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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6095498" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 59 - THE TAKING OF THE <em>PLANAR SCOUT</em></strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord</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"> Telgrane, human conjurer</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Dr. Pythagoras Greymantle, human wizard/archmage</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Pinwhistle, warforged (gnome) cleric of Gond</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Rebecca Starfall, human wizard</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Delmond Ravensbrook, human rogue/wizard</p><p></p><p>The four adventurers walked up to Greymantle Manor, and were met by Rebecca Starfall, who smiled and welcomed them. She shut off the building's defenses long enough to allow them to enter, then reactivated them once they were inside.</p><p></p><p>"You're right on time," she said, escorting them through the small manor and into the hangar in the back of the wizard’s dwelling. "I think I hear him landing the <em>Planar Scout</em> right now."</p><p></p><p>"Landing it?" asked Feron. "I thought we were going on its maiden voyage."</p><p></p><p>"Well, the first one where it actually goes somewhere," said Rebecca. "Dr. Greymantle just wanted to make sure it was flying okay before taking it to another plane."</p><p></p><p>Sure enough, entering the hangar the group saw a brief flash of energy as the dorsal shield kicked off and the <em>Planar Scout</em> slowly settled into place in the center of the open hangar. Then the shield snapped back into place, the similar shield around the vessel kicked off, and Dr. Greymantle exited the craft's control cabin. He looked down at the vistors and waved in greeting, calling down "Everything's fine. Are you ready to go?"</p><p></p><p>Suddenly, there was a solid smack and he crumpled into a heap, hanging in midair like a marionette whose cords had been cut. Before the group's astonished eyes, he rose several feet into the air, and then went flying in their direction, eyes closed and head lolling, apparently unconscious. Rebecca shrieked in alarm. Cal leaped forward, catching the incoming Archmage and tumbling backwards in a heap having done so. As the others watched, the door to the <em>Planar Scout</em> opened and shut, the shield around the vessel snapped back on, the dorsal shield over the hangar deactivated, and the whine of the craft's twin engines escalated as the ship started to rise into the air.</p><p></p><p>Pinwhistle stepped over and slapped his friend awake, casting a healing spell upon him as he did so. The Archmage opened his eyes groggily as the <em>Planar Scout</em> just in time to see the labors of his last two years escaping off into the sky. "What happened?" he demanded.</p><p></p><p>"You got hit, by someone - or something - invisible, and plenty strong," said Cal.</p><p></p><p>Dr. Greymantle scrambled to his feet and stared up at the elevating ship, fists quivering in anger. "This is unacceptable!" he cried in dismay.</p><p></p><p>"Not much we can do about it now, Thag" said Pinwhistle, his seven-foot-frame decrying the gentleness in his voice as he placed a massive hand on his friend's shoulder.</p><p></p><p>"But there is!" cried Dr. Greymantle, a look of inspiration on his face. "Pinwhistle: with me!" He activated a switch, and a door opened up on the far side of the hangar. A bright light emanated from the other side, bright enough to cause the others to shield their eyes. "We'll be right back!" the Archmage called over his shoulder, then the two disappeared into the light, and the door closed shut behind them.</p><p></p><p>Telgrane was fascinated by the craft, still visible in the sky above him. "Is that thing...carved from stone?" he asked in astonishment.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah," commented Delmond. "Those two have been carving it into shape for a couple of years now."</p><p></p><p>"And yet it flies!" marveled the conjurer. "Amazing!" As he watched, it became little more than a speck in the sky.</p><p></p><p>The door opened again, spilling its blinding light into the hangar. Dr. Greymantle emerged, his robes wrinkled, hair in disarray, and stubble covering his chin that Telgrane didn't recall having noticed before. The Archmage wore a strange pair of goggles on the top of his head and he clutched an odd-looking metal rod which had several protrusions jutting out at one end. "Stand back!" he commanded, as Pinwhistle staggered out, balancing an octagonal slab of stone some 20 feet wide and trying carefully to place it on the floor of the hangar without squashing anyone. Looking closely at the slab, it was apparently identical to one of the wing protrusions from the <em>Planar Scout</em>.</p><p></p><p>"Everybody on!" called out the wizard, as he plugged the metal rod into a hole at the top of the slab and a familiar whining sound started emanating from the stone octagon. As one, the group jumped aboard. A magical shield snapped into place as the raft started rising into the air. Casually slapping the goggles into place over his eyes, he called out, "I can follow the <em>Planar Scout</em>’s wake!" over the roar of the engine. "We may be able to catch up to her!"</p><p></p><p>"Just what the Hell is going on?" demanded Cal.</p><p></p><p>"I'll tell you what's going on," replied Pinwhistle. "We're gonna get whoever took the <em>Planar Scout</em> and make 'em wish they'd never been born!" He pounded one massive fist into his other hand for emphasis.</p><p></p><p>"No, I mean what is this we're on, and where did it come from?"</p><p></p><p>"Oh, that," remarked the living construct. "Thag's got a workshop on another plane on the other side of that door in his hangar. Time passes at a diff'rent rate over there. We spent the past three days slapping this raft together out of a spare wing protrusion. We're smaller than the <em>Planar Scout</em>, but we're lighter and a little more maneuverable, too - with any luck, we'll be able to catch up before it goes extraplanar."</p><p></p><p>The makeshift raft rose up into the air at an alarming rate. The heroes watched the city fall away below them until it was obscured by cloud cover. Soon, Dr. Greymantle called out that he could see the craft ahead. Squinting into the sun, Chalkan could just make out a shape that could only be the <em>Planar Scout</em>. "She's getting ready to jump!" cried out the wizard in alarm. "Hang on – we've got to get through the gate before it closes!"</p><p></p><p>A bright light emanated from the <em>Planar Scout</em>, and Dr. Greymantle gripped the control rod desperately as he urged the raft forward. It zipped through a hole hanging there in the sky, and then suddenly the ambient light around the group changed to a deep blue-green, and fish darted around in all directions. "The Elemental Plane of Water!" yelled the wizard, struggling to keep the raft on the larger vessel's tail. The magical shields in place around the <em>Planar Scout</em> and the makeshift raft kept the local environment at bay, so no water reached the group or their open vessel. "Amazing!" repeated Telgrane.</p><p></p><p>The <em>Planar Scout</em> leaped through several other planes of existence in an effort to shake its tail, but Dr. Greymantle was determined not to let the thief get away. He followed his craft through the Elemental Plane of Fire, into the Plane of Shadow, and even through the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, a nerve-wracking plane of endless, miles-long gears turning inexorably on. The <em>Planar Scout</em> darted in between the gears, the raft in hot pursuit. Rebecca couldn't help shrieking as her wizardly mentor took several short cuts that drove them dangerously close to hitting a massive gear at high speeds, but the Archmage kept them from crashing - if just barely.</p><p></p><p>"We need to get inside the <em>Planar Scout</em>'s shields!" the wizard called out. "I'm going to try something – brace for impact!" And with that, he did something to the control rod, and the open vehicle burst forward in a blast of sudden speed, heading straight for the vessel before them.</p><p></p><p>Everybody grabbed onto something, although there wasn't much to hang onto. Rebecca and Delmond grabbed instinctively onto Pinwhistle's massive form, trusting in him to keep them safe. Cal and Telgrane dropped prone and held onto the side of the raft; the cleric wrapped a protective arm around Feron, who had dropped down at his side. Chalkan held onto the base of the control rod, and got a nasty shock as he felt his own life energy being drained. He pulled his hand back as if touching a hot stove. "What are you doing?" he called to the Archmage. "You'll drain yourself dry!"</p><p></p><p>"I need the power to augment the raft's speed!" called back Dr. Greymantle, just before everything went to Hell.</p><p></p><p>With a shriek, the shields around the two vessels touched, then merged into a deformed shape as the raft careened into the side of the <em>Planar Scout</em> at high speed. Everyone went flying onto the top of the larger vessel upon impact, just as another gate opened before the wounded vessel, and both vessels popped into another plane of existence.</p><p></p><p>As the landscape changed again, the heroes could see the <em>Planar Scout</em> spinning clockwise as the ground rose up to meet it. A hellish reddish-orange sky cast flashes of black lightning across it at odd intervals as the damaged vessel came to a stop on a barren wasteland of parched, cracked earth.</p><p></p><p>"Is everybody okay?" asked Cal, looking around. As he picked himself up and took stock of his surroundings, it was apparent that not everyone had come through the crash unscathed. Dr. Greymantle lay unconscious, the hair at his temples suddenly white from the ordeal, and age lines apparent on his face that weren't there before. Pinwhistle cursed, looking at his shattered left leg, and finally ripped it off at the knee in disgust, handing it over to Rebecca. "You think you can carry that for me, kiddo?" he asked her. She took it in both hands and nodded.</p><p></p><p>"Just where are we?" asked Delmond. Telgrane looked around, then said, "I think it's Avernus - the First Layer of the Nine Hells."</p><p></p><p>"Are you sure?" asked Feron, looking worried.</p><p></p><p>"Pretty sure," replied Telgrane. "But maybe we could ask that fellow there for confirmation." The others looked to where he was pointing, and saw a scowling pit fiend striding across the cracked desert. He wasn't hurrying, but his demeanor showed he didn't feel the need to hurry - he would have his prey, one way or another, in time.</p><p></p><p>"Let's not," said Feron. "Are the shields going to hold up against that--thing?"</p><p></p><p>"They should," replied Pinwhistle, struggling to an upright position. "But we'd best get inside before whoever's piloting this thing gets it into their heads to turn the shields off. C'mon, you lot - this way!" And the damaged warforged hopped along the side of the <em>Planar Scout</em>, heading for the control cabin. Delmond and Cal held Dr. Greymantle between them. Rebecca followed, holding Pinwhistle's left calf and foot, and the others brought up the rear.</p><p></p><p>"Ah, Hell!" scowled Pinwhistle from ahead. "It's locked! Open up, ya lousy--"</p><p></p><p>"I got it," interrupted Delmond, shifting the unconscious Archmage over to Cal and sliding forward, opening up a set of lockpicks from a leather wallet as he did so. In less than a minute the cabin door was open.</p><p></p><p>"You are to be destroyed," casually announced an automaton in the small, cramped room beyond. It was of humanoid build, but made primarily of metal. A gem sat perched in the middle of his forehead.</p><p></p><p>"Aw, fer--" began Pinwhistle, drawing back a massive fist and clobbering the automaton in the face, causing it to fall backwards against the far wall and tumble to the floor. "We don't have time fer this nonsense!"</p><p></p><p>"What's gotten into <strong>Pilot</strong>?" demanded Rebecca from outside the door.</p><p></p><p>"Who knows?" replied Pinwhistle, as he dropped his much more massive form onto the prone automaton. Pinning it under his bulk, he held Pilot still while Delmond reached over and plucked the gem from off of Pilot's forehead. "Whatever this is, it doesn't belong," commented the young apprentice.</p><p></p><p>Removing the gem had an immediate effect upon Pilot, who seemed to go through a reboot sequence and was restored to his normal self upon the removal of the magical gem. He looked up at the unconscious form of his creator, and asked, "What happened to Dr. Greymantle?" Despite the artificiality of his voice, there was a real human concern in his tone. Rebecca quickly explained, and then Cal demanded some questions of his own.</p><p></p><p>"Who put that gem on you, and what were its effects?"</p><p></p><p>"I am unsure of her name," replied Pilot. "It was an ambulatory statue of a nude female elf, carved from black marble. She wore a similar gem upon her forehead, and once she had placed one on my own forehead I was completely submissive to her demands. I can only conclude that it is a domination device, perhaps crafted for constructs such as myself."</p><p></p><p>"What did she have you do?" Cal asked.</p><p></p><p>"She had me pilot this vessel, as I was built to do," replied Pilot. "I was to take evasive maneuvers to lose you, if possible, to include jumping to various other planes of existence."</p><p></p><p>"Where is this elf statue now?"</p><p></p><p>"She went into the back of the vessel," Pilot replied, pointing to a door behind him. "I am unsure of her current whereabouts."</p><p></p><p>"Guys?" asked Feron nervously from outside the control room. "That pit fiend's getting awfully close!"</p><p></p><p>The group made some hasty plans. They ordered Pilot to keep the shield up at all costs, and see what he could do about repairing the <em>Planar Scout</em>, using the "raft" Dr. Greymantle and Pinwhistle had cobbled together from a spare wing protrusion as necessary. In the meantime, the group would get Dr. Greymantle to his quarters, where Pinwhistle, Rebecca, and Delmond would hole up while the Wing Three adventurers hunted up this elven statue-woman and dealt with her. Rebecca sat on the side of the bed with her unconscious mentor, wiping away a trickle of blood from his forehead with her handkerchief. Delmond wanted to go with the heroes, but Pinwhistle called him back, saying he needed him to help watch over Thag. "I can heal him up, but he's the only one can fix my leg for me," the giant warforged said. "So you gotta stay here and help me fight off that elf statue if she shows up." Delmond didn't like it, but he begrudgingly agreed. Pinwhistle verbalized the main structural layout of the <em>Planar Scout</em>'s interior - it was an octagon ring with an artificial garden in the middle, and a series of doors next to each other along the outer edge of the octagon. Just like the Adventurers Guild Headquarters, the doors each led into an extradimensional space much larger than would be allowed by standard geometry - only some of these extradimensional spaces hooked back up to other rooms. It was all very confusing.</p><p></p><p>The first fight the group got into was with <strong>Gardener</strong>, another mostly-metal automaton who tended the artificial garden in the middle of the octagonal ring. It, too, wore a magical gem on its forehead, through which it received its orders from the marble statue who had placed it there. They managed to subdue the automaton without doing it any permanent harm, and once again it "rebooted" upon removal of the gem and became helpful thereafter. It wasn't sure of the elf statue's current whereabouts, but it did warn them that there were two more of Dr. Greymantle's automatons on board the vessel, each of which had been subsumed into the construct hivemind created by the gems. These were <strong>Crewman One</strong> and <strong>Crewman Two</strong>, normally stationed in the ship's engine room.</p><p></p><p>Eventually, the group just started opening doors and seeing what was inside. The contents of the various rooms of the <em>Planar Scout</em> were quite astounding. Despite the vessel being only 50 feet long, there were two octagonal rooms with a 40-foot diameter, and the briefing room was nearly as large. There was a medical bay, a construct repair laboratory, a massive storage bay, and a full kitchen and dining room. There was a large pool of water in one room, where the Archmage's fully repaired <em>Apparatus of Kwalish</em> hung suspended from a crane; there was an extradimensional door on the bottom of the pool which connected to the bottom of the <em>Planar Scout</em>, such that the <em>Apparatus</em> could be used as an exploratory vessel on the Elemental Plane of Water. Another room, dubbed the "Prep Room," held lockers full of useful items allowing explorers to survive in a wide variety of terrains; it, too, had an extradimensional door leading to the outside of the vessel.</p><p></p><p>The Fuel Storage room was where the group met up with Crewmembers One and Two, and a brief battle ensued, for the two automatons were under the sway of the forehead-mounted gemstones that made them no more than dominated slaves to the will of the elven statue who had taken over the vessel. The group overpowered the two automatons and destroyed the gems, just as they had done with the others, with the same effects.</p><p></p><p>"Well, that takes care of her 'army,'" commented Telgrane. "So where's she hiding?"</p><p></p><p>There was nothing left to explore on the vessel save some of the less exotic rooms. There were two bathrooms, but neither was occupied. The twin bathing facilities were likewise empty. Pinwhistle, Delmond, and Rebecca each had their own quarters, which were likewise devoid of trespassers.</p><p></p><p>"There are only six doors we haven't been through," Feron said. "According to Pinwhistle, they should all be spare guest cabins. She's got to be in one of them." But they peeked into each one, and each appeared empty of intruders.</p><p></p><p>"That's it - we've searched the whole ship," groused Chalkan. "Where is this elf statue?"</p><p></p><p>"Do you think she turned back, and made it outside the vessel?" asked Feron.</p><p></p><p>"Maybe she's invisible again," reasoned Telgrane. "Remember, she was invisible when she knocked out Dr. Greymantle and stole the <em>Planar Scout</em>."</p><p></p><p>"You have an idea?" asked Cal.</p><p></p><p>"I do," replied Telgrane, and cast a summoning spell that brought forth four dust mephits. He assigned them each a guest cabin, and sent them forth to search the rooms, using their innate abilities to generate small dust storms to hopefully pinpoint where an invisible elf statue might be hiding. The first four guest cabins were empty (and now very dusty, but Telgrane was reasonably sure that Dr. Greymantle would be understanding).</p><p></p><p>"Okay," commanded Telgrane. "Two of you into each of the other two guest rooms. Use your dusty breath weapons to do likewise: try to cover the rooms with dust, and see if there's anything invisible in there taking up space." The dust mephits flew off to do as they were instructed, but called back negative findings.</p><p></p><p>"Hmmm," scowled Telgrane, hoping he wasn't going to have to try something similar through every room in the ship - that would take forever!</p><p></p><p>"Hmmm," mirrored one of the dust mephits, still inside the guest room. "That's odd."</p><p></p><p>"What's that?" asked Telgrane.</p><p></p><p>"Well, unlike the other guest rooms, there's a big black door on the wall in this one, behind the door that opens to the cabin. If you open the main door all the way, it would block this black door, and you wouldn't see it. Kind of weird - this black door doesn't seem to belong here at all."</p><p></p><p>Telgrane was the first to recall the result of Pinwhistle's divination spell, back when the group had saved him and the others in Dr. Greymantle's manor from the four assassins. When he asked who had hired the assassins to steal the <em>Planar Scout</em>, the answer had been--</p><p></p><p>"--The unliving woman who has never died, hidden behind the Door That Doesn't Belong!" exclaimed Telgrane.</p><p></p><p>The others rushed inside the guest cabin and closed the door, leaving visible footprints in the dust and grit that now covered the floor. The dust mephits, their summoning duration expired, popped back to their home planes, their job done.</p><p></p><p>"She's in there," Telgrane said, pointing to the black door. It was covered in silver runes, obviously magical in nature.</p><p></p><p>"Well," smiled Cal, preparing the words to a <em>stoneskin</em> spell, "Let's go get her!"</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>This officially finished off this adventure. The next one, "Behind the Door That Doesn't Belong," was written as a standalone adventure embedded within this one. The players had a fun time with this one, but the tension kept growing as they explored more and more of the ship but couldn't find the elven statue-woman. When Logan recalled Pinwhistle's divination, the group all jumped up in excitement, eager for the battle they knew just had to be coming.</p><p></p><p>I not only built a geomorph for each of the rooms inside the <em>Planar Vessel</em>, but I made up a scale model of the ship itself (and another of the "raft"). From the top view, imagine a rectangle, with diagonal extrusions from each corner that then bend and stick out towards the front and back. Now stick out two straight extrusions from the sides of the rectangle, and on those stick two octagonal sections (like the engines of SHIELD's helicarrier from Marvel Comics). This "lower level" is one inch tall, and made of cardboard. Jutting up from the top of the rectangle, leaving a one-inch walkway all around it, is a smaller rectangle with its two front corners lopped off diagonally; this section is an inch and a half tall. I colored in the front window with a black marker, and drew on doors where appropriate. Each of the two octagonal "engine" protrusions has a circle on the top of it, and the "raft" does as well. I envision the <em>Planar Scout</em> as powered by two captive lightning quasi-elementals, one in each "engine."</p><p></p><p>As for the Fuel Room, it's a pillar of light in the middle of another octagonal room filled with specialized storage compartments. Inside these compartments are items taken from the various planes; when it's desired for the <em>Planar Scout</em> to travel to the Elemental Plane of Water, for example, Pilot would give instructions to the Fuel Room, and they'd open the appropriate cabinet and pour water from the Elemental Plane of Water into the pillar to be vaporized, which allows the vessel to open a planar gate in front of its flight path. In this way, the <em>Planar Scout</em> can really only go to planes where there's already been fuel gathered for it, so it isn't really all that much of a "scout" after all - but I hadn't decided on how it would work until after I had already named the vessel, and the name was already stuck in my head so I didn't want to change it.</p><p></p><p>Also, while the PCs have never discovered this, Pilot, Gardener, and Crewmen One and Two are all copies of Dr. Greymantle's own mind and memories, whittled down to encompass only the aspects of his mind that are required to perform their duties. Gardener, for instance, only needs to know about gardening, so it contains everything Dr. Greymantle knew about gardening when he copied his mind into the automaton, plus anything else it has picked up in the meantime. But it has none of Dr. Greymantle's personal memories or spellcasting abilities. He does, however, keep several "full copies" of himself over on the other side of the hangar door, where time moves at a much greater rate. Having made these copies of himself - with all of his spellcasting knowledge and abilities - he is able to create a design of a magic item, pass it on to his copies, and have them do the work to create it. End result: he gets his magic item crafted much quicker (from his standpoint) by automatons he trusts implicitly, because they're basically himself.</p><p></p><p>Pinwhistle, on the other hand, is a complete "copy" of the original Pinwhistle's mind, Pinwhistle being a gnomish cleric of Gond who was friends with "Thag" for years; when he died, Dr. Greymantle created a warforged body to house the copy of Pinwhistle's mind he had made. The original Pinwhistle is off in his deserved rest in the gnomish afterlife, while the warforged Pinwhistle is still a boon companion to Dr. Greymantle and his apprentices.</p><p></p><p>By the way, if anyone has noticed a striking similarity between Dr. Greymantle/Pinwhistle/Rebecca/Delmond and the Fantastic Four, you're not wrong. Greymantle is patterned after Reed Richards, the brilliant scientist/inventor; Pinwhistle is effectively Ben Grimm, "The Thing"; and Rebecca and Delmond fill the Sue and Johnny Storm slots, respectively (although before they got their powers). And Dr. Greymantle is the one whose extradimensional expertise was used to create the "bigger than there's room for them to fit" bedrooms in the Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild Headquarters.</p><p></p><p>Okay, enough backstory. Next up: Behind the Door That Doesn't Belong!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6095498, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 59 - THE TAKING OF THE [i]PLANAR SCOUT[/i][/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer Feron Dru, half-elf druid Telgrane, human conjurer[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Dr. Pythagoras Greymantle, human wizard/archmage Pinwhistle, warforged (gnome) cleric of Gond Rebecca Starfall, human wizard Delmond Ravensbrook, human rogue/wizard[/INDENT] The four adventurers walked up to Greymantle Manor, and were met by Rebecca Starfall, who smiled and welcomed them. She shut off the building's defenses long enough to allow them to enter, then reactivated them once they were inside. "You're right on time," she said, escorting them through the small manor and into the hangar in the back of the wizard’s dwelling. "I think I hear him landing the [i]Planar Scout[/i] right now." "Landing it?" asked Feron. "I thought we were going on its maiden voyage." "Well, the first one where it actually goes somewhere," said Rebecca. "Dr. Greymantle just wanted to make sure it was flying okay before taking it to another plane." Sure enough, entering the hangar the group saw a brief flash of energy as the dorsal shield kicked off and the [i]Planar Scout[/i] slowly settled into place in the center of the open hangar. Then the shield snapped back into place, the similar shield around the vessel kicked off, and Dr. Greymantle exited the craft's control cabin. He looked down at the vistors and waved in greeting, calling down "Everything's fine. Are you ready to go?" Suddenly, there was a solid smack and he crumpled into a heap, hanging in midair like a marionette whose cords had been cut. Before the group's astonished eyes, he rose several feet into the air, and then went flying in their direction, eyes closed and head lolling, apparently unconscious. Rebecca shrieked in alarm. Cal leaped forward, catching the incoming Archmage and tumbling backwards in a heap having done so. As the others watched, the door to the [i]Planar Scout[/i] opened and shut, the shield around the vessel snapped back on, the dorsal shield over the hangar deactivated, and the whine of the craft's twin engines escalated as the ship started to rise into the air. Pinwhistle stepped over and slapped his friend awake, casting a healing spell upon him as he did so. The Archmage opened his eyes groggily as the [i]Planar Scout[/i] just in time to see the labors of his last two years escaping off into the sky. "What happened?" he demanded. "You got hit, by someone - or something - invisible, and plenty strong," said Cal. Dr. Greymantle scrambled to his feet and stared up at the elevating ship, fists quivering in anger. "This is unacceptable!" he cried in dismay. "Not much we can do about it now, Thag" said Pinwhistle, his seven-foot-frame decrying the gentleness in his voice as he placed a massive hand on his friend's shoulder. "But there is!" cried Dr. Greymantle, a look of inspiration on his face. "Pinwhistle: with me!" He activated a switch, and a door opened up on the far side of the hangar. A bright light emanated from the other side, bright enough to cause the others to shield their eyes. "We'll be right back!" the Archmage called over his shoulder, then the two disappeared into the light, and the door closed shut behind them. Telgrane was fascinated by the craft, still visible in the sky above him. "Is that thing...carved from stone?" he asked in astonishment. "Yeah," commented Delmond. "Those two have been carving it into shape for a couple of years now." "And yet it flies!" marveled the conjurer. "Amazing!" As he watched, it became little more than a speck in the sky. The door opened again, spilling its blinding light into the hangar. Dr. Greymantle emerged, his robes wrinkled, hair in disarray, and stubble covering his chin that Telgrane didn't recall having noticed before. The Archmage wore a strange pair of goggles on the top of his head and he clutched an odd-looking metal rod which had several protrusions jutting out at one end. "Stand back!" he commanded, as Pinwhistle staggered out, balancing an octagonal slab of stone some 20 feet wide and trying carefully to place it on the floor of the hangar without squashing anyone. Looking closely at the slab, it was apparently identical to one of the wing protrusions from the [i]Planar Scout[/i]. "Everybody on!" called out the wizard, as he plugged the metal rod into a hole at the top of the slab and a familiar whining sound started emanating from the stone octagon. As one, the group jumped aboard. A magical shield snapped into place as the raft started rising into the air. Casually slapping the goggles into place over his eyes, he called out, "I can follow the [i]Planar Scout[/i]’s wake!" over the roar of the engine. "We may be able to catch up to her!" "Just what the Hell is going on?" demanded Cal. "I'll tell you what's going on," replied Pinwhistle. "We're gonna get whoever took the [i]Planar Scout[/i] and make 'em wish they'd never been born!" He pounded one massive fist into his other hand for emphasis. "No, I mean what is this we're on, and where did it come from?" "Oh, that," remarked the living construct. "Thag's got a workshop on another plane on the other side of that door in his hangar. Time passes at a diff'rent rate over there. We spent the past three days slapping this raft together out of a spare wing protrusion. We're smaller than the [i]Planar Scout[/i], but we're lighter and a little more maneuverable, too - with any luck, we'll be able to catch up before it goes extraplanar." The makeshift raft rose up into the air at an alarming rate. The heroes watched the city fall away below them until it was obscured by cloud cover. Soon, Dr. Greymantle called out that he could see the craft ahead. Squinting into the sun, Chalkan could just make out a shape that could only be the [i]Planar Scout[/i]. "She's getting ready to jump!" cried out the wizard in alarm. "Hang on – we've got to get through the gate before it closes!" A bright light emanated from the [i]Planar Scout[/i], and Dr. Greymantle gripped the control rod desperately as he urged the raft forward. It zipped through a hole hanging there in the sky, and then suddenly the ambient light around the group changed to a deep blue-green, and fish darted around in all directions. "The Elemental Plane of Water!" yelled the wizard, struggling to keep the raft on the larger vessel's tail. The magical shields in place around the [i]Planar Scout[/i] and the makeshift raft kept the local environment at bay, so no water reached the group or their open vessel. "Amazing!" repeated Telgrane. The [i]Planar Scout[/i] leaped through several other planes of existence in an effort to shake its tail, but Dr. Greymantle was determined not to let the thief get away. He followed his craft through the Elemental Plane of Fire, into the Plane of Shadow, and even through the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, a nerve-wracking plane of endless, miles-long gears turning inexorably on. The [i]Planar Scout[/i] darted in between the gears, the raft in hot pursuit. Rebecca couldn't help shrieking as her wizardly mentor took several short cuts that drove them dangerously close to hitting a massive gear at high speeds, but the Archmage kept them from crashing - if just barely. "We need to get inside the [i]Planar Scout[/i]'s shields!" the wizard called out. "I'm going to try something – brace for impact!" And with that, he did something to the control rod, and the open vehicle burst forward in a blast of sudden speed, heading straight for the vessel before them. Everybody grabbed onto something, although there wasn't much to hang onto. Rebecca and Delmond grabbed instinctively onto Pinwhistle's massive form, trusting in him to keep them safe. Cal and Telgrane dropped prone and held onto the side of the raft; the cleric wrapped a protective arm around Feron, who had dropped down at his side. Chalkan held onto the base of the control rod, and got a nasty shock as he felt his own life energy being drained. He pulled his hand back as if touching a hot stove. "What are you doing?" he called to the Archmage. "You'll drain yourself dry!" "I need the power to augment the raft's speed!" called back Dr. Greymantle, just before everything went to Hell. With a shriek, the shields around the two vessels touched, then merged into a deformed shape as the raft careened into the side of the [i]Planar Scout[/i] at high speed. Everyone went flying onto the top of the larger vessel upon impact, just as another gate opened before the wounded vessel, and both vessels popped into another plane of existence. As the landscape changed again, the heroes could see the [i]Planar Scout[/i] spinning clockwise as the ground rose up to meet it. A hellish reddish-orange sky cast flashes of black lightning across it at odd intervals as the damaged vessel came to a stop on a barren wasteland of parched, cracked earth. "Is everybody okay?" asked Cal, looking around. As he picked himself up and took stock of his surroundings, it was apparent that not everyone had come through the crash unscathed. Dr. Greymantle lay unconscious, the hair at his temples suddenly white from the ordeal, and age lines apparent on his face that weren't there before. Pinwhistle cursed, looking at his shattered left leg, and finally ripped it off at the knee in disgust, handing it over to Rebecca. "You think you can carry that for me, kiddo?" he asked her. She took it in both hands and nodded. "Just where are we?" asked Delmond. Telgrane looked around, then said, "I think it's Avernus - the First Layer of the Nine Hells." "Are you sure?" asked Feron, looking worried. "Pretty sure," replied Telgrane. "But maybe we could ask that fellow there for confirmation." The others looked to where he was pointing, and saw a scowling pit fiend striding across the cracked desert. He wasn't hurrying, but his demeanor showed he didn't feel the need to hurry - he would have his prey, one way or another, in time. "Let's not," said Feron. "Are the shields going to hold up against that--thing?" "They should," replied Pinwhistle, struggling to an upright position. "But we'd best get inside before whoever's piloting this thing gets it into their heads to turn the shields off. C'mon, you lot - this way!" And the damaged warforged hopped along the side of the [i]Planar Scout[/i], heading for the control cabin. Delmond and Cal held Dr. Greymantle between them. Rebecca followed, holding Pinwhistle's left calf and foot, and the others brought up the rear. "Ah, Hell!" scowled Pinwhistle from ahead. "It's locked! Open up, ya lousy--" "I got it," interrupted Delmond, shifting the unconscious Archmage over to Cal and sliding forward, opening up a set of lockpicks from a leather wallet as he did so. In less than a minute the cabin door was open. "You are to be destroyed," casually announced an automaton in the small, cramped room beyond. It was of humanoid build, but made primarily of metal. A gem sat perched in the middle of his forehead. "Aw, fer--" began Pinwhistle, drawing back a massive fist and clobbering the automaton in the face, causing it to fall backwards against the far wall and tumble to the floor. "We don't have time fer this nonsense!" "What's gotten into [b]Pilot[/b]?" demanded Rebecca from outside the door. "Who knows?" replied Pinwhistle, as he dropped his much more massive form onto the prone automaton. Pinning it under his bulk, he held Pilot still while Delmond reached over and plucked the gem from off of Pilot's forehead. "Whatever this is, it doesn't belong," commented the young apprentice. Removing the gem had an immediate effect upon Pilot, who seemed to go through a reboot sequence and was restored to his normal self upon the removal of the magical gem. He looked up at the unconscious form of his creator, and asked, "What happened to Dr. Greymantle?" Despite the artificiality of his voice, there was a real human concern in his tone. Rebecca quickly explained, and then Cal demanded some questions of his own. "Who put that gem on you, and what were its effects?" "I am unsure of her name," replied Pilot. "It was an ambulatory statue of a nude female elf, carved from black marble. She wore a similar gem upon her forehead, and once she had placed one on my own forehead I was completely submissive to her demands. I can only conclude that it is a domination device, perhaps crafted for constructs such as myself." "What did she have you do?" Cal asked. "She had me pilot this vessel, as I was built to do," replied Pilot. "I was to take evasive maneuvers to lose you, if possible, to include jumping to various other planes of existence." "Where is this elf statue now?" "She went into the back of the vessel," Pilot replied, pointing to a door behind him. "I am unsure of her current whereabouts." "Guys?" asked Feron nervously from outside the control room. "That pit fiend's getting awfully close!" The group made some hasty plans. They ordered Pilot to keep the shield up at all costs, and see what he could do about repairing the [i]Planar Scout[/i], using the "raft" Dr. Greymantle and Pinwhistle had cobbled together from a spare wing protrusion as necessary. In the meantime, the group would get Dr. Greymantle to his quarters, where Pinwhistle, Rebecca, and Delmond would hole up while the Wing Three adventurers hunted up this elven statue-woman and dealt with her. Rebecca sat on the side of the bed with her unconscious mentor, wiping away a trickle of blood from his forehead with her handkerchief. Delmond wanted to go with the heroes, but Pinwhistle called him back, saying he needed him to help watch over Thag. "I can heal him up, but he's the only one can fix my leg for me," the giant warforged said. "So you gotta stay here and help me fight off that elf statue if she shows up." Delmond didn't like it, but he begrudgingly agreed. Pinwhistle verbalized the main structural layout of the [i]Planar Scout[/i]'s interior - it was an octagon ring with an artificial garden in the middle, and a series of doors next to each other along the outer edge of the octagon. Just like the Adventurers Guild Headquarters, the doors each led into an extradimensional space much larger than would be allowed by standard geometry - only some of these extradimensional spaces hooked back up to other rooms. It was all very confusing. The first fight the group got into was with [b]Gardener[/b], another mostly-metal automaton who tended the artificial garden in the middle of the octagonal ring. It, too, wore a magical gem on its forehead, through which it received its orders from the marble statue who had placed it there. They managed to subdue the automaton without doing it any permanent harm, and once again it "rebooted" upon removal of the gem and became helpful thereafter. It wasn't sure of the elf statue's current whereabouts, but it did warn them that there were two more of Dr. Greymantle's automatons on board the vessel, each of which had been subsumed into the construct hivemind created by the gems. These were [b]Crewman One[/b] and [b]Crewman Two[/b], normally stationed in the ship's engine room. Eventually, the group just started opening doors and seeing what was inside. The contents of the various rooms of the [i]Planar Scout[/i] were quite astounding. Despite the vessel being only 50 feet long, there were two octagonal rooms with a 40-foot diameter, and the briefing room was nearly as large. There was a medical bay, a construct repair laboratory, a massive storage bay, and a full kitchen and dining room. There was a large pool of water in one room, where the Archmage's fully repaired [i]Apparatus of Kwalish[/i] hung suspended from a crane; there was an extradimensional door on the bottom of the pool which connected to the bottom of the [i]Planar Scout[/i], such that the [i]Apparatus[/i] could be used as an exploratory vessel on the Elemental Plane of Water. Another room, dubbed the "Prep Room," held lockers full of useful items allowing explorers to survive in a wide variety of terrains; it, too, had an extradimensional door leading to the outside of the vessel. The Fuel Storage room was where the group met up with Crewmembers One and Two, and a brief battle ensued, for the two automatons were under the sway of the forehead-mounted gemstones that made them no more than dominated slaves to the will of the elven statue who had taken over the vessel. The group overpowered the two automatons and destroyed the gems, just as they had done with the others, with the same effects. "Well, that takes care of her 'army,'" commented Telgrane. "So where's she hiding?" There was nothing left to explore on the vessel save some of the less exotic rooms. There were two bathrooms, but neither was occupied. The twin bathing facilities were likewise empty. Pinwhistle, Delmond, and Rebecca each had their own quarters, which were likewise devoid of trespassers. "There are only six doors we haven't been through," Feron said. "According to Pinwhistle, they should all be spare guest cabins. She's got to be in one of them." But they peeked into each one, and each appeared empty of intruders. "That's it - we've searched the whole ship," groused Chalkan. "Where is this elf statue?" "Do you think she turned back, and made it outside the vessel?" asked Feron. "Maybe she's invisible again," reasoned Telgrane. "Remember, she was invisible when she knocked out Dr. Greymantle and stole the [i]Planar Scout[/i]." "You have an idea?" asked Cal. "I do," replied Telgrane, and cast a summoning spell that brought forth four dust mephits. He assigned them each a guest cabin, and sent them forth to search the rooms, using their innate abilities to generate small dust storms to hopefully pinpoint where an invisible elf statue might be hiding. The first four guest cabins were empty (and now very dusty, but Telgrane was reasonably sure that Dr. Greymantle would be understanding). "Okay," commanded Telgrane. "Two of you into each of the other two guest rooms. Use your dusty breath weapons to do likewise: try to cover the rooms with dust, and see if there's anything invisible in there taking up space." The dust mephits flew off to do as they were instructed, but called back negative findings. "Hmmm," scowled Telgrane, hoping he wasn't going to have to try something similar through every room in the ship - that would take forever! "Hmmm," mirrored one of the dust mephits, still inside the guest room. "That's odd." "What's that?" asked Telgrane. "Well, unlike the other guest rooms, there's a big black door on the wall in this one, behind the door that opens to the cabin. If you open the main door all the way, it would block this black door, and you wouldn't see it. Kind of weird - this black door doesn't seem to belong here at all." Telgrane was the first to recall the result of Pinwhistle's divination spell, back when the group had saved him and the others in Dr. Greymantle's manor from the four assassins. When he asked who had hired the assassins to steal the [i]Planar Scout[/i], the answer had been-- "--The unliving woman who has never died, hidden behind the Door That Doesn't Belong!" exclaimed Telgrane. The others rushed inside the guest cabin and closed the door, leaving visible footprints in the dust and grit that now covered the floor. The dust mephits, their summoning duration expired, popped back to their home planes, their job done. "She's in there," Telgrane said, pointing to the black door. It was covered in silver runes, obviously magical in nature. "Well," smiled Cal, preparing the words to a [i]stoneskin[/i] spell, "Let's go get her!" - - - This officially finished off this adventure. The next one, "Behind the Door That Doesn't Belong," was written as a standalone adventure embedded within this one. The players had a fun time with this one, but the tension kept growing as they explored more and more of the ship but couldn't find the elven statue-woman. When Logan recalled Pinwhistle's divination, the group all jumped up in excitement, eager for the battle they knew just had to be coming. I not only built a geomorph for each of the rooms inside the [i]Planar Vessel[/i], but I made up a scale model of the ship itself (and another of the "raft"). From the top view, imagine a rectangle, with diagonal extrusions from each corner that then bend and stick out towards the front and back. Now stick out two straight extrusions from the sides of the rectangle, and on those stick two octagonal sections (like the engines of SHIELD's helicarrier from Marvel Comics). This "lower level" is one inch tall, and made of cardboard. Jutting up from the top of the rectangle, leaving a one-inch walkway all around it, is a smaller rectangle with its two front corners lopped off diagonally; this section is an inch and a half tall. I colored in the front window with a black marker, and drew on doors where appropriate. Each of the two octagonal "engine" protrusions has a circle on the top of it, and the "raft" does as well. I envision the [i]Planar Scout[/i] as powered by two captive lightning quasi-elementals, one in each "engine." As for the Fuel Room, it's a pillar of light in the middle of another octagonal room filled with specialized storage compartments. Inside these compartments are items taken from the various planes; when it's desired for the [i]Planar Scout[/i] to travel to the Elemental Plane of Water, for example, Pilot would give instructions to the Fuel Room, and they'd open the appropriate cabinet and pour water from the Elemental Plane of Water into the pillar to be vaporized, which allows the vessel to open a planar gate in front of its flight path. In this way, the [i]Planar Scout[/i] can really only go to planes where there's already been fuel gathered for it, so it isn't really all that much of a "scout" after all - but I hadn't decided on how it would work until after I had already named the vessel, and the name was already stuck in my head so I didn't want to change it. Also, while the PCs have never discovered this, Pilot, Gardener, and Crewmen One and Two are all copies of Dr. Greymantle's own mind and memories, whittled down to encompass only the aspects of his mind that are required to perform their duties. Gardener, for instance, only needs to know about gardening, so it contains everything Dr. Greymantle knew about gardening when he copied his mind into the automaton, plus anything else it has picked up in the meantime. But it has none of Dr. Greymantle's personal memories or spellcasting abilities. He does, however, keep several "full copies" of himself over on the other side of the hangar door, where time moves at a much greater rate. Having made these copies of himself - with all of his spellcasting knowledge and abilities - he is able to create a design of a magic item, pass it on to his copies, and have them do the work to create it. End result: he gets his magic item crafted much quicker (from his standpoint) by automatons he trusts implicitly, because they're basically himself. Pinwhistle, on the other hand, is a complete "copy" of the original Pinwhistle's mind, Pinwhistle being a gnomish cleric of Gond who was friends with "Thag" for years; when he died, Dr. Greymantle created a warforged body to house the copy of Pinwhistle's mind he had made. The original Pinwhistle is off in his deserved rest in the gnomish afterlife, while the warforged Pinwhistle is still a boon companion to Dr. Greymantle and his apprentices. By the way, if anyone has noticed a striking similarity between Dr. Greymantle/Pinwhistle/Rebecca/Delmond and the Fantastic Four, you're not wrong. Greymantle is patterned after Reed Richards, the brilliant scientist/inventor; Pinwhistle is effectively Ben Grimm, "The Thing"; and Rebecca and Delmond fill the Sue and Johnny Storm slots, respectively (although before they got their powers). And Dr. Greymantle is the one whose extradimensional expertise was used to create the "bigger than there's room for them to fit" bedrooms in the Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild Headquarters. Okay, enough backstory. Next up: Behind the Door That Doesn't Belong! [/QUOTE]
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