Milloo Trade Mission

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Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: Milloo Trade Mission
GM: Gordon Lewis
Season: Winter 800 WK

Party
Time on adventure
1 Frost 800 WK to 3 Snow 800 WK
Original Scribe Notes
Media:Snwi0003.zip

Scribe Notes

Day 1 – The Guild Meeting

We have been given a device that can get us to the plane which we are going to adventure on. Apart from that we have a request for someone to give House Kouronikovich a bit of a hand. No one knows exactly what but the Western Church said that they will be grateful if we go (I hope that is bags of gold grateful).

The device is simple, a stone with a dialup device for the number of souls to travel. We ended up with some hitchhikers courtesy of the Duke, Sir John Black, Sir Mortimer Carringsbrook, Jack Armstrong and Kerron Silvertorn. A right bunch of twits if you ask me, the Duke would do a lot better with a decent Guild party if he wants to get up to a lot of mischief. When triggered the device sang a tune and then we were in the middle of a stone henge. The Duke’s men tried to leg it out of the area (poncing off to do some sneaking around a couple of the local inns no doubt) and bounce off a force field. With a bit of investigation we found that the field encircled the whole area. Having no where to go for a while we lit the nicely laid out campfire in the middle of the henge. Lo and behold one lit the fire triggered a bound speech welcoming us in Reichspiel.

We settled down for the night, having no where to go. Later in the night 10 wolves wandered up to the henge. Being the talkative sort I asked them what they were doing here (yes I can talk to animals, just one of many talents). They said they were waiting for something to happen and that the Masters were about. Soon we got confirmation of this with hunting horns sounding in the distance. A stag bounded into the clearing and straight into the force field which acted true to form and gave the poor thing a hell of a fright as it slammed into it at full speed. Just after it bounded away the Masters arrived on the scene, three people on horseback (2 males one female). We have a communication problem as no one speaks Reichspiel, yet they can speak Dwarven. They call Goran a “Verg” and treat him like a lower life form (maybe this plane will have some redeeming qualities). We mention Kouronikovich, which gets a response, and they decide to leave us alone. I got the feeling that the force field definitely influenced their opinion on that.

Day 2 - Gottersegnend

After breakfast a huge iron horse appeared pulling a carriage. The driver cast and dispelled the force field. Once equipped with an ear amulet each we were able to understand Reichspiel and talk to our employer Alea Kouronikovich. A charming 20ish lady, very well dressed, with a horse and cross symbol on her shoulder. This is the symbol of House Kouronikovich the master golem makers. She told us that we are to be guards on a trade mission, must be a pretty dangerous trade mission to put your whole plane in peril by letting a Guild party loose on it. Her companion is Albrecht an Animist (whatever they are). We are in currently in the New Forest south of her home the city-state of Gottersegnend. It seems that we are in the Empire of Sho-I-ya a very religious empire that took over this land 500 years ago. Paul Zaniborovich is the current Emperor.

I should mention that during all of this the Duke’s men were hiding under some leaves, you would think that they could whip up an invisibility spell between them. This turned out to be a really stupid idea when the giant iron horse (golem) turned to leave it stomped on one of them rather fatally. Thankfully no one else noticed the bloody hoof- bunch of twits, bet they weren’t even getting paid for their trouble.

After a day of travel we reached Gottersegnend a large walled city. Interestingly there were groups of workers and golems repairing the city wall. Looks like golems are far more common here. We entered through the Forest Gate. An even stranger sight was the de-tusked orcs wandering around in priest’s robes. Looks like someone has managed to tame them, bizarre. On reaching the Kouronikovich Guild House we were fed and measured up for some less conspicuous local clothing. I used an illusion to hide Ikaron’s lovely sword (Lord Sutur’s Bane) which he has attached in place of his hand. Alia was somewhat shocked at this. It seems that illusions are not common on this plane as anything that is not in the image of an object of God’s creation is unholy. So I will have a lot of fun here as long as I don’t get caught.

At breakfast Clarissa was fed raw meat. Strangely they thought she was an Orc. We were not sure why, apart from the tattoos and pointy ears the semblance is pretty remote. We managed to get cooked food for her but it took a bit of persuading as they thought it would kill her.

Erasmus Kouronikovich, Alia’s father, had a little talk with me about illusions, he can see the economic benefit of them, which outweighs his religious concerns. I suppose he isn't that worried if a godless heathen like me ends up in hell. He told me to disguise Clarissa so that she doesn't stand out quite so much. When questioned on what Clarissa is, I told them that she was a strange race related to humans. I get the feeling that elves could possibly be unwelcome on this plane. In any event I don't see the benefit in finding out either way.

Albrecht's cousin, Alexsander (a trainee priest) popped in for a chat, and he wanted to be introduced to us. This worried the Kouronikovich's a bit as this means that the Church may be interested in us. Word certainly travels fast when a bunch of plane ravishing hooligans drop in for a bit of chaos and mayhem. Our new working clothes turned up, now most of us (with a few illusions) can pass as locals. Goran is rather miffed that Dwarves are a servant race, he has been pretty much ignored by everybody.

The Church seems to be causing a bit of bother and the Bishop is delaying our trade mission. Erasmus and Alia have decided that we should take Alexsander out for a night on the town and then lose him somewhere. With a day to burn it is down to the Palace Library to get some maps of where we are going. Clementine (who has the attention span of a human her size) was harassed by Philipe the Guard for loitering. I am not surprised, a hobbit sitting outside a library "just watching the world go by" is a damn suspicious thing if you ask me.

Mugs of Beer and Muggings

That evening we took Alexsander out for a few quiet then increasingly noisy drinks. We all had a great time drinking other people's money. Not surprisingly a lovely lady tried to pick me up, they just can't help throwing themselves at me. What was out of the ordinary was that she deftly palmed me a note and that she had an illusion of some kind on her (probably aura and disguise). Not being able to read Reichspiel or Dwarven I got Goran to decipher the note. It was an invitation to the house of Christian and Jessica Albrecht (the house sigil was bread and hands). Alexsander got totally sloshed and we left him at Mistress Jenny's for a good time. No doubt he will surface in a few days rather embarrassed with some good etchings of him and a goat.

To top of a good evening we got ambushed by brigands on the way home. Foolishly they expected us to surrender, when they realised we were actually looking forward to a good scrap things got ugly for them. In short there were bears, bear hugs, lightning bolts, flashes of light, semi conscious and blind animists and gratuitous stabbing on our side; glue spells and rippy face spells from the enemy. We kicked ass as usual and looted the bodies as fast as they fell down. We looted three nice gold crosses, two stone heart shaped pendants, some magical crossbow bolts, 2 crystal vials (with preservation magic on them) and something unknown inside, 3 stones with magic runes on them, pouches with singing oil and rubbing cloths. We had a small argument about whether you leave bandits to die or heal them and let them live to rob another day. The healers won, don't make no sense to me.

I disguised Clementine for the walk home as a bear attracts a little too much attention on a city street. While walking through the suburb of Whitebridge we heard a small child saying that he could see a bear on the street. The child was hushed and we carried on. Some of the party commented that we should take him to Seagate for training, others thought it would be better to ensure that he never had the chance to breed.

When we got back to the Boarding House we discovered that the hole in Goran's face was caused by Dwarven magic. A healing potion only restored fatigue, the hole remained. Not too concerned about his fate we decided to leave it to a local healer in the morning.

Day 3-The Day after the Night Before

Albrecht had breakfast with Alia to report the night's events. She was not at all surprised at the mugging. On hearing about Goran's face she summoned all of us in. The liquid in our cups was an amazing hangover cure, like a huge caffeine high. Somehow Alia has managed to get herself to Rank 3 Common in a day so we have some basic communication going. We were informed that the Bishop has further delayed our expedition till after the sabbath (a couple of days away). To cover our discussions Alia used a singing stone and some oil to create a bubble of privacy around us. She wants us to go into the Bishop's house and copy the last week's entries in his diary (all priests have to keep one) so we can find out why he is being so difficult. With wards being very common on this plane we need something to remove them for us so a trip is organised to the Albrecht's (who we got the note from). Under the cover of polite conversation Alia and Jessica Albrecht used a sign language to do the real business. Goran was taken away to be fixed up by healer. A mage gave us 6 clay bottles containing Holy annulments, able to deactivate a ward for up to 5 minutes.

Sardak and I decided to do a recce of the Bishop's residence. We dressed-up in Kouronikovich livery, grabbed a couple of horses and delivered a letter to someone a couple of doors down from his residence. A small problem with a saddle outside his gate and we saw what we needed to. Having not had any sleep the night before we were exhausted, some serious sleeping was needed. The plan as always is simple, fly in, DA everything in sight, break-in, copy and memorise the diary, fly off.

Breaking into the Bishop's House

The start was not an auspicious one. Ikaron got a bit too fancy with his flying and after nearly hitting the ground, and a brief stint of flying backwards, he ended up in a bit of a mess. Clarissa was on hand to get him back down to the ground so he could walk the rest of the way.

Sardak was first to the top of the wall, finding nothing of concern in the grounds we followed. The gravel had tidying magic on it, looks like the grounds look after themselves. The front door was warded with "shock" the windows had "entity repelling" and "alarm". The easiest way in was an invisible sneak by Clementine and Sardak through the servant's door, past the cook, through a trapped door to an area with an alarm aura. They sneaked back out and we went for one of the front windows. There was a repulsion ward on the windowsill so we flew in (Clem got thrown in). The stairs up to the Bishop's quarters were warded with "any weapon over 2ft long" and "evil intent towards the Bishop." Upstairs we found a door with "ordained to God's service" sounded like the right place so we used a potion to deactivate it and went in. The room was a study and the diary was not in an obvious place. We found a loose floorboard with a box of crystals in it. We countered the ward on the box. Sardak was DAing the crystals when he fainted, Clem dived and caught the box then she too fainted. Crystals scattered across the floor. Obviously the counterspell can be quite a short duration! We found a cupboard under the desk, countered the ward and the diary was unearthed. We had 21 pages to copy, far too long by normal means so I used some mana points to set up a high mana zone and used Seeming to copy them onto sheets of paper for copying when we got back to the Boarding House (a good idea by Clarissa). We deactivated the wards again on the way out and returned to the Boarding House with 2 potions remaining.

When I got back to my room I found the lovely lady illusionist in it (hardly surprising really, she obviously couldn't get enough of me). Since I had company (I was sharing a room with Ikaron) we went down to the courtyard for a chat. She said that she had been to Alusia (where I presume she learned her trade) and she asked me to not tell anybody about her, an easy enough request. With a goodnight kiss we parted and I returned to my room.

Day 4 -Travel to Zwergberg

We left on our Trade Mission to Zwergberg, the problems with the Bishop overcome (we never really found out exactly what the problem was). We are travelling to the Dwarven cities to find out why the orders for Iron Golems are not being filled. We are to meet Ashfen Dento'oro president of Pax Souteran. His is a famous lineage being the grandson of the leader of the Dwarven resistance to the human invasion of the continent. A fight that they lost and they have been subjugated and oppressed ever since. Quite enlightened really.

Days 5-6 Travelling

Travelling up the River to the Forest (Green Curtain).

Day 7-The Gold Plateau and River Bandits

When we left the forest and entered the Gold Plateau we met some wolves with a package of Amber for Ashfen. The package was from the Forest Dwellers, lycanthropes. Not wanting to offend them we took the package with us.

Alia sensed danger ahead so she got me to make her invisible then she flew ahead to the city of Forge. We prepared ourselves for an ambush, Erasmus created a clay golem - useful skill. Our aerial scouts found a gorge ahead which had been blocked with logs, but they couldn't see the ambush party. Clem and Clarissa sat on the cliff (like eagles waiting for a snack) while we sent No.6 (the Iron Horse) and the golem to clear the way. Suddenly the carriage got stuck, then the road turned to ice and the carriage slipped half into the river. The ambushers were hiding in the river and seemed to have a spell that allowed them to float above it (we discovered later that there were air sprites holding up columns of air). Our attackers were Dwarves, Orcs and a water elemental. We responded by deafening and/or blinding most of them. The mage that was casting the floating spell backfired dropping the rest of his friends into the river, this was a great help to us. A nasty habit of theirs was throwing water about and then turned it into acid - Ikaron bearing the brunt of the combat. Goran persuaded the Water Elemental to leave with a sideways clubbing battle axe. Erasmus blasted an Orc that had melded with earth (psuedo earth elemental, hard to damage) - very messy results. One Orc was captured - on interrogation he revealed that he knew nothing about who hired them. Our loot only consists of a magic hand and a half and a pendant. The carriage was ruined, acid had eaten away the wheel rims. We only managed to avoid losing the whole carriage into the river by getting the clay golem to hold it up. We had to destroy the carriage and move the cargo to the second carriage (a lot smaller one). We kept the doors with the House insignia in case we need them.

Day 8-The Birth of Fluffenspit

Sardak killed the Orc "while trying to escape". For some reason the party decided to talk about what golems could be made out of, especially fluff and spit. Fluffenspit the fluff and spit golem dove was born, proud parents Ikaron and Clem.

Days 9 - 10 Travelling

Travelling.

Day 11-Forge (Lets Meet the Locals)

We travelled down the gorge to Onan's Throat where there is a cavern to the underground river leading to Forge. We had to leave the carriage and No.6 here and go the rest of the way by barge. The river has been divided into two lanes, one going each way. There is a sharp division between the two sides, some kind of elemental force. The underground river system is huge, with a lot of trade traffic in and out. We reached Forge and docked at the Clearance area, which controls traffic in and out of the city. We were given quarters in the Palace area.

Sardak and I were given the task of checking up on the other trade missions in town to find out what was going on. Suitably disguised we wandered around, not much to hear, mostly just courtiers and traders waiting for an audience. When one of the palace officials tried to talk to us we had to pretend to be ignorant tourists, as we can't speak the language. We managed to annoy him enough that he went away. We then dashed around a corner and changed disguises just incase. We went up a huge spiral staircase into an atrium full of traders. After a while a group was called and they went through a guarded door, we presumed this is where the audiences are being held. Mingling with this crowd gave us some juicy gossip about the Duke of Martynschloss. Some of the people think that he has ideas above his station and that the Emperor should not be putting up with him. After two and a half hours the first group returned from their audience, it was obvious that parts of the crowd disliked them.

Clarissa was sent to the messhall to see if she could overhear some gossip. With a disguise illusion to blank out the tattoos she made quite a nice Orc. It helped that the local Orcs are very civilised and have had their tusks pulled so that they can speak decent common. She ended up sitting next to a very slovenly and unkempt Orc named Brother Nashaq and his friend Kishalt. They are both studying in Forge. Nashaq was harassed about his appearance and hygiene habits, it seems that he has a hermit like life of study with brief appearances at public places such as the messhall. After a while Erasmus and party arrived to have breakfast. He was greeted by a number of the people there and seemed to be held in quite high regard. When he left Clarissa heard a lot of muttering about him being there. The impression was that something must be up for him to have made the trip to Forge himself.

Erasmus and party eventually turned up in the atrium, where they were quickly admitted to the audience chambers. I went invisible and followed them in. The audience was with a Chief Accountant who made a lot of excuses about why the golems were not ready yet. It sounded like he was just making excuses and was very concerned that Erasmus had turned up. The Dwarf wanted Erasmus to go back home but Erasmus wanted answers. After the meeting Alia met a very well dressed lady dwarf, Shara, who seemed to be an old friend. They retired to her quarters for tea. Meanwhile I followed the Accountant to another office where he was harassed by another dwarf for not getting Erasmus to go home, and that they are building a golem for Martynschloss that isn't finished yet. When the Kouronikovich's had finished their tea we headed back out. With the party carefully spaced, I managed to slip out the door with them.

Day 12-Hunting for Animists and Priests

It seems that Brother Nashaq (though smelly and dirty) has a reputation as a great scholar. He is best known for his research in to past religions. Alia for some reason is very interested in what he is researching. So we were given two missions, find Brother Nashaq and find where they make the golems.

Clementine decided that to find a golem you need to catch a golem maker, and that when you are a hobbit the best place to find anything is somewhere where they sell food. She headed out into the Kitchen District to look for hobbits. In a Hobbitery (Hobbit eating establishment) she found an Animist named George (Binder with a strange lack of desires in the world domination department) hobbit that told her that golems are made in the factory halls. He was quite smitten by the charming young Clementine and agreed to take her out to Factory Halls at the end of his shift. Since a young hobbit shouldn't be allowed to wander a strange town alone with a strange man Sardak and I followed discreetly, disguised as usual. We found a slight hitch was that hailing a water taxi and getting it to go where you want to is not the easiest when you do not know the language. We managed to get to the Factory Halls without incident. The taxi driver had a few comments about tourists - we may not speak the language but we understand every word. To put it simply there are golems of every shape and size here. Many have their maker's sigil on them which can be detected with a DA. None are made of the strange alloy that No.6 is made of. He did not want to take Clem to Alchemy and started to get a bit concerned about all of her questions. He wasn't any more use as a tour guide so Sardak and I went invisible and sneaked into Alchemy. There were lots of bubbling cauldrons and making of strange ingredients but no sign of strange alloys or golems.

Meanwhile Clarissa and Albrecht went to the School District looking for Nashaq, lots of scholarly types but this is a school for elementalists. They were directed to the Temple District for scholars of the holy inclination. This area is a huge cavern hollowed out originally as a Dwarven temple and converted to the new religion after the invasion. Eventually they found someone to guide them to the Bishop's residence where Kishalt is supposed to be tutoring (which is a start). There they were confronted with the nasty and vicious creature known as the officious receptionist who told them to go away as Kishalt was busy. Having hit this impassable obstacle they waited for a while and then left a note for Kishalt to contact them at the Kouronikovich's quarters.

Having found maker's sigils on golems Clementine and Sardak flew back to the entry to the cave system to find out what No.6's sigil looked like (it took most of a day each way). It is a very strong aura, a circle of runes in Dwarvish. On their return they were translated as Fire, Water, Earth, Air and Mysticism.

Alia discovered from gossip that there is about to be a war between the countries of Martynschloss and Nassengrosser. It will be the first time in the Empire's history that the peace has been broken.

Day 13-Riots, Assassins and Super Compacto Bookcases

We tried the Artisan Halls, no golems there. Where are they hiding the little buggers?

I suggested that we search the Accountant's offices for clues. Alia arranged to have tea with Shara again so we could sneak Sardak and Clementine (invisible) past the guards. They searched a plain office and found nothing. The Chief Accountants were in their offices so they decided to wait for them to leave. Eventually a bell chimed and the clerks all went into a rock garden and had their afternoon tea. Strangely they all fell asleep afterwards and then 20 minutes later got up and went back to work. At that point the Chief Accountants No's 1 and 2 went to the garden. Seizing this window of opportunity they rifled one of their offices (nothing of note) and found a secret door beneath the desk. Once the nasty trap was disarmed they found a long flight of stairs which they of course just had to go down. After opening the door at the end of the stairs they came into a large room with rows of bookshelves, an archive of some sort. Not being able to read Dwarven (someone screwed up there) they couldn't find anything useful. Instead they found a secret panel on a wall. After disarming the opening mechanism the panel opened and an eye looked out. As they were invisible it couldn't see them but it decided to activate the machinery anyway. With a lot of clunks, chains and counterweights the archives slammed together (luckily they weren't in the way). Guards arrived and in the confusion Clementine and Sardak sneaked back upstairs.

Meanwhile Erasmus was asked by a Guard Captain if he could send his guards to help with a riot in the Great Hall. Why someone would ask a Guild party to stop a riot I just don't know, we are far more adept at starting them. We dashed out there to find a riot in progress, the trade delegates, after listening to Dwarven singers for the last week, had finally snapped and were embracing the competitive cut and thrust of capitalism with gusto. Of more concern was the cloaked assassin spotted crawling along the ceiling. A quick lightning bolt from Clarissa brought him down to earth in a hurry and the guards finished him off. Another of these cloaked individuals was seen going into the library which was where the President of the Pax was. So we dashed into the library and searched the rows for the assassin. I found him climbing through the stacks and disemboweled him with one mighty slash, hurrah!

Alia spotted a friend being accosted by a group of young hooligans. So we waded into the fray. Being fully armored and bloody dangerous looking we didn't get much opposition. Especially after the Bane got hungry and impaled one of the hooligans and then proceeded to drink him dry. After that the riot quitened down a bit.

The President was most grateful at being saved and offered us gold for our trouble. We also got two "Cloaks of Obscurement" from the assassins. A similar effect to blending, they are good for shadowy areas. They also had special sticky pads on their hands and feet for wall climbing.

To solve the problem that our sneaky party members can't read Dwarven Alia offered them magical silver eyes that can read whatever language you place in them. The catch is that you have to remove your eye to do it. We added Reichspiel, Elven and silent tongue to Dwarven then dosed Sardak and Clementine up with hard Dwarven liquor. A quick operation with the eye spoons and our party looked even weirder than before. Have I mentioned that Clementine already has one eye under a patch and it is red and sees in the dark.

Day 14-Tea and Maps

Very surprisingly Brother Kishalt turned up on our doorstep, we had pretty much given up on him. Alia and Erasmus took him aside for a chat. He claimed that he doesn't see Nashaq much, a bare faced lie.

These religious people need more practice at telling fibs. Needing an excuse to get inside the Palace quarters and raid the archives again (now they can read the books) we got Alia and Erasmus to invite themselves for tea with the President. Our sneakies (Clem and Sardak) found a map to some subterranean caves and golem designs for Martynschloss and Nassengrosser (seems that they are supplying both sides!). When the machinery was activated guards stormed in again, with engineers in tow to fix the "faulty" machinery. Using the new suction pads to full effect Clementine and Sardak snuk across the ceiling and out the door while the guards stood below. To get them out past the guards at the main doors, Ikaron used the good old "I need a cushion" trick. The locals must be a bit concerned that we think that sitting on a cushion is an acceptable form of guarding.

The most interesting part of the meeting with the president was his admission that he is unable to make delivery due to the squadron of battle golems that they are building. With the assassination attempt and the riot between the Nassengrosser and Martynschloss supporters the president has decided that he needs to get rid of the golems before there is any further trouble. More to the point he is not expecting to get paid by either side. He offered to arrange a demonstration of the golems in action.

Goran is now the proud owner of a new shiny helmet (it is a palace guard helmet) it can get him into restricted areas but also allows him to be detected by superiors.

Day 15-We want Some of These!

Travelling in style on the Royal Barge we headed off to Pax Primo. There we found a barn with 6 battle golems (but there were floor markings for 5 of each). One of each set was 8ft tall with a crown, the other two are 6ft tall. All were made of the strange alloy. The golems were put through a few drills with impressive two handed swords. Rather dexterous for a golem, far more agile and trainable than Alusian varieties. With the addition of singing oil in the heads of the crown golems they can become flamethrowers or face rippers. They get about 20 shots per fill and have removable mouthplates for each spell. I want one, no I actually want them all.

With the impressive demonstration over (did I mention that they used live subjects for the face, or should I say body ripping) I had a flash of brilliance and suggested that Clem and Sardak stow away on the transport barges and follow the golems to their workshop.

As a very short aside, I must mention that Goran was very miffed to find that his helmet rank was only a private. He tried to encourage one of the local military bureacracy to give him a promotion, it was as successful as a Dwarf with a horse and no stepladder (but that is another story).

The barges travelled to a body of water, into which they sank with the help of an elementalist mage. All passengers on the barges were made immune to the side effects of immersion in water (cold, wet clothes, drowning). The barges sank for about 10 minutes and emerged at an underwater cave system.

On the way down they saw troglodytes swimming past and more were seen in the cave system. They do not seem to be part of the Dwarven operation but may possibly be used as guards. The barges proceeded through the caves to a large dock area on the side of a huge arena. The golems were unloaded there and moved into what only could be described as the mother of all workshops. An area in the centre had some scaffolding set up, looked like that is where the golems are created. An area to the side of the arena had a lot of books and our friend Kishalt. The books were on theology, medicine, more theology and a well used scroll on the nature of man. The scroll was magical and was part of a ritual of creation - something to do with the new human golems.

There was a marked area for the golems, with spaces for many more. The golems were led there and cleaned down. Our intrepid adventurers moved on into an area of magical offices, unusually suspended over a lava pit. Sardak was featherfalled and thrown over the edge by Clem. When the lava started moving up to meet him he shadow teleported out of there in a hurry. A door at the bottom suggested another entry to the caverns but one we will have problems accessing. Meanwhile the labourers had started a ritual around a wooden shape.

While our intrepid spelunkers were in the caves the rest of us decided a little visit to the Bishop's residence was in order. We sneaked into the Temple District and with a bit of invisibility we managed to get up to the "unassigned room" on the first floor where we suspected Nashaq to be hiding out. The door had a large lock and inside we heard someone in terrible pain. Using my Crystal of Vision we saw Nashaq kneeling in front of a large book. He looked like he had been run over by a golem, blood everywhere. Albrecht made a hole in the roof so we could DA. Nashaq had recently had healing cast on him and the book was highly magical, something pretty weird was going on. Our employer was very keen to get his hands on the book so we broke in, knocked out Nashaq, Nashaq died and possessed Ikaron! Luckily with the Bane in residence Ikaron was able to keep control. Sardak was dispatched from the caves to report back to us.

On our return to our quarters a divination reported that the book is an ancient artifact containing information on every species on the plane. It has two blank pages in it, you write on a page and you can create an entity. Like the page that Kishalt was using. The book then replaces the page by using the lifeforce of an entity, that was what was happening to Nashaq. We were rather embarrassed to find out that Nashaq was keeping himself alive with healing spells and when he was knocked unconscious the book took his life. It turns out that Alia can see souls in the book, if you take two pages at a time it takes the soul of a Keeper of the Book to replace them. Nashaq and Kishalt are the current keepers, Nashaq wants Ikaron to take his place. At that point we discovered that Nashaq lost his sense of humour at birth. One little joke about getting rid of all the dwarves by ripping their page out of the book and Nashaq took control of Ikaron and tried to kill me. Most inconvenient, so we sapped him and tied him up. To add to the insanity in the room Erasmus started to get ideas about killing Ikaron so he could become the Keeper of the Book. So we put him to sleep to keep him out of mischief.

Day 16-Stealing Things

We organised to buy the Golems off the Dwarves. We need to steal them and take them off plane. A job we are happy to do. Alia hired six barges, we bought priest's robes for disguises and singing stones for the barge transportation spell. When we got to the lake above the caverns we activated the stones.

They summoned water elementals to transport the barges and they made the travellers and barges immune to the effects of water. Our plan was simple, Goran tried the good old "I have the orders here somewhere" trick and we hit the guards. We easily took control of the cavern and loaded up the barges, two golems each.

On the way up a squad of Troglodytes attacked us. The first barge got into real trouble after an elementalist mage got on board and stripped them of their elemental. Bad Karma, sinking and drowning. Sardak garrotted the sod before he could do anymore damage. Clarissa had problems getting the singing oil onto the stone due to the oil floating. She worked out eventually that it worked if you did it upside down. The rest of us did a passable job at fending the rest off until a King Golem cast a fire elemental, a few boiled trogs later we made our escape.

Days 17-28-Back to Gottersegnend

We sailed down the river to a point close to Gottersegnend and stacked the barges on a farm. A few rode to the city and collected supplies for going home.

Days 29-33-Going Home

We went back to the Neueforest and Alia set up the ritual to send us back. A friendly wolf told me that the Duke's men were nearby. They were escorted over by a group of wolves. It looks like they were captured while getting up to whatever mischief they got into. We had all forgot about the fact that we had captured Kishalt and had him tied up in a sack for the last two weeks. Clarissa's contribution to the ensuing discussion as to his fate was, "we have kidnapped him this far, to stop now would be rude." We decided to take him back with us.

The ritual completed we returned in one piece to the Guild. Funnily enough we had a larger than normal greeting party from Guild Security. It must have been the squad of battle golems, a bedraggled priest (who was now out of the bag) and an Animist that did it.

A bunch of Preists arrived and told us that they had been told that we were going to bring back something to defeat the great evil that they are facing. Of course the divine entity forgot to tell them what it was. They were keen on the Golems and the Book of Creation, suitable payment was made for these. Ikaron got de-possessed and Nashaq was moved into the body of a scholar.

That was about it. Of course we have crates of singing oil (some of it was confiscated by the Guild) which we can use to great effect if we can just get some engraved plates or stones to use it on. I have some ideas on that.

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