench, but Tiana was an expert at dealing with undead and was unconcerned.  In fact, something that the eye’s ruler said gave her an idea…

	“Right, I must be going,” she said as she moved towards the door.

	Of course, the ghasts quickly surrounded her.  “You’re not going anywhere,” one hissed.  “We have orders not to let you out.  If you even try, we’ll rip your limbs off.”

	“Ah, but didn’t your master also say that I’m not to be harmed?”

	“Well, yes…” one of them admitted.  “But it’s only a few missing limbs.  We can have them repaired magically if need be, so long as you are left alive.”

	“No, that’s not what he said at all.  He said that I’m not to be harmed, period.  There’s no ambiguity there.”

	“But what if it is necessary to harm you to fulfill our other order?  You are our prisoner, so our priority is to keep you here, regardless of your condition.”

	“What makes you think you have the authority to determine what your priority is?  It’s just as likely that not harming me is your primary objective.”

	This went on for a while, and in fact Tiana discussed semantics with ghasts for the next several days while the party continued their investigation.  They quickly discovered a number of potential suspects, with their primary suspects including the Rakshasha!  Apparently, his name is Alastarix, and he only recently started to work at the Eye on an apparent consulting job.  He also was known for his rolling card game, which he got a bit of a reputation for being absolutely awful at.  This was suspicious to the party, however.  After all, most Rakshasa were known for both their dexterity and their skill at deceit, making them excellent card players.  Furthermore, if he really was that bad at it, why play so often?

	However, their other suspect proved to be even more likely.  She was a vampire named Verulan, and she came to the Eye recently to work on her research.  As a result, she was allowed to avoid the usual guard duty most of the Eye’s vampires are forced into performing.  Currently, she was working in what the vampires questioned called the Spirit Containment room.  They soon discovered this was the misty room that the dark door led to.  Though understandably nervous about the whole concept given the name and the strange mist, the party carefully entered the room.

	Once there, they learned that the “mist” was clearly not something so mundane.  It drifted across the room as if it had some life, and strange faces randomly appeared throughout it.

	“What is this?” Tal asked with discuss.

	Azat studied it for a moment, and then gravely said, “The stuff of souls.  This is the residual spirit material that is left behind in a body when the consciousness has gone on to the next life.  It can be absorbed by the undead to heal them, but it is harmless to living beings.  We can proceed, but be careful.”

	Exploring the room was as confusing as navigating a heavy fog, but after wandering for a few minutes, a seated figure could be seen.  The party approached it carefully, but the pale woman appeared to be meditating and didn’t notice them.  They carefully backed up long enough for Azat and Danae to prepare detection magic, and then approached.  Sure enough, as they expected, when seen through the eyes of pure truth, “Verulan” was actually a human male with a large amount of crystal equipment.  

	“That’s him!” Tal confirmed as they made they way out of the room.  “I recognize him from the last time.”

	“Now all we have to do is wait for him to leave, and then use the Eye to track him,” Danae noted.

	Tal nodded, but sighed, “Years after he escaped me the first time, and we have to let him go again.”

	The days following this discovery passed uneventfully, for the most part.  Tal and Danae spent as much time as possible in the bridge, so they could be prepared to use it quickly when the time came.  Finally, Verulan/Palfrin told the skeletal leader (who the party learned was an ancient lich named Fell Kniss by this point,) that she/he was ready to go, and not a moment too soon, for that very day, word had come from the Puppet that he was ready to receive the prisoners!  In addition, there was another complication: Devlin was gone.  He had disappeared about a day before Palfrin and the party’s planned departures, and the heroes had no idea what happened to him.

	“Did he sell us out?” Tal asked that morning, as they went over their preparations for that day’s likely battle.  

	“If so, it wasn’t to the undead, or we would already be arrested,” Azat replied.  “Maybe he got tired of waiting and fled back to Dragovigis or tried to find Methosilang on his own.”

	“At any rate, we can’t afford to wait for him any longer,” Danae admitted.  “If he was captured by the undead, we would have heard about it, so we have to assume he’s safe wherever he is.”

	Later that day, the party gathered Tiana and Robin.  Fell Kniss expected them to meet with him one last time at the bridge before they left so he could brief them one last time, and the party was able to carefully time it so their last meeting would take place mere seconds after Palfrin left.  They carefully re-entered the bridge, and just as Fel Kniss turned to shake their hands and begin the final briefing, Tal shouted “Now” and the party charged into the room!

	The “prisoners” were the most eager party members to get some revenge on the undead after their long imprisonment, so they were the first to act.  Both of them moved to attack the giant minotaur, but his dark nature repelled all but a bit of the damage from their attacks.  

	“I knew you were spies from the very beginning!” he roared as he created a dark burst of fire and unholy energy at them.  

	“And look how much good it did you!” Azat taunted while he began to heal the party.  

	Meanwhile, the rest of the party surged in.  Bath flew right at the surprised vampire assistant and nearly destroyed its body with one series of swings!  About the same time, Danae shapechanged into one of the most dangerous things she could think of: a monstrous being from the Far Realm known as an Uvuudum!  She struck at the lich and grappled him in her giant tentacle.  Tal was just a step behind her and aided her with magic, but his primary concern was the throne.  As soon as Danae could wrestle Kniss out of it, he knew he had to get on it and use it to find Palfrin and Bas.  His thoughts were distracted, however, when the coffin that lied next to the throne grew four insect legs and breathed its unholy spirit breath at the party!

	Seeing this, Robin broke off his fight against Kuurnok and fired at the sarcophaspider, but his arrows were about as effective on the creature’s stone body as they were on Kuurnok’s unholy form.  Without the threat of the ranger, Kuurnok roared and charged right at Azat.  Because he was pretending to be an undead, Azat didn’t have the chance to transform into his more powerful wereleopard form, and as a result he couldn’t withstand the furious blows of the raging minotaur!  After a few bloody strokes of his halberd, Kuurnok had sliced the lifeless body of Azat into little pieces!

	Meanwhile, Fell Kniss relied on his years of experience to use magic even while being grappled.  He summoned a swarm of the dark eyes that hounded the party at the corridor into the residential sector.  The eyes bored into the party with their dark glares, filling them with damaging dark power.  In addition, Kuurnok and the other fighters looked at the party with a new insight, having received information about how to attack the party more easily from the scouting eyes.

	However, Kniss’s plan was costly, for Danae continued to pierce him with the spiked tentacle and dragged him out of his throne.  An overly eager Tal ran to sit on the throne, but as he did so, the stone coffin opened and lashed at him with an ectoplasmic tongue.  It struck Tal easily, and then wrapped itself around him and suddenly pulled him into the tomb!  With the heavy noise of a coffin lid closing, Tal was trapped.

	Bath was having slightly better luck.  She destroyed the vampire’s form, forcing it to turn into mist and flee.  However, at the same time, reinforcements flew in from the ceiling.  A massive wraith floated towards her and struck her with a ghostly claw, damaging her and draining some of her life force at the same time.

	After seeing her friend’s horrible fate, Tiana realized that Bath might be the only force capable of stopping the deadly Kuurnok.  She moved to help her fight the wraith while Robin was forced to endure the brunt of the minotaur’s attack.  The monster’s blows hurt even the tough ranger greatly, but he held his ground.

	Meanwhile, Danae succeeded at pinning Fell Kniss, but the wily lich simply vanished after obviously using some sort of teleportation spell.  With her primary target gone, Danae knew she had to save Tal and quickly, but realized that first she had to prevent more reinforcements from coming.  After using magic capable of stopping time itself, she coated the walls and ceiling with multiple walls of force, and made sure to toss two in front of the door in case one was destroyed.  She then altered her shape into that of a massive adamantine golem and worked to free Tal.

	With Tiana’s help, Bath was able to destroy the wraith and turn her attention to the hateful minotaur.  With Robin and Tiana’s support, she began to seriously wound the massive monster at the same time as Danae grabbed onto the sarcophaspider and began to pry its lid off.  The creature attacked Danae’s form as it struggled, but Danae ignored the pain and continued to fight the beast.  Finally, she freed Tal, but it was a costly victory, as she realized when she saw Tal.  The poor sorcerer looked almost as injured as the coffin did, as if the sarcophaspider projected all the pain and injury it suffered at Tal!

	Despite the painful state he was in, Tal quickly sat onto the throne and began to use it to find Palfrin while Danae continued to pummel the coffin.  However, a new threat presented itself to the party, for Fell Kniss had returned, and he brought an incredibly dangerous reinforcement!  It was a skeletal figure, but it was covered with ice and a cold mist radiated around it.  Danae realized it was a Winter Wight, one of the most powerful undead in existence!  Fortunately, her walls of force managed to hinder Kniss’ attempts to return, and both he and the wight were trapped outside the room!

	With time running short, the party intensified their efforts.  Bath quickly finished off the minotaur death knight while Tal finally figured out the throne and used it to track Palfrin.  He was currently located only a few dozen miles from the Fortress of Vengeance and the underground drow city the party fought the Lady of Blood at, suggesting that this was indeed Bas’ resting place.

	At first, it looked like Danae’s plan was even more effective than she thought, for the necromancy-focused lich didn’t even seem to be capable of disintegrating the force walls!  However, a series of disintegration beams were fired by an unknown caster from the end of the hall, letting Kniss and the winter wight reach the party.  The party, however, wasn’t eager to stretch this encounter out any longer than they had to.  Danae created a sphere of prismatic energy around them while they quickly gathered the treasure dropped by their enemies.  They then gathered around Bath so she could take them back to Methosilang.  However, Danae was too far away to reach Bath in time.  “Don’t worry about me!” Danae shouted to her friend.  I’ll be right behind you!”  Bath nodded and teleported away.  Bath turned to face the two powerful undead and smiled.  “Besides,” she thought, as she reveled in the incredible success she had in this fight so far, “I can probably defeat these fools myself!”

	Her overconfidence lasted all of six seconds, for as soon as he entered the room, Fell Kniss shapechanged into a beholder and trained his antimagic eye on the surprised wizard.  Her own shapechanging magic was temporarily negated, letting the powerful winter wight pummel her!  She survived the attack, but just barely, and wisely fled into the sphere for safety and to regain her magic.  Once there, she teleported away to rejoin the rest of the party in Methosilang.

	Despite the death of a party member and their own near-destruction at the hands of the winter wight and lich, the party was jubilant at their success.  At last, they found the location of their enemy!  As soon as the army of Methosilang was ready, they could attack her and destroy the twisted goddess once and for all!  Once they healed and gave the body of Azat over to Methosilang’s clerics for preparations, they went over the treasure they earned over the course of their adventure, and were surprised by some of its contents.  “Two, three, four onyx goats,” Danae counted as she looked over the jewelry.  “That’s strange.  We have four nearly identical carvings of onyx goats and we got them from completely different enemies.  But they don’t radiate magic, so they’re not some sort of new magic item.  I wonder how a set of such strange figurines were spread about throughout the Eye…”

	Later that night, Alastarix rested in his room in the Eye and began a magical communication with his master.

	“Yes, everything went more or less exactly according to plan.  The heroes of Methosilang arrived and discovered Palfrin as expected.”

	After listening to the other speaker, Alastarix replied “…Yes, I was able to steal his research and his duplicate his samples in time.  I was able to scatter them throughout the Eye’s guardians without arousing suspicion.”

	“Of course the heroes collected them when they killed the guardians.  What adventurers wouldn’t?”

	“Yes, I was able to use the throne in all the confusion.  Fell Kniss left the room as soon as the Eye couldn’t track the heroes in the traditional method.  Nobody even noticed that I had far more success.”

	“Oh, I agree.  I would love to see the looks on the faces of those pathetic gray-robes!  They went through all this effort, and then we accomplished what they thought would take weeks or months in a matter of days!”

	“Oh, Bas will recognize this success for you without a doubt.  You have yet to fail her, from what I can tell.  Even the incident at the dwarf city was pinned on Kulstra, not you.  You will clearly become her favored servant after this.”

	“Yes, the adventurers likely know where Bas is as well, but that couldn’t be helped.  I tried to force them to retreat early, but if Fell Kniss killed them all, all our plans would have been ruined.  It really isn’t relevant.  It won’t matter in a week anyway, and there’s no way the Methosilang army will be able to mobilize in time.”

	“No, you don’t half to worry about the vampiric half-breed.  I resolved the situation exactly as you requested and without the party’s knowledge.  You won’t have to be concerned about him any further.”

	“I’m planning on leaving in a few days.  I don’t want to make the undead suspicious by leaving too early.  Useless as the gray robes normally are, we do need them in this crucial stage.”

	“Yes, I will have my full report ready for you at my arrival.  Goodbye, Phellis.”

	OOC Notes:  That last part wasn’t really part of the adventure, I admit, but how many opportunities do you have to have a perfect Revolver Ocelot-style ending in a D&D game?  Hopefully it will give you some hints about the next couple of adventures as well.  And if you’re confused about the above dialog, you should know that only Alastarix is being heard here.  The other half of the conversation (Phellis Mune, in this case,) is skipped over, as if you were listening to only one half of the phone conversation.

	If you’re still confused about the events of this adventure, let me know, and I’ll write up a brief synopsis of just what happened exactly in the last three adventures.  I understand it is a little confusing, and even some of my players had trouble with it at first.

	Kuurnok, for those of you who don’t recognize the name, was created at my request by ENWorld’s own Black Dirge!  He was a source of continual amusement in the early games of this recap.  It’s rare that the minion of the BBEG is sharper and more aware of the party’s plans than the actual BBEG, especially when the minion is a stupid minotaur and the villain is a supposed super-genius lich.


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## LordVyreth (Jun 14, 2005)

*The Truth: The Revelation of the Keeper*

After their success at the Eye (and their defeat as well, though they didn’t know it yet,) the party took a few days to rest.  Of course, they had an audience with the king and queen of Methosilang, where they told the tales of their latest adventure, made sure that the location of Bas would be known even if something happened to them, and learned the current status of the kingdom’s military build-up.  Things were going very well, and once the party got the exact details shortly after their post-adventure shopping spree, they learned that the army would be completely trained, mobilized, and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice in only a month’s time.  With this information, the party returned to their home to make their own plans and decide what to do while waiting for the army to be ready.  They could just take the time resting, but with the final battle so close and so much riding on it, something had to be done.

	Fortunately, in a way, adventure found them again as it often has.  The first noteworthy event occurred shortly after the party through a quick memorial service for the killed Azat, who chose not to be resurrected after his death.  As per his wishes, the party shifted to his plane of existence to put the remains to rest at his homeland.  During the service, they were surprised when a visibly angry man suddenly appeared out of thin air and shouted, “What happened to my student!?”

	The man had a similar style of dress and appearance to Azat, although he had a certain glow that Bath immediately recognized as a sign of celestial heritage, so the party assumed he came from the same plane as Azat originally did.  Understanding the situation, Tal quickly intervened to calm the strange man down, “We’re sorry to tell you he was killed.  However, if it helps, we can tell you of his fate.  He died honorably, fighting against evil undead monsters of the highest order to help save his new homeland.”

	The man was calmed enough at Tal’s words to hear the story of Azat’s death in the Eye of Nerull.  After hearing it, the man nodded and introduced himself more formally.  “I apologize for my shock and anger when I first arrived.  I am called Tonacacihuatl, and I was Azat’s teacher and mentor.  I helped him better understand his gift and guided him on his quest to destroy the enemies of life.  It sounds like your quest is an honorable and worthy one.  I believe that it would please my pupil’s spirit if I were to assist you and finish the quest he has started.  Will you let me join you?”

	The party agreed, and soon they were back at Methosilang and once again processing a new citizen and ally of the city and the kingdom as a whole.  Tonaca (as he was swiftly called by everyone who couldn’t remember or pronounce his full name,) had some trouble adjusting to the vastly different civilization of a new plane, but just like Azat before him, he was learning quickly.

	However, he only had a day or two of adjustment time before a far graver situation came up.  Olivia Neddle arrived at the party’s manor to let them know that once again her “associate,” the goddess of knowledge Ordhari, had important information for them.

	After the party was gathered and new members of the group were introduced to both Olivia and Ordhari, the woman/goddess explained the situation.  “Before I explain what has happened, I have to give you a brief history lesson.”  Ignoring the groans from everyone but Danae, she continued, “Nearly a thousand years ago, the Undead Empire had a very important underground research lab.  This lab was located in an ancient temple left over from an ancient era, much like my own Ancient Library.  This area was called the Forgotten Temple, and the undead used the relics from this ruins in their quest to create and perfect new magical weaponry and beasts.  However, something went wrong.  They ended up creating a new creature so powerful that not even they could control it.  The creature went mad, destroying the undead researchers and proclaiming itself the emperor of the various experiments and subjects in the lab.  Not even the undead emperor, the being you call The Puppet, could easily stop it.  Not willing to risk his own unlife or that of his most powerful servants, he summoned his most powerful clerics and wizards to collectively seal the Temple itself.  The seal prevented the creature from leaving under any circumstances and hid the entire area from all kinds of divination magic.  Or, at least, that was the situation up until a few days ago.

	“I suddenly became aware of the Temple, suggesting that somehow the seal was breeched.  It initially thought the spell merely was getting weaker, but instead it turned out that some accident physically disrupted the seal, creating a tiny gap in it.  The creature can’t escape from such a gap, but a group from outside can get in.”

	“So you are afraid someone will try to release this creature?  Why would anyone do that?” Danae asked.

	Ordhari hesitated, and then explained, “Over the last thousand years, the creature took full advantage of its time in captivity.  It grew in power and knowledge, as it studied the abandoned relics of his prison.  In fact, it no longer can even be considered a mortal creature.  It is more like a twisted demi-god, an abomination if you will.  It has been absorbing the knowledge of the various creatures it claims dominion over, and since it didn’t gain full godhood, it isn’t bound by the rules of secrets that we gods are.  It has become so knowledgeable that records of the creature’s existence, which no longer have any recollection of the creature’s original name, now simple call it the Keeper of Knowledge.  It could provide accurate information on nearly any subject, but for a price.”

	“So we could learn information about nearly anything from it?  Better ways to stop Bas, how to destroy the Dark Moons, even who Lady Memory is?” Tal asked.

	Bath shook her head.  “I’m more worried about the price.”

	“Well, most likely, anyone who wants information from this creature will have to free it in exchange.  And this gives us two options.  We can’t just ignore this beast.  Someone is bound to find it, and then Bas will not only have answers to any questions she can’t get herself, like the location of Methosilang, but also the friendship of an incredibly powerful ally.  On the other hand, as Tal pointed out, getting help from this creature could be helpful to our cause as well, but doing so is very risky.  If released, the Keeper will likely direct its vengeance against the undead empire initially, but after that it could seek any ally or go after any civilization.  It could even try to conquer the world itself, and we’d have a second Bas to worry about.  If you do get answers out of it, you have to make sure to use deceit or offer only partial aide.  From there, it will likely be necessary to destroy it, if possible.”

	“If possible?” a worried Robin asked.  

	“Well, like I said, this creature is far from weak.  It is almost as powerful as the Puppet, after all.  However, if you hope to actually fight Bas, then battling creatures like the Keeper should be less of a danger in comparison.  If nothing else, the Keeper might be a good test of your skills before the final battle with Bas.”

	Faced with this information, the party agreed to go to the Forgotten Temple and confront the Keeper, but they were undecided about what to do when they finally met the beast?  Try to deal with it for information that could be critical or simply destroy it?  For now, they decided to just explore the Temple and hope to find some answers by the time they were ready to confront this strange opportunity.

	Surprisingly, however, their first clue came before they even reached the temple.  Danae had teleported the party to the closest area they knew of to the Temple.  From there, they had to take a few days to get there the old fashioned way.  It was on the second day that they were stopped by some unexpected figures.

	The first figure suddenly materialized in front of them.  It was vaguely humanoid, but it lacked any gender-based features.  It also had four legs and arms, very pale, white skin, and vaguely insect-like eyes, and it flew on wings made of pure force.  Behind it, a second figure of the same species floated, but it was invisible, and thus most of the party was initially unaware of it.  The figure that was revealing itself to the party said in a voice that was forceful but not hostile, “Stop!  I am not your enemy, but I must insist you cease this quest!  I know who you seek and you must not deal with such a beast!  It will endanger far more than you realize!”

	The party halted for now, at least until they could determine the nature of this potential threat.  Tiana quickly studied these creatures for any hint of evil, but was shocked at the results.  She gasped, “They’re good!”

	Danae nodded.  “I thought they looked familiar, though the common belief was that these beings were extinct.  They’re called Malachim, and they’re celestials, but of a particularly strange nature.  They oppose evil like all celestials do, but they are far less picky about how to win their battles.  They have been known to use less orthodox and even slightly unethical methods to oppose evil.  They even have been known to ally with evil gods or fiends to fight greater evils!  That was believed to be their downfall, for when great evil powers sought revenge on their kind, they were abandoned by the other celestials and completed annihilated!  Of course, that last part may have to be revised now.”

	After hearing that they were willing to work with evil, Bath was suspicious despite her kinship with these celestials.  “Tell us, who do you serve?” she asks the Malachim.  

	The visible Malachim, who so far was the only one who responded or spoke in any way, shook his strange head and replied, “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.  The entity we serve wishes to remain anonymous.  I can only say that it is not your enemy, and in fact its greatest desire is to see your success.  However, it is unable to reveal its true name or form to you due to various laws of the divine.”

	Danae sighed and said, “Well, that’s all very well and good, but we can’t just ignore the Keeper.  If we do, then Bas’ forces will abuse his knowledge, and I’m sure even you must agree that would be even worse.”

	The Malachim nodded, and responded, “Very well.  We won’t stop you from seeing this creature, but you must make a vow to us and to your gods that should you find this creature, you will only act to destroy him, not bargain with him.”

	The party conferred for a while, and surprisingly, most of them agreed to this request despite some lingering suspicions about the Malachim, including why one of them chose to try remaining hidden.  “After all,” Robin admitted, “We sort of wanted to just destroy him anyway.  I’m not so certain that trying to deal with such an evil creature is wise at any rate.”

	Even Danae and Tal, who were most comfortable with the idea of seeking knowledge from such a beast, reluctantly nodded their heads.  “The idea of losing so much knowledge sickens me,” Danae said, “but there has to be a better way.”

	However, it turns out that one of the party was not willing to accept the vow, and it was possibly the last one that any would expect.  Bath, remarkably, was not willing to take the vow.  Even though she couldn’t directly work with an evil being because of her vows as a paladin, she wasn’t willing to the tie the party’s hands before they knew the entire situation, especially to such an ambiguous creature.  On the other hand, she couldn’t attack a celestial either, so she decided to take the only course of action she could; call his bluff.

She began to fly forward, right past the sentinel Malachim and in direct opposition to his order.  Both it and the party protested, but she continued onward, causing the Malachim to sigh and cause two energy blades to materialize out of thin air.  It attacked Bath as she passed by, forcing both groups to react to the new situation.

Though they were reluctant to do so, the party had to support one of their own, and they helped Bath fight the Malachim.  However, as early as the first strike, the Malachim demonstrated that they weren’t bluffing when they claimed to want to help the party.  The blades were incredibly painful to Bath when they struck her, but they left no permanent wounds.  Even when the invisible Malachim cast a spell that rained fiery meteors on the party, all of the damage was nonlethal!  Confused by this usual change from the norm, the party focused on supportive and nonlethal magic, at least at first.  Tonaca, demonstrating his unusual culture in comparison to that of the home plane of most of the party, summoned a flying snake known as a coualt, which Tonaca put to work to detect the nature of the Malachim and confirm that they are truly good.  Danae put up a defensive wall of force and later shapechanged into a solar.  Even when the party did attack the Malachim, as both Bath and Robin swiftly chose to do, they used nonlethal damage.  Before long, both Malachim were wounded and may soon be knocked unconscious.

However, this situation bothered Danae.  As much as she wanted to preserve such rare beings and despite originally agreeing to take their vow, if the Malachim now considered the party to be enemies, if not deadly ones, they’ll likely return to hound the party throughout the entire Forgotten Temple.  That could be deadly depending on what they’ll end up finding there.  She sighed with regret and disappointment and decided she would have to use lethal force in this situation.

After making that decision, she fired a ray of utter darkness at the nearest Malachim.  If successful, the ray would instantaneously cause of the death of any living being.  It struck the Malachim directly and though it shuddered and almost collapsed from the pain, it managed to resist the ray’s most dire effects.  However, since they were losing the fight up to this point and now that they realized the party would fight to the death, the Malachim teleported away, confirming Danae’s fears.

The rest of the party was less happy with the end of the fight, and Danae and Bath in particular were visibly upset with each other.  “Why did you provoke them?” Danae asked.  “We didn’t have to fight them!”

“If I didn’t do so, we would be forced to obey that oath.  I couldn’t take such an oath from an unknown source.  Besides, no one got hurt.  At least, we didn’t this time.  They might not be so forgiving if they show up again.”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to prevent!  They could come after us at any moment!” Danae responded, but she sighed and realized this fighting was futile.  After uttering a few choice curse words, she decided to let the matter drop.  The party rode on towards the Temple, but they did so with greater reluctance.  Already, they were up against mysterious enemies and the party itself was in danger of being split.  What would they be up against in the Temple itself?

OOC Notes:  The party essentially reached a collective 22nd level right before this.  There was actually some confusion on a few people xp totals due to people missing a few games and the overall confusion of the switch to online, so I just balanced out everyone except for Tal, who was well above the rest of the party’s level at this point.  That just made him higher up at 22nd level, though.

Oh, and some good news.  I'll hopefully have another update for you next weekend.  I switched weekends for my biweekly schedule a month or so ago, but the new system really doesn't fit the schedule as well.  Doing it next week will give me an entire saturday that's free, letting me stretch work on the recap over two days so I hopefull will have less of these Monday updates.


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## Axegrrl (Jun 19, 2005)

Now, this just sucks, because you've been telling us to read your story hour... and whammo, massive spoiler. Basically, it doesn't matter what we do next, as according to post #173, the bad guys now know where the hidden city is. So while we try to find allies to go beat up on Bas, when we get there with the army from Methosilang, Bas and army will probably be gone -- destroying Methosilang, which we have just left essentially unprotected. Wonderful. I so love playing in games where I as a player know the mission is doomed and my character is clueless. Not.


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## LordVyreth (Jun 20, 2005)

Axegrrl said:
			
		

> Now, this just sucks, because you've been telling us to read your story hour... and whammo, massive spoiler. Basically, it doesn't matter what we do next, as according to post #173, the bad guys now know where the hidden city is. So while we try to find allies to go beat up on Bas, when we get there with the army from Methosilang, Bas and army will probably be gone -- destroying Methosilang, which we have just left essentially unprotected. Wonderful. I so love playing in games where I as a player know the mission is doomed and my character is clueless. Not.





Err, what?  I don't want to spoil things for the readers, but I thought the current adventure made it fairly obvious that the Bas forces knew where Methosilang was.  Otherwise their current plan would be a waste.  Since this storyline was just about to come up, I didn't feel too worried about revealing how they learned this when it became a given that they did in fact know this.  

As for your second concern, Bas can't actually go anywhere.  The whole point is to raise an army and destroy her before she gains her full strength and the capacity to move.  Considering that and that Methosilang will certainly leave some defenses behind and is in a very decent position defensively in the first place, it would make no sense for Bas' forces to send any significant forces away in the final battle when their very goddess' life is at stake for something as trivial as the destruction of Methosilang after its armies have been raised.  

I hope this answers your questions on the subject.  If you want to discuss this further, I recommend you do so via email to avoid waylaying the Story Hour.  I've seen situations where player-DM conflict seep into the SH discussion and it isn't pretty.  

As for the SH, I apologize for not getting the update in yet.  I was sort of surprised by unexpected Father's Day plans.  I'll probably finish it up in the next two days.

edit: Okay, slightly longer.  Sorry about that.  Hopefully I can get a fairly short update up tonight, and then we'll resume the normal-length updates next weekend.  In case you're wondering, I'm about 3 months behind right now, and should be able to catch up pretty quickly at this point.


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## LordVyreth (Jun 24, 2005)

*The Truth: Bridge Over Troubled "Water"*

The party journeyed farther, until it began to grow late in the day.  They briefly considered resting for the night, but before they could make a decision, they had reached the mountain the Temple was buried under.  It took only a few minutes of searching for the party to find a tunnel leading deep underground.  From what they know, this should take them directly to the Temple’s entrance.  However, they once again had to make a decision on whether it would wise to rest beforehand.

“I really don’t recommend it,” Danae said.  “Those Malachim are still out there, and they have a very good chance of attacking us while we try to sleep.”

Tal scoffed.  “We still have the Instant Fortress.  I can make it impenetrable to any attack!”

“Well, yes, but we only have half an hour of invincibility with your Lyre of Building, so we can’t keep it up all night, and that won’t help us if they sneak in.  Besides, we’re right in the middle of undead territory.  If we set up a massive fortress, a patrol might find us, especially since we’re right next to such an important location.”

Mark conceded the point, the party agreed to investigate the Temple for now.  The tunnel they took twisted downwards for thousands of feet, and while it was barely ten feet high and wide at first, by the end of the tunnel, it was more than two hundred feet high and wide!  It also opened up on the side, letting the heroes look downwards into a massive cavern.  A gigantic dome rose out of the ground at the bottom of the cavern.  “That must be the top of the Temple,” Robin speculated.  “Can we get in there?”

Tiana shook her head.  “We don’t know how or what will break the seal trapping The Keeper in.  I’d rather find the regular entrance if possible.”

The tunnel eventually descended below the cavern floor and finally ended hundreds of feet down.  A massive stone door, covered with runes of unknown origin, stood before the party.  

“I wonder what that says,” Robin nervously remarked.

Danae peered at it, her supernaturally effective skill with languages working overtime.  “There are some engraved lettering from what I suspect is the original Temple’s owners.  It’s mostly a lot of praising of various gods and creatures, though possibly evil ones.  At any rate, I can only read a little bit of it.  Somebody, the undead I wager, have printed new lettering above the old.  Some of it is more prayers, though to Nerull and his great priest.  The rest are warnings to stay away, probably written after the Keeper took control.”

The door was slightly ajar, and led to a massive stone bridge.  From their perspective, there was no way of seeing what was at the end of the bridge or what was beneath it.  

“So, who wants to go first,” Tiana asked, obviously implying it wouldn’t be her.

Danae smiled.  “Well, there is the instant volunteer…”

The summoned badger carefully walked through the door, crossed the bridge, and turned to look at the party.  Its brief mission completed, it safely vanished to the Plane that it had come from, and the party followed its path onto the bridge.

The bridge apparently connected the original Temple’s outer walls and interior, but the damage it had taken since then ruined much of the originally massive building.  In fact, it appeared that there was a lower level to the Temple at least 100 feet below, but 100 feet down it was flood with a strange, green liquid.  The liquid helped illuminate the entire temple, but it didn’t appear to be safe for a living being to swim in.  To help demonstrate how dangerous the liquid is, something was spotted moving in the “water.”

“What is that?” a sharp-eyed Robin, who was the first to spot the thing, said.

“Can you drop another badger in there?” Tal asked.

“Oh, no,” Danae said.  “I’d rather not send them to certain doom if I can help it.  I know it doesn’t kill them, but it’s supposed to be pretty painful.  Besides, it looks like Robin is not enthused about that plan.”

“Well, we should at least get some idea about what’s down there, so they don’t ambush us later,” Tiana said, and she dropped a rock into the mire.

Immediately, the pool was abuzz with activity.  Dozens, if not hundreds, of bloated undead bodies bobbed to the surface, eager for what they thought was the first live meal in centuries.

“Sunken,” Tal identified as he saw the brief feeding frenzy.  “We’ve fought them before, but never this many.  We have to make sure to stay clear of the pool.”

The party journeyed onward, and soon came to the end of the bridge.  However, they still weren’t inside the inner walls of the temple.  The path ended about ten feet from an indentation in the wall, and then split to the left and right.  Those paths soon entered dark tunnels into the walls, but the party was more concerned about three alcoves above the two tunnels and the far wall.  As they nervously approached, their fear was confirmed, as three hideous yet familiar monsters emerged.  One was a jelly-fish like monster with four hook-like tentacles and a cacophony of screams emerging from its head.  One was a gigantic bat with the head of a pale elf.  And the last was a red demon with a dozen unnatural mouths throughout its body. 

“A lipido, a swift pride, and a canor factum?” Danae said with surprise.  “Why would three fiends of such diverse origins be working together?”

“We serve the master,” The canor factum replied.  “He told us that no unworthy ones are to see him.  We are the guardians of his domain.”

“Well, how to we become worthy?” Tal asked, eager to get passed this threat without further violence, despite Bath’s obvious eagerness to destroy them.

“You must pass a test.”

“And what is the test?” 

“You must destroy the guardians.”  So saying, the three fiends swiftly set upon the party!

OOC Notes: Apologize for the really short update this time.  I’ll try to make up for it with a double-length one next weekend, is possible.  Between Father’s day and a tough work week, it’s just been too stressful to get a lot of writing done.  

So, did anyone get the theme of the dungeon’s encounters yet?  It’ll be more obvious in the next update, when we explore the main portion of the Temple at last!


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## OaxacanWarrior (Jun 24, 2005)

LordVyreth said:
			
		

> So, did anyone get the theme of the dungeon’s encounters yet?  It’ll be more obvious in the next update, when we explore the main portion of the Temple at last!




I don't have the theme yet so I'll just wait for the next update.  I'm looking forward to it.


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## LordVyreth (Jul 6, 2005)

*The Truth: We Are...*

Tiana, as is often the case, was first to react, but her specialty was undead, not fiends like these creatures.  She quickly took flight using an enchanted figurine of a fly, while the Canor Factum and the Lipido crashed into the front ranks of the party.  Bath, as expected, was far less reluctant to engage in battle with demons and immediately attacked the most demonic-looking of the three, the Canor Factum.  As the two squared off, Tal and Danae retreated to the back to attack the monsters with their magic, and Robin began to fire at the Lipido.  However, he only got started when the creature descended into the party’s ranks and released a spread of dark energy.  At the same time, the Swift Pride flew to the side of the bridge and began to rapidly beat its wings, creating a gale tainted with dark energy.  The unholy power cut like a knife, but most of the party held their ground and resisted the dark force of the wind.  However, Tiana lost her footing and was slammed into a side wall by the blast!  Only quick reflexes and a lucky foothold kept her from falling 100 feet into the swarm of hungry Sunken!

	Their special powers exhausted, the three fiends settled into a more routine battle with the party.  Tonaca decided to seek the higher ground and ascended using a flying carpet, while Danae rode along with him as a passenger.  Tiana used her climbing skills to move across the wall until her figurine could catch her again.  Robin remained on the ground and began to pepper the Swift Pride with arrows, and Tal used magic to fly away from the bridge entirely and cast spells from the far corner.  And Bath, well, did what came naturally.  As Robin battled the Swift Pride and the crew of the carpet was in danger of being grappled by the Lipido’s tentacles, Bath easily destroyed the Canor Factum and moved on to helping the carpet crew.  The fight ended quickly at that point, since the party outnumbered the remaining fiends three to one.

	However, something unusual happened when the monsters were destroyed.  Unlike most outsiders the party encountered so far, they didn’t dissolve into ash when destroyed.  “How strange,” a suspicious Danae muttered, but Bath just shrugged.

	“It doesn’t matter.  Let’s dump them in the water and let the Sunken destroy them for us.”  The party concurred and after stripping the fiends of any possessions, the remains were sent to the glowing pool below.  However, though the Sunken eagerly ate most of the bodies, a bit from the Swift Pride, the last of the three fiends killed, was left untouched and continued to float on the water’s surface.

	The party, however, was less interested in this mystery and more interested in exploring the rest of the Temple.  The path opened to the left and right, and after a brief discussion, it was decided that they would go left first.  The path began to curve to the right as it continued on, suggesting that the main layout of the Temple formed a big circle.  More unusually, the path often opened to the right, revealing what looked like a strange forest.  The trees and plants were vastly larger than normal, and they all had black leaves.  “Oh, we have to check that out!” Robin eagerly said, but the others were more reluctant.  

	“We should explore the normal pathway of the Temple first.  We can come back to the forest if we get stuck or after we finished here,” Tal suggested, and Robin reluctantly backed down when he saw the others agreed.

	They soon came to the next room of the Temple.  It appeared to be a massive biological lab or wizard’s study.  It contained multiple levels separated by ramps and ladders and with metal grating floors.  Tubes designed for storing biological samples covered most of the walls, and while many were empty, others included outsiders like the ones the party just fought and various other biological samples.  There even were skeletal penguin-shaped birds with bat wings, just like the Prinnies the party encountered in the semi-planar rift, though their tendency to explode when damaged suggest that these samples were obtained very carefully!

	Speaking of skeletal birds, the room also contained the skeleton of a massive roc-sized bird, though the skull suggested that it has extremely large and unusual eyes.  Danae was able to tell that much from a distance, but hesitated to get in close for a more detailed examination.  “Is it just me, or does anyone else think this thing will get up and attack us as soon as I get close?” she asked the others.

	“Oh yeah,” Tal agreed.

	“Of course,” Tiana also concurred.

	“I expected it as soon as I saw it,” Tonaca added.

	“Hell, I’d be disappointed if it didn’t try to kill us,” Robin admitted.

	“Yup, let’s destroy it!” Bath enthused.

	The party quickly prepared and charged the skeleton, and were strangely satisfied when it did animate, even if they completely devastated the simple, if large, skeleton, in a matter of moments.  After reducing the bird to dust and a few loose bones, the party moved on.

	The tunnel again curved to the right and periodically opened on that side to the forest, but the party ignored it again and came upon another room.  This one was missing a floor entirely, letting the party see more of the green pool than normal.  Oddly enough, the pool was boiling here, as if something extremely hot was inside it to rise its temperature.  The walls and ceiling of the room were covered in murals, runes, and statues of strange monsters from alternate planes.  The only thing located in the room itself was a carefully-positioned platform covered with more strange runes and suspended by a series of massive chains.  The party could literally walk down a chain to reach the platform and then up another chain to reach the next tunnel out of the room, but Danae stopped the party before they could try this.  “The runes on that platform suggest that it contains a planar gateway.”  

	Using magic, she floated closer to the platform and studied the runes more closely.  “I believe the gateway is currently locked to Pyrodessy, that strange plane we were on earlier that consisted of mostly fire.  It looks damaged or at least highly erratic.  I’m not sure what will cause it to open, and given the nature of the Pyrodessy plane, it’s very likely that anything to come out of it will be very unpleasant.”

	With that information, the party decided it would be safer just to destroy the runes on the platform outright, destroying the gate.  Tal prepared a massive acid barrage and used it to destroy the runes while the rest of the party waited on the chains or in the air around the platform.  As expected, the acid destroyed the runes, but it also seemed to activate the gateway one last time before it was destroyed.  Two strange monsters appeared on the platform.  They seemed to be undead, for they contained glowing spectral skeletons, but their outer bodies appeared to be pure magma.

	In different circumstances, the creatures would have posed a serious threat to the party.  However, because so much of the party was able to fly out of their reach, it was a short and easy battle.  Only Bath would consider getting close enough to the Molten monsters for them to attack her with their blades and tentacles of lava, and the quick and armored angelic warrior was beyond their ability to strike.  They also were able to breathe jets of lava, but foolishly chose to breathe on Tiana, who easily evaded the breath weapons.  The two monsters were soon brought down, and their bodies melted into pools of cooled magma almost instantly.

	The party continued onward from here, and soon reached the next chamber.  This one looked like it used to be on the surface and served as a massive graveyard.  However, most of the tombs have been desecrated, and the bodies were nowhere to be found.  In addition, the party found a crater at the top of a hill in the middle of the cavern.  Unlike the rest of the graveyard, it was filled with bodies, though the creatures appeared to be nothing like humanoids.

	“What is this?” a disgusted Robin asked.

	Tonaca examined it, and came to a conclusion.  “It appears that this might have been the foundation for a stone crypt.  And the bodies are possibly failed experiments, perhaps taken here from the lab we saw earlier.”

	The party determined that none of the bodies were magical and likely to animate, so they left the place in peace and moved on to the next chamber.  By Danae’ calculations, assuming the remainder of the Temple had evenly spaced rooms, only two remained.  The next one, however, was unusual as it didn’t have a tunnel leading farther!  Instead, the perfectly-cubicle room had a much larger gateway leading from the party’s tunnel into the room, but it was much larger than the tunnel was.  Much like the entranceway they fought the demons at, this room had no floor near the walls, and the party could only reach the pillar-like central floor using a stone bridge.  The liquid at the bottom of this room was even greener than usual, and it glowed more brightly.  Apart from all this, the only object of note in the room was a simple lever located in the middle of the floor.  It was currently turned to point at the doorway the party entered the room from.

	After a brief investigation, the party had some idea what the room’s purpose was.  “Notice how the walls of this chamber don’t connect with the walls of the tunnel,” Tal said, as he demonstrated what he meant.  “I think the entirety of this room can move.  I assume that after the room moves, that doorway will connect to something else to make its size make more sense.  And we can probably move the room by pulling the lever.”

	Danae frowned after pondering this conclusion.  “I really don’t want to be here when the room moves if we can help it.  I don’t trust this place enough for that.”

	“So what do you propose?” Robin asked.

	Tiana had an idea and pulled something out of her pocket.  “I have a magical spool of rope!  We can tie to the lever, set up an elaborate pulley system, and activate the lever while we’re still in the tunnel!”  However, after seeing how everyone except Danae looked bored after the phrase “elaborate pulley system,” she amended her plan.  “Or…we could just walk all the way around and see what’s left in the in the other direction.”

	The party eagerly agreed, and soon they found themselves in a very familiar room.  The last room of the Temple’s outer ring was a nearly identical match of the Ancient Text room of the Great Delaspie Library!  It was also about five stories tall, had a central pillar that served as a walkway anchor point and additional shelving space, and the numerous floors were connected by various walkways and ladders.  However, this library was nearly empty, and it was completely uninhabited except for a few zombie and wight caretakers.  The party quickly disposed of them, and then investigated the books and the rest of the library.  The library didn’t have the numerous secrets passageways of Olivia’s library, but it does have a similar mural on the ceiling.  However, this mural depicted a strange, alien monster with details obscured by darkness.  It was raining monstrosities, including many of the monsters the party just fought, on the planet.  Below the world, the body of a strange creature with some features from wolves, dragons, and humanoid women rested.  It looked like it was murdered, perhaps by the dark alien figure.  

	Also in the library were the remains of a destroyed statue.  It looked like a dragon, but it was violently destroyed.  Also of note was the fact that the entire head and neck of the statue was missing.  Danae was curious about the statue and scooped its parts into a portal hole.  However, the last piece of the statue behaved strangely.  It rested on the surface of the hole and refused to go in!  Even more intrigued, Danae placed this last piece in her pocket and then continued her research on the books.  They were in varying condition; some were well-preserved, but others were rotted and some were even intentionally ripped to shreds.  All the books had a common theme, however: they detailed the history and discover of various new creatures, and none of the creatures appeared to have evolved naturally or even been created by wizards or the gods.  They were all creatures that came to this world, and possibly even this dimension, from outside, and they include the fiends, the Sunken, the Molten, and nearly every other complex creature seen in this Temple.

	After finishing their work in the library, the party decided to finally explore the forest.  Upon entering it, Robin was called upon to investigate and see if he can discover what creatures may inhabit a forest this large.  He studied the tracks, and quickly determined some interesting things about the grove.  “As far as I can tell, there are only two sets of tracks.  One is of a wolf, and one is of a deer, but both are massive!  These animals must be fifty feet tall!”

	“We should find these creatures, and make sure they aren’t a threat.  Otherwise, they could ambush us,” Tonaca reasoned.

	Robin nodded his head in agreement, and said, “We should go after the wolf first.  I can’t imagine the deer would be that much of a threat, even of that size.”

	The party quickly followed Robin as he tracked the wolf, and in a matter of minutes he discovered the wolf.  It looked like a perfectly normal wolf, albeit a large one, with one exception: it was eating the fruits of the trees!”

	“Huh, that’s weird,” Tiana commented.

	“Well, I can’t say I’m too surprised.  After all, if the only prey in this entire forest is one large deer, the wolf would have starved if it didn’t find some alternate source of nutrients.  Of course, that also might explain why the wolf never bothered to eat the deer.  It already adjusted to a vegetarian diet.”  Robin explained.  He then prepared to move.  “If this is really a normal wolf, I should be able to befriend it.  It could help us find the Keeper, or at least a safe place to rest.”

	The wolf, as expected, was surprised to see another living creature, but it was also unusually afraid, especially since Robin was so small by comparison.  However, Robin was able to calm it, and then managed to get some information from the wolf, including some surprising ones.  He turned the party and in a skeptical voice said, “It didn’t attack the deer because it wasn’t hungry.  It didn’t attack the deer because it’s afraid of the deer!”

	“Why would it be afraid of a deer?” Tal asked. 

	“Maybe the deer is unnatural in some way,” Tonaca offered.  “Or even worse, undead.”

	“But that’s not all I learned,” Robin continued.  “Apparently, there’s a ‘human nest’ at the center of this forest that the deer won’t go near.  I think that’s supposed to mean a house or cabin of some sort.  We can investigate it.”

	Before long, the party found the cabin, and discovered a strange circle of protection surrounded it.  The skeletal body of an elk lay sprawled next to the circle.  The way the body rested suggested that it was destroyed by the circle’s power.  However, the body was missing its head completely.  The party carefully entered the cabin with almost no trouble.  Bath, however, felt some resistance as she passed over the circle, but the pendant The Indigo Entity gave her glowed and somehow cancelled the resistance.  

	The cabin was surprisingly small.  It only had two rooms: a central foyer/trophy room containing a mounted deer head of a normal size, and a bedroom filled with more books.  Danae took a few moments to study both the books and the circle itself while the rest of the party checked the cabin for secret doors and other objects of note.  “I think this circle is actually a smaller part of the sealing spell trapping the Keeper here, except in reverse.  That is, it prevents creatures from getting in.  It seems to be tied to undead and extradimensional creatures primarily, however.  Hence the trouble that Bath had getting in.”

	Bath, however, was the happiest about this news.  “That means we can rest here without fear of the Malachim!”

	Danae nodded.  “That’s true, but we’re on a bit of a deadline here.  We have no idea how long it will take Bas’ forces to find out about this place and get here.  We should only rest when absolutely necessary.  I think we should explore a bit more first.”

	“Well, we have more options now,” Tiana explained as she finished her search of the cabin.  “There seems to be some secret passageway in this room.”

	The party carefully opened the hidden door and discovered a massive pit in the room beyond it.  It went down for several hundreds of feet, and the room containing the hole also contained an opening leading back the foyer, but it appeared be blocked.

	“That deer head!”  I think it’s blocking the opening!” Tal reasoned, and the party quickly returned to the foyer to remove the head, only to learn that it wasn’t just a simple obstruction.  As soon as it was taken off the wall, it began to fly under its own power!  Its preserved eyes glowed with dark energy, and a series of humanoid hands emerged from inside the deer’s head.  Each appeared to be suspended and controlled by the deer head by a grisly tendon!  Despite the creature’s horrific nature, however, it was easily dispatched by a quick-reacting Tiana.

	“What was that thing?” a Robin asked.

	Danae had an idea, and she pulled out one of the books she obtained at the library.  “It’s called a ‘Nature’s Rage,’” she explained.  “They’re basically the spirits of killed and preserved animals.  Ick, it says they collect the hands of the same race as the creature that killed them.  Luckily they’re not especially powerful.”

	With that danger taken care of, the party had to choose which of the three remaining mysteries to solve.  They could find the deer, try to figure out the moving room, or explore the dark pit.  Unsurprisingly, the big deer won out.  Robin soon tracked the creature down, and discovered that it was both undead and headless!

	“That’s not a good sign,” Tonaca commented, after realizing this is the second headless giant undead creature they found in the grove, but the body was easily defeated, so the party proceeded to their next goal, the moving room.  Rather than go through the whole rope and lever system, however, they simply decided to shuffle in and pull the lever.

	As expected, the room began to move, but instead of rising or lowering like an elevator, it rotated about ninety degrees.  The door they used to enter was now pointing to the far wall, and it connected to what appeared to be some sort of prison or giant kennel.  As soon as the connection was made, however, the inhabitants of the new room noticed the party and charged out!  They were Instant Murdeans, the same massive centaur-like gator/elk/cat race as the one TIE used as a guardian in her last test of the party, but there were two of them this time!

	As soon as the room shifted, the quicker of the two monsters trampled right over the entire party.  Eager to prevent the same thing from happening again, Bath charged the slower Murdean in an attempt to distract it while the party fought the first one.  The plan worked, in a way.  The second Murdean indeed focused its attention on the brave angel, but it responded by scooping her up and promptly swallowing her!  This forced the party to deal with both of the creatures again, and without their best fighter!

	Things looked dire until Danae remembered how they prematurely defeated the last Murdean.  The creatures aren’t especially bright, and have no understanding of magic.  Thus, all she had to do was protect the party with a prismatic sphere and they’ll stupidly attack through it, exposing themselves to its effects!  It took a while, but as expected, both eventually succumbed to the sphere’s powers and were sent to parts unknown!

	“Well, that takes care of that!” Danae smugly said.  “They should be trapped on random planes…I think.”

	“You think?” Tiana responded with a suddenly worried expression.

	“Well, if they’re servants of the Keeper, they should be unable to leave this plane.  That’s the whole point of the sealing spell, after all.  But that means they probably just got as far as the spell’s boundary.  Fascinating…”

	“Well, at least they’re not here!” Bath said, as she started to mentally recover from being swallowed and then having the creature she was inside of vanish without a trace.

	“Yeah, let’s hope they’re embedded in solid rock or keeping the Sunken company,” Tiana muttered.  After looking over the injuries she suffered from being trampled and otherwise attacked by the Murdeans, she asked, “Can we please rest before we descend into the dark pit?”

	The party agreed, and the next morning, the party began to explore the last available recesses of the Temple.  As before at the door to the Temple, Danae summoned a creature to go ahead and make sure it was safe before they themselves descended.  The celestial bird she summoned reported it was safe, but they were less than certain when the landed and realized they were surrounded by a dozen skeletal boars!

	Despite their fears, the boars held their positions, letting the party get a look at where they were now.  They appeared to be inside a ruined church of some sort.  The pews and other religious paraphernalia was removed, with the exception of a gigantic bowl-shaped alter at the far end of the room.  A disgusting, giant, half-decomposed deer head floated on the surface of the bowl.  The walls were carved with a repeated series of words: 

The flesh of a failed gatekeeper
The stone of a guardian of knowledge
The horn of a restless gladiator
The earth of a disturbed house of rest
The blood of an ultimate outsider
The bone of the mutilated donor
The hand of the last loyal.

	As the party tried to take the room in, the head turned towards them and spoke.  “I have been waiting for you.  You’ve caused quite the stir in this Temple lately.  I know you want to find The Keeper, but before I can allow you to do that, I must know what your intentions are when you see him.”

	The party looked to each other.  They remember the last time this situation came up, and that was with good gatekeepers. “We’ll let the situation decide our intentions,” Danae replied, as she glanced warily at the others, especially Bath.

	The head shook, well, itself.  “Then I won’t let you pass.  There must not any doubt that he is to be destroyed.”

	“So you are the one who sealed him in?” Tal asked.

	“No, my master Petrach, who you call The Puppet, did that.  I am the last loyal servant of his in this place.  All others here have been corrupted by the Keeper.”

	Bath, as everyone feared, remained skeptical.  “We’ll let our hearts decided his fate.”

	This, however, enraged the Keeper.  “HEARTS!  That fiend has no heart.  He even uses his own followers for spare parts!  He forced my own brother to join with him!”

	The deer’s eyes began to glow just as the smaller Nature’s Rage’s eyes did back in the cabin, so Danae tried to quickly calm the discussion.  “Please, do not be angry.  She is young yet, and has much to learn.  Will you grant us passage?”

	The deer, however, was still verging on hostile.  “Can any of you vouch for her?  I will not let you pass unless I know she will do nothing to free the monster.”

	Though using diplomacy on the undead was repugnant to him, Tonaca stepped forward.  “I will do so!  You know my kind and our devotion to the fight of evil.  If this being is so vile that even an abomination like yourself finds him evil, that is all I need to know.”

	This is apparently enough for the deer head, for it says, “Then you may pass.  There is a stairway hidden in the rear of this room.  Take it to reach our mutual enemy.”

	The party prepared to leave, but before they could, the deer spoke again.  “Ah, wait,” it says to Danae.  “You have one of the components to the key the Keeper needs to escape.  Individually, they’re worthless to him, but when they’re bathed in my essence, they can be used to partially protect you.”

	Danae took out the remains of the dragon statue, and the head rose to give her access to the bowl.  Under the head, the creature had hundreds of severed arms connected by tendons, including a massive one that must have come from a giant!  Danae nervously placed the stone in the evil-looking fluid, and then took it back after it began to glow slightly.  Slowly, she and the rest of the party left while the Nature’s Wrath called back to them, “Good luck!  May Nerull’s blessing be upon you!”

	Ignoring the bittersweet nature of that blessing, the party began to climb.  Eventually, the stairwell ended, leaving nothing but a twisting corridor to ascend.  Soon, even that became difficult to climb as the corridor began to get clogged with corpses.  About this time, the party also started hearing voices in their heads.  

	The first one boomed at them, “HOW DARE YOU COME TO ME WITH SUCH A PALTRY OFFERING?  ONLY ONE KEY IS IN YOUR POSSESSION!”

	A second, quieter voice added, “_And you sent another key away.  How foolish_.”

	The party realized that at least one of the voices was likely the Keeper, but they ignored it/him/them.  Soon, the voices spoke again.  “IF YOU WANT TO LIVE IN MY PRESENCE, I ORDER YOU TO SEEK THE KEYS,” the first voice said, with a hint of urgency.  The other, however, was more amused as it said, “_Will it be freedom or food today?  Either should be a pleasure_.”

	The party again tried to ignore the voices, and focused on their plan to kill him.  Meanwhile, the tunnel they were climbing in continues to get filled with more bodies.  The voices respond again, with even more urgency and amusement, respectively, in their voices.  “OH, YOU THINK YOU CAN DESTROY ME?  YOU FOOLS!  YOU SOUGHT ME OUT FOR GREATER REASONS THAN THAT!  IS BAS NOT YOUR ENEMY?  DO YOU NOT WISH TO SAVE YOUR WORLD!” the first one screams.  The second merely observes, “_It was such a pretty little world_.”

	This continued on during their climb, and as the first voice got more desperate, they became more willing to give out information.  They said, “AND WHO CONVINCED YOU TO KILL ME? YOU THINK THE NATURE'S WRATH IS MORE BENIGNTHEN ME? AND AFTER ALL YOU'VE SEEN, YOU STILL TRUST TWO SERVANTS OF LADY MEMORY?”

“_Lady of deceit and deception. Why should we powerful have to hide our nature_?”

“YOU BELIEVE SHE IS BENIGN?  SHE WHO HAS TAKEN YOUR TWO FRIENDS-”

“-_and made them your enemies_?”

This last part had an unsettling effect on the party, and Danae finally tried to answer back, “You declared you would kill us.  We wish to destroy Bas.  You can save or destroy her by your life or death.  If you kill us, we will be unable to stop Bas.  What would you have us do?”

The voices were not impressed with this reasoning, and again used their knowledge to their advantage.  “BAS IS NO CONCERN TO ME. I HAVE GREATER ENEMIES. BUT WE COULD BOTH BENEFIT FROM OUR MEETING.  IF YOU GIVE ME THE KEYS, I CAN HELP YOU DESTROY BAS AND YOU CAN END MY IMPRISONMENT.  BUT IF YOU SO DESIRE, CONTINUE TO LISTEN TO THE FOOLISHNESS OF THE BEINGS YOU ONCE CALLED-”

“-_tsine and galeron_.”

“YOU STILL THINK LADY MEMORY IS SO BENIGN?  SHE TOOK YOUR FRIENDS AND MADE THEM HER TOOLS.  WITHOUT MEMORIES.  WITHOUT PASTS!”

“_yet without sorrow_...”

For the first time, the voices seemed to disagree with each other.  “BE QUIET YOU! AND PERHAPS YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT WONDERS SHE WORKED IN THE LIVES OF YOUR FRIENDS QUERCUS AND SHEKULDELLSTRA?  WHO ELSE WOULD HAVE THE POWER TO ATTACK A SOLAR AND HIS WIFE WITHOUT THEM SENSING IT?”

These last revelations were far more effective.  The Malachim were their friends, Tsine and Galeron?  And the Lady of Memory, the being that theoretically gave them life, was responsible?  Even ignoring her attack on a solar and his good (if half-fiendish drow) wife, that drove Shekuldellstra insane all those years ago, that was a lot to accept.  Of course, they weren’t sure that the Keeper could be trusted, and even if he could, their first priority was ending the evil being’s life.  They finally reached the end of their climb, and saw the Keeper in all of his evil glory.  His room was a dome larger than 300 feet in diameter and partially filled with giant hills of corpses, which the party is forced to stand on.  The Keeper himself appeared to be based on the Granfaloon monsters the party saw and fought before, but he was much larger.  Counting the expected shield of corpses, he was 150 feet in diameter!  In addition, the shield contained numerous other elements, including rivers of lava, embedded tombs from presumably the graveyard, and even a singe eye.

The party looked at this creature with horror.  Tiana quietly said in a terrified voice, “We can’t stop this thing.  Look at it!  It’s hopeless.”

The rest of the party was less certain of this, but not by much.  However, the Keeper wasn’t eager to start the fight, either, since it still hoped its words were enough to convince the party to help it.  Even the sudden arrival of the Malachims now believed to be Tsine and Galeron wasn’t enough to end the standoff.  Surprisingly, it was Tonaca who broke the silence.  He wasn’t exactly used to these sorts of things in his battles with wild creatures and the more crude undead, and tried to create a defensive prismatic sphere around himself as a matter of habit.  Of course, as soon as he began his spell, everybody reacted with finely-honed reflexes, and the inevitable fight began!

Things seemed to get off to a good start, as Tiana was the first to react.  She enhanced the party magically while the arcane magic-using Malachim, presumably Tsine, began to strike at the sphere shield of The Keeper.  His rain of flaming meteors was a powerful attack, but the corpses of the sphere were partially coated in stone and much more durable than normal corpses, and it survived the attack.  Tal followed through with his own magic, but the hideous monstrosity then responded.  

“YOU DARE ATTACK US?!” it bellowed, referring to itself in the plural for the first time.  “WE ARE NOT MERE CREATURSES.  WE ARE KINGS!  WE ARE GODS!”

“_We are Legion_…”

After saying this, Legion’s body shuddered and almost fifty zombies rained down on the party.  At the same time, Legion floated closer the party and summoned an ally.  It was a Molten, like the ones the party fought at the gateway, but this one was close enough to be a threat!  It ripped into Robin and Tal as the zombies closed in all around them!

Robin, however, was undaunted.  Using his nearly superhuman archery skills, he pulled out his bow and literally struck every single zombie at once, destroying nearly all of them.  The immediate danger gone, Danae retreated and helps her old friend Tsine bring down the shield, while Bath focused on damaging the Molten.  Galeron helped damage the shield and distract Legion, while Tonaca realized his original plan was over when the battle broke out before he could even start the spell.  Instead, he chose to summon an air elemental, and let it loose on the shield as well.

Tiana, Tsine and Tal continued their efforts on the shield, and it appeared to be weakening, when something strange happened.  The entire shield spontaneously appeared to disintegrate!  More accurately, it broke down to its original bodies, which began to revolve around the actual body of Legion while more bodies rose into the field from the ground.  It was obvious that Legion was repairing his shield.  At the same time, this gave the party their first clear view of Legion’s true form.  Like other Granfaloons, its body was a spherical mass of floating flesh that vaguely resembled a brain, and tentacles rose out of the body at various locations.  However, some of the tentacles were missing and replaced with new weaponry.  These include a giant skeletal elk head, a stone dragon head, the Hive eye that normally remained outside of the shield, and a massive crypt.  All of them had fairly obvious sources to the party based on their explorations.  As the shield repaired itself, Legion continued to act.  The dragon head breathed on the collective party, which fortunately caused none of the unusual metaphysic powers it normally creates, but it did damage the party somewhat.  At the same time, the four remaining tentacles fire light blasts at the air elemental and Bath, and the wounded but still active Molten also breathed its lava breath on much of the party.

Fortunately, despite the damage, the party was able to use this opportunity to actually harm Legion directly, and they happily took it.  Robin finished off the Molten as Danae, Tsine, Tonaca, and Tal fired spells at Legion and Bath, Galeron, Tiana, and Tonaca’s air elemental charged at the creature itself, heedless of the retaliatory light blasts it fired.

The combined assault wounded the creature greatly, but it responded by close its shield, which was now partially repaired.  As the bodies closed in, the melee attackers had to flee before they were trapped inside!  Bath and Tiana made it out okay, but the others weren’t so lucky.  The zombies rained down again, and this time Legion followed it up by releasing a swarm of demonic insects to attack Tsine and by striking the party with various ghostly and magma-based weaponry.  Finally, it fired an insect missile out of the eye, lancing Tsine just as the regular swarm continued to eat away at him.

However, though the party was heavily wounded at this point, they were prepared for what Legion threw at them.  Robin again devastated the falling zombies, while the rest of the free party worked to destroy the shield, eventually bringing down a few pieces of it.  The party took advantage of the weak spot in Legion’s armor just as he opened up the rest of the sphere to repair the shield.  At the same time, he began to fire dark rays out of the elk skull and more of his heated light blasts, but it wasn’t enough to finish any of the party.  The party responded by again charging in or striking from a distance with magic, and while Legion was able to barely survive long enough to put up his shield, he didn’t repair all the holes and the party continued to attack him even after it was put up.  Finally the creature died, and Tsine fired the killing shot in the form of a disintegrate spell.

As the abomination died, its shield began to fall apart, and the bodies screamed one last time and were silenced as they struck the “ground.”  Legion had only a few last words to say as he disintegrated, “NO! I WAS SO CLOSE! I CAN'T DIE AFTER ALL THIS TIME! YOU FOOLS, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU LOST! I HOPE BAS RIPS THIS WORLD TO SHREDS!”

	But the other voice, the mad voice of Legion’s second mind that was created out of the remains of the psyche of the creatures he used to perfect his body, simply said, “_Free at last_…”

	OOC Notes:  I hope you enjoy the extra-large update this week!  I had this Monday off for the 4th of July (Independence day, a national holiday for Americans,) so I decided to put some extra time into finishing up this adventure, or at least come close.  The next one will deal with the consequences of this adventure and the introduction to the next one, which the party is currently still in!  I’ve finally almost caught up!

	Expect more OOC Notes for that one, but if anyone has any questions about the relatively large update, I’ll be happy to answer them until then.


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## LordVyreth (Jul 19, 2005)

*The Final Countdown: A Bleak New Dawn*

At last, the abomination was destroyed.  The answers that Legion gave the party were sketchy, potentially unreliable, and terrible if true, but at least no force of evil, like Bas, could free the monster and gain the knowledge that they needed in exchange.  The party quickly looted the beast’s remains and confirmed that no evil remained in this place, either in the bodies or in the items the creature had possessed.  With their mission complete, they were prepared to return.  

	However, as the party prepared to leave, Danae looked back and saw the Malachim that apparently were Tsine and Galeron wave them goodbye and prepare to leave.  While the battle with Legion left her comfortably numb, now that it was over, she realized with a sickening sensation what it meant if Legion was truthful.  “Wait!” she pleaded with both the party and the Malachim, and both ceased their departure and turned to her.

	“Why can’t you come with us?” she desperately asked, leaving much of the party confused.

	The Malachim believed to be Tsine sighed.  “Because the Lady didn't tell us to. We were glad that we could help you fight this abomination, but we were not instructed to help you otherwise."

	The almost emotionless way he said it brought a tear to Danae’s eye.  “Tsine, the only reason I left my tower was to find you.  After so long, and after losing you again just after we saved you at the Arena, we finally find you.  And that’s it?  You can just leave?  How can you become one of these creatures?  How did you come into servitude?”

	“Tsine” was clearly uncomfortable at this point.  He wanted to help Danae, but at the same time he realized it would be impossible.  “Danae, I don't even know if I am Tsine.  That's just what that…thing called me.  I know that I became what I did freely, though.  I wished to become a servant of Lady Memory, who we owe everything to, and she allowed us to do so."

	Danae clearly wanted to say more, but instead, she wordlessly embraced her friend for what may be the last time, and then prepared to leave.  Tsine regretfully teleported away, but Galeron waited one more moment, for now he was curious as well.  “Danae, did you know me as well in those days?”

	It took all of her strength, but Danae responded with more anger than she expected.  “Yes.  I know you too.  You were a hero that stood together with us in good times and bad.  We faced great foes together and always won, until the day you left.  Do this for me: if you serve Lady Memory, ask her why she took your memories from you.  Ask her why she took your memories of US away from you.”

	With some hesitancy, Galeron replied, “I could try asking, but I'm sure she knows what is best.  Perhaps it was necessary to lose our old lives to be reborn here. Or maybe we would be in danger if we were remembered from our past lives.  Maybe we can regain our memories when the Lady Memory is again brought to power here, and all of you can join us in glorious servitude to her."

	Danae finally was ready to leave, but before she did, she whispered to Galeron one last time.  Galeron nodded in response, and then said, “Well, I must be off as well.  Whatever you may think, Tsine and I are very happy now.  I would not put too much stock in the accusations that Legion has leveled against our Lady.”  And then he was gone as well.

	The party slowly began their journey out of the Temple, and noticed a few changes to the place as they exited.  Most notably, the massive Nature’s Wrath was gone, as was his servants.  The cabin and its seal were gone as well, and the former appeared to be completely destroyed, most likely as a result of Nature’s Wrath.  They found the wolf as well, and while it was unsurprisingly terrified at seeing the Nature’s Wrath’s exit, it was nonetheless willing to leave with the party.  

	As soon as the party cleared the Temple, the party returned home with the aid of a Shadow Walk, dropped their new guard wolf (Named “Fluffy” by Robin,) at the manor, and then left for Union for another typical shopping spree.  

	Almost a week passed, meaning that only 23 days remained before Methosilang’s army was ready to attack, but the party still had plans and preparations to make before they returned home.  However, their plans were interrupted by a desperate Sending from Methosilang.  It simply said “Come home immediately!  You must see this!”

	At the same time, Danae, who finished her shopping early and went home to check on her apprentice, was visited by a unit of guards on their law-centric griffons.  “Miss Danae!  You must come with us immediately!”

	She complied and was taken to the top of Methosilang, where the mountaintop was opening.  This was unusual unto itself, for it was too late in the day for the sun to be seen, and the city never risked opening the mountaintop needlessly.  The royal family was gathered here, along with their new royal wizard, the party’s former ally Damien.  All eyes were on the sky to the east, and Danae soon learned why.

	To the east, near where the party knew Bas was trapped, a green ray was being fired at the moon.  “Danae, what do you make of this?” Damien asked.

	Danae thought back to the notes the party procured from the Nightmare Prince’s temple, and instantly realized what this meant.  Numbly, she said, “The beam is fired from a device that will crash the moon to earth.  It appears that we can rest no longer.  We must stop this!”

	However, Princess Amira Stael looked reluctant.  “But this moon is positioned right over Malmoris, the undead capital!  If it strikes the earth, it will destroy the undead empire with one blast, and double the amount of daylight we can receive each day.”

	Danae looked thoughtful for a moment and replied, “That’s true.  This moon’s destruction means little to us, and may even been a boon.  However, it’s the other moon that I am worried about.”  She pointed upwards to the second Dark Moon.  At this time of the month, it was positioned almost exactly above Methosilang!

	By now, the rest of the party arrived after received the Sendings.  They quickly joined with Danae and the royal party, who caught them up on the dire situation.  “Can you get everyone out of here before the moon strikes us?” Tal asked.

	King Berin Stael replied, “I can evacuate the population, mostly, but the city itself will be destroyed.  If we lose the city at this critical juncture, our army will be devastated.  It would take years for our nation to even recover, let alone create a functioning military again.”

	Danae suggested, “You should evacuate the city’s citizens to the lower tunnels.  Whatever it takes, we will deal with this, but you must be prepared for the results if we fail.”

	With that, the party briefly retreated to their manor to determine their options.  As they left, however, they saw that the beam had stopped firing, and the moon slowly began its descent…

	“The question is; do we destroy the weapon or the moon itself?” Bath asked.  Meanwhile, Tiana was making contact with her allies from Delaspie and Tal was using a magical mirror the party recently acquired to get a lock on the moon.

	“We could try capturing the weapon instead of destroying it.  That way, we could send the moon down on Bas instead!”  Robin suggested.

	“That assumes we can fight the guards around the device in the first place.  Bas probably has her best servants guarding it, and we still don’t have our army,” Tiana glumly replied.

	“What about the MIDAS bomb at Dragovigis?” Tal suggested.  Most of the party pondered the situation, except for Tiana and Tonaca, who looked at him blankly due to their lack of knowledge about the city.  As Bath and Danae filled them in, Tal sent Violet to Dragovigis with a message about the situation.  

	After a brief summary of the city, the conversation continued.  “What do we know about these moons, anyway?  I admit I haven’t had the chance to learn much about it since I’ve been here,” Tonaca asked.

	Danae thought back to her research on the subject, and explained, “The moons are mostly hollow, fortunately, but they’re still large enough to seriously devastate an area if they actually crashed into it.  They are also filled with undead.”

	“What?  That’s cool!” Bath said, and she began to be far more eager about this mission.  

	Robin seemed to agree, and Tiana nodded her head and said, “All those undead to kill, and I’ve never been there?  What a waste.  Wait, won’t the undead leave to wreak havoc after the moons crash?  If so, even if we can capture the weapon and drop a moon on Bas, it would still cause the undead to attack.  But then, I suppose most of them wouldn’t survive the crash…”

	Danae nodded at that last part in the affirmative, and then sighed, “It’s a shame we can’t just build a device like this ourselves.

	Tal agreed but said, “True, but Bas’ forces took years to build theirs and calculate their firing procedure.  We only have 23 days, and that’s assuming we destroy their device.  Maybe we can build one after Bas is destroyed to save the other continents.”

	About this time, Violet returned from Dragovigis with a message for the party.  Tal quickly read it over and said, “Facetous is willing to speak to us.”

	The party used the magic of the mirror to reach the forbidden city of dragons and machinery in a hurry.  As Tal led the party to Facetous’ lair, Danae and Robin pointed out the city’s landmarks and recounted old stories of the party’s earlier adventures here to Tiana and Tonaca.  

	The party soon reached Facetous’ lair, where the expectant God/king was eagerly waiting for them.  “I’m sure I know why you’ve come?  You wish to use our bomb, the safeguard of our city, to save your own.  Correct?” it asked, though there was clearly a note of displeasure in his tone.

	Tal noticed this as well, and desperately tried to create a compromise.  “Yes, we would like to use it.  But it also our hope that Danae would be able to replicate it and use the duplicates to destroy the other moons.”

	If nothing else, Tal’s plan was able to surprise his god.  “Replicate it?  The device can not be replicated!  It is a product of technology beyond all of our understanding!”

	His plan foiled, Tal tried again with the direct approach.  “In that case, yes, we would like to use the bomb to destroy the dark moon.  We hope it buys us enough time that another is not needed.”

	Facetous snorted with irritation.  “You are asking for a great prize, mortal! You realize that if our city is to be attacked, this bomb is the only thing that will save us and keep our technology from falling into the wrong hands?”

	Tal nodded, but he replied, “If Methosilang and Delaspie fall then there will truly be no point in you remaining on this plane.  At that point you can leave here, take what you can and destroy the rest.  Evil will have won on this world.”

	Facetous considered this, and admitted, “I see your point.  Very well, I will allow you to take this bomb, and I will give you what knowledge of the moon our scientists have discovered.”

	As the scientist dragons began to make their entrances, however, there was a low rumble and Facetous suddenly looked to the north.  He then replied, “It has happened.  Malmoris, the undead capital, is no more.”

	However, he didn’t have to tell this to the party, for most of them were aware of it already.  As soon as Malmoris was destroyed, the party members that worshipped the Sisters heard a sudden, painful scream in their heads!

	Facetous noticed this and continued.  “Nothing will ever be the same again.  You will have more sunlight each day, yes, and the undead empire will soon cease to be a threat, but your goddesses shall suffer as well.”

	Tiana, who didn’t learn as much about the truth of the goddesses from the avatars and TIE as the others, looked confused.  “Wait, I thought that the realm of the dead was ruled by the evil god Nerull?”

	Facetous nodded.  “Yes, Nerull is the god of the undead, and he was so powerful that the old gods like myself were forced to flee this plane or go into hiding. But Ba-el, the first of your gods, stole some of his power when the moons were created.  That let her create the Sisters, and because their power was his own, they could co-exist with him safely.  But now that his source of power has been destroyed, Nerull will soon become a weak or even a dead god, and your goddesses shall follow.  It could take years, decades, or even centuries, but it is inevitable at this point.  There is only one exception…”

	“Bas,” Tal said, well aware of the totality of the dark goddess’ plans now.

	“Exactly.  When she fell, her ties to the Sisters and Nerull were severed.  She now is becoming a goddess on her own terms.  When she awakens, she will be reborn as a new goddess.”

	For now, however, the doom of their goddesses was not the worst of their concerns, and the scientists explained the properties of the MIDAS bomb and the moon.  “The bomb is powered by something called “fusion,” and setting the bomb up for detonation is fairly easily.  Once it detonates, it will destroy everything within a range of several dozen miles, easily encompassing the Dark Moon.  However, it takes a minute to set up the bomb and the minimum timer the bomb can be set to is also a minute, so the party will have to defend it from any undead that are attracted to them.  The bomb itself must be positioned at the very core of the moon to ensure its destruction,” the scientists explain to the party.

	“The moon itself is partially hollow; a series of tunnels from the surface to the core, so getting that far won’t be too difficult.  There’s no air on the surface of the moon, exposing the party to the dangers of space, but some stale air remains trapped inside the moon.  The only other good news is that as a result of the dark energy that powers the moon, there is a tear in reality itself near the core.  The very laws of the universe are weak inside the demi-plane of that tear.  Space and time itself bend around the tear, letting you stay there briefly without time passing in reality.  However, if you stay too long, your bodies will be broken down.  You shouldn’t try to stay there for longer than one night of rest, if possible.”

	Sadly, the scientists have little more to add on these critical subjects, so the party prepared for what was possibly their craziest and most dangerous mission yet: Teleporting onto the surface of a dark moon laced with artifact-level magic for the purpose of exploding a futuristic nuclear bomb at its center.

	OOC Notes:  The next update will likely be a major milestone for us, because it will be the point where I officially catch up with the campaign!  That’s right; the party is still in the moon and currently in the middle of the final battle of the adventure.  Unfortunately, this means that updates after the next one might be a little sparser.  Most of these updates covered multiple play sessions, so when I have to cover only one per update, they might seem short.  Alternatively, I might also have to skip a normal update time if not enough has happened for that week or if I had to end it in the middle of a fight.  What method would you prefer?

	The first part of this update was actually very emotional for character and player.  I think this was the first time I actually was able to bring a tear to a player’s eye just because of the story.  It’s a bit of an honor, though also just a bit embarrassing.  Still, moments like that one of the reasons I still DM this game, despite all the setbacks, so it was a big moment for me.


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## OaxacanWarrior (Jul 19, 2005)

LordVyreth said:
			
		

> OOC Notes:  The next update will likely be a major milestone for us, because it will be the point where I officially catch up with the campaign!  That’s right; the party is still in the moon and currently in the middle of the final battle of the adventure.  Unfortunately, this means that updates after the next one might be a little sparser.  Most of these updates covered multiple play sessions, so when I have to cover only one per update, they might seem short.  Alternatively, I might also have to skip a normal update time if not enough has happened for that week or if I had to end it in the middle of a fight.  What method would you prefer?
> 
> The first part of this update was actually very emotional for character and player.  I think this was the first time I actually was able to bring a tear to a player’s eye just because of the story.  It’s a bit of an honor, though also just a bit embarrassing.  Still, moments like that one of the reasons I still DM this game, despite all the setbacks, so it was a big moment for me.




Whatever way works best for you works for me with regards to the posting.  Blowing up a moon with a nuke sounds pretty awesome!  I can't wait to see how this all plays out.  Making a player cry with the story line is a big accomplishment...congrats on that!


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## Neurotic (Jul 20, 2005)

I join OaxacanWarrior in congratulations   

I would prefer if every update had some substance instead of just short session overview. It is not important if they are little sparser, most of us follows multiple threads so it is no problem. Besides, look at Blackdirge who hasn't updated for months now.  :\ 

You're doing good and don't change that for reader's convenience.

Regarding moon blow-up, did you work out consequences of changed gravity or just made it irrelevant? By, for example, destroying this world and returning to normal time befire the Quill?


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## LordVyreth (Jul 20, 2005)

Neurotic said:
			
		

> I join OaxacanWarrior in congratulations
> 
> I would prefer if every update had some substance instead of just short session overview. It is not important if they are little sparser, most of us follows multiple threads so it is no problem. Besides, look at Blackdirge who hasn't updated for months now.  :\
> 
> ...




Err, I sort of hand-waved the gravity issue.  The moons are really fairly small, so they'd have no real effect on the gravity.  After all, if they were too big, they'd be too large to be used as weapons without causing global destruction or mass extinctions.  As for gravity on the moon, I'll assume the gravity is magically provided, just like the trapped air and heat.  The in-game explanation for all that is the orc empire was responsible for mining the rock, carving it into the moons, and doing some maintenance of the moons in the final stages of their creation and launch, hence the need for magic to make them inhabitable by the living.  I'm not sure what you mean in the last sentence, though.  What about destroying the world and return to normal time do you mean?


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## Neurotic (Jul 27, 2005)

LordVyreth said:
			
		

> What about destroying the world and return to normal time do you mean?




What I meant to say is, when this is all over and Bas is destroyed and/or undead and orcish empires are destroyed or whatever, will the wolrd as PCs know it cease to exist and return to normal? Normal in the sense of Prime Material, where you can travel to other planes of existence and Drow and Elves are enemies etc. As I understand it, this world is just a (big) "pocket" dimension caused/made by The Quill. Thus, if those who wished it are gone, the world has no reason to exist anymore. This could even form your next campaign with time limit, how to prevent dissappearance/erasure of so many lives


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## LordVyreth (Jul 27, 2005)

Neurotic said:
			
		

> What I meant to say is, when this is all over and Bas is destroyed and/or undead and orcish empires are destroyed or whatever, will the wolrd as PCs know it cease to exist and return to normal? Normal in the sense of Prime Material, where you can travel to other planes of existence and Drow and Elves are enemies etc. As I understand it, this world is just a (big) "pocket" dimension caused/made by The Quill. Thus, if those who wished it are gone, the world has no reason to exist anymore. This could even form your next campaign with time limit, how to prevent dissappearance/erasure of so many lives




Ah, I see.  That's a bit of a misunderstanding, actually.  The plane the campaign takes place on isn't a pocket dimension; it's a regular Material Plane.  In the game's cosmology, there are multiple Material Planes, including the South American-inspired culture Azat and Tonaca came from and the Pyrodessy plane the party visited.  The party's Material plane wasn't created by the Quill; it simply is vastly changed every time the Quill is used.  The Semi-Planar Rift that blocks most planar travel has existed since TIE first created it eons ago, though it does get stronger or weaker based on how "normal" the plane is at any given time.  So the plane will remain the way it is after Bas and the two evil empires are gone, at least until the Quill is used again.  Keep in mind, though, that Bas' crater and subsequent discover of lost artifacts from previous worlds is screwing up the Quill's nature, so it's hard to say if and when the Quill will appear again.  Does that make sense?


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## LordVyreth (Aug 3, 2005)

I'd like to apologize for the lack of an update this weekend.  We ended up not playing last week, as one player was visiting parents and another was in the middle of a move.  Hopefully I'll be able to add a brief update this weekend to bring the story hour up to the fight the party's still midway through.


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## LordVyreth (Aug 8, 2005)

Sigh...I'm sorry.  I never got the chance to work on it this weekend.  I'll try to take care of it this week when I have the chance; Tuesday maybe, or at least I can get a start then.


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## OaxacanWarrior (Aug 11, 2005)

We're still here waiting so don't give up the efforts.  I have enjoyed your story hour and I am looking forward to how it all wraps up.


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## LordVyreth (Aug 11, 2005)

Sorry.  We actually went into a bit of a hiatus because of the busy month we're all having.  Between Danae's player moving, Gen Con next week, and another player going on a business trip, it's been hard scheduling a game.  I will finish up the update of the next part of the adventure some time this week, but the next update after that could be a while.  In the meantime, do you have any suggestions for things I can add to the Story Hour before that?


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## OaxacanWarrior (Aug 11, 2005)

LordVyreth said:
			
		

> Sorry.  We actually went into a bit of a hiatus because of the busy month we're all having.  Between Danae's player moving, Gen Con next week, and another player going on a business trip, it's been hard scheduling a game.  I will finish up the update of the next part of the adventure some time this week, but the next update after that could be a while.  In the meantime, do you have any suggestions for things I can add to the Story Hour before that?




I'd love to see the character writeups (i.e. level, class, race, abilities, etc.) of the various PCs if you have them.  This would also be interesting to see of some of the main advesaries as well.


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## LordVyreth (Aug 15, 2005)

*The Final Countdown: Six to the Moon*

The party reached the surface of the moon easily enough, but they immediately ran into the hazards of space.  It was extremely cold, airless, and the heroes even felt their own bodies struggling to tear themselves apart!  Fortunately, the party was aware of these dangers before they left and prepared for it before teleporting to the moon.  They quickly hurried to the nearest crater they could find and used it to reach one of the many tunnels leading to the moon’s center.

	For the first few minutes of their journey to the center of the moon, things were eerily calm.  That abruptly ended, however, when the entire moon briefly began to shake as if it was experiencing an earthquake.

	“What’s happening?” a worried Robin asked.

	Danae was somber.  “I believe this means it’s started.  Bas’ weapon is firing on the moon at this very moment.  If it takes as long for this moon to hit the ground as it did for the last one, we have about an hour and twenty minutes left.”

	The party doubled their efforts to reach the core, but before they could finish their journey, their tunnel opened into a much larger cavern.  To most of the party, the only immediate danger was a gigantic stalagmite in the center of the cavern that appeared to be made entirely of bone.

	“Is it dormant?” Tiana nervously asked.

	Danae studied it for a moment, and then replied, “I can’t say.  It’s not moving now, but look at the rest of the cavern.”  Scattered throughout the cavern floor were dozens of humanoid skeletons, some still holding weapons.  “It appears that there was once a battle here.  It’s hard to say how long ago it occurred.”

	Tonaca, however, had bigger concerns.  “It’s not the only threat,” he said, as he pointed to the area above a number of the bodies.  “There’s some sort of invisible figure there.  It looks like a huge mass of angry faces and hands.  A few are even gripping some of the weapons on the floor.”

	The party was now aware of the threat, and now the enemy apparently realized their attempts to remain hidden have failed, for they sprang into action as well.  Tiana quickly went on the defensive and gave herself the ability to see their invisible foe.  Bath, however, was her usual direct self.  She charged the stalagmite monster, ignoring the futile attacks of the invisible foe, and then started to hack through its body.  

	As she continued her attack on the stalagmite monster (called a necronaut,) however, Bath was quickly flanked.  The enraged invisible monster picked up 5 swords and attacked her with all of them at once.  The angel expertly dodged most of the attacks, but a few of the swords cut into her slightly.  Meanwhile, a third undead emerged from hiding behind the stalagmite.  It appeared to be a ghoulish giant, but its mouth was stitched shut.  It was wielding two massive maces, and as soon as it saw its invisible ally attacking Bath (who was also invisible at this point, thanks to Danae’s preparatory magic,) it quickly dispelled the invisibility, letting the Necronaut attack her as well!

	Fortunately, while the monsters were busy attacking Bath, the rest of the part was able to attack.  Danae, Tal, and Tonaca rained magic down on the monsters’ heads in the forms of a chained bolt of lighting, a spray of prismatic light, and a beam of intense sunlight respectively.  Robin fired at the monsters with his bow, and Tiana moved behind the invisible monster and began to cut into it with her blade using trained and expert precision.  Bath continued her assault on the necronaut, but the monster responded by pounding Bath again.  The necronaut was clearly a dangerous foe, for it could even strike the nimble and well-armored Bath regularly!  Meanwhile, the zombie-like general (called a deathbringer) dispelled the magic on Danae and the invisible weapon-wielding monster (called a ragewind) suddenly expanded its form to become a whirling storm of blades, catching both Bath and Tiana within the deadly storm!

	However, despite their efforts, the party nearly overwhelmed even the three powerful undead at this point.  While Robin continued to fire arrows and Danae and Tal resumed their magical barrage, Tonaca released his most powerful healing magic.  The holy blast almost completely recovered his friend’s wounds but had the opposite effect on the death-powered undead.  The necronaut, heavily wounded by Bath’s attacks, was nearly destroyed, and the deathbringer was completely obliterated!  Only the ragewind managed to get out of the way of the spell.  It flailed uselessly at Bath while Tiana finished off the necronaut, and between Bath’s new attention on the invisible enemy and magical assistance by the rest of the party, it was finally put to rest.

	The party took a few moments to gather any treasure their enemies had, but they had far more important priorities.  They quickly resumed their dash to the center of the moon, and they reached it in a relatively short amount of time.  The massive chamber was over a hundred and fifty feet long, about sixty feet wide, and high enough to contain two stories.  The party entered the room from one of the two “northern” entrances (though the moon didn’t really have a magnetic pole,) and the floor they entered on was raised about thirty feet above the rest of the cavern.  Their ledge extended as a natural bridge across nearly the entire length of the cavern.  Below the ledge and its extension was the lower part of the cavern, which contained several dozen additional exits.  But the party had little interest in either the lower cavern or its tunnels, for a pool of absolute darkness hovered in the air right between the two upper tunnels. 

	“That must be the plane the dragons were talking about,” Danae reasoned.  “If what they said about its relation to the flow of time was accurate, then we can safely rest here without running out of time.”

	The party agreed and quickly made camp in the strange pocket dimension.  It was an unnerving experience, for there were no walls to stop them from moving in any direction, nor was there any gravity.  They merely floated a few feet from the entrance they just used.

	“Are you sure this is safe?” Tiana asked.

	“I’m…pretty sure,” Danae admitted.  “At any rate, we need some time to prepare.  Who knows what will come after us if someone realizes we’re going to blow up the moon?”

	The party soon adjusted to the strange living conditions, though they were surprised to find that the moon itself didn’t extend visibly in this sub-plane.  To the party, they appeared to be floating in outer space.

	“Hey, look!”  Tal cried as he pointed at the home world of most of the party.  “The world is round!  Wow, who knew?”

	“I’m more interested in that,” Bath said with a quiet voice.  The party turned to look in the direction she was pointing, and barely could make out what appeared to be a massive woman floating in the middle of space!

	“Who is that?” Tal, who could barely make out the woman, asked.

	“That is my goddess, Bha-Ael!” Bath excitedly responded.  

	“Your goddess?  Why is your goddess floating in deep space?” an understandably confused Tonaca asked.

	“According to TIE, Bha-Ael was once a mortal woman.  She was inside the last dark moon when Nerull was about to imbue it with his power.  That power went into her instead, making her a goddess and causing the last moon to be destroyed, giving us the precious few hours of daylight we had to horde until today.”  

	The party looked onwards to their ancient savior, as Danae continued on with the more complete story, “Well, technically, Bha-Ael was once a different goddess completely in an alternate dimension, and TIE gave Wee Jas, a goddess of the old pantheon, the idea of Bha-Ael and her pantheon.  Wee Jas then arranged things so that Bha-Ael would be born, and…”

	“Aw, look.  She’s waving to us!” Bath interrupted.  

	Calmed by the presence of the goddess, the party was able to rest peacefully that “night,” and they woke the next day refreshed and with greater commitment to their purpose.  After preparing for the next day, the party returned to the moon’s core, where Danae quickly got to work on the bomb.  Before she finished, however, she helped the party make plans.  She created a teleportation circle on side of the ledge, so the party had a quick method of escape when the bomb was ready to explode.  Next, she created a prismatic sphere around herself and the time while Tonaca created a second prismatic sphere around the circle to protect it until it was time to flee.

	It only took a minute for Danae to finish the bomb’s preparations and set the timer, but it was obvious even in that minute that the moon’s inhabitants were awakening.  Unearthly howls of fear and outrage echoed throughout the tunnels, and as Danae finished her work, they got closer and louder.  Finally, just as she set the bomb’s countdown timer to one minute, undead poured out of every tunnel!

	OOC Notes:  Sadly, I have to leave you with a cliffhanger for now.  The ensuing fight is actually still going on; high level combat is long enough, but when you add in the online element, it takes even longer.  Hopefully, the battle will be resolved as soon as the campaign hiatus is over, which should happen sometime in September.  In the meantime, Warrior’s suggestion is a good one.  I’ll start adding the character sheets over the next couple weeks, though I will be away for much of next week because of Gen Con.

	In the meantime, I’ll happily answer any questions about the campaign in general you may have.  Did anything in particular interest your or confuse you about how the campaign works so far?


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## LordVyreth (Aug 29, 2005)

Now, as per your requests, I'll be adding some character sheets to my list over the course of the next week or two.  I should be adding actual updates to the SH in two weeks, assuming that hiatus ends when planned.  We'll start with one of our oldest characters, and certainly our most noteworth in combat: the nigh-invincible Bath Qol!  Feel free to add comments, questions, or suggestions about her.  Next up will be Tal, the only surviving member of the party to last from game 1 (Game 2 if you count the prologue.)

Name: Bath Qol 			
20th Level Astral Deva/3rd level Paladin			Experience: 253,577
Astral Deva		Lawful Good	Diety: Bha-Ael	Next: 276,000
Size: Large		Age: Yes	Gender: Female	Height: 8’2”	
Weight: 200		Eyes: Blue	Hair: Blonde		Skin: White

Stats, current:
Str	35 (41)	+12 (+15)	
Dex	22	+6
Con	20 (26)	+5 (+8)
Int	20 	+5
Wis	18 (22)	+4 (+6)
Cha	28 (34)	+9 (+12)

Init: +6 (Dex)
Speed: 50 ft, fly 100 ft (perfect)
AC: 57 (10 + 6 Dex + 9 Armor +7 Shield +20 Natural + 5 Deflection, -1 Size +1 Insight, touch 21, flat-footed 57 (uncanny dodge))
BAB: +13/8/3
Melee: +34/29/24
Ranged: +25/20/15

Fort Save: +36 (+10 class +5 resistance +1 competence +8 Con +12 Divine Grace)
Reflex Save: +32 (+8 class +5 resistance +1 competence +6 Dex +12 Divine Grace)
Will Save: +32 (+8 class +5 resistance +1 competence +6 Wis +12 Divine Grace)

Weapons:
+5 Axiomatic, Holy, Bane:Evil Outsider, Cold Iron Mercurial Greatsword, +40/35/30 Damage 2d6+27, crit range 19-20/x4,

+5 Str 16 Composite Long Bow, +30/25/20, Damage 1d8+8, crit range x3

Armor:
+5 Heavy Fortification Mithral Shirt, Light Armor, +9 AC Bonus, Max Dex +6, Check Penalty 0, 10% Spell Failure, Speed 50 ft., Weight 10 lbs.

+5 Animated, Bane Blinding: Evil Outsider Heavy Mithral Shield, +7 AC Bonus, Check Penalty 0, 5% Spell Failure, Weight 7.5 lbs.

Skills: 
Concentration 16 R +8 Con +1 Competence, +25
Diplomacy 9 R +12 Cha +3 Misc., +24
Escape Artist 15 R +6 Dex +1 Competence, +22
Handle Animal 4 R +12 Cha  +1 Competence, +17
Hide 15 R +6 Dex +1 Competence -4 Size, +18
Knowledge (Religion) 18 R +5 Int +1 Competence, +24
Knowledge (Planes ) 15 R +5 Int +1 Competence, +21
Knowledge (History) 15 R +5 Int +1 Competence, +21
Listen 15 R +6 Wisdom +1 Competence, +22
Move Silently 15 R +6 Dex + 1 Competance, +22
Profession (Scribe) 4 R +5 Int +1 Competence, +10
Ride 15 R +6 Dex +1 Competence, +22
Sense Motive 15 R +6 Wis +1 Competence, +22
Spot 15 R +6 Wis +1 Competence, +22
Tumble 7 R +6 Dex +1 Competence, +14

Feats:
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Mercurial Great Sword)
Weapon Focus (Mercurial Great Sword)
Improved Critical (Mercurial Great Sword)
Improved Flight
Fly-By Attack
Fast Healing

Items: 
Mercurial Great Sword, +5, Cold Iron, Axiomatic, Holy, Bane: Evil Outsiders, Intelligent (Zethwar the Sinslayer, Alignment Lawful Good, Int 10, Wis 18, Cha 18, Speaks Celestial, telepathy with weilder, 120 ft. darkvision, blind sense, and hearing, reads all languages, Reads Magic, Faerie Fire 3/day, Detect Magic at will, Cure Moderate Wounds 3/day, Haste on Owner 3/day, Detect Opposing Alignment)
Mithral Short Sword
Large Mithral Shield, +5, Animated, Bane Blinding: Evil Outsider
Belt of Strength +6
Gloves of Health +6
Ioun Stone, +1 Insight to AC
Vest of Resistance +5
Tome of Leadership +3 (already used)
Cloak of Charisma +6
Headband of Wisdom +4
Ring of Protection +5
Ioun Stone, +1 Competence to attack and skill checks
Ioun Stone, can survive without air
Bracers of Natural Armor +5
1 silver
6 copper
17,885gold

Special Attacks
Stun enemy for 1d6 rounds if hit twice in one round, DC for Fort Save 29
Spell-Like Abilities:
Aid at will,
Continual Flame at will,
Detect Evil at will,
Discern Lies at will,
Dispel Evil at will,
Dispel Magic at will,
Holy Smite at will,
Invisibility (self only) at will,
Plane Shift at will
Polymorph (self only) at will,
Remove Curse at will,
Remove Disease at will,
Remove Fear at will,
Holy Aura at will,
Holy Word at will,
Cure Light Wounds 7/day,
See Invisibility 7/day,
Heal 1/day,
Blade Barrier 1/day
All Save DCs at 22+Spell Level, and 12th level caster
Detect Evil
Smite Evil

Special Qualities:
Darkness 60 ft.
Low-light Vision
Immune to Acid and Cold
Immune to Petrification
Fire Resistance 10
Electricity Resistance 10
Tongues
Uncanny Dodge
Improved Uncanny Dodge
Protective Aura (as +4 version of magic circle against evil,
and minor globe of invulnerability,)
Aura of Good
DR 10/evil
SR 33
Smite Evil 1/day
Divine Grace
Lay On Hands
Aura of Courage
Divine Health


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## OaxacanWarrior (Aug 29, 2005)

Wow...no wonder Bath makes short work of most enemies.  Keep 'em coming.


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## LordVyreth (Sep 15, 2005)

Sorry about the delay.  I haven't received an updated version of Tal from his player yet.  If I don't get anything by this weekend, I'll add some different characters, including potentially Tonaca, Robin, and/or Danae.


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## LordVyreth (Sep 20, 2005)

Okay, here's another character update.  This one is for Robin.  Now, if you see any mistakes in this one, feel free to point them out.  The player in question is fairly young and still not too experienced.  I had to make a few changes when preparing this, and I wouldn't be surprised if I missed a few more.

Name: Robin
18th Level Ranger/4th level Fighter				Experience: 252,727
Human			Chaotic Good	Diety: Tregfillia	Next: 253,000
Size: Medium		Age: 24	Gender: Male		Height: 5’8”	
Weight: 237		Eyes: Green	Hair: Black		

Stats, current:
Str	20 (26)	+5 (+8)	
Dex	21 (27)	+5 (+8)
Con	14 (20)	+2 (+5)
Int	10 (14)	+0 (+2)
Wis	16 	+3 
Cha	10	+0 

HP: 217
Init: +8 (Dex)
Speed: 30 ft
AC: 40 (10 + 5 Dex + 8 Armor +7 Shield +5 Natural + 5 Deflection, touch 20, flat-footed 35)
BAB: +21/16/11/6
Melee: +29/24/19/14
Ranged: +29/24/19/14

Fort Save: +25 (+15 class +5 resistance +5 Con)
Reflex Save: +25 (+12 class +5 resistance +8 Dex)
Will Save: +15 (+7 class +5 resistance +3 Wis)

Weapons:
+5 Corrosive Burst, Seeking, Wounding Str 26 Composite Longbow, +35/30/25/20 Damage 1d8+15, crit range x3,

+4 Flaming, Undead Bane, Evil Outsider Bane, Keen, Ghost Touch Bastard Sword, +33/28/23/18, Damage 1d8+8, crit range x17-20/x2

Armor:
+5 Heavy Fortification, Greater Cold Resistance Studded Leather, Light Armor, +8 AC Bonus, Max Dex +5, Check Penalty 0, 15% Spell Failure, Speed 30 ft., Weight 20 lbs.

+5 Animated, Arrow Deflection Heavy Steel Shield, +7 AC Bonus, Check Penalty 0, 5% Spell Failure, Weight 15 lbs.

Skills: 
Balance 7 R +8 Dex, +15
Climb 3  R + 8 Str, +11
Concentration 4 R +5 Con, +9
Craft (bowmaker) 8 R +2 Int, +10
Diplomacy 7 R, +24
Escape Artist 4 R +8 Dex, +12
Handle Animal 15 R, +15
Heal 7 R +3 Wisdom, +10
Hide 10 R +8 Dex, +18
Knowledge (Nature) 21 R +2 Int, +23
Listen 22 R +3 Wisdom, +25
Move Silently 22 R +8 Dex, +30
Ride 5 R +8 Dex, +13
Search 18 R +2 Int, +20
Sense Motive 6 R +3 Wis, +9
Spot 11 R +3 Wis, +14
Survival 24 R +3 Wis, +27
Tumble 15 R +8 Dex, +23
Use Rope 2 R +8 Dex, +10

Feats:
Track
Endurance
Point Blank Shot
Rapid Shot
Weapon Focus (composite longbow)
Weapon Specialization (composite longbow)
Manyshot
Mounted Archery
Improved Precise Shot
Supernatural Blow
Quick Draw
Improved Manyshot
Swarm of Arrows

Items: 
Gloves of Dexterity +6
Cloak of Greater Displacement
Headband of Intellect +4
Boots of Striding and Springing
Vest of Resistance +5
Amulet of Natural Armor +5 and Health +6
Amulet of Mighty Fists +2 (not worn)
Earring of Sustenance
Ring of Animal Friendship
Ring of Deflection +5
“Boom” Coin
Belt of Giant Strength +6
Goggles of Night
45 Undead Bane Arrows +1
50 Construct Bane Arrows +1
49 Evil Outsider Bane Arrows +1
20 Bones Arrows (-2 penalty to attack)
50 +3 Arrows
50 +1 Organ Piercing (like Vorpal) arrows

Special Attacks:
Spells

Special Qualities:
Favored Enemy (orcs) +4
Favored Enemy (undead) +4
Favored Enemy (elves) +4
Favored Enemy (constructs) +2
Wild Empathy
Animal Companion (leopard)
Woodland Stride
Swift Tracker
Evasion
Camouflage
Hide in Plain Sight


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## OaxacanWarrior (Sep 20, 2005)

Robin is very impressive as well.  No wonder he rains arrows of death down upon his enemies.

I did notice one little error with the Charisma bonus.  Charisma is listed as 20 with a +0 bonus.  Shouldn't the bonus be +5?


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## Axegrrl (Sep 26, 2005)

> Animal Companion (leopard)
Y'know, I don't remember ever seeing that one around. 

What about "Fluffy"? 

Also, I remember Robin using a cloak of flying. Could be it's an additional power on the other cloak.


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## Neurotic (Sep 26, 2005)

Sorry for ignoring you for some time, I had a wedding to plan. Now you speak to newly wed and returned from honeymoon Neurotic ready to face new chalenges and read more interesting story hours 

I wonder how long will the wonder last...

Anyhow, thanks for character info. Bath is little bit on the specialists side, but is formiddable nevertheless against non-demonic opponents. 

Keep it up!


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## LordVyreth (Sep 26, 2005)

Yeah, some mistakes for Robin's character.  I'm pretty sure his Charisma should be 10, not 20.  That's a typo on my part.  The missing Wings of Flight came from the character sheet, though.  I agree he should have them.  Considering that he never once mentioned the Cloak of Displacement's miss chance, maybe it's as simple as a transfer.  Well, what can I say?  He's young and this is his first real campaign.

As for the leopard, I assume Robin's been leaving it at home for the most part.  "Fluffy" was his raptor, right?  It eventually died after being completely absorbed by the Terratomorph, which I think was the motivation for Robin to leave his animal companion at home.  Or did you mean the gigantic wolf from the last mission?  That's too powerful to technically count as an animal companion.  It's more a "friendly NPC" than a class feature at this point.

Expect a writeup of Tonaca tonight or later this week, and Tiana this weekend.  Hopefully, the next game will be next thursday as well.  Unfortunately, part of the delay came from some trouble with Danae's character.  She was one of the players who moved out of the state last year, and we've recently been having trouble getting in touch w/ her again.  I'm worried we may have to make her character into an NPC if we can't reach her soon.


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## OaxacanWarrior (Sep 26, 2005)

Neurotic said:
			
		

> Sorry for ignoring you for some time, I had a wedding to plan. Now you speak to newly wed and returned from honeymoon Neurotic ready to face new chalenges and read more interesting story hours
> 
> I wonder how long will the wonder last...
> 
> ...




Congrats and good luck, Neurotic!


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## LordVyreth (Sep 28, 2005)

And now for the next character; the party's "new guy," Tonaca:

Name: Tonaca 			
Cleric 15/Hierophant 1/Master of Radiance 5		Experience: 252,727
Aasimar		Neutral Good	Diety: Unknown	Next: 253,000
Size: Medium		Gender: Male		

Stats, current:
Str	12 (18)	+1 (+4)	
Dex	10 (16)	+0 (+3)
Con	17 (23)	+3 (+6)
Int	14 	+2
Wis	23 (29)	+6 (+9)
Cha	23 	+6

Init: +4 (Feat)
Speed: 40 ft
AC: 36 (10 +12 Armor +5 Shield, +1 Dex, +3 Deflection, +5 Natural, touch 14, flat-footed 35
BAB: +13/8/3
Melee: +17/12/7
Ranged: +13/8/3

Fort Save: +25 (+15 class +4 resistance +6 Con)
Reflex Save: +10 (+6 class +4 resistance)
Will Save: +28 (+15 class +4 resistance +9 Wis)

Weapons:
+1 Corrosive Morning Star, +22/17/12, Damage 1d8+5+1d6 acid, crit range 20/x2

+1 Light Crossbow, +14, Damage 1d8+1, crit range 19-20/x2

Armor:
+4 Full Plate, +12 AC Bonus, Heavy Armor, Max Dex +1, Check Penalty -5, 35% Arcane Spell Failure, Speed 20 ft., Weight 50 lbs.

+4 Heavy Steel Shield, +6 AC Bonus, Check Penalty -1, 15% Arcane Spell Failure, Weight 15 lbs.

Skills: 
Concentration 24 R +6 Con, +30
Diplomacy 24 R +6 Cha, +30
Knowledge (Afterlife) 6 R +2 Int, +8
Knowledge (Religion) 24 R +2 Int, +26
Knowledge (Nature) 23 R +2 Int, +25
Spellcraft 24 R +2 Int, +26
Spot 5 R + 9 Wisdom +2 Misc, +16

Feats:
Nymph’s Kiss
Divine Spontaneity (plant)
Rapid Spell
Extra Turning
Divine Spontaneity (sun)
Disciple of the Sun
Favored of the Companions
Extra Domain (moon)

Items: 

Morning Star +4 (primary weapon)
Corrosive Morning Star +1
Reloading Light Crossbow +1
Full Plate +4
Heavy Fortification Heavy Steel Shield +3 (primary shield)
Ghost Touch Heavy Steel Shield +5
Amulet of Natural Armor +5
Ring of Protection +3
Bracers of Constitution +6
Belt of Strength +6
Gloves of Dexterity +6
Ghost Touch Cloak of Charisma +6
Eyeglasses of Targetting (grants +5 to hit bonus)
Quiver of Ehlonna
Hewards’s Handy haversack
Boots of Striding and Springing
Crystal Bath w/ See Invisibility
6’ x 9’ Carpet of Flying
6th Level Pearl of Power
Ring of Virtuous Good (Intelligent, Intelligence 19, Wisdom 19, Charisma 10, speech, telepathy, 120’ darkvision, blindense, grants improved uncanny dodge, See Invisibility at will, grants Improved Initiative, Detect Magic at will, Stoneskin 2/day, Haste 3/day, Heal 1/day
Wand of Cure light Wounds
True Holy Symbol (+2 to turning check)
Greater Holy Symbol (empowers turn checks)
Tome of Understanding +5 (used)
Tome of Leadership and Influence +5 (used)
Manual of Bodily Health +5 (used)
Tome of Clear Thought +4 (used)

Special Attacks
Spells
Turning Undead
Radiant Aura 3/day
Spell-Like Abilities (Searing Light, Daylight, Sunlight)
Domains (Sun, Plant, Moon)

Special Qualities:
Darkness 60 ft.
Resistance 5 to Acid, Cold and Electricity
Aura of Good

Like Robin, feel free to point out any mistakes I made on the character sheet.  Because they entered the game so late, Tonaca/Azat and Tiana's players had the advantage of making epic or near-epic characters from scratch.  In addition, the two have a lot of extra materials to work with and tend to organize their characters via computer, so they have a lot of possible choices.  As a result, it's likely that I missed or didn't understand a few things about the characters.


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## Axegrrl (Sep 28, 2005)

LordVyreth said:
			
		

> "Fluffy" was his raptor, right? ... Or did you mean the gigantic wolf from the last mission? That's too powerful to technically count as an animal companion. It's more a "friendly NPC" than a class feature at this point.



Nope, I meant Fluffy as in the gigantic wolf. 
Robin has been basically operating without any animal companion as long as I can remember. 



			
				LordVyreth said:
			
		

> And now for the next character; the party's "new guy," Tonaca:



> Init: +4 (Feat)
Should be +7 to take the dex into account. 

Items: 
> Crystal Bath w/ See Invisibility
??? I think he's got something else that lets him see invisible stuff. 

> Special Qualities:
> Darkness 60 ft.
I belive it's darkvision 60'. From Master of Radiance. 

> Tonaca/Azat and Tiana's players had the advantage of making epic or near-epic characters from scratch. 
Not as much of an advantage as you might think. We had *never* played anything in 3e above about 8th level, so we were pretty much guessing what would work when we created these characters. I know I would've done Tiana slightly differently, and Azat would've been more focused. 

> the two have a lot of extra materials to work with
Muahahahahaha. That's what happens when gamer marries gamer.  Besides, I like to collect books, and he likes to GM, so he's always looking for ideas (and additional books).    

I'll see if I can get Tonaca's player to take a look at this listing later.


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## LordVyreth (Sep 28, 2005)

Axegrrl said:
			
		

> Nope, I meant Fluffy as in the gigantic wolf.
> Robin has been basically operating without any animal companion as long as I can remember.
> 
> 
> ...




Well, the death of Robin's last animal companion was in the adventure right before you started the game.  I don't think he's bothered to really expand on his new one at all since then, which makes some sense.  At that level, the animal companion of a multi-classed ranger is little help unless they're bedecked in a lot of magical items.

Hmm, looks like there's some revisions needed.  I agree the Init is off, and the Darkvision and Crystal Baths were typos (the latter should be a crystal ball.)  I also should check on the saves again; I couldn't find the resistance bonus mentioned among the equipment.  And I noticed his new morning star late in the write up, but I didn't replace the current information in the attack list to account for it.  I'm still not positive on the AC, though I did revise that one a few times from what it was originally stated to be after going over feats and equipment.  I would appreciate it if you let Tonaca's player (Axegrrl's husband, for those of you just arriving) about this, so he can make sure everything's accurate.


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## LordVyreth (Oct 10, 2005)

Just letting everyone know that yes, I'm still alive.  We ran into some delays for the game, so we're still on hiatus.  I hope to get things started again next Thursday, but not promises until we can confirm everyone's schedule.  In the meantime, I was hoping to add Tiana's information this weekend, but there are some confusing parts I wanted clarified beforehand.  Expect something some time this week, hopefully.


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## LordVyreth (Oct 21, 2005)

Okay, I have some bad news and some good news.  The bad news is that the group and I discussed it, and we basically decided to discontinue the game.  Losing one of our long-term players was rough, and to be honest, the combination of an epic level party and online role playing just wasn't working for us.  The inability to finish a fight for 3 months was a good sign that the enthusiasm wasn't there.

The good news is that I WILL finish this story hour.  I got permission from the group to write up the last few adventures while they provide me with some information about their characters' plans.  Expect the final portion of the moon storyline this weekend, and then regular updates every weekend or two for the last few adventures.  After that, I might start a new campaign w/ either this group or an IRL one I'm in with some of the current players plus others.  I'll try to do a Story Hour for that as well, and this time I'll be able to actually start it before I have a 2 year backlog!


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## LordVyreth (Oct 26, 2005)

*The Final Countdown: 10, 9, 8...*

In a matter of moments, the entire lower level of the cavern was filled with a teeming ocean of undead.  Fortunately, none of them appeared to be especially intelligent or powerful, so the party was safe from them for now.  However, the upper level was not without its own dangers.  A pair of undead monsters made up of hundreds of skeletons and shaped like giant dogs charged in from the side corridors.  At the same time, undead worms made up of pure evil called nightcrawlers burrowed into the cavern from the middle of the central bridge, and an incorporeal undead with a deadly voice floated through the cavern’s roof.  As the undead attacked the party from all sides, an invisible and plain-looking man appeared in the far corner of the room.  No smile formed on the man’s face, but he was as happy as he could be by nature.  At last, the preparations he made for his master’s enemies since they last met at Dragovigis’ statue would come to fruition.  Unlike that last time, however, this time he would not just observe the party’s movements.  He would take action.  He was to be the Affliction that his new Mistress Bas has called him.  He began his campaign against the party simply, at least from his perspective.  As if from nothing, a strange projectile weapon emerged out of his hand.  While the party dealt with the chaos of the undead attack, he fired this strange gun at any heroes who showed a momentary weakness. 

Despite being invisible, Tiana and Tal’s familiar Violet noticed their strange attacker, and the others quickly caught on when they were suddenly pelted with strange bolts of metal that left spiraling light trails as they fired.  However, no one in the party decided to attack this strange new enemy until they could deal with the more immediate concern of the undead.  Tiana quickly destroyed the screaming undead (called a deathshrieker,) but not before it could unleash a terrifying wail at the party.  Most of the party shrugged it off with minimal injuries, but the scream deafened Robin.  Meanwhile, Bath destroyed one of the undead dogs known as charnel hounds.  Tal, Danae, Robin, and Tonaca assisted and helped to soften up the other three undead in preparation for their eventual destruction.

However, before the other enemies could be defeated, phase two of Affliction’s insidious plan began.  From the middle of the room, three more reinforcements arrived.  Tal, who saw Tal through his familiar’s eyes but couldn’t place him before, gasped as he realized who his enemy must be.  All three of their new foes were old, escaped enemies from the party’s old battles.  One was the mezzoloth that became the only survivor of Bas’ forces from their Semi-Planar Rift excursion.  The second was the spellcasting sheen that escaped from the Dragovigis statue that once held the very bomb the party was trying to protect!  Tal fumed when he saw the sheen, for he remembered that his friend Joddark the dwarven Avatar of Magic was killed and used to create the sheen.  Finally, for the third time in their career, the night hag druid who fought the party both at the statue and the party’s raid, years ago, on the Fortress of Vengeance to kill Kulstra.  

Their new enemies wasted no time in enacting their vengeance.  The sheen couldn’t act immediately, as it was likely the source of the teleport the reinforcements used, but the others had no limits.  The mezzoloth released a cloud of deadly gas into the melee.  It had no effect on the undead, but while its effect was largely negated by the two prismatic spheres, it still caught many of the frontline fighters like Robin.  Meanwhile, Molidmare, the night hag druid, attempted to transform Tiana, but her spell faltered against the cunning rogue’s powerful will.  

As the fight raged on, Tiana slew one of the nightcrawlers, and Robin killed the other.  This left only the last charnel hound for the undead, but the allies of Affliction continued to make their presence known.  The mezzoloth teleported right next to Tal, who was trying to avoid the melee in the corner, while the sheen released a spray of prismatic energy at the front line and Molidmare used a greater dispel magic to strip away at least some of the party’s magical protections.  As for Affliction himself, he stopped firing his rail gun shortly after his allies arrived.  Instead, he watched the actions of one of the party’s most cautious and effective members; Danae.  In this battle like many of her recent ones, she hid behind a prismatic sphere (the same one used to protect the bomb,) and constantly would step out to cast a spell and then back in again before she could be attack.  The next time she tried this trick, however, Affliction was ready.  He suddenly replaced his gun attachment with a strange new device, which he used to project a prismatic wall of his own between Danae and her protective sphere.  Suddenly without her most powerful protection, Danae decided to cancel her own attack and instead used her shapeshifting magical powers to transfer into a mithril golem.  After all, she reasoned (in a rare mistake,) that as a golem, she would be immune to their strange new enemy’s magic.  Soon she would learn just how mistaken she was.

	OOC Notes:  This represents the last update containing actual campaign information.  The next update, to hopefully be released next weekend, will be the first one that’s more or less fictional.  The fight up to this point, which is about halfway to the bomb’s detonation, took up almost three game sessions, so the realization that this perhaps wasn’t working any more is somewhat understandable.


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## LordVyreth (Nov 1, 2005)

*The Final Countdown: ...3, 2, 1*

Even though the bomb the party had to protect now was without its most stalwart defender, the party still had to worry more about the more immediate attackers.  Tiana tumbled behind the remaining undead, the surviving Charnel Hound, to strike at its vulnerable spiritual cores while Tonaca fired at the monstrosity using his divine magic.  However, Tal was in a far less secure position against his attacker.  He was no fighter, and the mezzoloth was enraged and eager to settle the score with the party to make up for its past defeat.  Fortunately, assistance came in the form of Bath, who was as eager to fight against fiends as always.  Tal quickly backed away while looking for new opponents.  Once he remembered what the Arcanosheen was and represented, his objective was clear.  “Violet, guide me!” he yelled while he summoned his most powerful magic to use against the unseen attacker.

	Meanwhile, Robin was briefly at a loss for an opponent, but it didn’t take long for that dilemma to solve itself.  Molidmare the nighthag saw that the hapless ranger was alone, exposed, and damaged extensively already, and she smiled grimly.  “You were there!” she snarled as she leapt at her longtime foe with blade and magic at her call.

	Despite this, the tide was beginning to turn.  Bath was hewing into the Yugoloth with predictably effective results, and Tal was successfully disintegrating massive holes in the sheen’s torso.  However, Affliction was unconcerned, nor did he intervene in these battles.  Instead, he closed on Danae while another strange device emerged from his shapeshifting body.  Danae’s confidence at the defenses of her new golem form quickly vanished as Affliction effortlessly fired a series of four flaming meteoric spheres at her.  All struck her easily and for maximum effect, nearly killing the unfortunate wizard in one attack!  However, though she could barely remain conscious, Danae was still more than capable of retribution.  She took the form of the largest dragon she could and, while reveling in the newfound health the dragon’s mighty form gave her, she breathed a blast of pure force at their strange enemy.  The blast caught Affliction by surprised, and it appeared that it obliterated him completely!

	A cautiously optimistic Danae wondered out loud, “Did it kill him?”

	However, the sharp-eye Tiana shook her head.  “No, there’s…something there.  It’s like a swarm of insects, but much tinier.”  She looked to Robin for confirmation, and in between arrows, he nodded grimly.

	Before the party could react, the swarm managed to escape through a crack in the floor.  It was just as well, because most of the party was far more concerned with Affliction’s servants.  The Charnel Hound was finally dispatched by Tiana, and Bath had similar success in finally destroying the hated mezzoloth.  Just as the bomb’s timer reached 30, Tal brought down his opponent as well with one final volley of magical missiles.  Was the fight to destroy the moon truly almost over?

	Sadly, mere moments later, the next stage of Affliction’s plan began.  Out of tunnels located on the roof, four more fiendish enemies entered the conflict.  All of them were Swift Prides about the size of the one that helped guard the foyer of Legion’s lair, but these were much better prepared.  Each one silently began a magical spell in quick succession, but the four spells were directed not at the party, but at the prismatic sphere protecting the bomb.  First, a cone of cold struck the sphere, shattering its red layer.  It was followed with a gust of wind, a green disintegrating ray, and a spell that forced an opening in almost any surface.  The attacks were perfectly designed to destroy the orange, yellow, and green layers of the sphere, leaving it with only three layers left!

	It was clear what Afflication’s forces were planning, and the party did what they could to stop it.  While Tonaca healed Danae and Robin’s many wounds, Bath stepped in to intercede on Robin’s behalf in his fight against Molidmare.  This freed the ranger up to lead the attack against the Swift Prides.  A half dozen arrows flew at the nearest Pride in a matter of seconds, followed immediately by magic from Tal and Danae (who was able to return to her sphere when Affliction’s wall disappeared when he did.)  Even Tiana flew up to the nearest of the bat-like fiends.  However, the four attackers combined could only bring down one of the bats, which was just one too few.  The three surviving bats ignored their compatriot’s death and their more direct enemies and simply continued their assault on the sphere.  A magic missile volley, followed by a spell simulating the light of day and a simple Dispel Magic, destroyed the sphere utterly!

	Only eighteen seconds were left before the bomb was ready to detonate, but the final stage of Affliction’s was ready to begin.  First, holes suddenly appeared in the wall next to the bomb as more allies of Affliction joined the battle.  These appeared to be mere cultists, and it was likely that none of them could do a thing to Danae, let alone disarm the bomb with her there.  However, they had a less direct role in this final plan.  The first one was seemingly responsible for the creation of the passwall spell the cultists used to the enter the room, and a second was cut down by Danae when it tried to close with he bomb, but the third survived long enough to cast a single spell: anti-magic field.  Suddenly, Danae was forced back into her inherent form and all of her magical protections were stripped away!  At the same time, Affliction teleported inside the effect of the field and was seemingly unaffected by the lack of magic.  “Let’s see how strong you are without your anachronisms!” he boldly told the party as he strode towards the bomb.

	It was immediately obvious to party what must be done.  Even if it means staying until the bomb was about to detonate, they had to keep Affliction from the bomb using whatever it took.  Danae, lacking both the power of her spells and the ability to shapechange into a more effective attacker, simply blocked the way towards the bomb with her body.  At the same time, Bath, who was just about to deal the killing blow to Molidmare, turned and charged the strange and evil enemy leader.  Molidmare realized that any role she had in this fight was over and was about to escape from the fight for a third time when four arrows suddenly pierced her torso.  Dying, she turned to the source of the arrows to see a grim Robin.  “Time for you to join your sister,” he said simply.

	Inside the anti-magic field, the fight wasn’t going well.  Stripped of her magical enhanced strange and the powers of her sword, Bath could do little to the surprisingly powerful skin of Affliction.  Affliction, on the hand, had little difficulty in attacking the angel now that she lacked both the defenses of her armor and her angelic ability to resist damage from all but the most evil of sources.  Drawing two swords out of seemingly nowhere, he cut Danae down in three mere attacks and nearly defeated Bath as well!

	“Bath!  Get Danae out of there!” Tonaca shouted as he brought down his own prismatic sphere to give the party access to the teleportation circle they would soon need.  

Bath hesitated but realized she had to save her friend or both of them would likely be killed.  She reluctantly dragged the dying wizard out of harm’s way.  Affliction continued his work on the bomb but was distracted by a sneak attack by Tiana.  The blade found its target, but to Tiana’s amazement the blade struck no organs nor did it create a bleeding wound.  Instead, the hole created a strange blurring, indistinctive gap in Affliction’s body, and Tiana realized that the swarm that survived Danae’s breath attack was actually the sole component of Affliction’s body.  He was made of nothing but countless tiny mechanical insects!  Affliction wasted no time to knock the rogue unconscious before continuing his work.  If he was capable of expressing emotion, however, he would be worried now.  Half of the enemy party was taken out of commission and the others could do little to him inside the field, but he had little time left to disarm the bomb.  

10…Robin tried to fire at Affliction, but he was surrounded by the Swift Prides and had to flee to avoid being ripped to shreds.

9…Tonaca entered the field as well, but as soon as he saw Affliction raise his sword, he realized he could do little to affect the enemy here either.  He reluctantly prepared to take Tiana to the safety of the teleportation circle.

8…Affliction, without any further distractions, had nearly completed disarming the bomb.  If he succeeded, he would certainly take the bomb with him, and in a matter of minutes, Methosilang would be no more!

7…Though much of the party was defeated or unable to fight, one still could act.  He was certainly no match for Affliction without his magic, but Tal was still, at least partially, a dragon now.  He would fight his opponent with whatever he could.

6…Tal charged at the distracted Affliction and tackled him from behind!

5…Affliction struggled against his new opponent, but easily turned the tide on the sorcerer.

4…Affliction managed to wrestle Tal off, but as he turned to the bomb, he realized it was too late.  To his analytical mind, there was no doubt or uncertainty, and thus he was positive he had failed.  But he would not let this be a total failure.

3…Reshaping his weapon to one of perfect sharpness, Affliction used the last moments before the bomb went off to strike at Tal one time.  The attack was perfect.  It went right through Tal, decapitating him with one cut!

2…Time was short and victory was achieved.  Tonaca and Bath left through the circle, taking the unconscious Danae and Tiana with them.  Robin was ready to leave as well, but he would not go alone.  Moving as quickly as possible, he flew in to grab the body of one of his oldest friends.

1…With as much of Tal as he could gather, Robin desperately dove towards the circle, mere moments ahead of detonation and a vengeful Affliction.

0.  The party witnessed the death of the dark moon, one of their world’s greatest threats to life itself, from the vantage of a nearby hillside on the planet’s surface.  At first, only a few lines of light shot through the moon, damaging but not destroying it, and for a moment they were afraid that the bomb had failed.  However, as the seconds passed, more and more lights escaped to the edges of the moon and beyond, until the whole thing was enveloped in a blinding sphere; a short-lived but powerful micro-sun.  Only a few loose rocks survived the blast, and most of them burned up as they tumbled into the atmosphere and rained upon the earth.  It was a hard battle, and one with many sacrifices, but with luck none of them will be permanent, and now perhaps nothing stood between the party and Bas.

Meanwhile, as the lights emerged from the MIDAS bomb, Affliction watched without emotion.  The cultists that survived the fight were almost certainly doomed to death now, and the surviving three Swift Prides had only slightly better odds.  In fact, one was caught and immediately destroyed by the first beams of light, but none of this mattered to Affliction.  If he was unlucky enough to be destroyed before he could escape, so be it, but if he was to survive, his servitude was not and never would be finished.  Bas would have another purpose for him, and Affliction suspected that this last purpose would be his last and most important task.

Tal, meanwhile, spent several days in the hall of Facetous.  His god was of course not present, for he was still busy maintaining and protecting Dragovigis, but Tal was nonetheless content to live with his dragon brethren and learn more about his heritage.  However, he soon felt a calling from his home plane and he realized his friends were trying to get him back.  He was reluctant, but he knew his spirit would never be truly at peace until he finished his task at home.  Besides, his time away from the realm of mortals had given him some insight he had to share with his friends.  He suddenly awoke in his repaired body, but it was apparently immediately that it was quite as he left it.  As his friends gasped at his change and asked if he was okay, he surveyed his body.  Apparently more of the Dragon’s realm went with him than just his spirit, for he found that his body was now finally a complete half-dragon!

OOC Notes: There’s no way to know what the party would have done in this final part of the battle, but Affliction’s plans were identical to the original adventure.  The Swift Prides were going to arrive mid-fight to attack the party or destroy any prismatic spheres they had to, and the cultists were going to create an anti-magic field for Affliction with just enough time for Affliction to use it to go after the bomb.  I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t see how the party would handle the anti-magic field and an incredibly powerful enemy who lost none of his power in it, but so it goes.


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## LordVyreth (Nov 15, 2005)

*Tying Up Loose Ends: The Final Crisis*

“Tal!” an excited Danae yelled.  “You made it!  We were worried you would have stayed in the afterlife!”

Though he barely recovered from his return to the life, not to mention his new form, Tal managed a smile.  “And miss out on seeing our adventure’s end?  Never.  Besides, I learned something in Facetous’ realm that could help you.”  As he said it, though, Tal began to struggle.  He still remembered his time away from his body, but it was getting vague as if he just woke up after having a vivid dream.  “It was something that could…endanger us and the city.  And I think it involved an old enemy of ours.  It was definitely somebody or a group of people hostile to us.”

Tiana frowned.  “Are you sure it wasn’t just Bas?”

“I don’t think so, but…maybe,” Tal conceded.  

After Tal’s triumphant reunion with the party, preparations for the final battle began once again.  Even so, things just felt different.  There were the usual results of a great victory, from the parades and commendations from the Staels to another shopping spree at Union, but the feeling of optimism and hope outlasted the normal thrill of victory.  It was obvious what had changed: the moons, the greatest daily threat to the citizens of Methosilang and surface life in general and a constant symbol of the power and oppression of the Puppet and the Head That Rules the Claw, were destroyed.  Dawn, true dawn, had come, and soon the plants and animals would begin to adapt to life on the surface again.  One day, even the Long Waste might be fertile.  It was ironic that all of this was done in the name and by the hand of their greatest enemy, but they couldn’t deny that her actions had a benefit to all of them.

Even so, as the party assisted Methosilang in its final preparations for war, the party noticed some unsettling things.  There was the war itself of course, and all the deaths and destruction it entailed, but that wasn’t unusual.  Far more disturbing were subtle signs that the desperate unity between the many races that made Methosilang possible was starting to fray.  The typically surface dwelling races like humans and elves were understandably eager to form new communities where the sunlight would be far more frequent, but often their plans for the future were sprinkled with comments like “I can’t wait to finally get some distance from the drow,” and, “What role should the half-orcs form in our community?”  Already, some of the noble houses were squabbling over which ones would get what lands, and all of them were pondering how their new colonies would be influenced by Methosilang.  Some were even considering having no direct relation to Methosilang, and though no one would dare suggest it openly, there were even signs that these potential new kingdoms would have plans for Delaspie and Methosilang that weren’t peaceful.

Despite all this, the plans for war were more or less secure and went according to plans.  The days turned into weeks, and soon only seven days stood between the party and what could be their final battle together.  But Bas had been making plans for those weeks as well, and she had one last plan to achieve victory without the need for open warfare…

It was evening, and a real evening as it always could be from now on, when the party again received an urgent message to return home from their excursions on this plane and elsewhere.  The situation they returned to was a panic almost as bad as the one they witnessed when the moons were about to fall.  In some ways, it was worse because of the optimism and relief following the moons’ destructions contrasted with the fear.  

“What’s wrong?" Danae began to ask, but as she did, Tal finally remembered that this scene was foretold to him in the afterlife.  He quickly led the party to the surface and then turned and pointed to the west.  As the party turned, all could see the threat.  It was a danger far smaller than a moon, but no less deadly.  

“Is that…Fierypyre?” a shocked Robin asked.

“Yes,” Tal sadly replied.  Indeed, the entire capital of the orc empire, built inside the miles-long hollow shell of a dragon construct, was slowly but steadily flying straight at Methosilang!

“But that’s crazy!  Fierypyre is incapable of moving for more than a few hours.  Just the act of getting up would ruin half the city, and the entire body is tearing itself apart.  The Head That Rules the Claw is purposefully destroying his entire empire just to attack us!”  Danae stammered.

“He’s not the one responsible for this.  Somehow, Bas has taken control of Fierypyre,” Bath said, as she suddenly realized the full extent of what was happening.

“I know about this,” Tal insisted.  “The dragons, including Fierypyre, don’t follow The Head That Rules the Claw willingly!  Somehow, he managed to enslave Fierypyre using some sort of magical artifact, and then used the dragon to force other dragons to swear their allegiance to him, thus binding them to the artifact as well.  If Bas was able to gain access to that artifact, she could control Fierypyre and potentially the entire dragon army as well!  Though if she’s just sending Fierypyre at us like this, I suspect she doesn’t plan on keeping control for long, or she just doesn’t think she could.”

“But if we destroyed that artifact, we’d not only stop Fierypyre’s attack, we could put an end to the orc empire’s greatest source of power!”  Robin excitedly added.

Tonaca gravely noted, “Well, that’s not just idle speculation at this point.  If we can’t find this artifact and destroy it or at least keep it out of Bas’ control, Methosilang is doomed.  There’s not even enough time to evacuate it!”

“Well, finding it won’t be a problem,” Tal explained.  “It not only is used to control Fierypyre and the others, it serves as Fierypyre’s life force.  It is the mystical heart of the beast, so we can locate it where a dragon’s heart can normally be found.”

After just a few minutes of preparation, the party was ready for battle, and they quickly teleported to the top of Fierypyre’s head.  They had made the usual preparations to enter the city in disguise, but as soon as they entered, it was apparent that it wasn’t necessary.  Much of the city was deserted or in chaos, and the few combatants they saw were busy maintaining order.  As they neared the center of the city where the heart was kept, however, the signs of combat were more frequent.  There were the occasional bodies of Bas cultists and ashes that were likely the remains of Bas’ outsider minions, but they were far outnumbered by dead humanoid and giant guards.  Surprisingly, there were few dragons among the bodies.  What was wore horrifying were the state of some of the bodies.  Most of the giants and humanoids were killed by the standard wounds of battle, but some of the humanoids, and nearly all the orcs, were completely brutalized.  Whoever was leading this fight, he clearly had some kind of hatred of orcs. 

As the party traveled into the building that physically contained the heart, the casualties were more numerous, but the ratio of bodies from city’s defenders compared to the Bas forces only increased.  As they neared the building’s center, the party was lucky enough to find a survivor of the massacre: a wounded kobold.  It initially was afraid of the party, but some healing and diplomacy from Tal (whose dragon nature was calming to the reptilian creature,) it tried to explain what happened.

“The attacker overwhelmed us!  We stood no chance!” It chirped out.

“Where are the city’s dragon defenders?  Did the invaders kill them all?” Tal asked.

“No, they’re not even here.  Right before the attack, we learned of a strange and massive dragon was attacking our farms.  It somehow ignored the call of Fierypyre and Ka’Dry’Log, and it breathed invisible death.”

Tal looked to the party and shared a grim but knowing nod.  This was almost certainly the force dragon that Bas has requested frequent aid from in exchange for her children.

“What of your master, the Head That Rules the Claw?” Robin asked.

“Ka’Dry’Log was on his way to assist the fight when we were attacked.  He might be here soon, but I don’t know if we have that time…”

“What kinds of creatures are in this attack?”

“There are Bas cultists and fiends of all kinds, but the leaders of the attack are the most dangerous.  I was lucky they didn’t get to me, or I certainly would be dead.  There are two leaders.  The first looks like a half-dragon, much like you, but its body glowed with a blinding light.  When it attacked, living snakes of energy burst out of its skin to strike at us.  The other was even worse.  He was of fiendish blood, but he also had ancestry of a mortal elf.  He wore a strange mask, like a clown or jester, and he rode on a demonic dragon.  He didn’t just want to kill us, or at least kill our orc masters.  He killed them with such hatred and ferocity; I know he wanted them to suffer as they died.”

The party let the kobold flee as they continued their journey.  As they neared the center, a few bands of lesser demons and cultists were guarding the path, but none posed a threat to the party at this point.  The heroes showed little concern for them either, for the leaders sounded like they were far more worthy of their attention.  Neither sounded specifically like anyone they knew, but both were vaguely familiar.

At last, the party came to artifact’s chamber at the very heart of Fierypyre.  At the far corner of the room, on a raised dais, was the Slave Circlet.  Once worn by Fierypyre when it was still a mortal dragon, it had since been embedded in a massive and magical diamond.  It normally was bathed in a pillar of light located on an altar at the center of the dais, but it now was held by the masked figure the kobold warned the party about.  Between him and the party was a massive red dragon.  It was likely a great wyrm; the largest and oldest age a dragon can normally reach.  However, it was now cowering on the floor, apparently forced from retaliating against the invaders now that the jester held the Circlet.  In the corner, the second leader of the enemies was resting and apparently healing its wounds.  When they saw him, Robin and Tal gasped, for they recognized their enemy.  “Grockith!” they shouted.

Tal was the first to recover and ask some further questions.  “But how?  The last time we saw you, you were in a coma.  TIE told us your very soul was gone!”

Grockith merely stood glaring at the party, but the jester responded.  “I’m afraid our mutual friend here is long past the point of communication.  I, however, can answer your question.  Apparently Grockith was so full of rage at what his world had become during his endless sleep that neither his body nor his oath as a paladin could hold him to this world.  However, his enraged soul, trapped between two times, was found by a being who, like TIE, was not from our dimension.  It let him turn his rage and hatred into a weapon and his cast-off body into an invincible font of endless power.  But he was still just a living weapon with no motivation or direction before my goddess found him.  She just needed to wait for the right time to use this weapon.  But I’m disappointed you recognized him, but not me.  I was so looking forward to meeting my friends.”

The shock of meeting an old friend as an enemy was quickly sundered by these words.  “Who are you, then?” Tal asked with a hint of disbelief.  “I can think of very few friends who would willingly work with Bas.  Why are you doing this?  What are you doing here, exactly?”

The jester took off his mask and smiled.  There, reborn as a half-fiend, was Rudyard.  “Oh, I’m just hunting orcs.”

OOC Notes: The idea for bringing back Rudyard actually came to me from writing these old story hours.  The final resolution of the dragon issue, however, was more necessary.  Though the war against the undead largely removed the orcs as an actual empire, they still commanded a number of dragons and the Fierypyre as a weapon remained a possibility that someone was bound to exploit.  Besides, it ties up the power of the two initial empires and the party’s plans to get help from Dragovigis nicely.


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## LordVyreth (Nov 22, 2005)

*Tying Up Loose Ends: Flight to New Horizons*

“Rudyard?  But you were killed!  And by the Lady of Blood!” Tal exclaimed with shock.

“So what?  They were also the ones who brought me back, and stronger than ever!  They went to the very depths of the abyss for my soul!”

“The depths of the abyss?  Why would you go there?  We thought you were with your goddess!”

“No, our so-called saviors rejected me!  My hatred of orcs was apparently too much for their tolerance.  They were supposed to be our protectors, our guardians in the war against the orc empire, yet they would turn away me for hating our enemy!  Such gods deserve no worship, not from me nor from you!  But look at all the good that Bas has done!  The moons are destroyed, the undead legions have scattered, and now the orc empire is in ruins!  This is a wondrous day for this world and its new ruler!  If you join me, we can rule under a new, more worthy guardian!”

“Your worthy guardian is about to destroy our homes.”  Robin snarled.

Rudyard shrugged.  “A necessary loss.  The destruction today of Methosilang will be horrifying, but the losses will still be minor compared to the total war you’re planning.  With your defenses shattered, Bas can achieve her rightful dominance with little difficulty.”

The conversation was brought to an abrupt end, however, by the belated arrival of a furious Head That Rules the Claw.  The orc/golem emperor was beside himself with fury.  “What have you done?  You ruined thousands of years of work in a matter of hours!  I’ll feast on your blood for this!”

Grockith was the first to respond to this threat and charged the enraged emperor.  As they fought, the party quickly turned on Rudyard.  “I will never join you or your evil goddess.”  Tal said.  “Methosilang is my home.”

But Rudyard only laughed at this.  “Please.  My goddess has told me all about you and your kind.  You have no homes!  You trespass on this world at the behalf of Lady Memory, for reasons you don’t even comprehend!  You have no value here, nor any reason to defend any place.  Why do you waste your time?”

Tal shook his head.  “Maybe I wasn’t meant for this world.  I don’t think any of us know.  But my reasons to defend this place are my own.  I care about my friends and family back at home, no matter how I obtained them.  And I won’t let them be destroyed or oppressed by anyone!

Robin joined his friend.  “I have as much reason to hate orcs as you do.  They were the ones who killed my family and left me alone until Shedell saved me.  But I won’t let hatred dominate my life!”

As the rest of the heroes converged on Rudyard, the fiend-tainted ranger shrugged.  “Suit yourself,” he said.  “I’ll see you all burn!”  He briefly concentrated on the Slave Circlet, and the cowed red dragon in the center of the room suddenly looked up with murder in its eyes!

“I’ll keep it busy!” Bath shouted.  “You destroy the circlet!”  She quickly charged the dragon to attract its attention.  Almost immediately, the dragon and angel were a storm of teeth, claws, and blades.  Tiana and Tonaca carefully approached Rudyard from each side while Tal, Danae, and Robin took to the corners of the room and fired at him from a distance.

As soon as the party converged on him, however, Rudyard quickly grabbed the Circlet, stored it on his dragon mount, and took to the air.  While laughing cruelly, he charged straight into Tonaca, and both he and his mount began to rip into the unfortunate cleric.  As he attacked, however, he was ambushed from behind by Tiana.  

“Um, maybe I could use a little help…” Bath started, and as the party turned, they saw she had been grappled in the dragon’s claws.  To their horror, they saw that the dragon was trying to escape with their friend!  Robin quickly activated his wings of flight and took off after the flying dragon, while Tal and Danae provided cover fire from a distance.

Meanwhile, the fight between Grockith and Ka’Dry’Log continued, but it appeared to be a stalemate.  Ka’Dry’Log was powerful enough to resist most of the damage from Grockith’s surreal energy attacks, but absolutely nothing that the orc emperor did to Grockith had any real effect.  Even the mightiest strikes from his battle axe barely gave Grockith a cut.  Finally, Ka’Dry’Log snarled and began a tactical retreat, with the Rage-possessed half-dragon chasing after him.

Back at the main battle, things were improving for our heroes.  A lucky spell by Danae caused Rudyard’s mount to drop dead, and the rest of the party quickly surrounded Rudyard.  But Rudyard would not accept a death at the hands of his enemies.  “Grockith, return!” he shouted down the hallway to his partner.  “Bas will have further need of you.”  Rudyard then smiled at his former friends, smiled, and happily plunged his own sword into his chest.  “At least I died as I wanted this time,” he croaked out with his last breath.  “Causing the deaths of my true enemies…”

The party wasted no time in destroying the Circlet, and the instant they did so, the room began to rumble and break apart.  Quickly they retreated down the hallway in search of their missing friends, only to be shocked at what was waiting for them.  Robin and Bath stood over the slain red dragon, but surrounding them were dozens, if not hundreds, of other dragons.  The party froze, anticipating a death so quick that they wouldn’t even have time to teleport to safety!  Instead, the largest of the dragons, a blue almost as large as the slain red, simply said, “Thank you.”  It looked around the dragon/city of Fierypyre, and then added, “Our master thinks the same.  It was finally time he rested.”  With that, it and the entire flight flew out of the crumbling dragon/city.

The party wasted no time in getting back home.  Once again, there were the usual feasts, but Tal in particular had far bigger things on their mind.  They didn’t know what happened to the Head That Rules the Claw, or more accurately Ruled the Claw, but it no longer really mattered.  His empire was gone, and his dragon servants had scattered to parts unknown.  With them gone, Dragovigis will finally be able to enter the war!  

OOC Notes: This adventure was actually probably going to be skipped, had the campaign continued.  We were pretty ready to reach a definitive conclusion, as the campaign’s actual end suggested.  Nonetheless, I felt that this part of the story had to be told.  The next adventure is the final war, the first part of the true end of the campaign.


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## LordVyreth (Dec 6, 2005)

Sorry about the long time between updates.  The next recap is a big one; I think there will only be 4-5 updates left total before the end of the game.  I hope to get the next one out by the middle of the week or so, and then updating again every week or two until the story's conclusion.


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## LordVyreth (Dec 10, 2005)

*The Final War: Preparations*

Shanna, the High Priestess of the Central Temple of the Sisters, sadly walked through the many rooms and chambers of the church she had been given the task of leading and defending for these long years.  She and her acolytes had pledged their loyalty and service to the king and queen of Methosilang and swore an oath to defend it under any circumstances.  But until these last couple of years, she never thought it would take this much.  But now it was time to use all her power and give everything she had, including her life, to save the kingdom.  The armies were already marching to Bas’ valley, and she would be joining them.  Now that she knew it was likely she would never see this temple again, everything looked new to her again, as it did the first time she was shy priestess on her first day of training.  It was all up to the Sisters now.  Even the one she despised…

*************************************************************

	“Bas, the insect is complete” an excited voice called from deep inside the valley.  The goddess, as always, only appeared to be the slightest bit aware of her surroundings, but the fairest hint of a smile appeared on her massive lips, and her excited thoughts reverberated throughout the minds of her followers.  The “insect” was a strange but powerful machine excavated years ago, but its technology wasn’t related to most of devices Bas had found buried near her tomb, and some of her less fanatical servants were afraid it would never be made operational.  Fortunately, those doubtful servants were wrong, a fact they were likely reflecting on in their respective hells after they were purged for their disloyalty…

*************************************************************

	“My dear sister, may I ask why decided to visit me after all this time?”

	Amira Stael snarled at her treacherous brother Lancaster.  “The final battle against your goddess begins.  My sister and I are going off to war to defend our home, brother.  It’s likely that one or both of us will not return.  We may have had our…disagreements, but you are my brother, and I wanted to say goodbye.  Also, I was hoping, perhaps…”

	“Perhaps what, exactly?” Lancaster replied, though his tone suggested he knew what his sister was hoping for.

	“We wanted to know if you were sorry!” Hestine cried as she burst into the room.  “We know you won’t be allowed to join us in the fight, but maybe you at least changed your mind about helping our enemy, or you at least were sorry for what you did!”

	“That’s it, then?  A last minute confession was what you wanted?  Perhaps you needed something to ease your guilty consciences about leaving your brother to rot in a dungeon?  Forget it.  My loyalty is with the one goddess who actually bothered to do anything about our enemies.  I sincerely hope you both live to see the end of this day, my sisters, so you will return to MY city and you can loyally serve MY goddess when the time comes.  Until then, don’t bother seeking any solace from me.”

	Amira and Hestine stormed out without a word, leaving nothing but the Lancaster and the guards.  At least, they were the only ones they thought were in the room.  With the war brewing, the most trained soldiers the kingdom had could not be spared guarding a prison.  Lancaster knew this, as did the remaining soldiers and thief’s guild members that served his cause.  It was only a matter of time now…

*************************************************************

	Herbath examined the massive cage located in the bowels of Bas’ layer.  Once, Herbath was just a halfling psion under the service of the Blade of Minds, Tesserill Requien.  Over the years, however, his loyalty and competence helped his rise through the ranks in the temple until he was promoted to the position of Tesserill’s personal servant and bodyguard, an honor beyond comprehension.  That honor was lost in a second by a surprise ambush by Methosilang’s heroes, as was his life.  Tesserill proved as loyal to him as he was to her, however, and she tried to have him raised as soon as she could.  There were some complications, but nonetheless he returned, and when Tesserill was unfortunately killed, he was promoted to the greatest position he could hope to have; that of a Strife Master.  He now was in charge of preparing Bas’ armies using everything they had discovered from past eras so far, and though he had been making these preparations for months, sometimes something even surprised him.  This was one of those times

	“Goodness, I always thought it was a myth,” he whispered as he looked at the beast in awe.

	The creature’s cultist handler smiled.  “Nah, though it might as well have been.  The thing was buried so deep it probably hadn’t been awakened for tens of thousands of years.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it was what ended its civilization, though.  We’ve had to feed it hundreds of sacrifices just to keep it this placated.”

	Herbath nodded.  It was a shame that such a deadly weapon would have to be deployed, but nothing seemed to stop Methosilang’s heroes.  Herbath certainly was eager to settle the score with these so called champions.  After all, they killed not only him, but also his heroine and mentor.

*************************************************************

	Without even the slightest hint of nervousness, Lerissa strode into the throne room to address King Berin and Queen Mathos Stael.  After the usual formalities, she began her final pre-war report.  “This is Captain Lerissa Turivain of the 1st Methosilang Rifle Division.  I am pleased to report that all priorities have been successfully completed, and that the Division is fully ready for combat.”

	“Everything is as you expected, Ms. Turivain?” Berin confirmed.

	“Affirmative, sir.  As expected, the weaponry the Heroes procured in the Orc Empire Raid have superior loading time, damage capability, reliability, and armor penetration to our own.  I have personally overseen the production of said weaponry and can say with full confidence that they are equal or greater than the originals, and my elite soldiers have achieved complete mastery of the foreign arms.”

	“Very good Lerissa,” Mathos replied.  “You are excused.”

	Lerissa turned to leave, but she hesitated.  “There is one more thing, your majesty!”

	Mathos sighed.  She saw this coming.  “Yes?”

	“It concerns the condition of pre-war intelligence of Methosilang.”

	“Go ahead…”

	“I told you so, your majesty,” she said simply, before walking out of the room to join her soldiers; a group of soldiers which incidentally included a certain lizard woman named Setisth who was more than happy to have such an important position in the army of her new home.

*************************************************************

	“Termites of the Gods,” the crate simply read.  Herbath checked the note and frowned.  According to the reports he read, the giant insects that filled the crate were part of a swarm that once devastated the planet and ended another civilization.  But to him they appeared to be nothing more than another odd breed of large insects.

	“Is this report correct?” Herbath asked another one of the caretakers of Bas’ valley.

	The cultist nodded vigorously.  “Absolutely.  We decided to test these bugs, which apparently were called just ‘Consumers’ in the original language, on the remaining buildings and other ruins of the undead capital of Malmoris after we hit it with the moon.”

	“And?”

	“And they, well, ate them.  Buildings, bodies, weapons, everything.  The whole place is little more than an empty crater now.  If they can do to living armies what they did to an entire city, they should be unstoppable.”

*************************************************************

	Bath had never looked happier in a situation that didn’t involve demons or ice cream.  “And after you killed then pit fiend, then what happened?” she eagerly asked.

	Galatron smiled warmly and with perhaps a little too much pride.  The years of shame and debauchery he experienced in the Semiplanar Rift’s were heavy on his mind, but the pain lessened as he told stories to the eager young celestial.  Zethar, a fellow being of divine nature and power who had just recently ascended to full power, happily listened to the old solar’s tales.  His children, meanwhile, were having a reunion of their own with the rest of the party.

	“You’re sure you want to do this?” Tal asked.  “Years of wandering to find your sister, and you could lose it all in this fight if things go badly.”

	Quercus nodded.  “I’m sure.  I turned my back on my mission and the truth of my destiny for too long in selfish pursuit of my own needs, and all it got me was a prison outside of my own dimension.  It took you to not only free me but find my father, and I owe you everything.  Of course I will fight for you.”

	Tal then asked Quercus’ sister Shekuldellstra a similar question.  “What about you?  Are you willing to fight and possibly kill Bas after the history you two had?”

	Shekuldellstra looked sad but smiled faintly.  “I have no choice.  There’s still a part of me that will always think of her as my mentor, and even a sort of surrogate mother.  But she also used me as a tool and warped me into a being of evil; a nature my own body and mind literally rebelled against.  And perhaps her defeat will give me some of the answers about my own past.  Was she the one who killed my father and drove my father away?”

	Tal smiled as well, but weakly.  He remembered what Legion told him.  Sure, he was likely lying, but there was no way to be certain…

	Shekuldellstra then had a question of her own for Robin.  “Robin, before you joined Methosilang’s heroes at my request years ago, you were my loyal friend.  If you wish, you can join Galatron, Zethar, Quercus, and I in this fight.”

	Robin appeared tempted but dissented.  “Maybe I will join you after this, but my place for now is with Methosilang’s champions.  We’ve traveled together so long that I can’t see leaving them at this last fight.  I’m sure Bas will say the same.”

	Skekuldellstra easily accepted this, and soon she and Robin joined the celestials in their long, last night of peace.  Tal, however, had to make a quick exit to meet some of his friends before the final battle, just as Danae, Tiana, and Tonaca had.

*************************************************************

	Herbath frowned at the next creature of his inventory.  “And what is this?”

	“Oh, this is a creature of my own design,” a voice smugly said behind him.  Herbath turned to see Phellis Mune, also called the Bloody Claw, and the last survivor of the original four Strife Masters.  “It should be more than capable of decimating the Methosilang forces.”

	“It certainly is an interesting design, though a predictable one for you.”

	Phellis Mune chuckled.  “Well,” he admitted, “I always had a thing for cats.”

*************************************************************

	To most people, the image of a flight of dragons was glorious; a vision of beauty beyond the rights of most mortals.  To Tal, however, it was like meeting old family.

	As the dozens of metallic and gem dragons landed near the city of Methosilang, a young Amethyst took the point and landed right next to half-dragon bard/sorcerer.  

	“Zuriden, I’m glad you can make it!” Tal eagerly greeted his long-lost cousin.

	Zuriden gave a friendly but irritated growl.  “You were lucky I did.  Even with the destruction of Fierypyre, Facetous only allowed a fraction of our total forces to assist you in the fight against Bas.  He was afraid of retribution by the chromatics if they learned of the city.”

	Tal sighed.  “I told him that would never happen.  The evil dragons have no alliance with each other now that the Slave Circlet is destroyed.”

	Zuriden hesitated.  “Well, it’s not just that.  Facetous is afraid of what might happen after this fight.”

	“What do you mean?”

	“Well, if Bas wins, he may have to establish a second front.  Bas knows of our city, as I’m sure you remember.  And if you win, well, there may be no more use for him here on this plane.  He’s thinking that it might be time to return to the outer planes.”

	“You’re kidding?”

	“No, I’m not.  With the empires fallen and Bas destroyed, there’s no more need for him here.  The Sisters may not even be needed for long, if their ties to Nerull prove unbreakable.  Mortals may once again have to rule themselves here.  And it’s not just Facetous that might be gone.  If you do win this war, Dragovigis will no longer be.  Facetous is adamant that the wonders of the old times can’t be allowed to remain once Bas no longer is abusing them.”

	The troubling conversation, however, was interrupted by another dragon bearing two passengers.  As the two dismounted, Tal eagerly called to his old friends.  “Deladane!  Rudious!  It’s been ages!”

	The two half-dragons happily rejoined their friend.  “You know I wouldn’t miss the final battle,” Dane said.  “I can’t let my former comrades down like that.”

	Rudious nodded, “And I still owe you so much.  Without you, I never would have known the truth about my heritage.  Unlike my grandfather, rest assured that I will not be leaving this plane unless my life itself is lost.”

	The three-half dragons and their full-blooded kin spent the night trading tales and teaching Tal all they could about his family’s heritage and achievements while quaffing what was perhaps a little too much of the dragon ale; a drink that Dane and Tal both realized was an honor just to consume with no fear of its infamous effects!

*************************************************************

	But Methosilang was not the only force to have dragon allies.  Another dragon, larger than all the ones of Dragovigis’ forces, was telepathically conversing with Bas.

_And this is the last task you require of me? _ The dragon thought at Bas.  She looked at the goddess not with fear, but with anger.  It was obvious that she thought this petty war and its entire realm were beneath her.  _The agreement was that I would win one battle for you, and I grow tired of you using me as a decoy as a way around this agreement._

	The goddess, without moving, speaking, or demonstrating any ability to do so, thought back, _Of course.  This army is the last significant threat to my domination of this world.  When it is gone, I will have no further use for you.  You can feel free to leave this plane.  That is, you can if you can escape the Rift._

	The force dragon stiffened at the perceived insult.  _Such mundane traps do not concern me.  I will abide by this plane’s silly rules of secrecy after I leave, but do not presume that it has any further authority over me.  But enough of this.  We should discuss my role in the upcoming battle.  Will I have any allies of my kin?_

	Bas hesitated.  _Of a sort.  None of the native dragons serve me, but we have made some allies from the lower realms.  The dragons they provide will not serve under you directly, but they should be ideal at keeping the lesser threats at bay, so you can concentrate on our main enemy._

	The dragon nodded.  _Very well.  I will be off to prepare myself for the battle._

	With that, she flew off.  She would honor the pact, of course.  The safety of her children demands it.  But while she will fight the enemy army with all that she has until she could fight no longer, she secretly hoped that if their enemy could find a way to disable her without killing her, it might be for the best.  She never did particularly like Bas.

*************************************************************

	Danae’s presence in the city’s high mages guild was a cause for both pride and some bitterness.  Obviously, she was not only a high-ranking member of the school’s arcane order, but she was also a hero and the savior of the city on many occasions.  On the other hand, her success kind of made the rest of look bad.  

	Nonetheless, her negotiations with Damien, the recently elected arch mage of the guild and the royal family’s official eldritch adviser, were highly important.  Even so, there was time for some informality.

	“Damien, it’s hard to believe we haven’t fought together since the days of the trial, isn’t it?” Danae pleasantly commented to begin the conversation.

	Damien, however, was a little graver.  It was obvious he had quite a bit on his mind, perhaps beyond even the war itself.  “That is true.  It’s strange sometimes that I’m even part of this battle.  I still remember the times before the Sisters, after all.”

	Danae nodded.  “Now, are all the special tactics we’ve discussed in order?”

	“Yes. Jarrle, that shadow wizard who was so unfairly treated at our trial, is in place to confound the enemy with his unusual magic.  And we were able to retrofit that solar system ‘trap’ you found on your adventures.  It should be a very useful weapon on the battlefield.”

	“What about my…other request?”

	“That has been taken care of as well.  You are free to see her whenever you are ready”

	As Danae departed, Damien sighed and contemplated his life as of late.  _It’s strange enough that I’m fighting for the Sisters,_ he thought.  _How much stranger that Lore herself chose me for her new avatar?_

	Meanwhile, Danae confronted a secret of her own.  Though the high-ranking members of the guild knew who she was hiding in their headquarters, the regular students didn’t, nor did most of the population of Methosilang.  Still, Danae won’t ignore such a valuable and useful tool in this final battle.

	“Hello, Venym,” she said as an introduction to her unusual ally.

	“Danae, I knew you would come calling for me when I heard about this war,” the succubus sorceress Danae and her friends smuggled into the city twice now replied.  “I’m sure you understand, however, that I am under no obligation to assist you in this war.  My assistance to you before was already regarded as payment enough for my residency here.”

	Danae nodded.  “Of course.  But I’m sure you understand what the price of failure is here.  If we lose this war, this city will belong to Bas.  And she will not look kindly upon your betrayal.”

	“I could always escape if that happens.”

	“And you’ll go where?  Bas will find you eventually.  Besides, escaping in this city when the people are desperate and eager for any scapegoat will not be easy.  If Bas wins this war, it will mean that my friends and I are dead.  Who’s left to point out that you aren’t the enemy?”

	Venym hesitated, but finally sighed.  “I suppose you’re right.  I’ll join you on this quest, but don’t expect me to fight for you.  I’d probably be attacked by your army faster than by theirs.  But I can provide you with advice and intelligence.  That was enough to save you before.  And win or lose, after this war, I’m gone.  Either way, there will be no further need for me to return to your city.”

	“Agreed.”  Her deal with the “devil” (technically a demon, of course,) made, Danae returned to her home in preparation of the final battle and to see her protégée for what could be the last time.  He, however, will not be waiting in this city for her.  She already made plans to move him to safety in another city, and if that fails, off the plane.  He’ll have to deal with the Rift, of course, but that would still be safer than a world run by Bas.

*************************************************************

	Allishira was not pleased.  He could not disobey his goddess, but he had to at least protest this order.  “My Queen, while I would gladly follow your every order, perhaps it would be best if I participated in this battle?”

	Bas’ telepathic response was prompt.  _Are you disagreeing with me, Allishira?  Do you think you are wiser than me?_

	Allishira looked nervous.  “No, it’s not that.  I just worry about the war.  That astral deva sent to hunt me has proven nearly unstoppable, and if my presence can turn the tide of war…”

_Your presence does not matter here!  And do you have so little faith in your kin? I summoned more than just you from your planar prison.  They will suffice._

	“But if they fail…”

_If they fail, then I will need you more than ever.  I understand that our situation is different than what you are used to, but this insolence is not tolerated!  The others didn’t complain about this task, and why should they?  It is quite the honor.  I doubt any of your kind has ever had this chance before._

	“Yes, my goddess,” Allishira reluctantly replied, and the fallen solar left to give his fellow former celestials one last inspection before they left to seek glory on the battlefield.

*************************************************************

	When Tiana returned home to meet with her giant kin and persuade them to enter the war, she wasn’t surprised that they were eager to join.  What was more surprising was how many giants there were, and that so many of them were of the more traditionally evil clans.

	“Okay, what happened?” a confused Tiana asked.

	One of the clan’s elders smiled.  “Don’t you know?  You happened!  With the destruction of the Orc Empire, our kind is no longer enslaved.  Since then, we’ve gathered as many of our people as we could.  So many have been eager to aid you!”

	“Yes, but some of them are well, evil, are they not?”

	“Oh, Tiana.  You’ve been away from us for too long.  Our kind may fight, but we still remember the times when we were one people.  We share our traditions and our honor, even if we disagree on individual practices of that tradition.  And for a cause as noble and important as this war, who could resist the battle?  Now, do not worry about us.  We’ll meet you at the battlefield.  Besides, you have another destination to visit before the battle.”

	Tiana nodded and soon set off.  Though its relationship with Methosilang had soured over the years and the countless battles had ravaged it, Delaspie was her home.  She would speak with her Queen, Diedre Lenora, and recruit what forces they had left for this war.  After all, if Methosilang does fall, Bas will certainly target Delaspie next.  If the nation was lucky, its people would merely be enslaved.  Tiana might be killed in this war, but she won’t let a nation older than this entire eon of history and the only one to still preserve the traditions of the old gods go into history.

*************************************************************

_And this project you have been working on, it will be complete in time? _ Bas asked Affliction at their last meeting before the war.

	“Yes,” the NaHuLi simply replied.

_It better.  You know that I’m not pleased with your performance after the moon fiasco?_

	“I am aware of this.”

_Good.  Your existence depends on it.  I have no use for failures, especially of ones honored by the title of Strife Master._

	If Affliction was the slightest bit afraid of this threat, he didn’t show it.  “If I am no longer considered an asset, then I shall be destroyed.”

	His indifference only made Base angrier.  The fallen goddess appreciated the loyalty and focus of the nano-machine based automaton, but his total inability to respond to any kind of intimidation or appeal to emotions did make motivating him difficult.  _Tell me more about your contribution to my army._

	“I was able to make use of the myriad destroyed and half-completed mechanical devices you have excavated from my time and others in its ultimate design.  Its expected power output should meet or exceed that of your more anachronistic living weapons.  If I had emotions, I would regret that I am unable to witness its performance directly.  But my next task in service to you is of a greater priority.”

	With that, Affliction turned to leave, neither making nor expecting any kind of formal exit response.

*************************************************************

	Tonaca’s journey took him the farthest from his new home, which was understandable since, with the exception of Bath, his home was the most alien from the party’s perspective.  It was a strange world of contradiction; firearms were plentiful (though not usually as effective as the orcish Sparkpowder weapons,) but much of the world was still given over to jungles, and even dinosaurs still roam the land!  Tonaca was willing to fight for the world that his protégée Azat so loved and because he realized that if Bas succeeded in ruling her world, she would likely set her sights on other planes.  But that place was not his home.  For one thing, he had a family on this world, including a wife!  Her name was Sunset Treeflower, and she was a dryad that hailed from a chaotic yet strong and loyal fey family.  It was that family that Tonaca was currently considering as allies for the war.  But something still bothered him about that plan.

	“I don’t understand.  You said this war affected our world as well as theirs.  And you’re willing to risk your life and even recruit warriors from our people for the fight.  Yet you don’t want me to join you, even if it means I may never see you again?”

	Tonaca sighed.  This was as difficult as he expected, but he knew what he had to say.  “Yes.”

	“Why?  We’ve faced death together before.  This is no different.”

	“But it is!  You have to understand, in my journeys with this party, I’ve traveled to new planes and seen things I never experienced before.  And one of the things I learned is that this plane is a pariah among worlds.  It is protected by a creature beyond imagination that prevents it from altering the rest of the planes whenever it itself changes.”

	“What does that mean?”

	“It means that planar travel is inconsistent.  Anyone can travel to the plane easily enough, but returning from it is nearly impossible.  I heard stories about the place the party had to travel through once to escape.  It sounded nearly impossible to get through; only the strongest of heroes have a chance.  I’ve been given clearance to bypass that method by the same being that protects the plane, but I don’t believe you will.  And that means that even if we both survive this war, you might not be able to return home.  That plane may become our home and our prison!”

	Sunset thought about this, but she shook her head.  “If it is, so be it.  What does it mean to live here or there if I can’t be with you?  The few months you’ve been on this adventure have felt like forever.  Should have to wait forever again just to know if you even won this war, or if you survived it?  No, I will go with you, and I imagine most of my family would make the same decision.”

	Her response troubled Tonaca, but he nodded.  He didn’t really expect anything else.  Very well; if this other world might be his home, then he must twice as determined to save it.

*************************************************************

	After all the preparations that required her service or guidance, Bas was left alone.  Her final task for the war was at hand, but it was painful and difficult.  The demons, devils, and other evil fiends that normally had origins outside of this world had instead been spawned directly by Bas, and while she successfully created them thousands of times before, she never had to make so many and ones of such power before.  This war required armies of the highest orders of fiends for a victory.  Balors, Pit Fiends, Ultraloths, and far worse must be created, along with hundreds of lesser minions.  Bas strained and concentrated, until it felt like every muscle in her mammoth body was going to burst.  But finally her unholy spawn emerged, fully formed and aware of their nature and place in Bas’ perfect world.  Without any need for direction, they immediately and loyally left to join the army.  Bas, in spite of the pain, managed to work her semi-conscious form to smile.

*************************************************************

	Shanna’s unit of clerics was about ready to join the army, but two of its most noted officers lingered behind.  Both were among the noblest, loyal, and good citizens of Methosilang and the most ardent supporters of the Sisters.  However, both lost someone very important in the events leading up to war; he was a friend to one, and the only son of the other.  What’s worse, up until this point, they had no way of truly knowing what happened to him.  They only knew what the party told them, but it wasn’t enough to truly have closure.  Was Galeron dead?  Alive?  Something in between?  Would they ever get the chance to see him again in this life or the next?

	“Hey, um, Elayna,” Thorrun began, awkwardly.  Despite the fact that both of them had been with the Temple for months now, they haven’t really talked.  “Do you suppose we’ll get the chance to, you know…”

	“Look, just say it!” Elayna snapped.  She already knew what he wanted to say, but it was clear she was even less eager to discuss it.

	“It’s just that well, you know.  The party said they saw Galeron again, and he was a celestial or something!  And Tsine was with him as well!  Surely they’ll have to be at this battle!”

	Elayna sighed.  “Maybe, but to be honest, I doubt it.  Something about the story that Tal and the others told us felt odd somehow.  The way they were reluctant to explain their pasts and that they were willing to fight the party.  I consulted the Sisters when I heard the news, as I’m sure you did.  I trust you found them less than communicative about this subject, just as I did?”

	Thorrun nodded slightly and with reluctance.  “But still, once they see us…”

	“What if they do see us?  According to the people that actually met Galeron and Tsine, they knew nothing about their past.  They even forgot their friends, which means they certainly forgot us.”

	“That’s not possible!  Surely they must have…”

	“Maybe, but don’t get your hopes up, friend dwarf.  I suspect that our loved one may be gone forever.  I admit it doesn’t seem fair.  The thought of him being safe was the only thing that kept me alive and sane back in the arena, and now that I’m free, it feels like I’m cursed with uncertainty.  But we must put aside our petty desires.  Our duty is to the city, whether we live or die in this war and whichever may end up being preferable to us.” 

*************************************************************

	Dawn reached the battlefield.  On one side was an assembly of heroes, soldiers of various races and two great nations, wizards, clerics, fey, giants, dragons, celestials, and even a rogue demon.  On the other side, even the heroes of Methosilang had only the slightest clue.  There would be cultists, certainly, and demons, devils, and other fiends based on their experiences.  But Bas’ cunning and influence were notorious, and she had access to powers and secrets long forgotten.  It will be up to the party and all the friends and allies they made in their long careers to deal with whatever they must fight.  But one last thing would surprise them before the fight.

	“Well, this should be a touching moment,” a voice suddenly spoke to the heroes from the middle of their camp.

	The party quickly converged on the source of the voice, and upon seeing it, they looked up with a mix of shock and revulsion.  “You, what are you doing here?” Robin asked.

	“Oh, nothing.  I merely wish to observe.  It wouldn’t be right to start without me here, but I assure you I have no interest in actually altering the events of this war.  Both sides are responsible for my demise, as far as I’m concerned.”

	“But what are you even doing on this world?  You were killed!”  Tal asked.

	“Yes, as but I’m sure your friend Galeron told you, my intent was to command the domain of all the goddesses,” the ghostly image of Prince Khaspar, the Nightmare Prince said with a smile.  “Death is, after all, one of their domains.”

	OOC Notes: Phew!  This one took research!  Even worse, had the campaign physically lasted this long, I would have written up high level stats for every ally and enemy of the upcoming fight!  Even without that addition, figuring out everyone the party could expect to see as an ally or enemy took ages.

	Now, everyone in this update is in the archives (except for Rudious, who was described as just the Ruby half-orc/half-dragon paladin, as I didn’t have a name made up for him at that point.)  However, if you have a question about anybody, please ask.  And that goes for the players, too, if any of them are still reading this!  I plan on posting another update in a week or two, and I want to make sure everyone’s clear at that point.


----------



## LordVyreth (May 13, 2006)

*The Final Battle: Warfare*

The party quickly moved to attack, but hesitated when he didn’t respond or try to fight back.  In fact, he seemed unconcerned about the attack at all!  “Ah, well done,” the ghost of Khaspar replied.  “Yes, an attack on me is pointless, and you really can’t afford to waste your resources as this crucial point, now can you?  My stay on this plane of existence comes from unfinished business I have.  Until that business is complete, I cannot be permanently destroyed.”

	“And what is your unfinished business?” Tal demanded.

	Khaspar laughed.  “That’s my little secret.  But have no fear.  I’ve washed my nonexistent hands of this entire war.  You and Bas can destroy each other for all I care.  I just think it would be amusing to watch this exercise.”

	With that, he vanished, at least for the moment.  Frustrated but aware that they had bigger concerns, the party prepared themselves for the war.  After all, compared to what they expected on this day, the remains of a long defeated enemy were negligible.


	Thousands of feet below, the fight had begun.  So far, it was hard to determine a real winner.  The Methosilang forces had the edge in numbers, but Bas’ army was more power overall with its fiendish regiments and highly trained fanatics.  But Methosilang had the greatest of trump cards: its champions.  Bath, Tal, Robin, Tiana, Tonaca, and Danae were among the greatest heroes this eon had ever known, and while they were mostly busy just keeping the army organized, they also took the time to wipe out entire enemy legions by themselves!  Still, even they couldn’t defeat all of Bas’ specially designed minions and shock forces by themselves.  The war would come down to how effective the special forces of both sides were used.

	These thoughts were going through the head of the trained pilots of the aerial, mechanical battle insect (or helicopter, as we’d call it,) as they oversaw the battlefield.  They were the first of the special forces Bas called, and they were currently entering the field of battle.  As expected, the roar of victory could be heard from their side, and the cries of despair echoed throughout their enemies.  The pilot smiled and tested some of the heli-insect’s weaponry on the massed army.  The missiles launched and created dozens of gaps in the Methosilang forces where brave warriors once stood.  The screams intensified, and for good reason, the pilot thought.  With the press of a button, this weapon could unleash the power of countless fireballs!  And that was just the test run.  Once the helicopter got a little closer, it could release its bomb payload and begin to strafe the army with the Vulcan cannons.

	The pilot was so engrossed in the future plans that he didn’t even notice that many of the screams of terror were much closer than the enemy soldiers.  In fact, they were coming from inside the copter itself!  Finally, the pilot noticed and whirled around to notice that they were under attack, in a way.  More precisely, the ship was swarmed with what appeared to be dozens, if not hundreds, of fey creatures!  They weren’t attacking exactly; they were just interfering with every little mechanism in the vehicle.  The pilot was just about to call for help when he heard a “Hey, what does this button do?” coming from behind him at the ship’s terminal.  His last thought, before he suddenly and violently reunited with his army’s ground forces, was regret that they didn’t have time to finish repairing the parachutes with the rest of the helicopter’s equipment.



	“It…can’t be!” Tal gasped.  

	But there could be no doubt.  Lancaster Stael, the traitorous prince of Methosilang, had not only escaped.  He somehow made his way back to Bas and renewed his service to his dark goddess!  “Heroes of Methosilang, I’m glad we could meet again!” the warrior sneered as he and his new mount, a strange horse of ever-shifting colors and elemental properties, tore through the rows of soldiers!  

	Almost instantly, the knights of Methosilang, led by Amira Stael, began to move.  It was clear that this time the eldest daughter of the Stael’s would waste no time in finally ending her treasonous kin.  The heroes watched her ride towards the battle, seemingly without objection at first.  “It does seem appropriate,” Tonaca admitted.

	“I agree,” Robin replied.  “If anyone deserves to finish this fight, she does.” 

	Suddenly, Danae, who had been watching the fight carefully, shot up.  “No!” she screamed.  “We can’t let her near him!  We know what a monster Lancaster is when mounted.  He almost killed Galeron with one strike of his lance!  And besides, he’s riding a madness horse.  I’ve heard about them before.  They warp the very world around them with their insanity.  Pillars of fire, fields of ice, clouds of death, anything is possible when fighting them.”

	“What do we do, then?” Bath replied.

	Thinking quickly, Tiana shouted to a messenger, “Bring the gun division on alert immediately!  Shoot him down before Amira can get near him!”

	The messenger quickly passed the order on, and the two enemies could meet, Lancaster was suddenly showered with a hail of bullets.  His mount reared up and he Lancaster briefly hesitated.  It was clear he expected to meet with his sister as well, and he wasn’t prepared for this intrusion.  

	“Excellent work,” Lerissa encouraged her soldiers.  “Now, second team, fire!”  

The second division quickly aimed in on their distracted enemy.  Setisth was the first to get a perfect shot.  Grinning her toothy reptilian grin, she quickly moved to pull the trigger.  It would be the last thing she ever would do.

Suddenly, twin explosions appeared in the center of the rifle division.  Suspecting invisible targets, Methosilang’s clerics entered the area and purged invisibility, revealing Lancaster’s two allies.  One was a clearly insane mechanical halfling, and the other was a human bedecked in crystals.  He appeared to be reluctant and regretful for his actions, but did not hesitate in continuing his attack.  Soon, a second volley of magic left the hand of the halfling, while the human seemingly didn’t do anything, and yet strange energy still pulsed through the rifle division’s ranks.

“Talos and Palfrin?” Tal said with anger and a hint of disbelief.  “But they hate each other.  Are they that desperate to defend their goddess?”

The gunners desperately continued their attack, but it was too late, for the knights had reached the battle and Lancaster met Amira.  The battlefield echoed with their attacks, but Talos, Palfrin, and Lerissa ignored it.  Senseless with rage from the death of her soldiers, Lerissa switched targets and focused on Talos and Palfrin.  When he hesitated for just a moment, Palfrin was suddenly riddled with first Lerissa’s, and then dozens of other bullets.  His lifeless body crashed onto the battlefield as Lerissa rapidly reloaded and then began the attack on Talos.  The evil halfling’s luck finally ran out, and he joined his former master Khaspar in death, though his journey to the afterlife proved much faster.

Meanwhile, just as Danae feared, Lancaster gained the advantage on his sister.  After dismounting her, Lancaster, quickly turned his horse around for one last, fatal charge.  However, just as he was about to start the charge, he felt a sword pierce right through his chest.  He turned around in disbelief to find Hestine glaring at him with rage and regret.  “You won’t hurt my family any more,” she growled.

Lancaster chuckled, “I suppose not,” before his own life faded away.

Lerissa, who had watched the fight’s final moments, cheered and fired at the madness horse, ending its chaos on the battlefield as well.  She was just about to lead her survivors to the rear of the battle for medical aid when she joined the casualties of the fight.  Before anyone could notice at her death, let alone react, Devlin escaped into the melee of the battle.  His new master was dead, the half-vampire realized, but he did not die without being avenged.



	“What is it this time?” Tal asked in despair.  A swarm of strange, beetle-like insects he didn’t recognize had suddenly dashed to the front of the Bas forces, taking a few surprised and quickly killed cultists with them.

	Everyone, as if on cue, turned to Danae.  “They’re…Consumers I believe.  This is not good.  They get stronger with every attack they absorb and more fierce with every kill.  We have to destroy them, and as quickly as possible.”

	“Who do we have near that side of the battlefield?”  Tonaca asked.

	“Our divine casters, I think,” Robin replied.  “You know, Shanna, Elayna, and Thorrun?”

	Tal shuddered.  “We already lost friends in this fight.  I don’t know if Galeron can ever forgive us if his mother and best friend die as well.”

	Tonaca asked, “They’re not exactly the best fighters among us.  Do they even have anything that can kill these monstrosities quickly?”

	Danae shook her head.  “I don’t think so.  Their bodies are engines of perfect destruction.  No simple death spell stands much chance of affecting them.  This could take a…”

	Her last word was interrupted, however, by a blast of unearthly music.  The clouds above the horrible insects parted, and a single beam of light struck the lead Consumer.  Moments later, a second and third bolt enveloped the remaining insects.  In an instant, all of them were pulled upwards and out of the plane, never to be seen again.

	“…huh,” was all Tal could get out.

	“Well, it makes sense,” Tiana said with a faint smile.  “If you have to fight the Termites of the Gods, it makes sense to actually use the Gods to deal with them.”



	“Things appear to be going badly for Bas, wouldn’t you say, Khaspar?” Tal casually asked their spectator.

	Khaspar shrugged.  “It is of no concern to me, but I wouldn’t be so quick to celebrate.  Do you know where Bas found those things?  They were in storage in a wooden box.  So far, all that she’s sent have been failures and toys she’s salvaged, and you’ve had to waste your most powerful magic and lost some of your finest soldiers to stop them.  Wait until she uses some of her more powerful soldiers.  Ah, these are a fine example of what I mean…”

	From far above, a flight of dark-winged creatures landed in the middle of the battlefield.  Amira, who had just gotten healing and returned to the front lines, quickly saw the new enemy and charged.  

	“See, Khaspar?  We’ll have no trouble with whatever demons Bas sent us this time.”  Tal grinned.

	“Don’t be so certain.  These are no demons.  They are…”

	But Bath was already aware and screaming, “No, don’t get any closer!  Those aren’t demons!  They’re celestials!!”

	It was too late.  Amira had neared the enemies and was about to attack when she realized the same thing.  The captain of this supposedly holy brigade, a planetar of great beauty and strength, held his hands out, suggesting he wanted to avoid combat.

	“My good woman, why would you raise your weapon to us?  Do we not share the same beliefs, the same goddesses?”

	Amira, struck dumb by this shocking turn of events, could only stammer out the start of an explanation.

	Bath had enough.  She spread her wings and took off in the direction of the fight.  “No, Bath, don’t!  We need to save our strength for Bas!” Tiana protested, but she knew it was futile.  

	Unfortunately, Bath’s actions were too late to save Amira.  Desperate to force this situation to make sense, she didn’t notice the other fallen celestials surrounding her until it was too late.  As one, they descended on her, killing the shocked paladin with ease.  The rest of her division, the spell of the celestials broken, engaged the rest of the dark angels just as Bath tackled the planetar captain.  

	“I don’t suppose you’re named Allishira?” she asked him as they fought.

	The planetar, though he knew his fate was likely sealed, could only smile.  “I’m afraid not.  You’re thinking of my master.  I believe you’ll be seeing him soon.”

	“I believe I will,” Bath agreed, as she finished the traitorous representative of her own kind.



	To nearly any sane being in the universe, the next force that Bas sent against the force of Methosilang would be awe-inspiring in its power.  Balors and Pit Fiends, the most powerful of the demons and devils and normally known for their seething hatred of each other, were walking side by side.  Following them was a countless army of mariliths, cornugons, nalfeshenee, gelugons, and many lesser demons and devils.  Scattered among them were yugoloths of all levels of strength and the more independent and unique fiends like raskshasa, night hags, and the bizarre “outsider” fiends like swift prides, lipidos, and canor factums.  The army of so many united monsters appeared unstoppable, and it certainly consisted of some of the most powerful beings on the plane.

	Fortunately, the Methosilang forces had an army of even more powerful beings.  The sky darkened as dozens of dragons, their metallic or gem-colored scales gleaming in the liberated sun whenever it shone in the gaps of the dragon’s flight, descended on the fiends.  As the largest dragons engaged in battle against dozens of fiends at once, smaller dragons like Zuriden zipped between the behemoths while repeatedly blasting the unholy spawn with their destructive breaths.  On the ground, Rudious and Deladane stood back to back and fought the strongest generals of the division alone.  In a matter of minutes, the dragons returned, roaring in triumph.  There were casualties, and none of the dragons got away without any injuries, but the fight was easily in the dragon’s favor.  If anything, it appeared that the worst injuries Rudious and Dane would suffer would come from them fighting each other over who gets to keep the head of the largest balor as a trophy.



	“Venym, what can you tell us about this threat?” Danae asked with a hint of reluctance in her voice.  For the first time since the battle started, the new threat was something she couldn’t recognize.  It looked vaguely technology-themed, which would explain why she didn’t know about it, but she consulted with the Dragovigis dragons, and not even they had any idea what it was.  That made her feel a little better, but her pride was still hurt.

	“I was with Bas when they first began to work on that project.  Affliction led the work, unsurprisingly.  I believe they were calling it a ‘war-mech,’ though I doubt that’s the technical term for it.  It’s sort of a giant iron golem, but using technology.  It’s supposed to be absolutely full of weaponry, and it came from a more advanced civilization than that helicopter you destroyed earlier.  It’s also fully automated, so even if you can get your fey allies to attack it safely, there are no controls for them to tamper with.”

	Danae took this information back to the party to figure out the best way to stop this monstrosity.  Surprisingly, Tiana was the first to arrive at a solution.  “I think we’re looking at this the wrong way.  We don’t have to understand the creature’s exact weak point.  I think the laws of nature have given us all the weaponry we need.”  

	Tiana explained her plan, and Danae happily ordered the arcane division to the battlefront.

	The mech confidently continued across the battlefield, its force fields blocking most of the magic artillery its new enemies used on it.  The attacks would eventually penetrate its shields, but even if the robot was capable of expressing concern, it felt no need to do so.  At its rate of movement, it would be able to bring its targets in range of its many weapons in a matter of moments.  From there, its attackers would be quickly destroyed.  It’s only difficulty at this point was the amount of calculating effort it required to even process the physically impossible attacks.  It was so caught up in understanding its enemies, in fact, that it didn’t notice its forward motion was practically nullified until it was far too late.

	The wizards, seeing their plan succeed, let out an untraditional cheer.  While Damien led a decoy attack at the mech, an army of slightly lesser wizards transmuted the ground under the mech into a pit of mud.  The mech soon learned the problems of concentrating so much mass into so little space, and it sunk up to its waste almost instantly.  Unable to move, the wizards effortlessly circled around the mech, attacking it with magic until first its force field and then its entire body were completely obliterated.



	“I don’t understand.  I heard you could defeat this monstrosity by draining its strength from it,” Tiana said with frustration.  She watched with apprehension as the concentrated effort by the divine and arcane division tried in vain to suck the very life force out of the notorious Tarrasque.  

	Danae studied the fight as well, though at a more clinical level.  “Maybe that was once true, but perhaps the Tarrasque underwent mutation since then.”

	Tal groaned.  “Pull back our forces.  There’s no sense in getting them killed out there.  We need another plan.”

	“Um, I don’t think we do,” Robin awkwardly added as he pointed out to the battlefield.  “It looks like Galatron and the rest of the celestials are charging at the Tarrasque already.”

	“Not this again,” Tonaca angrily replied.  She glared at Bath, “What’s with you people and reckless charges?”

	Bath shook her head, “Well, I got back okay.  I’m sure Galatron can do the same.  He is a Solar after all.”

	Unfortunately, her optimism was misplaced.  No sooner did the group reach the Tarrasque than it charged and brutalized their most reckless member, the unfortunate Zethar.  Once again, his need to prove himself was fatal, as he almost immediately fell before the monster’s claws!

	As expected, Bath was again in the air and about to assist in the fight, but this time Bas was apparently ready for her.  A swarm of demons rose up from secret gaps in the battlefield to swarm her.  None of them were any real threat to Bath, but they kept her busy while the fight resolved itself.  After Zethar’s death, the remaining three celestial warriors had more luck at the creature.  On more than a half-dozen occasions, one of them was eaten alive, only to burst out of the creature’s chest moments later!  But it seemed to have little effect on the beast.  Finally, just as it was almost ready to collapse, it roared in fury and charged one last time at Quercus and Shekuldellstra, who were both heavily wounded at this point and retreated long enough to heal their wounds.  Just before the monster reached the injured siblings and likely would have killed them, Galatron interposed himself between them and the beast.  It slowed the beast, but at a heavy cost, as the enraged Tarrasque managed to bite Galatron in half!  

	Furious, Quercus and Shekuldellstra surged up and finally defeated the monster, and then turned to their dying father.  “Why?” an anguished Quercus asked.  “We were finally a family again!”

	“No, Quercus,” Galatron weakly said with the last of his strength.  “My sins have been too great.  I never would be the solar, the paragon of virtue and mercy, that I once was again.  Too much of me died the day my wife did, and my actions from then on were inexcusable.  I abandoned you, Shekuldellstra, and while I am glad to see the man you have become, I had you for all the wrong reasons.  It’s time for me to rest, and what better reason could I have than saving my children?  Now, it’s time for the two of you to live your own lives.  I know you’ll make me proud…”



	“I never thought I’d say this, but why couldn’t we be fighting undead?” General William Bullorn, the official Ruler of Armies of Delaspie, asked as he watched the next threat arriving on the battlefield.  “I had my fill of dragons for a lifetime.”

	Sure enough, a flight of dragons almost as large as the ones from Dragovigis had arrived, but there was something fundamentally “wrong” about these dragons.  Danae realized it instantly.  “Those dragons are not from our world!  They’re fiendish sub-species that only originate from the lower planes.  I suspect Bas recruited them making deals with the fiendish eggs we discovered, much like she did with the force dragon.”

	Tal, stricken once again with regret, asks, “Can Delaspie forces fight something like this?”

	Tiana was grave.  “We had plenty of experts on fighting dragons in the past, but most of them were killed in the war against the orcs.  Our remaining soldiers mostly hail from our anti-undead forces.  The only bright side is that many of them are paladins, so they should have some leverage against fiendish dragons.  But I don’t think it’s enough…”

	Indeed, the fight initially looked like it would be a rout.  The Delaspie forces were fierce, but they just couldn’t fight an enemy as mobile and powerful as the dragons.  

	“Can’t we get our dragons in their?”  Tiana finally asked in desperation.

	“We can bring them in, but they suffered quite a few casualties earlier.  Many of the survivors are still heavily wounded,” Danae replied.

	“Maybe, but even if they can’t fight, they could still be helpful.  I think I have an idea…” Tiana pondered.

	A few minutes later, the Delaspie warriors appeared to be in full retreat.  Eager to press their advantage, the demonic dragons surged on.  Suddenly, the Delaspie forces emerged again, but on the backs of their own dragons.  Unable to fight the fiendish dragons directly, the Dragovigis survivors instead served as transportation as they quickly maneuvered above the charging evil dragons.  Eager to press their new advantage, the Delaspie warriors (along with Dane and Rudious,) leapt straight onto the backs of the dragons.  They knew their casualties would be great, either from the initial falls, the battles on top of the dragons, or the inevitable crash landings most of them would have to endure when their enemies die, but they didn’t care.  If this battle meant their home would be safe, then it was worth it.

	For a moment, it looked like the desperate gambit worked.  And then the force dragon arrived.  It was larger than any dragon on either side, and it approached the fight with little but amusement in its eyes.  As it neared the fight, the remaining warriors of Delaspie, and in fact the entirety of Methosilang’s side, suddenly grew still.  The sheer awe of the dragon seemed to be enough to stop Methosilang’s advancement.  

	And then it flew over the giants.

	In a matter of seconds, hundreds of stones flew up to strike the monster.  Most of them missed or simply bounced off of the creature, but a few struck true.  The dragon reeled, more from surprise than pain, and then decided to deal with this threat directly.  She angrily dove at the giants, but she underestimated the anger the Dragovigis natives felt for her.  After all, she was the one that led all of their defenders away, letting Bas invade and nearly destroy their home.  The ignored their earlier wounds and took to the air as one.  Surprised by this attack, the force dragon was forced to the ground, which was exactly what the giants wanted.  As dozens of dragons and scores of giants descended on the suddenly helpless-seeming beast, Danae realized something.  “This being is our enemy, but we should not be her killer.”

	Tal looked outraged.  “Why?  She’s an ally of Bas.”

	Danae shook her head.  “An ally of convenience and nothing more.  More importantly, I fear that if we kill her, we’ll attract the ire of her species.  That’s the last thing our battered world will need.  I have an idea.”

	She went to speak to an emissary for the Arcane Division.  Moments later, Jarrle teleported into the battle.  “Dragon!” he yelled in the most melodramatic way possible.  “I cast thee out of our plane!  I invoke the power of shadows to drive you away!”

	The dragon’s eyes widened in confusion, but quickly she seemed to understand.  Unsurprisingly, she was unable to resist the effects of Jarrle’s magic.

	“What was that about?” Robin asked.

	“I figured Jarrle’s little speech would make my plan obvious to the dragon, and apparently I was correct.  I doubt such a spell would have affected a dragon of this caliber unless she wanted it to affect her.”

	“So now she’s gone home?” Tonaca asked.

	Danae smiled.  “Now she’s gone to the Semiplanar Rift.  Anything beyond that is up to her.”



	This was the last thing Hestine needed today.  By her own hand, her brother had died.  Sure, he was a traitor and almost killed their sister, but he was still their brother.  And now she was climbing up the back of a gigantic dire leopard as it was charging headlong through her army.  When the creature reached the battle, she and the rest of her rogue’s contingent was the last group, save the Heroes of Methosilang themselves, who had the ability to stop it.  Even so, many fell as they surrounded the creature and began to do what they did best on a massive scale: go for the vitals.  The monstrosity that Phellis gave to Methosilang was a cat of inhuman, impossible proportions, but it was still a cat, and it still bled like every ordinary animal.  Dozens of skilled rogues surrounded and even climbed on the creature, and it didn’t matter how small the weapons were compared to the cat when every strike severed an artery or sliced a tendon.  Finally, as the wounded cat was nearing its last moments, Hestine had begun the long and arduous journey to the very top of the creature.  Finally, she reached the head, and the next time the cat was momentarily distracted by another attack, she plunged her blade through a weak point in its skull, killing it almost instantly.  The horrid beast collapsed to the ground, and she left the front lines for some rest and recovery.  She wasn’t the most traditional princess or servant of her nation, but she was loyal and would do anything to protect it from destruction.  That didn’t mean she had to like it.


	Even after the death of the last of Bas’ champions, the battle was far from over.  For almost a day, the two armies continued their war before Bas’ forces were finally routed.  Many of her cultists and other followers were merely captured when they tried to retreat or surrendered, especially the gray-robed ones thanks to the Heroes’ encouragement.  The fiends and other more unusual monsters were killed to the last, however.  As for the mechanical forces, they suddenly stopped operating near the battle’s end.

	Finally, the army neared Bas’ valley, but there it stopped.  Even the other champions of Methosilang and her allies would be of no use in the final battle.  It was up to the Heroes from here on.  As they neared the crater in the middle of the valley, and the head of Bas herself came into view, they realized they had one last guardian to get past before descending into the crater and fighting their greatest enemy.  Once again, the creature once known as Grockith stood before them.  

	Tal looked at their former friend sadly as they drew their weapons.  “Grockith, is there no other way to do this?  We were allies once before.  We could be so again.”

	Grockith said nothing, but the strands of energy emerged from his body as he advanced on the party, giving all the answer he needed.

	“Very well, then,” Tal sighed.  “If it’s any consolidation, none of us wanted it to be this way.”

	The party began the fight fiercely, but it was soon obvious that they were having the same trouble the orcs and dragons did.  Even the strongest attack by Bath or Danae’s most devastating spell barely scratched him.  Grockith, on the other hand, was easily damaging the party with seemingly living whips of pure energy and explosive blasts.  Even when Danae put up her usual prismatic sphere to protect herself, Grockith was able to somehow shatter it with a few attacks!  

	“This is ridiculous!” Tiana panted.  “It looks like it’s doing more damage to itself than we are to…” she stopped as she realized what she said.  Indeed, the living energy that emerged from Grockith left horrible wounds whenever he attacked.  It was as if he was using his own blood for his attacks.

	The fight from here on was brutal but predictable.  The party concentrated on healing and defenses while Grockith slowly destroyed himself with increasing rage and frustration.  Finally, he appeared too weak to even attack, and the party put him out of his misery with a few final attacks.  

	“I hope you can finally return to your family,” Robin said as they party buried what little remained of their former comrade.  “It wasn’t your fault you were stuck in this time.”

	Finally, nothing stood in the way of the Heroes.  With both fear of the upcoming battle and excitement that this would soon be finally over, they descended into the crater.

	OOC Notes: Though not role-played normally, this last battle wasn’t strictly a work of fiction either.  The players contributed some suggestions for the final battle’s tactics, and the other battles were largely determined by random rolling.  I did occasionally made changes to those results for dramatic purposes, but you’d be surprised how often they felt right.


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## LordVyreth (May 13, 2006)

*The Final Battle: Bas*

If anything, the crater was even more enormous than they expected.  Though they could see Bas well before they even entered it (unsurprisingly, given that she was several miles tall,) they decided to first travel the depths of the caverns underneath the crater.  For one thing, they wanted to make sure Bas wouldn’t spring any surprise attacks on them during the final battle.  However, the area was surprisingly unguarded, as if Bas either knew that any resistance she had left would be a waste on the Heroes or she used up everything she had in the war.  Something about that last point bothered the party, but they had bigger concerns and didn’t dwell on it.

	As they explored the caverns, the sheer depth of madness that Bas and her minions reached became evident.  Random artifacts from the dozens of ruins of lost eras that Bas discovered were liberally scattered across the walls, floors, and even ceilings of the caverns, and the party was certain that if they had days to explore, they might actually find the sunken cities or weapons caches or whatever Bas discovered that helped unbalance power so completely.  In one cavern, strange machinery similar to the monitors and keyboards the party once saw in the “dungeon” under Dragovigis filled the walls.  Cultists of sorts were somehow attached to each of the consoles, and they continued to stare at the screens, seemingly unaware of the party’s presence or the battle that would soon ensue here.  Another cavern was dominated by a huge pit containing nothing but corpses.  Some were more cult members, as the robes suggest, leading the party to conclude that these were killed by Bas for disloyalty, failure, or just as sacrifices.  Other bodies were more ambiguous, and some were not human or even remotely humanoid, suggesting that they were some more relics from the lost eras.  Whether the Bas cultists simply gathered the bodies or if there were actual survivors of the eras that the cultists killed to steal their artifacts is unknown.

	Finally, the party reached Bas.  If she was terrifying from a distance, she was the stuff of nightmares up close.  Only the upper half of her body was fully excavated, but the party couldn’t really see what exactly happed to her lower half, because the entire floor of the crater was covered with strange, organic root/tentacle protrusions that apparently have an origin at Bas herself!  Most of the tentacles were somehow connected to and feeding dangling fruit/egg sacs that were partially translucent, revealing shadows of dark and unnatural creatures growing inside them.  The upper half of Bas was moving slightly, as if she was suffering from a continuous and minor spasm, but whether she was even truly alive was unknown.  Parts of her body were deteriorated, revealing bones and strange, alien organs, but she also seemed to be breathing slightly.  Like her caverns, Bas herself was altered by the excavated relics.  One of her gigantic arms was replaced with a claw-like mechanical monstrosity that was apparently cobbled together out of dozens of smaller machines from different era.  Crystals of a likely psionic nature were haphazardly spread throughout her body.  Some of it look like it was carefully-placed jewelry normally intended for much, much smaller, creatures.  Others crystals, however, were simply imbedded in her flesh at various points, making it resemble shrapnel.

	Much as they instinctively regretted it, the party began their journey to Bas.  The ones who were lucky enough to fly did so, while others who couldn’t fly continuously and didn’t want to waste resources too early began a long and disgusting journey on top of the tentacles themselves.  Finally, when the party came within a couple hundred feet of Bas, she finally opened her eyes and stared directly at the party.

	You still insist on doing this?  Bas asked them telepathically, perhaps surprisingly.  It was nowhere near as formal or, well, villainous a reply as the party expected.  It was almost pleading.  We don’t have to.

	Tal replied, with more patience then he thought he could muster, I think we have to at this point.  You did attack us and threatened our civilization.  Even if we left you alone, I think it would come to war again.

	Bas angrily replied, I saved your civilization.  Until I started, you were fighting a losing war against two empires, empires that are now dead, I might add.  I deserve to rule over this world!  I not only saved it, but I earned it after what my sisters put me through.  They deserve being my servants.  They’re the ones that should be listening to me!

	Bath was the one to get angry next.  They were justified in casting your out.  You betrayed them and raised armies against them!  You were lucky they let you live.

	No, I had no choice, Bas retorted with a surprising sadness in her voice.  Even then, they wouldn’t let me do anything! Everyone else had their roles and gifts that they bestowed upon the world, and I had nothing!  I finally give them the gift of war, and they treat it like a curse!  It’s just not fair.  It’s not fair…

	If it was possible to sob telepathically, the party was almost certainly that she would be.  They come to the horrific realization about Bas as one: As evil and murderous as she was, Bas was no great ambitious villain; no conniving schemer with endless plans and a twisted amoral view of the world.  She was just a spoiled, incredibly angry little girl expanded to horrifying divine levels.  But she must be stopped all the same.

	The time for talking was over, and both sides knew it.  The party had made their preparations shortly before they reached Bas, so they were ready immediately to attack.  At this point, everyone in the party wisely gained the ability to fly, so they got as far away from the tentacle floor as possible as they closed in with Bas.  However, it wasn’t enough.  The tentacles had incredible range and lashed out at the entire party as they began their attack.  Most of the party was merely cut by the thorny tips of the tentacles, but Danae was entangled by the tentacles and was pulled screaming into the mass.  Tonaca and Robin, who always intended to stay back a bit and attack from long range, flew down to help her, while Bath and Tiana pressed on.  Tal flew even higher up, in an attempt to get out of the tentacles’ range, and fired at Bas from a distance using magic.

	Bas, however, had more tricks up her sleeve than her tentacles.  She raised her new machine arm and fired a spiraling light beam at Tiana, which left a brutal wound but failed to slow her down.  She tumbled out of the way of Bas’ grasping arms while Bath charged straight at her.  She plunged her sword straight into Bas, causing wounds and fissures to grow on the body to a degree far grater than even Bath expected.

	But Bas was not finished; far from it.  Just as Robin and Tonaca extradited Danae, the tentacles pulled back and released several nearby egg sacs.  The sacs split open when they fell to the ground, and demons, including a Balor and a Pit Fiend, emerged from them!  Bath saw the fiends and sighed with disappointment that she couldn’t go back to fight her racial enemies, but she knew who the real target was in this fight.  She and Tiana continued to inflict disproportionately large wounds on Bas’ massive body while Bas flailed around and struck at them with her organic arm.  At the same time, the crystals on her body glowed with energy, and they somehow sent Tal telekinetically crashing to the ground!

	The fight continued like this for what seemed like ages.  Bas alternated firing lasers, missiles, bursts of bullets, and other weapons from her unnatural arm with psionic attacks, all the while attacking Bas and Tiana with her good arm.  Meanwhile, the tentacles would periodically strikes at all the party as one and try to capture one (usually Tal or Danae,) and otherwise released even more fiends, though fortunately few were as powerful as the Balor and Pit Fiend that emerged at first.  Robin, Tal, and Danae were so busy fighting off the demons and rescuing each other from the tentacles that they barely had time to even fight Bas!  Tonaca, however, was the most harried of the party.  He was given the unenviable task of keeping everyone healthy and alive, which proved to be very difficult.

	In fact, just as things looked like they couldn’t get any worse, Bas’ body started to break apart, and then it split right down the middle!  For a second or two, the Heroes thought that they had finally finished their quest, before the horrible truth literally emerged.  Out of the shell of her ruined body, Bas’ true form rose up.  She was much smaller than she was in her old form (only about a hundred feet or two tall!) but she looked far more complete.  There were no injuries on her perfectly-shaped body, and she could fly freely despite lacking wings or any other visible means of motion.  She wore a dark-blue dress identical to the one the party often saw on her statues, and as expected, she wielded twin scimitars of immense size and power.

	“What happened?” Tiana asked with desperation.

	“It seems what we have always feared has now come true,” Danae replied, too shocked to show even the slightest hint of emotion.  “Bas has finally risen to her full power once again.  And I believe it’s possible that we were responsible for it.”

	But Bath stared at Bas for a few seconds more before replying.  “No, I have spent most of my life basking in the strength of a goddess, and she doesn’t have that power.  She might be entering that stage of divine strength, and she certainly is more powerful now than she was when she was trapped in that thing,” she indicated the massive husk of Bas’ former body as she said this, “but she is not a true goddess yet.  We can still stop her if we hurry.”

	Fully aware of the consequences if they failed, the party engaged Bas’ new form with even grater determination.  However, as Bath warned, Bas had become even stronger now.  Instead of ineffectually flailing at them with an arm too large and bulky to truly function as a weapon, she was expertly striking everyone near her repeatedly with her twin scimitars.  The good news, however, was that since Bas was no longer connected to her tentacles, the party no longer had to worry about their constant attempts to grapple some of the physically weaker Heroes or spawn fiendish backup.  As a result, all six of the party members could effectively attack Bas now.

	However, Bas still had more surprises.  After engaging Bath and Tiana in melee for a short time, she withdrew briefly and created multiple gates to what apparently was her previously sealed extraplanar pocket dimension lair.  Throughout the rest of the battle, armies of fallen celestials would emerge from the gates just long enough to attack the party once and then were immediately expelled back home.  The attacks ranged from a bombardment of black light by dark lantern archons ten times as large as their natural size and an unholy lightning storm by fallen avorials to an infantry charge of fallen archons and angels led by an evil Solar!  

	The fight went on seemingly forever, and it was not without casualties.  Bath died for the first time when she felt the full force of Bas’ twin scimitars after being heavily wounded earlier.  And Robin died, for the first time for him as well, after being caught in the middle of a particularly brutal press by the fallen infantry.

	However, just as Tonaca, Tal, and Danae had used up the last of their magic and all hope seemed lost, Tiana took advantage of a moment of arrogant distraction by Bas and plunged her blade into the back of the goddess’ head.  Bas’ smug look ended instantly, to be replaced with a complete and total awareness of what happened.  Her body plummeted to the ground just as quickly, where it crashed into the remains of her former body.  She could bare get out one last thought, It can’t be over…, before both the new and old bodies started to rapidly disintegrate.  In a matter of seconds, not a trace remained.

	It was over.  The massed armies of Methosilang, who witnessed the entire battle, let up a cheer and poured into the crater.  The party, meanwhile, quickly gathered the wounded and the dead of their own and descended into the crater themselves to join their army in the celebration.  And yet, while they knew they should be happy, as they went about the hours of mopping up that the exploration of the crater required, the situation bothered the surviving members of the party.  It wasn’t the loss of some of their own that upset them, and for good reason.  After all, at this point, something as simple as death couldn’t stop them for long unless it was truly their time to be at rest.  

	Their concerns were more complicated than that.  The first was what they witnessed among their own army as it cleared out the crater and celebrated the victory.  Part of it was the same breakdown of the common cause that they first witnessed in Methosilang, but the concern was deeper than that.  The main reason Bas was such a threat was her control over the relics of lost eras.  As long as she used them to gain power, the balancing factor of the Quill of Destiny was compromised.  Destroying Bas was supposed to end that threat, but now their own allies were celebrating as they claimed the remaining relics of the crater and the ruins connected to it for themselves!  At this rate, the unbalancing cycle would continue.

	Their second worry involved the remaining allies of Bas.  Notably, what happened to the Strife Masters?  They were Bas’ four most powerful servants, yet they were not present for the war nor were they guarding their own goddess!  Bas must have had a very important mission for them to justify their absence.  Their greatest concern on the subject was confirmed when the celebration came to a horrible end by a message sent from home.  Apparently as a result of its empire’s destruction, the aftershocks of the war, or Bas’ death, the Eye of Nerull fell from its supports and crashed into the sea under it.  Normally this would be a good thing, but when it hit the bottom of the lake, it created a fissure that flooded and destroyed the city of Rally, an art-focused city that was protected and honored by Merida and Tepedin.  As soon as he heard the news, Tal gravely pulled out a scrap of paper he obtained from Phellis almost a year ago:

When they who once knew death again return…..
……never-sleeping eye finally closes…
…….finds that which it never did when open, destroys what it always sought to destroy in life…….
………the chance to change destiny…

……………….history to be re-written…..

	He read it and passed it around to his allies.  It soon became evident that things were not over.  Far from it; one battle remained, and it would be the most important battle of them all.

OOC: And so the final adventure draws near.  There will be one more update in between which goes over the one last revelation before the event, and then it’s all about the Quill.


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## LordVyreth (May 13, 2006)

*The Return of the Quill: Awareness*

“But there’s no way we can do this!” Tiana groaned.  “We can’t fight off the Strife Masters in this condition!  We just fought and destroyed Bas herself!”

Tal shook his head.  “It appears we have no choice.  If we let the Strife Masters get to the Quill, all our efforts are meaningless!  They could bring back Bas with a word!  Besides, we don’t have to defeat them.  We just have to get control of the Quill long enough to keep them from changing destiny.  Even if it costs us our lives, it’ll be worth the cost of preserving the world.”

With no time for discussion, Danae quickly gathered the party and teleported to the ruins of Rally.  There wasn’t even time for more than a few moments of silence at the devastation they witnessed.  Due to the war, much of the city was deserted as its populace either joined the army or fled to shelters, but even without the cost in lives, the loss was almost unbearable.  Rally was a city blessed by the twin goddesses of Merida and Tepedin, their civilization’s heralds of art, culture, and beauty.  That such a symbol of achievement could be destroyed so simply was incomprehensible.

Nonetheless, that was not the party’s primary concern.  Carefully but quickly, they made their way through the ruins.  They had no idea where they had to go, exactly, but something was driving them somehow.  It was as if they instinctively knew where to go.  They descended to the center of the city, where a massive rift in the natural floor of the city’s cavern had opened up.  Rally was always a city known for its many lakes and waterways, and now that water, mixed with the vile fluid that emerged from the cracked Eye, was pouring down the hole into unknown depths.  The party reached this rift, and after a moment of gathering their courage, they entered the tunnel…

And found themselves at the top of a mountain in the middle of a bright, sunny day.  They were, understandably, confused.  “Is this where the Quill can be found?” Robin asked, confused.

Danae looked around, but she soon replied, “No, I don’t think so.  This mountain range looks familiar.”  She pointed to a nearby mountain.  “That looks like the mountain the Nightmare Prince’s manor was located at.  But that means that this mountain shouldn’t be here.  This is where Bas’ Valley is, or was.  Or, perhaps, will be.  I can’t explain it, but maybe we’re at a different point in time entirely?”

Their answer soon came to them, however, and literally.  For in a matter of moments, Bha-Ael herself descended from the stars to meet them!  “This isn’t exactly the past,” she explained.  “This is, more precisely, a memory of our time.  You have been to the Semi-Planar Rift and seen how past societies are memorialized there.  This area represents the beginning of our own memory, if the civilization we fought for becomes nothing but.  We sent you here for one final night of rest and discussion before your journey.”

“We?” Tonaca asked.

“Yes,” Bha-Ael replied, “Me and my Sisters.”  As she spoke, the others arrived.  Unlike Bha-Ael, who was once a mortal and who always retained her mortal body, the others arrived in their avatars.  

Some of the avatars were people the party met before, and they were no surprise.  Olivia Neddle, the librarian of Delaspie and Ordhari’s avatar, quietly arrived and sat down without a word.  Mazziden, the child who was judged by Tsykie to need her the most, shyly reached the peak.  She was able to mumble a few words of greeting, which seemed to make her very proud, before she joined the ranks of the others.  And the arriving sounds of music introduced Alkurvas, the bard who served Merida and once helped the party fight the Nightmare Prince.

Others were people the party knew, but not as avatars.  An old and extremely cranky gnome plopped himself down on a nearby rock and idly began to scribble something in a sketchbook.  The others still didn’t know him until an awestruck Tiana introduced him as Penndrig, the ancient inventor and artist who created, among other things, the mural located at Delaspie’s Great Library.  Damien, the party’s old friend and ally, shyly re-introduced himself as the new avatar of the magic goddess Lore.  The mysterious woman who ran the Shrine of Life, the destination of one of Tal’s first adventures back when the party was much different, gave no name but called herself Nelkiss’s avatar.  And, to Tal’s incredible embarrassment, a lovely woman introduced herself to the party as White, the avatar of the goddess Krista.  When they insisted on an explanation, Tal quietly admitted he used to date her.

A few were people the party didn’t know at all.  A half-orc named Shurdack introduced herself as the current avatar of Tregfillia.  A physically weak but extremely eager-looking halfling soldier named Raddin Middleleaf said he was None’s unlikely champion.  An extremely old elven noblewoman called herself Trimera and haughtily insisted that she was the avatar of Jolia.

Finally, one last avatar arrived.  She was a girl wearing a familiar dark blue dress.  She was barely older than Mazziden was or Tsykie was supposed to be, but the look of hatred she gave the party was far greater than any child could give.  

“Oh, hello…Bas,” Bath sniffed as she recognized their adversary.  “I guess we didn’t kill you completely, after all.  What are you doing here?  I can’t imagine you’d want to help us fight your own servants.”

Bas shrugged.  “This isn’t my idea.  I’m trapped in this memory now, thanks to you.  The others are just projecting for now, but they’ll soon be trapped here with me.  And we didn’t bring you here to help you; at least, that’s not the only reason.”

“Then what is this?” Tonaca asked, with some anger.  “We don’t have time to talk.  Unless we stop the Strife Masters, your world is doomed!”

Bha-Ael drew closer at this and explained, “You have no need to worry.  Time doesn’t pass here naturally; it is just a frozen memory after all.  You can rest here in peace and security, so you’ll be prepared for your final battle tomorrow.  But we also wanted you to be aware of the consequences of this fight.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even if you stop the Strife Masters, we will inevitably leave this plane.  We owe our power and even our existence to the whims of desperate beings and the energy of evil.  That energy is dissipating, and without it we can no longer be there for you.  It’s possible, even likely, that the old gods will return to lead you, but there’s no way to say.”

“Why are you telling us this?  Are you asking us to fight for your existence, to use the Quill to save you?” Tiana asked, with more dubiousness in her voice than Bath or other more loyal followers of the Sisters seemed to possess.

“No.  That is up to you at this point.  We just wanted you to realize that the plane is in a state of flux now.  Even if you stop the Strife Masters from using the Quill, things won’t remain the same.  Something must be lost.  But that is enough discussion for now.  You must rest and prepare for your battle, and we can’t keep you here forever.”

The party began to make camp, but as they did, the Sisters subtly got the attention of Bath, Tiana, and Tonaca.  Krista managed to whisper to each of them, “Before you made camp, we would like to talk to you for a while, and without your companions.”

Confused, the three managed to slip away from the camp unnoticed.  “What’s this about?” Bath asked, though the sheer enthusiasm she showed while speaking to her goddesses almost ruined the stealthy nature of the conversation.

“We know we told you that we understand if you decide not to save us if you get the chance to use the Quill,” Bha-Ael explained.  “We have faith in you that you would do what you think is best for our world.  But while your allies have been our worshippers for most of their lives, they serve another authority above even us.”

“The Lady of Memory?” Tiana asks.  “I know they spoke of her, but I never understood exactly what it meant.”

“Nobody is entirely sure who she is.  All we know is that the three of them and the other ‘children’ of Lady Memory owe their very existences and more to her.  The world itself adjusted for their existence, including the memories of others.  If Lady Memory so desired, she could probably not only obliterate them from existence, she could make all of you, and possibly us, forget they ever did exist.  Further, I believe that these children are really the souls of people that lived once before and worshipped Lady Memory from the old times.  I suspect that Lady Memory existed in an older iteration of the universe that was erased by the Quill, and she wanted to regain power using the Quill through her servants.  That possibility is a reality now, and since we don’t know who Lady Memory was, we don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“What do you want, then?  You want us to fight our own allies for the Quill?”

“No, but we want you to use your own discretion.  Despite their relationship, there’s no guarantee that your friends will choose Lady Memory when they have the Quill.  They’ll likely use all they learned and know about her to make that choice, just as you must do with both your friends and with her.”

With the discussion finished, the party spent one last, restless night together.  After this, the world would almost certainly be different.  Many of them might not survive the battle, and they might even be enemies the next day.  For now, though, they would rest as the heroes they so rightly earned.  

The next morning, they gathered before the goddesses, and Bha-Ael sent them off.  “I don’t know what will happen to us after tomorrow, but I wanted to let you know that all of us…”

“Ahem,” Bas coughed.

“Almost all of us are more proud of you than you could ever imagine.  You fought harder and struggled through more difficulties than most beings could even conceive.  You led wars, slew monsters older than all of you combined, and even made peace with your enemies.  Regret nothing about your lives as you go into this last battle, and I know that if you live on after today, you’ll do whatever you can to bring peace and happiness to the world.”

And just as suddenly as they arrived, the party was home.  The tunnel beckoned them, and slowly they descended into it to find the greatest artifact their dimension had ever seen: the Quill of Destiny.

OOC Notes: Okay, I previously said that the next post will be the last one, but I suspect I’ll end up breaking the finale into two: the fight, and the epilogue of the fight.  I’m already getting some response from the players for the final battle, but I’ll need more to finish.  Expect the next update in 10 days or so, so basically two weekends.


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## LordVyreth (May 13, 2006)

*The Return of the Quill: Conflict*

The trip to the Quill’s current resting place was practically over before it started.  Just like the party’s presence, this appearance of the Quill was clearly in opposition to its normal conditions.  

“It would seem that Indigo’s concern about this situation wasn’t misplaced,” Danae commented as they descended through the tunnel.  As they traveled, an illusion of a seemingly random creature’s head sputtered into existence for a second before fading out.  Shortly afterwards, a mysterious voice spoke out of nowhere in a language that proved unintelligible, even to magical translation.  

“Yes, this place practically reeks of desperation,” Tiana commented.  “I somehow doubt the last epic, world-altering trials were this half-hazard.”

Finally, the party came to the very same doorway Petrach, Gurdal, and Ka’Dry’Log passed through over a thousand years ago.  As before, the instant the party reached the door and first touched it, it and the entire corridor faded away.  The party found themselves surrounded by the statues of gods, and except for the statues and the floor of the chamber itself, there appeared to be literally nothing beyond them, as if the room and the statues were floating alone in a void.  

The chamber itself had the same disheveled look of the corridor leading up to it.  The remains of an ornate hourglass lay shattered on the floor, and parts of the floor itself looked stripped away, leaving holes that revealed only the nothingness below the party.  The party itself was waiting in an extension of the normally cylindrical floor on one side of the room, and as the chamber further materialized, it became obvious that there were three other alcoves at the other sides of the chamber, and they weren’t empty.

As expected, the opposite alcove contained the Strife Masters.  Leading them was once again Phellis Mune, the spotty-haired were-leopard monk that the party encountered time and time again yet never had the chance to fight.  He was accompanied by Affliction, who the party knew better as the plain-looking man that almost thwarted their attempt to destroy the dark moon.  Also with him was a winged man of incredible beauty and nobility.  Something betrayed his sinister nature, however, and Bath knew instantly that this was Allishira.  The fourth Strife Master was only barely recognized by the party.  He was Herbath, a gnome psion the party very briefly encountered when he was the companion to the Blade of Minds.  He died almost instantly in the party’s ambush, yet he apparently came back from the dead and in a form that looked far stronger and more sinister.  Speaking of once-dead enemies, the Strife Masters had a fifth in their group.  She was Matkela, once a drow priestess and a cohort to the Lady of Blood.  Her friend and mentor’s death and later betrayal apparently had a profound effect on the woman, as she now looked so warped that she was barely recognizable.  She had mechanical limbs and armor similar to the implants the Nightmare Prince once had, she was equipped with countless psionic objects of power, and her scaly skin suggested that she was a lycanthrope like Phellis.  It was as if all the other Strife Masters worked to make her a symbol of all their power.

The other alcoves had fewer enemies, but they were no less potent.  The left one had a skeletal being whose equipment all displayed holy symbols of Nerull and who had an almost overwhelming aura of power and nobility.  Though the party never saw him in person, this was certainly Petrach, also known as the Puppet, and the former ruler of the Undead Empire!  He was accompanied by Veladoma, the vampire woman that the party reluctantly allied with when they attacked the Lady of Blood.  The creatures in the last alcove were more recognizable.  One was Ka’Dry’Log, also known as the Head that Rules (or, rather, Ruled,) the Claw.  The party met him twice, though like Phellis, they never had the chance to fight the evil ruler before.  He was also accompanied by a familiar figure.  In his case, it was Khat’Shir’Mol, the orc gunner the party fought, defeated, and even killed twice before!  It was clear that death would not stop him until he had this last chance at revenge.

The party sprung into action as soon as they saw their many new enemies, but Phellis calmly shook his head.  “Don’t bother,” he smugly said.  “The remains of some ancient ward still exist in this chamber, preventing us from entering or acting against each other.  I suspect that in earlier days, this room was considered a sacred place.  No action could be taken against another when the Quill was in use.  I suspect that it might be different this time, though.”

Though neither The Puppet’s skeletal face nor The Head’s metallic one had any real range of expression, it almost seemed like a smile passed between the two former allies.  “No, it was much different last time,” Petrach said.  “I have to admit, I never thought we’d ever see this place again.  It was supposed to be the greatest of blessings to see it even once.  Did you imagine that we’d return to this place, my old friend?”

The Head did his best to shrug given his metal body.  “How blessed were we?  Maybe we had it better than most, but here we stand, our empires ruined and in bodies centuries older than nature would allow.”

“If you despise the Quill’s power so much, you’re welcome to go home and leave it to us,” Tiana snarled.

The Head laughed a hollow, artificial laugh.  “And let you upstarts ruin another era of our world like you did this one?  Never.  Besides, if the Quill let us return for another chance, I’m sure it had good reason.  Compared to what we had to endure to even get to the Quill last time, you’re lucky just dealing with us.”

The taunting and posturing between the four sides continued until, at last, the artifacts materialized in the center of the room.  Inconveniently, the Book of Destiny appeared a distance from the Quill, and all sides realized that since both were necessary for either to be useful, this fight would be much more difficult than even their expectations prepare for.

And then, all at once, it started.  The barriers were gone, and the free for all began.  Not everyone even went for the artifacts immediately.  Some of the less able combatants, like Danae and Herbath, remained behind to wait for the right moment.  Elsewhere, Bath and Allishira ignored the artifacts entirely to begin their own personal feud.

The first to successfully obtain the Quill and Book were Tiana and Phellis, respectively.  Tiana quickly ducked to the back of the party, letting Tonaca protect her magically.  Phellis tried to gain similar support from his fellow Strife Masters, but he was a step too slow.  Petrach effortlessly held him magically, letting Veladoma retrieve the Book.  Before she could do a thing with it, however, she became the fight’s first casualty when Tal, Herbath, Affliction, and Khat simultaneously focused their fire on her, reducing her to her gaseous form almost instantly.  Robin scooped up the Book and quickly passed it to his safest ally, Danae, before being overwhelmed himself.  “Tiana, pass the Quill to Danae, quickly!” he shouted as he fought of several attackers.

Tiana hesitated.  She certainly wanted her ally to have the Quill more than their many enemies, but the words of the Sisters echoed through her.  Nonetheless, she anxiously decided to trust her companion for now and threw the Quill at Danae.  Danae was prepared for this opportunity and quickly erected a Prismatic Sphere around her, protecting her long enough to write the first words into the Book in over a thousand years.  It was hard to see exactly what she wrote in the middle of a battle, but Tiana strained to get a glimpse regardless.  She groaned inwardly when she saw that the first two words written were what she feared the most, “Lady Memory.”  One way or the other, the biggest unknown factor in this situation just took priority.

Before Danae could write a second line in the book, however, she was ambushed by two powerful forces.  First, Ka’Dry’Log took advantage of his golem-like body and passed into the sphere effortlessly.  As he began his attack on her, he was joined by Phellis, who by now had recovered from Petrach’s spell and transformed in his were-dire leopard form for the first time in the party’s experience.  He used his monk skills to evade most of the sphere’s effects and quickly joined in on the brutal attack on Danae.  In a matter of moments, the brave and intelligent wizard was no more!

Her killers each quickly stole one of the artifacts and then, not trusting the other, fled back outside of the sphere.  Instantly, they were under attack by the enraged remainder of the party and all the competitors.  Phellis anticipated this, however, and quickly tossed the Quill to Allishira while he ducked out of the battle long enough for Matkela to heal his wounds.  The Head, who was surrounded by a furious Tal and a greedy Puppet, tried the same trick, but he didn’t count on the Strife Masters’ numbers and unity.  Herbath, clearly prepared for this, telekinetically caught the Book in mid-throw and sent it to Allishira as well.  Before anyone, even Bath, could stop him, Allishira grinned evilly and wrote his own contribution in the Book!

   At this point, Allishira and his Strife Masters seemed unstoppable.  Not even Bath could do much to defeat her rival, especially as long as he still had all of his fellow Strife Masters to support him, and as long as Allishira held the Book and the Quill, he could make the future worse and worse for those opposed to Bas.  And yet, as invincible as he seemed, all it took to stop him, for at least a while, was a word.  Specifically, it took the word of Tonaca, a man who didn’t even come from this world, yet whose faith in its people’s inherent goodness was no less weak from it.  With one word, Allishira was seemingly cast out of the chamber, leaving the artifacts again unattended.

A scramble again started, and it had a further casualty.  Herbath tried to claim them for himself this time, but the Head wasn’t going to fall for that trick again.  With almost unheard of speed, Khat fired a half dozen rounds of ammo into the tiny gnome vampire, and The Head quickly finished the job.  Like Veladoma, Herbath wasn’t technically destroyed, but he was certainly rendered irrelevant for the sake of this battle.

Before The Head could take advantage of his victory, however, he was trapped himself in a force field projected by Affliction.  Bath, now lacking any noteworthy targets, focused her attacks on the fallen emperor, giving Robin and Tiana the chance to scoop up the artifacts and toss them to Tal.  Instead of using the artifacts himself, however, Tal quickly placed a hand on his ally and teleported both of them inside Danae’s own prismatic sphere.  While Robin kept his eye on Phellis and the rest of the Strife Masters, Tonaca began to write.

An unsettling calm briefly filled the melee.  Of all the heroes, Tonaca’s interest in the world was the most unknown given that he alone didn’t truly consider it his home.  The pause was only a brief one, however, before the battle resumed.  

Of course, with the exceptions of Phellis and The Head, traveling through the prismatic barrier of an arch-mage was far too risky to attempt, even for artifacts like the Quill and Book.  Affliction, however, solved this in his usual logical way.  If there was literally nothing below the floor of this cavern, one can easily fly under the floor and enter the sphere from below!  To demonstrate this theory, he dived over the edge of the cavern, sprouted metallic wings almost instantly, and then fired a disintegration ray under the dome, creating a small but usable hole.  Affliction, Khat, and Puppet quickly moved to gain access to the book, with the rest of the party’s enemies following right behind.  

But Tonaca wouldn’t let evil get control of the artifacts so easily, nor would he die just as Danae did.  If nothing existed below this floor, then the answer was simple.  He merely dropped the Quill and Book down the hole, into the bottomless void!

His enemies were frozen with shock for just a moment, and the first to react to this sudden reversal was his own ally Tiana.  Void or no void, she dived without hesitation over the edge of the chamber, catching the Book and Quill in mid-flight.  Affliction chased after her, but the others were uncertain about what would happen if they fell too far in this strange realm and remained in the chamber.  Tiana hastily wrote her own future into the Book before it, the Quill, and she vanished out of sight.

Exactly what Tiana finally encountered on her descent would never be known, for she was never seen in this reality again.  Even though she had the ability to fly from a magic item, by the time she got the chance to use it, it was apparently too late.  The artifacts, however, were far more difficult to destroy or otherwise remove from the world.  A few moments later, the Book and the Quill re-appeared exactly as they did the first time and exactly in the same place.  The fight would continue on, but as the mad rush for the items of power began, Tal noticed something out of the corner of his eye.  The hourglass that he had previously assumed was broken nonetheless was filling up.  By the look of things, it was almost half full, suggesting that this melee would definitely have an ending after all.

Before either artifact could be grabbed, however, Affliction decided to use his plan a second time and disintegrated the floor under the artifacts!  They fell before they could be caught by anyone else, giving Affliction brief control of both artifacts.  However, he didn’t take into account one of the weaknesses of his plan: between the holes in the floor and the open edges of the chamber, there were plenty of openings to attack him.  Even with Phellis and Matkela fighting to protect their ally, a hail of magical attacks and bullets rained down on the already wounded NAHULI, followed immediately by a vengeful Bath eager to even the score from their last fight.  Before Affliction could write a word, his body was utterly disintegrated, leaving nothing but a barely visible cloud of nano-machines.  Again the Book and Quill fell, but this time they were caught by Robin, who flew underneath Affliction while the rest of his enemies attacked him from above.  He was obviously the next target of the hail of weapons, but unlike Affliction, Robin conveniently had an avenging angel between him and his enemies.  He still barely survived the constant barrage of magic and projectiles sent at him (and the cloud that was once Affliction was completely destroyed in the attack as well,) but Robin was able to get his words into the Book before he finally could suffer any longer, and his unconscious or dead body silently fell to join Tiana. 

It was obvious to all who remained what would happen next.  Just like before, as soon as Robin reached the edge of the plane, the Book and Quill would return to the chamber.  If they returned to the same location as last time, however, they would start falling immediately, thanks to Affliction’s handiwork.  As quickly as possible, everyone prepared to grab the artifacts the instant they returned and before they fell out of reach again.  It would just be a matter of timing.  Surprisingly, the one to grab both artifacts out of the air was Khat!  He laughed triumphantly over finally getting the chance to get his revenge on the “heroes” that killed him twice, and as The Head moved to protect his servant from harm, he prepared to write.

However, once again, his moment of triumph was snatched away, and this time neither he nor anyone else in the room saw it coming.  From seemingly out of nowhere, Prince Khaspar’s ghost emerged and quickly floated into Khat’s body!  Khat’s laughter was suddenly replaced by something far more twisted and cruel.

The Head, however, was not about to let Khaspar succeed.  He didn’t know the former servant of Bas as well as the party did, but he learned quite a bit about him as a result of Khaspar’s attempts to sabotage his empire.  In fact, he remembered that Khat himself described the symptoms of his master’s “sickness” in a way that greatly resembled the ghost’s own form.  He didn’t want to destroy his own servant, but he’d be damned if the monster responsible for so much of Khat’s suffering would be allowed to use his body as a tool.  With one swing of his axe, Khat was dead, and his body no longer useable by the evil ghost.

“Get him!” an angry Tal shouted, and for a brief moment, friend and foe alike worked together.  Khaspar was as much an enemy to the orc and undead empires as he was to Methosilang, and Bas’ worshippers were well aware of his own treasonous actions.  Khaspar, like the vampires before him, couldn’t be killed in a battle like this, but the destruction of his ectoplasmic body would prevent his return by several days, long after it would relevant.  

Only one set of hands focused on the Book and Quill while the sudden flurry of violence took place, and it belonged to a being thought defeated.  With a laugh, the returning Allishira claimed the artifacts for a second time!  Attacks were inevitable, but they were too late.  By the time anyone could even come close to harming him, he wrote a second passage!

“How is this possible?”  Tonaca asked.  “My holy word should have sent him out of the plane entirely.  He shouldn’t have been able to return for another 24 hours.”

Oddly enough, the Puppet answered his question.  “What makes you think we can even leave this plane?” he snarled.  “We’re not home right now; we’re in the Quill’s demi-plane.  If it’s like the Rift, I’m guessing he can’t leave this place any more than we can.  You spell likely sent him just to the edge of the void, and it was just a matter of time before he found his way back.”

Bath growled.  “Well, I know one way to get rid of him.”  So saying, she tackled her nemesis in mid-flight.  The Book and Quill went flying, preventing anyone from paying further attention to the fight.  The last thing Tal saw was Bath and Allishira grappling their way downwards into the void.  Neither could penetrate the other’s defenses effectively enough to do any real damage, but they still could compete in a test of strength.  And as long as they were grappling each other, they were unable to fly, making their destination inevitable.

Meanwhile, while most of the party and the Strife Masters were distracted by their ally’s battle, The Head seized his chance.  Quickly he grabbed both artifacts and prepared to write.  As he began his entry, he ignored the attacks from his rivals (his body was immune to most of their spells anyway,) and smiled nostalgically to himself.  The last time he had this chance, he needed the power of the Book to even understand how to write!  And since then, his wisdom and might increased beyond what even he could dream of.  Well, he won’t let his second opportunity to go waste, nor will he let the loss of everything from his empire to his last loyal servant go to waste.

No sooner did he finish his entry, however, when The Puppet finally removed his oldest rival.  His magic couldn’t directly hurt The Head’s golem-like body, but the floor he was standing on was another story.  One blast of infernal fire later, The Head was sent plummeting to the void that claimed so many already.  However, just as The Puppet moved to pick up the Book and Quill, which The Head dropped as he scrambled to find a handhold in vain, Tonaca eliminated this threat as well in the simplest way possible; he merely turned undead.  The look of amusement The Puppet had at the very possibility such a thing could affect him was replaced by one of fear and horror when the might of Tonaca’s faith actually was successful!  The Puppet was sent fleeing over the edge, and for one last time Petrach and Ka’Dry’Log were together as they met their ultimate fate at the edge of the void.

With time running out, it appeared that there were only four survivors to fight for the artifacts: Phellis, Matkela, Tonaca, and Tal.  With much of the chamber destroyed and only a few safe places remaining, the fighting intensified and the Book and Quill changed hands quickly.  The first one to reach the artifacts after the loss of The Puppet was Phellis.  Matkela quickly moved in to protect her ally as Phellis quickly inserted his own interpretation of how the future should be.

Tonaca and Tal responded with as many powerful attacks as they could muster so late in the battle, but as soon as he finished his writings and things looked dire, Phellis simply charged in front of her defender, tossed the artifacts to her, and then became her protection!  By the time Tal forced her way past him, she managed to contribute to the Book as well.

Between Tonaca and Tal, however, the surviving party members were able to wrest the artifacts away from Matkela long enough for Tal to grab them and write his own addition into the Book.  But it was a costly victory.  Tonaca absorbed the attacks of Phellis during the entire exchange, and even with his healing magic he barely had enough energy to stand.  Even worse, as soon as Tal finished his writing, he faced the full wrath of Matkela, who was briefly paralyzed thanks to Tonaca.  She, like Phellis, had long reverted to her lycanthropic form (a were-snake, in her case,) and between her natural powers and her half-machine weaponry, she had enough power to slay the unfortunate wounded sorcerer in a matter of moments!

Tonaca, suddenly left alone, quickly backed to the edge of the chamber.  As Phellis smiled and watched, Matkela descended on the priest.  She raised her many weapons and was just about to finish him when a greatsword flashed and neatly cut off her head.

Bath had returned.  She took only a moment to glance at Tonaca and confirm his safety before she flew at the wounded Phellis.  Phellis, realizing that he suddenly was at the disadvantage, looked at the draining hourglass, gave one last smirk, and leapt off the side of the chamber, deciding to risk the void instead of the angry celestial.

Bath quickly gathered the Book and Quill after seeing the hourglass had enough sand for one last entry.  As she did, Tonaca asked, “How did you survive?  I thought the void claimed you.”

Bath shook her head.  “Allishira and I fought to the edge of the plane.  I just happened to be forcing him down from above at the time.  As soon as I saw that he disappeared, I got back here as soon as I could.  I suppose it’s not the ultimate victory that I wanted, but at least I know that when we matched our wills, I was the strongest.  It will have to do for now.”

So saying, she took the Quill and Book and finished her entry just as the hourglass filled.  And, once again, things started to change….

OOC Notes: Expect the final update next weekend.  It will include the actual entries into the Book of Destiny, the epilogue of the campaign, and a bit of a teaser for my next one, which should begin early April depending on my player recruitment efforts.  But there will be more on that next week.  

As for the entries, four of the six entries by the characters were submitted by the players.  The other two, along with the NPC entries, were made by me.  I decided before I got any entries how to handle the number and order of entries.  Basically, there would be six entries plus the number of required entries.  Everyone who submitted an entry was required to get one, and I decided one of the NPCs definitely would get an entry as well.  Anyone want to guess who?  So, four submissions + the obligatory NPC + the random six entries = the 11 entries we ultimately got.  All sixteen competitors (including Prince Khaspar) had an equal chance of getting an entry, and I didn’t remove anyone from further entrees until they got two, though the only one to end up getting two was Allishira.  

The lives lost during the fight, however, were mostly for the sake of story convenience.  At the level the party was at, nothing short of a TPK would have permanently destroyed them, and the power of the Quill more than rendered any deaths irrelevant anyway.


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## LordVyreth (May 13, 2006)

*Epilogue*

What was written:

1 (Danae)-Lady Memory returns to power; her children unite for her.

2. (Allishira 1st)-Bas is reborn and gains her rightful place in pantheon

3. (Tonaca)-Sunlight dancing through leafy canopy. Rolling hills and gentle breezes.

4. (Tiana)-Whatever happens, I find a place to freely live life.

5. (Robin)-Methosilang will never be discovered or need aid of others.

6. (Allishira 2nd)-All planar beings learn to obey and fear my power.

7. (Ka’drylog)-I reclaim my empire and rule a land of shadows.

8. (Phellis Mune)-All who think like me escape to a new world.

9. (Matkela)-I only wish to be reunited with my friend Kulstra.

10. (Tal)-All races will flourish and live in balance for eternity.

11 (Bath)-Bha-Ael's reign and truth and justice shall continue


Whatever the results of the Quill were, they weren’t immediately apparent to Bath and Tonaca as they suddenly found themselves back in the same tunnel they used to reach the Quill.  They brought Tal and Danae’s bodies with them for future resurrection, and when they left the tunnel, they found Robin’s unconscious but still living body as well.  Tiana, however, was nowhere to be found in any state.

It was only after the party’s return to the Valley of Bas, where much of the Methosilang army was still establishing a camp, when things began to change.  The first and most noteworthy of these events was later known as the Return of the Gods.  The people of Methosilang, once they realized Bas wouldn’t immediately be resurrected to destroy them, held an official day of celebration to recognize their victory.  Midway through the day, however, the sky parted, and gods of all kinds descended from the heavens to proclaim their renewed promise to the world.  Lady Memory led the old gods, but she was accompanied by all the old gods.  Wee Jas was there, along with Pelor, Vecna, Boccob, and even a greatly weakened and cowed Nerull.  But the old gods were not there to seek an absolute dominance over the people, either.  The Sisters, once trapped in a parasitic state with Nerull, were renewed and apparently freed, letting them work with the old gods.  Bha-Ael was still given reign over her Sisters, but otherwise she treated the returning old gods as peers.  Even Bas was allowed a rightful place in this new order, and her sins were forgiven by the converged pantheon.

With the return of the gods, civilization itself reached a new era of peace and tolerance.  Just like Bas, the mortal enemies of peace and justice were given forgiveness and a place in the new society.  Ka’Drylog lost his old name and his control over the dragons, but he was able to rally enough orcs and other humanoids to create a new empire that lived more peacefully with its neighbors.  Without the safety of the Dark Moons or the interior of Fierypyre, they moved into the mountains, where they forged a new kingdom in the caverns and shadowy canyons of their rocky home.  Even Petrach, ever the opportunist, realized he could no longer continue his unlife in this new order.  He voluntarily sought resurrection and encouraged it among his former minions.  Perhaps one of the most touching moments of this new society occurred when Matkela was resurrected by Bas’ surviving and now harmless worshippers.  Matkela was alive again, but she was still warped physically and mentally by all the changes her former Strife Master allies made to her.  Even so, she finally was able to peacefully seek out her long-time best friend, the equally disturbed Shekuldellstra.  Though she largely recovered from the insanity of her past years, Shekuldellstra was still constantly at war with herself as her celestial and fiendish aspects fought.  If anyone in this plane could understand the chaos Shekuldellstra felt, it was Matkela now.  The two old friends reunited and immediately fell back into the routine of camaraderie that they had back before the wars and deaths that altered both of their lives.

As for the Methosilang natives, they began to settle on the surface.  With aid from the gods, they were able to quickly restore the warped and beaten natural to its original beauty.  New Methosilang, as the natives called their new capital, was a place of sunlight dancing through the canopies, of rolling hills and gentle breezes.  Even the drow, both Benefactor and Malefactor, lived in the shady realms of the surface or near the surface underground, for they found the idea of returning to the old cities of Methosilang distasteful due to all the painful memories they brought.  As a result, few minded when, years later, a massive earthquake came seemingly out of nowhere and caused the entire mountain of Methosilang to sink countless miles into the earth.  It was never discovered again, but it had served its purpose.  There was no need to find or aid the lost city.  The residents of Methosilang and the other new kingdoms were content to let the city sleep.

And thus, the endless era of Peace began.  Methosilang, the Sisters, and other relics of this era never entered the Semi-Planar Rift, and in fact the Rift itself broke down in the ensuing years, for it had no further purpose.  Soon, the peace and prosperity of the realm extended to the other planes, from the noble realm of Mount Celestia to the intrigue-filled city of Sigil.  Even evil and war-torn lands from Pyrodessy to the Abyss were affected.  In the end, all races flourished and lived in balance for eternity.  However, even this seeming Utopia didn’t please everyone.

As the changes began, Indigo, known to the natives of the plane as The Indigo Entity or simply TIE, sighed as she watched the inevitable.  “Well, I expected this would happen.  I certainly didn’t think this experiment would succeed where every other one failed.  Still, I had some hope that these heroes could turn around destiny and keep the process running.”

From outside the plane, and taking advantage of a short break from her new divine administration, Lady Memory snits, “You’re not the only one who didn’t get what she wanted from this mess.  Sure, I regained power, but I didn’t want anything like this!”

Indigo shrugged.  “You brought this on yourself, Lolth.  Reincarnating the souls of some of your most loyal worshippers was a clever concept, but you made the environment too chaotic.  Your mistake was freeing Bas.  Sure, it created a situation so bad that the Quill re-appeared, letting your “last believers” alter history in your favor.  But the situation was so bad that they barely explored their relationship to you.  They were so busy protecting their friends and kin that they never had the chance to really reflect on if it was really theirs.  And what was the point of attacking Galatron and his wife?”

Lolth/Lady Memory fumed.  “I was supposed to allow that blasphemy?  She betrayed me and started a family with my enemy!  And if it continued, she could have revealed my whole plan to the mortals, exposing the truth to the other gods that I broke their pact to avoid this plane as long as Nerull reigned.  As it was, Moradin got suspicious and almost ruined everything with his two believers.”

“Well, nearly everything was ruined anyway.  Did you really think that with the mindset your believers were reincarnated to have, they would have supported you if they knew you were Lolth or that you were the one responsible for freeing Bas?  If you didn’t turn two of your believers into Malachim and get the party on their side, they might have actually believed it when Legion told them the truth.  And as far as I can see, you got exactly what you wanted.  You became a goddess again, and you serve a major role among the pantheon.  Thanks to your believers, you’re even more powerful now than you were before this era.”

Lolth didn’t seem to appreciate it, however.  “I never wanted this!  My proud warrior people disgracefully befriending my enemies?  When they were allies with humans, dwarves and the accursed surface elves, it was enough for me to betray the gods and interfere directly with the world.  And now they’re befriending everyone!  It’s an insult to everything I taught them for millennia!  Can’t you do anything about it?”

Indigo shook her head.  “Not now.  My power comes from the flow of power that enters a dimension to sustain and change it.  That power has stopped flowing now.  This is what is known as a Climax Cascade among my fellow Creators.  The entire dimension is entering a period of irresistible stasis.  To its inhabitants, it may appear to be an eternity.  Outside of the plane, the same isn’t true.  It could exist for eons or disappear in an instant, but either way, they’re past the point of no return.  You and the rest of the dimension’s inhabitants will never know war or chaos again.  There’s nothing left for me to do but gather the refugees and start a new experiment somewhere else.”

With that, Indigo left, but she didn’t leave alone.  As Phellis demonstrated when he wrote in the Quill, there were mortals as well who didn’t enjoy this new era of eternal peace and who wanted to find a new home.  Phellis was among those that fled with Indigo, but there were many other familiar faces among the refugees.  Nature’s Wrath, the undead monstrosity created from the giant head of an animal that the party first encountered in Legion’s Temple, floated among the refugees with an army of skeletal animals.  Devlin, the half-vampire that once was a member of the party but ended his career as a minion of Bas, also accompanied the refugees.  Allishira, surprisingly, also joined the pilgrimage.  He was loyal to Bas, and he intended to spread her story and that of the other lesser Sisters to his new home, but that peaceful world held nothing for him and his ambitions.  He didn’t want to be a mere celestial servant any more, not even one as powerful as a Solar.  He wanted to the absolute voice of divinity, the ultimate representation of Logos himself.

As expected, a disproportionate number of the refugees were evil, as they had the greatest difficulty with a plane of eternal peace.  But not all of them were of this philosophy.  Wong Fe Hong, who had been in the Rift ever since the party first entered it, finally found his freedom through Phellis’ plan.  He was joined by another member of the party, albeit one he never personally met before.

Tiana looked over the collection of refugees and frowned.  This wasn’t how she expected her writings to be interpreted, but so be it.  Phellis looked at the obvious discomfort of his former enemy and chuckled.  “If you want, I’m sure you could still go back and join your friends in their bliss.  Or is eternal peace not good enough for you?”

Tiana grumbled, “I’m sure I’d get a more welcome reception than you would.  I can’t imagine even Bas would be too pleased with you abandoning her.  My reasons to leave are my own, as are yours.   And keep in mind that this truce won’t necessarily last past our arrival to wherever Bas is taking us.”

Phellis seemed unconcerned with Tiana’s barbs.  “I know far more about Bas’ plans now that I’m safely out of her grasp.  I worshipped her loyally before, but that was before I knew she intentionally infected me with lycanthropy and offered me a way to control my mind in exchange for that loyalty.  If she didn’t assist me, I would have been reduced to a chaotic and slavish beast years ago thanks to my curse.  But now I’m powerful enough to resist its mental influence even without her help.  I seem far more appreciative and grateful to get this second chance than you do, I should note.” 

After saying this, he turned to Indigo, who was guiding them to their next destination and protecting their mortal forms from the dangers of interdimensional travel, and added, “And I do appreciate your assistance in getting this second chance.”

Indigo smiled.  “What else could I do?  It was written in the book, after all.”

Phellis chuckled.  “Somehow, I don’t think that you were under any real obligation to follow the Quill’s last additions.  It can’t be more than a trinket to you.  So, where exactly are you taking us?  What should we expect?”

Indigo explained to him and the rest of the travelers.  “It shouldn’t be too strange from your perspectives.  Certainly it follows most of the same rules for magic, the physical realm, and even most of its native creatures.  But I didn’t have nearly as much influence in this world as I did in your home.  As a result, there’s nothing like the lost secrets of the Quill to worry about.  In fact, it’s a very untamed realm; one that you could accomplish much in.  It attracted my attention, though, because it does have one very noteworthy artifact from “out here,” the Multiverse at large.  Hopefully some of you can try to figure it out and take care of it for me.”

“So what is this untamed land?” Tiana asked.

“Well, some of the natives call it Mesion…” Indigo replied.

OOC Notes:  Well, that wasn’t the ending to the campaign I expected, but I think it makes quite a bit of sense given the party’s desires as specified in the Quill.  Even if I couldn’t end this in the way I originally intended, with the final fight for the Quill being done in actual combat, I have to admit that would’ve been difficult to do online, anyway.  And I’m glad I at least got the chance to conclude the story after so long.

As you might have guessed, that ending wasn’t entirely random, either.  Mesion is my next planned campaign setting, so I thought I’d give you a bit of a teaser for what to expect.  Now, I don’t know when exactly I’ll be running this next game.  My current plan is to start at the beginning of April, but first I want to recruit a new group.  I enjoyed playing the game online with my friends, but I have to admit it just doesn’t work for me as well as a classic tabletop game.  I have two almost guaranteed players, but now I’m looking for at least two and possibly more.  I am open to any suggestions.

Well, that’s all I have to write.  If this Story Hour will have any further updates, it’ll be up to you.  I’m ready to answer any questions you may have.  This could be my opinion on parts of the game, mechanics questions, or just elaborations on the storyline or two clear up any confusion you might have.  I know this has been a lurker-friendly story hour, but I am eager to hear from all of you now that we’re finished.  Either way, thanks for reading the chronicles of my game, and I hope to see some of you when I start a Story Hour for Mesion!


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## LordVyreth (May 13, 2006)

Well, that restoration was less painful than I thought.  I forgot how long it took me to get out the last two adventures Story Hours.  Unfortunately, since Mesion's pre-emptive recaps were just parts of the main Mesion information files, I don't have an easy way to just add them all back to recreate it.  It'll take a bit more time, but I should have time to get it set up later tonight.  And expect the first official update of Mesion sometime in the next day or two.  

As for this Story Hour, I'm sorry to lose the comments from the fans, but at least the Story Hour itself is saved, even if it is finished.  I'd like to hear from any new and old fans if they have any additional comments to add.


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## LordVyreth (May 14, 2006)

And the Mesion Story Hour begins anew.  Check it out here.


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## LordVyreth (Dec 6, 2006)

Just letting everyone know that I know there haven't been many updates lately.  Like I warned, last month was busy with other writing projects, but we missed a game due to Thanksgiving vacation, so I'm not much behind.  I have a game this Saturday, and expect the next update a few days from there.


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