It looks like life has put the Frei's Memories campaign into a torpor. I know we had some troubles a game or two back, but does anyone miss these adventures? If so, what should be do about it? We're in a tricky spot. We have gathered a fairly large, but not terribly reliable player base for the rotating DM Red Lands campaign, but we have been missing one of the core team for adventures with Frei. The major challenge with the Katja campaign is how personal and roleplaying focused it is (or at least how I tried to make it).
We have a few options
1. Keep waiting for perfect attendance.
2. Go on regardless attendance.
3. Declare the game dead.
There is a distinct possibility that pursuing option 1 will lead to option 3, but option 2 doesn't seem fair either. If there is not much interest in trying to revive the game then, of course, we will take option 3.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
Frei's Memories: Day 21 (Part I)
Mission to Shamath:
Victor sent us instructions for our first mission and, I've gotta say, it's a serious job. It turns out the high priestess in Shamath, the dark elf capital city, is considering a push for independence from Zerthadium. I guess the Spider Queen is tired of her followers bowing to Emperor Bosch. Victor wants us to dispose of the high priestess and secretly replace her with someone of a more favorable disposition toward the empire. To this end, he furnished us with an enchanted disguise kit and a pair or waystones, which can teleport to each other's location as long as they are no more than one mile apart.
Aside from the main objective in the service of the empire, Victor has a personal request. He asked that we plunder the Spider Queen's temple reliquary and return any interesting artifacts to him personally. If we succeed at both objectives, Victor has promised to release Kwaku's father into our custody immediately on our return. Given his special skills, knowledge of the area, and how much is a stake for him, Kwaku will be leading the operation.
We will use a slave trade deal as our cover. We will use Kwaku to get a good price.
Victor sent us instructions for our first mission and, I've gotta say, it's a serious job. It turns out the high priestess in Shamath, the dark elf capital city, is considering a push for independence from Zerthadium. I guess the Spider Queen is tired of her followers bowing to Emperor Bosch. Victor wants us to dispose of the high priestess and secretly replace her with someone of a more favorable disposition toward the empire. To this end, he furnished us with an enchanted disguise kit and a pair or waystones, which can teleport to each other's location as long as they are no more than one mile apart.
Aside from the main objective in the service of the empire, Victor has a personal request. He asked that we plunder the Spider Queen's temple reliquary and return any interesting artifacts to him personally. If we succeed at both objectives, Victor has promised to release Kwaku's father into our custody immediately on our return. Given his special skills, knowledge of the area, and how much is a stake for him, Kwaku will be leading the operation.
We will use a slave trade deal as our cover. We will use Kwaku to get a good price.
Frei's Memories: Day 20
Zerthadium: Model District
When I woke up at the end of our boat ride, Ark and her friends were already gone. I felt a bit slighted that they would just vanish after all we've been through together. However, It turns out the soldiers on the ship planned to take them as prisoners when we arrived at Zerthadium proper. I guess Ark decided against slaughtering the crew and stealing the ship and made their escape. I'm not sure how they managed it, but most of ships crew don't even remember the dragonborn were ever aboard.
A little later, we arrived in Zerthadium where we were rapidly processed and given all the proper paperwork. Judging by the date stamps on the papers, I've been gone almost three months and the others about two months. My team seemed in a daze. I guess all of their lost memories must have come flooding back, though none of them felt like talking about it in the administrative offices.
After we were legal Zerthadian agents again, a couple of Emperor Bosch's political minders lead us through the model district and to our residential suite. I must say, the model district is almost nice enough to give Eibelstat a run for its money, even though there really isn't nearly as much magic in Zerthadium. Of course, the model district is just a model district, built by Emperor's Bosch's regime from wealth they exploit from Zerthadium's protectorate states. Not only that, but most of the rest of Zerthadium is overpopulated, dirty, and undernourished. It kind of makes me wonder about Eibelstat's dark secrets.
They put us up in the presidential suites, where we had every service we could demand on the government's dime. It always irks me when they do this; the guests of the state (and its members) live lavishly on ill-gotten gains. I didn't have much time to for moral outrage, though, because one of Victor's agents whisked me away from the minders for a meeting with Victor himself.
Meeting with Victor:
There I sat, on a silver platter before my master, gritting my teeth and wringing my tail as he laughed himself silly at my predicament. Victor and his goons interrogated me and, I'm not going to lie, I told him everything. He listened, his face indifferent and enigmatic as ever. My team members broke into the interrogation. I don't know if they wanted to save me from torture or if they just didn't want me to talk. Victor had to use a lot of manpower to subdue them, especially Spike. Powerful as they are, my team is still not strong enough to take on all of Zerthadium. Victor gave my wife a severe beating and shattered one of Mal's holy artifacts in retaliation. I guess that means there's no doubt he will hurt our loved ones if we don't play by his rules.
In spite of our misbehavior, Victor promised to keep us in the presidential suites for the duration of our remaining service to him in exchange for a little of our blood. I expect he's going to try to refine essentia from our blood. I have no idea what he's going to use it for, but I don't really care all that much right now. Victor offered to put Azaezul in a safe place for us, but I'll have to find out how my team's reaction before I agree.
Zerthadium:
This huge city is situated right in the center of a wasteland. It's population is completely dependent on food imports from cultures the Zerthadian empire has cowed with its military might. The level of repression, even in the city itself is staggering. There are laws for everything, including proper names for children. Partly on account of the prisons being overpopulated and partly because the regime is just plain nasty, violating the laws results in harsh, summary punishments. Though the empire's strength has been waning the past decade, the brutal repression seems to be working, for now.
Emperor Bosch:
Our current emperor is an incompetent crook, but his cult of personality is strong. The are icons of him in every home and everywhere people sing praises to him. Unfortunately, the cult of the emperor has been around for so long that I suspect most of Zerthadium's citizens' devotion is sincere. The empire's bureaucracy seems to be holding things together.
When I woke up at the end of our boat ride, Ark and her friends were already gone. I felt a bit slighted that they would just vanish after all we've been through together. However, It turns out the soldiers on the ship planned to take them as prisoners when we arrived at Zerthadium proper. I guess Ark decided against slaughtering the crew and stealing the ship and made their escape. I'm not sure how they managed it, but most of ships crew don't even remember the dragonborn were ever aboard.
A little later, we arrived in Zerthadium where we were rapidly processed and given all the proper paperwork. Judging by the date stamps on the papers, I've been gone almost three months and the others about two months. My team seemed in a daze. I guess all of their lost memories must have come flooding back, though none of them felt like talking about it in the administrative offices.
After we were legal Zerthadian agents again, a couple of Emperor Bosch's political minders lead us through the model district and to our residential suite. I must say, the model district is almost nice enough to give Eibelstat a run for its money, even though there really isn't nearly as much magic in Zerthadium. Of course, the model district is just a model district, built by Emperor's Bosch's regime from wealth they exploit from Zerthadium's protectorate states. Not only that, but most of the rest of Zerthadium is overpopulated, dirty, and undernourished. It kind of makes me wonder about Eibelstat's dark secrets.
They put us up in the presidential suites, where we had every service we could demand on the government's dime. It always irks me when they do this; the guests of the state (and its members) live lavishly on ill-gotten gains. I didn't have much time to for moral outrage, though, because one of Victor's agents whisked me away from the minders for a meeting with Victor himself.
Meeting with Victor:
There I sat, on a silver platter before my master, gritting my teeth and wringing my tail as he laughed himself silly at my predicament. Victor and his goons interrogated me and, I'm not going to lie, I told him everything. He listened, his face indifferent and enigmatic as ever. My team members broke into the interrogation. I don't know if they wanted to save me from torture or if they just didn't want me to talk. Victor had to use a lot of manpower to subdue them, especially Spike. Powerful as they are, my team is still not strong enough to take on all of Zerthadium. Victor gave my wife a severe beating and shattered one of Mal's holy artifacts in retaliation. I guess that means there's no doubt he will hurt our loved ones if we don't play by his rules.
In spite of our misbehavior, Victor promised to keep us in the presidential suites for the duration of our remaining service to him in exchange for a little of our blood. I expect he's going to try to refine essentia from our blood. I have no idea what he's going to use it for, but I don't really care all that much right now. Victor offered to put Azaezul in a safe place for us, but I'll have to find out how my team's reaction before I agree.
Zerthadium:
This huge city is situated right in the center of a wasteland. It's population is completely dependent on food imports from cultures the Zerthadian empire has cowed with its military might. The level of repression, even in the city itself is staggering. There are laws for everything, including proper names for children. Partly on account of the prisons being overpopulated and partly because the regime is just plain nasty, violating the laws results in harsh, summary punishments. Though the empire's strength has been waning the past decade, the brutal repression seems to be working, for now.
Emperor Bosch:
Our current emperor is an incompetent crook, but his cult of personality is strong. The are icons of him in every home and everywhere people sing praises to him. Unfortunately, the cult of the emperor has been around for so long that I suspect most of Zerthadium's citizens' devotion is sincere. The empire's bureaucracy seems to be holding things together.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Frei's Memories: Day 19
Rift crossing: Outskirts
We departed into the rift from Nebel under Azaezul's advice. True to our expectations, the soulstone antenna kept the duskriders away from us long enough for us to drive them away. Azaezul led us through a mostly gravitationless field of fog and debris. Surrounded by rumbling, grinding stone there in the nebula, I knew we didn't have a chance of finding our way without the daemon in the lamp. I wasn't crazy about trusting him, but it seemed like our only option. On our way through the debris field, we encountered a hostile group of twisted human-like creatures. To our surprise and disgust, they attacked us by firing their own venom-coated bones at us! Ark and her friends helped us flank them and we easily reduced the abominations to puddles of goo.
Not long after our battle with the abominations, gravity reintroduced itself. Fortunately, Azaezul lead us to a mysteriously intact road leading deeper into the rift. The reintroduction of gravity caught me a bit by surprise. Azaezul insisted that Erebus tries to pull everything down into itself. If that's true, falling off of the lonely road is certainly a life-ending mistake. Soon we a approached an old stone temple, completely infested with abominations. My team charged into the complex with Ark providing backup. Even though we tried to neutralize the abominations a quickly as possible, an abominable priest managed to summon a hideous, decaying demon at one of El's old altars. Hypatia summoned her banishing blade and sent the fiend back to wherever it came from. After the area was fully under control, we did a bit of looking around. It turns out the abominations were worshiping some sort of un-El being. Considering how nasty un-Bahamut is, I shudder to contemplate the real existence of an un-El. Azaezul seemed to get quite a kick out of our collective fear. He said, "Those killed by Iblis are doomed to serve him."
Beyond the temple, we found a wall of angry shadows blocking our path. The umber wall stood between two black obelisks, like the one we saw in Erebus. The "Oblivion Gate", as Azaezul called it, was put there by the old gods to block off the rift in both directions. It appeared that the abominations had tried several times, unsuccessfully, to cross. Hypatia courageously wielded our shadowstone and parted the shadows. We passed through, but Hypatia and the shadowstone seemed drained. There didn't seem to be any going back, so we pressed on in darkness and silence on a strange stone road through the middle of the rift.
Rift crossing: Oblivion
As we walked through the rift, the emptiness gnawed at us. It still gives me the shivers to think that the creator of our universe fell to his death though that place. I'm frankly surprised there's anything in there at all. The origin of the road is a mystery. Azaezul was close-lipped about it. There's a black hole in history between El and Iblis's battle and the eradication of the gods and primordials. I wonder if there's anyone who knows who has managed to hold on to sanity.
The sounds of crashing rocks shook us from our contemplative pace. A storm of stone came raining down on us. A few stone were so large that they punched right through the road, which regenerated itself (which horrified and pleased me at the same time). We ran as fast as we could and quickly arrived, beaten and bruised, at a lonely guard post. Inside, we found a half-elf from Zerthadium. We as emaciated and half insane. We gave him some of our provisions and had a short chat. We ascertained that he was the sole survivor of an expedition into the rift. He didn't seem to know Victor, nor could he remember much. He seemed capable, but a bit crazy. I had some reservations about taking him with us, but we couldn't leave him. We would have spoke longer, but a flood of life-draining shadows started seeping into the room. We fought them the best we could, and even stunned them with the soulstone antenna, but it was no use. They drove us back out into the pounding cacophony.
Rift crossing: The Fortress of Decay
Still being pounded by stone rain, we ran into a set of sturdy stone gates. The gates controlled one of the entry points to a huge stone enclosure, large enough to contain a whole city. Spike teleported through the arrow slit at the top of the gate, bashed some abominations, and opened the gate. We stormed the gates and eliminated the guards before they could kill Spike. We took a moment to heal and rest in the guard houses. It seemed as though the city was deserted to we took our time. We found some journals from the abominations. They seemed to be waiting for someone to break through the Oblivion gate so they could escape the rift and spread the disease of their master, a being they reverently "Papa Nurgle." Following Azaezul's directions through the city, we came across a patrol of hideously diseased goblins who mistook us for Nurgle's apostles. We played our good fortune the best we could. Mal sacrificed one of them and the half-elf sent the rest on a pilgrimage to nowhere.
As we proceeded deeper into the city, the buildings started being coated in a noxious slime. As we neared the town center, we discovered a whole colony of Nurgle's plague bearers. They gave us a friendly greeting and offered to infect us so we could joint their number. We passed on that offer, of course, and asked for their leader. When the welcome wagon went to summon their local priest, we made a break for it and tried to get through the colony. Unfortunately for us, we entered a new world of pain when we encountered one of Nurgle's demon friends, an Angel of Decay. She summoned her master and blasted us with clouds of maggots and filth, infecting some of our number with the plague. She tried to use the disease to command my team, but I guess the infection was too fresh; it wasn't enough to save her from our wrath. With Ark and friends slaughtering abominations left and right, we pressed in on the Angel. About that time, the most disgusting creature I've ever seen fell from the ceiling. A huge mass of diseased flesh, it's abdomen exploded and entrails dragging, approached us and offered us safe passage in exchange for Azaezul.
I didn't care for Azaezul, but doubted we would be able to complete the crossing without him, so we finished the Angel and charged the hulking mass. Quaku shot it in the eyes, but that only blinded it for a moment. The thing's bloated flesh seemed impervious and it entangled Mal in it's intestines and drew him into its innards. Spike leaped into the disgusting mass and retrieved our priest. I vomited. Then, Quaku did something that completely horrified me. He charged right in to the monster's guts and buried himself in it's abdomen. There, he planted the the origami tree we lifted from Helmut's place. Explosively, a 40 ft. oak tree formed, ejected Quaku, and splattered the monster everywhere. The blow to their master reduced most of the more afflicted abominations to piles of goo. Azaezul assured us that Nurgle was not finished, but it would take a week or more for him to reform. We set to work slaughtering the remaining abominations. We cleared as much of the colony as we could, but we had to make haste---those of use suffering from the plague had to get out of there. On our way, we met Kain, one of Azaezul's old friends. He lead us directly to Nurgle's high temple in hopes we could destroy the plague lord for good. In the inner sanctum, we found the most horrifying thing I had yet seen---a hunk of El's decaying flesh. There wasn't a damn thing we could do about that. We left Kain behind as our ticket back inside and got the Hell out of the Fortress.
Rift crossing: The Maze of Ith and the Umbral Sea
We passed through a maze of roads that continuously shifted and reformed. It seemed to go on forever, but Azaezul seemed to always know the way and we escaped. He said the maze has many, many exits, but most of them are terrible, leading to more and more places just like the Fortress of Decay. As we marched on, Azaezul was quiet. I wonder if he was thankful. Though I was previously afraid that handing Azaezul over to Nurgle would have resulted in Nurgle releasing Azaezul, I'm certain now that things would have turned out very, very badly for our little demon in the lamp if he fell into Nurgle's vile clutches. Don't read me wrong! I don't think we can trust him; I think we can use his rivalry the other rift lords against him.
The silent of the rift gradually gave way to the ominous sound of a waterfall. As we continued down the road out of Oblivion, it seemed as though a thousand oceans were falling down, all around us, cascading into Erebus. The road became a long causeway over a swiftly flowing pool of dark water. We walked for hours until we came upon a channel and dock with series of stairs and aqueducts on the other side. We used another piece of magic origami to summon a boat to ferry ourselves across the umbral sea and to the stairway out of the rift.
I have never been so happy to see the sky, even as bleak a sky the one on the other side of the rift. We stood on a platform over the ocean as it fell into the abyss. The sick members of the crew shivered and vomited. Luckily for us, the platform was equipped with a bright beacon, which we immediately activated. Within a few hours, a heavily armed ship with Zerthadian markings arrived. Put the sick members of our number into quarantine, but since we were so far away from Nurgle, the priest and the dragonborn had little difficulty curing the infection. It was a long trip. I couldn't stop thinking about my family and what manner of things Victor would want from us . . .
We departed into the rift from Nebel under Azaezul's advice. True to our expectations, the soulstone antenna kept the duskriders away from us long enough for us to drive them away. Azaezul led us through a mostly gravitationless field of fog and debris. Surrounded by rumbling, grinding stone there in the nebula, I knew we didn't have a chance of finding our way without the daemon in the lamp. I wasn't crazy about trusting him, but it seemed like our only option. On our way through the debris field, we encountered a hostile group of twisted human-like creatures. To our surprise and disgust, they attacked us by firing their own venom-coated bones at us! Ark and her friends helped us flank them and we easily reduced the abominations to puddles of goo.
Not long after our battle with the abominations, gravity reintroduced itself. Fortunately, Azaezul lead us to a mysteriously intact road leading deeper into the rift. The reintroduction of gravity caught me a bit by surprise. Azaezul insisted that Erebus tries to pull everything down into itself. If that's true, falling off of the lonely road is certainly a life-ending mistake. Soon we a approached an old stone temple, completely infested with abominations. My team charged into the complex with Ark providing backup. Even though we tried to neutralize the abominations a quickly as possible, an abominable priest managed to summon a hideous, decaying demon at one of El's old altars. Hypatia summoned her banishing blade and sent the fiend back to wherever it came from. After the area was fully under control, we did a bit of looking around. It turns out the abominations were worshiping some sort of un-El being. Considering how nasty un-Bahamut is, I shudder to contemplate the real existence of an un-El. Azaezul seemed to get quite a kick out of our collective fear. He said, "Those killed by Iblis are doomed to serve him."
Beyond the temple, we found a wall of angry shadows blocking our path. The umber wall stood between two black obelisks, like the one we saw in Erebus. The "Oblivion Gate", as Azaezul called it, was put there by the old gods to block off the rift in both directions. It appeared that the abominations had tried several times, unsuccessfully, to cross. Hypatia courageously wielded our shadowstone and parted the shadows. We passed through, but Hypatia and the shadowstone seemed drained. There didn't seem to be any going back, so we pressed on in darkness and silence on a strange stone road through the middle of the rift.
Rift crossing: Oblivion
As we walked through the rift, the emptiness gnawed at us. It still gives me the shivers to think that the creator of our universe fell to his death though that place. I'm frankly surprised there's anything in there at all. The origin of the road is a mystery. Azaezul was close-lipped about it. There's a black hole in history between El and Iblis's battle and the eradication of the gods and primordials. I wonder if there's anyone who knows who has managed to hold on to sanity.
The sounds of crashing rocks shook us from our contemplative pace. A storm of stone came raining down on us. A few stone were so large that they punched right through the road, which regenerated itself (which horrified and pleased me at the same time). We ran as fast as we could and quickly arrived, beaten and bruised, at a lonely guard post. Inside, we found a half-elf from Zerthadium. We as emaciated and half insane. We gave him some of our provisions and had a short chat. We ascertained that he was the sole survivor of an expedition into the rift. He didn't seem to know Victor, nor could he remember much. He seemed capable, but a bit crazy. I had some reservations about taking him with us, but we couldn't leave him. We would have spoke longer, but a flood of life-draining shadows started seeping into the room. We fought them the best we could, and even stunned them with the soulstone antenna, but it was no use. They drove us back out into the pounding cacophony.
Rift crossing: The Fortress of Decay
Still being pounded by stone rain, we ran into a set of sturdy stone gates. The gates controlled one of the entry points to a huge stone enclosure, large enough to contain a whole city. Spike teleported through the arrow slit at the top of the gate, bashed some abominations, and opened the gate. We stormed the gates and eliminated the guards before they could kill Spike. We took a moment to heal and rest in the guard houses. It seemed as though the city was deserted to we took our time. We found some journals from the abominations. They seemed to be waiting for someone to break through the Oblivion gate so they could escape the rift and spread the disease of their master, a being they reverently "Papa Nurgle." Following Azaezul's directions through the city, we came across a patrol of hideously diseased goblins who mistook us for Nurgle's apostles. We played our good fortune the best we could. Mal sacrificed one of them and the half-elf sent the rest on a pilgrimage to nowhere.
As we proceeded deeper into the city, the buildings started being coated in a noxious slime. As we neared the town center, we discovered a whole colony of Nurgle's plague bearers. They gave us a friendly greeting and offered to infect us so we could joint their number. We passed on that offer, of course, and asked for their leader. When the welcome wagon went to summon their local priest, we made a break for it and tried to get through the colony. Unfortunately for us, we entered a new world of pain when we encountered one of Nurgle's demon friends, an Angel of Decay. She summoned her master and blasted us with clouds of maggots and filth, infecting some of our number with the plague. She tried to use the disease to command my team, but I guess the infection was too fresh; it wasn't enough to save her from our wrath. With Ark and friends slaughtering abominations left and right, we pressed in on the Angel. About that time, the most disgusting creature I've ever seen fell from the ceiling. A huge mass of diseased flesh, it's abdomen exploded and entrails dragging, approached us and offered us safe passage in exchange for Azaezul.
I didn't care for Azaezul, but doubted we would be able to complete the crossing without him, so we finished the Angel and charged the hulking mass. Quaku shot it in the eyes, but that only blinded it for a moment. The thing's bloated flesh seemed impervious and it entangled Mal in it's intestines and drew him into its innards. Spike leaped into the disgusting mass and retrieved our priest. I vomited. Then, Quaku did something that completely horrified me. He charged right in to the monster's guts and buried himself in it's abdomen. There, he planted the the origami tree we lifted from Helmut's place. Explosively, a 40 ft. oak tree formed, ejected Quaku, and splattered the monster everywhere. The blow to their master reduced most of the more afflicted abominations to piles of goo. Azaezul assured us that Nurgle was not finished, but it would take a week or more for him to reform. We set to work slaughtering the remaining abominations. We cleared as much of the colony as we could, but we had to make haste---those of use suffering from the plague had to get out of there. On our way, we met Kain, one of Azaezul's old friends. He lead us directly to Nurgle's high temple in hopes we could destroy the plague lord for good. In the inner sanctum, we found the most horrifying thing I had yet seen---a hunk of El's decaying flesh. There wasn't a damn thing we could do about that. We left Kain behind as our ticket back inside and got the Hell out of the Fortress.
Rift crossing: The Maze of Ith and the Umbral Sea
We passed through a maze of roads that continuously shifted and reformed. It seemed to go on forever, but Azaezul seemed to always know the way and we escaped. He said the maze has many, many exits, but most of them are terrible, leading to more and more places just like the Fortress of Decay. As we marched on, Azaezul was quiet. I wonder if he was thankful. Though I was previously afraid that handing Azaezul over to Nurgle would have resulted in Nurgle releasing Azaezul, I'm certain now that things would have turned out very, very badly for our little demon in the lamp if he fell into Nurgle's vile clutches. Don't read me wrong! I don't think we can trust him; I think we can use his rivalry the other rift lords against him.
The silent of the rift gradually gave way to the ominous sound of a waterfall. As we continued down the road out of Oblivion, it seemed as though a thousand oceans were falling down, all around us, cascading into Erebus. The road became a long causeway over a swiftly flowing pool of dark water. We walked for hours until we came upon a channel and dock with series of stairs and aqueducts on the other side. We used another piece of magic origami to summon a boat to ferry ourselves across the umbral sea and to the stairway out of the rift.
I have never been so happy to see the sky, even as bleak a sky the one on the other side of the rift. We stood on a platform over the ocean as it fell into the abyss. The sick members of the crew shivered and vomited. Luckily for us, the platform was equipped with a bright beacon, which we immediately activated. Within a few hours, a heavily armed ship with Zerthadian markings arrived. Put the sick members of our number into quarantine, but since we were so far away from Nurgle, the priest and the dragonborn had little difficulty curing the infection. It was a long trip. I couldn't stop thinking about my family and what manner of things Victor would want from us . . .
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Frei's Memories: Day 18
The "Genie" Lamp
The great big dragon was very happy with us for the way we handled her business partner so she decided to devote some resources to helping us with the Magic Lamp that had been tantalizing us since we found it. Katja made us a huge, multiwalled magic circle to contain whatever came out of the lamp and we summoned the genie. Well, the creature inside was certainly NOT a genie. A huge demonic creature sprang from the lamp and attacked us. I was very, very worried, but Katja's barrier prevented the demon from reaching us. After bashing the barriers a bit longer, the demon collected itself and had a nice chat with us.
The wolf-headed beast introduced itself as Azaezul, one the original El betrayers. In his own words, "They locked me in the lamp for the same crime that got the fat dragon trouble---Deicide!" If we are to believe what poured out of his mouth, it seems he personally witnessed the battle between Iblis and El that created the rift and is quite proud of it. After that charming introduction, Azaezul promised us all sorts of things, from crossing the rift to freeing Katja, in exchange for releasing him. He tried to intimidate us to get his way, but he made a huge mistake. He started trash talking and threatening Katja and she wasn't about to tolerate it. Burning a positively huge amount of essentia, Katja hexed the demon, reducing his size and power so much that she felt it safe to lower the barriers and hand him over to us.
Azaezul seemed a lot less threatening after being reduced to gecko size. We threatened to put him back in Katja's vault for all eternity and he changed his tone. He promised us that he knew a way across the rift and he would guide us through just as long as we let him travel with us. We made the deal with the demon and put him away. Katja warned us that the curse she place would only last about three weeks (so we should be very careful to find a safe place to store him then!).
Not long after dealing with the devil, Ark and friends returned from their search with some books from Eibelstat. Katja worked with us to learn a few helpful tricks to get by in the rift, including a way to use our soulstone to keep the duskriders at bay. Then we had a nice dinner, got some rest and prepared ourselves for the harrowing adventure to come. While I was fretting about what we would find on the other side of the rift, it occurred to me that Katja has been spending an unsustainable amount of resources on us. She hasn't gotten down to selling her personal possessions, yet, but that can't be far away. Azaezul promised us we would find a way to get her out of the Obsidian prison on the other side of the rift. I hope it's not a lie. Even more, I hope it's really the right thing to do; Katja is a very shrewd, very dangerous creature.
Azaezul:
The demon in the magic lamp tries to act as scary and psychotic as possible, even to the point of absurdity. Although I sometimes find myself laughing at him now that he's small, I have little doubt the sick bastard really does get his jollies from watching things suffer and die. We must not let him lull us into a sense of security. I firmly believe he will take advantage of us in any way he can.
The great big dragon was very happy with us for the way we handled her business partner so she decided to devote some resources to helping us with the Magic Lamp that had been tantalizing us since we found it. Katja made us a huge, multiwalled magic circle to contain whatever came out of the lamp and we summoned the genie. Well, the creature inside was certainly NOT a genie. A huge demonic creature sprang from the lamp and attacked us. I was very, very worried, but Katja's barrier prevented the demon from reaching us. After bashing the barriers a bit longer, the demon collected itself and had a nice chat with us.
The wolf-headed beast introduced itself as Azaezul, one the original El betrayers. In his own words, "They locked me in the lamp for the same crime that got the fat dragon trouble---Deicide!" If we are to believe what poured out of his mouth, it seems he personally witnessed the battle between Iblis and El that created the rift and is quite proud of it. After that charming introduction, Azaezul promised us all sorts of things, from crossing the rift to freeing Katja, in exchange for releasing him. He tried to intimidate us to get his way, but he made a huge mistake. He started trash talking and threatening Katja and she wasn't about to tolerate it. Burning a positively huge amount of essentia, Katja hexed the demon, reducing his size and power so much that she felt it safe to lower the barriers and hand him over to us.
Azaezul seemed a lot less threatening after being reduced to gecko size. We threatened to put him back in Katja's vault for all eternity and he changed his tone. He promised us that he knew a way across the rift and he would guide us through just as long as we let him travel with us. We made the deal with the demon and put him away. Katja warned us that the curse she place would only last about three weeks (so we should be very careful to find a safe place to store him then!).
Not long after dealing with the devil, Ark and friends returned from their search with some books from Eibelstat. Katja worked with us to learn a few helpful tricks to get by in the rift, including a way to use our soulstone to keep the duskriders at bay. Then we had a nice dinner, got some rest and prepared ourselves for the harrowing adventure to come. While I was fretting about what we would find on the other side of the rift, it occurred to me that Katja has been spending an unsustainable amount of resources on us. She hasn't gotten down to selling her personal possessions, yet, but that can't be far away. Azaezul promised us we would find a way to get her out of the Obsidian prison on the other side of the rift. I hope it's not a lie. Even more, I hope it's really the right thing to do; Katja is a very shrewd, very dangerous creature.
Azaezul:
The demon in the magic lamp tries to act as scary and psychotic as possible, even to the point of absurdity. Although I sometimes find myself laughing at him now that he's small, I have little doubt the sick bastard really does get his jollies from watching things suffer and die. We must not let him lull us into a sense of security. I firmly believe he will take advantage of us in any way he can.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Frei's Memories: Day 17 (Part II)
Herrick's Punishment:
When we told Katja about Herrick's plan to "steal her dragon" she produced the angriest laughter I have ever heard. I could tell she was vexed that her business partner would betray her, but she was also amused at his lack of understanding---and maybe even a bit excited that Herrick had given her every excuse to do something terribly nasty to him. After scarcely a moment of contemplation, the great dragon told us to pay Herrick a surprise visit and grant him an surprise audience with her. As I look back on it, it is a bit unnerving how eager we all were to carry out her wishes.
After a long stakeout, (so long that our knight, Hypatia, ate crepes until she was a bit loopy from something in the filling) we tracked Herrick to one of his mansions. After the sun went down, all sorts of party guests began arriving at the mansion. We noticed a comparatively large number of employees from certain houses of ill repute among the guests and concluded that is must have been a sexy party---certainly the most opportune time to pay Herrick his surprise visit!
Spike and Kwaku (the mystic and the sniper) infiltrated the compound and neutralized some of the more incompetent guards. We waited for Herrick to retire to his personal chambers with his personal, sexy entourage before acting on the rest of our plan. Hypatia, still in a crepe-filling-induced altered state, presented our priest and herself to the guards at the gate as members of Herrick's evening entertainment. When he asked about her armor, she replied that it was part of the act. The guard asked about her sword and she replied that she was an expert sword swallower. The guard stifled a snicker and muttered, "the master gets stranger every day." I still can't believe that got them inside the mansion.
Once Hypatia and her escort were in place, Spike and Kwaku entered the house through a window on the top floor. They hid a few roaming guards in a room with a sleeping man who turned out to be Herrick's son. We decided messing with Herrick's family was outside of our orders (and really low) and left the man alone. As soon as a few more guards brought Hypatia and the priest to Herrick's room, the sniper and mystic sprang from their hiding place and attacked. Herrick's guards didn't stand a chance against us; we cut right through them can caught Herrick, pants down, trying to escape through a secret passed. We stole away into the night with our victim. Once Herrick was bound, gagged and blindfolded we took him to Katja.
We strapped Herrick to a chair in Katja's lair and removed his blindfold. The enraged dragon shouted at him so ferociously that her every word nearly knocked the chair over. The meeting only lasted about two minutes, but it was all that was need. Afterwards we left Herrick, pale, quivering and still without pants, in a mud puddle a half away from Keening. I don't think Katja will have any trouble from him for a while.
When we told Katja about Herrick's plan to "steal her dragon" she produced the angriest laughter I have ever heard. I could tell she was vexed that her business partner would betray her, but she was also amused at his lack of understanding---and maybe even a bit excited that Herrick had given her every excuse to do something terribly nasty to him. After scarcely a moment of contemplation, the great dragon told us to pay Herrick a surprise visit and grant him an surprise audience with her. As I look back on it, it is a bit unnerving how eager we all were to carry out her wishes.
After a long stakeout, (so long that our knight, Hypatia, ate crepes until she was a bit loopy from something in the filling) we tracked Herrick to one of his mansions. After the sun went down, all sorts of party guests began arriving at the mansion. We noticed a comparatively large number of employees from certain houses of ill repute among the guests and concluded that is must have been a sexy party---certainly the most opportune time to pay Herrick his surprise visit!
Spike and Kwaku (the mystic and the sniper) infiltrated the compound and neutralized some of the more incompetent guards. We waited for Herrick to retire to his personal chambers with his personal, sexy entourage before acting on the rest of our plan. Hypatia, still in a crepe-filling-induced altered state, presented our priest and herself to the guards at the gate as members of Herrick's evening entertainment. When he asked about her armor, she replied that it was part of the act. The guard asked about her sword and she replied that she was an expert sword swallower. The guard stifled a snicker and muttered, "the master gets stranger every day." I still can't believe that got them inside the mansion.
Once Hypatia and her escort were in place, Spike and Kwaku entered the house through a window on the top floor. They hid a few roaming guards in a room with a sleeping man who turned out to be Herrick's son. We decided messing with Herrick's family was outside of our orders (and really low) and left the man alone. As soon as a few more guards brought Hypatia and the priest to Herrick's room, the sniper and mystic sprang from their hiding place and attacked. Herrick's guards didn't stand a chance against us; we cut right through them can caught Herrick, pants down, trying to escape through a secret passed. We stole away into the night with our victim. Once Herrick was bound, gagged and blindfolded we took him to Katja.
We strapped Herrick to a chair in Katja's lair and removed his blindfold. The enraged dragon shouted at him so ferociously that her every word nearly knocked the chair over. The meeting only lasted about two minutes, but it was all that was need. Afterwards we left Herrick, pale, quivering and still without pants, in a mud puddle a half away from Keening. I don't think Katja will have any trouble from him for a while.
Frei's Memories: Day 17 (Part I)
Spike's Hireling Party:
We sold most of the prisoners from Helmut's tower to the mines in Keening. However, there were a couple of the wizard's former agents we decided to keep. The four of them served as Helmut's elite, traveling spies and enforcers and weren't very interested in working for the king back in Nashik. We paid them a healthy sum of gold and they agreed to work for us (specifically, our Shadar-kai mystic). Spike, our mystic, gave his hirelings the old land deed we discovered in the ossuary and ordered them to find the place.
Elves and Their Masters' Offer:
We ran into Nico and friends around Keening. They said that their Elemental masters desperately demanded an audience with us. Nico loaned us his magic mirror and we had a conference with the Elementals. The Elemental in the mirror offered us a huge amount of money, artifacts and land if we could bring them the Ossuary Grymoir. They seemed more than a little annoyed that we'd given it to the Aons. We agreed to get the book for them and ended the conference. The nearly destitute hippie elves were super angry and stormed away. I'm convinced the deal is a setup. It would certainly break the Aon/Elemental truce and I don't buy the Elemental in the mirror's argument that it could be kept secret. I think it's reasonably safe to assume the Elves are working for some kind of splinter group, the same group that attacked the Aons' Game. I just keep seeing that pyro-dragon with that Iblis-like symbol on it. These guys are making me very nervous and there's pretty much no way in Heck I'm going to give them that book. It looks like we have another book forging adventure ahead of us.
Herrick's Mistake:
Katja told us that her nasty plan for Herrick was prepared. She decided it would be best just to tell Herrick her secret for refining the essentia ore. That way we could collect our reward and have a chance at getting Herrick to reveal more about his plan. I thought it a strange decision considering how furious she was when we first talked about it. I guess, in spite of her temper, Katja really is a shrewd operator. Anyway, we secured an audience with Herrick at once. We told him, under a zone of truth, that Katja used a dragon's breath to refine the ore. Herrick gave us our generous reward for the information. Herrick then offered us a fortune to steal the dragon. He said he'd also pay for another dragon, but not nearly as much because he wanted Katja out of the picture. I'll bet, dear reader, you can guess what we did with that information!
Katja and Kwaku:
I suspect that something has changed with whatever is going on between the dragon and the elf. Sometimes, when she glances at him, I notice something more than lust in her eyes. And, the other day, I caught him rehearsing some lines from that book we bought in Eibelstat. I asked him about it, but he's tight lipped about the whole thing. I sure hope he knows what he's doing; I can imagine about a baker's dozen ways this could end in disaster. Of course, I have to admit, I do find his predicament extremely entertaining.
We sold most of the prisoners from Helmut's tower to the mines in Keening. However, there were a couple of the wizard's former agents we decided to keep. The four of them served as Helmut's elite, traveling spies and enforcers and weren't very interested in working for the king back in Nashik. We paid them a healthy sum of gold and they agreed to work for us (specifically, our Shadar-kai mystic). Spike, our mystic, gave his hirelings the old land deed we discovered in the ossuary and ordered them to find the place.
Elves and Their Masters' Offer:
We ran into Nico and friends around Keening. They said that their Elemental masters desperately demanded an audience with us. Nico loaned us his magic mirror and we had a conference with the Elementals. The Elemental in the mirror offered us a huge amount of money, artifacts and land if we could bring them the Ossuary Grymoir. They seemed more than a little annoyed that we'd given it to the Aons. We agreed to get the book for them and ended the conference. The nearly destitute hippie elves were super angry and stormed away. I'm convinced the deal is a setup. It would certainly break the Aon/Elemental truce and I don't buy the Elemental in the mirror's argument that it could be kept secret. I think it's reasonably safe to assume the Elves are working for some kind of splinter group, the same group that attacked the Aons' Game. I just keep seeing that pyro-dragon with that Iblis-like symbol on it. These guys are making me very nervous and there's pretty much no way in Heck I'm going to give them that book. It looks like we have another book forging adventure ahead of us.
Herrick's Mistake:
Katja told us that her nasty plan for Herrick was prepared. She decided it would be best just to tell Herrick her secret for refining the essentia ore. That way we could collect our reward and have a chance at getting Herrick to reveal more about his plan. I thought it a strange decision considering how furious she was when we first talked about it. I guess, in spite of her temper, Katja really is a shrewd operator. Anyway, we secured an audience with Herrick at once. We told him, under a zone of truth, that Katja used a dragon's breath to refine the ore. Herrick gave us our generous reward for the information. Herrick then offered us a fortune to steal the dragon. He said he'd also pay for another dragon, but not nearly as much because he wanted Katja out of the picture. I'll bet, dear reader, you can guess what we did with that information!
Katja and Kwaku:
I suspect that something has changed with whatever is going on between the dragon and the elf. Sometimes, when she glances at him, I notice something more than lust in her eyes. And, the other day, I caught him rehearsing some lines from that book we bought in Eibelstat. I asked him about it, but he's tight lipped about the whole thing. I sure hope he knows what he's doing; I can imagine about a baker's dozen ways this could end in disaster. Of course, I have to admit, I do find his predicament extremely entertaining.
Frei's Memories: Day 16 (Part II)
The old portal:
We made a quick search of Helmut's tower, but he must have liquidated most everything he had in is war against us. We found a nice coffee table book and some unusual origami, but we were generally disappointed. There was an old portal in the tower, but it wasn't much use to us, either. Helmut's notes said that he was sure there was some sort of treasure on the other side, but none of his minions managed to find anything. We passed though, but the only thing on the other side was an endless sea of scorching sand. Maybe if we get our hands on some serious desert survival gear, or find some way to fly, we could return and hunt for the treasure. Since killing Helmut officially made us the next greatest threat to the king of Nashik, we took a bunch of prisoners and hightailed it back to our safehouse. Helmut's tower is not in a convenient locale and there's not much of value in it that's not behind nasty traps, inhospitable wasteland or hideous monsters; I decided it was safe to leave the place and return when the heat dies down around Nashik.
Party at Katja's:
Strange, shadowy goblin-esq creatures greeted us upon our return to the Obsidian Prison. We went for our weapons (I hid in the sniper's cloak), but we relaxed when the shadow creatures started blowing horns and throwing confetti all over us. Moments later, Katja showed up, eager to hear our report. The dragon grinned maliciously at the grisly details of Helmut's demise and afterwards invited us in to her mansion for a party. The mansion was decorated and the table was set with a mouth watering feast. We seated our selves and partied the night away with Ark and the other dragonborn. Out of pity, we have the captives a few baskets of food so they could have a picnic with Katja's new, brain-damaged shadow minions.
After a few drinks and lots of food, a surprisingly serious matter came up. Ark suggested crossing the Rift. W were feeling confident and we all had important things in jeopardy on the other side so we agreed. Ark said they would set off for Eibelstat in the morning and see if anyone there could help us. Before the night was over, it occurred to all of us that Ark and her team were on the wrong side of Zerthadium, which we might have to assist to get our precious ones our of Victor's clutches. We made a solemn vow not to interfere with each other on the other side. I don't know how that's going to work out, but I have a feeling Victor is going to make it difficult to keep our word.
Katja and the Shadowstone:
Katja learned how to create shadow minions with the shadowstone. I think they turned out quite well---except for one of them, who just sat there eating the confetti at our welcome party. The dark elf later told me that she made a sky, an ocean and a very nice beach. He said there were seagulls, too, but some of them moo-ed like heifers. Using the shadowstone must be tricky business.
We made a quick search of Helmut's tower, but he must have liquidated most everything he had in is war against us. We found a nice coffee table book and some unusual origami, but we were generally disappointed. There was an old portal in the tower, but it wasn't much use to us, either. Helmut's notes said that he was sure there was some sort of treasure on the other side, but none of his minions managed to find anything. We passed though, but the only thing on the other side was an endless sea of scorching sand. Maybe if we get our hands on some serious desert survival gear, or find some way to fly, we could return and hunt for the treasure. Since killing Helmut officially made us the next greatest threat to the king of Nashik, we took a bunch of prisoners and hightailed it back to our safehouse. Helmut's tower is not in a convenient locale and there's not much of value in it that's not behind nasty traps, inhospitable wasteland or hideous monsters; I decided it was safe to leave the place and return when the heat dies down around Nashik.
Party at Katja's:
Strange, shadowy goblin-esq creatures greeted us upon our return to the Obsidian Prison. We went for our weapons (I hid in the sniper's cloak), but we relaxed when the shadow creatures started blowing horns and throwing confetti all over us. Moments later, Katja showed up, eager to hear our report. The dragon grinned maliciously at the grisly details of Helmut's demise and afterwards invited us in to her mansion for a party. The mansion was decorated and the table was set with a mouth watering feast. We seated our selves and partied the night away with Ark and the other dragonborn. Out of pity, we have the captives a few baskets of food so they could have a picnic with Katja's new, brain-damaged shadow minions.
After a few drinks and lots of food, a surprisingly serious matter came up. Ark suggested crossing the Rift. W were feeling confident and we all had important things in jeopardy on the other side so we agreed. Ark said they would set off for Eibelstat in the morning and see if anyone there could help us. Before the night was over, it occurred to all of us that Ark and her team were on the wrong side of Zerthadium, which we might have to assist to get our precious ones our of Victor's clutches. We made a solemn vow not to interfere with each other on the other side. I don't know how that's going to work out, but I have a feeling Victor is going to make it difficult to keep our word.
Katja and the Shadowstone:
Katja learned how to create shadow minions with the shadowstone. I think they turned out quite well---except for one of them, who just sat there eating the confetti at our welcome party. The dark elf later told me that she made a sky, an ocean and a very nice beach. He said there were seagulls, too, but some of them moo-ed like heifers. Using the shadowstone must be tricky business.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Frei's Memories: Day 16
We took a side trip to Berlitz to recruit Ark and friends for our assault on the wizard's tower. The dragonborn were excited to be doing something other than guard detail. We passed through one of Katja's portals and stared our march to Helmut's house. Sneakily, and slowly, we crept through Letherna's mountains until we came to Helmut's back door. After we disarmed a nasty death trap on the secret entrance, the stealthier members of the group entered the tower and proceeded upwards.
The Tower Basement:
Helmut's tower is build on top of a very old mine, which his men reported is filled with traps and monsters that Helmut sometimes uses as guardians or test subjects. If we get a chance, we might consider exploring this place sometime.
On the way up, the sniper and the mystic discovered a barracks full of guards. Luckily, the guards were goofing off and didn't notice when my crew locked them on their level of the tower. I suppose they're complacent because not many people are smart or stupid enough to attack Helmut's stronghold. It makes me wonder which class of attackers I fall into. Anyway, we made it up near the top of the tower without alerting anyone. The tower has a nice view of Letherna, I'll give it that much credit. Those weird lumiescent jellyfish things look like fireflies in the forest from up in the tower.
The only obvious way father up was behind a door with a sign that said "WELCOME: ENTER FREELY" which had to be a trap. The dark elf decided to take another (safer?) route to the top---he crawled out the window and started climbing the roof. When he was nearly to the top, a group of huge ravens attacked. It's a good thing he was wearing a safety harness because they knocked him off of the roof. About that time, the box with the feathers vibrated violently, warning us that we didn't have much time before Helmut was going to show up. We barely managed to get my team into the top of the tower before things got messy.
The top of the tower looked as though it might have been a lighthouse at some time in it's life, but the light had been replaced with a large dais with the markings of an arcane portal on it. We didn't have any time to study the portal because a whole horde of guardians burst into the room from one of the doors. We knocked over some bookcases and put up the fight of our lives. Magical guardians and strange beasts assaulted us from the windows and the eastern door, trying to drive us out of the tower, but we didn't give an inch.
After we slaughtered most of our attackers, Helmut and a stone golem friend materialized in the room. We were tired from the long fight, but the sight of our prey gave us new energy and we threw ourselves at him. Helmut threw thunder, lightning and fire all over us, but we did not falter. Outside, I heard more guards coming to help their master, but I think that's about the time Ark and friends found them. Without reinforcements, the wizard was ours. Killing him was very satisfying; it was a long time coming.
The Tower Basement:
Helmut's tower is build on top of a very old mine, which his men reported is filled with traps and monsters that Helmut sometimes uses as guardians or test subjects. If we get a chance, we might consider exploring this place sometime.
On the way up, the sniper and the mystic discovered a barracks full of guards. Luckily, the guards were goofing off and didn't notice when my crew locked them on their level of the tower. I suppose they're complacent because not many people are smart or stupid enough to attack Helmut's stronghold. It makes me wonder which class of attackers I fall into. Anyway, we made it up near the top of the tower without alerting anyone. The tower has a nice view of Letherna, I'll give it that much credit. Those weird lumiescent jellyfish things look like fireflies in the forest from up in the tower.
The only obvious way father up was behind a door with a sign that said "WELCOME: ENTER FREELY" which had to be a trap. The dark elf decided to take another (safer?) route to the top---he crawled out the window and started climbing the roof. When he was nearly to the top, a group of huge ravens attacked. It's a good thing he was wearing a safety harness because they knocked him off of the roof. About that time, the box with the feathers vibrated violently, warning us that we didn't have much time before Helmut was going to show up. We barely managed to get my team into the top of the tower before things got messy.
The top of the tower looked as though it might have been a lighthouse at some time in it's life, but the light had been replaced with a large dais with the markings of an arcane portal on it. We didn't have any time to study the portal because a whole horde of guardians burst into the room from one of the doors. We knocked over some bookcases and put up the fight of our lives. Magical guardians and strange beasts assaulted us from the windows and the eastern door, trying to drive us out of the tower, but we didn't give an inch.
After we slaughtered most of our attackers, Helmut and a stone golem friend materialized in the room. We were tired from the long fight, but the sight of our prey gave us new energy and we threw ourselves at him. Helmut threw thunder, lightning and fire all over us, but we did not falter. Outside, I heard more guards coming to help their master, but I think that's about the time Ark and friends found them. Without reinforcements, the wizard was ours. Killing him was very satisfying; it was a long time coming.
Frei's Memories: Day 15
We poked around Nashik, looking for any information that might give us get the upper hand in our fight against Helmut. We got extremely luck and caught wind of some rumors that a large hunting part had recently headed into a large forest. We assumed they had to be Helmut's men out looking for the Nightmare Beast so we set out after them at the first opportunity.
We tracked the hunters to a large coral forest northwest of Nashik. It seemed like a good place to hide; volcanic vents covered about half of the old forest in a smoky veil. It didn't take us long to find their camp, though. There were only a few guards, some of them we recognized from our fight with Helmut's apprentice. They should have found other work while they had the chance---we fed them to a huge, predatory starfish after we dispensed with them. They didn't go quietly, though and attracted some of their friends. The shadar-kai reinforcements were half-bemused to see the starfish munching on their comrades, but their humor didn't last long. Their force was much stronger, but not enough to stand against us. After they were dead, we looted the camp and discovered a few bricks of very nice tobacco.
We engaged another group of hunters about a mile from the campsite. The shadar-kai were trying to separate the Nightmare Beast from its child. We fought the hunters in a bloody and sometimes confusing melee amongst dense corals and clouds of sulfurous smoke. The Nightmare Beast and child seized the opportunity and ran far, far away. In the end, we took only three prisoners from the shadar-kai and killed the other dozen or so.
Not long after the battle, our psychic knight made mental contact with the Nightmare Beast. The creature knew where Helmut laid his head at night and gratefully shared the location with us. Helmut wasn't a very social shadar-kai---he made his lonely home in an isolated tower in the rugged mountains far north of Nashik. In exchange for his life, one of our prisoners even divulged the location of a secret entrance to the tower. That damn wizard didn't have much longer to live.
Luck was with us and we found a coral archway to the obsidian prison in the northern part of the forest. We decided to pay Katja a visit and prepare for our assault on Helmut's tower. To help us fight the wizard, the obsidian dragon gave us a box of feathers. She said that they could reach into Astral space and trap anyone using teleportation for a few minutes. Katja was pleased with our gift of tobacco and broke out the fanciest (and largest) hookah I've ever seen.
We tracked the hunters to a large coral forest northwest of Nashik. It seemed like a good place to hide; volcanic vents covered about half of the old forest in a smoky veil. It didn't take us long to find their camp, though. There were only a few guards, some of them we recognized from our fight with Helmut's apprentice. They should have found other work while they had the chance---we fed them to a huge, predatory starfish after we dispensed with them. They didn't go quietly, though and attracted some of their friends. The shadar-kai reinforcements were half-bemused to see the starfish munching on their comrades, but their humor didn't last long. Their force was much stronger, but not enough to stand against us. After they were dead, we looted the camp and discovered a few bricks of very nice tobacco.
We engaged another group of hunters about a mile from the campsite. The shadar-kai were trying to separate the Nightmare Beast from its child. We fought the hunters in a bloody and sometimes confusing melee amongst dense corals and clouds of sulfurous smoke. The Nightmare Beast and child seized the opportunity and ran far, far away. In the end, we took only three prisoners from the shadar-kai and killed the other dozen or so.
Not long after the battle, our psychic knight made mental contact with the Nightmare Beast. The creature knew where Helmut laid his head at night and gratefully shared the location with us. Helmut wasn't a very social shadar-kai---he made his lonely home in an isolated tower in the rugged mountains far north of Nashik. In exchange for his life, one of our prisoners even divulged the location of a secret entrance to the tower. That damn wizard didn't have much longer to live.
Luck was with us and we found a coral archway to the obsidian prison in the northern part of the forest. We decided to pay Katja a visit and prepare for our assault on Helmut's tower. To help us fight the wizard, the obsidian dragon gave us a box of feathers. She said that they could reach into Astral space and trap anyone using teleportation for a few minutes. Katja was pleased with our gift of tobacco and broke out the fanciest (and largest) hookah I've ever seen.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Frei's Memories: Day 14
Serradus and the Grymoir:
We were unnerved at how much of the text in the grymoir suggests that Iblis is still out there. That idea is perfectly consistent with our experiences in Erebus and other places in the Shadowfell. Not only that, but Iblis's symbol much in common with an insignia we noticed on the elementals that invaded the Aon's game. In light of this information, we decided to get Serradus involved. Katja insisted on having our meeting in her domain, which I though was ballsy almost to be point of recklessness.
The moment Serradus arrived, Katja made it abundantly clear who was in charge. Outside of the game and in Katja's prison, Serradus seemed about as threatening as a box of kittens. He turned pale when we showed him our evidence about Iblis. He promised to take the grymoir to his superiors immediately. However, we wasn't very hopeful, since Iblis's death is canon among Aons. Apparently, Serradus is one of the youngest and lowest ranking Aons and his masters might not take this issue seriously coming from him. (Managing the Aon's game isn't a terribly prestigious role, it seems.) At any rate, we agreed to let him borrow the grymoir. After Serradus departed, Katja grumbled pessimistically about the odds of the Aons helping us.
Aons in other worlds:
According to Serradus, the further supernatural beings travel from their homeworlds, the weaker they become. The rule applies for shades, angles, Aons, etc., but NOT for mortals. I guess the downside for us mortals is that we're just not all the powerful, even in our homeworld.
The Trial:
We traveled, slaves in tow, to Nashik to meet our court date. The law in Nashik considers the relative rank of the two parties when setting penalties. I guess our mystic is about on par with Helmut, so we just had to pay some damages. We sold Helmut's thugs back to him and that covered half of the damage (I snicker every time I think about this) and the court gave us a month to come up with the other half. I was happy with the outcome, but disappointed Helmut didn't show up personally. I want to know what he looks like. I want to see fear in his eyes.
Shadar-Kai Legal system:
Given some stories from the mystic and our experience in court, it's obvious the Shadar-Kai legal system cares more about the law than about justice. There's also a 'keep-what-you-kill' mindset. That is, you can commit all sort of crimes to increase your status, but you'll only go to court if you are incompetent or unlucky enough to get caught.
Meeting the King:
The king of Nashik graciously granted us an audience. He praised us for causing Helmut so much trouble. The king promised, even though he wouldn't personally help us kill Helmut, he would look the other way if we killed the wizard. Given the Machiavellian politics in Nashik, I'm pretty sure it's a meaningless promise; he probably views us a threat, too. I'll bet we can use the Shadar-Kai's culture of keep-what-you-kill to our advantage against the Helmut and the King---Wizard first, King later.
We were unnerved at how much of the text in the grymoir suggests that Iblis is still out there. That idea is perfectly consistent with our experiences in Erebus and other places in the Shadowfell. Not only that, but Iblis's symbol much in common with an insignia we noticed on the elementals that invaded the Aon's game. In light of this information, we decided to get Serradus involved. Katja insisted on having our meeting in her domain, which I though was ballsy almost to be point of recklessness.
The moment Serradus arrived, Katja made it abundantly clear who was in charge. Outside of the game and in Katja's prison, Serradus seemed about as threatening as a box of kittens. He turned pale when we showed him our evidence about Iblis. He promised to take the grymoir to his superiors immediately. However, we wasn't very hopeful, since Iblis's death is canon among Aons. Apparently, Serradus is one of the youngest and lowest ranking Aons and his masters might not take this issue seriously coming from him. (Managing the Aon's game isn't a terribly prestigious role, it seems.) At any rate, we agreed to let him borrow the grymoir. After Serradus departed, Katja grumbled pessimistically about the odds of the Aons helping us.
Aons in other worlds:
According to Serradus, the further supernatural beings travel from their homeworlds, the weaker they become. The rule applies for shades, angles, Aons, etc., but NOT for mortals. I guess the downside for us mortals is that we're just not all the powerful, even in our homeworld.
The Trial:
We traveled, slaves in tow, to Nashik to meet our court date. The law in Nashik considers the relative rank of the two parties when setting penalties. I guess our mystic is about on par with Helmut, so we just had to pay some damages. We sold Helmut's thugs back to him and that covered half of the damage (I snicker every time I think about this) and the court gave us a month to come up with the other half. I was happy with the outcome, but disappointed Helmut didn't show up personally. I want to know what he looks like. I want to see fear in his eyes.
Shadar-Kai Legal system:
Given some stories from the mystic and our experience in court, it's obvious the Shadar-Kai legal system cares more about the law than about justice. There's also a 'keep-what-you-kill' mindset. That is, you can commit all sort of crimes to increase your status, but you'll only go to court if you are incompetent or unlucky enough to get caught.
Meeting the King:
The king of Nashik graciously granted us an audience. He praised us for causing Helmut so much trouble. The king promised, even though he wouldn't personally help us kill Helmut, he would look the other way if we killed the wizard. Given the Machiavellian politics in Nashik, I'm pretty sure it's a meaningless promise; he probably views us a threat, too. I'll bet we can use the Shadar-Kai's culture of keep-what-you-kill to our advantage against the Helmut and the King---Wizard first, King later.
Frei's Memories: Day 13
The sniper is acting strangely again today. I don't know if I should pity or envy the dark elf. The mystic has made some remarks that lead me to believe his case is the latter. My hypothesis is that shadar-kai just aren't black enough for the obsidian dragon.
Katja's Garden:
I guess while we were out waiting to ambush Helmut's men, Katja used that shadowstone fragment to make a nice flower garden, complete with a marble fountain. The fountain was, of course, a statue of Katja with artist's liberty taken quite liberally. Anyway, the curious thing about the fountain was that it had fish in the pool around it. We fed them some bread crumbs and they ate them. We asked Katja if she's had the fish brought in, but she insisted the shadowstone fragment created them. We had a look at them under the light of our paper lamp. The fish appeared as animated ink blobs swimming around in the water. How very, very strange!
Mastering the Ossuary Grymoir:
We made a nervous, brief trip back to Nebel to retrieve the Ossuary Grymoir in hopes it would have something we could use against Helmut. We managed to get it back to Katja's without incident. Katja shook her head and made a remark about our predilection for dangerous books. The priest and the mystic spent a few hours studying the grymoir. It is such a strange book . . .
The ancient, unliving book we found in the basement of the Nebel cathedral was easier to work with once we got it under control. The book must have at least four authors and two editors. It contains history, fiction, commentary and some rantings, ravings and ciphers we haven't unraveled just yet. More confusingly, there's a bunch of contradictory information. It's really more complicated than I'll record here, but I'll provide a gloss of what we know so far. The take home message though, is that a being named Iblis reportedly killed El. Iblis's symbol appears many, many times in the book. The scary part is that I recognize the symbol, or at least a variant---Victor had a whole reliquary of artifacts with that symbol.
The Ossuary Grymoir (Gloss):
Back in the day, some folks weren't happy living under El's rule and plotted an insurrection. Somehow they contacted Iblis, an being from another universe, who promised to help them murder El, the creator. Iblis and and El battled so fiercely, they tore toe world in two, creating the rift. Iblis struck El and cast him down into the rift, where presumably he died. The other deities succeeded in quashing the uprising and cast Iblis back into its dimension, though some parts of the book, report the deities eradicating Iblis. Unfortunately, before the deities could completely seal off all connections with Iblis's world, they started warring over who would become the new over-deity. That's when the Primordials attacked, starting a war that further shattered the world.
Katja's Garden:
I guess while we were out waiting to ambush Helmut's men, Katja used that shadowstone fragment to make a nice flower garden, complete with a marble fountain. The fountain was, of course, a statue of Katja with artist's liberty taken quite liberally. Anyway, the curious thing about the fountain was that it had fish in the pool around it. We fed them some bread crumbs and they ate them. We asked Katja if she's had the fish brought in, but she insisted the shadowstone fragment created them. We had a look at them under the light of our paper lamp. The fish appeared as animated ink blobs swimming around in the water. How very, very strange!
Mastering the Ossuary Grymoir:
We made a nervous, brief trip back to Nebel to retrieve the Ossuary Grymoir in hopes it would have something we could use against Helmut. We managed to get it back to Katja's without incident. Katja shook her head and made a remark about our predilection for dangerous books. The priest and the mystic spent a few hours studying the grymoir. It is such a strange book . . .
The ancient, unliving book we found in the basement of the Nebel cathedral was easier to work with once we got it under control. The book must have at least four authors and two editors. It contains history, fiction, commentary and some rantings, ravings and ciphers we haven't unraveled just yet. More confusingly, there's a bunch of contradictory information. It's really more complicated than I'll record here, but I'll provide a gloss of what we know so far. The take home message though, is that a being named Iblis reportedly killed El. Iblis's symbol appears many, many times in the book. The scary part is that I recognize the symbol, or at least a variant---Victor had a whole reliquary of artifacts with that symbol.
The Ossuary Grymoir (Gloss):
Back in the day, some folks weren't happy living under El's rule and plotted an insurrection. Somehow they contacted Iblis, an being from another universe, who promised to help them murder El, the creator. Iblis and and El battled so fiercely, they tore toe world in two, creating the rift. Iblis struck El and cast him down into the rift, where presumably he died. The other deities succeeded in quashing the uprising and cast Iblis back into its dimension, though some parts of the book, report the deities eradicating Iblis. Unfortunately, before the deities could completely seal off all connections with Iblis's world, they started warring over who would become the new over-deity. That's when the Primordials attacked, starting a war that further shattered the world.
Frei's Memories: Day 12
The Ambush:
After we picked up our imitation (trapped) tome and headed back to Katja's, we decided it was time to set our trap for the wizard of Nashik. Katja generously gave us some unguents to mask us from magical spying and helped us send Helmut a (rather nastily worded) letter to tell him where to meet us. We put the book in a bag and buried it a short distance away from the portal in the petrified forest so it would take Helmut a while to claim his prize, giving us the opportunity to strike. We hid in some brush on some nearby hills and started the long, boring stakeout.
Just as night began to fall, some Shadar-kai appeared, an important-looking mage among them! The mage commanded his minions too start digging. There were lots, and lots of minions, forming a group intimidating enough we wanted to believe the mage was indeed Helmut. None of us had ever actually seen him, so we couldn't have been sure. One of the more important looking Shadar-kai eventually ended up with the book. I started feeling the pins and needles of adrenaline. He offered the book to the mage. I held my breath. The mage shouted angrily at the soldier and he moved away. My whole team gave a crestfallen sigh. Then, the soldier opened the book and it detonated, paralyzing him and some of his buddies where they stood. Even though the mage hadn't been neutralized, we launched ourselves from our position and attacked.
It turned out to be the hardest fight, yet. I got blasted right off of the priest's shoulder by a thunderlance and scampered around the grass trying my best not to be underfoot. There's got to be away to make me human again. I'm getting fed up! After I got my ride back, the mage counter-sniped our sniper and started retreating. We sure as hell weren't going to let a single one of them get away, so we chased him. The cowardly bastard died begging and we captured most of his underlings. We interrogated some of them and finally got one to admit that the dead mage was Helmut's apprentice. They really didn't know much. I take that to mean that Helmut (wisely) keeps his underlings in the dark.
Katja looked unenthusiastic about having unwanted guests in her domain, but she perked right up when we let her borrow the the shadowstone. She took an alarming amount of pleasure crafting custom (and uncomfortable!) prison cells for them. It seems to me about every other time we visit I am reminded of just how much we don't want to piss her off.
After we picked up our imitation (trapped) tome and headed back to Katja's, we decided it was time to set our trap for the wizard of Nashik. Katja generously gave us some unguents to mask us from magical spying and helped us send Helmut a (rather nastily worded) letter to tell him where to meet us. We put the book in a bag and buried it a short distance away from the portal in the petrified forest so it would take Helmut a while to claim his prize, giving us the opportunity to strike. We hid in some brush on some nearby hills and started the long, boring stakeout.
Just as night began to fall, some Shadar-kai appeared, an important-looking mage among them! The mage commanded his minions too start digging. There were lots, and lots of minions, forming a group intimidating enough we wanted to believe the mage was indeed Helmut. None of us had ever actually seen him, so we couldn't have been sure. One of the more important looking Shadar-kai eventually ended up with the book. I started feeling the pins and needles of adrenaline. He offered the book to the mage. I held my breath. The mage shouted angrily at the soldier and he moved away. My whole team gave a crestfallen sigh. Then, the soldier opened the book and it detonated, paralyzing him and some of his buddies where they stood. Even though the mage hadn't been neutralized, we launched ourselves from our position and attacked.
It turned out to be the hardest fight, yet. I got blasted right off of the priest's shoulder by a thunderlance and scampered around the grass trying my best not to be underfoot. There's got to be away to make me human again. I'm getting fed up! After I got my ride back, the mage counter-sniped our sniper and started retreating. We sure as hell weren't going to let a single one of them get away, so we chased him. The cowardly bastard died begging and we captured most of his underlings. We interrogated some of them and finally got one to admit that the dead mage was Helmut's apprentice. They really didn't know much. I take that to mean that Helmut (wisely) keeps his underlings in the dark.
Katja looked unenthusiastic about having unwanted guests in her domain, but she perked right up when we let her borrow the the shadowstone. She took an alarming amount of pleasure crafting custom (and uncomfortable!) prison cells for them. It seems to me about every other time we visit I am reminded of just how much we don't want to piss her off.
Frei's Memories: Day 11
After recovering from our trip to Grandma's house, we headed back to Eibelstat to claim the rest of our reward. Vel paid us in full. She noticed the soulstone we were carrying and offered us citizenship in exchange for it. I thought it would be a go way to protect us against our problems in Nashik, but the rest of the group really, really wanted the soulstone. Vel seemed disappointed---she curtly told us Albrecht had no more work for us and she sent us on our way. The offer is probably still open, but I don't think they'll want anything to do with us otherwise.
I could tell immediately on arrival that Katja wanted our new shadowstone and I was frankly surprised she didn't just demand it. Instead, we overpaid the dragon to enchant some more of our equipment. I think that made her happy enough to forget about the shadowstone for a while.
Soulstones II:
We asked Katja what she could do with the soulstone. She said the easiest way is to use it to recharge other magical items, but they have to be serious equipment. That is, there's an appreciable chance the energy from the soulstone will obliterate a garden variety enchantment. It is possible to make a piece of equipment out of the stone, but Katja warned us that the item would have a mind of it's own. I wonder what Eibelstat does with them.
Weary Elves:
We ran into Nico and friends while we were poking around Berlitz. The seemed in ragged shape so we gave them a cut of the money we received from our collusion against Herrick---the elves did deserve it, after all and it did make them considerably happier. They reported falling into the Shadowfell in the woods East of Keening. I suppose that explains how those thugs from Nashik tried to ambush us around there. They elves lucked out, though. They had a close encounter with the crawling city in Neth. Nico said it seemed to be stalking them. They managed to escape through the mountain portal to Letherna with Ark's help.
Herrick's Request:
We got a letter from Herrick requesting a meeting with us. He wasn't clear about the purpose, but we went anyway. We were treated well when we arrived a Herrick's place and later had a secretive meeting with the mining tycoon. He offered us a large reward if we could tell him how Katja refines the essentia ore. He didn't seem to know much about her and (luckily) he was unaware of our relationship with the dragon. He told us we might start with Ward, since he's Katja's representative to the outside world. We accepted the job and acted enthused about it. Herrick was happy. Katja was livid, but not surprised. She told us not to worry about Herrick; she would have a nasty plan ready soon enough.
I could tell immediately on arrival that Katja wanted our new shadowstone and I was frankly surprised she didn't just demand it. Instead, we overpaid the dragon to enchant some more of our equipment. I think that made her happy enough to forget about the shadowstone for a while.
Soulstones II:
We asked Katja what she could do with the soulstone. She said the easiest way is to use it to recharge other magical items, but they have to be serious equipment. That is, there's an appreciable chance the energy from the soulstone will obliterate a garden variety enchantment. It is possible to make a piece of equipment out of the stone, but Katja warned us that the item would have a mind of it's own. I wonder what Eibelstat does with them.
Weary Elves:
We ran into Nico and friends while we were poking around Berlitz. The seemed in ragged shape so we gave them a cut of the money we received from our collusion against Herrick---the elves did deserve it, after all and it did make them considerably happier. They reported falling into the Shadowfell in the woods East of Keening. I suppose that explains how those thugs from Nashik tried to ambush us around there. They elves lucked out, though. They had a close encounter with the crawling city in Neth. Nico said it seemed to be stalking them. They managed to escape through the mountain portal to Letherna with Ark's help.
Herrick's Request:
We got a letter from Herrick requesting a meeting with us. He wasn't clear about the purpose, but we went anyway. We were treated well when we arrived a Herrick's place and later had a secretive meeting with the mining tycoon. He offered us a large reward if we could tell him how Katja refines the essentia ore. He didn't seem to know much about her and (luckily) he was unaware of our relationship with the dragon. He told us we might start with Ward, since he's Katja's representative to the outside world. We accepted the job and acted enthused about it. Herrick was happy. Katja was livid, but not surprised. She told us not to worry about Herrick; she would have a nasty plan ready soon enough.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Frei's Memories: Day 10
We debated spending the night in Eibelstat, but the cost of living was too much for these misers. We didn't want to stay with Katja, either, because it might not have been polite and we didn't have anything of value to mollify the dragon if she took exception. Of course, I'm pretty sure the dark elf could stay over any time and Katja wouldn't mind at all. Anyway, we roughed it outside of the petrified forest.
Day 10:
It was still 3 days until the book would be ready so we decided to do something other than sit around and fret about how Helmut was going to kill us in nasty ways. We met with Vel, Albrecht's second in command about possible employment. She seemed as happy to see us as a cold, steely woman can be. Conveniently, she had a job for us. We were to go to a town, Guyer, south of Albrecht's domain and help them with a Shadowfell-related problem. Vel gave us a small load of gold for up front expenses and gave us Eibelstat badges so the folks in Guyer would have no question who was ultimately responsible for helping them.
Our hike to Guyer took about six hours. On the way, we crossed a continental divide and entered a different land. A river fell from the sky and chiseled its way through green, jagged mini-mountains. We followed the river to a small settlement on the side of a large mountain overlooking a waterfall down onto a whole other continent with a lake that seemed to go on forever. The people in Guyer were quiet and suspicious of us--except for one of them--Feng Li, a boisterous, noisy person who accused us of trying to annex the town for Albrecht. We tried to explain that we just wanted to help them, but he was just plain irascible. A little later, the mayor invited us for tea in a beautiful, serene tea house and apologized for her son's behavior. She outlined the problem to us.
Children had recently been running away in the night. There had been no finding them, either, so the villagers had taken to locking their kids up at night with varying degrees of success. The mayor also asked us to make sure her son took part in solving the problem so that he would no longer be an embarrassment to her family. We only half-heartedly agreed to the second point, but zealously set of in search of the main problem.
The Monkey Temple:
We investigated their temple at the top of the mountain. It turned out they worshiped some sort of executive monkey god statue. It sat at a desk with a gold placard in the sanctum of the temple. Our priest burned some of the incense we stole from Helmut as an offering. It smelled disastrously bad. The monks made every effort not to turn away in disgust, but some of them just couldn't take it. I had to try so hard to keep from laughing at them as they strained not to offend us. The incense, however, seemed to have a profound effect on one of the younger monks.
The fellow candidly related his story of madness and suffering. He reported visions of candy and childhood games and a beautiful, motherly woman calling to him. He took us to the top of the temple and pointed off into the wilderness---revealing the direction the visions were urging him to travel. We immediately collected the cantankerous, and utterly incompetent Feng Li and set off down the old, little used mountain path. We forced Feng Li to cut the brush for us, partly because we didn't want to do it, but mostly to make it abundantly clear who was in charge. Along the way, we found evidence that children had passed that we recently.
The Hanging Graves:
After crossing some rather rickety robe bridges (particularly frightening for the knight!), we noticed some large baskets hanging on the cliffs around the path. The dark elf, either out of curiosity or greed, commenced fearlessly scaling the cliff. I swear, that guy could climb a sheet of glass without a problem. We sat uncomfortable with Feng Li while the sniper rummaged around high up in the cliffs. We suddenly became agitated and started yelling for us. With some ingenious rope work, we all managed to get up into the cliffs. The baskets contained mummies, old ones. The smaller baskets contained bells, metal rods, keys, and a strange paper lantern. We were disappointed the grave offerings weren't more valuable. They looked like some kind of tools for the dead. More excitingly, the dark elf showed us a shadowy instability in an alcove. It resembled the one back in the mountains by Berlitz. We summoned a could of darkness and passed through the shadow vortex into another world.
The Land of The Dead:
The place vaguely reminded us of Erebus---nothing but blowing grayish sand under our feet and an atmosphere of darkness that swallowed all of our lights. That made me very afraid. It made all of us afraid. The priest was especially worried that his undead dragon god was going to home in on him and eat us. Since the world did not kill us outright, I guess we figured it'd be okay to explore a while. We came upon a lonely grave. Less out of respect and more "just for the Hell of it" we burnt some incense at the grave. A rather friendly ghost emerged.
The ghost seemed happy to have company. We related a frightening, and relevant, story. In life, his first wife had been unable to produce children. Apparently, she was batty, too, and went off the deep end. He insinuated he had killed or banished her somehow and was very happy that she was not allowed in the land of the dead. I had a feeling we had just identified the root of Guyer's problem. Anyway, on his way back to sleep, the ghost hinted that we should light the paper lantern with the special candles we found in the baskets outside.
We lit the lamp and it miraculously lit up the land of the dead, revealing a multitude of graves and an eerie cavern. Naturally, we approached the cavern with all the reckless haste of adventurers. A stuffy old doorman-ghost appeared and told us to scram. We had a brawl with him and he attached us by shooting furious ghosts out of his sword. It was a tough battle, but we earned the right to enter the cave of the ancient ghosts. The spirits therein were a bit senile, but had some good stories for us. They were younger than Katja, and apparently some of them witnessed the rebellion against El. They identified our magic lamp. I'm really, really glad we didn't mess with it because it is supposed to contain a dark angel as a punishment for deicide! I am terrified of the magic lamp now. I think we should put it in Katja's vault if we get a chance.
The ghosts were amused with our visit and gave us an old rusty sword and a soulstone to help us on our journey before sending us on our way. I bet someone in Eibelstat will give us something super nice for that soulstone. We excited the land of the dead and arrived back in the mortal world. Suddenly, the mummies in the baskets turned their heads to look at the paper lantern. The mystic put the lamp out as quickly as possible and I evacuated my bladder all over the priest's shoulder. I guess the lamp acts oppositely in opposite worlds.
The Spirits of the Dead:
I'm not convinced the ghosts in the land of the dead are really the souls of these people's ancestors, but I suppose it's not impossible. The Shadowfell has a way of responding to emotionally powerful events in the material world and it is entirely possible the energy there imprinted off of the nearby burials. I suspect this is the case because I'm pretty certain the Gods or Aons are the ones that end up people's souls. Of course, there might have been a glitch in soul collecting around the time most of these people bit the dust.
Grandma's House:
We climbed back down the cliffs and met up with Feng Li, who was just screwing around like an idiot. We decided just to leave the jerk to his stupidity and pressed on down the path. As the sun sank, the trees starting changing shape and shadows seemed to be following us. The road split into a slightly more normal path and a scary path. On a hunch, we marched right down the scary path where we were soon greeted by a will-o-the-wisp. It offered us candy and promised there was a party at grandma's house with toys and games. Yep, definitely on the right track. We followed the spirit through the underbrush and to another cliff. We were greeted by happy looking people. With a brief flash of our paper lantern, the illusion melted away and they became skeletal---held together and animated by aethereal strings extending up into the sky. They were like macabre puppets, dancing, enticing us . . . That's when we knew there was no time to lose.
We passed through a shadowgate and into the dark mountains. In a clearing we found the proverbial gingerbread house. There were kids everywhere---real, live kids. They seemed happy enough. Then, a middle-aged woman appeared from the house and introduced herself as our grandma. She offered, no, demanded we come inside for milk, cookies, and games. We requested a minute to look around and she allowed us. Then, the mystic gave the place a flash from our lantern. Everything (except most of the children) was dead and the house was rotting and grandma was a gaunt monster with a multitude of arms holding and pulling a multitude of strings. She smiled at us and nonchalantly returned to the house.
We had a short tour of the house and, after discovering a reserve of purple and orange essentia in the basement (the servants called it "Grandma's medicine") we decided to join the master of the house for cookies. She flashed a few knives and made it clear that the children were her hostages and we were going to have to play her games or they wouldn't make it out alive. Deciding not to negotiate with terrorists, we immediately attacked her with everything we had, but it wasn't enough. The old hag slaughtered a few of the hostages and retreated, oozing through the floor.
After a long battle with an evil, animated piano, we broke through and cornered the dark mistress. She called a swarm of her puppets to defend herself, but my team was just too skilled for them and punched through and just about took her out. Just when she started retreating again, the knight produced the old, rusty sword from the land of the dead, spoke in tongues, and spit booze all over the blade. The sword projected a field that prevented Grandma from falling through the floor again. She didn't even have a chance to beg.
We lifted a pristine shadowstone and a bunch of gold off of the old witch and lead the kids back home. They were awfully traumatized, but otherwise most of them were just fine (some of them took it much better than I did). On our way back, we took a short detour down the other path and found a small orchard with, you guess it, a portal to Katja's place. That's going to save us a lot of travel time. There sure are a lot of those portals. They must have really wanted that dragon dead! Anyway, we met up with Feng Li and returned to Guyer.
Feng Li pompously claimed all responsibility for the rescue and indirectly blamed us for the the losses. The mystic flipped his wig and beat Feng Li to a pulp in front of everyone. I laughed my tail off, but the mayor's face turned cherry red. I was indifferent to that hag, too. If she really cared about her family's reputation, she'd have sent her son somewhere far, far away. Besides, the townsfolk were grateful and gave us lodging for the night. We told the temple priest that it might be a good idea to build shrines at the cliff sites and keep bright lights burning there at all times.
Day 10:
It was still 3 days until the book would be ready so we decided to do something other than sit around and fret about how Helmut was going to kill us in nasty ways. We met with Vel, Albrecht's second in command about possible employment. She seemed as happy to see us as a cold, steely woman can be. Conveniently, she had a job for us. We were to go to a town, Guyer, south of Albrecht's domain and help them with a Shadowfell-related problem. Vel gave us a small load of gold for up front expenses and gave us Eibelstat badges so the folks in Guyer would have no question who was ultimately responsible for helping them.
Our hike to Guyer took about six hours. On the way, we crossed a continental divide and entered a different land. A river fell from the sky and chiseled its way through green, jagged mini-mountains. We followed the river to a small settlement on the side of a large mountain overlooking a waterfall down onto a whole other continent with a lake that seemed to go on forever. The people in Guyer were quiet and suspicious of us--except for one of them--Feng Li, a boisterous, noisy person who accused us of trying to annex the town for Albrecht. We tried to explain that we just wanted to help them, but he was just plain irascible. A little later, the mayor invited us for tea in a beautiful, serene tea house and apologized for her son's behavior. She outlined the problem to us.
Children had recently been running away in the night. There had been no finding them, either, so the villagers had taken to locking their kids up at night with varying degrees of success. The mayor also asked us to make sure her son took part in solving the problem so that he would no longer be an embarrassment to her family. We only half-heartedly agreed to the second point, but zealously set of in search of the main problem.
The Monkey Temple:
We investigated their temple at the top of the mountain. It turned out they worshiped some sort of executive monkey god statue. It sat at a desk with a gold placard in the sanctum of the temple. Our priest burned some of the incense we stole from Helmut as an offering. It smelled disastrously bad. The monks made every effort not to turn away in disgust, but some of them just couldn't take it. I had to try so hard to keep from laughing at them as they strained not to offend us. The incense, however, seemed to have a profound effect on one of the younger monks.
The fellow candidly related his story of madness and suffering. He reported visions of candy and childhood games and a beautiful, motherly woman calling to him. He took us to the top of the temple and pointed off into the wilderness---revealing the direction the visions were urging him to travel. We immediately collected the cantankerous, and utterly incompetent Feng Li and set off down the old, little used mountain path. We forced Feng Li to cut the brush for us, partly because we didn't want to do it, but mostly to make it abundantly clear who was in charge. Along the way, we found evidence that children had passed that we recently.
The Hanging Graves:
After crossing some rather rickety robe bridges (particularly frightening for the knight!), we noticed some large baskets hanging on the cliffs around the path. The dark elf, either out of curiosity or greed, commenced fearlessly scaling the cliff. I swear, that guy could climb a sheet of glass without a problem. We sat uncomfortable with Feng Li while the sniper rummaged around high up in the cliffs. We suddenly became agitated and started yelling for us. With some ingenious rope work, we all managed to get up into the cliffs. The baskets contained mummies, old ones. The smaller baskets contained bells, metal rods, keys, and a strange paper lantern. We were disappointed the grave offerings weren't more valuable. They looked like some kind of tools for the dead. More excitingly, the dark elf showed us a shadowy instability in an alcove. It resembled the one back in the mountains by Berlitz. We summoned a could of darkness and passed through the shadow vortex into another world.
The Land of The Dead:
The place vaguely reminded us of Erebus---nothing but blowing grayish sand under our feet and an atmosphere of darkness that swallowed all of our lights. That made me very afraid. It made all of us afraid. The priest was especially worried that his undead dragon god was going to home in on him and eat us. Since the world did not kill us outright, I guess we figured it'd be okay to explore a while. We came upon a lonely grave. Less out of respect and more "just for the Hell of it" we burnt some incense at the grave. A rather friendly ghost emerged.
The ghost seemed happy to have company. We related a frightening, and relevant, story. In life, his first wife had been unable to produce children. Apparently, she was batty, too, and went off the deep end. He insinuated he had killed or banished her somehow and was very happy that she was not allowed in the land of the dead. I had a feeling we had just identified the root of Guyer's problem. Anyway, on his way back to sleep, the ghost hinted that we should light the paper lantern with the special candles we found in the baskets outside.
We lit the lamp and it miraculously lit up the land of the dead, revealing a multitude of graves and an eerie cavern. Naturally, we approached the cavern with all the reckless haste of adventurers. A stuffy old doorman-ghost appeared and told us to scram. We had a brawl with him and he attached us by shooting furious ghosts out of his sword. It was a tough battle, but we earned the right to enter the cave of the ancient ghosts. The spirits therein were a bit senile, but had some good stories for us. They were younger than Katja, and apparently some of them witnessed the rebellion against El. They identified our magic lamp. I'm really, really glad we didn't mess with it because it is supposed to contain a dark angel as a punishment for deicide! I am terrified of the magic lamp now. I think we should put it in Katja's vault if we get a chance.
The ghosts were amused with our visit and gave us an old rusty sword and a soulstone to help us on our journey before sending us on our way. I bet someone in Eibelstat will give us something super nice for that soulstone. We excited the land of the dead and arrived back in the mortal world. Suddenly, the mummies in the baskets turned their heads to look at the paper lantern. The mystic put the lamp out as quickly as possible and I evacuated my bladder all over the priest's shoulder. I guess the lamp acts oppositely in opposite worlds.
The Spirits of the Dead:
I'm not convinced the ghosts in the land of the dead are really the souls of these people's ancestors, but I suppose it's not impossible. The Shadowfell has a way of responding to emotionally powerful events in the material world and it is entirely possible the energy there imprinted off of the nearby burials. I suspect this is the case because I'm pretty certain the Gods or Aons are the ones that end up people's souls. Of course, there might have been a glitch in soul collecting around the time most of these people bit the dust.
Grandma's House:
We climbed back down the cliffs and met up with Feng Li, who was just screwing around like an idiot. We decided just to leave the jerk to his stupidity and pressed on down the path. As the sun sank, the trees starting changing shape and shadows seemed to be following us. The road split into a slightly more normal path and a scary path. On a hunch, we marched right down the scary path where we were soon greeted by a will-o-the-wisp. It offered us candy and promised there was a party at grandma's house with toys and games. Yep, definitely on the right track. We followed the spirit through the underbrush and to another cliff. We were greeted by happy looking people. With a brief flash of our paper lantern, the illusion melted away and they became skeletal---held together and animated by aethereal strings extending up into the sky. They were like macabre puppets, dancing, enticing us . . . That's when we knew there was no time to lose.
We passed through a shadowgate and into the dark mountains. In a clearing we found the proverbial gingerbread house. There were kids everywhere---real, live kids. They seemed happy enough. Then, a middle-aged woman appeared from the house and introduced herself as our grandma. She offered, no, demanded we come inside for milk, cookies, and games. We requested a minute to look around and she allowed us. Then, the mystic gave the place a flash from our lantern. Everything (except most of the children) was dead and the house was rotting and grandma was a gaunt monster with a multitude of arms holding and pulling a multitude of strings. She smiled at us and nonchalantly returned to the house.
We had a short tour of the house and, after discovering a reserve of purple and orange essentia in the basement (the servants called it "Grandma's medicine") we decided to join the master of the house for cookies. She flashed a few knives and made it clear that the children were her hostages and we were going to have to play her games or they wouldn't make it out alive. Deciding not to negotiate with terrorists, we immediately attacked her with everything we had, but it wasn't enough. The old hag slaughtered a few of the hostages and retreated, oozing through the floor.
After a long battle with an evil, animated piano, we broke through and cornered the dark mistress. She called a swarm of her puppets to defend herself, but my team was just too skilled for them and punched through and just about took her out. Just when she started retreating again, the knight produced the old, rusty sword from the land of the dead, spoke in tongues, and spit booze all over the blade. The sword projected a field that prevented Grandma from falling through the floor again. She didn't even have a chance to beg.
We lifted a pristine shadowstone and a bunch of gold off of the old witch and lead the kids back home. They were awfully traumatized, but otherwise most of them were just fine (some of them took it much better than I did). On our way back, we took a short detour down the other path and found a small orchard with, you guess it, a portal to Katja's place. That's going to save us a lot of travel time. There sure are a lot of those portals. They must have really wanted that dragon dead! Anyway, we met up with Feng Li and returned to Guyer.
Feng Li pompously claimed all responsibility for the rescue and indirectly blamed us for the the losses. The mystic flipped his wig and beat Feng Li to a pulp in front of everyone. I laughed my tail off, but the mayor's face turned cherry red. I was indifferent to that hag, too. If she really cared about her family's reputation, she'd have sent her son somewhere far, far away. Besides, the townsfolk were grateful and gave us lodging for the night. We told the temple priest that it might be a good idea to build shrines at the cliff sites and keep bright lights burning there at all times.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Frei's Memories: Day 9
More of Nico and his Hippie Elves:
The ritual to recover the team's memories took all night; we didn't get much rest. We decided to head back to Eibelstat to see about making a decoy book for Helmut. On our way, however, we encountered Nico and the other elves again. They were protesting the essentia trade again and asked us for help. We decided to go have a word with Herrick, the head of the mining company. Keening is a nasty, dirty place full of bums hookers and thieves. Anyway, after dealing with some undesirables, we had a meeting with Herrick, who was interested in doing business. He offered us a large sum of essentia to quiet the elves.
We went back to meet Nico, weapons drawn. We chased Nico and his friends into the woods. He had had his mage create an illusionary battle for the Keening guards and suggested cooperation to double-cross Herrick. I have a feeling that wasn't my team's original plan, but we went with it. Word of the battle quickly reached Herrick and we had our reward within an hour. We should probably do something nice for Nico and friends later on so they don't think we took advantage. Anyway, I think we'd better be careful; we don't want to jerk around too much with Katja's only source of income.
The Highwaymen, Again:
We ran into the same group of highwaymen as last time, but this time they were outside of Albrecht's territory. I imagine they were preying upon hapless people without any shred of remorse before we showed up. It was amazing how quickly we talked them into moving the location of our battle back into Albrecht's domain. The Angel showed up, we crushed the Highwaymen and we took their money. Most of the group disbanded in disgust. I doubt we'll have another battle with them anytime soon. Strangely, that one guy is still convinced they should keep fixing the road!
Evil Books and Love Poems:
We arrived back in Eibelstat and headed straight for the market. We found a very desperate and vocal poet trying to sell some volumes of original love poetry. We bought a copy from him for our dark elf as a joke. The poet seemed happy enough and, to our chagrin, started giving our sniper advice for how to impress his love interest. After razzing the black elf once more, we went to a magic shop and commissioned a hazardous replica of the Erebus tome. Our nasty little trick book should entice anyone near it to read it, and, once they do, they will be paralyzed. The artisan disturbingly reported using such a trick on his cousin and then dressing him in drag and placing him in a shop window. Well, I guess that means he'll do a good job. Too bad it will take him four days. That should give us enough time to lay a trap for our wizard friend.
The ritual to recover the team's memories took all night; we didn't get much rest. We decided to head back to Eibelstat to see about making a decoy book for Helmut. On our way, however, we encountered Nico and the other elves again. They were protesting the essentia trade again and asked us for help. We decided to go have a word with Herrick, the head of the mining company. Keening is a nasty, dirty place full of bums hookers and thieves. Anyway, after dealing with some undesirables, we had a meeting with Herrick, who was interested in doing business. He offered us a large sum of essentia to quiet the elves.
We went back to meet Nico, weapons drawn. We chased Nico and his friends into the woods. He had had his mage create an illusionary battle for the Keening guards and suggested cooperation to double-cross Herrick. I have a feeling that wasn't my team's original plan, but we went with it. Word of the battle quickly reached Herrick and we had our reward within an hour. We should probably do something nice for Nico and friends later on so they don't think we took advantage. Anyway, I think we'd better be careful; we don't want to jerk around too much with Katja's only source of income.
The Highwaymen, Again:
We ran into the same group of highwaymen as last time, but this time they were outside of Albrecht's territory. I imagine they were preying upon hapless people without any shred of remorse before we showed up. It was amazing how quickly we talked them into moving the location of our battle back into Albrecht's domain. The Angel showed up, we crushed the Highwaymen and we took their money. Most of the group disbanded in disgust. I doubt we'll have another battle with them anytime soon. Strangely, that one guy is still convinced they should keep fixing the road!
Evil Books and Love Poems:
We arrived back in Eibelstat and headed straight for the market. We found a very desperate and vocal poet trying to sell some volumes of original love poetry. We bought a copy from him for our dark elf as a joke. The poet seemed happy enough and, to our chagrin, started giving our sniper advice for how to impress his love interest. After razzing the black elf once more, we went to a magic shop and commissioned a hazardous replica of the Erebus tome. Our nasty little trick book should entice anyone near it to read it, and, once they do, they will be paralyzed. The artisan disturbingly reported using such a trick on his cousin and then dressing him in drag and placing him in a shop window. Well, I guess that means he'll do a good job. Too bad it will take him four days. That should give us enough time to lay a trap for our wizard friend.
Frei's Memories: Day 8 (Part 2)
An Elemental Minder:
The elementals send someone to watch over us. They suspect the Aon's are using us to violate some agreement. I was hoping we could contact Serradus about it, but I don't think it will go over too well. Actually, I'm surprised the elementals bothered. I would have figured that, after the incident during the last game, the Aons ans Elementals would already be in open war.
Delivering the Tome to Katja:
We decided it would be stupid to go outside of Eibelstat with the Erebus tome broadcasting, so we send the sniper into town and he bough us enough Essentia (at a ridiculous markup!) to quiet the book. We started the long march back to Keening. After crossing the continental bridge, we noticed a group of Shadar Kai hanging out in the woods. Taking no chances, we struck first and neutralized them. After a pounding, they surrendered. Since they were police from Nashik, we decided to let them go so as not to anger the king of Nashik. The last thing we need is another powerful enemy!
The Nashik police departed, but left us with a court summons. The dark elf in the group pointed out that the beat down must have counted as our bail. I rather like thinking of it that way. Anyway, the court date is only about 8 days away. Curiously, another message magically appeared in the envelope. I don't suspect the cops know about that one. Helmut offered to settle out of court if we give him the Erebus tome. Of course none of us were tempted, but it did start the cruel little gears grinding in our devious minds.
Anxious to get rid of the tome, we followed the setting sun into the portal to Katja's lair. She greeted us immediately, falling from the sky like a meteor, belching smoke and fire. The funny thing is, that's not all that angry on a dragon scale; she didn't set us on fire! Katja was annoyed that we brought the dangerous book without politely warning her, but commended us for disabling its broadcasting. I don't know, but I'll bet my tail she would have killed us all if we had revealed the location of her prison to everyone in the world. She still seemed a bit cross, but that ended when we gave her the shadowstone fragment we took from Belzerius.
Katja's Vault:
Katja made a permanent seal on the tome and asked us to place it in vault in her mansion. Interestingly, Katja's mansion has a lead-lined safe room in the basement. We put the Erebus tome there with a couple of other scary looking artifacts, including a bloodied executioner's axe that kept trying to talk to me. I don't know how she got those things. Ward said he had only been in the vault one other time. I'll have to ask Ward and Katja about the vault in more detail later.
Soul Stones:
We presented the flawed soulstone to our dragon friend. She said the stone would return my team's lost memories, but it would not survive. Apparently, soulstones are a form of concentrated essentia which, like the souls of the Returned, will recharge soon after use. That certainly explains why Eibelstat bought them all of them.
Lost Memories Found:
I spilled the beans about Victor to my team. I didn't want them to feel betrayed when Katja restored their memories. They took it well. I glad they didn't decided to do something nasty, like lock me in a room with a cat. Katja used the fractured soulstone to restore some of their memories. I don't know what they remembered, but all of them seem more eager to cross the rift. I suspect Victor is holding something of theirs hostage as well. Still, I can't help but wonder why they lost them in the first place. I guess it could be a side effect of the way Victor decided to send them into the game.
The elementals send someone to watch over us. They suspect the Aon's are using us to violate some agreement. I was hoping we could contact Serradus about it, but I don't think it will go over too well. Actually, I'm surprised the elementals bothered. I would have figured that, after the incident during the last game, the Aons ans Elementals would already be in open war.
Delivering the Tome to Katja:
We decided it would be stupid to go outside of Eibelstat with the Erebus tome broadcasting, so we send the sniper into town and he bough us enough Essentia (at a ridiculous markup!) to quiet the book. We started the long march back to Keening. After crossing the continental bridge, we noticed a group of Shadar Kai hanging out in the woods. Taking no chances, we struck first and neutralized them. After a pounding, they surrendered. Since they were police from Nashik, we decided to let them go so as not to anger the king of Nashik. The last thing we need is another powerful enemy!
The Nashik police departed, but left us with a court summons. The dark elf in the group pointed out that the beat down must have counted as our bail. I rather like thinking of it that way. Anyway, the court date is only about 8 days away. Curiously, another message magically appeared in the envelope. I don't suspect the cops know about that one. Helmut offered to settle out of court if we give him the Erebus tome. Of course none of us were tempted, but it did start the cruel little gears grinding in our devious minds.
Anxious to get rid of the tome, we followed the setting sun into the portal to Katja's lair. She greeted us immediately, falling from the sky like a meteor, belching smoke and fire. The funny thing is, that's not all that angry on a dragon scale; she didn't set us on fire! Katja was annoyed that we brought the dangerous book without politely warning her, but commended us for disabling its broadcasting. I don't know, but I'll bet my tail she would have killed us all if we had revealed the location of her prison to everyone in the world. She still seemed a bit cross, but that ended when we gave her the shadowstone fragment we took from Belzerius.
Katja's Vault:
Katja made a permanent seal on the tome and asked us to place it in vault in her mansion. Interestingly, Katja's mansion has a lead-lined safe room in the basement. We put the Erebus tome there with a couple of other scary looking artifacts, including a bloodied executioner's axe that kept trying to talk to me. I don't know how she got those things. Ward said he had only been in the vault one other time. I'll have to ask Ward and Katja about the vault in more detail later.
Soul Stones:
We presented the flawed soulstone to our dragon friend. She said the stone would return my team's lost memories, but it would not survive. Apparently, soulstones are a form of concentrated essentia which, like the souls of the Returned, will recharge soon after use. That certainly explains why Eibelstat bought them all of them.
Lost Memories Found:
I spilled the beans about Victor to my team. I didn't want them to feel betrayed when Katja restored their memories. They took it well. I glad they didn't decided to do something nasty, like lock me in a room with a cat. Katja used the fractured soulstone to restore some of their memories. I don't know what they remembered, but all of them seem more eager to cross the rift. I suspect Victor is holding something of theirs hostage as well. Still, I can't help but wonder why they lost them in the first place. I guess it could be a side effect of the way Victor decided to send them into the game.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Frei's Memories: Day 8 (Part 1)
Day 8:
The Erebus tome claimed that Bahamut was dead, but revived as an undead god by a being called "Iblis". The Obelisk seemed to be suppressing the dead god. The book contains rituals for raising an army of undead. It turns out Belzerius was planning on using it to attack Eibelstat and stealing Albrecht's power so he could destroy the monolith in Erebus. After hearing his offer we decided he had to die. When the knight put her sword through his guts, he dropped a shadowstone fragment, which immediately stopped functioning.
The town around us fell into decay and most of the villagers turned out to be undead! We managed to save most of the living ones. I guess the shadowstone can shape or mask things here in the Shadowfell. It turns out the platinum reward was really just copper. I suspect that the real Silvi died back in Erebus, but we had to fight a very nasty fake version of her! I suppose Belzerius needed a real zealot to work with Eibelstat. Well, we raided the coffers for some gold and a cracked soulstone. I'm not sure if the cracked soulstone will be enough to get any of the group's memories back, but finding it doubled my anxiety about the nature of my team's lost memories.
There was nothing we could do except escort the remaining villagers out of Acheron and to the Eibelstat outskirts. Even though Eibelstat was under an immigration freeze, they granted the Kitzingen villagers temporary shelter. I wonder if Kitzingen can be reclaimed? Someone definitely needs to do something about that portal to Erebus. I'm scared of that place and I'm scared someone else will find it and make a huge mistake! We informed the Eibelstat authorities about the whole Acheron/Kitzingen/Erebus story. They said we could either give them the book, or take it far, far away. Either way, Vel wants to meet with us when we get a chance.
We noticed the book was broadcasting it's location vehemently, probably to every wizard in all the worlds. The mystic started really freaking out about Helmut. He probably knows where we are now because of this stupid book. We decided to take the book to Katja as soon as possible; she's got enough magic to deal with it. I hope she's not miffed with us for bringing something this dangerous into her home---maybe the shadowstone fragment will help her overlook the inconvenience.
Our experience with Erebus showed me how NOT ready we are to attempt a Rift crossing. If I lose these guys, there's no telling what Victor will do! I guess we'll be staying on this side for a while. My life is complicated. It looks like there's a distinct possibility my team mates are going to get at least some of their memories back today. I think I'm just going to have to come clean with them about what's going on with Victor. They've been doing a lot of good deeds since leaving the game, even when doing the right thing wasn't the smartest thing to do. Maybe they'll be understanding of my situation.
The Erebus tome claimed that Bahamut was dead, but revived as an undead god by a being called "Iblis". The Obelisk seemed to be suppressing the dead god. The book contains rituals for raising an army of undead. It turns out Belzerius was planning on using it to attack Eibelstat and stealing Albrecht's power so he could destroy the monolith in Erebus. After hearing his offer we decided he had to die. When the knight put her sword through his guts, he dropped a shadowstone fragment, which immediately stopped functioning.
The town around us fell into decay and most of the villagers turned out to be undead! We managed to save most of the living ones. I guess the shadowstone can shape or mask things here in the Shadowfell. It turns out the platinum reward was really just copper. I suspect that the real Silvi died back in Erebus, but we had to fight a very nasty fake version of her! I suppose Belzerius needed a real zealot to work with Eibelstat. Well, we raided the coffers for some gold and a cracked soulstone. I'm not sure if the cracked soulstone will be enough to get any of the group's memories back, but finding it doubled my anxiety about the nature of my team's lost memories.
There was nothing we could do except escort the remaining villagers out of Acheron and to the Eibelstat outskirts. Even though Eibelstat was under an immigration freeze, they granted the Kitzingen villagers temporary shelter. I wonder if Kitzingen can be reclaimed? Someone definitely needs to do something about that portal to Erebus. I'm scared of that place and I'm scared someone else will find it and make a huge mistake! We informed the Eibelstat authorities about the whole Acheron/Kitzingen/Erebus story. They said we could either give them the book, or take it far, far away. Either way, Vel wants to meet with us when we get a chance.
We noticed the book was broadcasting it's location vehemently, probably to every wizard in all the worlds. The mystic started really freaking out about Helmut. He probably knows where we are now because of this stupid book. We decided to take the book to Katja as soon as possible; she's got enough magic to deal with it. I hope she's not miffed with us for bringing something this dangerous into her home---maybe the shadowstone fragment will help her overlook the inconvenience.
Our experience with Erebus showed me how NOT ready we are to attempt a Rift crossing. If I lose these guys, there's no telling what Victor will do! I guess we'll be staying on this side for a while. My life is complicated. It looks like there's a distinct possibility my team mates are going to get at least some of their memories back today. I think I'm just going to have to come clean with them about what's going on with Victor. They've been doing a lot of good deeds since leaving the game, even when doing the right thing wasn't the smartest thing to do. Maybe they'll be understanding of my situation.
Frei's Memories: Day 7
Day 7:
This day definitely turned out to be the scariest day of my life so far, but it started innocently enough. We departed for Kitzingen in the morning. Along the way, the lush landscape quickly died off and the land started becoming fragmented. It started reminding me of Nebel. I wonder if it is nearby. We noticed several landmasses floating in the clouds. Perhaps there is something interesting up there, but we can't fly, yet. We passed a petrified forest. There's a portal inside. It reminds me vaguely of the other forest portals. I bet it goes to Katja's place, but there's not way to be sure. It would be nice if it did; that would save us about 6 hours of walking between Keening and Eibelstat. We decided to conserve our resources and leave it alone for now.
Acheron and Kitzingen
We eventually discovered a lonely portal on an island held to a larger landmass by huge chains. We passed through the portal into a terrible place, Acheron, part of the Shadowfell. It is a vile, stinky swamp under a hot orange sky. The plants wanted to attack us, but we stuck to a well worn path. After following the road through the jungle for some time, the plants became green and calm and the sky blue. We arrived at a strangely lush town, Kitzingen. The most prominent feature is the granite temple of Bahamut, the platinum dragon emperor. We met a priest named Belzerius who seemed like some sort of deranged youth minister. He praised Bahamut for turning this patch of Acheron into an inhabitable place. I couldn't help but notice the parallel with Eibelstat's emperor, though I have many more reservations about this place.
Belzerius said the zombies were coming from an ancient graveyard. The town had been using it, but I guess the old corpses weren't happy to have company. I can't say I'm surprised given the nature of Acheron. Anyway, Belzerius wanted us to guard them while they relocate the friendly corpses. We did. There were a few zombies, but not much. It's strange. I would have thought Belzerius and Silvi could have handled it. They seemed surprised, though, at the lack of resistance. I was still suspicious.
Anyway, Silvi promised us a reward so we met them in the temple. Our priest was practically giddy. *BARF*. Belzerius promised the invoker a personal audience with his god. He took us downstairs to a strange portal . . . creepy. He gave us some platinum and some healing potions for our trouble and Silvi started opening the portal. Great black tendrils dragged all of us, including Silvi and Belzerius through the gate!
Erebus
We landed in a bad place. Probably Erebus, the deepest shadow known---it had to be! At first, I though we were lost in sand dunes in total darkness. Upon closer exanination we discovered the sand was, in fact, finely crushed bone! We were surrounded by huge bones (dragons?) and stifling stale air. We saved Silvi from suffocating, but it looks like Belzerius didn't make it. His life seemed to be suppressed, somehow.
We followed Silvi and the Invoker as their holy symbols led over a dune. On the other side we found a dais surrounded by huge bones. If the dragon's skull had been exposed, I'm certain the paladin could have stood easily inside it's eye socket. A huge, black, featureless monolith rested in the center of the dais. Silvi followed her holy symbol to it, but died immediately upon touching it.
Nonetheless, the invoker found the obelisk irresistible. It sucked us nearly dry, but we managed to extract a book from within the monolith. The invoker plunged his hands through the stone as if it were jelly and pulled out a book covered in platinum scales. The book contained dragon flesh and blood, but we didn't have time to otherwise examine it.
We decided to try to weaken the obelisk further, but that caused a bunch of skeletal dragons to approach from the darkness. I didn't get a good look at them, and it's hard to tell from the skeletons, but I don't think any of them bore any resemblance to Katja. The huge bones around us shifted a wiggled. We concluded that the monument was actually doing us a favor and maybe the book was not going to be a boon for us. Luckily, the shifting bone sand revealed a portal out. We used the healing potions and some of my life force (not that I have a lot!) to open the door and return to the temple basement.
We were obviously dismayed to find Belzerius and Silvi(?) on the other side. They acted as if nothing bad had happened and asked if Bahamut had blessed us. They immediately noticed the book and wanted it. We were naturally reluctant to hand it over (we went through a lot!). They agreed to let our priest study it overnight. We rested uneasily, but we had to sleep; Erebus nearly killed us.
This day definitely turned out to be the scariest day of my life so far, but it started innocently enough. We departed for Kitzingen in the morning. Along the way, the lush landscape quickly died off and the land started becoming fragmented. It started reminding me of Nebel. I wonder if it is nearby. We noticed several landmasses floating in the clouds. Perhaps there is something interesting up there, but we can't fly, yet. We passed a petrified forest. There's a portal inside. It reminds me vaguely of the other forest portals. I bet it goes to Katja's place, but there's not way to be sure. It would be nice if it did; that would save us about 6 hours of walking between Keening and Eibelstat. We decided to conserve our resources and leave it alone for now.
Acheron and Kitzingen
We eventually discovered a lonely portal on an island held to a larger landmass by huge chains. We passed through the portal into a terrible place, Acheron, part of the Shadowfell. It is a vile, stinky swamp under a hot orange sky. The plants wanted to attack us, but we stuck to a well worn path. After following the road through the jungle for some time, the plants became green and calm and the sky blue. We arrived at a strangely lush town, Kitzingen. The most prominent feature is the granite temple of Bahamut, the platinum dragon emperor. We met a priest named Belzerius who seemed like some sort of deranged youth minister. He praised Bahamut for turning this patch of Acheron into an inhabitable place. I couldn't help but notice the parallel with Eibelstat's emperor, though I have many more reservations about this place.
Belzerius said the zombies were coming from an ancient graveyard. The town had been using it, but I guess the old corpses weren't happy to have company. I can't say I'm surprised given the nature of Acheron. Anyway, Belzerius wanted us to guard them while they relocate the friendly corpses. We did. There were a few zombies, but not much. It's strange. I would have thought Belzerius and Silvi could have handled it. They seemed surprised, though, at the lack of resistance. I was still suspicious.
Anyway, Silvi promised us a reward so we met them in the temple. Our priest was practically giddy. *BARF*. Belzerius promised the invoker a personal audience with his god. He took us downstairs to a strange portal . . . creepy. He gave us some platinum and some healing potions for our trouble and Silvi started opening the portal. Great black tendrils dragged all of us, including Silvi and Belzerius through the gate!
Erebus
We landed in a bad place. Probably Erebus, the deepest shadow known---it had to be! At first, I though we were lost in sand dunes in total darkness. Upon closer exanination we discovered the sand was, in fact, finely crushed bone! We were surrounded by huge bones (dragons?) and stifling stale air. We saved Silvi from suffocating, but it looks like Belzerius didn't make it. His life seemed to be suppressed, somehow.
We followed Silvi and the Invoker as their holy symbols led over a dune. On the other side we found a dais surrounded by huge bones. If the dragon's skull had been exposed, I'm certain the paladin could have stood easily inside it's eye socket. A huge, black, featureless monolith rested in the center of the dais. Silvi followed her holy symbol to it, but died immediately upon touching it.
Nonetheless, the invoker found the obelisk irresistible. It sucked us nearly dry, but we managed to extract a book from within the monolith. The invoker plunged his hands through the stone as if it were jelly and pulled out a book covered in platinum scales. The book contained dragon flesh and blood, but we didn't have time to otherwise examine it.
We decided to try to weaken the obelisk further, but that caused a bunch of skeletal dragons to approach from the darkness. I didn't get a good look at them, and it's hard to tell from the skeletons, but I don't think any of them bore any resemblance to Katja. The huge bones around us shifted a wiggled. We concluded that the monument was actually doing us a favor and maybe the book was not going to be a boon for us. Luckily, the shifting bone sand revealed a portal out. We used the healing potions and some of my life force (not that I have a lot!) to open the door and return to the temple basement.
We were obviously dismayed to find Belzerius and Silvi(?) on the other side. They acted as if nothing bad had happened and asked if Bahamut had blessed us. They immediately noticed the book and wanted it. We were naturally reluctant to hand it over (we went through a lot!). They agreed to let our priest study it overnight. We rested uneasily, but we had to sleep; Erebus nearly killed us.
Frei's Memories: Day 6
Day 6:
Something must have happened to the dark elf; he's acting a bit strange this morning---He probably had the lucky room. On the upside, Katja seemed in an unusually good mood. She even enchanted most of our gear!
Keening
We passed through Katja's portal near Keening, where the big essentia mine operates. The town is quite a bit bigger and uglier than Berlitz. It kind of looks like a rough place, but we didn't go in so I'm not sure about that. We did visit the mining area. It was heavily defended. We observed some sick people; the unrefined essentia is poisonous! We learned a man named Herrick runs the essentia mine than dominates Keening.
On the road to Eibelstat, we encountered Nico and the elves from the game on the road to Eibelstat. They wanted to make sure we weren't taking essentia to Eibelstat. They acted worried that Eibelstat would use the essentia to attack Keening and take the mine for themselves. The elves compared Eibelstat to Zerthadium and vowed to prevent the analogous history from happening. I think they're just covering for banditry, but they seem almost crazy enough to really be freedom fighters. They still seem to be in contact with the Elementals; we'd better remember that. They mentioned Herrick was nasty and also not a fan of the dragon refining the essentia. We stayed on Elves good side by selling them what little essentia we had left. We were careful not to mention our association with Katja.
Eibelstat
We encountered some brigands. At least one of them misunderstood what "Highwayman" means---he had a shovel and a hard hat. The other bandits didn't like him, much. To their dismay, we were just inside Eibelstat territory and an angel appeared. Strangely enough, the angel seemed bored so he offered to allow us to duel for money. We beat them handily and they departed in shame. I get the impression this has happened to them before. I didn't catch their names but they should be easy to recognize. A strange thing happened during the fight. The rogue erupted a pair of insubstantial dragon wings and then so did we! They protected us from arrows for a few seconds and then vanished.
Paradoxically, the dark elf reported feeling a little less strange afterward.
Serradus contacted us through a mirror we were carrying. He asked us to collect some info on Eibelstat's emperor if we could. If the Emperor is really a god-man, like Til said, I'm not surprised that the Aons are interested.
We witnessed a ceremony in the pastoral outskirts of Eibelstat. A young man and woman were taken from their families, who were compensated. We learned that they are not allowed to leave or communicate to the outside once they have entered the Palace Sanctum. We had a long conversation with a local pastor and learned some things about the city and it's emperor.
The Emperor, Albrecht, has been in power for 26 years. Before that this place was a wasteland. Albrecht's ascension and terraforming requires LOTS of essentia. We entered the main city and immediately a tour guide found us. We were given room and board passes and allowed to explore the city. Eibelstat is a nice place. They are turning people away. I doubt they are interested in taking over Keening. Nonetheless, they seemed ready for war. Also, the administration recognized us as Returned. Vel, Albrecht's second in command said she might have jobs for us.
While eating a feast in the market, we met Silvi, a Bahamut zealot. She was preaching from a booth. Eibelstat is awfully tolerant of this kind of thing. Maybe Albrecht is just that confident. She had a long conversation with our Bahamut Priest. They had a platinum dragon party. She's from Kitzingen in the North. She asked us to help kill some undead there. Naturally, the priest insisted we go to Kitzingen after our tour finished.
We looked around Eibelstat a while longer. When the sun set, the magical streetlights turned on. What a sight. This place even has running water. No wonder they're turning people away. I wonder what Til's problem with the place is. We stayed at a fancy hotel and even received a complimentary massage! I even got a gecko scale massage, yea!
I bet there's someone here who can help us get across the Rift and back to Zerthadium. I don't think the team is strong enough to handle it, though, so I'll put off mentioning it for a while.
Something must have happened to the dark elf; he's acting a bit strange this morning---He probably had the lucky room. On the upside, Katja seemed in an unusually good mood. She even enchanted most of our gear!
Keening
We passed through Katja's portal near Keening, where the big essentia mine operates. The town is quite a bit bigger and uglier than Berlitz. It kind of looks like a rough place, but we didn't go in so I'm not sure about that. We did visit the mining area. It was heavily defended. We observed some sick people; the unrefined essentia is poisonous! We learned a man named Herrick runs the essentia mine than dominates Keening.
On the road to Eibelstat, we encountered Nico and the elves from the game on the road to Eibelstat. They wanted to make sure we weren't taking essentia to Eibelstat. They acted worried that Eibelstat would use the essentia to attack Keening and take the mine for themselves. The elves compared Eibelstat to Zerthadium and vowed to prevent the analogous history from happening. I think they're just covering for banditry, but they seem almost crazy enough to really be freedom fighters. They still seem to be in contact with the Elementals; we'd better remember that. They mentioned Herrick was nasty and also not a fan of the dragon refining the essentia. We stayed on Elves good side by selling them what little essentia we had left. We were careful not to mention our association with Katja.
Eibelstat
We encountered some brigands. At least one of them misunderstood what "Highwayman" means---he had a shovel and a hard hat. The other bandits didn't like him, much. To their dismay, we were just inside Eibelstat territory and an angel appeared. Strangely enough, the angel seemed bored so he offered to allow us to duel for money. We beat them handily and they departed in shame. I get the impression this has happened to them before. I didn't catch their names but they should be easy to recognize. A strange thing happened during the fight. The rogue erupted a pair of insubstantial dragon wings and then so did we! They protected us from arrows for a few seconds and then vanished.
Paradoxically, the dark elf reported feeling a little less strange afterward.
Serradus contacted us through a mirror we were carrying. He asked us to collect some info on Eibelstat's emperor if we could. If the Emperor is really a god-man, like Til said, I'm not surprised that the Aons are interested.
We witnessed a ceremony in the pastoral outskirts of Eibelstat. A young man and woman were taken from their families, who were compensated. We learned that they are not allowed to leave or communicate to the outside once they have entered the Palace Sanctum. We had a long conversation with a local pastor and learned some things about the city and it's emperor.
The Emperor, Albrecht, has been in power for 26 years. Before that this place was a wasteland. Albrecht's ascension and terraforming requires LOTS of essentia. We entered the main city and immediately a tour guide found us. We were given room and board passes and allowed to explore the city. Eibelstat is a nice place. They are turning people away. I doubt they are interested in taking over Keening. Nonetheless, they seemed ready for war. Also, the administration recognized us as Returned. Vel, Albrecht's second in command said she might have jobs for us.
While eating a feast in the market, we met Silvi, a Bahamut zealot. She was preaching from a booth. Eibelstat is awfully tolerant of this kind of thing. Maybe Albrecht is just that confident. She had a long conversation with our Bahamut Priest. They had a platinum dragon party. She's from Kitzingen in the North. She asked us to help kill some undead there. Naturally, the priest insisted we go to Kitzingen after our tour finished.
We looked around Eibelstat a while longer. When the sun set, the magical streetlights turned on. What a sight. This place even has running water. No wonder they're turning people away. I wonder what Til's problem with the place is. We stayed at a fancy hotel and even received a complimentary massage! I even got a gecko scale massage, yea!
I bet there's someone here who can help us get across the Rift and back to Zerthadium. I don't think the team is strong enough to handle it, though, so I'll put off mentioning it for a while.
Frei's Memories: Day 5
Day 5:
The people of Berlitz were still very grateful. The innkeeper promised us free room and board for a month, the tailor gave us a good discount on nice clothes for us and even the dragonborn, and a the winery sold us a cheap case of nice wine. Several ladies even baked us some tasty looking pies! Later that day, we brought the wine, pies and dragonborn with us to Katja's party.
Katja's Party
We were the only guests, but it was still a good time. Katja, startling all of us, appeared as a very fat drow woman. We noticed she was wearing the comb the sniper gave her. He complemented her on her appearance. I was beginning to suspect something awful was about to happen, but I kept it to myself.
Katja offered to restore the group's memories if they brought her a soulstone (condensed, crystallized, essentia). She once had a few from the mine, but sold them to Eibelstat a while ago. That's when I started getting nervous. I didn't think we'd be able to find a soulstone, so I didn't say anything. I wish I knew what was in their memories. I hope there's not something Victor really doesn't want them to know. Katja helped me send a message to Zerthadium. I worded it carefully so I wouldn't attract too much attention from the group. "Dear Family: I just wanted to tell you that I'm alive and well and will be coming home as soon as I can. I'm bringing my new friends with me---they're great!. --Frei"
Katja was very interested to hear about our adventure in Letherna. She wasn't happy to hear someone else was making essentia (she doesn't like competition). She pledged to help us fight the wizard. She assured us that we are privileged in our ability to cross the breach, so the wizard should not be able to send an army after us or Berlitz in revenge since we destroyed the portal. Ark promised to keep an eye on Berlitz and keep the cave well lit at all times. Katja suggested trying to find a spy to keep an eye on Nashik and the wizard. Anyway, we should be safe from Helmut in Eibelstat.
We learned quite a lot about the dragonborn at dinner. They were insulted when our priest again assumed they worshiped Bahamut (I guess he constructed that fantasy since they looked dragon-like). What a gaffe! The priest also made the mistake of promising to find them some fine females. Ark and the rest of her team ARE females. That was a laugh. Most importantly, they are some kind of warrior nuns of a nontheistic religion. Ark said that they died fighting to keep Zerthadium's armies from tearing down their temple. I'm amazed they aren't more hostile to us!
We stayed the night at Katja's mansion, which she had fixed up just for us. We each had our own cushy room for the night. I ended up in an unlucky room, though, because I think the room right above me was the lucky one. Don't get me wrong, this mansion is nice, but it sounds like the floor must be paper-thin. I guess Katja's been alone too long.
The people of Berlitz were still very grateful. The innkeeper promised us free room and board for a month, the tailor gave us a good discount on nice clothes for us and even the dragonborn, and a the winery sold us a cheap case of nice wine. Several ladies even baked us some tasty looking pies! Later that day, we brought the wine, pies and dragonborn with us to Katja's party.
Katja's Party
We were the only guests, but it was still a good time. Katja, startling all of us, appeared as a very fat drow woman. We noticed she was wearing the comb the sniper gave her. He complemented her on her appearance. I was beginning to suspect something awful was about to happen, but I kept it to myself.
Katja offered to restore the group's memories if they brought her a soulstone (condensed, crystallized, essentia). She once had a few from the mine, but sold them to Eibelstat a while ago. That's when I started getting nervous. I didn't think we'd be able to find a soulstone, so I didn't say anything. I wish I knew what was in their memories. I hope there's not something Victor really doesn't want them to know. Katja helped me send a message to Zerthadium. I worded it carefully so I wouldn't attract too much attention from the group. "Dear Family: I just wanted to tell you that I'm alive and well and will be coming home as soon as I can. I'm bringing my new friends with me---they're great!. --Frei"
Katja was very interested to hear about our adventure in Letherna. She wasn't happy to hear someone else was making essentia (she doesn't like competition). She pledged to help us fight the wizard. She assured us that we are privileged in our ability to cross the breach, so the wizard should not be able to send an army after us or Berlitz in revenge since we destroyed the portal. Ark promised to keep an eye on Berlitz and keep the cave well lit at all times. Katja suggested trying to find a spy to keep an eye on Nashik and the wizard. Anyway, we should be safe from Helmut in Eibelstat.
We learned quite a lot about the dragonborn at dinner. They were insulted when our priest again assumed they worshiped Bahamut (I guess he constructed that fantasy since they looked dragon-like). What a gaffe! The priest also made the mistake of promising to find them some fine females. Ark and the rest of her team ARE females. That was a laugh. Most importantly, they are some kind of warrior nuns of a nontheistic religion. Ark said that they died fighting to keep Zerthadium's armies from tearing down their temple. I'm amazed they aren't more hostile to us!
We stayed the night at Katja's mansion, which she had fixed up just for us. We each had our own cushy room for the night. I ended up in an unlucky room, though, because I think the room right above me was the lucky one. Don't get me wrong, this mansion is nice, but it sounds like the floor must be paper-thin. I guess Katja's been alone too long.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Frei's Memories: Day 4
Day 4:
The team had a tasty breakfast. I had to have the priest cut some sausage into tiny pieces so I could eat. Upon leaving the inn, a child paid us a few silver coins to kill the Barghest that killed his grandfather (the wood cutter we found upon arriving in Silesia). The mystic vowed to kill the beast. On our way out of town, Til told us something surprising. He said a team of dragonborn that had been driven off by the villagers two days ago left us a note. Sure enough, it was a letter from Ark, the dragonborn from the Game. It said, quite simply, "HELP US. WE ARE STARVING!"
Feeding Ark and friends.
We brought some food to Ark and company. We found them hiding out in the mountain caves above Berlitz. They were thankful for the food and told us about some strange noises and lights in one of the caves further up the mountains. We decided it would be best to kill the Barghest as soon as possible. Ark and friends agreed to help us hunt the Barghest. The priest made a special prayer to the platinum dragon, just for them. Ark didn't seem thrilled.
Slaying the Barghest.
We accidentally alerted the Barghest's advanced scouts. Like a good predator it avoided us because we (the 8 of us) were too much to handle. We decided to lure it in with some fresh deer. We sighted the Barghest and killed its entourage, but it escaped. After some time we managed to track it to some unnatural caves. We figured we only had one chance, so we made sure to trap or block the other entrances. We had the dragonborn camp outside the main entrance and we stealthily entered the caves from another entrance. The dragonborn intercepted additional reinforcements that would have made the battle a lot harder. The beast did not escape us that time.
The cave was an abandoned and very dangerous mine. We collected a few treasures, including a very nice jeweled metal comb. I was surprised and very happy that the beast seemed to be an isolated incident; it did not appear to be part of a larger problem. We brought the heads and pelts of the beast back to Berlitz and made sure to emphasize the Ark's role in the mission. The townspeople accepted the dragonborn.
The mountain portal
We investigated the cave Ark mentioned. It seemed like an evil gateway to an evil place. We decided to learn more about dealing with portals before attempting anything that might get us killed. We paid a visit to Katja and Ward. Ward didn't know much about magic portals, but he did extend an invitation to a party at the mansion. We found Katja drawing some kind of powerful transmutation circle. She gladly paused and consulted with us. We offered the jeweled comb as a gift and she seemed to like it. What a dragon would do with a comb, I have not idea. The ritual to lock the portal turned out to be beyond our ability, so we decided to physically break the portal while protected by a magic circle against evil. We executed the plan and disrupted the portal. However, we still sensed something odd about the cave. We found an unstable breach to another world in the back of the cave. It only functioned in the absence of light.
Neth, Letherna, and Nashik
We emerged in strange, black mountains in a dark, dark world. It bore a vague resemblance to Silesia. On the Berlitz side, the world appeared somewhat unstable . . . we later learned the region was called "Neth" by the people of the shadow world. We were greeted by floating jellyfish. They were attracted to any light and flashed like fireflies. We harmed one of them and it painted us with light and triggered a swarming response. That was scary. We decided to leave them the hell alone!
Upon investigating Neth, we discovered the (un)living city of Neth. I guess, it moves around and eats people. It must have accumulated great treasures inside, but we decided it was more than we could handle.
A Shadar Kai arrived and lead us to his hometown (Nashik) on the other side of the mountains, a region known as "Letherna". He spoke a similar language to one our Shadar Kai party member knows, but it is obvious that they are from different lands and do not know each other. Normal life seems to be sustained by some nasty black gunk seeping out of cracks in the earth. There are feathery worms and crabs and even giant spider crabs. The people Nashick cultivate them . . .
Slavery is normal here. The people regarded our Shadar Kai as a nobleman, since we seemed very high quality slaves! The Shadar Kai of Nashik have quite a few deep gnomes slaves from raids of surrounding towns. The wildly successful raids are, reportedly, the only reason the king stays in power. We heard rumors of a powerful wizard and we investigated a small magic market, but we did not pursue it further.
The nightmare beast
Instead, the Knight and Mystic triangulated the direction of the nightmare beast. We immediately left Nashik and ventured to a forest resembling a coral reef. Signs were posted "Keep out: Trespassers will be killed." We had to stop the nightmare best, so we decided to brave it. We met and fought guards at a small building with an antenna-like spire. Inside, we found a wizard's lab complete with the imprisoned nightmare beast! It was hooked up to the tower. We presume this modification amplified it's psychic power. We did not believe we could take the monster in a pitched battle, but we also did not believe it would want to fight one so we opened all the doors and released it. The beast retreated without harming us and we let it go.
Through further examination, we determined a wizard was using the beast to steal the souls of the dreamers in Berlitz and refining them into some kind of purple dust. (Katja later confimed that the dust was essentia, forcibly harvested.)
Two of the guards surrendered to us, so we did not kill them. We did send them off into the forest, however, while we retreated back to Silesia. Oddly enough, we discovered the the breach can move and only opens when we shine light on it. What we did was a crime (but for a good cause!). The wizard is going to be miffed and he's going to have the local law on his side. I hope we know what we are doing.
Party At Berlitz
The comatose people at Berlitz, including the innkeeper's daughter, recovered. We told them the story of the cave and they showered us with praise. There was food, drink and song---it was a heck of a party.
The team had a tasty breakfast. I had to have the priest cut some sausage into tiny pieces so I could eat. Upon leaving the inn, a child paid us a few silver coins to kill the Barghest that killed his grandfather (the wood cutter we found upon arriving in Silesia). The mystic vowed to kill the beast. On our way out of town, Til told us something surprising. He said a team of dragonborn that had been driven off by the villagers two days ago left us a note. Sure enough, it was a letter from Ark, the dragonborn from the Game. It said, quite simply, "HELP US. WE ARE STARVING!"
Feeding Ark and friends.
We brought some food to Ark and company. We found them hiding out in the mountain caves above Berlitz. They were thankful for the food and told us about some strange noises and lights in one of the caves further up the mountains. We decided it would be best to kill the Barghest as soon as possible. Ark and friends agreed to help us hunt the Barghest. The priest made a special prayer to the platinum dragon, just for them. Ark didn't seem thrilled.
Slaying the Barghest.
We accidentally alerted the Barghest's advanced scouts. Like a good predator it avoided us because we (the 8 of us) were too much to handle. We decided to lure it in with some fresh deer. We sighted the Barghest and killed its entourage, but it escaped. After some time we managed to track it to some unnatural caves. We figured we only had one chance, so we made sure to trap or block the other entrances. We had the dragonborn camp outside the main entrance and we stealthily entered the caves from another entrance. The dragonborn intercepted additional reinforcements that would have made the battle a lot harder. The beast did not escape us that time.
The cave was an abandoned and very dangerous mine. We collected a few treasures, including a very nice jeweled metal comb. I was surprised and very happy that the beast seemed to be an isolated incident; it did not appear to be part of a larger problem. We brought the heads and pelts of the beast back to Berlitz and made sure to emphasize the Ark's role in the mission. The townspeople accepted the dragonborn.
The mountain portal
We investigated the cave Ark mentioned. It seemed like an evil gateway to an evil place. We decided to learn more about dealing with portals before attempting anything that might get us killed. We paid a visit to Katja and Ward. Ward didn't know much about magic portals, but he did extend an invitation to a party at the mansion. We found Katja drawing some kind of powerful transmutation circle. She gladly paused and consulted with us. We offered the jeweled comb as a gift and she seemed to like it. What a dragon would do with a comb, I have not idea. The ritual to lock the portal turned out to be beyond our ability, so we decided to physically break the portal while protected by a magic circle against evil. We executed the plan and disrupted the portal. However, we still sensed something odd about the cave. We found an unstable breach to another world in the back of the cave. It only functioned in the absence of light.
Neth, Letherna, and Nashik
We emerged in strange, black mountains in a dark, dark world. It bore a vague resemblance to Silesia. On the Berlitz side, the world appeared somewhat unstable . . . we later learned the region was called "Neth" by the people of the shadow world. We were greeted by floating jellyfish. They were attracted to any light and flashed like fireflies. We harmed one of them and it painted us with light and triggered a swarming response. That was scary. We decided to leave them the hell alone!
Upon investigating Neth, we discovered the (un)living city of Neth. I guess, it moves around and eats people. It must have accumulated great treasures inside, but we decided it was more than we could handle.
A Shadar Kai arrived and lead us to his hometown (Nashik) on the other side of the mountains, a region known as "Letherna". He spoke a similar language to one our Shadar Kai party member knows, but it is obvious that they are from different lands and do not know each other. Normal life seems to be sustained by some nasty black gunk seeping out of cracks in the earth. There are feathery worms and crabs and even giant spider crabs. The people Nashick cultivate them . . .
Slavery is normal here. The people regarded our Shadar Kai as a nobleman, since we seemed very high quality slaves! The Shadar Kai of Nashik have quite a few deep gnomes slaves from raids of surrounding towns. The wildly successful raids are, reportedly, the only reason the king stays in power. We heard rumors of a powerful wizard and we investigated a small magic market, but we did not pursue it further.
The nightmare beast
Instead, the Knight and Mystic triangulated the direction of the nightmare beast. We immediately left Nashik and ventured to a forest resembling a coral reef. Signs were posted "Keep out: Trespassers will be killed." We had to stop the nightmare best, so we decided to brave it. We met and fought guards at a small building with an antenna-like spire. Inside, we found a wizard's lab complete with the imprisoned nightmare beast! It was hooked up to the tower. We presume this modification amplified it's psychic power. We did not believe we could take the monster in a pitched battle, but we also did not believe it would want to fight one so we opened all the doors and released it. The beast retreated without harming us and we let it go.
Through further examination, we determined a wizard was using the beast to steal the souls of the dreamers in Berlitz and refining them into some kind of purple dust. (Katja later confimed that the dust was essentia, forcibly harvested.)
Two of the guards surrendered to us, so we did not kill them. We did send them off into the forest, however, while we retreated back to Silesia. Oddly enough, we discovered the the breach can move and only opens when we shine light on it. What we did was a crime (but for a good cause!). The wizard is going to be miffed and he's going to have the local law on his side. I hope we know what we are doing.
Party At Berlitz
The comatose people at Berlitz, including the innkeeper's daughter, recovered. We told them the story of the cave and they showered us with praise. There was food, drink and song---it was a heck of a party.
Frei's Memories: Day 3 (Part 3)
Day 3 (Part 3):
We stumbled into a forest not unlike the one in Nebel, except this one was in an even stranger world. This world between worlds features a black, mostly-textureless landscape underneath a uniform orange sky dotted with jagged, paper-like, purple clouds. There are many, many portals there. The trees of the portal forest are sharp, but featureless, almost as if they are crude, general models of trees. It looks like whoever put this place together was in one hell of a hurry---or just didn't give a damn.
Walking out from the forest, one finds a flat nothing in all directions. We took a long walk, but arrived back to the forest of portals. It wasn't until we noticed the tiny outline of a house and a singular mountain in the distance and followed it that we were able to escape the forest.
As we approached the house, the landscape gained detail and grass emerged from the floor. When we arrived, we found a fully detailed manor house complete with stone walls and an elaborate iron gate, which had been left open. We noticed a light on though one of the windows on the ground floor and proceeded to tentatively knock on the great doors.
To our surprise, and joy, a young butler named Ward greeted us and invited us inside. The inside of the mansion looked as though it had been spectacular some time in the past, but had fallen into disuse. He was disturbed when he learned that we had come through the portal to Nebel. He was happier when he learned how we had opened the portal; since we used our souls to open the gate, it only opens for us (unless it gets some more souls from someone else!).
Ward mentioned his master might help us, but she wouldn't work for free. In fact, she would be grumpy with us if we disturbed her without offering some kind of gift. We had something in mind so we asked Ward to take us to his master. I felt nervous as Ward led us out of the mansion and toward the lonesome mountain. "Great," I thought, "I'll bet she's a dragon. I hope these guys don't do anything to get on her bad side."
I was right about one thing. Katja was a dragon all right---a huge, blubbery, obsidian dragon. She had a nice place, though, with jewels, art, books, and wall to wall cave carpeting! She greeted us with measured excitement and graciously accepted our gift (that ritual book Serradus filled up with nonsense). We introduced ourselves and she did likewise. She used some ritual and immediately recognized us as Returned. That made me a bit concerned. I hoped that knowledge wasn't widespread. While I was worrying about that, I couldn't help but notice she spent an inordinate amount of time staring at our sniper. I had no idea what that was about.
Katja:
Based on her historical knowledge, I think Katja has to be at lease 2,000 years old. I guess that's about 34 in dragon years. Anyway, she lived like a queen until shortly before the war between the gods and the primordials, when she killed one of the gods over a property dispute. They gods punished her by putting her in the obsidian prison and crafting lots of portals into it. The idea was for everyone to use the portals to wear her down and kill her. I guess they forgot about her when the war came up. Katja can't leave the prison; the gods made sure there's no way the portals will respond to her. They've been dead a while, though, so maybe there's a way . . . but I'm not 100% sure it would be a good idea. Anyway, she makes her living refining essentia ore from Keening for a mining company.
When the priest asked Katja about the fate of his deity, Katja told us that her two sons had joined the platinum dragon. Unfortunately, she never saw them again. She seemed very tired after telling us the story and dismissed us.
Since Katja's place has some fixing-up to do, Ward suggested we stay in a small farm town called Berlitz in the mountains of Silesia. I thought we were back on the road to a normal world, but I was so very wrong. The first thing we saw on the road to Berlitz was the carcass of an old woodcutter, torn to pieces by some nasty monster. The sounds of wolves in the distance hurried our anxious trip to Berlitz.
We met the guard at the gate, Til. He noted our strange clothes and quickly pieced together our nature. I was a bit relived when he turned out to be Returned also. He warned us to avoid the Barghest roaming the countryside. He also went off on a tirade against a distant town, Eibelstat, where he used to work. He said Eibelstat is some kind of utopia, ruled by a godlike emperor, where there is little freedom. We weren't interested in city politics at the time so we made our way into the town and searched for a place to stay.
Berlitz seemed like a nice town. The people were friendly, the half-timber buildings were pretty, and it had a beautiful view of the mountains. Of course, nothing can ever really be that nice---it turns out some phantom was invading people's dreams and killing them. Our psychic knight met the monster firsthand in the inn after examining the innkeeper's daughter, who had been attacked by the beast.
We were exhausted and had to sleep. It was tough. It turns out they don't make geko-sized beds in Silesia. I had to steal a somewhat smelly sock from the priest to use as a bed. And how that darn priest can snore!
We stumbled into a forest not unlike the one in Nebel, except this one was in an even stranger world. This world between worlds features a black, mostly-textureless landscape underneath a uniform orange sky dotted with jagged, paper-like, purple clouds. There are many, many portals there. The trees of the portal forest are sharp, but featureless, almost as if they are crude, general models of trees. It looks like whoever put this place together was in one hell of a hurry---or just didn't give a damn.
Walking out from the forest, one finds a flat nothing in all directions. We took a long walk, but arrived back to the forest of portals. It wasn't until we noticed the tiny outline of a house and a singular mountain in the distance and followed it that we were able to escape the forest.
As we approached the house, the landscape gained detail and grass emerged from the floor. When we arrived, we found a fully detailed manor house complete with stone walls and an elaborate iron gate, which had been left open. We noticed a light on though one of the windows on the ground floor and proceeded to tentatively knock on the great doors.
To our surprise, and joy, a young butler named Ward greeted us and invited us inside. The inside of the mansion looked as though it had been spectacular some time in the past, but had fallen into disuse. He was disturbed when he learned that we had come through the portal to Nebel. He was happier when he learned how we had opened the portal; since we used our souls to open the gate, it only opens for us (unless it gets some more souls from someone else!).
Ward mentioned his master might help us, but she wouldn't work for free. In fact, she would be grumpy with us if we disturbed her without offering some kind of gift. We had something in mind so we asked Ward to take us to his master. I felt nervous as Ward led us out of the mansion and toward the lonesome mountain. "Great," I thought, "I'll bet she's a dragon. I hope these guys don't do anything to get on her bad side."
I was right about one thing. Katja was a dragon all right---a huge, blubbery, obsidian dragon. She had a nice place, though, with jewels, art, books, and wall to wall cave carpeting! She greeted us with measured excitement and graciously accepted our gift (that ritual book Serradus filled up with nonsense). We introduced ourselves and she did likewise. She used some ritual and immediately recognized us as Returned. That made me a bit concerned. I hoped that knowledge wasn't widespread. While I was worrying about that, I couldn't help but notice she spent an inordinate amount of time staring at our sniper. I had no idea what that was about.
Katja:
Based on her historical knowledge, I think Katja has to be at lease 2,000 years old. I guess that's about 34 in dragon years. Anyway, she lived like a queen until shortly before the war between the gods and the primordials, when she killed one of the gods over a property dispute. They gods punished her by putting her in the obsidian prison and crafting lots of portals into it. The idea was for everyone to use the portals to wear her down and kill her. I guess they forgot about her when the war came up. Katja can't leave the prison; the gods made sure there's no way the portals will respond to her. They've been dead a while, though, so maybe there's a way . . . but I'm not 100% sure it would be a good idea. Anyway, she makes her living refining essentia ore from Keening for a mining company.
When the priest asked Katja about the fate of his deity, Katja told us that her two sons had joined the platinum dragon. Unfortunately, she never saw them again. She seemed very tired after telling us the story and dismissed us.
Since Katja's place has some fixing-up to do, Ward suggested we stay in a small farm town called Berlitz in the mountains of Silesia. I thought we were back on the road to a normal world, but I was so very wrong. The first thing we saw on the road to Berlitz was the carcass of an old woodcutter, torn to pieces by some nasty monster. The sounds of wolves in the distance hurried our anxious trip to Berlitz.
We met the guard at the gate, Til. He noted our strange clothes and quickly pieced together our nature. I was a bit relived when he turned out to be Returned also. He warned us to avoid the Barghest roaming the countryside. He also went off on a tirade against a distant town, Eibelstat, where he used to work. He said Eibelstat is some kind of utopia, ruled by a godlike emperor, where there is little freedom. We weren't interested in city politics at the time so we made our way into the town and searched for a place to stay.
Berlitz seemed like a nice town. The people were friendly, the half-timber buildings were pretty, and it had a beautiful view of the mountains. Of course, nothing can ever really be that nice---it turns out some phantom was invading people's dreams and killing them. Our psychic knight met the monster firsthand in the inn after examining the innkeeper's daughter, who had been attacked by the beast.
We were exhausted and had to sleep. It was tough. It turns out they don't make geko-sized beds in Silesia. I had to steal a somewhat smelly sock from the priest to use as a bed. And how that darn priest can snore!
Monday, March 21, 2011
Frei's Memories: Day 3 (part 2)
Day 3 (part 2):
We awoke outside the game, but not in a nice place. I hid in the priest's clothes like a coward; I was just sure something unfriendly was going to eat me.
Nebel:
All that remains of El's once great capitol drifts asunder in this place near the great rift. Huge stone buildings drift and collide in a violet haze called Nebel. I have no idea what happened here suffice to say that El hasn't been heard from since the war that destroyed his realm. As with other places near the rift or the edges of the mortal world, there is little gravity---only a weak force pulling toward whatever large stone happens to be near. A weak cycle of day and night determine just how hazardous Nebel is. During the day, the largest danger is getting lost in the haze and pummeled to death by the drifting stones. Night, however, is deadly. Piranha-like bats swarm though the area, killing anyone foolish enough to be caught in the open and evil spirits suck the life from those who venture into the intact structures for shelter from the duskriders.
I was quite dismayed; Nebel is on the wrong side of the rift! I was deeply worried, unless my team reached Victor in Zerthadium soon, something awful might happen to my family. I didn't say much about it to my team. They didn't need to worry about it. Immediate survival was of greater concern. We began to search for anything to help us.
Nebel Cathedral:
We explored a ancient cathedral full of broken, stained glass. The place must have been magnificent in it's heyday, but it was cold and lifeless when we found it. The basement held an unpleasant surprise. We discovered a morbidly crafted ossuary, complete with a study with chair and desk made of bones. Shadows lurked in every corner, skittering away from our lights, but stalking us as we progressed. We found a dangerous looking chest of bones deep withing the catacombs. It nearly killed us when we touched it. An undead book made of stitched flesh appeared on the desk and we offered it some of our life energy to reveal its secrets.
We used some of our essentia (distilled soul stuff) to form a magic circle around the chest and we opened it. In response, a very angry wraith emerged and gave us the toughest fight, yet. We made the very angry wraith very very dead. It was comforting to know that we retained the powers we had back in the game. We found an old signet ring, a land deed, and a load of essentia. We decided to take our gains out of the cathedral without the necromantic grymoir; it was just too dangerous to carry around.
It seems to me that El's kingdom must have rotted right out from underneath him. I have no idea why, though. I doubt anyone knows.
Nebel Tower:
On a whim, the mystic decided to take advantage of the strange gravity and walk around to the underside of the cathedral. He returned with an obviously magical oil lamp. I had a bad feeling about it (it's hard to be brave when you're a small lizard), so we decided not to examine it until we reached safety.
Given the gravity, we easily ascended a large tower. What we found there, we won't so easily forget. The place was barricaded and filled with burnt bones. It looked like a large number of people and been trapped and burned to death. We witnessed a ghost of a woman leaping to her death. More alarming, the gruesome scene seemed to melt away, replaced by visions of the tower at an earlier time. We were then confronted by a ghost, who didn't seem to know she was a ghost, claiming her mother had jumped out of the tower a while ago. She was happy to have us around and asked us to help her leave. When the apparition tried to leave, she vanished and the whole scene repeated itself. We decided to leave before we lost our sanity. I still wonder what happened here and if there is anything we can do about it.
We didn't have much time; night was falling and the duskriders were swarming. We frantically made our way across a debris field and into a forest of dark, dead trees. There, a portal sucked some of our life energy in exchange for passage elsewhere.
What's With the Soul Sucking?:
It turns out the souls of mortals who have been though the Aons' game (known as the Returned) are supercharged. The Returned can donate a portion of their life force in place of using essentia to activate magic items. They are especially effective at opening portals to other worlds. Fortunately for the Returned, their souls can regenerate within a day's time.
We awoke outside the game, but not in a nice place. I hid in the priest's clothes like a coward; I was just sure something unfriendly was going to eat me.
Nebel:
All that remains of El's once great capitol drifts asunder in this place near the great rift. Huge stone buildings drift and collide in a violet haze called Nebel. I have no idea what happened here suffice to say that El hasn't been heard from since the war that destroyed his realm. As with other places near the rift or the edges of the mortal world, there is little gravity---only a weak force pulling toward whatever large stone happens to be near. A weak cycle of day and night determine just how hazardous Nebel is. During the day, the largest danger is getting lost in the haze and pummeled to death by the drifting stones. Night, however, is deadly. Piranha-like bats swarm though the area, killing anyone foolish enough to be caught in the open and evil spirits suck the life from those who venture into the intact structures for shelter from the duskriders.
I was quite dismayed; Nebel is on the wrong side of the rift! I was deeply worried, unless my team reached Victor in Zerthadium soon, something awful might happen to my family. I didn't say much about it to my team. They didn't need to worry about it. Immediate survival was of greater concern. We began to search for anything to help us.
Nebel Cathedral:
We explored a ancient cathedral full of broken, stained glass. The place must have been magnificent in it's heyday, but it was cold and lifeless when we found it. The basement held an unpleasant surprise. We discovered a morbidly crafted ossuary, complete with a study with chair and desk made of bones. Shadows lurked in every corner, skittering away from our lights, but stalking us as we progressed. We found a dangerous looking chest of bones deep withing the catacombs. It nearly killed us when we touched it. An undead book made of stitched flesh appeared on the desk and we offered it some of our life energy to reveal its secrets.
We used some of our essentia (distilled soul stuff) to form a magic circle around the chest and we opened it. In response, a very angry wraith emerged and gave us the toughest fight, yet. We made the very angry wraith very very dead. It was comforting to know that we retained the powers we had back in the game. We found an old signet ring, a land deed, and a load of essentia. We decided to take our gains out of the cathedral without the necromantic grymoir; it was just too dangerous to carry around.
It seems to me that El's kingdom must have rotted right out from underneath him. I have no idea why, though. I doubt anyone knows.
Nebel Tower:
On a whim, the mystic decided to take advantage of the strange gravity and walk around to the underside of the cathedral. He returned with an obviously magical oil lamp. I had a bad feeling about it (it's hard to be brave when you're a small lizard), so we decided not to examine it until we reached safety.
Given the gravity, we easily ascended a large tower. What we found there, we won't so easily forget. The place was barricaded and filled with burnt bones. It looked like a large number of people and been trapped and burned to death. We witnessed a ghost of a woman leaping to her death. More alarming, the gruesome scene seemed to melt away, replaced by visions of the tower at an earlier time. We were then confronted by a ghost, who didn't seem to know she was a ghost, claiming her mother had jumped out of the tower a while ago. She was happy to have us around and asked us to help her leave. When the apparition tried to leave, she vanished and the whole scene repeated itself. We decided to leave before we lost our sanity. I still wonder what happened here and if there is anything we can do about it.
We didn't have much time; night was falling and the duskriders were swarming. We frantically made our way across a debris field and into a forest of dark, dead trees. There, a portal sucked some of our life energy in exchange for passage elsewhere.
What's With the Soul Sucking?:
It turns out the souls of mortals who have been though the Aons' game (known as the Returned) are supercharged. The Returned can donate a portion of their life force in place of using essentia to activate magic items. They are especially effective at opening portals to other worlds. Fortunately for the Returned, their souls can regenerate within a day's time.
Frei's Memories: Day 3 (part 1)
Day 3 (part 1):
We awoke the third day and we were decidedly screwed six ways over. Greyon, an Aon deserving his own sidebar, gave us a next to impossible scavenger hunt with portal keys, esoteric riddles, and much more powerful adversaries.
Greyon:
This older, apparently higher-ranking, Aon is in charge of the game. He has some authority over Serradus and, if subtle clues really mean anything, Serradus resents it. (As for Greyon's relation to Manath, who knows?) Anyhow, Greyon is the one that turned me into a gecko as punishment for entering the game illegally (without dying). He many times expressed concern that someone might be trying to steal the Aons' power. In my case, at least, he's right.
As luck would have it, the cloaked man came through and the obelisks triggered massive explosions, tearing openings in the very fabric of Elysium. Elementals of all varieties swarmed the game, killing everything in their path. The most formidable of the elementals, a pyroclastic dragon, burst into the world and immolated the cloaked man along with some of the players.
The dragonborn stood their ground and fought the elementals in defense of a team of gnomes and dwarves who were getting their beards handed to them. The elves, on the other hand, risked leaping through one of the rifts. Honoring our debt to the dragonborn, we fought beside them. Just in time, Serradus, Greyon and Manath arrived and protected us from the dragon. The battle was vicious, but we survived.
The Elemental Invasion and the Truce:
I'm still not sure what happened back there. The cloaked man was instrumental, but the elementals must not have cared much for him! I think the invasion is part of a feud that goes way back. I've gathered that in earlier times, a super-deity known only as El ruled over gods and primordials, who ruled over mortals. Well, El must have died or left because the gods and primordials started killing each other and dragging mortals into it. The war destroyed everything, including the gods, the primordials---heck, it even tore the mortal world in two! Afterward, the Aons (descendants of the gods) and the Elementals (descendants of the Primordials) forged a pact to stay out of the mortal world and out of each other's hair. I guess that Truce must be on the way out.
The battle left Elysium so devastated the Aons were forced to cancel the rest of our game. I was flabbergasted when Serradus suggested we be returned to the mortal world as a reward for our heroic teamwork with the dragonborn. Greyon resisted with all his usual hot air, but Serradus insisted that returning us would benefit mortals and fulfill some age-old promise binding the Aons. Unbelievable, Greyon and Manath accepted his argument and released us.
We awoke the third day and we were decidedly screwed six ways over. Greyon, an Aon deserving his own sidebar, gave us a next to impossible scavenger hunt with portal keys, esoteric riddles, and much more powerful adversaries.
Greyon:
This older, apparently higher-ranking, Aon is in charge of the game. He has some authority over Serradus and, if subtle clues really mean anything, Serradus resents it. (As for Greyon's relation to Manath, who knows?) Anyhow, Greyon is the one that turned me into a gecko as punishment for entering the game illegally (without dying). He many times expressed concern that someone might be trying to steal the Aons' power. In my case, at least, he's right.
As luck would have it, the cloaked man came through and the obelisks triggered massive explosions, tearing openings in the very fabric of Elysium. Elementals of all varieties swarmed the game, killing everything in their path. The most formidable of the elementals, a pyroclastic dragon, burst into the world and immolated the cloaked man along with some of the players.
The dragonborn stood their ground and fought the elementals in defense of a team of gnomes and dwarves who were getting their beards handed to them. The elves, on the other hand, risked leaping through one of the rifts. Honoring our debt to the dragonborn, we fought beside them. Just in time, Serradus, Greyon and Manath arrived and protected us from the dragon. The battle was vicious, but we survived.
The Elemental Invasion and the Truce:
I'm still not sure what happened back there. The cloaked man was instrumental, but the elementals must not have cared much for him! I think the invasion is part of a feud that goes way back. I've gathered that in earlier times, a super-deity known only as El ruled over gods and primordials, who ruled over mortals. Well, El must have died or left because the gods and primordials started killing each other and dragging mortals into it. The war destroyed everything, including the gods, the primordials---heck, it even tore the mortal world in two! Afterward, the Aons (descendants of the gods) and the Elementals (descendants of the Primordials) forged a pact to stay out of the mortal world and out of each other's hair. I guess that Truce must be on the way out.
The battle left Elysium so devastated the Aons were forced to cancel the rest of our game. I was flabbergasted when Serradus suggested we be returned to the mortal world as a reward for our heroic teamwork with the dragonborn. Greyon resisted with all his usual hot air, but Serradus insisted that returning us would benefit mortals and fulfill some age-old promise binding the Aons. Unbelievable, Greyon and Manath accepted his argument and released us.
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