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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 287020" data-attributes="member: 150">How could it get worse?Eldgrim, being caressed and fondled by a four-armed she-Girallon, snickered to himself and looked at the stricken faces of the party members.  “Welcome to my new kingdom.”He looked at Ulric and Crys.  “I can see you’ve fallen in with a bad crowd since I saw you last.  Too bad, really.  Picking the wrong friends will be the death of you.”Irk took a moment to casually look around behind the party.  There, crowded into the passage, were somewhere between 20 and 30 Girallon faces, jostling for position to see what was going to happen next.  The good news, he figured, was that Eldgrim wouldn’t use his breath weapon – it would be too likely to hurt his Girallon followers, too.  But, somehow, that seemed like cold comfort to Irk.  There were just too many.Eldgrim laughed again.  “You’re just too late, you know.  They’re all gone.  Anathe has betrayed my mother, taken up with Gulthias, and thanks to your ship they’re on their way back to Dyvers to take over the Dragonfaith.  And it’s all your fault.  Again.”Elgrim went off into the long story of Anathe’s betrayal of Sear’s vision for the dragonfaith.  It was apparent to some members of the party that Eldgrim, for all his malice, was excited to have an audience for his ramblings that could do more than grunt their incomprehension at him.  Anathe and the others had fought their way into the spire, leaving party members where they fell.  Elgrim got separated from the group, and had become miffed that no one had come looking for him.  Anathe made it to the core of the spire and then began days to negotiation with Gulthias.  Eldgrim did not dismiss the theory that Anathe had been mentally dominated by the vampire lord, but that seemed to matter to him very little.  Anathe had come out after nearly a week of talking with Gulthias about the Dragon faith that was sprouting up around the world, but especially in Dyvers, and ideas for making a connection between that new faith and the old cult that Gulthias was the last vestige of.  In the end, Anathe and Gulthias send a message to one of Anathe’s agents, a spymistress who had arranged for the capture of the Mystery Machine, and the ship was brought to the top of the spire, where Anathe and Gulthias and most of Gulthias’s servants embarked for Dyvers, taking the long way around the Nyr Dyv to avoid extended travel over open water (which makes vampires edgy).  Part of Gulthias’ luggage was the Heart of Ashardalon. Ashardalon had been a great wyrm centuries ago, but had died.  It’s heart had been mummified, and after centuries of dark rites had become imbued with necromantic power, and was now the source of a great deal of Gulthias’ extraordinary power.  That power, at the head of an army of faithful dragon worshippers, would more than likely finish the job of driving all other power and faith in Dyvers underground.  But Eldgrim was not really interested in the fate of Dyvers.  He was bothered that Anathe had taken up with Gulthias and seemed to have forgotten about the patronage of his mother, Sear, the living red dragon that was financing the current dragon cult.  And he had his own plans.  There were hints of underdark connections in the catacombs of the spire, and Eldgrim was going to start efforts there to bring his mother up from the depths.  He had a community of faithful Girallons to do the work, and most of the opposition had packed up and left, so he was on his own, except that two vampires – the archer Ranar that had already made the party’s life a bit difficult (having killed both Irk and Eli once), and his dwarven companion, Brottkill.  The two vampires had been left behind and were making a home in another part of the catacombs, feeding on stragglers from Eldgrim’s tribe. Eldgrim actually proposed that the party go off and kill the vampires for him – he would hold Pah as a hostage to insure their compliance with his wishes, and send the rest off to go face the two vampires.  No one in the group thought it was a good idea.  Eldgrim pressed the idea, and Irk said, “Mind if we talk it over amongst ourselves?”Eldgrim, feeling cocky, agreed.  “All right, huddle up,” Irk said.  He called the others to join him in a huddle.  “We’re getting out of here,” he whispered.“Where to?” asked Eli.“We can’t go back to Dyvers,” said Ulric, remembering the mess they’d left behind there.  Irk thought for a second, then smiled.  “I know . . . “ and he grabbed for hands.And they blinked away, hearing Eldgrim’s frustrated bellows echoing behind them.They appeared in Solen’s lab – where they had met him the first time, in his tower on a secluded island in the Nyr Dyv.  Solen was there, hard at work, and was startled to see the party suddenly appear.  But after hugs and a few introductions, Solen was making waffles for everyone.The immediate problem was that the Mystery Machine, packed with evil clerics, vampires, and tons of other bad things, was en route to Dyvers.  They were pretty sure that they couldn’t take on the passengers of the ship in a stand-up fight (DM: They were right) so they needed some other plan to try to stop them.  They came up with a risky plan.  They would teleport on board the ship with a bomb, leave the bomb behind and that would bring the ship down.  They were taking risks – teleporting onto a ship that was moving was much more chancy than teleporting to a much more static location.  They raided Solen’s lab for all of the powder he had in storage – 170 pounds.  They fashioned a crude iron box to hold it, and tested some fuses to try to get delay that would give Irk (the teleporter) time to deliver the bomb and get out before it exploded, without risking that the bomb would be discovered and disarmed before it could go off.  They settled on about a 12 second fuse.  They also chose a very specific location on the ship to teleport in to – belowdecks, in a passage between cabins, directly beneath the spelljammer throne that was the magical center of the spelljammer ship’s power.They made all the preparations they could think of – they had figured that the trip back would take the Mystery Machine a month or so, and while they needed to hurry they had enough time to take a few days for preparation.  And then Irk donned the helmet, held the bomb, and gritted his teeth.“I’ll be right back,” he said.With a slight pop he disappeared.  Pah counted out loud to twelve.  Then on to twenty.  Then she stopped.When a whole minute had passed, they started yelling for Solen.Solen pulled out every scrying trick in his book, and could not find Irk.  The ship was still there, slowly making its way towards Dyvers, but he couldn’t risk a longer look for fear that his scrying would be discovered.He was able to trace Irk’s magical path, and saw that he had been diverted, somehow – what should have been an instantaneous trip through the ether seemed to take a sharp turn into the unknown.  Solen couldn’t guess where Irk may have ended up, but thought that he might be able to send the party along the same path – blind – to see if they could help him.  No one thought it was a particularly good idea.  But no one was willing to give up on Irk, who had always been the bedrock of the party.  In the end, with a few macho diversions (Ulric said “He still owes me a magic longspear”) they decided that they needed to try to save Irk.  Solen rummaged around in his lab for a few minutes and found a handful of amber amulets.  “These may help me locate you once you reach your destination.  There’s a chance I’ll be able to scry your location and find you – but don’t count on it.”They took a little more time for preparation – not knowing what to expect on the other side – and then Solen sent them on their way.Irk clutched the bomb to his chest and expected to appear in the familiar hall of the ship in a heartbeat.  Colors swirled around him.  He smelled a series of odd scents -- lavender, then sulfur, then a strong earthy sweat.  Finally, it seemed as if he was drawing close to his destination.  Irk saw, as if from above, a room -- a large room filled with odd devices and glowing balls of light.  He saw two figures in the room.  One was a man in a white jacket of some odd cut.  He was sitting at a sort of desk that was covered with knobs and buttons and switches.  He was working furiously at the controls.Behind him, in a long leather coat with matching double lightning bolts in silver on his lapel, was a figure shrouded in shadow.  What Irk could see clearly was a pair of gray-skinned hands gripping the back of the man's chair with white-knuckled force.  Every few seconds the dark figure leaned forward and whispered in the man's ear.Then he could see that the room was actually just a balcony overlooking a much larger space, which looked like a large, clean, empty warehouse.  The mirror that the man seemed so interested in was sitting against the wall of the great warehouse.  On the floor of the warehouse were many armed human figures -- soldiers, judging by the uniformity of their dress.  They wore daggers on belts and carried odd weapons that looked like clubs, or maybe crossbows without the bow.Then, suddenly, one of the glowing balls of light exploded, sending a shower of sparks across the room, and Irk felt himself start to drift away from the room, like a ship with its anchor cable cut.  Seconds later he passed into the world again, appearing in a simple whitewashed Dairy barn, surrounded by cows that chewed idly on hay.  They seemed momentarily surprised by his arrival, but return to the work of chewing in a matter of seconds.Irk, holding the bomb that should have exploded already in his arms (apparently time had not actually passed while he was going for the weird teleportation ride).  He cast about mentally, but could not find the locations he usually teleported to available to him – it was as if the world as he knew it was just in that simple dairy barn.  Seeing the fuse burning away, Irk settled for a more pedestrian escape, and threw himself through a stained window in the dark rural night beyond, scrabbling to get a little more distance between himself and the barn before –boom.Bits of barn and meaty chunks of cow splattered around Irk as he reached the nearby forest, where he hid himself as best he could in the underbrush and counted fingers and toes.  He stayed there, hiding, while the inhabitants of a nearby farmhouse came out to investigate, and were quickly ushered back in by the father, all jabbering in a language that Irk did not understand.  Minutes later a horse-drawn pump-wagon appeared – to Irk’s eyes a remarkable feat of engineering, and a handful lf lackluster peasants used it to hose down the last of the shattered ashes of the barn.  When only a few wisps of smoke were rising from the skeleton of the barn the wagon and its crew left, leaving the farmer sitting on his porch looking at the wreckage of his barn.  Eventually he stood and went back inside.Next Time: There’s no place like home . . .</blockquote>

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