= Crystal Quest Aftermath, Part 29 =

10-21-06
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On the following day, still inside this candy room, Kenlow brings up the possibility of the group having a bit more power over Matro, in the sense that now Matro's realm is joined to Annor with the dropping of the ladders for his army to cross over.

Kenlow suggests ceasing to run through this 'rat's maze', and trying to persuade Matro to confront them directly... but as he knows that the party is in the castle and hasn't decided to do so, how to convince him to take that chance is an open question.

Atheele asks of Sarai and Akili if there is any way to mask scrying.  Akili knows of one, but it's in Oyhat's domain - Obscure Object.  Oyhat can use it, but he can only use it on four objects, and there are seven party members.  They conclude that if Kaira and two other people can fit into the Kwalish, then that reduces the visible objects to four, which is sufficient... except it doesn't quite fit in the corridors.  Andune also has the capabability of casting the spell as a Sorceror, but he never learned it.

Sarai brings up another possible option, that of a body-swap spell created by a long-ago wizard Kavron, and arrange things that she's prone under the Godslayer blade, and hit Matro with the spell, which is embedded in a thrown seashell.  It's an intriguing possibility, but it presents a lot of complications - namely that the spell requires that Sarai throw the shell and hit with it.

Akili has other possibilities in mind, but keeps them to himself, as they involve only his own magic anyway - and again, Matro must still be hit first to be really vulunerable.

Kenlow tries digging through the gingerbread floor; after about four inches, he unearths a gummy-like substance.  After digging through a foot of that, he hits a significantly harder substance, which is like rock, but... not really.  It also has different colors at different layers - it's a jawbreaker!  Akili cuts through some of it with his plasma sword, and it goes through effortlessly.  He digs as deep as the length of his sword, and finding only more jawbreaker, decides to stop there.

Atheele and Sarai, meanwhile, discuss trying to find a clever way to have Atheele assist Sarai in hitting Matro, and they practice a bit, to see if Atheele can guide an object attached to an arrow, such that the arrow doesn't hit the target, while the attached object does.

They perform a test, and it is mostly successful: the arrow hits the wall, and the attached bit of matrite is pulled along behind, impacting the rear of the arrow, bounces off, and swings down to hit the gumdrop they stuck to the wall as the target.  So it will work, except the arrow still has to hit the target... and the shell has to not shatter when it bounces off of the arrow.

A bit more time is spent discussing what to do when they encounter Matro; the general consensus is to allow Kenlow to get in one hit, and then to try to keep some distance so that the other spellcasters don't have to worry about Kenlow being too near to Matro when they fire their own magics.

Before the party leaves, Oyhat casts Status on everyone, so he can keep track of everyone's location and health.

As they go outside, they confirm that the lump of carbonite is still in place, so no one's been through cleaning everything.  Atheele clambers over the lump to see what lies beyond.  The stairs end, and there's what appears to be a room off in the distance.  Moving closer, it's actually two offset rooms, and he checks for scrying devices; he finds one and destroys it.

Sarai borrows the Wand of Polymorph, and creates a suitable seashell out of one of her rocks, and then returns the wand prior to preparing her spell.

Moments after destroying the scrying point, a large beast somewhat resembling a Rancor, but more like a beetle in texture, charges around an unseen corner and towards Atheele.  Fortunately, Atheele was quick enough to notice so as to not be surprised.

Bolting for the relative safety of the lump of carbonite, Atheele fires an arrow at it as he flees.  He fires an arrow, which hits, then realizes he can't clamber up the 15-foot wall of carbonite quickly enough, before the monster catches up to him.  So, lacking an other options, he yells to the party, then turns to fight, launching more arrows.

The monster retaliates, clawing Atheele twice, and one is a critical hit.  Atheele is hurting badly.  Atheele steps back against the carbonite cube, and fires a barrage of arrows.  The first strikes a critical blow, dealing heavy Holy power, and the remainder continue to pepper the target.

Akili flies over to see what's going on, and hovers in the air, and uses a scroll of Web, which successfully manages to entangle the monster and temporaily pins it.

The beetle-like monster does manage to free itself from the webbing, though, and slogs close enough to Atheele to swipe again, and connects.

Kenlow then charges over on his wings, being much faster than Akili, and fires some flaming lightning at the monster, which doesn't damage it nearly as much as he was hoping.

Andune casts Spider Climb on himself and Sarai, and they also start approaching the carbonite lump to climb over it and assist.  Sarai fires her own arrow at the creature, but misses and it becomes entangled in the webbing.

Oyaht also starts climbing the carbonite cube.

Atheele quaffs a portion and attempts to stab the monster with a longspear, but fumbles the blow pretty awfully.

Akili wings closer, landing on top of the cube, briefly weighs the situation, and fires a Wild Strike out of the Rod of Chaos.  A blue glowing sword flies out of the scepter and impales the monster, although it's still standing.

The monster steps five feet closer, and swings at Akili, and tags him both times, and even takes a bite out of him.  Akili's hurt pretty badly, but is surprisingly still alright.

Kenlow attempts to use the Flurry of Blows technique against the monster, and energizes the staff with lightning for an extra charge per blow, and the first blow is another critical strike, and also successfully makes a second blow.

Andune casts spider climb on himself, and also finally makes it to the top of the cube.

Sarai backs down off to the other side of the cube; Kaira shifts into her bear form, jumps down, and slashes at the thing.

Oyaht, unable to get to the top of the cube, casts a Healing Circle spell, which helps considerably as nearly everyone was damaged.

Atheele finally stabs the monster with the spear of slowing - while he doesn't do as much damage, its capability for dealing damage is greatly reduced.

Akili hovers closer with his boots, not able to do so with his wings, and slashes at it twice with his plasma blade.  The first blow connects.  The second one misses, but the third was a critical hit... and the monster finally falls, slides across the floor, down the stairs, and comes to a rest against the cube.

Akili idly checks to see if the monster has any loot, but there's nothing.

The party spends a bit of time dispensing healing, and Akili remembers to dismiss the Web spell.

Once that's dealt with, Atheele cautiously peeks around the corner, and doesn't spot any threats, and motions for the rest of the party to catch up.  Akili joins him, and Atheele finds another corner... and from here it appears to be a dead end.  Atheele spots another scrying device, and although he can't avoid being seen before he destroys it, he does so anyway.

When Atheele reports that it's a dead end, Akili spellcrafts the area, attempting to locate any hidden areas, and spots an illusion.  He manages to disbelieve it, but it only appears to be more hallway.

Oyaht volunteers to cast True Seeing on Akili, and he readily agrees, even though it'll only last some 14 minutes.  With that, he gives the room a close investigation, and spots what appears to be a one-way secret passage overhead, and there's another hallway off to the bottom right that was behind an illusion.  Looking down into that hallway, it opens into a very large room, and there's a gaping pit he can spot through the illusion.

Meanwhile, Andune spots a trap trigger, except Atheele - and probably the monster from earlier.

Summoning Andune, Akili tries to see if that pit is tied to a trap or trigger.  He doesn't spot anything, and so Sarai gives Akili a small pebble to toss in.  As he tosses it into the pit, a winged monster flies -through the pit floor- from anyone that's there to see it, and begins attacking Andune with a flaming longsword.

Atheele charges in, followed by Oyaht, who casts Flame Strike on it.  This winged thing is female-shaped with red wings, and looks exactly like those creatures they found on a different world on their way here.  Explains where Matro is getting them from, certainly.

The Flame Strike connects, but the fire portion doesn't seem to do any damage.

Sarai steps around the corner, standing next to Oyaht, and fires a pair of arrows at it.  They hit and hurt, but not as much as they might have.

Andune attacks with his adamantium rapier, and connects once, but the creature still seems to be fine.

Kenlow, who had been clinging to the ceiling to investigate the trap door, releases his claws, glides and banks tightly around the corner of what was originally thought to be a hallway, and flies up to the creature to slash at it with his claws.

The creature retaliates, flicking a rope at Kenlow to entangle him.  He was briefly caught by it, but manages to pull himself free before losing flight.

Akili steps up, and swings his scepter blade at her, scoring a hit and doing a respectable amount of damage - and better yet, she didn't appear to resist any of it.

Kaira shifts to bear form once more, and swats at it with her claws.

Atheele, predictably and usefully, and allows the evil creature to play inhuman pincushion.  It obligingly falls out of the air, quite dead.

The creature had a few bits of equipment on her, and the composite longbow was magical.  It is, in fact, a +1 flaming composite longbow, designed for 20 strength.  She was carrying 70 platinum coins, a moth agate gem, and a magical +1 Giantbane (+2 to hit, +2d6 against Giant-class creatures) bastard sword.  Sarai pockets the rest.  Kenlow decides to take the composite longbow - he doesn't yet know how to use it, but hopes that Atheele can train him in its use.

With that taken care of, Sarai and Andune use their lingering Spider Climb spells to go across; Kenlow and Akili take the others safely across.

Akili requests Andune to check for traps before continuing on.  Not spotting any traps, Akili steps north ten feet to peer down the hall.  Meanwhile, Atheele finds and destroys another sensor.

Finding another room around the corner, with statues, Akili moves to the corner of the hall, and takes a closer look at the room.  Between true seeing and detect magic, Akili confirms that the statues are ordinary and nonmagical.

Kenlow eeps into the hallway heading south from the statue pavillion, and determines that what lies that direction is a maze of some description.  Akili is unhappy with that knowledge, but Oyaht volunteers that he can use Wind Walk to solve it, which is an excellent suggestion.  The hall down from that room is also suspiciously dark - it's not magical, though.  Atheele cast Darkvision on Akili - one of the few useful Ranger spells he has - and Akili continues up to the hall entrance, peering down farther.  Andune also sends her owl a further 20 feet down the hall, since it can also see in the dark.

It is curious, however, that the natural glow of the matrite in the rest of the palace is not present in this area.  For that matter, Kenlow has *never* seen forged matrite, such as what this palace is made out of, *not* glow.

Sarai investigates the remains of what are assumed to be smashed previous adventurers within this castle, roughly between the first two pairs of the six statues.  She would guess that they're around a few years old, and at least one of the bodies appears dragonish.  Sarai attempts to discern any remaining magical qualities of them; she can find that they had various magical items, and one used to have an iuon stone, but it's all destroyed and gone by now.

The statues of are various humanoid races; all sculpted to be cowering in fear, and they're all oriented to face north.

Oyaht then casts Wind Walk on Akili, Sarai, Atheele, Andune, and himself.  Andune also notices that the swirls of the wall are curiously shaped such to represent a humanoid Matro-shape, about 30 feet tall.

In full wind form, Akili charges down the hall at full speed (60mph), and makes full use of his various spells.  Andune follows him.

Sarai investigates the carving for magical properties.  She concludes that the carving was made when the matrite was forged... and additionally, since this area has no seams, it seems to have been all forged at the same time.  Continuing to investigate the wall, she thinks she might discern some kind of foreign, volcanic soil in the small gaps in the ground.  She further concludes that it was probably forged on a different world - Slavak, quite possibly.  She collects a small sample of that dirt, and brings it over to Kenlow to try to discern what world it came from.

The soil is confirmed to have come from the frozen ice world, strangely enough.  It would seem that the world probably consisted of boiling water to begin with, which was flash-frozen to cure the forged matrite into its current form.

Oyaht, being the only one that can't see in the dark, takes an unlit torch and casts Light on it, and carries it with him as he follows after the others into the maze.

The party charges into the maze, everyone except Kenlow and Kaira in Wind Walk form, and they attempt to make short work of it.

While going down the corridor, Sarai determines that the soil in this corridor is more like clay, and certainly different from what she spotted earlier - which might explain why this area isn't illuminated.

There's also a bit of discussion about the possible nature of this maze - if magic is involved, it could be very mean.  Perhaps insolvable, with some extreme unluck.

Akili considers for a while, and discusses a bit with Sarai about what magic, and what type of magic is likely to affect it.  Akili realizes that it might be vulunerable to a Disintegrate spell, which Andune has.  They decide to avoid the maze for the moment, and flit back to the room with the one-way trapdoor in the ceiling, in an attempt to break through.

Andune successfully disintegrates about ten feet of matrite, but there's more still there.  Sarai floats up to that area in her wind form, and attempts to use her engineering skill to figure out how the chunk moves... and after some discussion, Sarai instructs Andune on where to cast it again.

[And then the DM realizes his errror.  We now return you to the game.]

..disintegrates ten feet of matrite, and successfully makes a hole in the ceiling into the next room.  The party goes up through that hole.

They emerge into another large room, filled with six much larger pillars.  While they rest remain floating, Kenlow makes sure to land on a spot that is not part of the trap.  Akili commences to check out the room with his various detection abilities.

While the room looks different from everyone else, Akili sees Matro sitting on a throne, 75 feet to the north.  A voice shouts, "Give me the sword and the rift, and you will live."
Someone in the party said, "A rift?"  The voice responds, "You don't have the rift?  Then you are of no use to me!"  Akili eventually realizes the rift Matro is referring to was the portable hole going to Slavak, which Akili gave away some time ago.

The pillar manages to attack Oyaht, and is heavily protected by damage reduction.  Akili sees that four of the pillars have melted into humanoid golem shapes, that are attacking.

Kenlow recognizies the room as being Matro's room is his throne room, and the eep reveals a Matro-shaped form sitting on a throne.

Akili sees Matro throw his sword at him, and critcally suceeds on a difficult will save, but takes a light hit, thanks to being gaseous form.

Atheele reacts first, shouts, "Hey Akili, when you see Matro, let us know where he is!"  But aside from that, he holds his action, as he can't do anything else while in his Wind Walk form.

Oyaht dismisses the Wind Walk spell for everyone, except Sarai, and casts Repulsion around the party for a radius equal to the whole room.  While it affects everyone, Akili, Kenlow, and Kaira make the required will save, and are the only ones in the party that can successfully move towards Oyaht without an additional check while the spell is in force.

Andune fires a lightning bolt at two of the untouched left-side golem statues.

While Kenlow cannot *see* Matro, his ears tell him a Matro-form is there.  Kenlow leaps forward, across the pit, and plants himself on the upper lift pillar.  Two of the golems swat at him as he flees.  One is a critical hit, and the other is a normal blow, but he manages to survive them both.
He channels lightning against one of the other golems, creating a bit of a chain effect.  Kenlow mouths that Matro is up there, and a few of the party notices.

Sarai takes a five-foot step back, and holds her action.

Akili faces Matro, spreads his wings to full length, and bares his teeth, and roars, "HEY MATRO!  COUNTER THIS: *CHAOS *GEYSER*!!!*"

Needless to say, most of the party then notices Matro.

From the ceiling above Matro, beams of rainbow light rain down on him in a solid column, and seems to be affected by one in particular, which electrifies him, and gives him a hefty amount of damage, but he shouts, "YOU FOOLS!  MORTAL MAGIC CANNOT DESTROY ME!"

Akili takes some personal damage, but survives in better shape than he expected... unfortunately, he's also tapped out of most of his magic, and Matro is not as disabled as he was hoping.  Slightly more fortunately, no one in his party is stunned by the blinding light of the effect.

Kaira, in bear form, charges up to Matro.  If anyone understood Bear, they'd hear a lot of swearing while she swings at him.  The party then notices that one of Matro's arms is shriveled, and that's where Kaira struck him, drawing a bit of blood.

Atheele fires off more arrows, injuring more of the golems.

Matro, now entering the battle, swings rapidly at Kaira, scoring three telling hits.  Kaira is left barely alive, and Oyaht realizes that she's down to one hit point.

Andune fires another bolt of lightning at the two golems nearest to her that she'd struck earlier, but this time it doesn't seem to do any harm.

Oyaht casts Enlarge on Kenlow, making him far larger and more dangerous - including increasing the size and damage to the Godslayer, as there's nothing he can do for Kaira - she's too far away.

Kenlow charges at Matro over the bear, with the Godslayer drawn and readied.  The fate of the Worlds hangs in the balance....

HE HITS!

Matro screams in pain as he's hit right in the side, and that part of his body withers slightly.

Sarai, still in gaseous form, glides closer.

The pillars/golems swing at Oyaht; one hits him, but his damage reduction ring bleeds that all away to 0.  Andune is hit a little by a second, and a third hits Atheele.  Now a new one activates, and roughs up Sarai.

Akili repositions himself, and blasts four golems with Prismatic Spray out of his Rod of Chaos.  Two disappear, one is petrified, and the other takes heavy electrical damage.

Atheele attacks the pillar in front of him again, with his quite useful Mace of Ruin.

Matro attempts to move towards Oyaht, and is held back by Oyaht's Repulsion field, a fact that heartens the party considerably.  Instead, he swings at Kenlow, and hits all four times.  A grand total of 125 damage.  Kenlow takes fatal damage, and collapses, lying motionless.  The party is panicked by this, but most of them are still embroiled in trying to free themselves from the distractions of the golems to focus on Matro.  

Andune is not distracted, and casts Disintegrate against Matro.  She aims correctly, and fires, but he manages to resist the true disintegration portion, and instead just takes some damage.

Also not distracted is Oyaht; he throws a Flame Strike at Matro, and he takes another hefty blow, but is still very much alive.

Dodging the pillar she was next to, Sarai flies opposite the room to be away from any pillars, gives Oyaht a signal to dismiss the Wild Walk spell, and fires her Delayed Fireblast at Matro.

The pillar closest to Akili swings back, and does a bit more damage.

All but one remaining pillar activate, but are kept at bay by the Repulsion spell.

Akili swipes at the closest golem with his blade, but as the golems are still made out of Matrite - which he hadn't realized - the blade refracts as it always had, and he doesn't do any damage whatsoever.  In fact, he narrowly avoids, once again, being struck by his own deflected blade.  He snarls in irritation, not having noticed that Kenlow has fallen.

Atheele works on the golem he'd been facing, striking twice more with his mace.  It hits, but it's still standing.

Sarai attempts to dodge a lightning bolt, and largely fails, but her elemental resistance ring negates any remaining effects.

Andune tries once more to disintegrate Matro, and he once again resists the effects.

Oyaht casts her Summon Monster spell, calling forth three Hound Archons to hassle Matro.

Sarai holds her action, and then the pillars get another opportunity to strike, tagging Akili and Atheele.

One of the pillars moves over and bumps Kenlow over to Matro.  Sarai unholds her action, casts Tillian's Twist to take the Godslayer ring off of Kenlow's finger and over to her.

It lands right next to the lizard girl.

Akili flies over the pillar, getting hit a little bit, lands near Sarai, and chucks all four of his seeds of growing at Matro.  Three peg him, and immediately start sprouting, serving as a reasonable distraction - and wishes he'd known that he'd have another shot at Matro with his Chaos Magic while he was more vulunerable.  Unfortunately, his limited Clerical skills are of no use, and Kenlow's fallen form is too close to Matro in any event.

Atheele swings his mace once more, and finally destroys one of the golems, crushing it into rubble.

Matro then starts striking at the Hound Archons, and drops two of them.

Andune tosses another lightning bolt at Matro, and also hits and slows a pillar.

Oyaht goes up to Matro, and starts striking Matro with his fists, for a total of 42 damage.

Sarai picks up the ring, and puts it in one of her pouches, then pulls out her portable ballista.

One of the pillars moves over to Andune, now that Oyhat has moved away, and moderately tags Andune.  A second one starts beating on the last Archon, felling it.

Akili pulls out his wand, and polymorphs it into an ungainly shape such that it topples into the pit in the floor, berating himself for not having through of it sooner.

Atheele pulls out his holy bow, and fires four arrows at Matro.  In total, he deals enough damage to drop anyone in the party, had he hit any of them.  Just shy of 150, in fact.

Matro looks to be in extreme pain, and gives Atheele a look that implies Atheele would be squished if he could do so.  However, as he can't, he takes out his aggression on Oyaht, and others notice that his muscles are bulging even more than they were.

Oyhat gets decked, once, twice, a third time... and Oyaht falls.  With Oyaht's fall, the Repulsion spell also falls.

Andune fires a lightning bolt straight at Matro, which he fails to dodge this time.

MATRO FALLS!

Sarai put on the ring, and started stabbing Matro repeatedly with the Godslayer, and each time he shriveled up a little more.  The bone-armor he had kept disintegrating, until all of it has disintegrated, his hair falls off, and becomes a shriveled prune, about the size of a baseball.  She repeats it several times, and it shrinks down to about a raisin... and on the last stab, it vanishes.

Sarai pulls out her stone, and it's now pure white... as is the Salervan stone.  She pulls the last finger of Matro she kept in her bag of holding, and the matro-stone immediately turns red.  She stabs the finger until it's a small prune, and then disappears.  Both stones then turn pure white.

Akili immediately goes up and heals Oyaht, as the pillars have unfrozen, and then Oyaht goes around and begins healing everyone else to the best of his ability.

Once that's done, Oyaht performs the ritual to resurrect Kenlow.

-While Kenlow's dead, his spirit wanders over to Eyenor's area, and says, "You see that over there?  You see that?  *That's why you wait for your friends!*"-

Akili checks out the blade, and doesn't think it's evil, but it's pretty mean, and sized for a huge creature.

Sarai starts going through her bag of holding, and empties out various elements of Salervan-based materials, and destroys them in turn as the stones shift from pure white.

When Kenlow is resurrected, the stones have a green tinge to them.

Kelow gets up, and says, "Whoo... what'd I miss?"

The party looks at the stones... and then at Kenlow.

Sarai concludes that Kenlow was probably made a bit out of Matro, like Salervan clearly was... hopefully not enough to facilitate Matro's resurrection.

Sarai finally pulls out the Carbonite-encased Salervan, and Atheele starts beating on it with his Mace of Ruin.  Sarai promptly stabs the fallen-out body with the Godslayer until it shrivels and vanishes.

While the party is busy, Akili contacts Eldar, and lets him know of what they've accomplished.

Atheele pockets Matro's sword.

A secret passage is discovered, but before they can start exploring, Eldar appears.

"You know, I'd rather have that sword destroyed," he says.  "There's a tool here to destroy it," gesturing to the Mace of Ruin.

Sarai takes the ring off, and sets it on the seat of the throne, where it is crushed with the Mace.  It shatters into a bunch of sparkles, then fades away.

The Godslayer is laid across the armrest of the throne.  Sarai hides behind the back seat, and Atheele... Eldar interrupts.

"It's probably not a good idea to do that... there's a lot of power in that blade."

Sarai suggests, "So why don't you do it?"  Eldar nods solemly.  "That's a good idea.  All of you... go behind that pillar over there."

The promptly oblige, but Sarai warns him to be careful, because of what from the blade is in.  Eldar nods.  "I know."

Eldar hefts the mace, warns, "Alright, everyone cover your ears," and lets it fall on the naked blade....

Thanks to Andune, they all hear the sound of birds chirping, but there is a large flash, and a shockwave ripples through the room.

The party looks back - the throne is gone, along with the sword, the mace, and Eldar.  There is a black spot there, and there is a small pinprick, that's expanding slightly as the party watches.

It grows fairly rapidly.  It seems to be a sphere of annihilation, and Akili's spellcraft confirms that.

Akili calls Eldar again, while Sarai ivestigates the small study that consists of a few books in a foreign language, other random bits of equipment, and a map that seems to indicate various roots or powerlines that all led to the throne... that's gone now.

Sarai pockets everything else she found... and Eldar does not respond, which is a first.  The sphere is now 20 feet in size.

Oyaht is contacted by Eryn, who says, "You have gone far beyond your original task, and have been successful, but it seems we have another problem.  Head back towards Annor.  I'm attempting... there's a lot of other stuff I'm working on - I think you can handle it.  Here, have this."

Eryn grants Oyaht a full compliment of spells.  Oyaht is now an Avatar of Eryn.  "I empower you to make decisions on my behalf."

"Well, I'm not sure what this entails, and I'm not sure the extra responsibilities are worth the raise, but... okay."  The party only hears Oyaht's side of the conversation.

Sarai and Atheele empty the study of items.  Sarai is understandably grumpy about the imminent destruction of Matro's castle, that she intended to take over, but she joins hands also.

Everyone holds hands, and Oyaht links them back to Annor with the Plane Shift spell; her intended destination is her home in Teluron, in the Kalandic States.

The spell, however, takes her to the mountains.  To the Northeast is ocean; the mountains run East and West; to the Southwest is a castle, but she's not sure if that's her place.  She's off by a lot.  Akili guesses he's way off to the West of the Tower of the Mages, which is functionally his home.

But... Akili is having a weird experience.  Bits and pieces of his past are starting to return to him, although still too little to make much sense, and he decides to instead follow Sarai to the Tower of the Watchers; maybe they can help him... and perhaps Sarai can as well, once she recovers from the loss of all of that matrite.

The game is paused here; this is the last tabletop session for The Aftermath.  The Epilogue will be done on ["RussellMUCK"].
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CategoryCrystalQuestAftermath