Seven weeks after the Dustplane mission, Ganeth found himself alive and equipped (except for armor) in a cave near Chthul-Ra. His plan for reaching the dwarven caverns was based on using polymorphs to inconspicuously fly all day and rope tricks (with conceal magic cast on them) to hide all night, but since he'd been returned before his intelligence-affecting items had time to attune, he had a week to wait before he could safely memorize spells. Though no plan seemed especially wonderful, he decided to try to ride out the week in C-Ra, figuring the mortal population's presence would somewhat constrain Rakni's attempts at retaliation.
Ganeth got past the peasant on duty at the city gate without incident. He went directly to Silvator's trading post and adventurer's guild, bought a suit of chain mail, and rented a windowed ground floor room. (This was, in fact, the cheapest and least secure room in the place, but when your attackers phase through walls, it's more likely that you'll want to dive out the window than anyone you're concerned about is going to come in through it.)
Since the timing of the attack was anyone's guess, Ganeth decided to stay awake and wait for it. His first day, first night, and second day in town were quiet, and on the second night, a lone black spider appeared on G's bed. It was a bit surprised to find the bed empty, and somewhat more surprised when G whacked it a few times with a glowing longsword, but its surprise presumably abated when it died. In the morning, if the cleaning staff was at all surprised to find a big spider corpse ground into the linen, they hid it well; they simply put fresh sheets on the bed and went about their business. G figured that Rakni would need a bit of time to put another attack together (if one was coming -- if she kept to her old tit-for-tat policy, the retribution would be over), so on the third day he slept.
The second strike came on the fourth night. Eight small grey 1 HD phase spiders came marching through the wall and attacked. G killed one of them and wounded another but soon realized that he was bound to get poisoned if this kept up (especially if Rakni was determined to keep sending stuff until he died), so he jumped out his window and activated a small blue cloud item Hurricane (a ki-rin mage from the Wind Temple) had given him years ago.
The item expanded into a one-person cloud cocoon that slowly floated to the mountain where the Wind Temple had once been based. The ship moved slowly enough to be trivially followed, but Rakni's aerial capabilities are apparently nonexistent, and the weeklong voyage was relaxing and almost uneventful -- except for the interior of the ship getting extremely ripe.
Toward the end of the ride, the Zzifl circlet reattuned and delivered the following message:
"We are pleased at your return. A fugitive from another world has taken refuge on your plane. This wasp-like creature calls itself `Fzann' and has accepted missions involving destruction of evil spiders in your area, in return for help with troubles back home. We anticipate that Fzann may prove to be a valuable ally to your cause in the coming years. Please extend what assistance you can to Fzann should you meet."
The cloud capsule gently deposited Ganeth atop the (former) ki-rin mountain before dissipating away. G felt strangely uneasy up there and realized that in his new body, he would be unable to rest comfortably on consecrated ground. Undaunted, he polymorphed into a falcon and flew off toward the Hollerith temple.
Ganeth's day and a half of travel were uneventful; the falcon flights and concealed rope tricks were apparently foiling Rakni's divination and tracking efforts, at least for the moment. At the Hollerith temple, G immediately discovered another side-effect of his body: He needed to make a wisdom-adjusted saving throw to step onto consecrated ground. (He failed, but got to try again after a turn.)
Inside the temple, G told his story to the assembled priests, who were both fascinated and horrified...and, of course, took lots of notes. (He also felt like he'd be at penalties if he had to fight anyone.) The priests in turn told him that the Western Army had won another victory at the eastern side of Lifeblood, and the Eastern forces had withdrawn into Banzeel (counter to the party's expectation that Marakeel was simply going to write the city off). The army had laid siege to the city, but the process was expected to take several months. Meanwhile, the spiders within Silverton appeared to be in retreat, falling back toward Rakni's strongholds.
All of the higher-level priests were away, but Ganeth and the lower-priests collaborated on a few tests. (All tests were performed on consecrated ground, except where indicated.)
Test Result
---- ------
Detect good Strong reading
Detect evil On holy ground: Reads faint and benign
Otherwise: No reading
Know alignment Reads as Chaotic Good (only)
Holy water 1 point of damage (like weak acid)
Holy damage No effect
Turning (L5 priest) No effect
Ganeth felt like there was no way he could enter the temple's inner sanctum under his own power, and Nomistrus wasn't around to do more analyses anyway, so G flew off to the mountain dwarves, enjoying another uneventful voyage.
At some point during these travels, Froot Loop's feather (or a new incarnation of it) quietly appeared on G's person.
When G arrived at the dwarven caverns, he got to tell his story all over again. The dwarves were quite happy to learn about the technique of punching an illithid's immaterial form (at least on Dustplane).
The resident whilg requested an audience with Ganeth. It said it only wanted to talk, so G agreed to hear what it had to say.(Incidentally, none of the whilg's complaints about the Shade Lord applied to Hajmola.)
- Whilg:
- "Many seek you to expend your potential violently. We are here to help you harness it for long-term benefits. Would you like us to help you in this regard?"
- Ganeth:
- "Why do you wish to help me?"
- Whilg:
- "You already grow wise, child of Zzukiss. We cannot reveal to you all our reasons, but we can say that it would be a terrible shame to waste you in the present."
- Ganeth:
- "Because the Shade Lord is far from the plane?"
- Whilg:
- "We confess that fact does enter our calculations, yes."
- Ganeth:
- "What is your interest in her?"
- Whilg:
- "The Shade Lord is a mortal with powers that exceed her station; she uses loopholes in the Natural Laws; and, lastly, the Shade Lord tortures my kind in the pursuit of her goals. You may not know, but the Shade Lord was once a Child of Zzukiss. It is our duty to curtail your sibling."
- Ganeth:
- "I was not aware of that. What was her role before she overstepped her bounds?"
- Whilg:
- "We cannot answer that question at the present...it is not important to your purpose."
- Ganeth:
- "What do you see as my purpose?"
- Whilg:
- "There is a path, a labyrinth, that many have walked. So far, all have lost their way. We want you to be the one that succeeds."
- Ganeth:
- "What is the destination?"
- Whilg:
- "Think not of the destination. It is the path that is important. That was Lessania's error..."
- Whilg:
- "Let us examine you. We suspect that your recent trauma may have left you in an unstable state."
- Ganeth:
- "Are you planning any adjustments?"
- Whilg:
- "We will not harm you in any way."
- Ganeth:
- "The implanted energy is partitioned. For the moment, I wish that state of affairs to continue."
- Whilg:
- "We understand that."
- Ganeth:
- "But do you intend to honor it?"
The whilg eventually agreed to Ganeth's conditions ("Make no changes. Add nothing, remove nothing, alter nothing.") and performed its examination. It decided that it saw "hope within" and left.
Silvana's theory about all this is that the whilgs' latest plan for dealing with the Shade Lord is to send her forward into time, cutting her off from her items, operatives, and knowledge base. Since these things generally have to be done in a balanced fashion (with losses to both Evil and Good), they wish to send Ganeth (or the entire party) forward to even the trade and keep the Shade Lord in check in whatever future period they all land in.
The dwarves decided that it would be wise to examine Ganeth on their altar. Figuring this was a development the Consortium wouldn't have anticipated, G agreed. He wasn't able to reach the altar on his own, but Beeel and the dwarves were able to push him onto it; on contact, he failed a system shock roll and went weekly. (Fortunately, there's no reason the expect that altar visits are going to be much worse than that.)
About an hour later, G woke up, and the dwarves began chanting and inbibing poisonous substances. And some time after that, Forked-Beard Dude (the party's usual liason among the dwarven priests) related part of a vision from Dumathoin that came in response to the dwarves' prayers regarding G.
"The tentacled ones ever plot their secret revenge. Deep in their world, they took many prisoners and made many twisted races. This story is about one such race.
Spiders were always common in the Deeplands, but were not always as they are today. In the past, they were only monsters. Over many years, the tentacled ones bred the spiders to produce a magic yarn. And with this yarn, they wove a web.
The illithid performed many horrible experiments on the spiders, seeking to awaken an evil intelligence within them. Unfortunately, their results created Chaos -- and their Gods (or elders) were displeased.
So the illithids wove the web of binding, infused with powerful magics of Law, and with this, they were able to bring the spiders under control. The chaotic spiders scattered across the underdark, and bred rapidly, forming alliances with creatures such as the Chaotic drow. The enslaved spiders followed a different path, and became extensions of the Web. Our high-priest believes that this Web is what you now know as Rakni.
So your discovery of the illithids, as reported by Silvana, only supports our fears. Dumathoin's ancient enemies, the illithids, are the ones truly behind Rakni."
(According to Forked-Beard Dude, dwarven Dumathoin followers were responsible for driving the illithids out of the surface world, so the enmity between Dumathoin and the illithids goes back a very long way. This finally explains Dumathoin's unusual interest in Ganeth, who in no way resembles a dwarf.)
In related news, the mountain dwarves are re-forming an ancient order of Dumathoin, "a group of dwarves who understand the Secret under the Mountain." They are somewhat analogous to monks, with both physical and mental skills, and "will aid the Champion in her war against the Illithids." (Is there anyone out there who doesn't want the party involved in this, except perhaps the party itself?)
One of the dwarves' expert weaponsmiths examined Elissa, Ganeth's intelligent longsword, and determined that while she'd been extensively probed during her stay with the Consortium (and her memories of that period had been wiped), the devils had not succeeding in tampering with her (as far as he could tell).