Crystal Quest Aftermath, Part 20
12-10-05
At the fortress, Atheele spots the Tower with the flaming eye farther west, down the path, and there is a winged Thing headed towards the Tower, having left from farther north. He is absolutely certain that the Thing flying towards the Tower is an Outsider; that is, not of this world. His eyes widen in recognition, and indeed says nothing coherent at first, then stammers that he thinks it's the General of the Black Hand, which is a bad evil group, but are pretty rare; they've been thought to be wiped out about five times.
Sarai and Akili recognize him. It's Kenlow. Sarai thinks that Kenlow is on her side, failing several wisdom checks. Akili is much more skeptical, and reminds Sarai of the potion they gave him last time. Sarai sits down, then, and explains what they know of him. Atheele is astounded that Sarai and Akili know Kenlow; Akili tells Atheele that Kenlow is one of the few friends he has here.
The party watches Kenlow swoop in, and a god is stretching out of the flaming eye of the Tower; Koron, specifically. He faces Kenlow, and speaks in a voice that carries across the 50-odd miles to the party, "Ah, Lord Narn, you bring me a gift." Atheele and Akili both say Eldar's name, trying to get his attention to let him know what's going on.
Kenlow replies in a deep growly voice that carries just as well., "This gift be not for you, Lord Koron. I am no longer Lord Narn, nor shall I ever be known as Kenlow. A new name is coming into the world, a new name... which I'll... think of later." Kenlow pulls out a big sword, swoops down to about the middle of the Tower, charges the sword with electricity, and thrusts it into the Tower. Then pulls it out and flies off, while the Tower begins to collapse. The Tower crumples in half; the top falls down on top of the army. The gigantic fireball torches another large portion of the army. Koron, while not dead, is very unhappy, still hovering. A medium-sized red dragon leaps up from the rubble, which Koron leaps on top of, and they chase after Kenlow, who is also rapidly flying away.
The action shifts to Kenlow, (whom is no longer called that, but it will suffice for this historical recording), who briefly faces the dragon, and swings his sword at the dragon. An absolutely gigantic bolt of lightning lances from the sword for a total of 117 damage and lances the dragon. It is severely injured, but not killed, and spouts flame back at Kenlow for 52 damage.
The dragon gets within close range, and attacks with his claws and such for another 36 points. Kenlow is in pretty bad shape, but attacks back with his sword, aiming a pair of strikes at the dragon, and one at Koron himself. He misses Koron, but slays the dragon, and they pair falls. Koron ceases falling about halfway down, and Kenlow does the best he can to flee.
Akili tries as desperately as he can to get Eldar's attention about what is going on, and Oy-aht does the same. Sometime around this, Kenlow is fully healed, and recovers all of his magic points.
Koron charges Kenlow with his weapon drawn, charging from below. Kenlow charges back, also powering up his sword. The two collide, and strike each other simultaneously. Koron misses his blow, but Kenlow does not, and strikes Koron for 49 points of damage. Koron ceases glowing after the strike, and Akili deduces that the blade is likely the Godslayer, alternately known as the Sword of Mortality... and that Koron is now mortal. Koron manages to strike back this time, and deals nasty black steely damage to Kenlow, and again. Kenlow is again looking very unhealthy, but draws upon his Elementalist powers to heal Koron's maiming. He's stunned, but Koron's eyes both now healed. Kenlow takes advantage of Koron's stunned state to release Koron... who immediately starts falling. Looking consternated, and having forgotten that Koron can no longer fly under his own power, Kenlow swoops down and picks him back up. Kenlow uses his power of Air to allow Koron to float down to the ground, and once he's safe, Kenlow flies off... heading towards the stronghold, which is also towards the party. Atheele fades into the woods at this point, not wishing to be seen.
The party waits for him to draw closer. When he's about a half-mile or so away, Sarai waves. Akili decides to be a bit more visible, and fires a Prismatic Beam straight up into the sky, of a bright light-gray color, at the base of which is Akili, a waving Sarai, and the rest of the party. Kenlow shouts "Hey!" to the party, comes closer, executes a smooth landing, and greets the party.
They socialize for a while, catching up, and Atheele reappears. Kenlow now remembers everything, and fortunately harbors no ill will towards Akili or Sarai, or indeed the rest of the party.
Koron was the leader of the Flaming Eye, whereas the Black Hand is lead by... someone else. Matro, specifically. Akili asks Kenlow if Matro is back in the world, and Kenlow isn't sure. Sarai shows off Manq, and after being prompted by Akili, shows him the carbonite statue of Salorvin. Sarai then checks her stone, which is surprisingly red. Sarai thinks it's being thrown off by her carrying the statue around, but Akili recalls that it faded once this clone of Salorvin was imprisoned in the stone. They tentatively conclude that Salorvin may be in the castle, and after they explain about being scryed upon, they check to make sure that they aren't, and it seems that they are currently not being watched.
Akili tentatively asks if Kenlow knows where he came from, and Kenlow answers that he does. Akili nods, and mentions that he'd like to hear about it sometime.
Kenlow describes Flik to the party, and mentions where he found the sword... describing Dean. He had scratched I'm sorry in the stone, where he had fallen, with the Godslayer in his hand. While this would be very important to the Vortex party, this group knows nothing of it.
Caught up for the moment, the party heads towards the stronghold, although it is getting dark. Oy-aht offers to heal Kenlow, which he is greatly appreciative of.
The party arranges their marching order with Atheele in the lead, and the CQ group of three in their cluster, with the other party members scattered ahead and behind.
The party approaches the walls of the stronghold. The walls extend out a ways into the path, and barring the road is a closed portcullis with doors in it. There are guards on the ramparts that Atheele can spy upon, although he's pretty sure he's not seen. He borrows the spyglass from Oy-aht, and sees that the guards are surprisingly not Slavaakians. Kenlow advises the others to sit and wait, whereupon he flaps into the sky, pauses, swats his forehead, softly lands back down, and also asks to borrow the spyglass. Oy-aht hesitantly agrees, and Kenlow flaps back up high in the sky, and spies into the stronghold from above. He finally flies back, and reports that the city is crawling with members of the Black Hand and Flaming Eye.
They party takes some time to discuss how to best break into the stronghold. They decide to increase Kenlow's size and strength, and Sarai casts Felder's Self-Propelled Exploding Boulder at an area near the bridge. Oy-aht finishes buffing Kenlow up, then asks Akili and Atheele, with a suspiciously large grin, to come over. Carrying them, he makes a running start, leaps up, attempts to gently drop them off at the Ramparts, leave them there, jumps up, leaps again, and shouts, "The Flaming Eye has been snuffed! Beware, for the Black Hand shall soon be severed!"
While up at the ramparts, a couple archers take potshots at Kenlow, but nothing useful happens. Atheele attempts to fire shots at three of the four archers while being carried. Getting an idea, Akili readies a spell for the fouth, and flings Weirdness from a safe distance. Atheele only hits one, but it falls off. Akili's effect causes a popping sound, and the area of the ramparts has gone orangy-gooey. One of them sinks in and dies, the other is flailing, but isn't dead yet.
Akili lands somewhat awkwardly on a safe area of the rooftop, but Atheele lands perfectly. While the latter takes sniper shots, Akili flings another Weirdness effect at an occupied-by-enemy-forces storeroom. White rabbits start pouring out of the building, and start chewing it apart.
Andune casts Dimension Door to move to a tower next to Kenlow. More combat starts taking place, and things get increasingly confused. Sarai flings another Exploding Boulder with the aid of Oy-aht's True Strike spell. Another tower is struck, and begins to crumble. The rubble vanishes as it hits the ground, and there is no smoke cloud. Finally, where the tower was, there are two gigantic portals; shimmering dimension doors, about forty feet across. Sarai figures out that most of the tower debris went into the portals.
It is eventually noticed that the bunnies are building a boat.
Sarai attempts to throw another boulder, but fails the spell this time. Fortunately, nothing disasterous happens. Instead, a medium thatched-roof house, that is on fire, lands on another building. Someone also steps out of the thatched house and starts setting other things on fire.
Akili determines that the leftmost portal goes to another world. The one on the right, he's not sure about. Slavaak counts, so that could be where it leads. He also confirms that the thatched burning house was definitely Sarai's fault. He calls out, "Nice one, Sarai!" Sarai shouts back, "Thanks!"
Oy-aht and Keira, in the Kwalish, deal out a greal deal of damage to several enemies while moving around.
Therath attempts to climb down one of the towers, slips, and falls, but manages to successfully tumble safely to the ground.
Akili turns his Rod of Polymorph on himself, and gives himself the wings of a gryphon. Akili also determines that the change is permanent, until he uses the wand again on himself. Kenlow notices, and grins. "Way to go, Akili!" Akili gives Kenlow a thumbs-up, then flaps over to a tower near the docks, dodges a blow from a sword from a guard on top of the tower, and strikes back with the sword of Eryn, toppling the guard. Having landed successfully, and loving the feeling of wings, he returns the scepter of Eryn to his belt, and pulls out his Rod of Chaos, and casts Wild Rain at the people on the docks. Pots and pans immediately start falling from the sky, accompanied by cauldrons, and bombard the dock workers below, wiping out at least half.
Andune, having run out of enemies, wanders into another building in a room, and encounters a crowd of some 30 guards, whom he starts slaying out of hand.
Kenlow gallops forward on all fours, praying to Eldar, Tarianna, Erin, and Kala to grant him the power to shut down the portals. He gets nothing in response. Therefore, he instead calls upon his Elemental powers again and unleashes another storm of lightning upon another group of guards, topping all but one. He stomps an alley, and growls in his deepest and most threatening voice, "...Hello." Then the spell expires, and he returns to normal.
Atheele finds his way into the wizard's quarters, although no spellcasters have yet been seen, and ransacks the place. Finding all sorts of useful toys, he finally equips a number of errors with greek fire attached to their end, and sets the remaining boats on the dock on fire. Akili notices the fire, but not who started it. Still, he's not disappointed. He's eyeing those portals.
Sarai successfully casts the boulder spell and fires at what's left of the dock. She misses, but still demolishes another area of the city.
Akili wings his way over to rooftop a couple hundred feet away, and casts Chaos on the portal, attempting to disrupt its magic. A huge pile of bottles filled with a white liquid mist start appearing around the portal. Disappointed that it didn't work, he spellcrafts the other portal, and it's going to a different 'different' world. He also concludes that he can't determine where the portals go, exactly, without a true arcane spellcaster's help... and while he can't find Sarai, Kenlow volunteers to locate him, which Akili is thankful for.
Elsewhere, Keira gets the Kwalish to herself, and starts randomly running over people.
Now that the city is almost entirely emptied, the group starts trying to gather back together after having been seperated.
Eventually the party does get back together, and Akili enlists Sarai's help in determining where the portals lead. One of them leads to a plateau, which has a rail around it, and a number of active volcanoes around... but it is definitely not Slavaak. The other one does go to Slavaak. Akili is certain, then, that the place Sarai described is Matro's world, and tells the others. Akili is fine with closing the portal to Slavaak, but is unsure about closing the one to Matro's realm. Akili can't come up with a good reason to Sarai asking him why she shouldn't close it, and Kenlow glances at the sword on his hip. Akili sees Kenlow's look, and murmurs, "It's crossing your mind, too." Kenlow nods, and replies, "It is."
Akili wanders away from the party, and speaks to Eldar about what has been found. Eldar advises Akili as best as a god can, telling him that the choice us up to them, and they will be taking on Matro on his home turf, where he will be the most powerful, and the influence of their own gods will be the weakest, but Eldar tells Akili that they will not be entirely helpless. They have the tools, such as the Godblade, and the opportunity - a ready-made portal to Matro's world. Returning with a somber expression, Akili discusses it with the party, and on Kenlow's face he sees an expression that is one of sheer terror, mixed with a resigned choice, as he has the Godslayer. The party decides in the end to go, although the party is going to try to prepare first. Akili is rather surprised by this, but grateful, as he - reluctantly, to be sure, thinks they should go too.
The game is paused here.
P.S. The boulder Sarai threw with the aid of True Strike crushed the building that Salorvin was in. Akili also uses his same Wand of Polymorph to change Kenlow's appearance, changing the color of his fur a few shades, and also changing his eyes from red to a lighter blue.