The party materialized on the teleport mat, and the posted guard sounded a bugle to announce their return. Beeel flew up to take a look around and saw lots of Westerners readying themselves for something. The guard informed the party that about an hour before, reports came in from the front lines about the Belhor lines scattering before monsters with a magical fear attack. There was also word that the Banzeel gates had opened. Stealth put up a shelter, since stone ceilings are a good defense against heavy beam weapons, and the party sent for some halflings to discuss the githzerai situation.
A little while later, a group of halflings showed up, led by Summer Dream, a priest. She was rather surprised when Lorcan introduced himself as a priest of Nuket (but then, who isn't). According to her, one of the githzerai had visited the halflings about half an hour earlier, after being summoned in by halflings near the front lines; it said a great war was coming, with the army at ground zero. Silvana was hoping the halflings could delay the githzerai until the party was through memorizing; Summer Dream thought that was doable, since githzerai really love a good meal. (Unfortunately, they can eat a week's worth of food in about an hour.) During the earlier visit, the githzerai mentioned that they were planning to have the Cuthbert stolen, though they didn't say how. Silvana wondered if they were planning to use mortal halflings.
- Summer Dream:
- "That's what I'm afraid of. They are really pure Good, and Lawful. They could walk away with it if they felt it was the right thing to do."
The next conversation was with Nomistrus, who'd been busy reviewing reports from the front lines. He said that a githyanki ship had strafed the Belhor encampment, causing fear and panic but not actually hurting anyone. They left a message saying the attack was a warning and demanding that the Westerners surrender. Silvana's speculation was that the Easterners had acquired a githyanki ship (fear attacks aren't part of the githyanki arsenal, as far as anyone knows) and used it to scare the halflings into summoning the githzerai. Once they arrived and found no githyanki to fight, their intense dislike of Lawfuls and tall people would take over, and they'd turn on the Westerners -- meaning that keeping the githzerai occupied until their gate could be opened was a major priority.
Finally, the party went and roused the Helibane priest with the staff of healing, grabbed a clw each, and let her go back to sleep.
Lunis arrived a bit later, feeling cranky because of a situation elsewhere in the world: An island populated with peaceful giant-crab-communing folk have recently been terrorized by said crabs, which have been driven insane and started swarming the island. He suspected an underwater spider infestation in the area. In the Banzeel area, he'd come across a lot of ethereal CN cats who'd been summoned by the Insanity Temple. The cats had been talking about astral worms and a beholder but had seen neither githzerai nor githyanki ships.
Lunis told the party that an extraplanar referred to as Fzzzz, who isn't particularly nice, was "going away" and taking care of some his obligations by seeding the world with a few good people. Lunis had promised Fzzzz that one particular person would be "ready" by his return and thought the party was a good place for fast training. So the party got Zenig, a mostly human-looking person with wings and a really healthy glow (a bit deva-like?) who's a first-level ranger (specialized against spiders) with some minor healing and invisibility powers. Zenig had no memories prior to a few days of training by Lunis, though he did have a dream later that night.
Frankel's snake disappeared into the armband. Frankel tried to coax it out; it emerged long enough to say "Inside good" and then went back in.
After Nomistrus had been and gone, Omimajish summoned Silvana for a chewing-out.
- Omimajish:
- "First, I have heard that one of your party members has defected to the Eastern side. Second, I want to hear about the treacherous plan to steal the Cuthbert. Let me say that I am very disappointed."
Silvana recapped the night's mission, stressing the disruption of the Death Temple ceremony, the dropping the of astral shielding, the freeing of imprisoned Good extraplanars, and the lack of evidence regarding the plague's existence. Omimajish wasn't terribly interested in most of the details and wanted to focus on Yves' departure.
- Omimajish:
- "Was he under some sort of beguilement, or was he motivated by greed, so common among Neutrals?"
- Silvana:
- "Under the prot evil, Yves should have been protected from direct charm control, so I assumed that he was voicing his true feelings. In his favor, Yves has never seemed very greed oriented."
- Omimajish:
- "So you are saying that Yves is not acting out of a motive for profit, but that he has instead embraced an Evil Cause?"
- Silvana:
- "How would I know what Yves was thinking? Humans occasionally do the strangest things."
- Omimajish:
- "We must consider the possibility that Yves was an Eastern spy whose mission was to gather information from your party, and that he broke his cover to rescue an Eastern ghost and return to Marakeel to be richly rewarded."
- Silvana:
- "Assuming that Yves was the same Yves from Dustplane, I think that explanation is unlikely. I thought that Yves was a Consortium operative whose primary goal was to entangle us in continuing confrontations with spiders and thus draw us away from the Western war."
- Omimajish:
- "So he was anti-Western from the beginning."
- Silvana:
- "No, I don't think he was anti-Western. His sponsors were probably anti-Western."
- Omimajish:
- "Did you observe any suspicious behavior on Ganeth's part during this mission? Could he have been subverted by the Consortium?"
- Silvana:
- "No, G was his usual self."
- Roger:
- "I didn't realize it was that bad."
In the end, Silvana's argument was that with the party in its weakened state, a confrontation with Sunset might have been disastrous, and Yves was going of his own volition and had neither sought nor taken Silvana's advice during their acquaintance anyway. Omimajish was not remotely satisfied.
- Omimajish:
- "Let us concentrate on the important issues.
1. Do you believe that Yves will betray the Western cause?
2. What should be done to minimize the damage?
3. Then I will outline some stringent steps that will be taken to minimize such problems in the future."- Silvana:
- "I don't believe that Yves went there with the intention of betraying the Western cause. It is possible that they will pick information out of his mind, but considering that we've already lost Tubbins and Tremere to Easterners, I judge the information they could get out of Yves to be of less value. I would rather have stopped them from taking the circlet out, since it is an Evil relic of some kind, but when surrounded by the overwhelming Evil of a temple, one must pick one's battles carefully. You cannot stop to fight every evil creature there, or else you won't get any farther than the entrance. We were very fortunate to get out of the Temple at all."
- Omimajish:
- "Do you believe that Yves knew the ramifications of his actions? Should he be branded as a traitor?"
- Silvana:
- "I don't believe that Yves clearly understands the difference between Good and Evil. I don't think that he should be listed as a traitor. However, you should tell the sentries that he should be escorted directly to a holding area, should he return. I think that it is unlikely that he will be returning, though."
- Omimajish:
- "This brings me to Point #3. From now on, you will have to clear any additions to the team through me. We cannot afford further mistakes. I will also be re-examining all of the current members of your team in the next few days, and I will withdraw any that are judged to be unsuitable."
- Silvana:
- "Well, if too many of the team fail clearance, I guess we'll be leaving. And that goes for Ganeth."
- Omimajish:
- "If I were solely responsible for making the decision on Ganeth, you would certainly not be adventuring with him. If you wish to adventure with any that are not Lawful Good, you will have to demonstrate why the job cannot be performed by a Lawful Good person of similar calibre."
- Silvana:
- "You don't have Lawful Good people of that calibre around."
Finally, Silvana reviewed her theories regarding the fake githyanki attack and the generally masterful manipulations surrounding the defense of Banzeel (perhaps by Kharnzeel). It also seemed plausible that some of the halflings might truly believe that ending the war by stealing the Cuthbert would be the best thing overall.
- Silvana:
- "I know you'll think this is nuts..."
- Omimajish:
- "That is not unusual for your party."
- Silvana:
- "...but I believe that you should offer the halflings their own homeland."
- Omimajish:
- "Silvana, we are fighting a Holy War for Good. This is not about gaining territory and chopping it up into little homelands for halflings or anyone else."
Omimajish then retired for the night; his sources have told him to expect a githyanki attack at dawn.
Before going to bed, Silvana realized that with the Banzeel gates open, the city's defenders would have to make their moves right away, and with everyone looking up expecting githyanki, this would be a good time for the Earth Worm Temple to mount an assault from underground, possibly on the siege machinery. So she pulled a magically loud horn from the party treasury and loaned it to the garrison on the siege engines before turning in.
A few hours later, the horn sounded and Pepper sprinted off to investigate, with slower party members coming up behind. He found a group of ankhegs engaging the defenders, who were holding their own against the single smallest one. Some of the party arrived in time to stop the other ankhegs from spewing acid on the machinery, though they spewed it on our heroes instead. The sleepy elven stragglers arrived just in time to see a purple worm burst out of the ground and swallow one of the engines whole.
The party dealt with the critters while most of the Westerners were still getting their armor on, but a spellcaster somewhere got a chaos spell off on Ganeth, Silvana, and Rogtymark's horse (plus other people who saved). They sparred ineffectually for a while and then wandered off. Rogtymark spotted the caster and flew after it, and Gorakheel was able to dispel its flight (though not its invisibility or stoneskin), but it got away before the rangers could track the bounce imprints after it fell from the sky. Gorakheel saw something else invisible flit by on detect evil, but it escaped as well.
The purple worm had maximum possible hit points (120) and the number 63 branded on its hide.
As the Westerners continued piling in, the party worried that the Easterners might send another attack while the army was massing by the siege machinery. Omimajish and Nomistrus both seemed like obvious targets, so the party went off to try to check on Nomistrus (since he's not carrying a big artifact to defend himself with, and since overall the party likes him better).
On their way to the Hollerith section of the encampment, the party passed a group of fighters who were very happy, having heard the rumor that there was a prayer in effect over the entire area. Beeel didn't feel any different, but he also hadn't engaged anyone. There were also rumors of a beholder, which the party did not consider cool.
At the Hollerith base, they learned that Nomistrus was in a meeting with Omimajish, making it a good place to nuke -- but since the Cuthbert would be there, the party wasn't terribly keen on intervening. They also learned that Elbleem/Silvator was gone.
Before going back to bed, Silvana swept the inside of the shelter with see unseen, seeing who'd snuck in while the party was occupied. She saw a black spider with red bands in a web under Ganeth's bed and faerie fired it. Zenig, always ready for eight-legged action, closed in to investigate; the spider jumped at him and injected him with a possibly fire-based posion with a -4 save penalty (anyone around here hate elves or something?). More fighters surrounded it, and it jumped through them to take a shot at Ganeth (who was still outside) before dying; G parried it away, and the others killed it.
The spider didn't explode after three rounds, but it burst into flames, which spread to the surrounding grass. Stealth was able to douse the grass fire with affect normal fires, but the spider remnant was unaffected. A few rounds later, it beamed the comment "You are not done with me yet." into Zenig's mind, formed into a new spider, and went back into action. G put up det illusion and could tell that the spider form was indeed an illusion, though he couldn't tell what was under it. Zenig whacked the critter, and it shattered into glass shards.
Since the party hadn't done anything to Rakni lately, and she'd hardly need to send illusory spiders or mess with random pyrotechnics, it seemed that someone else was behind the attack, trying to whip up some more anti-Rakni fervor. Silvana thought the attack felt like something Hajmola would do...perhaps his plans are in motion even while he's scattered halfway across Auramkil.
In any case, the party went to bed. Lorcan spent the night with the halflings, since he was carrying the homing duck; Gorakheel did as well, since he's more or less their liason with the Westerners.
Twenty githzerai arrived at dawn, but since Ganeth was coming off a very long day and night, he needed to sleep another couple of hours before waking up and memorizing knock, and it fell to the halflings, Gorakheel, and Lorcan to keep the githzerai amused until then. The halflings orchestrated a massive breakfast, though they didn't serve it themselves, since githzerai don't like to see halflings working when there are big people around. Gorakheel and Lorcan tried to sleep through the commotion and were rewarded with repeated dousings with cold water until they gave up and got out of bed. The githzerai amused themselves for a while by disguising Lorcan as a halfling, which involved some prolonged uncomfortable postures. They also sang some unrecognizable songs, did a lot of blood-curdling screaming and shouting, had a big food fight, and finally asked Gorakheel why he was hanging around. Gorakheel said he liked being useful, and when the githzerai demanded a demonstration, he said he'd repair a halfling's cap without using magic.
- Githzerai:
- "You will do nothing but sit there for a whole half an hour and fix that cap?"
- Gorakheel:
- "Well, I'd rather sleep."
The githzerai decided they just had to see this, so they watched him -- in shifts, since no one of them had an attention span that long. Gorakheel moved on to more repairs, working yawns and eye-closings into the appearance of doing the work, and eventually ended up asleep and unmolested with a torn cloak in his hands.
The githzerai eventually got bored and stormed over to the party's shelter about five minutes before Ganeth was ready. For the safety of the party and the Western encampment, Frankel and Pepper gave the githzerai rides and raced around the shelter for the crucial final minutes, and G finally finished memorizing knock.
- Githzerai: [outside the door]
- "KnockKnock."
- Ganeth: [from inside]
- "Who's there?"
- Githzerai:
- "KnockKnock."
- Ganeth:
- "KnockKnock who?"
- Githzerai pause a moment, then try again.
- Githzerai:
- "KnockKnock."
- Ganeth
- "Who's there?"
- Githzerai:
- "KnockKnock."
- Ganeth:
- "KnockKnock who?"
- Githzerai pause, pile into the shack, motion for G to go outside, and wait expectantly.
- Ganeth:
- "Knock knock."
- Githzerai make many replies, including a few "Who's there?"
- Ganeth:
- "Kay-ah."
- Githzerai: [coming back out]
- "Yes, that's right, very good..."
One of the githzerai produced the gate, a 5' radius light-swallowing black mat with gold thread around the edge. G cast knock on it, and the gate opened into a shaft with wind sounds emanating from it. He then cast plane source and found that the gate led to an alternate Prime Material. He reported this fact to the githzerai, and they all jumped through the gate. Afterwards, G folded up the gate and put it in his pocket for safekeeping.
There was no githyanki attack.
At 5pm that afternoon, Nomistrus told the party that the Western command was negotating a truce with Banzeel.