Febuary 1st 217B The party arrives in Wall to a scene of wreckage and chaos. Villagers are milling around the ruins of the village church. A huge draconic tail protrudes from the wreckage or the building. Villagers gawk at the chaos in the square but no one from the village has braved the ruins to see if there were any survivors. From within the collapsed building come the sound of muffled sobs. Upon the party's arrival the villagers are notacably relieved to have someone with authority around. A villager immediately runs up to Herunaro and begs him, "Please sir Elf, the priestess is still in there. Could you please save her from the wreckage?" Heronaro flies into the wreckage to take a look around. Within the building he finds Korvath sitting on what remains of the second floor. Most of the second floor is on the first floor dragged down by the remains of one very dead dragon. The villager poked his head in after Heronaro? 'Is the dragon dead?". Heronaro kicks the dragon in way of rely. "Yep. Its as dead as that priestess of yours I reckon. If she was in here we will need a bucket to put her in." Shocked the villager cries, "Oh my god the priestess is dead!" Other villagers crowded the entrance to see what the brave villager was talking about. Undetered Heronaro plows on. "What I want to know is if she is in hell right now. Since I know for a fact that her god is dead, Does she go on to an empty heaven, or does she just sink down to hell since there are still plenty of powerful demons available to process mortal souls." Villagers began looking distraught and at least on child began crying. Thinking quickly the Findula the lilend interupts, "Townsfolk should leave the area, now that the dragon is dead it will start emitting poisonous chemicals. You should stand well back from the church. Everything is under control." Startled the villagers look about and see a half woman and half snake. Noticing her for the first time the townsfolk panic "A demon", "a naga", "A snake lady has come to steal our infants.", "Run away!". In moments the square clears. FIndula sighs audibly. While the square is clear Herunaro erects a wall of ice around the building to keep away any further onlookers. Korvath then speaks for the first time. "Why did you kick her?" "What?" Asks Herunaro. "Why did you kick the dragon? She was my friend" "Oh, I had to to reassure the townsfolk, they would have stormed the church if I hadn't reassured them that everything was under control." Findula the lilend stares in disbelief. "You call telling them that their priestess is dead and that their god is ash re-assurance? I thought Elves had better social graces than that!" Herunaro shrugs. "They are just humans, it isn't like they matter. They will be dead in a couple of decades without gods to guide them." Korvath speaks up again. "Why are you here?" Heronaro floats up to look Korvath in the eyes "Actually a better question is why are you here, snd who is the dragon?" In the wreckage of the church the group gets the whole story. Korvath has several periods he can't recall clearly but he does recall a pit fiend bashing in the door of Miska's house where Korvath was having dinner. When the door caved in Felicia (Korvath's girlfriend) was turned into a dragon and frog like demons poured into the room while Korvath and Miska were magically held. Felicia stepped infront of her friends and attempted to stop the demons from killing the hopeless priests. The pit fiend bit Findula and entandled her arms so the other demons could run past. Korvath recalls a sharp pain and then nothing until he appeared here in Wall. Korvath feels he needs to get back to help Miska. Herunaro, bored shrugs grabs Korvath and teleports. Startled Korvath shakes of his arm and Herunaro finds himself next to a large fire where the house use to be. People are struggling to put out the blaze with buckets and a few globes of animated water. Floating above the wreckage Heronaro is spotted by one of the mages directing a magical globe of water. "You there with the pointy ears, get out of the way." Herunaro turns to the wizard and says conversationally, "I suggest you get your people away from the fire. In six seconds I will estinguish the blaze and anyone in the building will be killed by the magics involved." Herunaro then begins casting and the mage franticly calls the firefighters out of the ruins. A few seconds later an icy spray covers the building and the fire begins to dim and wink out. Heronaro casts another spell and even more sleet sprays forth from his hands leaving only a couple of lesser fires. The mage below turns wide eyed and looks up at the elf. "Thank you sir elf. What is your name?" Herunaro considers a moment and states "You may call me Herunaro." Below one of the mages laughs out loud and the other spellcasters look on puzzled. Herunaro then loudly and carefully casts improved teleport making sure everyone below whom knows magic has time to realize that he is not casting any old teleport, but is casting the teleport spell only one in a thousand mages ever manages to master. Seconds after the display the mages look askence at the laughing mage whom has to explain to his collegues that Herunaro mean "Lord of Fire" in ancient elvish. Appearing back at the church Heronaro notes, "I commited a good act today". The others look askance at him and Findula points out that most people do not refer to it as having "committed" a good act. Saying committed makes it sound like he expects to be punished for it. The party talks some more and it is decided that since Korvath is rather incoherent right now the group will rest a few hours and then see if they can raise the dragon and get a better explaination out of her. Korvath helps the Lilend regrow her wings and Findula takes leave of the party. Febuary 2nd 217B The next moring the group go to Radcliff and investigate the blaze. There is a guardman present but when the guard gets push Theringil casts hold person and Heronaro then flies the guardsman up onto a nearby tower roof where he will not be bothering anyone for a while. Korvath leads the group to where his secret compartment is concealed, but someone else has already looted it. Meanwhile downstairs swiftwind notices that the floor has a hollow space underneath. A few moments later the party has unearthed Miska's treasures. There is a Papal robe, a couple of small gems, and a huge topaz. Since the gem is large enough to be used to raise the dragon the party returns to Wall and makes arrangements to bring the dragon (and the priestess) back from the dead. Heronaro fronts money for a second Gem under the condition that the dragon better pay the group back for raising the crushed priestess. Still the droup raises the dragon first incase the dragon is not willing to pay. The dragon comes back and immediately Korvath and her get into an arguement. it turns out she had been hiding her draconic form from him and he feels betrayed. The party ribs him some and Theringil actually points out that Korvath should be flattered that so timeless a creature can take an interest in him. Felicia (the dragon) reveals that Miska felt that Korvath's bloodline was essential to preserve, but Miska was very secretive since revealing the future can change peoples reactions and turn the tide of events on which the visions are based. The party get more details of the battle out of her. The attackers were a Pit Fiend leading a group of fish-like demon spawn. The pitfiend held the priests and the fish-headed demons pretty much dogpiled Korvath. Korvath appeared to die during the battle but after Miska used miricle and word of recall to get Felicia to safety it appears that Misha somehow switched places with Korvath right when he was killed to fool the attackers. Divination spells used to find Miska's fate fail to return any information. Felicia pays to raise the priestess since her death is indirectly her fault. The party also decide to do aa legend lore on Korvath to find out more about his bloodline. It turns out that he is the direct decendant of a god and that he had a twin. A little more research revealse that Korvath is either granting his own prayers or at least borrowing power through his bloodline. The party decide to track down Korvath's twin. Records of his adoption have largely been shipped away with Wayland's dissapearence. Wayland apparently kept all his books in code. The original caretaker Kitara had died from old age. This leaves very little in the way of knowledgeable people and records. Still via speaking to townsfolk the party discover that Mrs Grady recalled somethign about a elvin girl and human boy being turned over to the temple in town. The girl seems to be Essandri so the group heads to Ossingtown to find Essandri. Ossington is deserted. Very subtle signs of a large fight. No signs of blood. After searching an hour Swiftwind finds a were-cat head on top of a monalyth partually hidden under cover of a tree. No other bodies are found but occasional small traces of blood are found. There are signs of flying enemies as well as large claw tracks. Korvath fails to contact the dead cat using speak with dead. Swiftwind and Heronaro find a large swarm of crows in distance. Closer investigation reveals horse hill is now a writhing mass off crows. Felicia changes to dragon form and frightens off the crows so the party can look closer. It appears that the bodies were chopped up and used to line the dragon form that originally was traced upon horse hill bringing out some details that were all but gone under the ravenges of time. Felicia is given the go ahead to incinerate the remains. Afterwards the party realizes they should have spoken with the dead. They decide to come back the next day and resurect Mel or Essandri using the pile of dust. Find the path reveals that Essandri is on the 88th level of the Abyss. Theringil recalls that one of the most feared Demon lords resides upon that plane. Sending to Essandri gets back a message that she is in danger but there are only a couple guards present currently. Suspicious the party tell her they will come the next day and instead decide to speak with Mel. Febuary 3rd 217B Before casting resurrection the party casts find the path on Mel's body to verify that he is in the pile of ashes they have gathered. THe spell actually revealse that he is spread across several acres of the Beastlands. Given a lack of other options and no real information the party brings back the were-cat for which they found an intact head. The were-cat is cooperative but recalls nothing of the village's destruction. (Due to the creatures death those moments are lost) The party remembers Jaenelle having some very good questioning abilities including the ability to occasionally find lost memories so they attempt to contact her. Jaenelle is in the Library of Lore with Jaas and Alex. The group seeks permission to enter the library and permission is granted by Jaas. They go to visit on the next day. Febuary 4th 217B While speaking with Jaenelle the group hears a story about how she and Alex were inflicted by a disease that was uncurable under normal magics. Jaas decided to bring them to her home to investigate but the disease was a cleverly disquised divine attack aimed at her and Constatine. Jaas had foreseen this and turned the spell's attack and forced the spells creator to appear or lose all the power he/she had invested in the spell. Constatine appeared but was not attacked by the now contained spell. Actually this was a clone of Constatine whom recently killed the original Constatine after hitting him with a spell that disabled his powers. Jaenelle, Murgan, Alex, and some others of Jaas's inner circle helped contain the trickster while Jaas dealt with him. Jaas and company had him pretty badly beaten up and Jaas had managed to use a varient on his disease to strip his powers but then without warning Jaas was also brought powerless when something happened elsewhere in the universe. As the containment group shifted to protect Jaas, Constatine became impssible to see using no magic at all. The group had already blocked exits from the section of the library and were allowing nothing to enter or exit. (This chaos caused by all the panicing mages and clerics made this less effective but the sentries held their posts having expected something like this to happen in a divine battle.) After combing the room for hours it was decided that Constatine must have slipped out of the room somehow but he was still in the party of the library which had been contained. For two days Constitine evaded the search net (Once by pretending to be a shadow of a person in a search party.) Jaas, being in her demense of power, then had recovered enough to direct the search to Constatine. He was spotted and wounded several times but before he could finally be brought down a supersonic sphere of annilation smashed into the library destroying several walls and Alex's left arm. (There were also a number of mages and irreplacable books caught in the disaster) With several new entrances and exits for the library Consttine was able to escape but he was still badly wounded, without powers, and needing divine intervention to restore his powers.) Jaenelle needs to have the Lady's help in scanning the memories of the cat lost during death since she is not able to do that herself. She goes off to do that and Alex drops by for a while. He is even more self centered than before due to the amount of hype which he has been surrounded with. Still he is friendly and entertains the group while research is going on. He reveals that Jaenelle and him are virtual prisoners being powerless outside the fortress. When Constatine infected them with disease it pretty much crushed their ability to regenerate power normally, but here they had people able to help them and the lady could still alter reality to a lesser degree to allow them to regenerate power albiet slowly for now. While talking Alex casually mentions the apparatus he built for the group and Berrik goes balistic when he learns that it was a fake and specificly designed to be impossible to use properly as a dwarf. (Controls to far apart, seat too low, etc) Alex doesn't mind staying in the library since he is pretty disgusted with the current changes to magic. He feels the best spells all lost their coolness and he prefers to focus on creating items now that he has the resources at his disposal. Finally the cat is fully restored. Jaenelle reports that it saw 3 huge boar headed apes flying around on imp sized wings. The flying demons picked off anyone attempting to fly away. Meanwhile the fish-headed demons from the other battle were walking around and people dropped in swarms whenever they passed without any blows being exchanged. The last of the enemies was a dark towering aura of evil. He lashed out with a sword once and severed the cat-womans head revealing himself to be a Balor. The battle was a slaughter, but very little blood was spilled. There was no warning. The circles of dying people appeared to be caused by demonic Blasphemy powers which the party had seen before. Only the most powerful of defenders could survive a blasphemy and they were the ones cleaned up by the Pit fiend and Nafreshnee demons. Jaenelle also passed on that someone was corrupting the divination network with a lot of bad information so the group should be careful asking for divinations, also Jaas wanted the group to know that for all purposes and intents Korvath appeared to be dead up until today. Lastly Jaas had passed on that something had been tracking the group. Whatever had been tracking them had currently returned to Ossington and was followed by something else at a distance. The group feels that the safest thing to confound their enemies is to sequestor Korvath so that he can not be detected magially. Rooting through their bag of looted things they pull out some books from the Iron fortress and offer them as payment for a Sequestor. Immediately they find an interested mage. Looking over the book the mage liked before giving it away they first realize that it is not in any known tongues, furthermore the title of the book is "Hasture, Yahwa, Nyogtha and the Unspeakable Deed." It details the time before the Overgod (named Yahwa in the book). Finding the book too interesting to pass on they offer a couple of other interesting books in its place and eventually come to a new agreement with the mage but it takes several other occultist books. The mage casts Sequester for the group and they place Korvath in a bag of holding before going off to a more private hallway to peruse the book of interest. The most interesting book in the bag appears to be the original book so they concintrate on it first. When reading the book aloud a passing apprentice nearby screams and falls to the floor pluging his ears and writhing madly. Felicia also felt a mental attack on her and politely requests that nothing else be read directly from the book. In low tones the others scan the book. The book is non magical and people with mind blank appear unaffected by the insanity effect. The book tells of time before the advesary and before the highgod. It is VERY blasphemous and when they party notices odd behavior on behalf of the library staff the group decide to leave in fast order rather then get any more attention. After returning to Radcliff on the prime material the group looks at other other books and find the Advesary's bible. some technical books, and a diary of some minion at the Iron fortress. The following items are excerpted from the various interesting texts. SESSION END Morning of Febuary 5th 217B Herunaro Swiftwind Berrek Quelental Therongil Korvath 138349 138133 135513 138133 138090 139651 Song of the night : "Hastur, Hastur, Hastur He's driving you insane Hastur, Hastur, Hastur He's eating up your brain." Hasture, Yahwa, Nyogtha and the Unspeakable Deed: In the beginning there was but one continuum before it was broken by the ritual. The host and the hunt could travel from one end of the universe to the other without leaving the single plane that was creation. The betrayal was that Yahwa and others sided with the Hunted to split the continuum into many parts. Many of the Hunt were caught by suprize scattered across many small fragments when the Continuum was divided. The Ritual only allowed Yahwa and the Hunted travel between the fragments and they used this to turn the Hunt upon the Hunters. The Hunters were now hunted and they took refuge in the dark recesses upon which the Ritual could not impose order. The Hunters were exiled to the place where dreamers go, but deep within the dreaming far away from the parts mortals visit. Sometimes in dreamin a mortal may find an eldar and the knowledge they bestow is horrible for the sin against the Continuum is great.
The Elders tries retaking fragements, and with determined effort a hunter could break into a fragment from the dreaming. But the fragments were places of very different nature where new rules and powers existed. Even when the Eldar was not repulsed by the traitor or his allies they found the fragment was forever cut off from others Just by the Elder being there the fragment would be seperated from the others and eventually merge with the dreaming but be forever cut off from the rest of the Continuon. <snip 10 thousand years of history> The decendants of the Hunted whom are now called titans fell out with the one called Yahwa. With the falling out between the forces cama rift sufficient for Nyogtha to push through. The titans had worked with Yahwa long enough to know how to deal with the elders. The titans hobbled Nyogtha so that he could not let others in But they also made a pact so that had little incentive to do so. They offered Nyogtha freedom to hunt Yahwa with his powers unrestrained. <snip thousands of year of war and beginning of conventional history. Angels creation and fall. Gods created from man to help Yahwa against the advesary. Titans were supplanted and imprisoned for opposing Yahwa. Nyogtha was weakened sorely by his pact and Yahwa exploited the weakness by putting other powers in his place and moving his essence to where Nyogtha could not follow. From beyond space and time Yahwa was able to contain the advesary. Several of the titans recieved special treatment in the chapters here-in.> The mortal gods seeing Yahwa outside space and time and the advesary mostly defeated took advantage of the situation. Using Yahwa's own essence they blocked his re-entry to the planes he had helped create. Without any elders the children of the Hunted became soft and forgot much of what was before. The gods remade history to eliminate the elders form it and soon it was as if they had never existed. <snip - a lot of philosophy and discussion of meta-religious principles> With the passing of Yahwa and the imprisonment of the creators of the ban some Elders have been able to slip through the boundries made by the ritual. The first was introduced by accident by the gods themselves but being newer than the ritual was not contained by it nor the gods. This Eldar raised a few others to make a point and soon the gods and it made an agreement that they would leave it alone and it would not further disrupt the continuom. <List of elders believed still present in some form Nyogtha, Yahwa, Ifsssisis, Demios, Lothinarius > Text of the Adversary The original beings created a being that was the sum of all of them and called it god. <snip> This did not please the creators whom decided to unmake god by creating one to break him back into his component parts. God learned of this and stopped his creators by placing them in fortresses outside time. <snip various other slight correlations with the other text>