Tales From My D&D Campaign
PREVIOUSLY
They're gathered around the Scrying Mirror Seven appears to be flying down some kind
of natural tunnel Then you see several ant-like humanoids passing
by It appears to be spying on them
What's it doing in the Feywild?
I was just going to Teleport to it Not in the Feywild you aren't
I'm going to True Seeing her, see what happens Huge !#@&ing Blue Dragon
She's a !#@&ing dragon!
And you know nothing of where he is?
My dad?
I don't even know if he's still alive.
I have an amulet in my possession I was hoping Fadeer and I could recharge it in some fashion.
Returning it to its former power, so I could use it to assert myself, and return to My Lands.
So.
Help or hinder? What do we do?
Is there any potential for her to destroy - or damage the ley line?
Seems unlikely to me.
And frankly, at this point, my curiosity is piqued...
That's what I'm thinking, maybe we help her, on the condition that she let's us examine the amulet.
Yeah.
And she may be able to reward us.
Dragons do tend to have treasure hoards.
I think we can work something out...
But he needs to study the amulet, make sure it won't damage the ley line.
Damage the Ley Line?
I've never heard of such a thing.
There was an incident just last week.
Bad guy.
Almost wrecked half the continent.
If you don't believe us, just ask the Controller.
You still have an intact Controller?
I suppose that makes sense with all those things you have running around.
My friend here really is knowledgeable, he may know more than you on some things.
I'm fully aware that I don't know everything, especially in these matters.
I'm not sure I'm comfortable letting anyone touch it, but you can examine it.
The amulet features a star shape, with a human-sized metal eye in the middle - there's no flesh
visible, making it hard to prove if there's an actual eye inside.
She said Ashur crafted it after he lost his eye...
This has a very strong astral energy signature.
It's not like the plague at all - you might call the plague's signature unstable, changing
over time.
This seems extremely stable, more stable than any other astral energy source you've scanned.
Whatever process was used to create a stable astral energy source, if we could apply those
principles, perhaps we could stabilize the astral energy within us.
This thing is definitely an artifact of some nature - Draven didn't have the portable version
of his device to study the Collana Dialiah, but this item has much more pure astral energy
than other magic items he's examined.
In his assessment, it is less powerful than that artifact, especially as-is, but it may
have the potential to be close.
Who's this Ashur guy, anyway?
Mora?
Ashur is another Legendary figure, not *as* famous as the Smith, but from only a little
later than his era - back in that age where some heroes were harder to typecast as a warrior
or a wizard.
He was just a powerful guy, who did incredible and dangerous things - who had slain at least
a couple dragons, and adventured in both the true Underdark of the Shadowfel, and the (lesser)
underground spaces of this plane.
He's often associated with the God of Heroism, Marduk.
There's definitely an old story about him losing an eye, but I don't recall the specifics.
I'll have to look into it.
He was human?
According to her stories...
So is this amulet any good for us?
They managed to stabilize the energy into this amulet.
Maybe we can copy that process...
Well it depends; maybe they made it out of energy which was stable to begin with.
Even thought the amulet's primarily made from Astral energy, it does look like it could
use the Fire elemental energies of the ley line as well; what your seeing is consistent
with Myulana's story that it was forged here.
I think we can let her use the ley line, as long as we watch.
I'm fine with it, whatever you guys want to do.
I'm okay cause I don't know anything about it.
So they lead Lady Myulana (who sees no need to shift into her true form) down towards
Polaron's core.
She glances towards the Controller room as they pass, catching a glimpse of GE-7.
If she makes even the slightest move toward the controller, it's Elder Mountain Hammer...
No, she just seemed mildly intrugued but keeps going.
You have an Ancient too, interesting...
Is something going on?
We met a dragon who wants to recharge an amulet to kill another dragon.
A dragon?
GE-7's eyes are a fixed size, they don't physically adjust or anything, but something in the way
he tilts his head gives the impression of arching an eyebrow.
You're saying she's a dragon?
Yes, Daggerface, she's a dragon.
Well nobody came right out and said it...
How *did* you know about Controllers?
As they approach the Secondary Armory, Myulana explains that she'd been researching the Ley
Lines and Ytarran facilities for some time.
The information IS out there, if you look hard enough...
Imasa, we'll be back for you after we conduct some business.
Yes, my lady.
If we're allies now, or at least not enemies, we can untie him...
Myulana seems to have accepted that Fadeer's death was a consequence of taking a bad approach
to the whole situation, but the impression they get is that she doesn't want to dwell
on her own mistakes... not that the PCs have much chance of winning a sense motive roll
against the dragon.
In hindsight, she must have been extremely thrown off to tunnel through the hardened
lava only to encounter the clear (to her powerful senses) scent of her ex-lover Darius.
As she had tried to sort out her emotions and figure out how this could be, she'd simply
told her minions handle the situation, letting Fadeer take charge, and even when called upon
to pretend to be a hostage (a role she had performed flawlessly despite distraction thanks
to her ludicrous Charisma skills - right down to playing-dead when struck); even then she
had lacked the situational awareness to realize when she should have transformed - Either
to force a proper negotiation, or to blast the hallway into a smouldering cauldron of
ozone with her breath-weapon.
When she realized Fadeer was going to die, it was already too late - lying on the ground,
she saw the coup-de-grace with her blindsight, and at that point, continuing the hostage
masquerade was less of a Xanatos Gambit than just rolling with an incompetently bungled
situation.
As you reach the Portal room (which she had already seen in her Archeologist guise), she
takes in the surroundings again, then looks down at her amulet.
This would be a lot easier with Fadeer.
You want him?
That's the dead one.
Yeah.
You want him?
We can Speak with Dead.
Speak with... we can RAISE dead.
You're strong enough...
...I can...
Well, not today, you'd have to memorize it.
And the component...
You can raise the dead... haha, "you're able to raise dead"
If you can do such a thing, it would definitely be worth my while...
Just have him not... attack Angel.
Cause that's just a bad idea.
It does take a diamond worth at least 5000 gold.
Yep.
First thing's first though...
As they start trying to work out the details of restoring the full power of the Eye of
Ashur, it becomes apparent that Lady Myulana has very broad but fairly shallow knowledge
of Arcana; she has does have much deeper knowledge of one or two specific topics - which aren't
this.
She only knows roughly the process Fadeer had planned, but at least she has the terminology
- the right technobabble - to discuss it with Draven and the others.
The amulet is going to have to be attuned to the energy - you can imagine this confluence
of ley lines as containing a broad spectrum of magic - mostly fire elemental magic - flowing
in from different parts of the globe.
You'll need to narrow that down to get the right part of the spectrum - the same frequency
used in its forging.
The resonance frequency...
I can use my gizmo to help filter that, find the sweet spot in the ley line.
Is this going to shut down the power?
Draven, Angel and Mora plan out a procedure for the ritual.
Trying to sift out all the needed energy from the noise would be very difficult and probably
dangerous, if done rapidly; it's both less complicated and less dangerous to filter the
energy slowly over the course of about 48 hours, and at the same time, drawing it in
a slow, controlled fashion should definitely have no impact on Polaron's power generation,
according to the Controller.
As Draven constructs some temporary apparatus for the project, using his Prismatronic device
to take frequent measurements of the energies (and of the amulet), he finds that the Eye
of Ashur needed a mix of frequencies from multiple ley lines, confirming that it could
only have been forged here.
Perhaps this legendary Ashur had stood in a cavern near this very spot before the Ytarrans
ever discovered this place.
Obviously, by this point she has let you handle the amulet.
She's watching you work - and helping you out a bit, because she does have a lot of
knowledge about the arcane properties of this specific artifact - however she does sleep,
and over the course of the two-day procedure she does get bored and wander off at time,
and Imasa has been released, he just sticks by her side.
That means you can probably sneak-in a proper Identify spell...
Oh I'm totally doing that.
It's most basic powers include +4 Con, +2 Resist to all saves, all wearer's natural
weapons gain Bane Red Dragons...
Wow, very specific...
Yes, normally Bane would apply to all dragons, so it didn't *have* to be made this narrow.
But it seems that this was originally twice as powerful as normal Bane - it was like Double-Bane
Red Dragons, but it has faded with time.
It also has a power that when you cast a Level 1 spell, you can cast a different level 1
spell on the same target as a free action.
The first time in a day, it's completely free.
Each additional time you use it costs +3 hitpoints of unpreventable damage.
So 0, 3, 6 hit points, etc.
Also, Once per day, you can do that with 2nd level spells.
You are sure it has other, less obvious abilities, but you'd need a lot more time to study and
research it AFTER it has been empowered.
At the Basilica a whole bunch of people are researching the Collana Dialiah and last you
heard, they didn't know much more than your Identify spell gave...
Should we give it back?
Maybe Draven can copy it...
Probably not; it's an artifact.
At absolute minimum, you'd probably have to find someone more powerful than you and use
one of their eyes.
Could you make a fake?
I knew you were going to ask that, and I don't think that's a risk I want to take...
Based on your interactions, she seems to know This thing very well.
You'd say there's *virtually* no chance you could create a convincing fake - definitely
not on short notice.
I guess it's too late to fight her now, eh?
It wouldn't be very gentlemenly.
Though if she picks a fight with me that's fine...
During this time, despite his long-ingrained attitude - his self-narrative that he doesn't
care about his absent father - LittleOne nevertheless finds himself probing Lady Myulana about her
connection with Darius.
And frequently risks "crossing the line", despite the fact that he's the son of an ex-lover
talking to a Dragon who is a little sensitive about the situation.
And you smell like him all the time...
It's a bit of a raw nerve.
What did Darius look like?
Well he was more attractive than you.
Ohhhhh!
He kindof hit-it and quit-it, did he?
I suppose the amount of time we spent together was not inconsequential, for a human.
Nevertheless...
So then, when was the last time you saw him?
68 years ago.
We parted ways, as we often did; he made no mention of any intention to disappear.
68 years?
Are we sure he was human?
She keeps describing him as such.
She mentioned once that he liked to call her "Blue", so she would call him "Human", which
was equivalently racist.
That was kinda their sense of humor.
Wait, you're a teenager... if he was in a relationship 70 years ago, then met your mother
after that, he would have been like...
Really old...
Wouldn't it suck if your dad was like Rygax or something...
Who?
Hero who fights vampires in the Shadowfel.
That'd be cool.
Would explain why he wasn't around...
What would it be, to you, if I did find Darius?
I haven't really been looking for lack of a reason, to be honest.
She doesn't answer though, just lost in thought.
As planned, the amulet ritual takes almost two full days, but near the end Draven notices
a shift in the energy signature of the artifact - like crossing a threshold.
He gives it a couple more hours to complete the planned procedure, just for good measure,
but it appears that the Eye of Ashur has been restored to its former glory.
You didn't detect any Fire Resistance earlier, but you suspect it does have some now, as
well as SOME kind of harder to measure, less stat-based power against Red Dragons...
Well ya, a combat buff - significant though it would be in 1-on-1 dragon combat - is still
not quite the game-changer this was sold as.
Finally!
... I mean Thank You.
It's an ass-kicking amulet now.
I suppose I owe you some kind of repayment... though I'm certainly deducting something for
Fadeer.
I am intrigued by the idea that you could ressurect him...
I like the way Rakshashas do things.
Having a dragon on our side for the war would be quite a boon.
Not sure how interested she'd be...
Also, Lightning - not great against Kua Toa.
It would be a lot less lethal than usual - they do have a lot of resist - but even they can't
laugh off a serious dragon breath weapon.
She seems open to the favor thing, she seems open to treasure...
I want treasure, we have enough weird allies.
Ch-ching!
Okay, treasure it is.
Despite not having any agreement beforehand, the Dragon offers to pay them 5000 gold for
their assitance so far.
Taking into account the... costs she had incurred at their hands...
But if they really Could bring back her faithful servant, Lady Myulana would provide the critical
component, she would reward them with another 5000 gold and, given Draven's pretty clear
interest in crafting, she would give them, from her hoard, the preserved heart of an
Ourogarai.
A what?
The Northern tribes deal with a lot of dire animals - and worse - when Dialiah is "on
the wax" as they call it.
Ourogarai means something like "Dragonbear".
No actual connection to dragons, as far as Mora knows, but an Ourogarai is like... a
bear that could *eat* dire bears.
Myulana has this heart of a particularly large one, which could serve as an item of power
if you extract its essence.
An Item of Power and 10-grand?
Sounds good.
That's 2500 each...
I call dibs on the item of power.
I want to get +6 wisdom.
Based on the book price, any +6 stat item requires an item of power.
Lady Myulana doesn't have a much cash with her, but is able to produce 2000 gold worth
of gems as a downpayment.
In order to get the rest of the money, the bear's heart and a suitably pure and large
diamond for a Ressurrection spell, she'll need to fly back to the treasure hoard in
her lair (a cavern a little past where they fought her Goo-men and elementals, alongside
the tram-tunnel beneath the Urruk desert).
She could just run off with the amulet...
And she knows how to find Polaron now.
She is leaving Imasa with them, and of course Fadeer's body - IF it's true that she cares
about her servants at all, then of course she'll be back.
But if all she cares about is the amulet, she could just fly off and be done with them.
At this stage, they've trusted and helped her enough that they pretty much have to trust
her in this as well, or ruin whatever relationship they've been building with her... so they
let her go.
Reverting to her true form, she flies up from the broken temple entrance and soars across
the pole, over the ocean towards Urruk, giving them about two weeks to work on some long
overdue gear-crafting while awaiting her return.
Dragons aren't the most graceful or maneuverable fliers, but their speed over long distances
is... legendary.
Fastforward a few days: Draven finishes crafting his Portable Hole and the +4 Intelligence
helm for Rainbowdash...
Thank you. ...and you actually don't get attacked for
once.
Yay!
You *are* in a distant, underground secret base.
We've seen a lot of action here.
Yeah, but people don't find this place *by accident*.
And so Lady Myulana returns and enters Polaron in Dragon form, and it quickly becomes evident
why - there's no way she could actually carry that heart in human form.
Wait, it can't be *that* big; a Dire Bear is a Huge creature, but...
These are the "bears who eat dire bears", and this was a particularly powerful specimen.
So it's probably gargantuan.
Regular bears are Large; that's two categories.
Each category is double dimensions, 8 times the mass...
Four-by-four map squares.
Square/Cube rule...
So ya... that's a big bear.
It's under some kind of longterm preservation, like a specialized version of Gentle Repose
for body parts, which lasts much longer.
Magical Taxidermy] I'll have to learn that...
She also has a small, extremely high quality sack...
I want the sack.
It's not actually magical, but it has precious metal inlays and filligrees; very fancy.
Somebody must have spent like 2 months crafting this thing.
Probably Darius...
Once she drops off the heart, she changes back to her human form, and pays you with
gems from the sack - you appraise them at about 8200 gold (with the downpayment, that
makes over 10,000).
And she pulls out the diamond required as a component for the resurrection, which definitely
looks like it's worth several thousand gold.
Now I don't know how long it's Supposed to take, but I say it takes a week to resurrect
someone.
Because it should take a week to resurrect someone.
I think it should, you're right.
Casting time: 1 minute, instantaneous.
Ya, ya, no.
I'm fine with it taking a long time.
Black sets up in one of the empty labs, preparing the green dragonborn's body and the large
diamond for the powerful Resurrection ritual, and as he does so, be begins making odd requests
for other special (non-valuable) components, like "water from the ocean" and "a pair of
copper coins".
I'll run out for the water... the coast isn't too far...
Or send the dragon that can fly...
She flew for 10 days -And boy are her wings tired!
I'm kindof nervous, I'm worried about turning him undead and stuff.
Your nervousness is understandable; you've never done this before, but between your training
and your faith, in Sirius, you do know what you're doing.
Or you COULD bring him back as undead, and pocket the 5000 gold diamond...
But after a week of prayer, ritual and meditation, interupted only by sleep and simple meals,
culminating in a 4-hour magical invocation, Black sacrificed the large, pure diamond to
pull back the departed soul of Fadeer into his lifeless body.
The miracle of Resurrection reversing a death caused by an unnecessary and tragic conflict.
Fadeer?
...my Lady...?
We came to an arrangement with these people; the Eye has been restored.
Time to go.
...yes, my Lady?
So, are you going to go retake your lands now?
I'm not heading straight to Novendil, at this point.
There's still much to do, but now that I have this, I can begin to rally allies - persuade
certain dragons and other creatures who would otherwise never dare to oppose Azarathrax,
or the old Lords backing her.
They watched Lady Myulana fly off for the second time, this time carrying her two servants,
and then they moved on to the next order of business.
Business which had been put off and delayed and prolonged far too long...
We've got to get rid of the Space AIDS...
Okay, based on Draven's research into the Astral Plague, and the rest of the magical
energy spectrum, you've got two main theories - two action plans - of how to proceed.
Vodka?
Three theories.
We'll put a pin in that one.
But the other two theories...
Draven hasn't worked these out completely yet, but you believe one of these paths should
be able to finally get rid of the plague.
The first concept you have is a little fuzzy, but though there may be significant risks,
it has the advantage that you could try it now...
Based on all the readings and experience you got from repowering the amulet - the Eye of
Ashur - you think that you could attempt to transfer the Ley Line energy into the seed
in a similar way.
You already have most of the equipnent.
I had considered that...
Yep.
Now, you aren't sure exactly what would happen, and there are risks... if something went wrong
and the seed could no longer protect you as it does now, well... your situation would
suddenly become vastly more urgent.
But it feels to you like you could do it in a way that is safe for it - matching the wavelength
- and you think it could have a dramatic effect toward making the seed more powerful.
So this plan's a bit of a wildcard, but it also doesn't require you to go anywhere.
Hopefully the change would not be permanent...
It... it may be permanent.
In fact, it's probably permanent.
Would we still be able to carry it with us?
That depends... you are sure you would be making it more powerful, but you really don't
know what form it would actually take.
What you would be turning it into...
Well, frankly, we don't know it will turn into at any point whatsoever.
The seed is starting to fade again.
Based on the last time, you figure you should have at least a month, and it maybe longer
- you don't know, because you never did reach the failure point before the Rahjs boosted
it.
We really need to get rid of this plague.
What's the other theory then?
Involves capturing an incorporeal undead of some kind - preferably a powerful one, but
you're pretty sure you could make it work with just about any incorporeal undead.
This will require finding or building a device which could capture a weakened creature of
that type...
Basically a Ghostbusters-style trap.
May-be.
You fought one in the Shadowfel before, and your theory is that those beings are very
close in composition to an immortal spirit, in many ways, but the undead are far easier
to manipulate.
As long as you aren't too squeamish about what you would do to this remnant of a once-living
creature, you have some ideas of how you could use this spirit-like nature as part of some
ritual or device to form a bridge between the astral energy and some physical vessel,
allowing you to syphon the plague out of yourselves.
That one dovetails nicely with our plan to go to the Shadowfel and to rescue a priest
who happens to be an expert in handling, releasing and exterminating spirits of the dead.
That seems like the right person to ask for help in finding or crafting a trap... not
to mention in finding a spirit.
It sounds like A is the most achievable, but I REALLY like B for a variety of reasons.
So your plan, plan B, is to take a creature that through evil and horrible magics has
been enslaved in death by another creature...
Zaheer would tell you that there are many ways spirits can become "lost" that don't
all involve some deliberate evil act.
And take this thing, and use it to funnel our death-energies into who-knows-where?
It's not Death Energy...
It's related to the energy used by immortal spirits and gods.
It's killing us; call it whatever you want.
Dangerous energy.
But however it happens, these things are created against their will; like that Undead Dragonborn
we fought at mom's place.
I don't see how it's any different from other slavery.
I think many of them are probably murderers and other bad people; plus either way, I'm
hoping it would be 'destroyed' in the process, therefore setting things right in the universe.
I'm sure our buddy would agree...
That's a bit of a long stretch in the justification...
No no, I've got all the math, right here.
<break> I'm waaay more sure about this than rolling the dice on the seed-sprouting plan...
Do all the math you want, it's still enslaving something for our own purposes.
I'm up for it.
Yeah, haha.
We all know Angel's moral compunctions...
It's like slaughtering livestock for food.
This is slaughtering livestock for medicine.
Is it going to be a painful experience for the ghost?
You're not sure if ghosts experience pain.
I'm going with 'no'.
Look, we're planning to head to the Shadowfel anyway.
Step 1 is to rescue Zaheer - and then I'll discuss the ethics and methods of this whole
thing with him.
You have all the stuff for Plan A, right?
Why don't we try that as Step 1 before we go all the way to the Shadowfel...
If it was an emergency, Draven could probably try that within 2 days.
In reality, you'd probably want to spend more time planning for contingencies, double-checking
and testing theories and equipment, but yes, you could start working on that immediately,
if you want.
How are we going to capture something incorporeal?
Don't know yet.
But it'll be easier to figure out with Zaheer's help.
Did you see what happened to Angel?
We don't want any more of that.
How long do we have?
Probably a minimum of one month.
Probably.
Can we power up the seed just a little?
Based on your math, you won't get much of a return - it won't make a significant difference
until you cross a critical threshold where the seed will actually transform, probably
becoming something more tied to the elemental fire energy.
And that's the point where the real uncertainty comes in.
So it is a risk.
The worst problem would be if we try A, and the spirit seed stops helping us...
Then we're $#&ed; I know.
Ya, if we mutate the seed and it doesn't help us anymore, we're screwed.
Whereas if B doesn't work, if it's looking dubious, nothing is stopping us from coming
back here and trying A anyway.
What's everybody else's vote?
I don't care if we torture some spirit.
Not "torture"; "enhanced research" I think we should do whatever Draven thinks
is best.
So your character just abducates his vote.
Ok.
Actually, I don't think there's an ethical problem.
Undead are bad.
You destroy undead, you don't *use* them.
Necromancers *use* undead.
And it'll probably be destroyed in the process.
Possibly.
If not, we can destroy it after.
I see, just electrocute it for a while, then when you're done with it...
We won't electrocute it.
The process won't involve electricity.
It's not alive; it's like an echo of a soul.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Like it's fine, I'll concede to do it the way you want.
But LittleOne's not so sold on it in-character.
You guys are having a serious argument.
Want to settle it with Diplomacy checks?
Oh god no.
Not a chance.
Though if I used intimidate...
I've got a 21.
I've got a 27!
I wouldn't actually intimidate you about this.
That Dragonborn Deathknight... ...former Paladin...
He did not seem like an echo.
He was pretty all-there.
Ya, but he was a full-on intelligent undead; soul bound to the body, like a lich (but unwilling).
We wouldn't take one of those...
You don't give a shit you'd grab the first one that came along.
I'm sure I would have, but you made your points, and now - IF after rescuing Zaheer, we go
ahead with that plan - I agree that we should make sure we're not using an innocent incorporeal undead
So basically we're doing B because we don't have the balls to do A.
No, we're not doing A because it's random!
It takes courage...
The courage of randomness!
And *risk*.
There's a risk to this other one as well, going to the Shadowfel!
That's a risk, but the other one is just "throwing dice and hoping it works, LA-laLAA-laLAA".
It's based on all these unknowns, it's random.
That's not bravery, it's just stupid.
One risks our physical bodies, the other risks our moral code.
It doesn't, *yet*.
LittleOne would rather risk his body than his moral code.
He doesn't understand this stuff as you do.
Alright, then let's go risk your physical body in the Shadowfel.
They've dealt with every kind of weird thing that's come their way,
But it's finally time to get back to some oldschool adventuring
NEXTTIME, on TALES FROM MY D&D CAMPAIGN!
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