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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ancalagon" data-source="post: 7378870" data-attributes="member: 23">only a few more sessions to go!SESSION 24September 10th Something strange is afoot. The trolls have been slain, and the priests' items have been returned, but the mystery only deepens. I presented Kellindel with the elven chain mail before leaving in the morning; he seemed quite excited about it. We tried to persuade Daito Tokedo to put on our extra suit of Githyanki splint mail, but he was either unwilling or didn't understand. Urym returned shortly afterward, looking totally exhausted. It seems that he spent most of the night in revelry (again). As you shall see, this causes us a great deal of trouble later on. On the way to the docks we discussed several different plans. Our first idea was "fishing for scrags": we filled a large fish with wyvern poison, tied a line onto it, and hoped they would eat it and die. As we reached the docks, we found a large group of beggars leaving. Apparently they spent the night there. We stopped one beggar and, after lubricating his memory with coin, he told us that he saw the Hammer burn! He claims to have seen a large man walk to the dock as the boat approached and leap fifty feet onto the boat. Fire shot from his hands onto the deck and rigging, and some sort of gas sank into the deck. The sailors below deck shouted at first, but soon became silent. He then jumped back onto the dock and walked off as the Hammer sank. According to the beggar, he was dressed like an aristocrat. Suleiman have surmised that the magics he used were burning hands and cloud kill, but the beggar says that he did not use any verbal or somatic components. It is puzzling indeed. We began our first attempt to kill the trolls, using the fish and wyvern poison. Finis turned into a sea otter and followed the fish down to check on the results. It seems that the poison worked, but the troll that ate it recovered relatively quickly. Just to experiment, we tried it again with another fish. This time, they tugged on the rope, pulling Suleiman into the water. We quickly pulled him out, and the trolls briefly surfaced after seeing him splashing around. This prompted us to try our second idea. Suleiman cast levitate on himself, tied a rope around his waist and around the dock, and pushed off, floating just above the water. Finis returned to his human form and joined us on the dock, as I prayed for blessings from Prometheus. We handed Daito a net, hoping that he would use it to pull dead trolls from the water, and Suleiman lowered himself into the water, flailing with his feet and making a great deal of commotion. The scrags wasted no time coming after him. They shot toward the surface, and Suleiman floated out of the water just in time. Only two of the trolls came to the surface at first, and Kellindel, his strength greatly increased by the magical gauntlets of Hephaestus, gave them a good work-out. He poured the potion of sweetwater into the water by the dock, making them unable to regenerate, and cut one of the scrags down quickly (although it savaged him badly in return). Daito, unfortunately, tried to use the net on the other scrag. The scrag promptly shredded the net and tore into Daito. Little Corwin the rag golem was on hand to quickly bind his wounds. Suleiman tried to cast levitate on the other troll, but his spell seemed to go awry; the levitate worked on the troll, but he and the troll switched bodies, leaving him looking up, from the troll's body, at his own form, flailing and screaming in mid-air. He took advantage of the opportunity to swim to the bottom of the harbor and investigate the wreck. Two more trolls surfaced and attacked, and Kellindel killed yet another one. I had been using a watery fist to attack, but I abandoned it in order to heal the grievous wounds Kellindel had received. Finally, I cast Fury of Prometheus, and Daito finished the troll off with an arrow from his enormous bow. That left only the troll that had switched bodies with Suleiman (who was just now emerging from the water, in the scrag's body, with a huge chest from the wreck). Several men had offered to pull the dead scrags from the water for a few bronze, and we burnt the trolls bodies immediately. The stench was foul indeed. We did not have enough bronze coin on us to pay the men, so we dispatched Urym and Daito to our villa in the Syrinx, to retrieve some coin. Suleiman and the troll were still in each others' bodies, but they switched back suddenly, leaving the troll, in its own body, standing on the dock, and Suleiman floating in the air. Enraged, the troll attacked us. Finis smote it mightily with his staff of striking, but that appeared to exhaust the staff's charges, as it shattered on impact. The troll, realizing that it was outnumbered, turned to jump off the dock. Unfortunately for the scrag, the levitate was still in effect (naturally Suleiman had been able to control it while in the troll's body), and it simply hovered there, caught in midair, above the water. We dispatched it easily. I cast water breathing on Finis, Kellindel, and Gorca, and they went down to investigate the wreck further. They soon returned, bearing the bodies of the priests, and many magical hammers and suits of armor. In addition, they recovered the bodies of the first group of adventurers to explore the wreck. Gorca said that he would take care of their burial arrangements, and that we may collect whatever items from them that we found useful. It turns out that they had a great many useful items. After careful examination, we found that they had a magical shield of Ionian design (which I have claimed), boots of speed, a ring of fire resistance, and two strange stones. Urym says they are called ioun stones; when tossed into the air by the user, they circle around the user's head. After a short period of time, they begin to bestow magical enhancements to the users abilities. It seems that one increases the user's strength, while the other improves the user's abilities in general. Oddly, there is an extra magical right boot. We are considering looking around the wreck further, in hopes that its left foot mate will turn up. After we had finally finished hauling everything to the surface, a representative of the Obol protection agency came up to us and said that we had been robbed. Urym and Daito seem to have come upon two of the thieves, and dispatched them. The rest got away with a great deal of gold and jewelry (most of which Kellindel had gained from the deck of many things). We made our way to the Syrinx, and found that Kyros had been badly wounded, and Kwame the hippogriff had been slightly injured. I could do nothing for the creature, as it is supernatural in nature; my spells work only on natural creatures. The bag of holding, containing Nelbar's encyclopedia, had also been stolen but they had left the bronze and some other coins in the chest. I cast locate object, and Urym pointed me in the direction that he believed the thieves had gone. We soon found the bag of holding (with encyclopedia intact) in an alley, with a pile of jewelry. Unfortunately, all the gems had been removed from the jewelry. The thieves must have anticipated that we would be able to magically locate anything as unique as a piece of jewelry, but not a plain gem. I am not too concerned with this; it is only money. There was one piece, however, that it is sad too see ruined: a platinum globe, representing the whole of Ermoon, with gems signifying the continents. It was a stunning piece of work, but it is much less valuable without the gems. Kellindel was planning to use the wealth to raise an army, and use the army to defeat the wizard threatening his forest in Aragon. Now he must find another way. We returned to the Syrinx, where we informed Dimitri that we had recovered the jewels, but not the gems. He seems genuinely concerned that this could break the Obol agency; they cannot afford to insure us for the loss of all the gems. Apparently they forgot to ask us in advance exactly for what they were providing insurance. I do not think that Kellindel will require them to pay the entire sum back; he does not want to ruin their company. Still, we will make sure that they try their best to recover at least some of the gems. Some of the members of the group grumbled about how stupid the private law enforcement system is. They were especially upset that the Obol might not be able to repay us the entire value of Kellindel's stolen gems. This strikes me as a strange complaint--in what government-run law enforcement system does the government offer any insurance if it fails in its duty to protect? Since it costs the government little to fail, why should it try as hard as these agencies do? The continued profitablity (and therefore, existence) of these agencies depends on protecting their customers, and compensating customers when they fail! I do not think they have thought about the issue clearly. Urym believes that he recognizes one of the two thieves he and Daito caught. Apparently, Urym told him (and many other people) of how fabulously wealthy and successful the Pentachromata are while he was out reveling. He seems to be somewhat embarrassed and ashamed, and rightfully so. In an attempt to make up for it, he tried to identify some of the magic we recovered from the other adventuring party; I have related to you the results of his attempts earlier. We then traveled to the temple of Hephaestus to meet with high priest Hassad, and tell him what happened at the docks. Gorca had already told him about the fight and about the robbery. He expressed his sympathy, and told us that he had grave news, acquired by casting speak with dead on the deceased priests. It seems that the Hammer of Hephaestus (the importance of which to Hephaestus' priests I do not need to tell you) has been stolen from their temple in Urbs Deorum, by a red-headed Ionian--could it be my sister? If so, she brings shame upon my whole family. After the theft, the priests of Hephaestus came to Anarchopolis to speak to the priests of Prometheus, but their ship was sunk just as it arrived. He cannot tell why they would want to talk to the priests of Prometheus, but he is sure that it is very serious. Something seems to have partially obstructed his communication with the dead priests, so he had no more information (yet). It was beginning to get late. We headed to the temple of Prometheus to tell the brothers there what had occurred. Leander met us at the door, saying that he had heard more news about my sister. She left on a ship called the Arboria the same day that the Hammer burned. It occurred to both Suleiman and I that the Arboria was the ship on the water! But what does the attacking priest of Ares mean? My vision's meaning is not yet clear. In order to gain more information, we asked Leander to arrange another meeting with his contacts, so that Suleiman might use his Helm of ESP to read their minds. Perhaps there is something they are not telling Leander. Leander said that he would try to make the meeting in the morning. Our next destination was the harbormaster. We were hoping that we might discover some more information about the Arboria and her cargo. On the way we heard a young boy calling out our names. He said that we were wanted at the temple of Hephaestus. We thanked him and quickly made our way to the temple, where Hassad awaited us. He had more information for us, as well as a mission. We are to go to Urbs Deorum, where some kind of sacrilege has offended Prometheus. I am uncertain what could have happened, as He has neither a temple nor a shrine there (as we all know, Prometheus rarely gets along with the misguided, amoral Olympians). We are to discover the cause of Prometheus' anger; it is somehow tied to the theft of the Hammer of Hephaestus, and perhaps other strange occurrences. To aid us, Hessad is allowing us to keep the Gauntlets of Hephaestus, and sending Gorca with us. We are to contact high priest Actinos once we arrive. We left the temple with the blessings of Hephaestus; could this joint effort lead to the healing of the rift that has long existed between our two gods and churches? It was late indeed when we left the temple, but we made our way to the harbormaster nonetheless. While we asked about the Arboria, Gorca went to secure passage on a ship to Urbs Deorum. I asked the young man at the counter about the Arboria, and he said that he would have to look in a book. Suleiman, using the Helm of ESP, read the clerk's mind; he was wondering why a priest of Prometheus was asking about a Synod ship. Suleiman decided that it should not be known that we are looking for a ship owned by a criminal organization. He made up the name of another ship (which, of course, the clerk could not find in his register). We left the poor clerk somewhat confused. Hopefully, the Synod does not know that we are investigating them. We waited for Gorca to return. He had arranged for the ship to leave early in the morning. We arranged for the ship, the Kozimo, to leave in the afternoon instead, as we have several things left to do tomorrow. Suleiman must give a talk at the temple on planar travel (and I will endeavor to assist him), and we must eavesdrop on Leander's meeting with his Synod contacts. Also, it would be a good idea to let Dimitri and the Obol protection agency know that, although we will be gone, they had better find some of our gems. Urym and Daito did not kill the two thieves they discovered in the villa; they were merely knocked unconscious. We may interrogate them tomorrow. Perhaps I should send this log on to Demopolis as well. Finally, we returned to the Syrinx to get some rest. There was one magical item, a helm, which we could not identify. Daito tried it on, and suddenly found that he could understand all of us (although we still could not understand him). He has learned a little Ionian, but his accent is far too thick for anyone to understand him. The helm of comprehend languages will be useful. Obol has posted two guards outside of our villa. I do not think that anyone would be so stupid as to attempt another robbery, but it is comforting to know the guards are there. I had better get some sleep; tomorrow will be yet another busy day.</blockquote>

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