18 Lochstan 1120

The Outlands

For the heroes their trip back to Marhaven was a frustrating three days at sea with little to distract them from their irritation at Chandrakar's having escaped again. The atrocities they had found her committing in the Mu'adh Valley (Badlands) only strengthened the party's conviction that Chandrakar was dangerously insane and had to die.

Strontium did use some of the time to flip through the notebooks they had taken from the hidden laboratory. The cave system, he learned, had been the hidden home of the Malar, a cult that worshipped aberrations as gods. They had sought to perfect themselves by grafting aberration parts onto their bodies -- a practice which, it appeared, had aroused the disgust of the local Emir and ultimately led to the cult's destruction at the hands of the Emir's forces.

Back in Marhaven they found Tolisa and Merkator more than happy to pinpoint the location where the Daybreak had gone down. They had been traveling west and were in an area known locally as Holle's Parlor, a section of the Northern Basin infamous for bad weather, aggressive sea life, and more than its share of wrecks and lost ships.

They restocked the Chimera with the usual provisions and headed northwest to the area indicated by the survivors. Once they reached the Parlor Strontium activated the crystal sailor's ball they had taken from Garrick and sensed the presence of some 30 or 40 sunken ships in the vicinity. Among them was the Daybreak. They took position above the wreck, turned the Chimera into the wind, and left a hired pilot in charge of holding her steady.

The party descended slowly, on the alert for any kind of trouble. Strontium and Caenus wore cloaks of the manta ray and Melian wore gills of Hamachi so everyone was fully able to breathe and maneuver but Strontium was limited to a few spells that he'd prepared with Silent Spell.

The remains of the Daybreak lay atop a bed of much older ruins. Even from a hundred feet out the party could clearly see multiple holes in the hull large enough for an ogre to walk through. The mast was broken off and missing and the frame had a twisted look as if the ship had been wracked by something immense and brutally strong.

Quinn knew where to look for their objective -- the amulet of the planes -- so she and Aria swam through one of the holes to the lower deck while the rest of the party hovered outside and kept watch. They went directly to what had been Tolisa's cabin, found the amulet, and also picked up Tolisa's spell book figuring she would be pleased to have it back.

As they crossed the deck to see if there was anything left in Uiq's cabin, a pool of muddy water coalesced into a mound with four long tentacles and attacked them. Audas, who had taken a position on the upper deck of the wreck, felt motion and turned to see an identical creature forming behind him.

Audas defended himself with a five-foot step and an eldritch blast while Caenus and Melian charged in to help. The creature seemed unimpressed, though -- it grabbed both of them with huge watery tentacles and held them fast. Aria avoided being grabbed by the first creature and tried a Stunning Fist attack but the monster was immune. It was not immune to magic missiles, though; Strontium sent a volley of them charged with fire energy and was pleased to see the monster take extra damage.

The monster above lost its grip on Caenus and absorbed a hit from his trident with little damage, then proceeded to engulf Melian within its slime-and-water body and crush him. Before it could kill Melian, Strontium let loose another set of fire-charged magic missiles and the creature dissolved into water and filth.

Below deck Quinn suffered the same treatment as Melian when the monster grabbed her and swallowed her into its foul body. Aria's weapons and fists made little impact against it but Strontium's last firey magic missile and Audas's eldritch blast did enough damage that Quinn was able to destroy the monster from within with a healing sting.

Now free to search the rest of the wreck the party found some useful items, some of which were familiar. In Uiq's cabin they found Castanamir's magic chessboard, a magic item that could enhance someone's intelligence through practice in chess. From elsewhere on the ship they recovered the gold seal of Noordia and two waterskins still filled with Castanamir's fast healing water. There was also a tidy sum in gold coin and gems that had sunk with the ship. About 200 feet out Audas found the ship's broken mast, which still bore the everfull sail the group had purchased in Margier for their last voyage. They stowed all this gear aboard the Chimera and returned to Marhaven to prepare for the next step in their plan.

As they had in Sauria, the party prepared to defend themselves against mind control by obtaining a supply of protection from evil potions and from unexpected climate conditions by replacing their used-up wand of endure elements. With that done, Strontium used their scroll of discern location to divine the whereabouts of Chandrakar.

As soon as he finished reading the scroll he knew that Chandrakar was at the house of Yulach in the Clerk's Ward, City of Sigil, center of the Concordant Domain of the Outlands. The party joined hands, Strontium focused his mind on the amulet of the planes, and ordered it to take them there. The party felt a strong tingle, a sense of sudden swift motion, and then found themselves in the middle of a vast, empty land dominated by the image of a single towering spire hundreds of miles in the distance. They had reached the Outlands, but were a good 350 miles from Sigil.

This, Strontium realized, was the weakness of the amulet of the planes: its power was based on the plane shift spell, which is notorious for being imprecise as to the actual point of arrival on the plane in question. Faced with a 12-day walk they opted to return to the Material Plane, try again, and hope for a better result.

The plan worked. This time the amulet put them only about 180 miles away from the plane's central spire. They headed for the spire on foot, the spellcasters growing increasingly uncomfortable as the plane's magic-inhibiting trait grew stronger and stronger around them.

At the base of the spire they found a series of portals attended by official-looking people of various races. For the price of 50gp the party was ushered to one of the portals and transported into Sigil itself.

Sigil, the famous City of Doors, is built on the inner face of a massive torus that floats suspended above the top of the Spire. The party arrived in an official greeting complex where members of the city guard asked their business and assessed their ability to get along in the city. The party was apparently judged at least somewhat trustworthy, as the guards answered their questions and gave them leave to enter the city.

A little bit of asking around gained them directions to a small curio shop in the busy Hive Ward where, they were told, the proprietor could be bribed into providing a fast portal into the Clerk's Ward. The group parted with a dose of their fast healing water and received directions to an appropriate portal.

The Clerk's Ward was clearly an affluent area of the city. All around the group well-dressed persons of various races went about their business with an air of leisure. They quickly received directions to the house of Yulach, a spacious villa on a hill surrounded by a stone fence. The place looked forbidding enough that the party opted to ask around about Yulach before trying to gain entry.

Yulach, they learned, was a mercane -- one of a legendary race of nomadic, interplanar merchants. Unlike most of his kind, Yulach had given up wandering to devote himself to the study of magic and had built himself a library of some renown. Occasionally, the party learned, Yulach allowed mages and scholars with appropriate references (usually an acquaintance of Yulach's) to make use of that library.

The party was unable to learn anything useful about Yulach's habits and temperament. He seldom left his villa and most of his daily business was conducted by servants who likewise seemed to live in the villa and never came out to socialize. Those few who had met Yulach described him as polite and well-mannered. None had noticed anyone matching Chandrakar's description in the neighborhood, but this would not be unusual for guests of Yulach.

This left the group in a bit of a quandary: how does one persuade a powerful wizard, as Yulach likely was, to allow a group of heroes to enter his home and slay one of his guests? Even Mrs. Wilkins, had the been there, would have found the task daunting.

Strontium favored a simple frontal approach: walk up to the gate, introduce himself as a wizard, and ask for use of the library. Aria feared that Chandrakar would have described the party to Yulach, or would as soon as she became aware of their approach, and would simply flee before they could reach the house. She advocated a stealthy approach instead. The rest of the group split between the two viewpoints, with Melian suggesting a con artist's approach that blended the two ideas.

In the end the group went for a modified form of Strontium's direct approach. They walked up to the gate and saw the human-like face in the iron gate come to life and ask them their names and business. Strontium told the gate that he was there to ask for use of the library, that the group had liberated the lost journals of Castanamir, and that they were known to Chandrakar, Castanamir's granddaughter. The gate considered this and then opened, bidding them climb the stairs to the villa.

Surprised by the success of what seemed a far-fetched tale, the party ascended a regal stone staircase toward the villa. They noticed that the house seemed exceptionally tall, as if each floor had very high ceilings. Quinn also noticed that the gargoyles around the gate moved a little as the party entered -- had they been less persuasive, it seemed, a fight would have ensued.

The front door of the house was huge, a good 15 feet high and 10 feet wide. It opened as they approached and a man-sized creature greeted them. It wore goggles that hid its eyes and its arms and legs were oddly jointed, as if they could bend in multiple directions. The creature bade them enter and led them into the house foyer, where two more of its kind stood waiting.

The foyer had a cathedral ceiling some 40 feet above the floor. A pair of fine wooden staircases led to an open landing 16 feet above the floor and four gold-plated suits of armor stood at corners as if at attention. A door on the upper landing opened and out stepped a 12-foot-tall humanoid dressed in rich robes: Yulach. He was accompanied by a shield guardian, and Quinn spied a shadow that suggested someone else was just out of sight inside the doorway.

Yulach asked immediately about the journals of Castanamir. Strontium spoke for the group and told Yulach that they had returned the journals to Castanamir's family. "Pity," the mercane replied, and mentioned that he had known Castanamir. Strontium, following the agreed-upon script, said that they had not known him but had adventured together with his granddaughter Chandrakar.

Yulach looked to the doorway and asked, "Is this true?" Chandrakar stepped into view and looked momentarily surprised before telling Yulach that the party was the group who had recently tried to kill her. The two of them went back through the closed door; less than a minute later Yulach returned and ordered the party out of his house.

Aria moved first and charged toward the stairway. One of Yulach's servants stood in the way, though, and the group noticed that all of the servants' hands had reshaped themselves into war hammers. Aria invoked the magic power of her new dragon tattoo and cloaked the servant in fire. Yulach responded by drawing a magic wand from his robe and targeting Aria with an orb of sound that deafened her for a few seconds and did sonic damage. Melian jumped in by throwing his returning trident at the servant in front of Aria.

Strontium looked at Yulach, at the shield guardian, and at the servants and did not like the odds. He cast Otiluke's Resilient Sphere at Yulach and trapped the mercane inside a bubble of force, then made his case that the party did not want to harm Yulach; they only wanted Chandrakar. The rest of the party held their attacks except Aria, who could not hear the conversation or Strontium's entreaties to the group to hold. When the servant before her seemed to spontaneously heal she breathed more fire on it.

Yulach dispelled the resilient sphere, regarded Strontium, and motioned for his servants to stand down. He led them to an opulent sitting room to discuss the party's demands. For a short time he debated with Strontium over whether they truly had a valid right to kill Chandrakar, but his interest was clearly more intellectual than based on any sense of morality or loyalty to her. "Chandrakar," he told the party, "is a problem that is about to solve itself. She has found a way to enter the Far Realm, as Castanamir did, and nobody who goes there returns."

When this did not satisfy the party Yulach explained Chandrakar's plan. She had used an arch in Yulach's lab to transport herself to Xaos, a small town on the outer edge of the Outlands, some 1000 miles from the Spire, where there was a working portal to the Eternal Chaos of Limbo. Chandrakar intended to enter that portal and, with her being partially in Limbo and partially in the Outlands, focus her mind on the portal terrain and reshape it to open a doorway to the Far Realm. Seeing that the party was determined to have their way, Yulach sighed and offered them the use of the same portal. His demeanor improved slightly when Strontium offered him some gold to cover damages to his foyer and commiserated on the loss of his friend.

Yulach led the party to the archway in his lab, spoke a command word and made a gesture, and the party saw a small, average-looking town through the opening. They stepped through and found themselves in the middle of Xaos. There was nobody in the village center but the sound of music and conversation wafted out to them from a nearby building labeled The End of the World.

The End of the World was a pub. Inside the group asked around and learned that Chandrakar had been there just a few minutes before offering 10pp to anyone who could give her fast transport to the Limbo portal. A sorcerer named Irastus had taken the money and conjured a phantom steed for her.

They found Irastus still in the pub and, with minimal negotiation, got him to create three more phantom steeds and point them in the direction of the portal. The magical mounts were amazingly fast; the three-mile trip took only a few minutes to complete.

The Limbo portal was a tunnel in the side of a ridiculously high mountain. The air inside the tunnel swirled with green and yellow mists. The party arrived in time to see Chandrakar standing at the opening.

Strontium wasted no time in casting dimensional anchor from his running mount. His concentration held and his aim was true; Chandrakar found herself encased in a green glow that prevented her from entering the portal or using any extradimensional powers.

Nobody in the group seemed inclined to give any quarter. Quinn stopped her mount and cast an ice storm to bombard Chandrakar with hailstones. Melian, Audas and Caenus drank protection from evil potions and dismounted with weapons at the ready.

Just as the party seemed to have things under control, though, Chandrakar used psionic dispel to cancel the dimensional anchor and entered the portal tunnel. Aria and Quinn gave chase and the superior speed of their mounts allowed them to pass Chandrakar and block her way. Chandrakar absorbed an eldritch spear from Audas but then used a psionic dimension door to pass the blockade and reach a spot just over midway through the tunnel. She faced the tunnel wall and seemed to ignore the party's pursuit.

Quinn tried to break Chandrakar's concentration with a capricious zephyr but failed to have an affect. Audas used another eldritch spear and Strontium tried a blast of force but Chandrakar's concentration remained unbroken. As the party watched a crack appeared in the side of the tunnel and grew widen enough for a large creature to pass through. Bright purple and yellow light shone from the other side, making it difficult to see anything beyond the tunnel wall.

Chandrakar's body took on a brief blue glow as she used body adjustment to heal herself. It would be the last act the party would see her take: as the power took effect a huge tentacle shot out from the far side of the opening and wrapped itself around Chandrakar. She struggled but was unable to break free of its grip.

Aria ran up and attempted a Stunning Fist against the tentacle but missed. Caenus attacked the held Chandrakar, as did Melian and Quinn. The latter two discovered that their magic weapons ceased to function magically against Chandrakar, and Audas's eldritch spear faded away just before touching her.

With so many new targets available the tentacled creature seemed to lose interest in Chandrakar. Even as it crossed through the opening it tossed her behind and through it, where she landed hard and lay motionless. The crack immediately began to close, leaving the monster inside the tunnel. It attacked Quinn with its free tentacle even as Aria flailed away at it with her fists. Caenus entered rage and attacked with his spiked chain but felt it bounce off the creature's hide with little to show. He snarled and switched to the +1 bastard sword he'd acquired from Garrick's lackeys, which proved far more effective.

The creature's behavior suggested that it was attracted to magical auras. A tentacle grabbed onto Quinn, who had the most such auras on her at the time, and held her tight. She felt the dampening affect of anti-magic in the creature's grip and knew why her trident had failed to function in her last attack against Chandrakar.

With weapons of limited use Strontium broke out a new spell, Isaac's lesser missile storm. A barrage of missiles swarmed at the monster and tore into it with full effect. Aria used her Fire Breath and found it much more effective than hand strikes in weakening the creature. After two telling hits from Caenus Quinn managed to break free of the monster's grasp and stabbed at its heart with her trident. The creature shuddered and fell dead.

Strontium managed a peek inside the crack as it closed. He saw a strange jumble of images, as if several very thin layers of reality were superimposed over each other and allowed partial vision through them all. Chandrakar lay on the ground in one such image next to a large rock, motionless. Then the seam closed and sealed itself.

Having learned the precision of the amulet, the party opted to return to Sigil by portal and pay for passage via a more accurate portal. They reached Marhaven the next day and found things in good order.

Soon they would have to decide on their next move. For now though, after the strange and alien places they'd been lately, it was just good to be home.

<MR>
1/16/07