Synopsis: Into Madness

The heroes settled into their new home with little delay. They learned quickly how to avoid the game room and reached a working agreement with Bradvig that avoided strife over the library. For now, though, there was no time to enjoy the island -- they needed a new library.

Since they were hoping to find information on the galadiir, which had been in the care of elves for generations, the best place to look seemed to be a large elf city. And so the heroes set course for Deep Elandrin, stopping by Marhaven just long enough for Strontium to acquire the arcane focus for a new spell, Submerge Ship.

They found the elven city on high alert still, which was not surprising after the recent siege. The suspicious guards even had magical help to see through Mrs. Wilkins's automatic lie about wanting to open diplomatic relations with the city. Quinn and Strontium smoothed that over and gained admission for the group, along with directions to the city's central library.

The central library, however, was not able to help much. They found a version of the Mai'Nareen story they'd already heard from Nostrigari before but nothing older. The nerdy research clerk suggested that if they wanted a religious/historical reference they should try the archive of the Church of Deep Sashelas.

At the Church, the clerics were friendly and tried to be helpful but also had nothing of the requisite age to add to the party's knowledge. As a last resort the archivist suggested the Vault of Antiquities, a private library maintained by the Church of Boccob. At the mention of Boccob Strontium's ears perked up. The god of magic and knowledge was one of the oldest known deities; this sounded like the best chance yet of finding anything more than retold myths.

The archivist wrote a letter of introduction for the heroes and they presented themselves at the Vault of Antiquities. The Vault was a large, round stone structure with a domed roof. Inside they found the building divided into a wet side, which was underwater and contained materials intended to be stored that way, and a dry side that was air-filled to hold items that could not survive in water.

The librarians quickly determined that the party's questions would need the help of Taebala, their senior researcher, and conducted the party into the area called the central stacks. Taebala, a middle-aged aquatic elf woman, listened to the heroes explain their quest. She siezed on the galadiir as the simplest item to pin down, excused herself for a few minutes, and returned with a huge, dusty volume entitled Compendium of Historic Gems. There, on paper brittle with age, was an entry describing the galadiir and making mention of how to recharge it.

As Taebala read the passage and the party realized its significance, Mrs. Wilkins rose from her seat. Her arms gestured and her mouth spoke words the party did not recognize in a voice that was not her own. The building shook violently, throwing everyone to the floor, and then went still. Mrs. Wilkins collapsed on the floor with the rest of the group.

As soon as the initial surprise wore off the party questioned Mrs. Wilkins about what she had done, but the beguiler denied having done anything. Before the conversation could proceed a junior librarian burst in and called to Taebala to look outside. A few in the party went to investigate while others remained with Mrs. Wilkins in the central stacks.

A look out the window confirmed what some in the group already suspected: the Vault was no longer in Deep Elandrin. From the sickly yellow, green, and magenta swirling mists and mold-infested ground outside the party surmised they were in the Far Realm.

The door to the wet side opened and another junior librarian entered to state what the party could already see -- the water was leaking out. In a few minutes the pressure overcame the strength of the main doors and broke them down, allowing the flow to accelerate until the water had completely run out.

Meanwhile, Aria and Quinn wrestled with Mrs. Wilkins. Quinn held her and Aria tied her up with some handy rope, but Mrs. W quickly escaped. Strontium used his Otiluke's resilient sphere to trap Mrs. W and render her harmless for the time being. She continued to protest her ignorance and complained of being assaulted by her own party.

Getting nowhere that way, the party turned to survival priorities. They rounded up all of the people in the library and gathered them together in the center room. Most were shaken but unharmed; one looked out the window in curiosity and stated that they were not in any known plane that he could recognize.

With everyone gathered for defense, the next priority was to find a way back. Most of the bystanders were aquatic elves who would need water to breathe within the next half day or so or they would suffocate, and there was no longer any significant quantity of water in the building. Knowledge of the Far Realm is extremely limited, of course, but what the Vault was the one place where such knowledge would likely be. Taebala, who had training as a sorcerer, took on the research project with Strontium and the curious stranger, a psion/nomad named Vinandri, assisting. Strontium also kept an eye on Mrs. Wilkins.

The rest of the party made a circuit of the building to assess damage and defend the perimeter from wandering ... anything. Sure enough, once the water had ceased to flow several strange creatures had wandered inside.

First the party encountered three tiny, floating creatures that resembled nothing more than a pair of eyes connected by cord. The creatures swarmed in toward the party and attacked with eye rays which hit the mark several times but had no discernable affect. Audas tried to dispatch them quickly with a baneful chain but miscalculated and not only missed the targets but found himself unable to use the baneful chain ability after that. Fortunately the creatures were trivial opponents; Aria, Caenus and Quinn swatted them away easily.

Even as they crushed the floating eyes a pair of more serious assailants descended on them. These flying eel-like creatures with razor-sharp wings dove in to sting and bite. Audas and Caenus dispatched them quickly as well. Quinn used wood shape to secure the broken door and they set about sweeping the building for any more uninvited guests.

They found two near the lecture hall on the wet side, where a broken window had apparently provided an opening. These things were horrific indeed: flying starfish-shaped things with five human-like heads, each equipped with a fanged mouth. One let out a horrifying scream that froze all but Aria in their tracks. With the party almost all immobilized the other floated toward Quinn and planted a deliberate, sickening kiss on her. Quinn's paralysis was lifted but she felt her body sickening at the touch. She would need a remove disease later, most certainly, but for now she focused on helping Aria take down the enemy that had shrieked.

Fortunately, when the creature died the fear that had gripped the rest of the party lifted. Audas pointed to the remaining aberration and used his newest power, word of changing, to transform the creature into a harmless bat. The power worked, though not quite as intended -- the monster turned into a harmless bat with five heads and flew away out the broken window.

The group secured the rest of the broken windows and made sure no more creatures had entered the building. Quinn got her remove disease from one of the clerics and the rest of the group healed up while the research continued.

After several more hours of studying and discussion, Taebala and Vinandri came up with a plan. It was, as Vinandri explained, a desperate plan but the only one they could think of. They had found record of an obscure and powerful aberration called a spirrax whose death throes included opening a rift in space that would suck everything within 150 feet into a vortex and through to a random plane. Vinandri thought that if he was present at the death of a spirrax he could channel that energy with his own power to steer the resulting rift and deposit them all back on the Material Plane.

There were, of course, some potential problems with this plan. First, they had to be able to kill the spirrax, a creature whose powers were only somewhat known but included an adamantine shell, a life-draining tentacle attack, and formidable spell resistance. Second, in order to return the library and bystanders to their home plane, the would have to kill the spirrax inside the building. That would mean either finding one and luring it back to the library or summoning one on the spot. The second option seemed most likely to succeed, so Strontium and Taebala collaborated on a custom spell to summon a spirrax.

While they did that the rest of the party cleared the outer dry room of all valuable materials, moving everything to the center stack room to leave the outer ring clear for combat. They moved all of the bystanders except Taebala and Vinandri into the center room and instructed them to barricade the door.

When the spell was ready, the party took time to (over)prepare for combat with an unknown entity. Mrs. Wilkins cast freedom of movement on everyone in the party and then greater invisibility on herself. Melian cast stone skin on himself and magic weapon on his trident to increase its bonus. Quinn used her Elephant Hide feat for personal protection and cast brilliant aura to energize all of the group's weapons. With this magical bonfire alight, Strontium read the scroll.

The spirrax appearred, a massive creature with a dark metallic shell surrounded by tentacles and housing a single glowing eye. The party opened fire immediately, with Aria charging forward to attack its body while Strontium cast a new spell, field of icy razors.

The results were disappointing; Aria's gloves sensed and adjusted to the creature's damage reduction, but the 8th-level spell barely scratched the creature. Melian and Caenus likewise found the creature's damage reduction daunting. Caenus, using is aberration bane halberd, managed to inflice some damage but Melian's trident simply bounced harmlessly off the creature's hide. And Audas's empowered baneful blast fizzled against the spirrax's spell resistance.

The creature's first response to the party's attack came in the form of a burst of black energy that struck everything in a 30-foot radius with a sickening power. Several in the party went from strong to dangerously hurt in a flash and Taebala was utterly destroyed, her body turning into fine ash even as her clothing and possessions remained unharmed.

The heroes knew that several of them could not survive another attack like that, and neither could Vinandri. The psion stepped back and used a psionic power to heal himself and Strontium let loose with an empowered greater missile storm. He blew through the spirrax's spell resistance to inflice the first serious wounds on the enemy. Caenus and Aria had little difficulty landing physical blows thanks to Quinn's brilliant aura and even at reduced damage Caenus's weapon took a toll. Aria's fists, encased in the magic gloves, steadily pummeled the thing as well and chipped away at its strength.

Unable to use its strength draining grip on the heroes because of their freedom of movement, the monster groped out at Vinandri, who had moved forward to heal Strontium and was then left exposed when the wizard retreated out of range. Vinandri was not protected and found himself helplessly gripped by the creature. Melian tried unsuccessfully to free the psion. After another flurry of blows from Aria and a pair of solid hits from Caenus the adamantine shell collapsed and the spirrax dropped to the floor, revealing itself as a mass of writing tentacles and entrails. Aria and Caenus were sickened at the sight and Aria became nauseated.

The monster lashed out furiously but the party was not about to let it kill Vinandri. Audas hit it with a vitriolic blast and Quinn cast an ice flowers -- both powers that bypass spell resistance -- and the creature's life ended.

As the spirrax died the building shook violently once again and a black vortex formed where the spirrax's body lay. Vinandri, freed from the monster's grip by its death, focused his powers on the vortex as it swirled and sucked everything into itself. The heroes held on as everything lurched and then landed with a hard bang.

Water began to seep in through the closed shudders, giving the party their first hint that the plan had worked. Sure enough, they were back in Deep Elandrin. They quickly secured the dry side where windows had broken and let the sea pop the barricade on the main door to flood the wet side again. They gave the all clear to the innocents in the central stack and did a quick head count.

Everyone was intact except for Taebala, who had been slain by the spirrax's void blast, and Vinandri. The party looked all over the building but found no sign of the nomad. Had he made the journey with them and then ported away again, or had he somehow been left behind? There was no immediate way to know.

As the city guard and engineers dealt with the bits of Far Realm that had come through with the library, the party turned to another pressing matter: Mrs. Wilkins. While she maintained her innocence, the group used detect magic and determined that she was, in fact, under a mental domination effect. It would take a break enchantment and a good bit of luck to free her mind; they knew someone just that lucky and who owed them several favors.

The heroes stopped back at Marhaven and ran down Garrick. He readily agreed to cast the spell for them and, on the third try, succeeded at breaking the enslavement. Thus freed, Mrs. Wilkins told the party how Azazel had entered her mind and used her as its eyes and ears. The recovery battle, in fact, had largely been staged -- Azazel's champions hadn't really expected to get the galadiir so easily but they wanted the party to "rescue" Mrs. Wilkins so they would be less suspicious of her, making her a more effective mole. As soon as Azazel realized they had discovered a way to recharge the galadiir it had used Mrs. Wilkins to cast the power through her that hurled the entire library into the Far Realm. She was unable to admit this because even with the link temporarily broken she was still bound to her existing orders, one of which was to reveal nothing about her situation. When the group returned to the Material Plane Azazel had managed to re-establish control, so they should assume that Azazel knew everything that Mrs. Wilkins did at that point and would now be aware that she was free.

The cost had been high, but the heroes now knew something vital: to charge the galadiir, they would need the help of a highly advanced psionic. There was one they could think of who might be inclined to cooperate.