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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 1286900" data-attributes="member: 8530">Alton deduced that from the Kadtanach's thoughts (Chapter 30, paragraph 3).Actually it's foreshadowing for a future module.  From the moment I first saw a Rubic's Cube I've been designing a module where a giant inter-dimensional cube will visit the world, each square being a patchwork quilt of a different world. And now for the next chapter:Chapter 33, “Heroes Honor”, September 14th, 1019, 11:15 A.M. Cassie reminds the group that the Queen hasn’t been notified about what happened.  Narg says to Mojo,“You need to call the little woman on your corkscrew.”   Mojo replies, “If I had a little woman on my corkscrew I’d be a whole lot happier right now.”   Cassie interjects, “He means you need to call the Queen on your communication device.”  “I prefer my interpretation,” Mojo responds.    They decide to make the call in private.  Mojo says he will handle it by himself, but Alton, Cassie, Mark and Narg insist on tagging along.   They head back to the inn and up to the second floor.   Mojo takes the combination bottle-opener and corkscrew and make the adjustments to activate it.   The Queen immediately answers, having been waiting impatiently to find out what is going on.     “Hi Honey, it’s me,” Mojo starts.   The others then hear him say; “It’s gone.  I defeated it single-handedly.”   The others start yelling comments to the contrary. Mojo gets then to calm down, then says to the Queen “Okay, fine, I had some help from my teammates.”   Alton blurts out “YOU had some help?  Where were you when I was fighting a god all by myself?”   Mojo starts to give her a summary of what happened saying, “We got the monster to leave once we killed all of the smelly creatures on top of it.”   Alton again comments “What is this WE he keeps talking about?  I was the one who talked to the thing!”  Mojo continues “We saved the Kralt Lordholding.  Someday you’ll have to explain to us what we did that for?”  Cassie yells, “Give me that!  I’ll talk to her.”  Mojo refuses to share the communication device, turning around and holding it closer.   He makes another comment, implying that the Kralt residents are even filthier than the gnolls.   The Queen asks if there were any casualties and Mojo replies, “Nobody important, only Dragon Stalkers.”  Mojo smiles and they hear him say, “Sure, I’d be happy to stop by later for a reward.”  Narg yells, “Just him or all of us?”  Mojo frowns, and mutters “You guys are invited too.  Must be a different type of reward than what I thought.”  Cassie comments, “One track mind.”   Cassie then has Mojo confirm that the Queen will grant the Silver Moon Adventures “salvage rights” to the debris pile.  Mojo concludes the conversation by saying, “Okay honey, see you in a few hours.  Bye.”They head back outside for the luncheon.  Several members of the Silver Moon Adventurers start to have second thoughts about attending the banquet when they discover that the four seats at the head table are reserved for the Dragon Stalkers.  “I think we should hire ourselves a better publicist,” Narg comments.  “Well, at least we don’t have to sit with them,” Mark adds.  Cassie complains, “Let’s just skip this.  We don’t need the aggravation.”  Alton puts his foot down and says, “No, We’re staying!  I’m tired, I’m hungry and I did more than the rest of you.  If these people want to honor the heroes with a free meal we stay and accept it, even if we don’t get top billing.”  The main square in the town has now been filled up with the tables and chairs from both inns.   The remaining people in town, plus the refugees, number around one hundred.   The Silver Moon Adventurers are seated at a table adjacent with to the head table.    Given the presence of the refugees, whose homes were destroyed by the gnolls, Nahmi decides to hide out in the Bag of Holding rather than attend the dinner. The Dragon Stalkers make a grand entrance.   Gellyath leads his team, his wounds all healed and attired in his finest silk clothing beneath his ring-mail vest, his flowing blonde hair neatly arranged.  Teakas follows, wearing the decorative rather than functional version of her General of the Queen’s Army uniform.  The ranger Kela follows.  She is attired in a form fitting leather jerkin over cotton shirt and leggings, with her hair tied back in a ponytail and fastened with a fancy ribbon.   The fourth and final member of this team is a gnoll.  He is wearing a simple tunic, belted at the waist.  The fur is burnt off of about a quarter of his body, revealing charred skin beneath.  Much of his remaining fur appears burnt or singed.  “That’s the senior druid!” Cassie exclaims.  “I though he was dead,” Mojo comments.  “Looks like he got better,” Alton adds. The Silver Moon Adventurers approach the quartet.  They nod greetings at the first three while Cassie and Alton head directly towards the gnoll.   Narg and Mojo follow, with Narg muttering “Do we really need to visit this guy?”  Mojo replies, “Yes, if we want to get rid of that other gnoll.”  They introduce themselves and the gnoll introduces himself as Dalcom.    Alton says, “I think we have something of yours, an apprentice named Nahmi.”   Dalcom angrily replies, “Then you can keep him.  I was tortured, incinerated and left for dead because of his actions.  I never want to see him again!” After a rather tense pause Mojo comments, “Well, Nothing that awful will ever happen to you again now that you’ve joined the Dragon Stalkers.  They usually don’t get close enough to any real danger to get hurt.”   Dalcom moves on, joining his newfound allies at the head table.  Mojo comments, “Wait a minute, that guy’s joined the Dragon Stalkers, and he never wants to see Nahmi again.  If we keep the guy then we never have to see the Dragon Stalkers again!”  “Sold,” Narg interjects.   Cassie tells Alton, “Guess that makes it unanimous.”The Mayor of Gheldaylin stands and makes a great speech honoring the heroes.  The towns priest then stands and talks about the two members of the Dragon Stalkers who perished.  The party discovers that the deceased mage Asgorad had also come from Gheldaylin and was a childhood friend of Gellyath.   Each of the Dragon Stalkers are mentioned by name and given time to make a speech, with Gellyath, Kela and Teakas speaking fondly of their fallen allies.  Mojo mutters to Narg “Geesh, is this a banquet or a wake?”  Narg answers “A little of both I think.”  The final speaker is Dalcom, and his speech actually interests the party.   He tells of his background, having been forced to work for the being claiming to be Yeenoghu, who commanded the Kadtanach.   He says that he was never a follower of that deity, but one does not say “No” to the god of your race.  Dalcom states that his job was to cast Pass Without Trace spells behind the monster to keep armies from immediately tracking it.  He assumed at first that the god could have done this himself but didn’t want to be bothered with this mundane task.   Only later did he start to suspect that ‘Yeenoghu’ wasn’t who he claimed to be.  This suspicion was confirmed the previous day before, as Dalcom was interrogated and tortured by the being claiming to be Yeenoghu.  Dalcom states “I answered his questions truthfully, but he still accused me of lying.   The ability to detect lies is common among clerics, and a true god would certainly have that power.  I knew then that he was a false god.   I was later assisted by this town’s priest to inquire to his gods and my own about who this creature actually was, finding it to actually be a member of near-immortal race known as the celestials.”   Dalcom concludes his speech by swearing his loyalty to his new friends the Dragon Stalkers and pledging to help protect this world. The dinner is completed.   Cassie talks to Ral about the debris pile, informing her that “The Queen has granted us salvage rights.  Please keep everyone away from that pile.  I’ll be returning tomorrow with a construction crew.”    Cassie also makes arrangements with the inn to take care of the four draft horses until she returns.    The party heads back upstairs to one of the rooms.   Nahmi is let out of the bag, and informed “We have some good news and some bad news.  The good news is that your master is alive.  The bad news is that he never wants to see you again.”   Alton volunteers to be Nahmi’s new instructor.  Cassie says that she needs a few minutes to restudy her Teleport spell.  She discovers a footnote in her spell book that references the use of the spell in conjunction with a Helm of Teleportation, discovering that up to six teleports are possible with the use of a single spell!  (1st Edition item description, the Helm having been acquired in a game way back in 1982) “Why didn’t we ever know that before?” Narg comments.   Cassie replies, “Kharole probably did but she must have forgotten. It’s her helm, and she’s still not high enough in level to know the Teleport spell, so she probably didn’t consider it important enough to mention.”   Alton says, “Well, that solves part of the problem of getting all of us to the Queen's Castle, since the Bags of Holding are currently all filled up with treasure!”</blockquote>

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