As Lunis mentioned, Banzeel was engulfed by some sort of etheral storm. The storm made divinations in and about the area unreliable and sucked creatures from the inner planes onto Banzeel's streets; it may also be connected to the disappearances of Tylerion and other extraplanars. Silvana and Nomistrus have speculated that the storms could have been caused by the cloud above the city, an artifact used by the Temple of Insanity, or unknown anti-spider parties (ethereal disturbances tend to make things very uncomfortable for phasers). In any case, most of the ordinary people left the city over the next few months.
Chthul-Ra became a closed city; while its citizens could freely enter and leave, visitors were no longer permitted inside. A shanty town began to accrete outside the city proper.
The thri-kreen were rumored to be migrating this year.
Silvana found the general quietness of the Circular City even stranger than Meldrim and Ahlonna did. With almost all of the powerful Westerners gone, there didn't seem to be anything holding the werewolves and other nasties of Khimar forest (which is fairly close to the city) in check, but Jagrmund's legions weren't spilling out across the countryside. She reasoned that someone much be keeping the area quiet, and that someone would have to be both powerful enough to either ward away the hordes or cut a deal with the evil druids and their pals, and want to avoid drawing attention to the area. She also figured this person would be using Epicenter's tower, since it's shielded against extraplanars. Her best guess was the Shade Lord (who fits all the criteria), and she recommended pulling Derdriu out of the city and focusing all of the Nation of Good's resources on holding the area around the Hollerith Temple.
Ghoram made his save against speak with dead, but analysis of his severed head indicated that he was not in fact a priest of Gruumsh; he was a priest of an unnamed deity who was posing as a priest of Gruumsh. (Gosh, who could that deity possibly be?)
Khandar was not so lucky, so the party assembled a list of questions and Nomistrus posed them.
When your mission goes south, you gotta answer to someone...
- Lady Ylena:
- "Tonight we will have a feast to celebrate your joyful return, and to praise our brave deeds. This meeting is to discuss failures privately. So what went wrong?"
- Zenig:
- "I did not fill my role as healer."
- Ylena:
- "I thought you were a ranger."
- Beeel:
- "He is. But he tries to do too much."
- Ylena:
- "I see. So this is an explanation at the tactical level -- I am more interested in the big picture."
- Beeel:
- "Big picture, lots of things have been going wrong, some of which we understand, some of which we were able to handle, most of which we were not."
- Meldrim:
- "The big picture included the return of the Organization, the druids, the Order of the Ruins, and people have been talking about Asmodeus -- none of whom were in the mission profile. Overall, I'd say we had incomplete information, were underpowered (particularly wrt spellcasters), made some tactical blunders, and were generally about two steps behind the game."
- Ylena:
- "That's a refreshingly honest assessment of failure."
The debriefing mostly went over things that are already in these summaries, followed by a call for recommendations on whether to try to establish a capital for the Nation of Good in the Circular City or pull everyone back to the Hollerith Temple and hunker down there. Ahlonna pointed out the disturbing lack of thieves she and Meldrim found there: "Thieves are like rats -- if they're gone the ship is about to sink." Beeel, ever cautious, was in favor of regrouping and fortifying. Meldrim asked what resources the Nation of Good still had in the Circular City besides a mid-level Sea and Death priest (answer: not much) and then asked whether the city was still defensible as a capital (answer: not with the resources currently there).
Derdriu was later recalled to the Hollerith Temple, and the Nation of Good gave up any pretense of holding the Circular City.
When Cynth had been talking about a two-handed sword and a long bow, she'd actually meant katana and daikyu. Fortunately, Thorongil's sword collection included katana, but the daikyu will take more doing. Cynth has been hanging around the Hollerith Temple cutting grass with her katana and putting up with this pointless clothing custom the locals seem to insist on.
Nomistrus checked Zenig on the altar.
- Nomistrus:
- "Is there anything specific that you wish to discover about yourself?"
- Zenig:
- "Nothing specific yet. I suppose my creators would tell me more when the time is right."
- Beeel:
- "That's not necessarily a safe assumption. There's a story about a man trapped in his home when the floods came. The man was very religious, and was confident that his god would save him. As the flood waters rose, the man's neighbor came past in a rowboat, and offered to take the man to safety. The man refused, saying that his god would rescue him. Soon the waters had filled the man's home. He climbed onto the roof and continued praying. Another ship came, and offered to take the man to safety. Again he refused, saying that his god would rescue him. The flood waters rose and rose and the man drowned. After death, he spoke to his god, saying, `How could you abandon me? I have served you faithfully.' And his god responded, `I sent you two boats.'"
Nomistrus found that Zenig's "essence" was very tightly shielded; he couldn't even tell whether Zenig had a soul or a spirit, though he could tell the devanoid was not a composite entity. In any case, raise dead wouldn't be enough to end Zenig's dependency on the necklace. Zenig told Nomistrus about some of the things he thought he remembered from his past life.
- Nomistrus:
- "Speculation is more down Silvana's modus operandi, but I suppose we can give it a shot. My best guess is that you were a goblin mage, probably working in Silverton, probably cooperating with the entities we now know to be affiliated with Rakni. Something went wrong, and you ended up in the dustplane -- maybe you betrayed their cause, who knows. When Dustplane broke, you made a pact with Whitemoon, to avoid getting sent down to the lower planes. And here you are."
- Gita:
- "Silvana wouldn't have even speculated that much."
- Rahul:
- "Nomistrus believes in going all the way when he tries something new." :-)
Nomistrus prepared to send Zenig off to Whitemoon, and Silvana suggested that Zenig might want to learn how to swim, since the party might have an underwater anti-spider mission in its future.
- Zenig:
- "Swim?"
- Nomistrus:
- "We have books on this at the library, for those who have invested a small effort into literacy."
- Zenig:
- "Strange...I never thought of spiders living underwater. Wouldn't currents destroy their webs?"
- Nomistrus:
- "As is shown in our bestiaries, not all underwater spiders are web-weavers. Many of them live in caves, and others are, like wolf spiders, predators on the move. This knowledge, and more, is available in the public sections of the library."
- Cynth:
- "I'm learning to read."
- Nomistrus:
- "Good girl."
Zenig's soul/spirit/whatever departed and found itself in the full disorienting glory of the astral plane...no comfy pocket plane this trip. Fzzz disposed of the Chaotic energy Zenig had picked up from his experiment with the dice and then told Zenig tha things were going to be different from here on out.
- Fzzz:
- "I understand that you see yourself as a healer. Why?"
- Zenig:
- "Tylerion trained me in various forms of healing, I believe partly because he got many requests from the Champion."
- Fzzz:
- "Tylerion is no longer here. Some would say that his attitude led to his untimely demise. We need someone stronger, someone harder, if we are to win. Do you understand that? I have invested far too much in you to see you fail. I have made requests to see that you are honed correctly. Tylerion's attitude of general benevolence is no longer sufficient. I want to see you strike terror into the hearts of the enemy. You are to avenge their crimes. You are to turn the tide of this wasting battle."
Zenig got the vague impression he was inside a hive, where he was worked over by swarms of unseen buzzing creatures. Apparently the first attempt or two at rebuilding didn't work out, leading to a few corners being cut in the final reconstruction ("It's not like he needs invisibility that much anyway."). The Mark II Zenig had a thinner and more angular look along with different spell abilities (spook replaced a clw, taunt vs spiders replaced prot evil, scare replaced aid, and self-only strength replaced invisibility).
- Fzzz:
- "If you don't like it, complain to Tylerion -- if you ever see him again. And try not to get destroyed prematurely this time. Dismissed."
Lady Ylena's next assignment for Meldrim was for him to make contact with the Organization, infiltrate them, and learn all he could about them. To help with this, Silvana donated the spider tome from the Vault, figuring the Organization would be interested in trading for it. (She also thought they might have access to some of the materials used in making anti-void suits, since the suit the party had seen many years ago was taken off a probable Organization operative.)
Meldrim made up a new identity and a cover story, and Nomistrus fitted him with a thoughtshield cap that would back it up against the expected mental scans. Then Tubbins put Meldrim into an item called an egg of disguise that can change anything except race, sex, and approximate age; when Meldrim stepped out a week later, he was a pugdy-looking redhead with uncallused hands. (The disguise has a 5% chance of decaying each week and can be dispelled -- effective caster level 12. The item is powered by fairly expensive red gems.)
While Meldrim was being transformed into Sharvin, Tubbins rented a storefront in the Circular City. He also donated some unusual swords called shotels for Sharvin's initial inventory. Before Tubbins and Meldrim parted company, Tubbins left Meldrim with a bronze statue of a scribe sleeping at his desk. The statue could store up to a thousand words, and Meldrim was supposed to speak into it once a day. If he missed a day, Nomistrus would be alerted, and the statue would crumble and pass its contents back to him. Tubbins said he'd try to show up occasionally to download the statue's contents.
About three weeks passed; business was slow, but word seemed to be getting around. One day, a bard in a loud yellow and black bumblebee costume (and calling himself Busy Bee) came by looking for a dose of strong sleep poison, if it could be gotten to two weeks' time. Meldrim assured the bard that it could be done. The bard then asked Meldrim if he were "affiliated", since the bard would get a 20% discount if so. Meldrim told the bard that he might be interested in an affiliation, and the important question was how things would stand in two weeks. Meldrim named his full price (250gp), the bard made an obvious esense attempt and got the thoughtshield's story, and Meldrim told the bard he should try to be less obvious when he does that.
- Meldrim:
- "Be careful of spiderwebs, my insect friend."
- Busy Bee:
- "I fly way too high."
Tubbins provided some drow poison for the inventory (big penalty on the save, but had to be kept in the dark), and two weeks later, the bard came back with a peasant woman he referred to as his maidservant. The woman smelled the fumes and seemed satisfied.
- Busy Bee:
- "I can give you 200gp for it -- in gems."
- Meldrim:
- "And what am I getting for this 20%?"
- Busy Bee:
- "You said 200gp last time."
- Meldrim:
- "You don't want to get ugly with me."
- Woman:
- "Go outside and wait, idiot."
- [The bard slinks away.]
- Woman:
- "Bards are quite irritating at times. As professionals, we are sometimes forced to interact with those who are, shall we say, lacking in maturity."
The woman paid Meldrim the full 250gp as small yellow gems; Meldrim appraised them, found a defect in one, and got a replacement.
- Woman:
- "My mistake -- the bard's horse must have stepped on this one."
The woman introduced herself as Ellis and was particularly interested in where Meldrim had gotten the poison; she hadn't seen any of that quality in years. After a bit of back and forth about brokering deals between people with interesting resources to offer, Ellis got to her pitch. (One interesting point I'm not bothering to quote directly: in discussing economic turmoil in the area, Ellis refers all the way back to the undead uprisings in AK 579.)
- Ellis:
- "In the past, particularly in cities like Silverton, merchants such as us were able to benefit from an organizational structure that brought prosperity while reducing risk. For many years, traders have been forced to go back to a more primitive model. I and some friends are interested in re-establishing a trader's collective, spanning the continent and linking stores in Cthul-Ra such as `Silvator's' and merchant houses in the East to the nascent markets out here -- and one day in Silverton. Initially, it will take effort to organize our diverse efforts, but ultimately, we will gain a monopoly on the adventuring market -- a lock, as it were. Then, we can set prices to reflect the true...value...of the goods. We will be able to send customers your way, and they will receive a 20% discount (initially) at your shop. I know it sounds steep, but it is a temporary incentive, I assure you."
- Meldrim:
- "I assume we'll be catering to the high-end adventuring and operative market. Most of the low-level ones can't afford equipment half the time already, especially in this area."
- Ellis:
- "Naturally. We're not selling iron spikes and tinderboxes, let me assure you!"
- Meldrim:
- "And these customers will be performing activities to our mutual benefit?"
- Ellis:
- "We will set up binding deals to funnel adventuring surplus into our network of stores, creating a scarcity in bartering establishments such as fighters' guilds and whatnot. And we show people that high-quality goods are available (at the right price) at any of our stores. We will coordinate inventories so that a rare item acquired in the East can be sold in the West and vice versa. But that's all in the future. We can draw up a contract and have you sign. At the end of every year, a percentage of profits will be distributed to traders like yourself -- it's a nice deal."
- Meldrim:
- "You mentioned getting back into Silverton earlier. I assume there is some plan to bring this about?"
- Ellis:
- "Oh -- Silverton -- right. A benefit of this organizational structure is that we have access to high-power adventurers. We're going to be able to assemble a high-quality (vs quantity) team that will clean out the mess in Silverton, and restore its status as a commercial hub. You have a particular interest in Silverton?"
- Meldrim:
- "I have a lead on an item that may be of interest to you."
So Meldrim set about arranging Silvana's tome for void suit cloth (which he described as material that could resist cold or vacuum and be worked into clothing). At one point Ellis pulled about a small dark globe and stared into it; she then stated that the material wasn't produced on the continent, but a trade might be possible. Ellis estimated it would take about 10 weeks to get the material together, and Meldrim figured he'd need a few weeks to consult with his buyers about arranging for inspection and appraisal of the tome. (Meldrim has decided to act solely as the broker here, in keeping with his cover; he's letting Silvana and Nomistrus decide what they're willing to allow and what precautions they wish to take.)