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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8301650" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 35: THE FAR PLANE HOME</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Cramer Appleknocker, gnome cleric 11</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Jhasspok, lizardman 3/barbarian 3/fighter 5</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Khari Hammerslammer, dwarf fighter 11</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Marlo Pendragon, human sorcerer 11</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Utred "Buckets" Butterflinger, dwarf barbarian 11</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 9 June 2021</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Instinctively, the five heroes took a step back, surprised at the strangeness of the world around them. Their surroundings seemed to wobble in place before finally settling down to a terrain that at first <em>looked</em> somewhat normal, if you didn't examine it too closely....</p><p></p><p>Whereas mere moments ago they'd been on a level of Dwarven Hell, they were now standing up to their ankles in a mist-covered swamp. This was fine by Jhasspok; he preferred standing in a swamp over dealing with all the heat and molten metal of Dwarven Hell. But there was something wrong with the background in the distance, something that just didn't make sense to the easily-puzzled lizardfolk. He tried shaking his head to see if that would make any difference, but it didn't.</p><p></p><p>Beside him, Marlo and Cramer were likewise examining their surroundings. They could tell this Far Realm was broken up into multiple layers, and that these layers each had slightly different terrain, some of it overlapping like the Ethereal Plane overlapped with the Material Plane. To their left, the ankle-deep waters of the swamp changed suddenly to the waters of a much deeper lake; just beyond that, the water was now magma instead. To their immediate right, the local terrain was a tree-filled forest; beyond that, some sort of fractal plane that gave you a headache if you stared at it too long. But having studied (to some extent, in any case) extraplanar lore, both spellcasters realized you could simply "will" yourself to an adjacent planar layer, in the same manner you could choose to "fall" in any direction when upon the Elemental Plane of Air. What they didn't realize was this wasn't knowledge shared by their lizardfolk companion or either of their two dwarven friends.</p><p></p><p>"What in the blazin' Hell?" demanded Utred, looking around him. "How'd we end up here?"</p><p></p><p>"I'm not entirely sure," admitted Cramer, "but it's essential that you all stay in close proximity to me. I have a <em>magic circle against chaos</em> spell centered on me - step too far away and you'll be battered by the pure chaos energy of this place."</p><p></p><p>"An' then what?' asked Khari, gripping his warhammer and looking about for enemies on this strange world.</p><p></p><p>"Your mind...breaks, and you end up crazy," the gnome cleric answered. "Jhasspok? Did you hear me? Don't get too far away from me, okay?"</p><p></p><p>"Okay," Jhasspok answered, ready to do exactly as requested. This place was too strange for his liking and he had every intention of sticking close to the only ones who could get him back to the safety of the Underdark...heck, he'd even take the "normal" strangeness of the surface world, at this point!</p><p></p><p>"Well, I'm makin' sure you stick close to me," Utred said, scooping Cramer up from behind and lifting him up to ride on his shoulders. It was a maneuver the two had done plenty of times in the past, giving the height-challenged Cramer a better vantage point (and a quicker movement rate), while the burly dwarven barbarian hardly even noticed the extra weight provided by the little gnome.</p><p></p><p>"What's that?" Marlo asked, pointing straight ahead of them, more than a little bit of worry in her voice. Looking at where she indicated, the group saw a "V" of the foggy mists parting as something approached them through the shallow water. "It's heading straight for us!" the sorceress added, ready to activate her <em>boots of levitation</em> if it came down to it, but concerned that she didn't want to rise up too far away from the protection of Cramer's spell.</p><p></p><p>"Hey!" Jhasspok called out as the approaching creature raised itself up above the mists. "It's a glittering mouther!" Oddly, although the lizardfolk had fallen under the sway of one of these creatures back in the remains of Cramer Appleknocker's home town of Grover's Comb, he was actually kind of glad to see the creature approach - it was, in his mind, something somewhat reminiscent of home.</p><p></p><p>"'Gibbering,'" Cramer automatically corrected, then frowned to himself in puzzlement, for while this creature had every appearance of being a gibbering mouther - an amorphous, shapeless blob of matter whose outer surface was covered in random eyes and mouths - this one had one very distinctive difference to the creatures they'd fought in Grover's Comb: it wasn't gibbering! Instead, it opened its various mouth one at a time and each spit out a single word, forming sentences seemingly created in a committee.</p><p></p><p>"Hello," one mouth said, followed immediately by a bevy of others: "We..." "Have..." "Been..." "Waiting..." "For..." "You...."</p><p></p><p>"How is this possible?" Marlo wanted to know. They hadn't even known they'd be shunted here after escaping from Dwarven Hell; the <em>plane shift</em> scroll she'd read aloud was to have taken them back to the Material Plane, not here!</p><p></p><p>But the creature - which Cramer soon dubbed the "chatting mouther" - ignored her question, telling her what it had intended to say instead. "Follow..." "Us..." "To..." "Place..." "Of..." "Sanctuary...."</p><p></p><p>The heroes looked at each other and Cramer, atop Utred's shoulders, shrugged. "It's not like we've got any better options," he reasoned, and there was little argument against that. "Lead on, buddy!"</p><p></p><p>The many-eyed abomination led the group back the way it had come through the swamps, taking care not to cross any of the boundaries to any of the adjacent layers. Trudging through the ankle-deep waters of the swamp, they eventually approached a thick slab of stone, the end pointing at them containing a door of sorts and then extending for some 40 feet or so, attaining a height of about 10 feet for most of its length. Marlo couldn't help making the comparison: it reminded her of nothing so much as a giant, petrified tentacle.</p><p></p><p>The chatting mouther reformed some of its mass into a pair of pseudopods and manipulated open the door-hatch, oozing its way inside. Marlo was the first to follow it, but her entry took a sudden halt when she heard their guide start to mutter to itself. "Hungry..." admitted one mouth, and the sentiment was echoed first by another mouth, then several more, until the thing was whispering, mumbling, shouting, and murmuring, "Hungry...hungry...HUNGRY!" Marlo made short work of dashing back outside into the ankle-deep waters of the swamp to rejoin the others.</p><p></p><p>"Get ready," she warned. "I think it's reverting to type!"</p><p></p><p>Utred gripped his greataxe and took up position on one side of the open hatch; Khari followed suit on the other side, gripping his warhammer. And then out splorched the gibbering mouther, striking at Utred with six newly-formed pseudopods, the mouths at the end of each snapping at him. Of the six only one managed to latch onto the dwarven barbarian, but Utred suppressed a shriek when the mouth biting him suddenly vomited forth four illithid tentacles, which wrapped around his arm and pulled him closer, the tentacles reaching out for his brain. Both dwarves retaliated immediately, striking the abomination with their weapons. Cramer leaned forward and brought his mace crashing down upon the nearest tentacle, but its metal head seemed to bounce off the creature's rubbery hide. Jhasspok strode forward with his battleaxe ready to strike but he got there too late, for Marlo took it out with an <em>empowered scorching ray</em> spell.</p><p></p><p>"Let's drag that thing all the way out of there," she suggested, and Jhasspok was happy enough to do at least that much - plus, a gibbering mouther had an abundance of tasty eyes to sample!</p><p></p><p>Once everybody trundled inside the petrified tentacle and Khari pulled the hatch shut, the group heaved a collective sigh of relief, for they were all overcome with an overwhelming sense of safety. "Just where are we?" Utred wanted to know, as Cramer climbed back down off the dwarf's shoulders. He could easily see the interior had five <em>stone shaped</em> "cots" along one wall, two sized for dwarves and one for an even smaller gnome; apparently their gibbering mouther host was quite sincere about them having been expected.</p><p></p><p>"Let's see what this has to say about it," Marlo suggested, walking to the back of the hollow structure, where she saw - by the light of the group's <em>slave-light cloaks</em> - a <em>stone-shaped</em> desk, upon which sat five headbands, a book, and a scroll. Unrolling the scroll, she passed on what it had to say.</p><p></p><p>"This first part is a spell of some sort," she said, reading the notation beneath the spell-runes: "'<em>The gnome will find the path to where he needs to be tomorrow.</em>'" Then, after that, was an explanation of how the headbands worked; while not magical, each held a chip of stone from the petrified tentacle that, when worn against the forehead, protected the wearer from the insanity-inducing effects of the chaotic plane.</p><p></p><p>Opening the book next, she was surprised to see instead of writing, the "words" consisted of a series of raised bumps; this, she realized, was "Quiddith," a touch-language used by the mind flayers. She asked to borrow Cramer's <em>helm of comprehend languages</em> and he passed it over, the magical helm automatically resizing to fit the human's head. "What's it say?" Cramer demanded, and Marlo held up a hand while she perused a few pages first.</p><p></p><p>Finally, after a quick skimming, she passed on the gist of what the book had to say. "It's about the Dying One," she said. "When he was beheaded by Wee Jas, his cult of followers 'anchored' his head to our world, Shadreth, with ten anchors."</p><p></p><p>"Ten, huh?" asked the gnome. "I'll bet it's no coincidence that there are ten tentacles making up the Writhing Gate!"</p><p></p><p>"The anchors," Marlo continued, reading ahead, "are to open a gate for the 'reborn' Uboros to escape the Far Realm. Apparently only seven anchors are needed for that task, but the energy released would split Shadreth apart. Using all 10 anchors will allow the energy to disperse safely." None of this talk made any sense to Jhasspok; he settled down on the largest bunk and rifled through his leather satchel, looking for a dried dung beetle - he was pretty sure he still had a few such provisions left, and past history already told him there was no point in offering to share his snack with the others because they always turned him down.</p><p></p><p>"Due to the prophecies foretelling the world's destruction at Uboros' rebirth, the author of this book went to investigate the anchors," Marlo continued. She read ahead; the book listed the anchor points for all ten locations, but the translated names were meaningless to her without the proper context. However, it did lead her to come up with a slightly different supposition about the anchors: it was entirely possible that there were in fact ten Writhing Gates - that actually made a lot of sense, for the Dying One was said to have 100 tentacles, and the Writhing Gate with which the group was familiar sported 10 tentacles...it fit!</p><p></p><p>Continuing on, Marlo relayed that the author found one of the anchors was broken - again, this made perfect sense if the petrified structure in which the heroes now found themselves was one of the Dying One's severed tentacles - so he headed into the Far Realm to find the cause. And that was where the book left off. "Weird," was all Utred had to say about the matter.</p><p></p><p>Marlo returned the helm to Cramer and let him read it over for himself. But their jointly-agreed-upon plan was to spend the night in their petrified sanctuary, so Cramer and Marlo would have a full complement of spells in the morning before they wandered back out into the Far Realm. Cramer cast a <em>read magic</em> spell, examined the scroll, and confirmed it was a <em>find the path</em> spell. Then it was lights out and time to rest up.</p><p></p><p>The next morning, after Cramer had prayed to his god for his spells, the five heroes donned their headbands and stepped back outside into the strangeness of the Far Realm. The nearby "bands" of planar layers were still there, with a forest on one side and a lake on the other, with ankle-deep swamp in the middle zone. "Me boot's're gonna get ruined in this water," grumbled Khari.</p><p></p><p>"That's why I don't wear any," Jhasspok answered. Khari almost pointed out the lizardfolk didn't in fact wear <em>any</em> clothes, unless you counted his <em>slave-light cloak</em>, but that was more for illumination than protection from the weather or concerns about nudity. But then he thought better of engaging the lizardfolk in any lengthy conversation, turned to Cramer, and asked when he was going to cast the <em>find the path</em> spell so they could all get out of this strange place.</p><p></p><p>"Doing so now," Cramer promised, unrolling the scroll and letting the word inscribed in the prayer roll off his tongue. "Got it!" he said. "Anybody else see the arrows pointing which way to go?" Nobody did. "Then you'll all need to follow me," he said, casting a <em>longstrider</em> spell so he wouldn't slow down the rest of the group. But then Utred scooped him up and plopped him back up on his shoulders again.</p><p></p><p>Marlo cast a <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> spell, informed everyone telepathically that she had done so, and once again Jhasspok was practically startled out of his scaly hide at the sudden, unexpected voice in his head. <It's just me, Jhasspok!> Marlo chided the lizardfolk as the dwarves took the lead and Cramer gave Utred telepathic instructions on which way to go. Jhasspok couldn't help it; he flinched every time anybody "spoke" over the shared mental link. That was something he'd likely never get used to.</p><p></p><p>It wasn't long during their trek to wherever it was "the gnome needed to be" according to the scroll's author that they heard the trumpeting of a number of elephantine trunks coming from somewhere off to the right - the "forest" area on the other side of a planar layer. It sounded like a herd of elephants was approaching! But when the source of the trumpeting was finally made clear, it was a much smaller number of creatures suddenly coming into view. In point of fact, it was merely one, although the Cthulephant was a rather large beast in and of itself. However, the great number of rubbery trunks splitting off from the front of its head wasn't the only strange thing about it, for it seemed to glide <em>through</em> the trees, passing through them like a ghost. "Um, incorporeal elephant approaching!" Cramer warned the others, in case they had missed it.</p><p></p><p>Utred hadn't missed it. Upon its sudden appearance, the dwarven barbarian picked up his speed, running as fast as he could in the direction the gnome cleric had told him the arrows were pointing. Utred wasn't afraid of combat with anything, but this Far Realm place creeped him out and he didn't trust any of the local inhabitants - what he wouldn't give to be back home already and fighting some drow or something!</p><p></p><p>Jhasspok could easily run as fast as the dwarven barbarian but to do so would mean to leave Marlo and Khari behind and he wasn't willing to do that. Instead, he ran just far enough to be in the multi-trunked creature's path, then stood his ground with his battleaxe raised, ready to strike out at it if it continued its approach. Khari opted to follow his fellow dwarf in flight from the great beast.</p><p></p><p>But the lizardfolk's blade wasn't the first weapon to strike the Cthulephant's flank - that honor went to the <em>spiritual quarterstaff </em>Cramer caused to blink into existence and slam down at the massive pachyderm. Cramer saw the edges of the beast wavering and realized it likely took up more than the standard three dimensions, likely existing in a fourth and possibly even fifth dimension.</p><p></p><p>Marlo hit the beast with an <em>empowered scorching ray</em> spell. It bellowed in pain, trumpeting wildly through a dozen or more separate trunks. Then it struck out at the nearest target: Jhasspok, who swung his blade at the beast and struck it a solid blow before being snatched up and pulled not only into a multi-trunk grapple but also - in some extradimensional manner the lizardfolk couldn't even begin to understand - being sent over to the next layer with his foe, such that the Cthulephant stood waist deep in the waters of the lake while still standing on the border between the forest layer and the swamp layer.</p><p></p><p>Seeing as they were going to have to fight this beast anyhow, Utred shifted course and sprinted at the Cthulephant, his greataxe slashing at a powerful trunk. But he was snatched up by several other equally-powerful trunks, bringing Cramer along for the ride with him. The dwarf and gnome found themselves fighting off the beast while solidly in the forest layer. Cramer bent down and touched a trunk, channeling an <em>inflict critical wounds</em> spell directly at the creature's flesh - and learned right then and there the elephantine horror enjoyed some sort of spell resistance, for the cleric's spell did absolutely nothing to it.</p><p></p><p>Despite having been grabbed around the waist by a pair of trunks, Jhasspok's hands were still free and he brought his battleaxe swinging down into the nest of trunks. Khari used the power of his <em>earthglide warhammer</em> to drop down below the surface of the forest and only rise back up when he was underneath the great beast. Then, standing to his full height underneath the thing's belly, he swung for all he was worth. Marlo sent another <em>empowered scorching ray</em> spell crashing into the beast's side, where her gouts of flame wouldn't hit any of her trunk-entangled friends.</p><p></p><p>The Cthulephant pulled Jhasspok into the lava layer and released him, expecting the painful lizardfolk to plummet to his immediate death. But Jhasspok was having none of that; he clamped down hard with his teeth onto the base of a trunk and held on, his mouth filling with the Cthulephant's blood. He didn't have to hold on for very long, either, for the ongoing attacks from his friends soon brought the monster down, falling over onto his side and crushing Khari with its massive body over in the forest layer. Jhasspok scrambled up onto the creature's head, a temporary island of safety in a pool of magma. He looked over at the next layer, and there was the Cthulephant floating in the lake, and just beyond it was lying in the fog-covered mists of the swamp, and even further back the many-trunked abomination was lying on the forest floor, with a bruised and battered Khari climbing out from underneath the massive beast. Jhasspok hadn't been aware there had been so many of the beasts attacking all at once!</p><p></p><p><Will yourself back over here!> Marlo called to Jhasspok over the telepathic link, causing the lizardfolk to cry out on shock and surprise again at the voice yelling inside his head. But it soon became apparent to Marlo and Cramer that not everyone knew about all of the planar traits of the Far Realm and coached Jhasspok on how to "blink" over from the magma layer to the swamp layer by simply envisioning the transfer and willing it to happen. The lizardfolk finally made it through this new maneuver, and not a moment too soon for the Cthulephant slowly sank below the bubbling pool of magma. The group once now back together on the same layer, Cramer directed Utred forward, following the arrows only the cleric could see.</p><p></p><p>Eventually, the swamp gave way to a chasm, with a structure of shifting patterns surrounding the gaping maw of the open space before them. Jutting out from this stone building was a simple hallway, square in cross-section, 10 feet to a side, and some 50 feet long. "The arrows are pointing us straight through that hallway," Cramer said, and that was all Utred needed to hear. He moved forward into the open hallway, Cramer still perched on his shoulders.</p><p></p><p>There were fine spider webs within the dark hallway, only now being lit by the <em>slave-light cloaks</em> the heroes wore. But as Utred stepped deeper within the structure, he saw the skittering swarms of spiders clumped ahead of him, one group on the ceiling and another on a side wall. Not liking having to deal with entire swarms of small critters - they were hard to fight with a greataxe - the dwarf plucked a bead from his <em>necklace of fireballs</em> and tossed it between the two swarms, engulfing them in the subsequent explosion of flames. As expected, the blast fried quite a few of the spiders into crispy corpses, but the dwarf was surprised that these dead spiders didn't fall down from the ceiling to the floor below but rather stayed in place on the ceiling and wall. Odd!</p><p></p><p>The remaining spiders surged forward, those on the ceiling flipping over to the opposite wall and then swarming over Utred, up his body, and onto Cramer as well, biting with venom-laced mouths that the gnome was astonished to see actually held teeth, like no terrestrial spider he'd ever seen. Cramer reached into his pack and pulled out a <em>potion of neutralize poison</em>, knowing it could be vital in counteracting the effects of whatever venom surged through these spiders' bodies. He passed a second vial down to Utred but the dwarf was busy scraping spiders off his body with both hands, so the gnome tucked it between the straps of the dwarf's pack, the top of which Cramer was sitting upon.</p><p></p><p>Jhasspok was also frustrated at facing a whole bunch of little enemies instead of one big one, but he swapped weapons, setting aside his trusty battleaxe and using his <em>flaming spear</em> not so much to stab at individual spiders but to wave the tip around and try to burn up as many of the creatures as he could. Khari pulled out and activated his <em>flaming burst longsword</em> and followed the lizardfolk's lead. Scorched spiders fell away from the bodies of Utred and Cramer, falling to the floor. Marlo left the boys to deal with those spiders that had already made it as far as they did and concentrated on those far enough away to take down with another of her <em>empowered scorching ray</em> spells, burning them into blackened husks.</p><p></p><p>But before the group moved on they noticed they had all been moving sideways. This became especially noticeable when Jhasspok, over on the right-hand side, suddenly found himself standing on the rightmost wall, almost bumping heads with Utred! Marlo stood on the wall beside and behind him. Even the dead spiders on the ceiling had shifted position; they were now over on the left-hand wall, while those that had been over on the right wall were now on the ceiling! "Gravity's all flooey!" Cramer surmised. But then he urged Utred down the hall, eager to be on their way.</p><p></p><p>Utred exited the hallway and entered a strange chamber - although "strange," he realized, applied just about equally to everything he'd seen on this oddball plane! But he stood on an infinite stairway of some sort; the stairs led upward to his left, to make a turn to the right after some 40 feet or so and continuing upwards, making another upwards turn to the right after another 40 feet, and then a fourth one...which somehow ended up right back where the stairs had started, even though it was uphill the whole way. Utred followed the stairs back the other way with his eyes, confirming by going counterclockwise down the stairs you'd make a full transit and yet end up right back where you started. Weird! But at each corner there was a doorway facing the downward set of stairs...and on each of these four hallways was a much larger spider of the same type as they'd fought in the hallway behind them. At Cramer's urging, Utred drank down the <em>potion of neutralize poison</em> as the large pseudonatural arachnids skittered towards them, one pair heading down the stairs from the left and the other two climbing up the stairs to the right.</p><p></p><p>Two of the spiders - the closest pair - raced up to Utred and Cramer and snapped at them with their horrible, teeth-filled mouths, while the other two each scampered through a doorway at the corner of the stairs and were gone from view. But they ended up directly in the hallway, one skittering forward on the ceiling and other on one of the walls, snapping their teeth at Marlo, Khari, and Jhasspok who had yet to enter the winding stairs that encased the chasm. Their mouths likewise failed to hit their targets as the heroes instinctively stepped back from these odd-looking arachnids.</p><p></p><p>Fortunately, despite their greater size, these spiders weren't much more of a threat than the smaller versions making up the swarms the heroes had battled in the hallway - and despite their odd appearance, they died just as easily as terrestrial spiders of a similar size. Utred cut one down with his greataxe, slicing through its head in a single blow of his blade, while Jhasspok and Khari took out another one with their own weapons. Marlo killed the other one in the hallway with another of her <em>empowered scorching ray</em> spells, while a combination of Cramer's mace and Utred's hefty blade made short work of the last one. Then the other three heroes entered the winding stairs to join with Cramer and Utred, but not at all in the way they had imagined.</p><p></p><p>Due to the shifting gravity planes in the hallway, Jhasspok stepped out from a side wall and found himself not behind Utred and Cramer as expected but rather down the opposite set of stairs. Marlo, likewise, was on a different set of stairs; only Khari, who was on the "floor" of the corridor when he stepped through the doorway, ended up beside Utred and Cramer, who had likewise entered the stairs from the floor level. Just in case it made a difference, Marlo and Jhasspok were instructed to return the way they came, get to the floor level of the shifting hallway, and then exit back into the endless stairs. As expected, they showed up beside the others.</p><p></p><p>"Now where?" asked Khari wearily. He was getting tired of the strangeness of this Far Realm!</p><p></p><p>"This way," Cramer said, leading Utred up two flights of stairs and through the doorway at the corner. As the rest of the group started climbing clockwise around the chasm, Jhasspok went the exact opposite direction.</p><p></p><p>"This way!" Marlo called, purposefully not using the <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> when she knew it would only startle the lizardfolk.</p><p></p><p>"Downhill's easier!" Jhasspok replied, and sure enough he made better time going counterclockwise than the others trudging up the stairs. And they were all apparently in the same orientation as they stood before the intended door. Cramer shrugged and sent Utred stepping through the open doorway, the others following just behind. This led to another corridor like the one they'd used to enter the stairway, only it was thankfully devoid of either spiders or webs. But on the other side of the short hallway was a sight that put everything else the heroes had seen on this Far Realm to shame.</p><p></p><p>The open doorway at the end of the hallway led to an open void. Tumbling through it was what could only be the severed head of the Dying One itself, a hundred impossibly-long tentacles spreading out from the massive head of a mind flayer. Amidst these tentacles was a small fleet of recognizably drow ships, of the type used on the Bioluminescent Sea that surrounded the drow city of Overreach, each ship encased in a bubble of some sort.</p><p></p><p>Seen only by Cramer, the otherwise invisible arrows of the <em>find the path</em> spell indicated the gnome was to "fall" toward one of the smaller vessels; this, apparently, was his final destination for no arrows departed from the ship. Cramer instructed the others over the telepathic link (eliciting another yelp of surprise from Jhasspok) how to direct one's personal sense of "down" such that they fell in whichever direction they chose. It took some getting used to, but the five heroes eventually managed to all fall in the appropriate directions and land upon the vessel Cramer indicated was their target.</p><p></p><p>But they noticed two things as they approached their target vessel. As they got closer and closer, a deafening silence encroached upon their telepathic bond, rendering it unusable. (Jhasspok didn't even notice its absence, but would have been perfectly fine with its loss had he been aware.) But the deck was already crowded with a score of unfamiliar figures, each as motionless as a carved statue. As the group landed upon the deck among these figures, not a one of them moved or in any way acknowledged their presence. They were apparently warriors of some sort, with thin, curving swords buckled at their waists, elaborate helmets (some of them sporting demonic visages and various horns and antlers), and strange armor seemingly made of wood in places. But their complete immobility made them seem as if they were already dead; in fact, none of the heroes could even see any of these fierce-looking warriors breathe.</p><p></p><p>"Are they statues?" asked Jhasspok. They were obviously not carved from stone, for there were too-elaborate knots holding their helmets in place and some of these frozen figures had visible facial hair; in addition, they were in full color, with brightly-colored designs on their armor. Sprouting up from the backs of some of these figures were wooden poles holding fluttering, vertical flags, but the flags were as motionless as the rest of them.</p><p></p><p>"I think these are regular people," Marlo hazarded, "but they're stuck in some sort of <em>time stop</em> effect." Some quick experimentation showed the heroes were unable to affect these frozen people in any way: they couldn't be lifted from their positions, or their arms pulled away from their bodies, or their helmets removed from their heads.</p><p></p><p>"What's your <em>find the path</em> spell telling you?" Utred asked the gnome riding on his backpack.</p><p></p><p>"The arrows lead to the cabin, where we're to wait until this ship exits the gate," Cramer replied. And then a memory came crashing into his head: the first time the group had stepped through the Writhing Gate, being teleported to the surface world on their first raiding mission, there had been a part of the transition where Cramer's mind had been contacted by the Dying One; he surmised the <em>teleportation</em> effect took those using the Writhing Gate temporarily into the Far Realm before depositing them at their final destination. It was entirely possible, the cleric mused, that this entire ship was passing through the Writhing Gate - or one of the ten Writhing Gates, Cramer mentally amended - and these twenty warriors were simply frozen between moments of time. The cleric climbed down from Utred's back and stepped over to the cabin at the back of the ship, with the other four following behind him.</p><p></p><p>There, they found a male drow sitting upon a throne of some type, his robes bearing the insignia of House Falmakyorl, one of the Eight Ruling Houses of the Overreach - the one in charge of the city's naval vessels, as a matter of fact. Like the foreign men standing outside, the drow seemed to be frozen in place; unlike them, he was able to move his eyes around, which he did frantically as if to attract the heroes' attention.</p><p></p><p>"Can you hear me?" Cramer asked the drow. The eye movements increased, as close as a nod of affirmation as the wizard could likely accomplish in his current state.</p><p></p><p>Marlo stepped up to him. "Look to the left for 'yes' and to the right for 'no,'" she suggested. "Can you hear us?" The drow quickly looked off to his left.</p><p></p><p>"Is this something you expected would happen?" she pressed on, and the wizard shifted his glance to the right. So he hadn't expected to be frozen like this. Marlo had also experienced a brief moment of telepathic contact with the Dying One when first using the Writhing Gate, as had Khari; Utred and Jhasspok were the only ones who hadn't been contacted. But while the sorcerer's mental contact had lasted but a brief moment - long enough for her to swear allegiance to the Dying One - this ship's transit through the Far Realm was taking much, much longer for some reason. <em>Perhaps it had something to do with the size of whatever was being sent through the Gate?</em> she theorized. Then she realized this was taking entirely too long, mentally chided herself for not thinking of this solution before, and cast another <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> spell, this one linking her, Cramer, and Utred up with the drow wizard.</p><p></p><p><Can you hear me?> she asked telepathically, glad not to have to deal with Jhasspok flinching at the mental communication for once.</p><p></p><p><Praise Lolth!> the drow replied. <I thought I was going insane! I see by your insignia you're from House Jalamir - are you from one of the other ships? How is it you're not frozen like the Jakurans?> None of the heroes in the link knew what a "Jakuran" was, but they supposed it was the name for the frozen warriors out on deck.</p><p></p><p><It apparently affects different people in different ways,> Marlo answered, ignoring the drow's first question and hoping he didn't press the issue. But the wizard was too glad to have someone to talk to, even telepathically, and he was more than happy to answer their questions, especially since he viewed them as allies to the Mortal Queen, as evidenced by the House Jalamir emblems pinned on their <em>slave-light cloaks</em>. In answer to their mental questions, he explained he'd been trapped immobile for what seemed like a day and a half; he'd heard from a few others that they'd experienced something similar when passing their vessels through a Writhing Gate but hadn't paid much attention until it happened to him; the soldiers (he called them "samurai") on board his vessel were from a nation called Jakura from the other side of the world; they had a reason to hate Greenvale because the turncoat drow's ironsilk production caused a drop in the desire for the silks Jakura produced and thus it was easy for Matron Bel'vior to get them to join her mock crusade.</p><p></p><p>That term caused a fresh flurry of questions, this time from Cramer. The drow wizard further explained the whole war against Greenvale was a ruse to cull the numbers of the faithful to a more manageable amount to flee the world before its destruction. After all, House Falmakyorl only had so many of these ships, and while they had long known the magical devices they created to pilot them without wind theoretically granted the ships the power of flight, it wasn't until Matron Bel'vior's Lolth-given knowledge allowed sufficient modifications that in turn permitted them to travel even farther than the sky. That, coupled with the knowledge of the Writhing Gates given freely by Calish (even though he only knew the location of the one) and the information stolen from N'zorthal (specifically, on how to work the gate and use one to find the others) allowed them to finally get their fleet somewhere where they could test out their ability to fly.</p><p></p><p><Where is this ship headed?> Cramer asked.</p><p></p><p><I'm to bring these samurai to an assault upon a fort north of the Elderwood, called the Crossroad Keep,> the drow replied.</p><p></p><p><Surely you won't be bringing one of the ships responsible for bringing the loyal drow to safety into a war zone?> Marlo asked, pretending to be only concerned with protecting the spelljamming vessel that would be used as a "lifeboat" to rescue the Mortal Queen and her most loyal followers from the planet before the Dying One destroyed their world as prophesied.</p><p></p><p><Oh, no!> agreed the drow. <I'm just to drop the samurai off and then fly back out of harm's way!></p><p></p><p><Good, good - excellent, in fact!> replied Marlo, continuing to play the role of a loyal follower of the Mortal Queen. But keeping her thoughts free of the <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> spell, her mind was whirling with sudden realizations: the Far Realm played tricks with the passing of time and apparently more time had passed since the group departed Dwarven Hell than the one night they had thought, for it looked like the Overreach drow invasion onto the surface world was already underway!</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>I had some very mixed feelings about this adventure. While first of all it was great to be able to start this campaign back up again and I really enjoyed the creativity Logan came up with in the non-Euclidian aspects of the Far Realm, so much of the ongoing plot just doesn't make a lot of sense to me and it's really caused me to be concerned that the campaign's logic (which up until now has been impeccable) is falling apart. Here are my major issues:</p><p></p><p>1. The whole war upon the surface world (and Greenvale in particular) is just a ruse? Because there's only so much room on the spelljamming lifeboats? Wouldn't it make more sense for the Mortal Queen to pick however many of her most loyal subjects fit on the lifeboats and evacuate them to a new world if she's so worried about the Dying One destroying this world? I have to admit, I've really enjoyed the gradual buildup to the oncoming war; it's a bummer to find out the whole thing is just a sham.</p><p></p><p>2, It defies logic for me that the Underdark drow are even aware of a surface world country on the completely opposite side of the planet (which our previous campaign, "The Durnhill Conscripts," established was the case), let alone are allies to them.</p><p></p><p>3. There being ten Writhing Gates is a neat twist, but I'm kind of lost on the Dying One's behavior. I get that he probably isn't actively trying to destroy the world (just that passing through his own Writhing Gates back to the Material Plane with only seven "anchors" in place would destroy the world - much better if all ten were in place), but how in the world is it in his own best interests to give our PCs aid, when we're the fairly obvious prophetic figures who will slay the Dying One and thus save the world? After all, we've been depicted in prophetic murals and there can't be that many groups containing two dwarves, a human, a gnome, and a lizardfolk. You'd think an Elder God would know enough not to go out of his way to save the five people who will likely be responsible for his eventual death, even if one of them has agreed to serve him.</p><p></p><p>I have other smaller quibbles and I have to admit I was kind of grumpy at what I considered was "anime-level plot silliness" towards the end of this adventure. But I was likewise grumpy when Logan wrote an adventure that forced us to hand over the power of the tarrasque to the Mortal Queen and he managed to allow us to right that wrong a few adventures later. So I'm going to take some advice that Logan and Stuart were given when watching an anime marathon at a Gen Con some two dozen or so years ago, when the guy running the marathon was addressing the fact to the audience that Japanese anime contains some really oddball plot points from time to time: "Accept, and move on." Logan's crafted a compelling campaign thus far, and while some of these new plot points don't make a whole lot of sense to me right now, I'm just going to trust that he knows what he's doing and that he'll continue to finish off this campaign with the same level of quality that he's put into it thus far.</p><p></p><p>In the meantime, I've come up with some interesting things that a group of five heroes working against the Mortal Queen can do to an entire fleet of spelljamming vessels that will be "frozen in time" for the better part of a day....</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 8301650, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 35: THE FAR PLANE HOME[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Cramer Appleknocker, gnome cleric 11[/INDENT] [INDENT] Jhasspok, lizardman 3/barbarian 3/fighter 5[/INDENT] [INDENT] Khari Hammerslammer, dwarf fighter 11[/INDENT] [INDENT] Marlo Pendragon, human sorcerer 11[/INDENT] [INDENT] Utred "Buckets" Butterflinger, dwarf barbarian 11[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 9 June 2021 - - - Instinctively, the five heroes took a step back, surprised at the strangeness of the world around them. Their surroundings seemed to wobble in place before finally settling down to a terrain that at first [I]looked[/I] somewhat normal, if you didn't examine it too closely.... Whereas mere moments ago they'd been on a level of Dwarven Hell, they were now standing up to their ankles in a mist-covered swamp. This was fine by Jhasspok; he preferred standing in a swamp over dealing with all the heat and molten metal of Dwarven Hell. But there was something wrong with the background in the distance, something that just didn't make sense to the easily-puzzled lizardfolk. He tried shaking his head to see if that would make any difference, but it didn't. Beside him, Marlo and Cramer were likewise examining their surroundings. They could tell this Far Realm was broken up into multiple layers, and that these layers each had slightly different terrain, some of it overlapping like the Ethereal Plane overlapped with the Material Plane. To their left, the ankle-deep waters of the swamp changed suddenly to the waters of a much deeper lake; just beyond that, the water was now magma instead. To their immediate right, the local terrain was a tree-filled forest; beyond that, some sort of fractal plane that gave you a headache if you stared at it too long. But having studied (to some extent, in any case) extraplanar lore, both spellcasters realized you could simply "will" yourself to an adjacent planar layer, in the same manner you could choose to "fall" in any direction when upon the Elemental Plane of Air. What they didn't realize was this wasn't knowledge shared by their lizardfolk companion or either of their two dwarven friends. "What in the blazin' Hell?" demanded Utred, looking around him. "How'd we end up here?" "I'm not entirely sure," admitted Cramer, "but it's essential that you all stay in close proximity to me. I have a [I]magic circle against chaos[/I] spell centered on me - step too far away and you'll be battered by the pure chaos energy of this place." "An' then what?' asked Khari, gripping his warhammer and looking about for enemies on this strange world. "Your mind...breaks, and you end up crazy," the gnome cleric answered. "Jhasspok? Did you hear me? Don't get too far away from me, okay?" "Okay," Jhasspok answered, ready to do exactly as requested. This place was too strange for his liking and he had every intention of sticking close to the only ones who could get him back to the safety of the Underdark...heck, he'd even take the "normal" strangeness of the surface world, at this point! "Well, I'm makin' sure you stick close to me," Utred said, scooping Cramer up from behind and lifting him up to ride on his shoulders. It was a maneuver the two had done plenty of times in the past, giving the height-challenged Cramer a better vantage point (and a quicker movement rate), while the burly dwarven barbarian hardly even noticed the extra weight provided by the little gnome. "What's that?" Marlo asked, pointing straight ahead of them, more than a little bit of worry in her voice. Looking at where she indicated, the group saw a "V" of the foggy mists parting as something approached them through the shallow water. "It's heading straight for us!" the sorceress added, ready to activate her [I]boots of levitation[/I] if it came down to it, but concerned that she didn't want to rise up too far away from the protection of Cramer's spell. "Hey!" Jhasspok called out as the approaching creature raised itself up above the mists. "It's a glittering mouther!" Oddly, although the lizardfolk had fallen under the sway of one of these creatures back in the remains of Cramer Appleknocker's home town of Grover's Comb, he was actually kind of glad to see the creature approach - it was, in his mind, something somewhat reminiscent of home. "'Gibbering,'" Cramer automatically corrected, then frowned to himself in puzzlement, for while this creature had every appearance of being a gibbering mouther - an amorphous, shapeless blob of matter whose outer surface was covered in random eyes and mouths - this one had one very distinctive difference to the creatures they'd fought in Grover's Comb: it wasn't gibbering! Instead, it opened its various mouth one at a time and each spit out a single word, forming sentences seemingly created in a committee. "Hello," one mouth said, followed immediately by a bevy of others: "We..." "Have..." "Been..." "Waiting..." "For..." "You...." "How is this possible?" Marlo wanted to know. They hadn't even known they'd be shunted here after escaping from Dwarven Hell; the [I]plane shift[/I] scroll she'd read aloud was to have taken them back to the Material Plane, not here! But the creature - which Cramer soon dubbed the "chatting mouther" - ignored her question, telling her what it had intended to say instead. "Follow..." "Us..." "To..." "Place..." "Of..." "Sanctuary...." The heroes looked at each other and Cramer, atop Utred's shoulders, shrugged. "It's not like we've got any better options," he reasoned, and there was little argument against that. "Lead on, buddy!" The many-eyed abomination led the group back the way it had come through the swamps, taking care not to cross any of the boundaries to any of the adjacent layers. Trudging through the ankle-deep waters of the swamp, they eventually approached a thick slab of stone, the end pointing at them containing a door of sorts and then extending for some 40 feet or so, attaining a height of about 10 feet for most of its length. Marlo couldn't help making the comparison: it reminded her of nothing so much as a giant, petrified tentacle. The chatting mouther reformed some of its mass into a pair of pseudopods and manipulated open the door-hatch, oozing its way inside. Marlo was the first to follow it, but her entry took a sudden halt when she heard their guide start to mutter to itself. "Hungry..." admitted one mouth, and the sentiment was echoed first by another mouth, then several more, until the thing was whispering, mumbling, shouting, and murmuring, "Hungry...hungry...HUNGRY!" Marlo made short work of dashing back outside into the ankle-deep waters of the swamp to rejoin the others. "Get ready," she warned. "I think it's reverting to type!" Utred gripped his greataxe and took up position on one side of the open hatch; Khari followed suit on the other side, gripping his warhammer. And then out splorched the gibbering mouther, striking at Utred with six newly-formed pseudopods, the mouths at the end of each snapping at him. Of the six only one managed to latch onto the dwarven barbarian, but Utred suppressed a shriek when the mouth biting him suddenly vomited forth four illithid tentacles, which wrapped around his arm and pulled him closer, the tentacles reaching out for his brain. Both dwarves retaliated immediately, striking the abomination with their weapons. Cramer leaned forward and brought his mace crashing down upon the nearest tentacle, but its metal head seemed to bounce off the creature's rubbery hide. Jhasspok strode forward with his battleaxe ready to strike but he got there too late, for Marlo took it out with an [I]empowered scorching ray[/I] spell. "Let's drag that thing all the way out of there," she suggested, and Jhasspok was happy enough to do at least that much - plus, a gibbering mouther had an abundance of tasty eyes to sample! Once everybody trundled inside the petrified tentacle and Khari pulled the hatch shut, the group heaved a collective sigh of relief, for they were all overcome with an overwhelming sense of safety. "Just where are we?" Utred wanted to know, as Cramer climbed back down off the dwarf's shoulders. He could easily see the interior had five [I]stone shaped[/I] "cots" along one wall, two sized for dwarves and one for an even smaller gnome; apparently their gibbering mouther host was quite sincere about them having been expected. "Let's see what this has to say about it," Marlo suggested, walking to the back of the hollow structure, where she saw - by the light of the group's [I]slave-light cloaks[/I] - a [I]stone-shaped[/I] desk, upon which sat five headbands, a book, and a scroll. Unrolling the scroll, she passed on what it had to say. "This first part is a spell of some sort," she said, reading the notation beneath the spell-runes: "'[I]The gnome will find the path to where he needs to be tomorrow.[/I]'" Then, after that, was an explanation of how the headbands worked; while not magical, each held a chip of stone from the petrified tentacle that, when worn against the forehead, protected the wearer from the insanity-inducing effects of the chaotic plane. Opening the book next, she was surprised to see instead of writing, the "words" consisted of a series of raised bumps; this, she realized, was "Quiddith," a touch-language used by the mind flayers. She asked to borrow Cramer's [I]helm of comprehend languages[/I] and he passed it over, the magical helm automatically resizing to fit the human's head. "What's it say?" Cramer demanded, and Marlo held up a hand while she perused a few pages first. Finally, after a quick skimming, she passed on the gist of what the book had to say. "It's about the Dying One," she said. "When he was beheaded by Wee Jas, his cult of followers 'anchored' his head to our world, Shadreth, with ten anchors." "Ten, huh?" asked the gnome. "I'll bet it's no coincidence that there are ten tentacles making up the Writhing Gate!" "The anchors," Marlo continued, reading ahead, "are to open a gate for the 'reborn' Uboros to escape the Far Realm. Apparently only seven anchors are needed for that task, but the energy released would split Shadreth apart. Using all 10 anchors will allow the energy to disperse safely." None of this talk made any sense to Jhasspok; he settled down on the largest bunk and rifled through his leather satchel, looking for a dried dung beetle - he was pretty sure he still had a few such provisions left, and past history already told him there was no point in offering to share his snack with the others because they always turned him down. "Due to the prophecies foretelling the world's destruction at Uboros' rebirth, the author of this book went to investigate the anchors," Marlo continued. She read ahead; the book listed the anchor points for all ten locations, but the translated names were meaningless to her without the proper context. However, it did lead her to come up with a slightly different supposition about the anchors: it was entirely possible that there were in fact ten Writhing Gates - that actually made a lot of sense, for the Dying One was said to have 100 tentacles, and the Writhing Gate with which the group was familiar sported 10 tentacles...it fit! Continuing on, Marlo relayed that the author found one of the anchors was broken - again, this made perfect sense if the petrified structure in which the heroes now found themselves was one of the Dying One's severed tentacles - so he headed into the Far Realm to find the cause. And that was where the book left off. "Weird," was all Utred had to say about the matter. Marlo returned the helm to Cramer and let him read it over for himself. But their jointly-agreed-upon plan was to spend the night in their petrified sanctuary, so Cramer and Marlo would have a full complement of spells in the morning before they wandered back out into the Far Realm. Cramer cast a [I]read magic[/I] spell, examined the scroll, and confirmed it was a [I]find the path[/I] spell. Then it was lights out and time to rest up. The next morning, after Cramer had prayed to his god for his spells, the five heroes donned their headbands and stepped back outside into the strangeness of the Far Realm. The nearby "bands" of planar layers were still there, with a forest on one side and a lake on the other, with ankle-deep swamp in the middle zone. "Me boot's're gonna get ruined in this water," grumbled Khari. "That's why I don't wear any," Jhasspok answered. Khari almost pointed out the lizardfolk didn't in fact wear [I]any[/I] clothes, unless you counted his [I]slave-light cloak[/I], but that was more for illumination than protection from the weather or concerns about nudity. But then he thought better of engaging the lizardfolk in any lengthy conversation, turned to Cramer, and asked when he was going to cast the [I]find the path[/I] spell so they could all get out of this strange place. "Doing so now," Cramer promised, unrolling the scroll and letting the word inscribed in the prayer roll off his tongue. "Got it!" he said. "Anybody else see the arrows pointing which way to go?" Nobody did. "Then you'll all need to follow me," he said, casting a [I]longstrider[/I] spell so he wouldn't slow down the rest of the group. But then Utred scooped him up and plopped him back up on his shoulders again. Marlo cast a [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I] spell, informed everyone telepathically that she had done so, and once again Jhasspok was practically startled out of his scaly hide at the sudden, unexpected voice in his head. <It's just me, Jhasspok!> Marlo chided the lizardfolk as the dwarves took the lead and Cramer gave Utred telepathic instructions on which way to go. Jhasspok couldn't help it; he flinched every time anybody "spoke" over the shared mental link. That was something he'd likely never get used to. It wasn't long during their trek to wherever it was "the gnome needed to be" according to the scroll's author that they heard the trumpeting of a number of elephantine trunks coming from somewhere off to the right - the "forest" area on the other side of a planar layer. It sounded like a herd of elephants was approaching! But when the source of the trumpeting was finally made clear, it was a much smaller number of creatures suddenly coming into view. In point of fact, it was merely one, although the Cthulephant was a rather large beast in and of itself. However, the great number of rubbery trunks splitting off from the front of its head wasn't the only strange thing about it, for it seemed to glide [I]through[/I] the trees, passing through them like a ghost. "Um, incorporeal elephant approaching!" Cramer warned the others, in case they had missed it. Utred hadn't missed it. Upon its sudden appearance, the dwarven barbarian picked up his speed, running as fast as he could in the direction the gnome cleric had told him the arrows were pointing. Utred wasn't afraid of combat with anything, but this Far Realm place creeped him out and he didn't trust any of the local inhabitants - what he wouldn't give to be back home already and fighting some drow or something! Jhasspok could easily run as fast as the dwarven barbarian but to do so would mean to leave Marlo and Khari behind and he wasn't willing to do that. Instead, he ran just far enough to be in the multi-trunked creature's path, then stood his ground with his battleaxe raised, ready to strike out at it if it continued its approach. Khari opted to follow his fellow dwarf in flight from the great beast. But the lizardfolk's blade wasn't the first weapon to strike the Cthulephant's flank - that honor went to the [I]spiritual quarterstaff [/I]Cramer caused to blink into existence and slam down at the massive pachyderm. Cramer saw the edges of the beast wavering and realized it likely took up more than the standard three dimensions, likely existing in a fourth and possibly even fifth dimension. Marlo hit the beast with an [I]empowered scorching ray[/I] spell. It bellowed in pain, trumpeting wildly through a dozen or more separate trunks. Then it struck out at the nearest target: Jhasspok, who swung his blade at the beast and struck it a solid blow before being snatched up and pulled not only into a multi-trunk grapple but also - in some extradimensional manner the lizardfolk couldn't even begin to understand - being sent over to the next layer with his foe, such that the Cthulephant stood waist deep in the waters of the lake while still standing on the border between the forest layer and the swamp layer. Seeing as they were going to have to fight this beast anyhow, Utred shifted course and sprinted at the Cthulephant, his greataxe slashing at a powerful trunk. But he was snatched up by several other equally-powerful trunks, bringing Cramer along for the ride with him. The dwarf and gnome found themselves fighting off the beast while solidly in the forest layer. Cramer bent down and touched a trunk, channeling an [I]inflict critical wounds[/I] spell directly at the creature's flesh - and learned right then and there the elephantine horror enjoyed some sort of spell resistance, for the cleric's spell did absolutely nothing to it. Despite having been grabbed around the waist by a pair of trunks, Jhasspok's hands were still free and he brought his battleaxe swinging down into the nest of trunks. Khari used the power of his [I]earthglide warhammer[/I] to drop down below the surface of the forest and only rise back up when he was underneath the great beast. Then, standing to his full height underneath the thing's belly, he swung for all he was worth. Marlo sent another [I]empowered scorching ray[/I] spell crashing into the beast's side, where her gouts of flame wouldn't hit any of her trunk-entangled friends. The Cthulephant pulled Jhasspok into the lava layer and released him, expecting the painful lizardfolk to plummet to his immediate death. But Jhasspok was having none of that; he clamped down hard with his teeth onto the base of a trunk and held on, his mouth filling with the Cthulephant's blood. He didn't have to hold on for very long, either, for the ongoing attacks from his friends soon brought the monster down, falling over onto his side and crushing Khari with its massive body over in the forest layer. Jhasspok scrambled up onto the creature's head, a temporary island of safety in a pool of magma. He looked over at the next layer, and there was the Cthulephant floating in the lake, and just beyond it was lying in the fog-covered mists of the swamp, and even further back the many-trunked abomination was lying on the forest floor, with a bruised and battered Khari climbing out from underneath the massive beast. Jhasspok hadn't been aware there had been so many of the beasts attacking all at once! <Will yourself back over here!> Marlo called to Jhasspok over the telepathic link, causing the lizardfolk to cry out on shock and surprise again at the voice yelling inside his head. But it soon became apparent to Marlo and Cramer that not everyone knew about all of the planar traits of the Far Realm and coached Jhasspok on how to "blink" over from the magma layer to the swamp layer by simply envisioning the transfer and willing it to happen. The lizardfolk finally made it through this new maneuver, and not a moment too soon for the Cthulephant slowly sank below the bubbling pool of magma. The group once now back together on the same layer, Cramer directed Utred forward, following the arrows only the cleric could see. Eventually, the swamp gave way to a chasm, with a structure of shifting patterns surrounding the gaping maw of the open space before them. Jutting out from this stone building was a simple hallway, square in cross-section, 10 feet to a side, and some 50 feet long. "The arrows are pointing us straight through that hallway," Cramer said, and that was all Utred needed to hear. He moved forward into the open hallway, Cramer still perched on his shoulders. There were fine spider webs within the dark hallway, only now being lit by the [I]slave-light cloaks[/I] the heroes wore. But as Utred stepped deeper within the structure, he saw the skittering swarms of spiders clumped ahead of him, one group on the ceiling and another on a side wall. Not liking having to deal with entire swarms of small critters - they were hard to fight with a greataxe - the dwarf plucked a bead from his [I]necklace of fireballs[/I] and tossed it between the two swarms, engulfing them in the subsequent explosion of flames. As expected, the blast fried quite a few of the spiders into crispy corpses, but the dwarf was surprised that these dead spiders didn't fall down from the ceiling to the floor below but rather stayed in place on the ceiling and wall. Odd! The remaining spiders surged forward, those on the ceiling flipping over to the opposite wall and then swarming over Utred, up his body, and onto Cramer as well, biting with venom-laced mouths that the gnome was astonished to see actually held teeth, like no terrestrial spider he'd ever seen. Cramer reached into his pack and pulled out a [I]potion of neutralize poison[/I], knowing it could be vital in counteracting the effects of whatever venom surged through these spiders' bodies. He passed a second vial down to Utred but the dwarf was busy scraping spiders off his body with both hands, so the gnome tucked it between the straps of the dwarf's pack, the top of which Cramer was sitting upon. Jhasspok was also frustrated at facing a whole bunch of little enemies instead of one big one, but he swapped weapons, setting aside his trusty battleaxe and using his [I]flaming spear[/I] not so much to stab at individual spiders but to wave the tip around and try to burn up as many of the creatures as he could. Khari pulled out and activated his [I]flaming burst longsword[/I] and followed the lizardfolk's lead. Scorched spiders fell away from the bodies of Utred and Cramer, falling to the floor. Marlo left the boys to deal with those spiders that had already made it as far as they did and concentrated on those far enough away to take down with another of her [I]empowered scorching ray[/I] spells, burning them into blackened husks. But before the group moved on they noticed they had all been moving sideways. This became especially noticeable when Jhasspok, over on the right-hand side, suddenly found himself standing on the rightmost wall, almost bumping heads with Utred! Marlo stood on the wall beside and behind him. Even the dead spiders on the ceiling had shifted position; they were now over on the left-hand wall, while those that had been over on the right wall were now on the ceiling! "Gravity's all flooey!" Cramer surmised. But then he urged Utred down the hall, eager to be on their way. Utred exited the hallway and entered a strange chamber - although "strange," he realized, applied just about equally to everything he'd seen on this oddball plane! But he stood on an infinite stairway of some sort; the stairs led upward to his left, to make a turn to the right after some 40 feet or so and continuing upwards, making another upwards turn to the right after another 40 feet, and then a fourth one...which somehow ended up right back where the stairs had started, even though it was uphill the whole way. Utred followed the stairs back the other way with his eyes, confirming by going counterclockwise down the stairs you'd make a full transit and yet end up right back where you started. Weird! But at each corner there was a doorway facing the downward set of stairs...and on each of these four hallways was a much larger spider of the same type as they'd fought in the hallway behind them. At Cramer's urging, Utred drank down the [I]potion of neutralize poison[/I] as the large pseudonatural arachnids skittered towards them, one pair heading down the stairs from the left and the other two climbing up the stairs to the right. Two of the spiders - the closest pair - raced up to Utred and Cramer and snapped at them with their horrible, teeth-filled mouths, while the other two each scampered through a doorway at the corner of the stairs and were gone from view. But they ended up directly in the hallway, one skittering forward on the ceiling and other on one of the walls, snapping their teeth at Marlo, Khari, and Jhasspok who had yet to enter the winding stairs that encased the chasm. Their mouths likewise failed to hit their targets as the heroes instinctively stepped back from these odd-looking arachnids. Fortunately, despite their greater size, these spiders weren't much more of a threat than the smaller versions making up the swarms the heroes had battled in the hallway - and despite their odd appearance, they died just as easily as terrestrial spiders of a similar size. Utred cut one down with his greataxe, slicing through its head in a single blow of his blade, while Jhasspok and Khari took out another one with their own weapons. Marlo killed the other one in the hallway with another of her [I]empowered scorching ray[/I] spells, while a combination of Cramer's mace and Utred's hefty blade made short work of the last one. Then the other three heroes entered the winding stairs to join with Cramer and Utred, but not at all in the way they had imagined. Due to the shifting gravity planes in the hallway, Jhasspok stepped out from a side wall and found himself not behind Utred and Cramer as expected but rather down the opposite set of stairs. Marlo, likewise, was on a different set of stairs; only Khari, who was on the "floor" of the corridor when he stepped through the doorway, ended up beside Utred and Cramer, who had likewise entered the stairs from the floor level. Just in case it made a difference, Marlo and Jhasspok were instructed to return the way they came, get to the floor level of the shifting hallway, and then exit back into the endless stairs. As expected, they showed up beside the others. "Now where?" asked Khari wearily. He was getting tired of the strangeness of this Far Realm! "This way," Cramer said, leading Utred up two flights of stairs and through the doorway at the corner. As the rest of the group started climbing clockwise around the chasm, Jhasspok went the exact opposite direction. "This way!" Marlo called, purposefully not using the [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I] when she knew it would only startle the lizardfolk. "Downhill's easier!" Jhasspok replied, and sure enough he made better time going counterclockwise than the others trudging up the stairs. And they were all apparently in the same orientation as they stood before the intended door. Cramer shrugged and sent Utred stepping through the open doorway, the others following just behind. This led to another corridor like the one they'd used to enter the stairway, only it was thankfully devoid of either spiders or webs. But on the other side of the short hallway was a sight that put everything else the heroes had seen on this Far Realm to shame. The open doorway at the end of the hallway led to an open void. Tumbling through it was what could only be the severed head of the Dying One itself, a hundred impossibly-long tentacles spreading out from the massive head of a mind flayer. Amidst these tentacles was a small fleet of recognizably drow ships, of the type used on the Bioluminescent Sea that surrounded the drow city of Overreach, each ship encased in a bubble of some sort. Seen only by Cramer, the otherwise invisible arrows of the [I]find the path[/I] spell indicated the gnome was to "fall" toward one of the smaller vessels; this, apparently, was his final destination for no arrows departed from the ship. Cramer instructed the others over the telepathic link (eliciting another yelp of surprise from Jhasspok) how to direct one's personal sense of "down" such that they fell in whichever direction they chose. It took some getting used to, but the five heroes eventually managed to all fall in the appropriate directions and land upon the vessel Cramer indicated was their target. But they noticed two things as they approached their target vessel. As they got closer and closer, a deafening silence encroached upon their telepathic bond, rendering it unusable. (Jhasspok didn't even notice its absence, but would have been perfectly fine with its loss had he been aware.) But the deck was already crowded with a score of unfamiliar figures, each as motionless as a carved statue. As the group landed upon the deck among these figures, not a one of them moved or in any way acknowledged their presence. They were apparently warriors of some sort, with thin, curving swords buckled at their waists, elaborate helmets (some of them sporting demonic visages and various horns and antlers), and strange armor seemingly made of wood in places. But their complete immobility made them seem as if they were already dead; in fact, none of the heroes could even see any of these fierce-looking warriors breathe. "Are they statues?" asked Jhasspok. They were obviously not carved from stone, for there were too-elaborate knots holding their helmets in place and some of these frozen figures had visible facial hair; in addition, they were in full color, with brightly-colored designs on their armor. Sprouting up from the backs of some of these figures were wooden poles holding fluttering, vertical flags, but the flags were as motionless as the rest of them. "I think these are regular people," Marlo hazarded, "but they're stuck in some sort of [I]time stop[/I] effect." Some quick experimentation showed the heroes were unable to affect these frozen people in any way: they couldn't be lifted from their positions, or their arms pulled away from their bodies, or their helmets removed from their heads. "What's your [I]find the path[/I] spell telling you?" Utred asked the gnome riding on his backpack. "The arrows lead to the cabin, where we're to wait until this ship exits the gate," Cramer replied. And then a memory came crashing into his head: the first time the group had stepped through the Writhing Gate, being teleported to the surface world on their first raiding mission, there had been a part of the transition where Cramer's mind had been contacted by the Dying One; he surmised the [I]teleportation[/I] effect took those using the Writhing Gate temporarily into the Far Realm before depositing them at their final destination. It was entirely possible, the cleric mused, that this entire ship was passing through the Writhing Gate - or one of the ten Writhing Gates, Cramer mentally amended - and these twenty warriors were simply frozen between moments of time. The cleric climbed down from Utred's back and stepped over to the cabin at the back of the ship, with the other four following behind him. There, they found a male drow sitting upon a throne of some type, his robes bearing the insignia of House Falmakyorl, one of the Eight Ruling Houses of the Overreach - the one in charge of the city's naval vessels, as a matter of fact. Like the foreign men standing outside, the drow seemed to be frozen in place; unlike them, he was able to move his eyes around, which he did frantically as if to attract the heroes' attention. "Can you hear me?" Cramer asked the drow. The eye movements increased, as close as a nod of affirmation as the wizard could likely accomplish in his current state. Marlo stepped up to him. "Look to the left for 'yes' and to the right for 'no,'" she suggested. "Can you hear us?" The drow quickly looked off to his left. "Is this something you expected would happen?" she pressed on, and the wizard shifted his glance to the right. So he hadn't expected to be frozen like this. Marlo had also experienced a brief moment of telepathic contact with the Dying One when first using the Writhing Gate, as had Khari; Utred and Jhasspok were the only ones who hadn't been contacted. But while the sorcerer's mental contact had lasted but a brief moment - long enough for her to swear allegiance to the Dying One - this ship's transit through the Far Realm was taking much, much longer for some reason. [I]Perhaps it had something to do with the size of whatever was being sent through the Gate?[/I] she theorized. Then she realized this was taking entirely too long, mentally chided herself for not thinking of this solution before, and cast another [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I] spell, this one linking her, Cramer, and Utred up with the drow wizard. <Can you hear me?> she asked telepathically, glad not to have to deal with Jhasspok flinching at the mental communication for once. <Praise Lolth!> the drow replied. <I thought I was going insane! I see by your insignia you're from House Jalamir - are you from one of the other ships? How is it you're not frozen like the Jakurans?> None of the heroes in the link knew what a "Jakuran" was, but they supposed it was the name for the frozen warriors out on deck. <It apparently affects different people in different ways,> Marlo answered, ignoring the drow's first question and hoping he didn't press the issue. But the wizard was too glad to have someone to talk to, even telepathically, and he was more than happy to answer their questions, especially since he viewed them as allies to the Mortal Queen, as evidenced by the House Jalamir emblems pinned on their [I]slave-light cloaks[/I]. In answer to their mental questions, he explained he'd been trapped immobile for what seemed like a day and a half; he'd heard from a few others that they'd experienced something similar when passing their vessels through a Writhing Gate but hadn't paid much attention until it happened to him; the soldiers (he called them "samurai") on board his vessel were from a nation called Jakura from the other side of the world; they had a reason to hate Greenvale because the turncoat drow's ironsilk production caused a drop in the desire for the silks Jakura produced and thus it was easy for Matron Bel'vior to get them to join her mock crusade. That term caused a fresh flurry of questions, this time from Cramer. The drow wizard further explained the whole war against Greenvale was a ruse to cull the numbers of the faithful to a more manageable amount to flee the world before its destruction. After all, House Falmakyorl only had so many of these ships, and while they had long known the magical devices they created to pilot them without wind theoretically granted the ships the power of flight, it wasn't until Matron Bel'vior's Lolth-given knowledge allowed sufficient modifications that in turn permitted them to travel even farther than the sky. That, coupled with the knowledge of the Writhing Gates given freely by Calish (even though he only knew the location of the one) and the information stolen from N'zorthal (specifically, on how to work the gate and use one to find the others) allowed them to finally get their fleet somewhere where they could test out their ability to fly. <Where is this ship headed?> Cramer asked. <I'm to bring these samurai to an assault upon a fort north of the Elderwood, called the Crossroad Keep,> the drow replied. <Surely you won't be bringing one of the ships responsible for bringing the loyal drow to safety into a war zone?> Marlo asked, pretending to be only concerned with protecting the spelljamming vessel that would be used as a "lifeboat" to rescue the Mortal Queen and her most loyal followers from the planet before the Dying One destroyed their world as prophesied. <Oh, no!> agreed the drow. <I'm just to drop the samurai off and then fly back out of harm's way!> <Good, good - excellent, in fact!> replied Marlo, continuing to play the role of a loyal follower of the Mortal Queen. But keeping her thoughts free of the [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I] spell, her mind was whirling with sudden realizations: the Far Realm played tricks with the passing of time and apparently more time had passed since the group departed Dwarven Hell than the one night they had thought, for it looked like the Overreach drow invasion onto the surface world was already underway! - - - I had some very mixed feelings about this adventure. While first of all it was great to be able to start this campaign back up again and I really enjoyed the creativity Logan came up with in the non-Euclidian aspects of the Far Realm, so much of the ongoing plot just doesn't make a lot of sense to me and it's really caused me to be concerned that the campaign's logic (which up until now has been impeccable) is falling apart. Here are my major issues: 1. The whole war upon the surface world (and Greenvale in particular) is just a ruse? Because there's only so much room on the spelljamming lifeboats? Wouldn't it make more sense for the Mortal Queen to pick however many of her most loyal subjects fit on the lifeboats and evacuate them to a new world if she's so worried about the Dying One destroying this world? I have to admit, I've really enjoyed the gradual buildup to the oncoming war; it's a bummer to find out the whole thing is just a sham. 2, It defies logic for me that the Underdark drow are even aware of a surface world country on the completely opposite side of the planet (which our previous campaign, "The Durnhill Conscripts," established was the case), let alone are allies to them. 3. There being ten Writhing Gates is a neat twist, but I'm kind of lost on the Dying One's behavior. I get that he probably isn't actively trying to destroy the world (just that passing through his own Writhing Gates back to the Material Plane with only seven "anchors" in place would destroy the world - much better if all ten were in place), but how in the world is it in his own best interests to give our PCs aid, when we're the fairly obvious prophetic figures who will slay the Dying One and thus save the world? After all, we've been depicted in prophetic murals and there can't be that many groups containing two dwarves, a human, a gnome, and a lizardfolk. You'd think an Elder God would know enough not to go out of his way to save the five people who will likely be responsible for his eventual death, even if one of them has agreed to serve him. I have other smaller quibbles and I have to admit I was kind of grumpy at what I considered was "anime-level plot silliness" towards the end of this adventure. But I was likewise grumpy when Logan wrote an adventure that forced us to hand over the power of the tarrasque to the Mortal Queen and he managed to allow us to right that wrong a few adventures later. So I'm going to take some advice that Logan and Stuart were given when watching an anime marathon at a Gen Con some two dozen or so years ago, when the guy running the marathon was addressing the fact to the audience that Japanese anime contains some really oddball plot points from time to time: "Accept, and move on." Logan's crafted a compelling campaign thus far, and while some of these new plot points don't make a whole lot of sense to me right now, I'm just going to trust that he knows what he's doing and that he'll continue to finish off this campaign with the same level of quality that he's put into it thus far. In the meantime, I've come up with some interesting things that a group of five heroes working against the Mortal Queen can do to an entire fleet of spelljamming vessels that will be "frozen in time" for the better part of a day.... [/QUOTE]
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