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Message: <blockquote data-quote="simmo" data-source="post: 1480953" data-attributes="member: 9744">chapter 3 Armed with a wand“I DID NOT REALISE THAT HE WANTED AN ARM WITH A SKULL ON THE END. WHAT USE IS THAT?” Caleb threw arm away the arm that he'd finished crafting. “YOU CAN'T EVEN GRIP WITH A SKULL."“No, you don't understand Caleb.” Serena interrupted him. “That is what the modrons are after.”“WHAT, THE MODRONS ARE AFTER AN ARM FOR THIS GUY?” Caleb asked, getting completely the wrong idea. Serena narrowed her eyes and tried to work out if the earth genasi was joking or not. Her intuition told her that Caleb was being entirely serious.“No,“ she replied flatly.“BUT HE DID NOT EVEN LOSE IT UNTIL AFTER THEY HAD LEFT,” Caleb pointed out slowly. He walked over to the newly crafted arm that he'd discarded and studied it for awhile.“Never mind,” the seer said quietly as she shook her head.“Now what would they want that for?” Littleby's mind was racing as it tried to figure out what the modron had been referring to. He quickly went over the conversation again in his mind in order to check that he'd not misunderstood anything that it had said in its strange tongue.“HEY I'VE JUST HAD A GREAT IDEA. THIS MODRON ARM SOUNDS A BIT LIKE THE WAND OF ORCUS, DOESN'T IT. WHAT A STRANGE COINCIDENCE?” Caleb shrugged his shoulders as he dismissed the though and turned his attention back to the modron. “ANYWAY, LET ME PUT THIS ARM BACK ON.”“Wand of Orcus?” Serena asked with her voice rising. She stared hard at Caleb and came to the conclusion that the earth genasi was either joking or knew much more that he let others think that he did.“He gets there in his own time,” the dwarven scholar said with a benign smile. Andrew lent forward as he was curious to find out more about the mysterious wand as well and then he lent back slowly so as not to let the others see his sudden interest.“If it's several feet long, doesn't it sound more like a staff or a sword?” Serena was also curious to find out more about what Caleb had called the wand and decided to solicit more information from her friends in an indirect manner.“It sounds like a very big thing's wand to me,” Littleby hinted cryptically. The dwarf stroked his beard and Serena could not tell if he was hiding a smile behind his hand or not.“IT IS MORE OF A KIND OF A... BIG THING.” Caleb struggled to properly express his thoughts and felt somewhat self-conscious now that he'd become the centre of attention in a very serious conversation. “RATHER THAN A... LITTLE THING.” He waved his arms around trying to illustrating his point but was rewarded with puzzled and confused looks from the others. Only the mephits clapped quietly in appreciation of their master's genius and mastery of obscure body-language.“YOU CAN CLOUT THEM WITH IT. THUS ENSURING THAT EVEN IF THEY SURVIVE CONTACT WITH THE WAND THEY HAVE THEIR BRAINS BASHED OUT.” The earth genasi smirked as he considered what he remembered about the wand. “IN FACT IT HAS NO MAGICAL POWER AT ALL, IT'S JUST A REALLY POWERFUL MACE.”“Is that what it is, a mace?” Serena still did not feel as if she had any better understanding of what this mysterious 'wand of orcus' might look like.“IT IS MORE LIKE A ROD THAN A WAND,” Caleb clarified. “I READ THIS IN THE ARCANE PASSAGES,” he added quickly.“That you read intensively and frequently?” Serena asked sceptically. She shook her head in resignation and looked at the dwarven scholar for more information.The earth genasi paused as if caught off-guard. He asked himself silently WHY DID I SAY THAT? as he tried to remember where he'd come across the information regarding the wand. A blurry memory of riding with an old man on a wagon through Elysium and a flying ship rolled through his mind. The memory was accompanied with the faint echo of the old man's strong voice telling him a great deal of detail about the wand and then finishing off by admonishing him to forget about it for awhile.“Caleb is quite correct, this item does fit the description.” The dwarven scholar confirmed. “A similar item has just turned up in a very nice location indeed. The para-elemental plane of ooze. In the possession of one Baron Bwimb.”“SWEET TOMERI. BWIMB!” The earth genasi exclaimed. “THAT'S A FAMILIAR NAME.”Littleby rattled off Bwimb's titles and Caleb nodded his head. He spat in disgust at the mention of the name and its accompanying titles as he was clearly unimpressed by any of them.The earth genasi had heard of the upstart ooze sprite that claimed lordship over the House of Chambered Madness, otherwise known to primes as the para-elemental plane of Ooze. Neither the Marid who inhabited the Endless Ocean or the Dao who resided within the Dismal Delve cared enough about the plane of Ooze to challenge Baron Bwimb or his preposterous claims.Ooze mephit, worms and other refuse littered the plane that many scholars considered to reside between Elemental planes of Water and Earth. These same scholars and others used the plane as a dumping ground, even going so far as to strand the odd enemy there as well. Some even provided these outcasts with magical means to survive without food or drink and hence the name for the plane was commonly known by planars as 'the House of Chambered Madness'.The earth genasi shared his knowledge with the others and brief discussion ensued about how they could reach the para-elemental plane of ooze. Serena asked Zakar if he knew of any portals to that place and the hound archon shook his head with a small sigh of relief. Andrew was asked to keep a look-out for any portal nearby as being a planar he was able to see their outline, but he pointed out that without magical aid he could not determine what lay on the other side of any portals.“Well if we can get back to Sigil, to come back to the portals, there's thousands of them lying around all over the place in the Hive.” Littleby  suggested with what might have been a slight grimace or a bemused grin. “Just find a big one and roll up your trousers.”</blockquote>

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