SESSION 33 November 4th 216B After his vision Alex is unable to sleep. He sits up most of the night using his powers to shape metal using only his mind. Using some of the party's extra goods as base matter he shapes a mithril chain shirt, a longsword of Heironius, a Weejasian dagger, and a platinum laced dagger for Jaenelle. He deliberately keeps Jaenelle's dagger plain, but the other items are all breathtaking. The chain is a artwork of a solar eclipse (A theme Korvath views suspiciously). The sun and the moon are both mirror-like with the sun having ridges alternating in silver and gold at different angles to bring out sparkles in the light. The moon is beautifully rendered in platinum with slight artistic alterations to the face visible on its surface. Alex also out-does himself on the religious themed weapons. The sword of Heironius is masterwork sword in the shape of a lighning bolt. The Weejasian dagger is also masterwork and perhaps more dramatic with its open skull pommel and blade that appears to be made out of flames rising from the skull. While Alex recovers from his night of crafting Jaenelle begins brokering upgrades on equipment. She contacts a retired priest of Pelor in Radcliff and convinces him to work on the mithril set of chain Alex had made. The party then decides to investigate the source of Alex's night vision by teleporting there ready for action. Upon arriving, the group is beset by large psionic fiends dressed in ritualistic Thulish battle armor. The fiends claim to be the Septarch's personal guard charged to kill any whom come to the portal. Behind the fiends is a white portal with colorless light emitting from it. Herunaro seals the portal with ice and the party defend themselves from the living war machines. The fiends are covered in inch thick plates of steel and they manage to take down Murgen, Swiftwind, and Korvath. Alex is barely able to wound them, but with him and Herunaro attacking physically and magically and Jaenelle mentally assaulting the group is able to take down both "Oni" guardsmen. The group is incredibly low on resources at that point and magic and psionics seem oddly dysfunctional in the area so the party returns home to rest for a day. November 5th 216B The next day the party questions a captured Oni and carefully research the Oni's equipment. One of the swords is an ancient heirloom and the other is quite new. The old weapon was passed down to a demon over generations, between each use a human gave his life willingly to the blade. The younger demon turned out to have a human mind. He knew much about the Septarch and why they had come to the portal, but much was still left unanswered. The Septarch had powerful allies whom provided him with a huge undead beast to ride with his Oni warriors. (Only half of whom survived the journey, their form being vulnerable to corruption from the demon taint that powered the forms.) The Septarch seemed to be striving to prevent an invasion from Burgandry that would shake the very continent of "Sula". The group decided to enter the light passage and see whom else might be trying to affect Psionics. The portal opens on a shaft a couple hundred feet deep. Luckily everyone was already flying. Drifting down the shaft the group notices odd temporial effects. Some areas seem to have time pass at different rates and spells fade more slowly than others. At the bottom is a huge room with six stone doors, one slightly ajar. Six metal plates are along the northern wall, two are glowing (wings, and three straight lines.) Alex precedes to paint one with his picture using light and a tarry residue. It is not among his best works. ("I am a sculptor, not a painter".) There are signs that the floor is like amber and some colossal creature or slug is trapped within. Alex jokes that if he had known that psionics came from a gigantic brain slug he would have never bother learning them. The party decides to take the ajar door first. They find pieces of shattered crystals, and a corpse of an emaciated elf-like creature that missing a brain. The elf had a bizarre set of calluses. The party noisily disables the doors as they open them. (Otherwise they self seal.) Deep within the third room they encounter another group. The group consists of Ellen of the Wands, two heavily robed companions, and a ogre-golem creature. The party and Ellen make an agreement to go explore the other passages together and to have nothing to do with this silly "only one person must live" stuff. Swiftwind notices something and after a second Jaenelle telepathically notifies the party that the robed figures are mindflayers. The party pretend not to notice but Murgen and Jaenelle follow the illithids invisibly and flying. There are 4 lights glowing when the group gets back. A new symbol has appeared on the wall. Swiftwind makes a guess that the symbols are associated with the doors. The party checks out a lit hallway and find several strange corpses. A abomination of the forsworn (smaller and different, as if made of clones of a single man), a creature with oversized fists that was covered with spikes and spines, and a huge chitinous monstrosity with a swollen brain that Alex identifies as a psionic demon. There is also a floor trap that shoots spears. The group has the golem trod back and forth to disarm the trap since the spears do not hurt it. The passageway and room beyond seem empty. The party and Ellen decide to try an un-lit doorway so that when the group meets Telemundry they will be in a slightly better bargaining position. The hall they chose is only 30 feet long and has 3 alcoves. The floor itself is pit trapped. The party comments on this and using fly spells they begin searching the walls and urns for a way out. Swiftwind finds that one of the walls is meant to slide up into the ceiling and attempts to lift. Upon opening the door a psionic demon steps forward dripping brain fluid and compels every one in the hallway to attack the closest person using their most effective attacks. Several party members fail their saves but are saved by circles of protection guarding the party. Korvath and Swiftwind engage the demon in melee combat. The illithids seem to fail but instead of turning on Ellen or one another they blast the party from behind as the group is engaged with the cebralith demon. In a matter of seconds the party is slammed with a whitefire, a greater bio-current and two mindblasts. To make matters worse the group loses several of their high level buff spells leaving them unarmored for the battle. Herunaro is taken down in a furious pounding from the golem and then gets charred by the volley of spells. Swiftwind (now unarmored) pulls Herunaro away from the Golumn to pour a healing potion in his mouth, but it is too late for his friend. Before Swiftwind can get revenge for his friend he gets caught in a mindblast dropping him from the combat. Jaenelle attempts to take control of Ellen and fails because Ellen isn't susceptible to charms. She then unleashes Murgen on the 'flayers from behind, but Murgen catches a mind blast full in his face and goes down for the count. Alex urges the party to form up for a dance of ruin but Korvath seems infuriated by Herunaro's death. Korvath breaks from his battle with the demon to cover Ellen and her crew with a divine column of fire. Both illithids go down in the flames but Ellen and her creation are not affected. Korvath then falls as the demon hits him with a mindblast from behind. Ellen concentrates on maintaining her lightning cloud on the remaining party members and her golem charges after Herunaro's but falls into the pit trap turning the tide of battle. Alex is without armor but sees his chance to swing the battle and engages Ellen in melee combat savaging her brutally. A few seconds later only Alex and Jaenelle are standing Sensing the battle is over, the demon withdraws into his room and warns the party not to enter for there is nothing of interest to them. The party doesn't believe him but they are in no shape to challenge the creature. The party slowly begin to stir from their dazes. Herunaro is placed in the bag of holding for safe keeping. While the party is still recovering they meet a battle force of 4 Oni warriors and the huge undead steed that Telmundry is supposedly riding in arrive in the main room cutting off retreat. The party seeks to parley and finding Telmundry reasonable they ask his cause. Telmundry is attempting to prevent invasion from the south by the armies of Burgandry, he is also oath bound to fix some issues with the way Magic and Psionics interact as a favor to someone powerful. Alex prays to Weejas and gains some benefit of her wisdom, but she seems to have trouble understanding and responds slowly as if events are passing at an incredible speed. (The party later learns that time was stopped outside while they were in the big room.) The group figures out that Telmundry and they are both working for Weejas. Weejas gives up on her hopes for getting the creation domain but asks for help changing how magic works. She states that if magic and psionics are made one she would like a chance to fix some issues with magic. Namely there is a demonic corruption of certain spells that she would like to purge. Her explanation is that the compiled version of the spell changes read magic to draw upon infernal sources so that devils gain more power and are more resistant to magic. Changing read magic and invalidating the old copies should help. She will do what she can, but the group need to make sure she is given a window of opportunity to make her changes and wipe out memorized versions of the spell. She believes this should be possible. The party comes to a set of resolutions that they thing should meet Telmundry's goals and yet leave psionics working. The party comes to agreement. Telmundry, Alex, and Jaenelle agree that the resolutions are reasonable. Nothing happens when they achieve consensus. Jaenelle attempts to plead their case to the slug creature trapped beneath the amber. Upon getting no response she mentally suggests that the creature pay attention to the people up here and pleads the case again much more eloquently. There is a moment pause and then the world seems to take a breath. All at once things become chaotic. The groups light spells go out. Everyone crashes through the floor as the stasis spell on the Neolithid champion ends and the glass floor breaks beneath them. Magic spells and items stop working. Murgen attempts to teleport and finds that he can't. Alex realizes that even if he teleported he couldn't get out since the entry way was a 100 foot shaft straight up into another plane. The party hears the shattering of bones and the wail of several demons freed from centuries of bondage. Sounds of thrashing come from around Telmundry's lair. Droplets of acid from somewhere above and the sounds of smashing and screaming echo oddly through the massive room. Jaenelle reports that for the moment the gigantic worm/slug/tentacled abomination seems to be finishing off the Oni above. The creature is a super evolved Neolithid, (a hyper advanced mindflayer as close to godhood as mindflayers can normally get). Sensing immanent doom the party casts about and Alex gets a message from his connection with Weejas the message is short as if she is under incredible strain. "Would shifting help?" Alex says yes but nothing happens and then Korvath remembers that he still has a plane shift available. Or would have if he could remember any spells. Praying for his god to hear him he pulls out a tuning fork and rings it calling for a shift to Ellesium. A second later the party is in rolling chaos. Drowning as roiling water assault them from all sides. Crashing rocks, rolling fire, and air pockets are mixed with water in a chaotic maelstrom. Korvath starts swimming for the closest air pocket. Alex manages to get a second of stability and telepathically transmits. "You must concentrate, if this is true chaos, it can be shaped to your will." Fire and water rage around the group but they are able to gather on a large rocks and keep a small bubble of air around them protecting them from water and fire. Items and spells seem to be working again so the party attempts to teleports to a location of "A gateway leading to another plane". They succeed in arriving at a zone of some calm and a mysterious arch of some ancient metal containing a rift into another plane. The gateway gives them some respite as the storm seems less in its immediate environment. It seems that the group somehow went to Pandemonium or Limbo instead of Ellesium. Korvath says he could swear that he used the same fork the last time he traveled and he is sure he visited Ellesium. Jaenelle runs some detection spells over the gateway and gets imagery of a race of viscous figures erecting the gateway amidst chaos under the thrall of a ominous figure. The party begin to suspect that the gateway might lead somewhere even less savory then where they currently are. Investigation reveals that there is about a 100 foot safe zone around the gateway and that only one side opens into another realm. The group sneak behind the gateway and spend the night resting uneasily on the other side of a gate to hell. Once during the night the group wake to hear an unknown language casting an unknown spell. Fortunately nothing bad happens and whatever it was moves away from the group. November 9th 216B (planar time differences) After several hours of uneasy rest the group decide to go home. Everyone is made flying and Korvath shifts them to the prime material. This shift is quite a bit calmer and the group find themselves in a vast wasteland. The party teleports back to the school to see that havoc has been wrecked there as well. Doors have been ripped off their hinges and bodies lay in heaps through what was originally the blue tribe's camp. Corpses of several devils spot the landscape, but hundreds of tribesmen also lay dead. Some of the survivors from the school tell you that spells stopped working for a minutes and during that time there was a great battle between the blue dragon and the devils from the blue tribe. The devils drove off the blue dragon and routed the tribesmen. Several devils also attacked the school. There were some casualties at the school but spells began working and the defenders were able encourage the devils to leave in search of easy prey. There were tales of a larger and more ominous figure directing the slaughter in the blue camp. The party rest for the night and wonder on what chaos happened elsewhere in the world. SESSION END evening of November 9th 216 NEXT TIME : Back to Gulthias's tower EXPERIENCE TOTALS (Session 33) ----------------- Korvath Alex Herunaro Swiftwind Jaenelle Murgen 66000* 69030 59375 68343* 68118* 32052 * - level was gained DEATHS ------ Herunaro - kissed by whitefire. NOTES ----- PSIONIC CHANGES * magic & psionics fully effect each other * psychic warriors cease having psionic abilities * Psionics have a fixed dc of 10 for a tentative basis dismissable by consensus one month hence if it does not seem to work. * psionic attacks count as powers of given levels - must have ability to cast spells of those levels, so no 3rd level psions or creatures with mindblast. * Creatures with psionic powers shall be fully psionic and not have limitless reserves of power. * Weejas will be given a chance to briefly patch magic when psionic i changes are being made.