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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 1566529" data-attributes="member: 9626">Time of JudgementThere was nothing but silence for a few minutes after that, but it felt much longer to the party, especially Quercus.  “What have I done?” he thought.  “I did all this to help my sister, and all I did was kill her!”    He was soon brought back into consciousness by Fnipper.  “We have to get going,” he said.  “The survivors will bring help quickly.”  He seemed unfazed by the entire experience, but since he never met Shedell, that was to be expected.  After looking at Quercus, not to mention the equally devastated Robin, and the rest of the group who were mourning Rudyard, he quickly said, “I’ll just take the lead, then?”    The journey to the surface was short, but filled with hazards.  The unholy cloud they encountered earlier was not the only magical trap that protected this tunnel, and Fnipper and the others were in too much of a hurry to check every step for traps.  The next trap summoned a pair of fire-wreathed monsters with snake tails, but they were quickly dealt with.  The next separated the party with a wall of force, and then filled the front area with a corrosive gas.  Tal used his staff to open a passageway through the wall, letting the party’s front ranks escape, and they fled down the corridor to wait for the gas to dissipate.    Next, there was a simple pit, and a locked door behind it.  The door was easily destroyed using Dane’s open lock skill (aka, his sword,) and everyone just jumped the pit.  The next trap wasn’t even noticed except for Fnipper, who briefly had a strong but fortunately resistible urge to turn into a herring.  Finally, an especially nasty trap summoned a rain of ice blocks, then a bolt of electricity that fired down the corridor, and finally a ball of fire.  All of this was painful to the party (except for Fnipper, who deftly avoided all of it but a few chunks of rock,) but Quercus had healed everyone before they left, so they survived it with ease.    Finally, the party found the exit, and for the first time in days, they saw the light of the sun.  Granted, it was the light of the sun being almost entirely blotted out, but even that was a welcome improvement.  The party quickly looked for their mounts, which was fairly easy since they were only a few miles from the temple in the first place.  Once they gathered their mounts (and let Rudyard’s go, though he was eager to leave anyway, having sensed his companion’s death,) they began to flee to the southwest as quickly as possible.  The first half-day of travel was easy enough, but night was a different story, for they had a visitor: one they never thought they’d see again.    It was during Robin and Fnipper’s watch.  They took a quick look away from the fire to look for danger, and when they looked back, there was a familiar little girl.  Seeing a drow and reacting on instinct, Fnipper was ready to attack her instantly, but Robin was able to intercede in time.  The girl, meanwhile, didn’t even seem to notice.  Robin quickly woke the others, who cautiously surrounded her.  “Hello?” Tal asked?    The girl stood up, and suddenly there was an aura of power around her.  “Hi,” she said back. “So, what are you going to do to her?”    The party was taken aback by her sudden ability to speak, and all of them didn’t understand the question, with the exception of Quercus.  “I – we haven’t decided yet.”    The girl moved to sit down next to the fire again, and without showing any interest in the party, continued speaking.  “It wasn’t her fault, you know.  She didn’t ask to be that way.”    Quercus nodded, and Tsine asked, “What was she, exactly?”    “A half-fiend drow, and a half-celestial elf.  When she was younger, she was both at once.  Her father was a celestial, but her mother was a half-fiendish drow elf, who gained her traits by a favor from her goddess, and passed it to her daughter.”    “Her goddess?  You mean Bas?”    The girl hesitated.  “No, the drow was not from this plane.  She fled here to be with the celestial, and start a family.  But when her mother was killed and her father disappeared, it shattered Shedell/Kulstra’s, or should I say Shekuldellstra’s, mind.  She was an easy target for Bas, who encouraged her mind to split into two forms, and turn the evil half into a loyal servant.  She spent the years since that point literally in a constant battle with herself, causing her to manifest different parts of her personality at different times.”    “But how can we help her?  Can she be helped?”  Quercus asked, with a hint of desperation.    The girl thought for a while before replying.  “Maybe.  If you bring her back from the dead, she’ll have experienced both halves of her soul at once when she was dead, so she’ll know what her true nature is.  However, the two opposing moral foci that she has will be in conflict.  They will struggle for domination, and one could come out the winner, or they could merge into some chaotic new personality.  When the time for the conflict comes, she will mentally seek out friends to help her make the decision.  You might be one of those friends, Quercus.  However, the choice will be yours to make.”    “Why are you so worried about her?”    “Well, various reasons, but also because of this girl here.  Her parents were killed horribly just like Shekuldellstra’s mother was, and like her, it has disturbed her mentally.  Without my help, she would never become mentally stable again, but I should be able to restore her with time.  Oh, her name is Mazziden, if you were still interested.”    Tal suddenly realized who this was.  “Wait, so that means you’re one of the avatars!”    “Exactly.  Now, what my sister told you earlier is true.  If you can guess who I am, I can give you some help, and an answer to one of your questions.”    Quercus shrugged.  “That’s easy.  You are Tsykie, the goddess of joy and children.”    “Tsykie” smiled.  “Of course.  Now, here is your boon.  First, a memory of the past, just like what my sister gave you.”    Each party member again found himself remembering strange things.  One found himself on a strange battlefield, while the other felt himself sitting in bed, while surrounded by relatives.  These scenes were brief, however, and soon faded to nothingness, bringing the party back to reality.      “Now,” Tsykie continued.  “What is your question for me?”    The party considered this for a while, but soon came to a consensus: this was Quercus’ mission, so he should ask the question that already was weighing him down.  “What should I do with my sister, in your opinion?”    Tsykie thought long and hard about that.  “If it was up to me, I would try to save her.  Believe me, I know what it’s like to have a loved one that fell.  And yes, I did love and even still love Bas as one of my own kin.  But she is too far gone for us to save, after endless years of hatred and anger.  Your sister is different.  She was as much good as she was bad.  Yes, she committed great evils, but she literally was fighting against those evils as she performed them.  If you have any love for her, you would do what you can to save her.  However, you must only do this if you can do it without endangering the city and kingdom of Methosilang.  Do it outside of city limits, and use as powerful a magic as you can afford to raise her.  If you try to raise her and fail to turn her soul to good, you must be prepared to destroy her again, for she cannot be allowed to return to Bas as a servant, and if she turns to evil again, it will be permanent and with all her heart.  Now, if that is all, I must be going.  This girl has to find some relatives that can help care for her until she grows up, or at least no longer needs me any more.  Good luck, and I hope you can find the rest of my sisters.”  With that, she was gone.    The party solemnly began their journey home.  There was only one more interruption, but it was a doozy.  A colossal zombie, which was as tall as some castles, was being led along with a skeletal dragon by a humanoid skeleton with a writhing intestine-like organ inside it.  Attempts to engage the creatures in melee soon proved to be a mistake, as the zombie and dragon were both far stronger than typical undead of their kind.  Fortunately, Tsine had time to rest and get his magic prepared again, and he was able to block them in with a pair of force walls.  The skeleton and zombie were too stupid to climb over it (or even step over it in the zombie’s case,) so they were led around it by the strange skeleton (which the party later learned was a mohrg.)  Meanwhile, the party was firing arrows at the zombie, arcing arrows over the wall at the dragon, and firing magic over the wall, so by the time the three got around the wall, they were nearly destroyed already, and were finished off before they could catch the party again. Their bodies were burned and a stake record was set, and the party continued their journey to the south.    Weeks later, they finally arrived home.  “This is getting ridiculous!” Dane complained.  “We’re powerful heroes by now.  Can’t you just use magic to teleport us home next time, Tsine?”    Tsine pondered this for a moment.  “Theoretically, yes, but I have to take some time to learn the magic involved.  But it doesn’t really matter anyway, in this case.  Fnipper isn’t an ally of the city officially yet, so he couldn’t have teleported back in anyway.”    “Well, we could have just teleported a few hours away from the city, but I see your point.  We’ll get him registered as soon as we return.”    “Oh, and don’t forget to give them that statue we found,” Tal reminded them.  “We could get some clues about Bas from it, or at least prove that our story is true.”    However, when they arrived, it turned out that they didn’t need to go to the guard to get registered.  The guard was there, waiting for them.  Apparently, they just had a few questions to ask them, but Tal and pretty much the whole party (except for Fnipper, who was busy absorbing the city and wasn’t that good at judging character anyway,) could tell that they had something on their mind, and it wasn’t necessarily a good thing for the party.    When they arrived, they were greeted by Prince Lancaster Stael himself, one of the three children of the king and queen of Methosilang.  He sat them down, then took his usual seat (which, oddly enough, was the back of a giant elk that also served as his personal heraldic symbol.)  He told them, “Look, I know you just got home, and you want to relax, so I want to make this nice and quick.  Let’s start with the easy stuff.  Who is your new friend here?”    Fnipper responded, “I’m Fnipper, the deep gnome!  I helped these guys fight evil!”    Lancaster nodded,  “I see.  And what will you be doing now?  What is your purpose in this city?”    “To kill all the drow.”    There was a long, long, silence, and the guards in the room tensed up (especially the ones who were drow.)  Lancaster sighed.  So much for this being a short night.    OOC Notes:  Yes, he really said that.  Fortunately, no one was killed as a result.  Overall, I really liked this whole overall plotline.  The Shedell/Kulstra and the drow child concepts both led to some interesting role-playing situations, and there was some nice foreshadowing to future events.  There will be another couple updates before this plotline completely ends though, and we finish the second stage of this game’s progression, leading me to make some changes, including some unplanned and unfortunate ones.</blockquote>

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