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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6085495" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 55 - HUNTING THE MAGPIE</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Feron Dru, half-elf druid</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Rale Bodkin, human rogue</p><p></p><p>Lord Stanwyck cleared his throat with a scowl. "I sent for you," he said, "because you successfully completed the previous mission I hired you for, and because you have experience with the individual with whom we are now dealing. Perhaps you are aware that famed artist <strong>Giusonni Brevanche</strong> has been commissioned to create an oil painting of me for the Greyhawk Museum of Fine Art. The commission was completed and was to have been unveiled tomorrow evening at a gala for the nobility of the city. However, after it was hung in its gallery last evening, at some point during the night it was stolen. Just the painting was stolen; the frame was intact, containing only this." And with that, Lord Stanwyck flung a card upon the table.</p><p></p><p>Akari picked it up, and immediately recognized the bird illustration as that of a magpie. The simple, block-letter inscription beneath it read:</p><p></p><p>"Impossible," scoffed Rale. "I saw her die."</p><p></p><p>"So?" glared Lord Stanwyck. "You were once killed by a kraken in the course of your adventures, and yet here you are."</p><p></p><p>"So somebody's <em>resurrected</em> Kazmira?" asked Feron. "Who would do such a thing?"</p><p></p><p>"Gareth, for one," pointed out Chalkan.</p><p></p><p>"He's dead, too," argued Rale.</p><p></p><p>"It doesn't matter who," replied Akari. "And it may not have even happened. All we know is that a thief stole a painting and left behind one of Kazmira the Magpie's cards. It doesn't mean it was her that did it; maybe somebody's just picking up where she left off."</p><p></p><p>Rale picked up the card. "This is the exact same type of card as the one Gareth left," he said, his voice full of certainty.</p><p></p><p>"Then maybe somebody found one of her safehouses, like we did," argued Akari. "Or maybe whoever made the cards for her is making more of the same for her replacement. The point is, it doesn't matter. We need to track down whoever stole the painting, and get it back."</p><p></p><p>"And punish the transgressor!" thundered Lord Stanwyck. "I won't stand being made to look the fool!" Feron muttered something under her breath at that point; fortunately, no one noticed. "I'll give you 5,000 pieces of gold if you recover my painting, with a 2,000-gold-piece bonus if you get it back in time for the gala!" Lord Stanwyck continued. "We can postpone the gala for a day or two if needs be, but not for long. I want that painting back!"</p><p></p><p>The group began by interrogating the guards at the Greyhawk Museum of Fine Art, and were surprised to learn that the Magpie had been caught in the act the previous night. The portrait had already been removed from its frame and the card left in its place, and the Magpie was in the process of leaving by an upper story window when one of the night guards entered the gallery, making his rounds. The Magpie leapt from the window and apparently made it to the street level unscathed, possibly by climbing the very walls of the museum. The third-floor guard blew his whistle to alert the rest of the security force of the theft, and a guard in the foyer heard the commotion and observed the Magpie fleeing down the street. He gave immediate chase, following the Magpie down Golden Street and into a nearby alley. In the alleyway, the Magpie suddenly turned and flung an item at the ground, which exploded into a cloud of billowing smoke. When the smoke dissipated, the Magpie was gone.</p><p></p><p>Neither guard had gotten a good look at the Magpie's face, as the thief was wearing a heavy black hooded cloak. However, the foyer guard who chased the Magpie offered to take the adventurers to the exact spot where the thief vanished in a puff of smoke. Examining the alleyway, Rale discovered one of the cobblestone bricks in the alleyway had a tiny magpie carved in it. Wondering if it was some type of magical effect trigger, he tried stepping on it, pushing it in, sliding it, standing on it and calling out "Magpie!" - all to no effect.</p><p></p><p>"Just what are you doing?" Feron asked him.</p><p></p><p>"That magpie carving can't be a coincidence," the rogue told her. "I'm trying to see how to activate it."</p><p></p><p>Feron cast a quick spell and looked down at the brick. "It's not magical," she replied, then scanned the entire alleyway with her magical sight. "Nothing in this whole alleyway is."</p><p></p><p>"Maybe it's just a marker stone," thought Akari aloud. "What can you see from here that you can't see elsewhere?" He stood on the brick and looked around. Nothing stood out as particularly important.</p><p></p><p>And then he looked straight up.</p><p></p><p>"What's that speck up there?" he asked. "Can you see it?"</p><p></p><p>Everyone strained their eyes at the sky above. There seemed to be a dark speck up there somewhere above them, but nobody could see it well enough to tell just what it was.</p><p></p><p>"We need a closer look," reasoned Akari, and sent a mental summons to his faithful steed. In the blink of an eye, there was a flash of light and Tsukitora, Akari's griffon companion, was standing before them.</p><p></p><p>"I know the drill," said Feron, unpacking the <em>Daern's dollhouse</em> from her <em>Heward's handy haversack</em>. Chalkan and Rale touched the dollhouse, said the command word, and shrunk down to doll size. They walked through the front door, and once they were inside Feron packed it up again. The dollhouse wasn't an extradimensional plane but it did have its own gravity plane, so she wasn't concerned about keeping the dollhouse level as she placed it back in her pack. Then she leaped up upon Tsukitora's back, right behind Akari, and the griffon took to the air.</p><p></p><p>Tsukitora wasn't able to fly directly straight up to the speck - not that his two riders would be particularly pleased with that plan, in any case - but he was able to circle around it as he rose higher and higher. The speck was quite a distance away, high enough that the air got considerably colder the closer they approached it. As it got nearer, it gradually showed itself to be a wooden structure, much like a crate some 10 feet wide and twice that long. There were no windows, but there was a door on one side, with a narrow ledge along the bottom of the whole width of that side; Akari would have referred to it mentally as a porch, save that it was a mere two feet long.</p><p></p><p>There was nowhere for Tsukitora to land but on the roof, so he came to a soft landing upon the structure and Akari and Feron climbed off. While Feron unpacked the <em>Daern's dollhouse</em>, Akari thanked his griffon for the ride, apologized for the lack of room, and dismissed him back to his home plane.</p><p></p><p>Stepping out of the dollhouse, Chalkan and Rale got quite the surprise at their new location. "Holy crap!" exclaimed Rale, looking down over the edge. "That's one hell of a drop!"</p><p></p><p>"So what are we doing up here?" asked Chalkan. "Is this where the Magpie went?"</p><p></p><p>"I'd assume so," replied Akari.</p><p></p><p>"So what are we waiting for?"</p><p></p><p>"Rale to open the door."</p><p></p><p>Rale got a sneaking suspicion he knew where the door was. "No way!" he said. "We're like a mile up!"</p><p></p><p>"It's the only way," Akari argued.</p><p></p><p>"I'll bet it isn't!" countered the rogue. "Somebody teleport inside! Tear up the roof! Burn our way in!"</p><p></p><p>"We don't have any way to teleport in at the moment, and in any case we'd be doing so blindly. And we can't take the risk of dismantling this structure, because if we drop anything from up here it would likely kill anyone it lands on below." Rale was unconvinced by any of the elf's arguments, and adamantly refused to go try to open the door while standing on a two-foot platform a mile above the city.</p><p></p><p>"We'll tie you to a rope harness," offered Akari.</p><p></p><p>"Sounds more like <em>your</em> job, Teabag!" countered Rale.</p><p></p><p>In the end, all it took was an "I know you can do this!" and a "Do it for me?" from Feron, and Rale's indomitable will crumbled like a house of cards. Grumbling quietly to himself, he triple-inspected the tightness of the rope being tied around him before allowing himself to be lowered down from the roof and onto the ledge. And sure enough, the stupid door was locked. Grumbling further, Rale unpacked his thieves tools - all masterwork, as befit an adventurer of his quality - and had at it. In less than a minute the door was unlocked.</p><p></p><p>"Here goes nothing," he grumbled to himself, then pushed it open and dodged to the side, where he'd hopefully be safe from any booby trap that might be waiting for him. Nothing happened, so he cautiously peered around the corner and into the room. There was nobody in it, just a cot, a desk, a chair, and a full-length mirror.</p><p></p><p>"It's safe!" called Rale to the others above him. "Once again, the underappreciated but multitalented rogue has taken all the risks for you, and it's safe for you to follow!"</p><p></p><p>"Is there someplace you can tie off your end of the rope?" called down Akari.</p><p></p><p>Rale looked around. "Not really!" he called back up.</p><p></p><p>"Then you're the anchor!" Akari called back. "Brace yourself, I'm sending the others down!" Chalkan's feet dropped down into the doorway, then he slid hand over hand down the rope and into the doorway. Feron avoided the rope altogether and wildshaped into a hummingbird, entering in that fashion and then resuming her half-elven form. When it was Akari's turn, he simply held onto his end of the rope and stepped off the roof, allowing his <em>ring of feather falling</em> to let him descend at a slow pace while Rale hauled him in like a fish on a line. "So, what have we got here?" the paladin asked.</p><p></p><p>"Not much," replied Rale. "Cot, desk, chair, mirror. No Magpie, no exit. A dead end."</p><p></p><p>"Not necessarily," replied Feron, looking through the desk. "This place is here for a reason. If nothing else, it's a hideout, a place to stay hidden for awhile after a heist, and wait for the excitement to die down."</p><p></p><p>"A very short while," pointed out Chalkan. "There's no bathroom facilities here."</p><p></p><p>"Not needed," responded Feron, showing off the <em>ioun stone</em> she found in a desk drawer. "This allows its user to go without food or water - or the need for a bathroom."</p><p></p><p>"So you think the Magpie hid here for awhile and then left?" asked Rale. "Then this is a dead end after all - she could be anywhere!"</p><p></p><p>"Look at this," said Akari, examining the mirror. Everyone crowded around him to see. It was a full-length mirror, with a series of words along the top and bottom: "CONSERVE," "OBVERSE," "ALTER," "ODOR," and "SEA GEMS." A round depression was located by each word, or in between in the case of "SEA GEMS." A gemstone covered the hole by "ALTER" - apparently it could be moved into different positions.</p><p></p><p>"Got it!" exclaimed Chalkan. "'ALTER' is an anagram of 'LATER.'"</p><p></p><p>"So?" asked Rale. "What's that supposed to mean?"</p><p></p><p>"No, he's right," pointed out Feron. "'CONSERVE' could be 'CONVERSE' - maybe you can talk through the mirror to someone. 'OBVERSE' is 'OBSERVE,' so you can use it like a scrying device. Let's see, 'ODOR' would be 'DOOR," so you can walk through it! That's where the Magpie went: right through this mirror!"</p><p></p><p>"And 'SEA GEMS?'" asked Rale.</p><p></p><p>Feron thought a moment. "...'MESSAGE,'" she said with a smile. "So you can leave a message for somebody, perhaps? And that's not 'LATER,'" she said suddenly. "It's 'ALERT!'"</p><p></p><p>"...As in, alert the Magpie on the other side of this mirror that there are trespassers in her crappy little home away from home?" asked Rale with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.</p><p></p><p>On the other side of the mirror - or, more accurately, on the Plane of Shadows, looking into a mirror identical to the one the adventurers were staring into, although the gemstone on this mirror was aligned with the word 'OBVERSE' - <strong>Jandago</strong> smiled a quiet smile, appreciating his pursuers' uneasiness at the realization that they were probably being spied upon. He readied himself for what was likely to follow next.</p><p></p><p>"Crap crap crap crap crap!" said Rale, not liking this sudden turn of events. He had been convinced this was a dead end, which was bad enough, but to find out that this stupid mirror was probably spying on them the whole time, and that anybody - anything - could be jumping out of it at them at any moment made the rogue sweat with fear.</p><p></p><p>"Prepare for combat!" commanded Akari, moving over to the fold-up cot and grabbing up the blanket sitting folded on one end. He threw the blanket over the mirror, shielding it from view.</p><p></p><p>"You think that's going to stop them from coming into here?" demanded Rale.</p><p></p><p>"I think it may stop them from seeing our preparations," said Akari, casting a <em>protection from evil</em> spell upon himself and pulling <em>Hoardmaster</em> from its scabbard. Feron cast a <em>stoneskin</em> spell upon herself and gave a look to Akari denoting her readiness. Chalkan took the opportunity to cast <em>longstrider</em> and <em>resist energy (fire)</em> upon himself and received a <em>bull's strength</em> from Akari as well.</p><p></p><p>"Hey, what about me?" Rale asked. Feron cast a <em>protection from energy (fire)</em> on him, and he was happy.</p><p></p><p>"We ready?" asked Akari, one hand on the blanket.</p><p></p><p>"Ready!" confirmed Feron.</p><p></p><p>"Ready!" echoed Chalkan, bow in hand and an arrow nocked for use.</p><p></p><p>"Ready," sighed Rale, steeling himself for whatever he might find on the other side of the mirror. He had both of his short swords in hand.</p><p></p><p>"Ready!" smirked Jandago, standing before his own mirror and watching Akari pull the blanket from the mirror and switch the gemstone to the "ODOR" position. As the paladin stepped through the mirror into the Plane of Shadows, Jandago tossed his smoke grenade at the elf's feet, then twirled and ran down the stairs.</p><p></p><p>Akari stepped from the wooden structure - what Rale had dubbed "The Magpie's Nest" - and into a world of blacks and grays. Immediately, he was concerned that he was once again on the Negative Energy Plane, but he could breathe normally and there was no draining sensation. Then a cloud of smoke billowed up around him, and he just barely saw a cloaked figure running toward a set of stairs before he was blinded by the cloud. "This way!" he called to the others stepping out of the mirror behind him and staggered in what he thought was the right direction. He barked his shin on a chair, but felt his way to a curving set of stairs and heard the soft thump of footsteps heading down the stairs before him.</p><p></p><p>Jandago, for his part, grinned to himself for everything was going as he had planned. After stealing the portrait of the blowhard Stanwyck and leaving behind the Magpie calling card - why not steal the notoriety of the original Magpie along with her name? - he had returned here to Tarfeather Castle, stashed the stolen portrait, and hung around his bedroom, listening for his mirror to alert him of trespassers. He had purposefully waited to be chased, wanting them racing blindly down the steps in hurried pursuit, and it looked like they weren't going to disappoint. The shadowdancer threw open the door at the bottom of the steps, leaped up into the air, and used the acrobatic training he had gained at the monastery to flip himself around on his way up, touching lightly upon the ceiling and staying in place with his <em>boots of levitation</em>.</p><p></p><p>And here came the bumbling oafs in hot pursuit, the elven paladin leading the charge. He raced through the door and had no time to change course before plummeting into the open hole in the floor and landing on the level below. A half-elf bowman followed right behind, and followed the paladin's course directly to the lower level, crashing into him as he landed in a heap. Another half-elf followed, this one a striking young woman, and she had the grace and balance to halt her forward momentum at the last moment. That would never do! Jandago dropped from the ceiling, flipped around, and brought a foot smashing into the small of the woman's back, sending her plummeting down to the lower level below as well. This was just too easy!</p><p></p><p>"Bad idea, buddy!" said Rale as he swiped at the shadowdancer with both of his blades.</p><p></p><p>Surprisingly, neither blade hit, as the dark-clad foe dodged nimbly under the swords and then leaped back up to the ceiling, where he ran across its length to the other side of the room. Rale stashed his swords and pulled out his shortbow, tracking the enemy's movements as he ran across the ceiling like a fly. Rale could see that this was once an apparently sturdily-built castle, but the floor of this room had given out some time ago and collapsed to the dungeon level below, which was partially filled with water. "You guys okay down there?" he called as he tracked the upside-down foe and let loose an arrow in his direction - which, annoyingly, the shadowdancer snagged out of the air and cast aside like so much rubbish.</p><p></p><p>"Fine," replied Feron, wildshaping into an eagle and flying back up to the level above, far enough away from the broken floor that she should be safe before resuming her normal form.</p><p></p><p>"Okay," said Chalkan, getting up off of Akari and looking at his surroundings.</p><p></p><p>"Been better," croaked Akari, face and hair dripping with foul, black water.</p><p></p><p>While Feron and Rale traded blows with Jandago up above, Akari and Chalkan looked for a way back up. They were in a basement level, with chunks of stone scattered about, debris from the collapsed floor above, the whole area drenched in several inches of dark water. Many glistening bodies were in evidence; closer examination showed these to be leeches. And then a flash of movement revealed a more evident threat, a dark-skinned grick, no doubt altered by its existence on the Plane of Shadows to make it more in tune with its murky environment. As Akari and Chalkan regained their feet to face this threat, another of its kind wriggled from behind a chunk of fallen stone. The two shadow gricks kept the two adventurers busy down below while up one level, Feron and Rale were discovering another ability of Jandago, the self-appointed replacement Magpie.</p><p></p><p>Feron was well aware that many arcane spellcasters had familiars, and divine spellcasters - like herself - often had animal companions. But Jandago was the first shadowdancer she'd ever encountered, and thus his shadow companion came as a complete surprise. Having an undead creature as one's beck and call just seemed unnatural to the druid, and she did her best to keep the flitting thing away from her, while still attempting to keep an eye on the irritating shadowdancer, whose monk training gave him the flexibility to put his <em>boots of levitation</em> to good use; he jumped back and forth between floor and ceiling, and there were times Feron was positive that he had faded into one pool of shadows and exited from a different one across the room.</p><p></p><p>In the meantime, after Akari and Chalkan killed the pair of shadow gricks, they discovered they had bigger problems: the numerous leeches had all merged into a large, humanoid form and were headed in their direction. Both adventurers made grimaces and decided ranged weaponry was definitely the way to go against this foe. Of course, Chalkan's arrows tended to fly straight through the best, skewering half a dozen of the component leeches but doing little in the way to stop the composite creature. Akari's <em>Deathstriker</em> fared a little better, blasting a hole in the creature's body with each strike, but the remaining leeches always shifted around and reformed the humanoid beast, filling in any gaps. It was finally Feron, from above, whose constant movement during her fight with Jandago and his shadow companion brought her close enough to the hole's edge to see what they were up against, who dropped down a <em>flame strike</em> and fried the beast, allowing Akari and Chalkan to boost themselves one at a time back up to the upper level.</p><p></p><p>At that point, Jandago and his shadow companion found themselves outnumbered. The shadowdancer leapt across the opening to the dungeon level below and was about to run through the door to call for reinforcements. Akari, recognizing that this was not in the group's best interest, jumped at the shadowdancer, but missed and ended up plummeting back downstairs. Jandago saw this as a perfect opportunity, and he and his shadow companion jumped down there to flank Akari and hopefully take him out of the picture. That didn't go entirely the way he had envisioned: Akari triple-smote the shadowdancer, killing him in mere seconds. The shadow companion, for its part, decided at that point there was no real reason to continue the fight, and departed for parts unknown.</p><p></p><p>Jandago wore a key around his neck, which Rale took, certain that it opened his treasury, wherever that might be located.</p><p></p><p>An investigation into the rest of that level of the castle led to an encounter with a group of allied shadow kenku, but after an initial skirmish, the kenku realized they were outmatched and once they learned that their ally Jandago had been slain they suddenly lost all interest in combat whatsoever, going so far as to inform the group that the shadowdancer kept his stolen goods in a vault in the flooded level below.</p><p></p><p>Wading back down into the flooded lower level, the group found a locked vault door with a keyhole the same size as the key they had taken from Jandago. Rale checked the door for traps, found no evidence of anything untoward, and opened the vault door with the key. He got a surprise when, tugging the heavy door open, he saw the entire interior surface of the door was covered in wood that had been glued in place. The reason for this became obvious once the two starving rust monsters leaped forward, antenna waving at the swords on Rale's belt. He leaped back, and Feron blasted them with a spell, as Chalkan's arrows flew at them from a safe distance. They were dispatched without any trouble, but Rale was furious to see that the vault room was otherwise empty.</p><p></p><p>Still, Rale was familiar with the concept of the false vault, and decided the real one had to be elsewhere on the level. A close examination of the wall to the immediate left of the vault door revealed a secret panel, which, once they passed through it, revealed another vault door, identical in appearance to the one which housed the rust monsters. Still, having been tricked once, Rale was now on the alert and checked for secret doors in the vicinity before opening this second vault door. This proved to be a good idea, for he found a similar secret panel and a third vault just beyond; opening the third vault revealed not only the purloined portrait of Lord Stanwyck, but also numerous pouches of gems and canvas bags of coins. Rale whooped for joy at the discovery of the coins and gems - free loot for the group, since all they were hired to recover for Lord Stanwyck was his stupid portrait. (Actually, looking at the painting, Feron had to admit that it was very well done, giving Lord Stanwyck an undeserved appearance of nobility, with an almost regal bearing; much better than the creep deserved.)</p><p></p><p>The treasure was successfully transferred to the <em>Daern's dollhouse</em> for safekeeping, and the group backtracked their way to the magic mirror up in Jandago's bedroom. There was no way to take the mirror with them back through itself, so they left it in place and stepped through it back into the Magpie's Nest. They did take that mirror with them, and rather than bother Tsukitora again, Akari had everyone else pile into the <em>Daern's dollhouse</em> while he let his <em>ring of feather falling</em> transport him back down to the city below.</p><p></p><p>Lord Stanwyck was suitably pleased at the return of his portrait in time for the gala, and paid the group the sum he had quoted. The magic mirror was turned over to the Adventurers Guild, to decide what to do with it; some in the group wanted to destroy it to ensure it couldn't be used by the shadow kenku to infiltrate the material plane, while others argued that the pair would make a useful tool if the second one could be taken from Jandago's room on the Plane of Shadows. If this second option was the one decided upon, the task was given to a different Wing, for the Wing Three members never heard anything else about it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6085495, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 55 - HUNTING THE MAGPIE[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer Feron Dru, half-elf druid Rale Bodkin, human rogue[/INDENT] Lord Stanwyck cleared his throat with a scowl. "I sent for you," he said, "because you successfully completed the previous mission I hired you for, and because you have experience with the individual with whom we are now dealing. Perhaps you are aware that famed artist [b]Giusonni Brevanche[/b] has been commissioned to create an oil painting of me for the Greyhawk Museum of Fine Art. The commission was completed and was to have been unveiled tomorrow evening at a gala for the nobility of the city. However, after it was hung in its gallery last evening, at some point during the night it was stolen. Just the painting was stolen; the frame was intact, containing only this." And with that, Lord Stanwyck flung a card upon the table. Akari picked it up, and immediately recognized the bird illustration as that of a magpie. The simple, block-letter inscription beneath it read: "Impossible," scoffed Rale. "I saw her die." "So?" glared Lord Stanwyck. "You were once killed by a kraken in the course of your adventures, and yet here you are." "So somebody's [i]resurrected[/i] Kazmira?" asked Feron. "Who would do such a thing?" "Gareth, for one," pointed out Chalkan. "He's dead, too," argued Rale. "It doesn't matter who," replied Akari. "And it may not have even happened. All we know is that a thief stole a painting and left behind one of Kazmira the Magpie's cards. It doesn't mean it was her that did it; maybe somebody's just picking up where she left off." Rale picked up the card. "This is the exact same type of card as the one Gareth left," he said, his voice full of certainty. "Then maybe somebody found one of her safehouses, like we did," argued Akari. "Or maybe whoever made the cards for her is making more of the same for her replacement. The point is, it doesn't matter. We need to track down whoever stole the painting, and get it back." "And punish the transgressor!" thundered Lord Stanwyck. "I won't stand being made to look the fool!" Feron muttered something under her breath at that point; fortunately, no one noticed. "I'll give you 5,000 pieces of gold if you recover my painting, with a 2,000-gold-piece bonus if you get it back in time for the gala!" Lord Stanwyck continued. "We can postpone the gala for a day or two if needs be, but not for long. I want that painting back!" The group began by interrogating the guards at the Greyhawk Museum of Fine Art, and were surprised to learn that the Magpie had been caught in the act the previous night. The portrait had already been removed from its frame and the card left in its place, and the Magpie was in the process of leaving by an upper story window when one of the night guards entered the gallery, making his rounds. The Magpie leapt from the window and apparently made it to the street level unscathed, possibly by climbing the very walls of the museum. The third-floor guard blew his whistle to alert the rest of the security force of the theft, and a guard in the foyer heard the commotion and observed the Magpie fleeing down the street. He gave immediate chase, following the Magpie down Golden Street and into a nearby alley. In the alleyway, the Magpie suddenly turned and flung an item at the ground, which exploded into a cloud of billowing smoke. When the smoke dissipated, the Magpie was gone. Neither guard had gotten a good look at the Magpie's face, as the thief was wearing a heavy black hooded cloak. However, the foyer guard who chased the Magpie offered to take the adventurers to the exact spot where the thief vanished in a puff of smoke. Examining the alleyway, Rale discovered one of the cobblestone bricks in the alleyway had a tiny magpie carved in it. Wondering if it was some type of magical effect trigger, he tried stepping on it, pushing it in, sliding it, standing on it and calling out "Magpie!" - all to no effect. "Just what are you doing?" Feron asked him. "That magpie carving can't be a coincidence," the rogue told her. "I'm trying to see how to activate it." Feron cast a quick spell and looked down at the brick. "It's not magical," she replied, then scanned the entire alleyway with her magical sight. "Nothing in this whole alleyway is." "Maybe it's just a marker stone," thought Akari aloud. "What can you see from here that you can't see elsewhere?" He stood on the brick and looked around. Nothing stood out as particularly important. And then he looked straight up. "What's that speck up there?" he asked. "Can you see it?" Everyone strained their eyes at the sky above. There seemed to be a dark speck up there somewhere above them, but nobody could see it well enough to tell just what it was. "We need a closer look," reasoned Akari, and sent a mental summons to his faithful steed. In the blink of an eye, there was a flash of light and Tsukitora, Akari's griffon companion, was standing before them. "I know the drill," said Feron, unpacking the [i]Daern's dollhouse[/i] from her [i]Heward's handy haversack[/i]. Chalkan and Rale touched the dollhouse, said the command word, and shrunk down to doll size. They walked through the front door, and once they were inside Feron packed it up again. The dollhouse wasn't an extradimensional plane but it did have its own gravity plane, so she wasn't concerned about keeping the dollhouse level as she placed it back in her pack. Then she leaped up upon Tsukitora's back, right behind Akari, and the griffon took to the air. Tsukitora wasn't able to fly directly straight up to the speck - not that his two riders would be particularly pleased with that plan, in any case - but he was able to circle around it as he rose higher and higher. The speck was quite a distance away, high enough that the air got considerably colder the closer they approached it. As it got nearer, it gradually showed itself to be a wooden structure, much like a crate some 10 feet wide and twice that long. There were no windows, but there was a door on one side, with a narrow ledge along the bottom of the whole width of that side; Akari would have referred to it mentally as a porch, save that it was a mere two feet long. There was nowhere for Tsukitora to land but on the roof, so he came to a soft landing upon the structure and Akari and Feron climbed off. While Feron unpacked the [i]Daern's dollhouse[/i], Akari thanked his griffon for the ride, apologized for the lack of room, and dismissed him back to his home plane. Stepping out of the dollhouse, Chalkan and Rale got quite the surprise at their new location. "Holy crap!" exclaimed Rale, looking down over the edge. "That's one hell of a drop!" "So what are we doing up here?" asked Chalkan. "Is this where the Magpie went?" "I'd assume so," replied Akari. "So what are we waiting for?" "Rale to open the door." Rale got a sneaking suspicion he knew where the door was. "No way!" he said. "We're like a mile up!" "It's the only way," Akari argued. "I'll bet it isn't!" countered the rogue. "Somebody teleport inside! Tear up the roof! Burn our way in!" "We don't have any way to teleport in at the moment, and in any case we'd be doing so blindly. And we can't take the risk of dismantling this structure, because if we drop anything from up here it would likely kill anyone it lands on below." Rale was unconvinced by any of the elf's arguments, and adamantly refused to go try to open the door while standing on a two-foot platform a mile above the city. "We'll tie you to a rope harness," offered Akari. "Sounds more like [i]your[/i] job, Teabag!" countered Rale. In the end, all it took was an "I know you can do this!" and a "Do it for me?" from Feron, and Rale's indomitable will crumbled like a house of cards. Grumbling quietly to himself, he triple-inspected the tightness of the rope being tied around him before allowing himself to be lowered down from the roof and onto the ledge. And sure enough, the stupid door was locked. Grumbling further, Rale unpacked his thieves tools - all masterwork, as befit an adventurer of his quality - and had at it. In less than a minute the door was unlocked. "Here goes nothing," he grumbled to himself, then pushed it open and dodged to the side, where he'd hopefully be safe from any booby trap that might be waiting for him. Nothing happened, so he cautiously peered around the corner and into the room. There was nobody in it, just a cot, a desk, a chair, and a full-length mirror. "It's safe!" called Rale to the others above him. "Once again, the underappreciated but multitalented rogue has taken all the risks for you, and it's safe for you to follow!" "Is there someplace you can tie off your end of the rope?" called down Akari. Rale looked around. "Not really!" he called back up. "Then you're the anchor!" Akari called back. "Brace yourself, I'm sending the others down!" Chalkan's feet dropped down into the doorway, then he slid hand over hand down the rope and into the doorway. Feron avoided the rope altogether and wildshaped into a hummingbird, entering in that fashion and then resuming her half-elven form. When it was Akari's turn, he simply held onto his end of the rope and stepped off the roof, allowing his [i]ring of feather falling[/i] to let him descend at a slow pace while Rale hauled him in like a fish on a line. "So, what have we got here?" the paladin asked. "Not much," replied Rale. "Cot, desk, chair, mirror. No Magpie, no exit. A dead end." "Not necessarily," replied Feron, looking through the desk. "This place is here for a reason. If nothing else, it's a hideout, a place to stay hidden for awhile after a heist, and wait for the excitement to die down." "A very short while," pointed out Chalkan. "There's no bathroom facilities here." "Not needed," responded Feron, showing off the [i]ioun stone[/i] she found in a desk drawer. "This allows its user to go without food or water - or the need for a bathroom." "So you think the Magpie hid here for awhile and then left?" asked Rale. "Then this is a dead end after all - she could be anywhere!" "Look at this," said Akari, examining the mirror. Everyone crowded around him to see. It was a full-length mirror, with a series of words along the top and bottom: "CONSERVE," "OBVERSE," "ALTER," "ODOR," and "SEA GEMS." A round depression was located by each word, or in between in the case of "SEA GEMS." A gemstone covered the hole by "ALTER" - apparently it could be moved into different positions. "Got it!" exclaimed Chalkan. "'ALTER' is an anagram of 'LATER.'" "So?" asked Rale. "What's that supposed to mean?" "No, he's right," pointed out Feron. "'CONSERVE' could be 'CONVERSE' - maybe you can talk through the mirror to someone. 'OBVERSE' is 'OBSERVE,' so you can use it like a scrying device. Let's see, 'ODOR' would be 'DOOR," so you can walk through it! That's where the Magpie went: right through this mirror!" "And 'SEA GEMS?'" asked Rale. Feron thought a moment. "...'MESSAGE,'" she said with a smile. "So you can leave a message for somebody, perhaps? And that's not 'LATER,'" she said suddenly. "It's 'ALERT!'" "...As in, alert the Magpie on the other side of this mirror that there are trespassers in her crappy little home away from home?" asked Rale with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. On the other side of the mirror - or, more accurately, on the Plane of Shadows, looking into a mirror identical to the one the adventurers were staring into, although the gemstone on this mirror was aligned with the word 'OBVERSE' - [b]Jandago[/b] smiled a quiet smile, appreciating his pursuers' uneasiness at the realization that they were probably being spied upon. He readied himself for what was likely to follow next. "Crap crap crap crap crap!" said Rale, not liking this sudden turn of events. He had been convinced this was a dead end, which was bad enough, but to find out that this stupid mirror was probably spying on them the whole time, and that anybody - anything - could be jumping out of it at them at any moment made the rogue sweat with fear. "Prepare for combat!" commanded Akari, moving over to the fold-up cot and grabbing up the blanket sitting folded on one end. He threw the blanket over the mirror, shielding it from view. "You think that's going to stop them from coming into here?" demanded Rale. "I think it may stop them from seeing our preparations," said Akari, casting a [i]protection from evil[/i] spell upon himself and pulling [i]Hoardmaster[/i] from its scabbard. Feron cast a [i]stoneskin[/i] spell upon herself and gave a look to Akari denoting her readiness. Chalkan took the opportunity to cast [i]longstrider[/i] and [i]resist energy (fire)[/i] upon himself and received a [i]bull's strength[/i] from Akari as well. "Hey, what about me?" Rale asked. Feron cast a [i]protection from energy (fire)[/i] on him, and he was happy. "We ready?" asked Akari, one hand on the blanket. "Ready!" confirmed Feron. "Ready!" echoed Chalkan, bow in hand and an arrow nocked for use. "Ready," sighed Rale, steeling himself for whatever he might find on the other side of the mirror. He had both of his short swords in hand. "Ready!" smirked Jandago, standing before his own mirror and watching Akari pull the blanket from the mirror and switch the gemstone to the "ODOR" position. As the paladin stepped through the mirror into the Plane of Shadows, Jandago tossed his smoke grenade at the elf's feet, then twirled and ran down the stairs. Akari stepped from the wooden structure - what Rale had dubbed "The Magpie's Nest" - and into a world of blacks and grays. Immediately, he was concerned that he was once again on the Negative Energy Plane, but he could breathe normally and there was no draining sensation. Then a cloud of smoke billowed up around him, and he just barely saw a cloaked figure running toward a set of stairs before he was blinded by the cloud. "This way!" he called to the others stepping out of the mirror behind him and staggered in what he thought was the right direction. He barked his shin on a chair, but felt his way to a curving set of stairs and heard the soft thump of footsteps heading down the stairs before him. Jandago, for his part, grinned to himself for everything was going as he had planned. After stealing the portrait of the blowhard Stanwyck and leaving behind the Magpie calling card - why not steal the notoriety of the original Magpie along with her name? - he had returned here to Tarfeather Castle, stashed the stolen portrait, and hung around his bedroom, listening for his mirror to alert him of trespassers. He had purposefully waited to be chased, wanting them racing blindly down the steps in hurried pursuit, and it looked like they weren't going to disappoint. The shadowdancer threw open the door at the bottom of the steps, leaped up into the air, and used the acrobatic training he had gained at the monastery to flip himself around on his way up, touching lightly upon the ceiling and staying in place with his [i]boots of levitation[/i]. And here came the bumbling oafs in hot pursuit, the elven paladin leading the charge. He raced through the door and had no time to change course before plummeting into the open hole in the floor and landing on the level below. A half-elf bowman followed right behind, and followed the paladin's course directly to the lower level, crashing into him as he landed in a heap. Another half-elf followed, this one a striking young woman, and she had the grace and balance to halt her forward momentum at the last moment. That would never do! Jandago dropped from the ceiling, flipped around, and brought a foot smashing into the small of the woman's back, sending her plummeting down to the lower level below as well. This was just too easy! "Bad idea, buddy!" said Rale as he swiped at the shadowdancer with both of his blades. Surprisingly, neither blade hit, as the dark-clad foe dodged nimbly under the swords and then leaped back up to the ceiling, where he ran across its length to the other side of the room. Rale stashed his swords and pulled out his shortbow, tracking the enemy's movements as he ran across the ceiling like a fly. Rale could see that this was once an apparently sturdily-built castle, but the floor of this room had given out some time ago and collapsed to the dungeon level below, which was partially filled with water. "You guys okay down there?" he called as he tracked the upside-down foe and let loose an arrow in his direction - which, annoyingly, the shadowdancer snagged out of the air and cast aside like so much rubbish. "Fine," replied Feron, wildshaping into an eagle and flying back up to the level above, far enough away from the broken floor that she should be safe before resuming her normal form. "Okay," said Chalkan, getting up off of Akari and looking at his surroundings. "Been better," croaked Akari, face and hair dripping with foul, black water. While Feron and Rale traded blows with Jandago up above, Akari and Chalkan looked for a way back up. They were in a basement level, with chunks of stone scattered about, debris from the collapsed floor above, the whole area drenched in several inches of dark water. Many glistening bodies were in evidence; closer examination showed these to be leeches. And then a flash of movement revealed a more evident threat, a dark-skinned grick, no doubt altered by its existence on the Plane of Shadows to make it more in tune with its murky environment. As Akari and Chalkan regained their feet to face this threat, another of its kind wriggled from behind a chunk of fallen stone. The two shadow gricks kept the two adventurers busy down below while up one level, Feron and Rale were discovering another ability of Jandago, the self-appointed replacement Magpie. Feron was well aware that many arcane spellcasters had familiars, and divine spellcasters - like herself - often had animal companions. But Jandago was the first shadowdancer she'd ever encountered, and thus his shadow companion came as a complete surprise. Having an undead creature as one's beck and call just seemed unnatural to the druid, and she did her best to keep the flitting thing away from her, while still attempting to keep an eye on the irritating shadowdancer, whose monk training gave him the flexibility to put his [i]boots of levitation[/i] to good use; he jumped back and forth between floor and ceiling, and there were times Feron was positive that he had faded into one pool of shadows and exited from a different one across the room. In the meantime, after Akari and Chalkan killed the pair of shadow gricks, they discovered they had bigger problems: the numerous leeches had all merged into a large, humanoid form and were headed in their direction. Both adventurers made grimaces and decided ranged weaponry was definitely the way to go against this foe. Of course, Chalkan's arrows tended to fly straight through the best, skewering half a dozen of the component leeches but doing little in the way to stop the composite creature. Akari's [i]Deathstriker[/i] fared a little better, blasting a hole in the creature's body with each strike, but the remaining leeches always shifted around and reformed the humanoid beast, filling in any gaps. It was finally Feron, from above, whose constant movement during her fight with Jandago and his shadow companion brought her close enough to the hole's edge to see what they were up against, who dropped down a [i]flame strike[/i] and fried the beast, allowing Akari and Chalkan to boost themselves one at a time back up to the upper level. At that point, Jandago and his shadow companion found themselves outnumbered. The shadowdancer leapt across the opening to the dungeon level below and was about to run through the door to call for reinforcements. Akari, recognizing that this was not in the group's best interest, jumped at the shadowdancer, but missed and ended up plummeting back downstairs. Jandago saw this as a perfect opportunity, and he and his shadow companion jumped down there to flank Akari and hopefully take him out of the picture. That didn't go entirely the way he had envisioned: Akari triple-smote the shadowdancer, killing him in mere seconds. The shadow companion, for its part, decided at that point there was no real reason to continue the fight, and departed for parts unknown. Jandago wore a key around his neck, which Rale took, certain that it opened his treasury, wherever that might be located. An investigation into the rest of that level of the castle led to an encounter with a group of allied shadow kenku, but after an initial skirmish, the kenku realized they were outmatched and once they learned that their ally Jandago had been slain they suddenly lost all interest in combat whatsoever, going so far as to inform the group that the shadowdancer kept his stolen goods in a vault in the flooded level below. Wading back down into the flooded lower level, the group found a locked vault door with a keyhole the same size as the key they had taken from Jandago. Rale checked the door for traps, found no evidence of anything untoward, and opened the vault door with the key. He got a surprise when, tugging the heavy door open, he saw the entire interior surface of the door was covered in wood that had been glued in place. The reason for this became obvious once the two starving rust monsters leaped forward, antenna waving at the swords on Rale's belt. He leaped back, and Feron blasted them with a spell, as Chalkan's arrows flew at them from a safe distance. They were dispatched without any trouble, but Rale was furious to see that the vault room was otherwise empty. Still, Rale was familiar with the concept of the false vault, and decided the real one had to be elsewhere on the level. A close examination of the wall to the immediate left of the vault door revealed a secret panel, which, once they passed through it, revealed another vault door, identical in appearance to the one which housed the rust monsters. Still, having been tricked once, Rale was now on the alert and checked for secret doors in the vicinity before opening this second vault door. This proved to be a good idea, for he found a similar secret panel and a third vault just beyond; opening the third vault revealed not only the purloined portrait of Lord Stanwyck, but also numerous pouches of gems and canvas bags of coins. Rale whooped for joy at the discovery of the coins and gems - free loot for the group, since all they were hired to recover for Lord Stanwyck was his stupid portrait. (Actually, looking at the painting, Feron had to admit that it was very well done, giving Lord Stanwyck an undeserved appearance of nobility, with an almost regal bearing; much better than the creep deserved.) The treasure was successfully transferred to the [i]Daern's dollhouse[/i] for safekeeping, and the group backtracked their way to the magic mirror up in Jandago's bedroom. There was no way to take the mirror with them back through itself, so they left it in place and stepped through it back into the Magpie's Nest. They did take that mirror with them, and rather than bother Tsukitora again, Akari had everyone else pile into the [i]Daern's dollhouse[/i] while he let his [i]ring of feather falling[/i] transport him back down to the city below. Lord Stanwyck was suitably pleased at the return of his portrait in time for the gala, and paid the group the sum he had quoted. The magic mirror was turned over to the Adventurers Guild, to decide what to do with it; some in the group wanted to destroy it to ensure it couldn't be used by the shadow kenku to infiltrate the material plane, while others argued that the pair would make a useful tool if the second one could be taken from Jandago's room on the Plane of Shadows. If this second option was the one decided upon, the task was given to a different Wing, for the Wing Three members never heard anything else about it. [/QUOTE]
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