Pflarr requests a private meeting with the party, as an observer to the Council of the Azure Sky (hijinx ensue).
Pflarr’s Test
After completing their first 6 month term of service as Guardians of the Lamps, Al, Carrock, Efrim, and Lackshmi have met with the god Pflarr who extended them an offer they couldn’t refuse. In exchange for keeping quiet about their perceived offenses against the immortal establishment, Pflarr will create avatars for the party members, provide them with other assistance, and will request their participation in various missions, and will continue to keep quiet about the arrangement and their immortal aspirations.
The party takes 2 days to consider. During those two days, the next shift of heroes arrives to guard the lamp: Utnapishtim, Ashgar, Kirkus (the dwarven lord), and Warturnal, the 17th level sphinx. We spend time catching up with the diaboli, filling them in on our adventures (God Egg), and renew our bonds of friendship.
The party returns to the meeting place with Pflarr after two days and informs an amber golem that we have accepted the god’s terms.
Pflarr has a mission for the party that must be completed immediately. The party decides that these missions are designed to test our loyalty and trustworthiness.
The party must travel to a nearby plane called “Demi-gods’ Hearth” (plane DH on the map) and deliver two items to two different people on the plane. A scroll must be given to “Mar Irsu”, and an artifact bow is to be given to “Bersia”. Demi-gods Hearth is 10 planes out, an “outer outer plane”. The two individuals can be found at the palace there.
Rules for the delivery:
1. We cannot open or read the scroll
2. We cannot use the bow
3. We cannot tarry on the plane of the Diamond City (for fear of attracting the attention of Matter)
4. We cannot pry about the true identities of the two people
5. We cannot ask Mar Irsu about his mirror
6. Mar Irsu can be identified by an X cut into his eyeball, and will respond to the keyword “nonsense” with the key phrase “the patterns within…”. Mar Irsu will have further instructions.
7. Bersia can be identified as a jackelheaded huntress.
The party accepts the mission, and the packages. We manage not to break any of the rules, even though we are dying to pry on all counts.
Before leaving the plane of the azure sky, we take care of some business. Lackshmi charges Al’s Wand of Meteor Swarms.
Al uses his cloak to use Immortal Eye to look in on Catalon, Ostbruck, and Eyenmar’s Palace. He uses Communication to talk with Nameless One. Nameless One is impatient with our absence and updates Al on all of the recent events at Catalon. Most significant – Archduke Banting has been brought back to Catalon and is under lock and key.
The party leaves the Azure Sky and travels toward the plane of Demigods Hearth.
The journey to Demigods Hearth can be very dangerous. These are the planes in the area between Azure Sky and Demigods Hearth:
W: ghost town
X: faces in the mist that make travelers forget things, like where they are going
Y: Mist, but no faces. Collapsed bridges across great chasms.
Z: “Dead plane”. Islands in a placid sea. No waves, no wind, no movement.
DC: “Diamond Cities”. Actually crystal – home plane of the Krysts, which live in cities (ruled by Matter).
DH: Demigods Hearth – major temples to a couple of deities, including Pflarr.
The party leaves the Azure Sky and goes to W: ghost town. There are many haze filled canals. Our instructions are to “ignore the tarantulas and the cleaners”. There is much insect life here, especially large cockroaches. In the center of the town there is a huge pit filled with the bodies of dead insects and it is heated (incinerator?) We continue toward the wall of the city to the next node. In a wooded area (petrified stumps), we find 2 gargoyles built into the wall, facing in. There is a small obelisk. We open the gate to the next plane: Y
On plane Y, there is a large red sun, and the soil is red. We land on a hill where we can survey the land. There are great chasms and steam everywhere. We go to a bridge footing, which is just a stub. We find a gargoyle made of red material looking up, the node is supposed to be in the chasm below. We fly down into the chasm, going down, down, down, down. Eventually we find the node, and open it to plane Z: the dead plane.
On Z, we arrive at an island in a dead sea; no movement in the water at all. The plane has an orange sun. We Rainbow to the node where there is a 30’ tall gargoyle guarding the node. The gargoyle is inanimate. We cast spells to resist heat and environmental effects, Travel through the node and arrive right at the base of a crashed sun. We Stone Efrim, and Al Teleports the party to the next node, marked by another gargoyle. We Travel through that node and arrive at plane DC: Diamond Cities.
The party wins a courageous battle with Curiosity and is able to resist messing with the krysts as we move invisibly through their city. We travel through a gargoyle forest, and Al casts Furtive Gate to enter Demigods Hearth. DH is dominated by volcanos and a sun that never sets.
Demigods Hearth is terraced for farming. There is a small city that is mainly dwarven, and a larger city is home to three gods, represented at the Palace. The three gods are Pflarr, whose priests are followed around by living statues; Palentarken, whose clereics all have Homonculi; and Mishkeva, a goddess of magic users. Her clerics all have an icy blue finger. The city is surrounded by two walls. The party Rainbows to the gate at the first wall, and Al tells the guards there that they are messengers and seek an audience at the palace.
The party causes a lot of hubbub, and the guards try to make us comfortable while they get authorization. The magic users entertain the locals with magic tricks and runes.
There are 13 towers at the palace, and each is home to a different demi-god.
After 14 hours of waiting, 6 super hot women show up, all looking very similar, and all dressed identically. The women turn out to be palace guards. They carry longbows and wear chainmail over wraps to stay cool. They give us two badges each: one for entrance to the city, and one to give to the ferryman who will take us to the palace.
The city is dominated by gothic architecture with lots of bridges and archways. There are roughly 10,000 people in the city, most of whom seem like fighter types. We attract a lot of attention as we walk through the city toward the palace. The palace is built into the side of a volcano, and we must cross a river to get to the gate. We give our tokens to the ferryman who pulls the ferry across the river with a rope. Efrim puts on a show of pulling the ferry across using his super strength until the old man asks him to stop so that he can do his job. The ferry man lights some incense to cover the smell of sulfur coming off of the river. He pulls us across using a golden rope.
Across the river, we must climb up to the palace at the top of the volcano, walking up switchbacks. It is very hot and we sweat a lot. The palace guards start stripping down to deal with the heat. Once inside the palace, the air is much cooler. We learn that the 13 “demigods” are just clerics of the three gods we know about.
There are also many guests that stay at the palace. Beket is one “guest” from the Isle of Dawn, and speaks Alphasian and “Thothian” which is basically Nithian. Beket detects as a 7th level mage. When questioned she says “a relative brought me here”. She has a Palentarken holy symbol and claims to “do research.” Efrim gives her a copy of Flaming Magic Missile. On this plane, it does d6+4 damage per missile. After much pressing, she admits to having divine parents. She has a constant entourage of warriors.
We learn that Mishkeva clerics have more combat spells than normal, and they specialize in cold and water spells.
The two people we are looking for, Mar Irsu and Bersia (aka “Bushbrow”) are both just guests in the palace – not priests. Bersia is a 6’7” hutaakan. She carries a longbow and wears robes. She speaks elven. She demonstrates her bow prowess, and is very good. We hand over the artifact bow, which she accepts, but much to our frustration doesn’t tell us anything about!
Then we seek out Mar Irsu. He is in his lab. After confirming his identity, we give him a scroll. In his lab, there are lots of scrolls, an ever-burning fire, and a full size mirror. The frame of the mirror is like a giant mouth, and detects as immortal magic. Things in the mirror reflect with a yellowish light. He invites us to talk outside. We climb up the highest tower, which belongs to a priest of Pflarr. The platform we arrive at is open to the air outside. He says his research is about the properties of the outer planes. His role for Pflarr is that of a “reader”. The mark in his eye (a barely visible X), makes it easier to read runes, etc. Carrock demonstrates some Fanaere songs for him. Back in his lab, he pulls out a large tome, which he gives to the party with some directions. We are to wait 3 days, go to the cool side of the volcano where there is another Node, and wait for someone. We are to meet Tresta, an orange-red Titan carrying a crossbow. We are to give her this book, and take a book from her, which we are to take to the plane called “The Library”. Mar Irsu draws us a map to get to the library. He also draws extensive, extremely precise instructions for within the library. Al is required to place the book on the shelf between “Shorn of Tridents” and “Sidewinder”. He has clear instructions not to read the book, read any other books, or remove any books from the shelves. Before placing the book, he has to scan the area to see if any Immortal Eyes are watching. Mar Irsu gives him a potion of Immortal Detect Invisibility for this task.
On the far side of this volcano, there is an obsidian tower to stay away from – there are dangerous flame creatures there. We are to wait for Tresta, who will emerge from the next plane out (known as “purple columns”). This plane is 13 planes out, and magic doesn’t work right there. As the party approaches the node to wait for the titan, a great roc flies out from the palace to intercept us. The roc lands and turns into Mar Irsu. He says “you have 20 seconds to prepare for combat”). We cast prep spells (creating monsters, Haste, and charge x4), and open the gate. On the other side is a huge crystal construct; it is summoning/creating an earth elemental (30 HD). Carrock and Al prepare to cast Fireball from artifacts. Carrock fireballs it, and it casts Timestop. Carrock enters the Timestop with the servitor and begins melee with it. After he lands his first attack, Tresta appears, and traps the creature (using power points), preventing it from leaving. Carrock and his sword deal an insane amount of damage to the crystal creature, and after about 4 rounds he destroys it. The Timestop ends, and the creature that was before the party is now an explosion of dust. The party quickly kills the earth elemental. We make introductions with Tresta the Titan. We exchange books. Carrock gives her a note to give to the other titan that helped the fanaere, if she sees him. Tresta and Mar Irsu are convinced that the servitor was sent from Matter to stop the book exchange from happening. The party collects a lot of shards and dust of blue diamond, the substance that the servitor was made from.
After we recover, the party continues on to the Library plane. We travel through the placid sea, the node to the Ocean. At the bottom of the ocean is a node to the library. Al enters, follows the directions and places the book on the shelf. He hears and then sees the creature known as the “Librarian”, a large creature with a big nose (like the good guys from the Dark Crystal?), but does not interact with it. He leaves the Library without any events.
Upon surfacing in the ocean, there is a rock on the island emblazoned with Pflarr’s symbol that says “DEMIGODS HEARTH”. We return, and meet up with Mar Irsu, who says “are you ready to meet the great Pflarr?” He takes us to the obsidian tower that we were supposed to avoid before, and introduces us to a man named Novis, a coppery skinned Alphasian. He says “Greetings. I am Novis, and I am Pflarr.”
….
The party passes 2 months and one week with Mar Irsu and Novis, asking questions, and creating avatars(!).
Mar Irsu trains us how to have “unreadable minds”. We learn a skill called Mental Impenatrability.
Sometimes Novis just volunteers information. The two we met (Mar Irsu and Bersia) are Pflarr’s children. Mar Irsu’s mirror is useful for detecting magical effects. Regarding the errand to the Library… the library is called “the Library of the Reader”. The Librarian is an exulted creature of unknown origin. It has always been there. 99.9% of the books are empty, but if removed from the shelf, the person is struck with an immortal Disintegrate effect with no save. The gods use the library to leave books for friends, and they tell their friends where to pick up the books.
Sometimes Novis has visitors. For example, something called The Vang – a giant tail-less wolflike creature.
He tells us about Pilgrim (he knows we visited him). He was for some reason an extremely intelligent monkey who got a secret immortal sponsor that taught him the secrets of immortality. The sponsor helped him set up a kingdom behind a waterfall on SIMISTRUM BLUE. He managed to talk his way into Pandius by posing as a Titan. While there, he got drunk as a party, caused a bunch of mayhem, and stole the Key to Pandius. With his fame, he gained followers. He was able to create new creatures, such as gnolls. He took over several planes before being stopped on the Prime. He was defeated on the prime by the Traldarans, specifically by Halav (who since became a god, and is probably Julia Hala’s father). Pflarr started supporting the beastmen when Pilgrim fell and they were spared extermination from the gods. Pilgrim had benefitted from a civil war between energy and matter, but then they rallied together to take down Pilgrim. Pilgrim’s big show down was on Orinocco. The gods moved in to finish him off, but somehow his existence has continued on in ghost form, and he’s clearly still quite powerful, if even just confined to one location. Pflarr/Novis thinks that Pilgrim was probably an outer planar creature that just took the guise of a monkey, or possibly that a sphere of Entropy puppetmaster was behind the whole thing.
We talk some about Ebbensalma and the 27 godlings. Novis does not seem to know nearly as much about the 27 as the party members know, having spent considerable time behind the wall, but he has some insights. There are 5 gods that openly embrace origins in Ebbensalma as part of their history: Chronus, Thanatos, Wayland, Feria, and Hel. Novis has heard of Elstir, but not of Natane.
We try to narrow down who the god who taught Pilgrim might have been, and we have some guesses. Freyo-tal, the goddess of luck (Thought); Trunka, the goddess of the seas (Time); and Layta, the goddess of seduction and the afterworld (Entropy). Layta seems to have disappeared from the scene about 500 years ago, leaving followers without spells. This matches up perfectly with the story of the goddess in the mirror, and we think we have confirmed the identity of the trapped goddess, and that of the trainer of Pilgrim? Layta was punished for training young immortals without permission.
During this time with Novis, we also give full disclosure of our background with Pilgrim. Efrim, for example, tells him that he wrote the spell Transcend Lifeforce into his spellbook. [I can’t remember if we told him about the time we spent in Ebbensalma] [DM says: you did, and he wants to know more eventually.]
Other business… We go to Koyarekist and find a temple of Samanyar, the god who makes the Slicing weapons. Carrock shows the high priest his sword, x4. He is quite aware of this legendary weapon. Carrock asks about enchanting the sword with slicing, and the priest basically says “fat chance”, mainly due to the heavy enchantments already in place. Novis told us that we are always welcome to stay in the Koyarekist at a temple of Pflarr, or at the apartments reserved for his followers.
Our avatars are created, using flesh samples from each of our senses (yes, including brain matter). When we leave DH, the avatars are transported through the Astral plane to Citadel, with help from Tresta the Titan, where we say goodbye to them.