Session XV
They contact their sponsor, Aksehm, for assistance in getting to Seobos. Intrigued by the archaeological significance in finding the human homeworld for so little money; the arcanaloth makes a few connections. For equipment, Aksehm provides Eir with two energy clips, enchanted such that any shots fired with them will have the human bane trait.
The next day, the party is introduced to Jorgen, a winged drow in shadowy dragonscale armour; currently played by a visiting friend as a guest PC. Jorgen is paid independently by Aksehm for travel only, and any additional assistance is to be negotiated by the party; the drow only asks for a share of the treasure in exchange for aiding as any other member of the party in combat.
Toward the end of the conversation, Eir manages to get a good enough Notice check through Jorgen's
disguise self, and readily gets through the Will save to penetrate the illusion and see's Jorgen's true form; an armoured Star Spawn (illithid with wings). She instantly becomes distrustful and wary with Jorgen, and spends the next several days keeping the laser rifle in hand while they travel, refusing to speak on the subject of (or to) Jorgen. For backstory, Eir's homeworld is still a Nausicaa-style apocalyptic wasteland, two centuries after the Astromundi Proclamation due to its use as an industrial planet.
Jorgen's acceptance of the job is due to a personal goal of sampling exotic new tastes.
It takes five planar standard days to reach the farthest reaches of the gate network closest to planet Seobos, to a gatetown known for its shrimp and whores. From here, they confirm their bearings to the first planet on their journey; known as Butter. It's a fairly small planet, known for its foliage's pale yellow coloration. They make camp and wait for the 17 hour cooldown to finish, darkness falling three hours in. They notice a complete lack of any signs of non-plant life larger than insects. Two hours into the night, they hear movement.
In stealth, they waited. Jorgen got mental reading before they broke cover, about half a dozen of them, all thinking "meat! meat!" When the group pounced, they saw it was a pack of
Dwellers in Darkness. They charged the exposed Jorgen, and ultimately all but one dies. Jorgen charms the unconscious one as they heal it to consciousness, and learn that their tribe will gather in greater numbers to find them; they're omnivores, but have a extreme psychological urge for meat except for their own species. It comments that Guy would be safe because he smelled like one of them.
Eir uses her three bags to summon two bears and a horse, then commands them to charge in three separate directions for as long as they can. The group then flies in a fourth direction, toward the desert, where the Dwellers tend to avoid due to lack of caverns and dryness. There is talk of legend where there used to be plentiful sky meat because they could evade the Dwellers so readily, but something came from the sky and slew all of the sky meat; the Great Feast the Dwellers called it.
After the cooldown ends, they get their bearings and shift (with the charmed Dweller in tow) to the next world, Amurru. A world covered in bones and other forms of life the same color through general camouflage and just the environment in general. Their Eye showed it had massive bone oozes roaming about. They aim their shift directly at a large one of them (due to the minimum 5 mile distance from the destination), and find themselves inside a cavern with a now very angry Brute that was making a nest for its young.
The battle was a bit harrowing because of the close quarters and its enormous hit points. Eir's laser rifled had the anti-human clips, which reacted to the Brute as if it were also human. Jorgen's attempt at charming failed and got burned for ten damage due to its Hostile Mind feat. Outside, they see the rest of the Brute's pack slowly making its way to the cavern due to the setting sun; the party decided not to stick around to deal with upset natives and flew away to rest and recuperate while they waited to leave. They forgot to bring the Dweller with them; poor girl.
The next world, New Rashon, has been sundered into three rocky pieces from an ancient calamity, but it retains an atmosphere. When they arrive, however, they end up aboard a sailing ship with a bright blue sky and lapping waves. The crew of drow sailors were singing shanties in Common, but stop and call upon their captain when they see the party. A model pirate, she asked what stowaways be doing aboard her ship. Jorgen avoided speaking, because he believed his telepathy & wings would seem conspicuous; but the crew turned out to also be telepathic and unfurled their own wings, so it ended up with a less charismatic member of the party attempted to parlay. They had their weapons/staves confiscated and were thrown in the brig.
When not being watched, Eir turned into a cat to walk between the bars while Dean used his SLA
open on the bird cage. The two went into stealth and overheard a brawl by the crew over some card cheating. Eir sleight of handed the keys (41, nobody saw) and checked on the sleeping pirate sitting atop the chest with their gear. After an hour of waiting, the ship reached a dock and began opening fire with the shore; where humanoid lions in soldier uniforms shot back with musket rifles.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Eir went to the now unguarded chest and got everything for the rest of the party and unlocked the brig for Jorgen and Guy to get out. She went ahead and got ready to help the soldiers by getting a surprise round on the drow sailor. The single shot went completely through him as if a ghost, permitting a Will save and thus Eir saw it as a Shine Bright who looked at the scorch marks and floated down below (it won initiative for the first round) with the look of defeat. Having then switched for anti-human rounds, Eir promptly shoots four laser blasts at four 'drow', who reacted in shock at the pain but promptly left the battlefield when it was their turn. The remaining one shot Eir with a flintlock, revealed to be
magic missle, but obviously the 20 damage was not enough to stop her from using one more shot on her turn.
The soldiers walked up and congratulated the party in stopping the pirates, who floated back into view as everyone but the party turned into Shine Brights in applause. The
mirage arcana is also dismissed, showing the party to be on a ruined sailing ship atop a drained lake. Dean's player smacked his head when he realized that it was a bunch of people playing war games. One of them heal Eir's wounds with a touch, and the party is given the treasure chest in the bottom of the ship; usually used for their games, but too heavy to use with their mage hand power.
Inside the chest is a +1 ghost touch light mace that deals +3d6 force damage 1/day and grants access to the runic spell template. In addition, there is ~6000gp in gold coins and gold plateware.
Their next world is without much in the way of knowledge due to distance and lack of interplanetary culture, Mersi VII. A moon orbiting a gas giant, their Eye showed it as a rather typical M-class biome with signs of renaissance cities with humans walking about.
They arrived atop a dinner table, every guest being short human (4 to 4.25 feet tall) except for one. At the head of the table sat a young adult white dragon, who was rather incensed at the interruption and people standing in the gravy. Jorgen placated the dragon with a charm, and awkwardly enjoyed the party as guests in the five-course banquet. To keep in its good graced, Eir gifted the dragon with a bag of tricks, who was quite pleased with it. After dinner, the dragon retired to its bed in the back while the party headed out. In an eerie fashion, strangers would walk up and express their anger at the party showing them up with their awesome gift. As one would finish doing whatever its job was, it would walk away and another would pick up the conversation where they left off; making the party worried as they realized they were dealing with a hive mind (Kroten).
Apparently the Kroten were appeasing the dragon with periodic gifts of a house and a big meal of hunted game, so it would choose not to eat members of the community. They feared a break down of this social contract due to their gift being upstaged by the party who will leave without care for the consequences. Fearing a mob attack, the party decided to sneak back to the house to dominate the dragon, but the Kroten had previously agreed to guard him.
After a bit of a fight, Guy managed to get inside and dominated the dragon with the Orb, who then called off the Kroten with threats. The party then takes a look at the dragon's hoard; a substantial amount of money in art pieces and raw coinage, several potions, a wand of CLW, a couple scrolls, and an intelligent trident.
Gorffwys is a self-professed enemy to all with a sinful heart, forged by an exile of the Iron Mages of Gerz, it was wielded by a Vargouille paladin for centuries before being lost to history; apparently into a white dragon's hoard. It's nominally a +4 iron trident with rusting grasp at will and wall of fire 3/day, Ego 18, speaks Common and Vargouille, and has a mindset not unlike Kore from the Goblins webcomic (Lawful Good, Special Purpose of Slay All).