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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 4229803" data-attributes="member: 1210">9/22/371 O.L.G., 8:30 a.m., somewhere in the Parrot IslesBaron Lillamere appears in a puff of displaced air. He is on a grassy hillside, with the sun bright overhead. As always, he looks magnificent, though he is dressed less formally than when he is focused on affairs of state. Inoke stands before him, large, imposing, strong. They are old friends; despite recent tensions, they smile and clasp hands.“You ready?” asks Lillamere.Inoke nods.The baron lays a hand upon Inoke’s shoulder and superior teleports the two of them back to just outside the Three Rubies Inn, in Var. Then he stops, and looks his old friend in the eye. “If we would have asked,” Lillamere says, “would you have told us?”Inoke hesitates for a long moment. “It depends on how you asked,” he answers at last. “Fair enough,” Lillamere nods.The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife as the two of them walk into the Three Rubies’ common room. Our heroes have reserved the entire place for themselves for today- just in case. The rest of the party stares as Inoke walks slowly towards them: Inoke, slayer of Asmodeus. Inoke, former party member... Inoke, former Arrow of Law.*Some of the greetings are a little chilly at first; but Gerontius, especially, grins and claps his old friend on the back. He, Inoke and Lillamere adventured for years together, along with their dead friend Veil, before joining the rest of the party.Breakfast comes, along with many different beverages, from milk to juice to wine and juice mixed. The food is delicious, as always; the Three Rubies receives vast sums of wealth from the adventurers that it caters to, and in order to continue being their destination of choice, it hires only the best help. As the party digs in to their meal, they cannot help but relax as the wonderful flavors and textures fill their mouths, and the delicious aromas waft through the air. Slowly the tension recedes, though it never vanishes.“Well,” Inoke says at last.“Well,” agrees Alcar. The angel glares at Inoke and shakes a finger. “You shouldn’t have done what you did!” Inoke shrugs uncomfortably. “You don’t understand.”“I understand that you betrayed us,” Alcar snaps.“No. I never attacked you; I swore I wouldn’t fight against you, and I didn’t.”“Why, Inoke? Why did you join the Arrows of Law?” demands Lillamere.The big man sighs. “You don’t understand,” he repeats. “It made sense at the time...” He heaves an unhappy sigh. “I never wanted conflict between us, but Prayzose approached me... he pointed out that he was the only Good member of the Arrows. If Law won, but Good had a strong presence, we would have had justice in the world. But if Law and Evil triumphed, it would have been tyranny.”Gerontius, floating in the air at the height of Inoke’s chest, claps his friend on the shoulder. “I am certain that you only wanted to do what was right,” the halfling reassures Inoke.“It doesn’t matter.” Alcar chops at the air with his hand. “You shouldn’t have done it. You may not consider what you did a betrayal, but you turned against us and joined the other side.” He shakes his head. “I’m willing to get past that, but only because we need you.”“You already know about ze Angels of ze Apocalypse,” Gerontius nods. “Zere are at least two of zem zat we must deal with.”“Two of them!” Inoke groans.“And there’s Bile Mountain, too,” Baron Lillamere nods. “I don’t honestly know that we’re ready to take on two Angels of the Apocalypse.”“They’re the main event,” Alcar declares. “Everything else is just a warm up.”Inoke frowns. “I’ll admit, both of those are causes I can get behind.”“Then join us to take them on,” urges Baron Lillamere. “We need your help.”“And maybe you could help us make my honey the emperor of Forinthia,” Sybele adds. Thrush grins.“I don’t know about that,” Inoke says. “What is your claim based on?” he asks Thrush.The would-be emperor grins. “I can do it,” he replies. “I can conquer the empire by force, if need be. And with Prayzose’s crown, I’m wise enough to be able to rule well. Plus, we beat the Arrows.”“That’s not a very legitimate claim,” Inoke says. “Do you think you can really make it stick?”Thrush shrugs and fingers his sword. “I will help you guys with the Bile Lords and the Angels of the Apocalypse,” Inoke decides. “Other than that, we’ll see.”“Well, what about cannibals? There’s a fleet of cannibals coming towards Dorhaus by the thousands, maybe millions. They were driven out by Hextor. Will you help us protect Dorhaus from them?”“Millions?” Inoke rubs his chin. “How do you plan to protect Dorhaus?”Baron Lillamere smiles. “King Malford told me about something very interesting,” he says. “Something that might help. Or should I say... someone.”***2/7/347 O.L.G., 2 p.m., VordolithLester, Thimbleton, Rinardo, Stone, Dab and Hobbes had at last reached their destination. After defeating the first Angel of the Apocalypse, Fuligin, they had sought to repair the damage done to the savaged land. It was nearly lifeless. Rinardo, through his druidic allies, heard rumors of an artifact that might be able to help: the Mantle of Gaea. A great deal of work tracked it down to the small continent of Vordolith, which- when the party arrived- proved to be fecund and overgrown everywhere. Even the desert, which an old map the part found called the Magnificent Desert, was overgrowing with life- including the cactus folk. They knew of the Mantle, but were only willing to surrender its location in return for a magic item that would provide them with limitless water. Lester used a series of divination magics to discern that a decanter of endless water was in the possession of a strange creature called the Mirror Master that dwelled beneath Vordolith, on the bottom face of the island continent.** The Mirror Master was a canny and ruthless monster called a morkoth, which attempted to hypnotize the party with the geometry of its lair, but they overwhelmed it. After all, its alien geometries were as nothing when compared to the horrific experiences most of them had recently experienced while inside Lester’s brain, fighting his third eye.Finally, they had gotten the decanter of endless water and ferried it back to the cactus folk. In return, they had guided the party to the cactus treant, which led them to the thick grove wherein the Mantle lay. At last.The Mantle was made of living leaves and vines, and it was wrapped around a wooden skeleton.Recognizing the risk, yet knowing that the need of Dorhaus, and of Nature, outweighed it, Rinardo slowly unwrapped the Mantle from the skeleton of wood, and then wrapped it around himself. It reacted immediately, sinking roots down into his body. He was shocked, yet there was no pain. Instead, he felt a slight numbness as a small piece of himself turned to wood. He turned to his friends. “Let’s go home,” he sighed. A smile played on his lips. “We have what we came for.”They returned to Dorhaus. Everywhere Rinardo went, plants would grow. Even in a metal hallway, small grass seedlings would eventually begin to pierce the cracks and seems, and moss and mold would begin to spread everywhere. Existing vegetation grew prolifically, and everywhere he went on Dorhaus the land was rejuvenated. Thickets of rushes, oak and apple trees, tall grasses, bushes and brush, flowers and grains- life returned, and as the plants returned, the druids aided the situation by bringing animals to supply the land. Only a few, at first, but in but a few decades, those few would form burgeoning numbers, and the ecosystem would be reestablished. Yet, as the weeks passed, Rinardo found that he had to travel constantly. If he were to stay in one place for more than a day or two, the plants would grow so thick that they were impenetrable. Rinardo began to travel the length and breadth of Dorhaus, letting the Mantle of Gaea work its powerful magic, watching the plants grow- knowing that his name would never be forgotten so long as civilization flourished on Dorhaus. Rinardo the Savior, they might call him, or maybe Green Rinardo. He sighed to himself. The Mantle could not be removed. He knew what he had to do. So Rinardo took himself away from Dorhaus, off the coast, north and west. Where he settled into the waves, wild shaped into an octopus, an islet, first of coral, began to grow. When it breached the surface of the sea, its character changed. Around it, near the surface, a sargasso of kelp began to form. Above it, in the open air, first grasses, then bushes and trees, began to form. Larger and larger the islet grew, becoming an isle whose rises were sheer fecund vegetation. Soon the isle was an island, and it grew larger and larger until a finger of it touched northwestern Dorhaus. Then it stopped, and lay undisturbed for almost twenty-five years.***9/22/371 O.L.G., 8:30 a.m., somewhere in the Parrot IslesThe party arrives, via superior teleport, on a massive mountain of decaying peat and humus. The air is hot, moist, rich-smelling. There are plants and animals all around, in ridiculous abundance. “So how do we make contact with this guy?” Sybele asks.“Good question,” nods Chakar. Nobody has an answer.The party wanders around for a few minutes, just kind of looking around. Sybele finds herself observing a parrot that (she thinks) is studying the party shrewdly. “Hello?” she asks. It just squawks. She shrugs, but then it flies to another nearby branch and squawks at her again. Sybele follows the parrot over and it squawks again and flies off about ten feet, then stops expectantly. “I think this parrot wants me to follow it,” she yells to the others. She follows it, and they follow her, and soon it stops next to a fruit. She approaches and it squawks, but this time it doesn’t go anywhere. With a shrug, Sybele eats the fruit. “Tastes funny,” she sighs, and her eyes roll back in her head. She falls to the ground. “Sybele!” Thrush shouts. He leaps to her side. She is alive, but clearly, something weird is going on. “Alcar?” Thrush looks at the angel. “Do you think that you can do something?” “Wait a minute,” Jibber Junior says. “She might be on to something. Look at her eyes.”Indeed, Sybele’s eyes are dancing beneath the lids, as if she was in the midst of a very powerful dream. Thrush bites his lip and nods.***Sybele feels odd, as if her arms were hundreds of feet long. She feels the ebb and flow of the tides of life all around her. Birth, youth, maturity, death, feed the worms, then recycled to birth again. (a presence) Sprout, emerge from the ground, unfold under the sun, flower, wither and die. (faintly in the background) Be eaten, or eat. Everything is just right. Is there anyone out there? Hello? Sybele is a telepath. She has plumbed the depths of her mental abilities, and her facile mind reaches out, searching... searching. But she can’t find anything specific- just a sense of brushing against something, almost a stirring....WAKE UP!! she bellows telepathically, expending as much psionic power as she can in a single moment. Before her mind’s eye, a flower appears. No... an eye. An eye within a flower. Blooming, ever blooming- pollen drifting in a screen around it. We are in great danger, she sends urgently. More evil from the sea, a six-armed incarnation of evil. Can you move yourself south, to the western sea? She sends a series of images: the cannibal fleet, Dorhaus, the sea area in question.There is a faint response. I will help if I can, a voice like a thunderstorm far away whispers. Not fast. The Mantle... the Mantle... the Mantle of Gaea... it’s hard to stop... could grow a barrier... hard to stop, however... could let it grow...I understand, Sybele returns. Grow. Grow and drift to the west.There is a whispered mental voice, fading again: Yes... the Mantle...***Sybele’s eyes open. “Wow,” she croaks. Slowly, she stands up. She looks at Lillamere. “It wants to be its own self-governing entity,” she says. “It won’t be colonized. But it will help us.” “Uh, I’ll tell Malford,” Lillamere answers doubtfully.“Now what?” asks Chakar.“Darkhold,” answers Alcar.Next Time: A Foray into Entropy!*For anyone not up on the back story, the party is the greatest force of Chaos in the world. Their arch-foes were the Arrows of Law, who co-opted Inoke and got him to join their ranks. **Bear in mind that Cydra is a water world that is (in theory) infinitely deep. Continents and islands are actually floating bits of stuff, usually rock and dirt and so on, and these things exist underwater too, but there is no “ocean bottom” per se.</blockquote>

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