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The Kordovian Adventurers Guild
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7511464" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 54: TEMPEST TESTING</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 15</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Castillan, elf bounder 15</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Darrien, half-elf ranger 15</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 15</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Gilbert Fung, human wizard 15</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 15</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Infernia, fire elemental familiar</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Jinkadoodle Dundernoggin, gnome illusionist 6</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Malrin Ivenheart, elf druid 8</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> MARCI, humanoid construct</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 13 October 2018</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>The screams from the marketplace sent the Kordovians rushing to the streets to see what was going on.</p><p></p><p>They'd split up to make their various purchases and thus they weren't all together in a group when the first screams began. "Fire demon!" yelled a heavyset man, pushing others out of his way as he scrambled down the street with amazing agility for one of his bulk. Finoula, on her way back to the market area after her quick - and quite unexpected - visit to the Temple of Moradin, raced forward towards the tumult. Hitting the rushing crowds, she spotted Gilbert and MARCI emerging from a magic shop. "What's going on?" she called to the portly wizard.</p><p></p><p>"Another fiend attack," yelled Gilbert, assuming it was something along the lines of the devils they'd fought during one of their previous visits to the big city. "This place lousy with them. It this way!" He started fighting the crowds to head towards the fire demon, while they were doing their best to run in the opposite direction. Behind him, MARCI dutifully followed. Mudpie was currently shrunk down to pebble size and sitting comfortably in a pocket of Gilbert's robe.</p><p></p><p>Finoula crossed the street and started making her way towards Gilbert and the healer construct that had attached herself to his service. "Run!" screamed people coming from the opposite direction, but Finoula ignored them. Presently, Darrien and Binkadink joined the procession fighting the crowds towards the fire demon. And before too long, the demon came into view. It was humanoid in build, standing about 15 feet tall and shrouded entirely in flames. It was crying out in some unknown language and looking about as if in confusion.</p><p></p><p>The current roster of the Kordovian Adventurers Guild weren't the only ones investigating this attack. In the opposite direction, Castillan Ivenheart had heard the uproar and went to investigate it in his own fashion - by ignoring the fighting crowds and running straight up a one-story building, pulling himself up onto the roof, and then leaping across the rooftops until he came within view. The fire demon was definitely female, with a pair of long, curved horns the color of soot jutting from her brow and what seemed to be a third eye in the middle of her forehead. She called down to the people who fled before her, while looking up and down the street, but the elven bounder was unfamiliar with whatever language she was using. Still, she didn't seem to be actively attacking anyone, so Castillan tried to talk to her. On the off-chance that she spoke the common language of the region, he opened with a simple, "Hello there!"</p><p></p><p>The fire demon spun at his greeting, surprised to see someone at more or less eye level talking to her. From this vantage point, Castillan could see that the "third eye" was in fact a gem affixed to her forehead, one just as black and shiny as her eyes. And at about that point Finoula reached the street before the fire demon, with Binkadink, Darrien, and the others coming up behind her. "Castillan?" she called out in surprise. "What are you doing here?" And then, seeing the "fire demon" in her full form for the first time, she recognized her as fitting the description of the fire elemental familiar of one of the people who Aerik had adventured with. "...<strong>Infernia</strong>?" she asked hesitantly.</p><p></p><p>Infernia looked down at the elven ranger standing below her and sudden recognition flared in her eyes. "Feron?" she cried, her form shrinking as her anger and confusion subsided. "You're here! You must help me find my Master!"</p><p></p><p>Finoula held up a hand to stop the fire elemental before she went any further. "Feron's my sister," she said in a voice that betrayed being mistaken for her little sister - yet again - was a game that was getting old. "My name is Finoula. But we'll help you if we can. Who's your master...Teldome?" She tried dredging up the name of the archmage Aerik and Galrich had partnered with so many years ago.</p><p></p><p>"<strong>Telgrane</strong>," Infernia corrected. By now, having seen a familiar face, she had calmed down and reverted to human size, and had finally recalled the inhabitants of this dreary place spoke in the Common tongue. Without thinking, she'd been calling out for help in Ignan, her native language - it was no wonder nobody would help her!</p><p></p><p>"Tell us what happen," commanded Gilbert. "Start from beginning."</p><p></p><p>"A devil woman attacked my Master and me on the Elemental Plane of Fire. She immobilized me by magic, cast a spell on my Master that made him stand there in confusion, and then grabbed him up in her arms and disappeared. Once I could move again, I had no way to find out where they'd gone.</p><p></p><p>"My Master has said if I ever needed help and he was not around, I should return to Greyhawk City and go to the Adventurers Guild. It is run by a man named Thunderwolf, who is a friend. But when I came here, the building was not where it was supposed to be – or at least not where it was when it was first destroyed. I tried asking for directions, but everyone just screamed and ran away.</p><p></p><p>"If you will help me find and rescue my Master from the devil woman, he will reward you well for your help. I do not know where they went, but I can show you the place where we were when she took him."</p><p></p><p>"On Elemental Plane of Fire?" confirmed Gilbert.</p><p></p><p>"Yes."</p><p></p><p>"You have means to get us there?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes. There's a door in our basement that leads there." That drew some puzzled looks among the group, but Gilbert also recalled Aerik's tales of Telgrane and Infernia and figured everything was probably on the up and up. "Lead on," he suggested.</p><p></p><p>Infernia held her right hand out in front of her face, concentrated - and the flames evaporated from around the limb. Then she reached inside her own chest and pulled out a flameproof scroll case. "I have learned how to keep parts of myself hollow, so I do not burn what is inside," Infernia explained, pulling out a rolled-up sheet of parchment from the case and slapping it against a nearby wall, where it unrolled of its own accord and took on the appearance of a normal door. Infernia then opened the door and stepped inside, beckoning for the others to follow.</p><p></p><p>"Are we doing this?" asked Binkadink.</p><p></p><p>"I am," replied Gilbert, walking inside the open door, MARCI trailing behind him as always. "You coming?" Finoula asked Castillan, who briefly turned it over in his head. He was supposed to be working on that mission for his father, but he'd hit a dead end and had come to Greyhawk City to do further research on the problem at hand. But an opportunity to adventure once again with his friends? "Sure, I'm in," he replied, stepping inside the doorway behind MARCI. Darrien and Hagan followed suit, as did Castillan's little sister Malrin, who had just caught up to the rest of the group after all of the excitement had already passed. "What are we doing?" she asked Binkadink as he held open the door for her to pass.</p><p></p><p>"I'll catch you up in a minute," the gnome promised. Then he entered the doorway and pulled the door shut behind him. Having done so, the Door That Doesn't Belong disappeared from the wall where it had just stood a moment before.</p><p></p><p>"We will need to go to the basement," Infernia explained, leading the group through a doorway of beaded curtains and onto a pedestal in the center of the room. "<em>Rellsehan</em>," she said, causing a four-foot-diameter circle in the middle of the floor to lower, revealing an access shaft to a lower level in the extradimensional space behind the Door That Doesn’t Belong. The basement level was a room the same size and shape as the one directly above it, with four wide pillars holding up the ceiling, but this one had six doors along its four walls, each a different color. "Let me guess: four Elemental Planes," Gilbert surmised, pointing out the doors colored light and dark blue, red, and brown. That accounted for all but the gray and black doors.</p><p></p><p>"Yes," agreed Infernia. "The other two lead to the Plane of Shadow and the Material Plane - Greyhawk City, specifically." She opened a small wooden chest sitting next to the red door - again after "turning off" the flames of her right hand - and pulled out a scroll. "This is a scroll of <em>attune form</em>," the fire elemental explained, handing it to Gilbert Fung. "You will need to cast it on the group, so you do not burn up in the Elemental Plane of Fire." Gilbert cast a quick <em>read magic</em> spell, looked over the contents of the scroll, and cast it upon the group. "Ready," he told Infernia. The fire elemental then opened the red door and stepped out into a world of flame.</p><p></p><p>The others followed, eyes wide open at the wonders before them. The ground was somewhat spongy, being composed of compressed soot and ashes. The sky above was covered in dark clouds of smoke, with streaks of yellow and red apparent in the occasional break among the clouds. And there were flames everywhere, rising up from the ground in spots, flames burning without fuel, taking the place of trees and hills from a terrestrial land. There were entire mountains of flame in the distance, rising up against the reddish sky. They danced and flickered, yet somehow gave a sense of permanency - after all, flames that burned without fuel need never diminish.</p><p></p><p>"It's this way," said Infernia, walking boldly into the flames of a nearby fire-forest. She navigated around bonfires and infernos with the same casual diffidence Malrin would have making her way through a forest back on Oerth; it was all perfectly natural to the fire elemental who had been born on this plane. The adventurers followed silently.</p><p></p><p>"Here," said Infernia suddenly, pointing to the ground. There were impressions there, a series of concentric circles broken up by the occasional rune. "The devil lady left this behind after she took my Master away. Do they mean anything to you? Can you tell where she went?"</p><p></p><p>Gilbert bent down and examined the rune-impressions. He knew many spells had different variations, just as there were often different ways to cast them. Some, like this one, left behind residue that could be divined to give hints as to the spell's specifics. He peered and prodded, making the occasional grunt of satisfaction to himself. Finally, he announced, "This from <em>plane shift</em> spell. Devil lady take Telgrane to Astral Plane from here."</p><p></p><p>"Can you cast a <em>plane shift</em> spell?" demanded Infernia. "And take us to my Master?"</p><p></p><p>"Certainly," said Gilbert with no small amount of pride. "...But not at moment," he confessed. "I know spell, but it not prepared. Can cast it tomorrow, though."</p><p></p><p>"Could you cast it from a scroll?" Infernia pressed.</p><p></p><p>"You have scroll?"</p><p></p><p>"I'll be right back!" gushed Infernia, running back the way she'd come. The others were left standing alone on the Elemental Plane of Fire for the first time in their lives.</p><p></p><p>"You guys ever been here before?" Malrin wanted to know.</p><p></p><p>"No - this is a first," Finoula replied.</p><p></p><p>"It's cool how we're not burning up and everything," Darrien said, impressed that all of his equipment had likewise been shielded from the flames of the plane. He'd have been sorely upset if anything had happened to his <em>Arachnibow</em>!</p><p></p><p>Gilbert took the opportunity to cast a <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> on most of the group, excluding only Malrin. He wasn't yet proficient enough with the spell to link together a group of seven individuals - six was his current limit. "It's okay," Malrin assured him. "I have the medallion if I need to talk to any of you at a distance." She'd inherited a lot of Ingebold's gear when she joined the group, and the cleric's <em>contact medallion</em> was one of the things she'd been given to use.</p><p></p><p>Infernia presently returned with a scroll of parchment that had somehow been treated with a flame resistance of some sort. "Cast it quickly," she advised, handing the scroll over to Gilbert as the edges started to smolder. Gilbert cast another <em>read magic</em> and intoned the words to the spell, shunting the group from a world of crackling flames to an empty world almost entirely devoid of color.</p><p></p><p>"You guys ever been here before?" asked Malrin again. As a latecomer to the group of adventurers, she had no idea just what all they'd been up to before she joined their ranks - and it seemed as if they took things the elven druid considered miraculous as nothing special.</p><p></p><p>"No, this is a first, too," Finoula responded.</p><p></p><p>"He's here!" exclaimed Infernia suddenly. "My Master is on this plane!"</p><p></p><p>"How you sure?" asked Gilbert.</p><p></p><p>"The gem on my brow - my Master has one just like it! As long as we're together on the same plane, it lets each of us know which way to go to get reunited! Come on! It's this way!" And Infernia suddenly went flying away from the group, who were all hovering in the middle of a white expanse with nothing but streaks of silvery contrails in all directions. But Infernia returned once she saw the others were not following and she explained how to move about on the Astral Plane - it was all through mental action: you simply decided which way was "down" and fell in that direction. Those with greater mental faculties could move at faster speeds.</p><p></p><p>"Guess we'll have to pull you along behind us, Gilbert," smirked Binkadink.</p><p></p><p>"You shut stupid gnome mouth."</p><p></p><p>Eventually the group got the hang of it, but with everyone moving at different speeds the group's cohesion started breaking up, with some speeding on ahead and others lagging behind. Eventually, they agreed they'd only travel as fast as their slowest member - Darrien - and split up only if combat ensued and greater maneuverability became necessary.</p><p></p><p>After what seemed like about a half an hour - although it was difficult to tell for sure in the timeless realm of the Astral Plane, where even bodily processes like the need for food and sleep were permanently suspended - the group saw a speck ahead. As they moved forward, following Infernia's lead, the speck altered course to approach the group, appearing larger the closer they converged. Soon, the group could make out features of the beast ahead of them: it was built like an immense serpent, only with a pair of arms ending in lobsterlike claws jutting out near the horned head. It had a single eye above a mouth filled with sharp teeth.</p><p></p><p>"This not good," Gilbert said.</p><p></p><p>"Do you know what that is?" asked Hagan. On his shoulder, his weasel familiar Wezhley shivered in fear.</p><p></p><p>"That an astral dreadnaught," the portly mage informed the group. "They nasty business. Eye send out antimagic cone, like beholder."</p><p></p><p>The dreadnaught got closer, and several of the group's members felt trickles of fear coursing down their spines at the very sight of the thing. And then, once it got close enough, the antimagic cone took effect, and even though Gilbert had warned everyone what to expect there were a few magical effects he'd forgotten about himself. With a ripping sound, Gilbert's pockets shredded as five boulders and Mudpie were suddenly restored to their normal size - but, more importantly, so was the earth titan they'd fought back on the Elemental Plane of Earth, who had been shrunken to pebble size by Binkadink using the wizard's magic slingshot. Gilbert's view of the approaching astral dreadnaught was suddenly blocked by a 20-foot humanoid figure built entirely of living stone.</p><p></p><p>"GAAAAH!" cried out the earth titan at suddenly finding itself floating in the middle of nothing with no solid ground anywhere to be seen in any direction. At his side, Mudpie was having the same reaction; earth elementals did not belong in open expanses stretching out to infinity!</p><p></p><p>Fortunately for Gilbert, the earth titan shielded more than his vision: it was also the greatest apparent threat in the astral dreadnaught's view, and thus it darted out at the massive earth elemental with one of its claws rather than targeting one of the much-smaller humanoids accompanying it. The earth titan was caught up in the creature's grasp, while the adventurers all scattered.</p><p></p><p>Infernia dropped below the dreadnaught, flying beneath its length until she was sure she was free from the range of its claws. She focused her mind on her <em>major circlet of blasting</em>, sending a beam of mental energy crashing up into the leviathan's bulk. But if it had any effect it was not immediately apparent, and Infernia feared it had an innate resistance to spell energy, as had so many of the creatures she and her Master had faced over the years.</p><p></p><p>Hagan flew to the side, getting out of the area of effect of the creature's eye ray. He summoned forth a <em>Mordenkainen's sword</em> and was amazed at how speedily the energy blade formed and attacked the astral dreadnaught. At almost the same time, he sent a <em>disintegrate</em> spell ray shooting at the creature, but he learned - as Infernia had - that the dreadnaught enjoyed a natural resistance to spells. It might be quicker to cast spells on the Astral Plane but it was also apparently necessary to concentrate to get them past the astral dreadnaught's spell resistance.</p><p></p><p>Malrin instinctively wildshaped into an owl, her go-to form for quick escapes, forgetting that she could "fly" just as fast in her elf form on the Astral Plane as she could as an owl. She'd been off to the side of the group as the creature approached, and she moved further away from the creature's claws and eye ray, over by her brother Castillan who was studying the enemy's physical build, searching for weaknesses. In combats such as these, Malrin understood her role was that of a healer, tending to the wounds of the more powerful adventurers who stood on the front lines. She floated, observing the combat unfold and ready to move in with a healing spell when needed.</p><p></p><p>Finoula moved to the side as well but didn't move far enough away in time to prevent the astral dreadnaught from striking out in her direction with its other claw and catching her fast. She attacked it with <em>Tahlmalaera</em> but she was within the creature's line of sight and thus the longsword's magical powers were currently suppressed - including the mental feeling of contact with Ingebold that she'd already come to treasure. And struggle as she might, she couldn't wrest herself free from the creature's powerful pincer.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink followed Infernia's path, striking up at the astral dreadnaught from beneath with his magical glaive - for he waited until well past the cone of antimagic's reach before attacking. His blade dug deep, but the creature had fairly thick armor - it would take some time to whittle this monster down to size, by the gnome's estimation!</p><p></p><p>Gilbert dropped straight down like a stone, taking Mudpie with him. Once out of the antimagic ray, he quickly cast two <em>enervation</em> spells in rapid succession and smiled when one of them made it past the creature's spell resistance. A shudder went down the astral dreadnaught's serpentine body as the spell took effect, draining it of a portion of its life force and vitality. At his side, Mudpie did little but hold his hands over his eyes, blocking out the sight of all that <em>nothingness</em> surrounding them.</p><p></p><p>In the astral dreadnaught's left pincer, the earth titan did all it could to release itself, pounding with its massive, boulderlike fists. A few cracks developed on the outer layer of the dreadnaught's claw, but that was about it - the elemental had failed to free itself from the steady grasp of the massive pincer.</p><p></p><p>Darrien had sped straight up, mirroring Gilbert's maneuver but in the opposite direction. Now above the creature's antimagic cone, he sent a flurry of arrows shooting down at the astral dreadnaught's face, hoping to knock out its eye. At least one arrow hit the eye's surface and pierced the orb, but the dreadnaught's armored exterior apparently also extended in some part to its ocular organ, for the antimagic cone stayed in place. Still, it now had a quartet of arrows peppering its face, and the half-elf ranger vowed to add to their number.</p><p></p><p>Castillan made his move, having studied the creature and figured out a possible weak spot. He came from behind on the dreadnaught's right side, striking up by its armpit. His blade sank deep, into an area the bounder had identified as being less heavily armored than elsewhere on its body. Blood spilled down the bounder's blade.</p><p></p><p>Finoula had failed to extract herself from the dreadnaught's right claw - and was it any wonder, when a 20-foot-tall earth elemental had likewise failed to do so? - but was aghast to see it tossing her into its gaping maw! Then, its right claw free, it got a two-pincered grip on the earth titan and started rending it to pieces. Chunks of stone fell away from the earth titan's body under the assault, to drop away in whatever direction they'd been flung during the struggle.</p><p></p><p>Beneath the dreadnaught, Infernia and Binkadink continued their respective attacks, the gnome with his glaive and the fire elemental resorting to her flaming fists. Binkadink noticed that in the heat of combat she'd grown in size again and was now a full 15 feet tall. It was apparently something she did unconsciously when agitated. But the astral dreadnaught's attention was currently focused on the earth titan and it was questionable whether it even registered the attacks from below. Likewise with the <em>Mordenkainen's sword</em> attacking it from the side; Hagan decided to add to the creature's discomfort with a pair of rapid-succession <em>disintegrate</em> spells. Once again, one spell failed to even overcome the dreadnaught's innate spell resistance and the other one's effects were summarily shrugged off to a lesser amount of damage. Still, there was now a chunk missing from the creature's left flank, so there was no denying the half-orc sorcerer's spells were having an effect.</p><p></p><p>Finoula felt the monster's jaws closing and desperately did not want to still be inside its mouth when they met. She instinctively used her <em>lightning amulet</em> to transform herself into a bolt of lightning that blasted out of its mouth - but then, once she was back in the creature's field of vision, the antimagic cone immediately transformed her back into an elf and she found herself floating directly before the creature's mouth, not several hundred feet away as intended!</p><p></p><p>Gilbert flipped rapidly through his <em>Omnibook</em> to its scroll contents. He then cast a <em>fireball</em> spell up at the beast, confident that its very bulk would shield those of his friends on either side of it or above it. Only Infernia was caught up in the spells' blast radius and the wizard knew a fire elemental would have no problems being engulfed in a <em>fireball</em>. MARCI floated beside Gilbert, the only human in the group, as he cast the spell. The construct was also a healer of sorts, and preferred to remain by Gilbert's side, for she had been primarily built to cater to the medical needs of humans. If she was concerned about the inherent dangers of the adventuring lifestyle, she gave no indication of it.</p><p></p><p>The earth titan continued to try to break out of the dreadnaught's grasp, to no avail. Darrien continued shooting arrows down at the beast from above, just as Infernia and Binkadink continued their assaults from below and Hagan directed the magic sword of force energy into the monster's flank from the side. Castillan stabbed again at the creature's flank, although its thrashing around had caused the bounder to be out of range of the weak spot he'd earlier identified. But the astral dreadnaught's attention was still focused on the earth elemental it held in its two-pincered grasp, surely the deadliest of these intruders given its enormous size. Finoula took the opportunity to drop straight down, away from the monster's face, and Malrin and - after prompting from Gilbert - MARCI flew over to her to grant her aid.</p><p></p><p>But the beast was finally starting to slow. Blood flowed from its various wounds, as it had been attacked from three sides by blades of various sizes and composition and now had nearly a dozen arrow shafts protruding from its upper surface. Gilbert, tired of the creature's spell resistance, cast a <em>haste</em> spell on Binkadink and Castillan, certain that <em>that</em> spell at least would take effect as desired, and the two bladesmen put their extra speed to good use. Eventually, the adventurers overpowered it; it bled from too many sources and was close enough to death that a final, well-placed strike from Castillan's blade put it over the edge. Convulsive shudders rippled down the creature's expansive length as it died.</p><p></p><p>"Everybody okay?" Gilbert asked - and except for the earth titan, Finoula was the only one to have suffered any injury, and Malrin and MARCI had both taken care of her wounds. Gilbert approached the earth titan warily, his <em>slingshot of rock shrinking</em> in hand. "Not going to hurt you..." he coaxed as he approached. "Just going to get you where you safe again, okay?" The earth titan made no resistance as the slingshot shrunk him back down to the size of a pebble; Gilbert repeated the procedure on Mudpie and placed both earth elementals into a different, unripped pocket of his robes. "Going to need <em>mending</em> spell tomorrow," Gilbert said to himself as he chased down the boulders that had likewise been un-shrunk by the astral dreadnaught's eye ray and set about re-shrinking them.</p><p></p><p>That done, Infernia continued the trek towards her Master. It was surely hours later in the timeless realm of the Astral Plane - although there was naturally no way to verify that - before the group encountered another being. As beings went, this one would normally have been difficult to identify as one, as it looked like nothing so much as an enormous thundercloud with flashes of lightning bursting within it, but Infernia was familiar with these creatures and identified it to the group as a tempest. "It's an elemental, like me," she explained, "only it's made up from parts of all four elements." But then she shrieked and gave up on any further explanations, for she had spotted her Master ahead and raced forward to reunite with him.</p><p></p><p>There was quite an elaborate setup on the other side of the tempest, which the adventurers would soon learn was little more than a guard beast. Telgrane floated in the middle of a 20-foot cube of vibrant purple bars, one of four spaced in a diamond around a round platform, upon which stood <strong>Xuneeryne</strong>, the "devil lady" who had kidnapped him. The other three <em>forcecages</em> contained a thunderbird, an enormous creature from the Elemental Plane of Air that looked like a terrestrial hawk or eagle but sparked with lightning as it thrashed about, trying to escape; a massive, barrel-shaped elder xorn from the Elemental Plane of Earth with three clawed legs, three clawed arms, three eyes, and a three-jawed mouth at the top of its head; and a shapeless mass of constantly-shifting protoplasm, an ooze paraelemental taken from the Elemental Plane of Water. Behind each cage stood an open portal to the respective Elemental Plane, while between the cages and the platform in the middle stood a focusing lens, ready to be deployed. By three of the lenses stood an ogre-sized being: a one-horned ken-sun named <strong>Blowhard</strong> before the thunderbird's cage; a two-horned ken-li named <strong>Dragonbreath</strong> before Telgrane's cage; and a three-horned ken-kuni named <strong>Thickskull</strong>. Each wielded an oversized weapon: two greatswords and a massive spear.</p><p></p><p>Castillan kept pace with Infernia, even outdistancing her in a rush to get to Telgrane's cage, for despite the great number of potential foes, the bounder realized their real mission was to rescue the fire elemental's Master. He had already decided he could use the power of his <em>ring of dimension door</em> to pop into Telgrane's cage, grab him up, and pop right back out again - just as soon as he got close enough. Malrin, still in her owl form and flapping her wings out of force of habit, followed her brother's trail, but quickly fell behind.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink realized the tempest was probably a guard beast meant to keep them busy from whatever it was that the devil lady was up to, but he also had faith in his companions and realized if the tempest was kept busy fighting him it wouldn't likely bother the others. So, without a further thought, he charged the elemental cloud with his glaive. The blade parted the cloud-stuff before it, causing angry flashes of lightning within as an indicator that he had hurt the tempest. Finoula joined him, striking at the elemental cloud with snaps of her <em>flaming whip of thorns</em>. Hagan cast a <em>disintegrate</em> spell at the tempest and frowned as he saw it had overcome the worst of the spell's potential damage; he was about to cast it again when Gilbert called over to him on the <em>Rary's telepathic link</em>: <Take out lens in front of Telgrane!> So Hagan spun and traded targets, ignoring the massive tempest and sending another <em>disintegrate</em> spell at the glass lens in the metal frame, floating beside the two-horned ken-li. With a flash, the lens disappeared from view, having been turned into tiny particles that dispersed immediately in a fine mist. Dragonbreath cried out in surprise.</p><p></p><p>"Deploy the first lens!" called out Xuneeryne, frantic that her many months of preparation for the ritual were being undone. Blowhard deployed the lens by the thunderbird, and a beam of energy sprang forth from the open portal to the Elemental Plane of Air, channeling through the thunderbird, through the focusing lens, and into the tiefling's body, imbuing her with a part of the Elemental Plane's power.</p><p></p><p>But Gilbert, floating directly up above the tempest so he could see what was going on with the ritual, saw Xuneeryne's setup and surmised she was attempting to channel the power of all four elements into herself. He called forth his most powerful prepared spell and cast a <em>sunburst</em> beside the tiefling's platform. A burst of brilliant light exploded forth with blinding power - indeed, as a result of the spell, not only Xuneeryne and all three of her elemental ogres ended up permanently blinded, but also Telgrane, the elder ooze paraelemental, and the elder xorn as well. With one spell, Gilbert had pretty much put an end to the entire ritual!</p><p></p><p>Xuneeryne screamed in impotent fury, calling out to her minions to slay the interlopers and Dragonbreath moved blindly over to the direction of her voice, ready to protect his mistress. Darrien responded by peppering her with a quartet of arrows, pleased to have hit her with each but frowning to see them plunk off her body - she obviously had a <em>stoneskin</em> spell up and running. But then Infernia came screaming towards her in fury and the tiefling realized she had no idea how many enemies she was facing. She had already started the air ritual and realized if she stopped now she could never again progress any further down that path; she dared not even start the other three elemental infusions lest they, too, be interrupted. Now, her biggest imperative was to escape - what could she do? How could she get herself to safety?</p><p></p><p>The tempest, in the meantime, had engulfed both Binkadink and Finoula into its cloudy mass and was beginning to stir them around, slowly taking on the form of a whirlwind. It lashed out at them with blasts of lightning, starting both of them on fire as a result - although Binkadink mostly ignored this, as his <em>red dragonhide plate mail</em> protected him from the flames.</p><p></p><p>With a sudden burst of insight, Xuneeryne realized she still had one avenue of escape: it was desperate measure that would leave her minions behind, but that thought occupied all of a half-second before she spoke the words to a <em>teleport</em> spell and instantly transported herself 100 miles straight up. That was one of the good things about the Astral Plane: just about every part of the infinite realm looked like any other, so it was easy to visualize where you wanted to go. (And even if you didn't end up exactly where you wanted, what real difference did it make?) In retrospect, she should have taken the time to slay that stupid horned fire elemental that was trying to imitate the form of a human woman after having caught her up in a <em>hold monster</em> spell and taking down the mighty Telgrane with a <em>feeblemind</em> spell, but she'd been eager to set up her ritual, and the half-fire elemental human wizard had been the last of the elementals she needed for her ritual....</p><p></p><p>Castillan rescued Telgrane with no trouble and the others decided it wasn't worth taking down the blinded elemental mages; after all, the <em>forcecages</em> would eventually wink out and the other three imprisoned creatures would be free to return to their homes via the color pools floating nearby...and if they happened to want to take a little revenge against the elemental ogres who had aided in their capture, that had a very poetic feel about it. As for the tempest, Finoula and Binkadink escaped from its clutches and discovered they could maneuver and fly away from it much faster than it could catch them. They led it away and then circled back to the others, gathering together by the color pool to the Elemental Plane of Fire. Malrin used her <em>staff of healing</em> to cure Telgrane's blindness, although they had to rely upon Infernia's insight through the mental link she shared with her Master to tell that he had been blinded in the first place, as the <em>feebleminded</em> wizard didn't have the mental capacity to speak and the fact that his eyes were blazing gouts of fire - the most visible aspect of his half-fire elemental heritage - made it impossible for the Kordovians to determine it on their own.</p><p></p><p>But before they returned to the plane of Infernia's birth, Gilbert took the time to fish the earth titan from his pocket. "You did good job fighting dreadnaught," he said, holding up the pebble-sized elemental to his face. "We appreciate it. You earn return to your home." Then he placed the earth titan into his <em>slingshot of rock shrinking</em> and fired him through the color pool to the Elemental Plane of Earth, confident that he'd strike a surface on the other side and be returned to his normal size.</p><p></p><p>After that, everyone was ushered through the portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire, after first determining that their <em>attune form</em> spells were still active. Once there, Infernia led everyone into the Door That Doesn't Belong and made sure her Master was comfortable before taking the elevated column up to the top level, where Rhunic the enchanted librarian fetched a <em>limited wish</em> spell on a scroll, which Gilbert was able to cast upon Telgrane and restore him to his normal intellect.</p><p></p><p>Telgrane's gratitude for his rescue was unbounded. He had the group stay and swap stories (he was particularly interested in Galrich, Aerik, and Chalkan - the three men he'd adventured with who had retired in Kordovia at the end of their careers) while dining upon a most succulent fare, then fetched individual items from his vast treasury to give to each member of his rescue team. To Binkadink, he presented a <em>collar of healing</em> for his riding mount, the better to keep Obvious safe during combat. For Castillan, he handed over a short sword with enchantments to aid it in dealing damage to those targeted. Darrien received a set of five <em>arrows of slaying</em>, focused upon aberrations, dragons, fiends, monstrous humanoids, and undead. Finoula received a set of <em>reins of ascension</em> to use with her pony, allowing her a limited ability to jump and fly. Hagan received a <em>robe of blending</em>; Malrin, a <em>druid's vestment</em>. And for Gilbert Fung, Telgrane not only taught him the <em>attune form</em> spell but three others of Gilbert's choice, plus offered to act as a mentor if the portly wizard ever decided to follow the path of the archmage.</p><p></p><p>And then Infernia dragged out a box of flame diamonds taken from the Elemental Plane of Fire, giving them to the group as a whole. "Thank you for saving my Master," she said. "I could not have done it without your help." Castillan's eyes nearly bugged out when he performed the mental calculations of the gems' likely worth back home.</p><p></p><p>But eventually the group decided to take their leave and return to Greyhawk City, so they could meet up with Jinkadoodle outside the city's outskirts and be flown back to Battershield Keep in the dragonfly ship. Telgrane led them to the gray door in the basement of the Door That Doesn't Belong and everyone said their farewells. An hour later they were watching Zaralia's cloud island come into view as Jinkadoodle brought the dragonfly ship into a landing.</p><p></p><p>"You've been uncharacteristically quiet," Binkadink observed to his cousin. "Somebody glue your mouth shut?"</p><p></p><p>"Oh, very funny," retorted Jinkadoodle. "Nice job with the <em>sovereign glue</em> on the helm seat, by the way." He presented Binkadink his most evil grin. "But that just means it's my turn now." The two cousins were involved in a back-and-forth prank war that had been going on since they were little.</p><p></p><p>"I can hardly wait," replied Binkadink.</p><p></p><p>"I doubt you'll have to, for long," announced Jinkadoodle. "I've already plotted out an appropriate revenge."</p><p></p><p>And sure enough, his next escalation in the prank war wasn't long in coming. The group exited the dragonfly vessel via the <em>carpet of teleportation</em>, ending up back at Battershield Keep, where Helga Battershield informed them dinner would be ready in an hour. There was no use telling her they'd just had a big meal with Telgrane; Helga would take it as a personal insult. So they all went to their quarters, ready to hit the dining hall in an hour.</p><p></p><p>And when they exited the two towers at the front of the keep and made their way to the dining area in the back, they heard a commotion in the stables - one of the goats was bleating in irritation. The stable door was partially open; as they passed, they all got a good view of Binkadink Dundernoggin, naked as the day he was born, wrestling a goat into position. Nobody noticed Jinkadoodle in the back of the stables, hidden in shadows, manipulating the <em>major image</em> spell he'd cast (from a scroll) of his cousin and the goat engaged in a little recreational activity. Binkadink, meanwhile, was sound asleep in his room, helped along in his slumber by a surreptitious <em>sleep</em> spell cast by his vengeful cousin mere minutes ago (also from a scroll, as piloting the spelljamming vessel had stripped away the illusionist's spellcasting abilities for the rest of that day). When the spell wore off and Binkadink woke up to find everybody already at dinner, he raced to join them - and was instantly castigated by the rest of the group for an act he hadn't even performed.</p><p></p><p>Jinkadoodle wore a face of pure innocence and concentrated on the excellent meal Helga had prepared.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Leave it to a <em>sunburst</em> spell to make me long for the days when Gilbert's frequent casting of the <em>Evard's black tentacles</em> spell was my biggest concern! That one spell pretty much cut the whole big fight at the end of this adventure down to a frantic escape on the part of my tiefling would-be Pan-Elementalist and a hand-waving of the combat with three blinded elemental ogres and a tempest guardian everyone could outrun. And I gave Gilbert an XP bonus for freeing the earth titan; I had seriously expected him to continue to use his 20-foot-tall "meat shield" in as many adventures as he could squeeze out of him. The bonus XP nicely counteracts the XP penalty he took for making his <em>detect undead</em> spell a permanent effect, so now Gilbert has the same amount of XP as the other PCs. (Malrin's still running behind, but she leveled up to 9th as a result of this adventure.)</p><p></p><p>And now the future adventure "Xuneeryne's Revenge" is practically writing itself in my mind.</p><p></p><p>[Edit: After further thought, there's no adventure there. I imagine Telgrane's first action after having seen the Kordovians back to their own plane was to track down Xuneeryne and exact his vengeance. She picked the wrong representative of the Elemental Plane of Fire to fuel her transformation ritual!]</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>T-Shirt Worn: My Einstein shirt, as it has galaxies floating from his pipe, representative of the Astral Plane.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 7511464, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 54: TEMPEST TESTING[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 15 Castillan, elf bounder 15 Darrien, half-elf ranger 15 Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 15 Gilbert Fung, human wizard 15 Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 15[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Infernia, fire elemental familiar Jinkadoodle Dundernoggin, gnome illusionist 6 Malrin Ivenheart, elf druid 8 MARCI, humanoid construct[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 13 October 2018 - - - The screams from the marketplace sent the Kordovians rushing to the streets to see what was going on. They'd split up to make their various purchases and thus they weren't all together in a group when the first screams began. "Fire demon!" yelled a heavyset man, pushing others out of his way as he scrambled down the street with amazing agility for one of his bulk. Finoula, on her way back to the market area after her quick - and quite unexpected - visit to the Temple of Moradin, raced forward towards the tumult. Hitting the rushing crowds, she spotted Gilbert and MARCI emerging from a magic shop. "What's going on?" she called to the portly wizard. "Another fiend attack," yelled Gilbert, assuming it was something along the lines of the devils they'd fought during one of their previous visits to the big city. "This place lousy with them. It this way!" He started fighting the crowds to head towards the fire demon, while they were doing their best to run in the opposite direction. Behind him, MARCI dutifully followed. Mudpie was currently shrunk down to pebble size and sitting comfortably in a pocket of Gilbert's robe. Finoula crossed the street and started making her way towards Gilbert and the healer construct that had attached herself to his service. "Run!" screamed people coming from the opposite direction, but Finoula ignored them. Presently, Darrien and Binkadink joined the procession fighting the crowds towards the fire demon. And before too long, the demon came into view. It was humanoid in build, standing about 15 feet tall and shrouded entirely in flames. It was crying out in some unknown language and looking about as if in confusion. The current roster of the Kordovian Adventurers Guild weren't the only ones investigating this attack. In the opposite direction, Castillan Ivenheart had heard the uproar and went to investigate it in his own fashion - by ignoring the fighting crowds and running straight up a one-story building, pulling himself up onto the roof, and then leaping across the rooftops until he came within view. The fire demon was definitely female, with a pair of long, curved horns the color of soot jutting from her brow and what seemed to be a third eye in the middle of her forehead. She called down to the people who fled before her, while looking up and down the street, but the elven bounder was unfamiliar with whatever language she was using. Still, she didn't seem to be actively attacking anyone, so Castillan tried to talk to her. On the off-chance that she spoke the common language of the region, he opened with a simple, "Hello there!" The fire demon spun at his greeting, surprised to see someone at more or less eye level talking to her. From this vantage point, Castillan could see that the "third eye" was in fact a gem affixed to her forehead, one just as black and shiny as her eyes. And at about that point Finoula reached the street before the fire demon, with Binkadink, Darrien, and the others coming up behind her. "Castillan?" she called out in surprise. "What are you doing here?" And then, seeing the "fire demon" in her full form for the first time, she recognized her as fitting the description of the fire elemental familiar of one of the people who Aerik had adventured with. "...[b]Infernia[/b]?" she asked hesitantly. Infernia looked down at the elven ranger standing below her and sudden recognition flared in her eyes. "Feron?" she cried, her form shrinking as her anger and confusion subsided. "You're here! You must help me find my Master!" Finoula held up a hand to stop the fire elemental before she went any further. "Feron's my sister," she said in a voice that betrayed being mistaken for her little sister - yet again - was a game that was getting old. "My name is Finoula. But we'll help you if we can. Who's your master...Teldome?" She tried dredging up the name of the archmage Aerik and Galrich had partnered with so many years ago. "[b]Telgrane[/b]," Infernia corrected. By now, having seen a familiar face, she had calmed down and reverted to human size, and had finally recalled the inhabitants of this dreary place spoke in the Common tongue. Without thinking, she'd been calling out for help in Ignan, her native language - it was no wonder nobody would help her! "Tell us what happen," commanded Gilbert. "Start from beginning." "A devil woman attacked my Master and me on the Elemental Plane of Fire. She immobilized me by magic, cast a spell on my Master that made him stand there in confusion, and then grabbed him up in her arms and disappeared. Once I could move again, I had no way to find out where they'd gone. "My Master has said if I ever needed help and he was not around, I should return to Greyhawk City and go to the Adventurers Guild. It is run by a man named Thunderwolf, who is a friend. But when I came here, the building was not where it was supposed to be – or at least not where it was when it was first destroyed. I tried asking for directions, but everyone just screamed and ran away. "If you will help me find and rescue my Master from the devil woman, he will reward you well for your help. I do not know where they went, but I can show you the place where we were when she took him." "On Elemental Plane of Fire?" confirmed Gilbert. "Yes." "You have means to get us there?" "Yes. There's a door in our basement that leads there." That drew some puzzled looks among the group, but Gilbert also recalled Aerik's tales of Telgrane and Infernia and figured everything was probably on the up and up. "Lead on," he suggested. Infernia held her right hand out in front of her face, concentrated - and the flames evaporated from around the limb. Then she reached inside her own chest and pulled out a flameproof scroll case. "I have learned how to keep parts of myself hollow, so I do not burn what is inside," Infernia explained, pulling out a rolled-up sheet of parchment from the case and slapping it against a nearby wall, where it unrolled of its own accord and took on the appearance of a normal door. Infernia then opened the door and stepped inside, beckoning for the others to follow. "Are we doing this?" asked Binkadink. "I am," replied Gilbert, walking inside the open door, MARCI trailing behind him as always. "You coming?" Finoula asked Castillan, who briefly turned it over in his head. He was supposed to be working on that mission for his father, but he'd hit a dead end and had come to Greyhawk City to do further research on the problem at hand. But an opportunity to adventure once again with his friends? "Sure, I'm in," he replied, stepping inside the doorway behind MARCI. Darrien and Hagan followed suit, as did Castillan's little sister Malrin, who had just caught up to the rest of the group after all of the excitement had already passed. "What are we doing?" she asked Binkadink as he held open the door for her to pass. "I'll catch you up in a minute," the gnome promised. Then he entered the doorway and pulled the door shut behind him. Having done so, the Door That Doesn't Belong disappeared from the wall where it had just stood a moment before. "We will need to go to the basement," Infernia explained, leading the group through a doorway of beaded curtains and onto a pedestal in the center of the room. "[i]Rellsehan[/i]," she said, causing a four-foot-diameter circle in the middle of the floor to lower, revealing an access shaft to a lower level in the extradimensional space behind the Door That Doesn’t Belong. The basement level was a room the same size and shape as the one directly above it, with four wide pillars holding up the ceiling, but this one had six doors along its four walls, each a different color. "Let me guess: four Elemental Planes," Gilbert surmised, pointing out the doors colored light and dark blue, red, and brown. That accounted for all but the gray and black doors. "Yes," agreed Infernia. "The other two lead to the Plane of Shadow and the Material Plane - Greyhawk City, specifically." She opened a small wooden chest sitting next to the red door - again after "turning off" the flames of her right hand - and pulled out a scroll. "This is a scroll of [i]attune form[/i]," the fire elemental explained, handing it to Gilbert Fung. "You will need to cast it on the group, so you do not burn up in the Elemental Plane of Fire." Gilbert cast a quick [i]read magic[/i] spell, looked over the contents of the scroll, and cast it upon the group. "Ready," he told Infernia. The fire elemental then opened the red door and stepped out into a world of flame. The others followed, eyes wide open at the wonders before them. The ground was somewhat spongy, being composed of compressed soot and ashes. The sky above was covered in dark clouds of smoke, with streaks of yellow and red apparent in the occasional break among the clouds. And there were flames everywhere, rising up from the ground in spots, flames burning without fuel, taking the place of trees and hills from a terrestrial land. There were entire mountains of flame in the distance, rising up against the reddish sky. They danced and flickered, yet somehow gave a sense of permanency - after all, flames that burned without fuel need never diminish. "It's this way," said Infernia, walking boldly into the flames of a nearby fire-forest. She navigated around bonfires and infernos with the same casual diffidence Malrin would have making her way through a forest back on Oerth; it was all perfectly natural to the fire elemental who had been born on this plane. The adventurers followed silently. "Here," said Infernia suddenly, pointing to the ground. There were impressions there, a series of concentric circles broken up by the occasional rune. "The devil lady left this behind after she took my Master away. Do they mean anything to you? Can you tell where she went?" Gilbert bent down and examined the rune-impressions. He knew many spells had different variations, just as there were often different ways to cast them. Some, like this one, left behind residue that could be divined to give hints as to the spell's specifics. He peered and prodded, making the occasional grunt of satisfaction to himself. Finally, he announced, "This from [i]plane shift[/i] spell. Devil lady take Telgrane to Astral Plane from here." "Can you cast a [i]plane shift[/i] spell?" demanded Infernia. "And take us to my Master?" "Certainly," said Gilbert with no small amount of pride. "...But not at moment," he confessed. "I know spell, but it not prepared. Can cast it tomorrow, though." "Could you cast it from a scroll?" Infernia pressed. "You have scroll?" "I'll be right back!" gushed Infernia, running back the way she'd come. The others were left standing alone on the Elemental Plane of Fire for the first time in their lives. "You guys ever been here before?" Malrin wanted to know. "No - this is a first," Finoula replied. "It's cool how we're not burning up and everything," Darrien said, impressed that all of his equipment had likewise been shielded from the flames of the plane. He'd have been sorely upset if anything had happened to his [i]Arachnibow[/i]! Gilbert took the opportunity to cast a [i]Rary's telepathic bond[/i] on most of the group, excluding only Malrin. He wasn't yet proficient enough with the spell to link together a group of seven individuals - six was his current limit. "It's okay," Malrin assured him. "I have the medallion if I need to talk to any of you at a distance." She'd inherited a lot of Ingebold's gear when she joined the group, and the cleric's [i]contact medallion[/i] was one of the things she'd been given to use. Infernia presently returned with a scroll of parchment that had somehow been treated with a flame resistance of some sort. "Cast it quickly," she advised, handing the scroll over to Gilbert as the edges started to smolder. Gilbert cast another [i]read magic[/i] and intoned the words to the spell, shunting the group from a world of crackling flames to an empty world almost entirely devoid of color. "You guys ever been here before?" asked Malrin again. As a latecomer to the group of adventurers, she had no idea just what all they'd been up to before she joined their ranks - and it seemed as if they took things the elven druid considered miraculous as nothing special. "No, this is a first, too," Finoula responded. "He's here!" exclaimed Infernia suddenly. "My Master is on this plane!" "How you sure?" asked Gilbert. "The gem on my brow - my Master has one just like it! As long as we're together on the same plane, it lets each of us know which way to go to get reunited! Come on! It's this way!" And Infernia suddenly went flying away from the group, who were all hovering in the middle of a white expanse with nothing but streaks of silvery contrails in all directions. But Infernia returned once she saw the others were not following and she explained how to move about on the Astral Plane - it was all through mental action: you simply decided which way was "down" and fell in that direction. Those with greater mental faculties could move at faster speeds. "Guess we'll have to pull you along behind us, Gilbert," smirked Binkadink. "You shut stupid gnome mouth." Eventually the group got the hang of it, but with everyone moving at different speeds the group's cohesion started breaking up, with some speeding on ahead and others lagging behind. Eventually, they agreed they'd only travel as fast as their slowest member - Darrien - and split up only if combat ensued and greater maneuverability became necessary. After what seemed like about a half an hour - although it was difficult to tell for sure in the timeless realm of the Astral Plane, where even bodily processes like the need for food and sleep were permanently suspended - the group saw a speck ahead. As they moved forward, following Infernia's lead, the speck altered course to approach the group, appearing larger the closer they converged. Soon, the group could make out features of the beast ahead of them: it was built like an immense serpent, only with a pair of arms ending in lobsterlike claws jutting out near the horned head. It had a single eye above a mouth filled with sharp teeth. "This not good," Gilbert said. "Do you know what that is?" asked Hagan. On his shoulder, his weasel familiar Wezhley shivered in fear. "That an astral dreadnaught," the portly mage informed the group. "They nasty business. Eye send out antimagic cone, like beholder." The dreadnaught got closer, and several of the group's members felt trickles of fear coursing down their spines at the very sight of the thing. And then, once it got close enough, the antimagic cone took effect, and even though Gilbert had warned everyone what to expect there were a few magical effects he'd forgotten about himself. With a ripping sound, Gilbert's pockets shredded as five boulders and Mudpie were suddenly restored to their normal size - but, more importantly, so was the earth titan they'd fought back on the Elemental Plane of Earth, who had been shrunken to pebble size by Binkadink using the wizard's magic slingshot. Gilbert's view of the approaching astral dreadnaught was suddenly blocked by a 20-foot humanoid figure built entirely of living stone. "GAAAAH!" cried out the earth titan at suddenly finding itself floating in the middle of nothing with no solid ground anywhere to be seen in any direction. At his side, Mudpie was having the same reaction; earth elementals did not belong in open expanses stretching out to infinity! Fortunately for Gilbert, the earth titan shielded more than his vision: it was also the greatest apparent threat in the astral dreadnaught's view, and thus it darted out at the massive earth elemental with one of its claws rather than targeting one of the much-smaller humanoids accompanying it. The earth titan was caught up in the creature's grasp, while the adventurers all scattered. Infernia dropped below the dreadnaught, flying beneath its length until she was sure she was free from the range of its claws. She focused her mind on her [i]major circlet of blasting[/i], sending a beam of mental energy crashing up into the leviathan's bulk. But if it had any effect it was not immediately apparent, and Infernia feared it had an innate resistance to spell energy, as had so many of the creatures she and her Master had faced over the years. Hagan flew to the side, getting out of the area of effect of the creature's eye ray. He summoned forth a [i]Mordenkainen's sword[/i] and was amazed at how speedily the energy blade formed and attacked the astral dreadnaught. At almost the same time, he sent a [i]disintegrate[/i] spell ray shooting at the creature, but he learned - as Infernia had - that the dreadnaught enjoyed a natural resistance to spells. It might be quicker to cast spells on the Astral Plane but it was also apparently necessary to concentrate to get them past the astral dreadnaught's spell resistance. Malrin instinctively wildshaped into an owl, her go-to form for quick escapes, forgetting that she could "fly" just as fast in her elf form on the Astral Plane as she could as an owl. She'd been off to the side of the group as the creature approached, and she moved further away from the creature's claws and eye ray, over by her brother Castillan who was studying the enemy's physical build, searching for weaknesses. In combats such as these, Malrin understood her role was that of a healer, tending to the wounds of the more powerful adventurers who stood on the front lines. She floated, observing the combat unfold and ready to move in with a healing spell when needed. Finoula moved to the side as well but didn't move far enough away in time to prevent the astral dreadnaught from striking out in her direction with its other claw and catching her fast. She attacked it with [i]Tahlmalaera[/i] but she was within the creature's line of sight and thus the longsword's magical powers were currently suppressed - including the mental feeling of contact with Ingebold that she'd already come to treasure. And struggle as she might, she couldn't wrest herself free from the creature's powerful pincer. Binkadink followed Infernia's path, striking up at the astral dreadnaught from beneath with his magical glaive - for he waited until well past the cone of antimagic's reach before attacking. His blade dug deep, but the creature had fairly thick armor - it would take some time to whittle this monster down to size, by the gnome's estimation! Gilbert dropped straight down like a stone, taking Mudpie with him. Once out of the antimagic ray, he quickly cast two [i]enervation[/i] spells in rapid succession and smiled when one of them made it past the creature's spell resistance. A shudder went down the astral dreadnaught's serpentine body as the spell took effect, draining it of a portion of its life force and vitality. At his side, Mudpie did little but hold his hands over his eyes, blocking out the sight of all that [i]nothingness[/i] surrounding them. In the astral dreadnaught's left pincer, the earth titan did all it could to release itself, pounding with its massive, boulderlike fists. A few cracks developed on the outer layer of the dreadnaught's claw, but that was about it - the elemental had failed to free itself from the steady grasp of the massive pincer. Darrien had sped straight up, mirroring Gilbert's maneuver but in the opposite direction. Now above the creature's antimagic cone, he sent a flurry of arrows shooting down at the astral dreadnaught's face, hoping to knock out its eye. At least one arrow hit the eye's surface and pierced the orb, but the dreadnaught's armored exterior apparently also extended in some part to its ocular organ, for the antimagic cone stayed in place. Still, it now had a quartet of arrows peppering its face, and the half-elf ranger vowed to add to their number. Castillan made his move, having studied the creature and figured out a possible weak spot. He came from behind on the dreadnaught's right side, striking up by its armpit. His blade sank deep, into an area the bounder had identified as being less heavily armored than elsewhere on its body. Blood spilled down the bounder's blade. Finoula had failed to extract herself from the dreadnaught's right claw - and was it any wonder, when a 20-foot-tall earth elemental had likewise failed to do so? - but was aghast to see it tossing her into its gaping maw! Then, its right claw free, it got a two-pincered grip on the earth titan and started rending it to pieces. Chunks of stone fell away from the earth titan's body under the assault, to drop away in whatever direction they'd been flung during the struggle. Beneath the dreadnaught, Infernia and Binkadink continued their respective attacks, the gnome with his glaive and the fire elemental resorting to her flaming fists. Binkadink noticed that in the heat of combat she'd grown in size again and was now a full 15 feet tall. It was apparently something she did unconsciously when agitated. But the astral dreadnaught's attention was currently focused on the earth titan and it was questionable whether it even registered the attacks from below. Likewise with the [i]Mordenkainen's sword[/i] attacking it from the side; Hagan decided to add to the creature's discomfort with a pair of rapid-succession [i]disintegrate[/i] spells. Once again, one spell failed to even overcome the dreadnaught's innate spell resistance and the other one's effects were summarily shrugged off to a lesser amount of damage. Still, there was now a chunk missing from the creature's left flank, so there was no denying the half-orc sorcerer's spells were having an effect. Finoula felt the monster's jaws closing and desperately did not want to still be inside its mouth when they met. She instinctively used her [i]lightning amulet[/i] to transform herself into a bolt of lightning that blasted out of its mouth - but then, once she was back in the creature's field of vision, the antimagic cone immediately transformed her back into an elf and she found herself floating directly before the creature's mouth, not several hundred feet away as intended! Gilbert flipped rapidly through his [i]Omnibook[/i] to its scroll contents. He then cast a [i]fireball[/i] spell up at the beast, confident that its very bulk would shield those of his friends on either side of it or above it. Only Infernia was caught up in the spells' blast radius and the wizard knew a fire elemental would have no problems being engulfed in a [i]fireball[/i]. MARCI floated beside Gilbert, the only human in the group, as he cast the spell. The construct was also a healer of sorts, and preferred to remain by Gilbert's side, for she had been primarily built to cater to the medical needs of humans. If she was concerned about the inherent dangers of the adventuring lifestyle, she gave no indication of it. The earth titan continued to try to break out of the dreadnaught's grasp, to no avail. Darrien continued shooting arrows down at the beast from above, just as Infernia and Binkadink continued their assaults from below and Hagan directed the magic sword of force energy into the monster's flank from the side. Castillan stabbed again at the creature's flank, although its thrashing around had caused the bounder to be out of range of the weak spot he'd earlier identified. But the astral dreadnaught's attention was still focused on the earth elemental it held in its two-pincered grasp, surely the deadliest of these intruders given its enormous size. Finoula took the opportunity to drop straight down, away from the monster's face, and Malrin and - after prompting from Gilbert - MARCI flew over to her to grant her aid. But the beast was finally starting to slow. Blood flowed from its various wounds, as it had been attacked from three sides by blades of various sizes and composition and now had nearly a dozen arrow shafts protruding from its upper surface. Gilbert, tired of the creature's spell resistance, cast a [i]haste[/i] spell on Binkadink and Castillan, certain that [i]that[/i] spell at least would take effect as desired, and the two bladesmen put their extra speed to good use. Eventually, the adventurers overpowered it; it bled from too many sources and was close enough to death that a final, well-placed strike from Castillan's blade put it over the edge. Convulsive shudders rippled down the creature's expansive length as it died. "Everybody okay?" Gilbert asked - and except for the earth titan, Finoula was the only one to have suffered any injury, and Malrin and MARCI had both taken care of her wounds. Gilbert approached the earth titan warily, his [i]slingshot of rock shrinking[/i] in hand. "Not going to hurt you..." he coaxed as he approached. "Just going to get you where you safe again, okay?" The earth titan made no resistance as the slingshot shrunk him back down to the size of a pebble; Gilbert repeated the procedure on Mudpie and placed both earth elementals into a different, unripped pocket of his robes. "Going to need [i]mending[/i] spell tomorrow," Gilbert said to himself as he chased down the boulders that had likewise been un-shrunk by the astral dreadnaught's eye ray and set about re-shrinking them. That done, Infernia continued the trek towards her Master. It was surely hours later in the timeless realm of the Astral Plane - although there was naturally no way to verify that - before the group encountered another being. As beings went, this one would normally have been difficult to identify as one, as it looked like nothing so much as an enormous thundercloud with flashes of lightning bursting within it, but Infernia was familiar with these creatures and identified it to the group as a tempest. "It's an elemental, like me," she explained, "only it's made up from parts of all four elements." But then she shrieked and gave up on any further explanations, for she had spotted her Master ahead and raced forward to reunite with him. There was quite an elaborate setup on the other side of the tempest, which the adventurers would soon learn was little more than a guard beast. Telgrane floated in the middle of a 20-foot cube of vibrant purple bars, one of four spaced in a diamond around a round platform, upon which stood [b]Xuneeryne[/b], the "devil lady" who had kidnapped him. The other three [i]forcecages[/i] contained a thunderbird, an enormous creature from the Elemental Plane of Air that looked like a terrestrial hawk or eagle but sparked with lightning as it thrashed about, trying to escape; a massive, barrel-shaped elder xorn from the Elemental Plane of Earth with three clawed legs, three clawed arms, three eyes, and a three-jawed mouth at the top of its head; and a shapeless mass of constantly-shifting protoplasm, an ooze paraelemental taken from the Elemental Plane of Water. Behind each cage stood an open portal to the respective Elemental Plane, while between the cages and the platform in the middle stood a focusing lens, ready to be deployed. By three of the lenses stood an ogre-sized being: a one-horned ken-sun named [b]Blowhard[/b] before the thunderbird's cage; a two-horned ken-li named [b]Dragonbreath[/b] before Telgrane's cage; and a three-horned ken-kuni named [b]Thickskull[/b]. Each wielded an oversized weapon: two greatswords and a massive spear. Castillan kept pace with Infernia, even outdistancing her in a rush to get to Telgrane's cage, for despite the great number of potential foes, the bounder realized their real mission was to rescue the fire elemental's Master. He had already decided he could use the power of his [i]ring of dimension door[/i] to pop into Telgrane's cage, grab him up, and pop right back out again - just as soon as he got close enough. Malrin, still in her owl form and flapping her wings out of force of habit, followed her brother's trail, but quickly fell behind. Binkadink realized the tempest was probably a guard beast meant to keep them busy from whatever it was that the devil lady was up to, but he also had faith in his companions and realized if the tempest was kept busy fighting him it wouldn't likely bother the others. So, without a further thought, he charged the elemental cloud with his glaive. The blade parted the cloud-stuff before it, causing angry flashes of lightning within as an indicator that he had hurt the tempest. Finoula joined him, striking at the elemental cloud with snaps of her [i]flaming whip of thorns[/i]. Hagan cast a [i]disintegrate[/i] spell at the tempest and frowned as he saw it had overcome the worst of the spell's potential damage; he was about to cast it again when Gilbert called over to him on the [i]Rary's telepathic link[/i]: <Take out lens in front of Telgrane!> So Hagan spun and traded targets, ignoring the massive tempest and sending another [i]disintegrate[/i] spell at the glass lens in the metal frame, floating beside the two-horned ken-li. With a flash, the lens disappeared from view, having been turned into tiny particles that dispersed immediately in a fine mist. Dragonbreath cried out in surprise. "Deploy the first lens!" called out Xuneeryne, frantic that her many months of preparation for the ritual were being undone. Blowhard deployed the lens by the thunderbird, and a beam of energy sprang forth from the open portal to the Elemental Plane of Air, channeling through the thunderbird, through the focusing lens, and into the tiefling's body, imbuing her with a part of the Elemental Plane's power. But Gilbert, floating directly up above the tempest so he could see what was going on with the ritual, saw Xuneeryne's setup and surmised she was attempting to channel the power of all four elements into herself. He called forth his most powerful prepared spell and cast a [i]sunburst[/i] beside the tiefling's platform. A burst of brilliant light exploded forth with blinding power - indeed, as a result of the spell, not only Xuneeryne and all three of her elemental ogres ended up permanently blinded, but also Telgrane, the elder ooze paraelemental, and the elder xorn as well. With one spell, Gilbert had pretty much put an end to the entire ritual! Xuneeryne screamed in impotent fury, calling out to her minions to slay the interlopers and Dragonbreath moved blindly over to the direction of her voice, ready to protect his mistress. Darrien responded by peppering her with a quartet of arrows, pleased to have hit her with each but frowning to see them plunk off her body - she obviously had a [i]stoneskin[/i] spell up and running. But then Infernia came screaming towards her in fury and the tiefling realized she had no idea how many enemies she was facing. She had already started the air ritual and realized if she stopped now she could never again progress any further down that path; she dared not even start the other three elemental infusions lest they, too, be interrupted. Now, her biggest imperative was to escape - what could she do? How could she get herself to safety? The tempest, in the meantime, had engulfed both Binkadink and Finoula into its cloudy mass and was beginning to stir them around, slowly taking on the form of a whirlwind. It lashed out at them with blasts of lightning, starting both of them on fire as a result - although Binkadink mostly ignored this, as his [i]red dragonhide plate mail[/i] protected him from the flames. With a sudden burst of insight, Xuneeryne realized she still had one avenue of escape: it was desperate measure that would leave her minions behind, but that thought occupied all of a half-second before she spoke the words to a [i]teleport[/i] spell and instantly transported herself 100 miles straight up. That was one of the good things about the Astral Plane: just about every part of the infinite realm looked like any other, so it was easy to visualize where you wanted to go. (And even if you didn't end up exactly where you wanted, what real difference did it make?) In retrospect, she should have taken the time to slay that stupid horned fire elemental that was trying to imitate the form of a human woman after having caught her up in a [i]hold monster[/i] spell and taking down the mighty Telgrane with a [i]feeblemind[/i] spell, but she'd been eager to set up her ritual, and the half-fire elemental human wizard had been the last of the elementals she needed for her ritual.... Castillan rescued Telgrane with no trouble and the others decided it wasn't worth taking down the blinded elemental mages; after all, the [i]forcecages[/i] would eventually wink out and the other three imprisoned creatures would be free to return to their homes via the color pools floating nearby...and if they happened to want to take a little revenge against the elemental ogres who had aided in their capture, that had a very poetic feel about it. As for the tempest, Finoula and Binkadink escaped from its clutches and discovered they could maneuver and fly away from it much faster than it could catch them. They led it away and then circled back to the others, gathering together by the color pool to the Elemental Plane of Fire. Malrin used her [i]staff of healing[/i] to cure Telgrane's blindness, although they had to rely upon Infernia's insight through the mental link she shared with her Master to tell that he had been blinded in the first place, as the [i]feebleminded[/i] wizard didn't have the mental capacity to speak and the fact that his eyes were blazing gouts of fire - the most visible aspect of his half-fire elemental heritage - made it impossible for the Kordovians to determine it on their own. But before they returned to the plane of Infernia's birth, Gilbert took the time to fish the earth titan from his pocket. "You did good job fighting dreadnaught," he said, holding up the pebble-sized elemental to his face. "We appreciate it. You earn return to your home." Then he placed the earth titan into his [i]slingshot of rock shrinking[/i] and fired him through the color pool to the Elemental Plane of Earth, confident that he'd strike a surface on the other side and be returned to his normal size. After that, everyone was ushered through the portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire, after first determining that their [i]attune form[/i] spells were still active. Once there, Infernia led everyone into the Door That Doesn't Belong and made sure her Master was comfortable before taking the elevated column up to the top level, where Rhunic the enchanted librarian fetched a [i]limited wish[/i] spell on a scroll, which Gilbert was able to cast upon Telgrane and restore him to his normal intellect. Telgrane's gratitude for his rescue was unbounded. He had the group stay and swap stories (he was particularly interested in Galrich, Aerik, and Chalkan - the three men he'd adventured with who had retired in Kordovia at the end of their careers) while dining upon a most succulent fare, then fetched individual items from his vast treasury to give to each member of his rescue team. To Binkadink, he presented a [i]collar of healing[/i] for his riding mount, the better to keep Obvious safe during combat. For Castillan, he handed over a short sword with enchantments to aid it in dealing damage to those targeted. Darrien received a set of five [i]arrows of slaying[/i], focused upon aberrations, dragons, fiends, monstrous humanoids, and undead. Finoula received a set of [i]reins of ascension[/i] to use with her pony, allowing her a limited ability to jump and fly. Hagan received a [i]robe of blending[/i]; Malrin, a [i]druid's vestment[/i]. And for Gilbert Fung, Telgrane not only taught him the [i]attune form[/i] spell but three others of Gilbert's choice, plus offered to act as a mentor if the portly wizard ever decided to follow the path of the archmage. And then Infernia dragged out a box of flame diamonds taken from the Elemental Plane of Fire, giving them to the group as a whole. "Thank you for saving my Master," she said. "I could not have done it without your help." Castillan's eyes nearly bugged out when he performed the mental calculations of the gems' likely worth back home. But eventually the group decided to take their leave and return to Greyhawk City, so they could meet up with Jinkadoodle outside the city's outskirts and be flown back to Battershield Keep in the dragonfly ship. Telgrane led them to the gray door in the basement of the Door That Doesn't Belong and everyone said their farewells. An hour later they were watching Zaralia's cloud island come into view as Jinkadoodle brought the dragonfly ship into a landing. "You've been uncharacteristically quiet," Binkadink observed to his cousin. "Somebody glue your mouth shut?" "Oh, very funny," retorted Jinkadoodle. "Nice job with the [i]sovereign glue[/i] on the helm seat, by the way." He presented Binkadink his most evil grin. "But that just means it's my turn now." The two cousins were involved in a back-and-forth prank war that had been going on since they were little. "I can hardly wait," replied Binkadink. "I doubt you'll have to, for long," announced Jinkadoodle. "I've already plotted out an appropriate revenge." And sure enough, his next escalation in the prank war wasn't long in coming. The group exited the dragonfly vessel via the [i]carpet of teleportation[/i], ending up back at Battershield Keep, where Helga Battershield informed them dinner would be ready in an hour. There was no use telling her they'd just had a big meal with Telgrane; Helga would take it as a personal insult. So they all went to their quarters, ready to hit the dining hall in an hour. And when they exited the two towers at the front of the keep and made their way to the dining area in the back, they heard a commotion in the stables - one of the goats was bleating in irritation. The stable door was partially open; as they passed, they all got a good view of Binkadink Dundernoggin, naked as the day he was born, wrestling a goat into position. Nobody noticed Jinkadoodle in the back of the stables, hidden in shadows, manipulating the [i]major image[/i] spell he'd cast (from a scroll) of his cousin and the goat engaged in a little recreational activity. Binkadink, meanwhile, was sound asleep in his room, helped along in his slumber by a surreptitious [i]sleep[/i] spell cast by his vengeful cousin mere minutes ago (also from a scroll, as piloting the spelljamming vessel had stripped away the illusionist's spellcasting abilities for the rest of that day). When the spell wore off and Binkadink woke up to find everybody already at dinner, he raced to join them - and was instantly castigated by the rest of the group for an act he hadn't even performed. Jinkadoodle wore a face of pure innocence and concentrated on the excellent meal Helga had prepared. - - - Leave it to a [i]sunburst[/i] spell to make me long for the days when Gilbert's frequent casting of the [i]Evard's black tentacles[/i] spell was my biggest concern! That one spell pretty much cut the whole big fight at the end of this adventure down to a frantic escape on the part of my tiefling would-be Pan-Elementalist and a hand-waving of the combat with three blinded elemental ogres and a tempest guardian everyone could outrun. And I gave Gilbert an XP bonus for freeing the earth titan; I had seriously expected him to continue to use his 20-foot-tall "meat shield" in as many adventures as he could squeeze out of him. The bonus XP nicely counteracts the XP penalty he took for making his [i]detect undead[/i] spell a permanent effect, so now Gilbert has the same amount of XP as the other PCs. (Malrin's still running behind, but she leveled up to 9th as a result of this adventure.) And now the future adventure "Xuneeryne's Revenge" is practically writing itself in my mind. [Edit: After further thought, there's no adventure there. I imagine Telgrane's first action after having seen the Kordovians back to their own plane was to track down Xuneeryne and exact his vengeance. She picked the wrong representative of the Elemental Plane of Fire to fuel her transformation ritual!] - - - T-Shirt Worn: My Einstein shirt, as it has galaxies floating from his pipe, representative of the Astral Plane. [/QUOTE]
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