Plague upon Thee (Part II)

Precis

GM

Ross

Game Dates

1 November 2005

Experience

12000xp

Loot

• Teaching Rank 8 Healer, Alchemist or Mechinician, or one Mind College spell, plus 15,000sp.

Overview

A sample of a deadly plague has being recovered by a guild party. Sebastian of Hamburg has asked us to capture a minion of the Blood Lord, of the packet plane, whose alchemical knowledge may help them develop an antidote.

Party

Turf

A large muscular elf with astonishingly attractive feature. His head is shaved and is covered in unusual runic tattoos or an unknown origin. He wears green silk armor, a worn black cloak and knee high leather riding boots. Turf has the look of one with remarkable martial prowess and is rarely seen without a weapon at his side. The party scribe.

Blitzkreig

An agent of the Powers of Light and master warrior.

Ty

A good man and powerful warrior.

Tari

A new recruit to the guild, a young elven woman.

Tulip

A young elven woman with talents in magics of the Earth.

And Scab - for the hard bit

Scab is disguised as a sasquatch. Though it doesn't take a high rank spy to tell he is actually an orc of little standing and less social skill.

Narrative

Ty received a missive from Sebastian of Hamburg requesting his immediate assistance. He had employed a guild party to work in the Dark Circle and they returned with a sample of an incredible deadly plague, it was made with such skill they required a talented alchemist to assist creating an antidote. Sebastian had knowledge of the Pocket plane and asked us to capture a minion of the blood lord. Our group was quickly assembled, and met with Sebastian. He could offer little other information, but provided a few magical resources.

We charted a boat and sail that very afternoon, and sail for three days to the Five Sisters. The Sisters were under the dark shadow of the Dark Circle, so we slipped ashore the in a row boat under the cover of night. We were lead by Blitzkrieg for the next day through the desert, his skill and knowledge of the desert allowed us to locate with standing stones without encountering any forces. The following afternoon we passed through the shadow of the stones, and the trouble started.

Travelers are always surrounded by darkness as the travel through the Stones, however a few of us will keener eyes observed ripples in the darkness, something that we have never seen before. We arrived safely at the Standing stones on the Pocket Plane, but we quickly alerted to trouble. The shore of the lake with normally teeming with people, fishing and planning crops, but we saw noone, and it appeared the crops were not tended for months. The heat was unchanged, it was unbearable.

We spent the next few hours slowly making our way to the tower of Orthostopheles, there was not a single person or creature to be seeing, almost as if inhabitants had departed. Our sense of concern was only heightened to find the windows of the tower shuttered and the tower apparently unoccupied. There was no response from our hammering on the door and called out, it appeared Orthostopheles had departed. The mystery deepened and our concern deepened.

After discussion it was agreed that we should visit Baccarat, the master of fates. If anyone know what was happening it would be him, and he would have seen our arrival and know of our visit. We struggled though the desert toward the town that his casino resided though the unforgiving sun.

The city was abandoned; no guard on the gate, banks of sand resting against buildings and a complete absence of any humanity. The fountain in the city was still flowing, and its cold waters provided relief from the assault of the sun. It was clear to even the least trained ranger in our group the town had been abandoned for some time. As we continued our way toward the Casino we hear the signs of life, after must caution they were revealed to be Imps ; 47 and 2. With food bribes one of the imps stayed with us, and shared his tale although know to lie the Imps story seemed plausible; almost three months ago ripples were felt through the plane and the world went black. Hours latter the light retuned and living shadows appeared and proceeded to all life with brutal efficiency. The imps were caring for the human baby of Metasthopheles, and he appeared with Orthostopheles, took the baby and disappeared.

We reached the Casino without further interruptions and begun searching, Baccarat would have left a message. We quickly found four playing cards from Baccarats deck deliberately placed turned face down on the a casino table. I touched the first card and a image of Baccarat appeared, when it became apparent that noone else could see the illusion I turned over the card. We had a very interesting conversation with the illusionary Baccarat, he reveled;

Sin and Bad could be back, the blood lord could place their spirits within new bodies. The new bodies would not retain the power of the previous incarnations but all the memories and knowledge. At this news Blitzkrieg began drumming his finger over his Scythe and muttered under his breath.

Entities entered the Pocket Plane physically, they broke through the magical barrier.

The other card were Illusions of Orthostopheles and Delirium and one other, that he refused to reveal. Further prompting regarding the mysterious fourth card was fruitless, Baccarat reveled he was forced to leave the card but nothing else. We decided to reveal the cards of Orthostopheles and Delirium and continue the conversations.

The cards were contained specific memories of each of the entities, and all three had left the plane a number of days following the invasion as its destruction was impending. The card did not know when they were destined.

The creature must have great power to penetrated the plane, they suspected the Master would not have allowed them through unless the prevention would have destroyed the plane.

The master is waiting for them to complete what they have come to perform on the plane.

Following the initial assault the invaders fleetingly appear, they are wispy shadows what are constructed form primal elemental forces.

The Shadows were believed to be focusing their efforts around the Blood Pyramid.

A cache of weapons was hidden in the Casino that was available for our use.

We discussed what action to take and the mysterious third card. We agreed I would touch the card to see if the owner could be identifier, and was struck with a terrifying prophetic vision of oblivion which was to be chillingly accurate. We decided not to turn the card given the visions and Baccarat inability to tell us who the card belonged. The ground shook beneath our feed, so we decided to move with haste.

We located the cache of weapons and were very surprised by what we located;

1. a number of weapons of light
2. Rings of recall
3. A small wired cages containing a glowing yellow globe. There were revealed to be Light Spheres!

Blitzkrieg, used his desert ranger training and led us toward the Blood temple. We surveyed the area and could not locate anything amiss, so moved in carefully to search the temple. It was empty and dilapidated, however the field surrounding the sarcophagus had disappeared and bodies removed. Unable to locate a route to the upper levels of the pyramid, and feeling the ground shake again, and agreed urgent action should be taken.

Ty activated a Light Sphere to tunnel a hole to the outside of the pyramid and began tunneling into the upper levels while Turf and Blitzkrieg scaled the pyramid. The sphere disintegrated the stone to revel a magical shield, through which we could see an unmoving human body upon an alter, surrounded by six shadowy, wispy shapes. Things suddenly became very dangerous.

Two shadows flew toward Turf and Blitzkrieg to attack them as the shield fell, as a Dark Sphere appeared behind them. They ignored the flurry of attacks and both cast banishment while Ty desperate tried to keep the Light sphere away from the dark sphere. At one point Blitzkrieg volunteering to throw himself in front of a Dark Sphere to stop it striking a Light Sphere.

Turf and Blitzkrieg took the fight into the alter room, banishing numerous Dark spheres that kept appearing. The Shadow were powerful creates that took immense damage to destroy. Ty and Tulip were forced to fight off a Shadow that appeared between them, forcing Ty to dispel the Light Sphere and fight for his life. Tare scaled the side of the pyramid with the magical birdcage in which we will trap the vampire. As the fight continued the violent shudders continued, and howling winds whipped the entire pyramid. Turf and Blitzkrieg resisted more Dark spheres and whitefires as they slowly overcame the Shadows. With white knuckles Tare valiantly clenched onto the side of the pyramid as the winds and quakes threatened to shaken her off, and finally fell into the chamber once space had being cleared.

As the fight continued the entire world began to shake, enormous meteorites were striking the landscape and raining destruction upon the land. Ty and Tulip activated their rings of recall at this point, as there was little else they could do.

Blitzkrieg pulled the body we suspected was the reanimated vampire off the alter and dragged it toward the cage is Tares grasp while Turf engaged the remaining shadow creature. The vampire was conscious and struggled, but was forced into the cage. Recognising their defeat the remaining shadow cast whitefire upon the alter causing a massive explosion that collapsed the floor. Blitzkrieg activated his recall, but Tare was stunned so Turf remained to ensure she escaped then the world exploded. It was later revealed that the pyramid was struck by a meteorite and the plane destroyed a few seconds later. Turf found himself holding Tares body while floating in a black void, he triggered the ring Tare grasped and then his own.

The remaining party members appeared on a beach, battered bruised but all alive. We patched ourselves up and followed the beach to the only sign of inhabitation, a small village on the waters edge a few hours walk from our position. The inhabitants was poor and lived a rough lifestyle but we were able to discern that we were at XXX, in the kingdom of YYY. We made fruitless enquiries trying to locate Baccarat and Delirium and spent the first night on the beach, deciding the village wasnt that enticing. The second day we purchased some slaves and granted them freedom, and notably Delirium revealed herself to us. She explained the Master had directed the majority of the explosion was onto the vessel of the ship, sparing us. Orthostopheles was chasing Metasthopheles, who was causing havoc in the area and Baccarat had sailed off to search the kingdom.

Following much discussion, and the revelation that Bliitzkreig did indeed have Expulsion, we decided to Banish Turf and he would summon the others. A number of the freed slaves accepted our offer and to return with us and Turf learn their names. One slave stayed with Delirium, offering to become a go between that we could common to exchange information with Delirium.

Turf appeared at the stand stones and flew back to Seagate. Sebastian arranged a trip to Hamburg where and Turf summoned the remaining party members. The vampire was taken into custody and we made our way home.

A week later we were contacted by Sabastian. They had learnt two important facts; the plague was being manufacture at the head of the sweet water and they had a device that would destroy the plague and anything else within the area. The bomb was the size of a barrel and unstable, so we must treat it with care. Blitzkrieg, be an expert tactician, suggested a bold plan. We would sneak as close as we could before we were detected and changed them once our presence was revealed. We were transported close to the area and turf shape-changed into a bat, make his was toward the encampment. He reverted his form and opened a lamp, allowing the remaining part members to shadow walk in. We fought our was through giant skeletal guard and bat to the centre of the encampment that was shrouded in a mist. A bubbling cauldron

• Necromancy couterspells kept us safe.
• Mist injured and dissolved armour.
• The dead restood
• Banishing the fire beneath he pot ended the production of the mist and the closed slowly dissipated
• Killed the necromancer and his minions, set the bomb and shadow walked away.

Missions accomplished. Returned to the rendezvous point and were taken back to Hamburg.

People

Blood Lord

An extremely dangerous entity that has power over blood and alchemy. His minions tend to be very dangerous vampires. His two lieutenants are Sin and Bad.

Orthostopheles

Gold Dragon - seems nice but is very old and a bit senile

Metasthopheles

Blue Dragon.

• Not very cleaver but known for his belligerent and unpleasant behaviour
• Was tricked by Blood Lord who took substantial amounts of his blood

Baccarat

A well dressed man, and powerful entity who resides in the pocket plane. He has great influence over chance and fate.

Delirium

A beautiful woman and powerful entity who resides in the pocket plane. She has great influence over the mind and illusions.

Sin and Bad

A deadly pair of vampires. Known to cast mind, necromancy and enchantments. Able to move in the sun.

Master

The mysterious and immensely powerful rules of the pocket plane.

Places

Pocket Plane

Hamburg

Region that Sebastian resided.