The Realms of Enlightenment: The Grey Companions

[Jon Potter]

As I started reading, I wonderd if you were going to use Dead Gods then as I went on and I was rewarded, I wondered how Huzair plans to get his prize mined. Or if even the Heart is physical thing to be mined, maybe it's merely a destination....... *ponders*

Well, this little jaunt is more of a teaser than anything. I'm laying some groundwork for later on. As much as Huzair would like to single-handedly solve all of the party's troubles (just for the bragging rights, mind you) that wouldn't be very fair to everyone else.

 

[Rel]

Hey Jon, just to completely hijack your Story Hour for a sec, would you happen to be free to play an ALL NEW Sky Galleons of Mars game on Saturday, January 5th?

 

[Jon Potter]

Hey Jon, just to completely hijack your Story Hour for a sec, would you happen to be free to play an ALL NEW Sky Galleons of Mars game on Saturday, January 5th?

I believe I am.

 

[Rel]

I believe I am.

Well then you have brought me tidings of comfort and joy. I'll PM you with details soon.

 

[Jon Potter]

[Realms #420] The Portal

Recovering from his stumble rolling forward on his feet like a boulder rolling down hill, Karak peered down the tunnel into which the worm had disappeared. There was no sight of the creature and he grinned.

"Now that be the way, Shelia. Did you see that baddie retreat?"He praised his axe, then rubbed his beard contemplatively. "Too bad you can nae do fire too. I wonder since that monster's breath weapon was cold if me frost rune really bit inta the beast like you should."

"Karak!" Ayremac called from nearby. "Give me a hand here!" The dwarf turned and spotted the holy warrior struggling without much success to lift Shamalin. The cleric was rigid as Ayremac heaved her to her feet. Karak hustled over and lent his considerable strength to the task and soon the two had Shamalin more or less upright and suspended between them. At once, he felt the warmth of Ayremac's healing aura knitting closed the wounds to his arm.

"Where be Morier?" Karak asked, glancing around at the empty battlefield.

"Ixin took him below," the Officer of Umba grunted, "to the portal."

They rushed down the narrow set of stone stairs that corkscrewed down into the bedrock and before they'd made it very far, Shamalin groaned herself back to consciousness thanks to the lingering effects of Ayremac's Sacred Healing. They kept supporting her until they'd reached the base of the stairs where it opened into a cramped cave two-thirds flooded by water. There they let her go, and she leaned, trembling against the wall of the cave.

"So... c-c-cold," she chattered, but neither Karak nor Ayremac replied. They were both awestruck by the sight before them.

A liquid pool dominated the chamber, whose walls were carved everywhere with tiny symbols in a script none could read. A small, flat outcropping rose up on the far side of the pool and the top surface of the rock was glowing with a bright, silvery light, looking as if someone had brought the full moon underground. The water reflected the light, rippling like quicksilver and sending waves of light dancing across the rune-covered walls.

"Karak!" Ixin bellowed and the dwarf turned toward her, dimly aware that she had been calling his name for several seconds. "Do you think that the worm can reach us here?"

"No. This be solid rock, twenty feet thick at its thinnest point," he replied, gearing himself up for a discourse on the strength of stone until he noticed Morier clutching to the drakeling's thick arm. "Oi, so that was why you were nae at my side battlin' the worm. You froze in your tracks did ye?" The albino's face was morbidly blue, and ice crystals winked in his hair. His eyes, like two pools of blood in his face, burned with life.

"Had to... let you do... something," Morier stammered through clenched teeth. "After... the giant." Karak harrumphed and stepped forward to lay hands on the eldritch warrior. He muttered a prayer and sent healing energy into his friend.

"There ye go, lad. No need to be ashamed o' yourself. Elves are not known for fightin' big monsters," Karak said with a wink. "Speakin' of elves. Nice work, Anania. Do nae think I forgot ye." The scout looked up from where she stood at the base of the stairs, transferring arrows from one quiver to another.

"You did nice work harrying the beast with your bow work," Karak went on. "I also noticed you did nae run." Anania's face flinched a little at that last comment.

"You can expect me to stand and fight alongside you," she said coolly. "It is, after all, my mission."

Karak nodded. Muttering to himself, he added, "Hrmpf. I'll have to be figurin' her inta the battle plans that be fer sure."

"What now?" Ixin asked, looking at the pool. "Do we just wait for Huzair to step through?"

"He responded to my Sending - before the worm attacked - and said that we should all step through the portal to him," Shamalin said. "He mentioned finding a way to Dridana's heart and said that he'd met some Mercane traders. Does that mean anything to anyone?" There were muttered denials and the shaking of heads all around.

"I thought that the pull in Morier's head was leading us to Dridana's heart," Ixin observed.

"And the deva said that the portal requires the sacrifice of a magical object to activate it," Ayremac added. "I don't like the thought of losing one of the elemental blades to this thing."

"At the risk of sounding self-serving," Morier interrupted. "Let's get everyone healed and rested before we do a whole lot of anything."

"First, let me cast Portal Beacon so that Huzair can find us, then I'll pray to Flor to heal our wounds," said Shamalin, as she clutched her holy symbol and began to cast her spell.

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

"First, let me cast Portal Beacon so that Huzair can find us, then I'll pray to Flor to heal our wounds," said Shamalin, as she clutched her holy symbol and began to cast her spell.

I would have thought Ayremac would've halted her and told her to rework her priorities there.

 

[Jon Potter]

I don't know, HM. None of the PCs were in a life-threatening condition, and without Shamalin's spell to guide him, Huzair is essentially stranded on the astral plane with no way to get back. Her priorities seem about right to me.

 

[Jon Potter]

[Huzair #3] Pull the Other One

Huzair rocketed away from the githyanki outpost as fast as his thoughts could carry him. As he went, he unsheathed Flameblade and what he saw made him stop short. The short sword was just that... a sword. No flames wreathed the weapon, no voice like a crackling campfire spoke as the blade came free of its sheath. It was just a chunk of metal, unremarkable except for the single fire rune etched into the blade above the hand guard.

"Oh, this is not good," the wizard said and drew himself to a full stop. He looked back toward the outpost which seemed smaller now, but still commanded the view. He couldn't see the mercanes' ship anymore; it was blotted out against the bulk of Akiv-tchai. Maybe he could find them and pay the gold to send him back. Maybe-

Almost absently, Huzair noticed then that the short sword was twisting sluggishly in his hand. It was almost imperceptible, like a magnet tugging at the blade, making it twist weakly. On Oerune, he might not even have noticed it, but here, without gravity pulling at him, it was enough to draw his attention.

Experimentally, he released his grip on the handle and watched as the blade drifted for a moment, then gradually straightened out and began moving away from him at an angle. Before it got too far, he grabbed it again, arresting its forward motion.

Could this be Shamalin's pull, he wondered? It was subtle but insistent and he was just about ready to follow it when he let out a surprised yelp. It felt as if someone had suddenly reached into his head and begun to tug on his brain. He had a vision of a glittering swirl of color, like oiled mithril, set into the surface of a chunk of jagged rock floating in the astral void and knew with certainty that it was several hours of travel away. And while the sword's pull drew him back in the same general direction as the githyanki outpost, this was in nearly the opposite direction.

Clearly this latter was the pull about which Shamalin had spoken. Why it had been so long in coming, the wizard could only guess. Until he met up with them, of course. Then he could simply ask or better yet, just chide them for dragging their feet.

He smiled, sheathed his sword and set off like an arrow int he direction of the pull.



The journey took as long as it took. Huzair had little success in trying to gauge the passage of minutes or hours. In the unchanging void of the astral plane he felt neither hunger nor thirst. There was nothing to tire him, and the scenery changed little. But he could sense the distance to the portal shrinking incrementally as he traveled so he pressed on.

After a time, he spotted the silhouette of something dark and ovoid floating in the distance along his path and without knowing why, he could tell that it was his destination. He willed himself to go faster, but it seemed to have no effect; he traveled as fast as he traveled, approaching the dark shape purposefully.

As he drew nearer, he began to pick out details of the floating object. It was egg-shaped or rather half-an-egg-shaped - as if someone had split it lengthwise. The edge was rough and jagged, and subtle contours marked one side while the other seemed flat and smooth. Gradually the hills and valleys on the one side resolved themselves into the rough approximation of a bestial face as Huzair approached. Its subtleties were unclear, lacking in details of individuality, but it was clearly a humanoid visage of lupine character - a gnoll, perhaps, or a werewolf. Its mouth was open in a perpetual snarl as it stared off into the silver expanse of the astral.

Huzair was glad when he spotted the swirling metallic pool that marked the portal Shamalin had intended him to use. As he'd watched the slowly spinning face, he'd had the uncomfortable certainty that the portal would be inside that great stone maw. He was relieved as he swooped in toward the flat side of the stone head that his gut had been wrong.

As he approached he felt gravity of a sort assert itself on him, drawing him inexorably down to the drifting island. He landed easily, his feet scritching on bits of pulverized rock that covered the flat surface. He took a quick look around and guessed that the stone face was several hundred feet across at its narrowest point, and perhaps twice that in the other direction. Scattered here and there across the plain were bits of shattered bone and dozens of humanoid skulls. They all seemed fresh, but the timeless nature of this plane made it difficult to determine with any certainty - they could well have laid there for a hundred years for all Huzair knew.

The portal swirled on the ground nearby, and sparing another glance at the skeletal debris, the wizard approached the color pool, sucked in a deep breath and stepped into it.

 

[Jon Potter]

[Realms #420a] The Doppleganger Effect

The Mercybringer shared Flor's blessings among her wounded companions before attending to her own frost-bitten injuries, and soon had everyone fully healed. Only the nasty memories of the damage persisted, but there was little that her divine miracles could do to alleviate that. Only time could ease those pains.

While Shamalin cast her spells, Morier argued that the portal was some sort of trap with the message from Huzair serving as the bait. He was quite certain that Dridana's heart wasn't on another plane of existence; he could still feel the pull urging him eastward, after all.

"I admit that it does seem peculiar that the answer would lie beyond a portal that eats magic items when we need SPECIFIC magic items to get Dridana's heart," Ayremac observed. "But I can't believe that the deva lied to us."

"Who's to say she did?" Morier said. "I think Huzair's is the falsehood in this."

"The deva actually warned against going through the portal ourselves," Shamalin added. "She said that it wouldn't help our cause to go through the portal now."

"Which means that it may help in the future?" Ixin asked and Shamalin shrugged.

"We can't know the future with any certainty," Morier answered. "But her warning does make Huzair's assertion even more suspect." Karak harrumphed.

"Now that my head be a mite more clear, I'm beginin' ta think on what the white elf be sayin'. How do we know Huzair be himself or maybe he be ensorcelled with a spell?" the dwarf pondered, wringing his hands around his axe handle as he spoke. "Or just awestruck over bein' with Astrals or somethin'?"

"So we just leave him there?" Ayremac scoffed. "There's got to be a better answer than that."

"All's I be sayin' is maybe we need to rethink our plan," replied the dwarf. "I think we need ta decide which way we are going to do this and then take the risks as they may."

"I think that one person should load up on magical items and then step through with all four swords," Ayremac began and Ixin held up a hand.

"Three swords," she interrupted. "Huzair's got the fourth with him." Ayremac nodded.

"Right. Three swords," the holy warrior conceded. "Then the rest of us take one magic item that we're willing to sacrifice and step through afterward."

"I would sacrifice my Ring of Breakfast," Shamalin offered.

"Hold on," cautioned Morier. "So this trip will cost us six magic items to get to the Astral plane and another six to get back? Plus one more for Huzair on the return trip? That seems an awfully steep price to pay unless we absolutely have to."

"Just as I was sayin'," Karak grunted. "Do we all go to Huzair and find Dridana's heart? Or do we go in to find Huzair and take him back and follow it the old fashioned way an' follow the white one's head?" He indicated Morier with a sweep of his axe.

"I don't think we should blindly squander our resources if there's another way," Morier told him and Karak nodded.

"Agreed, lad. I think the safest thing is to go get Huzair, followin' Ayremac's plan. He goes in to get Huzair and brings him back. Then we can ask him all our questions - interrogate him to our hearts' content to determine if he be ensorcelled or not," the dwarf told them. "We can always go back through the portal right? It's not like it turns off after we use it? Or course, the price be high."

"I am willing to pay such a price," Ayremac announced.

"Then it's settled. I say get Huzair and then follow the pull in Morier's head," Karak said stamping his axe haft on the ground for emphasis. "At least we get to keep our stuff."



The process of preparing Ayremac for a trip through the portal was long and arduous. About half-way through the process, Morier began to think that perhaps Karak would be a better choice to go through and grab Huzair, prompting a debate that continued for nearly an hour before it was ultimately decided that Ayremac should be the one to go by virtue of his greater mobility and extraplanar nature. He was just getting ready to trudge across the pool and enter the glowing portal when it suddenly flared, growing brighter and brighter until it was painful to look upon, throwing the entire chamber into harsh contrast.

When they were able to blinkingly open their eyes, they saw Huzair standing tall and dark atop the flat outcropping of rock. He seemed surrounded by a corona of iridescent steam. He shook his head and hopped down into the pool, which was only little over a foot deep, and started toward the companions on the shore.

"Holy crap, that pull gave me a headache," he groused as he came, but his smile showed white and dangerous in his black face.

"Huzair..." Ayremac sputtered, casting a wary glance back at Shamalin and the others. "We... we were just preparing to come get you."

"Thanks, fly boy," the wizard smirked. "But I did not need saving." He spread his arms and headed for Shamalin. He grinned. "Of course, I did miss some of you." Ayremac stepped into the pool and forestalled the mage's advance with a gauntleted hand to the chest.

"Hold up, Huzair," the holy warrior cautioned. "Are you all right, first?" Huzair waved a hand dismissively.

"Oh, I am okay - just a little tired," the wizard said. "What time is it anyway? What day is it for that matter? Wow, the astral plane is neat. I cannot wait to go back."

"Tell us what you have seen?" the Officer of Umba pressed, ignoring the wizard's questions. "What happened?"

"I was sitting in the lap of luxury; that is what happened," he said with a mischievous grin. "I was doing some serious business on the astral plane - could have made some nice coin. I found some gentlemen who may help us... well for a price, of course. Damn, they had style. I may go back to work for them some day."

"This nae be Huzair," Karak growled, raising his axe to chest height. "Talk o' work seems ill-suited to the wizard's mouth." Huzair looked at him archly, his mouth twisted into a disapproving pucker.

"Oh, put down your big axe, fuzz ball," the mage said. "Are you just mad I did not want to give you a hug too?" Karak harrumphed.

"I don't know," Ixin offered. "He sounds like Huzair to me."

"Me too," added Morier. "And I've known him longer than any of you."

"Do I need to prove myself?" the wizard said, planting a fist on his hip. His eyes glittered with delight. "Should I remind you all of how I found Morier, dancing around buck naked through the woods?"

"Nae," Karak scoffed. "Many folk know tha' story. Ye've spread tha' tale far an' wide."

"I do love to bring that up," the mage agreed. "It is a great story. Comedy gold!"

"Would you submit to a Detect Thoughts spell?" Shamalin asked and Huzair studied her face.

"Are you sure you are ready for that, beautiful?" the mage grinned lasciviously. "I cannot be held responsible for what you see in there, but you can go ahead if it will ease your own mind." Shamalin nodded and began casting.

"So tell us what happened to you, Huzair," Morier prompted and the wizard turned to look at him. He sighed and nodded.

"I met some merchants called the Mercane," he began. "They may be able to help us find Dridana's body."

"You said 'Dridana's Heart' when you replied to Shamalin's Sending," Ayremac pointed out and Huzair's brow furrowed.

"Did I? Sorry," the wizard said, pressing his hand dramatically against his forehead. "Hard to work under such stress. Something about those Mercane being 12 feet tall and having lots of teeth made me nervous. But I think if they were properly compensated, they could be useful in the future. I will write down their names so if something ever happens to me you can contact them."

"It's Huzair," Shamalin said with a note of disgust in her voice. She looked away from him, blushing to the tips of her pointed ears. the wizard smirked at her embarrassment.

"Hey! I warned you," he said and stepped forward toward Morier. "And speaking of warning: nice job on the watch, by the way!" He punctuated the statement by giving the albino a shove in the chest. "Try to give me more warning next time, Whitey. Someone not as savvy as me would have wound up getting killed on the astral plane." He turned an unsubtle and meaningful eye on Karak as he said this.

"But anyway, do share what have you been up to the last... how many days was I gone?" The wizard asked.

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

A good dwarf would've brought the argument up again, right when Ayremac was going to step through, that he should be the one to go instead of Ayremac and delayed the rescue attempt another hour. Karak is slipping I tell you!