Session 5-11-08

Atop a four-sided ziggurat in the seas of Chaal-Nathra, the heroes await their impossible adversary.  The collosal, oozing tentacle slides out of the sky towards them, suddenly splitting into a pair of huge tentacles.  Those two gape open at the ends with round mouths of shark-like teeth and more, smaller tentacles.  Many of these smallest ones - approximately the size of a human arm - wield horrible instruments of dissection and torture.  The twin nightmare limbs advance slowly towards Merin Jewelshine's enormous (collosal++) body, seeming intent on vivisecting the living deity.  Suddenly three adjoining tentacle-pods sprout out of the main growth, depositing three large white egg sacs on the upper platform of the temple where the party stands.  These egg sacs immediately burst, and they contain not aberrations, but three human forms!

One human is covered in pus-oozing sores and filth.  Six feet tall with filthy, stringy blond hair, he wears a ram's head mask, but it does a poor job of concealing his pockmarked face.  "Greetings, brothers and sisters.  I am Woregord, high priest of Yshunor, and I have watched you since Caladan Hollows.  It was my cult compound to which Sulanesh was called, for the beings of Chaal-Nathra are eager to spread their taint among us.  And I greet you as a brother!  Embrace the infection which is destined to overtake us.  I am Hathoraen, the same as you, Nathaniel Crane, and I believe our nation has a greater destiny than you can realize," purrs Woregord, crooking a finger at the young wizard.

Next to Woregord stands a muscular male with the left half of his face frozen in a terrible expression of rage.  He wears blackened steel full plate armor and wields a longsword and heavy shield of the same black steel.  His long hair is black on the right side, but white where his facial muscles are frozen.  He growls out of the working side of his mouth, "I am Donovan, the Cullherd of Tyraudon, and I'll add your haunches to the stocks in my abbatoir," he sneers at Zara.  With that, the Cullherd smartly snaps his sword into guard position and salutes his foes, as is the custom among blackguards of Tyraudon.

Finally, giggling and panting with excitement near one edge of the temple platform is a human figure - the party recognizes him as Franz Chelsea, the Hathoraen merchant from Thran-Gaar.  However, given the recent revelations about the conspiracy of shapeshifters attempting to infiltrate Malok-Gorthai and Hathorae, the five heroes know this being to be false.  Whether it is a doppleganger or some other form of shapechanger, Nathaniel cares not.  "Stop using his face!" he calls out to the impostor.  The being responds with a chilling, keening laugh and a throaty battle cry.  "Come to me, human meat... revenge for the oppressed!"  For just a moment, the face of "Franz Chelsea" vanishes and is replaced by a bland, featureless gray face with thin lips, tiny nose slits and black, overlarge eyes.  "Want some more taffy? I will make you cry in anguish... you ignorant children, our vengeance is at hand."  The shapechanger begins casting a spell, and the battle is on.  A black ray of enervation strikes Londario in the chest, shriking his visage and causing him to appear pale and drawn and weak.

Protector Londario charges headlong into the chittering shapeshifter, slamming into it with his shield and shoulder and driving it off the side of the temple-city platform with a bull rush.  With a startled cry, the thing changes form into its native gray-skinned lithe shape.  Small hooks appear in the flesh of its feet and palms, and it tumbles deftly and instinctually to grab hold of the side of the temple about 20' below Londario.  The Protector readies his longsword against it, and it immediately begins to climb.  It springs up with a leaping attack and grapples Londario by the neck, completing its ascent and holding him near the edge of the platform.  A knowing grin spreads across its thin-lipped face, and two excessively long, thin fangs extend from its mouth as it smiles.  Two small horns, stiff but curved like antennae, sit atop its domed head.

Woregord's tone deepens as he blasts the party with a flame strike.  The column of roaring fire sears their flesh, and the priest of Yshunor chuckles.  "You are strong to have defeated Sulanesh.  I watched from the shadows ere you located its hibernation pool... you woke it up.  I found it a diverting experiment to allow you to engage it... that you succeeded was a marvelous achievement.  Krothaer said it meant you were worth hunting, Zara Oberwald.  He said it would be a significant deed, the taking and rending of you and your friends.  You see, we three have plans for mighty Hathorae than your precious, stumbling democracy!  We are the Ebon Triad: a joining of the three aspects of evil, our Elder Banes... Yshunor, the Plagueherald, Tyraudon,the Warscourge, and Ethoar, the Lord of Agony!  Our vision is divinely given, for we the chosen!  And the Ebon Triad will raise up the banner of Hathorae under the triple sign and prosper.  Great plans are now underway, in the Iron City of Chenrol, and closer to home..."  Woregord shifts into a combat stance, his dripping flesh giving off a gruesome stench.

Zara snaps her greatspear into short-haft position and stabs deeply into the Cullherd.  She and the blackguard begin an elaborate melee dance, exchanging spear thrusts and sword slashes as Telenvor tumbles into flanking position behind him.  Tel hits the Cullherd hard in the kidneys with a rapier strike, causing him to leak blood.   The spinning melee continues as the mages on each side shift to stay behind the line of melee.  All the while, the twin tentacles of vivisection move relentlessly closer to the struggling body of Jewelshine, bound by immense shackles of meteoric metal to the temple below.

"Where is Krothaer?" calls Zara.  Nathaniel echoes her question.  "Patience, brothers and sisters.  Krothaer's work in Ijruk's Blind is nearly complete.  Such a masterpiece I have not seen in my lifetime.  A shame you will not live to see it completed.  We will raise up the Ebon Aspect which is formed of our three lords of evil and know power unequaled."  Desperate to stop the shapechanger from grappling Londario off the side of the platform, Nathaniel launches a fireball towards the edge of the battlefield, catching both the imposter and the Cullherd in the blast.  Essedar nocks his aberration bane arrows and fires rapidly into its chest, striking true with two shots.  Unfortunately, it is not enough.  Though burnt and bloodied, the featureless fiend almost casually leans over and tosses Londario over the edge of the platform.  His gaze meets those of his companions for a split second as he falls to his doom.  "The Walker!" he cries valiantly, brandishing his sword and shield as he plummets towards the thousands of crawling horrors below.  Londario's fall is broken several hundred down as he breaks his neck on a stone outcropping.  His dead body is quickly set upon by dozens of aberrant creatures, and is torn to bits and devoured in moments.

The four surviving heroes have only a heartbeat to recover from their stunned shock at the death of their friend.  Zara plunges her spear into the Cullherd twice more, badly bloodying him.  Thanks to Arinna's blessing of divine vigor, her foe's blows have allowed her to give better than she's taken.  A clarity of purpose seems to overtake the party as they focus their efforts to destroy Londario's killers.  Essedar fires another burst of arrows into the shapechanger, sending it sprawling backwards from the impact.  Nathaniel shouts his words of completion as he throws first an orb of force, and then a quickened magic missile at it.  The second spell is enough to put the creature down.  A moment later, Zara parries a dangerous thrust from Donovan and responds with a counterstrike as Tel aids her from his flanking position.  "Lord Tyraudon, I've failed you," gurgles the Cullherd, as he dies with Zara's spear through his throat.

Woregord calmly recites a passage from Yshunor's treatises and calls down an unholy blight upon the party, and he follows it up with a vile curse.  "So, Nathaniel Crane, you value your intellect, your ability to analyze and decide what is true?  Then I shall take it from you!  Yshunor, make an infection in his mind!"  The high priest points a decaying finger at Nathaniel, who resists the spell with all his might.  Though his mind clouds and his vision swims for a moment, Nathaniel avoids the curse.  "Try harder," says the young mage, clenching his teeth with concentration as he grips his staff, one end of which glows with Cereborn's red light.  "So your Ebon Triad is so mighty, what with the Banes and all, but there's no room for Irindix?  Where's her invitation, or is this an all boys' club?  Afraid of the Dark Huntress, are you?" 

The cleric of pestilence sneers in response.  "Irindix is irrelevant!  We three form a perfect whole, brought together in brotherhood to praise the Ebon Aspect.  We have no need of her arrogant interference," he sniffs.  "And Jenoic is fallen." With that, the party turns all its wrath on Woregord.  Telenvor slips behind him and stabs him in the gut while Zara punches a hole through his chest with her greatspear.  Essedar uses the cleric's body for target practice, feathering him with three arrows, and Nathaniel finishes the job by blasting his brains out with a lesser orb of sound at point blank range.  As Woregord falls dead with a strangled cry, the party hears a gleeful yelp of joy from below them.  Merin Jewelshine, empowered by the companions' sudden victory against their mortal foes, snaps his fingers.  This causes two huge globs of grease to cover the shackles, and a few wiggles later, Merin is free!  With a crow of triumph and a high-pitched cry of "Wheeeeeee!" the enormous, greased gnomish deity slides down the side of the temple like a child on a slippery rock, squashing scads of crawling, slithering aberrations as he rushes towards the Chaal-Nathran sea.  The wet squishing sound of broken carapaces and smashed worms accompanies his freefall, and soon Merin is covered in slimy filth.  But no matter, as he splashes down into the sea and submerges.

All is momentarily silent at the top of the temple, as the four bloodied heroes stand victoriously over the broken bodies of the three cultists.  A flash of light at the center of the temple platform widens into a red-gold gateway, through which a translucent image of an ancient tomb can be seen.  A moment later, the water froths and churns with bubbles as thousands upon thousands of multicolored, spectral gnomes fly forth, spiralling upward towards the spinning stars and led by the enormous, incorporeal form of their frolicking deity Merin.  "Well done, friends!  I knew you could do it, I just knew it!"  Jewelshine claps excitedly as he zooms by in a rush of wind followed by the glowing wisps of his gnomes.  "You have restored my people.  Come to the city, our Imperial City in the Ver-Shaon, and you will see.  The gnomes will emerge restored, oh thank you, dear friends!  You have earned my favor on this day."  Essedar and the others' physical burdens feel slightly lighter and their sense of power increases, because Merin seems to have transformed his breastplate into mithral, and granted each of the others new magical items as well.  "Now through the portal, quickly... your work is not yet done.  Oh, there is much to do, yet, I fear!  Go with haste and let your hearts be light.  You have freed me."

The gnomes spiral upwards into the stars like a vortex of glowing jewels.  The four companions say a quiet prayer for their fallen comrade Londario, but the brave Protector fulfilled his destiny by delaying and distracting the shapeshifter so it could not employ its most deadly magic on them.  With a sad glance at the churning, trackless ocean far below the temple, Nathaniel and the others step through the glowing portal and the stars spin quickly overhead.  Time seems to accelerate sickeningly and the heroes feel stretched thin, blind and deafened as they hurtle through planar space back to the material plane.  As they return to Gaia, they find themselves in a large stone chamber which seems to be the tombs they saw from the other side.  They look back and forth at each other, realizing together in the same instant that there is a wrongness about their sense of time, and that more time passed while they were away in Chaal-Nathra than it seemed while exploring that plane... but how much time?  Tel and Essedar perk up their ears and hear a resonant and energetic chant in a guttural tongue, the echoes of which seem to fill this complex. 

Nathaniel gathers the others around him.  "What if the prophecy was true, that Tessa gave us: 'Kothaer Cradan.  He raises an army of death and madness at the Blind.  Use the rear entrance to gain surprise… but there is much sorrow to bear.'  That's what she said before we were pulled through into Chaal-Nathra.  We must be in Ijruk's Blind, or somewhere beneath it.  But when?  How much time has passed?"  

Falling Stars, Rising Hope