After hearing the rumor that Streck was back, Ganeth tried a sending to him:
"Rumor: You're back, hiding. Kharnzeel Asmodeus follower, probably invaded Vault. How get party in, Kharnzeel out? Kelmin, new combination at Hollerith."
There was no reply, so it's unclear whether Streck wasn't around to get the message or didn't want to break cover.
The next day's sending was to Tremere, who'd failed to respond to a sending from Silvana several weeks earlier.
- Ganeth:
- "Long time, no hear. Where are you? Doing okay?"
- Tremere:
- "In dungeon. Am waiting for ransom delivery. Mind wiped, hopefully temporary. Wish I knew who you are. Maybe this is a trick or a dream."
This is the first Nomistrus had heard about Tremere being kidnapped, but he thought Lady Ylena might be handling it quietly.
The next day, Ganeth teleported over to the Hollerith Temple to discuss the matter with Ylena. She had also been unaware that Tremere was being held for random, leaving a big mystery regarding who he's being ransomed to. Three possibilities: 1) Tremere's parents, who moved to Marakeel sometime in the last fifteen years, are doing much better than we'd thought. 2) Someone we don't know is interested in Tremere for some reason. 3) His captors have told him he's being ransomed, but he's actually being held for some other purpose.
According to Ylena, when Rogtubbins was killed, he'd been meeting with someone whose name was similar to Kharnzeel, tracking a plot to subvert Banzeel's revolutionaries. Tremere's last mission was into the Temple of Death on Tubbins' trail; he was able to steal the body (though the items on it were gone) and bring it to his contact, a female Baleel thief he'd known for some time (the Lady in Blue from the C-Ra thieves' guild?). The contact disappeared with the body, and Tremere wasn't heard from again.
Ganeth also got some information about the current state of affairs in Auramkil and some background on the tribulations of the Marek clan.
Ylena said she hadn't heard from Streck recently. With Omimajish waving the Cuthbert around, this is likely to be true, but if anyone in the West is going to push the envelope for an old friend, it might well be her.
Silvana used her sending item to arrange a meeting with Horon, who'd been continuing his plan to infiltrate the Temple of Insanity and subvert it into a CG Temple of Creativity. He'd dual-classed into priest and reached second level, but the locals had caught him stealing some of their zillions of scrolls and taken away his holy symbol. Silvana had gotten some Whitemoon sponsor to give him a new one, a dandelion seed which was said to be "symbolic of new ideas sprouting and propagating without a central motivating force."
Horon had been among the masses breaking into the Temple of Death after the party's visit. He said he'd gotten some good stuff from the temple's upper levels, cracked part of the dungeon complex, and managed to free a good chunk of the temple's prisoners. Unfortunately, the temple's defenses called in a pile of Ravens from Banzeel, including a mage who'd magic jarred into a troll. (His team took down the troll but didn't manage to kill the mage.) He lost a number of people during the strike, though Fazeel made it through. He thought there were an awful lot of wights around, saw no evidence of the plague, and didn't find out anything relating to astral worms.
Horon confirmed that the Lady in Blue was indeed in Banzeel: She's the Guildmaster of House Baleel, and she probably still doesn't like Horon much, based on that threats he's been receiving since he arrived in the city. It struck his as entirely possible that LIB was involved in Tremere's kidnapping.
- Silvana:
- "I remember Tremere rather liked her."
- Horon:
- "Tremere was always an idiot."
Horon knew Kharnzeel as a mage from the Wizards' Association. The Kharnzeel he knew was friendly, well-liked, and pro-revolution. He'd said he had contacts in the West and he'd tried to get them to negotiate, but they'd refused; as a result, nobody else in the resistance tried to make contact with the Westerners.
He'd heard some rumors that fit with a Ganeth impersonator roaming around Banzeel, partially funding the revolutionaries. Whoever this person was claimed he was out to free the eastern elves (and, Horon supposed, other demihumans as well).
Following up on the Ganeth impersonator, Ganeth and Silvana also had a talk with Fraxis. They found out that the gnomes never did the work on the Nirduk Vault; nobody showed at the rendezvous (which was sometime around when the party reached C-Ra). Fraxis thought the Vault might be movable, probably in stages, so they started considering a little excursion to take the Vault apart and move it to the Hollerith Temple (making it difficult for Kharnzeel or whoever to continue using it as a base of operations). Fraxis recommended getting the services of a brilliant old engineer called Cogtooth, who lives underground, only comes out at night, isn't much into fun, and charges by the hour. She's also insane, but it doesn't spread if you don't talk to her much.
The night after Horon's visit, Nomistrus finally gave Silvana a grey elven item the Hollerith Temple had been holding on to. It was a circlet that was thought to be a serious defensive item belonging to Swordmaker, an insane grey elf who made lots of intelligent weapons with the souls of half-elven rangers. Many of these rangers hadn't been willing to have their souls stuffed into blades, so Whitemoon got pissed and imprisoned the guy somewhere, and the Holleriths wound up with the circlet. The circlet resisted all attempts at identification and divination, and people who'd tried to wear it had suffered bad dreams.
She started attuning the item, and the first night she wore it she had a nightmare about being imprisoned somewhere and trying to break free (even though Plant Dude had engineered her to be incapable of dreaming). She also made a save against a quest spell, took the circlet off, and started attuning a protection from dreams item the party had gotten from Subator in the Cloudlands.
About the same time, a green frisbee arrived for Silvana. It appeared similar to message-sending technology the grey elven forest used before Kambheer, but its texture was mottled. It didn't appear to be trapped, so Silvana opened it and got this message:
"We are thankful for our return. Please meet us in Lifeblood when you get a chance. Your friends, the Doomed Ones."
Silvana, Stealth, Ganeth, and Pepper rode out to Lifeblood the next day. That night, they heard a lot of wolves calling each other, talking about a big meeting in Lifeblood.
Later that evening, three ghostlike elven forms appeared outside the shelter.
- Silvana:
- "Are you Moon, Star, and Void?"
- Doomed Ones:
- "That is who we are now."
They said that they were no longer attuned to the forest, because of their deeds rather than the passage of time. They had hoped to draw energy from Lifeblood, but it wasn't working. They also didn't think they'd be welcome in the grey elven forest. Their new plan was to start a new forest, but first they wanted to find their fourth member, who'd escaped with the Sun suit once upon a time; they're pretty sure this person wasn't assimilated back into the elven spirit pool.
Once upon a time, the Doomed Ones had gone to the Underdark to attack the drow's means of drawing energy from that plane. Much as the grey elves had allied themselves with creatures such as Plant Dude who could draw energy from sunlight, the drow had allied themselves with the yochlol, who could draw energy from the Underdark's ambient radiation. So the Doomed Ones went to take out the yochlol. They'd gotten help with the suits' technology from the illithids, who they'd thought were neutral sages. As we know, they didn't succeed in wiping out the yochlol, and then they were sent to Dustplane and spent a long time as insane orcs (though they don't remember this part).
The Doomed Ones had no comment on their current sponsors, though they were surprised by the amount of extraplanar interference that was casually mentioned in conversation.
In the morning, Silvana did a commune with nature; there was no Rillohar to be found, but there were a few other elves, some humans, some deer, some wolves, and no extraplanars. Apparently Rillohar's bid to establish a druidic grove in Lifeblood wasn't going well. The party then headed back to the Western encampment.
Ganeth continued his sending spree. Next up was Orgil, a mage who'd disappeared with a high-level adventuring party well over a year ago. Silvana had tried a sending to him once and gotten a badly garbled reply.
- Ganeth:
- "Long time, no hear. Where are you? Doing okay? Where are you? Doing okay? Where are you? Doing okay? Where are you? Where are you?"
- Orgil:
- "Snake. Squid. Slime. Silverfish. Spear. Stick. Sickleback. String. Silverton. Spider. Success. Situation. Six. Sixty. Six. Six. Six. Six. Seldomly. Seen. Sanity. Seem. Silly. Sad. Sorry."
He also sent a message to Milana, his younger sister.
- Ganeth:
- "Made 9th. Keeplands, Marakeel at war. Met half-elf second cousin, Nuket priest, seems okay. LE devil factions extra active lately. How's life? Hi Zaran."
- Milana:
- "Congratulations! Zaran died, raised. Quest, recover egg statue from yuan-ti, snake temple. Dream, trap dark monster in web net has Ganeth face, kills me."
Meanwhile, Rogroc and Zenig finished training their levels, though Zenig hadn't finished learning heavy crossbow yet.
Silvana did a sending to Thorongil and found out he was ready to rejoin the party, so Ganeth teleported to the Hollerith Temple and 'ported him back to the Western encampment, where he was introduced to Zenig (who needed to borrow a bastard sword from him) and Lorcan. Frankel used his hawk mask to say hello to Thorongil's hawk friend and found out the hawk wanted to learn how to cast spells, specifically healing and food creation. Silvana suggested that the hawk become a priest (which offers healing and water creation right away), while Frankel suggested rangerhood (admitting that it's much longer until one gets to spellcast that way).
- Hawk:
- "I'm not sure what you mean by `become a priest' or `become a ranger'. I want to stay a hawk. Can't I just cast some spells?"
While Silvana and Frankel tried to explain what they meant, and the hawk pondered its options, Thorongil tried to find out why Zenig was specialized against spiders, where he was from, or at least where Fzzzzzz had grabbed him from, but Zenig didn't know any of the answers. Thorongil loaned him a bastard sword anyway.
The Western command had tracked Sarkanist and his owlbears to a large hill a few miles away, where the owlbears were said to be hidden in caves covered by illusory hillside. To discourage Sarkanist from making trouble around Banzeel, the party decided to go take out some owlbears.
They crossed the plains without incident, but as they started going up the hill, they found a big log across the road. Sensing an ambush, they investigated cautiously and found one. They fought a bunch of ogres, an ogre chieftain, an ogre mage (a normal ogre who was a mage, not the mystical version), and a troll shaman; Zenig went down (but was stabilized by his armband, which was good, since he was invisible at the time) and the mage was captured and put on the weekly table. (He was rather depressed, since he'd managed to throw a mighty 8 hp fireball during the combat.)
The ogres were employed by Sarkanist, who's high enough level to know disintegrate. The ambush was intended for a caravan that was supposed to arrive either that day or the day after. Turns out the stone giants had already arrived and were camped on top of the hill, and the caravan was bringing payment for whoever had provided the giants. Sarkanist was planning to steal the payment, and the party decided that this was a very good idea -- without payment, would the stone giants still be deployed against Banzeel?
So the party removed all traces of the ogres' ambush, sent Zenig and Stealth out as advance scouts, and waited. Eventually, the caravan, consisting of two wagons, some drivers, eight of Afzeel's elite horse archers, a mid-level mage, a low-level thief, Saleel the kensai Raven fledgling, and Prathij the fighter-12 Gatekeeper of the Ravens, arrived and was hit by three simultaneous slows from Silvana, Ganeth, and Stealth. The ensuing combat was exceedingly nasty; Beeel and Rogroc went down, lots of other people almost went down, and the horses turned out to be fourth-level fighters with strength-reducing breath equivalent to troglodyte musk. But the party won, capturing one of the horse archers and the two wagons (one of which had been lightning bolted by Ganeth during the battle).
The horse archers had items that protected them from their horses' odor. These particular archers were pretty junior, and the captured one indicated that as they progressed, they'd change to become more horselike.
They party rode through the night to get themselves and the wagons back to the Western encampment. The wagon contained a lot of dirt, a bunch of gems strewn through the dirt, and a lot of strange worms (or corpses in the wagon that ate the lightning bolt). On plane source, the stuff showed as a Prime/Elemental Earth/Alternate Prime mix.
Silvana tried talking to the worms.
- Worm:
- "Put me down."
- Silvana:
- "Where are you from?"
- Worm:
- "We are lost. There is foreign matter in this soil."
- Silvana:
- "What part's foreign?"
- Worm:
- "Taste's wrong."
- Silvana:
- "You eat earth?"
- Worm:
- "Yes."
- Silvana:
- "What do you produce?"
- Worm:
- "Waste."
Since the Western army was busily cutting loose all but the faithful, the party was no longer subject to the Western looting policy and could barter the dirt as they saw fit.
The night the party rode back with the wagons, Subator's anti-dream item attuned. Silvana tried wearing the circlet again, and nothing happened while she slept through the day.
The next day, she cast speak with plants on the circlet, who said it wasn't Swordmaker.
- Circlet:
- "I am only one part of the whole. The powers I can give you are only a shadow of what you can find at the source. I will give you mastery over magic."
- Silvana:
- "How do you know I'm the right wielder?"
- Circlet:
- "The right wielder will be revealed through deeds."
- Silvana:
- "What about the quest?"
- Circlet:
- "I seek the clear jewel."
- Silvana:
- "Why?"
- Circlet:
- "It will enable you to store power that you drain."
- Silvana:
- "From?"
- Circlet:
- "From magic."
- Silvana:
- "Why do you need a quest? Most adventurers would go after that on their own."
- Circlet:
- "There are some who would be satisfied with less. I am here to ensure that they exert themselves to the fullest."
- Silvana:
- "How were you made?"
- Circlet:
- "Painfully."
- Silvana:
- "In life, what did you do for Swordmaker?"
- Circlet:
- "I am alive."
- Silvana:
- "All right, when he was around?"
- Circlet:
- "I brought him the power that was denied to him."
Silvana mused about feeding the circlet to Plant Dude, which it didn't appreciate.
- Circlet:
- "Wear me and you shall have magic resistance."
- Silvana:
- "At what price?"
- Circlet:
- "The price is not yours to pay."
- Silvana:
- "I still want to know the price."
- Circlet:
- "As the delta gates water from its tributaries, you shall be the place to which magic flows."
Silvana decided she'd heard enough and started to remove the circlet. It tried to extend some tendrils into her head, but she made a CON check (oh, hit a grey elf where it hurts) and managed to rip it off.
- Circlet:
- "I am patient. In the end, I will wear down the resistance."
Plant Dude was mildly interested in this sequence of events, but not interested enough to arrange to pick up the circlet, so Silvana will have to wait for her next visit to feed it into the gaping yumyum maw.