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9 Shyrdus 1120
Ransom
The heroes returned to Marhaven in high spirits after slaying Rorin and looting his home base on the Astral Plane. A few days later they sat with representatives of Lord Mayor Ander to let them know that the conjuror who had caused havoc in the city center was dead while stopping short of promising lasting peace. The wisdom of that became quite clear as the party returned to the Chimera to find a small, wet, familiar figure huddled and shivering on deck: Derrick, Mrs. Wilkins's beloved dog familiar. They quickly checked the ship for his owner but found nothing else out of place and no sign of Gertrude. Derrick was clearly exhausted and starving, so Aria got some food for him, which he gladly ate from her hand. She reached to pet him and triggered a startling result. Derrick's eyes opened wide and took on a dark purple glow. His lips moved, and a very undoglike voice spoke from his mouth: The owner of this dog is being detained for various reasons that you can likely surmise yourselves. If you would like her back, you may present yourselves at her location and my agents will accept the galadiir in exchange for her safe return. You have one minute to indicate your acceptance. Without waiting for the group to decide Aria responded in the affirmative. Derrick returned to normal and flopped into her lap with no apparent idea that he had just been used as a communications device. No one in the party had seen or heard from Mrs. Wilkins since she had left the party to do some personal business relating to her brothel. That was six weeks ago, and while they had noted that she was taking a long time to return they had been too busy to actively seek her out. Now it seemed rather important to know what had happened. Quinn cast speak with animals and questioned Derrick. The trip had started out as planned, he indicated, with Mrs. Wilkins taking a ship to the Jade Islands and scouting for some fresh talent for the brothel. One day in the second week, however, she was set upon by a party of adventurers. The group was led by Kallaebri Seastar and included the psychic monk Andronus, an elven mage, and a pair of aventi fighters. Mrs. Wilkins, being heavily outmatched, was taken easily. She and Derrick, who remained in the familiar pocket of her robe, spent the next several weeks either held in a sort of suspended animation or being mind probed and questioned by a tall illithid-like creature in a water-filled cave somewhere. Then, earlier that day, Derrick had been taken and teleported to the ship where the heroes had found him. Actually exchanging the galadiir for Mrs. Wilkins was out of the question, but so was leaving their companion in the hands of Azazel's champions. The heroes prepared themselves for a fight. They visited Desmond, the helpful mage, and purchased another scroll of discern location. Using that revealed that Mrs. Wilkins was at the entrance to the portal to Limbo outside of Xaos on the Concordant Domain of the Outlands. The party knew this location. Several months before they had chased down Chandrakar there only to watch her get thrown through a portal to the Far Realm (The Outlands). They visited Desmond again for a want of phantom steed and a wand of protection from evil at an elevated caster level and prepared to revisit the Outlands. Their first trip to Xaos had been by way of a portal shown them by Yulach, so the party used their amulet of the planes to return to Sigil. They appeared directly outside Yulach's estate but found the place in devastated condition. The sentient construct gate was broken and silent, and as the party ran to the house they saw signs everywhere of neglect. Inside the house their worst suspicions were confirmed, as they found Yulach's keepers destroyed and his library looted of anything worth taking. They saw no sign of Yulach himself but noted a small pile of dust in the library. The dust reminded Strontium of the residue left by a disintegrate spell. The damage looked a couple of weeks old, so there was nothing really to be done but proceed to Xaos. They found the portal and stepped through into the center of the small border town. Strontium whipped out the wand of phantom steed and produced ground transportation to the portal site, which they knew lay about two miles outside of town in a box canyon. Shortly thereafter the party found themselves approaching the portal site. In the distance they could make out four figures gathered near the opening of the tunnel that was the actual portal. As they approached the figures moved. Kallaebri Seastar and Andronus stepped forward on either side of the tunnel. The third, a tall illithid-like creature with extra long tentacles, moved behind the fallen paladin. The fourth -- Mrs. Wilkins -- was clearly unconscious but somehow rose into the air. The ground below her opened up and a familiar sickly yellow light glowed from the gap. Someone, probably the illithid, had opened a portal to the Far Realm right beneath Mrs. Wilkins. Kallaebri motioned for the party to stop when they reached conversational distance. "I'm sure you can guess where that portal leads," she said. "The only thing keeping your friend from falling into it is my compantion's telekinesis power; it would be highly unfortunate for her if anything were to disrupt his concentration. The galadiir, please." At that moment the heroes realized that in all of their preparations they had completely neglected to bring the galadiir with them. This was not necessarily a problem because they had no intention of handing it over anyway, but they would have to do something. Aria appealed to her mother to buy time for thought. Kallaebri was unimpressed and simply repeated her demand for the galadiir. Andronus stepped forward with his hand out to receive it. Quinn made a show of reaching into her Heward's handy haversack as if she actually intended to fetch the gem. While she did that, Strontium fired his dimensional anchor spell at Mrs. Wilkins. The ray hit and held, making it temporarily impossible for her to fall into the Far Realm. Melian took his cue and dismounted, heading toward Caenus with the wand of protection from evil in hand. Caenus, however, did not wait to be protected; he charged at Kallaebri with his greataxe at the ready. The enemy seemed completely unsurprised at the party's reaction. The tall creature -- recognizable up close as a ulitharid -- dropped Mrs. Wilkins and psionically attacked Audas with a crisis of breath. Audas felt the psychic attack try to stop his lungs but resisted, taking damage but still breathing. Andronus had a flurry of blows ready for his sister as soon as she reached him and Kallaebri's pearlsteel spear came out in plenty of time to meet Caenus. If the party needed any further proof that the enemy had anticipated an attack, it came in the form of two additional enemies -- four-armed half-illithid sahuagin psychic warriors -- who appeared behind the front line almost immediately and focused on Aria and Caenus. Audas unleashed his newest ability, the brimstone chain, at the ulitharid with the intention of having it bounce to Kallaebri and the mutant. The blast failed against the ulitharid's spell resistance, though, and fizzled. The party saw Mrs. Wilkins stir and move, gesturing toward the ulitharid, but the mind fog she cast appeared not there but around the back line of the party, affecting Strontium and Audas. Kallaebri's spear flashed and pierced Caenus three times before he even landed a blow against her. Caenus felt the wounds but there was more -- each hit drained his constitution, lowering his overall endurance even beyond the physical damage. Aria returned Andronus's flurry of blows with one of her own but mistimed things and harmed herself mildly in the process. She did at least have the satisfaction of shrugging off her brother's stunning fist attempt before taking multiple hits from the mutant behind her. Strontium stepped out of the mind fog and unleashed a greater missile storm targeted at the ulitharid. He was pleased to see it affect the intended target, but it left the enemy standing and the ulitharid's psychic crush put Strontium on the ground in one attack. Mrs. Wilkins then seemed to reconsider her initial strategy and cast greater invisibility on herself. While Caenus and Aria traded blows with the fighters and Melian provided ranged attack support on their flanking opponents, a magical battle raged between the ulitharid and the other spellcasters in the group. Quinn's mass cure serious wounds got Strontium back on his feet and helped her many bleeding allies, and Strontium responded with a desperate prismatic spray hoping to take out at least one of the enemy with minimal damage to his allies. The spray was uncooperative, though: while Kallaebri and the ulitharid did take some damage, Melian was severely hurt and Caenus took damage he could ill afford with Kallaebri landing multiple blows each round. The ulitharid, seemingly not amused, responded with a psionic insanity that scrambled Strontium's mind. Quinn used a heal to restore his reason but Strontium and Audas both fell victim to a friend to foe type affect and directed their next attacks at each other. Strontium hit Audas with a greater missile storm and then, just as he realized his mistake, he and Quinn took an eldritch chain in return. He, too, immediately realized his mistake but it was too late to reverse the damage. Audas also had issues with the ulitharid. It absorbed one virtiolic blast and redirected it at Caenus. Then, after a successful blast hit the ulitharid Audas found himself targeted by a powerful hold and could do nothing more but stand in place. Fortunately for Audas the enemy was occupied with the rest of the group, which was struggling. Aria's endurance finally gave out under the barrage of attacks from her brother and the mutant at her back and she lost consciousness. Melian gave up on physical attacks and stole a use of Audas's vitriolic blast to use on Kallaebri but it did not stop her from landing the blow that dropped Caenus to the ground. Only his lesser ring of regeneration saved Caenus from death. Strontium let fly with his last greater missile storm and managed to take out Andronus. The boy's body deresolved and vanished, equipment and all -- the enemy was astrally projected! He then saw both Kallaebri and the ulitharid heal themselves and, realizing that they were taking a beating, called out to the party to save all they could and pull out. Mrs. Wilkins under cover of her greater invisibility retrieved the Rod of Health from Aria's pack and used it to revive first Aria and then Caenus, both of whom withdrew while Kallaebri stepped back and allowed them to escape. Melian grabbed Audas and the party went into full retreat, taking to their steeds and riding back to Xaos and then using the amulet to return home. The heroes returned to the Chimera with Mrs. Wilkins and still in possession of the galadiir, but with the bitter taste of defeat in their mouths. Knowing that the enemy had deliberately let them go made it all the more ugly. They stayed up late into the night pondering possible reasons why and also debating their next move. There was much talk but in the end the only thing they only reached consensus on three points: that there was nowhere to store the galadiir that was any safer than keeping it with them; that they needed to find a source that could tell them how to recharge and use the stone; and that, for the safety of the city, they had to leave Marhaven. They freed the lines and sailed toward Nessen.
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