Session 2/6/08

Date unknown (rested in Chaal-Nathra three times): After resting and gathering their courage, the party moves up through the fleshy corridors of the strange Chaal-Nathran cavern towards the "brain" of the structure.  They note that as the gnomes' spirits have spread out through the various rooms of the caverns that the fleshy walls have taken on a healthier sheen and that the bloated, moldy dripping corruption has faded away, leaving behind a grey-pink flesh that gently pulses and shudders at uneven intervals.  The steady, regular heartbeat from the "heart" room is now quietly audible throughout the complex.

Essedar tries to dispel a wide swath of shadowy webbing that has again choked the corridor leading to the "brain."  His attempt fails, but Nathaniel is able to burn away the webbing with multiple blasts of holy fire from his staff.  The five companions move into the brain room and note that it still shows signs of horrible corruption - in this case, feathery branches of black mold that gently sway in the breeze and almost seem to caress the grey matter of the room.  The walls arc up to a 25' high dome, and the entire room seems encased in this moldy grey matter.  The horned, death's head idol still glares at them from the left side of the room.

A chittering, squealing arachnid  - a shadow spider - emerges from a dark, web-filled cavern on the far right wall, bearing its fangs and hissing a challenge at the group.  The beast is over 15' tall and its exoskeleton seems to give off a shadowy illumination.  Londario rushes forward to engage it, but after cutting its soft abdomen he is bitten hard by the shadow spider and paralysis grips his limbs.    The spider scuttles forward to threaten the other four adventurers, so Zara and Telenvor move into flanking positions while Nathaniel sends a barrage of holy fire and arcane energy at it.  As the battle continues, the five friends notice that the idol of calcified tissue has rotated to face them, as though it is observing their battle against the dark arachnid guardian.  The spider seems to have some sort of feral regenerative abilities, as it twice heals itself spontaneously and instantly during the battle.  However, Essedar's arrows fly true, and after Zara and Tel severely weaken the hissing horror, Essedar finishes it off with a volley of three rapid-fire arrows.  The last of these pierces the shadow spider in the center of its head, and it gives a horrid death-screech before ceasing to move.

Turning their attention to the disturbing idol, which still has them fixed with its blank gaze, the five friends hear a deep, guttural rumble of a growl issue forth from it.  Nathaniel approaches it cautiously.  "Are you Jenoic?" the wizard asks, and the growl deepens, growing more aggressive and threatening when it hears the name.  In a voice reminiscent of a thousand corpses being ground to meal, the idol speaks: "You are outside the pattern.  You may find egress from this place... and perhaps rend the pattern.  There is a price..."

Nathaniel steps forward boldly.  "And what is the price?  Why does the name Jenoic upset you so?  You don't seem to like hearing that name."  The idol responds, its grinding, rumbling voice echoing through the brain chamber.  "You have already paid it.  And Jenoic is dead.  Not even his memory will survive long."  Zara suddenly moves forward, striking the idol with her greatspear, but the leaf-shaped spearpoint is turned aside without breaking even so much as a chip of calcified flesh off.  Zara's face takes on a hardened and passionate expression, and she begins to sing in an otherworldly tongue.  The melody is grim, haunting and oddly uplifting all at once, evoking martial glory and the promises of a better life reborn in the ashes of utter defeat.  The idol takes up the song with the paladin, and the two sing together, forming a striking harmony with the profoundly beautiful but disturbing song.  When the others try to distract Zara from singing, she forcefully fights them off, even throwing punches at her astonished friends.  Eventually, the four drag Zara from the room and she snaps out of her reverie.  After a few minutes,  the party returns to the room for more conversation with the idol.

When they re-enter the room, Nathaniel speaks again: "Who are you?"  With a quieter voice, full of bitterness and regret, the idol speaks.  "I am Jenoic."  Nathaniel, somewhat skeptical, continues his line of questioning.  "What are you doing with this body?  We do seem to be inside someone's or something's anatomy.  What is your purpose here?  Is this the body of Jenoic?"  The idol answers: "You... are outside the pattern.  Not within the body of Jenoic."  Nathaniel presses: "Then what are you doing here?  What are you using this body and this brain for?"  The horned idol answers quietly: "Dreaming.  The gnomes' disappearance... was an unexpected consequence of the Convergence between Gaia and the Dreaming.  It shall be... fascinating to see the pattern... unravelled.  You shall accomplish this."

The idol's voice changes back to the grinding, growling feral tones heard initially.  "OUTSIDE THE PATTERN!" it rages, "WE DID NOT SEE THIS... but your resolve will fail when you learn the price of passage.  IT HAS ALREADY BEEN PAID.  IT IS ALREADY BEGUN."  The grim idol seems to have a dual mental nature, with neither side fully in control, but each piece perhaps aware of the other.  When Nathaniel, Essedar and Zara again invoke the name of Jenoic, pleading for the other, more reasonable voice to re-assert itself, they are met with nothing but more growling and gnashing sounds, which make the entire cavern structure rumble alarmingly.  Londario adds his voice to the mix, calling forth the names of Jenoic: "The Walker Beside, Great Brother, the Architect of Peace," but this only enrages the growling voice further.  "I AM JENOIC!" it thunders, suddenly more coherent and wrathful, "and I am come as an Exile, a prophet of the past to set things right.  Your Convergence was unavoidable, and may be considered a debt repaid for past choices.  Now strike me.  STRIKE ME!  You have the tools to affect your egress, be not afraid!  Conquer your fears and REND MY BEAUTIFUL PATTERN UNDONE!"  The idol goes silent.

Zara takes up the gnomish mithral hammer and starts grimly pounding away at the hardened flesh.  As she knocks fist-sized chunks of calcified meat off the sculpture, it bleeds and squelches with a series of disgusting, sloshy wet plops.  After several long minutes of grisly, exhausting hammering, her strength has reduced the idol to a raw pile of bloody, chalky chunks.  Beneath the ruined meat sculpture, the five wayfarers glimpse a strange seal.  Circular and approximately 10' in diameter, it seems to be made of a bluish steel-like metal and features looping, twisting alien runes encircling its outer edge.  The inner circle depicts a twisting ribbon-like strip that seems to fold inward on itself in ways that stretch Nathaniel's traditional geometrical thinking.  However, the mage surmises that this circle is some form of binding seal.  He is unsure what the result of breaking the seal might be.

Zara answers that question by standing in the center of the seal, taking the gnomish hammer in both hands and driving down hard upon the it.  The seal shatters instantly, leaving a gaping hole of flesh in the "brain" chamber.  An anguished cry seems to echo up through the cavernous chambers and a strong air current, like that of a vaccuum, sucks the five heroes through the shattered seal into a gentle free fall.  All around them, a backdrop of blackness punctuated by points of starlight and swirling nebulae is all they can see.   As the five wheel about in freefall, gawking at the stars and endless black around them, they catch a glimpse of an impossibly huge gnome falling at the same rate a few thousand feet above them.  The gnome appears ageless and spry, but he is stark naked and looks somewhat frail.  Nonetheless, he occasionally looks down at the party and favors them with a warm smile.  Nathaniel peers hard at the massive gnome, who seems to be well over 200' tall, and recognizes him as the god Merin Jewelshine from iconic paintings of that he has seen in his studies.  Could it be that the group's recent actions have somehow freed the god of the gnomes, who was presumed dead and gone after the Convergence?

The freefall continues for an indeterminate period of time... more than an hour, but less than a day.  Eventually, Essedar and the others see themselves tumbling downwards toward a body of dark, calm water that stretches as far as they can see in all directions.  Above, the stars and nebulae still spin and turn, but the dark water is coming up fast.  Bracing for impact, the five friends bravely look into each others' eyes as the water rushes up to meet them.  However, despite their freefall the impact suprisingly does not harm them.  At first, they plunge into the depths and the stars disappear behind a solid curtain of water, but then a rumbling from the depths and a wide miasma of large bubbles forms beneath them.  Suddenly,  they find themselves lifted out of the depths by a churning, bubbling disturbance.  A massive city of ancient stone and blue metal rises from the black water.  The city seems to be laid out in an unthinkably large shape of a stepped pyramid, with four sides and a flat top. The architecture is impressive, but it also seems to lead the eye into strange tricks of geometry.  Structures that seem straight and balanced suddenly appear slightly twisted or built at odd angles when viewed closely, and the entire stony surface of the pyramid's step is pock-marked with tiny holes, as though billions of nematodes have burrowed into the stone through the ages and lie just beneath the surface of the walls, ready to burst forth at any moment.   Brackish, dark water churns and froths as it cascades down the sides of the city as the structure rises out of the water with disturbing speed.

The five heroes lie exhausted, wet and cold as the dark water drains away and the city below reveals itself.  This is Chaal-Nathra, the City of Writhing Sorrow, in all its nameless and unthinkable horror.  Countless aberrant lifeforms twist and shudder in its narrow pathways, but none seem to take notice of the five humans perched at the city's highest point, a ruined, worm-tunneled temple to ancient beings whose names were never recorded by Gaian scholars.  Suddenly, the massive body of Merin Jewelshine plummets down in a controlled fall.  With a sickening thud, the gnome god's body slams into the side of the crawling pyramid-city.  Gleaming blue metal shards seem to come alive out from inside Chaal-Nathra itself, forming into cruel spiked restraints that bind Merin spread-eagled to the upper levels of the city.  He struggles to free himself, but can only shake his collosal head (the crown of which is mere feet from the heroes at the top of the city) in frustration.  The legions of unnamable horrors below chitter and rasp with anxious energy, turning their eyeless faces upward to see the spectacle at last.

The unfamiliar starry sky rips open as a massive rift of glowing, sickly green and black energy appears above the center of the city.  Zara, Nathaniel and Essedar peer upwards with Tel and Londario, and the five friends see a tangle of impossibly large toothed and suckered tentacles emerging from the rift.  The tentacles make their way deliberately towards the struggling body of Jewelshine, and then time stands still in the space between heartbeats.

A bubble of stillness envelops the party, and a small gnome clad in a violet and gold embroidered vest and trousers shimmering with jeweled buttons stands before them.  There is a mischevious twinkle in his glittering gold eyes, but his face is also worn and tired and shows signs of sadness and struggle.  "Oh!  Well I am not so powerless as they might think..."  Merin takes a moment to collect himself and to peer closely at each of the companions.  "Allow me to introduce myself.  I am Merin Jewelshine, once and future god of the gnomes of Gaia.  And I know each of you, yes... let's see..." He names each of the companions in turn, praising them for their bravery and defiance of the dark unknown.  Merin comes to Zara last.  "Ah, clever girl!  You took up my hammer from its hidden place and carried it loyally thereafter.  Because of that small secret you managed to help me smuggle in here, there may yet be hope for all of us yet!"  He smiles warmly at the assembled five.  Telenvor openly gawks at Merin, not sure whether to believe that he now stands before an avatar of a Gaian god.  Londario is quiet, still trying to assimilate the events of the past days.  The others enthusiastically pledge their support to the deity, and Essedar even offers the gnome a bit of smoke.

Merin continues chattering excitedly.  "Well, they've certainly put us in a pickle.  I can't hold back the flow of time here for much longer.  I shall tell you what I know.  Oh, during the terrible Convergence my children, the gnomes, were peering where they ought not to have looked.  Old Pindlebent and the others glimpsed the Far Realms, and the Realms looked back... terrible, a terrible tragedy of luck and timing, really.  It cannot be mere coincidence, no, certainly not.  So it is true.  The Dreaming did indeed merge with material Gaia, and both worlds became something new.  How fascinating!"  The five confirm these facts, informing Merin that Gaian society did survive the Convergence, albeit at great cost to its populace. 

"And Jenoic, what of him?" asks Nathaniel, eager for any news of the god known as the Walker Beside.  "M'lord, no one has heard of Jenoic's whereabouts since the Convergence... we were hoping you might know what happened to him."  Merin shakes his head sadly.

"Jenoic... it is hard to say what happened.  Shortly after the Convergence began, I was forced from my place of safety by the need to protect my children from the predations of Chaal-Nathra.  This place is only one pocket of the greater Far Realms.  As I said, it was unlucky timing - or worse - which necessitated my leaving. I could not have known that the very same beings sought to trap me along with my gnomes.  They sapped our vital essence, imbued other creatures with our talents for illusioncraft.  There is some foul conspiracy at work here, something caught up in the events surrounding the Convergence and Jenoic's leavetaking.  I know why he left, why he engaged the Zadonite... but I know nothing of what happened once the engagement began."

"But who, or what?" Nathaniel cries, "What of this 'Zadonite,' and why did Jenoic engage with him?  We must know what happened!"

"Jenoic sought to correct an ages-old mistake, and he may yet succeed.  But now, my friends and saviors, the time for action has come.  I can hold back the flow of time no longer.  You must fight as you never have before.  Your own fates and those of my children are at stake.  Defend me if you can, but survive however you must!"  With that, the bubble of stillness evaporates, leaving the heroes atop the City of Writhing Sorrow, looking up as an unthinkably huge tentacle snakes down from the rift in the sky towards the struggling body of Jewelshine.

Falling Stars, Rising Hope