21 Praedus 1120

Sins of the Father

The heroes returned to Marhaven from their adventure on the Astral Plane (The Eye of Glaucus) and rejoined Mrs. Wilkins, fresh from an extended stay in Valhalla. The galadiir was now one third recharged; the group was collectively eager to seek out the next of Azazel's spawn, the nomadic Ramiel, and continue their work.

As often happens, however, those plans were preempted when the party found themselves accosted at breakfast by two desperate-looking low-level adventurer types.

"It's gone! It's gone!" they shouted. "You have to come see!"

"What's gone?" Strontium asked.

"The Guild," came the answer. "It's gone!!"

Disturbed at the sound of that, the party hurried back to Marhaven's Service Sector. Sure enough, when they reached the place where the Adventurers' Guild Hall had always stood, they found only empty deck surrounded by a bewildered-looking mob of people. The Hall itself was gone.

Questioning the bystandards turned up little. The Guild building had been there, seemingly fine, until the fourth morning bell. Then the building was enveloped in a dark purple glow, according to two shaking witnesses, and seemed to shrink away into nothing.

The group walked the empty space looking for clues but found nothing. Audas detected no magical auras other than the normal protections on the wooden decking. There were no suspicious faces in the crowd.

With endless questions running through their minds, the heroes divided up to act. Audas and Caenus returned to the Chimera in case the entire scene was a diversion to get the party off their ship; Quinn and Mrs. Wilkins went in search of Grimaldi's home to determine whether he was there; Melian announced a desire to go through the Guild's mail waiting at the post office; and Strontium and Aria headed for City Hall.

Things were predictably hectic at Marhaven's government headquarters, but Strontium and Aria were recognized on arrival and met little resistance in gaining an audience with Tolliver, a senior aide to Lord Mayor Ander. Tolliver expressed a certain restrained relief in seeing the heroes, as he was on the verge of dispatching someone to summon the party anyway. He had no facts that the party hadn't already learned themselves. There had been no particular threats against the Guild, no recent incidents that he knew of to provoke an attack and no particular suspects to interrogate.

Strontium offered the party's aide, and in return Tolliver promised the help of his office in removing any roadblocks. He also pledged appropriate compensation if the party was successful in recovering the Guild building, or more importantly the 30 people who were likely to have been inside it when it vanished.

Meanwhile, Quinn and Mrs. Wilkins located Grimaldi's residence. The chief of research was not at home; his wife explained that Grimaldi had left for the Guild early that morning as usual and should be reachable there. They told Mrs. Grimaldi about the events of the morning and comforted her with some tea before returning to their ship.

Melian's venture into the post office turned up nothing but official red tape. The postal workers refused to give him access to the Guild's undelivered mail or to search the mail for anything addressed to the party.

Caenus and Audas discovered something new immediately upon reaching the Chimera: a linen sash, similar to the one worn by Aria, lay draped across the rail at the end of the gangway. Nothing else appeared to be added or removed.

The party reassembled at the ship and conducted a thorough search to confirm that nothing was missing, nothing had been added aside from the sash, and nobody was hiding below decks. They compared notes and went over what they knew. At the time that the Guild Hall vanished there were probably 30 people inside: a mixture of adventurers of varying level, Guild staff, and Grimaldi. The actual Guildmaster was out of town in Nessen, and therefore likely safe. Tolliver was working on assembling what remained of the Guild management.

Unable even to state with assurance that the Guild hall still existed, the party turned to their Compass of Fahrlanghn and sought to locate the Hall. The Compass flashed and returned an odd piece of knowledge: the Guild Hall could not be located.

The group was taken aback. The power of the Compass was such that even if the Hall had been destroyed it would reveal the location of any trace fragments. "Cannot be located" could only mean that the Hall had somehow passed beyond the known universe. And they thought of the Far Realm, that unspeakably insane place that Chandrakar had been so eager to reach. Had she come back and taken the Guild there?

In the end the party had one clue, the sash. Knowing it had been left deliberately, they nonetheless had no real alternative but to seek its owner. The Compass could not be used again for 24 hours, but if they were right -- if there were people trapped in the Far Realm -- their lives and sanity depended on a fast response.

The group turned to Desmond, the wizard-for-hire they'd used in the past. Desmond cast discern location and determined that the owner of the sash was on the Astral Plane. The group gathered around Mrs. Wilkins and used their amulet of the planes to journey once again to the silvery realm. They focused on the scarf's owner and found themselves hurtling through the ether.

Two and a half days passed as the party flew across the plane, needing neither rest nor food because of the timeless properties of Astral space. Then, in the distance, they spied a lone figure sitting in a meditative pose on a cloud of silvery mist. It was a humanoid, they determined, and as they drew close the party made out the features of a young aventi male in simple robes.

The young man stood and floated forward to meet the party. "It's about time you showed up," he said in a scornful tone. The party approached but he held up a glowing purple sphere. "Hold it," he warned. "If I destroy this here, you'll never get them back."

"What do you want?" the party demanded.

The aventi smiled coldly and pointed to Aria. "Her. One on one. We have some business to resolve."

Aria pulled away from the group and approached the aventi. When she closed to within 25 feet he lobbed the sphere softly in her direction. Aria caught it handily; as soon as her hand touched the sphere, however, there was a flash of light and a ball of glowing energy formed around her and the young male. To Strontium's eye the ball resembled Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, but to create a sphere that large would require an epic caster level. This boy didn't look like an epic level caster.

Inside the barrier, Aria examined the glass ball she'd caught. Inside was a tiny model of the Adventurers' Guild hall surrounded by filth and slime. She tucked it safely into her pack and faced a young man whose features were familiar. "You wanted me. Why?"

The boy glared with a set jaw. "You and your pals killed Dad, Sis. Now it's payback time."

Aria heard "Sis" and realized why this boy's features were so familiar. He looked 16 at most; he'd have to have been born after her parents had disappeared. He stood in the same fighting stance her father had favored, waiting for her to make a move. So she did -- she closed the gap and launched a flurry of blows. And missed.

The enemy grinned and pointed behind her at the party. Aria took a cautious look back and saw four hulking black humanoids -- astral stalkers -- decloak and jump them. "What's that for?"

"Gotta keep 'em busy somehow," the stranger answered.

The heroes did find themselves quite busy. Mrs. Wilkins used greater mirror image for cover and took a stab at an opponent with her rapier, but her martial skills were woefully inadequate for the task. Caenus raged and switched his aberration-bane halbert for his +3 greataxe while Melian and Quinn moved in with weapons to defend themselves.

Audas, having taken two grievous wounds from the stalker's claws, moved straight up and let loose a virtiolic chain. That earned him a new form of attention: one of the stalkers spit a dart from his throat, struck Audas, and left him paralyzed from the dart's poison. Quinn, Caenus and Strontium also took slashing hits. Mrs. Wilkins used haste to speed up all of the party except Aria, who was shielded by the energy ball, and Audas, who had floated out of range.

The stalkers continued to land blows with alarming consistency. They also proved annoyingly difficult to affect magically, as Mrs. Wilkins discovered when her friend to foe attempt failed. Strontium's missile storm spells were effective, but it took three storms -- one greater and two lesser -- to kill just one stalker. As Quinn and Audas found themselves badly wounded the party realized that the energy barrier around Aria and the stranger was also separating them from the Rod of Health, which they needed.

Aria needed it, too. She stood up to her newly-met brother and traded flurries of blows. They were both highly trained monks, but the boy had additional abilities beyond a normal monk's training or even Aria's mystical tattoos. He moved faster, struck more often, and seemed to have the use of psionic powers as well. His higher rate of attack wore Aria down until she was rendered unconscious and bleeding.

Seeing Aria fall, Strontium tried a desperate stratagem: he called out to the young monk and announced that he, not Aria, had killed Lord Tagren. If the boy had any real bravery or sense of honor, the wizard taunted, he would come out of hiding and face his true enemy.

The boy put on a reasonable show of amusement, made a gesture, and a hole opened in the surface of the energy sphere. Mrs. Wilkins ignored Strontium's word and tried to send a feeblemind spell through the opening but the boy easily avoided it. As soon as Strontium entered the sphere the opening closed, trapping the mage in with the enemy and the unconscious Aria.

Strontium took the iniative to fire off another Isaac's greater missile storm. His most devastating spell flashed bright light and shot off hoardes of magic missiles ... and did alarmingly little actual damage. The boy mimed brushing a speck of his tunic and landed three hard blows against Strontium, but the wizard didn't mind and made little effort to defend himself. Instead he focused on his real objective, pulling the Rod of Health from Aria's pack and using it to heal her.

Now facing two opponents, one freshly restored to full vitality, the enemy monk backed up a step and released a cone of highly caustic acid breath, catching both Strontium and Aria in its path. Even Strontium's dwarven constitution was barely enough to withstand that after the damage he'd already taken; he drew back and used the Rod to heal himself while Aria moved forward to re-engage her brother. Strontium cast a moonbow and then an Isaac's lesser missile storm and watched the monk's power reduce both to minimum damage even as he traded flurries with Aria. Finally, the accumulated blows he'd taken without the benefit of healing added up and the boy went down.

The monk's body body shimmered and dissolved into the Astral matter along with the giant force sphere that encased them. Aria and Strontium watched this and realized they'd been fighting an astral projection -- Aria's brother would be waking soon, alive and unharmed, wherever his physical body lay.

The rest of the party had dispatched or scattered the remaining astral stalkers by the time the force sphere dissolved. That left the heroes with many questions about their assailant, but no time to ponder them if the people in the Guild hall were to be saved.

Mrs. Wilkins operated the amulet of the planes and returned the party to Marhaven. Acting purely on intuition, Aria took the glass ball she'd received from her brother to the center of the space where the Hall had stood, placed it on the deck, and smashed it. There was a burst of bright purple energy and a tiny model of the Hall appeared on the spot. As Aria backed away the "model" grew in sharp jerks until it was the size of the original hall.

The building looked as if it had been through a disaster. Shutters hung loosely from the window casings or were missing entirely. Bits of algae and ooze-like material clung to the walls. The sturdy front doors were smashed and a quick look revealed evidence of failed attempts to board the doors and windows. Nobody came running out, and the crowd of amazed onlookers showed no desire whatsoever to go running in.

The heroes grabbed the two least frightened-looking bystanders and tasked them with keeping everyone clear of the doorway. Aria led the way inside, where the smell of carrion greeted them instantly. There were several bodies strewn around the entry hall, but the party's immediate attention went to the two horrific, floating, tentacled blobs that occupied the center of the hall and the handful of floating eyeballs that moved toward the entrance. As the eyeballs struck party members the eyeballs burst, releasing clouds of concentrated acid.

Aria lunged forward and landed a stunning fist against one of the monsters, noting that some of its tentacles had more eyeballs stuck onto the end like marshmallows waiting for roasting. Caenus moved to attach the other and found himself entangled in its tentacles. He used the distraction of a baneful chain from Audas to break free and struck with his halbard, gleefully confirming that these creatures were aberrations (and therefore especially vulnerable to his weapon). It took only a few seconds to dispatch the things, which burst at death to release another cloud of acid.

Close to a dozen bodies lay in the entry hall. Their advanced states of dismemberment made it difficult to be sure of the count. Most of the heads were missing their eyes and something -- or more likely several somethings -- had been feeding on the remains.

The rest of the main floor revealed similar horrors. Patches of slime clung to the walls in various places and bits of bodies lay everywhere. In one of the meeting rooms the party encountered a human male in rogue's gear staggering around aimlessly. The top of his skull had been ripped off and from the jagged hole protruded a single bulbous eye on a fleshy stalk. The heroes dispached the wretched creature without resistance and continued the search for Grimaldi.

They found him in the library, crouched behind the desk, scraping away at his own skin with a dagger and babbling about needing to "get them off me." They moved to get him out of there but were interrupted as a reddish cloud of vapors moved toward them from the stacks.

The cloud enveloped the heroes, revealing inside a hideous blob of a creature. Dozens of eyes dotted its veiny surface and three wickedly-clawed arms extended down toward the floor. A constant drizzle of acid fell from the huge thing, burning everyone underneath. Melian grabbed Grimaldi and started dragging him clear while Strontium, Aria, and Caenus dispatched the disgusting thing in a few seconds.

By the time the party had finished searching the Guild Hall they had found only three survivors, including Grimaldi. None were coherent. Grimaldi had to be physically restrained to stop him from scraping off his own flesh.

Of the 30 people estimated to have been in the Hall when it disappeared, only 18 could be accounted for. The rest, it seemed likely, had been devoured or carried off by the monstrous inhabitants of that realm.

The party left the Hall in the custody of Tolliver and returned to the Chimera to heal and rest.

<MR>
10/28/08