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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2125374" data-attributes="member: 1210">Our heroes appear near the central chamber of the worm nest they had earlier explored.  The strange, pulsing mass of... stuff is still there.  It’s huge.  It looks almost waxen.  It flexes and melts and changes.“Chaos?”  Gerontius looks wary.“It looks like it could be,” Lester rhymes, “the home of the worms maybe?”“Let’s find out.”  Inoke draws his greatclub out.  The party buffs up, and then Inoke leads the way in.  The party heads inside the mass through a tunnel.  As they proceed, the way closes behind them.  None of them even slow down; they were more than half-expecting to be closed off.  Orbius has already telepathically linked them, and they chatter silently as they advance.Then the hole they are traversing opens up into a large chamber.  Some sort of croaking sound is coming from within.  As the party moves in, a loud phlegmy sound comes from one side, and Horbin cries out as a disgusting mass of chaotically-changing mucus lands on him.  Two large white slaadi of some kind emerge from the walls of the room; the source of the croaking is suddenly clear.“Watch out!” Horbin cries.  “This stuff burns!”Orbius fires off a volley of seeker missiles, blasting into one of the slaadi, but it heals the damage almost instantly.  Inoke, meanwhile, performs a heedless charge and unleashes an amazing amount of damage on the other slaad, knocking it from its feet and leaving it almost jellied on the ground!Unfortunately, the thing starts healing almost immediately- and quickly.  Smashed bones begin knitting together, torn organs repair themselves, the flow of weird blood slows.The other slaad tears at Gerontius, but the quick little halfling spins and dodges around the worst of it, then slashes at the monster with his daggers, first breaking several ribs and then punching out a bunch of teeth!*  The slaad staggers back, then staggers again as a wave of powerful spells breaks upon its spell resistance.  Inoke’s stature increases as he expands and moves his relentless attack to the standing slaad.  Gerontius cackles as he moves into flanking.Horbin, meanwhile, attempts to dissipate the mucus all over him.  It’s burning intensely, corrupting his skin and flesh with chaotic energy.  At least it isn’t inflicting any Chaos traits on me, he thinks wryly.  But he can’t seem to stop it with anything!  With a groan, he decides he’d better just get on with taking the slaadi down before it takes them down.Orbius has already played his best card: a time stop.  He followed that with a prismatic sphere, leaving him at least safe from the slaadi for the moment, and spell turning in case he has to leave it; then, as soon as his time flow matches that of the world around him, he casts a puncture at the slaad that’s up, but it fails to drop it.On the ground, the slaad that Inoke knocked down with his charge opens its eyes.  With a croak it greater teleports away.  The remaining white slaad croaks out a terrible croak and Gerontius shouts, “I can’t see!”  With a wicked grin, the slaad prepares a devastating follow through.BOOM! BOOM!  Suddenly a set of fire seeds explodes on the slaad, hurled from the side by Horbin the MFKG Holy.  The frog-like monster stumbles back, and Orbius hits it with a dimensional anchor.  Unable to flee, the monster instead falls as Lester pounds it with a chain lightning.  Then it becomes a matter of keeping it down.  Finally, Inoke finishes it off by hurling it into the prismatic sphere. Our heroes look around.  The entrance they had used to enter is entirely gone, now, but there is another exit forming.“This place is weird,” remarks Inoke.  He pulls out the genie bottle.  Since it failed to grant him three wishes- though it did try- it must serve him for a year and a day.  Inoke would release him from his service if he could, but it is not possible.  So he instead summons forth the genie, named Djoula Al-Hiwarij, and asks him whether he can discern anything about the place.“This place is pure chaos!” Djoula exclaims immediately.  “I would be very careful if I were you!”Lillamere uses a dagger to cut a sample from the wall and bags it.  When he does, a fat grub as long as his hand falls out of the hole.  Inoke squishes it.  “Is this where they come from?” wonders Lillamere.  The exit that had momentarily opened up is gone again, and the chamber they are in seems to be shrinking.  The elven sorcerer disintegrates a hole in the wall with a flash of green light, and our heroes enter another chamber, but immediately they halt.  Something huge and amorphous, flowing and bubbling and changing, moves quickly towards them.“Genie, you might want to go back in the bottle- for your own sake,” Inoke remarks.“That you, Master,” Djoula replies, “for your foresight.”  The cat-headed genie turns into smoke and quickly pours into his bottle.Waves of Chaos pour from the creature, affecting the environment around it.  Things flex and change.  Our heroes can feel the lurch in their stomachs that signifies reality warping all around the strange mass of protoplasmic chaos.  Lillamere cries out as a rip in reality appears next to him suddenly, trying to suck him in!  He throws himself flat, narrowly escaping being sucked away to another plane!  A moment later, the same thing nearly happens to Orbius.  The party’s first volley of spells all fail to penetrate the thing’s spell resistance, much to the chagrin of the casters.  Following up, Lester manages to hit it with a delayed blast fireball to immense effect.  Then Inoke reaches it and pound the weird ooze to, er, jelly. Behind the ooze, another potential exit is shrinking shut.  Our heroes move through it before it can close completely, and then Lillamere blasts a hole in another wall.  Soon our heroes bump into another slaad, this one a grey so dark that is almost black, wearing a nice cloak.  It cows quickly before our heroes’ might, and groveling, it teaches them how to control their surroundings by main force of will.  Inoke lets it live in return for its cloak.“All right, I think we’re in Limbo at this point,” Orbius declares.  “I think that ‘heart’ at the center of the worms’ nest is a gate of some kind.”The party attempts to plane shift to Cydra.  It works, just as Orbius predicted.  ***9/21/370 O.L.G., 5 p.m., the Temple of Elemental GoodOnce again Orbius uses two contact other planes and a commune to verify his answers.  He’s been thinking a lot in bigger and bigger terms lately, but- he notes to himself- he’s still going to ask how to get Jezebel to like him again.  Among his more interesting questions:What do I need to finish to get Jezebel to like me again? Githyanki.Tell me when the worms of chaos will attack the Temple of Elemental Good? 20.How about Lillamere’s lands? 3.Where’s the best place for us to go to find a portal to Sigil? Ironboot.Where’s the best place for us to go in Sigil to find out about the worms? Library.What would it take to close off the portals from chaos allowing the worms into Cydra? Spell.Given our capabilities, what is the best spell to do this? Miracle.Will a wish work? Yes.Where do we need to go to cast this spell? Gate.Will a superior teleport take me to this gate? One.How many gates are there? 29.Is it possible to redirect the gates so they open elsewhere? Yes.What can we do to enhance our ability to will the gates to open elsewhere? Library.Interesting indeed.Next Time: Our heroes go to Sigil for the first time!*Two crits in a row.  Owie!</blockquote>

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