The morning after the negotiation, the party, sans Ganeth but with Omijarvis and Pooh the charmed owlbear, headed back into Lifeblood to continue negotiations with Kreel's men. That night, Frankel had a dream meeting with a Whitemoon-affiliated extraplanar from the Beastlands.
Frankel, you have a particularly vivid dream of running across the plains alone. The colors of everything around you are much brighter than they are on the prime. In the distance is a lake, and without much choice you run for the lake. After a few minutes, a large crane comes flying in and lands in the lake. It comes over to Frankel's side.
Frankel asked about getting sponsored so that his spirit might survive the destruction of Dustworld (being optimistic, for the moment), and to gain a better understanding of things. Here are some highlights:
- Crane:
- "When you get sponsored, it's just like going to dustworld -- you are removed from the cycle of life. When we sponsor you, we will make sure to strain your spirit from the spirit pool and restore it to a body.
"A sponsored creature is a servant of the extraplanars. Though we represent Life, we are not Life. Sponsored ones are effectively Dead. Being sponsored doesn't give you any special powers or abilities. All the time I get folks who want sponsorship so they can do `cool things'. Why, the guy before you was a frog who wanted a death-ray attack. We don't do that here."- Frankel:
- "Does understanding count as a `cool thing'?"
- Crane:
- "Sure. Being sponsored doesn't give you a clue. There are lots of clueless sponsored folks on the prime. We can't just stuff mortals with knowledge. We tried that once and they went insane. Go get it slowly -- the hard way is safer.
"Basically, servanthood means when you do stuff like saving the universe, we (your sponsors) get some benefits. And sometimes we pass those benefits on to you. Unsponsored folk go and do stuff too -- but it doesn't help the outer planes as much. You don't go save the universe so that we give you rewards. You save the universe because you think it's important (and maybe because you enjoy doing so). We give you things that help you do the things we think are important.
"Also, sponsorship is a way of making friends. Admittedly we're just a bunch of screwed-up dead spirits, but we're better than the devils and demons who live down the road.
"No forms to sign in the Beastlands. I'll take your grin for a yes and we'll see you around. We're a pretty informal bunch here."
Beeel also met with a potential sponsor, the ki-rin-backed Wind Temple, in a dream that evening. Beeel appeared in a cloudy cave, facing an old man who said nothing. Beeel was content to wait, and after five minutes, the old man said, "Good." Eventually, conversation began, and Beeel made his case: He's pledged to defeat his evil and semi-demonic kensai master, Ixthreel, and to do this he needs to be alive after Dustworld. He turned out to be an ideal candidate for sponsorship by the ki-rin, since he didn't see any problem with losing his freedom to be something other than Lawful Good ("I do not have that freedom now. I cannot be other than what I am."), already has a quest (the ki-rin generally give their followers quests to direct their pursuits on the Prime, such as the quest against the Shade Lord they assigned to Tremere, Thorongil, and Ganeth several years ago), does not seek power or influence among his fellow mortals, and is willing to ally his soul with them for eternity. Beeel was warned that once the Dustplane is broken, many extraplanars will be out there trying to make deals with souls and spirits to bring them back, and it's very difficult to distinguish the good ones from the evil ones -- but since he has already given the ki-rin permission to claim his soul, he will not need to give it to their representative again, allowing him to tell the real deal from the imposters.
Thorongil, meanwhile, is redeeming the boon Argon owes him by having the archmage create a clone to receive his post-Dustworld spirit.
Upon approaching Kreel's encampment, the party split up; the humans and Pooh went forward (with Stealth somewhere in the vicinty), while the nonhumans trailed behind. When Omijarvis blew his horn or Beeel or Gorakheel blew their whistles, the reinforcements were supposed to come in. The humans found the outermost sentries asleep at the post and continued down the path. Omijarvis put up a find traps and noted a tripwire across the path. The wire ran into a 6" cubic box in the bushes; Omi wrote "TRAP" on the path in front of the wire, and the human contingent moved around the tree anchoring the wire and headed on.
A bit further along, a merc named Pheel was surprised returning to the path after attending to private business. (Incidentally, an advantage of eating magically created food is 100% absorption.) Beeel disarmed him before he got an action, and he told the humans of a schism between Kreel and Nekrita. After a bit of intimidation, the merc was judged mostly harmless, his bow was returned, and the humans went on their way.
- Pheel:
- "Truly you are merciful as well as strong! You Western guys are so...Western!"
- Gorakheel:
- "What makes you say we are Western?"
- Pheel: [looking confused]
- "You're not Western?"
- Omijarvis:
- "Of course we're Western, you imbecile. Didn't you hear me talking in Western Common a moment ago? Sheesh."
The second party then meet Pheel, who completely lost it and sounded his horn when he saw the evil Lifeblood elves and four-legged beasties (grey elves, wood elves, rangers, hunters, centaurs, stags, who can tell?) coming to eat his soul. Their demonic envoy...oops, I mean the translator...told him to just continue guarding, so he did. Silvana set up a plant door, and the reinforcement squad awaited developments.
The advance force met another group of archers and learned the rumor that Kreel had sold out to Gorakheel (or been brainwashed by him). Since Kazeel, Kreel's second, had become the new leader, it seems entirely possible that Kazeel simply told Nekrita that Kreel had sold out, thus getting Kreel ejected and opening the top spot for himself.
- Zaqeel:
- "But the word is that Kazeel's not much of a leader, if you know what I mean."
- Gorakheel:
- "That could mean many things."
- Zaqeel:
- "Indeed. Smart men are rarely unambiguous -- especially with Westerners."
Zaqeel and his patrol turned out not to have any great love for Nekrita; Kreel was apparently honest about the Death Temple's lack of popularity.
- Zaqeel:
- "If Nekrita was killed by Westerners while we were defending her loyally, I don't see how that could be our fault. Some would fire into a melee with Nekrita, if that's what you're asking. Anyone who takes a dangerous mission into Lifeblood, including Nekrita, has to accept the risks. So you think that we should alert Nekrita of your presence?"
- Omijarvis:
- "Why don't you take a large group of your men to deal with other threats in the forest? That way you will be spared the angst."
Zaqueel and his friends eventually passed by the plant door, singing and whistling as they went. They didn't detect the backup party, but their verses were clear enough:
"There once was a bard from Silverton who happen'd to wander to East.
Just because he carries a bow shouldn't matter to you in the least."
"We've seen the paladin, we've seen the 'bear;
they escaped past us without losing a hair."
"Don't kill, brave warriors, we mean you no harm;
there is really no cause for alarm."
Up front, some zombies appeared, looking rather like dead mercenaries. Omijarvis and Nekrita played turning tennis with them as the humans (and Pooh) advanced. Eventually the party reached an ambush with archers, zombies, and Nekrita herself; more archers arrived each round, but each wave was less sure about jumping in than the last. The backup party members arrived round by round as well and were much less shy about joining the festivities. (And Omijarvis' emotionally restrained demeanor completely cracked during the combat, if "MUHAHA! TRUTH UPON YOU!" is any indication. Maybe repressed feelings and a touch of insanity are membership requirements for the current incarnation of the Temple of Truth...)
When Nekrita eventually went down, her head detached and started flying, trailing tentacles from the neck, and firing a death gaze. All this creeped out the mercenary audience, but it didn't stop the heroes from gathering more xp. (Whatever it was -- something related to a penanggalan -- took damage from holy water, as Frankel predicted.)
The party eventually rounded up 24 live mercenaries. Kreel had reportedly gone off southeast with four elite guards (possibly including the gambler); if they really are lycanthropes, they might be hiding in the forest in animal form until things cool off. Kazeel was also nowhere to be found. Since the mercenaries couldn't risk returning to Banzeel to face the wrath of the Death Temple, they followed the party back to the Western Encampment, where Omijarvis signed them all up for Truth Seminars.
Gorakheel stayed with the Western Army to fulfill his responsibilities there and monitor developments in Banzeel, while the others set out for the dwarven caverns and their date with Dustworld.