This day seemed much like any other, though there was going to be a full moon that night. The Truth priests had finished their interviews and reduced the army to a core group of LG human fanatics (and their horses). The Council met and voted to return the staff of healing to Silvana, since there'd be nobody along to wield it. The Helibanes were less than pleased with the decision, since they felt that a major healing staff should clearly be in the hands of their religion.
- Helibane:
- "We see the staff as one of the few good things to come out of the Western War."
Their argument was basically that they could heal more hit points in the Banzeel area than Silvana could on her adventures, and they demanded to know why she was so opposed to the idea.
- Silvana:
- "I find it offensive that you want to go around healing the merchants who send the Ravens, farastu, and devilspawn that my party risks their lives trying to stop."
- Stealth: [aside]
- "Our whole point is to be doing them damage -- we don't want people fixing it!"
The Helibanes implied that their healing did more than remove damage: They believe that over time, it can push people closer to Good. They're confident that in their hands, the staff will work the same way. Not that they have any evidence or anything.
- Helibane:
- "Do you see?"
- Silvana:
- "I see you want the staff."
Silvana offered to ask Ganeth to teleport her and one of the Helibanes to the Monstery of Absolute Good, whose magical lake powers the staff, and ask the priests there to decide how they'd rather see the staff used, but the Helibanes got all huffy and walked off (without the staff).
The day passed quietly, but as night fell, the remains of the army prepared to move out. (Surprise #1. Everyone knows Westerners never march at night.) Nomistrus cast a quest spell, and when he was done, a big moving highway was standing by to whisk the faithful to Marakeel. (Surprise #2. Everyone knows the Holleriths pack their major punches in Divination, not Travelers.) And though riding from Banzeel to Marakeel normally takes two days, that magic highway was going to get the army to their target in about six hours, right when a good portion of the evil spellcasters would be memorizing. (Surprise #3. Everyone knows the Westerners can't mobilize quickly enough to make surprise strikes, much less move out without their supply wagons and siege engines.)
As the army moved up the ramps to the highway, which was floating about sixty feet above the ground, Nomistrus and Omimajish came to talk to the party (after leaving the Cuthbert with Belmar, the High Priest of Belhor).
- Omimajish:
- "I am here to announce that the Cuthbert will be leading us, hopefully to victory, tonight. We march against the Evil Eastern Empire within the hour."
- Lorcan:
- "Enjoy yourselves."
- Omimajish:
- "Thank you. We'll try."
- Silvana:
- "Is there any help you need from us?"
- Omimajish:
- "Most of us will not return from this Holy mission. I want to entrust you with the responsibility of sheltering Good from Evil when I am gone. We have not always agreed on matters, but I have faith that you will champion the cause of Good, in your own...unique...style. Remember this day and carry the Legend of the Cuthbert to your homelands. High Priest Nomistrus is now the guardian of the Keeplands. His lenient style will no doubt be more agreeable to you."
- Beeel:
- "Are you planning to sacrifice yourself, Omimajish?"
- Omimajish:
- "I already sacrificed myself when I took the Cuthbert. This is the reward. After tonight, if the Cuthbert does not return, our religions will once again splinter into their components. Who knows when we shall once again be united?"
- Beeel:
- "Is there going to be anything left standing in Marakeel when you're done?"
- Frankel:
- "A lot of (relative, and also actual) innocents would die if that were their plan. I trust it isn't."
- Beeel:
- "There are no innocents."
- Ganeth:
- "Except the hawk."
- Omimajish:
- "No, we are not going to go `blow up' Marakeel. Our job is to cleanse evil, not cause mass destruction."
Lorcan expressed some concern about the Cuthbert being stolen, but the Western prcautions included anti-charm magics, assigning Rogash to Omimajish has a personal bodyguard, and using Gnomish Glue to bond the artifact to Omimajish's sword gloves.
- Omimajish:
- "Any Truths you'd like me to convey to the Seven Heavens?"
Looks like the man has finally relaxed. Must be nice to see the completion of your life's work.
- Omimajish:
- "Farewell. Finish the job."
- Beeel:
- "Good luck."
- Nomistrus:
- "We'll need it."
The party got one other farewell visit before the army took off.
- Rogash:
- "Hi guys. Looks like we're finally off."
- Beeel:
- "Good luck, Rogash. Are you planning to explode too?"
Of the party's Western contacts and acquaintances, the following people are known to have left on the final march:
- Omimajish
- Rogash
- Belmar
- Minitrim, High Priest of the Sea and Death Temple
- [a fighter close to Minitrim]
- Rogtymark, who probably didn't quite understand that he wasn't expected back
- Rognukena
- Juggaron
- Rogwaxene
- Cambra
- Jothra, Derdriu's mentor
- Warthol, a young Belhor priest who adventured with the party as Derdriu's trainee
- Coventor, a dual-classed priest-thief who also adventured with Derdriu
- Alpha, though he wasn't desperately desired, along with most of his party
Silvana and Ganeth thought it would be a good idea to observe the attack on Marakeel, not least to get some idea of what kind of retribution to expect in the morning, so Silvana contacted Lunis and asked him to project the party to the scene of the battle. Lunis agreed, but since it was going to cost Whitemoon a moderate chunk of energy, they wanted the party to do a job that evening before the trip.
Somewhere in the world, there's a forested island sitting on a really big power source. Thanks to the energy suffusing the area, some of the native animals have become sentient. The major affected species are tool-using flying squirrels called phanatons (who tend toward Good), magic-using spiders (Neutral with Evil tendencies), and Neutral 10 HD turtles that eat everything at ground level and aren't very bright. Whitemoon and Gloom Meet have agreed to declare the place off-limits with regard to outside interference -- something like a nature preserve -- but recently somebody taught the spiders the fireball spell, and since then the spiders have been having lots of fun blowing up foliage and phanatons. Whitemoon wanted the party to find whatever copies of the spell were on the island and destroy them, killing as few natives as possible in the process.
- Frankel:
- "Oh good, I'll be in my element. Any bonuses to a Beastlands-sponsored creature from being in a Beastlands preserve?"
- Beeel:
- "If you get killed, you can't come back?"
Apart from the elven schemers, most of the party saw the visit to Marakeel as the price to be paid for getting to do the mission, rather than the other way around.
Before setting out, Silvana tried to buy Zenig a heavy crossbow from Fraxiz. Naturally, the gnome tried to interest them in some enhancements...
- Fraxiz:
- "Well, we have 2 types of enhancement: auto-reload mechanism, and gem-based targeting. Each option is 1000gp extra."
- Zenig:
- "Is that a lot?"
- Fraxiz:
- "Nope. It's a bargain."
Fraxiz later offered a crossbow with a broken auto-reload (for only 10% above the base cost, oh wow) which he'd fix someday for another 1000gp.
- Fraxiz:
- "Then, the mighty hero Zenig will have something to look forward to. What do you say?"
- [Zenig, figuring that Silvana should do the negotiating, is silent.]
- Fraxiz:
- "Look pal, you have to sound enthusiastic. Otherwise they won't buy you anything."
Lunis projected the party into the forest, where they shortly ran across a phanaton hiding in the trees. Silvana summoned the Whitemoon translator, and the phanaton, who had a bandolier around its middle and a knife in its tail, came closer to investigate the party. It introduced itself as Klark and led the party back to his home. (Incidentally, the customary phanatom greeting is to touch tails, which worked for Frankel in his kobold form.)
The tribe told the party that the spiders live on the northern part of the island and have lots of web-based traps in their trees. Almost all of the spiders can cast spells, but they also fear "technology" like the knives the phanatons carry. Klark offered to guide the party to that part of the island.
The party moved along the ground until Stealth heard a chomping noise up ahead. The non-flyers started climbing the trees and discovered that the branches of the readily climbable ones were covered with something sticky, ready to trap anyone climbing away from the noise. And then 8 large spiders appeared and started attacking (especially Zenig, who exudes anti-spiderness from every pore, and Thorongil, whose hands were briefly stuck in the goo).
The spiders turned out to be summoned, their venom did 15 hp after onset, and they were handled fairly quickly. Lorcan heard casting sounds, flew to the area, and tried to punch the invisible source, but he missed. Turns out the caster -- a 6' diameter green/brown spider with a very large head -- wasn't expecting to land in a mid/high-level adventure and was packing a sleep spell, which got Klark and nobody else.
- Spider:
- "I will release you in exchange for one prisoner."
- Ganeth:
- "Release? Doesn't that imply someone's been captured?"
- Spider:
- "I will let you strange creatures go in exchange for the sleeping phanaton."
- Ganeth:
- "You can have Thanatos if you want."
Eight large centipedes then appeared and were quite ineffectual. (They weren't summoned by the spider, incidentaly.) The spider shot off three magic missiles, was dismayed when Lorcan didn't drop, surrendered, fled when a giant turtle walked onto the scene, and was tracked down by Zenig. The turtle was frustrated by seeing lots of food in the trees and none on the ground ("Come down here and be good, food!"), so it rammed a tree trunk and shook Klark loose. Thorongil jumped down and whacked the turtle, which convinced it to retreat into its shell; then he calmed it down ranger-style while Silvana created some food for it.
The spider asked Zenig what he wanted and seemed much happier when Zenig said it was something about spells -- the spider (who said her name was Elcavik) seemed very interested in trading. Ganeth offered her prot normal missiles (which he doesn't have and never will, but it appealed to her technophobic nature), and she surmised that he was interested in picking up fireball. She said she didn't have it, but she knew who did (a spider called Erasnik -- a male, no less, which really annoyed her), so she proposed that if G coughed up PNM and helped get Erasnik's spellweb, she'd let him copy fireball from it.
- Beeel:
- "Spellweb?"
- Elcavik:
- "Are you deaf or just stupid?"
- Beeel:
- "Just stupid."
- Elcavik:
- "OK. Are you a male too? Get three out of three."
- Ganeth:
- "Could you try explaining spellwebs to him? It never quite sinks in when I do it."
- Elcavik: [to Beeel]
- "A spellweb, moron, is what you learn a spell from. You're probably not smart enough to cast spells -- like phanaton."
- [to Ganeth]
- "I can't tolerate idiots."
- Ganeth:
- "They make good bodyguards."
- Beeel:
- "What does a spellweb look like? It sounds important, so I shouldn't accidentally beat it into pulp."
- Elcavik:
- "I'm not letting you near any of my spellwebs -- or near Erasnik's for that matter."
- Beeel:
- "Well, if you tell me what it looks like, and I remember by the time we get there, then I won't hurt it. Really."
- Ganeth:
- "Just tell him. Otherwise we'll be here all day."
- Elcavik:
- "It looks like a web. I suppose you don't know what a web looks like? Come here, I'll show you what a web looks like."
- Beeel:
- "Of course I know what a web looks like. Webs are small, unimpressive spider creations."
- Elcavik: [to party]
- "Can I go bite him?"
- Silvana:
- "Nah, you'll just hurt your teeth."
Elcavik cast a web spell around Beeel, and Beeel lit a match and burned his way out. Elcavik was very surprised, since fire-making ability is forbidden, and surmised that the party was from the "Forbidden Lands". She found this confusing, since people in the Forbidden Lands already had fireball. G said that some people out there didn't, but he wanted to be among the ones who did. Elcavik decided that fireball was more valuable to him than she'd though, so she demanded another spell in the exchange; G offered fly.
Eventually, they concocted a plan where Elcavik would yell for help near Erasnik's lair, drawing Erasnik out to engage most of the party as a distraction while Elcavik, Ganeth, Silvana, and Beeel raid his lair and grab the spellweb.
Klark went home (having had plenty of adventure for a first-level day), and the plan went into motion. The lair's occupant came charging out at the distraction team, but when the raiding team moved in, there didn't seem to be anything in there besides some chewed-up phanaton bones. So after some pressing, Elcavik admitted that this wasn't Erasnik's nest at all; it belonged to an old enemy of hers named Mellafig, and she just wanted the party to beat her up. She'd heard that the phanatons had summoned the party to do a job for them, and the party wouldn't know the difference if they killed a different spider instead.
- Silvana:
- "So you're willing to die to protect that spell? Is that what you're saying?"
- Elvacik:
- "You can't get the information from me because I DON'T KNOW!"
So they struck a new deal: the party beat Elcavik into unconsciousness, and then they headed over to the ambush site. (Elcavik agreed because the alternative plan was for the party to kill her instead.)
Meanwhile, the party had knocked Mellafig (well, it was probably Mellafig) weekly. Four summoned spiders appeared and were dispatched. Zenig, thinking there might be something bigger around, came upon a hidden blurred pale grey spider with blue rings, which emitted a shrill whistle when Zenig hit it. As the party converged on the site, the spider bit Zenig; his 90% resistance kicked in, but he sensed that the venom caused confusion. (Fireballs, confusion, illusion spells, and summoned monsters? This was starting to sound very Haj-like.)
The spider tried to sink into the tree but decided not to take its chances on beating a monocle shot from Lorcan, so it shapeshifted into a green snake (another Haj-esque element), introduced itself as Hesslik, and wanted to know who everyone else was.
- Ganeth:
- "You don't know who I am, or you just want to hear me say something?"
- Hesslik:
- "I know you are my brother. I do not need to know your name."
(It also said it could sense the chaos in Lorcan, which may be why it took the monocle menace so seriously. Frankel asked Good [the feathered snake in the bracelet] about Hesslik, and Good said Hesslik was Not Good.)
Hesslik had been responsible for all the summoned monsters the party had run into; he'd hoped that this would keep the party too busy to kill whatever real spiders they ran into. He was there was part of a recruitment effort, wooing the local spider mages with fireball, training them, and eventually planning to bring them to the mainland to do something against Rakni (perhaps infiltrate her spellcasting spider collectives).
Silvana through that a compromise could be reached; although the current rules were that no creatures could be removed from the island, if phanatons as well as spiders left the island, things might remain balanced enough to suit the extraplanar organizations. Hesslik thought the party should have to fight Rakni as part of the deal, in compensation for the energy expended in bringing the summoned spiders in; Ganeth found the idea immediately dismissable. But overall Hesslik found the idea agreeable, and he'll probably curtail the phanaton killing to avoid attracting any more attention.
- Ganeth:
- "I don't suppose they could just hang out in the trees by the beach and cast fireballs over the ocean?"
- Hesslik:
- "That wouldn't be as much fun."
Silvana then relayed the night's events to Lunis and indicated that the grey elven forest would be willing to give a home to whichever phanatons left the island. Their main concern was that Gloom Meet might insist that either the phanatons or some proxy also be used against Rakni (to balance the spiders, presumably, though Ganeth would argue that as far as the balance of the island is concerned, it doesn't really matter what anyone does after they've left for good), but for now that's for Whitemoon's higher-ups to deal with.