Crystal Quest Aftermath, Part 25
7-1-06
The party wakes up, and they file out of the rope trick, to set foot on an icy wasteland.
Atheele wonders, "I wonder if Salervan went back to get more fingers."
Akili takes out the sensors, and attempts to see if Salervan and Matro are in the same location as earlier, but he can't be certain. In irritation, he launches up into the air, and checks them while performing a circle. He also scouts out the area around the party, since he's up in the air anyway, making a note of any large structures in their path. There are several foothills of ice, and way off in the direction the Matro sensor is pointing, a very large building.
When Akili lands, he and Kenlow have a brief conversation about how great it is to have wings.
Shortly after Akili explains what he saw, and which direction is the right way to go, the party begins heading in that direction. It's pretty cold here, besides that they're walking on ice.
As they get closer to the tower, O'yhat spots a couple creatures that are humanoid in appearance, but scamper around a great deal, and they're difficult to pick out because they appear to be camoflauged. Atheele takes a look through the spyglass, as no one else in the party has seen creatures such as these before. He thinks he recognizes them as a species of Ice Devil, and shares what information he can recall about them with the party - such as that they are resistant to fire, acid, ice, poison, and a handful of other things. They're reasonably powerful, evil, and don't have any specific vulunerabilities that Atheele can remember.
The party takes shelter around another large lump of ice about fifty feet high, roughly about 125' from the leading edge of the building, and they debate how to get inside, or to otherwise deal with those devils.
As Atheele moves around to keep an eye on them, he suddenly recalls that some devils and demons can detect the thoughts of anyone coming within a certain range... but not if those particular ones have this ability. When he peeked around the corner, though, he didn't see them.
He starts poking around for ice devil tracks, and spots several, but some of them are several days old.
The party decides if they should go in with guns blazing, or try to sneak up anyway. While debating this, the ice devils circle around the ice lump. Akili spots one of them, but the other is too sneaky to be noticed, and gets in a surprise attack against Sarai, getting in a solid hit and slowing her down.
Sarai safely backs up, then retreats to stand near Akili.
The other devil moves close to attack Atheele, and smacks him for 20 points of damage. The first one steps up to Kenlow and deals a massive 43 points.
Kenlow limps out of Akili's line of fire, and spends some Spirit points to heal himself. Akili then faces the one that hit Kenlow, and accompanied by a powerful gesture, shouts, "Chaos Attack!"
Audune, seeing what's already happening, casts Stoneskin on herself.
As a result of Chaos Attack, a very large Lurker Above appears on top of the ice devil, and chomps him. It then rights itself, holding the devil firmly within its mouth.
Atheele takes a five-foot step closer to Sarai, then quick-draws his bow and attempts to perforate the other devil with arrows. Unfortunately, the ice devils have strong defenses, and only one goes through.
O'yhat shouts a holy word at the top of her voice, but nothing visible appears to happen to the devils - of course, one is within a lurker.
Kaira changes into her lizard form, and scampers over to Akili, taking up position at the top of his mane.
Andune brings forth her trusty lightning bolt and ZOTs the still-standing ice devil for a respectable 43 points.
The Lurker starts wandering away from the party, seeking a quieter a place to digest the captured devil.
Atheele fires more arrows from his holy bow at the ice devil, this time perforating it with four arrows, and each one does massive damage, since the target is an evil outsider. The ice devil topples.
Akili watches the Lurker closely, to make sure the devil isn't going to break free. There is some struggling inside, but the Lurker doesn't seem to mind. It soon wanders out of view.
After plucking the arrows out, and ransacking it for other possessions, Sarai shoves the ice devil into her bag of holding.
Once the devils are dealt with, Sarai pokes her head around the corner of the ice cliff, to peek again at the massive structure. She doesn't spot any more of those ice devils, fortunately. But she does make out what appears to be an entrance.
Akili asks if he should check the sensors to make sure they have to go into the building, and Audune volunteers to make him look like a wisp of cloud. He accepts, and Akili flies up again to circle the building and check the sensors. He confirms that they need to go beyond this structure, and returns to the party to tell them that.
They decide to bypass the building, although they are curious about what it might contain, since it was guarded by reasonably powerful creatures.
After a bit more discussion, the party decides to fly around like they did to get here previously. Akili hands over the sensors to Kenlow, so he can be gaseous-formed to be not so noticeable.
After flying while, they reach the edge of the ice, where the edges are all jagged after their collision with the next world... and the sensors indicate that they are to keep going.
The next world is dark in color, with odd, bright red protrusions sticking out of the ground. Not terribly unlike various sizes of giant fangs jutting out, as though they were soaked in fresh blood. Very creepy, overall... but this appears to be where they need to go.
Having landed on the ice to investigate the next world from a safe distance, O'yhat spots something dark at her feet, under the ice. She wipes away a thin layer of snow, and sees the frozen form of a humanoid in the ice.
Upon further investigation, there are in fact a number of frozen bodies trapped there. They seem to have bluish-green skin, kind of fishy, really. The party concludes that Matro likely found this world and froze it solid, with all of its inhabitants... or at least a part of it.
They also check for the chains, and the one nearest their spot is already broken, and in fact the others nearby are also shattered, but since the world is still in place, it might be held by other chains still in place.
Akili searches his planar knowledge about the fanged world, and determines that if there was a world for devils and demons that Matro had for them... the world up ahead would probably qualify.
The party is also rather tired after their flight across the ice world, and they decide to rest here for the night before going onwards.
They retire into the Rope Trick, and the Alarm spell that was set off beneath it was set off. Looking through the window, two of the ice devils are below, digging around. They take their spears, and start digging through the ice underneath the rope trick. They appear to scribe a large circle, and they begin casting a spell. Sarai identifies it as a fire spell. Kenlow has almost a compulsion to leave the Rope Trick to attack one, but Sarai is blocking the doorway. She manages to distract Kenlow from leaving until the devils finish their spell.
The ice underneath the spell melts, turning into a liquid. One of them reaches down, and they pull out one of the humanoid forms, hefting it over its shoulder.
Sarai then gets out of Kenlow's way. He leans out of the rope trick, and swings the Godslayer, striking the ice devil (known as a Gelugon) twice. It takes a lot of damage, but amazingly survives.
Atheele whips out his Holy Bow again, and lets loose another fusillade of arrows, killing it. Then he whips the door closed, but the other devil is getting away with the body.
The Gelugon pauses, looks around, and sees his dead buddy. He then puts the body back in the water and runs away.
Atheele then leaves the rope trick, and rescues the body. He then asks Akili come down to heal him, and Akili obliges, using Minor Healing on him. The... whatever-it-is... panics, and makes to get into the water. They allow him to do so, and he dives into the pit, then breathes a sigh of relief.
Andune casts Comprehend Languages, to understand what is being spoken. He makes general requests to know where he is, and what he's doing here, and where is family is, and to bring his family back.
Kenlow considers the situation, then expends more Spirit points to contact Kel-Sir to aid the rescued aquatic humanoid.
The aquatic guy vanishes.
Kenlow hears a watery voice in his mind say, "That is all I can do for the moment, until the spell on this world is broken." (Well, Duh! That's what we're *doing*!) He got six points of damage and a headache for saying that loudly enough for Kel-Sir to hear.
They retire back into the Rope Trick to finish off their sleep.
About twenty minutes into their resumed sleep, a sweeper team of Ice Demons - approximately three groups of three each - wander through the area. They stop briefly at the melted hole, then move onwards.
The party awakens at the completion of their rest, and Andune explains her plan to have everyone shift into gaseous form prior to leaving the Rope Trick, so as to not have to fight these things. In general, this plan is approved of, and they take off. Kenlow is the only one who remains solid, to hold the sensors.
Kenlow is suddenly struck by three fire arrows from his 100-foot cruise, and struggles to not go into a phobia-induced panic. He's not on fire, but believes he is, and plummets to the ground. Underneath him, a very, very large bird, approximately the size of Kenlow, appears, which Kenlow collides with. The bird (actually Kaira) attempts to stop him from falling, but fails - he's simply too heavy. He takes 22 points of damage from impacting the ground.
Around one of the spikes, three red-winged creatures show themselves, looking like some sort of female demon. They are clearly the ones that fired the arrows, and two more make an appearance not too far away.
Kaira lands near Kenlow, who is regaining his bearings. After confirming that he's not on fire, he considers his options, and flings a powerful gust of Air at the three whatevers nearest him, blowing out the flames of their arrows and sending them tumbling through the air.
While the others of the party scatter to places of safety to change back to solid forms - a process that will take about half a minute - Akili lands near Kenlow. Unlike the others, he knows he can release magic while in this form, he's really not sure what it would do. But in case it comes to that, he chooses to be near Kenlow to help as best he can.
Kaira, in the meantime, flies over to another pair of those winged things, and starts attacking.
The three that Kenlow blew away come back, and two of them horribly miss Kenlow. One of them swings at Akili, and surprisingly connects, but the gaseous form he's stuck in negates most of the damage.
Irritated, Akili takes his chances, and casts Wild Strike. Three arrows shoot from his fingertips at the creature that attacked him. One is silver, one white, and the third is a kind of dark purple. All three impact; one chars it, the other puts a giant spear through it, and it looks very confused.
Kenlow manages to dispatch the other two, leaving only the third that Akili struck earlier.
The third one finally flies away as Kaira finishes defeating the second of the two that were fighting her, and Akili flings another Prismatic Arrow at it, causing it to land once more. This allows Kaira to catch up to it, and defeats it.
Upon reflection, it occurs to Sarai that the world you're looking at is not the world the demons and devils came from, but it has become attached to their world. A scary concept, to be sure.
The party continues their flight, this time unimpeded, and makes it to the edge of this world.
As they approach the next world, they notice a problem... the one that they're approaching is spherical, which means they're approaching a vertical 'wall'. Across the connecting chain, however, there is also a bridge, and a doorway on the other end.
Atheele takes a moment to address Tarianna with the question, If the other world was Kel-Sir's world, was the one eaten by the demons Tarianna's world? The only answer Atheele receives is 'It could have been'.
After a bit of discussion, the party decides to go through the door. As they enter this room, gravity still appears to be pulling down, making it like walking into a giant boulder. Tarianna does notAkili consults his planar knowledge once more for details about this world, and knows that he's read about it, but needs some time to recall what he read. His very first impression is that he doesn't think the world belongs here - as though it's from a place where the nature of basic forces, like gravity, operated differently - furthermore, this area they're in didn't seem to be a part of it originally. A lot of effort was expended by Matro (and perhaps others) to attach it to his collection of worlds, although just why isn't immediately apparent.
The room they have entered is small, barely large enough for the party, with some stone benches facing the openings, with torches on the wall, and the architecture of the room is temple-ish. The ceiling is some 20 feet up, taller than the room is wide. There are a couple side halls leading out of sight.
While there is some quiet time, O'yhat attempts to scry Salervan. --Seated on a massive throne of Evil, a very, very large dark being with dark-grey scaly skin and long, long black hair that goes all the way to the ground behind him, and his body is coated in bony plates with spiky protrusions. This would remind the player of a 'Mangalor'. Some of the bones the throne is made out of appear to be human, and there are several others besides. He appears 25 feet tall, using the size of those known bones as a scale. The floor around him is kind of a swirled purple and black stone, and in front of the throne is a deep black carpet that leads up to it. He appears to be talking, speaking a language we can't understand, including the word 'Narn'. Apparently Salervan answers, 'Yes, master, it will be done right away.'--
Kenlow warns Akili to cover his ears, which he does, and then attempts one of his sonic soundings of the area, and gets a really good mental map of the area. He also spots several points that are likely creatures. He gathers the rest of the party into a huddle, and explains his findings to them.
Upon that news, Atheele goes off to the left to scout out what kinds of creatures they may be dealing with. Kenlow goes off to the right.
Atheele sees two big burly men that are very human-looking, except with bony protrusions, with chains attached from them to the wall, and a moment later they put their hands to their ears - as Kenlow gave another sonic sounding, which also makes Akili twitch.
Gesturing for Kenlow to return, Atheele also goes back to the party, and relays his findings of the chained men.
They scout around a bit more, and Sarai eventually comes up with the idea to cut one of the chained men free, and then to run, but she doesn't have something to cut with. Akili decides that this sounds like a good idea to them.
As Akili runs towards him, the two bow down. Akili's not sure what to make of this, so he cuts the chain at the wall with the Scepter, and runs back to the party, around the corner.
The one freed guy assists the second in pulling the chain out of the wall, and the pair of them stomp into the barracks. Kenlow, witnessing this behind Atheele, shrugs and shouts "Charrrge!"
The party splits up a little, both to explore and to assist with any other combat that may be occurring.
Atheele watches the two burly men kill two sleeping soldiers that were in the barracks, which are garbed as Matro's Black Hand troops. The other two wake up, and they start fighting with the burly men. Atheele unleases four arrows, and drops the other two troops.
Kenlow goes up to a different door, opens it, and sees another guy chained up. He steps back to gesture to the two burly men, and gestures for them to go into this other room. After a bit of confusion, they go to look.
Sarai breaks into another room, and sees three more men chained to the wall. Akili steps in after her, and yet again, they bow down, and mutter something. Akili casts Comprehend Languages, and interprets it as 'Save us, don't kill us'. He blinks, then cuts them free. After several moments, one of them gains the courage to pull his chains free, and holds them out in front of him, saying something to the effect of 'thank you for freeing us from the bondage of the 'bony dark one' ', which is doubtlessly Matro. Akili smiles a little, and nods, putting his Scepter away.
Kenlow, meanwhile, opens the door to the area where the beast is in, and it bursts out, attacking Kenlow, but not doing any heavy damage.
Atheele, standing near Kenlow, unleashes more arrows at the beast, hitting it several times. Kenlow attacks with his Improved Unarmed Strike, pumping a few points of Air into his blow for an electric hit. The pair of them exchange blows with the beast a little longer, until it finally falls.
Kenlow pokes his head into the room, and finds a chained person that has been half-eaten, but seems to still be alive, and they shout for O'yhat, who approaches from another area to investigate what they've found.
Sighing, she sees that this person is missing all of their lower body and one arm, and she gives him the last rites. Kenlow, in the meantime, calls to Eryn, Terianna, and anyone else who might be able to help... essentially, his own version of those rites.
Sarai explores the door up, near the stairwell, and the same process repeats. With a series of careful gestures, Akili attemps to get the freed man to explain who he thinks Akili is, but all he gets is a bow, and then extreme confusion. Akili can understand what is being said, but doesn't know the same language, and none of the guys he's rescued have spoken since.
Elsewhere, O'yhat, Andune, and Keira explore the long corridor they found, happening across a large chamber, although it is currently unoccupied. After going this far, they return to the party.
Akili discovers that the burly men are still following him around, but they don't indicate why they think he's godlike, or otherwise some powerful person. He continues working with them, since they seem to want to continue following him anyway. He's also intrigued that they don't appear to recognize Kenlow at all. He tries to introduce himself, and they return names that are barely comprehensible (one labels himself as alligator-potatohead), but don't seem to correct his own name of 'Akili'. Either they recognize the name as his, or they don't dare to correct him... which helps him not at all. Also, as it stands, since they're in a foreign construction of the world, he can't be certain that they're the native inhabitants of this world.
Kenlow comes back up from the stairs he was investigating, which led down into a mine that had more of the purple-black stone. He brings along more of the stone with him, showing it off to O'yhat. Sarai hereby dubs it Matrite, and they pocket it.
The party moves on, and the burly men accompany them. When the party emerges into the large chambers, the men all clump together, and give Akili an askance look, wondering if they can go that way. Akili nods majestically, and they all go up that tunnel. Akili, and the rest of the party, follows.
As they enter another largish room, there are a pair of windows, and a large iron door. Through the windows, they can see what appears to be a large, hollow world, with the center being a source of light and some kind of portal, with a bridge that leads to it, and around the insides there are structures and other signs that gravity used to pull out uniformly, because now everything is drooping towards the bottom, and there is a large mass of water at the bottom.
Akili is finally able to determine that they were a part of it once upon a time. They people are standing there, dumbfounded; they clearly had not seen their world in this state. Before anyone in the party can react, one of them leaps over the side, and falls down. Judging from the reactions of the others, they didn't expect him to die like that - perhaps they thought that gravity would fix itself.
Taking the stones out, Kenlow flies off of the bridge, and follows the edge for some ten minutes to see if the arrow curves, and it appears to still be pointing straight.
Kenlow notices as he's going off to the sides, the stones seem... confused. They flicker now and again.
Once he returns, he announces, "Well, they're not inside the portal - they're somewhere on the other side, but the stones were also acting up." He explains just how they were breaking to Sarai, who thinks about it, and replies, "If we go due north, long enough, we'll find them, but if we go through the portal, we'll probably find them faster." She reasons that Matro would probably want a quick way to get the stone/metal to his own place, and sure enough, there are cart tracks on the bridge to the portal.
The men explain that at least the bottom of their world still seems inhabitable, so they're going to search for others of their kind, and go down there. In desperation, Akili tries to see if they can understand Elven, or even his own native leonine tongue, all of which is met with confusion. "I wish I knew who you thought I was," he mutters again. They also accept sets of various basic weapons from the party, and thank them profusely, though Akili, and then they wander off.
The party then goes into the Rope Trick room to rest up before a potential confrontation.
The game is paused here.