Game Story

Session Recaps

Session 28 story posted below - next story will be published after the April Fools' Day session. (I will usually post the story within the day or two following the game session depending on my work responsibilities and other availability)

Session Twenty-Eight – Rescuing the Mark

As Tauss’ team quickly prepares, they are provided information on the not too well-known area of Jandros by Halleasteiran’s steward via a holograph-like illusory communication. They learn the area they will be headed into is a mostly rural farming and mining area on the border of a fairly large forest. Knowing they’re dealing with insurmountable volumes of zombies, Kor-el provides each of the team members a pearl with a Protection from Evil circle that will be deployed when the pearl is thrown down. The circle cannot be moved, so the team needs to be strategic in how they deploy the protection circles. However, with Kor-el’s power, the area protected will be quite large, 260 feet circles in diameter.

Loc-Larin provides the team with information on zombies, both lesser and median types to provide some manner of preparedness. Beyond that, Tauss explains that ideally, they will teleport to the location a couple miles above the surface, to scan the deployment of the zombie horde thus far and discern any other key locations quickly. If possible, he will summon a super-sized tornado to encompass the entire horde and keep them from spreading beyond the portion of the Golden March where they’ve begun their incursion. With Kor-el’s aid, he is able to prepare a tornado that will bring two-hundred mile an hour velocity winds in up to a thirteen-mile diameter storm. He hopes this completely contains the massive zombie horde.

As they prepare for Kor-el to open a gate for the team, Loc-Larin casts Combine and a couple other long-lasting spells to augment his (and others) priest spells for the foreseeable conflict. The gate is opened and the team appears in the sky, beginning to fall and seeing the forest, farmlands, overwhelming zombie horde and the collection of buildings that indicate a medium sized village. Fawn pulls out her spyglass and does a sweep, locating a couple farmsteads, a mine and various zombie behaviors indicating they are chasing small groups or individuals. She also notes a small, mounted militia force a little over a mile to the west of the village and a small group of ranger-like folk heading north from the forest toward the southernmost farmstead.

The view also reveals that if Tauss spellcrafts his tornado to approximately a six-mile radius, he can encompass the entire zombie horde and limit their expansion. Raising the elemental staff, he summons an impossibly large storm the team can see on the horizons. The area they mean to protect sits within the massive six-mile radius “eye” of the storm. The group quickly decides to separate and Caliban spellcrafts his own Team Speak spell in order to “add in” key individuals they encounter and bring them in to a communicative fold. Kenn, Tauss and the Storm Princess fly down to the village of Bloodhorn. Kenn sees a “spotter” on top of a fairly large building near the center of town. There are hundreds of zombies in the town, clawing at buildings which most certainly contain living mortals.

Kenn quickly identifies himself to the spotter, who is happy to hear they have support once he realizes the flying beings are allies rather than enemies. Kenn deploys his pearl and the large area of effect protects virtually every building of the village. Immediately the lesser zombies begin to retreat to the edge, but one median zombie hurtles forward to engage Kenn. He hurls his axes and realizes these zombies are stout. Summoning his axes back to his hands as the zombie quickly closes the distance, he knocks away one of the claws and delivers three rapid fire strikes to drop the undead. The body immediately begins to twitch and Kenn recalls Loc’s explanation that it is critical to burn these things to ash and thinks about what he can do. Tauss offers to aid and uses the Elemental Staff to immolate the zombie corpse.

Mielle flies south toward the southernmost farmstead seen by Fawn and the group of rangers. As she flies, she keeps her eyes out for the couple small, wandering groups that appeared somewhat along her way. Caliban from his overwatch position watches the flow of the zombies and helps direct Mielle closer while he helps other teams move toward their objectives. Mielle first encounters a family of three. A mother, father and perhaps eight-year-old daughter fleeing the zombies. They do not yet seem in the crosshairs of any median zombies and seem to be maintaining their lead. Mielle consecrates the ground and tells them to hold tight for rescue, knowing that if a median zombie finds them, they’re toast. However, she knows there are many potential victims that can fall if she does not at least attempt to aid all she can. She asks Cal to add the father to the Team Speak enchantment.

Mielle flies off, encountering the next rag-tag group of five merchants, each sporting their heavy pack of goods and fleeing the zombies. They are reluctant to dump their packs, stating that they’ll be giving themselves a death sentence if they discard their precious goods (a quick scan by Mielle doesn’t show much beyond pots, pans and fire irons, but she shrugs it off, no time to debate sale values versus ones life). She provides the leader with a holy symbol of Saas Vain with an Orison of “luck” on it to help them do their best to evade the zombies. She alters their path to steer them away from running directly into any overwhelming hordes. She asks Cal to add the lead merchant to the Team Speak enchantment, wishes them good luck and flies to the farmstead.

On approach, she sees a dozen people on the roof of a building, there seems to be a bow wielding, red headed, sylvan elf aiding the human farmers. The farmhouse area is overrun with hundreds of zombies, but Mielle lands on the roof and identifies herself as a priestess of Saas Vain. The red headed elf girl knows of Saas Vain and welcomes Mielle, introducing herself as Faeranei and conversing in the sylvan tongue. Mielle sees this young, elven girl as one that has potential, but is unlikely to be able to defend for long. Sensing a median zombie charging forward, Faeranei fires a couple arrows, hitting the zombie in the head, but it doesn’t stop. Mielle leaps down and delivers cuts with her sun blade, however, finishing it off. The elf girl throws a fire brand from a fire they’ve established on the roof down to Mielle who uses it, augmenting with her sun powers to incinerate the zombie as it twitches.

Finally, Mielle flies to intercept the rangers. With Caliban’s intel, she realizes they are headed right into a pincer between two ten-thousand zombie hordes. She flies down, identifies herself and finds out the rangers are intending to help the farmstead she was just at. Eyeballing these guys, she feels they would be able to hold out much longer together and gives the rangers info on altering their route forward to get there safely. They agree, change tack due west with intent to swing north to the farmhouse, staying well away from the zombie surge.

Fawn flies toward the northern farmstead and decides to take a route that allows her to pass, with a safe distance, near the soul dreadnaught. She does some assessments, determining that it seems to be absorbing life force around it (and sees the grass and such visibly dying around it). It also seems to be emitting a cone of anti-magic (which she steers clear of) and confirms it is effectively a forty-foot tall “golem” constructed of hundreds of human sized corpses. It lumbers slowly, but she extrapolates that it actually moves slightly faster than she would if moving on foot. She shares her intel with the team and continues on toward the farmstead. As she flies she notes a smaller farmstead even further to the north she didn’t see because there weren’t any zombies around it yet.

Crag and Loc-Larin fly to the mounted militia who are still fighting zombies from their mounted position, using their mobility to their advantage and likely not realizing that they are about to be absorbed into two ten-thousand zombie hordes that are closing on them from either side. Crag identifies himself and informs them of their situation, the militia leader seems to recognize the are Crag is from and states that he is far from home. Crag uses his One Mind spell to bond he, Loc and three of the “lead” horsemen with their mounts. He then casts Adaptation to make them perfectly in tune with the land. The calvary then begins to ride north to “drive by” the dreadnaught. As they ride, Fawn’s intel is shared.

Arriving a distance away from the dreadnaught and avoiding the zombie hordes that precede and follow it, Loc-Larin does his own assessment of the beast. The one anomaly he identifies while attempting to find a weak point of some kind, is that there is an Astral connection for the monster. Something not normally associated with undead or negative material beings of any kind. Loc wonders if there is a silver cord or some other possible weakness that can be exploited with the knowledge they gained with the githyanki.

Fawn arrives at the farmstead and again, there are hundreds of zombies already here. With zombies focused on the primary farm house and a large barn, she flies into an open hay loft and scares the bajeezus out of a pre-teen boy who was keeping watch from above. Within, there are a total of eight men and boys and the man who appears to be the head farmer/father explains that the rest of the people are in the farmhouse. Mostly women, a couple young kids, and a couple farmhands for which the run to the house was closer to the house than the barn. There are also six cows, eight horses and a few goats in the barn as well. The farmer states that the zombies immediately started attacking his livestock and they got away with what they could.

Fawn flies over to the farm house, announces herself and does her best Salem’s Lot entry as a window is unbarred for her, then closed behind her. She sees a tough farm wife, three teen girls and four young kids (two boys and two girls under the age of six) and four men, the farmhands mentioned by the dad. Fawn informs Crag who says he can be there with the militia in under five minutes. Fawn tells the people that help is on the way and they hold tight as she looks over the buildings and recognizes very good construction.

Copperhead and Nikam’Pom fly to the mine area and find a pair of sword wielding guard types fighting off a handful of zombies. Copperhead uses Voice of Thunder to announce he and Nikam’s arrival and then lights up the zombies with a Spark Shower. Nikam closes in on the zombies with his lava blade and ensures they all burn up. Copperhead explains who they are to the miners and the lead miner explains there are maybe twenty-two men inside including themselves in that number. Copperhead throws down his pearl and the entrance and a large buffer is protected from zombies. Lesser zombies within the area retreat to the edge of the circle as Caliban continues to add people to the regional team speak as the team determines the best plan of attack.

Session Twenty-Seven – Retrieving the Gatewatcher

Crag, feeling the reminders of his encounter with the young ice dragon provides the team with some brief info on the enemy they face. As each moves, the team quickly fleshes out their actions to coordinate. Fawn shrinks herself and leaps up towards the dragon’s head, landing near where she wants to be, she uses her gymnastic skills to put herself in position next to the dragon’s earhole. Copperhead attempts to focus his Voice of Thunder and his Destroy Portal spell to break out the rear windows of the sanctuary, but the spell seems only to “flex” the window, they do not break. Nikam gathers the growth potion from Loc-Larin and quaffs it while empowering his arms with the wind element and preparing to move quickly. Caliban places an Irritation on the dragon, which seems to affect it as it reacts to the itchiness and he also tries to Choke the dragon, but that spell fails. He teleports himself in a puff of smoke near Kenn to hand off the potion of giant strength.

Mielle says a quick prayer to her goddess and the power of Saas Vain intensifies in her. The glow of her sunlight becomes brighter and she can see the “cloak” of shadow that surrounds the dragon diminish in her direct presence. She draws two swords which become empowered with the light of the sun and she prepares to defend herself against the dragon as her sun aura causes damage to the shadow monster. Kenn drinks the potion of Storm Giant Strength and feels himself become exceptionally strong. He positions himself near Crag and touches him to empower him with Strength of One, sharing his storm giant strength with Crag. Crag casts Adaption which allows all of the team to feel perfectly attuned and ready to fight in this temple sanctuary and within the dream realm and enhances his weapons while closing with the dragon’s flank. Loc-Larin emanates his Fey Magic Flow which augments Fawn and Mielle as well as himself and he psyches himself into a combat rage to charge the dragon.

The dragon turns toward the badly grouped team and breathes a cloud of what appears to be gaseous shadow that fills the area toward the entry point. Loc-Larin and Nikam-Pom evade to the edges of the breath cloud and dodge the strength absorbing power of the shadow breath. Crag and Kenn take the strength sapping damage, but their battle ready selves shake off the feeling of swooning, while Caliban and Copperhead both drop and begin to shake on the floor as shadowy wisps coil around their bodies. Fawn, being right near the business end of the dragon sees the devastation the breath weapon causes and dumps the entire magazine of her magic gun, charged with lightning, into the dragon’s earhole. Nikam, moving with his evasion and parkour type movements, grapples the tail of the shadow dragon hoping to control its movements with his use of Toruk-Jha.

Mielle casts Solar Blessing, slices into the dragon with her sun blade, which opens a nice gash, from which sunlight streams in. Mielle can feel the power of Saas Vain flowing through her and feels virtually indomitable as the dragons attention moves away from the breath weapon targeting and back to her. Kenn senses that if he does not act quickly for Caliban, the goblin will perish, so he negates his intent to use his strength and axes to attack and instead moves to touch the writhing body of Cal with a heal spell. The shadow tendrils dissipate and Caliban relaxes into a comfortable sleep. Kenn feels this has done what he wanted, though nothing is certain in this dream realm. Crag casts Lead from the Front and successfully strikes the dragon, empowering the team with bonuses from his success, however, as he sees Kenn healing Cal, he realizes he should change his course and heal Copperhead.

Loc-Larin gets some cuts in on the shadow dragon, but they seem small in the big picture of damage being dealt, however, his rage burns and he focuses on dealing as much damage as he can. The dragon summons a bunch of shadow snakes that begin to move towards each of the team members and focuses the full fury of his attacks on Mielle. In a flurry of parries she evades and knocks aside every attack except a stomp by a foreleg. The power of he glorified light, however, fills the room and snuffs out all of the attacking shadow snakes before they can even do anything. Fawn, hanging onto the head for dear life, stabs as quickly as possible at the head of the dragon with her main gauches. However, the blades, though augmented by lightning, seem to do far less than the gun blast had done and what Mielle’s light attacks are doing.

Nikam focuses his true strike, but the tail of the beast is exceptionally strong, even with his large size and Toruk-Jha, he is pulled in different directions not truly controlling the dragon as he’d hoped. He changes his grip and tries again with the aid of True Strike. Mielle strikes true with her sun blade fully feeling the flow of battle through the will of Saas Vain, but the dragon still seems resistant although she continues to deal considerable damage. Kenn flings an axe from his location near Caliban and works to close the gap once again. Crag confirms his decision to retreat from the dragon’s flank to heal Copperhead and sense that the scaloid is slipping away. He hears the voice of Arxeen in his head “keep the weaker members of your team safe!” and channels the will of the Cold One, sending some of his energy and healing magic into Copperhead.

Copperhead feels himself have an out of body experience, the strength of the Cold One awakening the power of his own god Noxicuss within himself. In the dream realm, he feels as if he is a ghost and in this ghostly form, he sees the dragon as a ghostly form with a small nexus of shadow energy he can see. He feels if he summons the power of Noxicuss and uses his targeting skill with his lightning bolt, he can strike directly at this “shadow heart.” Focusing the lightning bolt and the power of his Voice of Thunder, despite being in “ghost form” he targets the shadow heart, striking true. Coupled with the effects of Mielle’s sun energy and the will of Saas Vain the shadow dragon bursts into a cloud of shadow that disperses within the light of Saas Vain. Fawn effortlessly lands on the ground near Mielle.

Crag checks on Copperhead and sees he is sleeping comfortably, not sure about how the KO’d body sent forth a perfectly targeted lightning bolt, but Crag feels in his heart that Aeryamoinyen’s power was behind the flawless shot. Kenn and Loc-Larin approach the sword and attempt to reach forward, but are blocked just as Fawn was. Kenn attempts to detect phase, portals and other dimensional anomalies, but finds none. He tries and tries again, until Loc steps forward as he is coming down from his rage and slowly but surely moves his hand millimeter by millimeter forward toward the blade. Moving at such a slow pace, he does not seem to be rejected by the field and after perhaps twenty minutes, finally grasps the blade. He is able to slowly draw it from the stone and then feels the shielding vanish and takes a step back. He looks at his friend Kenn, then falls as the blade skitters from his hand. The sleep from his rage overcoming the elf.

Kenn picks up the blade and immediately senses a portal roughly a mile away. The team discusses the next steps briefly, then agree to hoist up the unconscious bodies of Caliban and Copperhead and make the hike to the portal detected. They make their way unmolested to the peak of one of the nearby mountains and find the portal. Kenn’s portal assessment tells him that the portal has some manner of “dispel magic” sort of property, but does not seem inherently dangerous. They send Nikam through and he disappears. After the appropriate wait time they pull back the rope with an empty loop and determine it safe to proceed. As they walk through each awakens in their bodies back at the pylon and are greeted by Kor-el, Kain and Mahgdoleina and congratulated on their successful recovery of the blade.

Kain carves out the stone under the pylon and Mahgdoleina shrinks the entire pylon to approximately a foot in size. Kor-el opens a dimensional portal and everyone walks through into the tavern area of the Lor’Aserion Adventurer’s Guild building. The group is offered some expensive bottles of liquor to celebrate and cheers to their success while Caliban and Copperhead are placed in Kor-el’s healing water cylinders. Summons are sent to Chadi to join them in Lor’Aserion and she arrives as Kain places the Gatewatcher into a complex circle construct that had been created by Kor-el and Mahgdoleina. After about an hour of preparation they are ready to implement the power of the Gatewatcher globally. Also within an hour, Caliban and Copperhead awaken, fully restored by Kor-el’s magic and are able to also witness the power of the Gatewatcher close over a million gates in a moment.

Kor-el is immediately contacted by the High Oracle of the Eye from Hippocrane. He informs the group that all but nineteen thousand, nine hundred and fifty gates have been closed. Of those, twenty are in eminent need of immediate closure and the legends immediately agree to separate to address the situations. The team is assigned to go with Tauss who will be sent to an area of a borderlands country called Jandros, specifically to the Golden March (Mark), a fairly rural location, but one that could easily spread danger throughout the countryside. There it seems there is a gate to the Negative Material Plane, a horde of roughly four hundred thousand zombies and a soul dreadnaught. A roughly forty foot tall being comprised of corpses like some manner of undead golem construct. The thought of an army of four hundred thousand is daunting, but the team prepares to accompany Tauss and support him in the best way possible. The Storm Princess will not be dissuaded from going with Tauss.

Session Twenty-Six – Dreaming of the Shadow Dragon

After some team discussion on how to best coordinate the group’s attempt to fall asleep simultaneously and move through the dream portal, the team does some tenting of the pylon and Caliban builds a smoking fire to fill the interior with a mild smoke to distribute some sleep aid based smoke and help get everyone into a relaxed state. Though the team jokes about it a little, Crag begins a chant that creates a repeating rhythm that also aids as Mielle does her “One Mind” spell to help everyone with her Harness Subconscious abilities. With the preparations in place, Copperhead begins to use Hypnosis to get everyone into a sleep state, then places himself under with self-hypnosis.

The team fades off comfortably and everyone is near simultaneously awoken by the loud sound of a waterfall. As the team rousts themselves, they find they are at the edge of a pool at the base of a large waterfall. There are white stone stairs that lead up from here and as they look around they see steep mountains and cliffs, but a definite elven feel to the area. However, at the tops of several of the peaks and some outcroppings, bits of snow grace the area. There appears to be something like a white church or temple building at the top of the small mountain. Overall it seems quite a beautiful setting and as such, everyone is on edge. Crag attempts to summon Khanda but it appears as if a different bear has appeared. Connecting with “One Mind” Crag confirms it is indeed Khanda, but he seems to be channeling his father Kharga into his own image. A little bigger, a little brighter white fur and a true battle bear.

Copperhead notices that Caliban appears a little taller, a little more muscularly defined and there is something a little different, healthier, better about him. Between the differences in Khanda and Caliban, the group slowly realizes that they are each slightly different from their natural selves depending on their own opinion of who they are in their own dream form. Fawn realizes she doesn’t have her Gatewatcher crystal on her person, however, she feels as if she can just focus her mind and “see” the line of direction in her head. It points to the temple building at the top of the mountain and she informs the team. Several team members realize they do not have all of their equipment with them, primary things are with them, but certain minor or rarely used things seem missing.

Caliban realizes his Team Speak is disconnected from Andras, however, he feels as if he can simply manifest a team speak with his team. It takes a moment for everyone to connect, but soon the team is communicating in the fashion they’d gotten used to over the past month. Copperhead decides to use a spell he has not yet used and is surrounded by winds that lift him gently off the ground. He floats upward to get a better view of the surrounding area. He can track the white stairs that seem to wind up the cliffs and mountain for a couple of miles, most of the “hike” within view. He does not see any beings, animals or other potential issues and in general feels he can clearly see the path to the temple.

As the group begins their hike, Mielle feels very elven, even with her gleaming armor, she has a spring in her step and really gets moving up the stairway. Overall, nobody has a problem speeding up the stairway and after perhaps twenty minutes, they’ve reached nearly halfway. As they reach a glade-like clearing, the group is greeted by roughly two dozen large white puppies. Again the group is immediately on edge, feeling these creatures must be enemies. Khanda’s animal sense, however, communicates to Crag that these things are not truly real and instead “feel” like nothing but paper to him. That said, Caliban enjoys these puppies who come and play with those who also enjoy the small distraction. Caliban feeds them many kibble treats and the creatures seem to gobble them up with much canine joy.

As the group continues up the stairs, about thirteen of the puppies follow Caliban as they head up. The group soon makes their way to the temple, a while dome-like structure with stained glass windows that surround the outside and large eighteen foot high double doors at the entry. Mielle uses her Analyze Balance: Greater to sense major opposition to Saas Vain and finds no major “offenses” in her seven mile radius. Seeing no handles, knobs or other apparatus to open the massive doors, Mielle simply pushes and they swing open smoothly and with little effort, “clearly elven engineering,” she says. The entire temple is merely seventy or eighty feet in diameter, the stained glass fills the room with a beautiful light, but none of the glass really has any imagery, nor any magical runes or sigils. At the center of the room is a roughly three foot high stone pedestal, a sword thrust into the stone.

Fawn immediately confirms that the blade, according to her self-produced line of direction, is indeed the Gatewatcher. Virtually all of the team members concur with their own version of magic sight that the blade is magical. Mielle encourages Nikam and Fawn to use their skills to examine the threshold for any possible traps before entering. Fawn doesn’t really see anything mechanical or “trigger” wise with her engineering, but hands over her “goggles” to Nikam who puts them on and looks for things that might be trap-like. He takes some time to get used to the microscopic vision, but soon loves the perspective it gives him. However, after a thorough inspection of the doorway, threshold and near entry area, he cannot find evidence of any traps.

For a moment, Copperhead thinks of flying in alone, but the team quickly decides they’d better stick together and enter as a group. Crag and Khanda agree that Khanda should protect the groups flank and guard the doorway. The team filters into the vestibule, but as soon as Fawn and Caliban (at the rear) get clear of the doors, they all of a sudden slam shut. The room suddenly seems to be a little darker than it was before, though the stained-glass windows still allow a multi-colored and dimly beautiful light to shine in. Crag immediately sees the beginning of shadowy tendrils and almost like a “shadow mist” forming upon the floor. Quickly everyone begins to recognize this as Crag communicates it over the team speak.

As she has done many times, Mielle throws down a Circle of Good, which immediately snuffs out the growing shadow and tendrils in a ten foot radius where she targets the circle just in front of her to allow the entire team to be within the circle’s protecting confines but allow them to all step forward from the doorway. Fawn places a very slowly flashing strobe light that manifests above the sword and pedestal and shines down a light and Kenn casts Starshine, which effectively makes the entire roof area of the temple seem like a brightly lit night sky. Loc-Larin confirms that the shadows are somewhat of a demi-element and with that info, Caliban spellcrafts his Summon Elemental spell to create a shadow elemental under his control.

Fawn decides to make a leap for the blade, knowing “something” is coming or happening and quick reaction might be the best thing to do. She leaps with intent to land atop the pedestal and snatch up the blade, but she hit something resistant, but not utterly solid that prevents her from landing where she wants. Instead she lands on the floor with shadows creeping up over her knees as she feels what might be preventing her from getting to the Gatewatcher. While she expects something like a wall of force as she had studied, this instead feels as if no matter how softly or slowly she pushes forward, the resistance increases and within an inch or two stops her ability to penetrate the area immediately around the blade.

Mielle quickly moves forward to help Fawn, drawing her Sun Blade when suddenly things go much darker than they were and Fawn and Mielle find themselves literally at the feet of a massive Shadow Dragon. The entire team is overwhelmed with a sense of fear that they’ve never faced, however, they’ve faced some scary shit, so they are able to avoid crumpling into fearful balls in the presence of the dragon. The beast appears to be easily forty feet long and between fifteen and twenty feet high. Mielle slices into it with her Sun Blade which seems to “cut it with light” and the eye of the dragon falls upon her. She readies herself to defend. Kenn shoots the dragon with Moonbeam with Ukko boosting his moon powers, which seems to do a little damage as Crag coats his armor with ice and advances. Copperhead notices that the stained glass windows now each have an image of a black dragon in depictions of it kicking some serious ass.

Loc-Larin feels a need to Taunt the dragon, which draws a little of the attention away from Mielle, but the team witnesses an onslaught of attacks they have never seen before as the dragon’s claws flash in on Mielle as she parries, reeling, barely avoids being stomped by a rear leg and performs a miraculous block of the dragon’s bite with her sun blade which gets lodged in the beast’s mouth. Simultaneously Loc-Larin barely parries and evades a wing buffet and wing claw attack by the left wing and Kenn parries attacks from the right wing. Then a burst of shadow energy pulses sending seven shadow claws out toward Fawn, Kenn, Caliban, Loc, Copperhead, Nikam and the Shadow Elemental.

Nikam’s amazing dodge allows him to avoid the claw entirely while all but Caliban are sliced by a claw as it flies by and narrowly misses them. Caliban is caught full force by the shadow claw that flings him back maybe fifteen feet into the massive doors with authority. He narrowly retains his breath and immediately realizes the doors are solidly closed. The team prepares for the fight of their lives.

Session Twenty-Five – the Pylon and Chaos Giants

Caliban initiates his invisibility spell encompassing he, Fawn and Copperhead as Fawn continues to examine things. The giant nearest the pylon slowly moves up to investigate why the door has opened. Meanwhile, Nikam’Pom is asked to sneak his way up to the pylon in order to speak with the stones. He begins to work his way along the edge, avoiding the giant who is investigating the pylon. Loc-Larin sees that the other giant, the one closest to the team down from the peak, seems to have some manner of acidic drool that continually drips from his mouth and informs the team. Caliban sends a quick update to Andras as the pylon investigating giant peers into the open doorway. It begins to open its mouth, which reveals a large bit of tongue flesh to the trio invisible within the pylon. Copperhead immediately recognizes this as something akin to a chameleon tongue and as he realizes this, suddenly shoots forth from the mouth of the giant and hits him square in the chest. Copperhead immediately realizes there is a strong adhesive in the saliva as well as a powerful poison, which thankfully, he is immune to.

The team quickly agrees that a swift strike back at the giants is the right action, though Nikam continues to sneak up toward the pylon. Fawn draws her gun and empties the magazine charged with lightning into the frog tongue giant’s mouth. His skull lights up like a light bulb and, although not dead, the giant is KO’d, stiffens and falls directly backward, yanking Copperhead about five feet out of the pylon in the process. Acid mouth now turns his attention up hill to the giant that lit up like a Christmas tree and Loc-Larin sees a third giant reveal itself and move toward the pylon to investigate as well. There are no clear chaos features on the third giant. Loc and Mielle agree they should try to draw attacks away from the pylon and toward them, so Loc-Larin activates Taunt and Mielle activates Circle of Good attracting both acid mouth and the third giant's attention and immediately shifting their focus back toward the team down from the peak.

Caliban uses Deactivate on the frog giant’s tongue, the adhesive property is neutralized and detaches from Copperhead, Copperhead begins to scrape off some of the goo, both to get it off him as well as to save some for analysis. Mielle dominates acid mouth and takes control of his body, sending him to attack the third giant. Fawn runs out of the pylon, down a few steps then takes a massive leap and triggers her feathery flyer to glide down toward the third giant, her main gauches out and ready to strike. Kenn closes on acid mouth, hurling his axes as he runs. They both find purchase on the giant and he quickly summons them back to his hands for another attack, but acid mouth turns on its heels under Mielle's direction and runs toward the third giant. Crag summons Khanda and summons ice in the path of the third giant who is now charging toward Mielle and Loc-Larin.

Suddenly a fourth giant comes over the horizon of the peak, upon his forehead is emblazoned a symbol of some kind. Caliban attempts to throw down a web to slow symbol giant, but the giants are so massive, the webs are little more than the equivalent of cobwebs to a human. However, Caliban mentions to everyone that the webs are flammable! As such, Mielle shoots the symbol giant with a Sunbeam that ignites the webs. Loc-Larin realizes that the rune or sigil on the giant’s head is of exceptional power. It is major sphere magic and far beyond the capability of any of these giants. Everyone suddenly feels a foreboding sense and an overwhelming hopelessness seeps in, but completely overwhelms Mielle and Fawn. In response, Crag immediately invokes his leadership power to help those less affected maintain their focus as Khanda barrels into the third giant, knocking him over while Fawn lands on him and stabs him with her main gauche.

Copperhead summons his giant constrictor on the neck of the unconscious giant and chokes him to death. Caliban summons a smoke elemental near the symbol giant that begins to pester it. Loc-Larin casts a spell allowing Fawn and Mielle a chance to shake off the effects of the hopelessness, which they do. However, they still have a hopeless feeling, just not something so debilitating. Fawn augments the fire on symbol giant and Mielle shoots him with another sunbeam whittling him down. Kenn once again closes on the acid giant, once more hurling axes and preparing to unleash a concerted attack. Copperhead and the Storm Princess both unleash lightning bolts that severely injure giants, allowing Fawn and Khanda finish off the third giant. Kenn and Crag kill the acid giant and Mielle’s flames, the smoke elemental and Fawn’s enhancing of the fire kills the symbol giant.

The team stands victorious as Nikam picks up a purple gem and says “hello, what are you?” A line of questioning allows the team to learn that the stones are not slaad gems, but rather semi-precious stones gathered from the surrounding mountains. A query about which stones the purple one was surrounded by let’s Nikam move some of the stones around into a different configuration. They also learn that the stones themselves are not magical, nor do they need mana or theurgy to be “injected” into them to make them function. Just the mere touch of a living being is enough to bring them from a state of being “out of time”, as the purple stone calls it, to being empowered. Further questions reveal that the stones were selected by Ssendam, the Chaos Lord of Insanity and that the chaos lord is the “creator” of this pylon object.

Nikam then questions a gold gem and a blue gem as well, learning more about how they are used and configured and what they were surrounded by, working the pattern toward one that might open a portal to another Chaos realm. However, realizing they don't simply want to go to a random chaos plane, Nikam and Fawn work together to assess the Gatewatcher crystal, the geomantic crystal and use Patternweave focused on the Gatewatcher crystal’s “line of direction” in order to determine a pattern for the gems. One that, once all stones are put in place, seems impossible to have otherwise determined. They sense a portal has opened within the pylon, but do not see a way to move though. Kenn uses his portal assessment power and determines that the reason they are not able to move through the portal or really sense its presence is because the portal opens to a dream plane. Something only accessible if the beings are dreaming and then able to move through such a portal in that dream state. The team begins to discuss how to accomplish this feat.

Session Twenty-Four – Unbinding the Dimensions

The team decides to attempt to temporarily break the dimensional connection for the old man by pulling him into Crag’s saddlebags and the pocket dimension within. They theorize that Caliban can place Lasting Breath on Nikam and himself and join the old man in the bag of holding and attempt to find out what is going on as the old man appears to be the lynchpin or focus of the entire demon ritual magic that binds the three dimensions together. Crag empties the saddlebags then puts the bag over the head of Nikam, the old man and Caliban. Once inside, Nikam notices the old man’s “struggles” subside as if he is gaining a respite from whatever internal battle seems to continue to rage on.

Nikam analyzes the old man once again and feels if he can somehow knock the old man’s spirit away from his body that perhaps they can communicate with him. Leveraging his Toruk-Jha and geomantic knowledge, he knocks the old man’s forehead and the spirit separates from the body and he and Cal are able to speak with the old man. He confirms that he was captured by demon wizards in Goreyo more than five hundred years in the past. Part of a plan by Kashtarhak, the Voice of Chaos to create a way for he and his rakshasa minions to be able to transit between the Abyss, Chaos and Prime Material planes at will. Caliban asks if they can simply kill him and break the connection as they have determined the old one is the lynchpin. However, the old man explains that the demonic ritual magic is not breakable like that.

According to the old man, he cannot be killed while under the ritual magic control, he cannot be moved and he cannot be altered in any way. The ritual magic persistently repairs itself and even now, it seeks to pull the old man back to the Chaos realm and recomplete the connection. Nikam speculates that perhaps there are silver threads as they had learned from the githyanki and perhaps Kenn can use his dimensional powers to see such threads and determine a possible path. The old man states firmly that he is happy to die naturally and that he should have passed away centuries past, so the team should not feel bad about letting the old man go if there is a possible way to break things. Nikam asks Cal to go out and inform the team and also recommend they bring with them Mielle’s dimensional shackles to help their plan.

Caliban exits the saddlebag and informs the team of the discussions inside. Mielle produces one of the silver swords and her dimensional shackles and provides them to Kenn who accompanies Caliban into the bag of holding. Once again Cal provides Lasting Breath to Kenn and Kenn uses his detect phase to examine the spirit of the old man. He sees not a single silver thread, but seven silver threads that wind oddly from the body to the spirit. Cal, Nik and Kenn discuss and believe perhaps there is an order to this that Kenn will have to sever correctly and timely. Kenn also cautions against putting the dimensional shackles on prematurely, as he feels it will instantly rejoin the old man’s spirit to his body. Knowing there is but a single available POW slot in Fawn’s item for Nikam to place Patternweave into, Cal once again heads out to bring Fawn into the bag as well.

Another Lasting Breath is placed on Fawn and she allows Nikam to place Patternweave into the POW gem. The gem is then handed to Kenn who uses the Patternweave to make sense of the silver thread chaos and he can determine there is an order of brightness with the threads that work from brightest to dimmest. They determine that when cutting the final thread, they should place the dimensional shackles onto the old man’s body to ensure it is not somehow pulled elsewhere. The old man agrees to their plan and simply asks that they ensure his body is buried properly in the bamboo forest of Sin’Tian in Goreyo when they are able. Kenn cuts the silver threads in order with the silver sword and Fawn uses her time piece to perfectly align the cutting of the seventh thread and Nikam placing the dimensional shackles on the old man’s body.

Outside, the team immediately sees the tiger demons vanish and the metal streams dry up in moments. It is clear something has happened. Cal, Fawn, Kenn and Nikam exit the saddlebags and explain what happened. It seems that the planes have reverted and things are slowly beginning to return to their original state. The old man’s body will remain in the saddle bags to keep it from decomposing and they will leave the dimensional shackles on him for some time. The team quickly decides they should move away from the area, assuming they’ve now seriously pissed of the Voice of Chaos. Crag and the team quickly repack the saddlebags and then Crag and Fawn lead the team to the gate they’d previously scouted.

They arrive at the gate without problem and again Fawn crosses through to see the mountain peaks somewhere near the Edge of Insanity. Again there are three possible paths toward the Gatewatcher from here. Copperhead, however, remembers an anomaly. There have been three separate gates to the area around the mountain tops. One of them with the pylon, Kenn had seen on a neighboring mountain top. However, he remembers that Fawn only saw two possible routes to the Gatewatcher on that peak and that the other two both had three route options. The team decides to rest on the forest side, especially allowing Kenn, Mielle and Crag to heal the wounds sustained against the tiger demons. Curative magics are placed on Kenn and Mielle and they sleep, while Crag’s minor wounds do not force him to succumb to sleep.

Others sleep and meditate as necessary to regain mana and theurgy and as the team rests, they decide it may be worth the effort to return to the Chaos Sphere and the mountain peak portal that opens to the pylon. They agree after completing their rest to make that trek back, trusting their non-detection necklaces to keep the Voice of Chaos off their trail long enough. Once again Crag and Fawn lead the group back to the Chaos Sphere. Cal uses his smoke walk to make his way up to the entry area and attach ropes once again. The team climbs their way back up and are mildly pestered by ice mephits that hope the group had returned to help them or bring them something to help their efforts. However, the team makes their way back to the portal to the pylon and head through.

The team hikes along the ridge and cross over to the mountain peak where the pylon is. It appears to Fawn as if some manner of dwarven-esque manufacturing that started as the peak of the mountain but has been added on with the pylon itself. There appears to be etchings that have a look of what to the players would be like circuitry. As Fawn observes the pylon with her spyglass, Copperhead notices a massive giant perfectly blended into the rocks. Perhaps a guardian of some type? The team slowly backs away and decide to re-approach with a stealth tactic. Fawn and Cal sneak up to the pylon in an exceptionally stealthy manner and examine the pylon more closely.

Fawn sees the pylon itself is a magical construct with its own innate, dedicated mana. She surmises that this would enable a non-magic capable being to also trigger the pylon. She is not sure where on the “circuitry” to trigger things, but with a quick team discussion via team speak. Copperhead offers to bring up his POW item and the Patternweave spell to allow Fawn to unravel what should be done to trigger, activate or open the pylon. Copperhead, using his chameleonic skin and his own stealth, sneaks up to where Cal and Fawn are and Fawn casts Patternweave and easily sees a pathway to trace with her finger. The pylon opens revealing a roughly 5 foot tall doorway and an open space within.

Within the open space is a pedestal with a grid of roughly one and a half inch diameter gems. Nine rows with nine colors, a total of eighty-one “slots” that can be configured in thousands of combinations. The gems are colored amber, blue, green, gray, black, clear, red, purple and golden-yellow. Copperhead recognizes these are the colors of the slaadi. With he recent discovery in speaking with Lek’Lanth that revealed that beyond the known slaad colors, there are also purple and golden slaad associated with he and Ssendam. The purple and gold lines having been “snuffed” or blocked by the high lord of the slaad. Fawn feels certain that this grid allows for some manner of portal manipulation that would work according to the gem configurations. Though none of them are mathematics experts, they easily surmise that there are a massive number of combinations that could be tried.

At the edge of the mountain, the rest of the team notices that the guardian giant has immediately recognized that the pylon was “opened” they inform Fawn, Cal and Copperhead who all three are able to fit within the pylon. They assume perhaps a fourth person could comfortably fit with them, but beyond that, it would be pretty tight in there.

Session Twenty-Three – Taming the Tigers

With none of the mental combat boosts appearing to help, Crag and Mielle attempt to lift the old man and see if they can move him, but they are only capable of lifting him about an inch off the ground, then a supernatural weight or force brings him back down. Kenn assesses the dimensional anomaly of the blended planes with his power and determines that, in general, things are safe for them to exist here. Nikam speaks with a nearby tree and the tree explains to Nikam a brief history of the arrival of the old man. The old man was apparently brought through to the chaos planes by Goreyan demon mages who, in concert with the rakshasas, invoked ritual magic on the old man, a slaad and a volunteer rakshasa to be part of the implementation of merging the plane of the Abyss, the chaos plane where they stand and an area in the Prime Material Plane at the forest of Sin’Tian in Goreyo, where Nikam’Pom’s “geomancy teacher,” Chul lives. Kenn’s portal assessment confirms the merged existence of all three planes in the same space.

The old, Goreyan man is the lynchpin or key element in the ritual magic and the team begins to comprehend the source of the pain and anguish seen in the old Goreyan’s face knowing the extent of the demonic ritual magic. None of the team members really understand ritual magic beyond Loc’Larin, Copperhead and Fawn’s knowledge that such things are very complex, weaved of multiple spells from multiple beings and exceptionally difficult to break. The team realizes that although the three planes are existing simultaneously, they are only perceiving the chaos plane based on their current perspective. Similar to the way perspective art behaves. where you can see one image from one point of view and something entirely different from another.

Nikam’Pom pieces together with the aid of Patternweave that the primary components of the ritual magic are these: the old man, a prime material being, is on the chaos plane. A slaad, a chaos being, is in the Abyss and a rakshasa, an Abyssal being, is on the prime material plane. These three beings bound by ritual magic to combine small areas of all three planes into one. Allowing beings from the prime, chaos and the Abyssal planes in question to travel freely between all three planes at will. This is the construct of Kashtarhak, the Voice of Chaos, a rakshasa lord and an exceptionally powerful being. The old man, a geomancer like Nikam and Chul, seems to be a lynchpin both because of his prime material makeup and his personal geomantic energy. While the team does not understand the full purpose of this construct, Nikam realizes there is a connection to Chul’s forest and if they can somehow unravel this, it is something they should do.

As Nikam speaks to the tree and is informed that the inception of this ritual magic happened some five hundred years in the past, Crag sees a massive tiger emerge from the metal river and pace its way up the bank. It is nearly eight feet at the shoulder and almost twenty feet long from nose to tail. Crag alerts the team and prepares to engage. Caliban sees a couple more tigers approaching from another direction, Fawn sees one coming from another island and preparing to leap across another metal stream and Kenn and Caliban’s battle warg see a couple more coming from another angle. Ultimately the team finds themselves surrounded by eight of these massive tigers. Mielle also sees a tiger demon with four arms and four legs pacing around. She invokes her Circle of Good and the demons remain at bay as Crag attacks the first dire tiger.

Caliban blurs himself in preparation for battle as Mielle shoots a beam of sun energy at one of the tigraur demons. The demon immediately leaps into the circle and attacks Mielle with a flurry of blows. She parries a good many of the attacks and weathers some with her armor, but the beast has too many attacks to evade them all and takes a significant slice across her chest. Loc-Larin quaffs his enlarge potion, becomes a giant and swings his sword at the tiger demon attacking Mielle. Fawn draws her gun and shoots a volley of lightning slugs at one of the tigers as Copperhead and the Storm Princes also launch lightning bolts doing damage. Kenn and Caliban’s battle warg, Fodor get in some excellent shots and drop one of the dire tigers as the rest of them close and encircle the team.

Two dire tigers connect with claw swipes on Fodor and one, with the final bite, bites into smoke as the battle warg is “killed” in the chaos realm and is forced to return to the demi-plane of smoke in a puff of his own elemental substance. Caliban summons a smoke pugilist near where Fodor was to soak some more damage. Crag nails the tiger at the bank and parries the claw strikes that come in at him. As Mielle and Loc-Larin kill the multi-armed tiger demon, she quickly realizes not to attack them as she and other team members see several of the multi-armed demons appear at various points along the perimeter. They remain held at bay by a radius around the old man and Mielle’s circle of good. A quick message is shared in team speak and they all turn their focus on the dire tigers.

Caliban throws up a smoke screen to obscure the vision to the tiger demons on he and Mielle’s edge. Kenn and Fawn slay another dire tiger while Copperhead and the Storm Princess cause more damage to others with their lightning powers. Loc-Larin’s giant sword does excellent damage, Crag fells his tiger and soon the tide has turned and in a few moments all of the dire tigers fall as the tigraur demons pace around the perimeter of Mielle’s circle of good. The team determines they must do something about the old man before more demons and tigers are called forth to attack them. Mielle and Kenn have taken some solid damage and Crag has taken a minor claw scrape. While overall in fairly good shape, they do not want to take another wave or two of tigers to fight.

Session Twenty-Two – the Old Man

Fawn explains her plan to the group and Crag offers some coordination magics normally associated with military groups that might align and coordinate efforts. Loc-Larin and Copperhead provide some additional supporting ideas. Mielle offers that likely these various elements could be joined within a circle that they could draw on one of the chaos hyena skins and allow all of the group to benefit from the magics, directed by Fawn and her time piece to ensure everything happens perfectly. Various team members are able to work on improving their understanding of circle construction, led by Loc-Larin and Mielle.

Having rehearsed their plan and with Crag’s bolstering of Fawn’s leadership and her linking of an alarm that coordinated with a “feeling” for each of them from Mielle’s spellcrafted “Thought Capture,” the team is able to perfectly each cast their Deactivate on each of the seven sigils simultaneously. The “wall of force” that had replaced the portal breaks and the team falls to the ground in varying states of graceful, or at least non-damaging, landings. They feel as if they do not have the ominous scrutiny of being watched intently and with Crag and Kenn’s camouflage skills and the general hide in shadows and hiding abilities, the team makes themselves as non-obtrusive as possible.

Once again Nikam doubles down on figuring out what is going on here with the melded planes and tries to use Patternweave to supplement the findings of his See Cosmos and the other geomantic information he has found. While in the “dimensional prison” while others were trying to figure out means of escape, he was focused on thinking that somehow this was similar to a ley line nexus, but instead perhaps a planar nexus. So as he began this next phase of investigation, he focused on trying to figure out where the actual “nexus” might be.

The Patternweave reveals that the metallic rivers all seem to be flowing away from a source and in his mind’s eye, he sees what appears to be effectively a “spider web” of these rivers flowing out from a particular point. He reviews the information with Copperhead and the rest of the team to develop a navigation path towards the perceived center. Crag recommends that Caliban and Fawn take the lead as the “stealth” scout team and that as they reach open areas where they cannot utilize the natural cover, that they do some preparation and trust that their non-detection necklaces will prevent them from being easily or quickly detected by means other than eyes. Their own stealth skills and planning to minimize the chance of physical detection.

With everyone’s alertness, abilities to sense danger and a variety of other methods of watching carefully for their observation, the team makes their way slowly and carefully toward what Nikam perceives as the “center” of these blended planes. Finally they reach an island where Nikam, Fawn and Caliban physically see the old, oriental man, Nikam had seen in his first unexpected vision or mental image triggered by his first Patternweave. Again, Nikam feels as if he should know this man. While none of the team have any anthropological skills or any other manner of determining the true race of an individual, Nikam gets a sense that this man is Goreyan (Al’Akwannon’s equivalent of Korean).

The old man sits in a meditative, cross-legged position, his eyes closed and apparently focused on something mentally. The team observes the man apparently deal with some amount of mental anguish, pain or something else and they begin to discuss how to perhaps help the man, determine more about him, bolster his willpower or mental power, etc. over team speak. After casing the area and feeling reasonably confident they are not being observed, Mielle, Crag and Nikam carefully approach the old man. Once again, Nikam uses his See Cosmos and Patternweave magic to attempt to determine more of what is going on while Crag and Mielle prepare to bolster the man’s will and restore his strength. However, he is surprised to see in his mind’s eye a dozen tiger demons who appear to be at some manner of council table, rakshasas who all look at him. Something is about to happen!

Session Twenty-One – the Tiger's Forest

With a little more information from Nikam, Caliban and Copperhead decide to go do some further investigation of the area where the smoking cat was seen. Caliban uses his revealing smoke, looking for hidden creatures, invisible things or other clues while Copperhead uses his viper heat sense and other things to look for any clues they can find. They find not a single track, not a single scent (even for the smoke wargs), a single “bent grass” or any other evidence that anything was there anywhere on that island. Kenn decides to look for dimensional disturbances, to see if anything has teleported in or out in a fairly large radius and while some teleportation is detected, there is nothing on the searched island and no evidence from the dimensional level either that this smoking cat was there. However, seeing that no teleportation has happened, it is possible that the cat is still nearby and somehow hidden.

Nikam does his adaption and casts See Cosmos and discovers that they are effectively in a place where three different planes of existence are effectively all in the same reality. Nikam attempts to do a locate object on the smoking cat’s pipe and is visited with an odd vision of an older looking oriental man. While he does not recognize the man, he feels that somehow he should know this person. Nikam is confused by what he sees, senses and discovers with his magic. It is determined that Kenn, Mielle, Loc-Larin and Copperhead will pray for some guidance. Meanwhile, Caliban has his smoke wargs patrol keeping a keen nose out for the cat.

With that decision, Fawn and Crag say they will continue to follow her GPS “line” toward their original target gate and at least see if there are any obstacles to overcome. They set off, crossing island over island as the streams slowly diminish and return to the more expected landscape when they first approached the cat’s area. They make it to the location of the portal, which sits at the precise center of a perfectly circular grove of trees. They do not observe any other presences around the portal, but by its nature, the clearly perfect circle gives them pause. They determine not to attempt to go through the portal, but update the team via teamspeak, then begin their trek back to the island where the team works to decipher what is going on.

Loc-Larin’s augury vision is acquired first, he sees the image of the smoking cat that grows until it is man-sized, then further to be perhaps eight feet tall. It then shifts shape to acquire a tigers visage and takes puffs from his pipe. Blowing out smoke, the smoke takes a vague shape of an elf and the tiger extends a single claw and with a quick swipe, lops off the head of the smoke elf, who’s head falls to the ground and disperses into dissipating smoke. Copperhead, Kenn and Mielle attempt to coordinate their visions and utilize the Combine spell to empower and bind their efforts.

Kenn’s vision is of a black kitten, which bites the tail of another black kitten, who then bites the tail of another black kitten, until there are perhaps fifteen of them in a ring, walking in a circle each with the tail of the kitten in front of them in their mouth. Then each alternating kitten transforms into a tiger striped kitten so that the circle alternates black kitten, tiger striped, black kitten, tiger striped. They continue to walk in the circle and Kenn is unclear on the meaning. Copperhead has a vision of a smoking tiger that appears to be existing in multiple dimensions simultaneously somehow. His “agents” or followers seem to be fooling followers of various gods and drawing them away from what they are meant to do. It is clear to Copperhead that at least the four gods sending regular visions, and perhaps even Crag’s god Aeryamoinyen, would like to see this being’s interdimensional trickery stopped.

Mielle, focusing her vision on herself working the forge and peering into the forest in different directions gains a vision of herself standing at the forge and working a weapon. She notices Fawn’s timepiece sitting on a stool near her and time passes as she continues to work metal. She feels watched as she works and time continue to move for hours on the timepiece. Mielle looks out through the forest and sees tiger eyes peering at her from the darkness. Her interpretation is that they are all being persistently watched, monitored and otherwise observed by the tiger or his minions. As the priests collectively discuss their visions, they agree that Loc’s vision indicates that forcing interaction too hard could be disastrous. Kenn’s vision indicates that the black cat at the tiger demon are one in the same. Copperhead’s vision indicates that many gods are annoyed with the tiger demon and finally Mielle’s is exactly as she thought, they are being watched and interaction is eminent.

Caliban phones home to Andras for information about the tiger demon and Andras is unaware of this being and that none of the priestly types are around. However, he says he will find out what he can and get back to Cal when he can. The team discusses and decides they should set up camp and see if they can figure out a way to encourage the tiger demon or the black cat to speak with them. Nikam takes the time to adapt to the area and confirms the feeling of this area of the plane is different than everywhere else they’ve been. It is a melding of multiple planes, something not wholly unhealthy, but really isn’t supposed to be this way. Maarak, the current Chaos plane, some plane within the Abyss and somewhere on the Prime Material Plane are all mashed up together somehow. The convergence of planes seems to have Nikam confused.

As the team is there, they persistently get a feeling they are being watched, which validates Mielle’s vision. While none of them feel the sense of danger, they do feel a bit uneasy. Mielle takes a dose of Visgati and the group creates a table with the equivalent of a tea party but for smoking. Caliban lays out a variety of his special tobacco blends, various types of pipes and some snacks as well as some things a normal cat might find interesting. A ball of string and some other “cat-like” toys. Loc and Cal both demonstrate that the tobacco is safe for consumption, and they wait. Nikam sees a tiger peeking out at them, but nobody else does. The moment Nik mentions this fact, however, the tiger vanishes in a puff of smoke dissipating away before anyone else can see any evidence.

Caliban does a Smoke Trick spell and the whole team climbs up into the pocket dimension, able to peer out and watch a bag of special tobacco, Caliban leaves. They wait for a little over an hour and a half before a large tiger appears in vision, sniffing around the area. They watch as the tiger looks up toward them and extends a claw and draws some sort of symbol into the ground. Per usual, the ground returns to its normal state concealing what was drawn. The tiger shape shifts into the black cat in the smoking jacket once again and lights his pipe. The team takes some time but decides now is the time to descend and speak with the cat, so Nikam prepares to slowly drop down, but as he leans his head forward to emerge from the Smoke Trick, he finds that it is as if he has bumped his head against a thick, glass window instead.

Further examination reveals they are trapped in the pocket dimension and Cal attempts to cancel the spell, but they remain trapped and the Smoke Trick pocket dimension remains. Cal notices the black cat smirk as he walks away and out of view. Their tobacco “offering” dissipates into smoke and vanishes. Cal uses Alter Self to make himself look like a cat being and mimics the smirk of the black cat. The team decides to wait until the full spell duration expires, but they realize, this pocket dimension is not breaking and the spell remains in effect even though Caliban apparently no longer wields control of the spell. Fawn puts on her optics and closely examines the “window” over their portal and discovers there are actually seven sigils evenly spaced around the perimeter.

Fawn extrapolates that perhaps they can break the enchantment if they can somehow dispel the magic of the seven sigils simultaneously. Loc-Larin reminds everyone of his Deactivate spell and Cal reminds that he has one already loaded into his Golem Toe. The team begins to discuss how to enable seven Deactivates to be simultaneously cast and targeted to attempt to free themselves from this impromptu prison.

Session Twenty – the Draghdhaara (the Chaos Stream)

The group takes a quick rest and discusses their next steps. They agree in relatively short order to pursue Copperhead’s visions and the so called ‘energy serpent.’ They agree that they are closer to the large gash near the top of the sphere than any other possible exit and that it might be worth checking out to see if they can get out faster and easier. Taking the trek in a little under two hours, they find themselves with merely a twenty foot gap between their catwalk and the opening in the sphere. Fawn enchants a rope and tosses it across the gap, causing it to magically tie itself to a bit of outcropping steel while also securely tying to the railing of their catwalk.

The team easily makes their way over to the roughly seventy foot space of the chaos sphere’s skin where they can stand and look out over the giant trees and see the light where the energy serpent should be, just a few miles away. Fawn pulls out her spyglass and examines the light, though there is no clear view of the energy serpent as it appears to sit at the base of the trees and is masked from even their bird's eye view. They also view some other chaos fauna flying around in different areas, but nothing of terrible interest, so the group works together to create some rope harnesses for each of them to attach to Fawn who uses a combination of her magical umbrella and her feathery flyer to glide the group to the edge of the sphere's clearing and just into the forest.

Tossing their gear into Crag’s saddlebags, they resume with their previously agreed on strategy of having Crag and Fawn lead while Loc’Larin hangs back, while keeping the two guides in sight and the team maintaining a roughly equidistant space behind Loc. The team encounters another of the liquid metal streams, but simply hop over it and continue until they catch view of the chaos stream. The stream is a large, translucent band of amber colored energy that hovers about two feet above the ground and weaves itself through the forest as far as the eye can see. The band averages between ten and fifteen feet in diameter with small tendrils of energy (just a few feet long) that wisp out from it. Some of the team discern an audible hum. Though there is something about it that sounds more musical.

Kenn and Mielle spend a little time analyzing the stream and Mielle’s power reveals that this stream is a conduit for souls. Thousands, or perhaps even millions of them. They seem to be flowing in one direction and seem predominately to be of chaos origin. Mielle scans a couple of the souls and discovers a green slaad and a xvart (the race of Bae’Rith) soul. The group considers trekking toward either the beginning or the end of the stream, but realizing how long it likely is and how many encounters they might have along the way, Copperhead decides to go in as his vision told him. The team agrees to use a tactic they’ve done before and tie a rope to one of Copperhead’s legs and as he walks into the stream, it begins to pull him. Instinctively he resists and is knocked back from the stream.

With a bit of trepidation, Copperhead resolves himself to go all in and steps fully into the stream. He is pulled upward and into the flow of the stream, but in a matter of seconds, all of a sudden he goes stiff as a board and immediately Caliban realizes Copperhead is “offline” for teamspeak. Quickly the team begins to pull Copperhead out of the stream with the rope, but Crag, Fawn and Mielle see that Copperhead appears to be experiencing pain as they start to pull him out. They decide to let him float while they think of other options. Kenn thinks about using his dimensional locator on Copperhead and letting him drift down the stream. Fawn thinks potentially controlling that flow by leading him down the stream with the rope might be an option. Kenn also considers his ability to speak with an astral/ethereal traveler and his astral/ethereal celerity. He attempts to go in, but also feels the draw of the stream, resists and is knocked back.

After a variety of ideas, the team decides to let a little time pass and see if Copperhead is ok and if he is able to do anything himself at the spiritual level. Copperhead finds himself floating in the stream, he feels as if emotion has been drawn out of him and he is unable to really move. However, he sees a serpent of green energy swimming up the stream towards him. It bites him on the arm and Copperhead feels the toxin entering his system, although he is merely a spirit. He is confused, but soon feels as if his own control has returned to him. He looks and sees the spirit of a mephit, some slaad, various other chaos creatures, but one slaad sticks out, one that appears to be a purplish looking spirit of a slaad.

Additionally, he sees an old looking human male’s spirit floating along. Something within him makes him think he should know who this is, but he cannot recall. As he examines the old man, he notices out of the corner of his eye that the slaad’s left eye seems to be twitching. Not a single other spirit besides himself seems animated in any fashion within this chaos stream. He swims over to the slaad and decides to try and wake it by sending a controlled shock through it with shocking grasp. The slaad awakens and explains to Copperhead that he is indeed a Violet Slaad and that Copperhead is the first being in thousands of years to actually enter the stream of his own accord and subsequently find one of them and beyond that, wake one up. He seems very grateful and offers to help. With Copperhead’s encouragement, the slaad says he believes he can awaken the old man.

The purple slaad touches the old man (spirit to spirit) and does something. The old man’s spirit awakens and after a moment of gathering himself, introduces himself as the storm king. Once he says that, Copperhead does recall some ancient reading he had done, but still doesn’t know much and curses himself for not reading such stories more. The slaad says to the king, “there is more of your blood within the stream. If you want, I can take you to it.” Copperhead and the storm king grab ahold of the violet slaad and it swims with great speed though the stream. While they cannot truly tell what’s up, they likely swim for miles in but moments. Here they find a woman’s spirit, the storm king recognizes her as his daughter.

The slaad awakens the storm princess and she explains that she can feel the distant presence of Ro’Shikara, a lost god of weather. It seems this chaos stream pours out of this dimension or flows into other dimensions outside the realm of reality for the planes and realities of their own universe. The storm princess says she feels as if she could sacrifice herself to draw Ro’Shikara back. The king immediately decries this notion and instead says he will sacrifice his spirit in order to draw Ro’Shikara back. After some further back and forth, the king and his daughter hug and his spirit vanishes. Copperhead sees a new being appear in the chaos stream, the storm princess confirms it is Ro’Shikara, but they are unable to interact with the god.

Knowing they’ve done all they can do and the storm princess is confident at least Ro’Shikara is back in their universe, they grab onto the violet slaad who swims back to Copperhead’s body. The slaad says, if you you want us to be able to reform, we will need to take a sample of your flesh. Copperhead agrees and the slaad uses his claw to shave off some scales and flesh almost surgically. He divides the piece in two and puts the pieces in his and the storm princess’ spirit then does something. All three physically appear outside of the chaos stream to the moderate surprise of the rest of the group. Perhaps twenty minutes has passed in total.

The violet slaad again thanks Copperhead, explaining that Igrail, Highlord of the Slaad had eliminated the violet slaadi and the golden slaadi bloodlines from existence millennia ago. And has he is talking about it, the slaad says, “oh he comes.” And with that, a somewhat skeletal, somewhat Dr Doom looking being of black skin and nearly seven feet tall, appears. Mielle immediately has a feeling about this guy, but holds any feelings to herself as she is not quite able to place them. But she soon knows why she feels it as the being states, “I am Lek’Lanth, lord of this plane and I owe you a deep gratitude for what you have done.” As he speaks, his flesh begins to change in color from black to a deep, rich violet.

Crag speaks up first, wondering if Lek’Lanth may be able to help with Khanda’s barding. Lek’Lanth produces a purple orb from his cloak and says he can return the barding to its former state, but that there may be some leftover chaos energies that may do good or potentially bad things for a time. Cal asks if there is a way to reset the timer on his smoke kennels and the chaos lord thinks that may be possible, using the chaos orb and making it so. Caliban happily summons his smoke wargs and they reconnect. Fawn asks if there is a way to do something with her gun and Lek’Lanth is certain he can augment it with a “chaos energy” setting. However, as with Crag he tells Fawn there may be good and bad things associated with this change. Such is the nature of chaos.

Finally, Kenn asks on behalf of Nikam if he has any pearls that can be used for Identify. Lek’Lanth produces 27 such pearls and hands them to the orc. Mielle and Keen seek nothing from the chaos lord, but Lek’Lanth notes the connection between Mielle and Chadi and states to Mielle, “the White Witch believes there is something that needs to be settled between us, but I no longer seek all chaos orbs. When you see her, tell her there is no score to settle, at least not from my side. If she wishes to meet, she may come, but I know her strength and she should know mine. Let her not underestimate Ciasduul, despite all the time that has passed. Even I battle Sarokoth regularly and those with the power of ancient chaos should not be trifled with.”

Fawn tosses the chaos lord the GPS stone and explains they seek a sword called the gatewatcher. Something Lek’Lanth says he is not familiar with. However, he explains that the gate that the crystal points towards is another gate to Cthrog, the realm of Ssendam. He returns the GPS stone to Fawn and with that, Lek’Lanth says that the team will be remembered and are welcome on the plane of Maraak at any time in the future. He and the violet slaad vanish. The storm princess will accompany them for now and the team packs back up their ropes, Khanda’s repaired barding and they return to their exploratory plan with Crag and Fawn in the lead.

As they walk, the encounter another rivulet of metal, then another and slowly by slowly they find they are in places where there are actual streams of metal. In some places several feet wide and that they are traversing islands with large metal trees felled to make bridges from one place to another. As they walk, Nikam sees what he believes to be a black, housecat wearing a smoking jacket, standing on his hind legs and smoking a pipe watching them. It is at the edge of his vision range and as soon as he alerts the others to what he has seen, Nikam sees the cat vanish. No one else sees it with their own eyes. The team thinks on this as they prepare to move forward and Kenn searches for dimensional anomalies. He senses the gate and also some manner of thinning of the plane or dimension and its coexistence with another plane. Nobody is exactly sure what that means, but by Fawn’s estimates, they are perhaps two to three miles from the other gate.

Session Nineteen – Realm of Garu

The team collects everything they want to keep from the demon fortress by sweeping it into Crag’s saddlebags. They leave behind a trove of rugs, tapestries, chairs, ceramics and other things that appear to be not terribly high value and appear to be more bulky than valuable. Loc-Larin’s adrenaline has subsided and the pain of the wounds suffered at the hands of the babau make him feel ready to look at healing and rest. Retreating to the portal, he knows he has to reduce his size and does his best to concentrate and force the cancellation of the effects of the potion. Ultimately he is able to figure it out and next time feels he should have more control and can more easily cancel the effects when desired.

The group exits the Abyssal realm, Kenn recovers his lost axe and the team makes their way a short distance toward the one remaining unexplored portal. They find a reasonably good sized platform to set up their healing and resting area. A few of the priests work together to bind wounds and Kenn casts some healing magic then he and Loc-Larin drift off to sleep. Caliban and Copperhead take first watch and a couple hours in, Copperhead notices a flash up above again. This time not exactly in the spot where they believed the final portal was. Also, as Copperhead watches, he sees something like an ember-like light descending. He borrows Fawn’s telescope and looks up into the darkness and sees a being that looks like some kind of evil, demonic being with flaming wings. He and Cal alert everyone while not waking up Kenn or Loc.

The team prepares the best they can, but Crag offers that perhaps they should attempt to converse with the being first as they’ve yet to be outright attacked by anything since venturing into the Chaos Sphere. The being floats down and hovers roughly twenty yards away from the platform. It looks to have elven type ears, but is bald, has flaming wings and a glowing sword. The creature speaks with a voice that sounds like a choir of children and in the language of Eldarin. “It seems the child of Coeraeilaen Laereitheiaan sleeps. My name is Kuuenaeiros and I am lost avatar of Coeraeilaen. His return from the void has drawn us through the stars to this reality.” He tilts his head and says, “may I approach him?” Mielle sees that this creature, despite looking sort of nasty and evil, is actually not far unaligned with Saas Vain and agrees to the request.

The dark angel floats down to the sleeping Loc-Larin and touches him on the forehead, which glows with a blue-white light and he awakens. Healed, refreshed and alert. “I see you have had a vision of the former wife. She is not to be ignored or underestimated. Her hatred runs deep, it is powerful and it is strong. It is her power that has developed the drow elves of this world. Do not let her trick you.” Caliban says, maybe you could help him not get tricked by demons! The dark angel replies, “he was drawn there for a purpose, those who do not understand the will of deities should do well to not judge such actions with their nominal understanding.” Caliban shrugs. With that, the creature disappears in a flash of light, leaving behind the scent of good smelling flowers. Loc-Larin mentions that he is thinking through some things and they leave him to relax while Kenn completes his rest.

The group makes their way upwards, ascending to the location of the final unexplored portal. Kenn takes a moment to assess, finding that the realm on the other side is an Astral realm, an outer plane. It is neither terribly dangerous nor terribly safe from his perspective. Despite it being unlikely they will find a shortcut being an Astral realm, Nikam’Pom decides to go through and adapt to the plane to learn what he can. Going through the portal, he finds himself transformed into a two-dimensional representation of himself. For lack of better explanations, it as if he is within a cartoon realm, but despite it being 2D, he still sees things that appear in the distance, but distance only being part of the perspective. Reaching back toward the portal, he finds it solid and impenetrable.

He sees a tower off in the distance and with no real other clear way out, Nikam attunes to this 2D plane. He now feels one with this cartoon-like realm and feels as if he may be able to do things he would not normally be able to do here. Examining the portal once again, he finds it feeling as if it were simply a wooden cut out of a portal with no ability to move through. He resigns himself to walk toward the tower. Despite the realm being two-dimensional, it does take time to walk toward the tower and it does seem some distance away. Two large, cat-like demon beings appear and question him. “Are you here to swear fealty? It is clear to us you are a visitor to this realm.” Nik states that he is not entirely opposed to the idea, but wants to know who he would swear fealty to. The hellcats lead him to the tower.

Atop the tower a dark, shadowy figure shouts down at Nik, “who are you and why are you here?” Nik responds with his name and that he’s looking for a way to get back out of the portal. The creature explodes into a puff of smoke then appears in front of Nikam, standing about twice as tall as Nik. “So you are here to serve me then?” Nik replies in a sort of snide way, indicating it was not exactly his initial goal and insinuates that this guy is really jumping to conclusions. The self-proclaimed devil asks Nik if he is attempting to dishonor him. Nikam cannot refrain from sounding smart-alecky and attempting to politically evade the questions or commitments asked. After mere moments of the back and forth, the devil states, “I will use you. I am sending you on a quest, you will succeed, or I will destroy you.”

Nik again says something along the lines of “well maybe, but not really” and dances and dodges around commitment. “It seems you do not understand and I must show you,” the devil draws his giant katana of pure night and slices Nikam in half. However, Nikam does not feel desperately harmed and his legs still appear to be operating under his control. The two hellcats grab his lower half and Nikam attempts to have the legs grapple the creature, which they do. The devil then stabs Nikam through the heart area, stapling him to the wall of the tower. The devil withdraws his katana of darkness leaving a copy that keeps Nik pinned to the tower wall. “Ponder your fealty here.” The devil and his minions depart with Nikam’s legs in their possession.

Back in the Chaos Sphere, the team determines it has been too long and they ought to check on Nikam. So Crag and Fawn go through the portal with the usual rope connections. They find themselves in the cartoon realm and the rope immediately severs and drops. They also immediately find the portal is now no longer a viable exit. Fawn draws out her telescope and looks around, paying attention to the tower in the distance. She zooms in on the form of Nikam’s half body stapled to the tower. Moments later the rest of the team comes through and they all observe their cartoonish selves. Fawn’s GPS signal once again points back through the inactive gate, so they begrudgingly begin the trudge, although Caliban seems certain their must be some way for him to manipulate his smoke to instantly transport himself in this 2D land. The means does not prove viable however.

Caliban experiments with the Erase spell, however, and is able to erase an entire tree from the realm’s existence. The team is soon met by two hellcats who again query if the group is there to swear fealty to their master Garu. The team also is hesitant to commit, but accompanies the hellcats to the tower where Garu shouts down, “so friends of the half-wit, who speaks for your group?” A quick and quiet back and forth via teamspeak elects Crag as the mouthpiece and Garu charges them to complete a task for him and he will open the portal so they might escape this realm. Nikam’s upper half seems no worse for wear other than being pinned in place by a black blade and being half his former self. Garu speaks once again.

“There is another tower, over the mountains from here, through a swamp and in the possession of a devil known as Klaaz Nacht. There you will find my gem he stole from me and which makes him more powerful than me, the gem of Alaz’Shazaar. Steal back the gem and return it to me and I will transform the portal back to an exit from this realm and we will be once again on good terms. He throws Nikam’s legs onto the vertical wall and they run down, do a little cartoon run one way, then back toward Nikam and rejoin with him. The leftover black katana pinning him to the wall fades into smoke and Nikam falls to the ground, whole once again. “SLAAZDAAK!” Garu yells, “lead them to Klaaz Nacht’s tower!” The obedient hellcat falls in line, ready to lead the team.

With not a ton of other options, the team agrees and decides amongst themselves to at least see how hard this “mission” seems. As they follow Slaazdaak’s lead, they experiment further with the realm of cartoonish reality and find that Caliban’s smoke can completely obscure them, but is also quite obvious in that it is a created obscurement. Further attempts to use smoke to cover great distances fails, but once they reach the frosty swamp area and see the dark, enemy tower in the “distance”. Kenn uses his locate object and determines that the gem is held somewhere within the upper third of the tower. Crag finds he is able to create and manipulate snow, creating cartoony “ice bush” constructs that they feel they can grab and move with them that they might be able to use as cover. They don’t see obvious guardians, but Slaazdaak is adamant there are creatures guarding.

They agree to use Crag’s bushes to approach and hiding behind the bush constructs, they are able to “sneak” up to the tower. Finally they notice the half-dozen or so demon bat type creatures circling well above the tower, but they don’t seem to notice the group as they use Crag’s fake bushes to cover their approach. They begin to examine the base of the enemy tower, but they find no door or obvious entrance. Caliban has an idea to spellcraft his smoke trick demi-dimension to open the smoke space on the exterior of the tower wall and then spellcraft the exit to be on the inside of the tower. The group squeezes into the pocket dimension and Caliban's plan appears to work. They find themselves within the dark and dreary tower and they elect three of the sneakiest, Caliban, Copperhead and Fawn to sneak up the stairs while the others hide themselves back within Caliban’s pocket smoke dimension. They stealth their way up, hiding from the guardian that walks the stairs and finding a door with a massive keyhole.

Fawn thinks she can pick the locks and produces a couple of large, chopstick-like lockpicks that manipulate the lock and open the door. They see a large “eye of Sauron” type of thing looking down on the giant, magical gem that sits on a pedestal. The team plans over teamspeak and realize Loc-Larin has a spell that should allow him to create a non-magical duplicate of the gem that they can use to “trade” with the real gem a la an “Indiana Jones” sort of idol swap maneuver. They sneak back down, swapping out Copperhead for Loc-Larin and they sneak back up, duplicate the gem, Caliban puts a false aura on the gem to “hide” the trickery from the eye, then Fawn sneaks over, Caliban “Lull’s the eye” and Fawn makes the switch. It seems to work and they quickly sneak back down the stairs and back into the smoke dimension and out.

They once again use their bush trick to get outside the observed area of the tower and escape back to Garu’s tower. Garu is impressed and summons the gem of Alaz’Shazaar to his hand, looking at it intently. “Good, order has been restored here, thank you.” The group is teleported back to the portal and they find it more like a membrane they can push through and they return to the Chaos Sphere leaving the Astral devil’s cartoon realm behind.

Session Eighteen – Battle of Layer 300

Peering into the entryway, Loc sees three more demons and a coating of webs in the corridor leading toward the fortress courtyard. Mielle catches up to Loc and asks to be lifted up to target her protection circle range so she can protect the elf captive. Loc obliges and Mielle invokes her circle of goodness. They hear a scream from the elf woman. Crag, Khanda and Nikam finish off the babau demon they’re engaging and the rest of the team moves towards Loc’s location. Realizing his enlarged size provides him with enough strength to toss Mielle atop the wall and allow her to get eyes on the elf, he tosses her. It is not the most artful toss, but Mielle is able to land well enough to see what is going on.

The three babau teleport out to engage with the enlarged Loc-Larin, but Mielle’s aura pushes them away from Loc’s personal space and instead they engage with Kenn and the advancing Fawn, Crag and Nikam. Mielle looks at the captured elf and sees her writhe in pain, then shapeshift into the form of a succubus and immediately teleport out of the circle of good. The demon appears on the opposite side of the fortress from Mielle, who immediately feels her strategy was good. She steps into the circle of good herself and casts her Aura of Goodness spell to make herself appear a beacon of good within this realm of evil. Babau begin to teleport to her location, intent on destroying her.

Loc-Larin sees a giant spider demon appear in the fortress courtyard and hears a voice within his head, “who are you? Just a tiny spark that the broken primeval has sent to MY world? Tell him, that which was former should simply remain in the void. There is nothing here for him and no one remembers he or his antique ways. Instead tiny spark, I offer that you join me. Shirk off what little truth you hope to gain from that long forgotten fossil you know as Corellon and put your trust in true elven power that lives in the NOW.” Loc feels as if this is a voice he should know, a familiar voice as it relates to his god. He immediately rebuffs the offer and replies that such a response is a response of fear.

The spider demon teleports to the vicinity of the portal and summons webbing that is coated in a poisonous, viscous material on top of Copperhead, Caliban and Khanda. Nearly a dozen large spiders simultaneously appear spread throughout the area of the team’s disbursement at the fortress’ exterior. Copperhead immediately triggers his electric aura, but the electricity does virtually nothing to the webs, however, he is immune to the effects of the poison. Caliban also resists and assumes smoke form, moving out of the webbing area, while Khanda feels weakened. Copperhead moves toward Khanda, shoving his way through the webs to touch the bear and bless his claws in order to be able to damage the spider demon.

Nikam alters his tactics to flip onto the back of one of the babau, put him in a neck lock and pull him backwards, exposing its midriff to Crag. Crag slashes deeply with his blade, cracks the thing with his shield and Nik stabs the demon which dies, dematerializing into greasy, black smoke. Kenn whacks the babau near he and Fawn and she fires magic missiles at the demon, killing it and reducing it to dispersing smoke. Atop the wall, babau teleport in and Mielle feels empowered by Saas Vain as these demons seem to be clear forces of opposition. With her Solar Swordplay and Smite Evil powers, her blade exudes extreme power, vanquishing two demons in mere seconds. Undeterred more demons teleport to her location.

The voice of the “enemy” of Correlon speaks once again to Loc’s mind, “this is no voice of fear, it is a voice of anger towards my former husband. What is lost, is lost and shall never be regained.” Loc doesn’t know how or why this name “appears” in his mind, but he knows this entity, this former wife of Correlon, to be known as Lolth. The Queen of the Demonweb Pits. Kenn flings his axes toward the demon spider, but one of them is very errant and flies through the portal into the Chaos Sphere. He is unable to recall it until they go back through the portal. Khanda claws the spider demon and in response, the demon's claws find purchase on the bear’s barding and rend it from Khanda's body. Fawn fires a volley of acid bullets into the demon from her gun, it hurts it, but this demon is not something to be trifled with.

Atop the wall, the light show continues as Mielle slays two more demons, buoyed by the protections of her goddess and the enhanced power of her blades. She slices them as if they were nothing but cheese. Copperhead lights up one of Andras’ hypnotize smokes and it affects four of the giant spiders. Caliban rematerializes and casts a smoke cloud over spiders near Crag and Nikam, helping disorient them and also throws up a Stinking Cloud, which disables one spider while making a couple others retreat from the noxious cloud. Copperhead launches an Acid Arrow into the spider demon as Kenn closes and whacks it a couple times with his one axe. They are whittling down this demon.

Mielle smokes two more demons (literally) and stands victorious atop the wall. She sees the succubus observe her allies failing efforts and teleports away to destinations unknown. Loc crushes a giant spider and Crag kills a spider as well while the remaining attacks focus in on the large spider demon. With attacks from a weakening Khanda, axe blows from Kenn and a final volley of acid bullets from Fawn, the demon drops. However, as immediately as it crumples, it is momentarily reanimated by the power of Lolth and speaks in a loud, female voice, “you will pay dearly for this servant of Corellon Larethian!” the demon once again crumples as the team makes short work of the remaining giant spiders. Loc knows there is much he does not understand about this unknown wife and the hate that seethes within her.

Mielle walks down from the parapet into the interior courtyard and sees an armored door that might be worth investigating. The team is immediately divided about getting the hell out of the Abyss and taking a few minutes to investigate things. In short order, Caliban is encouraged to examine the locking mechanism of the armored door and finds it well beyond his capabilities. There is, however, a keyhole and he feels around inside with his Smoke Fingers, detecting things he believes he can manipulate manually if he goes inside that can unlock the door. With everyone in agreement, he casts his Smoke Form spell and goes inside. He sees a small treasure horde and takes a moment to target a handful of things he’d like to grab before materializing and opening the door.

The group moves inside and several team members find items of interest and begin to scoop coins, gems and other interesting items into Crag’s saddlebags, which still seems to have plenty of room available. The team begins to determine what to take and what to leave behind before they return to the Chaos Sphere.

Session Seventeen – Into the Dust and Loc's Lust

Copperhead gets Kenn settled as the elves set up a rotating watch while everyone else meditates and sleeps to regain mana and theurgy. They also refill their POW items and Copperhead secretly prays for more visions. As the team begins to wake from their rest, Copperhead reveals some visions he has had, one back when Mielle was determining if she should try to crush the Chaos Apes. He reveals that he’s had a vision about his god being one of the authors of chaos and that it was revealed to him that if the team were to come across something called the “Chaos Serpent” he should enter it and see if he can solve some issues related to his god. Copperhead reveals that he was hesitant to share this as the team had recently just tried to talk Mielle out of defiling the ape idol and potentially warring with the Ape Demons.

As they prepare to embark toward the upper half, the team agrees to review the four remaining portals in the dust mephit area then check out the “Chaos Serpent” to allow Copperhead to follow up on possibilities there. Keeping in mind not to dally and overall keep the team on track toward the Gatewatcher. They make their way through the “DMZ” and upon entering into the dust mephit area, the team is met by a single dust mephit that babbles incoherently (again, an elemental language as best as Loc-Larin can tell.) Mielle speaks in Chaos Tongue asking it what it is saying and the mephit understands. Switching to Drakh-Nhagi, they have a brief chat and the mephit says he’ll be back with someone who can better speak to the goals of the dust mephits and the heat miser.

As the team starts to make their way towards what they’ve mapped out as “portal three,” nine dust mephits fly down from somewhere up in the sphere. One of them is a well-spoken dust mephit with a flaming cape and he explains the goal of the Heat Miser to take over the chaos sphere and put himself control. The mephit offers that this will better balance the plane of Maraak and he requests the team help them in their goal, but the team isn’t so sure about that. Mielle attempts to negotiate a little, but the flame cape mephit doesn’t want any further discourse if they’re not willing to help. He says the team can wander around all they want, but the dust mephits won’t guide them like the ice mephits did.

Navigating takes a little more work without the mephit guides, but the team makes their way to portal three in just under two hours. Kenn uses a new power granted to him by the Starfather, allowing him to get some general information about the portal and what lies beyond. After spending a few minutes, he knows this portal leads somewhere else within the Chaos planes and is not immediately dangerous. With this bit of comfort, Kenn and Fawn walk through. They find themselves on a high ridge in what appears to be a sea of snowless mountain peaks. Fawn immediately counts this as a similar, but different, view as she had seen at the “edge of insanity” and as before, there are two possible paths, both farther away than their current remaining option.

As Kenn and Fawn look around, they see some manner of construct looking shape, not at all natural, but rather some sort of pylon looking thing sticking up from one of the nearby peaks. They figure it would take several hours to hike over there, but it is a curiosity, so they return to discuss with the team. There is some immediate interest in the pylon and a desire to reach out to the deities for guidance again, but after some discussion, the team agrees to wait for their auguries until they’ve reviewed all the remaining portals. They feel they will then be better able to assess all of the choices at hand and if any of the deities push them one way or another.

They begin to head toward portal nine, the track is complicated, and it takes them over three hours to make the walk, running into a variety of dead ends that they are not able to determine in advance. Once they come upon the portal, Kenn once again assesses it and discovers that it leads into the quasi-elemental plane of ash, with a bit of a warning that it is hot and somewhat inhospitable (but not deadly). They think for a moment of simply skipping going through, but Fawn bundles herself up like a desert nomad entering a dust storm and Kenn follows suit. They head through and once Fawn attunes, they find no GPS reading, it simply leads them back where they came from. It is indeed a somewhat unhospitable place, so they don’t tarry long.

Group begins to navigate their way toward portal seven. They have better luck navigating this route, but it still takes them nearly two hours and as they reach proximity to the gate, Loc-Larin gets a momentary flash in his mind of the vision of a beautiful drow looking woman. Kenn begins to assesses the portal and discovers that it leads to the Abyss, a known conglomeration of planes of rampant evil. Danger is sensed, but not eminent doom, so Kenn, Fawn and an eager Loc-Larin go through. The portal opens into a fiery realm with no cover anywhere around the portal. They see a mesa-like fortress with a couple of demons guarding a portcullis entrance and above them on the wall, chained between two stone pillars, a beautiful surface elf who appears captive, tired and in need of rescue.

The guard demons notice them after a few seconds and the team members quickly retreat through the portal. Loc is hell bent on rescuing the elven woman and tells the team he will go through on his own if necessary. Kenn knows letting his friend go alone is not a good idea and with both Kenn and Loc-Larin pressing the need to go, along with some empathy from Mielle for a distressed elf, the team begrudgingly agrees to help. Especially Caliban, who knows going through this portal nips his ability to summon his smoke wargs mere hours before he would be able to do so. The team goes through the portal and forgoes any of Crag’s outlined SOPs as Loc-Larin summons his mount and charges forward toward the fortress’ gate. Mielle and Fawn attempt to protect his flank while the buffing themselves.

As Loc-Larin, Mielle and Fânrȗiell charge forward however, the two guardian demons teleport behind them, nearer the portal and the rest of the group, and begin to attack. Crag summons Khanda as a mount and the bear charges forward as Crag slices the demon with his sabre, but quickly realizes his quality weapon is unable to penetrate the beast’s skin. He thwacks it with his magic shield which does damage and he immediately realizes these creatures need magic items in order to hurt them. He shares that information as Nikam’Pom summons up a Flaming Sphere immersing the side of the demon fighting he and Crag. The demon puts its hand into the flame and almost seems enamored with the fire. Nik sneers in displeasure, knowing his lava blade will be of minimum use as these beasts also seem immune to fire, he shares that as well.

Kenn summons his axes and whacks the demon nearest him and the demon seems surprised that it has been damaged. Fawn shoots a couple magic missiles into the beast while Copperhead blesses a couple of Caliban’s crossbow bolts. Caliban shoots his bolts into the demon which seems to be having difficulty deciding which of the possible targets to attack between Kenn’Lorek, Caliban and Fânrȗiell. With Kenn being within arms reach, the demon claws Kenn and its claws cut deep, but Kenn spins around with another wave of axe blows that cleave the demon and it vaporizes into a black, greasy smoke.

Reaching the portcullis, Loc quaffs the enlarge potion and grows to over twenty-three feet tall, grabs the lowered gate and slams it up. Meanwhile, Crag artfully slides off Khanda as he encourages the bear to grapple the demon. Khanda is able to easily get hold of the demon and hold it in place while Crag and Nik both get in cuts. Meanwhile, Caliban reloads and looks for an open shot past the bear, but sees no clean shot. The demon is on the ropes, but the battle is just beginning.

Session Sixteen – Portal Hopping in the Icy Half

The team briefly talks about how to efficiently explore portals as they head toward their primary target, the fire portal near the center location of the sphere. They determine that they have a path that either routes toward where the mephits said Lek’Lanth’s obsidian tower was, or to where there is a portal to what the mephits called “a never ending, empty hallway.” After a quick discussion, Mielle’s desire to at least have Saorise peek into Lek’Lanth’s domain wins out and they begin along that route. Although Mielle’s control over the handful of mephits has worn off, it seems they are not opposed to guiding the group around a little and they lead the team along the stairways, catwalks and ladders to avoid dead ends and be efficient in their travel. As they begin their hike, they note a flash, that appears to most of the team, to be a lightning-like flash at the top of the sphere, somewhere near where they believe a portal in the dust mephit area is. Copperhead confirms it is definitely NOT lighting and since they detect nothing else, they continue.

Arriving at the portal to the Obsidian Tower, Saorise goes through and sees a large black tower on top of a small mountain with a pair of waterfalls at the center of a funnel of clouds that appears as if a moonlit night. The tower is not too far away from the portal, certainly less than a mile away and to Saorise, the ground appears to be covered in an obsidian sand. She returns and begins to explain what she sees to Mielle and near simultaneously, Caliban is pinged by Andras. “Where are you currently?” Andras queries. Cal replies that they have just taken a look into Lek’Lanth’s domain and Andras tells Cal that Kor-El would like to send something to him on behalf of Chadi. He asks Caliban to create smoke so that Andras can target a spell.

Caliban lights his pipe and begins to puff away and as the smoke accumulates, a roughly six inch globe of water appears within the smoke and within the globe of water, a half-inch pearl appears. “Take that pearl and bury it or otherwise hide it in that dimension if you are able,” Andras asks. After a quick discussion, Kenn feels that Ukko is best suited to perform the mission as Ukko does not have a magic pool and is simply a normal animal. The white ermine takes the large pearl into its mouth and goes through the portal. While Kenn can no longer communicate with Ukko, he does feel the general health and well-being of his familiar. Ukko is able to run thirty or so yards away from the portal and find a good place to dig a hole, drop in the pearl and cover it up. He returns to Kenn without any issue and Cal confirms to Andras their success.

With nothing more to do at the demi-god Lek’Lanth’s location, the group continues on toward the fire portal and arrive with no interruptions. Nikam’Pom sends his fire monkey through to check it out and see what is going on. The fire monkey immediately feels hot, like really really hot, and considering he is made of fire, that’s saying something. Looking around, the monkey sees a lake of fire, small mountains of rock that smoke from the heat and a veritable fiery furnace. The monkey asks to come back out and although he feels he could survive there for a few hours, it’s really not comfortable to him. With Nikam’s report of the fire monkey’s findings, Loc-Larin ponders if he could protect himself and go through with Fawn’s locator crystal to get a bearing.

Loc thinks of the various protection spells he can apply and comes near to passing into the portal, but then decides to pray on the matter. His vision is fairly simplistic and straightforward, but during the vision, he feels physically warm. He sees fire, flames and a furnace-like environment, then the vision zooms out to see he, himself beginning to burst into flames. Revealing his vision to the rest of the team, he reconsiders entering the portal and they determine the path a dead end. Their primary target cancelled out; the team quickly confirms that they should check out as many portals as they can in a reasonably quick fashion. They agree that before they travel to the upper half of the sphere and engage with the dust mephits, they will explore all the lower portals.

With Fawn’s help and feedback from the mephits, the team determines a route to check the remaining five portals in the lower half. Without any problems, the are able to make their way to the portal that the mephits say lies on the “border of insanity”. What the mephits really mean is that the area is near Ssendam’s seat of power, the Chaos Lord of Insanity. Loc-Larin, Copperhead and others place spells on Fawn to protect her from mind affecting things and the possible influx of madness on the elven girl. Feeling she is as protected as is possible, she goes through the portal to find herself atop a ridge with a view of endless mountain peaks. No snow covered peaks, but simply endless rock and difficult terrain. However, she does see a possible path toward the Gatewatcher.

Fawn does not feel mentally assaulted or otherwise being driven insane, but feels the path toward the Gatewatcher is too far away and with difficult enough terrain that it is not a preferred route to take. She returns to the Chaos Sphere and updates the team. The mephits lead them further down toward another portal, but when the imps get a little more than a hundred yards from the gate, they stop and feel repulsed. None of the team members feel strangely about the portal, however, so they continue to it. With most of the protections remaining active, Fawn feels fairly confident to go through the portal and see what she can discover. Stepping through, she finds herself in what appears to be a great salt plain under a pink sky.

There are two paths toward the Gatewatcher here, but both feel further away than the route from outside the chaos sphere to the second gate. Coming back to the team, she explains what she’s seen, but her info makes Nikam’Pom curious. Hearing there were no immediate threats discovered, he walks through and quickly realizes where they are. This portal leads back to the Banga’Vulak and to the salt flat the Savarin had mentioned when he and Kenn were thinking about tanning the hides of the chaos hyenas. Thus one of the routes seen there simply leads back to Akka and is a loop. The other leads to the Chaos Lord’s realm that they want to avoid. Another dead end.

As the mephits lead the group toward the other unknown portal, this time they seem repulsed more than twice the distance away from the portal as the previous time. However, the group is able to navigate the remaining two-hundred-fifty yards without much of a challenge, but once in range, Mielle does an Analyze Balance and does not find anything diametrically opposed to her. With one of Loc’s primary protections still in place, Fawn steps through the portal. This time she finds herself enveloped in a dark area filled with purplish-gray smoke and she finds she is floating rather than standing on solid ground. The smoke swirls and varies in density, but due to the darkness, she cannot be certain of what really lies around her. There is no route to the Gatewatcher here, the “line” simply leads back through the portal she came through. She sees a shadowy figure in the distance moving through the smoke and while no danger felt, she gets that “being hunted” feeling and leaves.

Being at the furthest point toward the bottom of the sphere, they now make their way back up toward the center and the first portal they decided against in favor of Lek’Lanth’s tower. According to the mephits, this portal leads to an endless hallway with nothing interesting in it. The team is able to make their way their without any issues and once again, Fawn steps through the portal. Sure enough she finds herself in a hallway that appears endless in both directions. The hall seems as if it would be part of a castle or mansion of some kind, but no windows or doors anywhere, simply an endless hall that appears to extend endlessly in both directions. However, the hall seems to be divided into panels, crown moldings and other ornamental things that provide a fancy-ish appearance.

Fawn is curious, draws her main gauche and pokes the wall with it to see what the material might be. Oddly, it doesn’t seem fully solid and provides the resistance of perhaps a thin putty. However, the wall reacts as if she has touched the surface of a mercury pool that ripples like metallic water with the touch. Fawn withdraws the main gauche and a glob of the “stuff” remains on the blade and begins to grow, seeping up the blade. She pulls out a handkerchief and tries to wipe it off, but it seems there is now some of the “stuff” on both the blade and the hanky. And it continues to expand. Fawn drops both of the items and steps out of the portal.

Mielle is interested and steps in herself, Kenn accompanies her as her “protection” while she investigates. Mielle and Kenn try to detect hidden portals and doorways, but they find nothing. Mielle then casts the Thought Capture spell. It seems in the vicinity of the portal, the most extreme emotion was that of a mephit that touched the wall and was absorbed into it. The emotion being fear. Mielle looks up and down the hallway and although intrigued, she steps back out and the team discusses. Fawn confirms there was no route to the Gatewatcher seen, so they abandon any further investigation.

As they begin their way toward the final portal in the ice mephit’s area of control, three other mephits who had not been following the team, fly up and begin speaking in an unknown language. Loc-Larin's liguistics knowledge makes him believe it could perhaps be an elemental language. Mielle shouts in the Chaos Tongue to “speak the chaos language”! The mephits ignore her and seem to be arguing about something until finally the three that flew up, fly off in a “huff”. The mephits lead the group to the final portal they know about, which according to them is a realm of “cloud islands”. A wee bit of time remains on Loc-Larin’s protection spell he cast on Fawn, so she goes through and finds herself standing on a small, floating island of verdant grass and a small stream of water that falls over the edge.

Fawn walks around the floating island and sees other floating islands off in the distance against a bright blue sky with white fluffy clouds. The island seems roughly seventy-five feet in diameter (though not a perfect circle) and Fawn tosses a copper coin over the edge. It falls naturally enough perhaps a hundred feet, but then seems to be grabbed by something and begins to “fall” sideways at the same speed, then changes direction again. Fawn wonders if this might be some manner of travel mechanism between islands, but with the route to the Gatewatcher pointing back through the portal she is at, she decides to simply go back and discuss next steps with the team.

Kenn is nearly empty of theurgy and also still has some wounds from demon ape battle and would like to rest before they head up to the dust mephit zone. The team discusses the value of resting on the beautiful island versus the DMZ area of the chaos sphere. Caliban has been avoiding crossing through any portals in hopes he can summon his smoke wargs and votes hard against any desires to camp on the floating island. Crag supports that resistance, simply feeling that they know nothing about that plane and would be open to attacks from anywhere if there were anything to happen. The team members who long for the green and sky feeling acquiesce and the group hikes up to the edge of the DMZ.

As the team finds a platform to set up a place to rest, a couple of the priests begin to prepare to cast Auguries, while the group determines ways to rest.

Session Fifteen – King Croc

Caliban looks for a little guidance from Andras while also informing him of Mielle’s desire to get Chadi some information about Lek’Lanth and a likely direct approach to Lek’Lanth’s tower. Upon learning about the Chaos Sphere and the dozen portals, Andras recommends that some minor investigation is definitely warranted, as they may learn some good information and may also find a shortcut toward the Gatewatcher. He simply recommends they keep their time use well budgeted for each exploration and avoid getting themselves embroiled in the mephit war. Via Andras, Kor-el throws in his two coppers as well, stating that while he will get Chadi up to speed on Lek’Lanth, he reminds the team that none of them (the legends) would be eager to confront a Chaos Lord (effectively a demi-god) on their home turf.

With that info, the Mielle sends Saorise to look through the Prime portal and she sees a salt marsh area that has been frozen over. She sees a few mehpits flying around, but otherwise no real threat. The team looks for an easy way to enter the portal and at Fawn’s suggestion, they hike to a point above the portal where they can rig some ropes and Fawn can “Mary Poppins” her way into the portal. She hops off the catwalk to float down to the portal and through. Immediately, she sees that the GPS crystal points her right back where she came from, however. A mephit flies about thirty feet away from her and tries to speak in the Drakh-Nhagi jibber jabber, but Fawn fails to understand the query. She attempt to formulate a Chaos Tonuge response, but apparently asks “is the sweaty cheese standing on an icicle?” The mehpit flies off.

Crag and Kenn scramble down ropes and hurry through the portal to make sure the “little girl” hasn’t gotten herself into trouble, but arrive on the “iceberg” and look around, Fawn no worse for wear. As they examine the environment, it is a strange combination of cold weather and ice that appear to be “forced” into a sub-tropical environment. While the ambient temperature is around the 35-40 degree level and actively working to melt the ice they stand on, there is also something actively trying to keep the area cold. Yet the chilled mugginess and humidity and “no too far away” heat is also detected. Kenn runs his hand across the ice and finds it a nice memory of home, yet lacking as it appears to be melting and very wet.

They hear the flapping of lots of wings and are soon surrounded by nearly a hundred ice mephits, one of which speaks in the Common tongue. “What are you doing here?” he asks Fawn. She answers that she and her two friends have been traveling through Chaos and charting portals. The mephit replies that he should take them to the king. After a little bit of resistance from Caliban, who has been struggling to stay in a single dimension long enough to summon his smoke wargs, the team assembles on the iceberg. The group of mephits accompany the group as they walk a couple hundred yards and see a makeshift ice castle. Which is more like a glorified three story high castle like igloo.

Entering the castle, the group is introduced to King Ok, the ice mephit in charge. He explains that the mephits here have been dealing with resurging attacks by giant crocodiles from under his castle. The team asks why they don’t just pick up and move, but the king references both the proximity of the chaos portal as well as the fact that it has taken his mephits quite some time to build up their handful of frozen acreage in the swamp. The group queries why the king has been working to maintain this place in inhospitable conditions and he explains the “war” between the ice and dust mephits at the behest of the Cold One and the Heat Miser. King Ok is not content to be a pawn for those elemental powers and has nearly ten thousand mephits that agree with him.

Loc-Larin has been staring at the king’s arm since the group arrived. The right arm of the mephit king shows all the hallmarks of being an undead element. He resists the urge to destroy the king and resolves to find out more. Fawn negotiates for some manner of reward from the king to be determined and the king urges the Common speaking guide to take the group to a “fishing hole” in the ice where they can get a vantage on the giant croc which is apparently bromating, but underwater. Nikam’Pom explains that under normal circumstances, crocs and similar reptiles deal with the cold by poking their heads out of freezing waters, but apparently this giant croc is unphased by not breathing.

With the ice thickness being around eight feet near the hole, Fawn places Lasting Breath on Crag, Loc-Larin and Kenn. Loc dives down to take a look and sees the massive, roughly eighty foot long croc simply laying on the muck nearly fifty feet under the ice. The group detects evil, chaos and the presence of gates, but Kenn only detects the presence of the gate the team originally came through and Loc detects no evil or chaos. Copperhead Analyzes Balance, but with little surprise, it seems the giant croc is not unaligned with Noxicuss at all. Nikam’Pom senses that the area around the giant croc is “enhanced” in some fashion and is not normal and finally a simple Detect Magic spell reveals that there is actually a magical source or object hidden underneath the huge croc.

The team shifts towards coming up with a way to move the croc without waking it up. Crag offers to keep the head area of the croc cold and do his best to maintain the brumation while people do whatever they can do. However, it is fairly quickly determined that they can use Khanda to aid in pulling the croc a little if Fawn can put some of her engineering skills towards developing a pulley and lever system along with the block and tackle they stashed in Crag’s saddlebags. Additionally, Crag offers that perhaps they can figure out a way to bore some holes into the ice to use the eight foot think, virtually immovable iceberg for additional leverage. They work for a few hours and are then ready to recast the Lasting Breath spell on Crag, Kenn, Copperhead and Loc-Larin to go swim down and attach the ropes to the croc as instructed by Fawn.

As they swim into the murky water, Loc-Larin get a tingle that danger is nearby, but not from where it was expected from the croc in front of them, but rather from behind. From out of the darkness a massive forty to fifty foot long gar darts forth to try and bite Kenn. Kenn gets a hand on the side of the fish’s mouth and pushes free. The group prepares themselves for another attack and continue to move toward the croc. Again from the darkness the gar swims in quickly, trying to bite Loc-Larin this time, but again they evade and put a couple hits on the fish that swims off into the darkness. They quickly detangle the lines and attach them to the croc while Crag uses his cold manipulation to keep the temperature cold.

Khanda with some aid of the other team members leverage Fawn’s mechanical contraptions and are able to hoist the croc off the muddy bottom by a couple feet, allowing Loc the opportunity to reach in, dig into the mud and find the source of magic. A glass bottle without a lid. Loc notices a second magic bit and finds the lid a little deeper in the muck. Via the team’s various detections, it seems this is the source of the magic that was “augmenting” things from Nikam’s perspective. Caliban blows a puff of smoke over the bottle, invoking his revealing smoke and shows hundreds of runes etched into the glass. Loc-Larin pours out the muck and they give the bottle a quick clean before stoppering it and stashing it.

The group returns to the “ice castle” and tells King Ok that they’ve succeeded in finding the source of the problem, but that there is still a large croc sleeping down below. In asking for a reward, he’s a bit hesitant, as the giant croc still remains, but answers the team’s questions about the portals in the sphere, merely validating what they’d already learned from the mephits inside. They also query about the Voice of Chaos, to which he says he’s not familiar with the being. He does confirm that Lek’Lanth controls the plane, however and that the Obsidian Tower is his seat of power. They ask about his undead looking arm and Ok explains that it is a chaos feature. A random thing that ended up empowering him. He says that such events randomly occur, but are usually spurred by magic use and other phenomena.

Loc-Larin offers that perhaps the King and his mephits could aid them in the future if they’re able to provide a path to get there. King Ok agrees to this stipulation, agreeing that their actions, though not slaying the giant croc, have still saved hundreds of mephit lives. The team decides to spend another hour or so on the ice and in the Prime before being lead back to the portal to the Chaos Sphere and going back through. They reassemble on the catwalks and determine their next course of action.

Session Fourteen – the Chaos Sphere

Mielle feels she must get further guidance from Saas Vain and the team agrees to move about a half-mile away from the idol so that Mielle can pray. Mielle and Loc-Larin pray for further guidance to determine if destroying the demon ape idol is the clear path from their gods and if they should focus their efforts there. Loc-Larin sees the target of the elf god as perhaps not the apes, as his vision shows the apes as perhaps subservient to a tiger-like creature. Mielle’s vision shows her as possibly successful in defeating the apes or perhaps even doing well against them, but also gets imagery that she might be taking on a life long mission should she embark upon it. They discuss and determine they will edge around the area they perceive as controlled by the apes.

Crag takes the scouting lead with Loc-Larin supporting him from a distance of roughly fifty meters behind. Able to keep visual on Crag, and the rest of the group following roughly another fifty meters behind. Coordinating via team speak, Fawn is able to keep the team on the right path, while Crag and Loc-Larin provide forward scouting. Crag hears the sound of water or a liquid of some kind and comes across what appears to be a roughly foot and a half wide rivulet of liquid metal. Not hot, but rather a temperate, shiny metal somewhat like mercury. Being in an iron forest, it seems not crazy at all and it is simple to just hop over and continue on their way.

As they proceed over the next half-mile or so, they see that they are now descending slightly (just a few degrees of descent angle) and as they continue over another half-mile, Crag sees the small mercury stream now flowing down near them. They double check to ensure some weird chaos feature is not in place and that the mercury is not instead flowing uphill. It is not. As the group continues over the next mile or two, the forest begins to thin little by little and the descent steepens by a few more degrees. Eventually Crag emerges from a forested area to a massive depression, three to four miles in diameter with only a few of the giant trees and five mercury streams all flowing to a gigantic sphere of metal that dominates the area.

The sphere is dramatically huge, roughly two miles in diameter from their various assessments. Fawn pulls out her spyglass and begins to examine the structure from the distance. It is significantly damaged with a large, quarter-mile gash in the upper left of her vision. Additionally, she notes a golden glow reflecting off its polished metal surface, she attributes this to the light they had seen before encountering the demon apes. The sphere appears to be in disrepair, what appears to have been a twenty story staircase to the base of the sphere from the ground level appears to have been destroyed and toppled. Fawn can see, however, a lattice of metal catwalks, small platforms and the like within in a very maze-like complex. There does not appear to be any life around or in the visible part of the sphere however. Fawn sees this as an engineering marvel and salivates and the possibilities to be learned within.

Fawn indicates that their target gate seems to be somewhere within the sphere. As the team discusses, they begin to get a bit of cold feet on approaching the sphere however, Crag simply begins walking towards it. Soon everyone is in tow as they walk under the “shadow” of the sphere and examine where the mercury streams seem to simply vanish into the base. The base appears to be a bunch of metal “sticks” or tree trunks, bundled together and holding this massive construct in place. The mercury possibly disappearing into hidden drains or the like, there is no pooling of the liquid metal around the base of the sphere.

Mielle does a Thought Capture to see the most poignant emotional moment which appears to be one of surprise as a Chaos Lord, known as Gund’Raloc, meets his demise to an unknown group of mortals. However, this triggers Mielle, Nikam’Pom and Copperhead to relate their bits of knowledge together related to the Chaos Storm team. With stories told to Mielle by Chadi, told to Nikam’Pom by Loh’Pak and from Copperhead’s book learning, it helps them identify this structure as the sphere where the Chaos Mage and Chaos Lords intended to harness the power of the seven chaos orbs and the Elemental Staff to create a “reality destroying storm” that could be sent through the dimensions to destroy the Prime Material Plane.

The group sees where the ruined stairs are intact roughly two-hundred fifty feet up from where they are. However, a quick discussion allows them to agree on a path for Caliban to smoke walk with a rope in hand for the group to climb. Crag produces some tinder and wood from his saddlebags and quickly builds a smoky fire. Aided by Fawn’s fire control and Caliban’s smoke physics knowledge, they control the smoke into a column that rises to where they want to be. Caliban climbs up the smoke and secures the rope in place and the team climbs up in reasonably easy fashion to the place where the stairs are solid and connect to a portal that has engravings in Drakh’Nhagi.

Mielle translates the writings as, “this sphere shall house the power to bring forth a chaos storm, unmake the world of man and restore the power of the lords of chaos.” Again, this confirms the stories that Copperhead, Mielle and Nikam’Pom related before ascending. The group walks into the sphere, it is dark and shadowy within, but not black. Only Crag and Kenn have limited vision, so they have Caliban take the lead for internal scouting. The elves and Copperhead are all able to see well in the dark with their enhanced vision, so they begin to follow Fawn’s “line of direction” which she confirms is somewhere roughly central within the orb. She continues to improve her distance to brightness assessments to better calculate travel times and distances.

The team makes their way along catwalks to a small platform that they find they’ll have to backtrack from. However, they note that at the platform there appears to be a receptacle for a chaos orb. Mielle recalls the orange-colored orb of power wielded by Chadi and thinks about how it might fit into the “slot” and be part of the power for this massive construct. The group back tracks and continues up via stairs, catwalks, more stairs and more catwalks. As they approach another area of platforms and intersecting walkways, Caliban gets a feeling as if he is being watched. Other members of the group get a similar feeling and Mielle uses a Mass Reveal spell to make hidden things appear.

Merely ten feet away from Caliban, floating in the air in front of him is a small, roughly two and a half foot tall little, blue, winged, icy looking imp sort of creature. Nine more of the little creatures appear surrounding the group, but they appear to be observing. However, various team members begin to prepare themselves for battle, Copperhead fires up his Electric Aura and one of the little creatures says, “oooh this one is here to fight!” Mielle uses Dictate on five of the ten, controlling them and forcing them into servitude for the next thirty minutes or so. She asks them what they are, and they explain that they are ice mephits.

The mephits are asked who they serve and they say “the Cold One,” though they quickly discover the Cold One they reference is not Aeryamoinyen, Crag’s god and also known as the Cold One. They ask about the gate and mephits ask “which one?” as another ten mephits appear. When the team is able to indicate roughly where they’re going, the five “servant” mephits explain that the gate the team is referring to, nothing comes in or out of. It is a realm of pure fire and deadly. They recommend a different gate that goes to the Prime Material plane, and more mephits appear, until they number roughly a hundred of the little creatures. The team begins to hike their way up toward the fire gate as they continue to quiz the mephits.

They query the mephits on a tiger demon from the priests' visions. They say, “do you mean the Voice of Chaos?” Although they're not sure, the team confirms, yes and ask where this "Voice of Chaos" is. The lead mephit points in a direction that correleates with where Fawn saw the golden glow outside reflecting off the sphere and surmises this is where it originates from. The mephits seem confused that the team would want to face the Voice of Chaos, it seems like a crazy idea to them.

The group gets to a level where they are near the gate to the Prime Material plane and the mephits point it out. The team considers it, but as they discuss and walk, they begin to become hesitant about pushing through into the realm of fire. Loc-Larin brings up that perhaps the tiger imagery Kenn, Loc and Mielle have seen in their visions are pointing them away from this place and that perhaps they are not meant to go here. Copperhead and Mielle discuss the survivability of the Elemental Plane of Fire and determine that without the right protections in place, they will be unable to survive or explore in such a realm. The team pauses and considers having the mephits lead them back down.

Session Thirteen – Monkeying Around in Maarak

With some guidance from Bae’Rith, Nikam’Pom leads the priests out to a reasonably large floating rock roughly three miles away from Atana Akla, where they feel they are able to connect with their deities and refill their theurgy pools. Kenn, Loc-Larin and Mielle also take the time to commune with their gods in the form of Auguries to help them shade their path forward. They mostly find themselves with some cryptic visions with no clear or obvious challenges identified, but many possible conflicts to overcome. Copperhead plays more rounds with Duja but is unable to pass through to the “end game” with him. With the team deciding to pack up and head out in a few days rather than a couple weeks, his chances to “win” do not manifest.

Some restocking of supplies happens and the group makes their way to the Xorn Collective to be lead quietly to the gate. It is explained that the area on the other side of the gate is pretty quiet and free from chaotic fluctuations and is in the “Iron Forest” of Maarak. The group goes through and indeed it is quiet and peaceful. The area of massive, 100 to 200 foot tall metal banyan/sequoia hybrid trees is also carpeted by a blue-green moss that seems to absorb ambient noise and reform to its normal shape making tracks very difficult to find or see. Fawn sees two very similar brightness lines of direction and based on their travels thus far guesstimates that the closer of the two is likely ten to twelve miles away, while the other is perhaps twelve to fourteen.

Caliban checks in with Andras as the “legends” recognized that the team had been “offline” for a few days. Cal provides a quick recap of the Mind Flayer battle and findings, but also explains their positive inroads with the Githyanki and the interesting powers of psionics that were observed. Andras is concerned about the Mind Flayer and makes certain that they should have a full debrief when they return to Lor’Aserion with the Gatewatcher. The psionics are interesting, but don’t seem to worry or otherwise concern Andras. Andras wishes the team well on their continued journey.

Nikam’Pom attunes and finds that these trees are perfectly suited to his brachiation, even though the branches are the size of tree trunks. He ascends into a tree and effortlessly zips around. Mielle decides a quick Augury focused on the two possible paths is worthwhile and sees an image of a massive, mile or more diameter sphere of metal in a clearing amongst the iron trees and in a minor confluence of streams of some manner of odd, non-water liquid. The other route is filled with tiger related images, the stripes, an ear, fangs, a tail and finally the eye. There is a clear relationship to the vision Kenn received with the tiger eye before leaving the Atana Akla dimension. Without any clear directive on which line is which, the group agrees to follow the shorter path.

Nikam embraces his ability to fly through the trees, swinging and leaping from tree to tree as the group travels for a couple of hours, but Nik sees something through the trees that he did not expect. A statue that appears to be carved from some kind of a wood-like root exposed from the ground in the form of a semi-demonic orangutan. The statue is about ten feet tall and radiates chaos energy and that which a couple of the priests sense as perhaps “demi-god” type energy, not unlike Akka in the desert realm. Nik approaches for a closer look, but maintains his distance as he analyzes the statue.

Nikam’Pom’s Identify reveals a group of demonic apes worshipping the idol, making its use appear only as a focus for some manner of respect, worship or the like. Caliban has a strange feeling, as if he is surrounded and something is trying to catch him off guard. He barely utters his warning to the team as suddenly ten foot tall demon apes spring from everywhere. Nikam’Pom is a primary target in the “line of fire,” he avoids the first leaping ape but takes a glancing blow from a pair of clubbing fists from the second demon ape, while a third misses him. The demon apes, each leaping easily thirty to forty feet, surround the team, though Caliban, Crag and Fawn’s “awareness” levels allow them to react to what catches most everyone slightly off guard.

Fawn draws her gun from a dimensional pocket, charges with electricity and fires a few rounds into the nearest enemy. It hits the ape square in the chest, and while the slugs fired seem to hurt it, the electricity appears to dissipate strangely. Fawn takes note before firing any further elementally charged rounds. She evades the angry, clubbing swings of the ape’s fists and bite attempt, whipping out her main gauches and preparing to mix it up. Crag, seeing Nikam’Pom surrounded and possibly in jeopardy, quickly throws down an ice mist that coats the entire area surrounding Nik with a layer of slippery ice. One of the apes nearby loses its grip on an icy tree branch and falls to the ground.

Apes attack recklessly, hitting Fawn with a glancing blow, partially parried by her main gauche and a double fisted swat to Kenn’Lorek finding purchase as well. Mielle draws her sun blade, manifests the glory of her goddess and a few of the apes back off, she invokes her aura of goodness and those not driven back are enraged and drawn to attack her. She goes full defensive as Copperhead and Loc-Larin aid Fawn fighting off an ape near her. Both Loc and Fawn strike true and the demon ape “bursts” into a puff of orange, fall colored leaves that rain to the ground. Caliban throws up a big smoke cloud to wall off one side of the team and discourage enemy approaches through it.

Although slipping around a bit, Nikam is able to defend against further attacks, parrying with his lava blade and encouraging his fire monkey to harass the apes from nearby branches. Crag shield bashes an ape and knocks it to the ground, but also goes somewhat defensive as the apes begin to focus on Mielle. Mielle is able to parry a rush of incoming attacks with parrying aide by Kenn. Kenn and Mielle’s strikes kill one of the apes focused on her, it also bursts into a puff of leaves. Crag uses the power of the Cold One to invoke fear into one of the apes which flees and soon they have killed a handful of the apes and put a sense of uncertainty in the others that causes them to retreat and vanish from sight.

Mielle is fired up and wants Loc-Larin to defile the monkey idol and seethes with rage at the idea of leaving an evil object alone, though she holds the anger in check. The team discusses what to do next.

Session Twelve – Destroying the Mirror Dimension

Nikam’Pom begins to adapt to the dimension as the last two Githyanki are killed. Mielle picks up a silver sword to examine it and it seems to be very lightweight for a two handed weapon. Perhaps weighing like a shinai covered in a light coating of silver. Fawn wants to take the mind flayer and do a sort of “impromptu” autopsy on it. Kenn easily drags the corpse out of the pool and Fawn creates a skull saw to begin opening up the flayer. Kenn helps with identifying some weak points where “parting out” the flayer makes sense based on his past skinning experience. As she reviews the brain matter of the Illithid, she notes that there are far more folds and density to the “meat” and her microscopic vision allows her to see some manner of activity going on. Fawn heats up one of her main-gauches and proceeds to mince the brain.

Bae’Rith expresses an interest in taking samples of the biotic water as people explore the area and Crag obliges with a couple of whetskins that people drink from, empty, then allow Bae’Rith to take samples of the fluid. Fânrȗiell immediately thinks just how corrupted such samples must be and produces a couple of glass vials to take her own uncontaminated samples. Fawn looks at the biotic liquid with her microscopic vision and sees a variety of nanoparticles, cells and possibly even microscopic creatures moving about within it. Kenn examines the area for dimensional anomalies and sees a portal at approximately the center of the biotic pool. He walks over and sees a roughly baseball sized globe of passive energy and can see an aura the size of the opening the portal would expand to when activated. He lets the team know of what he’s found.

About 22 minutes pass and Nikam’Pom has attuned to the mirror dimension and examined it with See Cosmos and Identify. He explains that the entire place is a dimensional construct and that there are several “pocket dimensions” attached to it that can apparently be accessed via the portal Kenn found. Nik determines that the biotic pool is something like a control panel that allows the manipulation of the construct’s movement, the extension and attachment of the ghostly ethereal tentacles Kenn initially discovered on Atana Akla as well as a variety of other things that Nik doesn’t really understand. He places a foot in the pool and is flooded with disturbing images.

A myriad of different humanoid type races and a handful of non-humanoid races peacefully resting in organic “pods” (for meta understanding, effectively an organic/fantasy equivalent to the Matrix pods) with babies, children and adults in the mix. The mental image makes Nikam interpret this as if there are literally millions enslaved in this fashion, their mind power being absorbed and used by the Illthid. With his foot in the pool, he feels potential “connections” with “controls” that might allow him to do stuff with the planar construct, but he really doesn’t know what to do. However, he does sense that in one of the pocket dimensions attached to the plane, that there is some manner of “power crystal” or perhaps crystals.

As Nikam works to try and understand how the control pool works, he feels a mind reach out to him, his brain still hurting from the “mind blast” from the Mind Flayer, he senses a different Illithid reaching out and probing his mind. It seems as if this mind has reached far across the cosmos, perhaps through dimensions. He immediately tells everyone and Bae’Rith quickly reaches out to touch him and lends her mind to help him defend. Mielle quickly leaves her examination of the silver blades, also touching Bae’Rith and Nikam’Pom to add her mental power to the defense. Nikam is able to focus long enough to trigger opening the portal to the pocket dimension that contains the power crystal and Crag and Kenn venture in to see what it looks like.

They see a massive crystal glowing with blue energy, easily 45 feet tall and connected at the top with a stone construct that looks like a Mind Flayer head, its tentacles holding the crystal in place. Kenn and Crag approach a short distance toward the crystal and begin to feel the thrum of energy. Crag recommends they call in Fânrȗiell and get her engineering and examination perspective on the crystal. Kenn heads back out the portal to the pool room to pry her away from her poking and prodding of the flayer corpse. She comes through the portal and is immediately intrigued by the massive power crystal. Initially she sees no magic, no familiar “power” that she is aware of and assumes this is some manner of psionic power accumulation.

She approaches to the point where Crag and Kenn felt the power in the “air” feels that minor thrum herself and turns on her microscopic vision, seeing a handful of light motes floating in space. The energy particles float through her hands as if not there, but Fawn understands these to be simply neutral energy motes, kind of there/not there, and proceeds to approach closer. The concentration of the energy motes becomes much denser as she gets within the near vicinity of the crystal and reaches out to touch it. Other than the ambient feel of energy flow, there isn’t any negative effects to her. She attempts to scratch the crystal with her main-gauche, but it doesn’t seem to do anything to mar the surface.

Crag mentions his shield has the capability to break boulders and the like and thinks perhaps he can channel this energy into an attack to see if the crystal can be perturbed. He thwacks the crystal fairly hard and is hit with some manner of kinetic feedback that knocks him to the ground and makes him feel as if he just took a very solid punch to the jaw. Kenn decides to throw his magical axes at the crystal for his own confirmation, and after Crag and Fawn take cover, he hurls them only to see the axes get blown back at roughly twice the velocity they flew in at. After all the efforts, there are still no marks on the crystal. As they begin to think about how to break the crystal, back in the pool room, Nikam’Pom feels as if the Mind Flayer probing him is working to break through and attempt to control him.

Copperhead suggests perhaps they simply take Nik into the pocket dimension, noting how their own Team Speak seems to be interrupted by dimensional gaps, so that it might break the connection. However, as Kenn carries Nik through the portal, Nik sees the Illithid image in his mind open its eyes wide in astonishment as it sees the power crystal through Nik’s eyes. Nik senses it is as if seeing the power crystal is a revelation to the Mind Flayer. Nik quickly relays the info and concern to the team, who promptly carry him back to the pool room. Mielle thinks about a way to put up a false mental front to draw the flayer’s attack toward her, but after discussing with Loc-Larin, the priests decide to contribute their energy to boosting Loc’s Sanctuary spell to hopefully sever the connection.

The priests all lay hands on Nikam’Pom and Loc-Larin draws the power boosted by all the gods as well as spellcrafting the spell specifically to disrupt the mental connection. Upon casting the spell, the mind connection is successfully broken and the group all heads into the power crystal room to assess how to deal with it. After understanding the Mind Flayer’s face in seeing this thing and discussing with Bae’Rith, she and Nikam’Pom feel it needs to be destroyed. They discuss with Fawn, Crag and Kenn the things that had been tested and Nik examines the crystal with his geomantic focus. Loc-Larin states, “if we have time, we can construct a circle to contain magic from all of us to damage the crystal simultaneously causing a coordinated effect with a timed release.” Despite her wish that she could somehow take this thing to experiment with, Fawn offers her timing perfections, and the team begins to assess the spells they can bring to bear and be coordinated.

The group agrees on an execution path that starts with Crag’s “subzero” spells to bring the crystal to a low temperature and increase contraction. Subsequently, Nikam’Pom and Mielle will summon their Flame Sphere and Sunmotes to be augmented by Fawn’s Affect Normal Fires to then superheat the area just frozen and force a quick expansion pressure. Kenn will use his final theurgy and POW support to soften the stone of the mind flayer tentacles holding the massive crystal and he and Copperhead will hit it with all the Shatter spells they can muster, punctuated by Magic Missiles from Fawn to both crack the crystal and help knock it over.

Crag produces the chalks from the saddlebags and everyone able to work on circle magic contributes to the creation of a two layered circle surrounding the base of the crystal: the outer ring theurgic and the inner ring wizard mana. Loc-Larin checks all their work, makes some minor adjustments and when they feel everything is ready, they charge their spells, start the “timer” and leave via the portal Alikhan has been maintaining. All totaled, the primary “inscribers” Kenn, Copperhead, Mielle and Loc-Larin take nearly an hour to craft the circle and the runes to be charged. The magic spells are then loaded and they are out of there in just over an hour.

As the group returns to Atana Akla, they see a flash in space and a “reality ripple” that warps outwards. Alikhan confirms that the “portal” they’d opened to the mirror dimension has been destroyed and they assume the entire dimension exploded as well. All the group is tapped out, but Bae’Rith and Alikhan lead the group back to the Shrak’kt tower where they report on the discovery and destruction of the mirror dimension. The team is congratulated and serenaded by the Githyanki ovation of nearly a hundred police/investigators who gather and repeatedly chant a phrase “ahn hrsaami” which Mielle and Loc-Larin are able to translate as “I rejoice”. Bae’Rith quietly explains this is a significant gesture from the Gith.

The team are made honorary citizens of Atana Akla, granted the freedom to stay as long as they wish and are escorted to the Xorn Collective by Bae’Rith. She takes them inside the temple-like construct where almost two hundred githyanki “monks” concentrate and focus their minds on keeping the reality of Atana Akla in place and unmolested. Bae’Rith shows the team where the gate is located, and they are introduced to the gate keeper who will let them back in when they wish to go. Fawn asks Bae’Rith if there are any healers that can help them and she nods. The group is taken to a place where psi healers can work on them and soon the team is thinking more about food and a bath than the terrible headaches most of them have had to endure.

Session Eleven – Flaying the Flayer

Over team speak, Copperhead calls out for help from Crag as he and Nik struggle with their Githyanki opponent and Crag responds with a charge on Khanda and a strategic dismount to effectively surround the Gith knight who continues to try and free his sword from Copperhead’s ranseur. Kenn floats, his mind fuzzy as he senses the “slug” slithering up onto his neck, “Ukko! Help!” Ukko knows exactly what to do, what else would an ermine do? Ukko leaps up onto Kenn’s shoulder, biting the tadpole, killing it and tossing the slug-like corpse to the ground. Bae’Rith runs over to Kenn and touches him.

Fawn knows that something needs to be done with the Illithid as its mind powers continue to disrupt the entire team. She leaps into the air with her magical jump, but feels herself telekinetically grabbed by the Githyanki knight between her and the flayer. Although held in mid-air roughly fifteen feet off the ground, she is undeterred and launches an electricity tuned volley of slugs at the Illithid. The electricity seems to bathe the mind flayer but doesn’t seem to adversely affect him. However, the liquid does indeed seem to be conductive and both of the Gith get shocked and quickly step out of the pool.

Mielle’s swordplay slices her githyanki opponent very well forcing him into a defensive stance and Loc-Larin slices his opponent who also begins to parry. Caliban casts the irritation spell on the mind flayer, but it seems unaffected. However, its attention shifts from Fawn to Caliban. Cal feels something in his mind and suddenly he feels the mind flayer is his most trusted, long term friend that must be protected at all costs. Cal analyzes the scenario to determine how to best help his friend the flayer. The githyanki facing Loc-Larin attempts to sever Loc’s “silver thread” but the attack is blocked by the friendly githyanki investigator Alikhan back in Atana Akla, who is defending the team from exactly that. Loc is thankful that his spirit has not been severed from his body.

Crag and Khanda lay some serious hits on the Gith they’ve surrounded, and Nik puts in a slice with his lava blade. The gith telekinetically holding Fawn floats up to engage her and she shoots a volley of magic missiles into him. Bae’Rith “grabs hold” of Kenn’s mind and shakes him free of the stupor that was overwhelming him. He stops floating and drops to the ground on his butt while instinctively grabbing his spear that he’d dropped. She speaks to Kenn telepathically, “we need to engage the mind flayer’s mind so he can’t focus his powers on us.” Kenn tries to relay that info to the team as he scrambles to his feet. Caliban sees the group threatening his Illithid buddy and drops a smoke screen on top of Mielle, Kenn and Bae’Rith.

The Illithid uses his mind blast, hitting most of the people with an attack that feels as if they’ve been clubbed in the brain. Nikam’Pom is “hit” the hardest and feels stunned as Crag and Khanda finish off the second githyanki. Fawn artfully flips in the air, holstering her gun, drawing her blades and stabbing her gith enemy with one of her electrically charged blades. Mielle steps out from the smoke cloud with intent to further engage the githyanki knight, but the “mind blast” has triggered her memories of training mental combat with Chadi. Hearing Kenn murmuring something over team speak, she feels this might be her only opportunity to try and initiate mental combat. The githyanki near her levitates about fifteen feet up. As Bae’Rith moves to flank the Illithid, Caliban tries to “sleep” her, but it doesn’t work.

Nikam’Pom is heavily stunned by the mind blast but rushes forward towards Fawn in a somewhat drunken, serpentine path. Crag sees this and pursues to give the orc a quick heal as everyone tries to process Kenn’s relaying of Bae’Rith’s statement regarding mental combat. Mielle does, however, initiate mental combat with the flayer and is mentally knocked back by its superior mind. She struggles to gain mental footing in order to hold him off, focusing on core teaching by Chadi to defend and slow the flayer’s mental onslaught. The Illithid pushes hard into her mind. Loc-Larin casts protection from evil and moves toward the mind flayer avoiding the smoke cloud whispering some threats as he approaches.

Copperhead exclaims over team speak that someone needs to try and get Mielle’s dimensional shackles on the mind flayer asap! Crag shifts tack and charges forward with Khanda, dismounting and grabbing the shackles as Bae’Rith touches Mielle to supplement her mind and help her hold off the Illithid’s advances. Mielle feels with Bae’Rith’s mind support she is able to hold firm and stop the mind flayer’s crushing mental power. Loc-Larin tries to stab the mind flayer in the back of the head, but its face tentacles grip the blade. They don’t simply get cut through and Loc struggles for control of the blade. Copperhead casts Iron Mind on Caliban and it frees him from the Illithid’s control.

Kenn gets whacked in the upper back by the floating githyanki knight and it hurts, but he stays focused on the mind flayer. He momentarily considers if he should help with the mental combat, but decides he is better suited to attacking. Focusing his magic, he controls some of the “water” into a tentacle that grabs the Illithid, then freezes it. Caliban cancels the smoke clouds he’d summoned as Crag surges forward with the shackles. He is able to clasp one bracelet of the dimensional shackles on the Illithid just as he see it begin to de-materialize (envision beam me up, Scotty, or whatever the Illithid name for Scotty might be!) The shackles hold the flayer in place as Khanda grapples with both his claws and bites the head off to enjoy his sushi.

Session Ten – the Ruun-Khazai

As the team processes the crime scene, Crag sees some discarded “pits” from some type of olive-esque fruit and they are confirmed by Bae’Rith to be a reasonably common snack food in Atana Akla. She does some manner of psychic reading on them and determines they were being eaten by a Gith known as Dakshei, an assistant distiller of a popular Gith spirit. Bae’Rith and Alikhan explain that abductions have been periodically happening over the past year and a half with each of the investigations ultimately coming up with a dead end. Although the Shrak’kt and Rr’a’ckma believe they were related to works of the Ruun-Khazai before Kenn’s witnessing of another “mirror gate” opening.

They review the list of the eight victims, starting with the one that truly stood out at the beginning of the events, being an assistant to what would be considered a “civil engineer” of Atana Akla. With some “arm twisting” Kenn’Lorek is convinced that he needs to cast his Detect Dimensional Disturbance spell in order to learn more about this mirror gate if possible. He immediately sees the residue of the mirror gate and senses that was actually a piece of the rogue plane itself rather than a gate opened from one location to another. Nikam’Pom wants to use his See Cosmos and Patternweave spells to make sense of things, but cannot see what Kenn sees. Bae’Rith offers to connect the minds of Kenn and Nik and after some convincing, the mind meld happens.

Nik sees some manner of ghostly tentacle in the ethereal plan that touches the location. There also seem to be hundreds other tentacles in the distance, perhaps connecting to other locations in Atana Akla and elsewhere in the dimension. Additionally, Nik sees that the rogue plane is actually a construct of some kind. Perhaps a planar vehicle of sorts, though perhaps the size of one of Atana Akla’s small neighborhoods. Nik also has a vision of the Mind Flayer eating the brain of the current victim, but through Patternweave, senses this is more than eating for sustenance, but rather absorption of skills, knowledge and experiences from the victim. From this Nik surmises the victims are being chosen strategically.

The team relocates to another of the abduction locations, but it is an old crime scene of the seamstress and there are few things to be learned from the location. The group discusses some possible paths forward, some clues perhaps worth investigating and throw their own two cents into the overall understanding of the investigation. As Kenn’s spell begins to wane, however, he feels a strange “tapping” in his mind and sees glowing eyes in his mind’s eye. Bae’Rith touches Kenn and immediately they realize that the Illithid has detected their presence and is retracting the connective tentacles from the rogue dimension to Atana Akla. Mielle quickly locks Kenn in place dimensionally with her Dimensional Shackles while Bae’Rith conveys to Alikhan what is happening.

Alikhan engages in telepathic communication with Shrak’kt cohorts and Kenn notes that Mielle’s shackles seem to be slowing down the speed of the ghost tentacle’s retraction. Alikhan reaches through a small portal to grab something from his desk delivered by another Shrak’kt agent and he tells everyone to physically touch each other in order to be pushed through to the rogue plane. Mielle removes the shackles and Alikhan initiates a forced connection through the ghost tentacle. The group finds themselves standing in an area made of stone with a few pillars, broken decorative stones and a glowing, greenish pool. In the pool stands a Mind Flayer and in front of him five Githyanki warriors.

The team realizes Alikhan has not come through with them, but Bae’Rith explains he is back on Atana Akla holding open this connection with the Ruun-Khazai plane and also protecting their silver cords from attacks by the Githyanki knights. Two of the githyanki step back to protect the mind flayer while the other three prepare to engage. Copperhead immediately lights a Hypnotic Pattern smoke, but it seems not to affect the Githyanki or Illithid. Feeling the Astral restriction from Atana Akla gone, Crag summons Khanda, mounting up and charging toward one of the Gith. Mielle ignites her sun blade and throws up her Iron Will to improve her resistance to mind attacks. Loc-Larin and Fawn move to the opposite side of the area and Fawn looks up to observe a glass-like ceiling a couple hundred feet above them as she draws forth her gun. Loc-Larin moves along the same line as Fawn, invoking Nature’s Courage focused against mind attacks. Copperhead also protects himself with his Iron Mind spell as the three Githyanki “teleport,” one near Crag, one near Fawn and one near Caliban.

Crag’s shield parries the attack from his Gith warrior, Fawn parries with her main gauche and a slippery side step move while Caliban gets sliced by his attacker. “Damn, that hurt” thinks Caliban as he quickly moves away, invoking Loc-Larin’s Sanctuary spell and heading toward Fawn. Copperhead reaches forth with his ranseur and catches the Gith’s blade between the tines of his weapon as Nikam’Pom ignites his blade and slices the Gith. Crag and Khanda press the attack on their Gith, who parries a claw attack and takes a couple shots from both the bear and Crag. Crag’s first assessment is, “these guys are tough.” The Gith retreats a couple steps and his feet float off the ground. Mielle, seeing Crag forcing the nearby Gith away, invokes her Blade of the Goddess and closes on one of the Gith protecting the flayer.

The flayer does something that makes everyone except Fawn, Loc and Caliban feel like they just got smacked right on their unprotected brain. Everyone resists due to the protections and innate abilities, but definitely have never felt such an attack and it makes them cautious. Kenn closes toward the Mind Flayer throwing his axes at the Gith protector, who knocks one away and is grazed with a slice from the other. Mielle presses the attack, forcing the Gith protector on defense and slicing him as he keeps his eyes away from directly staring into the sun blade, but still interposing himself between Kenn, Mielle and the Mind Flayer.

Copperhead flares up his electricity and shocks the Gith he and Nik are fighting in an attempt to look intimidating. It doesn’t quite go down as bad ass as he’d hoped, but still does some damage and causes an opening for Nik to get in another solid cut. However, Nik and Copperhead are both thinking what Crag did at the start, these guys are stout. Crag charges the Gith he has on the run with his bear lance and Khanda barrels into the Gith with a flurry of claws. The floating Gith seems either dead or unconscious, but strangely drifts upward about fifteen feet into the air, dropping his silver sword but remaining to hover there, yet no longer a threat.

Fawn retreats from the Gith who attacked her, lining up a shot on the Mind Flayer and as the Gith tracks her, Loc-Larin summons his Inspired Resistance, though Fawn has just moved out of range of the benefit. Loc pierces a blade into the soft spot under the ribs of the Gith, although the Gith turns aside and away from the blade before it gets deeply into vulnerable parts. He squares up with Loc-Larin. Fawn spellcrafts a pair of magic missiles to appear to fire from her gun, striking the unharmed Gith protector and they strike true. Fawn feels the Illithid try to grip her mind, but remembering some schooling from her younger days, she wriggles free of the mental hold preparing herself to get in tight on the Mind Flayer for a major gun attack.

Kenn puts himself in position to approach the Mind Flayer and slip past the protector, but feels the words of the Illithid in his brain, “why have you come here and why are you trying to spoil my plan?” Kenn replies defiantly, “we’re here to end your plan and YOU!” Nobody hears the telepathic conversation, but Mielle sees Kenn go limp and float into the air. Kenn himself feels sort of sleepy or perhaps entering into a medically sedated state and sees the Mind Flayer flick a small tadpole like creature on to his shoulder. It wriggles and acquires “footing” as the team determines its next tactical steps.

Session Nine – Abductions in Atana Akla

Copperhead looks around for dice games and other things, but in the end discovers only the one game being run by the gambler rather than a casino type atmosphere. He eventually sits down to play a modified game of “21” with the gambler who is introduced as Duja. They then progress to a game more like a stud poker variant using the tarot cards. Copperhead looks at the cards with his magic sight and senses they are far beyond what they seem. They appear to be not only magical but existing in multiple dimensions simultaneously. The two of them win some money from each other, ending in effectively a draw. Copperhead attempts to get some further information about a “draw” game he had seen some others play, but Duja says, you must win first and games with me can only be played once per “day.” Duja can sense the measure of skill in Copperhead, however, and encourages him to come back again the following day.

Kenn feels the drunkenness coming on and makes his way over to Copperhead near the bar. Copperhead shifts his focus to helping out Kenn’Lorek and speaks with the bartender to secure a room for Kenn to pass out in. As mentioned, the room is a pocket dimension within the Vim Shunda, just down a little hallway with merely eight doors that open to as many rooms as desired by the proprietor. Copperhead checks out the room assigned and nothing seems amiss so he lets Kenn flop down on a bed and then heads back to the tavern.

As the conversation with MacShein winds down a bit, Crag spends a little more time scanning the tavern and sees a githyanki who, with his best uneducated guess, appears to be intently focused on reading the minds of everyone in the tavern! He also has the look of those described as part of the secret police, known as the Shrak’kt. Looking to push the team quicker towards their path to the gate, he boldly walks over to talk with the githyanki. Sure enough, he’s a “policeman” and makes no attempts to hide it. Crag intimates that the team is looking to get access to the gate controlled by the Xorn Collective and would like to try and curry favor with the Shrak’kt in order to gain whatever approval is necessary to enter the restricted location. The inspector tells Crag he should head to the Shrak’kt tower for his inquiry and gives him directions.

Kenn lies in bed attempting to meditate and see if there is some way to connect with the Starfather but shies away from anything MacShein had warned against. He lies there with his eyes closed, has a conversation with Ukko, then suddenly feels a finger lightly pressing on his forehead. He opens his eyes to see Bae’Rith. “How did you get in here?” he asks her, but she smiles and simply says that she has her ways. She convinces him to take a little walk with her and opens a doorway from the room directly into the alley behind the tavern. They exit and take a leisurely walk to a little place to sit across from the island on which the Xorn Collective sits. She gets information from Kenn that his team seeks to gain access to the gate held inside. She then walks with him to a place where the Shrak’kt tower can be seen and warns him that there are a lot of the secret police who can read minds and that they should avoid that place based on what Kenn has told her his “group” is after.

When they finish chatting, Bae’Rith asks Kenn if he can find his way back to the tavern and he confirms he can. She tells him she’ll be back at the Vim Shunda again tomorrow and they can talk more. She bids him good night and walks across the sky to another neighborhood. Kenn makes his way back toward the tavern. While still a little woozy, the walk has done him good. As he gets to an odd intersection, he sees a githyanki man sitting on a barrel quietly, seeming to mind his own business. As Kenn is about to walk away, suddenly a mirror-like gate folds open and three githyanki appear (who have the appearance of inquisitors, wearing important looking robes, slung swords and just generally official looking) and arrest or abduct the one that was sitting upon the barrel amid much complaining from the one taken, though Kenn only hears gibberish and determines that by tone alone. The grabbed githyanki is dragged into the gate and it folds shut like a mirror turning to the side and vanishing.

As things wind down for the group at the tavern, they agree it is probably best they all sleep in the same room, so they head together to where Kenn is sleeping, but upon entering don’t find him there. Fawn reaches out via the Team Speak and queries where Kenn is. Kenn responds immediately as he heads toward the tavern, having just seen the githyanki disappear and only a few blocks beyond where he was observing that unfold. He tells them he’s almost back and that he went out for a walk with Bae’Rith. Loc-Larin states that Bae’Rith didn’t leave until after the group had turned in for the night and that Kenn never left via the front door. Kenn explains that Bae’Rith opened a portal from the “room” into the alley behind the tavern. He realizes that he just walked to said alley and forgot that he would need to go to the front of the tavern. Upon returning to the room, the team grills him a little about the githyanki police grabbing the random guy and Bae’Rith’s sneakiness, but things do not sound terribly amiss and Kenn seems to be in a normal condition, so everyone rests.

The following “morning” everyone meets to eat breakfast and the group decides to divide into two teams, one to visit the Shrak’kt tower and see what they can do to ingratiate themselves with the police and the other team to accompany Kenn to the location of the mirror gate and site of the arrest/abduction of the githyanki citizen. Crag, Fawn, Mielle and Nikam’Pom head to the Shrak’kt tower and are stopped by guards. Crag states their business and one of the guards goes in to alert a higher ranking official of the request. Mielle plays translator for Crag and Fawn as they explain their desire to get to the Xorn Collective gate and Mielle shows off her ability to both move mentally and that she’s handy with her blade to insinuate the group is capable. Other than taking the two guards a bit off guard, she makes her point and the githyanki investigator explains a little more about the githyanki dilemma and the city of Atana Akla.

It seems the githyanki people were originally from a dimension/world called Rr’it’setrm, or as translated by Mielle, the Silver Realm. They were set upon by creatures known as the Illithid who were from another trans dimensional world called Dursthan’m, or the Far Realm. The Illithid subjugated the githyanki, enslaving them for nearly a millennia and forcing them into a role as invaders to help them subjugate more worlds. The Silver Realm was utterly destroyed, effectively “unmade” and some githyanki resistance folk made it into the Astral plane of Al’Akwannon to try and start anew. However, the Illithid followed them, finding the Astral plane a foothold in a new place for them to feed and ultimately the growing githyanki resistance retreated further away to the Ethereal plane, setting up a stronghold here, protected from extradimensional portals to the Astral plane. They have been here nearly four hundred years.

That said, the Illithid are persistently trying to find their way to the githyanki stronghold to re-enslave them, restore their invading army and bring a full scale assault on multiple existences here. Thus, the githyanki are always hunting them and working to destroy any Illithid or anyone working with the Illithid. As such, there is a specialized arm of the Shrak’kt known as the Rr’a’ckma, effectively the flayer hunters (for real world comparison, sort of a Mossad styled group of Nazi hunters, but hunting Mind Flayers instead.) Per the githyanki Shrak’kt investigator, he will consult with his internal team to determine what sort of missions might be available for the group to potentially help with and garner the trust/favor to be allowed access to the gate within the Xorn Collective. Crag thanks him and they head back toward the Vim Shunda.

Kenn, Copperhead, Caliban and Loc-Larin head to the location where Kenn saw the “police” gate in and where the githyanki guy who appeared to be just sitting there was ushered away. They examine the area for any ditched contraband, or any other clues why police would come and take the gith away. They find nothing. Loc-Larin asks about the “uniforms” worn by the ones that came through the gate and it is quicky determined they are not Shrak’kt or any other type of githyanki "official" that they’ve yet seen. Though they’ve only been here less than a “day’s” span of time. Unwilling to cast any spells to attempt to learn more, they return to the tavern and await the other team’s return.

When everyone is back together, the two teams share information between each other and Crag decides to go talk to the Shrak’kt investigator deployed in the corner of the tavern (although a different guy than he previously interacted with) about Kenn’s discovery. As Crag explains the mirror-like gate, the githyanki investigator immediately gets a concerned look on his face and “calls it in.” The original investigator Crag dealt with returns in just a few minutes and engages Kenn about what exactly he saw. Bae’Rith comes over, inserting herself into the conversation, and all of a sudden doesn’t look so crazy or weird, but rather quite knowledgeable and serious. It seems she is in league with the police investigator. She says that there are clearly some Ruun-Khazai traits with the mirror gate and the behavior of the githyanki Kenn witnessed. Bae’Rith and the investigator ask Kenn to take them to the location.

Once again, the full group heads to where Kenn saw the mirror gate open. Bae’Rith and the investigator look around and they fear that the gith that was taken, was simply an innocent taken to be “absorbed” by a Mind Flayer and that indeed these were Ruun-Khazai. It is explained that Ruun-Khazai are githyanki who are still in league with the Illithid. Double agents effectively. It seems quickly obvious that being able to solve THIS mystery and help will completely get the team in the good graces of the Shrak’kt, the Rr’a’ckma and the “good” githyanki society in general. Bae’Rith explains the mirror gate is a splinter of a rogue dimension that floats around in the chaos realm and for the Shrak’kt and Rr’a’ckma, have thus far been untraceable. The team begins to plan with help from Bae’Rith and the investigator who finally introduces himself as Alikhan.

Session Eight – Realm of the Banished

Taaraka says, “I’m home! If you have any questions let me know, otherwise I’m going to teleport to the places I truly know.” The group asks about the city below and info about the plane. Taaraka provides minimal info about the Lady of the plane, Ssendam and says she is very dangerous, believing that madness is the only true form of chaos. He knows nothing about the city below and has never been here, but confirms this is basically the edge of the dimension. Fawn’s crystal now shows five different possible paths to follow, three of which Taaraka says lead roughly toward Ssendam’s realm. One points directly to a section of the city below and the brightest and theoretically closest, points off into “space”. With that, Taaraka bids farewell and teleports away.

Nikam’Pom assumes his meditative pose and begins his Esoteric Adaption. As he does that, Caliban creates a smoke cloud and performs Smoke Walk again, confirming this method of travel could work, however with the city a few miles away, such a long travel would be daunting in that method. As the group tests their environment they discover that the rock they stand on seems to have a gravity-like behavior or perhaps more of a light magnetic behavior. Within perhaps thirty to forty feet, things are drawn back to the surface, but once beyond that seem to float in sort of a zero g type of space. Mielle attempts an Augury, but gets a strange static, Kenn and Loc-Larin both feeling as if they had finally developed the ability to commune with their deities for guidance also try Auguries, they also fail and are met with white noise static. The priests discuss and they all feel very disconnected from their gods.

Nik wakes from his trance and suddenly hovers into the air, then floats slowly, back, forth, up and down. “We move with our minds here,” he states. Nikam begins to describe how to get control of one’s self and both Crag and Kenn quickly begin to float and move around. Shortly after, the elves all seem to gain the ability and within roughly ten minutes, all of the group have figured it out. Fawn does a test and realizes that the rock has a “magnetic” behavior on all sides, walking normally on the vertical side and even underneath the rock as they perceive it. A quick discussion leads the group to first explore the closer gate, rather than risking to enter a fairly large city in another dimension. So they float off and also become more adept at moving with their minds. They find that their top speed tends to be roughly equal and not particularly fast, but they can alter direction at will very quickly.

They find another large rock with a gate on it and Kenn pokes his head through to see thick clouds. A couple others corroborate, and Fawn kneels down and reaches below, but no solid surface is found in this misty realm. She also notices that the new line here is dimmer than the one that lead from the first gate in the desert to the Eye of Akka gate. She calculates this as, “it is likely six to eight days travel in that direction,” as she points into the cloud for Kenn. They do realize they have to be a bit creative to maintain communication as the planar separation breaks the Team Speak, though it does not completely break the spell. Caliban volunteers to explore a little as his Smoke Walk spell allows him to walk on the cloud as if it is solid and in such an environment, he can simply choose to move in any direction he desires.

He generally follows the direction of Fawn’s line and travels over an hour in the direction, but never finds anything solid to land on. The cloud density seems to alter a little here and there, but the maximum visibility seems to be no more than three feet, the opposite end of the spectrum being the ultra-dense cloud, which makes a finger held merely an inch away from one’s eyes unseeable. Caliban returns and the group agrees that Cal should try one more time simply descending and looking for a surface. He does so again, going for a little over an hour and covering greater distance feeling that the gravity behavior is similar to what is normal on the Prime Material plane. Again he finds no surface to land upon and climbs his way back up to the gate.

The group resorts to approaching the city and float back to the initial gate rock. They pick a target from distance and as they approach closer, Fawn scouts out the city with her spyglass, sharing it with other party members for other perspectives. They realize the city is built on all sides of multiple massive rocks (some as small as a couple thousand feet at its longest dimension, the largest perhaps a mile and a half at its longest) as there truly seems to be no up or down. However, they do move toward a more sideways approach and locate an area that seems to be a lighter traveled residential area. The group realizes that with their speed of floating, no stealthy approach can truly be made with the level of foot traffic seen. As they get closer, they see the predominate race of beings are a yellow-skinned bipedal humanoid that none of them have ever seen, nor heard of in their various pre-mission studies discussed.

As they get in sound range, Mielle and Loc-Larin both listen closely to the local denizens speaking and determine that the language has very little connection to the Chaos Tongue. Loc is unable to find any phonetic markers that allow him to discern any linguistic path. They land and approach a couple males talking. One of them looks at the group and addresses them with complete gibberish, then follows it up with another query in the unintelligible language. Mielle speaks in the Chaos Tongue and says, “hi we’re new here, can you help us?” The man speaking says, “oh, you speak Drakh-Nahgi,” he introduces himself and a brief bit of information is exchanged.

The group has landed on the city of Atana Akla, “the Ancient Place” or “the Floating City” and the githyanki homeworld. Generally, they refer to themselves as the Gith. Without revealing their target, they find that Fawn’s line points toward something known as the Xorn Collective. A temple-esque structure with a group of powerful psionics who keep the city and the environment stable and resistant to Chaos. According to this gith, approaching that place is forbidden to everyone. This is enforced by the Gith dimensional police known as the Shrak’kt. A subset of these police are also mentioned and known as the Rr’a’ckma who actively hunt dimensional interlopers and are intimated as sort of a “secret police” group. One other group is mentioned, the Hr’a’cknir, the name for the master psionics.

Mielle asks about money and the Gith shares with her a silver coin that does not look completely unrelated to money she is used to using though all the markings are foreign. Fawn recommends they ask the guy for a place they can rest and gather more information. He beckons over a Gith teenager from down the street who seems eager to make a couple coins and take the group to a place called the Vim Shunda, the Tavern of the Planes. The kid leads them across the massive chain connecting the rocks and the group notes that there are some chains that are slightly taught and others with a bit of slack for the few they can currently see. As they walk, they see only a few folks flying. The kid says most can do it, but within the city many prefer to walk.

Arriving at the tavern, Mielle gives the kid a couple silvers, and the group enters the huge tavern with tables and stairs and doors on floors, walls and ceilings (envision an McEscher drawing). Loc-Larin hears many languages being spoken but picks up on a familiar language from his homeland. They approach and the man with the accent of Rynd gets on the defensive that he’s been hunted by the Millennium Guard from his homeland, noting that all eight of them have some manner of mana or theurgy pool. Loc quickly shuts down such things, introducing himself and finding out the man goes by the name MacShein. MacShein mentions that the priests ought to make sure they keep their magic use to a minimum.

In Atana Akla, communication to the Astral plane is completely blocked and monitored by the Shrak’kt. Turns out that the githyanki homeworld was destroyed by a race called the Illithid and their entire race is refugeed here in the realm of Chaos. They are very serious about not allowing that door to be reopened and the Rr’a’ckma actively hunt the Illithid and other dimensional interlopers, confirming what the initial contact had mentioned. Kenn asks what MacShein is drinking and he says, “this? Oh this is called Black Midnight,” Kenn makes his way to the bartender to order a couple of them. Kenn notices there is a gambler who seems to be rotating through people playing games with him. Some manner of card game using a deck that looks like a tarot deck of some kind.

MacShein explains that the mayor’s name is Harakitai and that he should probably be considered more as the top mafia boss of the city in his behavior. Although he works with the police forces and psionics. MacShein provides a variety of information on foods, the city layout and other things as he’s peppered with questions by Fawn. It is also confirmed that the Xorn Collective’s building is off limits to basically everyone except the members of the collective and a handful of the top level Hr’a’cknir.

Nikam’Pom notices a small blue girl directly above their table who seems to be staring at them intently for the past several minutes. He informs the group and they all notice her effectively at a table on the ceiling from them. She appears as a three foot tall, light blue skinned, bright orange eyes, long sharp ears and a crazy looking grin girl (for relatable purposes, imagine Harley Quinn from the cartoon, but blue and a little alien looking). Kenn looks up at her as he delivers the Black Midnight to MacShein who raises the glass in cheers and sips. Kenn makes his way up to the blue girl and says hello. She giggles a little when he approaches and says, “you guys look lost.”

Kenn replies, “my name is Kenn’Lorek, what’s yours and what are you drinking?” she replies that her name is Bae’Rith and tells him with a sort of creepy, but also cute grin that she’s drinking something called Paladin’s Bane. Kenn goes to purchase a couple of them and it is also worth noting that the bartender doesn’t even bat an eye at the foreign silver being spent. He returns to Bae’Rith and she downs both cups like she’s guzzling water. Kenn asks her what she’s doing and she replies that she likes meeting lost people. She likes helping them find what the need to find. She also likes having fun. Kenn asks her if she is often underestimated, she shrugs in response, but Kenn pushes about the Xorn Collective and she smiles broadly again.

Cal slips over and surreptitiously does Revealing Smoke on her masked by his own smoke, she seems to have some kind of power, sort of magic, but not really. As she and Kenn continue to chat, she playfully looks after what the group is after. Kenn gets a few more drinks and has a sip this time, while only a little, it goes straight to his head. He’s ok, but definitely feeling it. Kenn beckons Loc-Larin over and introduces him to Bae’Rith and she hints that she might be able to block the psi scanning of the Shrak’kt. Back at the main table, Mielle finds out from MacShein that there are many rooms here that are effectively dimensional pocket rooms. He’s not sure about any attempts to contact deities within them, but doesn’t recommend it. Copperhead thinks about taking some time to gamble.

Session Seven – Ouroboros of Chaos

Kenn and Nik make short work of skinning three hyenas each, as Jaetra creates a stone dome for them to work within. Lead by Copperhead’s ideas, the group discusses how to get the necessary elements to support proper tanning of the hides and come up with a plan to alter the Create Water spell to summon salt water. With Kenn and Loc-Larin’s study under Kor-el, they are fairly easily able collaborate, enabling Loc-Larin to spellcraft the spell from a POW item to create very salty water. Then Nikam’Pom and Copperhead are able to use their spells to separate the salt from the remaining fresh water. Kenn and Nik stretch the skins and apply the salt and knowing they will take a few days to cure, the group decides to head to the end of the realm to see what Akka really looks like. They leave the skins sealed in the stone dome, which according to Jaetra should last a few days before it begins to crumble.

A day’s travel from the hyena fight, various folks begin to notice a light on the horizon, something they have not seen in any fashion within this realm of chaos. As they begin to sort out what they are actually seeing, they realize over the next large dune, the light they see is behaving as dispersion of light into the spectrum of colors. A rainbow-like light extending vertically in colored bands. As the team crests the dune, they see down into the “valley” below and what appears to be a bright, rainbow light, much like a mini sun, but not blindingly bright and with no heat generated. As they draw closer to the area, Fawn and Caliban decide to investigate up close and as they approach suddenly everyone is physically affected by the color, their skin, equipment and everything part of them changing to a new color. Brown, pink, purple and gray plaid and a variety of others. Some think the change is kinda cool, others are a little annoyed.

Fawn’s magical optics allow her to see a greenish-blue light pouring out from a “hole” in the dimension at the center of the rainbow light ball and Caliban’s revealing smoke determines that it is some manner of gate. Merely a two-and-a-half-foot wide hole into a demi-plane or the like where the color seems to spill forth from. Fawn tosses a coin into the hole and it passes into the other dimension with no obvious effects. Overall, there doesn’t appear to be any trouble caused beyond their physical colors changing, so they decide to continue on their journey. An hour or two away from the color sphere, its light is no longer visible. The plane’s “night” phase strikes and the group moves on, by the time they crest the final dune to the edge of the dimension, they realize the color effect on their person seems to be diminishing. Ahead they behold the massive form of Akka.

Akka is a massive purple worm, approximately ten thousand feet long and appears to be eating his own tail. It floats just over a thousand feet from where the sand begins to disintegrate into “space”. As they hike toward the edge, they extrapolate the diameter of the floating worm is over three thousand feet and as they truly visualize the gap, Fawn states, he’s just annoyingly a bit too far away. As they approach the edge, Mielle sees the spirit of Saorise manifest, the ghostly form of the twelve-year-old girl states that she’s had a hard time attuning to the Chaos plane but observes and comments on Akka confirming that the creature seems to be able to exert control over the reality around him and that he is indeed actively eating himself. She finds it odd that they worship this thing as a god.

A few tests by Loc-Larin confirm that there is indeed gravity at the edge and a few things and spells tested at the edge fall off into the void. Nikam’Pom assesses that the area is “sick” or otherwise broken but is not sure if it is the work of Akka that has broken things or the natural chaos behavior as the “reality” seems to be returning to its chaotic normal here. The team observes elemental bits floating in space beyond Akka and the dispersing sand but otherwise see nothing that might make it appear as if Caliban’s “smoke walk” will not work. The team fishes out all eight hundred feet of available rope from Crag’s saddlebags and cast Feather Fall to make the rope virtually weightless. Caliban summons up a Smoke Cloud that he can mentally move, executes Smoke Walk and begins to float out toward Akka.

The plan seems to work fine and overall, relatively easily, including releasing the rope and floating freely out directly under Akka. Jaetra and the other Savarin are impressed with the goblin’s magic and when he returns they discuss how to apply Feather Fall onto Savarin worshippers who would then present the gift and Jaetra explains roughly how the ritual event would go. Other than the expected need to refresh some spells, use POW items for additional power and spreading the spells among as many different casters as can contribute in order to maximize available mana, the plan seems reasonably solid. The group rests then starts their travel back to Ankarsi’Dhaara, the Savarin city, to speak with the hetman.

On the return trip, they decide to avoid the color rift and skirt around it widely. When they reach Jaetra’s dome, they retrieve the hyena skins and Kenn’Lorek begins crafting some bracelets from the leather scraps that they can give to the children that had played with Ukko when they’d first arrived. Crag lends his leatherworking expertise and Loc-Larin aids with some runic messages to make them interesting to look at and of solid workmanship. They are able to craft a few dozen of these items. Arriving at the city, Mielle meets with the hetman and explains their plan as well as the risks involved. The hetman appreciates their success and assures them that he will easily get volunteers. Mielle has what she feels is a small request, that they craft a statue of her goddess somewhere in the city and that someone can maintain it, but she senses a bit of discomfort in the hetman to that request and backs off, unsure of what minor offense may have been taken.

Three Savarin volunteers join the team along with their Visgati gift packs and begin the ritual trek back to Akka, lead once again by Jaetra and his team. When they arrive where the color rift previously was, it is no longer there. They are able to make the multi-day trek back to Akka without being molested. Once they reach the edge, they charge the POW items and Caliban ropes himself to the three ritual gift bearing Savarin, feather falls each one and their gift packs then floats them out positioning them under Akka. The Savarin begin their ritual and after fifteen to twenty minutes, the gift packs appear to levitate up to Akka and are absorbed into him. Nikam’Pom uses his See Cosmos spell and sees immediate positive changes. Caliban refreshes the spells and returns everyone safely to the edge and they camp to recover mana and see what, if anything, happens with Akka.

After the rest, in the “morning” (because it is actually still in the night phase) they see that fifteen to twenty feet of land has been restored and as the look out toward the floating worm, the “Eye of Akka” opens. The “eye” being a natural gate precisely in the center of the circle Akka’s form makes. The group says their goodbyes to Jaetra and the other Savarin and Caliban slowly floats them all to the gate without incident. Crag jumps through the portal and finds himself on a massive rock that appears to be floating in outer space. The rock is really more the size of a small mesa, perhaps a thousand feet long and half as wide, however. Crag extends a hand back through the gate and beckons the rest through. Soon the team is assembled in the new dimension and Fawn notices that the rock upon which they stand appears to be slowly moving in somewhat of an orbit-like manner.

As the group begins to examine the area, they see hundreds, or even thousands of other rocks floating in the space in various sizes, from as small as ten to twenty-foot-wide boulders to massive mesas even bigger than the one they currently float upon. Nikam looks over the edge on one side and sees what appears to be a small city built upon a collection of these mesa sized rocks with a few bits chained to larger rocks. The city seems to be a few miles away and the group begins to determine how to get off this rock.

Session Six – Visgati Dreams

After some further exploration of the Savarin city and Mielle’s conversations with the hetman, Mielle, Crag and Loc-Larin determine they would like to attempt to use the Visgati and see if their capabilities with the drug are any different than the Savarin themselves. The hetman agrees this is a reasonable idea since they are from another dimension and the effects of Visgati on the Prime physiology might be completely different. That said, the hetman says they will need to travel outside the city in case something crazy happens and those who use it begin to “unmake” things in the Savarin city. They will travel a few hundred yards away from the mesa to test the use of the drug.

They travel out with the hetman and Crag, Loc-Larin and Mielle take their dose. Crag feels as if he’s snorted a load of bitter, foul-tasting wasabi that gives him a terrible post nasal drip for about 15 minutes and has him spitting crap out for nearly an hour. Loc-Larin feels as if he has snorted a tasteless, odorless, meaningless powder that simply melts into his sinuses and does nothing. Turns out Loc-Larin is incredibly resistant and when he describes this feeling to the hetman, he tells Loc-Larin that Savarin experiencing the same sensation are found to be immune to the power of the Visgati entirely. Mielle, however, feels a tingle in her nose and begins to see things that are not there in reality, she looks down at the sand around her feet and picks up a handful, focuses and turns the sand a bright red.

Mielle realizes she has the power to manipulate reality, but initially, only that which she is touching. She shifts the red sand into a solid brick of stone, then shapes it into a knife-like blade. She then realizes she should be able to change its makeup entirely and transforms it to metal, then something that looks like a precious metal, then perhaps even a metal that is indeed precious. She is able to change colors, composition and other things fairly easily and after about fifteen minutes of playing around the drug wears off. However, she feels an odd feeling in her bowels. She looks and surreptitiously feels around without letting others know something feels amiss, but she doesn’t detect any physical changes and resolves to examine closer when she has some privacy.

She decides to snort another dose but it has no effect, so she tries again after waiting about fifteen minutes and once again, no effect. She feels like perhaps something is not right and prays for help before trying it one last time. With the guidance of Saas Vain, the third time is the charm and once again she regains the power to manipulate reality. She attempts to create a stone wall surrounding herself and that works, then a stone she might be able to float upon. She is able to create a stone “pad” to stand on, but making it levitate does not happen. After playing around with it for another ten minutes or so, she feels like if she took the time to practice regularly over a period of months, perhaps a year, then she might be able to exert more control.

The hetman says, “this is an expected level of use for someone who is Visgati sensitive, but needs training,” Mielle chalks this up that perhaps, as Prime material creatures, they are not so terribly different than the Savarin. At least when it comes to the effects of Visgati. As they return to the city, Mielle feels a tiny desire to try the drug again, but her training with Chadi allows her to easily push that aside. Returning to their quarters, Mielle finds a place for a bit of privacy and tries to figure out what is going on with her bowels. Though not something a lady-like elf would do, she sticks a finger into her anus to see if things feel normal in there. What she finds is that where she would normally feel the rectum, there is nothing. She is a bit confused and concerned, so she eats and drinks and waits for a bowel movement.

She finds that everything behaves normally when she is ready to defecate and decides to see how far she can stick something up “there” and finds she is able to stick her arm up to her elbow and reach around in an empty space. A look of confusion comes across her as she reasons that somehow, she now has some manner of dimensional space or a portal in her anus. She tells no one and resolves to figure out more about it when she has time and complete privacy to do so. The group discusses Copperhead’s ideas on creating a carpet or other method of “floating” the Savarin who need to make the “gift” to Akka from where the land is breaking apart to the great worm god. They look at the equipment in Crag’s saddlebags and feels as if they need a good amount of leather to really do what they want.

With no real things to buy or gather from the Savarin which truly cover what they’re looking for and certainly nothing of high quality, they decide perhaps they should not put the cart in front of the horse and venture out to the edge of the dimension to see what they are really dealing with and if Copperhead’s “magic carpet” idea might work. The hetman agrees and assigns four Savarin to travel with them to the edge of reality to assess and determine a plan of action. Once a dark cycle hits, they depart the city and begin the roughly forty-mile trek to the edge of the dimension.

After traveling about twenty miles, they hear a voice over the dune from them crying out “help me!” Strangely, Mielle realizes she heard the voice in Sindarin, Crag and Copperhead heard it in Common and quickly they discover each of them has heard it in their most native language. “That’s not good,” Jaetra, the Savarin says. Mielle asks what it is and he replies, “Aarak’ta,” Mielle looks puzzled, “Leucrotta,” he says. Mielle still doesn’t get it, Jaetra tries to explain and effectively calls it something like a Chaos Hyena from what Mielle understands. She shares that with the team. Jaetra says they should get into a defensive formation and prepare to defend from all sides, so they begin to shift into a defensive circle.

In the direction of the original call for help, a large chaos hyena comes into view. Roughly five feet tall at the shoulder, perhaps eight feet from snout to haunches and full of teeth. Another appears behind the group, yet another from another angle and soon there are five roughly encircling the group. Mielle draws her blade and emits the sun blade while making her allies immune (the Savarin thank you, because it would damage them). Caliban shoots one with a couple crossbow bolts, Fawn shoots one with a fire slug from her “gun” and Crag thunks an arrow into one as the rest of the team positions themselves better.

The initial five Leucrotta charge in and Kenn hurls his axes into the one charging him. One charges Taaraka and the slaad unleashes a flurry of attacks on the beast. Copperhead fires up his electrical aura once again and readies his ranseur for the charge. Mielle sees that immediately; the beasts are avoiding her sun blade and makes a step toward one attacking two Savarin and slices it. Six more of the beasts crest the dune and a massive one appears as well, one that is perhaps twelve feet at the shoulder and twenty feet in length…the alpha. Fawn shoots another with a flame slug and two of the beasts are now on fire. Kenn thrusts his spear into the one near him and Nikam’s lava blade finishes it off.

The slaad kills the one attacking him as Crag shifts to his sword and shield, laying a couple solid shots on the one he has closed with. Mielle and two of the Savarin lay solid shots on the Leucrotta near them. Fawn increases the fire on one of the beasts she caught on fire and the beast is consumed. Crag and Mielle kill two more and the alpha Leucrotta lets out a howl and the beasts retreat. Six lay dead and Copperhead immediately thinks, “hey, now we have the stuff to create the leather we need for my magic carpet!” The group remains on the ready for a while before taking any further action.

Between Session 5-6 – Info on the Savarin

The Savarin city at the Edge of Darkness is home to about 20-21,000 White Elves. All Savarin are exceptionally light sensitive and do not venture out into the sands except under cover of darkness and each possess underdark type darkvision and can see in virtual pitch blackness. All of the Savarin who venture out into the sands have a blind fighting/blind sense skill that allow them to operate when “daylight” springs upon them so they can “hole up” or make their way back to the city/caves. If caught in this fashion, they cover up completely as the light (though not even sunlight) will slowly damage their skin. Some show “scars” of these effects. Predominately those who leave the city and risk this exposure are harvest teams, scout teams, teamsters and gardeners.

There are roughly 10 of the town centers that Crag & Fawn found within Ankarsi’Dhaara (name of the city, which means Edge of Darkness in Sav’Nhagi). As they found, it is generally a cashless society and because elves are not gluttonous creatures, the socialism seems to work. There are no innately lazy folk, people seem to do what they need to do. While there are many things being done within the city for “work” the main things the players will find is the refining of the Visgati. When the harvesters bring in their bags of stuff, there is a refinement process which starts with a winnowing process and completes with a washing, liquifying and drying procress, until the whitish dust (a very fine powder) is made. For simplicity’s sake, you can consider this to look much like cocaine. They are stored in ritualized metal jars that do have artistic elements to them. These jars are called rishka and the use of Visgati is done much like snuff with a nose spoon. A little goes a long way.

The city is laid out in “neighborhoods” that are collectives of families that revolve around the town centers. All exits to the city are sealed and must be opened by exercising the limited power over reality to remove/replace the stone. The limitation of this “power” is that it generally can only work within personal space. What the harvest team dude did to open the “door” is a unique ability as that is perhaps a 5ft diameter area he was affecting. At the top of the mesa are dozens of gardens which again grow despite no “solar” activity. The gardens have a large amount of a herb type grain that is the predominate component of the lembaas like biscuits. Additionally, there are a variety of vegetables, herbs and fruits that are grown as well. It is these things that are the components of the alcohol, food and other things consumed by the Savarin.

Savarin eat and drink even less than Prime material elves (who probably eat on average 1/3 of what a human eats), so the Savarin are able to harvest and manage more than is needed for the entire settlement to consume. The liquid they get seems to come from several elemental water sources (these appear to be pin prick sized holes in the dimension opening to the elemental plane of water which persistently fill themselves). Waste and other things are collected by folks and taken to repositories where they are ejected out of the dimension. These disposal gates are secured and handled with extreme caution as few that have physical entered have never been seen or heard from again. The Savarin do not know what is on the other side, but thousands of years of use tells them that NOTHING comes through from the other side and that the ancient leaders from generations of antiquity have used these things forever.

According to those spoken to, there are a dozen known cities of similar size throughout the Banga’Vulak, each no less than the equivalent of 100 miles apart from the next closest. This city is the one at the edge of the dimension and their primary task among the larger Savarin society is to complete the ritual to Akka that has failed for the past couple “cycles.” Cycles is not a specific amount of time but rather a collection of day/night cycles that add up to a larger cycle. In general, however, you would extrapolate that a cycle could be anywhere from about 2 months to about 6 months as time would be measured on the Prime.

As mentioned, the “land” has retreated significantly from Akka and it seems to be a vicious cycle where Akka is not able to be given his Visgati “gift” and perhaps it is that which has weakened his ability to affect/grow the Banga’Vulak and maintain the integrity of the “edge of the dimension”. Even the most powerful of the Visgati users among the Savarin cannot manipulate “reality” further than about twenty feet from their person and they have not been able to rebuild the “land” in this way (they even attempted to gather roughly 2000 people capable of traveling out into the sand and each with at least minor reality manipulating capabilities and tried to work all together to rebuild a path to Akka at least temporarily so they could deliver the “sacrifice” and that failed, ten Savarin lost to the void – aka they fell out of reality and disappeared from view out in “space”.)

Session Five – the White Elves

From all the mouths of the blob, a cacophony of noise seems to reach a peak and each of the team members fight off the maddening sound as Mielle parries another bite attack and Copperhead has the teeth of a mouth scrape upon his armored scales, but not penetrate. Mielle whacks the blob with the flat of the blade solidly and it seems far more effective than her previous slice. Kenn fishes out a barrel of oil from Crag’s saddlebag, uncorks it and as Caliban moves their floating disc in front of the blob, splashes some oil on it, hoping to be able to ring the blob so it can be lit on fire.

Fawn springs forward thrusting her main gauches into the blob and sort of stirring them around to cause damage while Crag whacks the thing with his shield. Both attacks seem far more effective than previous attempts and it is clear they are causing a toll on the creature. Nik flashes in with his lava blade and it ignites the oil, Kenn holds back a slosh of oil that quite likely could’ve lit the barrel in his hands, but the blob's mouths scream in pain. Loc-Larin and Copperhead strike killing blows on the beast and Fawn enhances the fire to consume and ensure the freakish creature is dead.

The group saddles back up on their floating discs and continue to travel, finding a smaller rock to camp near and following their same routine to maximize their travel mana. Just a couple hours into their rest it instantly turns into daylight once again. They travel a full three castings of reduce and floating disc and cover many miles then camp again to recharge. As they begin their next day of travel, roughly one hour into their trip, it flips to night mode again. They continue a couple of hours until Nik senses a weird, rhythmic tremor in the sand. They take some time and agree it is something odd, perhaps mechanical in nature. Fawn is interested in the mechanical nature of the device and thinks perhaps it could be a desert pump of some kind perhaps for a well or the like.

The route toward the vibration is not far off from the direction they wish to travel towards the gate, so the team debates whether to alter course to swing far away from it and avoid it entirely, or to try and get a vantage to see if it is anything worth seeing. They decide to cautiously check it out and determine if the source of the vibrations can be a help to them. They travel for another thirty minutes or so and as they crest another sand dune the hyper observant of the team see something down below in a largish sand clearing (some rocks and trees ringing the area). Fawn pulls out her spyglass and sees an object, roughly two and a half feet by a foot and a half wide box that looks mechanical in nature and appears to be generating the rhythmic tremors.

They continue to observe and a massive sand worm bursts out from below the surface and Fawn sees humanoids that appear to have been invisible appear. A scan with the spyglass reveals what appears to Fawn as albino elves, or something very similar at least. Three of them pull out pick type of items and quickly move toward the worm. They move in a simlar fashion as Nikam’Pom has been moving and they use the picks to hook into the worm. Another of the white elves does something to the rhythm device and the worm reacts by surging up out of the sand, extending roughly one hundred feet in the air and beginning to sway slowly back and forth.

As Fawn continues to observe the white elves on the worm appear to use the picks to scrape some manner of crust from the folds of the worm into various containers that hang from their waist. As Fawn provides the blow by blow, her, Mielle and Loc-Larin agree these must be some kind of lost elves from their appearance and Loc-Larin recalls some obscure ancient story that tells of a battle between elves and orcs in the ancient past, before the Age of Wars, where an entire elven division was lost to the outer dimensions. He curiously wonders if this oft ignored “fantasy” story has any bearing.

It seems as if the white elves know how to manage these giant worms in some fashion and perhaps their knowledge could help the group in both survival as well as possibly the navigation to the gate. The team agrees to head down the dune and meet them before they finish what they are doing and potentially run off. The white elves see them coming down the dune but continue what they are doing with the worm, but as they begin to get closer, the apparent team leader gives a hand signal and the three elves who are on the worm, scale down with the aid of their picks and return to the sand level. One of the other white elves picks up the tremor device and slings it on his back. Suddenly the worm shudders, then shoots back down into the sand, disappearing from view with a big puff of sand dust settling as the team gets into hailing range.

The white elf leader shouts something to the group, those who know the Eldarin language hear a few recognizable words, while Mielle realizes they’re speaking some manner of hybrid language. A mash up of Eldarin and Drakh-Nhagi (the Chaos Tongue) and is able to quickly adapt and realize they are asking “who are you?” Mielle introduces the group and tells them they are traveling and looking for a planar gate and asks the white elf “what are you?” Loc-Larin partially understands due to his linguistics and Eldarin, but cannot fully follow the conversation as the white elf calls themselves the Savarin (their race) and introduces himself as Jaetra and names his team members.

Jaetra asks why they travel with a mnduk, a word Mielle translates roughly to “frog” as he nods towards Taaraka, the blue slaad. Mielle explains that the slaad is effectively in their service and surprisingly, the Savarin do not seem expressly nervous about it, though they are generally eyeing everyone cautiously. Mielle asks Jaetra what they were doing with the worm and he explains that they were harvesting the dust, something they call Visgati. They explain the use of the item they refer to as a “thampat” that attracts the worm and puts it into a relaxing state for a short period of time while they harvest the dust. The team is careful about revealing what they are after as an end goal, but as they further discuss they are looking for a gate in a particular direction. As they talk it seems they are headed in the same direction as the Savarin’s home and they offer to bring the team along with them to determine if they can get help from their people.

So the group saddles back up and continues to float along following them. The Savarin are intrigued at Nikam’Pom’s movement, which is similar to theirs but a little different, even perhaps a little better. They ask Mielle what he is and she tells the Savarin that Nik is an orc, something that doesn’t seem to register with them. They travel a couple hours until they see a massive stone mesa (roughly a quarter mile wide, few hundred feet tall) in the darkness and they approach. They walk up to a non-descript part of the stone wall and the Savarin who manipulated the thampat concentrates and the stone melds away, revealing a tunnel. Fawn notices no usage of mana or theurgy or any other outward expression of manipulation of the stone.

The group enters and is led to a “welcome hall” where they meet the hetman called Vida Saetvai. Their city is called Ankarsi’Dhaarak which Mielle translates as “the Edge of Darkness.” The team restates their gate destination and the hetman says that where they’re headed is toward the “end of the dimension”. He explains that the edge of the desert begins to break apart and fall back into chaos at that edge and also this is where the great worm is, a being they call Akka. It seems the Savarin have been unable to complete their ritual of delivering some kind of gift to Akka for two “cycles” (an undetermined amount of time) and that since that time the edge of the plane has become more unstable, the distance from “land” and the great worm has become too far and they have not been able to make it out to Akka. They also state that the gate they likely seek is at the “center of Akka” and has a name Akksi Netrym. The Eye of Akka.

Some of the Savarin seem able to see that everyone in the group has the ability to do magic. The hetman wonders if this foreign magic can help them solve their problem in reaching Akka to complete their pilgrimage. The discussions do not go terribly in depth as these are initial conversations and after a little more back and forth about possibilities, the hetman asks if they are hungry. A few confirm and the team is brought Savarin biscuits (basically like lembaas, one biscuit fills you up). The team is then lead through some tunnels and are taken to a large room with side chambers to set up their camp. The room is unadorned, as everything they’ve thus far seen, no artwork, no designs, just shaped stone.

The group discusses what to do as an occasional Savarin walks past and a few children curiously peek in at the outsiders. Kenn brings out Ukko which the kids are interested in. One brave enough to approach is allowed to pet Ukko and soon there is a small group of children fawning over the white ermine. Fawn and Crag decide to slip out and see if they can explore a little, they walk down perhaps fifty yards and encounter a person “keeping an eye out.” They attempt to communicate verbally, unsuccessfully, but eventually Crag displays a cup and gestures as if he is seeking a drink. The Savarin gives an understanding nod and beckons them to follow.

They pass a few more similar cavern rooms like where the team is settled in, then make their way through a few intersections and eventually into a massive gallery that appears to be like a town square. Fawn takes notice that there is very little in the way of decoration here as well and thus far no visuals representing this worm god that Mielle had seen in her vision. There seems to be some people working in one section, though Crag and Fawn are not sure what they’re doing, swinging around containers on ropes. They get led to what appears to be a small tavern. There is a bar type area and there are merely 6 large ceramic barrels on the wall from which a small cup of drink is poured (like a shot).

The “bartender” takes the cup Crag offers up and puts a shot of something in it. He knocks it back and it tastes something like a honey, mint combination flavored liquor and soon feels a tingle in his nose. Fawn is provided a stone cup from the bartender, and she points at a different barrel which releases a emerald green liquid as he pours it. She has a sip and it has a flavor that is a very floral, herbal in taste and sugarless so fairly bittter. It warms her throat, but not exactly her type of drink. Back at the camp, Loc-Larin observes the children as they interact with Kenn and Ukko and Mielle begins to pray.

Session Four – Hoverboarding the Purple Sands

As everyone takes in the scene, Mielle quizzes Taaraka on “his home” as she states it. Taaraka quickly replies, “this is not my home, this is the plane of Maardu” (Mhar’Rhadu in the Chaos Tongue). Mielle rememebers this as the Plains of Mist, though clearly no mist here and that the ruler of this plane is known as Yagorl (Yhah’Ghorul). As Nikam wanders around, he mentions that even in this very small sample area, the moisture content of the air increases in the direction of the dimmer line of Fawn’s stone. Taaraka says “Yagorl is somewhere that way”, gesturing roughly to where the group assumed, “he lives in a place called Ghan-Krum.” Mielle translates this to the ”Deep Mists.”

Taaraka then says, “this place is called the Banga’Vulak. It is a vast desert,” Mielle literally translates this in the Chaos Tongue to mean “the Purple Sands.” Crag asks Mielle to ask the slaad about the best ways to rest, camp and the like and Taaraka looks confused at that question, he says “if I want to travel, I teleport to where I want to go, walk through a gate and continue. My home is Cthrog.” Mielle knows this as Cyith’Rhaag in the Chaos Tongue and the Cold Mountains and Endless Peaks from her studies with Chadi. Mielle states that she is going to pray, both to determine the proximity to Saas Vain and hopefully to get a vision.

Crag steps away from the group, maybe twenty yards, to get some quiet to try and attune with the land, something he’s done many times before, though not in a desert clime. Something about this place just doesn’t seem right. Fawn, though not by any stretch an outdoorswoman or scout, uses her own elvish innate senses to come to terms with the land as well…she gets a similar sensation, not as if she is rejected, but certainly not a feeling of comfort. Nikam’Pom wanders around the vicinity of the group and gets a sense that something is out of place here, or perhaps that the sand is an extension of a living being, or perhaps that the group is being sensed through the sand. Having moved into this new, foreign realm, Nik feels something has unlocked within him and he begins to open himself to the world around him and become one with it and get a better sense of what is going on.

Caliban, eager to test out some of these puffy tree bits as tobacco additives, gets some bits of the thin, dry foliage, puts a mixture into his pipe and lights it up. It tastes like shit, well maybe not shit, but a very bitter and foul aftertaste makes smoking the stuff not pleasant. Crag says, “might not be a good idea to smoke, or light fires at this point, until we know what’s up around here.” Considering it tastes bad anyway, Cal puts out his pipe.

Mielle comes out of her trance and shares her vision:

She finds herself climbing a rock cliff in what feels like a desert land, but the rock she climbs is a deep purple in color. She looks over her shoulder and sees a vast desert of purple/pink sand and correlates it to where the group has appeared (likely somewhere else within that desert). As she looks it appears as if she is moving, perhaps rotating as if on a ferris wheel, not fast, but absolutely moving. Suddenly, she feels herself have an out of body sort of experience where she floats away from her body that continues to climb, only to realize what she climbs on is some sort of gigantic snake or worm (like Godzilla monster size) that is eating its own tail like Ouroboros. She continues to float backwards until the giant worm is little more than an “O” in the sky. Then suddenly the “O” blinks and the vision changes to that of an eye of a shadowy elf-like creature. Imagine a cross between an albino elf dressed in all black and a Fremen from Dune. They seem to be worshipping something as hundreds of them kneel in a massive cave. The vision shifts up to the wall of the cave and there she sees an Ouroboros/Jormungandr-like image in silver (or some similar metal).

Mielle feels this is some sort of premonition or informational vision rather than a directive, warning or the like. Soon after sharing her vision, Nikam’Pom comes out of his trance and says fairly quickly, “we are being sensed by vibrations in the sand by something.” Everyone takes a moment to tone down their movements in the sand and Nik says, "hmm, I wonder if there are any large elements around that I can talk to about this place." Crag and Fawn both reveal the location of a couple large-ish rocks in the near distance they had seen with their scouting of the horizon. Crag's is a wee bit closer at perhaps five hundred yards and Nik has a sense that he may be able to move in that direction in a way that will not cause vibrations in a fashion that will be detected. He offers to try and teach Crag how to move similarly, but after only a handful of steps it seems it is completely impossible for Crag to move this way, especially with armor. Crag thinks for a moment about removing his armor and trying again, but really knows that he has no chance, at least not without days or weeks of training.

Nikam’Pom moves in a fashion that alternates between a monkey on all fours, movement on two legs like a flightless bird in sort of a glide, movement like a small dog, movement like a monkey on two legs and a few other semi-gliding dance-like steps mixed that somehow, strangely flow together. Soon Nik arrives at the large rock, perhaps ten feet, by fifteen feet and emerging from the sand roughly eight feet. Nik speaks to the rock and finds out a lot of it is underneath the sand. It answers a variety of questions with a reasonable amount of intelligence and explains that the sands are rife with “worms” that sense things via vibrations and will attack and eat them. They come in many sizes, from large animal size up to gargantuan size that could easily swallow this large rock. It seems that there haven’t been any users of the gate they came through in “quite some time.” Nik learns that there is actually a day and night cycle in the Banga’Vulak as well.

He returns to the group and they devise a plan to move by reducing larger folk’s size and riding two by two on floating discs to remove any chance of creating sense able vibrations. The group moves and Kenn sees a quite large rock mesa that they can camp by and likely dampen vibrations when in close proximity to the rock. At Crag’s recommendation, they set up a cold camp and Copperhead places a Restfulness dweomer over the campsite improving everyone’s resting. The group pre-charges the POW gems with Floating Discs and Reduce spells to maximize their ability to travel and settle in to rest. In merely two hours, the elves have rested and in just four everyone has fully recharged. However, as the last of them wake, suddenly the day turns to night in an instant. The world dark with a dim, borealis-like, black-light glow in the sky that provides only little light.

All with nightvision adapt virtually immediately, but even the humans adapt reasonably well in thirty minutes or so, the group sets up their floating disc movement plan and get underway. They travel roughly twenty minutes and Nikam’Pom sees something that looks like a small mound of wet sand, he raises his hand, and the group stops and within merely a moment, the mound of sand transforms into a cytoplasmic blob with hundreds of eyes and dozens of mouths. It moves at Nik with surprising speed and extends two amoeba-like tentacles with mouths on the ends of them that try to bite Nik. He evades and knocks away one of the mouths tumbling out of the way.

Caliban fires a crossbow bolt and as the second shot readies, Fawn puts a fire enchantment on the bolt which flies just off the mark. Both bolts, however, seem to go more “through” the blob rather than penetrating it. Mielle slips off her floating disc, draws her blade and in an instant returns to normal size, closing the gap and slicing the blob. She also notes that the blade does not “cut” deeply as she would expect as the blob seems to mold itself away from both the piercing and bladed attacks, minimizing damage caused. Kenn hurls his ice axes, but they also seem to mostly pass through the blob, causing nominal damage. Fawn whips out the magical arquebus and fires a volley of electrically charged slugs, but the blob evades. Crag sub-vocalizes to Caliban to speed his disc at the blob as fast as possible as he retrieves his bear lance from his saddlebags and readies for a charge.

Nikam’Pom has a different idea, hoping to draw the creature after him and perhaps even figure out how to get one of the worms to come for it, but the weird creature simply appears to be after whatever is close and quick to bite. With Nik nimbly moving out of the way, the mouths come for Mielle. Loc-Larin, remembering the effectiveness of his Chaos Bolt against the dragazhar, extends his hand toward the blob to fire one, but something very strange happens. The bolt begins to manifest in his hand but then seems to backfire with a flash somewhat like an electrical short. Loc immediately feels that everything magical on his person, including his own mana and theurgy pool seems to be “offline.” For a moment he worries that something major has happened, but he can still “feel” his mana and theurgy, so the moment of panic quickly turns to consternation. Copperhead surrounds himself in electrical energy and the blob comes forth.

A larger mouth near the center of the blob barfs up a bucketful of bile-like liquid that jets towards Loc-Larin, Fawn and Caliban, who all bail from their floating discs to evade the splash. As the stuff splashes onto the floating discs it explodes into a bright light that makes people blink like they’ve been flashed by the biggest old school flash bulb ever. The blob takes a bite at both Mielle and Copperhead who both parry the attacks and Copperhead's electric aura causes a tiny bit of damage to the blob. Caliban focuses on Crag and Kenn’s floating disc, propelling it toward the blob and Crag spears the thing with his lance, though as everything else, the lance seems to pass through it easily not truly finding purchase. However, the ice power does seem to freeze a bit of the cytoplasm and appears to properly damage the creature.

A few more attacks are thrown at the creature and Copperhead uses his ranseur to hit it with a Shocking Grasp which also appears to do proper damage. However, thus far, of all the elements, it seems to have moved more quickly away from the first fire bolt shot by Cal and Fawn. Fawn shoots another volley of electrical slugs, but they fly over the top of the evading blob striking the sand dune behind it. Nik, realizing his first thought was a wrong one, closes back into hand-to-hand range with his lava blade in hand. While this bizarre creature had caught them off guard, the team appears to be figuring out how to adjust their attack and cause some damage.

Session Three – Slaad Puppy

Initially it is discussed whether to fight this fight or to run away, but Mielle gets direction from Saas Vain that running for her is not an option. The evil must be destroyed, and she quickly reveals this via Team Speak. This spawns a hurried discussion about how to possibly break the circle while Loc-Larin and Crag struggle to make cohesive, distractive conversation. With a plan agreed on to focus on a particular glyph in the circle involving Caliban, Fawn and Nikam’Pom for the disruption efforts, Caliban gets in position and waits for Fawn and Nik to advance. The two advance, taking care they do not seem overly aggressive, but as Crag and Loc’s conversation breaks down and Loc casts Gaze Reflection, the vampire’s eyes begin to glow red and all of them feel a sense of fear they must overcome. Mielle is unfazed, but Nikam’Pom stops dead in his tracks. This vampiric being is not to be messed with. Fawn notes his sudden stop and secretly readies her arquebus under her cloak keeping it hidden from view.

Crag and Loc-Larin have pressed their approach and Loc is quickly realizing he does not possess the chat to keep things on the preferred track so he changes tack, “well Tick, you’ve dug yourself in very deep here. Seems you have yourself set up well to drain the blood of your surroundings,” Loc sub-vocalizes via team speak “whenever you’re ready, Cal.” Caliban confirms his target and that he’s ready and Fawn gives a nod that she sees and agrees upon the glyph being aimed at. Crag pipes up with, “hey man, why all the bad blood? We brought you this blood sack to snack on, let’s party!” as he raises the headless body of Meo for inspection. One of the warrior ghouls moves to intercept Crag as he rounds the edge of the fountain and Fawn “whips it out.”

The master vampire raises his hand and a dozen ten-foot-long black tentacles emerge from the ground near all of the party members, they seem greasy and rubbery and wiggle around but don’t do much yet. Copperhead lights one of Andras’ Hypnotic Pattern Smokes and as hoped, it mesmerizes all of the vampire’s ghoul minions. They stare murmuring something about “pretty colors.” Having all her arquebus, shotgun barrels dialed into acid damage, Fawn fires everything she’s got at the glyph and several glyphs, including the primary target, sizzle. As simultaneously as possible, Caliban casts his Erase spell and his targeted glyph vanishes revealing the slaad fully as the circle is now completely broken. The vampire, slightly alarmed, shouts “awake my children, time to feast!”

Kenn hurls a couple axes into the face of the warrior that had come down to meet Crag and his skull is split as he crumples before the closing bear knight. Crag drops Meo’s body and it is scooped up by a nearby tentacle. He summons Khanda from the realm of the Cold One, mounting and charging the master vampire. The master vampire transforms itself into mist, swirls around the body of Crag, and lights as a rider behind him. The vampire tries to sink his teeth into Crag’s neck, but the accomplished warrior pinches the armor tight around the neck area preventing penetration of the vampires fangs. Caliban scrambles to the roof of the outbuilding to get a better vantage while Fawn slices a tentacle, causing it to vanish is a greasy smoke, then leaps to the roof as well.

Copperhead places Protection from Supernatural on Nikam’Pom which breaks the vampiric fear allowing Nik to scramble up the wall onto the parapet to engage a couple of lurking ghouls, though they also stare mesmerized by Copperhead’s Hypnotic Pattern. Mielle easily severs the tentacle near her and shouts toward the slaad, “we have freed you, take out your aggression on the vampire who enslaved you!” The slaad breaks the chains holding him and leaps at the master vampire, snatching him from the back of Khanda and slamming him into the brick wall of the mansion. The vampire’s eyes lock with Khanda’s as he attempts to possess the beast with a murderous rage, but the will of the Cold One protects the battle bear.

Khanda bites the vampire’s arm and he and the slaad tear the vampire apart as it transforms into mist and floats away to safety. All of the remaining tentacles dissolve into a greasy smoke and vanish. Crag cuts down one of the ghouls on the porch while Nikam’Pom kills two more on the parapet and Fawn kidney stabs one on the roof of the outbuilding. In moments all opponents are dead, and Mielle speaks to the slaad further. “Help us clear the mansion and examine the realm beyond the gate and Andras will release you from your service.” The blue slaad replies that he is called Taaraka and agrees to help the group clear out the mansion. Loc-Larin states that the vampire has returned to his place of rest to regenerate, so they must locate the crypt or other locale he is likely holed up in. Caliban remains shadowy and out of the way while the mansion is cleared and the slaad never really notices him.

The group enters behind Khanda who knocks down the massive entry doors on Crag’s command and they make short work of a half-dozen more vampiric ghouls and a dozen or so wild vampires. They find the master vampire’s coffin in the basement and Loc-Larin instructs people on the staking and burning of the corpse so it never rises again. A cursory search reveals a variety of treasures that are piled into Crag’s saddlebags for later review on what to keep and what to toss. Fawn does lay her hands on a nice piece of bluish-purple alexandrite (high quality) with no complaints from the team and the priests notice a vial sitting on a mantle radiating priest magic of the elven god Saurian Thunderwind. They take it and return to the courtyard and the gate.

Caliban uses Revealing Smoke on the gate and determines it is a gate to the realms of Chaos and Taaraka steps through, fairly immediately confirming there are no issues on the far side. Caliban sends his wargs back to the smoke kennel and the team walks through the gate to find rolling dunes of pinkish and purplish sand and a solid peppering of strange, orange, pink and yellow colored tree-like things with a cottony foliage (very similar to Truffala trees from Dr Seuss’ Lorax). The temperature is warm, but not ridiculous, feeling about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Crag breaks out a waterskin and tells people to stay hydrated. With nowhere to hide, Caliban is seen by the slaad who one moment is playing in the sand and then immediately behaves as if a puppy who has just disappointed his master by peeing in the corner. Cal tries to use his animal handling to ease the tension. It appears Taaraka sees Caliban much like Andras and perhaps fears him a little.

Fawn breaks out the locator crystal and can determine two possible routes, one definitely closer and brighter than the other. She takes note of the time back in Morgana as 11pm local time and begins to mark the time pace here in the realm of Chaos. The team ponders the first steps to take in the realm of Chaos. Caliban is very interested in trying to smoke the cotton-like substance of the trees.

Between Session 2-3 – Infiltration of the Morgana Mansion

Entry summary – Fawn and Kenn scaled the wall and let everyone in through the front gate, as people observed the layout and began to “deploy” themselves in the immediate courtyard area, five somewhat scruffy warriors/rogues came out the large, double front doors. (2 female, 3 male, 1 ea rogues and 2 of the warriors male) and basically asked who the heck you were and indicated you might be lost.

Crag, toting the body of Meo accompanied by Loc-Larin began to approach toward the fountain and the front steps (but still roughly 100 feet away) while they made their initial, verbal back and forth with the “scrubs”. At about 75 feet from the “scrubs” and about 50 feet away from the fountain, Crag and Loc-Larin noticed the blood magic circle as one of the rogues scuttled inside to get the “master”. At this point Crag and Loc stopped in their tracks, while various folks began attempting to use their innate detection techniques and skills to figure out what was up. Kenn and Mielle had moved up to roughly 15 feet behind Crag & Loc, while most everyone else, sort of spread out another 10-15 feet back further (reasonably represented on the combat map). At this point, everyone should consider themselves within a full combat move of each other (all PCs should be within 50 feet of one another).

Past Minute or Two summary – Fairly immediately Mielle’s Fey Sight sensed the “out of phase” slaad effectively “chained” within the blood magic circle while Loc-Larin determined the circle’s makeup likely something that would be draining or siphoning the power of the slaad to someone else. He also noted that the circle appeared to have been “drawn” by someone’s finger as if the stone had temporarily been turned to thick mud or clay, then returned to hard stone, locking the glyphs and circle construct into a permanent state. Crag’s Detect Supernatural also confirmed the presence of the slaad. As these initial assessments are taking place, the “master” walks out onto the porch and is immediately recognized as a vampire by Loc-Larin. He and Crag can both see the vampire has a mana pool and Loc’s general assessment would be that this is a “master” vampire, one a bit more powerful than your average vampire.

Mielle’s blade begins to glow slightly at this time and anyone paying attention to her would see this. Also, Kenn triggers Detect Phase at this point, and is able to clearly see the outline of the slaad, as well as the presence of the gate, smack dab in the middle of the fountain. Ukko, his ermine, is able to sense that the slaad is angry at the vampire and that emotion ramps up a bit when the vampire appears on the porch. Mielle states very clearly that she feels her goddess wants her to destroy this vampire and retreating and waiting for dawn or otherwise avoiding this fight is not an option for her.

Via team speak a quick conversation begins with Kenn confirming the slaad and gate presence to all who haven’t been able to sense it on their own. Followed by an accelerated discussion on how to “break” the circle and release the slaad while Loc & Crag attempt to keep the vampire engaged in a conversation as long as possible, buying time for express prep work other characters are doing. In short order, Caliban’s Erase spell seems to be the cornerstone spell, but should be supplemented by a coordinated “Reshape Element” spell my Nikam and a synched attack with Fist of Stone by Fawn, as well as perhaps other spell support on the same glyph on the circle to “break” it.

In order to facilitate these focal actions, Copperhead will light up a Hypnotic Pattern smoke from Andras that will likely mesmerize and disable most or all of the “scrubs”. The team will have to handle those who save or resist while Loc directs Caliban, Nikam’Pom and Fanruiell in a coordinated “attack” on a specific glyph in the circle to break it. Crag offers up to summon his battle bear and make a charge at the vampire and some debate about summoning smoke as cover is had (though it could be detrimental to the team, as well as distracting Caliban from his primary mission of executing a flawless use of the Erase spell…key to the entire effort.) Depending on what “shape” the slaad appears to be in, Crag may benefit from using a Restore Strength spell on it to both confirm they’re on the same side as well as juicing him up to fight the vampire.

Session Two – Morgana Nights

Crag quickly closes in on the corpse of Meo, keeping his eyes above for dragazhar swooping down and rifles the body of the unfortunate rogue, looking for anything of help. Kenn also rushes forward snatching his axes from the giant bat’s body and eyeing the wall, as he grabs his weapons. One of Caliban’s smoke wargs comes up and takes a sniff of the dead dragazhar, then looks toward the air and moves to the corner of the building to lock onto the scared dragazhar. Nikam’Pom runs over, artfully scales a building (Jackie Chan style) to the roof and looks around. Copperhead uses Audible Glamour to produce a loud warning to residents of the surrounding blocks that there is an attack going on and to stay in/under cover. Loc-Larin scans the rooftops around more intently and sees three more dragazhar shadows shuffling about in the rooftop shadows and informs the team. Mielle attempts to make herself appear weak and a target of opportunity, but as the two attacking dragazhar swoop down, she is not the target.

A tail blade from a swooping dragazhar slashes in at Crag, who easily deflects the keratin deadly appendage with his shield, the other dragazhar swoops down flying past Kenn, who whacks the bat hard with both axes as it flies past en route to the location of Fawn and Loc-Larin. Crag slashes the one who attacked him with his saber, Mielle chops it with her blade and Caliban’s battle warg bites into it, shaking it back and forth doggy style and killing it. Fawn makes a magically assisted leap to the roof, scrambles over a cupola and stabs a dragazhar poised and preparing to swoop down on the others. The attack draws the creature's full attention. She notes a few more dragazhar from her vantage that were not visible from Loc-Larin’s position below and she informs the team of the new targets. Two of these new dragazhar foes land near Kenn and lash out with their claws, but miss as does Kenn's attempt to hit back. However, Caliban moves into position and takes a shot with his crossbow hitting one of them.

Nikam’Pom, noting there are no targets near him, scrambles like a monkey down one building and up another while his fire monkey manifests and touches his blade, transforming it into some kind of mystic lava knife. Caliban takes note of this flaming monkey that he’s not noticed as Nik leaps toward a dragazhar at the roof’s peak in an attempt to grapple the creature, but it is squirrely, and Nik ends up with only a handful of bat fur. Over his shoulder, Nik sees the first dragazhar affected by Mielle’s fear fly off into the night, it is pursued by Caliban’s hunting warg, but that warg is called off the hunt to return to the group. Of the two on Kenn, Crag smacks one of them with a shield bash and Kenn finishes it with his ice axes. On the rooftops, Fawn parries a couple wing claws from her bat with her blades, while Loc-Larin delivers a Chaos Bolt hitting the bat with a sonic boom like thunder. Copperhead raises his eyebrowless brow at the sound of someone else doing something storm magic-like. With the dragazhar momentarily disoriented by the thunderclap, Fawn drives both her main gauches into the beast, slaying it.

With four of the attacking dragazhar meeting a swift end at the hands of the group, the remaining five (plus the one with induced fear) flee, flying off into the night. Kenn throws a couple ice axes into one as it flies off and disappears, giving it something to remember them by. Crag reaches back to the corpse of Meo to check the locations he felt some recoverable items at and produces a roughly four inch long iron key, that has the look of a flat or apartment key, and a handful of coins (less than $200 modern equivalent, a gold, couple silvers and a handful of copper coins, pretty much “walking around” money) plus a single brass, coin-like item with a wolf embossed on it. Copperhead quickly identifies it as some kind of mafia marker/identity token for the Golden Wolves, though the true/full purpose cannot be fully understood.

Loc-Larin strongly encourages everyone to relocate a couple blocks away from the fight to discuss the next steps and not hang about for a possible second wave. Crag gathers up Meo’s corpse and the group begins to shift elsewhere to determine where to go next. But as Crag picks up the corpse, Mielle asks him to wait a moment and uses Thought Capture to get the last images from Meo’s mind at his time of death. She sees an image she believes to be their destination, an overgrown looking mansion outer wall and gate in what appears to be a formerly somewhat upscale neighborhood. Additionally some images that give her the sense that Meo was leading them with good intent and a thought of utter shock and surprise as his head left his body. The group fairly quickly determines that they should simply continue down the route Meo was headed the remaining mile he’d indicated and look for clues to get them toward the neighborhood they seek.

Fawn takes point, using her urban Streetwise to help look for clues in neighborhood transitions to alter their course as needed while following Meo’s assumed route. As she moves along, she sees a smaller than her, child sized shadowy figure skulking along the walls half a block up, informing the team. Copperhead throws magical light on the subject, scaring the pants off a little gnome who is heavily loaded with a backpack, front pack and with hands full of sacks of some kind of material. The group does not accost him further and he scurries off into the night. In less than an hour, the team locates an overgrown gate that fits the image Mielle saw in her mind that was Meo’s target location. Fawn and Kenn quickly scale the wall and enter to see a fairly large courtyard with a fountain that the two concur, roughly fits the description given by Andras. They unbar the gate, and the group begins to file in.

As everyone enters, they hear the massive front doors of the mansion open and five “scruffy-ish” looking toughs emerge (three warrior-ish types, two rogue-ish types) and one of them states very simply, “you are in the wrong place, you don’t belong here…better leave before we call the master.” With roughly a hundred feet distance between the party and the mansion door, Crag and Loc-Larin approach slowly with the body of Meo in tow. Crag says “our guide here met an untimely end, but we were meant to be coming to exactly this location and we ARE supposed to be here, so perhaps you should call your master so we can all talk.” One of the rogue types scuttles back into the house, as the two get within about thirty feet of the fountain. There, Crag notices a circle that appears to be drawn in a fashion that appears to have been made by someone’s finger into the stone. They both stop their advance. Loc-Larin, at distance, sees some indicators that the circle may be blood magic and he informs the team.

Mielle senses that there is a supernatural being in the vicinity of the fountain, near or in the area encompassed by the circle Loc-Larin describes. She indicates this and Loc-Larin considers that possibly the blood magic circle is siphoning power from the being contained within. Moments later the rogue returns with “the master” who Loc-Larin immediately recognizes as a vampire. A master vampire at that, clearly with magic abilities and likely using the blood magic circle to empower himself. Certainly, a potential enemy to not be underestimated. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” the master queries. The team considers their reply and next actions.

Session One – Desert Rain (aka - Smoke in Lor'Aserion) - March 13th, 2023

Arxeen matter of factly tells Crag to simply, go, succeed and keep the physically weaker folks safe, she opens a gate into a Lor’Aserion market and Crag makes his way down the block to the Desert Rain. Andras’ upscale hookah bar in the south market district of merchant prince Zezaro’s holdings. As Crag enters, he first sees Kenn’Lorek, a barbarian who he immediately thinks he might have a connection with and Loc-Larin, a rangerly dressed elf and immediately gets a vibe that equates for we players as a Spock & Kirk type of vibe. Additionally, as he moves into the next threshold of the Desert Rain, he sees Caliban, a small, but stout looking goblin with a cloud of smoke around him, and a taller, lankier scaloid with copper-colored scales. In a moment he gets the, Oscar and Felix “Odd Couple” vibe (from the player perspective). Crag takes a seat at one of the tables and takes in the light crowd.

Mielle and Chadi speak in the glade on the Isle of Veridiaan and they touch on the great strides she has made with her mental fortitude and mental control. Chadi feels that Mielle is well equipped for any mental combat encounter but takes the moment to mention her own personal vendetta with Lek’Lanth, a Lord of Chaos who is very likely somewhere in the realms of Limbo. While it is uncertain that Mielle will encounter Lek’Lanth, nor is it a certainty with the nature of Chaos that Mielle will be able to communicate with Chadi, she requests that if it does happen and it is possible, to most certainly let her know, Chadi mentions she has unfinished business with this Chaos Lord, then touches one of the great trees and opens a green colored gate that opens to a dead end stairwell overlooking the outdoor market in Lor'Aserion. Mielle makes her way a block or so to the Desert Rain and enters to see those accumulated, taking note of Loc-Larin, the gray elf.

Nikam’Pom has been feeling a bit like a fish out of water for months, the past couple months in the realm of the Jo’Rak clan has been a lot to take in. Orcs in the west are a completely different breed than he was used to back home. In some ways better and in other ways worse than what he is used to. Having a crash course in the Uruk language, he has a daily battle to understand even Loh’Pak whenever he uses some rarely used word. However, he has learned of the Orcish god Chak’Dor, learned of his own ancient Morgul blood and has worked to hone his geomantic skills, which resonate differently here than they did when studying with Chul on his home continent. It is now time to join the group of people heading to the realm of Chaos and Loh’Pak is encouraging Nik with his words and reminding him of the true orcish-ness within him. But Nikam is still stressing a bit about this calling, though he has trust in his own skills he feels very much like a foreigner in an alien land. Kai’Lar, priestess of Chak’Dor, opens a gate and the two go through to Lor’Aserion, she leads him to the Desert Rain and Nikam enters yet another foreign environment. He sees some people and makes his way to a corner table; people here are speaking a foreign language.

Fânrȗiell tinkers with some last-minute modifications to her cloak to ensure the magic arquebus and her umbrella “blend in” and don’t look like she’s wearing an overloaded street merchant’s garb. Mahgdoleina gives her some positive words before Fawn heads to Lor’Aserion, “remember, they’re going to simply see you as a little kid, in fact, they’ll probably wonder why you were even sent to be part of such a dangerous mission. But trust in your intellect, trust in your skill and you’ll prove to them not only why you should be there, but why you are an integral and key part of the team. I have 100% faith in your abilities and have enjoyed experimenting with your magic path along with you. Look for opportunities while you’re in the planes of Chaos. I am certain you all will find the Gatewatcher blade, but there are many other things you may learn while there. Absorb and learn as you always do.” She gives you a little “girl power, kick ass” moment and then teleports Fan across the street from the Desert Rain. She enters and sees the group, though Fawn gravitates towards Mielle who seems the only elf with a look of authority in the vicinity.

A few minutes after everyone has arrived, Kor-el looks down from the upper level and beckons everyone upstairs, however Nikam’Pom does not understand. Everyone gathers around a large table, but after a few moments, it is realized that Nik remains downstairs. Kor-el, seeing he is physically an orc, speaks to him in Uruk. “You don’t speak common?” he addresses Nik, who explains he only speaks Uruk and his native tongue of Xiong. “We will need to resolve this,” Kor-el states as Nik makes his way to the table. A conversation around the nature of the planes of Limbo ensues. Tauss, though he spent a thousand years in the endless maze of chaos, never really ventured out and thus doesn’t have much of a broad perspective on the behavior of the planes. However, Kain, the Planewalker, has and describes the ever changing nature of the planes of chaos and the way beings of power manipulate or control the planes to their liking.

Striking a balance between not getting too near the center of control for a plane and the reach of a Lord of Chaos and not venturing too far away from that control into the chaotic, changing and dangerous nature of the untamed planes of chaos being key. How to get to the planes of Chaos is also explained. With the changing nature of Limbo, it is not safe to simply open a gate, but there is a “static” gate that the “heroes” believe is still open, along with a blue slaad that Andras “whipped” years ago still restrained there. This spawns a conversation regarding the slaad, the most prolific of the chaos demons and their nature is discussed, Mielle displaying solid knowledge on the creatures. It is explained that the group will need to head to Morgana and find the abandoned mansion there where this gate is located. The group has a variety of discussions, enjoys their food, drink and smoke and heads to their high quality inn for the night.

In the late morning, the team assembles and are taken north a couple miles to the location of the inaugural Adventurer’s Guild hall. A large building with an small inn, large tavern, large bounty board, administrative desk and a handful of merchant stalls ready for an assemblage of would be adventurers. The team is guided into a semi-secret room in the basement where a ten foot diameter stone circle is set in the floor, compliments of the efforts of Kain and Kor-el. The group crowds onto the platform and Kain initiates the teleport. They arrive in an unfinished version of an adventurer’s guild in Morgana and when they head upstairs to the main floor, realize there are no visible ways out, but rather nothing but a thick stone wall. Kain approaches the wall and the stone shapes into a doorway, opening a view to the street outside and a shifty looking rogue who appears to be waiting for them.

The rogue states that he is there upon request from Andras and that his name is Meo of the Golden Wolves (the largest mafia in Morgana). He is supposed to guide the group through Morgana to the location of the abandoned mansion where the chaos gate should be located. Kain confirms he is the correct contact, wishes the team ‘calator buna’ dwarvish for “good journey” and seals the stone wall as he goes back inside. The group seems very suspicious of Meo and also, the elves especially, seem downtrodden by the amount of massive stone buildings that surround them in Morgana. The group walks a couple of hours (4-5 miles) and as dusk sets in deeper, Crag asks how much further there is to go. Meo indicates that they’re perhaps another mile away and as he rounds a corner, the group hears a loud, piercing screech. Out of nowhere a massive bat-like creature swoops down from the shadowy eves of a two story building and the creature’s scythe-like tail severs Meo’s head mid-sentence.

Caliban recognizes the creature as a dragazhar, a Night Hunter, a bat-like monster from the depths of the Underdark, rarely seen or heard from, even home in the Hakh-Zherad. Such creatures should not be here. The creature spears the head of Meo with its tail and begins to fly off as Crag hurls a javelin, it “dodges.” Caliban, however, having whipped out his Oberman, hits twice with crossbow bolts while Kenn’Lorek summons ice axes to his hands which he hurls, both finding purchase and dropping the dragazhar to the ground. The dragazhar is still twitching and attempting to move until it is struck by a magical bolt from Fawn which renders it completely dead, causing it to stop moving. Quickly the group scans the area and a few targets are seen at the shadowy roof peak. Mielle expands her auras of confidence and the presence of Saas Vain bolstering the group and instills fear in one of the large bats, which takes wing.

The first combat is upon us…

Pre-Game Framing Info (for reference)

Hi everyone, you’re on the recipient list of this email because you’ve expressed a likelihood of being “IN” for the upcoming ‘Return of the Gate Watcher’ game to bring your roleplaying elements back to the heroic realm. It’s now 2022, two years after the initial ideas and prep regarding the evil campaign that brought about the current world of trouble in Al’Akwannon. In truth, that “evil” previous game was the end of the Age of Darkness and although historians and the like have not yet declared a new age, it is now, for all intents and purposes, the Age of Chaos. For the game world, in meta terms, we will be moving back toward a higher fantasy way of doing things. Your new characters will be on the front edge of this change as a coalition of bad ass heroes (mostly characters that have been played by a few of you over the years and myself when Myong is DM’ing) work to develop a global adventurer’s guild.

As you create your concept ideas, keep in mind there are two major problems on the planet right now. 1) there were hundreds of millions of gates opened by agents of evil and a surge of creatures have returned to the Prime Material Plane (aka – the normal world). Creatures that had been banished to the inner and outer dimensions for millennia (simple things like owlbears, bulletes and carrion crawlers and major things like dragons, giants and beholders…and virtually every monster in the monster manuals) but now, they’re back in force 2) though many of these gates simply closed naturally after the astronomical event, or “timed out” in a period after, there still remain hundreds of thousands of gates, if not a couple million, that are still open and allowing free entry or back and forth movement for these extra-dimensional beings. In simplest terms there are too many creatures for the “known” heroes of the world to deal with. So now the heroes have come up with a concept to get “everyman” heroes a shot at making a difference.

Unfortunately, building a global organization with enough locations for some reasonable global coverage and a support network to allow for your average nobody to have a chance to be able to survive an encounter with a griffon, or the like, is no small task. While the bad asses are working on this, they have a job for some promising lads and ladies who they can put their trust in, to venture into the realm of the planes of Chaos and find Tauss’ bastard sword known as the “Gate Watcher.” A blade capable of detecting any dimensional anomaly within a mile of the blade and closing it by touch. Returning this blade to the heroes should allow Kain, Chadi, Arxeen, Kor’El and Andras to use it to force closed about 90% of the open gates and stemming the “blood flow” (in some cases, literally).

For character concepts, you will need to make a character that is unafraid of the inevitability of venturing into the realms of Chaos, where Slaad and other chaos demons reign supreme. You should also endeavor to either craft a skill/power/magic set that somewhat relates you with or directly aligns you with one of the heroes (thus you can be someone that they are directly sponsoring) or come up with a reason why one of the heroes would sponsor you if there really is not any plausible alignment (I can help with this). While you will start at the usual 5,000xp level (generally 3rd level as a single class or 2nd/2nd as a multi-class) you will have some minor/supportive magic items right out of the gate, courtesy of the bad ass heroes. This time there will be no “team leader” you will all be following directives from the heroes and will be able to contact them if a major decision needs to be made (though they expect not to have to hold your hands).

To help with race selection and initial conceptualizing, here are the 10 currently involved “primary heroes,” their race and their general areas of power/skill. Keep in mind race is mostly irrelevant as far as alignment/coordination, more concept, magic/powers and skills should be your aligning elements:

Andras – Goblin Smoke Mage & Hammer Weaponmaster, Heavy Crossbow Expert
Signature Skills – Diplomacy, Observation, Forensics, Tracking, Information Gathering
Signature Magic/Attacks – Weaponmaster – dual wield hammers, crossbow; smoke magic

Kain – Dwarven Cold Mountain Magic & Axe of the Dwarven Lords
Signature Skills – Lore: Planar, Geology, Information Gathering, Lore: Foci: Stone & Ice, Survival: Planar
Signature Magic/Attacks – Earth & Ice Magic, Empowered Stones/Gems, Battleaxe

Chadi – Human Alteration, White & Nature Based Magic & Wielder of a Chaos Orb
Signature Skills – Lore: Wards/Sigils: Alteration, Artistic Ability: Tattooing, Spellcraft, Lore: Alternate Magic: White/Chaos
Signature Magic/Attacks – White Energy (anti-Undead), Eyes of the Land (see through nature), Sense Mana Nexus

Loh’Pak – Orcish Grandmaster Rogue, Spirits of the Orcish Ancestors, Blood of Chak’Dor the one true Orc god
Signature Skills – Alertness, Hide in Shadows, Find/Set/Remove Traps, Ambush, Info Gathering, Politics
Signature Magic/Attacks – Kukri, Toruk-Jha

Kharzhak – Human Fire Magic and Blood of Asharak, the Red Dragon Primogen
Signature Skills – Lore: Fire Magic, Combat Spellcasting, Spellcraft, Lore: Disciples of the Vermillion Flame, Lore: Dragons
Signature Magic/Attacks – Fire Magic of various kinds, some red dragon related abilities

Arxeen – Half-Elf Ice Magic, High Priestess of Aeryamoinyen, Spirit of Kharga (Polar Bear)
Signature Skills – Animal Handling: Bear, Lore: Alternate Magic: Ice/Cold
Signature Magic/Attacks – Ice Magic, Holy Water Sprinkler, Transform into Battle Bear

Kor’El – Picis Water Magic, Heir of the Cloak of Stars, Sea-life & Gravity priest of the Starfather
Signature Skills – Circle Magic, Lore: Water Magic, Lore: Gravity Magic, Ancient History: Prime Universe, Deity Multiplicity
Signature Magic/Attacks – Water Magic, Harpoon/HTH, Gravity Magic, Circle Magic

Tauss – Scaloid Weather Magic, Priest of Ro’Shikara & Wielder of the Elemental Staff
Signature Skills – Weather Sense, Lore: Alternate Magics: Storm, Lore: Planar: Thinning Veil, Lore: Planar: Chaos
Signature Magic/Attacks – Ranseur, Storm Magic, Elemental Staff

Maghdoleina – Human Alterationist, Historian and Inventor
Signature Skills – Archaeology: Ancient Magic, Lore: Foci: Apparatus, Lore: Legends/Folklore: Magic, Lore: Ancient Runes
Signature Magic/Attacks – Various alteration magic

Halleasteiran – Human Paladin, Dragon King, Priest of Titannis, the Honorable One
Signature Skills – Cartography, Identify Weakness, Leadership, Animal Handling: War Horse, Tactics: Small Group/Cavalry
Signature Magic/Attacks – Zwiehander, Dragon Powers, Honor/Law Priest Spells, Blessed War Horse