Eon: The Jade Warriors (Spring 2008)

(L to R, in circle) Yolanda, Yolanda's cousin, Ulfgar, Jenka, Baudin, Ethan, Fennyn. Located in King's Reach.

In which Baudin Dommilan accepts an errand job and ends up on the ride of his life. Triple-crossing, backstabbing, and group hugs abound!

Episodes

The Pilot Episode: The One-Shot

See also: King's Reach: In Contemporary Eon

Baudin Dommilan has been given an errand and a ship, and he's planning to make the most of it. His patron, Janadan Vishnu, has sent him to Baldur City with a weapons shipment to be delivered to the Baldur crime lord, Marcus Fairlan. Upon his arrival in Baldur, Baudin buys himself a business suit and conducts his business so well that Marcus decides to hire him on the spot for a quick errand.

Marcus wants Baudin to go to a little town in the north of Baldur and boost the local economy with some weapons trade. King's Reach is already a bit of a hotbed of political land disputes, and the orc and human communities are feuding on top of that. Pyotar Umarov, the leader of the human community and the recipient of the weapons shipment, will reward them well for transporting these goods to him.

So Baudin takes his two loyal and underpaid assistants, Yolanda and Ulfgar, his mother-in-law Jenka, and Yolanda's cousin, and sets out north to King's Reach. They've heard wild rumors about that area, with towns full of the undead and a strange sickness called the Red Plague laying waste, but they're on a much more mundane mission. To their mild dismay, Marcus has asked one of his personal men, Bookish, to accompany them.

En route, the party sees a black dragon flying overhead. Yolanda's cousin promptly takes out a spear and launches it at said dragon, heedless of it being several hundred meters above them and the collateral damage that annoying a dragon would incur. He misses and the spear falls back to the ground, impaling one of Jenka's many dogs. Yolanda's cousin points out that she has eight more, but Jenka vows never to forgive him.

(Ulfgar: "Alright, so we were supposed to deliver the weapons shipment to Pyotar to arm the local militia to deal with the Orc tribe encroaching on the town's supposed "territory". On the way to King's Reach, we are approached by The Mayor (of some town no one has heard of), to collect the pieces of a lost artifact.")

The Mayor is flamboyantly dressed in red, with a swirling red cape and a red hat with a white feather. He claims to have lost an amulet of significant personal importance, and offers great rewards in exchange for its return. He explains that the amulet has been split into three pieces: two metal halves of a circle, each with writing around the edge, and a jewel for a centerpiece. If reassembled, it will confer great power onto the bearer, provided that the bearer knows what to do with it.

(Ulfgar: "We didn't believe that it had been his for a moment, but the money sounded good, especially since he gave us a downpayment in advance. After all, 'It is better to be paid twice for the same job than not at all.'")

With that, he departs as swiftly and mysteriously as he arrived.

Upon reaching the town, Baudin seeks to conclude his work as quickly as possible, but if information on an amulet should happen to come their way, then who is he to turn down another source of income and other people being indebted to him? The party then goes to meet Pyotar in his temple.

(Ulfgar: "Upon arriving in town, but without a description of the amulet, we took the weapons cache to the priest. Upon meeting him in the temple, we were shocked to realize he was wearing a piece of the amulet around his neck! The nerve! Well, until we figured out how to get the amulet from him, we decided to get paid again for this job, and offered to deal with the orc menace for the town. Pyotar was quite pleased with the idea (since we are outsiders, and therefore expendable), and considers offering his piece of the amulet for it. He decides against it, claiming that even a piece of the amulet has power, and therefore just offers coin and services in return.")

Pyotar warns them about the amulet's power: it is rumored that whoever assembles the amulet will gain amazing necromantic abilities, if they know how to make use of it. The party appears to accept defeat gracefully, and then promptly turns around and tries to work out how best to extract the amulet piece from his possession.

(Ulfgar: "The party sets off after getting Pyotar to let us equip from the weapons shipment, since we are doing what they were for anyways. First, however, we decide to do some reconnaissance of this tribe.")

The lovely (or so the orcs say) Yolanda decides to deal with Brezcar, her reluctant cousin tagging along behind her.

(Ulfgar: "Ulfgar and the two orcs, Yolanda and her whiny cousin, approach the camp and declare us to be peaceful. They let us enter, and Yolanda decides to charm the local chieftain. Yolanda discovers the chief is also in possession of a piece of the amulet, and starts looking for a way to get it from him.")

Lo and behold, some smooth talk later, Brezcar agrees to let her take the amulet piece from THE BOTTOM OF THE LAAAAKE, so long as she returns the amulet to them in full when she's done. For, you see, Brezcar also claims to have lost an amulet of significant personal importance, sing it with me now, etc.

(Ulfgar: "Ulfgar is challenged by the local champion to a drinking-and-arm-wrestling competition, and after his victory, Ulfgar is made an honorary member of the tribe. The chief informs us that the sacred river and hotspring seem to be fed by a cave behind a waterfall, and that the chief found his piece of the amulet at the base of the mentioned waterfall. The party decides to check out the cave, which happens to have a functioning portal to the elemental planes of fire and water, hence the river and hotspring, and is haunted by drowned zombies.

After a challenging series of puzzles designed to rearrange various force-walls keeping the water at bay, we recovered the center-jewel for the amulet. We also made peace with the orcs for the rest of the party by giving them some of the weapons we had gotten from Pyotar. We returned to town, and managed to convince Pyotar that we had been ambushed by the orcs and had our weapons stolen. We got more weapons from him and agreed to go out in the morning.

Meanwhile, Jenka, Baudin's cranky old mother-in-law, decides that Pyotar is kind of cute, and that she will seduce him, and get the amulet piece while she is at it.")

(Ethan: "oh god why um where was I")

The eventual plan results in Jenka making an evening visit to Pyotar's home for a soul-searching discussion about the power of good, the strength of beliefs, and how force of will can overcome even the greatest of obstacles.

Jenka returns to the party's caravan the next morning with the amulet piece given to her in trust for the whole amulet returned when she can (of course), but also a converted woman: she is now lawful good, for reasons which she claims are 'private'.

(Ulfgar: "He ends up enchanting her, and though she gets the piece, refuses to hand it over to the party. A successful pummeling with rock-sack (aka. Yolanda's sap), the party acquires the second piece of the amulet from her, and tie her to a tree until she begins to behave normally.")

Baudin throws up in his mouth a little and sets about concluding his business in weaponry.

(Ulfgar: "With two pieces in possession, the party considers how to acquire the final piece.")

Yes. There also is the issue of which of their many benefactors they should give the amulet to, once they have it assembled...if any of them at all. The Mayor paid cash up front, Yolanda and Ulfgar have forged a social bond with the orc tribes, Jenka leveled up her social rank with Pyotar last night, and Bookish keeps pestering them to take the amulet back to Marcus. And yet, Baudin can't help but wonder how much he could get for an amulet of some kind of necromantic power back in Malvont...

Episode Two: The Plot Doesn't Just Thicken, It Coagulates

After some heated discussion about the destination of the amulet that they're holding, the party splits (oh no!) -- most to keep Bookish occupied, and Baudin to return to the caravan to pick up some...stuff. On his spot check to find his own caravan again, Baudin rolls a two, but still manages to find it. It's right there, after all.

Baudin enters his caravan and is very distressed to find that someone has been reorganizing things. Perhaps it was the human girl sitting on the floor sharpening a weapon, or the half-elf reading a book. Or, he thinks, after the girl tackles him, maybe he isn't in his caravan after all. It probably didn't help that he bluffed that they should get out of his caravan since guards were coming, and the half-elf at least believed the part about the guards. Fortunately, his companions have arrived to help him out! Unfortunately, when Yolanda tries to remove the half-elf standing on her boss's face, she finds herself paralyzed.

Several utterances of "Okay, I'm pretty sure that we can talk this through" and "I didn't mean to do that!" later, the girl introduces herself as Fennyn, and the half-elf as her employer, Ethan of Malvont. They explain that they're just a pair of travelers passing through; they recognize the name of Marcus Fairlan, and out of lack of anything else to do, decide to tag along with Baudin for the time being as a sort of half-assed apology for tackling him on sight, and not even remotely in the fun way.

(Ulfgar: "It should be noted here that Ulfgar and Fennyn recognized each other, as she had been a drinking buddy of his when she was younger, and they were good friends. Of course, she may have been to young to legally drink with Ulfgar at the time, but Ulfgar tends to forget those sort of things.")

What they do not explain is that they were sent by Marcus Fairlan to keep an eye on Baudin, and to retrieve the amulet for Marcus if Baudin's group didn't happen across it and decide to bring it back.

(Ulfgar will take it from here: "First, the party set off to the orcs, determined one way or another to get the final piece of the amulet. Yolanda and Ulfgar made impassioned speeches on behalf of the tribe, and the party realized that no one in town, nor that "Mayor", are anyone the party feels particularly sympathetic toward, and that we (well, about half of the party) really like hanging out with the orc tribe. We decided, and convinced Brezcar, that attacking the town before they were ready was a great idea. We agreed to lead the orc assault on the town, and in return Brezcar gave us the last piece of the amulet...and the party rejoiced in one of our first completed quests.")

After that, Ethan and Fennyn start to wonder if Baudin is interesting enough to follow into a situation that is certain to piss off at least one of the local major powers. They decide to split off from Baudin's group for now so they can have plausible deniability in case of being caught up in small-town politics, but end up stalking Baudin back to the town center anyway.

(Back to Ulfgar: "As we approached town, it was mysteriously quiet, all the doors and windows closed up, and not a sound on the streets, until we arrive. Ulfgar and Yolanda start moving across the town square, realizing that the tavern on the other side of the river would be a great place to launch a surprise attack from. Yolanda stops at the fountain, smells something strange, and sticks her crowbar in the fountain, and pulls it back up acid-etched.")

Ulfgar heads for the bridge. That's about when The Mayor walks into town.

His name is Tyro Avampour, he's brought his sister Royt with him, and he wants his amulet back. Not too long after Tyro arrives, Brezcar waltzes in with a small army from the north, also looking for the amulet. Nothing sets off Baudin's possessiveness like someone trying to take something from him, so he throws caution and diplomacy to the winds and starts fighting back against anyone who comes near him, Granny at his side. Yolanda, while fiercely loyal to her boss, isn't very pleased with the idea of fighting orcs over a promise she made to them, so she tries to talk them down while fighting off Tyro and his sister. Ulfgar, finding himself surrounded in a bar by people who are now hostile to him, Gets an Idea.

("When Tyro is done demanding the amulet, and Baudin refuses, the windows of the tavern fly open and crossbow bolts start flying at the party. At the same time, the temple doors pop open and Pyotar and the town militia start to harass the party and their wagon, which houses Ethan and Fennyn. Baudin, Granny, her last dog, and the orc tribesman move to engage the militia. Ulfgar realizes that he is too far from the party, and likely to get shot by crossbows, to help them, so runs into the tavern to stop that threat, literally cleaving opponents in two as he catches the snipers off-guard. Yolanda is about to move to help him, when another party, working for the man who hired Baudin's employer to deliver the weapons, so Pyotar could acquire the amulet, arrive and start causing trouble. Yolanda moves to intercept, and is aided by Ethan and Fennyn.")

Ethan and Fennyn decide that if they don't get to have the amulet, they at least prefer that it goes to the person who lets them follow him around, and start weighing in from the sidelines by crossbow and Magic Missile.

During the heated battle, Bookish appears at the far end of the town and begins to summon something, giving no indication as to whose side he is on -- until Marcus Fairlan walks up next to him. Ethan and Fennyn hide, and things might have gotten really awkward for them and for Baudin if Ulfgar hadn't come flying out of a burning inn right about then.

(Ulfgar: "In Ulfgar's defence: Tyro was beginning to retreat, due to his forces rapidly diminishing, and saw Ulfgar in the tavern, taking out his sister, Royt. In anger, Tyro throws a burning bottle of...something, into the tavern. Ulfgar, realizing he may have moments to live, engages super-dwarven reflexes and leaps out the window, just as the tavern explodes, taking out the last of the archers.")

The explosion kills Royt and throws her corpse into the river, and Tyro is on the verge of retreating. Brezcar's force has taken heavy casualties as well, and Baudin's group isn't in perfect health, either. What could have turned into an ugly battle of attrition is abruptly ended when Bookish finishes his summon and a black dragon appears, thereby making him Public Enemy #1.

Fennyn, ascribing to the school of Kill the Summoner and the Summon Goes Poof, starts firing at Bookish in the hopes of getting rid of the dragon either before Ethan has a very strange kind of panic attack or before it kills them both. Others of Baudin's group are more than happy to take the opportunity to take a shot at Bookish, as well. Bookish, never a strong sort, is eventually felled by one of Fennyn's arrows, and with him dies only the control over the dragon, but not the dragon itself.

Tyro has long since disappeared, Brezcar's forces are retreating, and Baudin motions for his comrades to flee to the temple. Fennyn, faced with a dragon with only a hysterical wizard and a caravan to work with, drives that fucker straight at the temple doors in the hopes of making it there either before the dragon comes after them or Baudin shuts the doors on them.

(Ulfgar: "Ulfgar was almost left for dead, when he realized that to run to the bridge, cross the river, and get across the square may take more time than his friends had. So, he decided to take the shortest possible path. Building up speed, he miraculously jumped across the river, and managed to hoof-it to the door, just in time before Baudin and Yolanda shut the doors.")

As she and Ethan join the group already hiding inside the temple, the last thing that any of them see of the battle is Marcus Fairlan reaching up to the dragon with some manner of jewel in his hand, commanding it to obey him...and the dragon landing square on him instead.

The doors close, and our heroes are left in the dark.

Fortunately, most of them have dark vision. (Including the Dynamic Duo: Ulfgar and Yolanda)

Episode Three: I Cast Magic Missile at the Darkness Because I Never Learned to Cast Light

After barring the doors and finding it ominously quiet outside, the party decides to see how far they can get into the temple. At the far end of the front chamber, they find a series of candles on a slab with writing engraved into it:

Four flames ignite a pyre,

Three are true, and one's a liar.

Ulfgar declares that of course this is a secret door, as this is where a secret door ought to be if there were one.

After hours of fruitlessly trying to figure out what this riddle means, if anything, the party decides to think on it for the night and rest. Amid the chaos of setting up camp inside the main room of a temple, healing the wounded, determining who will keep watch, and exactly what they plan to do if someone does happen along and try to kill them (screaming like a little girl is a popular choice), Ethan and Fennyn haul Baudin aside for a talk. Having learned that Baudin moonlights as an evil cleric, and therefore can cast inflict magic, Ethan offers a trade: free enchantment of any of Baudin's items with Ghoul Glyphs if Baudin will oblige him by kindly not healing him -- rather, by using inflict magic rather than curative magic should Ethan become unable to cast spells on his own. This deal is to be kept quiet from the rest of Baudin's group. Baudin, never one to pass up a chance to have someone indebted to him, agrees.

While on watch, Yolanda and her keen goat-guarding senses realize that there is something large on the roof of the building, as she can hear it breathing. Hoping that whatever it is stays on the roof of the building, she decides not to investigate further. Though the party had expected to have to make some very creative excuses to Pyotar as to why they were sleeping on the pews in his temple, he never appears.

The next morning, the party returns to the candles and stares at them some more, by this time more tempted to break through the slab by force rather than solve the riddle. Eventually, Yolanda's cousin, frustrated by the lack of activity, asks Ethan and Jenka to cast Light on the far candle. Ethan is forced to admit that he never figured out how to cast Light, and Jenka doesn't have the spell prepared. Yolanda's cousin sighs, asks if he has to do everything around here, and casts Light himself. The slab easily slides aside, revealing a set of stairs beneath it. Hoping to find a second exit that doesn't involve the thing breathing heavily on the roof, the party continues downward.

They find themselves in a large underground chamber with two doors on the far side and a 30-foot deep pit in the center of the room. Skirting the pit, they first decide to explore the room behind the more ornate door. Yolanda, Ulfgar, and Ethan go inside for a better look, at which point the door closes after them and water begins filling the room. That's right, it's a water trap.

(Ethan: "Hey, Ulfgar, what actually set off the trap?"

(Ulfgar: "If Ulfgar remembers correctly, touching the exit door of the room.")

(Ulfgar: "First of all, the large ornate door was on the other side of the side room, which was separated only by a wooden door. Upon entering the room, Yolanda, Ulfgar, Ethan, and Baudin are cut off from the rest of the party by a Wall of Force, and the room begins to fill with water, as a square paneling on the back door, not the back of the door, begins to glow, and reveals a series of random letters.)

The four of them immediately set out trying to open the door, and find that there are letters covering the back of the door in a random order. Unfortunately, Ulfgar is illiterate, so he initially focuses on helping to keep Ethan and Yolanda above water. However, as Ethan and Yolanda run through a series of possible words to no avail, it occurs to Ulfgar that while he cannot read, he has seen some of these symbols before. As he tries to recall exactly where, the water just about reaches the ceiling. Ethan can barely swim, and so is dragging Yolanda under water as she tries to keep him afloat. Ethan tells her to drop him, and after some rushed back-and-forthing to the effect of "TRUST ME!" "ARE YOU INSANE?" "TRUST ME!" she drops him and focuses on taking her last few breaths of air before the water reaches the ceiling.

(Ulfgar: "Ulfgar had not yet learned how to read, and Ethan was paralyzed due to some unfortunate reaction with water. Fortunately, Ethan also seems to have an unfortunate condition related to not breathing, wherein Ethan is no more dead than before. Eventually, the water level was so high that only Ulfgar still managed to have his head above water. You read that right, Ulfgar was a skilled swimmer, why else would he join a shipping company that worked from a ship? Not that this did the two drowning men much good, as they struggled underwater with the letters.")

In the last moments before he begins to drown, Ulfgar realizes where he's seen these symbols before -- he remembers them from the engravings on the outer pieces of the amulet. He quickly traces out the letters in order, and the door opens. Yolanda and Ulfgar manage to grab onto the doorframe before they can be swept into the pit. Ethan does not, and promptly makes close acquaintance with the watery bottom of the pit as well as the hundreds of gallons of water rushing out of the water trap room.

Baudin's company is shocked to find that their new pet wizard not only didn't drown after spending an unhealthy amount of time underwater, but wasn't killed by the fall. Grievously wounded and with a broken leg, yes, but still able to ask for someone to please come retrieve him sometime this century.

After rigging up a rope, Ulfgar climbs down into the pit and finds Ethan on one of the two stone coffins at the bottom of the pit. Both coffins are sealed, which piques Ulfgar's curiosity like nothing else, but he does make sure to tie the end of the rope to Ethan rather than himself before he goes to explore further.

Once Ethan is deposited on the floor at the top, Fennyn takes out her crossbow and camps out next to him. Jenka offers to heal Ethan and is rebuffed by Baudin, to her confusion. Ignoring him, she goes over to Ethan to heal him, and finds herself with a crossbow aimed into her face and Baudin verbally flailing. Realizing he'll take a crossbow bolt to the face if he doesn't bail Ethan out of this, Baudin explains: their new pet wizard is an undead wizard. Jenka, being freshly lawful good, immediately wants to know why she shouldn't just kill Ethan. Baudin verbally flails some more and eventually shrieks that he's in love with Ethan.

Everyone stares.

It's a bluff check, of course, and absolutely no one falls for it. Yolanda and Ulfgar, deciding as one that their boss is incapable of being diplomatic, intervene: they don't have any particular problem with the undead, and they both don't like the idea of killing someone who helped them just for existing. Jenka is unconvinced, and things risk getting very unpleasant until Baudin discovers that he has a talent for evangelizing. He promptly throws himself into a five-minute speech about the joys of redeeming evil to the side of good, and how good intentions can make good people if only those who have already seen the light just give them a chance. This is a message that Jenka can get behind, and as she begins working out how best to convert Ethan to the side of good, Baudin facepalms and heals Ethan enough that Ethan can go sulk in a corner and cast Inflict Minor ad infinitum.

Revelation past and crisis resolved, Ulfgar returns to exploring the coffins below. The party, now realizing that their barbarian is thirty feet down and merrily trying to pry the lid off of a stone coffin in a hidden chamber below a temple, is very concerned about the wisdom of his actions. Ulfgar assures them that everything will be just fine as he gets one of the coffin lids ajar. Large green ghostly hands immediately emerge from the coffin, seize him, and then disappear. Ulfgar, shaken, puts the lid back and asks for a rope so that he can return to the surface for the time being. However, upon reaching the surface, Ulfgar finds that he's developed a bit more of a tendency to be rash, and also to laugh a bit maniacally at times.

The party turns to address the second door, beyond which they find a series of chambers that may belong to Pyotar, though they aren't quite certain. They don't look like they've been recently inhabited. The party, deciding that they deserve some loot for their troubles, begins to search the room. Fennyn discovers a magnificent sword known as the Shatterspike and claims it for her own, to Ulfgar's dismay. He, however, has found a small box that rattles. In fact, it rattles in a way that indicates that whatever is inside might be capable of moving on its own. Ulfgar tentatively shakes the box a few more times, and then names whatever is inside "Buddy". He immediately decides that he needs to free Buddy, the preliminary steps of which are to shake the box a bit more and exclaim "Buddy!" at random intervals. While most of the party tries to talk him out of sawing open a box that could contain any number of unpleasant things, Ethan starts giggling hysterically every time Ulfgar says "Buddy!" and is thus useless for the next half hour.

Eventually Ulfgar takes matters into his own hands and slices off the end of the box. Ulfgar's questions are answered: Buddy is a kobold. A now-terrified kobold. Ulfgar immediately picks him up and hugs him tightly. However, no one in the party speaks any of the languages that kobolds do, so Ulfgar tries to make do with hand signs and frequent repetitions of "Buddy!" At this point Ethan curls up in a corner and demands of the universe why this is so entertaining, and then returns to his gigglefits.

Buddy frequently tries to escape as the rest of the party searches their way through the rooms, and occasionally tries to bite or scratch Ulfgar to make him let go. Ulfgar finds this charming. (Ulfgar: "Ulfgar really liked Buddy, the playful nibbles were kinda cute, at least to Ulfgar.") After a while, he seems to calm down enough that Ulfgar lets him go. Buddy immediately takes off for the room with the pit, and Ulfgar runs after him. The party collectively sighs and follows.

They arrive to find that Buddy has leapt into the pit, and Ulfgar is planning to follow. Before they can convince him otherwise, they notice Buddy somehow opening the other coffin.

Out of the coffin rises Pyotar Umarov, distinctly a vampire, and distinctly pissed.

Pyotar flies straight up and goes after the party without words being exchanged. (Ulfgar: Ulfgar had been at the top of the pit when Pyotar rose out of it, and decided that his friends could deal with Pyotar, not realizing his undead nature, but that Buddy needed to pay for what he had done. It was then that Ulfgar jumps down and hunts Buddy into a little corner.) Baudin and his companions haven't come this far to roll over and let a vampire kill them all, and so they fight back. Jenka attempts to slow Pyotar and drag him out of the air with Web, Ethan continually runs to the exact opposite corner of the room from Pyotar while spamming Magic Missile, and Baudin, Yolanda, Fennyn, and Yolanda's cousin all go after Pyotar in melee.

Yolanda is quickly disabled by one of Pyotar's attacks, which drains her Con, and most of the other melee attackers aren't having much success in hitting or damaging Pyotar. Fennyn, however, is finding that her new sword is highly effective. Magic Missile also seems to be working out for Ethan relatively well.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the pit, Ulfgar finally pounces on Buddy, says, "Bad Buddy," and punches him unconscious. (Ulfgar: "With the tip of a sword, the punch hurt a lot more)

Back at the vampire club, Pyotar also seems to think that Fennyn and her new sword are far too effective. Angered, he strikes out at her and kills her in one critical blow. As she dies, she reaches for Baudin and informs him, "I...always hated you the most..."

Ulfgar had been considering returning to the top before this event, but this seals it. Unaided by rope, Ulfgar scales the walls of the pit in order to take revenge. Ethan has similar goals, and continues to throw Magic Missiles from across the room. Web finally takes effect, and Baudin redoubles his attacks now that Pyotar is less able to evade him.

Pyotar is gravely wounded by the time Ulfgar reaches the top of the pit, so much so that when Ulfgar takes up the Shatterspike and strikes at Pyotar in Fennyn's name, Pyotar falls all the way back down to the bottom of the pit onto the lids of one of the coffins, and does not move.

(Ulfgar: "Ulfgar does not remember much at this point, being in a revenge-induced fury over his fallen drinking buddy, but does recall thinking that it was much more poetic to attack Pyotar with the weapon of his fallen companion, then to grab one of his own.")

The party, after ascertaining that Fennyn is beyond help, turns to the issue of Pyotar. They know that one way to ensure that Pyotar is truly dead is to strike him in the heart with a silver dagger. Ethan volunteers, explaining that he owns a silver dagger and is light enough to be easily lowered by rope down to the coffin lid. The party agrees and sends Ethan down to deal with the defeated Pyotar. Upon reaching Pyotar, however, Ethan doesn't bother with a silver dagger; he has a much more permanent and less messy solution, or so he thinks. After checking that no one is particularly paying attention to him, he eats Pyotar's soul. Once all of the animation has drained from Pyotar's body, Ethan goes through his pockets for loose change and takes his boots and weapons, presenting them to the party upon reaching the top.

The party, shaken and tired, reluctantly leaves their fallen comrade as they search for a place to rest, and a way out of the temple. As they leave the room, Ulfgar takes one of Fennyn's fingers with him in the hopes of having her resurrected one day.

Episode Four: Yet Another Bar Explodes

Our heroes, still tired and lost under the temple, return to trying to find a way out. Ethan mentions that even if he does get out of this temple, he isn't sure where else he can go. His best friend is dead, the person who had been facilitating his very illegal existence in Baldur City is dead, and he doesn't have much else. Baudin offers to take Ethan with him to Malvont and at least handwave in the direction of protecting Ethan. Ethan accepts without hesitation. That settled, Baudin wants to get back to South Baldur quickly, before news of Marcus Fairlan's death and the upheaval at King's Reach reaches Baldur City and complicates matters.

Back in the set of rooms where they found Buddy and the Shatterspike, Ethan finally notices a tapestry depicting The Vengeful Eye of God, which takes four very high level clerics to cast, and kills them instantly upon its casting. He freaks out a bit, as this is not the kind of decoration one expects a paladin-cleric of Pelor to be rocking in their secret lair. Ulfgar checks behind the tapestry for hidden doors and promptly finds one. The party discovers that the Shatterspike will not shatter stone. However, the Shatterspike worked most effectively against the lock.

This door leads them into another set of rooms, which Jenka recognizes as those belonging to Pyotar's. Ethan recognizes them as well, and is horribly confused at first, since he's never been there before. When he starts having a very peculiar kind of panic attack, he figures out what's wrong, bolts out of the room, and refuses to go back into it.

Yolanda, Baudin, and Ulfgar are perplexed by this turn of events, but continue onward to search the rooms either for loot or for a way out. They find a bit of both, but there's an unfortunate catch: the large thing on top of the roof is still there, still breathing, and is the black dragon that Bookish summoned. They return to the rest of the party and explain that if they can make it from the door of Pyotar's home to the forest beyond, they'll probably escape the dragon. Ethan, upon hearing that there is still a dragon outside, has another panic attack and has to be talked down off the ceiling. Once he's coherent again, he explains: he isn't sure what he is, but he can't deal with any memories of when he was alive, and he hates dragons. In fact, he hates them so much that he's methodically planning their systematic extinction. He isn't certain, but he thinks that Pyotar's rooms might be having the same effect on him that his own memories would because he ate Pyotar's soul.

Yolanda and Ulfgar look at each other for a minute, consider their own bulk in proportion to Ethan's, and decide that they can easily drag a panicking wizard through a house and fifty feet to a forest. Ethan doesn't like the idea, but given that or staying alone in the temple indefinitely with a dragon outside, he'll deal with the short-term screaming panic.

Baudin double-checks that they've scavenged everything that they can from the temple, resists the urge to run back upstairs and ransack the main room, and leads the way in running hell-for-leather out the door and to the forest beyond. The dragon notices them despite their attempts to move quietly and muzzle Ethan, but by the time it comes for them, they've managed to disappear into the woods.

As they recover from their dead sprint, Baudin wonders where the amulet went. The party eventually recalls that Yolanda's cousin had it last, but he refuses to give it back. Yolanda ruthlessly pantses him in search of the amulet, and finds that her cousin has broken it back into its three pieces. Yolanda's cousin informs Yolanda that he's had it with this bullshit and that he's heading north to find his destiny. After some debate, Baudin decides that he will take the center piece of the amulet, and give the outer pieces to his two lieutenants. The party, a bit stunned, heads south towards Baldur City. They keep to the main road in order to avoid bandits, and indeed only have one encounter: a hapless owlbear and a Highly Suspicious Bush. It was probably all Ulfgar's fault.

(Ulfgar will take blame for the H.S.B. that was making owlbear noises, but not the owlbear lurking behind it.)

After a couple of days of travel, they reach the outskirts of a small town near Baldur: Landover. And, upon traveling in further, they find a very disgruntled drow in white robes sitting by the side of the road with a sandwich. The ever-curious party investigates and finds that her name is Kytia, and that she's waiting for a gnome named Sluf. Apparently there is some kind of celebration happening in the town, hosted mostly by orcs. There's a rumor that a mindflayer is also present, but she doesn't know much more.

Yolanda and Ulfgar, intrigued by the promise of an orc-hosted party where the liquor flows freely, decide to go investigate the town and perhaps run across Sluf while they're at it. Jenka, Ethan, and Baudin wait for them with Kytia, as staying at the inn in Landover seems a lot less promising than it had before. The four of them are getting into a nice conversation about Kytia's plan to champion justice throughout the lands and otherwise liberate the shit out of people when the topic of Highman Grax, a mindflayer and a senator of Baldur, comes up.

Baldur's government is a democracy, but supposedly Grax is planning to overthrow the Senate and seize control for himself. To that effect, he's been mobilizing an army of orcs, bugbears, and other non-humans, promising to give them good farmland and more rights if they help him become the ruler of Baldur. Kytia and Sluf suspect that the party in Landover might be more akin to a rally, but they have no proof as of yet.

Then, Baudin notices a hawk circling overheard.

Meanwhile, Yolanda and Ulfgar have made their way into town. Ulfgar scopes out the inn while Yolanda chats up the bartender, Dankhill, and learns a bit more about Grax as well. Grax himself emerges shortly thereafter to give a rousing speech to the orcs about freedom and farmlands that grow more than rocks. Yolanda, startled by the appearance of a mindflayer, goes in search of more pleasant things. Once the bartender is off duty, they take themselves off to the forest for some tree-splintering sex. At one point, a two is rolled, resulting in the Annihilator's Penis of Power and a fortunate 20 on a fortitude save. Thus did Eon lose its sex roleplaying virginity.

After the speech is concluded and Grax retires to the inn, Ulfgar begins poking around to see if he can learn more about the senator who has been shouting about very un-senatorly things. He manages to get to the top floor, where the best suite is, and finds Grax, but something seems off about him. Then the bar explodes.

Back on the road, the hawk divebombs Baudin and reveals herself to be an angry druid named Aura Larellian, and also Baudin's former mistress. There was apparently a falling-out at about the time that Baudin's wife died, and now Aura wants to hit Baudin with spells until candy comes out. However, she has a greater purpose than that: she is a member of the Circle of the True, a militant druid organization that wants to eradicate all aberrations and similar unnatural things from the world. She, too, has heard that Grax is planning to overthrow the government of Baldur, and the Circle of the True is very opposed to that. As such, when she noticed that Baudin was also in Landover, she wanted to make sure that he wasn't on Grax's side, and also that he didn't get killed in the explosion, because she has dibs. Wait, what explosion?

Aura smiles.

Boom.

Ulfgar leaps out of the flaming bar from the top floor, takes the damage like a man, and looks around for Grax. The senator isn't hard to find, despite it growing dark; Grax has appeared at the far edge of the now-panicked crowd, and is taking the opportunity to rally his army by showing that he knew of the assassination attempt, that he was one step ahead, and that there was an assassination attempt at all means that the government is afraid of their certain victory. He sends search parties out to scour Landover and the surrounding areas for the perpetrators, at which point Ulfgar slinks away.

(Ulfgar: Ulfgar must stand up for himself on this one, this bar can't be blamed on him. He wasn't even IN the tavern when the upstares room exploded. That's right, it wasn't the whole bar, just one of the upstairs rooms. There happened to be an illusion of Grax in that room, which is why it was targetted by the explosive assassin. However, Grax was apparently in the next room, allowing him to appear before the crowd. Ulfgar actually encountered Sluf (see below) while Yolanda was making moves on the bartender, and was coming back to the tavern down the main road when the explosion occured. Ulfgar rushed forward to check it out, and so may have become associated with the explosion to any observers, being one of the only ones running toward it.)

Yolanda and Dankhill part ways, and Yolanda sets off towards the road and her companions. Ulfgar finds himself at a very peculiar shack, and thence meets its very peculiar inhabitant: Sluf and his House of ILLOOOOOOOSION. Sluf demonstrates a fondness for things that jingle, Ulfgar restrains himself from doing something drastic about that fondness, and Ulfgar learns that while Sluf did not directly orchestrate this assassination attempt, he was perfectly happy to let it occur. (I think that's how this went.)

Back at the road, a small scouting party of orcs spies a group of people standing around looking distinctly out of place, and attack. Aura bids Baudin goodbye and takes off, leaving him and his companions to deal with the orcs. The darkness would be more inconvenient were the orcs also not setting the fields on fire in order to flush out any people hiding in them. Ethan, being one such person, dodge-rolls through the fire unscathed. Baudin, Kytia, and Jenka were also unhurt by the fire, and turn to meet their attackers.

The orcs are few in number, and easily felled. Kytia leaves one of them alive in order to extract information from them for her own needs. While she is a defender of justice, Kytia is also a professional torturer. She and Granny mutilate the orc as needed, with occasional commentary from Ethan, until Kytia is satisfied. Information gotten, she brutally kills the orc and immediately casts Create Water over her head to wash her white robes clean of blood.

Yolanda and Ulfgar rejoin the party shortly thereafter, and they retreat deep into the woods to make camp. Yolanda isn't comfortable with the idea of killing orcs when they've been brainwashed, and the rest of the party isn't comfortable taking on an army, so they decide on non-aggression for the night in favor of getting some rest, and also asking Baudin what the hell he did to make Aura so mad at him.

Episode Five: So Many Uses for Mage Hand, So Little Time

Our heroes manage to pass the night undisturbed, and wake up early the next morning to pay a visit to Sluf. He seems pleased to have visitors, especially visitors sympathetic to his cause. He explains a bit more about how Grax has been quietly building up an army and preparing to take over for years, as befitting a mindflayer bent on becoming the dictator of a relatively powerful country with a stable government already in existence. However, it doesn't seem to be a conspiracy among mindflayers; in fact, all of the other mindflayers seem to be disappearing. It is unknown as to whether they are getting the fuck out of dodge or whether Grax is eliminating them for some other reason, but the people from whom the mindflayers usually extract taxes are breathing a little more easily.

After a will-save-inducing round of asking various party members to shake small, jingling objects, Baudin and his companions take their leave. They stay near to the road as they head for Baldur, but try to stay out of sight in the forest. Thus far, they see no evidence of Grax actively mobilizing an army, so they figure that their chances are good for getting into Baldur, onto their ship, and the hell away before they get embroiled any further in anything massively complicated. While Kytia and Jenka both want to remain and fight against the invading army when it comes for Baldur for the sake of preserving the existing democratic government, Baudin points out that they don't even know when or if this army is going to invade, though signs are pointing to yes and soon.

When they reach Baldur, they find the gates closed to all travelers. Confused, the party regroups: they probably can't use Marcus Fairlan as a gate pass, being as he is now tragically deceased, and they can't figure out why the gates would be closed, anyway. Jenka and Baudin develop a plan, however. While Ulfgar and Yolanda wander off to distract the guards, Jenka uses Mage Hand to secure a knife with a rope attached to the very top of the wall, which Baudin scales. He fastens the rope even more tightly, then helps the rest of the party over and into North Baldur.

It seems quiet for such a large city, and they have more walls to deal with if they want to get to their destination. Kytia wants to go to the Elven Guildhome so she can talk with her fellow drow and get more information, Ulfgar wants to go weapons shopping, and Baudin wants a stiff drink. United by their determination, they lead the party in sneaking through the city from North Baldur to South Baldur as needed in order to reach their destination. Upon reaching the elven guild home, the party splits: Ulfgar really wants to go weapons shopping, Ethan has a panic attack at the thought of going back to the Elven Guildhome and refuses to talk more about it, and Baudin really wants that drink. The ladies go through the Elven Guildhome to the Underdark together, Baudin heads for the nearest bar, and Ulfgar and Ethan go window shopping.

Kytia meets with the leaders of the drow community, has an excited conversation in Dark Elf-Silent, and then switches to spoken language for Yolanda and Jenka's benefit. It seems that the drow have heard some rumblings to the effect that Grax is about to roll into town and wreck some shit, and they're preparing to get out of there as soon as that goes down. Kytia can't convince them to stay and fight, and she returns to the surface, defeated.

Meanwhile, Ulfgar drools over expensive weapons and Ethan reminds him that although he is filthy rich, his first priority is buying Yolanda a Lesser Restoration for the Con damage she took in the fight with Pyotar. Ulfgar acquiesces and they head back. On their way, they see a still somewhat squished-looking Marcus Fairlan, who is dressed entirely in white. Ethan has a really bad feeling about this. Since Ulfgar has no business with Marcus Fairlan, he convinces Ethan not to go running after Marcus and instead head back to the ship and think it over first.

Baudin encounters none other than Sluf in the bar, finally loses his patience with the constant request for "Jingle Jingle," and attempts to shank Sluf with his rapier. A two is rolled, Baudin stabs Sluf in the foot, and Baudin loses part of his memory. Furious, Sluf enchants Baudin's ankle to make a jingling sound whenever he walks, and disappears in a puff of smoke and sparkles.

The party reunites outside of the Elven Guildhome and begins to make their way back to their ship when they hear the sound of pitched battle from across Baldur. Baudin takes off running for his ship, his companions close behind, because that is the sound of an army crashing into a locked gate and smashing it down, and it will probably only get worse from there on in.

They are in the last stages of preparations to leave when a human male comes running up to them and calls up to Ethan and Yolanda. His name is Sam Ash, and he asks that "somebody cast Mend, because I am ripped." After this perplexing statement, he puts his shirt back on and asks that they give him passage to basically anywhere that isn't Baldur. He offers 50 gold as a starting fee, and can easily be talked up to a higher amount in his panic. Baudin gives the okay, and they let him on. It also turns out that Sam is a fantastic cook, and offers his services to the corporation as ship's chef for the time being.

(Ulfgar: "Sam also mentions that he makes a mean pie, and after offering Ulfgar a piece, Ulfgar agrees to let him aboard, insisting to the rest of the crew that 'He makes great pie!'")

The details of Sam's passage are never quite worked out, as they all look up to see Baldur aflame, and a great shadowy figure with a scythe riding towards Baldur from the distance. Around them, every other ship is casting off as fast as possible, with some people even leaping into the water or onto boats if they can reach them. They, too, cast off, and watch Baldur fade into the distance as Nerull himself rides over it.

The Flashback Episode: Seven Years Ago, A Barfight

Set in 1434 SA, this session does not appear on the Eon Timeline. Starring Baudin Dommilan as an enforcer! Ethan of Malvont in his final year of journeyman studies while he still had a Con score! Ulfgar making friends and influencing people! And Fennyn with a fake ID, a dwarven barbarian drinking buddy, and half-elf eye candy!

Envision a bar, somewhere. Seedy, yes, but comfortable. There are a few people scattered around it, drinking. Some of them are in groups, such as the dwarf and young woman sitting together, talking cheerfully about various ways of hitting people on the head. Some of them are alone, such as the half-elf steadily drinking himself under the table. Some of them are Baudin Dommilan, who has just rolled into the bar and is looking to extract protection money from the owner for his patron.

Now envision some brave person throwing a punch.

This episode is a tale of a teenaged girl bonding with an older dwarf, of a mage giggling hysterically as he tries to figure out which way is up with Magic Missile as a guide, and of a man who can look at the wreckage of a bar due to a fight that he might have caused and say, "I'll take that out of your debt."

Who would have known that the dwarf would one day end up wearing the girl's finger around his neck in case he ever encountered someone handing out free True Resurrections? That the girl would one day end up protecting the half-elf she was staring at in the bar? That all four of these people would travel together, even if briefly, but without ever remembering that they had met once before?

Episode Six: I May Be a Tiny Crime Lord, but I've Got an Enormous...

As our heroes sail away on the Jade Kraken, bickering ensues about who gets to sleep where. Baudin naturally claims the captain's quarters for himself, leaving the others to work out the politics of bunking together. Kytia chooses an empty barrel for herself as a private place to sleep, Sam calls dibs on the floor in what can be generously called the shop's kitchen, and Ethan claims seasickness and hides in the darkest corner below decks. Ulfgar and Yolanda each take an actual bunk, and Jenka eventually gives up on convincing Baudin that age deserves the good bed more than rank.

The next concern is their destination. As they were unable to restock the ship as thoroughly as they would have liked, their supplies are limited. It's relatively good weather for traveling at sea, so they will probably make good time, but traveling all the way to the Southern Continent is probably out of their reach. As Baudin has other possible jobs in Malvont City, he sets the ship in that direction. The trip will ideally be on the order of weeks, and given that Sam is somehow producing delicious, healing pie, their supplies should last. (Ethan is very sad that a) he doesn't eat any more, and b) the pie would kill him.)

The trip is relatively uneventful, with a bit of inclement weather, but nothing that they can't handle. Ethan and Kytia decide to start their own Libris Mortis-centric book club, as Ethan picked up several versions of the Libris Mortis from Pyotar's temple, but some are in languages that he can't read. Thus, Kytia reads the drow text aloud to him in exchange for free access to the other books. This partially keeps Ethan from constantly freaking out about being on a boat, and after some weeks of reading, he eventually figures out what kind of undead he is. Yolanda recovers somewhat from her Con damage, though she is not completely healed by the time they reach Malvont, and Ulfgar attempts fishing with mixed results. Baudin reacquaints himself with his comrades, some of whom take the opportunity to embellish their status within the company. Thus it is that Ulfgar and Yolanda get pay raises and Ethan starts managing Baudin's finances and other assorted paperwork.

They dock in the least expensive place that they can find that also stands a chance of their boat still being there when they return. Kytia and Sam remain on board as an extra precaution. Kytia, being a drow, is also wary of openly walking around Malvont above ground. Upon coming ashore, the others find Malvont city guards congregating around a fountain, with a crier reading off the most recent and pressing news: namely, that Baldur is under siege.

A large bodyguard-looking type meets Baudin at the dock and informs him that Janadan Vishnu wants to see him. Conveniently, this allows Baudin and his companions access to the second and third circles of Malvont, and they do a bit of window-shopping on the way. They are finally shown into Vishnu's place of business, whereupon Baudin learns that Vishnu has a very lucrative job for him, and Baudin's companions learn that Vishnu is very short.

As Vishnu specializes in trade with Baldur and Goneril, he's heard a lot about the siege, and is already preparing for what he feels will be the inevitable attack on Malvont. As he one day wants to be the ruler of Malvont, he is eager to be able to curry favor with powerful people by providing a formidable defense mechanism. To that end, he has built a massive flying machine of humanoid shape (read: Gundam), but it lacks a sword. He has acquired several powerful weapons thus far, but there is a sword that he is missing: a Sacred Burst longsword. It is incredibly hard to find, but Vishnu thinks that if any weapons dealer can find that sword, it'll be Baudin.

Baudin tactfully does not mention that he has lost a fair chunk of his memory, and with it some of his knowledge of weapons, and accepts. Vishnu mentions a rumor that the sword might be somewhere on the Southern Continent, so Baudin decides that he'll head south and hope for the best. Vishnu arranges for them to spend the night in an inn near their boat, and also provides Baudin with a Speakstone so that he and Baudin can stay in touch. The party is then dismissed.

As they head back towards the inn, the party runs a series of errands. A Lesser Restoration is priced for Yolanda both in Malvont Dollars and in gold. The gold option is less expensive, and Ethan volunteers to pay for it, as he was planning to empty his Malvont bank accounts anyway and convert them to the far more universal gold. Ulfgar tries yet again to get someone to buy him more weapons, at which point the party as a whole points out that he has the Shatterspike, and that is all the weapon he will ever need. In fact, that's probably more of a weapon than he will ever need. Ulfgar fails to convince Baudin to buy him a skiff. ("Maybe when you're older.") (Ulfgar would like to point out that Baudin never did follow through on his promise before he disappeared...) Ethan and Yolanda hunt down a reasonable money changer, which isn't too difficult; Ethan is well acquainted with the Malvont underworld, though he can't remember the precise reason. Baudin also takes the opportunity to change some of his Malvont money into the locally illegal gold. Lesser Restoration purchased and supplies restocked for the journey, the party unloads their purchases on the boat and inform Kytia and Sam of their new destination, and point out that they have transported Sam to a place that isn't Baldur, if he wants to leave. Sam decides that he prefers the adventure of being ship's cook to Baudin's company, and also that traveling with Baudin means he's probably safer than if he were alone in Malvont. Besides, the company already bought him fresh fruit and flour for more pies.

That settled, those of the party who feel comfortable sleeping in Malvont proper go to the inn, work out sharing rooms, and actually get to bathe for the first time in far, far too long.

(Ulfgar doesn't bathe here, he saves that for the dip he takes in Episode 8)

On purchasing skiffs:

(Ulfgar: The skiff in Episode Eight did not belong to Ulfgar)

(Ethan: No loving god would spontaneously create a skiff for those purposes. Query universe: where DID the skiff come from? Oh, damn, it was Aura's, wasn't it. WOMAN, YOU RUIN EVERYTHING.)

(Ulfgar: Read Ulfgar's retelling of Episode Eight for your answer: yes.)

Episode Seven: In Which a Bar Remains Mostly Intact

The next morning, the party decides that since the sun is over the yardam somewhere, they are perfectly justified in hitting the bar before they leave. Kytia and Sam remain behind yet again, and begin to make preparations to set sail later that day. Jenka, Ulfgar, Yolanda, and Baudin head out for the bar, Ethan tagging along. When asked what an undead could possibly want with a bar, Ethan explains that he has an unreasonable fondness for playing the Mysterious Stranger at the bar, and occasionally cleaning up at drinking games. Ulfgar approves.

Upon reaching the bar, Yolanda and Jenka choose a table by the fireplace, Baudin makes a beeline for the bartender, and Ulfgar and Ethan sit on either side of a hapless orc and offer him a drinking game.

Not so long after the orc passes out, a group of watchmen arrive in search of Jenka. Much to the party's surprise, she is wanted in Malvont for murder and forgery. As Ulfgar fights for his friends and doesn't afraid of anything, he takes off for the watchmen with the intent of subduing them before they can arrest Granny. Yolanda, hoping that they can talk their way out of this rather than becoming wanted themselves, tries to reason with Ulfgar. After it becomes apparent that Ulfgar will not be dissuaded, Yolanda makes a majestic leap over two tables and tackles Ulfgar before he can inflict grievous bodily harm on the guards.

Back at the bar, Baudin notices that the bartender is distracted, and slips into the back room. He knows this area well, having collected protection money from similar institutions before, and is certain that there will be illegal gold stashed somewhere. He quickly finds the money hidden in a barrel that ostensibly contains beer, and then ponders how to get the barrel out of the bar and into the ship without being noticed. Ethan, meanwhile, facepalms and wishes that alcohol still had an effect on him.

Jenka's faithful dogs, by now much diminished in number, also leap to her defense. Yolanda tries to convince Ulfgar to behave by telling him that they'll just break Granny out of jail if they have to, or call in a favor with Vishnu. Ulfgar isn't completely convinced, but calms down enough to be let up. The guards immediately put a set of manacles on him, and Yolanda reconsiders rational conversation.

It is then that a mindflayer walks into the bar.

The mindflayer is a tax collector, as mindflayers in Malvont generally are. His name is Ashra, and he's here to extract payment from the bartender. (At this time, Ashra was referred to with male pronouns by the party. This changes in Season Seven.) He decides that he simply cannot conduct business properly amidst all of this chaos, so he makes a dramatic entrance with a powerful intimidate check, which cows nearly everyone in the bar. Baudin, determined to make off with his newfound Jew gold, cannot be frightened by a mere mindflayer. Jenka is busily escaping the guardsmen, and so pays Ashra no notice. Ethan, still at the bar next to the now-terrified bartender, mutters something that might have been "Bitch, please," into his drink.

Ashra, now satisfied that he has a quiet work environment, turns to the bartender. Unbeknownst to Ashra, he has several barrels of illegal coin in his back room, but has not been doing an exceedingly good business with legal tender. The bartender provides a small amount, which Ashra views with suspicion. While they hash out these details, Baudin seizes his chance and silently rolls the barrel of gold out of the room, ninjas past Ashra and the bartender, makes it out the door, and books it for the Jade Kraken. Ethan notices this and somehow manages not to laugh hysterically.

The conversation at the bar then proceeds thusly:

Ashra: "And what is in your back room?"

Bartender: "Er, just some barrels of ale, sir."

Ashra: "I should like to see this room, to ensure that your business has been conducted as you said."

Bartender: "Of course, sir."

The door is opened

Ashra: "I see no barrels."

Bartender (somewhere between panic and despair): "Ah, that is, um, business has been very good these last few days."

Ashra: "Very good then, I will expect to see this reflected in your next payment."

As Ashra turns to sweep out of the bar, the guardsmen recall what it was that they were doing: arresting Jenka. Yolanda gives up on diplomacy and attacks the guards, side by side with Ulfgar and Jenka's dogs. She and Ulfgar are both careful to punch the guards rather than use weapons, as killing Malvont city guards is such a bad idea that even Ulfgar recognizes it. Jenka ducks into the fireplace and climbs up the chimney with her bare hands. Ethan, in the futile hope that they can resolve this problem without further violence, throws a Cause Fear at the far side of the room in order to break up the fight. It affects everyone but Ulfgar and one of the guards, at which point Ethan walks into the melee and hauls Ulfgar and Yolanda away. The lone non-terrified guard attacks Ethan, and is horrified to realize that Ethan, while wounded, isn't bleeding. Ethan convinces Ulfgar and Yolanda that Granny will meet them at the boat if she's coming back, and they make their escape before any more of them are arrested or put in manacles.

Once they reach the ship, Ethan ends up with the fun job of explaining to Baudin that a lot of guards might be coming after them kind of soon, while Ulfgar and Yolanda wait anxiously on the docks for Granny to return. However, it is not Granny who appears, but Ashra. With a little bit of clever excuse-making, he finds his way onboard, allegedly to monitor Ulfgar's shackles, which belong to the city of Malvont. In truth, it is his adventurous nature taking over once again.

It soon becomes clear that if Granny is going to return, she won't reach the Jade Kraken before the Malvont guards do. Yolanda assures Ulfgar that Jenka probably has plenty of places to hide in Malvont, and they can ask Vishnu to intervene on her behalf if they must. The party quickly casts off and returns to their normal ship routine, yet again bound south. Hopefully by the time they return, this incident will be a footnote in someone's records. Hopefully.

Line of the Night: "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for the flying orc!" -- Ulfgar

Episode Eight: I Blow a Hole in the Ship

The first week or so of the journey south passes quietly enough for our heroes. Sam bakes some more pie, Ethan and Kytia squee over the fine academic points of the Libris Mortis together, and Yolanda wonders how her goats are getting on without her. Ashra lurks around wherever Ulfgar goes, making pointed comments about the manacles.

The good weather can't last forever, of course, and eventually the party finds themselves confronted with a storm on the horizon. The party makes preparations to sail through it, with mixed success: Ulfgar has an adventure in the rigging while trying to take down the sails, Yolanda experiments with what 'battening down the hatches' actually means, and Ethan tries to do ship-related things, panics, and hides below decks. Baudin, at the helm of the ship, wonders why he's the only one who can sail a ship worth a damn when his entire company is founded on intercontinental trading.

As storms go, it isn't too bad: Ulfgar rides it out in the crows-nest and only gets hit by lightning once, Yolanda and Baudin discover the benefits of tying themselves to the mast, and Sam, Ethan, and Ashra perfect their bucket brigade skills. They pass through the storm with minimal damage to the ship, manage to bail out most of the water, and continue onward.

The party is about a week off of the Southern Continent, pending weather, when Baudin yet again notices a hawk circling overhead. As hawks are generally not found this far from land, everyone begins to look around for where it might have come from. Ashra spots a possibility: a small ship is heading in their direction. Baudin takes a long look, recognizes the ship's colors, and has a serious oh shit moment: it's Aura Larellian.

(Ulfgar would like too make a not here that the small skiff pulling up alongside the boat appears to have noone onboard, but that the flag is recognized as belonging to Aura.)

Explanations are made for those who were not present during her last appearance: Aura has been less than friendly in the past, and she really doesn't like mindflayers. Ashra tactfully retreats below decks as she draws up beside the Jade Kraken. Baudin runs below decks like a little girl. Ethan also puts his cloak hood up to better conceal any signs of being less than living. Everyone else crowds around the railing for a better look, completely oblivious to the hawk ninjaing in over their heads.

(Ulfgar: There is no querry to the empty skiff, but Baudin retreats beneath decks with Ashra. Ulfgar jumps down into the skiff, alert for any ambushes, misses the skiff, and has to hawl his now soaked carcass up into the skiff. The hawk, unnoticed by anyone, also slips beneath decks, and thereupon casts the unfortunate fire spell, revealing that the hawk is Aura herself.) While Baudin normally has fantastic reflexes, he isn't quite up to par that day, and is consistently burned.

Ashra is repeatedly divebombed by Aura-the-hawk. Ulfgar tries to grapple the hawk as Baudin tries to escape the Flaming Sphere. The ship also catches fire, further trapping Baudin. Yolanda rigs up a bucket on a rope to fill with water, and Ashra and Sam yet again assume the role of bucket brigade. Ashra tries to mindblast the hawk as it heads above decks.

(Ulfgar: "As the hawk retreats back above deck, the other members of the party try to shoot it, and it retreats to the relative safety of the top of the mast, and begins to call lightning down from what had been a clear sky, targetting primarily Ashra and Ethan.")

By this time, Baudin is barely conscious, Sam is out of healing pie, and the ship is starting to burn more thoroughly. Everyone below decks realize that if things continue on as they are, they are so boned.

(Ulfgar: "I was still in Aura's skiff at this point, alongside the ship, and it was Yolanda who shouted from below decks, 'Ulfgar, we need you! (later realized by the party to be Yolanda's biggest mistake in phrasing) The ship is on fire and Baudin is unconscious...and on fire!' Yolanda apparently had the idea to use the soaked Ulfgar to put out the fire, perhaps wringing the water off of him in the process.")

"I blow a hole in the ship," Ulfgar announces.

"What?"

"I blow a hole in the ship!"

There is a brief hiatus as the fourth wall breaks. The DM and the players of Ashra and Baudin all retreat to their respective corners and return with hard liquor. Drinks are shared out among the players of Yolanda, Ethan, and Sam (who was a PC this episode). The DM pours out two shots of vodka, downs one, and places the other meaningfully on the table.

As gameplay resumes, Baudin's player meditatively pours capfuls of tequila into a mug. For five minutes.

(Ethan: Where were we? Ah. Right.)

Ulfgar draws the Shatterspike and explains that there is water outside the ship, and the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. With that, he swings the Shatterspike. It sings a high C upon contact with the hull of the ship, and blows a five-foot hole in it.

(Ulfgar: "You have to understand, this was a perfectly reasonable arrangement. It would have taken Ulfgar far to long to climb the mast of the skiff, jump onto the Kraken, and rush below-decks, assuming he made the jump.")

The water rushes in and extinguishes the fire, but Baudin is already dying, and the only person nearby is Ethan, who can't heal. By the time Sam arrives to heal him, Ashra at his heels, Baudin is dead. Sam and Ashra both rush upstairs to help deal with Aura and to find a way to repair the hull, leaving Ethan alone with Baudin's corpse and a gaping hole in the hull of the Jade Kraken.

(Ulfgar: "At this point, Ulfgar had returned to the deck of the ship, the fire out and the situation covered. Seeing the hawk still raining down lightning upon his companions, Ulfgar scaled the back of the mast, manacled hands and all, and promptly seized the hawk and plummeted out of the air with it into the ocean, using the hawk to break the skin of the ocean beneath him.  The hawk then transformed into an octopus and proceeded to try to strangle Ulfgar while underwater. Aura clearly hadn't checked the rumors of Ulfgar's endurance, or his swimming skill, and was clearly surprised when Ulfgar proceeded to ignore the stranglations, grab the octopus by the base of its giant head, and proceed to pummel it with extreme prejudice. It was at this point that Aura, realizing she might not be able to beat Ulfgar, transforms into a shark, freeing Ulfgar, and tries to flee into the depths. Ulfgar, fueled by the death of Baudin, refuses to give up, and grabs the dorsal fin of the shark, and proceeds to ride the shark (not jump it) down into the depths, launching fist after fist at the softer gills of the shark.")

Below decks, Ethan finally comes up with a solution, and summons two zombies to fill the hole in the hull. It is an imperfect seal, but water is trickling in rather than gushing. That taken care of, he turns to searching Baudin's corpse for the amulet piece that Baudin carries. Upon reflection and comparison to the way that he protects his own things, Ethan summons another zombie to perform the search for him. Amulet piece successfully stolen, he Ghoul Glyphs it, orders the zombie to take itself apart and better seal the hull with its body parts, and then goes looking for a bucket to bail out the several inches of water on the floor.

Aura and Ulfgar are still grappling each other, and they quickly go deeper than the dolphin can follow. Aura changes into a squid, but Ulfgar not only refuses to drown, but refuses to let go. Eventually Ulfgar is so fatigued by his underwater wrestling that Aura escapes, and Sam's dolphin carries him up to the surface just as he begins to drown.

(Ulfgar: "Riding the shark turned out to be fun, but Aura finally managed to slip free from Ulfgar just before Ulfgar would have taken her out...or so he continues to believe. As he saw the shark flee into the darkness, which didn't take that long that far down, a friendly dolphin takes Ulfgar back to the surface, saving him from drowning, but giving him the bends in return.")

(Ethan: "THAT IS NOT HOW THE BENDS WORK. THAT WAS YOUR OWN FAULT. THE MAST THING WAS ENTIRELY REASONABLE. CAPSLOCK.")

Ethan summons a larger zombie to help Yolanda and Ulfgar back up onto the boat from the skiff, and Ashra levitates back up. Sam tends to Ulfgar, who has taken a good deal of both lethal and nonlethal damage in addition to having a wicked case of the bends. Ulfgar, never one to be stopped by such pitiful things as the failings of his own body, tries to get up and move around. A natural 20 on a Use Rope check later, Ulfgar is tied upside down to the mast of the ship until he stops injuring himself further. Baudin's corpse is moved out of the water onto a bunk, and a bucket brigade is yet again formed to bail out the ship. Yolanda and Sam then take the door off of the captain's cabin and nail it over the zombies. Sam casts Mend a few times for good measure.

The ship being patched up as well as it can be, Ethan turns to the matter of Ulfgar. He explains that perhaps Ulfgar shouldn't carry one of the amulet pieces, since Ulfgar is so brave and daring that he will cheerfully risk life and limb for his friends. While this is an admirable trait, it can have the downside of a powerful magical item risking disappearing every time something happens to Ulfgar. Ulfgar did deliberately leave the Shatterspike behind, so clearly he appreciates the value of such powerful magical items. Ethan offers to hold onto the amulet piece and subsequently give it to Baudin after his resurrection. Yolanda eventually negotiates such that she keeps Ulfgar's amulet piece for Baudin, and Ethan will hold onto what once was Baudin's amulet piece. Thus, Ulfgar is free to grapple sharks five hundred feet underwater without fear of losing anything important.

Those of the party who are still ambulatory gather on deck and all stare at the helm blankly. Eventually Ethan asks if any of the others have ever sailed a ship before. The answer is a resounding no. Ethan has, but just remembering that is enough to kick off the special headaches. Ashra and Yolanda are willing to give it a try. They manage to get the Jade Kraken pointed in the right direction and set off yet again, hoping that wherever they find land, they also find a cleric.

Line of the Night: "I blow a hole in the ship."

Best Idea of the Night: "Hey, can I summon zombies into the hole?"

Worst Idea of the Night: "I blow a hole in the ship."

Episode Nine: For Great Justice!

Or, I Roll Intimidate, You Roll Diplomacy, or, The Most Epic Game of Double Dragon Ante Ever

The party manages to wrestle the ship all the way to a shore that they're pretty sure doesn't belong to either Malvont or the Northern Continent. They sail along the shore until they see a decently-sized civilization. Deciding that in Baudin's absence, Yolanda and Ethan will be first and second in command, they send the two of them ashore to find provisions and a cleric. They come across a temple small enough that the door is only five feet tall. Ethan, being the shorter of the two by far, ducks inside.

A halfling cleric meets Ethan there, is startled to find visitors, and eventually permits Yolanda to crawl inside as well. He introduces himself as Alton Hilltopple and asks what business they have in the deserted town of Yarmoth. They explain that their captain met with a tragic accident involving an angry ex-girlfriend, a Flaming Sphere, and a Shatterspike while at sea, and they want him resurrected. Alton names a price well above what either Yolanda or Ethan are able to pay. Yolanda and Ethan exchange glances, Yolanda rolls an intimidate check, and Ethan rolls a diplomacy check. Some good cop-bad cop-ing later, they learn that the reason for the emptiness of the town is that Neogi mind-spiders have recently come through and enslaved most of the town's occupants. After hearing about their battle prowess, Alton offers a trade: he will resurrect their leader if their band will then go to the Neogi ships, free the people of Yarmoth, and drive away the Neogi leader Neax Hiss. Yolanda and Ethan kind of look at each other again, then shrug and agree. They each offer collateral of fancy magical items that they weren't particularly using and value less than having someone around who can actually sail the damn ship, which Alton happily accepts. Alton also asks that Jose Freespirit, a human wrestler and longtime friend of his family, accompany them. He lived in the halfling town, was abducted and badly injured during the Neogi invasion, and only barely managed to escape back to the temple and recuperate. Jose wants revenge, so he might as well go with the party.

Yolanda and Ethan bring their new guests back to the ship, whereupon Jose and his bear cub companion acquaint themselves with the other members of the party and Yolanda and Ethan escort Alton down to Baudin's corpse. Alton first requests an item of personal significance to Baudin so that he can find to what plane Baudin went. Ethan disenchants the amulet piece he took from Baudin and lets Alton touch it, though does not let him hold it. This is sufficient to let Alton contact Baudin and bring him back. Alton steps back as Yolanda and Ethan explain what happened after Baudin died, and Yolanda gives him Ulfgar's amulet piece. Baudin is not terribly pleased that they've agreed to go fight against the Neogi, especially since he thinks he might have done some weapons trading with them before. Yolanda and Ethan quietly assure him that they only gave Alton collateral that they don't particularly care about, and they can probably deal with Jose somehow if they need to do so.

Baudin sweeps off to inspect his ship and his crew. He cries a little inside when he discovers the methods that his employees have used to patch the hull, is startled to find that Ashra is still there, and chats with with Ulfgar while said dwarf is still tied upside down to the mast. Meanwhile, Ethan and Yolanda return Alton to Yarmoth. By the time they get back, Baudin has resigned himself to doing this in style. After a detour to remove the manacles from Ulfgar's person without damaging their mechanism, as per Ashra's request, they set off along the coast to find the nearby Neogi settlement.

Some miles along the coast, the party spots a ship of very peculiar construction: it is large, entirely on land, and made of shiny metal. They weigh anchor, leaving the Jade Kraken in the care of Sam and Kytia, and head over the beach towards this vessel. They are allowed into a front room by virtue of Baudin's name, and find six small square tiles there, with a strange symbol on each side on one of the faces. The party has just started to puzzle over these tiles when the door shuts behind them and the room begins to fill with poisonous gas. Sentences begin to flash on the wall in various languages, and Baudin suddenly remembers something very important about the Neogi. Before one does business with the Neogi, one needs to complete a 'memory puzzle'; that is, a puzzle that is easily solved so long as you remember how the solution works. This is one such puzzle, but since Baudin still has a couple of gaping holes in his memory, he hasn't the faintest as to how this one works. Ulfgar makes a contingency plan of using the Shatterspike to ventilate the room if need be, and the party sets to work.

(Ulfgar would like to point out that the door was only thick steel, and that he did take the door down when Yolanda fell to the poison, before she died. However, the puzzle was solved immediately after, preventing the neogi's minions from attacking the party. Note: Neax Hiss later replaces the door with one of Mythril, to which Ulfgar laughs maniacally when he finds out.)

Guided by the hints of 'three', 'nine', 'perfection' and the realization that this is a puzzle of Celestial nature, Baudin eventually rediscovers the trick: the tiles must be put together into a cube, with all of the sides matching according to their symbols. Ethan assembles the cube.

The party staggers back outside, and Neax Hiss himself assures a very grumpy Baudin that he and his crew are invited to a refreshingly poison-gas-free dinner later that day, and that he will be more than happy to talk business with them then. Baudin sighs and leads the party back to the ship, whereupon he encourages everyone to bathe and maybe even change clothes if they're feeling particularly daring (or civilized). Sam and Kytia decline to have dinner with a notorious gambler and slave trader, instead opting for a quiet night on the ship with books and pie. Jose drops the soap several times, but the only response is widespread envy that he has soap at all to drop.

As the party reassembles on the deck, Baudin gathers them around with a smile and reminds them that the Neogi are notorious gamblers, and that if they are very clever, they might be able to walk away with the sword, a new ship, and the liberation of Yarmoth, all in one night, and at no cost to them. The trick is to think of the best gambling games that a weapons dealer, a goatherd, a dwarf recovering from the bends, an undead mage, a mindflayer, and a professional wrestler could possibly play.

Ulfgar says, "Drinking games!"

Ashra says, "Mind games!"

Ethan says, "Both!"

Deciding that more contingency plans are better, the party devises various ways of gambling to their own strengths, from the traditional 'Ulfgar drinks it under the table' to the more esoteric 'Ashra convinces them there never was a game to be played at all'. Plans concocted, the party yet again sets out for the Neogi settlement.

Dinner starts out pleasantly enough; Jose practices rigorous control and manages not to hurdle the table and tackle Neax Hiss, Ethan is very good at pretending to eat like a real person, and Baudin learns that Neax Hiss does, in fact, have the Sacred Burst longsword that he seeks for Vishnu. With that, the games begin, though the first few are more like exhibition matches. Ashra volunteers to be the first to demonstrate the luck and skill of Baudin's company, and proposes a game of minds: he and Neax Hiss will each select a follower, and the person whose follower refuses to perform an action first loses. Yolanda agrees to act as Ashra's 'follower', as she has no shame and a healthy regard for what will make an awesome story to tell to her buddies later. Neax Hiss brings out his own slave in turn: Alton Hilltopple. The party hides their shock as best they can, and the battle of will begins.

Neax Hiss tells Ashra to force Yolanda to grovel, which she cheerfully does. Ashra returns the request, but despite Neax Hiss's formidable mental prowess, Alton refuses (with a natural 20). Neax Hiss accepts his loss, and flings Alton into a conveniently nearby pit. The party realizes that they might now be free of their promise to liberate Yarmoth, but that they are also in deep shit if this meeting goes awry. Jose's bear bites him in the ankle to keep him from tangling with Neax Hiss.

Baudin, unnerved, suggests to the party that for their next trick, they go with the 'safe' bet of proposing Ethan for a drinking game rather than Ulfgar. As the party's mental state ranges from 'enraged' (Jose) to 'mildly put out' (Ashra), this goes over well with everyone but Ulfgar, who thinks it would be a waste of liquor. A dinner course later, Baudin suggests this next game. Neax Hiss looks Ethan over and agrees, with the condition that each party chooses what the other drinks. Baudin chooses Absynthium Orientals, a liquor similar in preparation and effect to the potent Wolves' Milk. Neax Hiss sends out a massive bugbear as his chosen slave, and chooses Lichbane.

The party, as one, telepathically goes oh shit. Ulfgar takes the opportunity to remind everyone that this is why you don't send the undead to do a dwarf's drinking game.

The contestants each take their first shot. The bugbear discovers that his hands are fascinatingly handlike, and Ethan discovers that wisdom damage makes him as giggly as alcohol used to while he was alive. Several shots later, the bugbear is out cold and dreaming of dancing pink owlbears, and Ethan takes the opportunity to pretend to pass out. Ulfgar scrapes him off the floor, chides him for letting good alcohol go to waste, and puts him on the floor under the party's table instead.

Meal and preliminary games concluded, Baudin and Neax Hiss begin to discuss the sword. The party has impressed him with their feats thus far, but not nearly enough to get a Sacred Burst longsword and a new ship out of it. Baudin refrains from bringing up the topic of Yarmoth, to Jose's displeasure, but his first concern is getting the sword and thence a ship with which to take the sword back to Vishnu. Neax Hiss would accept the trade-in of the Jade Kraken in its current condition on top of the entertainment that Baudin's crew has provided him in exchange for another ship, but the sword must be a separate transaction in that case. Baudin takes a moment to telepathically raid the party's coffers and finds that all he has is a little over a thousand GP, a few masterwork weapons and wands, a wad of Malvont Dollars, and more Wolves' Milk than he ever knew he'd been accidentally smuggling into Malvont. If he wants to get really desperate, Ethan is worth a fair amount as a curiosity. This is not nearly sufficient for a Sacred Burst longsword, Baudin realizes, and decides to start gambling. Neax Hiss agrees gladly, and offers Baudin a game of Double Dragon Ante. Baudin accepts, and the games begin.

First, Baudin resolves the issue of transportation: he wagers the Jade Kraken in a bet for a new ship, and wins. That settled, he now must come up with something that Neax Hiss would accept as equal value for a Sacred Burst longsword. Baudin ponders this, and then smiles and informs Neax Hiss that he will bet himself, and also Ethan if necessary, in exchange for the Sacred Burst longsword.

Neax Hiss just about jizzes himself in glee over such a fucking ballsy bet, accepts Baudin's wager of his own life readily, and the game begins.

Two minutes later, a mortal has finally appeared on the board, the cards are counted up, and Baudin is the winner.

Baudin declines to stay and gamble some more, to Neax Hiss's disappointment, but explains that he's a busy man, now: he has a ship to select, goods to transport from one ship to another, a weapon to bring to a patron, and a lieutenant who is no longer capable of moving on his own. Neax Hiss sends Baudin off with another slave to select a new ship, and reminds him to come back any time he feels like making a similar bet.

Baudin, Yolanda, and Ulfgar consider the ships that the Neogi present them, and eventually settle on a slightly faster ship with greater storage space than the Jade Kraken has. They christen her the Jade Kraken II, and Yolanda and Ulfgar coordinate the move of their belongings from one ship to the other while Baudin goes back for his new Sacred Burst longsword. It turns out that only a good-aligned person can touch this sword comfortably, and so Jose volunteers to carry it as needed, if Baudin will promise to one day return and free Yarmoth. Baudin, nursing his now somewhat singed hand, agrees. They also pick up a few crates of grain to take back north with them.

The next day dawns clear. Baudin contacts Vishnu via the Speakstone to inform him of the party's success, and the party sets off north to Malvont City, guided by Jose's navigational skills. Ulfgar and Yolanda assure Jose that taking on Neax Hiss as they are now would be folly and would inevitably end in death or enslavement, but if he is patient, he will be able to build up his strength and free his home. Ethan tries to say something helpful about waiting five years for revenge and still waiting, actually, but as he is unable to form coherent sentences, this doesn't work out so well for him.

Baudin and Jose confer and decide that, weather permitting and barring the interference of any more angry druid ex-girlfriends, they'll make it to Malvont in two or three weeks. Baudin also demands that the Shatterspike be tied into its sheath for the duration of the trip unless he specifies otherwise. In triplicate. In writing. With the cosignatures of Yolanda, Ashra, and Ethan.

Episode Ten: Look! The Cliffs of Des-- ULFGAR GET BACK HERE

Our merry band makes good time on their way back to Malvont, partly due to their new ship, and partly due to good weather. It's a relatively restful trip, leaving Baudin's crew plenty of time to eat pie, think about how best to continue weapons trade around the budding international incident that Baldur is stirring up, and get to know their new companion. Jose and his bear are none too thrilled to be suddenly adventuring far from his enemies and in the company of aberrations, undead, and Baudin, but opportunities to grow stronger are opportunities to grow stronger, after all. Ethan spends the entire trip recovering from colossal wisdom damage. By the time they are in Malvont waters, he's just about functional again. He might even be able to go five minutes without falling down one of these days.

The crew is still a ways out from the Malvont City docks when the weather finally turns sour on them. Fortunately, they are close to the island off of the coast of Malvont proper where all of the temples are located. It is not a particularly hospitable island, but as the party draws up to its southern shore, they see a staircase winding up along the imposing cliffs. Faced with making their way up the stairs in none too pleasant weather or with staying on the ship in same, Baudin decides to strike out onto the island and see if he can find hospitality there. Not only are there several temples who might be inclined to harbor travelers so long as half of the party keeps their cloak hoods up, but Baudin has heard of a strange and wondrous place called The Hall of Many Things that is somewhere on the island as well. As they have made good time, Baudin estimates that they just might have time to make a detour before Vishnu starts to wonder where they are.

The party weighs anchor, leaves the ship in the care of Kytia, and sets out across the beach. The rain is light at this point, but the sky is very dark to the north. The party has a healthy respect for their collective lack of climbing skills, and so rope themselves together for their ascent. Ulfgar leads the way, unfettered by being tied to any party member. Baudin goes second, tied to Jose and Sam. Ethan is next, followed by Ashra, and Yolanda brings up the rear. It is a slow crawl up the stairs, and everyone slips and needs to be caught at least twice (except Ulfgar). Upon one momentous occasion, Ashra falls over so spectacularly that by the time Yolanda and Ethan haul him back up, he has developed a morbid fascination with the undead. Ethan considers the merits of untying himself and hiding behind Baudin. Shortly after that, Baudin falls over so hard that when he recovers, he thinks Ashra is his deity. As Baudin had long since eschewed religion in favor of fine print, this does not make him regard Ashra with any particular favor.

By this point, Ulfgar has struck out ahead in fabulous style, already halfway up the cliff and showing no signs of stopping. Though he slips once or twice, he takes the falling damage like a man and soldiers on ahead. While the party repeatedly asks him to stay back and help them, Ulfgar feels it would be more beneficial overall to scout ahead and ensure that nothing is waiting to ambush them at the top of the cliffs. As the storm intensifies, the rest of the party finds themselves struggling just to keep their footing, let alone make progress, but Ulfgar is so far ahead that he cannot hear them when they ask him to return.

Ulfgar makes it to the top and quickly locates both a tower and a large, low building with an entryway lined with columns. He investigates the entryway of the building, finds it empty, and then turns to the tower. This, he finds, is inhabited: an Aasimar cleric meets him at the door and, while not unsympathetic to Ulfgar's plight, is still not entirely persuaded to let him in. Shortly thereafter, the rest of the party makes it to the top of the cliff, untie themselves, and look around for Ulfgar.

Some wandering around later on both sides, Ulfgar is reunited with the party, whereupon he receives a blistering tirade in a variety of languages about the merits of not leaving one's friends to fall off of a cliff and die. Ulfgar shrugs this off and brings the drenched and miserable party to the tower.

The cleric introduces himself as Shiolay, a cleric of St. Cuthbert, formerly of Nyasa but currently in the service of Malvont City. While he allows Baudin, Sam, Ulfgar, and Jose to rest in the front chamber, he and Yolanda do not hit it off, and he asks that she instead stay at the nearby hall instead. Further, while cloaks will hide many things, Shiolay soon notices the mindflayer and the now not-very-made-up undead trying to look inconspicuous at the back of the group, and tells them to keep Yolanda company. The three of them decide not to press the issue, and head out for the building nearby. They suspect, based on Baudin's hints, that it might be the entrance to The Hall of Many Things, so they might as well take the opportunity to investigate.

Baudin and Ulfgar stick close to the fire in the front room, drying off their clothes and kvetching at each other as they eat what is left of Sam's pie. They soon go to sleep, and therefore miss the ensuing events.

Jose and Shiolay talk about the Sacred Burst Longsword that Jose is carrying for the party. It turns out that Shiolay himself is in this tower for a purpose, and has been living alone for quite some time. He rebuffs Jose's offers of companionship for the night and goes to turn in, whereupon he runs into Sam. A critical success on a charisma check later, Jose and his bear sneak upstairs to watch Eon's second ever sex roleplaying. At one point, a two is rolled. Half a mile away, Yolanda finds that her magnificent breasts are now two sizes larger. Ethan, Ashra, and Yolanda are all alarmed at the sudden onset of random magical effects, and Ashra goes back towards the tower and tries to listen in telepathically to make sure that nothing is going wrong. He returns, wishing desperately to un-know what he has just learned, and Ethan and Yolanda quickly regret asking him for details anyway.

Back at the tower, one impressive feat of stamina on Shiolay's part later, Sam takes his leave with an exhortation for Shiolay to keep in touch. Shiolay passes the rest of the night reevaluating his sexuality, never noticing that Jose and his bear have been watching him from the stairs the entire time.

The next morning, Baudin coaxes Shiolay to let Yolanda, Ethan, and Ashra in long enough for him to make plans with his company. Jose, noting that the group is now completely assembled, then announces that he won't return the Sacred Burst Longsword to Baudin unless Baudin swears in writing to return to free Yarmoth, and will instead give it to Shiolay. Yolanda, Ulfgar, and Ethan try to sit everyone down to talk out the logistics of this, but Baudin instead overrules them and draws up two contracts that specify that his people will not harm Jose or Shiolay, so long as they accompany him and carry the Sacred Burst Longsword for him. While he, Shiolay, and Jose set about signing and sealing these contracts, Ethan, Yolanda, and Ulfgar have an impromptu lieutenants' meeting: Yolanda and Ulfgar are pissed that Baudin refuses to let them have any input on the contracts, and Ethan is furious that Baudin is ignoring the part where Ethan is working for him strictly for fun and games. He has never been paid above and beyond taking what money he needs for the company from the party pool, and Yolanda and Ulfgar realize that they haven't been paid since before they went to King's Reach. They decide that, therefore, Baudin's contract has no claim on them, and plan to take their boss aside for a little sit-down sometime soon. Sam, undisturbed by party politics, heads back to the ship with a smile and some fresh fruit.

Baudin brushes off any and all complaints and sets the newly expanded party in the direction of the Hall of Many Things. They have plenty of time before Vishnu will expect them back, and they might even make it out with far more to sell to Vishnu than they had originally planned. As he leads the way, still discussing the finer points of his contracts with Jose and Shiolay, Ashra joins Baudin's three lieutenants and notes that he isn't a part of Baudin's company per se, being an employee of the government of Malvont City, and has Baudin thought about this at all? Ethan, Yolanda, and Ulfgar look at each other for a bit, and then Ethan begins to form a plan.

(Notes: Shiolay had a greater purpose for being in that tower -- was it a lighthouse? -- but I can't remember what it was. Also, I think this was the bombshell that Jose dropped at the end of the session, but I can't remember precisely what the details were.)

Episode Eleven: The Hall of Many Things, Part I: Spikes! On the Side of My Face!

The party makes their way through the entry hall and down a flight of stairs, where they find an unlocked door. Baudin tentatively enters, his crew not far behind, and finds a chubby, middle-aged cleric cooking bacon, and a rather pained-looking paladin standing guard by a door on the far side of the room. Baudin introduces himself, and explains that he's looking for The Hall of Many Things. The man cracks up, tells them that the door is over there, and they're welcome to try to get through it. He continues to eat breakfast as the party, bemused, inspects the door. While Baudin sets to work trying to pick the lock, the rest of the party chats up the paladin. Her name is Sil'meelen, but the man she's guarding insists on calling her Silia, to her great displeasure.

Meanwhile, Baudin discovers that he is sorely lacking in lockpicks, as his rogue background is far more inclined towards clever business deals than outright theft. The party rummages through their belongings for some improvised materials, and eventually Ethan finds some tools that might be useful among his alchemy kit. Sil'meelen assists, as she learned several tricks prior to her employment by Malvont that help Baudin remember how to pick locks. The two of them eventually get the door open, and the party gathers around to look into the next room. They see a room of smooth, worked stone, with a deep pit in the center and a couple of scattered, decomposed corpses. There are no doors visible, so they have to go further into the room to look around. Baudin ventures in, and eventually finds the door: twenty feet down in the pit, and there are spikes at the bottom. If he looks carefully, he sees something shining deep between the spikes.

It is then that Baudin realizes that the ceiling is dropping in on him, and the ceiling also has spikes. He jumps back for the door, rolls through, and the door closes after him.

The man living there is impressed by the party not only getting the door open, but not being instantly killed by walking into the next room, and by then has also learned that at least half of the party has some interest in protecting Malvont. He asks Sil'meelen to accompany them, so that they might have help in trying to find wondrous items in the Hall that could help the defense of Malvont from Baldur. Sil'meelen isn't terribly enthusiastic about braving a room full of moving spikes, but she does want to help Malvont, and so agrees.

Meanwhile, Baudin picks the lock open again, and the party rushes in to try to find a way to get to the door at the bottom of the pit before the spikes kill them all. Wacky hijinks ensue with various party members learning to grab onto the spikes and ride them down as they descend, with mixed results. Everyone is injured at least once, and there are several mad rushes back and forth through the door as they try several methods of getting to the door below. They soon discover that not only does the ceiling come down on them, but the pit of spikes below moves up and covers the door. It seems that they will have to somehow survive long enough for the pit to come up to them, get between the spikes, ride it down, and get through the door before the ceiling crushes them again. They also notice that the back of the door reads

Shiny and round, I shine with pale light

Once you have me, I'm a gnome's delight

in various different languages, which cycle as they watch. The party gets onto a tangent about the kinds of fruit that gnomes like, at which point the ceiling starts coming in again.

Ulfgar decides to check that the door isn't locked, and tries to jump down into the pit while angling himself between the spikes. He isn't entirely successful, but does manage to get the door open. The Shatterspike may have made acquaintance with the lock. He also tries to grab for the small shiny thing, but it is thoroughly wedged in between the spikes. It then follows for the rest of the party to get to him.

Sil'meelen and Yolanda try to follow in the same fashion. While Yolanda makes it down relatively unharmed, Sil'meelen falls on the spikes. Yolanda tries to reach her before the ceiling spikes come down, but ultimately cannot, and can only fling herself through the door to meet Ulfgar just in time to avoid impalement. Sil'meelen tries to avoid the spikes, but is again impaled. Badly wounded, she falls unconscious, and when the spikes retract enough for Yolanda and Ulfgar to rescue her, she doesn't seem to be breathing.

The rest of the party ducked back through the door while this occurred, but now must figure out how to get down. Ashra takes the opportunity to levitate down to the door as the spikes retract, but Jose, Ethan, Baudin, and Shiolay have no such recourse. Having seen Sil'meelen brutalized by the spikes, the four are hesitant to try to dodge the spikes as Ulfgar and Yolanda did. It is then that Ulfgar sees Sil'meelen move just a bit, and shouts up to the rest of the party that she's still alive and needs a healer right away.

Both Baudin and Shiolay can heal, but they are still at the top of the pit. Ethan, remembering the last unorthodox solution he came up with, then starts summoning large zombies into the pit to form a gruesome cushion of flesh. Not only do the zombies lessen the fall distance slightly, but also cover the spikes such that none of the four will have to avoid them as they jump. Baudin and Shiolay jump down first in order to reach Sil'meelen. Jose, his bear, and Ethan quickly follow as the ceiling begins to descend again, Ethan still summoning zombies to catch him as he falls.

Yolanda, Ulfgar, and Ashra quickly help the four through the door as the bottom of the pit begins to rise up to meet the falling ceiling. Once inside, they all catch their breath as Shiolay and Baudin both heal Sil'meelen. It turns out that she took one point of subdual damage from being hit in the head by a pebble before she went into the Hall, and that was enough to make it seem as though she had died. Once Sil'meelen is restored to health, the party starts giggling in relief that they're all alive and go around kind of clapping each other on the back. They seem to be in a relatively safe space, although it is cramped. They decide to stop to eat and recover a bit before exploring further, getting out Everburning Torches and casting Light spells as they do so.

Soon, the party is fed, healed, and ready to rock. They continue down the hallway and find themselves in another room, this one with several doors branching off of it. One door leads to a room full of shiny treasure, another door opens onto a room with no discernible floor, and a third door leads into another hallway with several doors, one of which is in the middle of the room. Somehow.

The party first turns to the room full of gold and shiny treasure. Sil'meelen and Baudin quickly ascertain that both the floor and the ceiling are not fixed, and are probably weight-sensitive. However, it looks possible for someone to reach the back of the room and tilt the floor enough that the coins could come sliding out. The treasure will be harder to obtain, though. The party is reluctant to walk into a room where the floor could drop away at the slightest provocation, but Shiolay and Ethan are both capable of summoning. Shiolay's creatures are far more dexterous than Ethan's zombies, and so summons a monkey at the back of the room to tilt the room as needed. He first tries to get the monkey to recover the treasure chests and various other items on pedestals. They suspect that the treasures on the pedestals might also be pressure-sensitive, so if they want to remove anything, they'll have to put something of equal weight onto the pedestal. The monkey does manage to bring back a mask shaped like the symbol of Olidammara, but when it tries to bring back a treasure chest, it fails catastrophically and triggers both the floor trap and the pedestal trap. The party manages to scoop money out of the room as the floor tilts down and the ceiling crashes down. Unlike the room with the spikes, the ceiling never retracts, and the party gives up on the room in favor of dividing the piles of gold coins on the floor.

Upon closer inspection, they find that all of the coins have a :D face on them, and writing around the outside: NERULLETMARRARESTCUTHBERT. The placement of the spacing is somewhat debatable, especially as it is written in the characters used by Celestial, Infernal, Abyssal, and Draconic. As Ethan speaks three of these four languages fluently and can pick out words in the fourth, he starts puzzling over the various ways the words could be interpreted, though none of the languages yield one coherent sentence. The Infernal spacing is NERULL ETMAR RAE ST CUTHBERT, the Abyssal spacing is NERULL ET MARRA ESTCU THEBERT, and the Draconic spacing is NE RULLET MARRA[R]E ST CUTHBERT. He, Ashra, and Shiolay discuss what the Celestial interpretation might be, with similar results: NERULL ET MARRA EST CUTHBERT.

Ethan decides that the Abyssal is the most likely language (p.s. it's abyssal): ESTCU THEBERT translates to "made a deal", and MARRA means "Olidammara". As the party heads for the room with multiple doors in it, Ethan continues studying the coins and rearranging letters, as pieces of each sentence in the languages other than Abyssal make some sense, but he can't form a coherent whole. When he explains that the most likely translation is "Nerull and Olidammara made a deal", Ulfgar, Yolanda, and Baudin all notice the similarity to the text around the outside of the amulet they carry: St. Cuthbert has fallen. Nerull will rule all men.

The party is distracted from further coin-related ruminations by all of the strange doors in the next room. In particular, there is a door in the middle of the room that seemingly leads to nowhere, but closer inspection reveals that this is a Dimension Door. The party starts poking around the room and investigating the other doors. Shiolay gets a little too close to the Dimension Door at one point and is badtouched by a pair of ghostly hands. Not long after that, Yolanda decides that it's time to act. She tells Ulfgar, Ashra, and Ethan that she thinks it's showtime. As she is speaking Orc, Baudin is the only other person other than those three who can understand her, but by the time he starts asking what she means by that, things are already getting interesting.

Yolanda and Ulfgar go to restrain Shiolay while Ashra tries to restrain Jose. Shiolay backs into a corner and casts Sanctuary, Jose is mindblasted but his bear begins to savage Ashra, Baudin and Sil'meelen each scream variations on "What the fuck is happening here?", and Ethan does nothing. When he notices that Ashra may die from the bear-inflicted injuries, he does try to shake the bear off with a Magic Missile to the back, but this does nothing, and no one notices it.

Ulfgar manages to pull the bear off of Ashra, but Yolanda doesn't stop trying to remove the Sacred Burst Longsword from Shiolay's person. Eventually Shiolay panics and runs for the Dimension Door, flings it open, and jumps through with the sword. He emerges in Celestalia, to his delight: a noted two that he had rolled earlier while working with his summoned monkey made it such that when he next planeshifted, he automatically went to the plane to which he most wanted to go. Ulfgar jumps into Celestalia after him, and Shiolay makes sure that Sanctuary is still cast and keeps running.

At that point, an Astral Deva appears, looks at the chaos below, and orders everyone to calm the fuck down. Everyone calms the fuck down and kneels, as this order was against a DC 30 will save. The Deva throws Shiolay, Ulfgar, and the sword out of Celestalia and slams the door after them.

Ethan finally goes over to Baudin and says that everyone needs to stop attacking each other and talk now; the four of them planned this rather dramatic intervention in case Jose and Shiolay had ulterior motives or otherwise planned to harm the company under the guise of the no-harm contract, especially as they're carrying the very special item that Baudin wagered his life to get. Baudin is furious that his subordinates broke said contract, at which point each of them point out that they really aren't his direct, contracted subordinates, and that's another thing that they need to negotiate. He takes the attack of opportunity as Ethan gets closer, which Ethan ignores, and is generally unimpressed by his lieutenants' overtures. Eventually he turns and starts walking towards the Dimension Door. Ethan and Yolanda are both in his way, and they both realize his intention and try to grab him. Baudin evades both of them, throws the Dimension Door open, and walks away into a hall lined with dark tapestries and columns.

The door closes after him, and when Ethan opens the door again, both Baudin and the plane to which he went are gone.

Episode Twelve: The Hall of Many Things, Part II: Mirror Mirror Tricky Tricky

Stunned and shaken, Baudin's crew sit down and start to work out what they're going to do now that they're leaderless, at odds with each other, and stuck on the other side of a room full of moving spikes and a shit-ton of the party's blood. As everyone gathers around, Ethan picks up Baudin's discarded speakstone, calls Vishnu, and leaves a message: they have the Sacred Burst Longsword, and Baudin is no longer on the Prime Material Plane.

Jose says he'll follow Shiolay, who is currently the only person he trusts. Shiolay, in turn, says he only trusts Ethan, who was the only person to essentially remain neutral in the conflict. Ulfgar, Yolanda, and Ashra also say they'll trust Ethan to decide what they should do next, and Sil'meelen agrees both with Shiolay and with whatever will help her protect Malvont. Ethan decides that everyone will work the fuck together until they get out of the Hall, otherwise they will all probably die or go insane. He then proposes a structure for once they make it out: Yolanda will then become the official leader of Baudin's company in his absence, and that he will act as Yolanda's second in command and as the business manager of the company. Ulfgar will be Yolanda's lieutenant. As Ashra and Sil'meelen are both in the employ of Malvont, Ethan says that he has no claim over them. Similarly, Jose and Shiolay are invited to stay on with the company under terms to be later dictated, but they too have no obligation to him. Jose, Shiolay, Ashra, and Sil'meelen all agree to decide whether or not to part ways with the company once outside the Hall. Until then, they'll work together. Ethan also tells Shiolay that he trusts him to carry the Sacred Burst Longsword on his behalf, and Shiolay agrees to return it to Ethan's possession should he leave the company. Ethan says he'll be responsible for the actions of Yolanda, Ulfgar, and Ashra, if Shiolay will be responsible for those of Jose and Sil'meelen, and Shiolay acquiesces.

That settled, the party goes back to the door that opened onto a pit and start to investigate it. As the door opens inward, Ethan becomes curious about what is on the other side of the door. He summons a zombie, tells it to give him one of its arms, wedges a mirror into its hand, and uses that to look around the door.

Reflected in the mirror are the words mirror mirror tricky tricky.

The party looks at each other, and then as one dash back to the door to the room with the spikes and look at the back of that door. Ulfgar reads the words off of the mirror to everyone else:

Tears without tea.

Years without you. Why?

Why be?

The party debates what this could mean as they go back to the room with the Dimension Door. They avoid the Door itself, instead going to one of the doors that are actually in the walls. They first check the back of the door in Ethan's mirror, find mirror mirror tricky tricky again, and turn to the room on the other side. It is small, and Sil'meelen thinks there is something odd about it. Namely, it might move. Ashra, pointing out that he can levitate if the floor drops out from under him, offers to go into the room and see what happens. The party agrees to this, and Ashra ventures forth. As Sil'meelen predicted, the room drops down a shaft in its entirety, moving very quickly. Ashra tries to catch himself with levitation, but he can't manage to hover above the floor without crashing into the ceiling, so he hangs on and hopes that this isn't actually a death trap.

The lift jolts to a halt about a hundred feet down, dealing Ashra a bit of damage, and he levitates out and into a room full of treasure chests spaced between columns. He tries to contact the party above, but as he's separated from them by distance and stone, he can't reach them. He floats around the room, but doesn't want to touch the treasure chests for fear of setting off more traps like in the treasure room above. He goes back to the lift, only to see it rise away and leave him behind.

The reason for this is that Ulfgar, concerned, decided to jump down onto the lift and see if he could find Ashra. He manages to climb down without killing himself, but as soon as he touches the top of the lift, it starts rocketing back up. Ulfgar barely manages to dive back into the room before he is crushed against the ceiling of the shaft. As the party doesn't see Ashra's corpse in the lift, they suspect that he probably survived the descent, so Yolanda and Ulfgar try using the lift in the traditional method. As it starts down, Sil'meelen jumps onto the top of the lift so she can get a look at anything that might be written on the walls of the shaft. Ashra greets them and warns them that he hasn't tried actually walking on the floor before, but Ulfgar determines that doing so does not trigger any obvious traps. He and Yolanda exit the lift, which shoots back up again, forcing Sil'meelen to make a flying leap off of the lift before she is crushed to death. She reports that she didn't hear any heinous screams, and as Yolanda and Ulfgar are gone, they probably made it out of the lift all right. Shiolay and Ethan try the lift next, also take a bit of damage upon landing, and also start to explore the room below. They are joined by Jose, Sil'meelen, and the bear in short order, and Sil'meelen and Ulfgar start cracking open chests.

In the first chest, they find seven mirrors. The mirrors seem innocuous enough, but given the Hall's predilection for having strange phrases visible only in mirrors, they suspect they might also be their keys out of there. They divide up the mirrors thus: the first to Ashra, the second to Sil'meelen, the third and sixth to Ethan, the fourth and seventh to Shiolay, and the fifth to Jose. Yolanda and Ulfgar decline to take mirrors, as they suspect it would just end in broken glass and cursing. In one of the other chests, they discover a sword and a jewel that ought to fit into its hilt, both with an evil aura. After some study, Ethan discovers that it is a Sword of Lesser Warrior's Fate. Ulfgar tries to lift it, but finds that it is impossibly heavy and also burns his hands. Shiolay, Yolanda, and Ashra also all try to lift the sword, and are unable to do so. Intrigued, Ethan tries to pick it up, succeeds, and is unharmed. The party agrees to let him carry it as they turn to the other chests. Two of the chests contain more of the coins with the smiling face. Ethan finds a scroll of Power Word: Castrate and a rod that contains some kind of domination spell. Ashra also finds some wands, including a wand of Fireball and a wand of Positive Energy Ray. Yolanda finds a powerful battle axe. Sil'meelen and Shiolay each find magnificent swords, with inscriptions on the inside of the chests that tell them to bring the swords to the highest mountain in the south in one year's time.

Now equipped with mirrors, the party heads back upstairs via the lift and begin looking around the room with the Dimension Door. Yolanda discovers that it matters in which direction one opens the door, and from which side. Ethan looks at the closed Door on the side from which Baudin left via his old mirror. Baudin appears in the mirror, and when Ethan says hi, he manages to punch Ethan through the mirror. Ethan admits that he probably deserved that and tells everyone he found Baudin for the moment. When he looks again, Baudin is gone.

On the other side, Ashra opens the Door and looks into it in his new mirror as well. He ends up staring into infinity, and when he snaps back to reality, has a sanity point. Ethan, intrigued, looks into the mirror as well, and finds that infinity is blue. Everyone else declines to gaze into infinity or otherwise risk being punched in the face by a mirror, and the party decides to let the Door alone. They go back to the collapsed room where the treasure had been on that floor and check the back of that door and see mirror mirror tricky tricky again. Sil'meelen takes out the Mask of Olidammara that she got from said treasure room, considers it for a bit, and then puts it on. She is deluged with visions, few of which she can understand, and takes some wisdom damage as a result. The party, once they ascertain that she is otherwise all right, hurry on.

Back in the Dimension Door room, they go through the other door that is actually in the wall, and find a staircase leading up. The party ventures forth, and finds a normal, unlocked door at the top. Ashra opens the door and sees a humanoid, male corpse on the other side, collapsed against the far wall and holding a rapier. The rapier and armor look vaguely familiar to him, and he suspects that this might not be a room that one wants to go into. Ethan, on the other hand, is fascinated. Ashra warns him that he thinks that the party's future is on the other side of that door, and not in the sense that every passing second is the party's future.

Ethan considers this, then closes and opens the door again. Again, there is a corpse in the room, this time of a male dwarf. Ethan closes and opens the door again, and this time finds a very decomposed corpse that looks partially humanoid, but there is something strange about the structure of the skull: it looks larger than normal, and oddly proportioned. Ashra is getting very nervous by this point, but Ethan closes and opens the door once more. This time he sees another humanoid corpse against the far wall, this time holding a book. Ethan goes into the room at that, and Ashra catches the door and tells him that if the door starts closing and Ashra doesn't think he can stop it, Ethan had damn well better get out of the room. Ethan shrugs this off and inspects the corpse and book more closely. The corpse starts to look familiar to him the more he looks at it, and when he reaches for the book, he is hit with a wave of recognition, but can't quite resolve it. He lets the book alone and runs out of the room as he starts to hear screaming in the back of his mind. No one else can hear it, and he can't describe it without dissolving into incoherent panic, but it sounds to him like the voices of the damned that he heard while he was dying. Ethan flips the fuck out and runs away down the stairs. Yolanda and Ulfgar both decide that anything that makes the deathlock freak out in terror is worth getting away from, and the party follows him back through the Dimension Door room and into the neutral area by the collapsed treasure room. Shiolay, alarmed at Ethan's sudden alternation between hysterics and catatonia, asks Ethan if he'll allow him to cast Calm Emotions. Ethan does, and the spell works as desired: Ethan calms down enough to function rationally.

A quick once-over of all the rooms they've found later, the party determines that they can't find any other doors aside from the pit-room. They can neither go deeper into the Hall, nor are there any other doors out except the way they came in. Knowing that they'll probably have to repeat the performance that let them in, they camp out by the collapsed treasure room and settle in for what they think is the night. At the very least, they're tired, still beaten up from the spikes and from the Dimension Door incident, and those who eat are hungry. Shiolay Creates Food and Water for the party, and he and Sil'meelen patch up the most wounded members of the party. They set up shifts to keep watch, but nothing comes for them in the night. Those who dream find their dreams unsettling, Sil'meelen's focus is haunted by strange remnants of visions left over from looking through the Mask of Olidammara, and the screams in the back of Ethan's head change to be something else even more disturbing to him: the screams of dragons.

The next morning, the party heads for the room of spikes, and everyone grabs onto a spike and rides the pit up to the main level of the room. They rush through the door just before the ceiling comes down, and tumble out in a heap in the front room. The plump man is still eating bacon, and when they ask what time it is, tells them that they've been gone for three days. When the party tries to explain that they're pretty sure they were in there for a day at most, the man tells them that the Hall does strange things to people. Remembering the corpses scattered around the room of spikes, the Dimension Door, and their lost companion, they are forced to agree.

Sil'meelen turns to her supervisor and asks to be discharged from her duty: while these people aren't the most sane and collected group, she thinks they can work towards Malvont's advantage, and if she is allowed to accompany them, she can steer them in the right direction. The bacon-eating man agrees, and Sil'meelen tries not to twitch when he says he'll miss having her around when he cooks bacon.

It is a beautiful day outside. Ethan and Shiolay discuss their next move as they go towards the tower and the stairs: Shiolay feels he could help Malvont by going with Ethan and his group, and he's willing to trust Ethan enough to accompany him. Jose stays with his previous decision to follow Shiolay, both because he's developing a fondness for the man and also because he thinks he could grow stronger with the company. Ashra, now morbidly fascinated with the undead, thinks that accompanying Ethan (and watching him not-sleep) will not only make that part of him happy, but he'll be able to learn more about magic, which is his other passion. Besides, he still has to keep track of the manacles.

They stop back at the tower so Shiolay can gather his things, and Ulfgar, Yolanda, and Ethan discuss a new name for Baudin's company. After they spend five minutes unable to think of a name as fancy as the one Baudin used, Yolanda decides to name the company after her beloved goats. From that point on, they were known as The Toggenburg Corporation.

(Notes: I'm kind of blanking on the specifics of the lootz we got from the lootz room. Also, I don't recall the specifics of how Shiolay and Sil'meelen got their swords.)

Episode Thirteen: I Can't Leave You People Alone for Five Freaking Minutes

The next hurdle that the party must face is getting back down the cliff face. While it is no longer raining, it's still pretty perilous. Most of the party rope themselves together as they did before, yet again ready to cut the ropes if need be. Ulfgar, of course, declines to take the safe and helpful route, and after tripping once in spectacular style, discovers a new way of getting down the cliff face: letting go and then catching himself several times. He eventually reaches the ground, somehow avoids breaking bones, and roves around the bottom of the stairs impatiently while everyone else does the sane thing and slowly makes their way down. Fortunately, as four days have passed since the storm, the steps are not slick with water.

Just as the party finishes untying themselves, they hear a strange thumping noise. Turning, they see a barrel rolling down the stairs after them. Ulfgar catches it, brings it back to the party, and pries it open to find an unconscious Kytia and a note. Shiolay retrieves Kytia and heals her subdual damage while Ethan and Yolanda read the note.

Samwise Samson, notorious smuggler, drug dealer, and general motherfucker, has taken a fair portion of the grain the party was transporting and sent their drow to meet them, with his compliments. Sil'meelen starts cursing up a storm: she apprehended him once, and can't believe that he actually escaped from the underwater bubble prison to which he was sent. Yolanda and Ethan both awkwardly give her reassuring pats and go to assess the damage. Ulfgar, concerned that Sam hasn't been flung at them in a barrel and isn't mentioned in the note, rushes aboard the Jade Kraken II. He locates Sam in one of the other barrels below decks, helps him out, and gives him pie.

Ethan updates their records to reflect the theft while Yolanda shows Sil'meelen around the ship. Shiolay, Jose, and Ashra work out navigating and steering, and with Ulfgar's help, make preparations to cast off and set sail for Malvont. Once they're underway, Yolanda recruits Sil'meelen and Ethan to help her search the ship in the hopes of finding whatever Baudin stashed aboard. She and Sil'meelen turn up some of Baudin's hidden money, while Ethan finds an incredibly well-hidden chest of gold, a few letters and bits of paperwork from Baudin's life before his wife died, and a stack of halfling porn. Ethan takes all of it.

Next, Ethan and Yolanda agree to share the captain's cabin: Yolanda actually needs a place to sleep, whereas Ethan just likes to have a fixed place to store the party's records and some of his own belongings. Everyone else shuffles around the bunks below, though the trip is short enough that they shouldn't need them. With Jose at the helm, they make good time through Malvont's waters. While on their way, Ashra thinks he hears the mirror he picked up from the Hall speaking to him, though no one else hears it. Ethan is still hearing the screams of dragons, and momentarily sees Marcus Fairlan in one of his own mirrors and hears his voice. He spends most of the trip smiling dreamily at nothing in particular, which the rest of the party finds slightly alarming. Jose, Shiolay, and Sil'meelen have no trouble from their own mirrors.

It isn't long before the party reaches the Malvont docks. They duck past the guards and various citizens gathered around yet another crier and head deeper into the city. Between Ashra's presence and Yolanda hinting that Vishnu would not be pleased if they were delayed to any gate guards, they make it to the correct circle without too much incident or extraneous loss of money and meet up with one of Vishnu's people. They are escorted to meet him, and find him near a fancy forge with a very strange mechanical...thing at the back. To the side, a halfling bard is quietly rocking out on his banjo.

Vishnu accepts the sword from Shiolay and hands it off to one of his servants, who promptly takes it over to the forge and starts combining it with another, much larger weapon. Yolanda accepts the payment while Vishnu asks Ethan where the goddamn hell Baudin went. Ethan explains that no one knows, and further, they don't know when or if Baudin will come back, so Yolanda will be handling things for the time being. Vishnu accepts this, although he isn't happy about it, and says that he has another job for them. This is a dirtier job than he's ever asked of Baudin before, and he probably wouldn't have asked it if Baudin were still around, but times, they are a-changin'. He wants the Toggenburg Corporation to assassinate or otherwise neutralize a business rival of his. They should be quite familiar with her, as they traveled with her for some time. That's right, Granny's back, and she's also back in business. Not only is she running another weapons trade ring, but she's funneling weapons into Baldur, which annoys Vishnu on principle, given Baldur's attitude towards Malvont at the moment.

Yolanda, Ulfgar, and Ethan aren't enthusiastic about outright killing one of their former adventuring companions, but they think they can at least talk her out of direct conflict with Vishnu if need be. Besides, they should probably get in touch with her regarding Baudin, and the lack thereof on the Prime Material Plane. Vishnu accepts some small tribute from the party, and then orders his minstrel to accompany the party. He figures they could use the morale boost, since the news from Baldur indicates that things are going to get unpleasant in a hurry. With that, he waves them out.

As they leave, the bard introduces himself as Tobo Lakhanai of Malvont, and he really wants to tell the party a story about how this one time at bard camp, his counselor sent him off with these weird new guys...

The party heads back to the ship, discussing whether or not they really want to go after Granny, and what they should do while they're in Malvont and have money. Ethan, Tobo, and Ashra decide to get the party some rooms at an inn, see to the sale of what grain they still have, and restock on basic supplies in case they need to leave in a hurry (again). The rest of the party continues on towards the ship. On their way, Yolanda trips over a gnome carrying a rapier, who claims to be looking for adventure and thinks that this group would suit him well. He's been observing them for some time since they arrived. His name is Fauntleroy, and he is both a gentleman and a businessman, if you see what he means. He and Yolanda are deep in negotiations over the terms of his joining the Toggenburg when they reach the ship. Ulfgar and Sil'meelen head below decks, Shiolay and Jose amble over in the direction of the helm, and Yolanda is about to settle down with Fauntleroy for a good haggling when a fireball detonates on the deck.

Sil'meelen and Ulfgar rush back to the deck as two men jump out of hiding. Sil'meelen recognize them instantly: Samwise Samson and his bodyguard Feetus. Samwise looks around at the various scorched members of the Toggenburg corporation and tells them to give him Ethan or die. This goes over about as well as expected, and it's on now.

Sil'meelen rushes Samwise with Yolanda at her side while Jose goes after Feetus. Ulfgar, proving once again that he fights for his friends and doesn't afraid of anything, jumps into the fray as well. Sam and Kytia emerge to find out what the explosion and subsequent ruckus is all about, take one look at the deck, and race for cover. Shiolay, noting how close they are to other boats and how dangerous things could get for innocent passerby, casts off and sets the ship out a couple hundred yards.

Meanwhile, Ethan, Ashra, and Tobo start heading back for the docks, note the explosions and yelling, look at each other, and start running. By the time they reach the docks, however, the Jade Kraken II is far out from port, leaving them to stand at the waterfront and wonder what happened.

Eventually, Yolanda and Ulfgar subdue Samwise, with a helpful kick to the ribs from Sil'meelen, and Jose tosses Feetus overboard. Shiolay takes the boat back into the harbor so that Sil'meelen can eventually apprehend Samwise, but Fauntleroy insists on extracting some information first.

Once the Jade Kraken II is close enough, Ashra levitates on board, Ethan and Tobo following in a more conventional manner. They find a somewhat scorched ship, several injured crewmates, and a random gnome shanking a man in the foot repeatedly while asking questions. Ethan says unto the universe that he can't leave them alone for five minutes, and then goes over to talk to Fauntleroy about who he is and why he's shanking a dude in the foot.

Fauntleroy, meanwhile, is having trouble getting any useful information. While Samwise is perfectly forthcoming about the fact that he's after Ethan for money on behalf of Marcus Fairlan, he doesn't have much else to say, and Fauntleroy inadvertently kills him in his attempt to torture more out of him. This leads to exasperation on just about everyone else's part, though Sil'meelen doesn't much care that she's hauling a corpse back to her former headquarters rather than a living man. The rest of the party cleans up and inspects the damage to the rigging and sails. It isn't too bad, but Shiolay and Ashra head back ashore to make nice with the workers on the dock and pick up some additional supplies. Repairs made, the party retreats to the inn, leaving the ship to Sam and Kytia.

Over dinner, they discuss how best to track down and make peace with Granny, if they're going to take this job at all. They decide to think on it more the next day and head back to their various rooms. Yolanda and Ulfgar worry over how best to keep on good terms with Vishnu without outright killing a former companion, Sil'meelen treats herself to some nice things as a reward for seeing Samwise go down again, Tobo heads for the bar with his banjo and a new rendition of "The Sailor and the Barmaid", and Ethan wonders why the hell Marcus Fairlan has a hit out on him. The night passes peacefully enough, but the next morning, the crier wakes them: Malvont and Baldur are at war, and it's showtime.

Episode Fourteen: It's On Now: Baldur vs. Malvont

The best response to that news is, of course, "Oh snap."

It isn't long before the party is contacted by Vishnu (I think) about a slightly different sort of job than the one he'd last offered. The Baldur fleet has come around to the religious island under cover of magically induced darkness and mist, and they've brought some black dragons for air support. While the Malvont navy is mobilizing, Vishnu saw the opportunity to further his rise to power by providing said fleet with a little bit of backup, and would they mind...?

Being as none of the party is particularly inclined to let Baldur just walk all over Malvont, they agree. One fast round of everyone making themselves presentable later (and telling Ethan that it's kind of creepy when he looks that happy), they meet up with the leader of the navy (Who was that?) and tell him that Vishnu sent them to lend assistance to Malvont's defenses, and which way is the nearest dragon? The leader points them towards the rolling cloud of darkness surrounding the waters around the temple island, says that if they can take out the dragons in the air and damage a few ships while they're at it, it would be greatly appreciated. There will be mages attempting to dispel the darkness and any other obscuring things from an airborne platform over Malvont City, but it's probably going to turn into a wizard fight, so they should watch out for that.

Shiolay and Yolanda point the Jade Kraken II towards the temple island, and the Toggenburg Corporation heads out. En route, the party gathers around and wonders how, exactly, they plan to kill a dragon in the first place. ("Violently!" "Shut up, Ethan.") Not only is their ship not equipped for naval combat, but the last two times that they encountered a dragon, they ran away screaming like little girls.

Pressing as this issue is, the party's first order of business is sailing through a cloud of darkness in relatively unfamiliar waters. Fortunately, the area around the temple island isn't particularly hazardous, and so the party manages to get the Jade Kraken II into a semblance of formation with the rest of the navy. While they can't see much in the darkness, they are also obscured from sight for the moment, and so there is a bit of a stalemate as each army tries to feel around for the other.

Then the darkness goes away.

Just as everyone finishes blinking in the light, those on the Jade Kraken II look up and see a black dragon headed in their direction. There is a lot of general cursing, high-speed buffing, and a shouted conversation across the deck about their cunning plan. We do have a cunning plan, right? Right, guys?

After being divebombed a few times, the deck is covered in acid residue, as are most of the party members. It has long since become apparent that the dragon's spell resistance is formidable compared to what casters they have, and those few who do have ranged weapons aren't able to make a sizable dent in it. Ashra frantically checks his wand collection in the hopes of finding their salvation, and comes across the wand of fireball that he picked up in the Hall. He gazes at it for a moment, looks up, and asks who has a good throwing arm.

Tobo volunteers, and as the dragon takes off to come at them again from yet another direction, Ashra quickly explains: the next time the dragon comes at them to either breathe acid or make a bite attack, Tobo should throw the wand of fireball into its mouth, where it will promptly break and discharge. Reactions range from "Well, what the hell, it's worth a shot," to "There are not words for how much I love this plan."

Overhead, the dragon wheels around for yet another attack. Jose and Ashra quickly scoop up Tobo between them and run over to the side of the ship from which the dragon is approaching. Ashra hands off the wand, and just as the dragon swoops in, Jose throws Tobo into the air. With only a few seconds to aim and throw, Tobo flings the wand straight into the dragon's mouth. He and Ashra high-five as he falls back down to the ship, just as the fireworks start.

The wand, as the party learns, had a lot of charges left. The dragon, on the other hand, no longer has a head. It crashes into the sea and sinks, rocking the Jade Kraken II with the resulting waves. Once the boat stabilizes, the party looks around, assesses the damage, and realizes that they just took down a fucking dragon. Additional high-fives are dispensed, Create Water is cast several times in an attempt to get the acid off of everything, and Ethan hugs everyone at least twice.

Triumphant, the party heads around the island to meet up with the leader of the navy again. Their news pleases him, but the unnatural mist about a mile away that could easily hide several battle cruisers within it is kind of harshing his buzz. It's holding steady where it is for now, and the initial skirmish seems to still be in Malvont's favor, but there are all kinds of unpleasant things that one could find at sea.

The party docks at the temple island, intending to stay for only a brief time while they patch themselves up and decide what their next plan of attack should be. They're halfway to casting off when Ashra hears the sound of footsteps, and someone hails them.

A man in black is running hell-for-leather along the dock towards them, trailed by a massive half-orc. Ethan recognizes the man instantly, as does Yolanda, and the party as a whole clusters around the railing to see what the hell is going on.

Baudin Dommilan skids to a halt at the edge of the docks, shields his eyes, and looks up at his former crew. He first asks what year it is. When Ashra answers, he tells Ashra not to talk to him and asks again. This time, Yolanda answers: it's 1441 SA, and it hasn't been that long since they came out of the Hall. Baudin explains that he was trapped on the Negative Energy Plane in Pyotar Umarov's palace for seven years, but he brought back a friend! He introduces his half-orc companion to the party as Sadzuko Udina. Sil'meelen catches sight of Sadzuko's sword and starts salivating. While she asks Sadzuko questions about the sword, Baudin continues to talk to Yolanda and Ethan.

No, he doesn't want to come back to the Toggenburg. He's pretty angry with Pyotar for keeping him for all of that time, but he's run into a fair few people in the past seven years, and he thinks he has something that will at least piss Pyotar off in return. If Ethan wants to take a job for him again, he has a proposition. Ethan agrees to hear it, and Baudin begins.

First, he's looking for a smooth stone with writing engraved into it. He needs to take it to Eldergrin, but he thinks that the stone is in the mythical city of Ravinia. Ethan tells him he's crazy and that Ravinia doesn't exist. Baudin sighs and asks for his amulet piece back. Ethan and Yolanda look at each other, at Baudin, at each other, and then at Baudin again as Ethan refuses.

Baudin takes out a scroll (or did he cast it himself?) and begins a spell. Ethan recognizes it as Control Undead, and makes it about fifteen feet away from the railing before the spell hits.

Shiolay, Jose, and Ashra each try to grab Ethan as he goes back to the railing and takes out the amulet piece, but they are all either too far away or just miss entirely. Ethan throws Baudin the amulet piece, which he catches, and then the Ghoul Glyph on it activates.

The party leaves Ethan as is and rushes down to the now-paralyzed Baudin. Sadzuko, caught between a fascinated Sil'meelen and about five other heavily armed people all watching him very closely, decides not to attack them for the moment. Fauntleroy pops the amulet piece out of Baudin's hands with his rapier, catches it, and considers it for a moment. When Ethan tells him to give it back, Fauntleroy points out that maybe he doesn't want to just hand over such a powerful magical item. He then looks up and sees Yolanda and Ashra staring down at him, at which point he reconsiders and allows Yolanda to take it from him.

The party moves back towards the ship as Baudin snaps out of it. He says, not unreasonably, that they will regret this, and he and Sadzuko vanish.

Yolanda gives the other amulet piece back to Ethan, and the two of them decide that they're going to need a contingency plan for the next time Baudin shows up and tries to reassemble his amulet. Further, if Baudin is going to be rocking the Control Undead spells, they're going to need a kill switch for their friendly neighborhood deathlock. Shiolay, Sil'meelen, and Jose start comparing notes on ways in which their various professions have taught them to deal with undead, at which point Ashra interrupts and points out to sea.

The mist is dispersing, and it's hard for anyone but Ashra to see, but those look an awful lot like battle cruisers, and they're not flying the Malvont flag.

Game on.

(Notes: The series of events here is a little strange in my mind. I am pretty sure that at least part of the naval bitchfight and ensuing Baudin hijinks were in a session apart from the main showdown, but this is not a dead certainty. Please rearrange as needed. I'm just going to do the memory-equivalent of eyeballing it. Also, there are parts of this that I'm not fleshing out nearly as well as they should be.)

The Hot Springs Episode: Stop, Drop (the Soap) and Roll

Aaaand rewind a couple of days. Most of the party is relaxing at the inn, and Jose has the bright idea of not only getting baths, but getting proper baths at a bathhouse. A rather soused Fauntleroy, Tobo, Sam, and Shiolay agree, and tow the rest of the party off to the fanciest bathhouse that the Outer Circle can offer (read: not very). Jose insists on handing out soap, at which point Yolanda, Sil'meelen, and Ethan all start backing away slowly. Ashra departs with them, leaving the gentlemen (and one bear cub) to their wacky hijinks.

(Note: And that is the point at which Ethan booked it to go on Border Patrol back to the inn. Please fill in wacky hijinks as needed.)

Season Finale: I Grapple the Beholder

Ashra looks around again as the rest of the party scrambles to get the Jade Kraken II ready to rock. This time, he notices something up in the sky. It's a bird! No, it's a dirigible! No! IT'S A GUNDAM! Vishnu's mech is complete, and he's joining the battle. After a moment of the entire party gaping, they cast off and head back into battle.

The Baldur flagship is a battle cruiser, and it's being shadowed by a black dragon. As the party moves back into the fray, the battle cruiser moves to intercept them. Ashra gets a good look at the captain as the two ships approach each other and reports to the party that he's a massive orc. Ethan takes time out from trying to hate the dragon to death to also take a look, and recognizes him: it's Brezcar the Bold, last seen in the battle over the amulet at King's Reach. Yolanda, however, does not have as good a memory for faces, and assures the party that she'll be able to talk this out with her orc brethren.

As the ships draw alongside each other, Yolanda shouts over to the flagship, asking what they're doing and why she should have a reason to fight against her orc brothers. Brezcar takes one look at Ethan and Yolanda, swears, and demands the return of what is rightfully his. Yolanda is at a loss, at which point Ethan elbows her and whispers a reminder that they kind of betrayed him and stole his piece of the amulet. Yolanda urges Brezcar to set aside the past while they work out whether or not they should join forces to defend Malvont. Brezcar is unconvinced, and a minor ranged firefight begins between the two ships. Sil'meelen takes out a crossbow, Shiolay starts summoning Celestial Bees, and Ethan starts sniping with Magic Missile. Ulfgar runs up from below decks, jumps into his skiff, and sets sail towards the ship, Shatterspike in hand. Tobo heads behind the group and starts telling them a story about cabin rivalries at bard camp.

After trying to throw around some mindblasts with mixed success, Ashra steps back to survey the area again. This time, he sees that the black dragon hanging around the battle cruiser has a rider, and comes up with a plan so crazy that it just might work. Meanwhile, the Baldur orcs begin throwing ropes with grappling hooks between the two ships in an attempt to board the ship. The party cuts what ropes they can, and beat those that do make it over into submission. While Yolanda uses her bag of rocks in an attempt to not permanently hurt her orc brethren, once the orcs are felled or otherwise knocked unconscious, the party heaves them overboard.

As both crews regroup, Ashra explains his crazy idea: he wants to mindblast the rider of the dragon, thus leaving it without orders. He then will charm it, tell it to land on the battle cruiser to lend support to the Baldur army, and mindblast it as it comes in for a landing. It will crash into the ship, killing the dragon and disabling the battle cruiser without needing to further attack the orcs directly. While the party is dubious about the likelihood of success, they figure it's worth a shot.

While the ranged fighters cover the side of the ship, Ashra waits for the dragon to draw within range and then successfully mindblasts the rider. As she falls off of the dragon into the ocean, Ethan gets a look at her and has an oh shit moment: it's Royt Avampour, Tyro's sister. As the dragon recovers from the sudden loss of weight on its back, it rolls a two that will force its next ten saving throws to fail...just in time.

Ashra charms the dragon as it wheels around, suddenly at a loss for orders. He telepathically speaks to it in Draconic, telling it that Brezcar needs help and that it can best serve the intentions of its former master by landing on the ship. As the dragon obeys, Ashra mindblasts it, stunning it and sending it crashing down through the deck of the battle cruiser.

The party triumphantly sets sail for the Malvont docks as the Baldur fleet regroups in a panic at seeing both a dragon and their flagship destroyed. Ethan momentarily wonders exactly what side Royt was on, then runs around and hugs everyone rather than contemplating it further. As they pass the Malvont naval base, they shout over to them that the flagship is probably destroyed, and they're going to go check up on Malvont proper. The leader of the navy thanks them, tells them that they (read: their patron Vishnu) will be rewarded, and waves them off.

As the party comes into the dock, they find that the streets of Malvont are populated by zombies rather than Malvont citizens, and that there's a necromental waiting for them on the docks. Ashra goes through his wand collection again, finds a wand of positive energy, and everyone looks at the necromental thoughtfully. Jose offers to wildshape into an eagle and carry Tobo towards it while Tobo fires at it with the wand. Tobo agrees, thrilled, and the two take off through the air to divebomb the necromental. Tobo fires his lazor as Jose swoops around the necromental, and after a few powerful shots, the necromental falls. Tobo takes a few more potshots at zombies to clear the docks as Shiolay and Yolanda bring the Jade Kraken II into port.

Yolanda and Ethan stay with the ship to clear out the last remaining zombies so that they don't come back to find a zombie-infested ship and a mangled Sam and Kytia as the rest of the party heads forward to clear a path into the next circle. The streets are utterly bereft of the living. Shiolay summons another Celestial Bee, Jose shifts back into human form, Ashra takes his wand of positive energy back, Tobo starts up a story about this one time at bard camp when they found a cursed burial ground, and Sil'meelen and Fauntleroy break out a sword and a rapier, respectively. As they start dispatching the zombies clustering around them, a two is rolled.

"Nearest undead and nearest lich trade places."

One of the zombies vanishes, and in its place stands Pyotar Umarov.

None of those in the immediate vicinty have met Pyotar directly, but they've all heard the stories. From the docks, Ethan and Yolanda look towards the commotion and as one, say, "Oh, shit."

The last time that anyone saw Pyotar, he was a dead vampire lying on a stone coffin under the temple of Pelor in King's Reach. Now, not only is he back, he seems radically different. There is something warped about him, so much so that the characters themselves quickly realize that a lich has just appeared. They all hold very still, hoping that Pyotar can't tell that they're affiliated with the people who killed him.

Pyotar looks around, startled, and inspires an attack of opportunity from the zombie next to him. The zombie promptly takes it, and critically succeeds on its bite attack. The party tries not to laugh hysterically as Pyotar draws his sword in response, tries to kill it, and critically fails. Another zombie that is not nearly as awesome also takes an attack of opportunity, fails, and Pyotar kills it. He then casts Fly and rockets off into the sky.

The party, faced with only a handful of zombies left, spare the undeath of the zombie who attacked Pyotar. Sil'meelen names him Bitey, the Littlest Zombie. After killing the other zombies present, they call back to Ethan and Yolanda to hurry up while the streets are clear.

Ethan and Yolanda have, by then, cleared off the docks enough that Sam can safely take up the gangplank and move the ship as far from the docks as possible while still being moored. They run up to the party, have a collective OMGWTFPYOTAR moment, pat Bitey on the head, and the party runs into the now-unguarded Second Circle. They dodge around more zombies and check out the now-abandoned shops, hoping to find anything that they can appropriate for the greater service of Malvont. Yeah.

They first come across a chocolate-maker's stall, complete with a box of chocolates, a wand of chocolate-making, and a scroll of chocolate-making. Yolanda discovers that each chocolate heals one hit point apiece. As they look around, Sil'meelen finds a secret door hidden behind one of the other stalls. While most of the shops have already been thoroughly raided, there might be more stored behind that door, or even a way further into Malvont. Some fast lockpicking later, Sil'meelen throws open the trap door and the party drops through.

They quickly encounter a human low-ranking soldier, who tells them to close the trap door before anything else comes through. Shiolay, Sil'meelen, and Ashra introduce themselves as employees of Malvont who have brought assorted other mercenaries with them, and can they be of service?

The man takes them deeper into the tunnels, telling them that they can get all the way into the inner circle this way. He offers them what weapons and healing items that are left, since most of the people down here are hiding from the battle and can't use them for anything. The party happily accepts the offers of lootz, and pick up several masterwork weapons, potions of healing, and a handful of wands. Sil'meelen overlooks the questionable legality of some of these items in favor of The Greater Good.

The party takes the opportunity to catch a quick catnap and heal up in this relatively safe area. As Ethan needs less rest than the other members of the party, he starts talking to the soldier who escorted them here. The soldier asks if the Toggenburg are strong and devoted to the defense of Malvont. Ethan informs him that they just took out two dragons, a necromental, and a battle cruiser, and that none of them like seeing Malvont overrun by Baldur. Impressed, the man tells them that there might be something that they can do. The head librarian, Kryde, is hiding deep within the Malvont library, as the library has been invaded by all manners of aberrations and other monsters. If the party can rescue Kryde and guide him to a certain area of the library, then Kryde can reach King Avimeus and ensure his safety, as he is a powerful archivist. Ethan promises to talk it over with the party when they wake up.

The advantage of reaching the Inner Circle, the party decides, is that if anywhere is safe in Malvont, it'll be there. They figure that they can probably avoid or overpower most of the things inside the library long enough to find one librarian. Besides, defending the king himself is a proposition that Sil'meelen and Shiolay cannot, in good conscience, turn down. The soldier points them in the direction that will take them to the Inner Circle, and the party sets off after a fast meal.

It's a pretty long walk, but the party makes it there with relative ease. They get into the library via a hidden door behind a bookshelf, close the door after them, and start looking around. They find several interesting books and a few scrolls of note, but there isn't much that is worth delaying their progress. They are almost to the inner rooms where they expect to find Kryde when Ashra tells the party to get back into the room they came from, and fast, because there's a Beholder in the next room.

Those who don't know what a Beholder is are quickly informed of the details of each and every one of its eye lasers. The only way to effectively defeat a Beholder is to shoot it from behind, especially as Beholders don't turn around very quickly. Ashra also saw a long stretch of bookcases in the room, and thinks that they might be able to essentially run the Beholder in circles while the ranged fighters fire at it. Since there is no effective way to sneak past it, the party starts playing the most epic game of ring-around-the-rosy seen to date.

While Yolanda, Jose, and Fauntleroy take turns drawing the Beholder's attention, Ethan, Tobo, Ashra, and Shiolay keep running to the side that the Beholder is facing away from and flinging spells, mindblasts, zombies, crossbow bolts, Power Chords, and Celestial Bees at it. This succeeds for a while, but eventually the Beholder manages to corner the some of the party members with its anti-magic eye.

Jose looks around, pats his bear companion on the head, and announces, "I grapple the Beholder."

He jumps onto the Beholder from behind, sending it spinning away wildly. It fires at him with every ray it can, and he saves against every attack except for Flesh to Stone, and is petrified.

The Beholder is now weakened, weighed down by a statue of a professional wrestler, and still partially grappled by said statue. The party gangs up on it from behind and beats the crap out of it in revenge. Once the Beholder falls, Shiolay hauls the petrified Jose away from the Beholder's corpse, and he and Yolanda drag it with them as the party heads into the innermost room of the library.

They find an elderly, pretentious elf in glasses there: it's Kryde, and his gratitude at being rescued is minimal. He asks to be taken to one of the highest rooms in the library, from which he can work his magic. As they escort him upstairs, Sil'meelen notices that he carries a book similar to one that she has.

From the room they enter, they can see the mage platform hovering over Kingspire, from which a small army of sorcerers and wizards are raining spells down on the invading army and on the dragons hassling them. Kryde rushes to the teleportation circle with his book, bids them good luck in getting out of the city before everything goes to hell, because that's what he's going to do with the king, and vanishes. Initially, the party is baffled as to why Kryde would tell them to get out of Malvont rather than stay and fight, but Ashra soon notices something alarming. As the party watches, the aerial platform begins to flicker and fall apart as dragon after dragon swoops down on the mages. A few seconds later, Ashra staggers and clutches his head. Once he recovers, he tells the party that the Motherbrain of Malvont has planeshifted away, taking all of the other mindflayers with her. He says that if the Motherbrain is leaving, Malvont will fall.

The party turns and books it back to the secret door, dragging a protesting Ethan and the statue of Jose with them. They start hauling ass back to the second circle, hoping that the Jade Kraken II is still in good enough condition that they can sail it to a safer place. They are even more convinced that they need to leave when they get back to the area where the refugee citizens were hiding and find it empty. They climb out through the trap door, shove past the zombies, and arrive at their ship to find Sam and Kytia beating off another wave of undead. As Yolanda and Shiolay drag Jose aboard and start preparing to cast off, the rest of the party keeps fighting off the zombies until they're ready to go.

Shiolay sets the ship towards the most unoccupied water that he can find, and they sail away, hoping that they look enough like small fry that no one will come after them. They're low on provisions and lower on safe havens, so Shiolay decides to take the Toggenburg Corporation to the Southern Continent. He knows of a town named Corinth where just about anyone can disappear, so they can lay low there while they recover and try to figure out what to do now. With one patron turned against them and another caught up on the losing side of a hopeless battle, an international economic climate that makes weapons trade a lot more complicated than anything that Yolanda or Ethan have ever experienced before, and everyone basically now homeless, it's the best idea that anyone has had thus far.

As they sail away, Ethan blinks and looks back at Malvont as it fades into the distance. He tells the party that the dragons have finally stopped screaming in his head. They've escaped. They fought in the Battle of Malvont and survived. Sil'meelen vows to return to Malvont one day with a militia trained for the express purpose of liberating Malvont from Baldur occupation.

As the ship sails away into the growing darkness, Tobo tells the party that he's going to write a story about their exploits, and would anyone like to hear the beginning stages...?

Season One Complete.

Previously/Next Time on Eon...

Previous Season: Season Zero: Into the Dark

Next Season: Season Two: Infinite Horizons

Adventures with this party will continue in Season Three: Unsolved Mysteries!

Characters

Starring:

• Baudin Dommilan
• Yolanda
• Ulfgar
• Yolanda's cousin
• Jenka

Introducing (in order of appearance):

• Ethan of Malvont
• Fennyn
• Kytia Malayi Jones
• Ashra the Puzzlesolver
• Jose Freespirit and his bear
• Shiolay
• Sil'meelen Maiweyen
• Tobo Lakhanai
• Fauntleroy