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The Kordovian Adventurers Guild
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7904590" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 70: FAR OUT</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: </p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 18</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Darrien, half-elf ranger 18</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 18</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Gilbert Fung, human wizard 18</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 18</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Malrin Ivenheart, elf druid 13</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> MARCI, humanoid construct</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Rebecca Starfall, human wizard 10</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 25 January 2020</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>"'<em>Planar Scout</em> in orbit around Selune. Propulsion damaged. Require assistance if possible. Spare propulsion unit inside Workshop. Are you able to assist?'" repeated Gilbert Fung. "That what <em>sending</em> spell said?"</p><p></p><p>"Aye," replied Aerik Battershield. "That's th' message <strong>Dr. Pythagoras Greymantle</strong>, an archmage associate of King Galrich an' me from back in our adventurin' days, sent to 'is apprentice, <strong>Rebecca Starfall</strong>. She's a full-blown wizard 'erself now, an' she started sendin' queries out t' those she thought might be able t' 'elp 'er." Aerik further explained the <em>Planar Scout</em> was a spelljamming vessel capable of extraplanar flight and that Greymantle and his warforged associate <strong>Pinwhistle</strong> had apparently been missing for the past two decades; they'd gone out in the <em>Planar Scout</em> one day and never returned - until today, that is.</p><p></p><p>"Where this workshop she talk about?"</p><p></p><p>"Greymantle's manor's got this <em>gate</em> to some other place where time runs faster than it do 'ere," Aerik explained. "'e's got these constructs workin' over there, can create all sorts of magical equipment in no time flat - from our point of view. If ye're willin' t' help Rebecca, I can give ye directions to the Greymantle manor. It's on th' outskirts of Greyhawk City." The group agreed, assembled their team, and gathered up their gear. None but Binkadink opted to bring along their animal companions; the little gnome wanted Obvious with him as his riding steed whereas Finoula, Darrien, and Malrin all decided their own animals would be ill-suited to a rescue operation around the smaller of Oerth's two moons.</p><p></p><p>Thus it was that within the hour Jinkadoodle brought the dragonfly vessel down into the clearing behind Greyhawk Manor, in the area normally reserved for the <em>Planar Scout</em>. Finoula lowered the rope ladder over the side and started climbing down, to be met by a human woman with reddish-brown hair exiting from a back door of the manor. She carried a staff and looked to be in her late thirties or early forties. Introductions were made, Rebecca thanked the heroes for agreeing to aid her in rescuing her friends, and she took the group through the <em>gate</em> to the Workshop, where Mudpie used his considerable strength to lug the spare propulsion unit back out into the clearing. The device was levitated into place aboard the top of the dragonfly vessel's upper deck and lashed securely into place. Then Gilbert reduced Mudpie back down to pebble size with his <em>slingshot of rock shrinking</em>, everyone climbed back aboard, and Jinkadoodle took the ship straight up through the clouds and into the darkness of wildspace.</p><p></p><p>"It's a good thing they ended up where they are," Rebecca commented. "Selune's a large enough target that we shouldn't have too much difficulty in getting there. Then it'll just be a matter of finding the <em>Planar Scout</em> in orbit around it. I'd hate to try to find them if they were just out in some random point in wildspace."</p><p></p><p>"Any idea why they would have been gone for so long?" asked Darrien.</p><p></p><p>"I assume they must have run into some trouble," Rebecca replied. "We used to go out exploring many times, but usually for no more than a week or so. To tell the truth, I had long since given them up for dead." A tear glistened in one eye and she wiped at it absently. "They've been gone for over half of my life."</p><p></p><p>"Well, we get them back home, no problem," assured Gilbert.</p><p></p><p>The trip to Selune took about two hours, during which time Rebecca told the group stories of her earlier explorations and the places she'd seen, while the Kordovians reciprocated with tales of some of their own adventures. Rebecca also informed them of the shield surrounding the <em>Planar Scout</em>; unlike most spelljamming vessels, whose air envelope just encompassed the vessel but otherwise was exposed to wildspace, Greymantle's vessel had an invisible shield of his own design around it, similar to a <em>wall of force</em>, that came in very handy when submerging into the Elemental Plane of Water or soaring through Abyssal skies filled with random, exploding <em>fireballs</em>. "I have a personal shield generator of my own," Rebecca said, showing a small device clipped to the belt of her skirt. "It creates a similar shield around myself, allowing me to pass through the <em>Planar Scout</em>'s shields if it becomes necessary. We all carried one when exploring."</p><p></p><p>It did, in fact, become necessary, for after Jinkadoodle's enhanced senses detected the <em>Planar Scout</em> in orbit around Selune as expected, they could see telltale glimpses of refracted light showing a lozenge-shaped field of nearly invisible force around the crippled vessel. "I'm afraid I don't have any way to contact the guys inside," Rebecca said. "I used up all of my <em>sending</em> spells trying to find someone who could help."</p><p></p><p>"Can they turn the shields off from inside?" asked Binkadink.</p><p></p><p>"Certainly; I'm surprised <strong>Pilot</strong> hasn't already done so." By this time, all but Jinkadoodle (still in place at the spelljamming helm allowing him to steer the ship), Gilbert, Mudpie (the size of a pebble inside one of Gilbert's pockets), and MARCI (who traditionally followed Gilbert around as she had been programmed to see to the aid of humans) had gone to the upper deck. Rebecca was waving her arms, trying to attract Pilot's attention, but the forward windows of the <em>Planar Scout</em> were darkened and she couldn't see within. "I can try a <em>clairvoyance</em> spell," she mused, beginning the ritual to bring the desired spell into effect. It took ten minutes to cast, during which time there was no apparent change to the <em>Planar Scout</em>; it just hung there, motionless. Jinkadoodle had brought the dragonfly vessel up to it from the side and the two ships kept a relative distance of some 20 feet or so.</p><p></p><p>"There!" exclaimed Rebecca, staring off into space. "I can see inside the cockpit. Pilot's there, all right, standing in place at the helm." She squinted, trying to see details in the image only she could see. "It looks like he's picked up some rust on his metal parts," she commented to herself.</p><p></p><p>"Greymantle not there in cockpit?" asked Gilbert.</p><p></p><p>"No, just Pilot."</p><p></p><p>"Try moving the sensor to other parts of the ship," suggested Binkadink.</p><p></p><p>"Spell not work that way, gnome!" corrected Gilbert. Rebecca further explained, "The <em>clairvoyance</em> spell not only doesn't allow me to move the sensor I see through, only rotate it in place, but it can't pierce through other planes. Unfortunately, most of the <em>Planar Scout</em> is made up of pocket dimensions, to fit all of the rooms Dr. Greymantle wanted included in his design within such a small exterior. I wouldn't be able to see inside any of the pocket dimensions in any case."</p><p></p><p>"Then I guess we should head on over in person," reasoned Hagan.</p><p></p><p>"Ferry me over first," recommended Binkadink. "I'm the front-line fighter; I should be in place first in case there's any trouble."</p><p></p><p>"What about your...horned bunny thing?" Rebecca asked. She'd never seen a jackalope before.</p><p></p><p>"I can ride in the <em>portable hole</em>," replied Obvious, startling Rebecca considerably in that she hadn't known he could speak. Obvious didn't often speak aloud, but besides the language of burrowing mammals he shared with Binkadink he could also speak fluent Common after Malrin <em>awakened</em> him at the gnome's request. But it sure was funny to do so when it caused people to freak out!</p><p></p><p>"Hang on, want to cast <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> spell on everyone first," said Gilbert, having wandered up to the top deck during Rebecca's casting of her <em>clairvoyance</em> spell. He was able to include Rebecca in the group of people who could now communicate among themselves just by thinking. But then the jackalope took a deep breath and scampered into the <em>portable hole</em> offered up by Malrin, Binkadink scooped it up and, <em>gnomish stilt-boots</em> extended to equalize their heights, held his hand around Rebecca's waist while she did likewise to his and they leaped across the open space to land on the <em>Planar Scout</em>'s left propulsion unit: an octagonal platform some 20 feet in diameter. There was a short burst of a buzzing sound as the field around the vessel and the field around Rebecca and her gnomish passenger merged, momentarily opening a hole in the <em>Planar Scout</em>'s shield where the two fields overlapped. Then Binkadink spread the <em>portable hole</em> on the top of the propulsion unit and Obvious leaped out.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink rolled up the <em>portable hole</em> and handed it to Rebecca before climbing into the jackalope's saddle. "Ready for the next group," he said, extending his glaive to its full length as the wizard leaped back to the dragonfly vessel to fetch the next batch of passengers.</p><p></p><p>The gnome was attacked almost immediately. He and his mount had just spun about to face the cockpit, a projection jutting up from the center of the vessel on which could be seen several doors and the dark windows in front, when Binkadink suddenly had an eel snapping in his face. Several others - five, in total, it seemed like - came flashing forward at him from who-knows-where. One clamped down on his shoulder and held on, while the others snapped ineffectually at the gnome and then backed away.</p><p></p><p>The combat didn't go unnoticed by the rest of the Kordovians but they were helpless to do anything until they had been shuttled over to the other side of the field. Malrin and the two rangers cast <em>barkskin</em> spells on themselves, while Gilbert cast a <em>fire shield</em> spell on himself, including his pebble-sized earth elemental familiar in the spell's casting. Hagan cast a <em>stoneskin</em> spell on himself and Wezhley; Gilbert, thinking that a wise move, followed suit. Malrin wildshaped into an owl and flew onto Finoula's shoulder, thinking it an easy way to get another of the group over in one trip.</p><p></p><p>Darrien leaped into the <em>portable hole</em> and Finoula scooped it up, then she and Rebecca leaped over to the <em>Planar Scout</em>, Malrin perched on the elven ranger's shoulder. Binkadink, in the meantime, had shortened the length of his glaive in an attempt to cut the eel clamped onto his shoulder. But the angle was awkward and, now that the gnome got a good look at his foe, its body sort of just faded off to nothing the farther down its length it went - no wonder his blade was having a difficult time penetrating the eel's body! But Binkadink noticed a few other things about these "space eels" he was fighting: for one thing, they seemed to have no eyes, but that was made up for by at least one of the other eels whose entire head was just an eyeball with no mouth, looking rather like the eyestalk of a beholder. In as calm a manner as he could manage during combat, Binkadink relayed his findings over the mental link he had with the others.</p><p></p><p>And then he was gone.</p><p></p><p>Obvious had been snapping his teeth at the darting eels when all of a sudden he felt the weight of the gnome's presence on his saddle disappear completely. He looked about him, seeing a pair of eyeless eels and an eyeball-on-a-tentacle swim backwards, seemingly dissipating as they did so. At the same time, the others all felt Binkadink's mental presence on the <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> spell shut off as if by a switch. Rebecca and Finoula landed onto the octagonal propulsion unit and the elven ranger opened the <em>portable hole</em> to let Darrien out, then the two rangers looked all about them with weapons ready - but the eels were no longer present. Malrin's owlish head darted this way and that, seeking out enemies from any direction.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink, in the meantime, had learned something else about the "space eels" he'd been fighting: they were all part of a single creature! The beast had a long body with an eyeless head at one end filled with sharp teeth; from the other end, in the manner of a squid, sprouted ten tentacles, five of them with blind, eel-like heads and the other five tipped with an eyeball. Three of the "eels" had managed to attach themselves to the little gnome and that was apparently all the creature needed to pull its prey into what Binkadink realized was more than likely the Ethereal Plane. But now fully on the same plane as the dharculus he was fighting, Binkadink realized they were now on a much more equal footing than when the bulk of his foe was a plane away. Grinning, Binkadink extended his glaive to its full length again and prepared to do what he did best.</p><p></p><p>Back on the Material Plane, Darrien cautiously walked up to the front-most door on the left side of the <em>Planar Scout</em>'s main section, the door Rebecca had told him was the entryway to the cockpit. He turned the handle, half expecting it to be locked, but it opened easily. And there, standing before him, was an automaton - Pilot, no doubt - built in the form of a man but from metal and wood. The construct turned his head in stages, as if experiencing stiffness with his neck, and opened his mouth as if to try to speak but no words came out.</p><p></p><p>Instead, spiders scurried from his open mouth, spilling out down his chest and skittering to the floor, where they rushed the ranger. Darrien got the sense that these were not normal spiders, either: several of them seemed to have far too many or too few limbs, and some of the hairy legs sprouted from the top of the abdomen instead of the sides. In any case, the ranger slammed the door back shut, holding the handle in his hand in case anyone tried opening it from the inside, but Pilot seemed not to be inclined to do so and the unnatural spiders were unable to open a door. Darrien released a sigh of relief and let go of the door handle. <Not going in this way,> he reported over the link.</p><p></p><p>On the Border Ethereal, Binkadink swung his glaive in powerful strikes, completely severing a tentacle that got in the way of his blade as it came crashing into the rubbery body of the dharculus. Another strike and another and another in rapid succession and the odd creature was starting to "swim" backwards in panic. Fluids leaked from the creature's wounds - blood or whatever equivalent pumped through the abomination's odd body, Binkadink guessed - but he wasn't about to let the creature escape. Leaping forward, he drove the point of his glaive into the dharculus's neck and that did it: the creature stopped moving.</p><p></p><p><em>Now how am I getting back?</em> the gnome wondered to himself, looking around the misty realm he currently inhabited.</p><p></p><p>As Rebecca had Gilbert, Mudpie, and MARCI step into the <em>portable hole</em> for the next trip over, Darrien walked over to the door to the right of the one leading to Pilot and the misshapen spiders in the cockpit. He opened it as well and was relieved to see nothing but an empty room before him, a simple 10-foot-square room with doors on two other walls leading to other places in the ship's interior - possibly into pocket dimensions, he recalled. He stepped inside and turned to the door on his immediate left. It was unlocked and the room beyond was definitely a pocket dimension, as it was far wider - some 40 feet - than the main body of the ship that held it. The room was octagonal, with a pillar of light shining down from the ceiling above. There was another automaton, like Pilot, standing motionless to one side of the room; behind him stood a robed figure. He turned as Darrien opened the door.</p><p></p><p>"Dr. Greymantle?" the ranger asked hesitantly.</p><p></p><p>"Yes," agreed the robed figure, stepping forward eagerly.</p><p></p><p>"I'm part of the team that came with Rebecca," Darrien explained. "We're here to repair your ship."</p><p></p><p>"Excellent, excellent!" replied Greymantle, rubbing his hands together. "So good of you to come! Where is Rebecca, may I ask?"</p><p></p><p>"She's outside, shuttling the others across through your field." Rebecca was, at that particular moment, leaping across from the dragonfly vessel with Hagan. They landed on the propulsion unit and Hagan released Gilbert and the others from the <em>portable hole</em> when the eels drifted back into view. These eels were no longer violent, though - they just sort of drifted about, extending into the Material Plane, and Hagan saw more than a few of them that looked much more like beholder eyestalks than anything else. But then, along one space eel's trailing length crawled Binkadink, hoisting himself hand over hand across the planar boundaries from the Border Ethereal, using the tentacle like an improvised rope. He'd seen the tips of the dharculus's tentacles start to dissipate out of the Ethereal Plane and on a hunch had climbed along one tentacle to see if it would get him back home. Sure enough it did and Obvious saw the gnome's top half start to materialize from the open air and raced over to meet his rider. Binkadink gratefully grabbed onto the jackalope's antlers and pulled himself fully back into the Material Plane moments before the dharculus vanished altogether, the unholy energies making up its aberrant body dissipating into nothingness.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert fished his pebble-sized familiar from his pocket, loaded Mudpie into his <em>slingshot of rock shrinking</em>, and fired him at the top of the propulsion unit beneath his feet. Upon impact, Mudpie returned to his full 16 feet of solid earth elemental, holding the large greataxe they'd taken from the body of one of the half-red dragon lizardfolk they'd slain when taking down the red dragon threatening Kordovia. Mudpie now carried the massive weapon around with him, although he seldom bothered using it unless specific circumstances warranted it. "Get ready for anything," advised Gilbert. "Not sure what all going on here."</p><p></p><p>Finoula, in the meantime, had gone to the back of the central portion of the <em>Planar Scout</em> and pulled open the set of double doors she found there. They opened into an L-shaped room filled with shelves of boxes and barrels - she'd unearthed a storage room, it looked like. But there in the back of the room stood a construct, its humanoid form comprised of metal, stone, and wood. "Pinwhistle, I presume?" the ranger called to the mechanical man.</p><p></p><p>"The flying slugs cannot long feast on gears!" answered the warforged, stepping purposefully forward, his hands curled into fists.</p><p></p><p>"Um, wha--?" began Finoula before instinctively slamming the doors closed again. She didn't want anything to do with an angry warforged spouting nonsense!</p><p></p><p>And then, as if in the blink of an eye, several things happened at once. There were now two dinosaurs standing among the heroes on the left propulsion unit of the <em>Planar Scout</em>, in all aspects megaraptors but for the numerous tentacles waving about randomly from all over their bodies. And Dr. Greymantle was no longer approaching Darrien; he was no longer even in the same room as the half-elf ranger and the immobile <strong>Crewman One</strong> - he was now standing alone over at the front of the vessel, before the front windows of the cockpit. He looked across the crowded propulsion unit and locked eyes with Rebecca Starfall, his former apprentice - she had aged by several decades since he had last seen her, he deduced; he'd really had no concept of how long he and Pinwhistle had been gone. Still, she was as dependable as ever, finding a way to come to his aid and even bring a spare propulsion unit, he saw, looking across to the cargo deck of the dragonfly vessel. He smiled at Rebecca, and she started to smile back, until she saw Greymantle's smile grow beyond the normal bounds of a human mouth, expanding nearly to his ears. Thin tentacles flickered and waved between his teeth.</p><p></p><p>One of the pseudonatural megaraptors poked its head into the side door of the <em>Planar Scout</em> and snapped its wicked teeth at Darrien, who just barely managed to leap back out of its immediate reach. The other tentacled dinosaur attacked Mudpie, carving furrows down the elemental's sides with its sharp talons.</p><p></p><p>Finoula was pushed back as the double doors to the rear of the ship exploded outwards and Pinwhistle stepped outside. "It's too much yellow!" the crazed warforged insisted. "<em>Far</em> too much yellow! There should be more pine scent, but instead it smells too loudly of purple!" His fists unclenched and took on the patterns of spellcasting and another form appeared out of nowhere: a massive, white-furred gorilla with four arms and writhing tentacles growing all over. The pseudonatural girallon wasted to time in grabbing at Finoula, catching her up in one massive paw and swinging her around to face him.</p><p></p><p>Malrin, thinking the warforged cleric had likely fallen sway to some form of insanity (whether magical or not), flew to land upon his shoulder and channeled a <em>heal</em> spell into Pinwhistle's armored frame through her owl's talons. Then, not wanting to be within striking distance if the spell didn't have the effect she'd been hoping for, she flew off, out of immediate range.</p><p></p><p>Darrien stabbed with his scimitar at the pseudonatural dinosaur standing before him, slicing deeply into the side of its mouth. It roared in anger and pain. But then it collapsed to the floor, Binkadink's glaive sticking into its side, and it died. As a summoned creature, it vanished upon death, gone as quickly as it had suddenly arrived.</p><p></p><p><Greymantle an enemy!> Gilbert called over the link, for he too had seen the archmage's unnatural grin. Hagan responded with the immediate casting of a <em>polar ray</em> spell, streaking between the two figures and striking Greymantle directly in the chest. But then, unexpectedly, it rebounded without seeming to harm him at all and streaked back at Hagan, blasting the sorcerer with an unnatural cold. If anything, Greymantle's unnerving grin got even wider as he saw the results of the <em>spell reflection</em> spell he'd cast - along with several others while under the <em>time stop</em> spell he'd cast while back in the fuel storage room with Darrien - take effect.</p><p></p><p>Finoula stabbed at the tentacled girallon with the point of <em>Tahlmalaera</em>, then used her <em>boots of spider climbing</em> to run up the side of the wall and onto the roof of the <em>Planar Scout</em>'s command structure. She had her <em>flaming burst whip of thorns</em> out and thorns extended, ready to lash out at the beast if it continued its attacks.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert wasn't sure if Greymantle had been transformed into some unnatural abomination or just had something extraplanar inside him and controlling his movements. He cast a <em>banishment</em> spell at the archmage, hoping to send away a potential parasite and save the human wizard under its control but equally fine with Greymantle himself being thrown across the planes. But neither event occurred, causing Gilbert to frown in anger - an anger which was diminished somewhat when the second pseudonatural megaraptor, who had been attacking Mudpie, vanished at once, having also been within the radius of the spells' effect. That was <em>something</em>, in any case.</p><p></p><p>Hagan was bent over in pain from his own rebounded spell; his pain only increased when Greymantle made him the central target of a <em>chain lightning</em> spell. Arcs of electricity flashed out to strike Finoula, Gilbert, Mudpie, MARCI, Malrin, Binkadink, Obvious, and Rebecca; Darrien was still inside the airlock room and out of view of the archmage and Hagan's body had been turned in such a way that Greymantle hadn't even spotted Wezhley, the half-orc's weasel familiar perched upon his shoulder. Of the group, Rebecca was hurt the most of all, not only because of her relative inexperience in combat but also because she had just been attacked by a man who had set her on the path of a wizard in the first place, a man a younger Rebecca had hoped might one day become more than just her wizardly mentor. She staggered, struggling to remain upright as her legs threatened to buckle beneath her.</p><p></p><p><Go back to dragonfly ship!> called Gilbert over the link. <You safer there!> Rebecca hesitated, not wanting to abandon her new friends but realizing her relative lack of usefulness in this battle; she had learned most of her spells by poring through Dr. Greymantle's library back in his manor home and thus had pretty much stuck to those of a generally useful - not combative - nature.</p><p></p><p>Pinwhistle turned and grabbed at Binkadink's foot in the stirrup of Obvious's saddle; the gnome got a strike in with his glaive, scoring a groove across the warforged's chest, but the <em>harm</em> spell went off regardless, causing the gnome to yell in pain as he took much more combat damage than he was used to taking all at once. "Eventually," advised Pinwhistle, "the screaming stops and the gnawing becomes a thing of great beauty. It's better this way. You'll see. You'll come to thank me, in the eons to come."</p><p></p><p>"Crazy freak!" snarled the gnome in rebuttal.</p><p></p><p>The girallon likewise grabbed at Finoula again, this time hitting with three sets of claws and rending, its claws ripping through armor and flesh alike. Malrin saw her friends taking a <em>lot</em> of damage in this fight so far and flew directly above the command structure of the scout ship. From that vantage point, she cast a <em>mass cure light wounds</em> spell, healing up at least some of the wounds taken by her friends thus far. Rebecca took the healing as a sign to get out of there and turned, leaping back to the dragonfly vessel, her personal shield generator making the small buzzing noise it normally did when she passed through the <em>Planar Scout</em>'s own shield. Then, from the relative safety of the spelljammer's top deck, she stood and watched, worriedly, as her new friends fought off her old ones.</p><p></p><p>Darrien sheathed his scimitar, pulled out his <em>Arachnibow</em>, and stepped back outside to the <em>Planar Scout</em>'s exterior, where he sent a handful of arrows streaking over at the unearthly archmage. Binkadink struck at Pinwhistle again with his magic glaive, hitting and scoring deep grooves in the living construct's body. Pieces of wood went flying and sparks exploded as steel met steel. "I could not believe my eyes," lamented Pinwhistle, "so I gave them away." He staggered backwards, rolling a damaged arm as he tried to stay standing. Obvious finished him off, clamping down hard with his rabbit teeth and pulling away a gem embedded at the cleric's throat. The warforged toppled backwards, never again to rise.</p><p></p><p>Hagan cast a <em>fly</em> spell and flew around the back of the vessel - the left propulsion unit was getting far too crowded. Up on the roof, Finoula activated her <em>lightning amulet</em> and blasted through the pseudonatural girallon attacking her, reforming in her elven shape on one of the two back struts at the vessel's rear. Gilbert, however, was still engaged in a spell-duel with Greymantle; he cast a <em>waves of exhaustion</em> spell at the half-farspawn archmage and could tell from the wince it induced that he had overcome the enemy wizard's defenses. While he was thus distracted, Mudpie stepped up and walloped the archmage with a massive, boulderlike fist, the unused greataxe held in his off-hand. But Greymantle rolled with the blow, stepping backwards and out of immediate range of the hulking earth elemental before casting a <em>polar ray</em> of his own at Gilbert Fung. Then, as if shucking his human form altogether, he sprouted tentacles all over his body until he had become an only vaguely humanoid shape. The others found it difficult to even look at him, so horrifying was the end result.</p><p></p><p>The pseudonatural girallon gave a roar of rage, spun about, and leaped at Finoula again, all four hands out and ready to rip her apart. She bravely sent her whip flying into his face but it wasn't enough to keep him at bay and once again the ranger found herself being torn to pieces by the gorilla-thing's sharp claws. Malrin, seeing Finoula's distress, flew around behind her and landed briefly on her shoulder with a taloned foot, channeling a healing spell into her. Wounds opened just seconds before closed back up and Finoula felt a renewal of energy within her. <Thank you,> she called over the link.</p><p></p><p>From behind him, Darrien heard a mechanical voice calling. "Piiiiiiiie..." it began, causing the ranger to pop back inside to see what was going on. Crewman One was still standing in the same posture but had managed to turn its head and open its mouth. "...luuuuut..." it continued. Mentally putting the two pieces together, Darrien assumed he was asking about his fellow mechanical man. "He seems okay," Darrien explained. "Had a bunch of spiders inside him, but we'll put him right." Then he dashed back outside again, not wanting to abandon his friends in combat with Greymantle to have a slow-speed conversation with a damaged automaton. "...shiiiiiiip..." continued Crewman One, but nobody was listening.</p><p></p><p>Obvious dashed around the back of the <em>Planar Scout</em>'s command deck, allowing Binkadink to slay the pseudonatural girallon with a torso-puncturing stab of his glaive. As it had also been summoned to this plane from elsewhere, the ape disappeared upon being slain.</p><p></p><p>From over on the right-side propulsion unit, Hagan cast a <em>chain lightning</em> spell at the tentacle mass that had once been Greymantle, at about the same time Finoula activated her amulet and blasted through the archmage as a living <em>lightning bolt</em>. She resumed her elven form at the far side of the ship's shield, seemingly standing sideways in midair through the power of her <em>boots of spider climbing</em>. But to her - and Hagan's - dismay, neither attack seemed to have hurt the tentacle-beast in the least; neither was aware that <em>protection from electricity</em> was one of the spells Greymantle had cast upon himself during the <em>time stop</em>.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert was getting tired of Greymantle's immunity to the various spells they threw his way so he opted to try a different tactic: casting a <em>Tenser's transformation</em> upon his familiar, he watched as Mudpie's frame swelled with power. He also saw the earth elemental switch the greataxe into a two-handed grip, now seemingly as proficient in its use as Binkadink was with his own magical glaive. In a blur of motion that belied his massive form, Mudpie swung his greataxe down in an overhanded blow, slicing off a tentacle or two making up the creature Greymantle had become. Greymantle staggered backwards, scooting out of range until he was at the very edge of one of the front struts of the extraplanar craft he had built decades ago, saplike fluid dripping from his open wounds. Then he said the words to a spell - and was gone.</p><p></p><p><Where'd he go?> demanded Darrien. <Did he just <em>teleport</em>?></p><p></p><p><If so, he not get far,> Gilbert observed. <Shield still up around ship. He invisible, more like.> The heavyset wizard then sent his battle elemental to swing his greataxe at the areas the archmage could be standing, to no avail. Binkadink spurred Obvious into a similar pursuit, the jackalope running around the back of the vessel, onto the right-hand propulsion unit, then back around the front and over to the other one, the little gnome swinging his glaive about frantically, trying to hit the potentially unseen foe. <No luck!> he called. <Do you think he might have gone back into the ship?> Finoula, meanwhile, used her last daily amulet activation to blast herself back over to the others and Malrin flew up to cast another healing spell upon her.</p><p></p><p>"Mudpie! Over here!" called Gilbert. Once the earth elemental had lumbered over, Gilbert informed him, "You'll need to hunker down," and then opened the door to the front cabin, where Pilot stood motionless amidst a horde of skittering, mutant spiders. Gilbert pushed Mudpie inside then closed the door on him once he'd maneuvered his way in.</p><p></p><p>"What are you doing?" asked Hagan, curious.</p><p></p><p>"He still have <em>fire shield</em> spell active," Gilbert reminded the half-orc sorcerer. "Any luck, those spiders all get burned up in contact!" He chuckled at his own inventiveness.</p><p></p><p>A sudden quick buzzing sound alerted those in the area of the left propulsion unit that the shield around the ship had just been penetrated. Thinking it might be Rebecca returning for some reason, Gilbert turned, ready to chastise her, when he saw the tentacle-mass that had been Dr. Greymantle soaring between the two ships. Rebecca stood frozen on place, her face a mask of terror at the transformed monstrosity bearing down on her.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert opened the door to the cockpit and saw the fried bodies of hundreds of aberrant spiders, their scorched legs twitching in death. "Turn off shield!" he yelled at Pilot and the automaton, rusty and slow from decades of disuse, complied at his best speed.</p><p></p><p>There was a brief flickering all around the <em>Planar Scout</em> as the shield evaporated. "Get back!" roared Darrien, snapping Rebecca out of her transfixed horror. She backed away as Greymantle landed on the deck before her. But then, before he could do anything, Darrien shot at him with an arrow, using the power of the <em>Arachnibow</em> to turn the arrow into a <em>web</em> spell upon impact. Greymantle was now entangled in the center of a thick spiderweb.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink wasted no time, spurring Obvious into a leap that led them directly into the web imprisoning Greymantle. The gnome wasn't worried about them also becoming entangled; he just wanted to get within striking distance of the tentacle-monster the archmage had become. A few glaive strikes later and the half-farspawn thing was no more.</p><p></p><p>"Anybody have any idea what's going on here?" Hagan asked. As a sorcerer whose spells just came to him naturally, he'd never buried himself into arcane esoterica like Gilbert had been forced to do to learn his spells. "Why did they attack us?"</p><p></p><p>"Think this ship end up in place called Far Realm," reasoned Gilbert as Binkadink used his glaive to free himself and Obvious from the web. The gnome then motioned Rebecca to him, pulled her up onto the saddle behind him, and Obvious leaped back to the <em>Planar Scout</em>.</p><p></p><p>"Far Realm?" asked Finoula. "Never heard of it."</p><p></p><p>"It a place outside normal cosmology," explained Gilbert. "Plane of absolute chaos - not even time work normal there." He turned to face Rebecca. "You say they gone 20 years; to them, it maybe a week, maybe a century or two. No way to tell. No way to tell what all they went through over there, either. My guess: people they were no longer existed by time they come back here."</p><p></p><p>"Is there anyone else inside we need to find?" asked Finoula. Rebecca just shook her head. "<strong>Crewmen One and Two</strong>, and <strong>Gardener</strong>, plus Pilot. All automatons."</p><p></p><p>"We should go back and check on the one in that big octagonal room with the pillar of light coming down from the ceiling," suggested Darrien. "He was trying to say something to me."</p><p></p><p>The group headed over to the fuel storage room where Crewman One finally got his message across. "Piiiii...luuuut...shiiiip...iiiin...tooo...suuuuun. Ohhhhn...leeee...waaaay." This suggestion was mirrored by some graffiti carved into the table in the next room over: besides a few random messages that made little sense ("Thoughts = weakness," "Pain must be shared equally - distribution is key," "NO NO NO NO NO - okay"), Hagan found the following message, undoubtedly carved by Greymantle during a time of lucidity before his mind was overwhelmed by the forces of the Far Realm:</p><p></p><p>Hagan turned to catch back up with the others, when out of the corner of his eye he saw his own name carved at the other end of the table. He moved closer and saw:</p><p></p><p>The half-orc frowned. Was this the raving of a madman or a prophecy of the future? Unlikely, he decided; as far as he knew titans were born as titans, not raised up from the mortal races. If he ever saw Leandros again he'd have to ask him what he thought it might mean...although how would Greymantle have even known Hagan's name? Odd, most definitely.</p><p></p><p>Returning to the control cockpit, Rebecca explained what they'd learned to Pilot. "We have a spare propulsion unit," she told the automaton. "If we get the <em>Planar Scout</em> running again, can you...would you fly the vessel into the sun? It's too dangerous to let anything from the Far Realm exist in our own universe and I'm afraid this ship...and everything within it...has been contaminated."</p><p></p><p>Pilot raised a rusty arm and placed a humanoid hand on the side of the wizard's face. "For...you...." he said. Rebecca placed her hand over Pilot's, recalling that Dr. Greymantle had built all of the automatons on board the vessel with recordings of his own mind and intellect, which he then pared down to only include the bits necessary to perform the missions required by that particular construct. But she liked to think that a small part of the archmage remained inside Pilot's awareness that had accurately mirrored Greymantle's feelings for her.</p><p></p><p>The group, by unanimous decision, opted not to explore the pocket dimension rooms of the rest of the craft - there was no telling what all horrors they might encounter hanging about like that dharculus Binkadink had fought. And there was no point in trying to take anything from the ship for use later, knowing there was a possibility it had been contaminated by Far Realms energy. Best that everything be destroyed at once by plunging the ship directly into the sun - with its shield down. With that in mind, Rebecca supervised the replacement of the left propulsion unit with the one they had brought from the Workshop. The old one was strapped in place between the two back struts of the <em>Planar Scout</em> so it too could be destroyed by Pelor's blazing orb.</p><p></p><p>"Good...bye...Rebecca..." said Pilot right before the heroes all returned to the dragonfly vessel. And then they could only watch as the <em>Planar Scout</em>, with one working engine, left orbit around Selune and headed on its final journey, ending in a fiery death.</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>I figured Rebecca, the sole inheritor of Greymantle's fortune, had plenty of cash on hand so I had her reward the PCs with 25,000 gp each. Incidentally, I made up an NPC sheet for Rebecca and had Vicki run her as a secondary character for this adventure, although she had purposefully not been built for combat and spent much of the battle time safely tucked away on the dragonfly ship. But realizing I had less than a dozen adventures left in this campaign (the last adventure will be #80), I decided it would be fun to look back at any open plot hooks from either this campaign or its predecessor and thought a reunion with Dr. Greymantle and company (from the "Wing Three" campaign) would be interesting.</p><p></p><p>Pythagoras Greymantle was a 13th-level wizard/5th-level archmage with the half-farspawn template; Pinwhistle was an 18th-level cleric with the pseudonatural template - in both cases, the result of their time spent inside the Far Realm. The players made a wise decision in not exploring the interior of the <em>Planar Scout</em>, too - they'd have run across four wystes and a neh-thalggu (brain devourer), neither of which would have done them a whole lot of good.</p><p></p><p>The PCs all leveled up to 19th-level at the end of this adventure. Ten more adventures to go!</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>T-shirt worn: A new T-shirt Dan and Vicki got me for Christmas: it has a picture of a flying saucer levitating a man up into it via a beam of light, with a caption that reads, "Get in, loser - we're doing butt stuff." I wore it for the flying saucer, representing both the <em>Planar Scout</em> and the dragonfly vessel, which can travel through (wild)space. (And then, two days later, I wore it to my colonoscopy appointment - it was too perfect an opportunity to pass up!)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 7904590, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 70: FAR OUT[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 18[/INDENT] [INDENT] Darrien, half-elf ranger 18[/INDENT] [INDENT] Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 18[/INDENT] [INDENT] Gilbert Fung, human wizard 18[/INDENT] [INDENT] Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 18[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Malrin Ivenheart, elf druid 13[/INDENT] [INDENT] MARCI, humanoid construct[/INDENT] [INDENT] Rebecca Starfall, human wizard 10[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 25 January 2020 - - - "'[I]Planar Scout[/I] in orbit around Selune. Propulsion damaged. Require assistance if possible. Spare propulsion unit inside Workshop. Are you able to assist?'" repeated Gilbert Fung. "That what [I]sending[/I] spell said?" "Aye," replied Aerik Battershield. "That's th' message [B]Dr. Pythagoras Greymantle[/B], an archmage associate of King Galrich an' me from back in our adventurin' days, sent to 'is apprentice, [B]Rebecca Starfall[/B]. She's a full-blown wizard 'erself now, an' she started sendin' queries out t' those she thought might be able t' 'elp 'er." Aerik further explained the [I]Planar Scout[/I] was a spelljamming vessel capable of extraplanar flight and that Greymantle and his warforged associate [B]Pinwhistle[/B] had apparently been missing for the past two decades; they'd gone out in the [I]Planar Scout[/I] one day and never returned - until today, that is. "Where this workshop she talk about?" "Greymantle's manor's got this [I]gate[/I] to some other place where time runs faster than it do 'ere," Aerik explained. "'e's got these constructs workin' over there, can create all sorts of magical equipment in no time flat - from our point of view. If ye're willin' t' help Rebecca, I can give ye directions to the Greymantle manor. It's on th' outskirts of Greyhawk City." The group agreed, assembled their team, and gathered up their gear. None but Binkadink opted to bring along their animal companions; the little gnome wanted Obvious with him as his riding steed whereas Finoula, Darrien, and Malrin all decided their own animals would be ill-suited to a rescue operation around the smaller of Oerth's two moons. Thus it was that within the hour Jinkadoodle brought the dragonfly vessel down into the clearing behind Greyhawk Manor, in the area normally reserved for the [I]Planar Scout[/I]. Finoula lowered the rope ladder over the side and started climbing down, to be met by a human woman with reddish-brown hair exiting from a back door of the manor. She carried a staff and looked to be in her late thirties or early forties. Introductions were made, Rebecca thanked the heroes for agreeing to aid her in rescuing her friends, and she took the group through the [I]gate[/I] to the Workshop, where Mudpie used his considerable strength to lug the spare propulsion unit back out into the clearing. The device was levitated into place aboard the top of the dragonfly vessel's upper deck and lashed securely into place. Then Gilbert reduced Mudpie back down to pebble size with his [I]slingshot of rock shrinking[/I], everyone climbed back aboard, and Jinkadoodle took the ship straight up through the clouds and into the darkness of wildspace. "It's a good thing they ended up where they are," Rebecca commented. "Selune's a large enough target that we shouldn't have too much difficulty in getting there. Then it'll just be a matter of finding the [I]Planar Scout[/I] in orbit around it. I'd hate to try to find them if they were just out in some random point in wildspace." "Any idea why they would have been gone for so long?" asked Darrien. "I assume they must have run into some trouble," Rebecca replied. "We used to go out exploring many times, but usually for no more than a week or so. To tell the truth, I had long since given them up for dead." A tear glistened in one eye and she wiped at it absently. "They've been gone for over half of my life." "Well, we get them back home, no problem," assured Gilbert. The trip to Selune took about two hours, during which time Rebecca told the group stories of her earlier explorations and the places she'd seen, while the Kordovians reciprocated with tales of some of their own adventures. Rebecca also informed them of the shield surrounding the [I]Planar Scout[/I]; unlike most spelljamming vessels, whose air envelope just encompassed the vessel but otherwise was exposed to wildspace, Greymantle's vessel had an invisible shield of his own design around it, similar to a [I]wall of force[/I], that came in very handy when submerging into the Elemental Plane of Water or soaring through Abyssal skies filled with random, exploding [I]fireballs[/I]. "I have a personal shield generator of my own," Rebecca said, showing a small device clipped to the belt of her skirt. "It creates a similar shield around myself, allowing me to pass through the [I]Planar Scout[/I]'s shields if it becomes necessary. We all carried one when exploring." It did, in fact, become necessary, for after Jinkadoodle's enhanced senses detected the [I]Planar Scout[/I] in orbit around Selune as expected, they could see telltale glimpses of refracted light showing a lozenge-shaped field of nearly invisible force around the crippled vessel. "I'm afraid I don't have any way to contact the guys inside," Rebecca said. "I used up all of my [I]sending[/I] spells trying to find someone who could help." "Can they turn the shields off from inside?" asked Binkadink. "Certainly; I'm surprised [B]Pilot[/B] hasn't already done so." By this time, all but Jinkadoodle (still in place at the spelljamming helm allowing him to steer the ship), Gilbert, Mudpie (the size of a pebble inside one of Gilbert's pockets), and MARCI (who traditionally followed Gilbert around as she had been programmed to see to the aid of humans) had gone to the upper deck. Rebecca was waving her arms, trying to attract Pilot's attention, but the forward windows of the [I]Planar Scout[/I] were darkened and she couldn't see within. "I can try a [I]clairvoyance[/I] spell," she mused, beginning the ritual to bring the desired spell into effect. It took ten minutes to cast, during which time there was no apparent change to the [I]Planar Scout[/I]; it just hung there, motionless. Jinkadoodle had brought the dragonfly vessel up to it from the side and the two ships kept a relative distance of some 20 feet or so. "There!" exclaimed Rebecca, staring off into space. "I can see inside the cockpit. Pilot's there, all right, standing in place at the helm." She squinted, trying to see details in the image only she could see. "It looks like he's picked up some rust on his metal parts," she commented to herself. "Greymantle not there in cockpit?" asked Gilbert. "No, just Pilot." "Try moving the sensor to other parts of the ship," suggested Binkadink. "Spell not work that way, gnome!" corrected Gilbert. Rebecca further explained, "The [I]clairvoyance[/I] spell not only doesn't allow me to move the sensor I see through, only rotate it in place, but it can't pierce through other planes. Unfortunately, most of the [I]Planar Scout[/I] is made up of pocket dimensions, to fit all of the rooms Dr. Greymantle wanted included in his design within such a small exterior. I wouldn't be able to see inside any of the pocket dimensions in any case." "Then I guess we should head on over in person," reasoned Hagan. "Ferry me over first," recommended Binkadink. "I'm the front-line fighter; I should be in place first in case there's any trouble." "What about your...horned bunny thing?" Rebecca asked. She'd never seen a jackalope before. "I can ride in the [I]portable hole[/I]," replied Obvious, startling Rebecca considerably in that she hadn't known he could speak. Obvious didn't often speak aloud, but besides the language of burrowing mammals he shared with Binkadink he could also speak fluent Common after Malrin [I]awakened[/I] him at the gnome's request. But it sure was funny to do so when it caused people to freak out! "Hang on, want to cast [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I] spell on everyone first," said Gilbert, having wandered up to the top deck during Rebecca's casting of her [I]clairvoyance[/I] spell. He was able to include Rebecca in the group of people who could now communicate among themselves just by thinking. But then the jackalope took a deep breath and scampered into the [I]portable hole[/I] offered up by Malrin, Binkadink scooped it up and, [I]gnomish stilt-boots[/I] extended to equalize their heights, held his hand around Rebecca's waist while she did likewise to his and they leaped across the open space to land on the [I]Planar Scout[/I]'s left propulsion unit: an octagonal platform some 20 feet in diameter. There was a short burst of a buzzing sound as the field around the vessel and the field around Rebecca and her gnomish passenger merged, momentarily opening a hole in the [I]Planar Scout[/I]'s shield where the two fields overlapped. Then Binkadink spread the [I]portable hole[/I] on the top of the propulsion unit and Obvious leaped out. Binkadink rolled up the [I]portable hole[/I] and handed it to Rebecca before climbing into the jackalope's saddle. "Ready for the next group," he said, extending his glaive to its full length as the wizard leaped back to the dragonfly vessel to fetch the next batch of passengers. The gnome was attacked almost immediately. He and his mount had just spun about to face the cockpit, a projection jutting up from the center of the vessel on which could be seen several doors and the dark windows in front, when Binkadink suddenly had an eel snapping in his face. Several others - five, in total, it seemed like - came flashing forward at him from who-knows-where. One clamped down on his shoulder and held on, while the others snapped ineffectually at the gnome and then backed away. The combat didn't go unnoticed by the rest of the Kordovians but they were helpless to do anything until they had been shuttled over to the other side of the field. Malrin and the two rangers cast [I]barkskin[/I] spells on themselves, while Gilbert cast a [I]fire shield[/I] spell on himself, including his pebble-sized earth elemental familiar in the spell's casting. Hagan cast a [I]stoneskin[/I] spell on himself and Wezhley; Gilbert, thinking that a wise move, followed suit. Malrin wildshaped into an owl and flew onto Finoula's shoulder, thinking it an easy way to get another of the group over in one trip. Darrien leaped into the [I]portable hole[/I] and Finoula scooped it up, then she and Rebecca leaped over to the [I]Planar Scout[/I], Malrin perched on the elven ranger's shoulder. Binkadink, in the meantime, had shortened the length of his glaive in an attempt to cut the eel clamped onto his shoulder. But the angle was awkward and, now that the gnome got a good look at his foe, its body sort of just faded off to nothing the farther down its length it went - no wonder his blade was having a difficult time penetrating the eel's body! But Binkadink noticed a few other things about these "space eels" he was fighting: for one thing, they seemed to have no eyes, but that was made up for by at least one of the other eels whose entire head was just an eyeball with no mouth, looking rather like the eyestalk of a beholder. In as calm a manner as he could manage during combat, Binkadink relayed his findings over the mental link he had with the others. And then he was gone. Obvious had been snapping his teeth at the darting eels when all of a sudden he felt the weight of the gnome's presence on his saddle disappear completely. He looked about him, seeing a pair of eyeless eels and an eyeball-on-a-tentacle swim backwards, seemingly dissipating as they did so. At the same time, the others all felt Binkadink's mental presence on the [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I] spell shut off as if by a switch. Rebecca and Finoula landed onto the octagonal propulsion unit and the elven ranger opened the [I]portable hole[/I] to let Darrien out, then the two rangers looked all about them with weapons ready - but the eels were no longer present. Malrin's owlish head darted this way and that, seeking out enemies from any direction. Binkadink, in the meantime, had learned something else about the "space eels" he'd been fighting: they were all part of a single creature! The beast had a long body with an eyeless head at one end filled with sharp teeth; from the other end, in the manner of a squid, sprouted ten tentacles, five of them with blind, eel-like heads and the other five tipped with an eyeball. Three of the "eels" had managed to attach themselves to the little gnome and that was apparently all the creature needed to pull its prey into what Binkadink realized was more than likely the Ethereal Plane. But now fully on the same plane as the dharculus he was fighting, Binkadink realized they were now on a much more equal footing than when the bulk of his foe was a plane away. Grinning, Binkadink extended his glaive to its full length again and prepared to do what he did best. Back on the Material Plane, Darrien cautiously walked up to the front-most door on the left side of the [I]Planar Scout[/I]'s main section, the door Rebecca had told him was the entryway to the cockpit. He turned the handle, half expecting it to be locked, but it opened easily. And there, standing before him, was an automaton - Pilot, no doubt - built in the form of a man but from metal and wood. The construct turned his head in stages, as if experiencing stiffness with his neck, and opened his mouth as if to try to speak but no words came out. Instead, spiders scurried from his open mouth, spilling out down his chest and skittering to the floor, where they rushed the ranger. Darrien got the sense that these were not normal spiders, either: several of them seemed to have far too many or too few limbs, and some of the hairy legs sprouted from the top of the abdomen instead of the sides. In any case, the ranger slammed the door back shut, holding the handle in his hand in case anyone tried opening it from the inside, but Pilot seemed not to be inclined to do so and the unnatural spiders were unable to open a door. Darrien released a sigh of relief and let go of the door handle. <Not going in this way,> he reported over the link. On the Border Ethereal, Binkadink swung his glaive in powerful strikes, completely severing a tentacle that got in the way of his blade as it came crashing into the rubbery body of the dharculus. Another strike and another and another in rapid succession and the odd creature was starting to "swim" backwards in panic. Fluids leaked from the creature's wounds - blood or whatever equivalent pumped through the abomination's odd body, Binkadink guessed - but he wasn't about to let the creature escape. Leaping forward, he drove the point of his glaive into the dharculus's neck and that did it: the creature stopped moving. [I]Now how am I getting back?[/I] the gnome wondered to himself, looking around the misty realm he currently inhabited. As Rebecca had Gilbert, Mudpie, and MARCI step into the [I]portable hole[/I] for the next trip over, Darrien walked over to the door to the right of the one leading to Pilot and the misshapen spiders in the cockpit. He opened it as well and was relieved to see nothing but an empty room before him, a simple 10-foot-square room with doors on two other walls leading to other places in the ship's interior - possibly into pocket dimensions, he recalled. He stepped inside and turned to the door on his immediate left. It was unlocked and the room beyond was definitely a pocket dimension, as it was far wider - some 40 feet - than the main body of the ship that held it. The room was octagonal, with a pillar of light shining down from the ceiling above. There was another automaton, like Pilot, standing motionless to one side of the room; behind him stood a robed figure. He turned as Darrien opened the door. "Dr. Greymantle?" the ranger asked hesitantly. "Yes," agreed the robed figure, stepping forward eagerly. "I'm part of the team that came with Rebecca," Darrien explained. "We're here to repair your ship." "Excellent, excellent!" replied Greymantle, rubbing his hands together. "So good of you to come! Where is Rebecca, may I ask?" "She's outside, shuttling the others across through your field." Rebecca was, at that particular moment, leaping across from the dragonfly vessel with Hagan. They landed on the propulsion unit and Hagan released Gilbert and the others from the [I]portable hole[/I] when the eels drifted back into view. These eels were no longer violent, though - they just sort of drifted about, extending into the Material Plane, and Hagan saw more than a few of them that looked much more like beholder eyestalks than anything else. But then, along one space eel's trailing length crawled Binkadink, hoisting himself hand over hand across the planar boundaries from the Border Ethereal, using the tentacle like an improvised rope. He'd seen the tips of the dharculus's tentacles start to dissipate out of the Ethereal Plane and on a hunch had climbed along one tentacle to see if it would get him back home. Sure enough it did and Obvious saw the gnome's top half start to materialize from the open air and raced over to meet his rider. Binkadink gratefully grabbed onto the jackalope's antlers and pulled himself fully back into the Material Plane moments before the dharculus vanished altogether, the unholy energies making up its aberrant body dissipating into nothingness. Gilbert fished his pebble-sized familiar from his pocket, loaded Mudpie into his [I]slingshot of rock shrinking[/I], and fired him at the top of the propulsion unit beneath his feet. Upon impact, Mudpie returned to his full 16 feet of solid earth elemental, holding the large greataxe they'd taken from the body of one of the half-red dragon lizardfolk they'd slain when taking down the red dragon threatening Kordovia. Mudpie now carried the massive weapon around with him, although he seldom bothered using it unless specific circumstances warranted it. "Get ready for anything," advised Gilbert. "Not sure what all going on here." Finoula, in the meantime, had gone to the back of the central portion of the [I]Planar Scout[/I] and pulled open the set of double doors she found there. They opened into an L-shaped room filled with shelves of boxes and barrels - she'd unearthed a storage room, it looked like. But there in the back of the room stood a construct, its humanoid form comprised of metal, stone, and wood. "Pinwhistle, I presume?" the ranger called to the mechanical man. "The flying slugs cannot long feast on gears!" answered the warforged, stepping purposefully forward, his hands curled into fists. "Um, wha--?" began Finoula before instinctively slamming the doors closed again. She didn't want anything to do with an angry warforged spouting nonsense! And then, as if in the blink of an eye, several things happened at once. There were now two dinosaurs standing among the heroes on the left propulsion unit of the [I]Planar Scout[/I], in all aspects megaraptors but for the numerous tentacles waving about randomly from all over their bodies. And Dr. Greymantle was no longer approaching Darrien; he was no longer even in the same room as the half-elf ranger and the immobile [B]Crewman One[/B] - he was now standing alone over at the front of the vessel, before the front windows of the cockpit. He looked across the crowded propulsion unit and locked eyes with Rebecca Starfall, his former apprentice - she had aged by several decades since he had last seen her, he deduced; he'd really had no concept of how long he and Pinwhistle had been gone. Still, she was as dependable as ever, finding a way to come to his aid and even bring a spare propulsion unit, he saw, looking across to the cargo deck of the dragonfly vessel. He smiled at Rebecca, and she started to smile back, until she saw Greymantle's smile grow beyond the normal bounds of a human mouth, expanding nearly to his ears. Thin tentacles flickered and waved between his teeth. One of the pseudonatural megaraptors poked its head into the side door of the [I]Planar Scout[/I] and snapped its wicked teeth at Darrien, who just barely managed to leap back out of its immediate reach. The other tentacled dinosaur attacked Mudpie, carving furrows down the elemental's sides with its sharp talons. Finoula was pushed back as the double doors to the rear of the ship exploded outwards and Pinwhistle stepped outside. "It's too much yellow!" the crazed warforged insisted. "[I]Far[/I] too much yellow! There should be more pine scent, but instead it smells too loudly of purple!" His fists unclenched and took on the patterns of spellcasting and another form appeared out of nowhere: a massive, white-furred gorilla with four arms and writhing tentacles growing all over. The pseudonatural girallon wasted to time in grabbing at Finoula, catching her up in one massive paw and swinging her around to face him. Malrin, thinking the warforged cleric had likely fallen sway to some form of insanity (whether magical or not), flew to land upon his shoulder and channeled a [I]heal[/I] spell into Pinwhistle's armored frame through her owl's talons. Then, not wanting to be within striking distance if the spell didn't have the effect she'd been hoping for, she flew off, out of immediate range. Darrien stabbed with his scimitar at the pseudonatural dinosaur standing before him, slicing deeply into the side of its mouth. It roared in anger and pain. But then it collapsed to the floor, Binkadink's glaive sticking into its side, and it died. As a summoned creature, it vanished upon death, gone as quickly as it had suddenly arrived. <Greymantle an enemy!> Gilbert called over the link, for he too had seen the archmage's unnatural grin. Hagan responded with the immediate casting of a [I]polar ray[/I] spell, streaking between the two figures and striking Greymantle directly in the chest. But then, unexpectedly, it rebounded without seeming to harm him at all and streaked back at Hagan, blasting the sorcerer with an unnatural cold. If anything, Greymantle's unnerving grin got even wider as he saw the results of the [I]spell reflection[/I] spell he'd cast - along with several others while under the [I]time stop[/I] spell he'd cast while back in the fuel storage room with Darrien - take effect. Finoula stabbed at the tentacled girallon with the point of [I]Tahlmalaera[/I], then used her [I]boots of spider climbing[/I] to run up the side of the wall and onto the roof of the [I]Planar Scout[/I]'s command structure. She had her [I]flaming burst whip of thorns[/I] out and thorns extended, ready to lash out at the beast if it continued its attacks. Gilbert wasn't sure if Greymantle had been transformed into some unnatural abomination or just had something extraplanar inside him and controlling his movements. He cast a [I]banishment[/I] spell at the archmage, hoping to send away a potential parasite and save the human wizard under its control but equally fine with Greymantle himself being thrown across the planes. But neither event occurred, causing Gilbert to frown in anger - an anger which was diminished somewhat when the second pseudonatural megaraptor, who had been attacking Mudpie, vanished at once, having also been within the radius of the spells' effect. That was [I]something[/I], in any case. Hagan was bent over in pain from his own rebounded spell; his pain only increased when Greymantle made him the central target of a [I]chain lightning[/I] spell. Arcs of electricity flashed out to strike Finoula, Gilbert, Mudpie, MARCI, Malrin, Binkadink, Obvious, and Rebecca; Darrien was still inside the airlock room and out of view of the archmage and Hagan's body had been turned in such a way that Greymantle hadn't even spotted Wezhley, the half-orc's weasel familiar perched upon his shoulder. Of the group, Rebecca was hurt the most of all, not only because of her relative inexperience in combat but also because she had just been attacked by a man who had set her on the path of a wizard in the first place, a man a younger Rebecca had hoped might one day become more than just her wizardly mentor. She staggered, struggling to remain upright as her legs threatened to buckle beneath her. <Go back to dragonfly ship!> called Gilbert over the link. <You safer there!> Rebecca hesitated, not wanting to abandon her new friends but realizing her relative lack of usefulness in this battle; she had learned most of her spells by poring through Dr. Greymantle's library back in his manor home and thus had pretty much stuck to those of a generally useful - not combative - nature. Pinwhistle turned and grabbed at Binkadink's foot in the stirrup of Obvious's saddle; the gnome got a strike in with his glaive, scoring a groove across the warforged's chest, but the [I]harm[/I] spell went off regardless, causing the gnome to yell in pain as he took much more combat damage than he was used to taking all at once. "Eventually," advised Pinwhistle, "the screaming stops and the gnawing becomes a thing of great beauty. It's better this way. You'll see. You'll come to thank me, in the eons to come." "Crazy freak!" snarled the gnome in rebuttal. The girallon likewise grabbed at Finoula again, this time hitting with three sets of claws and rending, its claws ripping through armor and flesh alike. Malrin saw her friends taking a [I]lot[/I] of damage in this fight so far and flew directly above the command structure of the scout ship. From that vantage point, she cast a [I]mass cure light wounds[/I] spell, healing up at least some of the wounds taken by her friends thus far. Rebecca took the healing as a sign to get out of there and turned, leaping back to the dragonfly vessel, her personal shield generator making the small buzzing noise it normally did when she passed through the [I]Planar Scout[/I]'s own shield. Then, from the relative safety of the spelljammer's top deck, she stood and watched, worriedly, as her new friends fought off her old ones. Darrien sheathed his scimitar, pulled out his [I]Arachnibow[/I], and stepped back outside to the [I]Planar Scout[/I]'s exterior, where he sent a handful of arrows streaking over at the unearthly archmage. Binkadink struck at Pinwhistle again with his magic glaive, hitting and scoring deep grooves in the living construct's body. Pieces of wood went flying and sparks exploded as steel met steel. "I could not believe my eyes," lamented Pinwhistle, "so I gave them away." He staggered backwards, rolling a damaged arm as he tried to stay standing. Obvious finished him off, clamping down hard with his rabbit teeth and pulling away a gem embedded at the cleric's throat. The warforged toppled backwards, never again to rise. Hagan cast a [I]fly[/I] spell and flew around the back of the vessel - the left propulsion unit was getting far too crowded. Up on the roof, Finoula activated her [I]lightning amulet[/I] and blasted through the pseudonatural girallon attacking her, reforming in her elven shape on one of the two back struts at the vessel's rear. Gilbert, however, was still engaged in a spell-duel with Greymantle; he cast a [I]waves of exhaustion[/I] spell at the half-farspawn archmage and could tell from the wince it induced that he had overcome the enemy wizard's defenses. While he was thus distracted, Mudpie stepped up and walloped the archmage with a massive, boulderlike fist, the unused greataxe held in his off-hand. But Greymantle rolled with the blow, stepping backwards and out of immediate range of the hulking earth elemental before casting a [I]polar ray[/I] of his own at Gilbert Fung. Then, as if shucking his human form altogether, he sprouted tentacles all over his body until he had become an only vaguely humanoid shape. The others found it difficult to even look at him, so horrifying was the end result. The pseudonatural girallon gave a roar of rage, spun about, and leaped at Finoula again, all four hands out and ready to rip her apart. She bravely sent her whip flying into his face but it wasn't enough to keep him at bay and once again the ranger found herself being torn to pieces by the gorilla-thing's sharp claws. Malrin, seeing Finoula's distress, flew around behind her and landed briefly on her shoulder with a taloned foot, channeling a healing spell into her. Wounds opened just seconds before closed back up and Finoula felt a renewal of energy within her. <Thank you,> she called over the link. From behind him, Darrien heard a mechanical voice calling. "Piiiiiiiie..." it began, causing the ranger to pop back inside to see what was going on. Crewman One was still standing in the same posture but had managed to turn its head and open its mouth. "...luuuuut..." it continued. Mentally putting the two pieces together, Darrien assumed he was asking about his fellow mechanical man. "He seems okay," Darrien explained. "Had a bunch of spiders inside him, but we'll put him right." Then he dashed back outside again, not wanting to abandon his friends in combat with Greymantle to have a slow-speed conversation with a damaged automaton. "...shiiiiiiip..." continued Crewman One, but nobody was listening. Obvious dashed around the back of the [I]Planar Scout[/I]'s command deck, allowing Binkadink to slay the pseudonatural girallon with a torso-puncturing stab of his glaive. As it had also been summoned to this plane from elsewhere, the ape disappeared upon being slain. From over on the right-side propulsion unit, Hagan cast a [I]chain lightning[/I] spell at the tentacle mass that had once been Greymantle, at about the same time Finoula activated her amulet and blasted through the archmage as a living [I]lightning bolt[/I]. She resumed her elven form at the far side of the ship's shield, seemingly standing sideways in midair through the power of her [I]boots of spider climbing[/I]. But to her - and Hagan's - dismay, neither attack seemed to have hurt the tentacle-beast in the least; neither was aware that [I]protection from electricity[/I] was one of the spells Greymantle had cast upon himself during the [I]time stop[/I]. Gilbert was getting tired of Greymantle's immunity to the various spells they threw his way so he opted to try a different tactic: casting a [I]Tenser's transformation[/I] upon his familiar, he watched as Mudpie's frame swelled with power. He also saw the earth elemental switch the greataxe into a two-handed grip, now seemingly as proficient in its use as Binkadink was with his own magical glaive. In a blur of motion that belied his massive form, Mudpie swung his greataxe down in an overhanded blow, slicing off a tentacle or two making up the creature Greymantle had become. Greymantle staggered backwards, scooting out of range until he was at the very edge of one of the front struts of the extraplanar craft he had built decades ago, saplike fluid dripping from his open wounds. Then he said the words to a spell - and was gone. <Where'd he go?> demanded Darrien. <Did he just [I]teleport[/I]?> <If so, he not get far,> Gilbert observed. <Shield still up around ship. He invisible, more like.> The heavyset wizard then sent his battle elemental to swing his greataxe at the areas the archmage could be standing, to no avail. Binkadink spurred Obvious into a similar pursuit, the jackalope running around the back of the vessel, onto the right-hand propulsion unit, then back around the front and over to the other one, the little gnome swinging his glaive about frantically, trying to hit the potentially unseen foe. <No luck!> he called. <Do you think he might have gone back into the ship?> Finoula, meanwhile, used her last daily amulet activation to blast herself back over to the others and Malrin flew up to cast another healing spell upon her. "Mudpie! Over here!" called Gilbert. Once the earth elemental had lumbered over, Gilbert informed him, "You'll need to hunker down," and then opened the door to the front cabin, where Pilot stood motionless amidst a horde of skittering, mutant spiders. Gilbert pushed Mudpie inside then closed the door on him once he'd maneuvered his way in. "What are you doing?" asked Hagan, curious. "He still have [I]fire shield[/I] spell active," Gilbert reminded the half-orc sorcerer. "Any luck, those spiders all get burned up in contact!" He chuckled at his own inventiveness. A sudden quick buzzing sound alerted those in the area of the left propulsion unit that the shield around the ship had just been penetrated. Thinking it might be Rebecca returning for some reason, Gilbert turned, ready to chastise her, when he saw the tentacle-mass that had been Dr. Greymantle soaring between the two ships. Rebecca stood frozen on place, her face a mask of terror at the transformed monstrosity bearing down on her. Gilbert opened the door to the cockpit and saw the fried bodies of hundreds of aberrant spiders, their scorched legs twitching in death. "Turn off shield!" he yelled at Pilot and the automaton, rusty and slow from decades of disuse, complied at his best speed. There was a brief flickering all around the [I]Planar Scout[/I] as the shield evaporated. "Get back!" roared Darrien, snapping Rebecca out of her transfixed horror. She backed away as Greymantle landed on the deck before her. But then, before he could do anything, Darrien shot at him with an arrow, using the power of the [I]Arachnibow[/I] to turn the arrow into a [I]web[/I] spell upon impact. Greymantle was now entangled in the center of a thick spiderweb. Binkadink wasted no time, spurring Obvious into a leap that led them directly into the web imprisoning Greymantle. The gnome wasn't worried about them also becoming entangled; he just wanted to get within striking distance of the tentacle-monster the archmage had become. A few glaive strikes later and the half-farspawn thing was no more. "Anybody have any idea what's going on here?" Hagan asked. As a sorcerer whose spells just came to him naturally, he'd never buried himself into arcane esoterica like Gilbert had been forced to do to learn his spells. "Why did they attack us?" "Think this ship end up in place called Far Realm," reasoned Gilbert as Binkadink used his glaive to free himself and Obvious from the web. The gnome then motioned Rebecca to him, pulled her up onto the saddle behind him, and Obvious leaped back to the [I]Planar Scout[/I]. "Far Realm?" asked Finoula. "Never heard of it." "It a place outside normal cosmology," explained Gilbert. "Plane of absolute chaos - not even time work normal there." He turned to face Rebecca. "You say they gone 20 years; to them, it maybe a week, maybe a century or two. No way to tell. No way to tell what all they went through over there, either. My guess: people they were no longer existed by time they come back here." "Is there anyone else inside we need to find?" asked Finoula. Rebecca just shook her head. "[b]Crewmen One and Two[/b], and [b]Gardener[/b], plus Pilot. All automatons." "We should go back and check on the one in that big octagonal room with the pillar of light coming down from the ceiling," suggested Darrien. "He was trying to say something to me." The group headed over to the fuel storage room where Crewman One finally got his message across. "Piiiii...luuuut...shiiiip...iiiin...tooo...suuuuun. Ohhhhn...leeee...waaaay." This suggestion was mirrored by some graffiti carved into the table in the next room over: besides a few random messages that made little sense ("Thoughts = weakness," "Pain must be shared equally - distribution is key," "NO NO NO NO NO - okay"), Hagan found the following message, undoubtedly carved by Greymantle during a time of lucidity before his mind was overwhelmed by the forces of the Far Realm: Hagan turned to catch back up with the others, when out of the corner of his eye he saw his own name carved at the other end of the table. He moved closer and saw: The half-orc frowned. Was this the raving of a madman or a prophecy of the future? Unlikely, he decided; as far as he knew titans were born as titans, not raised up from the mortal races. If he ever saw Leandros again he'd have to ask him what he thought it might mean...although how would Greymantle have even known Hagan's name? Odd, most definitely. Returning to the control cockpit, Rebecca explained what they'd learned to Pilot. "We have a spare propulsion unit," she told the automaton. "If we get the [I]Planar Scout[/I] running again, can you...would you fly the vessel into the sun? It's too dangerous to let anything from the Far Realm exist in our own universe and I'm afraid this ship...and everything within it...has been contaminated." Pilot raised a rusty arm and placed a humanoid hand on the side of the wizard's face. "For...you...." he said. Rebecca placed her hand over Pilot's, recalling that Dr. Greymantle had built all of the automatons on board the vessel with recordings of his own mind and intellect, which he then pared down to only include the bits necessary to perform the missions required by that particular construct. But she liked to think that a small part of the archmage remained inside Pilot's awareness that had accurately mirrored Greymantle's feelings for her. The group, by unanimous decision, opted not to explore the pocket dimension rooms of the rest of the craft - there was no telling what all horrors they might encounter hanging about like that dharculus Binkadink had fought. And there was no point in trying to take anything from the ship for use later, knowing there was a possibility it had been contaminated by Far Realms energy. Best that everything be destroyed at once by plunging the ship directly into the sun - with its shield down. With that in mind, Rebecca supervised the replacement of the left propulsion unit with the one they had brought from the Workshop. The old one was strapped in place between the two back struts of the [I]Planar Scout[/I] so it too could be destroyed by Pelor's blazing orb. "Good...bye...Rebecca..." said Pilot right before the heroes all returned to the dragonfly vessel. And then they could only watch as the [I]Planar Scout[/I], with one working engine, left orbit around Selune and headed on its final journey, ending in a fiery death. - - - I figured Rebecca, the sole inheritor of Greymantle's fortune, had plenty of cash on hand so I had her reward the PCs with 25,000 gp each. Incidentally, I made up an NPC sheet for Rebecca and had Vicki run her as a secondary character for this adventure, although she had purposefully not been built for combat and spent much of the battle time safely tucked away on the dragonfly ship. But realizing I had less than a dozen adventures left in this campaign (the last adventure will be #80), I decided it would be fun to look back at any open plot hooks from either this campaign or its predecessor and thought a reunion with Dr. Greymantle and company (from the "Wing Three" campaign) would be interesting. Pythagoras Greymantle was a 13th-level wizard/5th-level archmage with the half-farspawn template; Pinwhistle was an 18th-level cleric with the pseudonatural template - in both cases, the result of their time spent inside the Far Realm. The players made a wise decision in not exploring the interior of the [I]Planar Scout[/I], too - they'd have run across four wystes and a neh-thalggu (brain devourer), neither of which would have done them a whole lot of good. The PCs all leveled up to 19th-level at the end of this adventure. Ten more adventures to go! - - - T-shirt worn: A new T-shirt Dan and Vicki got me for Christmas: it has a picture of a flying saucer levitating a man up into it via a beam of light, with a caption that reads, "Get in, loser - we're doing butt stuff." I wore it for the flying saucer, representing both the [I]Planar Scout[/I] and the dragonfly vessel, which can travel through (wild)space. (And then, two days later, I wore it to my colonoscopy appointment - it was too perfect an opportunity to pass up!) [/QUOTE]
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