This session was attended by Jamie, Trajan, Will, Tyler, and Avery. Held over Google Hangouts using the Roll20 app just like usual. Ben, who plays Hektor in the Alliance campaign and Korjak in the Rebel campaign, had gotten a new project with his job. This project unfortunately placed him in Israel for the next year. We play through the internet so the location wasn’t as much a problem as the time difference. Ben was ten hours ahead of most of the group. Since his attendance at sessions was now a practical impossibility, Ben’s characters took a backseat until he returned.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The party sat down to talk about what to do next now that the Greshendale situation had turned against them. Should they attack Bavastatner, the blue dragon? Doing so would give them leverage with the people of Mars’ Oasis even if the king no longer liked them. Danar particularly liked this plan. Danar also suggested visiting Sheerzen, where his ancestors now ruled as a forced client state of the Xorians.
Eathirilu suggested doing something with Crux, which now served Tagenadi. Could they set Crux’s forces against the Xorians and wipe out two bad apples with one throw?
Amalius had a third plan, of attempting to get back into the good graces of the Alliance. Tagenadi and Amalius were banished from the Alliance. Tagenadi for his undead state and Amalius for his tainted lineage. Hektor’s association with the group was secret, so he was clean and still attended Alliance Council meetings. Torin left the Alliance of his own free will and could potentially return if he renounced Amalius and Tagenadi. Eathirilu and Danar were new players on the field and although they had associated with Amalius and Tagenadi, they could renounce that association as well. But how could Amalius and Tagenadi get back? The other Council members took issue with very basic parts of their being.
Amalius proposed a grand gesture that demonstrated their commitment to the Alliance so that their readmittance could not be denied. Something like the destruction of a great evil that threatened the Alliance could provide an opportunity. But what evil existed besides the Xorians that threatened the Alliance? Crux perhaps? But Crux was on their side.
The discussion was tabled in favor of a day of rest. Perhaps the party would have new ideas after being refreshed. Amalius provided teleport services for everyone on their day off excursions. Eathirilu returned to his new base in Demeter’s Garden and continued his magical shaping of it. Amalius reformed his psicrystal into a new red-wine colored sphere named Merlot. Merlot embodied Amalius’ search for the truth. Danar received a crash course on the current political situation in the world. Aldarian went off to Satronwook for a true holiday of drunken debauchery. Torin went to the dwarven city of Jord to see how he stood with his sovreign lord, King Dainlin. Tagenadi meditated and practiced his martial techniques. Hektor teleported around to Alliance meetings and within Aractrash in an attempt to gain support for the Aractrashan Kingdom entering the war. Additionally, Amalius convinced Tagenadi that Korm should return to Amalius’s control.
Portentous Dreams
The morning after the “vacation day” the group gathered for breakfast with troubled faces. Many of them had disturbing and prophetic dreams last night.
Torin’s Day Before the Dreams
I originally planned for a dream of sorts about Torin’s position in the Hill Dwarf King’s court, but Torin went there himself to see where he stood. Thus, Torin received no dream.
In a few of his momentary teleport trips back to his suite in Jord, Torin noticed that the rooms seemed abandoned and dusty. Torin had gotten a tip from his friend, Erick, that his position as an absent member of the royal court might be changing to a position of banishment. His household staff was no longer there. Amalius was hoping that his extended family could be moved there. Amalius’ family had been similarly ostracized and now lived on the outskirts of Jipangu. However, they were used to living like nobility. Amalius hoped they could stay at Torin’s home, but under assumed names, perhaps as the new caretakers of the estate if Torin’s old staff had left him.
Torin teleported to his suite of rooms in Jord and found them still deserted. Sheets covered the furniture and a fine layer of dust had settled over everything. After a brief look around Torin exited, keeping his head down lest anyone recognize him. He made his way to the home of his childhood tutor, Lasrar. Torin knocked on the door and was soon answered by a familiar face.
Lasrar gasped upon seeing his old pupil. He stuck his big red nose out the door and glanced in both directions. He motioned to Torin, “Come on in laddie.”
Torin stepped inside and Lasrar closed the door behind him. The old dwarf spun around and opened his arms while saying, “Come ‘ere laddie! I haven’t seen you in ages!” The two friends shared a hearty hug with many slaps on the back before they broke apart.
“Lets talk in the den. I’ll get us some of this new mead I’ve been trying lately.”
Torin looked around the home that he’d spent many years in learning the ways of Athena. A few furniture pieces and wall hangings were different, but most of it was the same. He walked the well worn path to the den and was soon joined by Lasrar with two tall flagons of fizzing mead.
“It’s lemon flavored.” Lasrar handed the mug to Torin.
Torin took a drink and said, “Surprisingly good. I wouldn’t think lemon and honey mixed well.”
“Right? Amazing isn’t it?” Lasrar took a deep breath and sat down on one of the creaky ornate benches in the den. “So I imagine nothing cheerful brings you ‘ere?”
“No…” Torin paused, unable to come up with the right words to start.
“I’d ‘eard you and your fellows ‘ad broken the Red Orb of Dragonkind out in Greshendale.”
“Yes…”
“You know the king’s talking about exiling you? Not that you ‘aven’t done that already to yourself in a way.”
“I’m doing what needs to be done.”
“I’m sure of that laddie! You know I’ll always believe you on that! On anything. You must’ve ‘ad a good reason for blowing up that Orb. I’m jus’ worried that the rest of the court won’t think the same way I do.”
“What are they saying?”
“Bad stuff laddie. I think you need to come back home to protect your reputation. Of course Athena may say different than me, but if you gallivant around the way you are now, trying to save the world and all, you’re going to find nothing much is left for you when you’re done.”
Lasrar continued, “Now if you returned and you had a good explanation for the destruction of the Orb, well… You might have a good shot of getting high up in the royal court. Maybe even to the top.”
“I… I need some time to think about it.”
“Sure! Sure! Take all the time you need. Tell you what, I’ll sound out what people are thinking around ‘ere. When you’ve ‘ad your think come on back and I’ll tell you ‘ow things sit ‘ere.”
“Of course.”
“Well enough of serious things! Let me fill you in on the latest gossip…”
Torin spent another two hours talking with his old mentor before excusing himself and teleporting back to Lakatia. He informed the others of the important content of the meeting, and that he was seriously considering leaving the group to return to Jord.
Aldarian’s Dream
Helios told Aldarian to find the weapon of Apollo.
Danar’s Dream
You walk through the halls where your old band of heroes met. You go to the great table where you ate with your old friends. Your seats have been replaced with open graves. Tombstones mark the graves. You see replicas of the Dragon Orbs embedded in each of the tombstones marking the graves. You walk by your friends and see them sleeping below with their Orbs intact in the tombstones above. Your own tombstone is missing its Orb.
The final grave you come to is that of Tracy, the halfling trickster. Her Orb, the Blue one, is gone. You peer into her grave and you see a horrifically burned body. You smell the faint scent of burnt air and ozone. She failed in her mission. The Blue Orb is undone.
Eathirilu’s Dream
In a dream you enjoy your life as a panda once more. You hear parade music through the trees. You lumber closer to investigate and see the many marvels of Pan’s processional. Towering giraffes. Women with tattered clothes. Satyrs running this way and that with their panpipes. Dwarves carrying napping lions on palanquins. Thousands of ants swaying to the song. And in the middle of it all you see Pan with his memorable grin.
“Hello friend. What are you doing here?”
You answer, “Dreaming.”
“Hmm… At least its a good dream.”
You join the party and enjoy yourself for a time. You dance, sing, and sleep with one of the maenads while in your panda form. One of the giraffes plays a wonderful solo on the drums. Pan calls you over to sit on a levitating pile of burgundy pillows alongside him.
Pan takes out a goblet of wine and sips it before speaking with you for a moment.
The dream begins to fade. The edges become blurry.
Pan says, “One more thing before you go! The Touch of Nature will help you in your quest. It is guarded in Elkhorn Grove.”
Pan fades until all that is left is his grin.
Hektor’s Dream
You dream of Prometheus teaching you in a classroom. He speaks directly to you, “Nomingburg lies in your way, if you wish Aractrash to join the fray. Seek the Duke, approach him kind. The betrayer’s touch, you will find.”
Tagenadi’s Dream
You lay on your provided bed at night as you always do. While you can no longer sleep it is hard for a soldier to break habits so deeply ingrained. Seven or eight hours of sleep a night to be well-rested. Fewer on the eve of a battle to be up before the enemy.
As you can no longer close your eyes you resort to resting your arm over them. For the first time since your transformation you feel the call of Hypnos. Despite your desire for sleep, in your disoriented state you accidentally shock yourself awake. If you sleep will you ever wake up again?
You remove your arm and are surprised to see that you are not alone in the room. A pair of figures stand, one on each side of your bed. You sit up and immediately reach for your weapon, but a glance at the figures’ faces stops you. These are not your enemies, but your parents returned.
Your father sits by you, but does not touch you. “Son, it is good to see you.”
You reach for your father’s hand, but your skeletal appendage passes through him.
A tear rolls down your mother’s cheek as she says, “You cannot touch us son, for we are truly dead.”
“How-” you begin, but your father cuts you off.
“Listen. We come with a message from our lord. ‘Find the lots,’ he says.”
Your mother says, “Find the lots, son.”
Your father says, “Find the lots.”
Together they say, “Find the lots.”
Your father’s head falls off into your hands. “Find the lots!” His decapitated head speaks to you with your mother chiming in, “Find the lots! Find the lots!”
Your mother’s head leans to the side and falls to the floor with a thud. Her voice joins your father’s from the ground. “Find the lots, Tagenadi! Find the lots!”
“Find the lots! Find the lots! Find the lots!”
And then once more in a voice that can only be that of the Lord of Erebos himself, “FIND THE LOTS.”
You awake and are alone in your room. No heads, no parents. Only yourself.
Amalius’s Awakening
After a fitful night of chaotic dreams you wake up. You go to the wash basin in front of the room’s mirror to perform your morning routine of splashing water in your face. The physical sensation helps you to regain your sense of self. Your routine is interrupted. The mirror is broken by a dagger stabbed into the center of it. There is a note attached to the wall by the dagger.
In the all too familiar black writing of your grandfather, Amalgami, the note says, “Come to Nomingburg if you want to find me. -Poppy” The smell hits you and you realize that the note is written on human skin. The ink is unmistakably some mix of black bile. And it is still wet.
Amalius showed everyone the note on his wall. He cast some spells on the dagger without touching it and discovered that it had a divination aura on it that affected mental defenses somehow. The party noted that Hektor’s dream was very similar to the note on Amalius’s wall. Both said to go to Nomingburg and Amalgami could be the betrayer.
Two of the dreams also came from Titans. Aldarian received his message from Helios the Titan of the sun who is either imprisoned with the other Titans or under house arrest in India where the sun rises from depending on who you ask. Hektor’s dream also came from a Titan, Prometheus the creator of humanity.
Aldarian’s dream was tabled for later. The last they’d heard of Apollo was when Titandra prophesized that he was, “with the Rebels.” What that meant or how to get his bow seemed difficult to puzzle out.
Tagenadi’s dream was discussed. At first a language mistake was made where the party thought they had to find Tagenadi’s parents’ bones. Then they realized that GRAVEYARD PLOTS are not the same as LOTS. Plus, Tagenadi’s parents were never buried. Tagenadi remembered that Lachesis, one of the the Fates, measures the lots of a man’s life, but he was unsure what to do with that information.
Danar’s dream was clear in some parts, but not other. The Blue Orb of Dragonkind was destroyed and the guardian, Tracy, dead with it. But was the destruction recent? Had Invernix gone to where the Blue Orb was kept and destroyed it? Or had the destruction happened long ago? The dream was unclear.
Eathirilu’s dream seemed the simplest. Go to Elkhorn Grove, defeat the guardian there, and get the Touch of Nature. Eathirilu recalled that Elkhorn Grove was north of Sheerzen. Pan had traveled there and had a raucous party with the stag that lived in the grove. Upon leaving he blessed the stag. Eathirilu had been to the Grove in his youth. He remembered it as a vibrant place of green and beauty. A short waterfall came off a cliff into a clear blue pool below. Strong trees surrounded the pool and the river. Insects and creatures of all kinds moved around the fragrant escape from civilization. Eathirilu remembered the joy of diving off the cliff into the pool’s water.
Elkhorn Grove
Amalius sent Aldarian off to look after the Halkias family with a teleport. The party prepped for battle as Amalius gleaned the details of Elkhorn Grove from Eathirilu’s mind with permission. Fly spells were given to everyone and Amalius teleported to the grove. His target was one hundred feet above the old waterfall.
They arrived to a very different scene than Eathirilu’s memories. The waterfall was gone. After centuries the water had worn down a sloped path to the pool. Only one side of the cliff remained, the other collapsed into rubble. The vibrant vegetation was all but gone, replaced by dead ground and grey, lifeless trees. Life no longer filled Elkhorn Grove. Standing on the remaining cliff side was an immense beast. The stag, grown to colossal size, was consumed by fungal growth. Mushrooms grew all over its body and the stag glowed with all sorts of colors. A thick cloud of spores surrounded the beast.
The Elkhorn Stag lifted its head to look at the party and breathed. Spores flew upwards out of its mouth and engulfed the adventurers. The spores dug into skin and bone, growing fluorescent mushrooms and causing agonizing pain as the original tissue was invaded by mycelia. The Stag bleated at them, almost laughing at them.
Amalius reacted quickly by manifesting a pair of defensive powers. One restored his vitality, but only temporarily, while the other turned his body into solid iron. He moved further away as well, hoping that the beast could not breathe on him once more. Torin cast a mass heal on everyone but Tagenadi. The undead knight flew further away, making sure that the beast could not breathe on him again for if it did he would surely die.
Eathirilu cast a sunburst spell on the Stag, irradiating it with light and dealing extra damage due to the beast’s fungal nature. Danar channeled a spell into his longaxe and dived at the stag. As he entered the spore cloud, thirty foot long pseudopods extended from the Stag’s back in an attempt to intercept him. They scrapped his magical armor, but could not pierce it. Danar sunk his longaxe into the Stag’s side, dealing a good blow. When he moved to wrench the axe out though, he found that he could not. The creature’s skin began pulling the axe into itself. Horrified that the same thing might happen to him, Danar released his treasured weapon.
The Stag whipped its four pseudopods and began pummeling Danar. The pseudopods were as sticky as the beast’s hide and the ancient warrior found himself snared in their grasp. Amalius circled around to the other side and blasted the beast with fire. The Stag pranced about on the cliff and dodged a decent portion of the damage. The burns in its side were quickly filled in by spores from the great cloud around the beast.
Torin healed Tagenadi up with a harm spell. Feeling well, Tagenadi dived in to help Danar. Unfortunately, he was similarly trapped by the flailing pseudopods. Eathirilu flew down as well and cast animal shapes turning himself and Danar into tyrannosaurs, figuring that greater size and strength was the best way to grapple with the pseudopods. Tagenadi could not be polymorphed due to his undead status. Danar struggled to free himself but was unable to, even in tyrannosaur form.
The Stag pounded Tagenadi and Danar with its pseudopods. It unhinged its mouth and moved to swallow Danar, but he kicked it away with a dinosaur foot. Amalius unleashed another burning wave of fire that scorched away a section of ungulate fungus which was replaced by spores once more. Torin flew in, dodging a pseudopod strike, to give Tagenadi a freedom of movement spell. Unfortunately the stress of the situation caused him to make a mistake casting and the spell fizzled.
Tagenadi tried mightly to get free, but failed. Eathirilu bit into the side of the Stag. He took off a chunk of foul fungus and spit it into the moist river bed below the cliff. Danar continued to struggle, but the adhesive pseudopods were unconquerable.
The Stag moved Danar to its unhinged mouth and swallowed the polymorphed gish whole. Its pseudopods pounded into Tagenadi and Torin, entrapping both of them. Amalius continued his fiery assault. He burned through and glimpsed Danar’s lizard tail before the spores filled up the hole. The cloud of spores was noticeably thinner now. Torin panicked in the grasp of the Stag and used his cape to dimension door out in a puff of smoke. He reappeared flying high above the battlefield.
Tagenadi’s battered skeleton was close to falling apart. Eathirilu stretched over the Stag to touch Tagenadi with his dino-snout and cast word of recall. The spell took them both to Eathirilu’s sanctuary with the pandas of Satronwook. Danar spotted his longaxe in the Stag’s stomach. He ignored the foul smell of rotten fungus and used his carnivorous jaws to bite a hole to the outside. He struggled and managed to worm his way out. At the last second he used his foot to kick the axe out with him. The spores gathered to refill the hole once more.
The Stag realized that most of the damage coming its way originated from that annoying psion floating over it. The Stag dealt with this problem by taking a deep breath and expelling the damaging spores once more. The spores ripped through Amalius’ protective spells and implanted themselves in his body once more.
Torin hit the Stag with a fire storm and Amalius followed up with a new power he’d discovered, stygian conflagration. Holy and unholy fire raged across the Stag’s body. This proved to be enough. The spore cloud was exhausted and the beast could no longer repair the damage the spellcasters inflicted on it. It collapsed to the ground.
The Stag began to glow with white light. Light particles were slowly brushed away by the wind, reducing the size of the colossal monster until only a normal, fungus-free stag remained. Then the stag’s body was carried away by the wind as well, leaving only a ball of pure light, one foot in diameter.
Danar assumed his human form once more and reached out to touch the orb. Amalius shouted, “Don’t! It’s for Eathirilu! Let’s find him and Tagenadi first.”
Torin cast a sending and Eathirilu responded with his location. Torin burned two teleports on his boots to pick up his two companions and bring them back. Eathirilu approached the glowing orb and the group gathered around. He reached his hand out and placed it against the orb.
The orb filled Eathirilu’s body causing him to emit light in every direction. The light reduced to a dull glow except for the elf’s feet which continued to shine brilliantly. The light entered the ground and spread out from Eathirilu. As it passed over the ground life returned to the grove. Green grass grew in the light’s wake. Trees perked up and leaves sprouted. Wild flowers bloomed. The river gushed with clear water. Insects, birds, rodents, and deer appeared from nowhere and moved throughout the grove. Eathirilu let out a primal roar! The light spread into the distance reviving the entirety of Elkhorn Grove. The light at Eathirilu’s feet climbed up his body in a band that increased in intensity the higher it went. The light concentrated at his head and formed a ball two inches in diameter on his brow. A fresh wind blew threw the grove and on the wind Pan whispered, “Use it when the time is right to return things to their natural state.”
Eathirilu experimented and found that his “head flashlight” persisted no matter what form he took.
P.S. If anyone was wondering, the Stag was a refluffing of an epic monster, the Mu Spore. Additionally, this session’s illustration was done by Dmitriy Barbashin.
GoCorral 
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