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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2187944" data-attributes="member: 1210">The Fey Party (and so forth)Date, time and place indeterminateThe fey party is a lot of fun for our heroes (Lillamere, of course, has been true resurrected by Horbin by now).  The party helps Alcar look for the Elf-King of Ketzia, but they can’t find him, although pretty much every fey they ask claims that he was “just here a few minutes ago.”Of course, a fey party isn’t the sort of thing one can organize into ranks and take roll until one finds their desired partygoer.The party is thick with all sorts of fey creatures, large and small.  The party takes place on a series of lightly-wooded hills, spreading out of view all around.  Horned satyrs play their pipes for nymph dancers.  Sylphs cavort in the air, spilling wine on the tables laden with game and muffins below.  Will-o-wisps dart furitively along, playing games of hide and go seek with their kinfolk.  Animals are everywhere, birds and snails and bats and cats and dogs and stags.  There are gnat-sized glowing things that are more powerful than most of our heroes.  The rich aroma of roasting meat mixes with the smoke of the roaring fires, and large sections of the crowd are enveloped in intoxicating smokes from strange smoking herbs and odd bundles of flowers thrown into the fire.Our heroes have a blast.  Hollyhock, Lillamere’s relatively new pseudodragon familiar, has a blast and gets a little pseudodragon nookie from another of his kind who happens to be at the party.  Most of our heroes generally get really loaded on a variety of drinks, strange perception-twisting bits of food and smoking herbs.  Best of all, while they are at the party, there is no scrystriking.  Nobody is blasted from afar by Asmodeus.Alcar is quite frustrated with his inability to find the faerie king.  A commune he had performed some days past had told him that the Elf-King of Ketzia would aid him in his most important, most personal quest: to recover his backpack of infinite food.  His best magic item of all time, he bore it proudly for years as the Angel of Food; but then- judgment!  Disaster!  He was found wanting by the politicians of Heaven, the damned short-sided angels that stripped him of his title and his backpack.  He must find it again, he must restore his honor.  If only he could speak to Galador directly!  But even the thought makes Alcar quail.  The brilliant radiance surrounding Galador might blast anyone but the strongest of the archangels to oblivion by its mere presence!  Alcar sighs.  He must struggle to prove himself until he regains his pack.  Curse it!There is much merriment.  Inoke, who (like several of the other party members present) has a date from Lester’s Temple of Elemental Good with him, ends up in a threesome with her and a dryad.  Sybele gets too drunk for her own good and vomits an enormous gout of sick on a terribly offended fey who storms off.  The other fey around her seem to think this was a terribly dangerous gaffe, and warn her that she has earned the enmity of a leshay.  She passes out face down in her gravy.As the party goes on, Lillamere shape changes into a big bunny and cuddles with the fey.  They really seem to enjoy that, especially a few that have ingested some strange fluid that apparently enlivens their sense of touch in a very pleasant way.  Periodically throughout the party, as Alcar asks after the fey king, he sees a very pretty green cat.  Over the course of the event, our heroes start to suspect that the cat is the king of the fairies, but though our heroes talk to him as if he is, the cat does not answer.Eventually it ends, as all parties must, but it lasts a lot longer than most such things. ***11/15/370 O.L.G., 9 a.m., VarThe morning after they leave the party, our heroes find that 18 days have passed. “That’s pretty good, really,” comments Orbius.“Yeah, they like me,” Alcar smiles.At noon the former Angel of Food performs what must, perhaps, be termed the Best Commune Evar.What the f—k?! Yes.Why? Yes.But how? Yes.What the hell for? Yes and no.He pauses to think for a moment.  Where? Yes.Are you sure? Of course.Alcar struggles with himself.  Surprisingly, this line of questioning is actually touching on something worthwhile; otherwise, the answers would be less complex.  What does it mean?  He frowns.Can I talk to you later? Yes.A couple of hours later our heroes meet for drinks in the Three Rubies tavern.  Lester and Alcar swap stories; they have traveled together many times in the past, but years have gone by since then.  Even recently, Alcar has only seen some of the action.“Yeah, for instance the pit fiend,” remarks Inoke.  “You weren’t there for that, were you?”“Pit fiend!” exclaims Alcar.  “No, but I wish I had been!  Where did you fight him?”“Blendorag,” Orbius answers.  “It was Thizli, Fiend of the Stinking Pit.”  “Ooh, did you already hatch the phoenix egg?”“What?”“Oh yeah, I forgot!  Must be all the pot,” Lester remarks.“You mean you didn’t know about it?”“What are you talking about?” Baron Lillamere asks.“According to Malford and Dexter- who I used to travel with, by the way- there was a phoenix egg guarded by the pit fiend, and if you rescued it and guarded it for a year and a day, it would hatch and grant you a wish.”  Alcar pauses.  “I can’t believe it!  You guys didn’t get it!”“Let’s go!” exclaims Gerontius.“Wait, I want to do some divinations first,” Orbius says, and soon he casts contact other plane.What guise did the King of Fairies wear last night when I saw him? Unknown.Given our means, what is the easiest way to get the phoenix egg from Blendorag? Teleport.What creatures guard the egg? Devils.What is the most powerful type of devil that guards the egg? Xerfilstyx.How many are there? Four.What wards have been placed directly on the egg to prevent us from taking it? Symbols.[/i]What effect will a Mordenkainen’s disjunction have on the egg? Unward.If I cast Mordenkainen’s disjunction on the egg, will it destroy the hatchling? No.What is the name of the leshay with a grudge against Sybele? Flannery.What could Sybele do to make Flannery forgive her? Slay.If we were to all be disguised as orcs and teleport into Flannery’s area and teleport away mind blanked[/i], would we get away with it?[/i] Yes and no.“I hate that answer,” he grumbles.Our heroes return to the Stinking Pit.***The stars.  What are they?  When the world is on the inside of a big bubble, what are those tiny points of light?  What is the meaning of their movements (for at least some of them do indeed move)?  The important thing, for us, is to know that a certain alignment, a conjunction, if you will, is nearing.  When it happens, many things are possible.  Many crossings may happen.  Things will be able to cross over.From the depths of Hell, Asmodeus studies the skies of a million worlds and watches the conjunction forming.  The skies between two worlds will overlap, and many things will be possible.  Many enemies might be slain, maneuvered into destroying each other.  From somewhen else, from the ashes of another cosmos, a dark intelligence looks on as well.  There are possibilities when the wall between realities is thin.  There are two of them left who might yet be able to tear down the abomination the Master created and restore the dark equilibrium that ought to exist.  And from somewhere else again, from the depths of the bedrock of all reality, ancient eyes look on the possibilities grimly.  I knew that there would be weakness at the stress points of the boundary when I agreed to send them back in the first place, so long ago, but I thought there would be nothing to prey on them.  I did not count on the remaining angels.He steeples his fingers in deep, deep thought. Next Time: Our heroes’ mission to recover the egg of the phoenix (and hatch it!)</blockquote>

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