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Fire in the Blood - Chapter 5
Fire in the Blood – Chapter 5
OOC Notes:
Exp is 5600 (everyone is 24)
Loot:
And you thought this whole adventure would go by without any
+4 sonic warding shield
+5 arrow catching full plate
staff of winter
This Week’s Adventure:
“Slerotin, you and the others will release me now.” Zinkman seemed confident but impatient.
I took a quick look at my companions. “Hm. No.”
He didn’t seem perturbed. “You pretend there is a choice. But go now. Go see the dragon, but without… Scorch, was it? Is that your name in this form? He will remain with me.”
Scorch was still fussing about his new body and the return of depth perception that comes with having two eyes. Zinkman’s patience wore thin and with a single claw-like gesture, ripped out Scorch’s new eye.
Scorch of course collapsed in pain and Dravot saw to him.
“Was that necessary?” he asked.
Zinkman did not answer.
Since we had been presented with a way to leave his immediate area, I was anxious to take it, but not at the cost of leaving Scorch behind. “Emperor, we may need Scorch to free the dragon. Surely your control over him is absolute so there is no risk in allowing him to aid us.”
Zinkman scowled at me. “I am not used to being questioned.”
I shrugged. “You are not used to dealing with us.”
His lip curled. “Fine. I have his eye – I can recreate the body if needed. Fetch the beast. I shall wait patiently until you return”
But while he spoke there was churning in the belly of this beast. Before we could leave, part of the intestinal wall separated from the stomach. Five eyes on long tentacles eyed us and a toothy maw formed, gnashing at us.
Never has something been so determined to digest us. This must be what it’s like to be Bolo.
I opened fire, and a volley of spellcraft followed. Soon the creature was injured and bleeding acid, burned, frozen, and seething with negative energy. The creature retaliated and the acid was also a powerful venom which I wasn’t quick enough to avoid. Two more spells and it was weakened and blinded as well and flailing wildly. We wasted no time hacking it apart.
The stomach walls constricted around the seeping wound and small creatures started throwing up skin, repairing the damage.
We moved on to the next chamber which was larger than seemed possible to exist in this creature. The Silverring was there, wrapped in a cocoon of skin. Around him swam small creature. They were hard to see and more of an absence than a presence. Oddly there were two silver cords coming out of the Silverring.
Aethramyr cut at the skin holding the dragon. One of the non-creatures swam over to repair the hole. Bolo used an anti-life shell to repel them, and it was very effective. But it also irritated them. First one, then two, then more and more creatures threw themselves at the shell but were thrown back. After a futile effort, dozens of them congregated in a corner of the room, swarming around each other and collapsing together.
Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. We cut the Silverring free and he started to blink. He rasped “Get Zinkman. Must bring him out…” but that was all the energy he had.
The non-creatures had all collapsed in on each other and formed a small black sphere. When it was complete, the umbral blot started floating towards us.
We needed to move the Silverring but he was too big to pick up. I had a thought and just decided that he was much smaller. The Far Realms was proving to be a subjective place and I was hoping that a change in my perspective would let us pick him up. And it worked… but only partially. He was much smaller but nowhere near small enough to move. Valanthe on the other hand had a more… malleable view of the truth and had no problems re-aligning things to make him the size of a pseudo-dragon. We grabbed him and started running.
The creature released a stormy vortex at us, and rocked us about the chamber. I wasn’t sure what we could even do to “hurt” this thing or how far it would pursue us. Both questioned turned out to be irrelevant.
Over our heads, a hellish ball of energy streaked down the hall and buried itself in the blot. The explosion was muffled but the blot was shattered back into the small non-creatures that had started all this. After a moment, they began swimming about their business again and we moved back up the hall.
Zinkman was facing us now, having rotated the entire chamber. He was waiting. Patiently.
We tried to bring the Silverring around but his injuries were not something easily treated. He would require time to revitalize himself, and we had little. Bolo tried to use the scale to get through to him but instead was treated to a series of flashing images.
…war with the drow
…construction of the binders
…the far realms
…a huge abyssal creature, part demon, part gorilla…Fraz’s true form?
…Fraz binds the Silverring and funnels energy through the hole
…the gith queen lording over the dragon
…being stolen and sealed into this creature
Zinkman spoke, “Release me.”
Aethramyr said “And why would we do that?”
“The binders have a failsafe. Without me, you cannot destroy the binders permanently. Do you think you destroyed those binders?”
“Well… yes,” we answered.
Zinkman started rambling. “The djinn fools have served their purpose. I do not need their distraction any more.” He went on about his old empire, his new empire, and other things I didn’t really listen to.
Zinkman turned on Scorch again. “You see, I found Slerotin’s stash of clones. I modified them. You’re one of the few that survived. Regretable really. As far as I can tell, you’ve regressed back to your original host. I wonder… were you a foundling? Your parents?”
Scorch shrugged. “They said they were my parents.”
“Yes, well they would I suppose, wouldn’t they. What with the powerful charms I placed on you.”
Aethramyr and I turned our attention to the Silverring and eventually got through to him. “We must bring him out,” he said. “We can destroy all the binders at once with his help. He needs to come out.”
Aethramyr and I turned to each other and sighed.
“Fine,” I said to the lost emperor. “We’re convinced. Let’s go.”
“Oh leaving is not the problem,” he said. “It’s getting past the guardians. That thing disguised as Fraz. It serves Juiblex, the Faceless Lord. It’s not Fraz really of course. If it was simple I wouldn’t still be here would I?”
“Well we’ll deal with that then I suppose. But what do we do to get out of this place?”
Zinkman offered his wisdom like mana from heaven. “We need to reverse your stories.”
Zinkman watched us closely after that, ready to be amused at our attempts to examine his riddle or to beg him for more answers. I thought about it a moment, then took out my journal.
And ripped out three pages.
As I tore them, the ink floated free of the page, and faded back into me. There was no sensation, but the story was undone. I still remembered the events, but would need to write them down again. And with it I instinctively knew the way out.
Zinkman seemed somehow depressed.
As we moved towards the “exit”, the small planetoid with Fraz suddenly zoomed over. “What’s this now? And where would you be going?”
I snorted. “Oh be quiet. You’re not even Fraz.”
“I am too Fraz!” it protested. But in doing so, it began melting. Fraz’s flesh merged with the planetoid, and the whole thing became some kind of psuedonatural anemone. Parts of Fraz still flowed in the being like they were melted into wax.
Zinkman muttered “Ah. Glurgeg.”
And the battle was on once again. There was an initial exchange of spells and arrows. But it all stopped quickly enough. Scorch pulled out something that, I have no doubt, he’d been holding on to for a long time.
He cast his spell. The magic washed over Glurgeg. And Glurgeg stopped frozen for a moment.
A tentacle wavered. Then another. Then more. And Glurged…danced.
Music came from nowhere in particular, and Glurgeg danced about, swaying and bouncing. It was unable to do anything but dance to the music. And Scorch looked infinitely pleased with himself. And then he started dancing too, though it must be said not as well as Glurgeg.
[Any reader wishing to be in the right frame of mind might care to visit http://www.ebaumsworld.com/numanuma.html ]
To our credit we only wasted time on a few short giggles before laying into Glurgeg with our full might. And the demon could do nothing but eventually succumb to our attacks with Scorch dancing along all the while.
[For the reader: Aethramyr chose this moment to unleash his full fury. He did five attacks, with four smite-evil’s. Regretably the first one missed, and Glurgeg is immune to critical hits or it would have been notably messier. But the one-aciton damage total was 427. Jello shots for everybody.]
Glurgeg flew into pieces, and even the pieces kept on jiggling and dancing for several seconds.
Zinkman was not unimpressed. “Slerotin. You’re…profane. I mean more than you were.”
With the guardian out of the way, we were able to navigate our way out without much further difficulty. We arrived on the Prime in a humid jungle. Moments later, two Judges arrived as well.
“Not again,” I thought.
“What’s this? These are new. Will they serve me? Are they fallen? They are turned so much more easily.” Zinkman said, curious.
“No, they serve a new divinity,” I said, hoping to avoid a mess. No luck.
The Judges moved towards Zinkman, and he moved his hand absently and the Judges were thrown back and ejected from the plane. At least they weren’t destroyed.
This would get ugly unless we could get him under control quickly. “Your Grace,” I said, “you have been away for a long time. And surely one as wise as you would wish to learn what things have changed in your absence before you risk angering a new divinity.”
Zinkman looked at me and pondered it for a moment. “For an elf, you speak wisdom. Very well.”
Aethramyr, Valanthe and I went to the Lendores to meet up with the Silverring, while Bolo, Dravot and Scorch took Zinkman to Ruun Khazai. (And frankly I had to suppress a smirk at that.)
Zinkman was brought to the no-scry area of the library. He demanded that Scorch wish the area was more palacial. But Scorch didn’t quite seem to understand what he was being told to do. It took a few tries and Zinkman was quite irate with him by the time he finally enchanted the area to be more fitting. He demanded food and said he would consider any attractive females.
Once he was settled, Dravot took a chance. He called on Pelor’s might, and asked that Scorch be immune to domination, fearing his mind was no longer his own. On the other side of Ruun Khazai, Scorch’s head snapped up suddenly, freed of Zinkman’s compulsion. He immediately summoned the leaders of the various Ruun Khazai communities and told them to begin an evacuation.
In the Lendores, we found the Silverring, in elven guise, at the entrance to his lair waiting for us.
“How are you?” Aethramyr asked.
“I am… recovering. My thanks to you for that and for my rescue. I owe you much even as Gelban does.”
“Fraz has trapped your lair. You should be careful,” Valanthe’s voice, and Valanthe appeared out of nowhere.
The Silvering was mildly startled. I told him “You get used to it.”
“I am not used to being… surprised. I have dealt with the trap, thanks to your warning. It would have moved the entire lair to the Abyss.”
“But why?” Valanthe asked.
“Fraz is…having problems with himself. He is suffering from self-delusion – the ultimate lie. He is broken into separate personalities. So he is doing things that are not in his best interests. That creature you defeated was a servant of Juilbex, but those two would never willingly cooperate, at least if Fraz was in his right mind. My suspiciou is that a good deal of what Fraz has been doing is due to his two distinct personalities. You have encountered one, but meddled in the plans of the other. The gith queen was given power in exchange for transmitting souls to the Far Realms. Fraz wants to become a diety of the Far Realms. Or at least part of him does.”
“He can have it as far as I’m concerned. This journey was most disturbing,” I said.
“The Far Realms are necessary, if confusing and disturbing. It is an unconscious repository of the collective souls of the great wheel – the font of creation. It cannot be allowed to be dominated.”
“Well in any case,” Aethramyr said, “the Gith Queen is hardly much of an issue now.”
“What do you mean? She is a compelling threat, if a pawn in all this.”
Aethramyr, Valanthe and I exchanged smiles between us, realizing the timing. “I apologize,” I said. “You have been asleep for some time. There are some developments you should be aware of.”
An eyebrow arched on the dragon’s elven form.
Aethramyr and Valanthe went to Ruun Khazai, having been called in by Scorch to marshal the locals, while I explained a few things to the Silverring over wine.
“When last we spoke, we were bracing to face the ShadowTaker. We found his lair, and destroyed him. It wasn’t simple of course, and I suspect that some other entity prepared his demise at our hand, but he is destroyed nonetheless. We narrowly escaped the collapsing demi-plane to the Plane of Shadow to find some difficulties in planar travel. From there we went to Sigil and learned that the Githyanki had attacked the Prime especially Celene.”
The Silverring just nodded.
“Of course we returned immediately to the Prime. Lord Gelban informed us that Aran’gel and his contingent was under attack by a githyanki force and we arrived just in time to destroy them. From there we regrouped, located one of the main githyanki bases on the Prime, and destroyed it and the six hundred or so troops there. From there, we were contacted by a rebel gith element and they facilitated our infiltration into the Palace of Whispers in Tu’narath. We assaulted the palace, found the lich queen and destroyed her. And in the process broke the alliance with the red dragons.”
The old dragon stopped me. “Are you saying that since I slept, you have destroyed both the ShadowTaker and the Lich Queen?”
I looked back at him over my glass. “Well, that was a very good week for us.”
The Silverring laughed. Then he stopped when he realized I wasn’t joking. I grinned.
“Unfortunately things were still getting out of control. The planar travel injunction was still around and forces from Rauxes were on the move and have smashed Kalstrand in the Great Kingdom. We made an attack on Rauxes but it seemed unstoppable, and the undead in Kalstrand were flooding it to perhaps release the Primal there. And there was a schism in the celestial hosts of Pelor. The situation triggered by Fraz with Orcus as his agent continued to escalate until a full blown war erupted. Celestial and demon fought on the Prime and the world was quite near ending. But a new element came into play – Ralishaz. The ancient Sule god we had freed had collected himself somehow with in Venn – the mage who held a theerpart. Ralishaz struck a bargain with the divinity – he became a god of the Prime and would be charged with keeping the Prime safe from blatant outside interference. Extraplanar creatures are now removed by Ralishaz’s host of celestials – the ones who rebelled from Pelor’s host. There are some new rules in effect which you will need to know.”
The Silverring was struck dumb.
“Oh somewhere in there we also managed to destroy two more binders. Illusion and Transmutation are now destroyed. Then we got wind of a large meeting of underdark forces that Chavram was putting together near the Deathvent. We crashed the meeting to find it was a set-up and Chavram orchestrated our arrival. He has made some kind of play to take over the underdark but we cannot judge his success.”
“From there we took some time to work on a few projects and then decided it was time to find out what had happened to you. And here we are, still in time for dinner.” I had learned only 20 minutes had passed on the Prime since our departure to the Far Realms.
I concluded, “There’s more details of course but that’s the broad strokes.”
“Much has happened. I am surprised by much of this, but more for the speed than the events themselves. I had not expected you all to be up to such challenges yet. This changes much. I need some time to reflect on these events before we can put a plan in motion. With Zinkman, we have the key. We can, for once, go on the offensive. He is insane, yes. But he has a brilliant arcane mind and comprehends both the binders and the locks that hold Therizdun. The divinities sealed him in but did not impart the understanding to the mortal races. With him, we can do much.”
“Well,” I agreed “he is insane. But he has been taken to Ruun Khazai for now. Hopefully he can be kept distracted for a time while you ponder a path forward. The Judges will not be pleased but I fear there is little they can do.”
And with that I left the Silverring to think and rest. But that subject did bring up another pressing matter. A few messages later and I was standing in the presence of Meltorannan.
“Thank you for seeing me. I appreciate your time,” I said.
“This is about the new outsider I presume? The one who banished two of mine?” he asked, impassive.
“It is. He is Zinkman ad Zol, former emperor of the Sule. This is of little interest to the law, I know but I tell you anyway. He is very powerful. I do not relish his presence here, indeed I fear it greatly. But for the time being, he is needed to thwart greater evils such as the Shadow King.”
“Regardless, we cannot ignore his presence due to that,” Meltorannan replied.
“I know. But I believe you must ignore his presence for another reason – I believe he is too powerful for you to remove. This is why I wished to speak to you – I have no wish to see suffering befall your kind and that is what I fear would come of assaulting him.”
“You are correct. For the time being, his presence will be tolerated. We shall look the other way but only if you make efforts to keep him from our sight. For now, Ruun Khazai is something we ignore, but should he remain too long that protection will no longer be afforded.” Beneath the impassivity of a judge, I detected a hint of understanding and compassion. Maybe there was even a bit of thanks for avoiding the confrontation.
“I understand. We must all do what we must.”
Again there was the glimmer of the solar of Pelor when he said “You serve your Lord well, Kayleigh.”
I smiled back. “As do you.”
Fire in the Blood – Chapter 5
OOC Notes:
Exp is 5600 (everyone is 24)
Loot:
And you thought this whole adventure would go by without any
+4 sonic warding shield
+5 arrow catching full plate
staff of winter
This Week’s Adventure:
“Slerotin, you and the others will release me now.” Zinkman seemed confident but impatient.
I took a quick look at my companions. “Hm. No.”
He didn’t seem perturbed. “You pretend there is a choice. But go now. Go see the dragon, but without… Scorch, was it? Is that your name in this form? He will remain with me.”
Scorch was still fussing about his new body and the return of depth perception that comes with having two eyes. Zinkman’s patience wore thin and with a single claw-like gesture, ripped out Scorch’s new eye.
Scorch of course collapsed in pain and Dravot saw to him.
“Was that necessary?” he asked.
Zinkman did not answer.
Since we had been presented with a way to leave his immediate area, I was anxious to take it, but not at the cost of leaving Scorch behind. “Emperor, we may need Scorch to free the dragon. Surely your control over him is absolute so there is no risk in allowing him to aid us.”
Zinkman scowled at me. “I am not used to being questioned.”
I shrugged. “You are not used to dealing with us.”
His lip curled. “Fine. I have his eye – I can recreate the body if needed. Fetch the beast. I shall wait patiently until you return”
But while he spoke there was churning in the belly of this beast. Before we could leave, part of the intestinal wall separated from the stomach. Five eyes on long tentacles eyed us and a toothy maw formed, gnashing at us.
Never has something been so determined to digest us. This must be what it’s like to be Bolo.
I opened fire, and a volley of spellcraft followed. Soon the creature was injured and bleeding acid, burned, frozen, and seething with negative energy. The creature retaliated and the acid was also a powerful venom which I wasn’t quick enough to avoid. Two more spells and it was weakened and blinded as well and flailing wildly. We wasted no time hacking it apart.
The stomach walls constricted around the seeping wound and small creatures started throwing up skin, repairing the damage.
We moved on to the next chamber which was larger than seemed possible to exist in this creature. The Silverring was there, wrapped in a cocoon of skin. Around him swam small creature. They were hard to see and more of an absence than a presence. Oddly there were two silver cords coming out of the Silverring.
Aethramyr cut at the skin holding the dragon. One of the non-creatures swam over to repair the hole. Bolo used an anti-life shell to repel them, and it was very effective. But it also irritated them. First one, then two, then more and more creatures threw themselves at the shell but were thrown back. After a futile effort, dozens of them congregated in a corner of the room, swarming around each other and collapsing together.
Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. We cut the Silverring free and he started to blink. He rasped “Get Zinkman. Must bring him out…” but that was all the energy he had.
The non-creatures had all collapsed in on each other and formed a small black sphere. When it was complete, the umbral blot started floating towards us.
We needed to move the Silverring but he was too big to pick up. I had a thought and just decided that he was much smaller. The Far Realms was proving to be a subjective place and I was hoping that a change in my perspective would let us pick him up. And it worked… but only partially. He was much smaller but nowhere near small enough to move. Valanthe on the other hand had a more… malleable view of the truth and had no problems re-aligning things to make him the size of a pseudo-dragon. We grabbed him and started running.
The creature released a stormy vortex at us, and rocked us about the chamber. I wasn’t sure what we could even do to “hurt” this thing or how far it would pursue us. Both questioned turned out to be irrelevant.
Over our heads, a hellish ball of energy streaked down the hall and buried itself in the blot. The explosion was muffled but the blot was shattered back into the small non-creatures that had started all this. After a moment, they began swimming about their business again and we moved back up the hall.
Zinkman was facing us now, having rotated the entire chamber. He was waiting. Patiently.
We tried to bring the Silverring around but his injuries were not something easily treated. He would require time to revitalize himself, and we had little. Bolo tried to use the scale to get through to him but instead was treated to a series of flashing images.
…war with the drow
…construction of the binders
…the far realms
…a huge abyssal creature, part demon, part gorilla…Fraz’s true form?
…Fraz binds the Silverring and funnels energy through the hole
…the gith queen lording over the dragon
…being stolen and sealed into this creature
Zinkman spoke, “Release me.”
Aethramyr said “And why would we do that?”
“The binders have a failsafe. Without me, you cannot destroy the binders permanently. Do you think you destroyed those binders?”
“Well… yes,” we answered.
Zinkman started rambling. “The djinn fools have served their purpose. I do not need their distraction any more.” He went on about his old empire, his new empire, and other things I didn’t really listen to.
Zinkman turned on Scorch again. “You see, I found Slerotin’s stash of clones. I modified them. You’re one of the few that survived. Regretable really. As far as I can tell, you’ve regressed back to your original host. I wonder… were you a foundling? Your parents?”
Scorch shrugged. “They said they were my parents.”
“Yes, well they would I suppose, wouldn’t they. What with the powerful charms I placed on you.”
Aethramyr and I turned our attention to the Silverring and eventually got through to him. “We must bring him out,” he said. “We can destroy all the binders at once with his help. He needs to come out.”
Aethramyr and I turned to each other and sighed.
“Fine,” I said to the lost emperor. “We’re convinced. Let’s go.”
“Oh leaving is not the problem,” he said. “It’s getting past the guardians. That thing disguised as Fraz. It serves Juiblex, the Faceless Lord. It’s not Fraz really of course. If it was simple I wouldn’t still be here would I?”
“Well we’ll deal with that then I suppose. But what do we do to get out of this place?”
Zinkman offered his wisdom like mana from heaven. “We need to reverse your stories.”
Zinkman watched us closely after that, ready to be amused at our attempts to examine his riddle or to beg him for more answers. I thought about it a moment, then took out my journal.
And ripped out three pages.
As I tore them, the ink floated free of the page, and faded back into me. There was no sensation, but the story was undone. I still remembered the events, but would need to write them down again. And with it I instinctively knew the way out.
Zinkman seemed somehow depressed.
As we moved towards the “exit”, the small planetoid with Fraz suddenly zoomed over. “What’s this now? And where would you be going?”
I snorted. “Oh be quiet. You’re not even Fraz.”
“I am too Fraz!” it protested. But in doing so, it began melting. Fraz’s flesh merged with the planetoid, and the whole thing became some kind of psuedonatural anemone. Parts of Fraz still flowed in the being like they were melted into wax.
Zinkman muttered “Ah. Glurgeg.”
And the battle was on once again. There was an initial exchange of spells and arrows. But it all stopped quickly enough. Scorch pulled out something that, I have no doubt, he’d been holding on to for a long time.
He cast his spell. The magic washed over Glurgeg. And Glurgeg stopped frozen for a moment.
A tentacle wavered. Then another. Then more. And Glurged…danced.
Music came from nowhere in particular, and Glurgeg danced about, swaying and bouncing. It was unable to do anything but dance to the music. And Scorch looked infinitely pleased with himself. And then he started dancing too, though it must be said not as well as Glurgeg.
[Any reader wishing to be in the right frame of mind might care to visit http://www.ebaumsworld.com/numanuma.html ]
To our credit we only wasted time on a few short giggles before laying into Glurgeg with our full might. And the demon could do nothing but eventually succumb to our attacks with Scorch dancing along all the while.
[For the reader: Aethramyr chose this moment to unleash his full fury. He did five attacks, with four smite-evil’s. Regretably the first one missed, and Glurgeg is immune to critical hits or it would have been notably messier. But the one-aciton damage total was 427. Jello shots for everybody.]
Glurgeg flew into pieces, and even the pieces kept on jiggling and dancing for several seconds.
Zinkman was not unimpressed. “Slerotin. You’re…profane. I mean more than you were.”
With the guardian out of the way, we were able to navigate our way out without much further difficulty. We arrived on the Prime in a humid jungle. Moments later, two Judges arrived as well.
“Not again,” I thought.
“What’s this? These are new. Will they serve me? Are they fallen? They are turned so much more easily.” Zinkman said, curious.
“No, they serve a new divinity,” I said, hoping to avoid a mess. No luck.
The Judges moved towards Zinkman, and he moved his hand absently and the Judges were thrown back and ejected from the plane. At least they weren’t destroyed.
This would get ugly unless we could get him under control quickly. “Your Grace,” I said, “you have been away for a long time. And surely one as wise as you would wish to learn what things have changed in your absence before you risk angering a new divinity.”
Zinkman looked at me and pondered it for a moment. “For an elf, you speak wisdom. Very well.”
Aethramyr, Valanthe and I went to the Lendores to meet up with the Silverring, while Bolo, Dravot and Scorch took Zinkman to Ruun Khazai. (And frankly I had to suppress a smirk at that.)
Zinkman was brought to the no-scry area of the library. He demanded that Scorch wish the area was more palacial. But Scorch didn’t quite seem to understand what he was being told to do. It took a few tries and Zinkman was quite irate with him by the time he finally enchanted the area to be more fitting. He demanded food and said he would consider any attractive females.
Once he was settled, Dravot took a chance. He called on Pelor’s might, and asked that Scorch be immune to domination, fearing his mind was no longer his own. On the other side of Ruun Khazai, Scorch’s head snapped up suddenly, freed of Zinkman’s compulsion. He immediately summoned the leaders of the various Ruun Khazai communities and told them to begin an evacuation.
In the Lendores, we found the Silverring, in elven guise, at the entrance to his lair waiting for us.
“How are you?” Aethramyr asked.
“I am… recovering. My thanks to you for that and for my rescue. I owe you much even as Gelban does.”
“Fraz has trapped your lair. You should be careful,” Valanthe’s voice, and Valanthe appeared out of nowhere.
The Silvering was mildly startled. I told him “You get used to it.”
“I am not used to being… surprised. I have dealt with the trap, thanks to your warning. It would have moved the entire lair to the Abyss.”
“But why?” Valanthe asked.
“Fraz is…having problems with himself. He is suffering from self-delusion – the ultimate lie. He is broken into separate personalities. So he is doing things that are not in his best interests. That creature you defeated was a servant of Juilbex, but those two would never willingly cooperate, at least if Fraz was in his right mind. My suspiciou is that a good deal of what Fraz has been doing is due to his two distinct personalities. You have encountered one, but meddled in the plans of the other. The gith queen was given power in exchange for transmitting souls to the Far Realms. Fraz wants to become a diety of the Far Realms. Or at least part of him does.”
“He can have it as far as I’m concerned. This journey was most disturbing,” I said.
“The Far Realms are necessary, if confusing and disturbing. It is an unconscious repository of the collective souls of the great wheel – the font of creation. It cannot be allowed to be dominated.”
“Well in any case,” Aethramyr said, “the Gith Queen is hardly much of an issue now.”
“What do you mean? She is a compelling threat, if a pawn in all this.”
Aethramyr, Valanthe and I exchanged smiles between us, realizing the timing. “I apologize,” I said. “You have been asleep for some time. There are some developments you should be aware of.”
An eyebrow arched on the dragon’s elven form.
Aethramyr and Valanthe went to Ruun Khazai, having been called in by Scorch to marshal the locals, while I explained a few things to the Silverring over wine.
“When last we spoke, we were bracing to face the ShadowTaker. We found his lair, and destroyed him. It wasn’t simple of course, and I suspect that some other entity prepared his demise at our hand, but he is destroyed nonetheless. We narrowly escaped the collapsing demi-plane to the Plane of Shadow to find some difficulties in planar travel. From there we went to Sigil and learned that the Githyanki had attacked the Prime especially Celene.”
The Silverring just nodded.
“Of course we returned immediately to the Prime. Lord Gelban informed us that Aran’gel and his contingent was under attack by a githyanki force and we arrived just in time to destroy them. From there we regrouped, located one of the main githyanki bases on the Prime, and destroyed it and the six hundred or so troops there. From there, we were contacted by a rebel gith element and they facilitated our infiltration into the Palace of Whispers in Tu’narath. We assaulted the palace, found the lich queen and destroyed her. And in the process broke the alliance with the red dragons.”
The old dragon stopped me. “Are you saying that since I slept, you have destroyed both the ShadowTaker and the Lich Queen?”
I looked back at him over my glass. “Well, that was a very good week for us.”
The Silverring laughed. Then he stopped when he realized I wasn’t joking. I grinned.
“Unfortunately things were still getting out of control. The planar travel injunction was still around and forces from Rauxes were on the move and have smashed Kalstrand in the Great Kingdom. We made an attack on Rauxes but it seemed unstoppable, and the undead in Kalstrand were flooding it to perhaps release the Primal there. And there was a schism in the celestial hosts of Pelor. The situation triggered by Fraz with Orcus as his agent continued to escalate until a full blown war erupted. Celestial and demon fought on the Prime and the world was quite near ending. But a new element came into play – Ralishaz. The ancient Sule god we had freed had collected himself somehow with in Venn – the mage who held a theerpart. Ralishaz struck a bargain with the divinity – he became a god of the Prime and would be charged with keeping the Prime safe from blatant outside interference. Extraplanar creatures are now removed by Ralishaz’s host of celestials – the ones who rebelled from Pelor’s host. There are some new rules in effect which you will need to know.”
The Silverring was struck dumb.
“Oh somewhere in there we also managed to destroy two more binders. Illusion and Transmutation are now destroyed. Then we got wind of a large meeting of underdark forces that Chavram was putting together near the Deathvent. We crashed the meeting to find it was a set-up and Chavram orchestrated our arrival. He has made some kind of play to take over the underdark but we cannot judge his success.”
“From there we took some time to work on a few projects and then decided it was time to find out what had happened to you. And here we are, still in time for dinner.” I had learned only 20 minutes had passed on the Prime since our departure to the Far Realms.
I concluded, “There’s more details of course but that’s the broad strokes.”
“Much has happened. I am surprised by much of this, but more for the speed than the events themselves. I had not expected you all to be up to such challenges yet. This changes much. I need some time to reflect on these events before we can put a plan in motion. With Zinkman, we have the key. We can, for once, go on the offensive. He is insane, yes. But he has a brilliant arcane mind and comprehends both the binders and the locks that hold Therizdun. The divinities sealed him in but did not impart the understanding to the mortal races. With him, we can do much.”
“Well,” I agreed “he is insane. But he has been taken to Ruun Khazai for now. Hopefully he can be kept distracted for a time while you ponder a path forward. The Judges will not be pleased but I fear there is little they can do.”
And with that I left the Silverring to think and rest. But that subject did bring up another pressing matter. A few messages later and I was standing in the presence of Meltorannan.
“Thank you for seeing me. I appreciate your time,” I said.
“This is about the new outsider I presume? The one who banished two of mine?” he asked, impassive.
“It is. He is Zinkman ad Zol, former emperor of the Sule. This is of little interest to the law, I know but I tell you anyway. He is very powerful. I do not relish his presence here, indeed I fear it greatly. But for the time being, he is needed to thwart greater evils such as the Shadow King.”
“Regardless, we cannot ignore his presence due to that,” Meltorannan replied.
“I know. But I believe you must ignore his presence for another reason – I believe he is too powerful for you to remove. This is why I wished to speak to you – I have no wish to see suffering befall your kind and that is what I fear would come of assaulting him.”
“You are correct. For the time being, his presence will be tolerated. We shall look the other way but only if you make efforts to keep him from our sight. For now, Ruun Khazai is something we ignore, but should he remain too long that protection will no longer be afforded.” Beneath the impassivity of a judge, I detected a hint of understanding and compassion. Maybe there was even a bit of thanks for avoiding the confrontation.
“I understand. We must all do what we must.”
Again there was the glimmer of the solar of Pelor when he said “You serve your Lord well, Kayleigh.”
I smiled back. “As do you.”
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
