[Ray’s Notes]
Having received permission from the Taint Monarchs, the party is ready to visit the library.
Old business
Angry locals wanted to duel after the krakon fight. When Efrim tries to take them up on the duel offer, most decline, making excuses.
Efrim continues to look for a worthy duelist, publicly holding up the Head of Shannara, offering to bet it for another artifact or 1 million gold. No one believes its an artifact. Efrim uses some powers to make it move for the crowd. The Head comes to life. It’s eyes open, it makes croaky deathly sounds, opening it’s mouth. The crowd is mildly impressed, then Efrim JUMPS 30 feet up the mast on the ship.
They want to know what Efrim’s class is, and how powerful he is. (get more details before they agree to a duel). The mystic tells them that he is a wizard… “well, is he a wizard of ‘maximum skill’?” Efrim says yes, but he’ll agree to only use spells of a certain level, if he needs a handicap. This gets some takers.
1. Fighter. Strip down, hold one weapon a piece. Each duelist can use up to 2nd level spells.
2. other guy. Me and my buddies get you drunk, and then it’s 14 on 1.
Efrim accepts offer #1. The guy is a paladin. Offer is Head of Shannara vs. 500,000 gold.
round 1: Efrim wins initiative: casts Web, captures the paladin in sticky strands, he starts to fight his way free.
round 2: Efrim casts Mirror image, gets 4 images.
Round 3: Magic Missile – 15 missiles = 74 damage to the guy who only had his head poking out of the webs.
Round 4: paladin is still alive and conscious, will break free this round… but efrim has a round of action. Efrim casts Continual Light on his eyes. Pally gets a save…. fails on a roll of a 5. He is now blinded, but he’s free of the webs. yells “stop cheating and come fight like a man!’ pulls out his warhammer….
Efrim moves in for an attack using Efrim’s Blitzblade!
Round5: Efrim gets +24 to hit, does 16 damage from dagger, +20 points from being electrified. He is shocked and reeling, but still swinging his hammer. The guy looks pretty dumb at this point. But he swings his hammer…. hits on segment 2 and 1. He hits twice with adjusted thac0 of: 22 and 23. Would have done 42 points of damage to Efrim, but he has Mirror Images! 2 are destroyed, 2 are left.
The crowd starts cheering. Most are for the pally, some are saying he should call it off. He agrees and concedes. Efrim dispells the webs and the continual light. moments after getting his wounds bound, he stoically congratulates Efrim, praises his fighting ability. and walks away.
Added by Clay:
{Efrim would probably say something nice to him like “I’ve fought many enemies, many opponents, men and creatures of all size and ability but never before have I fought one with such heart. Where I am from, the Prime Plane, we humans have been brought to the brink of extinction and fight day and night to reclaim our world from fierce Undead and Lycanthrope hordes. Thats why Im here, traveling the worlds. I’m looking for help. Help from people just like you. We need warriors certainly but what I need more, is people that the common man can look up to and be inspired by. People with decency. People with Morality. People with heart! People just like you Jameson! The Prime needs you, its people need you! ” And with that I’ll hand him a simple planar map to the prime and map from the Prime node to Tae Ullari. “Find me here in one years time and help me save the world.”}
The judges begrudgingly agree that Efrim didn’t cheat and has won. The Head is returned to Al. The gems and jewelry worth 500,000 gold are in a giant leather clothe, closed up like a sack, handed to Al. Al presents the winnings to Efrim. Carrock tracks down the wounded paladin and offers to heal him. Carrock casts Cureall. pally seems grateful, but still kind of bitter.
Efrim takes the loot, gives Carrock 100,000 for the Lanthorne.
back on the ship, a mage and a fighter are still talking tough about dueling, but then come up with excuses for why they can’t duel today.
The party Rainbows back to the Shinn Isle to our reserved hotel. (The sheriff wanted us to check in there). ( The island is a little smaller than Sri Lanka). We land in a wilderness area. The land is hilly, covered in short, squat trees. We fly toward the city, pass some taints being carried on a palinquin. Pass a poor community of “yellow people” i.e. humans. The party keeps flying on. Ashgar asks Iustal a question, which is for Efrim. “I want to know how you got so strong.” Efrim says we got together and used Wishes. Efrim invites Ashgar to join Wish club.
…
We get to the town. Roman style, open air, built into the cliff side in places. There is a Temple to the Mother here, and another temple to the Monarchs. We are free to enter the temple to the Monarchs, but the Mother’s temple is only for worshipers.
We arrive at the library. The library is kind of a mess, not magically maintained and organized like what we are used to. It is old, dusty, and disorganized.
There are 2 librarians. One is upstairs and chats with people. The one downstairs helps people find things and acts like a snotty IT tech. He has skeletal helpers that he uses to fetch books and whatnot.
1 of the skeletons acts a little differently. The skeleton is actually looking at the books.
Al casts Speak with Dead. Who are you and what are you looking for? His name is Maneth. Can’t be sure, I’ve been living in a long deep nightmare, a sluggish state with tyrranical people telling him what to do. “Who is your master?” A great and terrible woman, hovering above me and telling me what to do. But she’s not here right now.
{Ray’s Edit: The above couldn’t have happened. Sorry about that, I thought that Speak with Dead was in the Elf Spell list, but it’s not. It’s not in the Fanaere list posted on Geekender either. If that’s an error then maybe Carrock could have cast the spell, if he wanted to. Otherwise we can proceed like we don’t know this (although we are PLENTY familiar with how undead experience being commanded..)}
We presume that this happens when he is actively being commanded.
The library is full of surprises. There is a large mirror that we were told not to touch. The mirror connects to the far end of the history section. The librarian is curt about it, and tells us that we can’t go there unless we have a need to go. But he will take us there if we need to go. He says that they have records of all the planes of existence, in order of importance. All the species on the plane, in order of superiority.
Al gives the librarian some flattery about the importance of knowledge. The librarian knows he’s being flattered, but agrees. He warns us that once we step through the mirror, we won’t be able to leave without permission from someone on the other side.
Our research includes looking at the planes that they are aware of, and adding that into our Planar Lore. We go. They rank Triumvirate as 1st, Astral as 2nd, and Prime as 3rd.
We find a planar map of the planes in the Triumvirate “planar” neighborhood. Plane I is the diaboli plane.
Plane S is the dead plane with shiny black sand. Plane Q is the jungle plane. The Vortex is in the plane labled N (small triangle) (we accessed that plane via a node on plane Q).
The maps indicate planes where Taint live. Apparently there are some on the Prime plane, in Celemnum.
Plane H to the south is reportedly extremely dangerous – filled with pillars and wind chambers. Magical fly will not keep you from losing control.
ancient history…. people lived on islands or trees that descended to the waves to fish during the day, and returned at night. Some people worshiped the Lord of the Waves. Some worshipped the “Wind Witch”, and they fought. The lord of the waves prevailed, but someone from the summoned a demon from far away, and he brought the yellow people who invaded. He brought a creature called Humbawa, a multi-headed serpent. The Demon’s name was Utnapishtim. He brought it into the heart of the lord of the trees land. Humbawa drove them out, and they conquered their land. The land turned to desert and life was dismal under Utnapishtim’s rule. But then the Lord of the Waves married someone, and they had three children. There was a prophecy that the children would re-take the land….
This story fits in well with the geography of the land, with the giant dikes holding back the oceans that wouldotherwise be flooding Humbawa’s forest.
The three children combined and drove out Utnapishtim, and enslaved the yellow people. (The monarchs are these three children, or supposedly the children of these children. The line of rulership continues along this family line. The Hemaphrodite mates with a stranger to produce offspring, thus diversifying the genetic pool.)
They tried to remove Humbawa, but Humbawa wedged his great tail into the ground and could not be removed. Humbawa sprayed them with a blue-green poison that covered their skin, which is why they are that color today.
The lord of the waves eventually died. His wife, The Mother, remains. She restored the seas to the land.
The Diaboli heard a different version. The entire place was covered in marshes and the people lived in fear, living in trees because the place was so dangerous. Utnapishtim saw an opportunity to bring peace and prosperity to the land, and brought people to civilize the place, and divide the water from the land.
In their version of history, Humbawa is not Utnapishtim’s ally. Utn. needed trees to build homes and fortresses so they went to the forest. They fought H. to a draw, but took the wood they needed to build their cities.
Going through the Gate is the least offensive way of visiting Humbawa. Humbawa will listen to those that are like the gods. Everyone else it will just consume, so they say.
After a week, Iustal and Ashgar receive a warning. Yoichig has spoken with them. He says it’s worth visiting Humbawa, and they should search for Markers (the signs that only yoichig worshipers can detect), but they should not let anyone know they are worshipers of Yoichig.
About Exalted creatures on the plane… Sometimes the Mother sends her servants. Humbawa is thought to be exalted or immortal.
All we’ve seen about the shard, are some references saying that Utnapishtim brought it with him, and when he showed it to the people, he caused large amounts of people to “move to the dark side.” but that’s all. i.e. They joined his side.
The party thinks this is pretty awesome, and decides to pay Humbawa a visit.
We Rainbow to Krisnoi, the closest town in proximity to the Forest. We decide not to Rainbow directly to the forest. We stay in an Inn. We learn that anywhere near the forest, we are supposed to look out for members of the opposite sex that will try to charm you. They are called Lamaras. They are part serpent, or something like that. We stay overnight there. The place is pretty poor and dirty, but they are nice. Then we go to Dereth where there are no taint – just yellow people. population: around 2000.
Somehow, the people here have already heard rumors of the humans that came and easily killed the Krakon, and want to buy us a drink.
We part ways with the mystic.
We go to the forest, and approach the gate, and speak aloud, requesting an audience. The gate is free standing, overgrown with moss. We step through the gate, Carrock in the lead. A ring of black clouds forms high up in the sky in the first minute, and begins churning and growing.
Al casts Pro from Lightening on himself. Efrim follows suit. Al activates his Cloak of Survival.
We keep walking, the clouds keep churning, walking on the path. Eventually we see something ahead like a graveyard. 7 graves, the caps of the skulls are protruding from the grounds. They have primitive grave markers. They detect as magic, but not as having hit dice. We hear rain, but the thick trees keep us from getting wet, so far. But up ahead the rain is getting the cemetery wet. We keep walking on the path, going through the cemetery area, past the skeletons.
We start to get wet. Lackshmi notices that the rain is slightly colored, kind of bluish. Efrim suggests that we say a blessing for the fallen. Ashgar volunteers to say the diabolist blessing for them. We keep walking.
After 10 minutes, everyone feels something coursing through our veins, and save versus POISON! We all make it..
After a little while longer, we hear a sound coming from a distance, which sounds like something coming from the throat of a large creature. Then we hear a thud, and the earth shakes. Then we hear something that sounds like a tidal wave. We all fly up, grabbing the Diaboli. But we are too slow.
The tidal wave arrives. It is 30 feet high, sweeps in, curling over us, and tries to smash us out of the air.
Everyone is hit except for Efrim. Lackshmi is hit for double damage. Each strike does 10d8 damage…
It pulls down anyone who was flying. Damage:
[1,5,2,4,7,3,2,2,3,1 ,3]=(33) – Utna
[4,3,1,1,8,2,7,8,2,6 ,1]=(43) – Ashgar
[1,3,7,3,2,8,5,3,1,1 ,1]=(35) – Iustal
[1,8,2,8,5,5,1,2,1,5 ,3]=(41) – Lackshmi X 2! = -82
[5,3,1,6,8,3,5,1,8,3 ,6]=(49) – Carrock
[2,8,6,6,2,4,8,8,5,6 ,5]=(60) – Al
Utna hits it once, Efrim hits it with Meteor Swarm, Lakshmi hits it once, Al swings and misses, Carrock hits it once, and it’s dead. Water releases and floods everywhere. We all make strength checks and remain standing. Utna and L. roll 1’s and mightily stand steadfast when the water rushes past.
Lakshmi self Heals. Ashgar heals self. Iustal casts Heal on self. Carrock casts Cureall on Al.
After healing, we decide to stay below the tree canopy, but cast Wizard Eye, having it hover straight above us, above the tree canopy to provide a vantage point to see things that may be coming.
We continue for 10 minutes, and the trail splits into three trails. The clerics of Yoichig want to continue deeper into the forest (going to the southeast).
The wizard Eye hasn’t seen much, but suddenly the wizard eye sees a fountain appear above the trees. It soundsl like 10 elephants marching around… A stream of water spurting, up about 100 feet, and then comes floating down. The droplets are coalescing into little blobs…….
Efrim sees this, tells party, The party stops walking. Party does some prep… Iustal starts to cast Conjure Air Elemental. Al uses his wand to cast Pro from Evil 10′ on Iustal, Efrim casts Pro from Evil on self.
On round three, the cloud of blue-green mist has congeled into 17 comets, which race at the party.
6 party members get 2 each. 1 party member gets 5.
Ut – made 2 saves
Ash – made one, failed one
Iu made 2 saves
L. – made 2 saves
Al – made 2 saves (thanks to ring of protection
Ef. – made 2 saves
Car – made 4 saves, failed 1.
Iustal is hit once
Ashgar is hit once
Carrock is hit once – 56 damage
Everyone is still alive….. (and we had to stop for the day….)