ZEITGEIST [ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.

[gideonpepys]

Session 242, Part One

Awkward Conversation

“It’s done,” said Uriel, shaking himself free for speech. He looked wan. “I have told our reflected selves that we will find a way to send the golden icons to them. I could not summon them to me, as am able to other items I have known. But I think I have hit on the means.” He looked at Kai. “You will be the link; I will send the icons to you. When we reach the Gyre.” Kai nodded to show his approval and squeezed his father’s hand. An important task! Uriel continued: “I was able to summon the golem heart from the volcano, though. They now have a means to recreate Conquo.”

The group had stood in awkward silence while Uriel made the impromptu attempt, with Gupta and Korrigan lending their aid when it was needed. Now that he was done, they became aware of that awkwardness. The graveyard was silent. Srasma was gone; the eladrin ghosts were all gone too.

Korrigan turned to Gupta. “Why did you do that?” he asked.

“This was the path that was offered to me,” she said.

“I didn’t hear that option,” said Korrigan.

“You were there when we heard the song of Vekesh. I chose the missing verse.”

“Well, if you laid the choices out in front of me, I would have advised you against this course of action, but I wouldn’t have opposed you. What’s done is done.” They could all hear the unspoken accusation: that Gupta had turned down the opportunity to restore thousands of eladrin women to life.

Gupta said, “It is a realisation of my destiny. No forethought was involved, but I’ve no regrets. I won’t squander the power I’ve been given.”

“I hope so. I have seen many times before how people are corrupted by power.”

“You are empowered by Risur.” Gupta did not need to add that he was uncorrupted.

“And you by all women; your realm is greater than mine.”

Korrigan went on to say that he did not think gods were good for people (which is why he had let the unit deal with the situation in Alais Primos, lest his personal feelings got in the way). Uriel agreed: “Not in the way they are used by the clergy, perhaps.”

Kasvarina now spoke: “These gods are eladrin gods. Humans make gods to be worshipped. The eladrin create them in celebration. Gupta’s choice was to accept the short-lived gift of a dead god. What the eladrin need is a new, living goddess of womanhood.”

Korrigan scowled. He did not agree.

Uriel said, “All I know is, the more power you have, the more rules the universe puts in place to bind you.” He gestured to Uru. “Soon you will be unable to move beyond the mountains, for fear of angering the other titans.” Uru didn’t mind; he liked the dark places he would soon rule; why leave? Uriel went on: “As a goddess, you will be worshipped, and wield great power, but you will be confined in that power, like the king on a chess board.”

Korrigan said that he respected Gupta’s decision and again hoped it was for the best. Leon was asked how he felt, as a Vekeshi and member of the Unseen Court and his response was as sanguine as always; Kasvarina was clearly in support, despite everything she had lost as a result. Miller said nothing, but looked around his empty monument blankly.

Then they noticed that Rumdoom was scowling. “Loyalty is a two-way street, Korrigan,” he said. “You didn’t step in when we needed you. I need to know that in a fight my back is safe but your inaction has made me question that. Here we are, at the end of times and the Avatar of the End has his destiny to fulfil. Are we really on the same street, you and I?”

Korrigan’s response was dismissive. “How many times have you been absent when we needed you? I will take such criticism from Gupta; not from you.” With that, he set off down the trail back to the lighthouse. They all followed in frosty silence. The cracks were beginning to show. They weren’t the ‘unit’ any more, but coalition of hugely powerful individuals, each with destinies of their own to fulfil.

As they went, Uru came up alongside Uriel and asked him quietly what happened back on Lanjyr. Uriel told him everything: how they had battled the Ob strike force and won. “I managed to free Cyneburg from dominance. Sadly,” he said, “the Royal Technologist fell before I could help him.”

“Finally!” said Uru, who, it would appear, had a very long and inexplicable naughty word-list.

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 242, Part Two

Party Time

They had not gone far before they heard the music. It wasn’t just Catahoula’s drums, but a whole band, and multiple voices. Rock Rackus had gotten bored drifting in space and docked. Amielle and Sly Marbo – who they had placed in charge of the Coaltongue in their absence – had decided that some shore-leave would be good for morale, and had docked too. There was now a lively party going on, as Rock accompanied Catahoula, or maybe it was the other way around.

Korrigan approved, and let it be known that they would spend the rest of the day and the next morning here on Ascetia. Uru wondered if they had time – was there any kind of time factor on them throwing themselves into the Gyre? Uriel quoted Kai: “Lanjyr has the best stories. I’m sure our aid will come at the most melodramatic moment, no matter how long we take.”

That was all Uru needed to hear. “Well, in that case…” he said, and whipped out a parcel of fey pepper, snorting it all up in one go. When asked if he oughtn’t to have saved some for later, Uru said, “Uriel can always make more for me.” Uriel was horrified at the very suggestion – a clear misuse of his magical powers.

Gupta found herself in empty shock. Usually she was the charismatic focus of any party she threw or attended. Dockers’ shindigs had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember. But not this time. She was exhausted. Sly Marbo tried to encourage her to join the fun. “What’s up with you, girl? This could be your last opportunity to let your hair down.” Gupta smiled bleakly and shook her head in response.

Rumdoom was in a funk too. For the first time in years, he decided to get thoroughly smashed, rejecting all company and setting about his mammoth task with a grim, angry will.

Uriel conjured a magical meal for two ships’ companies. A huge feast!

Leon used the oil of Nem in his Wayfarer’s Lamp to make it possible for him to dance with Kasvarina. Neither of them noticed Kai, watching them from a distance. He knew what had happened to his mother, and who was responsible. Now she was gone, disappeared inside this woman who was dancing with Uncle Leon. He was confused and a bit angry too.

Despite failing to notice the little boy, Kasvarina’s thoughts were nonetheless on the same subject. She said that she felt she ought to apologise to Korrigan, as her actions had caused him such suffering. But for once in her life, she couldn’t find the words or the confidence to do so.

“We are all flawed. There is good and evil in all of us. Korrigan knows that. You should talk to him.”

They danced for a few minutes more, then Kasvarina vanished. Leon’s hand was suddenly empty. Just as she and Lavanya had both predicted, the Ob had finally found her, and she had been drawn back to Lanjyr.

Leon sought to distract himself from sadness, and asked Rock to come with him into the Dream Palace, and sing a song to Linia, to see if it might wake her. Uriel overheard and offered to come too, to bring her some food if she was indeed roused (and to keep an eye on Rock). They were all very surprised to find Linia awake, sitting on the edge of her bed, looking tousled and confused. She was very imposing, much larger than they were, even with her great white wings folded.

Leon told her how she came to be here and she thanked them for her freedom. Uriel offered her food and she accepted it graciously, setting it aside for now. Leon then asked if, when she was feeling better, she might do him a favour. “Would you be willing to try to step through one of the portals to Lanjyr? As you did not come with us to the Gyre we now travel, you cannot exit that way, just as we cannot step back to Lanjyr. But it may be that you could go back to our home on our behalf, and take a message for us.”

“And maybe some items?” Uriel suggested. (The golden icons?!?)

Linia said she would be willing to try, when she was rested. Now she said she felt tired again. They withdrew from her chamber, taking Rock with them. As they left, they realised he hadn’t said a word – just stood and stared at the angel with a half-open mouth.

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 242, Part Three

One to One

While the party was still in full swing, Korrigan left the hubbub behind and followed Miller down to his bench at the end of the wooden walkway, where Miller sat overlooking distant planar fragments and the void between them. Korrigan joined him and was silent for a while. Then he spoke:

“I often wished I had an opportunity to speak to William Miller of his Pala years. His ideas have inspired thinkers for hundreds of years, myself among them. These ideas have developed and taken root in the hearts of many, to the point where no one man can claim the ownership anymore. Still I imagined Miller would be happy to see how his work carries on and evolves, bearing fruit many years after his death. Ironic. Of course now I know that he is still around, wearing the name of Nicodemus, and betraying by his actions every principle his followers believed him to teach.”

Korrigan paused for a moment, deep in thought.

“I understand his motivations. But I strongly disagree with his goals and even more with his methods. This is why I do all I can to oppose him. Even so I keep wondering if there is a chance to change his mind, to bring out that part of him that desired peace and justice for all people. Unfortunately, every encounter with him served to deepened my doubts. His convictions are akin to madness, and his arrogance seems impenetrable. I began to believe that William Miller I knew from the written works is lost forever. And now, here you are...”

“Indeed,” said Miller after a moment’s thought. “ But I do not know how different I am to this Nicodemus of yours. I have spent five hundred years powerless to intervene in mortal affairs. The thought of what I might have done had I remained able to do so fills me with dread. I shared, once, the capacity of my reflected self to put morality aside in pursuit of a noble goal. I believed then - as he believes now, I think - that my true sacrifice was the willingness to shoulder the burden of extreme guilt for the sake of others.

“But I do regret that now. Is that the difference between us? Remember: he bore my name in the years after the Malice. Pala was his creation, not mine. Those are his ideas you follow. Our ideas. But he cleaved to them for a long time after we parted.

“What happened in Pala or in the intervening years must have tempered him somehow.”

Korrigan gave a grunt and said, “It is all too easy to say ‘I will take the burden of guilt’, but the words are meaningless unless the one taking such responsibility can be held accountable.

“Nicodemus has been able to escape accountability for far too long. He has been gambling countless people's lives again and again, but it was always someone else who paid the price, and so he carries on gambling, raising the stakes every time. I fear he is far beyond the point where any reckoning is possible. All I could hope to do was to stop him.” Korrigan sighed. “But meeting you gives me a new hope. You admitted your own arrogance rather than allowing it to drive you. Fate was kind to you sending you here after the tragedy in Methia. You have had the chance to reflect on it and thus hold yourself to account. You have done the work of conscience on behalf of… the other part of yourself. And that's why, if you what you say is true, and we can return to Lanjyr by merging the two reflections, I urge you to go with us. No matter what happens I will do all I can to stop Nicodemus. But I also believe that everyone deserves a chance at redemption. This is your chance. Come with us, rejoin Nicodemus to become whole once again, and put a stop to his madness. If you can.”

Nicodemus shook his head. “Change is only possible for the living. While I can instruct, counsel and warn, I fear that trying to take an active hand in events would only bring out my worst traits of bitter arrogance. I have tried to meditate to overcome these flaws. Honestly, though, I am convinced that I cannot change my nature. It is better that I not be involved. After all, I'm basically the same person as Nicodemus, and Nicodemus’ refusal to accept failure has perhaps doomed the world. Besides, who's to say that I would win? Nicodemus might subsume me. He has become much more powerful than I, and I have to admit that I fear him.”

“I understand,” said Korrigan. “I understand the doubt and the fear. After all you have spent five hundred years away from our world. You have a nice place here, quiet, comfortable. It's probably nice, too, to have no physical needs. The world cannot affect you and you cannot affect the world, and before long, I imagine, you may start believing that it absolves you from any responsibility to try. But don't tell me that deep inside you don't feel the gnawing guilt. Did the shrine you built for Srasma make you forget the countless lives that were lost? Did breaking in tears before Kasvarina undo all the pain and suffering caused to her by her loss at Methia or manipulations and betrayal by Nicodemus in the years after that, resulting in the loss of her other daughter, too? And you may not have even realised, but today with us arrived another woman you tricked into helping you in the Vault of Heresies and then betrayed leaving her imprisoned for hundreds of years.” Korrigan paused, then continues in a calmer voice. “Kasvarina may have forgiven you, but what about your own conscience? There is a reason why you are still here after five hundred years, while other spirits have long moved on. You have given us information that may help us return to Lanjyr, and now I am giving you advice in return. This is your chance, perhaps your only chance. You can try to find peace in redemption or you may be satisfied to linger here in this state of meaninglesness forever. I am not asking you to take over Nicodimus, strong as he may be, I am asking you to try and stop him. Just like I am.”

Korrigan stood up. “Now I will be leading my crew against Egalatrix to deal with the menace that has terrorised the planes of Gyre for so long. Afterwards, if we survive, I will return to ask you again. You have time to think about your answer.”

With that, he walked back to the lighthouse, where the party was still in full swing.

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 242, Part Four

Obliatas

Word spread that they would soon be moving out. The party was over; most had gone to sleep, or sat up around makeshift campfires, exchanging stories. Calily came to sit alongside Korrigan.

“It’s odd to find myself saying this, having held Egalitrix so firmly in my sights for so long,” she said. “But I can’t help thinking about him,” she nodded over at Catahoula, who was talking with some of the fey. “What if we don’t come back? And no one ever tries to help his people? I don’t know. Maybe they could be persuaded to ally with us if we offer them aid?”

Korrigan considered her words carefully and was persuaded. They would detour to offer help to Iratha Ket, and then begin to plan their assault on Egalitrix. To avoid complications, he managed to convince Rock to remain behind – to rest up on Ascetia while they explored Iratha Ket.

Uriel considered their map of the Gyre. Obliatas lay between them and their destination. Korrigan’s intention had been to travel around it, through the dead motes, but Uriel was intrigued by Obliatas, and his curiosity prevailed. They would travel through the space the sun now occupied. (Rumdoom was not best please. “I’m hungover,” he said. “I don’t want to go anywhere near the naughty word sun.”)

For fear of what the undead-hating star might do to their ghost friends, they asked them to wait in the Dream palace for a time. Uru went there too, as it was impossible for him to divest himself of all the ghosts that inhabited him.

The approach to Obliatas was fraught. The plan itself was small – a glowing light at the centre of an otherwise empty mote. But the object was so bright it was difficult to approach. Uriel could not be blinded by radiance, and floated the idea that he weave the fate of blindfolded crewmembers, allowing them to perform their functions, but the crew were having none of. So he had the ship approach as close as it could, and set off alone on a stone discs to investigate. Korrigan meditated and accompanied him as an mental projection.

As they drew closer they became aware of a telepathic ‘voice’ – a shrill and unhinged babble at first. Then it appeared to notice them and asked them who they were, how they came to be there and what they wanted – querulous, but not demanding.

Uriel set about trying to communicate with the thing, first answering its questions in a careful, neutral and non-committal way. With patience, he was able to unpick its story through the babbling:

The star Obliatas was the centre of a system where the planets were drained of life by a cosmic undead horror. Originally the avatar of a sun god, Obliatas was stranded after all the followers of the god perished. It swore it would destroy all the undead it found, but the horror left the system, and Obliatas eventually found itself in the Gyre.

Obliatas had been in the Gyre for nearly a thousand years, and after a period of mourning (and gradually losing its mind), the sentient sun began to wander. Eventually it discovered the undead civilization on Iratha Ket, and has spent all of its years since trying to destroy the inhabitants – rising above them, until driven away by their magic. This, then, was the cause of the irregular day-night cycle in the Gyre.

While he kept the sun ‘talking’, Uriel studied its energies and realised they could be used to fill any of the types required for the Axis Seal Ritual. Not as a sun, though, it was not powerful enough for that. That facet of the ritual still eluded them.

Uriel was careful to make no promises and eventually withdrew from his conversation with Obliatas.

They continued on their way, but the sun followed them. It demanded to know where they were going. They did not respond, but casually veered away towards the nearby empty mote, as if that was where they’d been headed all along. Obliatas tired of following them once it was clear they were not heading for Iratha Ket.

In the ‘empty’ mote, they suddenly had to undertake evasive manoeuvres. All around them floated dead ships of all sorts, most of alien design.

“I thought you said this was empty?” Korrigan asked Calily. Here, she confessed, was the drawback of her explorations: she had conducted them mostly on foot, and where she could not walk or run, had been forced to rely on the word of other travellers.

If they’d had time, this place would have been a treasure trove to the archaeologically minded. As it was, they released their ghost friends from the Dream Palace, and Uru tried to make contact with the spirits of the ships. Though they were not truly sentient, they all pointed at the centre of the moat, giving inchoate ‘worship’ to the King of Ships. They travelled there to take a look.

While they went, Uru knocked on Rumdoom’s door, and negotiated his way past the diffident dwarven wardens. To Rumdoom, he declaimed, “You are the Avatar of the End! And if you go outside, you will see a graveyard of ships and the King of Ships!”

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” said Rumdoom and came up on deck to humour his friend.

Soon they arrived at the centre of the mote, and there sat a red-and-white metal ship, not entirely unlike their own in design, but smaller and lacking a funnel. Not military in function, Uriel thought, but scientific.

Korrigan used the Humble Hook to learn its name. The king of ships was…

Boaty McBoatface!

(Look! It even has a teleportation circle!)

 

[RangerWickett]

Y'know, maybe memes aren't the best idea for an adventure path people will be playing years after the book gets published, but I have no regrets.

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 242, Part Five

Iratha Ket

The world of Iratha Ket had been eaten away by the depredations of Obliatas, leaving only a crescent city and its river. For fear of infection, they warded themselves and descended on stone discs, leaving the Coaltongue behind. Flying low over the rooftops, they used ‘macrocasters’ tp declare themselves friends and tell the citizens of the city that they had heard of their plight from Catahoulie the wizard, and were here to offer their aid.

As they landed, excitable sketetal crowds gathered and began to celebrate in song. With seemingly perfect coordination, disparate groups of townsfolk threw miles of red carpet down to create a guide-path, then cajoled the unit through the city as they sang of the history of the plague, showed off the headstone-filled graveyard, introduced the two current waking lovers Pookie and Bunk, and pause before the palace to look up at the black curtains drawn across the window of the king’s chambers, before finally surging up the stairs to where Queen Atchafalaya awaited them.

“Remember to keep your distance,” Leon advised. (This was not a disease he wanted to catch.) “No ceremonial kisses.”

“Why not?” asked Quratulain. “We’re all dead anyway.”

As the song ended the queen — her bony wrists jangling with red cat bracelets, her white skull dotted with black paint to give her a dubious smirk, her dress slinky and provocative, even though she had no flesh anymore — invited them to dine with her and the still-living couple. She wasn’t hungry, of course, but there was plenty of food — beans, corn tortillas, peppers, and cheese mostly — for guests. Plus enough tequila to last until the world was ground to dust.

They were polite in their refusal. (Except Rumdoom, who growled that this was a truly terrible ending. “A few quick whacks with the Stone of Not…” he suggested, but this was ignored.)

Queen Atchafalaya asked them why they had come. Although he did not want to make their help seem contingent on anything, Korrigan explained that they were travelling the Gyre seeking worlds to bond with their own. At once, the Queen was concerned that if they used her world’s energy, then the plague might spread to their world.

The queen lamented that her husband is sick, not in his flesh because he had none, but in his soul. It seemed the lot of her people that they would fail to heal those they loved. Moreover, without King Calcasieu’s aid, the angry star Obliatas was slowly destroying their people, since not everyone could get indoors fast enough. The fishermen, especially, were having trouble since there was no cover on the water. To this, Bunk mentioned that he wasn’t really a big fan of fish anyway. This drew everyone’s attention to the fact that he hadn’t actually eaten anything on his plate. Neither had Pookie.

Uriel got a sense of the selflessness and determination of the people of Iratha Ket. “They’re not terrifying monsters,” said Uriel. They even had a bit of fun with their bodies — popping off limbs for gags and such. (The court jester, Kisatchie, had popularized his catch-phrase, “Wait, that’s not my femur!”) Yes, they were dead, but they maintained a belief that the needs of the living were the priority. If they had to end their existence permanently to save the remaining sleepers, they did do it gladly. So it was no surprise to him when he investigated the traits of the Iratha Ket and discovered that greater altruism would be a consequence of bonding with the plane. That and spontaneous musical numbers (which drew a groan from Uru and Leon in particular).

So the unit began their investigation into the disease. Uru started poking around with the food to see if it was poisoned. The skeletal healers assured him that they had already considered that. What they established early on was that the disease was caused by a parasite – but a parasite that remained undetected when they conducted… they hesitated over the word. “Autopsy?” said Uru. “I do them all the time. Sometimes I even have a reason!” Uru then went on to suggest that if they couldn’t find a physical parasite, perhaps they were dealing with a mental one. “Something like the gidim?” he suggested to the others. Leon quieted him and asked the healers to describe what methods they had tried.

The healers went on to explain that they had tried herbal medicines, prayers, trials of faith, bleeding, burning, various poisons, moving the victim to nearby planes (which always led to the destruction of many bodyguards because the neighbourhood was very unfriendly), and even resurrection magic. The last option didn’t work at initially, but once they tried waiting a few months it was a temporary success. The subject thrived at first but got sick again within a month, even without other living people around to reinfect him. In any case, the city did not have enough spell components to resurrect all the people in stasis.

What about the origin of the plague? The royal physician Opelousas (who kept a bottle of tequila inside his ribcage, which he insisted got him drunk despite his lack of metabolism) said the king took all the record books to his private quarters, and had been dwelling in the past ever since.

Uriel asked if it would be possible to look at those texts. The courtier told him that no one was allowed to enter the palace. Burly skeletal guards prevented them. Uriel tried to persuade them of the urgency but they said it didn’t matter how they felt – the guards were under orders from the king himself, which no one – not even the Queen – could countermand.

During this conversation, Uru had already left, stolen past the guards and found the king in his chambers. Calcesieu heaved a forlorn sigh, just as Uru reached out to steal the historical records. Uru felt sorry for him and decided to speak with him instead. The king was barely perturbed by the sudden appearance of this strange individual, and went on to detail the contents of the historical texts: How shortly before the plague sprung up there were many reports of people having strange dreams, like they were being watched from the stars. Many more saw swooping colours in the sky one night. And what about all the singing? True, the king was a great musician, but people never spontaneously broke into musical numbers before the plague. Ever since it struck, though, people have felt somehow more connected to each other.

“More single-minded?” Gupta said with heavy emphasis, when the information was relayed.

This was all the evidence the unit needed to pursue Uru’s early intuition, beginning a careful probe of the minds of Pookie and Bunk. Korrigan sought to aim his thoughts to cause a thoughform to release its prey, but he could not see a target to aim at. Instead, he used telepathy to guide Pookie’s mind, and encourage her to rid herself of the parasite, if it was there.

It worked! The tiny incorporeal thing came free, though it would have gone unnoticed were it not for their combined efforts and abilities. They thought it solid and disabled it. Xambria identified it as gidim weapon. But where were the Gidim, then?

The question was lost as a sudden, uproarious celebration broke out. Pookie was able to eat! While the unit worked on Bunk, another musical number swelled up all around them, fuelled by optimism at that new development. Despite the unit’s protestations that this was all rather premature, Queen Atchafalaya took up their revelation about ‘healthy thinking’ and swirled it into a sympathetic song about the depression that had gripped the king. When Bunk proved able to eat too (and gave up another thoughtform parasite) the queen quickly awakened dozens more of the loving couples, and had them accompany her (physically and lyrically) as she professed her love once more to Calcasieu.

Thousands of citizens of Iratha Ket were jangling their bones in jubilance when ominous light aroses, and Obliatas begins to sear the undead. The song paused (although a really devoted violinist kept playing a frantic trill). People looked to the skies, feeling crestfallen, denied their moment of celebration. Then the black curtain on the king’s chamber was pulled aside, and the king lept into the sunlight, spinning as he landed and raising a defiant voice. The people cheered, and the king swept past the newcomers, asking them to join him as he sang.

“This news demands a celebration, and the best parties go deep into the night, so the sun should come back tomorrow!” As if scolded, Obliatas retreated, and a massive carnival atmosphere gripped the plane.

While the carnival raged on around them, Uriel led the unit’s attempt to confirm the efficacy of their cure. They were able to establish that the gidim were truly gone, and may have been gone for a very long time – that the parasite they had inflicted on these people was all that was left. Perhaps it had been too deadly, leaving them with insufficient minds to feast on? Whatever the answer, the plane was now safe.

Over the din, Korrigan idly asked the king, “What will you do about the threat of Obliatas?”

The question had the effect of causing a sudden end to the music and the dancing, as the entire world responded with dismay in unison with Calcasieu. He hadn’t thought of that!

Queen Atchafalaya urged them, “Please consider bonding with our world, now that it is clean. That would rescue us from this terrible fate.”

Korrigan said he thought that ‘greater altruism’ might be a useful trait for their world. Combined with Etheax and Caeloon, it might create a benign idyll. Uru shuddered and dubbed the proposal ‘Planet Soy’. Neither he nor Leon was prepared to suffer the corollary – a tendency to launch into spontaneous musical numbers.

Despite their misgivings (delivered telepathically, so as not to alarm their hosts), Uriel forged an icon.

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 242, Part Six

Plans

As they travelled back to Ascetia, through the graveyard of ships, so as to avoid Obliatas, Calily pressed Korrigan to begin thinking about tactics. “As we get closer to our goal, I grow less and less inclined to throw myself at the legion with bold abandon! They are formidable and they are many.”

Korrigan agreed that detailed strategizing should be their next step. Of greatest concern, having witnessed the legion in battle, was their ability to teleport. “No matter where we strike, the demons we face there will be able to summon others, who will summon others, and so on in a chain reaction, like a blood clot.”

Knowing the layout of the fortress would be vital, and they had just the deep faen for the job.

They also discussed the possibility of striking at multiple places at once. Though that would spread their numbers thinly, it would prevent the legion from mobbing a single group. It might, however, result in the sacrifice of huge numbers of their allies.

Uriel wondered if they could weave a protective ritual – a circle against demons – and place it in the handle of the Cracked Cauldron. But that might only buy them a little time, as the demons built up outside.

“I wonder how their hierarchy functions?” he went on to say. “Does their domination derive from on high? If we take out Paelyrion, will that disrupt the whole legion?” He decided that the only way to find out would be to capture a chained legionnaire alive, to examine the chains in action. They tried to recall any information they had on how long Paelyrion XVIII had been in the Gyre, cut off from the rest of the legion. The Humble Hook had granted Korrigan a glimpse of the wicked life of the pit fiend Brhan Kinoro, and from that they knew that Paelyrion had led the legion here for thousands of years.

Another major threat was posed by the enslaved creatures of Elosfasp – the supplicants and ravants. Korrigan’s initial idea had been to avoid Elofasp entirely, but he was beginning to think they should investigate the plane and see if a strike there might be worth the risk of alerting the legion.

Approaching Egalitrix was not without its risks, however, so they decided to send a smaller, sneakier force: Uru, Leon, Uriel and Quratulain would scout the plane, assess the situation, and take action if appropriate. Otherwise, they would leave without creating a disturbance, better to maintain the element of surprise.

“If the opportunity arises, we must also try to capture a live specimen,” Uriel reminded them.

End of Session

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 243, Part One

The Spawning Hive

Leon, Uru, Quartulain and Uriel were all set to reconnoitre Elofasp and capture a devil. Uriel cast a magic circle ritual into the Cracked Cauldron, and Uru took the handle, so they could pin one of the legion quickly. Before they approached the plane, they asked Calily what she knew about it, but she confessed her notes had been word-of-mouth. She had avoided it due to its inherent dangers and its proximity to Egalitrix. She volunteered to join their scouting party and they accepted.

From what they hoped was a safe distance, they peered at the plane through a spyglass and saw unusual terrain: spindly spires rising above a dense jungle. Leon teleported Uru and himself just above the canopy, and they flew down to the ground, invisible. The immediate area was safe, and they used Uru’s radio to confirm this, before Leon went back for the others.

While he was gone, which was not long, Uru explored a little and his termorsense revealed something very large moving through the undergrowth – large enough that he might have sensed it through ordinary means. It was moving slowly and was far enough away that it did not propose an immediate threat.

They discovered themselves unable to communicate with the ship through telepathy; Uriel sensed some sort of psychic disruption – an emanation powerful enough to occlude other psionic waves. Leon cracked a wooden bead he had found on Padyer, providing himself with barkskin.

Uriel closed his eyes and channelled the Hierophant. “There are no demons or devils within a mile of us.”

They stole slowly forward and came to a trampled clearing where several enormous beasts munched on foliage. They looked like hairy sauropods (which the unit had seen in Ber). Quratulain studied them, but said she needed more ‘input’ to draw any conclusions about them.

Circling round, they headed for the nearest spindle. Uriel sought to find a small example of local fauna, so that he could polymorph into it. As it was, he was the only member of the group not easily able to sneak through the undergrowth. But before he could spot a suitable creature, his clumsy movement drew the attention of the gargantuan herd. Honking angrily from holes in the top of their heads, they thundered towards the edge of the jungle!

Leon bampfed them all away, back to the Coaltongue. They circled round, found another insertion point close to the spindle, and returned even more cautiously, with Uriel now a mouse in Leon’s pocket. When they drew close to the spire they saw that it was a focal point for the hairy beasts, and when they investigated more closely they saw it was made from gravel and debris held together with a natural cement, like an enormous wasps’ nest. The beasts went in and out of it at ground level, but there were no other entrances higher up. Leon levitated up to the top of the tower and Uriel used location loresight. He sensed that all the beasts they had seen were controlled by a dormant sentience within this structure.

While they were up there, he scoured the treetops for more signs of the legion and – as well as some large, flying, lizard-like creatures with three long necks – very far away, he spotted a Golden Legion windskiff.

Leon teleported them all towards it. Where they arrived, the local fauna comprised those same flying lizards Uriel had already seen. Many of them wheeled around another gravelly spindle. Uriel meditated and sensed the presence of devils: half a mile away now, moving quickly and erratically.

Again, Leon levitated upwards, and they caught sight of the windskiff, banking sharply and moving away from them. They teleported towards it again and this time they got close enough to see that it was chasing one of the three-headed lizards. A laughing horned devil finally hit it with his chain and it fell from the sky. The windskiff went down after it. They hurried to find the spot.

The windskiff was crewed by only six legionnaires. They now stood impassively on the skiff as their leader, the horned devil, kicked at the corpse of his prey and jumped up and down on it, laughing and crowing and gesturing as if showing off to his dominated subordinates.

In this part of the jungle, there were small, flitting creatures like foot-long mosquitoes. They didn’t seem to be bothering the devils. Uru set off on Little Jack to disable the skiff, but he reckoned without the side-effect of the Cracked Cauldron Handle. The little flying beasts were enraged by its presence, and were suddenly on him from all sides, jabbing their proboscises into him, and sucking his blood. His hapless cries alerted the devils.

Before they could react, Quratulain decided to deal with the skiff herself. She stepped out the undergrowth, shouldered the Nok Gun, and took out its propulsion unit with a single shot (albeit one that threw her onto her back). Uriel cast his overawe spell on the horned devil, trapping it in radiant light. Leon teleported onto the skiff and attacked the devils with blade and spell. They were struggling to regain their footing and he was too close to attack with their gearlances. Calily leapt in behind him, disarming several. Both of them were swarmed by bloodsuckers.

Quratulain sat up, drew her pistols and ripped through the legionnaires with multiple shots. Leon and Calily finished them off.

Though beset by bloodsucking insects, Uru played his part, and trapped the horned devil in magic circle. It bellowed foul-mouthed insults at them. Then Leon lit the Wayfarer Lantern, filled with Oil of Urim, granting everyone armour able to fend off the pests.

Quratulain noticed they were not attacking the devils. But she did not think it was their intrinsic nature that protected them, rather their golden chains. Uriel unravelled them from the legionnaires. Holding a chain was not enough to make them safe, the bloodsuckers still came at him. He wasn’t prepared to try wearing one here, until he’d had a chance to examine it.

The swarm had gotten steadily worse. Every bloodsucker in the area was drawn towards them. So they decided to interrogate the horned devil elsewhere. Leon hit it with a curse of incapacity and they bundled it into the absurdist web. Instead of going back to the Coaltongue, he took them to the Dream Palace.

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 243, Part Two

Another One Bites the Dust

Uriel and Leon examined the chains first, establishing that the bonds connecting them to the legion were strong, even here on a demiplane. They created a link from the wearer, in a hierarchical pyramid that did not stop with Paelyrion XVIII, but with Egal the Shimmering himself, out there in the multiverse somewhere. (So it wouldn’t do any good to kill Paelyrion if doing so caused them to be surrounded by legionnaires. The legion would soldier on regardless.) Uriel tested the chains. They could be broken by anyone with sufficient strength – Rumdoom, for example. Doing so would weaken the devil, eventually killing it if they were not repaired. They could be more carefully removed with the right ameliorative spell or ritual.

They invited Linia to be present at their interrogation of the horned devil (once it was released from the absurdist web into a carefully prepared magic circle). She accepted without much enthusiasm, more out of boredom than anything else, and though her presence drew filthy insults from the creature, it did not do much to dent its singular devotion to the legion. The devil answered all of their questions with the same barked response: “Loyalty is prosperity! Prosperity is freedom!”

Tiring of this, Leon invoked his terrifying presence which cowed the thing into breaking its eternal vow. Almost at once, its skin began to blacken around its chains, and before long these burns caused it such agony that answering their questions was impossible. In the end, it was reduced to a charred heap, but not before they had gained the following intelligence:

Does the legion have a base on Elofasp? Yes.

Where is it? At the centre of the plane, in the largest hive.

Do these chains protect you from the creatures of Elofasp? They do, since we enslaved their queen after a great and terrible battle.

Will we find this queen in the central hive? Yes.

What strength of numbers have you guarding her? Enough to easily defeat you! Long live the legion!

These were its last intelligible words.

Thus equipped, they hatched a simple plan to dispatch the queen of Elofasp and thereby free her spawn.

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 243, Part Three

Kill a Queen

Their plan worked a treat, as they stole past the complacent (though substantial) guards placed by the legion to protect their major asset. As they entered the spindle, they saw close up signs that a great civilisation had risen and crumbled here, as worked and carved stone was packed into the walls of the hive.

Deep into the structure, they came to the chamber of the queen – a vast sessile blob sporting clawed forelimbs, leathery wings, tentacles, hooves, mandibles, antennae, in chaotic profusion, all entwined with enough chains of gold that the mass looked like a ball of twine.

On one side of the entrance to this chamber was a statue of an alien creature, its forearms raised in supplication. As the group stole past it, it revealed itself in a blaze of light - a Supplicant of Elofasp! It struck out at Leon with its mantis-like forelimbs. He gave a yell of agony and teleported away, responding with an instinctive blaze of tiefling fire which failed to harm the creature. Not so Uru’s shuriken, which almost felled it, but not quite. Still alive, it flooded the area with dizzying illusions of praying statuary. Leon, Uru and Calily fell, blinded. Quratulain’s mask allowed her to see through these illusions, and she took aim at the supplicant and… missed! Missed? Inconceivable!

Uriel had gotten close enough to the sessile queen to reach out and transmute a whole area of golden chains, causing them to fall away from it, but it did no good. Then the queen lashed out with a serrated limb and grabbed him. Despite the pain, Uriel closed his eyes and transformed into something more than human, became entirely spirit and drifted out of its clutches.

Uru gave a cry of warning. Though blind, he could sense the defenders they had bypassed now rushing down the passageways to confront them. Way out ahead of the others were the terrifying ravants, who charged into their midst and planted themselves, like boulders – virtually invulnerable, waiting for their moment to strike.

Behind them – two-dozen elite troopers, two horned devils and a pit fiend.

Calily cleansed her Kai, freed herself of all hindrances and floated invisibly to relative safety some distance away. Leon blindly teleported to anywhere he had seen earlier, hoping it would take him out of the illusions. It didn’t.

Quratulain took out the supplicant and the illusions ceased. Then she turned and fired on the queen. It was like hitting a whale with a pea-shooter. “You need something bigger,” Uriel urged. “Use the Nok gun!”

“I don’t want to end up on my backside again, thank you. Firing that thing makes me weak at the knees!”

Uriel promised he would use healing magic to fix Quratulain up if she did so. “We need to kill the queen fast, so we can get out of here!”

Elite legionnaires worked together to bring to bear an arcanoscientific weapon which they used to fire lightning at Quratulain, Uriel and Leon. Uriel was immune in his current higher state of existence. Quratulain was unharmed by it too. She laughed as if she was being tickled and said the lightning made her feel “yummy in my tummy”. Leon was hurt and teleported even further away.

The horned devils attacked, focusing their fire on Quratulain. She dodged their attacks and continued to take pot-shots at the queen. The ravants unfurled and were on her as well. She defended herself as best she could, not wishing to have any more limbs ripped off. All this ducking and dodging had exhausted her even before she fired the Nok gun!

Then the pit fiend arrived in their midst, radiating terrible fire, and causing even the most stalwart of them to quail.

Leon filled the wayfarer lantern with oil of Trail by Fire, bathing them in a light that defended them from the pit fiend’s blaze. Then Calily leapt at the fiend and kicked it back across the room, a distance which barely seemed feasible, given her slight frame. The pit fiend bellowed in outrage.

With the threat of the fiend abated for a moment, Uru joined Quratulain in shooting at the bloated queen. His shuriken burrowed deep, but the effort felt futile. Uriel hovered over Quratulain, restored her to health and urged her once again to use the Nok gun.

She drew it from her magical robes, shouldered it and fired, blowing a massive chunk out of the queen, and throwing Quratulain onto her backside again. Immediately, a ravant was on her. She struggled to fight it off. The other ravant went for Uru, who flitted away on Little Jack.

The pit fiend flew back in, its aura searing all of them, but doing no harm, thanks to the Wayfarer Lantern. The horned devils tried to ensnare Quratulain again, and again she was able to fend them off.

The elite legionnaires threw their gearlances at Quratulain, Calily and Uru. The women dodged, but Uru was hit, wrapped in chains, pinned and crushed!

Calily kicked the pit fiend away again! The fiend roared in frustration and summoned two dozen more legionnaires to its side

Once again, Leon turned the battle with a time stop spell. He set up a dimension door next to Uru, Calily and Uriel, then teleported himself round to the far side of the queen, bringing Quratulain with him (still prone, and clutching the empty Nok Gun).

When time resumed, everyone saw the opened portals and leapt through, Uru ghost-stepping out of his chains. Then he used his ghostly entourage to rapidly reload the Nok Gun. Quratulain fired again, and this time, her shot saw the hive queen wheeze, whine and sag.

At once, the ravants turned on their captors. They paused to enjoy this moment briefly, before Leon whisked them all away.

End of Session