NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sagiro" data-source="post: 6248160" data-attributes="member: 726">Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 369Angry DreamersThe geyser of Earth Magic recedes into the ground, leaving the Croaking Oracle blinking rapidly in confusion. It clearly doesn’t understand why it spoke, and none in the Company, Kibi included, has any idea how or why a blast of Earth Magic goosed the toad into spouting extra prophecy. “Thank you,” says Kibi.They spend a few minutes pondering the prophetic words of the amphibian. The “three” are obviously their antagonists: Meledien, Tarsos and Seven Dark Words.  But the rest is largely a mystery. They decide that “One for what is in his head,” is likely Dranko, and that all four lines of the penultimate verse refer to the same person, but beyond that the telling is opaque. They consider staying and summoning another insect tomorrow, but the Oracle speaks, annoyed.“You are done. Leave.”There’s also the matter of the feathered monster and its attendant elementals which only attacked Dranko.  The party forms a working theory that Meledien and Co. left them behind specifically to target the half-orc, because they have learned of, and greatly fear, the Far Realms whatever-it-is that lurks in his brain.“I would more than happy,” says Dranko, “when it comes down to it, for Meledien to fight me. I hate that bitch.”“Hey, did you hear that?”  Aravis looks around in alarm, but no one else has heard (or seen) anything unusual.  Pewter didn’t notice anything either, and they chalk it up to nerves or echoes.“Before we leave,” says Morningstar, “I want to check out what Ava Dormo is like down here.”  The others guard her body while she drops into a trance. She’s in a city.  The dream-version of the Croaking Oracle’s cave, and as far as she can tell the entirety of Pressing Lake, is packed with buildings. The low ceiling has been excavated upward to allow for taller structures, and there's no sign of the lake itself. All the ground she can see is solid. She is fortunate to find herself on a narrow street that threads its way through these buildings, which affords her a sense of both the immensity and density of this dream-metropolis.There are also humanoid creatures here, many of them, heavily armed. They are short – between four and five feet tall – and look vaguely like kobolds. Most carry two-pronged spears and march in tight well-disciplined groups.  The ones nearest stop, stare, point their weapons at her and begin a furious chittering. She hastily drops out of the Dreamscape and reports. Morningstar has never seen such a densely populated section of Ava Dormo, and is keen to learn more.  This time she casts dream anchor on Kibi and takes him with her, in case there are any Earth Magic-related phenomenon for him to observe.  The little militant kobolds surround them in seconds, brandishing their spears and chittering madly.  “We mean you no harm!” Kibi exclaims. One of the creatures pokes him lightly with its spear. Kibi activates tongues just in time to hear one of them shouting “Disarm! Disarm!”Every object on Kibi and Morningstar, save for their clothes, vanishes, which includes the Ioun Stone Kibi was using for tongues. The closest creature jabs his spear into Kibi’s beard, curious as to why it too hasn’t been unmade.“The beard stays!” he says crossly.By now upward of fifty of these little humanoids – all of them wearing plate armor over their blue, knobbly skin –  have surrounded them, and prod them down the street with their spears.  Their high-pitched and agitated voices fill the air. After a few blocks Kibi and Morningstar are herded into a building, down a flight of stairs, and into a small prison cell.Morningstar creates her holy symbol and manifests true seeing. There are a few magical wards on the cell, though she cannot tell their precise function.  She wakes, drawing herself and Kibi back to the waking world.“Interesting!” she says. “They were using an entire army to manipulate reality.”Kibi strokes his beard, relieved to find it undamaged. “Maybe they’re a race that lives only in dreams.”“Quiet!” says Aravis. “There it is again. Did you all really not hear that?”The Company hushes up, straining their ears, but not even Grey Wolf, with enhanced senses cast, hears anything unusual.  “I’m sure I…” Aravis begins, and then his eyes go wide. Lines of glowing tracery sprout from his forehead and race across his face, then down his neck – the visual effect that used to manifest when Aravis was in possession of the Crosser’s Maze! Before he can speak another word, Aravis disappears. Pewter, who had been perched on his shoulder, drops to the ground.Dranko looks down at the cat. “Are you panicking?” he asks. “One meow for yes, two for no.”“Meow, meow.”“Is Aravis in the Maze?” asks Morningstar.“Meow meow meow.”“What does that mean?” asks Dranko.“Probably ‘I don’t know,’” says Ernie.“Meow.”In all the time Aravis possessed the Crosser’s Maze, he had never gone bodily into it. Just like dreamers in Ava Dormo, people in the Maze left their bodies behind in the real world while they minds went voyaging.  Aravis had given the Crosser’s Maze to Belshikun, the Avatar of the Drosh, God of Death, with the expectation that Drosh was going to use it to flee or hide from the Adversary.Flicker looks thoughtful. “You know how everyone kept telling us there was no way out of the Underdark? Well, Aravis just went somewhere!”"Will Aravis come back?" asks Ernie."Meow."“Do we know where he’ll be when he comes back?” asks Grey Wolf.Pewter meows and points to himself with a fore-paw.“He’ll come back wherever you are?“Meow.”  Pewter nods.Morningstar convinces the others to go back one last time, hoping she can forestall their aggressive behavior long enough to have a bit of dialogue. She dons the cloak of diplomacy, and everyone in the party has either tongues or comprehend languages cast upon them.  She brings the entire Company into the dreamscape, at the same location as before.They are surrounded by a wide ring of fifty spear-wielding dream-kobolds, all staring at them, as if they had simply been waiting there for the party to appear.  “Throw!”Thought-quick, Morningstar draws everyone back to the waking world, a split-second before the spears converge.Dranko chuckles. “They’re all about to learn what happens when you throw projectiles while standing in a circle. Maybe we should go back with a mass heal?”Morningstar brings them all back five seconds later, but the creatures had enough sense not to throw with enough force to impale their fellows on the far side of the circle. The party hears the tail end of the noise made by the spears’ clattering to the stone. With astonishing precision, the fifty throwers are stepping back, and a new ring of creatures steps forward to take their place, readying a second volley.Morningstar shouts before they can throw. “I could do this all day, but all I’m here to do is communicate and see who you are. If you’d like to talk, great. If not, we’ll go away.”“Hold fire!” shouts one of the creatures.“We mean you no harm,” Morningstar assures them.One of the dream-kobolds steps forward and shakes his spear at her.  “Who are you?“My name is Morningstar.”“Not what I mean,” says the creature angrily. “Who are you?”Morningstar isn’t sure how to answer. “Morningstar, defender of the church of Ell?  Humans?”“I am not yet hearing something that will keep the hold on our fire,” says the kobold.“We’re saving the world!” shouts Kibi. “And we’re not with the red-armored guys!” adds Ernie, in case they find this relevant.The cloak of diplomacy speaks into Morningstar’s mind. “The person to whom you speak is under extreme pressure to execute anyone who might be a spy for the Tegenti. He is convinced that is what you are.”“We are from very far away,” says Morningstar, hoping this will allay their paranoia. “If we were here to attack, or be malicious to you in some way, would we be here to talk?”“Yes!” shouts the kobold.  “Treachery!  That is exactly what you would say if you were attempting subterfuge or infiltration!  Three!  Two!  One…!”Morningstar hastily returns everyone to the waking world.“Do you think they know they’re in a dream?” asks Dranko.Morningstar sighs in frustration. “I’d love to talk to them to find out.”“Stupid pokey dream people,” Ernie mutters.But Morningstar is still not willing to give up, and proposes one more avenue to pursue.  They ride their phantom steeds across Pressing Lake to the mouth of the tunnel they used to get there from Kessedth. Once there, she takes them all into Ava Dormo again, and finds this part of it uninhabited.  In the Dreamscape, the tunnel has been widened and well-maintained; thick planks of hardened fungus reinforce the walls and ceiling. The party zips along the dream-tunnel until they see a guard post ahead, where six dream-kobolds stand guard at a pair of portcullises, but rather than stop to talk, Morningstar blinks the group far past the outpost.  They pass three more similar posts before nearing the end of the tunnel, where it empties out into Kessedth. Kibi casts veil to make the entire Company look like dream-kobolds. They guess that dream-Kessedth is as overdeveloped as dream-Pressing Lake, and are not disappointed. Morningstar blinks them past the gate and into the cavern beyond, and once again the Company finds itself in a teeming city, packed with buildings and marching dream-kobolds. Morningstar quickly scans their surroundings and blinks the party up to a rooftop, where they all drop flat to avoid detection. Morningstar peeks over the edge of the roof and casts brain spider, a high-level spell designed to learn detailed information from its targets. She chooses eight dream-kobolds and gains access to the minds of seven.The eighth begins to scream.  “Attack! My mind has been attacked!  It’s the Tegenti!  To arms!  To arms! Spread out and search!”“I officially hate this place,” Ernie grumbles.The creatures act with swift purpose, organizing into search groups which fan out to comb the town.  It seems inevitable that they will be discovered before too long, but Morningstar doesn’t need much time.  She chooses one of the minds caught in the web of her spell and chooses “the history and culture of these creatures” to learn.The dream-kobolds are a race called the Keffet, and for years out of memory they have fought a war in the Dreaming against another race called the Tegenti. The Tegenti are intelligent bull-like quadrupeds who specialize in illusions and other mind-trickery; where the Keffet embrace physical military might, the Tegenti have refined their mentalist abilities. (Though the Keffet do have a basic form of group-mind coordination, finely honed to assist their physical warmongering.) This region – the dream reflections of Pressing Lake, Kessedth, and the surrounding areas – are all very close to the current front lines of the ongoing conflict. The war has not been going well for the Keffet; in recent months the Tegenti have pushed the border back quite far. But this Keffet is not terribly worried, as the war has ebbed and flowed for a century or more, and it’s only a matter of time before the Keffet rally and turn the tide. She has seen it get more dire than this.On less militaristic topics, Morningstar learns that as far as the Keffet are concerned, their world is the real one. The one whose mind she is picking does not think she is in a dream.  As for the prophecy and possible end of the world, the Keffet do have a variant of that. Many think that the world is, in fact, fated to end.  Before that happens, though, one side will win the war, and whichever side that is will transition to some heaven-like state, while the losing race will be damned for all eternity in a freezing hell. There are spiritual leaders who claim that the end times are approaching, though there are no Keffet gods as such. Every Keffet population center has something not quite a temple or place of worship, but thought of as “spiritual commons.”  Some Keffet go there to pray – not to anything in particular – that the outcome of the war go in their favor.That is all Morningstar is able to glean, before a searching party of Keffet can be heard climbing up to the rooftops near their hiding place. Morningstar drops them out of dream for a final time and shares all that she has learned. She is astounded to learn of a race of beings native to Ava Dormo.“Two races, if you count the hyper-intelligent cows,” says Dranko.But now the time has come for the Company to move forward in their pursuit of the Evil Trio. It takes them a day and a half to return physically to Kessedth, where they find that Toq has departed, but not before leaving them a note tacked to the door of the tunnel entrance.“I have gone ahead to Ementh, to see what I can learn about the evil ones who came before you.  If you choose to go instead to Keshem or the Crystal Wood, heed the warnings signs on the Peshovar lairs. Do not go into them, or try to fight them.  If I do not see you again, go swiftly by the Hand of Yavin.”Ementh, they recall, is a large city of Toq’s people, the Zeraphin. And the Crystal Wood was where the red-skinned and curve-horned woman had headed two months earlier, the one whom Toq had described as arrogant and unpleasant. But the Company decides to go to Keshem, city of the insect-like Stribe, on account that there is a Leaping Circle there. They all agree that is the most likely way that Meledien, Tarsos and Seven Dark Words would have gone.  Dranko leaves a reply note for Toq.“Thank you.  Headed to Keshem and onward from there.  May Yavin bless you and keep you safe.”…to be continued…</blockquote>

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