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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7598153" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 43: SHELL SHOCKEDPC Roster:  Daleth Stormsea, elf wizard 12             Galen Thorne, human paladin 13             Kaspar Hardstrike, elf monk 13             Orion Nightsky, halfling rogue 13             Syngaard, human fighter 13Game Session Date: 24 April 2019- - - The conscripts were summoned to the Enchanted Flagon after nearly a week of not having heard anything from Skevros.  The king's adviser had been frantically searching for Dow, the homunculus he had created years ago for his now-deceased daughter, Sarah.  The fact that the group saw posters offering 50,000 pieces of gold for Dow's safe return indicated his efforts had been thus far unsuccessful."Fifty thousand?" exclaimed Syngaard upon reading the notice.  "For that freaky porcelain thing?""She no doubt means much to him," pointed out Kaspar.  "She is a reminder of his daughter, whose death hit him hard.  Remember, it was her death that led him back into adventuring, which is how he found that helmet that sent his entire personality onto an evil path.""Sounds to me like he'd be better off forgettin' about her, then," replied the bald fighter.  "Not spendin' a fortune findin' her again.""Great idea," agreed Orion.  "And while we're at it, you can just switch off all your memories of your dead wife - Mezz, was it?  It's just that easy, right?"  And without further comment the halfling walked into the abandoned tavern that served the conscripts as their headquarters, leaving Syngaard silently fuming with a hand gripping the hilt of his morningstar so hard his fingers hurt.  Eventually, he composed himself enough to follow Galen and Kaspar into the Enchanted Flagon behind Orion.Skevros was at his customary seat at the table, with Daleth sitting at his side; the elf's pseudodragon familiar, Todd, lay curled up beneath his chair, drowsing.  Daleth had been assisting the king's adviser as best he could during the past several days, casting divinations seeking to unearth Dow's whereabouts.  But none of the avenues they'd explored had led to them finding the missing homunculus."The closest we've come," Skevros said after explaining their failures, "was a divination redirecting me to the coded 'Prophecies of Alexandros'.""Him again," grumbled Syngaard.  The scarred fighter had a burning hate for the Mithral Mage, especially now that he knew he'd be trapped here upon the Material Plane as a ghost upon his death instead of being reunited with Messalina - and all because of Alexandros and his stupid magic!"I read through the book again, this time using the Eye of Prophecy," Skevros continued.  "I learned there were six possible outcomes, each based upon 'the child of Skevros' dying before her 6th summer."  Sarah, Orion recalled, had died when she was five years old."The information Alexandros provided you - that you had failed to rescue him from Hell - leads me to believe he fully expected the six prophecies had been narrowed down to the one wherein Sarah was murdered in a way that was mistaken for natural causes.  But using the Eye of Prophecy, I was able to see the correctly translated version of that prophecy: 'The champions of Skevros shall free Alexandros' soul from the hellish prison of his own making.'  Not, as he surmised, the actual Hell in which his soul was imprisoned and looked after by the Hope Ender.""The osteovox, then?" deduced Kaspar."Indeed," affirmed Skevros.  "I believe the prophecy actually refers to you destroying the Mithral Mage's phylactery."  Syngaard sat up and took notice at that part - destroying the lich's phylactery meant the curse would be lifted and they'd all go on to their respective afterlives upon their deaths."I should also point out that only half of the prophecies deal with the manner of Sarah's death," Skevros added.  "The other half involve a daughter I never had named Nadira.""Never had?" asked Galen delicately.  "Or never knew you had?  There are gaps in your memory from when you were...under the sway of that evil helmet...."Skevros narrowed his eyes at the paladin's suggestion.  "Never had," he repeated.  Then the anger cleared from his face.  "It is, nonetheless, a valid question," he admitted.  "But the divinations Daleth and I performed these past several days have left no doubt that I only ever sired one daughter in my life, and that was Sarah.""Fair enough," Galen said, holding his hands up to indicate he was abandoning the subject."This Nadira is described in the book," Skevros continued.  "The coloration of her tail indicates--""Whoa!" exclaimed Syngaard, nearly spitting the mouthful of ale he's just taken from his mug.  "Tail?  Just what kinda kid were you having in them other three prophecies?""It would seem this other path, the one ending in my having a daughter named Nadira, involved me settling down not with my human wife Jessica, but with Aquellia, one of the companions Jessica and I traveled with when we were adventurers.""And this Aquellia had a tail?" pressed Syngaard."Quite so - she was, after all, a mermaid."Syngaard's face screwed up as he tried to process this information; it caused his facial scars to flex into different patterns.  "So you adventured with a mermaid?  How exactly did that work?""You have seen how for yourself, back at Yondall's Bay," replied Skevros.  "If you recall, the merfolk leader met you on the beach, standing on his own two legs.  Those legs were the result of a magic item of merfolk creation, allowing them to experience life on land.  Aquellia had such a belt.""So besides the legs, it also gave her a--""Syngaard!" interrupted Orion.  "We all get it!  Can we move on, please?""In any case, reading the prophecies involving Aquellia reminded me it was she who suggested I create Dow in the first place.  She even aided me in her construction.  It's entirely possible she may know what's wrong with her now, or where she might have gone.""Have you tried contacting her?" asked Kaspar.  He was no wizard, but it seemed like the next logical approach."I have, but all attempts have failed.  I'm hoping you will have better luck seeking her out in person.  The last place she was seen was in Coral's Reach, so that's where I'll send you to seek her out.""Wait a minute," said Syngaard suspiciously.  "This Coral's Reach, is it on land or out at sea?""It is an underwater locale.""And this Aquellia we're hunting up for you, she got legs or not?""I would imagine she has retired to her natural mermaid form.""So you're sendin' us underwater to go talk to some mermaid who helped you make that doll-thing to see if she might have any idea where she might have wandered off to and why she don't come back?""Correct.""And why exactly--?""I will pay you each 2,000 pieces of gold to seek her out if she has any information that might help us in locating Dow.  If we find Dow as a result, you will of course receive the full 50,000 pieces of gold I have put up as a reward."That shut Syngaard up quite nicely.  "I'm in," he said, returning his attention to his mug of ale."As are we all," replied Orion.  "What can you tell us of Aquellia, sir?" she asked Skevros."She is a barbarian, quite adept at using the greataxe she carried as her primary weapon.  And she's quick to anger.  But she was steadfastly loyal to her friends, so she should be willing to help us with anything she might know."  The briefing over, he stood up and ushered the conscripts out of the Enchanted Flagon and towards the city gate, so he could teleport them to their destination."Mermaid barbarian adventurer," muttered Syngaard to himself.  "Don't that beat all."Daleth cast a Rary's telepathic bond on the group as they exited the city gates.  Then Skevros cast the spell that sent them to the very outskirts of Durnhill's southwestern border, the stretch of land called Yondall's Bay that was the kingdom's only oceanside border.A guard - seeming in all respects to be human, but no doubt a merman with one of those leg-belts, thought Syngaard - recognized the group from their previous excursion this way.  "What brings you back to these waters?" he asked."We seek a mermaid named Aquellia," Galen replied.  "Skevros believes she may have information that would aid him.""Aquellia," mused the guard.  "You mean the Hermit of Kraken's Point?""Kraken's Point?" repeated Galen."One of our earliest legends tells of the first mermaid queen battling a kraken and being saved by a blond-haired human wizard in silver robes who turned the kraken to stone.  The stone spire called Kraken's Point is said to be the petrified remains of that very kraken.  And there's a mermaid that lives there; she might be the Aquellia you're looking for.""Is it far from here?" asked Kaspar.  The guard pointed out a rock rising from the ocean just at the edge of visibility and explained that was the top of Kraken's Point.  "Most of us avoid the place due to the eerie glowing coral growing all around it and the unnaturally empowered wildlife that lair there.  Especially the jellyfish - they're nastier than they appear.""Still, we are charged to seek out this Aquellia," replied Galen stoically.  "Is there any way you might...?"The guard took his meaning at once and blew on a conch shell hanging at his belt.  A half dozen merfolk rose from the ocean soon thereafter, beckoning the adventurers to meet them in the shallows of the ocean.  Since the heroes had earlier saved the merfolk kingdom from destruction, the assembled mermaids gladly gave the merfolk blessing - a kiss that bestowed water breathing and freedom of movement - to the heroes.  (The one providing Syngaard's blessing may have seemed to do so a bit less gladly than her sisters.)  And then the conscripts stepped fully into the ocean, heading toward Kraken's Point.Once again - for this was their second time adventuring underwater - they found it easier to walk along the ocean's bottom than try swimming, especially those in heavy armor.  Orion got tired of walking almost immediately and gave an underwater whistle to her ghost-dog and Carl materialized immediately; he'd been trotting by her side on the Ethereal Plane, following her every movement.  His demeanor was the same as it had always been, despite his most recent "death" under the fiery onslaught of a red dragon: he was just glad to be by his mistress.  Orion leaped up into the ghost touch saddle that allowed her to ride an insubstantial ghost and led the way towards Kraken's Point, Carl occasionally taking the time to snap at the odd fish here and there.Along the way, the waters got darker as the ocean got deeper, but then things started lightening back up again, even though the water continued rising higher and higher above their heads.  This was due to the coral the merfolk guard had mentioned; it grew in little clumps, each clump giving off a faint phosphorescent bluish glow.  The clumps of coral, few and far between at first, started growing closer and closer to each other the nearer they got to what must be Kraken's Point, for several arching pillars of stone grew together, forming a conical structure overhead.  Two of the pillars were thicker than the others, corresponding to the kraken's more powerful tentacles.And it turned out the clumps of coral weren't the only things glowing blue.  Bluish glows coalesced into floating lights, which upon closer inspection were swarms of bioluminescent jellyfish, their tentacles flailing as their caps pulsated, moving them along.<I'm not liking this,> pointed out Galen over the telepathic link they shared.  <All this blue: is this an attempt by the Azure Glade to expand its boundaries again?><No way of telling, is there?> asked Orion.  Then, not wanting to bump into any stinging jellyfish, the little halfling prompted Carl to go ethereal.  They passed right through the approaching jellyfish without harm, but the extraplanar maneuver also cut Orion out of the Rary's telepathic bond spell.  She wasn't particularly worried, knowing she'd snap back into the link once she and Carl returned to the Material Plane.But then Orion spotted someone standing there on the ocean floor beneath the stone kraken's outstretched tentacle-pillars.  It was a human woman, nearly naked but for a brief set of garments seemingly woven of sea-fronds.  She carried a greataxe of intricate design and looked at the approaching halfling and riding dog with open curiosity; apparently she didn't have many visitors here on the Ethereal Plane."Excuse me, but are you Aquellia?" asked Orion."I might be.  Who are you?""We're friends of Skevros," Orion said, sweeping her arm back and turning in the saddle to indicate the others walking behind her and Carl.  But when she turned back to face Aquellia, the woman's eyes had narrowed darkly and an angry expression covered her face.  "Friends of my murderer shall die!" she swore, taking a step forward.Kaspar, in the meantime, unaware of impending combat out of view on the Ethereal Plane, decided to to take matters into his own hands when it came to the dangerous properties of Kraken's Point jellyfish and rushed to the attack, heading straight towards the rightmost of two large swarms of the odd creatures.  Fortunately for him his monk training kicked in when a burst of energy sprang forth from the clumps of coral as he passed them.  Avoiding the unexpected danger, Kaspar punched his fist straight at the nearest jellyfish swarm, his tenryutsume powering his fist with electricity and fire (which underwater took the form of bubbles of steam), and the force behind the powerful blow affecting jellyfish not even in contact with the elf's swift-striking fist, causing them to fall back.  He learned an important lesson about the creatures that he passed on to his friends over the link: the jellyfish, being boneless blobs of matter, were apparently unaffected by physical strikes, although the twin energies of his tenryutsume seemed capable of slaying individual members of the swarm. Daleth replied.  <I'll see what I can do about taking these things out!>  Back on the Ethereal Plane, the ghost of Aquellia further surprised Orion by not continuing on with her attack, but taking up a defensive stance and waiting for the halfling to strike first.Daleth had been about to cast a magic missile spell at the swarm his fellow elf was battling, but then he noticed the energy blasting out from the coral was striking the jellyfish as well, with no apparent result.  Accurately identifying it as force energy the coral was shooting, Daleth opted to cast a scorching ray spell instead, altering it as he cast it into blasts of scalding steam.  Almost as if in response, the two jellyfish swarms sent forth shock-waves of force energy, striking all within 30 feet or so of either swarm of them, including the ethereal Orion and Carl.  Surprised at the unexpected attack, Orion figured that explained why Aquellia had refrained from approaching her: she'd seen the impending attack coming and knew enough to keep her distance."We mean you no harm!" Orion insisted.  "We just want to talk!"  But she was silently recalling the ghost's words in the back of her head: if Skevros was Aquella's murderer, he must have killed her when he was under the effects of the helm of opposite alignment, and this must have occurred in one of those spans of time Skevros no longer had any memory of.Unaware of the two women on a separate plane but near enough to have been visible had they been with him here on the Material Plane, Syngaard charged the jellyfish swarm Kaspar was now engulfed within.  He swung his flaming brilliant energy morningstar into the mass, causing a score or so of the jellyfish to shrivel up and die.  In his battle-lust, he'd barely registered that the nearby coral had zapped him as he rushed by. Galen likewise charged at the same swarm but the enchantments of the sword of Zehkar seemed particularly ineffective against jellyfish - it would have fried them up had they been evil or undead, but these were neither.Orion and Carl backed away from the clumps of coal, ending up directly beneath the stone kraken structure - no coral grew there in its direct shadow.  "We need to talk to you about Dow!" Orion said, hoping the name of the homunculus Aquellia had helped create might make her more willing to talk.  But the ghost-barbarian just approached with her greataxe held high, so Orion had Carl hightail it out of there.  They emerged once more onto the Material Plane and Orion felt her mental link with her friends pop back into existence.  <Guys!> she called.  <Aquellia's here, but she's a ghost -- and she claims Skevros killed her!>Kaspar finished off the initial jellyfish swarm with a flurry of blows that had his tenryutsume touching just about all of them in turn.  As boneless bodies drifted down to the ocean floor at dreamlike speed, Aquellia materialized with her axe already in a powerful downswing, its blade cutting Orion deep in the shoulder before she could reflexively roll from the rest of the blow - what would likely have been a killing blow had the halfling's instincts been a fraction of a second slower.Daleth didn't see the two new combatants now in their midst; seeing Kaspar had finished off the first jellyfish swarm he had turned to face the second one, swimming towards him in an erratic but slowly-approaching way.  He sent a second scorching ray spell sizzling its way, burning away scores of the creatures.  But then it repeated its own blast of force energy, catching Daleth, Todd, and Syngaard in its full effect.Syngaard had been caught off guard by the sudden blast of force energy but he easily recognized Aquellia as a much greater threat than a bunch of mindless blobs with tentacles - let Wizard-Pants take care of them!  He raced toward her, weaving erratically to prevent close contact with the arcane coral but sucking it up when there was no way to avoid them.  Galen followed a similar path, surprised to see no taint of evil in the ghost-barbarian's aura.  Unfortunately, the path he took lent itself to numerous coral blasts and the paladin found himself less adept at resisting the energy of the blasts than was the bald fighter."We don't need to fight!" Orion insisted, holding her hand over her shoulder in an attempt to keep it from bleeding any more than it was doing.  Carl, sensing his mistress's distress, wisely backed away from battle with this barbarian woman no more alive than he was.  But no doubt lessening the seeming sincerity of her statement was Kaspar's fist, which passed straight through Aquellia's body without causing the incorporeal ghost any real harm.  The monk had easily avoided the coral-blasts on his own path to battle, but had failed to connect with even his most powerful strike - such were the hazards of fighting those without a solid, material form.However, Aquellia's greataxe was most certainly material, as Kaspar found out the hard way, by becoming the recipient of a pair of swings with the weapon.  Aquellia spun around and managed to tag both Syngaard and Galen as well in rapid succession, the blow against the paladin striking particularly deep.<Shall I help engage the ghost?> called Daleth over the link suddenly.<No, you take care of them jellyfish - we got this!> answered Syngaard.  Best if Wizard-Pants took care of the jellyfish swarm for them - no sense in letting it continue on with its force blasts if they could put a stop to them - and allow the rest of them to focus their combined attention on the barbarian woman.  One lightning bolt spell later and the subject was moot, for the elven wizard had fried the last of the jellyfish in one fell swoop.Pleased with the successful implementation of his plan, Syngaard was struck with another epiphany: the ghost chick wasn't nearly all that tough without her greataxe, which was apparently imbued with the same magical properties that allowed Orion to continue to ride her dog, even when he didn't really have a body to speak of.  With that thought in mind, the bald fighter applied himself to attacking not Aquellia but the shaft of her ghost touch weapon.  His first blow cut a deep chunk out of the wooden shaft.  "That looks like a pretty nice axe you got there," Syngaard commented aloud.  "Be a shame if we had to keep on fighting and I had to chop the head off it.  Howzabout you give up and we have that nice little chat the halfling was talkin' about?""I have nothing to say to allies of Skevros!" Aquellia responded, making the name of the king's adviser sound like the worst kind of curse.  Galen was forced to back away and apply the healing touch of Hieroneous to his own wound; he saw Orion was wounded as well but he realized he wouldn't be able to heal anyone if he himself fell in battle - and one more attack like that last one could make that unhappy thought a reality.Realizing the inevitability of this stupid battle with a stupid ghost too stupid to see past her own stupid prejudices, Orion threw a few electrified daggers from her bag of blades at Aquellia.  Unfortunately, while the halfling's targeting was as spot-on as ever, the blades sailed harmlessly through the ghost's immaterial form.  Kaspar stepped up behind Aquellia and performed another flurry of blows, this time catching her once or twice, to both of their surprise.  But Aquellia was focused on Syngaard, who had the audacity to try to destroy her greataxe!  She avoided another of his blows and brought the weapon down on him, getting past his shield and cutting a gouge in his breastplate armor that had to have hurt.  (And sure did, if the bald fighter's expression was any indicator.)Daleth turned his attention to the only foe left to him.  He cast a ray of enfeeblement spell at the ghost, but spells were just as iffy as solid weapons against an incorporeal opponent and the spell failed to hit her.  But then Syngaard faked her out with a blow that looked at first to be aimed for her head but which made a sudden mid-course correction and sundered the greataxe's wooden shaft in two pieces, both of which went flying from Aquellia's grip, only to fade away to nothingness as if they had never existed.  "Ha!" yelled Syngaard.  "You ready for that talk yet, ghost?"  His only answer was a wordless cry of anger and frustration.Galen stepped forward again, this time wielding his holy symbol of Hieroneous.  He tried turning Aquellia, to no effect.  But then Orion and Carl moved in again, pinning the ghost between a circle of combatants.  The halfling studiously ignored the blood still seeping out from her shoulder; she'd get Galen to heal it after they had dealt with their recalcitrant barbarian ghost.Suddenly, Aquellia made a rush for Galen - accepting the attempted snap of Carl's teeth and the ineffectual swing of Orion's nightflame short sword as she lunged at the paladin - but then passed straight through him.  She then moved straight up, towards the lower surface of the structure looming above her: the head of the petrified kraken itself.  She slipped through its opened beak and disappeared into the shadows above.  Daleth cast a fly spell upon himself and his familiar and without missing a beat followed the humanoid mermaid's ghostly form into the structure above.Into the open beak went the elven wizard and his faithful pseudodragon familiar.  They emerged into an air-filled bubble, where Daleth's elven vision could make out the ghostly figure bending down to grab a very familiar-looking greataxe from the side of a patch of purple brain coral.  Resting on this coral were the skeletal remains of a merfolk: human in build from the waist up, fishlike below.  Against the far wall of the chamber stood a large series of bookshelves carved directly into the stone structure of the kraken's petrified corpse.As quickly as he could, Daleth provided the rest of the group with a description of what he'd found over the telepathic link.  Syngaard wasted no time whipping out his Dick and rubbing it to full size.  The griffon appeared with a set of lungs full of air; before it lost its held breath, Syngaard grabbed onto the beast's neck and sent it swimming - by flapping its eagle-wings underwater - up to the stone kraken's beak.  The bald fighter practically exploded into the room, slamming his booted foot down upon the greataxe Aquellia was just starting to pick up from the floor.  As it was a ghost touch weapon made specifically to deal with the world of solid objects, every ounce of Syngaard's considerable weight - armor and all - prevented the ghost from lifting it up off the floor.  With a cry of frustration she faded from view, heading into the Ethereal Plane.Dick took a lungful of air from the room and dived back down below, ferrying up Galen; Kaspar opted to run up the side of a petrified tentacle-pillar with his slippers of spider climbing, entering through the beak in that fashion.  For Orion and Carl it was even easier still, by rising up through the structure via the Ethereal Plane.  And here the halfling found Aquellia sitting, sulking, on a bed of purple brain coral."We certainly got off to a bad start," began the halfling, still applying pressure to her shoulder wound.  "Yes, we work for Skevros, and we know he was once turned to evil, but those days are behind him now.  We only wish to ask you about Dow.  She's gone, and we don't know where to look for her.""And you think I would?" sneered Aquellia.  Orion wasn't bothered by the negative reply; it was a reply nonetheless and perhaps the beginning of an actual conversation."It was worth a try," replied Orion.  "We're involved in fighting a wizard - a lich, actually - called the Mithral Mage.  There was this book of prophecies, mentioning the death of Skevros's daughter Sarah, and another potential daughter named Nadira.""Nadira?" asked Aquellia, a look of total surprise on her face."The name means something to you?" Orion asked.  At the ghost's nod, the halfling suggested they continue the conversation back on the Material Plane, so the others could join in."I got your greataxe!" taunted Syngaard as the trio - Aquellia, Orion, and Carl - suddenly manifested in the middle of the room."Syngaard!" scolded Orion.  "She's agreed to help us!  Put that down!"Orion then outlined the tale of how Skevros had become evil through a helm of opposite alignment, and how Jessica had sacrificed her own life to restore him to his normal self - although it also robbed him of his memories of that time and turned him into a timeless "living lich.""It was when he was evil, then, that he killed me," Aquellia confided.  "He came here, having apparently finally realized my feelings for him.  I expressed my love for him and he said he reciprocated my feelings.  We spent some time together" - perhaps unaware of it, her eyes strayed to the coral bed - "and then, immediately afterward, he started strangling me, deciding to cut off any loose ends before Jessica found out.""Had he said anything about the Mithral Mage?" Galen asked."Alexandros?  Yes," Aquellia affirmed.  "I knew all about him - Skevros was digging into his past; it was quite the project for him.""I'm afraid knowing the Mithral Mage's true name is what has kept you here, after death," Orion put in.  "It's a trap we all face.  Until we can defeat him, none of us can pass on to the afterlife.  But you said you knew of this Nadira mentioned in the prophecy - does she actually exist?  We were led to believe she had just been a possible daughter that Skevros never actually had.""Before he turned to evil, I had suggested to him he could make a doll familiar to help him keep an eye on Sarah while he was away.  I even offered to help him make it.  You see, I was known in life as a barbarian, an axe-wielder and little else - but I also have magic flowing through me.""You're a sorcerer!" Daleth deduced."Yes - to some small extent, I can channel arcane energies through me in the form of spells.  I made the doll homunculus as a way to share a part of my soul with Skevros.  Dow served not only as Skevros's familiar, but as mine as well.""That may explain why there were two astral cords extending from the astral golem," Kaspar hypothesized aloud, almost sidetracking Aquellia with questions until Orion got her back on track."Why would you make Dow as a familiar to two different people?" she asked the ghost.  "That's not usual, is it?""Not in living familiars - I don't think it's even possible," replied Aquellia."It isn't," answered Daleth."But I was unable to conceive children of my own," continued the ghost.  "It was due to an injury inflicted by my sister - a long story, and one not really pertinent to the matter at hand.  But it was that injury that prompted me to adventure above the waves for a time, and what led me to meet - and fall in love with - Skevros.  Creating Dow was the closest thing I could do to having a child with the man I had come to love.  He named the homunculus 'Dow' - it was how Sarah pronounced 'Doll' - but in my heart, I always thought of her as 'Nadira,' the name I would have given my own daughter.""So if Dow/Nadira is the product of two intertwined souls, what could have split them back apart?" asked Daleth."I have no idea," admitted Aquellia.  But the elf wizard's mind was spinning furiously.  "Mithral weapons are often used in the creation of weapons capable of cutting through an astral traveler's silver cord..." he mused.  "Perhaps when Skevros was turned to mithral, it might have 'frayed' Dow's cord, the one that allows her to pilot the astral golem?""You've lost me.  Astral golem?  Skevros was turned to mithral?""Other long stories," admitted Orion.  She turned to Daleth.  "What are you thinking?" she asked."It's possible, if her astral cord were made up of two separate but intertwined strands - one from Skevros and one from Aquellia - and they were unwound when Alexandros turned Skevros to mithral, her personality might have split as well.  There would be the dominant personality mirroring Skevros's own - the one we're used to dealing with - and another based on you, Aquellia.  And if she were to start leaning toward her mermaid side, she would seek out a nearby body of water!  Guys, I think I know where Dow is!""Are you sure?" asked Syngaard, who hadn't been paying all that close of attention until just now.  "50,000-gold-piece-reward sure?""I'm sure," said Daleth, certainty practically oozing out of his pores."We must get back," Orion said to Aquellia.  "Thank you - you've been a big help!"  But the ghost stopped the group from leaving immediately with an interesting proposal.  She agreed to allow the heroes to have all of her possessions, including her arcane library and her journals from her time with Skevros and Dow's creation process, if they promised to bury the remains of her physical body.  That way, if they managed to destroy this Alexandros person keeping her soul from finding its eternal rest, she would be able to pass on to her afterlife.  She also gave Orion a sealed letter to pass on to "Nadira" for her.  Syngaard was more than happy to stuff the ghost touch greataxe and the mermaid's bracers of armor into his bag of holding and Daleth was likewise just as eager to get all of the books into Galen's own bag of holding for further investigation later on.  Most were ancient tomes detailing magical rituals and theories (some with notes in the margins bearing the  recognizable handwriting of Alexandros, Daleth noted) while there was also a small number of newer books detailing such diverse topics as the limits of healing magic, fertility rites, the creation of homunculi (a loose piece of parchment detailed plans to remove of a piece of brain matter and wrap it around a ring of regeneration to keep it alive to form the basis of a mental construct), and finally a book on the making of various types of dolls, this last one with pages earmarking a particular porcelain variety whose hand-sketched details bore a remarkable resemblance to Dow.With that, the party returned to Durnhill by the most expeditious method: the ring of return Kaspar kept in his robes.  With a word of activation, the heroes arrived at the outer gates of Durnhill's capital city, each dripping wet.  The guards made no comment; it was not by far the most unusual thing they'd seen from this particular bunch."So where's Dow?" Syngaard wanted to know, the thought of the reward bringing a great deal of earnestness for the prospect of recovering a porcelain doll homunculus he'd earlier suggested Skevros just forget all about."With the mermaid part of her personality dominant, she'd want to get to the closest body of water she could," Daleth surmised.  "And that would mean--""--the fountain in the town square!" finished Orion."Exactly!  And the running water would prevent the locate creature spells Skevros and I cast from revealing her position!""What?  Why's that?  That don't make no sense," replied Syngaard."To you, perhaps not," agreed Daleth with a condescending look that didn't get past the scarred fighter.  "But that's the way the spell works."  But Syngaard didn't care; Wizard-Pants could be as condescending as he wanted to as long as that reward got split five ways!"There's the fountain!" pointed Galen, running now for all he was worth.  Kaspar, of course, beat the heavily-armored paladin to the fountain; then, stepping inside, he waded around until he found Dow hunkered down at the base of the fountain, water cascading around her in all directions.  "Well, hello there," he said to the homunculus with a pleasant smile.  "Do you remember me?""I remember you," Dow replied, her eyes flickering with fear as she glanced all around her.  "I think I'm broken," she added.  "I'm not me.  I'm not just me, I mean.  There are other 'me's' in here," she said, tapping the side of her head.  "And I have memories I don't remember remembering.""I'm sure that must be very confusing for you," agreed the elf, holding his arms out to her.  "But your Daddy has been looking very hard for you, and he sent us to find you.  He will be very glad to see you, and I'm sure he'll be able to fix everything that's wrong with you."Dow's frozen porcelain face was unable to smile, but she practically leaped into Kaspar's outstretched arms.Taking her back to the Enchanted Flagon and filling Skevros in on all that they had learned, the king's adviser was shocked to learn there was a living part of Aquellia's brain inside Dow - and even more shocked to discover he had murdered one of his closest friends. "I will do everything in my power to restore your mind," he promised Dow."Thank you, Daddy," replied the homunculus."Hey, about the--" began Syngaard, before being cut off by Skevros."You will find the full reward in the chest behind the bar," he said."Thank you, Daddy!" grinned the bald fighter. - - - Logan used a bunch of blue glass beads as the coral, spreading them out randomly on a cutting board we have in place on our gaming table that's gridded off into one-inch squares.  That made it easy to see who would set off the coral-blasts; all it took was moving your PC to an adjacent square for it to automatically trigger.  He was actually a bit surprised at how long we stuck with the "getting Aquellia to talk to us" plan, thinking it wouldn't take long for us devolve into straight combat.  (And for that reason, everything she told us would eventually have been accessible through her notes.)  And we all earned enough XP in this adventure (Aquellia herself was a Bbn15/Sor4 with the ghost template increasing her CR even further) to each level up; Galen, Kaspar and Syngaard are already pretty close to 15h level as a result of this adventure's XP dump.</blockquote>

Verification