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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9815315" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 12: NEST SPOTTINGPC Roster:  Amris Goodwitch, celestial elf witch (wizard) 5                     Avoroth Bleakborn, fiendish human cleric 5                     Gonkle Bu'Onk, fiendish orc fighter 5                     Wilbur Von Schattenwalde, shadow human druid 5Game Session Date: 3 December 2025 - - -It took several days to recover from the formian assault: to drag away the slain bodies of the centaurian ants, figure out who all had been targeted and who had been taken, and to decide upon a way forward.  It turned out a total of 18 people had been abducted, lured away under mental domination by the formian taskmasters, and of these, all had been craftsmen of one type or another, save for the Mayor of Elsewhere, an enigmatic human who'd been born on a chaotic plane and who was as chaotic and mercurial as they came.  It was difficult even to name him, for he changed names nearly as often as others changed their socks.  Why he had been taken was anybody's guess, but the problem now was finding out where he and the others had been taken, and how to get them back.One thing had been fairly certain: the abducted had likely been taken to more than one location.  Autopsies of the formian corpses had revealed they all had some kind of crystal surgically implanted into the base of their skulls.  Study had revealed them to be some kind of hive mind amplifier, which seemed to work in tandem with one another so the telepathic range was difficult to discern, although the Elsewhere leadership had been able to trace five general directions from which the crystals seemed to be resonating.  As a result, five makeshift devices had been hastily constructed to lead to the sources of the signals, likely the locations of the kidnapped villagers.  Each device was given to a team of planar scouts, each of which was assigned to locate the source of one particular signal, assess the strength of the forces therein, and - if within the team's capabilities - rescue the villagers and kill the formian threat.  Each team was also given a telepathic bond amulet, which was paired with an identical amulet held by a retired scout who was familiar with said group, to allow instant communication back with Elsewhere.  Amris was given the amulet for her team, as their Elsewhere counterpoint was her mentor, Lady Aurora Sunbeam."Where's the doohickey pointing to?" demanded Avoroth, as Amris fiddled with the tracking device."Back the way we came from the Factory," replied the celestial elf witch.  "On the forest gear.""We should head out directly," suggested Wilbur."Now?" whined Gonkle.  "It's still bright out.  You know I hate traveling in the daytime."  As an orc, bright sunlight made it hard for him to see, and the group had in the past preferred to travel at night.  As the Plane of Mechanus had no sun or stars, merely 12 hours of daylight followed by 12 hours of darkness, the orientation of any of its innumerable gears made no difference as to the illumination provided; there was no shade on one side of a gear because it was on the opposite side of the sun."It's been days already since they were taken," pointed out Amris.  "Waiting a few hours more likely won't have much of an effect.""It will give us time to gather provisions," remarked Avoroth.  "We'll need feed for the horses.  I don't intend to walk all the way to some formian ant nest of an unknown distance away.""Sounds good," agreed Gonkle, shielding his eyes with his hands.  "Let's leave when it gets dark."The gear upon which Elsewhere had landed had now rotated some distance since the group had returned from the mysterious kolyrut Factory, so once they took off they had to head in a counterspin direction to backtrack to where the gear they were presently on meshed up with the forest gear, at a right angle.  "The signal's pointing downward," confirmed Amris, checking her tracking device.  but as they crossed to the new gear, the elf frowned in confusion."What?" demanded Avoroth.  They'd just started their quest and already there were complications."That's weird," murmured Amris.  "The signal reversed course as we crossed over to the forest gear.  According to the signal, our destination is back the way we came.""That doesn't make any sense," scoffed Avoroth.  "You're reading it wrong.""No," corrected Wilbur.  "These gears all have two sides.  The formian nest we're looking for is probably on the other side of this forest gear."  Avoroth snorted; it made sense and the shadow druid was probably correct, but it irritated the cleric not to have figured that out himself."So how are we going to get onto the other side of this one?" asked Gonkle, looking around.  "Are there any holes in the gear?"  He didn't see any."We simply go over the edge of the gear," remarked Avoroth.  "If you've noticed, each gear has its own gravity plane.  One presumes if we jump over the edge, the gravity of one side will propel us 'downward,' but that 'downward' will become 'upward' once we pass the halfway mark through the gear.""So how do we fall 'upward' to get to the other side?" asked Gonkle, puzzled."I imagine our momentum will propel us, until we slow down and start to fall back the way we came.  We'll just need to stay close to the edge, flip over midway, and grab on to the edge of the other side when we get close enough.""Easy enough for us," agreed Wilbur.  "But what about our horses?"  Avoroth's frown returned; he hadn't thought about that."Let's let Pivot go check it out for us first," suggested Amris, sending her owl familiar to fly over to the other side and back.  Upon his return, he chittered and chirped and Amris translated.  "He says he was easily able to fly through the void between the gears, and the other side of the gear looks to be a barren desert.""Lovely," grumbled Avoroth."We could leave the horses behind," suggested Gonkle.  "Take them back to Elsewhere, I mean, and return on foot.""Absolutely not!" scowled Avoroth.  "I do not intend to trudge through a desert wasteland."  It was Amris who came up with a solution.  She had a fly spell prepared, and she cast it not upon herself but on her fiendish horse Flick, after tying the reins of Runtlemeat to his saddle.  Then Flick was prompted to fly off the edge of the gear, taking Gonkle and his steed along for the ride.  Amris and Flick ferried each of the other horses over to the desert side of the forest gear in that fashion, then did likewise for Tamaskan.Once everyone was on the back side of the gear, Amris checked her tracking device.  "Yep, the signal's coming from this direction," she said, pointing towards the middle of the gear."Can you determine how far away it is?" asked Avoroth."No way to tell.  Possibly several days.""Ugh," complained Avoroth.  "Let's get on with it, then."The group traveled through the desert, Gonkle enjoying the darkness.  The lack of illumination proved to be no issue, for all four of the scouts had darkvision, as did each of their Hellish steeds - Tamaskan was the only one making do with mere low-light vision, but she had her keen sense of smell to keep her following the rest of the group with no issues.Pivot, who had been flying above the group as they traveled, spotted a disturbance in the sands ahead and sent a warning to his mistress.  Crawling its way out of the desert sands that had been covering its body was a huge scorpion, easily 15 feet long, and even longer if the stinger-tipped tail raised over its body were flat behind it.  Pivot pointed out it had a crystal on its head, just behind its beady, black eyes.With the warning from her familiar, Amris was the first to react.  She rode Flick forward and cast a lightning bolt at the monstrous scorpion, blasting a line of scorch-marks across the back of its carapace.  It twitched spasmodically from the electrical attack, then charged the elf and her mount and caught her up in one of its clawed pincers, plucking her from Flick's back.Gonkle urged Runtlemeat into a charge, hacking into the scorpion's carapace with his falchion and laughing in delight at the prospect of a good fight.  But then another foe entered the combat: shocked at the massive damage their guard beast had taken by the elf's spell, a formian psychic warrior further back dug its way out of the sand, scurried forward, and touched the rising scorpion's tail.  A strange, magical energy channeled through them both, pulsing from the formian into the scorpion.Avoroth rode forward on Victor, casting a spiritual weapon as they approached.  The quarterstaff, composed of glowing energy, took form in midair and went crashing into the scorpion, slamming its tip onto the top of its head.  The cleric's focus was twofold: sending his spell into battle in his stead, while cautiously getting Victor to approach the scorpion so he might cast a healing spell upon the elf when it was safe to do so.Wilbur had his Hellish steed Blackie charge forward as he cast a shillelagh spell upon his runestaff.  Tamaskan ran along at his side.  Amris, trapped in the scorpion's pincer, cast a shocking grasp spell but was jostled around too much to be able to deploy it successfully.  The spell remained in hand, ready to discharge upon proper contact with her foe.  But the scorpion was applying pressure to its claw, and she felt as if she might be snipped into two at the waist.  The pain made it hard to concentrate on her spellcraft, and she feared her shocking grasp spell might fizzle away from lack of concentration - a fear that was only intensified when the scorpion's stinger stabbed her in the back, between her shoulder blades, the venom coursing through her bloodstream and taking a toll upon her battle-readiness.  The arachnid's other claw grabbed at Gonkle and scored a gash of pain across his torso, but the orc fighter pulled away before he too could be snatched up.  He took another swing at the scorpion with his falchion, but missed.Without a need to immediately heal its guard beast, the formian manifested a biofeedback power upon itself, although none of the planar scouts were familiar with the strange mental magics it seemed to be wielding.Avoroth leaned over from his mount and touched Amris, channeling a spell through his Boccob's Tome of Knowledge, converting it to a cure serious wounds spell.  Curative magic flooded over Amris's body, sealing up the worst of her wounds inflicted by the scorpion that still held her tightly in its left claw.  He couldn't do anything about the venom she'd been injected with, but at least she wouldn't die from her immediate wounds.Wilbur brought Blackie around behind the monstrous scorpion, hoping to avoid being struck by its poisonous stinger, and cast a neutralize poison spell upon it to prevent it from harming anyone else with its potentially lethal venom.  Tamaskan followed her master, and set part of the monstrous arachnid ablaze with a touch of her fiery tail.  And while it writhed in pain at the burning sensation back by its tail section, Amris finally got to deploy her shocking grasp spell, getting a good grip on the pincer still squeezing her abdomen.  Pivot flew around to the back of the scorpion, hoping to be able to dive in and rake it with his talons, not that his claws would do much against a foe that big.The scorpion snapped its free claw at Gonkle but failed to connect, so it crushed Amris further and stabbed her with its stinger for good measure, unaware that its venom had been fully neutralized by the shadow druid's spell.  But then a swing from the orc's falchion cut through one of its legs, causing it to stumble and collapse on one side...until the formian psychic warrior activated another empathic transfer power and sent more of its own life-energy into the scorpion, keeping the formians' guard-beast in the fight that much longer.Avoroth saw the flash of energy between the two foes and deduced some sort of healing was going on.  Realizing the scorpion wasn't as big a threat as it used to be now that its stinger-venom had been taken out of the equation, the cleric redirected his spiritual weapon spell to go attack the formian.  Then he cast a bless spell upon the scouts and their allies, the better to aid their attacks against their multilegged foes.Wilbur cast a barkskin spell on Avoroth, coming to a similar conclusion - that taking out the enemy's team primary healer was a good way to whittle down support for the rest of that team - and not wanting the formian to use similar tactics against the scouts.  Better by far to keep their healer up and about.  But while the druid was applying defensive tactics, Tamaskan carried on with the offense, biting the scorpion on a wounded leg and gnawing on it.  Her fiery tail also brushed against the scorpion's carapace, setting another small section ablaze.Amris, still caught up in the claw and realizing she wasn't likely ever going to get out of the creature's crushing pincer without first slaying it, cast a magic missile at her captor, while Pivot swooped down and raked the back of its tail with his talons.  The scorpion retaliated by squeezing its claws even tighter around the witch, causing her to gasp in pain - surely her torso couldn't take too much more compression!  But it also snapped its free claw at Gonkle again, and this time it managed to pull the orc fighter from his mount.But that merely meant Gonkle was even closer to his foe than ever.  With a vicious overhead blow, he swung down with his falchion with all his considerable might and drove the blade deep into the creature's head.  The scorpion quivered in the sand and then collapsed, unconscious, on the ground, its pincers going slack and its two captives released to freedom.The formian psychic warrior could scarcely believe its eyes.  It used the last of its psionic energy to heal the monstrous scorpion one last time, waking it up to full consciousness once again as the worst of its wounds sealed up.  Cursing as he watched the scorpion get back to its feet, Avoroth channeled one of his most powerful spells into an inflict serious wounds spell, but then failed to touch the scorpion as it skittered backward, as if suddenly afraid of these creatures who had already bested it twice.Wilbur and Tamaskan both attacked the scorpion, the druid with his shillelagh-powered runestaff and the dire fell fox with her teeth and flaming tail.  Amris ran back out of immediate reach of the scorpion - she didn't want to get caught up in its pincer again! - and fired off another magic missile spell at it through her wand.  But the scorpion seemed to have its entire attention on Gonkle for the moment, grabbing at him with both claws and stinging him with his de-venomed tail stinger.  But the orc fighter was, if anything, enjoying this - wounds and all - and gave a furious swing of his falchion that cut deep into the scorpion's head, slaying it instantly.To the group's surprise, the formian psychic warrior launched an all-out attack upon Avoroth, biting at him with its mandibles, scratching at him with its claws, and stabbing him with its own stinger, this one still full of formian venom.  Fortunately, for once the cleric managed to avoid getting stung; the other two times he'd been up against formian warriors, he'd succumbed to their venom to the maximum extent.  But Avoroth vented his frustration upon the formian as a representative of his entire hivebound race, lashing out with his hand, which was still imbued with an inflict serious wounds spell.  The spell was more than the overspent formian could handle, and he died instantly.An examination of the corpses revealed what appeared to be something very much like a crystal spearhead embedded in the scorpion's body, just behind its eyes, seemingly the same type of crystal found in the corpses of the formians who'd attacked Elsewhere days ago.  Avoroth theorized it not only acted as an amplifier for the formian hivemind telepathy, but also "linked in" the scorpion to the hivemind itself.  As for the psychic warrior, the crystal implanted into the base of its brain seemed to have spread, converting nearly half of its gray matter into glowing, purple crystal."No weapons, and no treasure," noted Gonkle as he wiped his blade off on the scorpion's corpse.  "Bummer.""Indeed," agreed Avoroth.  "Come on, we've got another hour of travel before we lose the darkness and need to make camp.  I'd like to get there, finish our business, and return home as soon as possible."  The others agreed, so they all mounted back up and continued on their way, trailing Amris on Flick, as they followed the signal from the tracking device she held in her hand. - - - So this adventure turned out to be a "travel" adventure.  Presumably, next session we'll get to the nest we're tracking and possibly rescue any Elsewhere captives, and maybe even take down the nest.</blockquote>

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