Crystal Quest History (Incomplete) 02-10-05 (Editor's Note: This is about a D&D game played a few years ago by many of the characters here. It includes a brief overview of what is still remembered, and some more amusing commentary at the bottom.) Start of Crystal Quest Kenlow goes on a quest to find King Gregor's palace. He eventually finds it, in a vast barren land to the north. On his journey there, he encounters a griffin. Kenlow attempts to reason with it, but it can't seem to speak his language. This is odd, because one of the languages Kenlow knows is shared with those creatures. He ends up killing the griffin, which plummets to the earth and explodes in a ball of fire, leaving behind a broken core of what appears to be hematite. (Probably a golem) Kenlow then goes to the palace proper, and fights several guards, which end up being in the employ of Salervan. He stumbles into the throne room at last to find Salervan, 'Wormtounging' King Gregor. Kenlow and Salervan fight, and Salervan eventually flees, leaving Kenlow to receive the blue gem from Gregor in thanks, and to protect it from Salervan. On his way back to Seth, where he lives, Kenlow hides in a cave to take shelter from a violent storm, that ends up being the home of a Giant... who is sleeping in the cave at the time. The Giant awakens, and Kenlow is forced to fight again. Upon finally arriving home to his nest, Kenlow discovers that his nest now has a few sharpened sticks stuck to it... all of which are coated with blackheart poison, which is instantly lethal upon touch. Tracking down Salervan by scent, Kenlow follows him to another cave, and runs a sword through him, which he coated beforehand in the same blackheart poison. This is the first time Salervan is killed. Kenlow decides to keep the blue gem in a leather pouch, covered with a rag coated with the same poison. Akili joins after, with Kenlow, Letara, and Eric (Clairvoyance?). Sarai is the last to join, during a meeting with the elders in Seth (which elders?). During their last day in Seth, staying in a bar, Akili accidentally summons a giant grapefruit through the ceiling, and Queen music starts playing from two large rectangles. Everyone commences to get grapefruit juice in their eyes by trying to eat it, even if their faces are turned away. The following day, the party joins a 3-cart caravan, headed to the Tower of the Watchers. At some point, Akili's wand of prismatic arrow becomes drained, and he attempts to charge it while heading to the tower. (Where'd he get the wand from in the first place?) One of those attempts to charge the wand causes one of the members of the caravan to turn into plush. Another incident causes a giant can of silly string to spray the back of the caravan, completely burying Akili and Sarai. ("How do you know it was my fault?" The pile shifts.) During one amazing display of arial acrobatics, Kenlow lands on one of the caravan roofs and causes it to cave in. While in the caravan, the party runs across an ogre and orgish throwing dwarf, which briefly joins the party. When the group encounters the 'road wardens' who stop the caravan, they eat a faceful of Orgish Throwing Dwarf for their trouble. The fight also results in the dwarf accidentally being tossed into another caravan cart, causing it to turn into unuseful splinters. A fire is started, most likely courtesy of Sarai, and Akili, attempting to put out the fire, summons a large slab of spam, which crushes the fire and the forest underneath. It is debatable whether this is an improvement. During the caravan ride, the group encounters Salervan again. Akili uses his Power of Chaos ability which, this time, makes him grow extremely tall, and stomps on Salervan, squishing him. No body is found, though. He incidentally destroys the last remaining cart of the caravan in doing so. Very shortly afterwards, a storm giant steps out of the clouds, and kills the caravan leader. No explanation is logged. Finally back on foot again, the party heads off into the trees, where it encounters war hogs, nicklepedes, and a large, but extremely dumb, giant. (DOO BE DOO!) Sarai can't find a place to hide quickly enough, and casts Sanguinary Deception, which makes her look like a corpse. He seemed to become very sad, and walks away, going straight into the ocean and disappearing under the surface. While inside the Tower of the Watchers, Akili tries using his power of chaos again, and ends up with glue skin, where he repeatedly sticks to walls, stair steps, and anything else. The party arranges travel to an end of the world (they get a ride from someone... on a carpet, perhaps? Memory suggests some kind of surfer-ish dude). They find a pillar that goes way up out of sight, and find an elevator inside. On their way up, they see a phoenix flying below. On the ceiling of the world, the group encounters the Mwunga, where several mean combats result in a few pairs of mwunga fur for clothing (mwunga squidge included), and ends with Akili's voice being swapped for that of a Mwunga. Sarai gets the idea to wonder what a Mwunga mating call sounds like; Akili obediently demonstrates. Answering calls in the distance reveal just how dumb an idea that was, and the party moves on quickly. The party finds what appears to be a shrine that gives hints to being the location of one of the gems, and finds a chain leading down, thorugh the ceiling of the world. Akili tie-dyes a section of chain while waiting for the moon to pass by underneath, and they drop down onto the moon from there, finding a very unique rotating castle. Something happens to Kenlow, and he loses his memory again. He drops most of his possessions in puzzlement, and they are recovered by the rest of the group. Clairvoyance dies while attempting to coat one of his daggers with blackheart from the soaked rag Kenlow takes out of his sack. Akili picks up the blue gem and a dead stalk of blackheart, which was also among Kenlow's possessions. Party encounters another group; specifically, a dwarven warrior and another chaos mage. (Clean your teeth!) Akili is vaguely surprised to encounter another chaos mage, but as it makes nothing but aggressive moves, he responds in kind; both opponents are eventually defeated. While scouting out this odd castle, a wine cellar is discovered. Sarai takes all of the wine bottles. A shower is also discovered, with a central water post that crosses a cylindrical stall, so as to work in any circular orientation. While initially probably planning on taking a shower, the group discovers Sarai swinging naked in a circle around the water post. She's an elf. Twelve. Grin. While inside the castle, another one of Akili's weirdness effects summons a bench, which Sarai sits down on and starts speaking at length about nothing. (Forrest Gump). Yet another summons Blachlock, who hitches a ride on a bus that drives through. After recovering the white gem from this castle, they find what seems to be a teleporter on the top. Seth, someone they met inside(?), decides to walk in and see where it goes. He disappears (Roll a new character, Eric), and after a long delay of waiting, Akili takes a chain that's anchored to the castle, and tosses the other end in the teleporter. Four bolts of energy shoot out from the four matching crystals on pillars at the corners of the teleporter, and the castle turns an ominous magical purple. Akili casts Leave in a great hurry, and accidentally leaves Letara behind. The moon is then teleported out of its proper place in the sky in a brilliant flash of purple, and is gone from the world. The party finds itself on a crewed boat in the ocean somewhere. The crew, taking exception to the interlopers, start attacking. Akili's weirdness causes all of them to expel prodigious quantities of methane, with appropriately disgusting noises. Sarai casts Fireball. The results are predictable. As splinters of boat rain around the ocean, the party - which was lucky to survive - clambers on larger remains of wood as a raft. Kenlow attempts to push the raft, and cramps three times in a row, darned near drowning himself. Attempting to get themselves to shore faster, Akili casts Weirdness again. The party is immediately teleported into an arena, spectated by glowing figures, and they fight a large dragon. Following their victory, the party is sent to a land which seems to be made of shale, and has buildings that come and go overnight. Akili acquires 12 corvin-spice cookies from one shack that dispenses them from a strange mechanism. Sarai burns down the shack. The party eventually finds another cave that leads underground, where a large amphibian or aquatic creature lives, and they eventually defeat it, gaining the green gem in the process. Unknown circumstaces force the group to Leave again, placing the party in Slavak, which, among other things, possesses people-seeking lava. A shrine to the god Kel-Sir is found, and while trying to come off as a priest or something, Sarai is thoroughly ridiculed by the temple leader. The group later manages to make it to a port, and hires onto a boat to travel to Telvin of the Rivers. Salervan somehow manages to sneak on the boat the group is on, and makes a successful pickpocket, stealing the green gem from Sarai, earning her instant and perpetual HATE. He escapes before anyone realizes he was there. When this is discovered, Akili casts Chaos for the first time, although the effects of this are not seen. During that trip, Akili and Sarai first discuss the nature of their magics. They also run across the Storm Giant again, and make a request for the Sword of Lightnings. The party travels up the Misty River, finding another curious cavern, where they disembark from the boat and head inside. Kenlow asks Akili to turn a section of white cloth deep red, for use as a loincloth. Akili becomes distracted and tie-dyes it. Kenlow is irritated. Inside the cavern, Seth (Eric again; a different Seth... I think) is accidentally killed by Akili during combat with flaming eyes (he was not originally going to die, but Eric decided he'd had enough). At the end of this, one of his effects ends with Akili receiving his Magic 8-Ball. Progressing further into the cavern, they meet Mistyc, and learn a lot of information. Akili acquires the book of Chaos. Returning to the boat, the party discovers Jenice, who had stowed away. The party travels up River Londa to Telvin of the Falls. On the way, one of Akili's powers of chaos results in him having acquiring a Lucky Rock, which he holds a conversation with for a short time. Akili makes money in the city by healing people with the blue gem. Way to be subtle. While in Telvin of the Falls, Akili Chaos-summons the swedish dancing Callicantzari while drunk on dwarven ale. Akili lifts one high enough to smack into the underside of the world. (Time passes) Group finds a large castle with a temple, which is occupied by a horde of goblins, a greath swath of which are wiped out by some well-cast Chaos magic. The group also encounters and defeats a few golems, and the remains of several others. Making their way to the temple (incidentally, a temple of Eryn and Kala, although the statues of them had been melted, and turned into a statue of Koron), they discover that it's been really massacured, and one of the stairways into the cellar had been demolished. While investigating that, they discover a tunnel that leads down to the lair of a red dragon. The party shortly encounters the red dragon, which is extremely large and not very amicable. Akili throws his day's supply of growing seeds at the dragon, which briefly entangle it, and the rest of the group flees to the other side of the chamber. Attempting to capitalize on the opportunity, Akili tries to kill the dragon with the sword function of Eryn's Scepter. Akili was extremely lucky to live, and manages to escape just before the dragon breaks free. The dragon, as the group never learns, is LaVass, the Flame Lord, a high-level Golem Adept. Kenlow kills Salervan for the fourth time, by beheading him and tossing him in the pool of lava. Party encounters two other Crystal Quest groups, fighting over the black gem. They wait for a victor to stand out, and promptly dispatch them, acquiring the black gem for themselves. (time passes) Back on the ceiling, for the final battle, the group attempted to place the five gems without killing anyone, using the black gem's barrier effect... and the last gem wouldn't go in, regardless of the order of placement. Since all the other groups had found there way here by now, the party is forced to defeat them all. The use of the black gem's barrier ability in the hands of Akili proves most useful, as it gives the party a fighting chance against some fifteen opponents. The last group to fight is LaVass and four other mightly dragons, under Koron's group (Koron cheated to accomplish this), whom Kenlow defeats single-handedly. Akili gives Kenlow a potion provided by Eldar, following the fight, and Kenlow happily quaffs it to celebrate his victory... and loses his memory again. The gems are then placed, the ceiling is repaired, Kenlow flies off to Vortex, and the next adventure begins. --- {Events with uncertain timeline placement} The party eventually discovers Salervan's camp, which is very... trampled-looking. A short time after this, they meet Moonlight. Party visits Tower of the Mages (null-magic zone, flaming bedroom, drooling kenlow, Akili kicked out, haven for hands) Party animates tree, and encounters Roc. Party follows the plant tubes into the lake adjacent to the tower. Sarai invents green glowing truffles spell. Akili transforms the wand of prismatic arrows he's trying to charge into the Scepter of Eryn. --- Paw purrs, "Koron kinda cheated." Akili isn't surprised. Paw purrs, "Which was fine, because Eldar knew what he was doing when he picked his group." Akili laughs. "Sure he did." Akili makes a gesture from the region of his buttocks. Paw laughs. Paw purrs, "Hey, you all worked out rather well for him." Akili rumbles lightly, "I'm not denying *that*." Paw purrs, "Even Jenice helped a little." Akili rumbles lightly, "Just that... y'know, he hardly planned it all." Akili rumbles lightly, "I'm sure we kept him magnificently entertained." Paw purrs, "Yeah, that was part of his plan too." Akili rumbles lightly, "Even when we were destroying parts of the astronomy." Paw purrs, "But he figured Kenlow was an ace up his sleeve." Akili wasn't aware that aces came wrapped in ticking time bombs. Paw purrs, "And Akili and Sarai were serious enough mass-destruction to handle everything else." Paw purrs, "That's why you were given the defuser." Akili rumbles lightly, "It's a good thing Akili befriended Kenlow so well." Akili rumbles lightly, "Which may cause... difficulties, later." Paw purrs, "We'll see." Akili rumbles lightly, "I did say 'may'." Paw purrs, "Locking Kenlow into Crystal Quest kept him from otherwise being a problem." Paw purrs, "Because of the strenuous requirements of CQ." Akili rumbles lightly, "True. I suppose I meant difficulties for Akili, if the two should meet again." Paw asks, "How so?" Akili rumbles lightly, "It's not as though Akili has many friends there." Calin says, "Sarai, Kenlow..." Akili rumbles lightly, "Kenlow is probably his best one, and if he's now Chaotic Evil... I'd be very surprised if a later meeting went well." Paw purrs, "Ah, I see where you're going with it." Calin says, "Sarai wouldn't want to kill him either." Calin says, "Maybe she can whip up a might spell to make him stay good sam." Calin says, "Er, mighty." Akili rumbles lightly, "Sarai... kind of. I'd put her in the 'extremely good acquaintance' category." Paw asks, "Really?" Calin says, "Awe." Paw asks, "Even after all that talk about the nature of magic?" Akili rumbles lightly, "That was very good, I'll grant you... but that was about all." Paw purrs, "She does get a little testy at times." Calin says, "And the hanging out, and the parts where I did havoc on purpose, and you on accident..." Calin says, "Well, I suppose." Calin exclaims, "She's got moxy!" Paw purrs, "Mostly at things Akili did." Paw purrs, "Or Salervan." Paw purrs, "Or Kenlow." Paw purrs, "Huh." Akili rumbles lightly, "I suppose that's the only reason. Occasionally Akili still gets vibes that she doesn't trust him. While he understands that it's fair to not trust his *magic*, she's never put it that way." Calin says, "She really hates Salervan." Paw purrs, "She doesn't really discriminate, I suppose." Paw purrs, "That's true." Calin says, "She likes Akili and Kenlow." The warm calm settles across the shrubs. Paw purrs, "It's hard not to hate Salervan." Calin says, "Akili's magic doesn't really bother her... she's fascinated by it." Akili rumbles lightly, "Akili doesn't like Salervan either, but it's not in the same blisteringly-hot way Sarai has." Calin says, "She does enjoy picking on people though." Calin says, "Lion-boy." Akili rumbles lightly, "True." Akili chuckles, recalling the incident where Sarai was swinging in the shower in the rotating castle. - Sarai holds out an empty bag to Kenlow, "Fill this." Paw laughs, "Yeah, that was pretty funny." Akili thought so, too. - Sarai says, "Whee!!!" Akili considers. "Yeah, I suppose Sarai really is a friend. Just an... unpredictable one. Which, coming from a chaos mage, is really rich, I know." Calin chuckles. Paw hehs. Calin says, "Well for a chaos mage, you're pretty darn cautious." Akili grins. "It's an uncommon survival trait." Paw purrs, "I dunno... I think in some ways... she's pretty predictable. Just..." Paw asks, "Violently reactive, sometimes?" Akili rumbles lightly, "Imagine knowing that casting a fireball in an enclosed space could one day make you twice as tall as the available area." Akili rumbles lightly, "After a few close calls, you're cautious or you're dead." Calin chuckles. "She does everything all the way. She charges in and wallops the biggest badguy with rarely a thought for her own safety..." Calin says, "Until it is PAINfully apparent that she's going to die." Akili laughs. Calin says, "Then she's all about surviving." Calin says, "When she thinks about salervan, she HATES him. And will walk through fire to obliterate him until he's deader than dead." - Sarai dashes in. "Savron's Gout of Flame!" *damage damage* - Enemy retaliates. "Sosh!" *CLOBBER* - Sarai staggers. "MeDiC...." Calin says, "And when she has fun, she does that all the way too. Never mind that the gem is in the castle, or that enemy teams are hunting for it or us. She's going to play on this slide for a while." Calin exclaims, "And... Ooh! Spell component!" - Sarai sneaks up on the Roc, and plucks one of it's wing feathers. "It might not notice." Akili grins. "Still won't share even a large tent with Akili, though. So much for trust. ;)" Akili laughs. Calin says, "She won't? I thought that was more Akili's decision." Calin says, "She terrified him with a few crude jokes when the idea was suggested." Akili blinks. "Really? I don't recall that." Akili rumbles lightly, "I can't picture him being terrified. I mean, he's a different species." Akili rumbles lightly, "And as I recall, Akili and Kenlow were the ones more likely to make crude jokes." Akili rumbles lightly, "Kenlow in particular, of course, but Akili would sometimes play along a little."