Zad
First Post
The next update
OOC Notes:
Exp is a flat 2000 per person.
With us this week we had a guest! Dave came and played Windsaber for the night. And a good time was had by all.
This Week’s Adventure:
Most of the group went to Nyr Dyv to attempt to find Ralishaz again. I really couldn’t quite follow the why’s and wherefor’s. If the Shadow King is a shadow of Therizdun, then what light is casting the shadow? Venn saw that, and it drove him mad. But would he remember? And could he even describe it in terms that would have any meaning? Scorch thought it was important to investigate since it seemed to be linked to the Silverring, and there was little risk at any rate.
They appeared on the shores of the Nyr Dyv, and eventually a pulsing light – a lantern archon – came to investigate them. They made their plea and after a time, a circle rose up from the ground and the Gambler sprouted from the earth.
“Thank you for seeing us,” Aethramyr said.
“It seems like it was just yesterday,” he said wryly.
Aethramyr quickly explained their purpose and the Gambler grimaced, searching for words. “This memory is still with us, to a degree. It is… understanding the basic fundamental nature of the universe. And it was unpleasant. It is something you will have to master one day, Aethramyr. The Far Realms are nothing and everything.”
“But then what separates it from Limbo?” Scorch asked.
The Gambler looked over coolly “I was talking to the paladin.”
Scorch stayed silent.
The Gambler continued on to Aethramyr. “Inconstancy is its only constant. But you cannot bring your friends through the Dreaming with you – that way is only for you. The focus you gave the wizard is an abomination but we have tolerated it for a while. I suggest you get rid of it.”
“Do you know why the Silverring might have gone to the Far Realms?” Aethramyr asked.
“It is difficult to say. The Silverring was ever aware of the threat the theerparts represent. I think he was looking for a solution to your imminent problem. I believe you factored into this, as did the people of the Testing. The Silverring was responsible for chosing each and every one of you, even Rackhir.”
They thanked the Gambler and took their leave. There was much to know, but it seemed to all hover on the edge of understanding or even words themselves. Of course this left another approach – start looking and wait for the trouble to find us.
It’s worked well in the past.
We all met up at the Lendore Isles. Aethramyr wanted to examine the Silverring’s cave before we went to the Far Realms to see if there were any clues left behind for us. An elf was waiting for us at the docks, knowing we were coming. He offered us refreshments and seemed somewhat disappointed that we didn’t accept but he understood. Instead he took us directly to the Silverring’s cave.
Entry was not a simple process, as he deactivated various traps and wards along the way. We could have bypassed them ourselves most likely, but it would have been inconvenient for them to reset them all and there was no need. The cave, which started out wet with the sea air, became warmer and drier and finally opened tino a large chamber. There were stacks of books as old as the Sule empire and piles of chests. To one side was a stone relief of elves representing the battle between the grey elves, the humans, and the storm lords. Amidst this sprawled across nearly 100 feet on a bed of silver coins was the sleeping form of the Silverring.
We began looking around, having no idea what we were looking for. On one side was a passageway that held a silver mirror eight feet high in a frame. Bolo and Dravot noticed it quickly and were drawn to it. The surface rippled ever so slightly.
Without hesitation Bolo put his head through the mirror which parted like water, shocking us at his lack of caution.
[OOC: Says Wizardru “Tomb of horrors is going to be fun with you.”]
Beyond the mirror was an open glade – the mirror was a portal to a demi-plane. We set that aside and continued investigating the cave.
One one bookcase was some hastily scrawled abyssal script. It was odd for its presence but also for its somewhat obvious nature. Obvious to us at any rate. Knowing Fraz had an interest in all this made us extremely cautious so rather than just disable it ourselves, we decided to call in the professional.
You see, we hadn’t quite realized that Valanthe wasn’t with us. She drifts in and out so much that we tend to just assume she’s about. I used to be able to follow her movements most of the time, but lately it’s becoming the more rare case that I can find her. And that’s saying quite a bit. It turned out she wasn’t with us, so we asked her to check out the bookcase.
Valanthe arrived while most of the rest of the group investigated the demi-plane. The more she looked, the more impressed she became. The trap appeared to simply set fire to the bookcase, but that was only the start. At a deeper level, it would cause a chain reaction and set fire to a great deal of the books and scrolls here. But that too was a layer of deception. The whole thing was a recent addition but must have taken several weeks to prepare in stages. Transvalent magic was clearly involved here. The key seemed to be disabling it – if you saw the trap and disabled it in the obvious manner, it would trigger a magic circle of some kind and transport most of the cave and its contents to some other plane, likely somewhere in the abyss. To circumvent it, you would have to disable it in exactly the right manner.
And therefore I suggested we don’t. The trap would do nothing unless you tampered with it – it was all risk, with no reward. It could be ignored for now, provided the people of the Testing were warned not to tamper with it. It was a tar pit and potentially had more deception layered on it and it was clearly left as curiousity for us. Therefore the easiest way to defy Fraz was to simply leave it be.
In the demi-plane, there was a forest glade and a mountain nearby with carved stone steps leading up it. As they went up the stairs they heard a booming voice call “It’s about time. I was beginning to wonder…” Then as the titan peered down the stairs and saw the group, he said “… who are you?”
After a moment, recognition dawned on both sides. The titan was Benkalvar, Gelban’s son whom we had met after Gelban’s rescue. The Silverring taught him planar mechanics here in preparation for him to take over this demi-plane.
Scorch took a look at some of his workbooks and the material was quite advanced. Scorch is no slouch on planar mechanics but some of it was completely beyond him. They had a discussion on the Far Realms but Benkalvar did not know much on that subject.
The group returned to the cave and learned of the trap. While they were gone I had also learned that the people of the Testing did a regular inventory of the contents of the cave. I asked them to bring those records so that we could see anything that had come or gone starting in the weeks prior to the Silverring’s sleep that we might find some clues. It turned out most of the missing inventory was in the possession of Benkalvar, but there were books missing on the ancient Sule empire and one on the creation of the binders written by the Silverring himself. Also there was a missing tome that was a specific reference on the formation of the Sule empire including a biography of some of the emperors.
Interesting but not directly helpful for today’s job. It was time to go.
Scorch had to do some extra work to make the plane shift move us to the Far Realms via the focus Aethramyr brought back. It had grown tentacles and a mouth and latched on to Scorch and ultimately bit him as the spell was being cast. We were torn in new directions stretched in ways I can’t describe. Reality suddenly almost snapped back into place and we were in a large green field running over a slight hill. The sky was blue, the sun was clear, and there were light clouds in the sky.
I tried to prepare myself for anything, but this was definitely not what I expected.
A hundred feet away, and imp sat on a rock, muttering. Bolo cast True Seeing and the energy rippled off in every direction and the imp’s head snapped up looking in our direction.
The imp shuddered. “Faces…” it said. Then it fell over.
Then I noticed a deep rumble from far away. It slowly built in intensity and the ground started shaking.
And at that moment I knew: It was Bolo’s fault.
And then we noticed that Dravot had no shadow. The rest of us did, but Dravot had none. (And not the shadow of light we had grown used to either.) When Scorch shapeshifted, he gave off a similar wave of energy. He didn’t look like a solar but more a charicature of one made of stained glass.
And then the sky turned blood red and the ground began resolving into shapes. The grass was drawn down as the ground formed into thousands upon thousands of faces that started gibbering and gnashing in a rolling wave. They came down from a mountain and devoured anything they touched.
Scorch wasted no time and shot straight up while the rest of us got into the air. From the opposite side another wave of faces was coming, consuming a nearby village and everything in it. Scorch suddenly hit something in the sky and tore through…skin.
He burst out of what I can only assume was a creature that we were inside. Scorch was suddenly exposed to the entirety of the Far Realms and his mind reeled from the unnatural geometry. Behind him, faces appeared at the edge of the hole and began vomiting new skin.
We wasted no more time and left the creature. It took us some time to even begin to get used to the insane sights before us, and I wonder if we’ll ever be the same from it. Most of us were disturbed in some way by it, but we moved on finally.
The things I saw I have to fight to remember let alone describe. Nodules of organic quartz, ooze flying thousands of direcitns. Things floating everywhere. Strange sounds permeate the place – sometimes a word can be made out but most of it is gibberish.
There was a tree-ish thing. It had branches and roots but wasn’t wood but more like slime or crystal. Then a dozen leaves broke off the branches and were actually fleshy creatures vaguely bat-like. They were interconnected by some kind of trail of goo. They moved towards us like a flight of predators and Scorch made out words in ancient Sule. “Not we.”
They were moving fast, or perhaps were just closer than they seemed – distance was so hard to judge here. Scorch threw a lightning ball, but it arced over the net with no effect. As the spell flew, it tore the Far Realms and left a starry trail behind that I had only seen once but had never forgotten – it looked like the puddles of stars under Castle Greyhawk in the cambion’s prison chamber.
The bats then separated into various fleshy bits hovering around a central part and continued coming towards us. Valanthe drew Shadowcut and it started speaking! Very, very loudly.
“YES! WE SHALL VANQUISH THEM!”
If we hadn’t been under attack in the Far Realms, I might have found more time to cherish the look on Valanthe’s face. Shatterspike too was speaking but with somewhat less… enthusiasm. Fortunately my bow said nothing. I suspect this may be beause it was already part of something alive.
Since lightning was not working, I tried a fireball from the bow. It did seem to have some effect but the bats kept coming. In response the bats drew closer, and then the web energized with a dark black power and shot forth a spray of energy. It manifested as a windstorm which buffeted several of us about. Windsaber fell off the flying carpet but I think that was more due to the fact that he believed he would fall.
[OOC: I then called them the “Tholian Bats”]
They were close now, and we just had at them in the way that we do. Swords and spells flew around and we managed to hack them apart and collect ourselves. On the “tree”, new leaves were growing to replace the destroyed ones. But they weren’t moving and so we moved on.
We could spot several silver cords in the area but had no way to tell which we were looking for, or if they were it. Dravot resorted to powerful divination magic and revealed that the Silverring was in the stomach of a creature called Xukrischis (which was like the thing we appeared in.) And we had a sense of how to get there. Sort of.
As we began moving in that “direction”, everything suddenly shifted. The “sky” became a whitish color. Objects faded in and out. The Silverring was now in a different creature’s stomach entirely.
Dravot and Scorch had a discussion that I just couldn’t follow involving planar mechanics and dimensions. We had to translate to a different “place” or axis to align with the Silverring. Scorch managed to move the group and we were now in a position where we could move “physically” to reach the Silverring. After the translation, Scorch had grown some kind of sheath over his head and his eye was pulled back. He was hearing the voices of ancient Sule emperors. Emperor Zinkman. (The first Sule emperor was Emperor Zinkman Ad Zol.) Apparently the djinn put him here as retribution for his creation of the binders. St. Cuthbert broke his mind when Zinkman declared himself a god, and the djinn put him here and made him immortal so he could not die. Scorch was, quite simply, losing it.
It was about this time that paragon fire beholders started looking really good to me.
We continued to move towards the old dragon. In our path came two massive creatures, like fifty foot long centaur but with the heads of lizards and their arms ended in swords. We threw several spells but they not only ignored them but sent some of the energy back at us. Then Scorch managed to paralyze both of them, and we dispatched them without any fuss. But Scorch… the cowl was covering more of his head after the spell. He was changing into something. I could only hope we finished here before he lost it completely.
More movement, and something began to come into focus. It was all at once gigantic and yet not so. It took time but I made it at some seventy feet long. It emitted strange noises and odors. There were strands of mucus ten feet across. On one end were hard ridges resembling a mouth, while the other end was tapered and secreting something.
In its massive body of mucus, creatures floated. I could make out several silver cords that led inside it, including one particularly large cord that led to a large silvery form in the center of the creature. We had found the Silverring. But how to get him out?
“Well…” said a familiar voice “that certainly looks like a problem.”
Aethramyr said “Hello Fraz.”
OOC Notes:
Exp is a flat 2000 per person.
With us this week we had a guest! Dave came and played Windsaber for the night. And a good time was had by all.
This Week’s Adventure:
Most of the group went to Nyr Dyv to attempt to find Ralishaz again. I really couldn’t quite follow the why’s and wherefor’s. If the Shadow King is a shadow of Therizdun, then what light is casting the shadow? Venn saw that, and it drove him mad. But would he remember? And could he even describe it in terms that would have any meaning? Scorch thought it was important to investigate since it seemed to be linked to the Silverring, and there was little risk at any rate.
They appeared on the shores of the Nyr Dyv, and eventually a pulsing light – a lantern archon – came to investigate them. They made their plea and after a time, a circle rose up from the ground and the Gambler sprouted from the earth.
“Thank you for seeing us,” Aethramyr said.
“It seems like it was just yesterday,” he said wryly.
Aethramyr quickly explained their purpose and the Gambler grimaced, searching for words. “This memory is still with us, to a degree. It is… understanding the basic fundamental nature of the universe. And it was unpleasant. It is something you will have to master one day, Aethramyr. The Far Realms are nothing and everything.”
“But then what separates it from Limbo?” Scorch asked.
The Gambler looked over coolly “I was talking to the paladin.”
Scorch stayed silent.
The Gambler continued on to Aethramyr. “Inconstancy is its only constant. But you cannot bring your friends through the Dreaming with you – that way is only for you. The focus you gave the wizard is an abomination but we have tolerated it for a while. I suggest you get rid of it.”
“Do you know why the Silverring might have gone to the Far Realms?” Aethramyr asked.
“It is difficult to say. The Silverring was ever aware of the threat the theerparts represent. I think he was looking for a solution to your imminent problem. I believe you factored into this, as did the people of the Testing. The Silverring was responsible for chosing each and every one of you, even Rackhir.”
They thanked the Gambler and took their leave. There was much to know, but it seemed to all hover on the edge of understanding or even words themselves. Of course this left another approach – start looking and wait for the trouble to find us.
It’s worked well in the past.
We all met up at the Lendore Isles. Aethramyr wanted to examine the Silverring’s cave before we went to the Far Realms to see if there were any clues left behind for us. An elf was waiting for us at the docks, knowing we were coming. He offered us refreshments and seemed somewhat disappointed that we didn’t accept but he understood. Instead he took us directly to the Silverring’s cave.
Entry was not a simple process, as he deactivated various traps and wards along the way. We could have bypassed them ourselves most likely, but it would have been inconvenient for them to reset them all and there was no need. The cave, which started out wet with the sea air, became warmer and drier and finally opened tino a large chamber. There were stacks of books as old as the Sule empire and piles of chests. To one side was a stone relief of elves representing the battle between the grey elves, the humans, and the storm lords. Amidst this sprawled across nearly 100 feet on a bed of silver coins was the sleeping form of the Silverring.
We began looking around, having no idea what we were looking for. On one side was a passageway that held a silver mirror eight feet high in a frame. Bolo and Dravot noticed it quickly and were drawn to it. The surface rippled ever so slightly.
Without hesitation Bolo put his head through the mirror which parted like water, shocking us at his lack of caution.
[OOC: Says Wizardru “Tomb of horrors is going to be fun with you.”]
Beyond the mirror was an open glade – the mirror was a portal to a demi-plane. We set that aside and continued investigating the cave.
One one bookcase was some hastily scrawled abyssal script. It was odd for its presence but also for its somewhat obvious nature. Obvious to us at any rate. Knowing Fraz had an interest in all this made us extremely cautious so rather than just disable it ourselves, we decided to call in the professional.
You see, we hadn’t quite realized that Valanthe wasn’t with us. She drifts in and out so much that we tend to just assume she’s about. I used to be able to follow her movements most of the time, but lately it’s becoming the more rare case that I can find her. And that’s saying quite a bit. It turned out she wasn’t with us, so we asked her to check out the bookcase.
Valanthe arrived while most of the rest of the group investigated the demi-plane. The more she looked, the more impressed she became. The trap appeared to simply set fire to the bookcase, but that was only the start. At a deeper level, it would cause a chain reaction and set fire to a great deal of the books and scrolls here. But that too was a layer of deception. The whole thing was a recent addition but must have taken several weeks to prepare in stages. Transvalent magic was clearly involved here. The key seemed to be disabling it – if you saw the trap and disabled it in the obvious manner, it would trigger a magic circle of some kind and transport most of the cave and its contents to some other plane, likely somewhere in the abyss. To circumvent it, you would have to disable it in exactly the right manner.
And therefore I suggested we don’t. The trap would do nothing unless you tampered with it – it was all risk, with no reward. It could be ignored for now, provided the people of the Testing were warned not to tamper with it. It was a tar pit and potentially had more deception layered on it and it was clearly left as curiousity for us. Therefore the easiest way to defy Fraz was to simply leave it be.
In the demi-plane, there was a forest glade and a mountain nearby with carved stone steps leading up it. As they went up the stairs they heard a booming voice call “It’s about time. I was beginning to wonder…” Then as the titan peered down the stairs and saw the group, he said “… who are you?”
After a moment, recognition dawned on both sides. The titan was Benkalvar, Gelban’s son whom we had met after Gelban’s rescue. The Silverring taught him planar mechanics here in preparation for him to take over this demi-plane.
Scorch took a look at some of his workbooks and the material was quite advanced. Scorch is no slouch on planar mechanics but some of it was completely beyond him. They had a discussion on the Far Realms but Benkalvar did not know much on that subject.
The group returned to the cave and learned of the trap. While they were gone I had also learned that the people of the Testing did a regular inventory of the contents of the cave. I asked them to bring those records so that we could see anything that had come or gone starting in the weeks prior to the Silverring’s sleep that we might find some clues. It turned out most of the missing inventory was in the possession of Benkalvar, but there were books missing on the ancient Sule empire and one on the creation of the binders written by the Silverring himself. Also there was a missing tome that was a specific reference on the formation of the Sule empire including a biography of some of the emperors.
Interesting but not directly helpful for today’s job. It was time to go.
Scorch had to do some extra work to make the plane shift move us to the Far Realms via the focus Aethramyr brought back. It had grown tentacles and a mouth and latched on to Scorch and ultimately bit him as the spell was being cast. We were torn in new directions stretched in ways I can’t describe. Reality suddenly almost snapped back into place and we were in a large green field running over a slight hill. The sky was blue, the sun was clear, and there were light clouds in the sky.
I tried to prepare myself for anything, but this was definitely not what I expected.
A hundred feet away, and imp sat on a rock, muttering. Bolo cast True Seeing and the energy rippled off in every direction and the imp’s head snapped up looking in our direction.
The imp shuddered. “Faces…” it said. Then it fell over.
Then I noticed a deep rumble from far away. It slowly built in intensity and the ground started shaking.
And at that moment I knew: It was Bolo’s fault.
And then we noticed that Dravot had no shadow. The rest of us did, but Dravot had none. (And not the shadow of light we had grown used to either.) When Scorch shapeshifted, he gave off a similar wave of energy. He didn’t look like a solar but more a charicature of one made of stained glass.
And then the sky turned blood red and the ground began resolving into shapes. The grass was drawn down as the ground formed into thousands upon thousands of faces that started gibbering and gnashing in a rolling wave. They came down from a mountain and devoured anything they touched.
Scorch wasted no time and shot straight up while the rest of us got into the air. From the opposite side another wave of faces was coming, consuming a nearby village and everything in it. Scorch suddenly hit something in the sky and tore through…skin.
He burst out of what I can only assume was a creature that we were inside. Scorch was suddenly exposed to the entirety of the Far Realms and his mind reeled from the unnatural geometry. Behind him, faces appeared at the edge of the hole and began vomiting new skin.
We wasted no more time and left the creature. It took us some time to even begin to get used to the insane sights before us, and I wonder if we’ll ever be the same from it. Most of us were disturbed in some way by it, but we moved on finally.
The things I saw I have to fight to remember let alone describe. Nodules of organic quartz, ooze flying thousands of direcitns. Things floating everywhere. Strange sounds permeate the place – sometimes a word can be made out but most of it is gibberish.
There was a tree-ish thing. It had branches and roots but wasn’t wood but more like slime or crystal. Then a dozen leaves broke off the branches and were actually fleshy creatures vaguely bat-like. They were interconnected by some kind of trail of goo. They moved towards us like a flight of predators and Scorch made out words in ancient Sule. “Not we.”
They were moving fast, or perhaps were just closer than they seemed – distance was so hard to judge here. Scorch threw a lightning ball, but it arced over the net with no effect. As the spell flew, it tore the Far Realms and left a starry trail behind that I had only seen once but had never forgotten – it looked like the puddles of stars under Castle Greyhawk in the cambion’s prison chamber.
The bats then separated into various fleshy bits hovering around a central part and continued coming towards us. Valanthe drew Shadowcut and it started speaking! Very, very loudly.
“YES! WE SHALL VANQUISH THEM!”
If we hadn’t been under attack in the Far Realms, I might have found more time to cherish the look on Valanthe’s face. Shatterspike too was speaking but with somewhat less… enthusiasm. Fortunately my bow said nothing. I suspect this may be beause it was already part of something alive.
Since lightning was not working, I tried a fireball from the bow. It did seem to have some effect but the bats kept coming. In response the bats drew closer, and then the web energized with a dark black power and shot forth a spray of energy. It manifested as a windstorm which buffeted several of us about. Windsaber fell off the flying carpet but I think that was more due to the fact that he believed he would fall.
[OOC: I then called them the “Tholian Bats”]
They were close now, and we just had at them in the way that we do. Swords and spells flew around and we managed to hack them apart and collect ourselves. On the “tree”, new leaves were growing to replace the destroyed ones. But they weren’t moving and so we moved on.
We could spot several silver cords in the area but had no way to tell which we were looking for, or if they were it. Dravot resorted to powerful divination magic and revealed that the Silverring was in the stomach of a creature called Xukrischis (which was like the thing we appeared in.) And we had a sense of how to get there. Sort of.
As we began moving in that “direction”, everything suddenly shifted. The “sky” became a whitish color. Objects faded in and out. The Silverring was now in a different creature’s stomach entirely.
Dravot and Scorch had a discussion that I just couldn’t follow involving planar mechanics and dimensions. We had to translate to a different “place” or axis to align with the Silverring. Scorch managed to move the group and we were now in a position where we could move “physically” to reach the Silverring. After the translation, Scorch had grown some kind of sheath over his head and his eye was pulled back. He was hearing the voices of ancient Sule emperors. Emperor Zinkman. (The first Sule emperor was Emperor Zinkman Ad Zol.) Apparently the djinn put him here as retribution for his creation of the binders. St. Cuthbert broke his mind when Zinkman declared himself a god, and the djinn put him here and made him immortal so he could not die. Scorch was, quite simply, losing it.
It was about this time that paragon fire beholders started looking really good to me.
We continued to move towards the old dragon. In our path came two massive creatures, like fifty foot long centaur but with the heads of lizards and their arms ended in swords. We threw several spells but they not only ignored them but sent some of the energy back at us. Then Scorch managed to paralyze both of them, and we dispatched them without any fuss. But Scorch… the cowl was covering more of his head after the spell. He was changing into something. I could only hope we finished here before he lost it completely.
More movement, and something began to come into focus. It was all at once gigantic and yet not so. It took time but I made it at some seventy feet long. It emitted strange noises and odors. There were strands of mucus ten feet across. On one end were hard ridges resembling a mouth, while the other end was tapered and secreting something.
In its massive body of mucus, creatures floated. I could make out several silver cords that led inside it, including one particularly large cord that led to a large silvery form in the center of the creature. We had found the Silverring. But how to get him out?
“Well…” said a familiar voice “that certainly looks like a problem.”
Aethramyr said “Hello Fraz.”
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
