In Search of Paradox

Summary

Adventure: In Search of Paradox
GM: Jeff Leddra
Session: Spring 812
Night: Wednesday
Location Off Plane
Level: Low

Party:

Mave – Female Human Bard – Played by Julie
Ahiga – Male Human Barbarian Rune Mage – Played by Miles
Perrin – Male Human E&E – Played by Glenn (Scribe)
Tallama – Female Giant Goblin Namer – Played by Alan
Skafloc – Male Elf Earth Mage – Played by Jeff Church
Frank – Male Human Necromancer – Played by Dylan
Lim – Male Elf Water Mage – Played by Bernard

Employer:
Urnor ab Graves and his cat.

Pay:
30,000 SP each with an advance of 5,000 SP

Briefing and Knowledge

We meet with Urnor in the usual Guild offices. He is a tall skeletal human with a bald head. Based on his clothing we assume he is from a noble class. He carries a variety of weapons with the most obvious being a rapier and a staff. He is a philosopher, warrior, healer (rank 8), military scientist and skilled in unarmed combat. Why he needs our motley crew is a mystery to us. He also has a friendly black cat traveling with him. The tips of its tail and nose are white. For all intents and purposes it appears to be a simple cat. They both come from the plane of Shaamxi.

Urnor has been speaking to a colleague who has been speaking with a universe maker. There are a myriad of pocket universes out there (our universe being one of them) but there is one called Paradox which he believes is the source of all magic. He believes mana from Paradox has been seeping through to other universes. Some universes are closer to Paradox so have high mana and others are further away and so have little mana.

He believes in something called the 'hyper dimensional theory of the universe' and that for every magical universe there is an equal but opposite non magical universe. He calls them scientific based universes. His aim is to find Paradox and from there it's opposite. He dreams of living in a purely scientific world. We all of course think he is crazy but the pay is good so we humour him.

He also believes someone or something interfered with the rules of magic about 30 years ago. He claims the way magic works has been constantly altering and he wants to know why.

To find Paradox his colleague has supplied a map of the shortest path between pocket universes, which he happily shares with us. He has a device which can open one way gates into and out of universes. He shows us how to use this too, in case he is killed.

For the first trip he has supplied a yellow metal vessel. It is about 40 foot by 5 foot by 10 foot. It can comfortably seat 8 people and supplies. It also has something called 'oxygen candles' that ensure we have enough breathable air for 6 to 7 hours.

Skafloc and Perrin ask quite a few questions. Perrin seems a little paranoid about being killed or not being able to get back to Seagate. Urnor offers to have us 'cloned' should we be unable to return. This will take an extra 2 days but we have enough time before departing. Perrin took advantage of this 'cloning' on his previous adventure which basically saved his live when he was trapped in Hell.

Skafloc shows an unexpected knowledge of philosophy and asks some surprisingly adept questions. The party looks at him oddly but we are reassured that this is only an anomoly and he will be back to normal once we depart.

Diary

The Plot Thickens

Urnon departs and we have a quick chat to the Guild about him. They says he seems slightly insane but this just reflects his strange ideas of how the worlds work. They also say he belongs to the group known as the circle of sophists and may be associated to the league of aginmagi.

We decide to rest up for the evening in the Pig and Whistle. Shortly after we arrive a stunning young lady enters, walks up to Ahiga and offers to buy him a drink while they discuss business. We all assume Ahiga is about to get lucky but it turns out she wants to warn us about Urnor. She says he is very dangerous and that we should keep an eye on him for her. She will provide a communications device for us and 10,000 SP for the group for any information about what he is up to. She comes from the same plane as Urnor.

Elleaera says Urnor is looking to interfere with magic. It is believed there is a sleeping creature in Paradox that generates mana while it is dreaming. Urnor plans to awaken it. If he tries to we should do anything required to prevent him. She says the circle of sophists are a group of philosophers who seek to gather knowledge above all other things. The league though is dedicated to anti magic and shouldn't be trusted. Elleaera belongs to another circle but they are much more moderate and seek to maintain the status quo. Just before she leaves she warns us about the cat. It has been bioengineered (whatever that means) and will have specific skills. What they are she doesn't know.

We have a few more drinks and as we order a fresh round from the barmaid she goes into a trance. She says 'bewarethe bells, beware the beauty, beware the brothers for they shall kill you'. She then faints. The tavern owner storms over and fires her, telling her this prophecy crap is scaring the patrons. Chisven is upset so we take her home to her elderly mother. Perrin takes pity on her and offers her a job as his servant. She is a moderately skilled herbalist and agrees to meet us in the morning at the guild.

The next morning Skafloc goes to the library to research everything we have been told so far. He doesn't find anything specific but pays a few coins for the researchers to continue looking. Perrin takes Chesvin shopping and equips her with some nice black leather armour for 400SP. She looks quite alluring.

After lunch we head off to the docks. Franks has his pocket picked by a young street urchin but Lim notices and smacks him about. The boy runs away. We board a small boat and head out to a small island with a small hut and a burial ground. Valcirin greets us (an old guy) and he leaves the hut while we go in. there is a trap door leading into some tunnels. At the end Urnor plays his trumpet and a swirling doorway opens. Mave listened closely and learns the basic tune. We look through to a rugged landscape of lava and red dust. In the distance we can see a tunnel into the side of a mountain. We debate how safe it is to step through and start some DAs but Frank seems uncaring and simply steps through. He is still alive which is promising. Lim tries drawing mana but finds the levels very low here. It takes half an hour to get into the tunnel and once in we are met by Haria. He welcomes us the chamber and gives us instructions of 'strip naked, lie on the beds, let the jelly blob tentacles engulf us and go to sleep'. A new body will be created in the caskets on the walls and a copy of your memories will downloaded into it. Perrin, Skafloc, Mave and Tallama agree. Frank, Lim, Ahiga and Chesvin refuse. Skafloc has some bad dreams while being cloned about being deafened by bells.

The cloning takes 24 hours and so on day 3 we head back to the swirling doorway. Of course a dust storm has come up by now and Haria warns us to watch out for things in the storm. Frank feels a sting on his arm and sees a small creature attached to him. He punches it and flicks it off. Spines penetrate his hand and Lim dodges the flicked creature. We get through the portal doorway and check on Frank. His skin is being changed to spines by a parasite. Tallama tries to pull some spines out but the pain is too intense for Frank. None of our spells have any effect. Tallama puts up a wall of forbidding and Ahiga drags Frank through it, turning the spines to dust. This works but Frank is almost dead. The healers in the group take the time to fix him. Once he is recovered enough Lim has a 'chat" with him about flicking the creature in his direction.

As we get ready to leave a string of dust flies up to Franks mouth. Skafloc reaches out and covers Franks mouth. The dust goes through Skaflocs hand and into Frank. They both jump through the forbidding but nothing happens. Tallama creates a new forbidding for 'Dust Nano Tubes' and this works. Skafloc has lots of holes in his hand and needs a bit of healing. Chesvin sweeps up the dust as it seems inert now.

We get back to the guild and Frank buys some new armour since the last set got shreaded when the spines were ripped from his body. Skafloc goes back to the library and finds out the circle of sophists come from another plane that was destroyed by a magical conflagration.

At 2pm we head off to the docks again. Urnor has a warehouse where the portal to the next universe is (how convenient). He has had pairs of bodyguards guarding the place for the last 2 weeks. This current pair are a human and an orc. Inside we find a submarine and alchemical agents. The sub is a bit burnt but Urnor tells us it was a decoy. He takes us to the real submarine. He also picks up some oxygen candles and some jars with Freudian worms in them. The worms are used to keep decapitated heads alive inside a jar.

Urnor tells us he has enemies from his home plane, one in particular called Valush (who appears to be Elleaera from the description). They used to be good friends till their world views diverged. Of course hers is wrong says Urnor.

Ahiga tries a precog and sees a huge explosion as an oxygen candle is lit. Urnor checks the candles and finds 4 of the 20 are contaminated with oil. We step outside and question the guards. They claim no knowledge so Ahiga bluffs about having a rune of truth. This is enough to have the human admit to creating a disturbance and having the orc check it out, allowing some people to slip into the warehouse for no more than 10 minutes. He says his family was being held prisoner so in order to help him we set up a ruse. We put a contaminated candle in the decoy sub. When we have left the candle will explode and the guard can say he say the group of us entering the sub before a huge explosion.

We check out the real submarine before Urnor plays a magical trumpet which opens the portal. It was given to him by a universe maker, or so he says. We all pile into the submarine and it slides down a ramp into the portal. 10 minutes into the journey a dull thump is heard from outside and a hole is ripped open in the shell closest to Skafloc. Elemental flux starts pouring in. Skafloc wards the flux off with his hands only to find them changing in front of his eyes. Urnor calls out we must have missed a land mine on the outside while grabbing a sheet of true lead from his bag. He gives one to Tallama who tries to push the flux back out the hole and to plug it. Lim casts a spell to patch ships which seems to work better than expected. Urnor grabs a cloth from his bag (what else does he have in their we wonder?) and wraps them around Skaflocs hands. This soaks up the flux but Skaflocs hands are gone. Strangely Urnor looks a bit younger. His face goes a bit slack and then it lightens up again. From his bag he produces 2 silver hands for Skafloc. These are attached to Skaflocs stumps and behave like normal hands. A bottle rolls out of Urnors bag with a head in it. This is being kept alive by some of those strange worms. Urnor says it is the head of a universe maker which he found by accident on another plane. It turned out the universe maker was killed by other rebel universe makers called Bellas. Bellas are able to transfer their consciousness to indestructible bells between finding suitable hosts.

Treachery

It takes the rest of the day and night but we finally reach the other end of the portal. From the portholes we can see a lovely sunny beach with white sand, palm trees and fruit trees. Approaching us is a group of gorgeous naked humans, dryads and nymphs. Skafloc DAs some and they are courtesans. Urnor opens the submarine and as we step out he is surprised by a voice coming from the universe maker saying 'Noe of you will harm me. Get me to a new body. This world is mine.' An exceptionally strong compulsion is effecting us so Lim asks if one of the courtesans bodies will suffice. The head rejects this and commands us to take him to his fortress. The group approaching recognises the head and bow down to worship him, praising Averon (the head). Lim gets a bit cheeky while asking where the fortress is and is commanded to stab himself. Perrin, recognising we are all Averons slaves, seeks to sow some havoc with Lim in an effort to elevate his slave status to 'head slave' (no pun intended). Perrin comes from minor nobility and has so far behaved like a paladin, but it turns out he can be the lowest form of gutter trash when he sees an advantage for himself. He is commanded to cut off Urnors head and he doesn't try to resist the command. Urnor wakes to find his head in a bottle being kept alive by the worms. Lim and Ahiga poke around Urnors bag but see too many things they don't understand and discretion takes hold. They keep the bag though and stuff Urnors body into it. Ater seeing this Urnor comments that we shouldn't have had enough time to seal the flux hole and that something isn't right. We ignore him.

Perrin takes control of Averons bottle while Mave takes Urnors. The group starts fashioning a raft for the long ocean voyage to Averons fortress. We see a giant turtle come ashore and begin digging a hole to lay her eggs. Lim goes over to her and seeks help in pulling the raft.

As the raft is nearing completion a band of orcs attack from the east. Averon says they have been sent by his rivals. They see Mave holding Urnors head and mistake it for Averon. They charge towards her. The party steps forward to protect Mave, except Lim and Perrin. Lim is still with the turtle so he uses his shortbow to lay down some covering fire. Perrin runs to the west as Averon commands him to save the universe maker. Perrin swings west and then angles north (where the turtle is) so they can escape on the turtles back into the ocean. One of the orcs sees Lim and charges him. Lim whispers to the turtle that the orc is here to take her eggs. She promptly squashes the orc.

Before Perrin is commanded to save Averon he tells the head to 'do something useful, this is your world after all.' Averon takes exception to this and makes Perrin stab himself again.

The rest of the party, including Cheswin, engage the orcs and do very well. Only Frank takes enough damage to fall over bleeding. When there are only 2 orcs left we tell them to surrender. They do and we force them to eat some fruit which pacifies them. They start to answer our questions but the fruit also seems to have 'spaced them out'.

Averon doesn't seem to like Urnor. We suspect it has something to do with Urnor bringing the universe maker back to life but keeping him in a bottle in his bag. Averon tells us to torture Urnor by shaking the bottle and wiggling the worms.

We finally get the raft completed but before we board Lim asks Averon for a party reward for getting him to his fortress. Averon is offended but offers us an unspecified reward once we get to his place.

Perrin mumbles something under his breath which Averon hears and takes offence to. Mave offers to ink some phrase like 'Perrin is a stupid, vile loser' on Perrins arm, ready for Perrin to scratch it in with his dagger (apparently just stabbing himself isn't amusing enough for Averon). Perrin says something else under his breath (will he ever learn?) and Averon commands him to cut off his testicles then cook and eat them. Skafloc heals Perrin from the bleeding while the rest of the party looks on in disgust.

Ahiga and Lim ride the turtle while the rest of us board the raft. On the second day of being ocean bound we are attacked by giant but thin tentacles from some bizarre jellyfish like creatures. They are actually a creature made up of a colony of smaller creatures. Either way they have a disastrous effect on our party. Perrin is immediately paralysed and poisoned. Averon advises that warm water will reduce the poison effects. Tallama grabs Averons head in its bottle. Skafloc and Ahiga successfully arrow the main bladder part of the bodies and they sink below the water but not before more tentacles stun other members of the party. Tallama drops Averons head and it floats away. Mave dives into the water to save it. Cheswin removes the toxicity from Perrin and then jumps into the water and swims off to meet up with Mave. Cheswin also has Urnors head. Both bottled heads act as good buoyancy aids. Lim has been busy stabbing shrimp like creatures that have crawled under his skin. Skafloc stabilises Perrin enough to cast a locate spell on Cheswin and Mave who are now out of sight. Perrin backfires and a huge typhoon springs up in the distance and tracks towards the party. Perrin bravely swims off to pull the typhoon away from the group. Needless to say he dies. Ahiga, Lim, Tallama and Frank praise his heroic death.

Meanwhile Mave and Cheswin are scooped up by giant sea eagles (under Averons control) and return to the group on the turtle and raft. Averon says to leave Perrin as he must have been a traitor. Mave and Cheswin instantly obey him but the rest hesitate. Whicle Averon had been gone they applied ear plugs (from Urnors bag) and are now able to resist Averons commands. Skafloc attacks Mave and manages to get an earplug in before she pushes him off the raft. Tallama and Frank then hold Mave and Cheswin down while Ahiga and Skafloc go for the plugs. The 2 eagles attack Tallama and Frank who begin shaking (lightning blasts?). Frank is dragged into the air. Cheswin dives into the water with Averon and swims away. Lim shoots the eagle carrying Frank and Frank drops into the ocean close to the raft. He swims back. Mave is still trying to get Skaflocs earplugs out (she was commanded by Averon to do this) so Skafloc removes his own plugs then cleverly puts them back in again. Mave has now completed the command and has no fresh instructions, so she is back to normal.

As Averon and Cheswin are flown away by the eagles there is a flash of lightning and everything goes grey.

Building a World

The party wakens in a formless void. Ahiga is able to sense the presence of Perrin and 4 other entities, other than the party members. He sees a script racing before his eyes saying "Where are you?". He also senses there are 30 questions to figure this out. He shares his knowledge with the party members. We quickly figure out that we are in the limbo between universes and we surmise this is where new universes are made from. We also figure out that whatever questions we ask define the new universe so when Mave asks "will the world be grey?" we are convinced it will be. We ask some good questions to form a universe to our liking but we neglect to place the portals to the places we want to go close together.

We find out they are 250 million miles apart later

The new world forms around us. Unor is whole again, Averon is asleep and we all have the +8 to all our stats. Ahiga asks Cheswin who she is as she has been displaying fighting prowess beyond a simple tavern maid. She says she is changing and she has tiny things called nanites in her. Urnor says they are technology from his plane. Averon wakes up and asks Cheswin what happened. Last he remembered she was busy exploding.

Ahiga uses his communication device to Aleria (the woman who warned us about Urnor). She is very surprised to hear from us as she thought we were dead. She knows for sure the sub was destroyed in the void. Lim convinces her that she owes us. She tells us a splinter group she belongs to ordered it. She talks to Urnor for a while and they discuss some science stuff. She will get back to us with ways to travel faster between portals.

Ahiga and Urnor have come to the realisation that we are still trapped in the sub on the verge of being killed by the flux energies. The flux is being shaped by our desperate conscious minds. Urnor calls this the "uncertainty principle". We decide to focus on being back in the sub, with it being whole. The sub after all, is designed to keep the flux out and consciousness' in. Our first few attempts show no effect . Ahiga convinces us to take poisons so that we have no choice.

The Demon Portal

We appear in a blast crater. There is wooden debris all around us as if trees had been ripped apart. The sub is lying not far away but it is ruined. We are all on our knees and are totally exhausted. As we look around we can see a grey mist with sparkly bits floating in it. It surrounds the crater. Stepping from the mist we see a squadron of archers. They have funny looking bows though. They look more like metal tubes. We naturally assume they are dangerous weapons and decide to play nice with the owners.

A lady with an armed guard of 10 soldiers steps forth and speaks to us in common. She demands we drop our weapons. We reply with 'we mean you no harm' as we oblige her. Urnor is happy to realise he has his own body again and that Averon is still a head in a bottle. While Tallama does a DA to define the plane of origin, which results in 'flux and anchor' Lim starts asking some questions based on 'where are we?'. The lady responds with 'who are you?'. Lim decides not answer the question directly and soon finds himself turned into a dog.

Urnor takes control of the situation and tells her we are explorers and are just passing through. The lady's name is Marlin and the lead soldier is called Kruger. They explain to us that they have been sent here to guard this Demon portal. 10 years ago there was a full invasion of the land by Demons that were tentacled creatures with flux powers. We are the first people to come through this portal in 10 years and they plan to take us back to the council for smarter minds to deal with us. They do mention that this place is called Hell Gate Eight. Tallama DAs Kruger and Marlin and find them both to be flux Lords. Kruger, after interrogating Averon for a moment, renders him unconscious. We reclaim our weapons and are led away towards the sparkling mist. As we leave we hear a whistling noise from the crater. We all look worried and decide to run. A huge explosion centred on the portal throws debris all over the place, destroying the submarine in the process. Shrapnel from the debris hits most of the party causing some severe damage. We take the time to heal up the most urgent wounds. Tallama tries to divinate the area but instead finds himself turned into a squirrel. We set up a watch with Ahiga setting up a ritual warding around us. Tallama is turned back to normal and DAs the mist to find it is highly magical and made of a lot of flux energy. Another female approaches Marlin, has a short discussion, turns into a bird and flies off. She has been sent to the council to let them know that we are coming.

Tallama tries casting a spell it but backfires. From the mist a huge tentacle reaches out and grabs her. The guards look extremely worried and run for cover, shouting 'that is runaway flux'. Lim tries casting a water spell to redirect the flow of the flux but it has only limited success. Tallama's body starts to melt. Ahiga shouts out 'visualise your goblin form'. Tallama tries this but can't control the shape of her body. Kruger steps in and manages to transform her into a horse with wings, saying that 'that is the best he can do'.

A short time later there was a fresh shout of alarm from the guards. From the mist comes a small army of jackal like creatures and soldiers. A wave of energy sweeps over the area. All of the party (except Ahiga, Lim and Mave) are affected by it and feel their minds separated from their bodies. Also from the mist come some tall slim female figures. One of the flux Lords opens a pit directly in front of them but they float right over it. The battle is short as all but Ahiga and Lim succumb within seconds of being touched by the jackals or the females. The group surrenders only to find a magical battle going on in the mist. The attackers drop their weapons and surrender to us as they sense the death of their last mage. Cheswin resurrects Perrin. He was silly enough to try disbelieving the jackal ripping his throat out wasn't real and paid the price. We rest up and heal.

Urnor tells us we are in a universe where both flux and science exist. Each land mass is considered an 'anchor', or an island, and these are connected by 'strings' in the flux. Flux Lords are able to navigate these strings and we might refer to them as 'stringers'. Some of the party have read about these from other guild adventures. There is also the possibility that some of us could have stringer potential, albeit very small. Marlin tells us her anchors council are very disturbed by an anchor called New Eden as it appears to be expanding into the flux much faster than any other anchor. She suspects the council will want us to investigate this. Marlin needs to stay here and guard the demon portal so she sends us off to the council with some guards. Mave and Skafloc lead the way as they are best at 'stringing'. Marlin points us down a string heading to Bell. We decide once we are there to hire a proper stinger to help us travel this world.

Several hours into the journey we realise we are lost and can no longer find the string. Mave thinks she can hear one in the distance so we move off. Within minutes we are attacked by blink dogs. Mave is targeted and blinked away to a cave with several puppies. They begin licking their lips but turn fearful when Mave backfires a 'soothe beast' spell and is turned into a giant mambo snake, for which little puppies are a natural prey. The mother dog blinks her back to our group. In those few minutes Perrin tries to locate her, backfires and turns into an octopus. The good news is, between Maves snake form with a sensitivity for vibrations and Ahiga and Skaflocs stringer abilities, we are able to find a string and follow it to the next anchor. The bad news is it should have taken us 4 days but it only took 2 days. We are at the wrong anchor.

Eden – Paradise

This anchor is called Eden and the guards with us are unsure about entering it. Ahiga, Lim and one guard venture in. After an hour Lim comes back out. He describes the place as a paradise of landscapes, foods, animals and peoples. Clearly it is a giant trap. Lim tells us it is ruled by a spirit god which we later learn to be the combination of 3 mad flux lords. It has taken control of Ahiga and the guard so that it can have more people worshiping it. We work out a good plan for Lim to go back in and barter for the release of Ahiga but before we can enact it Skafloc and Mave wander in. It doesn't take long before they come back out. Mave has been turned back to her normal form but she has a tattoo burned into her cheek saying 'evil'. It appears she behaved like the biblical snake in paradise and was a corrupting influence so she was banished. The god has laid out his terms for releasing Ahiga though. Either kill the god (zero chance of that being successful) or accept a compulsion (gaes) to enter New Eden and return with information on why the realm is growing (and posing a threat to Eden). The rest of us enter Eden and accept the compulsion. Perrin and Tallama plead to be returned to their normal forms. Tallama is changed back (with the bonus to return to Pegasus form at will) but Perrin muttered something under his breath which offends the god and so he is refused. Being an octopus must have its advantages though.

Six hours after leaving, following another string to the council, we are swarmed by hundreds of 'fear rats'. The guard says they are controlled by 8 foot monkeys and use them to draw prey off the strings. They chew through our ropes and separate us (mass fear will do that to a group of weak willed adventurers like us). We manage to reform the group but Urnor is missing. Perrin tries to locate him and a bright glowing arrow appears. Perrin leaps on it and zooms off into the darkness. Ahiga jumps on Tallamas back (Pegasus form) and races off after Perrin, only to find a flying monkey and a gorilla battling in the distance. Perrin was purposely backfiring to change shape into something that could handle the giant monkey. Ahiga uses a lance to kill the monkey. The timing though is a bit poor as Perrin backfires a mass charm spell which focuses on Ahiga and Tallama, making them his love slaves. Perrin has changed shape to weasel form, and faced with a horse and human wanting to do unspeakable things to him, he runs. Another backfire forces even more flux into him and he grows in weasel size before falling unconscious. Unspeakable things occur !!!

Sometime later, with the spell wearing off, Tallama and Ahiga remember Urnor and notice the monkey nest in the distance. As they approach the baby monkeys scatter, leaving an impaled Urnor (the location arrow) dying in the nest. Tallama stabilises him while Ahiga loots the nest (an egg, a dagger and 2 rings).

The group reforms and the journey continues. After several more hours we are found by Matsin of the stringers guild. He has been sent by the council to find us and get us safely to the right anchor. The final part of the journey is uneventful and we get to a land very similar to Alusia. Cheswin comments that Matsin was on the right string to find us but that wasn't the direct string to Hellgate 8. Matsin lets slip the council had eyes on us the whole time.

A lady called Glenda arrives from the council and informs us that New Eden started expanding a few years ago. They suspect the flux lords of New Eden have access to information and devices from the demon invasion a decade ago. Also the land contains a hidden library of the builders but no one knows how to get into it. New Eden was founded about 10 thousand years ago by a group of crazed flux lords who were anti women. They believe that a womans purpose is purely to please the males. All the females there are deformed into sexual beings with wild desires and urges. Magics can't be used inside this anchor but any spells we have on before entering New Eden will be maintained. Glenda supplies us with travel documents and a cover story of being apprentice stringers. Glenda gives us new equipment and weapons, blessings and directions through the flux to various anchors. We decide to go to New Eden via Grim. She also heals all our various shape changes due to flux corruption.

We stay the night in a small pub to rest up and fell fully refreshed in the morning.

New Eden

The journey to Grim takes 3 days and we choose not to enter it but follow the right string to New eden. Grim itself is a land where the flux lord has lost control of the flux and now the land is twisting and warping and returning to flux. All the inhabitants are twisted and on a long slow path to destruction. It takes a further 5 days to New Eden and we find the land glowing. It is different to all the other anchors we have visited so far in that it has a lot of technology being used. We recognise trains, guns and rifles from the guild library of other adventures. We do our best to disguise the 3 female members of the group before entering the anchor. Half an hour into the land we are greeted by a squadron of soldiers lead by Captain Raines. He checks our papers and escorts us to a fortified town called Fort Deliverance. We are instructed to stay the night and wait for an officer to arrive in the morning. We stay in the local saloon and pick up that there are machines that maintain the social structure and viability of the land. We rest but set the normal watches. At midnight a wave of energy sweeps over us. We all fail to resist its effects and find ourselves turned into flux girls. Matsin, our guide from the council, is still male and tells us this is some attempt by New Eden to keep us under their control.

In the morning an officer called Pan arrives and instructs us to follow him to Tegman City (the capitol) for further instructions. Pan informs us a deal will be made to return us to our original shapes if we do a task for the council. The train ride takes all day and the flux girl desires overcome all of us except Ahiga and Skafloc. Perrin doesn't even bother to resist the desires and the group service the soldiers on the train. The council sees us the next morning. The city has been rebuilt with alien technology (from the demon invasion) and the council wants even more technology from the library of the builders. Unfortunately none of their people can pass through a barrier on the entrance. The council building is built directly on top of the library so they can secure it. We are instructed to find at least 5 crystal keys and bring them back. These will help New Eden to expand even further into the flux. We are promised to be returned to our normal forms and we will be given positions of power in the new order as the other anchors are brought under control. They give us a communication device (a box).

The Builders Library

It turns out the barrier simply blocks beings from that plane so we pass through with no issues. We explore the place. There is a huge room holding eight other smaller rooms. Some of them have glowing vortex's of different colours. Some have strange equipment. The corridors surrounding the main room are 50 feet wide with polished metal. There are black shadowy things roaming the hallways which are constructs which disintegrate any foreign matter that the guardians deem unnecessary, known as nano cleaners. There are 3 pyramids in the main room, a roaring column of flame and a huge square of blackness on the floor. The pyramids are black, turquoise and of shifting colours respectively. Skafloc throws a grenade at a shadowy construct only to have the explosion absorbed and any messy evidence removed from the corridor. He also finds himself translocated to the central room. The rest of us enter cautiously.

While we as a group are discussing what to do, Frank walks up to the shifting colour pyramid and touches it. It changes shape to be humanoid. He says hello to it. It says hello back. Frank keeps talking and it appears the shape is learning the language. Mave takes over and tells some stories to help it improve its skill at common. It is one of the builders guardians. Its purpose is to keep the library functional till the builders return. The turquoise pyramid is a self destruct mechanism. The black one is a backup device. The black square is a shaft to the builders devices. The vortexs are portals to many locations. Tallama claims to be a builder. He is instructed to go into the column of flame. He refuses and is quickly disintegrated by the nano cleaners. The guardian says his 'pattern has been stored' and that 'he won't be taking things from here'. The only surprise here is it wasn't Perrin who said it. We question the guardian about restoring Tallama. If we use one of the devices in the adjoining room we can gain the knowledge of the builders on this subject. Frank steps forth and sits in the 'knowledge transference chair'. After 20 seconds he screams and passes out. It looks like Franks brain will explode in about 5 minutes because he was too primitive to hold much information. Ahiga sits in the chair but only for 5 seconds. He passes out. Cheswin puts some extra nanites in Frank with the hope of slowing down the brain explosion. Skafloc whips Ahiga to consciousness. Ahiga sits on a builder couch and focuses on healing Frank and reconstituting Tallama. Frank and Ahiga are back in their normal forms but Tallama, like the rest of us, are still in flux girl forms. Ahiga tries really hard to fix us all but fails on Skafloc and Perrin. He falls unconscious. Just then the urges overtake Skafloc and Perrin. Skafloc resists them but Perrin, who hasn't bothered resisting them yet, again decides to 'go with the flow'. Young Ahiga has a very good time. Shame he was unconscious for it.

The guardian seems amused at our endeavours and explains that one of the vortex's goes to a place called Buko and from there we can get to Paradox. Shortly after the black shaft starts glowing and the turquoise pyramid pops open then closes. Given it is a self destruct device we take that as being a bad sign. We warn the guardian about the council people from New Eden wanting to invade this library. It seems non plussed. It is about this time we remember the communication device that Perrin is holding on his belt. It is also about this time that his legs get blown off as the box explodes. Perrin is still a flux girl and one of his high heels spikes Tallama in the head. We have some injured party members so we take turns on the chair and couch to get the knowledge to heal them. Perrin goes for something a bit different and asks for knowledge of the builders history. The devices don't like that and his brain starts to implode. Urnor has a double brain and seeks knowledge of portals to Paradox and Alusia, as well as healing. It seems Perrin is in deep trouble as all attempts to fix him fail. The group cuts off his head and puts it in the jar with worms. This helps. The head and the body are stuffed into Urnors bag. Urnor says we need to go through to Buko now as the enemies of the builders are coming. We step through the vortex.

Slaves Again

We find ourselves on a muddy beach with cliffs leading up to some huts on the top. The sky has strange spheres which appear to be absorbing matter. There are creatures coming from the ocean walking up the cliff to the huts with equipment on their backs. Averon recognises them as 'renders', an ancient mythical race of universe conquerors that enslaved whole planes and performed bioengineering feats on the slaves. Eventually the slaves rebelled and made the renders extinct. Tallama casts a scry shield to hide us from them but that only attracts their attention. We are quickly captured. They try to talk to us but we can't understand them. They produce a jar with worms in it and begin deciding whose head to cut off. Lim quickly pulls out Perrins head and they seem pleased. They add their worms to his jar and Perrin can now understand them. We tell them of our story so far and that we are only passing through. They demand we get the portal open in 1 days' time or be killed. They do tell us they were released from stasis on another plane and they retreated here through a builder vortex. They can't get the next portal open though as there is a barrier blocking it.

We are escorted to the top of the cliff and into a small complex where we are left to "do our job or be killed". We have been stripped of all our armour and equipment so it seems like quite a mission. Lim and Urnor figure out that Urnors portal opening device needs to have some scientific components replaced by similar magical means. We do a test run and find the portal is below a deep shaft in the middle of the complex. One of our guards leaves the room to report the findings so we cast spells to sleep the remaining guard, and then control him. He gets sent out to battle other guards while we put up walls of forbidding, blocking the other rooms. We are vastly outnumbered and barely manage for Frank to grab Urnors bag (thanks to spectral hands) before leaping down the shaft, leaving all our gear behind.

We emerge from the portal in mid-air, falling to the earth several miles below. It takes about 20 minutes for us all to realise this is an illusion (Perrin and Tallama are the slowest to figure it out) but we all gently land in a room with 4 exits. Urnors device points downwards so we take the exit with the downwards slope. Urnor seems displeased to have our naked bodies walking too close to him so he produces clothes from his bag. Most of us are grateful.

The Antechamber of Paradox

The corridor goes on for ages so we rest up and regain our full health before proceeding. Along the way we encounter creatures in stasis bubbles. There are some armoured tigers, some puppeteers (mind mages), a black unicorn and some shimmering gas known as gas binders. We debate letting them free to aid us but see the wiser side in leaving them be. After several more hours we come to a room with guardian constructs. They look like us but of the opposite sex. They offer to fix Perrin and Averon (still heads in bottles) and after a few hours they both re-enter the room with bodies again. Perrin is very grateful as it has been some time since he could walk about on his own. The guardians agree to make weapons and armour for us and answer our questions. Paradox is only a short distance away as this is the antechamber room. Paradox is made of both Magic and Science and is the source of all the templates for the known universes.

In order to go to Paradox we need to be tested, oh and by the way, the test has already started.

The portal is controlled by the guardians and can be set to anywhere. It is currently set to the middle of a sun.

Lim backfires a spell to make water in a container and the water won't stop. This could be a problem as water flows downhill and the portal is still down the tunnel. The guardians don't mind if the chamber gets flooded but we have a small problem with it. We head on down to the portal room.

Cheswin and Urnor both want to go to Paradox but we are still sceptical about Urnors changing behaviour. Lim quietly suggests to the guardian that they tell Urnor the portal now points to Paradox. He would step through the portal with the leaking water bottle and be incinerated in the blazing sun.

Objects can only go through the portal with a sentient creature

Tallama and Urnon try to analyse the portal but both find it is non magical. Since Urnor always said he wanted to go to Paradox in order to find a purely scientific world we suggest the guardians point the portal directly to this world, saving Urnor the trouble of going to Paradox. He refuses our kind offer claiming he now seeks knowledge of other worlds. We don't believe him.

Suddenly Cheswin attacks Urnor. Perrin takes the lead and threatens Urnors cat. Skafloc prepares while the rest wait to see what is happening. Urnor raises his hand and most of our group fails to resist something and we start attacking each other. The battles rages for a few seconds before Urnor steps into the portal and vanishes. The guardians are alarmed that Urnor managed to change the portal destination to Paradox. This shouldn't be possible. Cheswin claims Urnors second brain was hiding the Bella. This answers why his mood would change sometimes. We all race to step through the portal before its destination changes again.

Paradox

Lim and Frank are the last to step through and find themselves on Alusia. The rest of the group are in a deep valley with high mountains and a massive river flowing through the middle. Looking up we see a multi-faceted glowing moon. It looks very unusual. We watch as Urnor is captured by a band of goblins and dragged away. We are of course naked again with no items made by the guardians, only a few simple iron weapons. We can't draw mana and even our talents don't work. Cheswins nanites are no longer active. The goblins return and attack us. Tallama calls out "bow down and submit to your new leader". They ignore her and continue till we have killed a few and captured some more. They back off and demand we return their friends. Tallama tells them to surrender again and the leader refuses. 2 smaller goblins backstab him and the group surrenders to us. They bring Urnor back. Yippee for us!!!

This world is huge and the river flows all around it. When people die they are resurrected on huge metal mushrooms on the riverbank. These are spaced about a mile apart but you can resurrect anywhere along the river. Basically in this place you can't really die and groups of people have been here for eons. The only source of food is a "grail" container which is attached to your hip on your first resurrection. It provides food and other useful items (like drugs). These grails are filled each day by placing them on a mushroom at sunrise, noon and sunfall, where magical lightning strikes.

To the north there is a camp of humans and to the south is a mind flayer. As night approaches the mind flayer comes to our camp and demands the iron weapons we have. Tallama, Ahiga, Perrin and Cheswin attack it as the other goblins run away. Cheswin kills it but not before it cripples Tallama by giving her some form of brain damage. Cheswin thinks she can relieve the pressure on the brain but we need to get to a saver area. We head south a bit but Tallama doesn't make it. We keep her body and Cheswin cuts off Tallamas head and the mind flayers head. She shows these to the goblins and proclaims herself the new leader. We put Tallamas head and body on the mushroom and wait for the magical lightning to strike, hoping it will bring her back to live here. It was a good plan but all we end up with is a roasted giant goblin meal for lunch.

Nightime falls and 2 large cat creatures approach the goblin camp. They demand the usual sacrifice of a goblin but Cheswin offers a non-lethal duel in exchange for them leaving the goblins alone. The cats are amused by this readily accept. One steps forward and the battle begins. As fast as the cat is Cheswin manages to dodge and strike it back, drawing first blood. Cheswin wins and the cats join us for a meal and sharing information of the land. The most pertinent bit of info is the rumour that guardians are at the north pole. Averon surmises that Paradox is really the glowing moon above and that is where all the copies of universes are held. We take a week to climb up the edge of the mountain to get some perspective on the height of the moon. It is indeed high up. Our next plan is build a hot air balloon to float up but we suspect we will run out of air before reaching it. Then Skafloc and Perrin convince the party to create some chaos by tipping one of the mushrooms into the river in an attempt to get a guardian to come to us. This kind of works as it certainly draws there attention. Unfortunately they don't come in person and instead send a glowing white light that instantly kills us.

We wake up at the foot of another mushroom, fully healed and with our own grails. Tallama is here with a human and two elves. The human is an ex demon of vengeance called Caitlyn. The elves are Jihad and Urewin. Urewin is slightly mad and is an expert on the magical systems of Alusia. In fact it turns out he has been able to manipulate the magical system of Alusia from here for the last 30 years.

This explains why the rules of magic have been changing lately.

We go back to the main elf camp where we talk for a while. We learn that guardians are rumoured to travel the world and take over entities bodies. They use the hidden soul portals above the mushrooms to travel about as the lightning strikes.

Jihad tells us there is a group of humans a week to the north who have nearly finished building a rocket. They are not very friendly though and would kill us on site.

The next morning we all gather around the closest mushroom to refill our grails and nothing happens. The elves tells us this has never happened before and they get very upset when we mention it may be a side effect of us destroying a mushroom yesterday. Urnor thinks the Bella has managed to get to the north pole and has taken over the guardian headquarters, deactivating the mushrooms. We grab the balloon material and run off into the mountain side before the angry elves sacrifice us.

It takes a while but we finally evade the elves (or they simply give up). We find a safe place and rest up for the night. A guardian takes possession of Perrins mind but finds the cats mind better due to its multi-faceted capacities and its knowledge of portals. He explains that the soul portals above the mushrooms are no longer functioning. We tell him about the Bella and how its goal is to get to Paradox. The guardian works with us to formulate a plan. The guardian can re-enable science and magic in a localised area so we have access to our spells again. Of course none of us have anything useful to contribute so we rely on Caitlyn and her 'demon of vengeance' powers.

We plan to appear in the camp of the humans with the rocket, seize control of it and use it to fly to the north pole, with the balloon material we have to be used as a parachute for each of us. Asides from a minor battle at the camp (Ahiga and the few like minded guards who believe in our cause hold the others off) we do quite well and we all land on the edge of a huge lake at the north pole. The central island has a tall silver tower in the centre. This is where the guardians are based.

Fighting the Bella

Getting into the tower proves problematic. First off Skafloc, Tallama, the guardian (in the cat) and Ahiga fly across to a small island where we hope to find some hidden teleport pad into the main tower. They are confronted by mind mages whose purpose is to convince them to leave this plane. The plants are also carnivorous and the vines do particularly large damage to the group. They get back to the south beach where we landed and after healing we try the direct approach on the central island. We are confronted by mind mages again and this time Averon succumbs and is whisked away. Good riddens we all think aloud.

The guardian describes the contents of the tower. One the ground floor there are 6 rooms. These are the Final Program room, the Regeneration room, the Meditation room, the Monitor room, the Death room and finally the Ascension room. On the second floor is the hall of trophies where unique and interesting items from the inhabitants brought into paradox are kept. The third floor is for the soul catcher and this is where the guardians leave their bodies while their minds wander the plane. The fourth floor has a vast number of travel vortexes. The fifth and top floor is where the devices that manipulate Paradox are housed. There are also magic and scientific gateways there.

The tower itself doesn't have any doors for us to get in so we have to get creative. Ahiga suggests trying spirit walking but we talk him out of it as the closeness of the soul catcher worries us. He then tries a limited precognition of exploring the ground floor and he gets a good idea of the layout till he enters the death room and all goes black. As a group we meditate on getting ourselves, mind and bodies, into the meditation room. We all appear there except Ahiga. The silly barbarian tried to do something else and he is still outside. We then try to meditate on bringing Ahiga in but as we fall into trances we realise we didn't check the effects of meditating in the mediation room. Little things like "how long will a mediation take" seem to have escaped us. DOH!!!

Ahiga manages to spirit walk his body and mind into the room and finds only the guardian awake. Ahiga drags Perrins body to the regeneration room because he was still a bit damaged from previous battles. This separates Perrins mind from his body but the body does start regenerating.

Ahiga and the guardian take the stairs to level two in search of items to defeat the Bella from the trophy room but the bella, in a guardians body, meets them on the stairway. The guardian tries to dislodge the Bella from the body but fails. The Bella says 'where is the rest of the group? I only need one try the portal to Paradox and to see what last guardian is there.' Ahiga dashes past him and focuses on a powerful barbarian weapon that can defeat the Bella. A two handed sword materialises in his hands. Ahiga battles the distracted Bella (the guardian is trying again to take control) and while he gets in some good shots and smites the Bella manages to incinerate Ahiga. His dying thought is to spirit walk to the regeneration room and possess Perrins body.

Ahiga cuts off one of Perrins hands in the hope it will grow another body but the guardian says it will likely take a day or two for that to happen. Ahiga then grabs Tallamas and Cheswins bodies and pulls them into the regeneration room in case he needs more bodies to occupy. Needless to say Ahiga, in Perrins body, and the guardian in the cats body, don't last long in the next confrontation with the Bella. Ahiga uses Tallamas body while the guardian chooses Cheswins. Ahiga then tries a bit of deception. He taunts the Bella down to the ground level and then runs into the Death Room, hoping the Bella will follow. The Bella does and both souls are ripped from their bodies and captured by the soul catcher on the third floor.

The guardian, still in Cheswins body, drags the remaining bodies back to the meditation room where Skafloc, Mave and Urnor awaken. The rest of our souls are sucked into the soul catcher where we begin taunting the Bella in an effort to distract him.

The remaining 4 go to the monitor room and see alarms ringing as metal insects drop from the sky and begin melding into another shape. The guardian says the realm is under attack and he needs to get the other guardians back into their bodies (once he can regenerate them) but first he has to get rid of the Bella mind. The group goes to the Hall of Trophies and find a helmet which binds minds together, giving them shared mental strength, and a rod of 'eject mind'. It only has one shot left though.

The plan is to have the Guardian wear the helmet and Urnor, Mave and Skafloc wear the attachments. The Bella will attempt to possess one of the bodies. If it succeeds then the rod is used to eject both it and the owners mind, and the body is killed (head cut off). Then Ahiga, Perrin, Tallama, Cheswin,the Demon and the Cat will focus on keeping the spirit out of the soul catcher. If it can't find a body quickly enough the soul will be dissipated and our Bella problems will be over. To help this process Ahiga and the Demon merge their minds into a new being. Perrin and the Cat do the same. Tallama and Cheswin remain independent.

The plan works very well except for poor Skafloc who fails to keep the Bella out on the first attempt. Mave slices his head almost off. The Bella tries everyone else multiple times but the shared mental strength keeps it out and it dies. Victory is ours !!!

The Guardian reactivates the portals and whips up some new guardian host bodies in the nick of time. He tells us to check the Hall of Trophies but we must depart very quickly so they can engage the new enemy outside.

We all head back to Seagate but Ahiga convinces the Demon of Vengeance to go to New Eden where she can wreck her Vengeance to her hearts content. A brilliant move on his part and he is applauded by the group.

Administration

Days spent on Adventure is 29.

Loot is individualised from the Hall of Trophies.