Rendezvous with Gaia

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Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: Rendezvous with Gaia
GM: Dan Dixon
Season: Winter 792 WK
Night: Someday
Level: Level

Party
Time on adventure
01/10/91 AP to 09/12/91 AP
Employer
Axalon - Guild rune mage
Mission
Exploration of an unknown plane
Plane
Gaia
Places visited
Zones within Gaia:
Hyperion (Light) Rhea (Dark)
Crius (Light) Phoebe (Dark)
Tethys (Light) Thea (Dark)
Metis (Light) Dione (Dark)
Iapetus (Light) Cronos (Dark)
Mnesme (Light) Oceanus (Dark)
Titantown - Titanite village in Hyperion
Brazletown - Titanite village in Crius
Stopase Swamp - Location of Gaian half-orcs in Metis
Several other unnamed places
Major NPCs encountered
Hyperion - Godling centauroid
Gaia - Supreme goddess
Viola - Titanite female
Harp - Male Titanide explorer
Digeridoo - Male Titanide
Timphany - Titanide
Guitar - Titanide mayor
Sitar - a Titanide Healer
Leviathan, Dreadnaught, Titanic, Bombastic - Blimps
Bug - Gaian half orc/hobbit
Original Scribe Notes
Media:Snwi9201.zip

Adventure Summary

30/09/91 Met up with rest of party and employer, the Guild Rune Mage Axalon who had accidentally created a link to another plane. Discovered name of destination plane was Gaia. Prepared ourselves for mission. 01/10/91 Received shadowwings and entered portal. Arrived in plane 20km above ground. Flew down and landed. Looks like we're inside object that resembles giant 'doughnut'. Went to examine pillar stretching from ground to ceiling. Looked like strands of giant rope. 02/10/91 Raining. Explored maze between pyramid strands. Nothing unusual found. Stopped raining so we walked to a nearby river. Fished for a bit then discovered that the local herd animals, called Smilers, had flesh that just peeled off. Very convenient. Air mages spoke to wind and discovered that there are other flying creatures called Angels that are humanoid with feathery wings. Built a raft to go down this river in an attempt to meet up with larger one. 03/01/91 Constructed the raft. 05/01/91 Gave up constructing the raft owing to lack of tools. Walked towards forest following the river. Noticed floating 'zucchinis' in the sky. Reached forest. Managed to construct a raft using lightning bolts to fell the trees. 06/10/91 Completed raft and floated down river. Reached large river. Discovered large half-walnut shell, 9' wide floating in river. Towed it behind us. Found a cove and beached the raft. Headed towards a very tall tree with dwarfed the rest of the forest. It's GTN was Giant Walnut Tree. Heard explosion in distance. A large walnut was balanced on top of the tree. Pent climbed the tree in an attempt to dislodge the nut but failed. He believed there was something in there waiting to hatch. In the distance he could see other walnut trees, many of which did not have walnuts on. Went to nearest tree without nut. Top of tree wasn't hollow but had been frayed. Returned to raft. A Limited Precog showed us that within twelve hours, the nearby tree was going to lose it's nut. An hour later the top of the tree exploded and the walnut shot into the air. As it reached the top of it's arc, it split into two halves releasing a fine black cloud. We found one of the fallen halves and discovered a tiny black seed still stuck inside. 07/10/91 Continued floating downstream. Still sailing through jungle. Stopped so that curse removals could be performed on two amnesiaced party members. 08/01/91 Continued on. Jungle thinning out. Passed by another pillar that had a pyramid block structure next to it so decided to stop and investigate. Five tiers, 45ft high and 45ft wide at the base. No minds detected. Structure is hollow. Managed to penetrate into the topmost chamber which was empty apart from two glyphs in the middle of the floor and ceiling. No reaction when we did things to them. Same on next two levels. Unable to get any further. Saydar and Silver discover a door in the centre of the pillar. We went in and descended down long flight of spiral steps. Encountered lizard creature that emitted light. GTN - Flitter. 09/10/91 Descended into large room. Met centauroid godling called Hyperion who looks after this section of the land above. He told us that the central Godhead is called Gaia and she lives in the centre of the 'doughnut'. He offered to transport us to Gaia's residence in the Hub. Suddenly we all felt sleepy. 10/10/91 Found ourselves in place lit by a dull red light. There were buildings as far as the eye could see. Part of the wall nearby opened to reveal a darkened stairway with jets of flame spurting out on both sides. So we went up. Each time we stepped on a stair, it would light up and a note would sound. Finally reached a wide door which swung open revealing a large temple beyond. In the dim light we could just see the figure of a 12ft tall well built female. Gaia told us that we couldn't return via the portal as it was travelling around her world at around 2000 miles an hour. She would return us to Alusia but we would have to pay by doing something heroic. We'd have to go exploring to see what we could find. Also if we did really well, we could get gifts. We discovered that this plane is 2000 miles in circumference and divided into twelve zones, alternating light and dark. A godling looks after each one We left by falling down a long tube then into the air beyond. Angels flew up and caught us before carrying us safely to the ground. However Cuddles, Robinton's 'sheepdog' had objected and mauled one of the angels. When last seen he had soft landed on top of one of those 'zucchini' things (Gaia referred to them as blimps). Landed somewhere near a Titanide settlement. 11/10/91 Centauroid female, named Viola, arrived in camp followed by Harp. The guided us to their city, Titantown which turned out to be built around a very large spreading tree. Met their leader, Digeridoo. 12/10/91 Learned about the Titanides and their culture. 14/10/91 Blimp sighted. As it got close we could see it was nearly a mile long. As it descended a cord was lowered from one end and the entire party, plus Harp, ascended. We made our way to a bubble at the bottom of the blimp the floor of which was transparent so we could see out. The name of the blimp was Leviathan. 17/10/91 Passed over the dark zone called Rhea which was mainly ocean. 21/10/91 Reached the Nemesis mountain ranged which marked the boundary of Rhea and Crius. Rumour had it there was a dragon here so we decided to stop and kill it heroically. So we parachuted down. Found a 60' long grey/green dragon sleeping in a tunnel. Managed to vanquish it with the aid of mighty magics. Ascended back to the blimp. 23/10/91 Reached a Titanide settlement called Brazeltown. Many Titanides more humanoid than centauroid. Spoke to Guitar, the town mayor. Headed to graveyard to destroy several zombies and a 'priest' called Mad Jack. Managed to do so but Pent was killed. 25/10/91 A days trip brought us to a Titanide Healer called Sitar who resurrected Pent. 27/10/91 Returned to Brazeltown after Pent was recovered. Leviathan had left. 28/10/91 Harp and us took a boat to the Phoebe Sea in the next Dark zone. to reach the Ironsmith Enclave located on the shore. The Ironsmiths are creatures made out of Cold Iron and don't have auras. They're called the Iron Masters. Visitors are not allowed on their main fort on an island in the middle of the sea. Watched metal boat come in before constructing three large canoes. 30/10/91 Sailed across the Phoebe Sea and entered Phoebe proper which was mostly swamp. Had a close encounter with a Buzzbomb, an 18' oval creature propelled by fire. Blimps fear them as they make them explode. A Mage Wind caused it to crash and burn. Eastern portion of Phoebe not swampy but rocky. We were sailing through a canyon. 01/11/91 Spent most of the day on the river but had to stop because it was risky to go through a river 'pump'. Instead we disassembled the canoes and ascended the canyon sides and reached the shores of a lake on the other side. The lake shore was littered with bones. A desert was beyond the lake so we decided to wait for the next blimp to show up. Many of the party were starting to show various backfire effects. 03/11/91 The blimp, Dreadnaught, arrived that morning. Everyone getting edgy. We passed over Tethys while Curse Removals were performed. Down below was desert and we could see large sandwraiths tunnelling down there. 07/11/91 Passed over Thea, an area full of ice and snow. Many of the curses now lifted. Yetis exist down there. 09/11/91 Traversed the east side of Thea which was a glacial mass. The northern half of the next zone, Metis, was sea while the southern half was swamp with lots of rivers. A column of smoke could be seen from the swamp even though we were told that the swamp was uninhabited. We decided to investigate while Dreadnaught defrosted. We parachuted down and landed near the village. It consisted of a small collection of poorly constructed circular mud huts. The inhabitants turned out to be half orc/hobbit - a recent creation of Gaia. So we tried to teach them how to improve their rather primitive lifestyle, especially as they just didn't have a clue. There was a possibility that Cuddles had landed on Dreadnaught so the top was searched. No sign of an impact site. 10/11/91 Halfway across Metis, the swamp turned into a red zone with upside-down trees and large grey animals. We rendezvoused with another blimp, Titanic, and looked for signs of Cuddles - nothing. Not on top or inside. We changed course to intercept with Bombasto, but checked out Dreadnaught's innards first. Success! Passing over Dione - a forested zone. 11/11/91 A human city is located on the shore of Mt Iris on the border of Dione and Iapetus. While Dreadnaught refuelled with trees, we visited it. Discovered slave market and that the town is ruled by crime bosses. Had to slip out of town that night. There was a fall of 'manna' during the night, manna being coconut pods containing several different flavours of milk. 12/11/91 Picked up by Dreadnaught. Sailed over Iapetus which consisted of mountains in the north and a sea in the south. Visited a rustic rural village and tried the food in the hostelry. 13/11/91 Visited a fortified village. Some of the party took part in an eating and drinking challenge. 14/11/91 Passed over Cronus. Apparently it's inhabited by barbarians. 16/11/91 Mnensone. A desert and very flat. Full of sandworms. 18/11/91 Oceanus. A large expanse of ice, probably a frozen ocean. 21/11/91 Arrived back in Hyperion and landed at Titantown. Big celebration for Harp, the first Titanide to circumnavigate Gaia. Took off with Wings towards the Hub. Halfway up, as the Wings were about to expire we managed to land at an Angel's hive. After a rest, they carried us up to the Hub. Rested on arrival. 22/11/91 Gaia gave us gifts then sent us home to Alusia. Actual date at the Guild was 09/12/91

Scribe Notes - The Full Phaeton

It had been quite some considerable time, but finally I was prepared for another adventure. I had removed all the curses I had acquired during the previous quest, excepting that of random teleportation. So far it hadn't proved to be too much of a nuisance, although being transported unexpectedly one day into the middle of the Sweetwater river had me tempted. I wanted to study it further. In addition to magic philosophy, I had studied the Healing Arts, and a little astrology, but all this bookwork was getting rather dull. It was definitely time to get out again. 30/09/91 Another Guild meeting. Maybe this time a suitably interesting mission would be available. And so it proved. A balding, tall, thin gentleman dressed in long flowing robes decorated with runes and sigils (an obvious rune mage) presented his problem. He told the assembly that he had been establishing a rune portal. He had thereby made contact with another plane and was requiring a party of adventurers to enter and explore it. The portal was one way but it was hoped that he might be able to activate it from the other side. Astrology readings had indicated that it might well be safe. Unfortunately there wasn't much more that the mage could tell us about the other plane at this stage. Investigations were still in progress. Since I was in the process of studying other planes of existence, as part of my Philosophy studies, I volunteered for this one. There was also the odd chance that magic could be affected which meant I'd have fun working out the altered symbology. Maybe I could finally figure out how to get the coloured light spell to work. So I went to see Axalon (the runemage). Other Guild members had decided to join me on this mission. They were: Robinton: He is a rather tall guy (6'2") and told us he was a troubadour, illusionist, rank 5 Healer, rank 10 courtesan, beastmaster, knows counterspells, and has curse removal (useful). He took one look at my outfit and muttered something like 'Oh my god - no taste'. Doesn't he like bright colours? Also he would introduce us to his friend - an Old English Sheepdog named Cuddles. Robinton looks about 30ish and is fairly well built, wearing leather armour. I observed a flute in his pocket and a lute on his back. He carried a quarterstaff. Thistlefoote: A female human air mage who is also a Ranger and a rank 6 Healer. (I'm only rank 3. I hope to learn a lot from those two). She is 5'10" tall has brownish, shoulder length hair, average looking. She looks about 19. She was wearing green at this stage but changed to brown, hard leather, later. Saydar: A beginning necromancer orc. He's 5'6", unshaven, dark hair in dreadlocks. Covered in furs and rags as well as bits of half-eaten animals and wearing various amulets and bones. There is a knife in his belt. Antonio: Another human, male, and a beginning air mage. He's tall, blond, and fairly thin. He is wearing normal brownish clothes with daggers protruding from various pockets. He reckoned he was more at home in a store. Silver: A human male, low ranked mind mage. He's also a fighter and an astrologer. He looked like a hard worker and also had swordsman calluses. He was wearing light, leather armour and carried a falchion and daggers. Looked like a well presented tidy chap. He told us he was a poor, struggling, artist. Good. Now I can get illustrations in the scribe notes. Pentelthorm Quence: (Pent). He's a 3'2" hobbit, reasonably cute (most hobbits are) and carrying a grappling hook and shouldering a coil of rope. He was wearing a brown shirt and brown pants, both reasonably worn. He was in bare feet but a pair of boots are dangling from his belt. He is also carrying a javelin. He said he was a good climber. He is a bad, but keen, air mage. Me? I'm Phaeton, human male, Solar Celestial mage, rank 3 Healer, rank 1 Astrologer and rank 4 Philosopher specialising in magic. I'm 5'3" tall, short blond hair, tanned complexion, wearing a yellow shirt, blue trousers and a rainbow robe. I changed to brown leather armour later. The only weapon visible is a dagger in my belt. Axalon conducted the seven of us to a shack, just off the main area. Guild Security was much in evident in the area. They were there in case something came through the portal that was extremely nasty. There were a couple of guards in front of the shack. Axalon spoke to them and they let us in. Inside were two other guys, one of them being an astrologer and I believe that the other was a Namer. The inky black portal was sitting in the middle of the room with the runesticks around it. Nothing could be seen through it. Axalon conversed in a low voice with the other two while we waited. He then told us that it now appeared that the portal is two way so there was no need for him to come with us. He had been attempting to create a portal to the far end of Alusia when something odd had happened. I suspected it was some sort of backfire effect although he vehemently disagreed with the possibility. The portal was now permanent owing to a runestick that had slipped through partially. Tests had showed that the mana level was okay on the other side. Someone had the idea of getting one of the airmages to summon a bird, send it through the portal, and have it report back. An intense discussion resulted on what sort of bird to send through. In the middle of it, Thistlefoote stepped outside. Meanwhile I DAed the portal and managed to determine that the name of the plane on the other side was Gaia. I was going to inquire further when a sparrow flew through the door and circled the room. Thistlefoote came back in and chirped at it. The bird flew into the portal. We waited for a while but the bird didn't return. Thistlefoote stepped outside again. We watched as she summoned a mynah bird, and asked it to fly in the portal. It did so. However, again, the bird did not return. Axalon, and the other two, had been gathering further information. Gaia was habitable and we could live off the land. There was a bufferzone between the two planar portals and that the entrance on the other side was high in the air. Axalon would arrange for some invested shadowwings for us so we could fly back. We speculated what could have happened to the birds. Could something nasty had got them on the other side? Or could the portal on the other side be invisible and they couldn't find it. Axalon told us that Guild Security wanted us to depart as soon as possible as they were getting edgy and wanted to know, as soon as possible, just what sort of threat that this portal would be. He would pay us 5000sp and the Guild would throw in another 2000sp. (Finally I'd have the cash to learn StarWings and StarFire.) Axalon also requested 5% of salvage. There wasn't much more we could do here so we set off to make our preparations. Thistlefoote and Robinton decided to wait a bit longer for the birds. I headed off to the Guild Library while the others went shopping. We were to meet back at the shack at 8am the next morning. After an intensive library search, and quite a lot of help from the Guild Librarians, as well as from Antonio who came in later, we couldn't find any references to a plane called Gaia. It was close to sunset by now so I had a quick dinner at the Guild, then went up to the roof on the Solar College and began a Reading the Night Sky ritual (after casting a Light to lie in). An hour later I had got the following reading. The Great Wheel spins And for those who ride upon her, A plethora of new experience beckons Meetings with those who are half man and half beast And those who are more beast than man And those who are more man than beast And a great wealth resides within. Cryptic but it seemed to make an odd bit of sense. 01/10/91 I met up with the others at the agreed time. Vance (Lord of the Bats) arrived to cast some shadowwings on us. He also handed us an invested item with 7 charges of rank 11 wings in it. Meanwhile I cast Witchsights on myself, Antonio, Thistlefoote, and Silver. (Another spell to practice. They failed to go off first time.) Robinton introduced us to Cuddles. He looked like an Old English Sheepdog but Robinton explained that he is actually a Sabertooth Tiger. The illusion is there so as not to alarm people. Fair enough. I managed to disbelieve the illusion to see Cuddles' true form. We had a quick vote on party leader and scribe. I became the scribe (seemed appropriate for the party philosopher to scribe) and there was an election for party leader between Thistlefoote and Robinton. Thistlefoote won. We also signed the Guild Contract. Lord Vance cast the Shadowwings, which had a duration of 5 hours, and we entered the portal, one at a time. As I jumped, I was conscious of a brief sensation of darkness and cold. Then I felt a wrenching sensation and a strong wind around me. I felt as if I was falling. The wings were trying to engage but the wind was just too strong. I couldn't even open my eyes. A few minutes later the wings managed to engage as the wind had died down a bit. My eyes were very watery but I could just make out the ground, about 20km below. All I could do was to hope that the wings would stop me from a very nasty impact. Fighting the wind gusts was exhausting. A short time later, although it felt like eternity, the wings had control. The wind had died down to nothing. I was still about 20km above the ground and was viewing a strange landscape. It curved upwards to two sides. I could perceive a wall on the other two. The ceiling, (yes there was one), was very high up. There was no sun but the whole ceiling glowed with a dull light - like a cloudy day. I couldn't see the portal at all so I attempted to gain altitude and find it. However I had no luck. I saw the others land in an exposed area so I followed them down. When I got there Thistlefoote had established that North was in the direction of the furthest wall. She reckoned the one to the south is only 30 km away. We could reach it in a day. Over to the west was an area of polar ice, an area of darkness, then an area of desert. The other direction was darkness. I decided to check for altered spell effects so I cast a Light. It worked normally so I counterspelled it as there was no sense in attracting attention to ourselves. From what I could figure out, we were inside a torus. I tried to explain it to the others until someone mentioned doughnuts. That did it. Gaia must be the Great Wheel mentioned in the astrology reading. Since it was spinning that would explain why we lost the portal as it was holding a fixed location relative to Alusia. The wind was the air rushing past us until we finally matched the spin. No wonder those birds couldn't return. Since the portal was now moving at about 200km/hr relative to us, it would be nearly impossible to get back that way. I reckoned we would have to find a Namer who could cast a Banishment on us. There was a copse of trees nearby with a river. We flew over there. On the way Robinton spotted some grazing animals on the grass plain and flew ahead to look. When he got back he said that he didn't think they were sentient but could I please check. I did so and he was right. Non-sentient, generic true name: Smiler. They were 2m tall and had frog-like heads with herbivorous teeth. Their mouths looked fixed in a permanent grin. Once we landed I did several DA's on various objects to determine the mana level. Normal. No undercurrent aura. This plane wasn't magical. Robinton had prepared a hot meal so we had a meal then slept for a short while. Someone had spotted a pillar thing to the WNW, reaching from ground to ceiling. We couldn't tell exactly how far away it was but maybe a day or so. We decided to investigate. Several hours, and a few breaks later, we finally arrived. By my reckoning it should be nightfall but it's still light. Days must be a lot longer here. Bet the nights are too - if there are any. The pillar is 5 km across and is made up of several strands, each 200m wide. There is about 30m between each strand. About 500m up the strands start to wind around each other like rope. There is a broken one lying nearby. Up above is the other end. It appears that this strand broke. The strands look like they're made out of some sort of rope. I DAed one and got a faint reading of Long Lived Sentient. So I went for Generic True Name. The answer I got was Gaia. Uh oh! This plane is alive. However it seemed like the centre of consciousness was not here. I then noticed that the ground had a similar, but slightly different aura. However I failed to analyse it. Saydar announced that he spotted something odd, about 200m up one of the strands. The strands aren't climbable but vines and other greenery are growing on it. Robinton tried to climb up and, after a few tense moments, managed to do so. When he got back he told us they were some box like structures attached to the strand. They seemed hollow but he could find no way in. According to him, they seemed artificial and not part of the strand at all. At that moment we noticed that clouds were coming in from the east and the wind was picking up. We decided to take shelter among the strands. It was dark in there, like a maze, so we marked our way. Watches were allocated. I went first with Antonio, Cuddles and Robinton second, Saydar and Pent third, leaving Thistlefoote and Silver last. I also asked that if it got dark I was to be woken immediately

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