Necromancer

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Need a bit more time to post finale..., or close-to-finale...


Arlo considers - with the image Terex can transmit and resources from Helaronthrop, copying the crown would not be hard. For Terex, stealing the crown would be possible though challenging. Some sort of distraction and while the theft was attempted would help (perhaps Monel?)

And plans for the pageant continue.


As the Final Pageant of Creation approaches, soft pleasant music is everywhere, the sky is an especially appealing shade of blue and the air has a special freshness to it. Each camp has a unique theme, yet all blend together wonderfully. The Camp of Plants melding vines with the Camp Of Roses and so-forth...

Each camp looks forward to demonstrating their models to the High Powers of creation who may use these models in the process of planar generation, a process which can multiply each idea a thousand fold....

As is traditional, the Camp Of Roses will introduce the other camps with a series of dramatic and heartwarming plays, one of which will be Monel's creation describing the party's adventure.

As this final events get closer, Lyra and the other party members work on developing ties with the other camp leaders, so most leaders have a general understanding of the situation and know there a good deal of truth to Monel's composition.

Azzim thinks he could pretty easily open the demiplane and release it's contents with the proper word. Isolating it would be harder. The effect is almost not a demiplane but an area of space twisted in on itself...

Monel intends to Azzim's suggestion and emphasize the power of lies and the greater power of exposing lies...

The timing makes a dramatic reveal during the pageant one logical strategy but you could also try to stop the reveal of the crown beforehand, you have maybe eighteen hours....


(post delayed from last night 'cause Paizo went down in the middle of me post, apparently)


After searching extremely carefully, Terex finds a strange gate in in an empty square next Galbardo's private quarters - it only be entered by a series of complex movements and otherwise appears like empty air. The gate is guarded but not at a level that presents a challenge to the little dragon.

The gate leads to a very close demi-plane and Terex is surprised to see a crown made of many strangely cloudy crystals - seemingly, crystals which were reported to have disintegrated... paradoxically, the core crystal possessed by Terex seems quite capable of commanding these crystals.... Also, observing Galbardo, you wonder if he is some kind of construct, going through all his activities by rote.

knowledge arcana 37:
Looking more deeply, you can see that the control crystal is a bit of a trap. Those who wield it can control the crystals but using them for good is difficult if not impossible... Moreover, the influence of these crystals seems to stretch beyond just The Camp Of Crystals

Meanwhile, Monel give Azzim a copy of a manuscript containing a fictionalized version of the party's adventures in the Helaronthrop, asking "any particular scene you think should be emphasized, I will be reciting for the Camp Of Roses", adding "The Camp Of Doors might might want to include a description of or even people from New Helaronthrop in its final performance"


Azzim and Terex poke around the Camp Of The Crystal. Things are happy and relaxed as the workers finish the final, somewhat reduced exhibit. Just occasionally, speculations about the disintegration goes around. "All the auguries said it was a good thing." "Funny how little reaction Galbardo had" "I heard there was pollution in the source, hmm""I hear that Galbardo is working on an exhibit in secret..."


Terex and others investigate the Camp Of The Crystals while preparations continue for the Final Pageant. Galbardo doesn't do anything sinister but seems strangely listless. The Camp's exhibit is excellent but he seems removed from it's process while his two lieutenants, Narg and Chave are extremely active organizing things....

Terex guesses that the crystal that disintegrated had not yet had "stabilized" by being placed in a world. But by that token, the question is whether any of the crystals had been planted in worlds - either this year or the earlier years when "Narvus" was active...

And with that, Terex realizes a forensic look at The Crystal Camp's activity might be in order.

The Final Pageant itself, coming up the next day even, promises to challenge and distract all the camps at the same time...

Let me know what the Camp Of The Door does as its Finale and various ways of investigating the Camp Of Crystals... I'll add more as needed...


Assume you have the core crystal


The creature cuts it's cord and scuttles off, shrinking quickly with the side dimension and the party continues down the twisting and disorienting vistas of The Paths 'till you reach the path guarded by Xixanixis, who greets you with noble politeness and welcomes you back to The Groves Of Ansthenia where it seems you have been gone three days and now the various camps are in full bloom, twelve remarkable and intertwined models of new existence, with the Camp Of Doors fully involved.

The most notable thing is the way that a number of crystals in The Camp Of Crystals suddenly disintegrated about two days previously, leaving many exhibits far less awe inspiring. Yet with remarkably little work, the remaining crystals have been reworked. Most of craftpeople in The Camp have adjusted remarkably well but there are rumors a few are disgruntled... Monel notes: "Clearly this is the place we want to watch the most closely. Do we want to tell them the story and if so, who should tell the story and who shall we tell it to? Galbardo, the camp leader?"

Meanwhile, the Camp Of Door has expanded and prospered in the Party's absence. Lyra's mechs working with the various recruits and volunteers have produced a stunning medley of planar themes and stunning gates... Growing beyond their initial technological origins, the mechs have endowed the camp with an organic theme taken from Runethia of the Camp Of Plants.

Page 148 gives more info in the camps...


Earlier...

Azzim creates a ritual of protection that becomes part of the new Helaronthrop's social fabric. The magic suits itself to the relaxed feeling of the new town. Those entities not blending with the city's "energy", find instead what they seek; a wasteland, a volcano or similar thing...

Now...

The iridescent arachnid shrinks to half its size, spits out a pale web-tendril and slips to side passage (you recall that such creature can use these tendrils to pull themselves back through dimensional portals). "No doubt, I withdraw and avoid whatever thing is behind you good and powerful creatures... shall I spread the word to my fellows also?....


So the party along with Monel, carefully study the diagram Mithreena provides and begins winding their along "The Paths". This dimensional road takes the form of high mountain paths that wind from vista to vista, where when one vista is obscured and then another comes into view, the next vista is a little or extremely different from the last. To move forward, sometimes one most choose the correct winding and other one must

The journey is about three days. The usual threats of disorientation and wolf-spiders don't bother the party but on the second day, you turn a bend to see an especially large, irredescent blue and purple Planar Spider (45' diameter body, 100' extended legs). The human-like part of its head smiles and it says "greetings friends, what news of the paths? Rumor has it things have been rearranged lately, I would be grateful for news."

The thing is roughly block the path forward but not acting immediately aggressive.

knowledge Planes 32:
These are widely traveled creatures, between neutral and chaotic evil. They will eat you if they can but also are always quite interested in trading information...


Before she leaves, Mithereena leave a detailed sketch of the forking paths leading back to Groves Of Ansthenia - "There's a marvelous crystal spring on the way that I sadly didn't have time to investigate but if you stop tell me how it is..." Feel free to improvise this...

Monel is impatient on the second day, at one point he looks at Terex and says "Did you see something different? I mean different even than these Deceivers, who have a specific feel to them. I sense a different kind of disturbance... A bluff 30 will throw him off the track, if you wish... and several times he says, "I understand waiting and I think we found most of the rot but I feel I need to go back to the Groves to fully investigate these events and honestly I need you, at least some of you, to go with me."

New Helaronthrop continues dreaming and building, one school of creation building silvery tensile structures ten or twenty stories, moving rhythmically in the wind while any school builds glass, agate and granite villas melding seemlessly with rough stone (along the lines of Frank Lloyd Wright, etc).


Monel has a done a bit of work on defense and security while the rest of the party was occupied but once Terex and Azzim get involved, he quickly cedes the task to them, introducing them to few trusted individuals he's found...

Mithereena chats avidly with Lyra, Azzim and Terex in a peaceful bodega just a stone's throw from one center of Helaronthrop. She describes the latest innovations in each of the camps, speculation concerning the party's whereabouts, a couple of brief affairs at the Camp Of The Stars (which gets Monel's atten) and various other events.

As the day approaches sunset, the sky has the subtle dark hues of a brown agate and all seems remarkably peaceful.

Monel, sipping on a mineral ambrosia, stretches his dragonfly wings and says "I know I must begin the road home. My camp needs me. And so I will... tomorrow..."


The beauty of the new world is something one can nearly breath in... For the next few hours, the godlings continue stabilizing this new plane, rich with energy and potential.

While the non-godlings rest a deep slumber...

... and then, as a group of Clay Elementals are placing a series of quartz domes on certain crafting halls, a familiar voice, beautiful and melodious comes echoing across mountains, "What a marvelous new creation? Is this the secret the Camp of Door has been hiding these last few days? If so then you have outdone yourselves! What a coincidence to find you here! You must tell me all about this though I must warn the camps have been in an uproar since you left though not necessarily because you left..." Many heads turn with wonder and curiosity.

Mithereena! Godling of beauty, gossip and all things ephemeral

(Also Monel moves hither and yon, also strengthening the world as well as casting greater restoration, heal and whatever spells may be needed to get everyone up and running. He seemed to avoid the world forming to be ready for this... ).

sense motive 30:
Mithereena almost certainly didn't find new Helaronthrop by accident but likely exerted her own considerable power as a godling. She is naturally curious but actually well intentioned and she's implicitly giving you the warning the powerful of the multiverse will arriving soon to trade and learn-from this world and that's something the world must be prepared for. And also the activities at the various camps continue apace and could use your efforts

One thing this reminds everyone of - the old Helaronthrop was intentionally very difficult to reach. This plane is effectively at a multiversal crossroads with all that this implies.


After the craftspeople with the party's aid resolve the key social and psychological contradictions of Helaronthrop, Lyra's nanites race against time to measure the city's outer and inner structure, the vast crafting knowledge contained within it, etc. while Terex brings together the synthesized hopes and aspirations of the craftspeople of the area. At the same time, Azzim groans having wound-up the force stabilizing the overall matrix while Arlo provides divine inspiration to the populace...

Insert all of you all's stunning narrative here, cool folks

In single, nearly-indescribable spiraling flash of light and activity, the soul of Helaronthrop and its inhabitants are taken from its home plane to the ... new place. The final result has nearly everyone in a shocked daze for several minutes.

When you back to reality, a new Helaronthrop spreads out before you, vastly changed. Whereas the old plane was frantic, dense city surrounded by the frenetic activity of the mines, this Helaronthrop spreads out, less a city than an interconnected network of villages. A serene calm spreads everywhere. Still, here and there tools, machinery and materials for crafting are scattered but any new production will be slow and very carefully considered. Already the inhabitant are sitting, chatting about what might or might not be needed, designing several versions on screens before activity commences, hoisting tankers of fortifying mineral tonics and re-learning the enjoyment of the process of crafting...

Monel reappears and bows, "Certainly I had already guessed I had chosen the most excellent of companions but 'wow', well done"

The population of (new) Helaronthrop looks to the party, half expecting a speech but perhaps just expecting another round...


As she calculates the pylon transform, Lyra can see that the world just outside Azzim's door might an ideal point to situate a remade Helanthrop could be ideally placed. At the same time, she can guess the pressure everyone is feeling is the threat of Helanthrop experiencing immediate planar implusion - time is of the essence. Azzim may be especially effected by the pressure since his magic is keeping the door in existence...

Terex is still curious about the creatures he saw, though he feel confident they were some spirits of fate.


Collective rolls for shaping Helanthrop's new form are fine. I'm thinking what they'd look like. The sum of individuals seems OK for now.


Slowly, the elemental crafters and merchants of Helaronthrop come together, guided by Lyra, heartened by Arlo and aided by the rest of the party (Monel is running seeing to little things everywhere).

A long procession forms, ready to come through the now huge door. The earth quakes cease but a low humming seems to come from everywhere.

Terex darts though door and stands on the meadow. It is a beautiful plateau filled with lichen, rock trees and other living-earth creatures. The air is very thin but crisp and pleasant. Thin streams of water, oil and other substance drift through the area (a Tuolumne Meadows of the zone of neutral good elemental-earth). But scanning further, Terex sees an encircling ring of mountains that seem to waver and reform at his glance and this tells him in one of the great planar cross - The Paths (mountain paths that shift from plane to as new vistas come into view). Perhaps even this the "source" of the paths.

But looking back, he sees only the door came though as a black square at ground level with the road leading only to the center of the plateau - getting back might be tricky disable device 35, meanwhile Terex is visible from the other side of the door and everyone feels an intense mental pressure.


And my nurse-roomate took my stitches out today.


Feeling better now, resuming, thanks for your patience.


The Door summoned Azzim in the center of Helaronthrop port grows and appearance can be seen in detail, indeed supernatural detail compared to its semi-transparent outline. Geometric inlay of quartz, metal and wood alternate with granite carved runes and embedded with bones which to tell a strange story, a story of a kind of betrayal that propagates along with creation... And different parts of the door seem nearly at war with each other, responding the impulses of the Helaronthrop's inhabitants, with the Lyra and Arlo pushing them to natural unity and the deceivers surreptitiously expand the betrayal...

Then, Terex gains a preternatural insight through intense observation of the door's reshaping, an insight that almost reaches beyond the fabric of multiverse and using that he jumps to the side, pops open the side of the door a small-dragon-sized crack and sees a bizarre sight; line of ghostly, gray figures working furiously upon enormous, also-gray loom, a loom with wispy fibers that extend in all directions, into Helaronthrop and beyond.

In Terex' short glance, time literally stops and several figure have a conversation. One vague ghost, perhaps a bit pale, short and rotund: ::To open a door of fate of itself before its time, To interrupt the loom of time, what audacity, one thinks it might deserve harsh punishment. Another a taller, darker ghost, ::But it is audacious, perhaps it deserves a wonderful reward... and another says ::Yet how can we things without violating the skein itself... than ::Nar, the skein's a mess anyway ... ::Zar, old rule says he gets his way ... and the debate winds back in endless split second before the gate small crack closes, the runes of bones fade, beautiful inlay cover the area and the door opens in center area, revealing a beautiful mountain landscape with road leading through it.

The twelve deceivers seem to shrink smaller and smaller and then vanish...

The City awaits your statement/comment/command


And now I'm sick with a cold also.


Tonight I had an accident where I was carrying a very pot of soup up some stair and fell forward onto the soup pot, cutting my forehead open.

I'm basically OK after stitches but the post for tonight will be postponed.


The chaotic scene unfolds, the vast hall is a center of chaos with the calculated screams of the remaining Deceivers (still disguised as powerful elementals and earth-genies), the crowd of earth elements, oriads, Genies and related creature gathered outside the building housing the Gate is divided, the technicians are glare at the Deceivers.

Outside, the bulk of the city is working under Saint Lyra's direction to achieve an orderly evacuation while earth quakes echo through the city and crystal palace explodes in deadly showers of shards.

Azzim feels the orb - it contains a matrix of what could be called "false unity", work done bitterly, without consideration and with secret resentment. A structure created by an insidious mind and calculated to break up at the least opportune moment...

The lays bare the process and opens a door to unity, forgiveness and a new beginning. Indeed a physical door appears in the exact center of the export hall. But the door is closed - what is holding it closed? The divisions in the crafters and will of the remaining Deceivers? Or something else?

Naturally, you must overcome these two things and see...


The knots of elemental crafters hark to Lyra's call, the evacuation moves in a sad and orderly way. People feel palpable shock at their homeland seemingly falling to pieces without warning or explanation... Yet a quality of rancor also prevails, the petty grudges of different group now a bit more open...

Azzim considers; the flaws injected by Helaronthrop's products were in the end the product of flaws provoked in the social fabric of Helaronthrop itself by Narvus. A ritual of unity and forgiveness would be most effective for stabilizing the plane (though still only temporarily). The egg, which contains a map of these contradictions, might be harnesses to reverse them - but such use is naturally dangerous. Choose a spell or make this up plus roll spellcraft. Azzim is grasping what's happening at a deep level.


Terex can feel a heaviness in the blue egg, it is what you would think, a key to the twists embedded in products of Helaronthrop but also a cornerstone of the strange, counterfeit city. Perhaps if it was set back it originally laid and then unraveled, the city would return to normal. But there might not be time and there may be other rituals possible as well.


Throughout the city and mining area, the majority of the elemental crafters now work to create a stable exodus from the Helaronthrop using Lyra's ideas and leadership, groups calmly walking together out of the most central. A minority of the crafters seem to be suffering from various kind of derangement, sometimes attacking the exiting, sometimes paralyzed, sometimes attacking themselves..

Another large group of crafters is crowed around the Gate area, some seeking answers, other wanting to use the facilities (the Gate is not the only exit but all the other exits lead to relatively slow "walks" to nearby planes, such as the path the party took to enter).

Inside the Gate Room, ex-Narvus' former underlings, still on the ceiling, are still haranguing the crowd, causing some to seek the egg and others to work against the orderly exodus.

Through extraordinarily clever telekentic maneuvering, Terex has the sky blue crystal egg hidden in a rafter of the ornate, stone Gate room. It seem disproportionately heavy to telekinetic touch.

Challenges - analyze the egg, attempt a ritual with the crystal, molify the crowds, defeat remaining deceiver - on ceiling 10 rounds, etc


So, a Chaotic scene unfolds in the beautiful stone that is the Gate. Glowing with holy power, Arlo dispatches the eldritch horror that appear out of Narvus while Narvus' (ex) underlings shout to the gathering crown from the ceiling of the room, "Saboteurs have infiltrated us, the city is being shaken apart, you must find the blue crystal and give it to me before your realm disintegrates..." A very deep, distant rumbling can be heard...

knowledge planes 35:

Suddenly you realize, this realm was crafted around the lies of fake-Narvus and will actually fall to piece now that he is no more. It may be possible to delay the effect.
-- And the deceiver lacky of Narvus is trying to use situation to their adventage.

knowledge arcana 30:

The blue crystal egg apparently has a portion of or information on whatever corruption has been spread by the operations of Helaronthrop


Arlo breaks away from the black, oily monstrosity in the center of the stone Gate room. it howls and moves to attack again...

While Terex extends his magic power to grab the crystal, which on closer inspection an inner orange glow and a strange, chaotic facets...


Terexaltherin, Pseudodragon wrote:

Terexaltherin reaches out with his telekinesis to grab the crystal and slip it out of sight down a nearby alleyway.

Not sure I need a roll for this?

Roll slight-of-hand plus spell-craft if you want to use extra-power to enhance your telekinetic power.


Arlo takes another chunk out of the monstrosity. This time, four oily black tentacles lash out at once, two of which grab the dwarf and lift him ten feet in the air and another of which whips him in on the side 10, 15, 23 and 20 points of damage... before DR plus grappled...

Noting Terex' words, one of the technicians extends a telescoping arm to attemp to grab the crystal but misses the hold... The leaders on the ceiling scream about disloyality...


The six leaders fly upward and four of them land hard on their backs while the blue crystal held by a leader formed like a piece of rose quartz goes flying four feet away on the ceiling as the rose quartz figure gasps.


The crawling horror that is "Narvus" loses perhaps a bit of material from Arlo's savage attacks and slashes out with a tentacle... but dwarf slips through his grasp... Whereupon the thing makes ready six more slippery black ropes...

Meanwhile, Monel flying on fairy wings into the room, send four jets of sparkling blue energy at the monstrosity, again taking out a bit of material...

The technicians and the leaders begin angry argument at Terex' words... one technician grabbing back the crystal that was taken.

A small crowd outside the gate is observing the events...


As Arlo sprints into the large, stone Helaronthrop cargo gate room, several of the leaders shout out in horror while Narvus suddenly laughs, shouts in Aklo "Now your doom is upon you"and his gentle, rock-demeanor falls away and he assumes the form of a writhing thirty foot wide mass of tar forming and reforming long tentacles and other stranger shapes... one of which reaches for Arlo, slashing him but failing to grab the agile dwarf 25 points bludgeoning dash (minus DR etc).

The other leaders shout in and run toward the technicians, grabbing what gems they have.

sense motive 30:
These too are deceivers, hoping to use Narvus "big reveal" to sneak away with the cargo...


The cargo gate of Helaronthrop is a large room beautifully built of beautiful granite, Basalt and feldspar swirls with sixteen conventional iron doors to each of the wards of the city and sixteen gateways through the multiverse that take the form of shiny, multicolored squares looking similar to oily firm.

Near the dimensional gate are "guidance devices", whirling, light-blue spheres that control the destination of the gates - these spheres seem to have frozen up. Elemental technicians, humanoids with skin almost resembling circuit boards, are huddled around certain of these sphere associated with a target gate but the spheres are unresponsive and the group of six leaders alternately berate the technicians and whisper to each other.

The make matters worse, several of the technicians seem to forget what they are dealing with entirely, making the leaders especially irate.


Arlo crushes the worm and then sees the general madness around him...

Outside on the street, Terex's thought song opens a way through the crowd, lessening the overall madness and allowing him to arrive close to the cargo port of Helaronthrop where, peaking around a corner, he can a group of twenty humanoid elements are desperately trying to the open the cargo gate egged-on by about six senior leaders of the city, Narvus himself among them. While a black crystal-carrier box sits guarded by a snake seemingly made of obsidean.

The city overall is in chaos but it's gradually receding...


The monstrosity shivers with the dehydration from Azzim's spell and seems to shrink into nearly nothing... however the wave of psychic chaos it unleashed somehow continues.

perception 26:
You see it become wriggling worm the size of a lizard and slither very quickly towards the door of the Testing Bureau...


With a truly brilliant hack, Lyra seals the cargo gates of the city of Helaronthrop shut, thwarting for a bit the group that seeking to leave with the crystal supply - moreover, hacking into the city network, she manages to get beyond the electronic guards that thwart Terex and some documents where a secret group of Deceivers plot to use the various crystals to produce a variety of effects undermining the processes of divine creation. Moreover, the current group of crystals involves a record of the vulnerabilities previously introduced.

Meanwhile, Terex rushes outside and towards the group trying to leave
but must overcome the chaos on the streets first... Let me know how...


Arlo slashes desperately at ginormous monstrosity, somehow managing to sever one of the three branches it's multitude of heads, limbs and mouths are extending from...

Terex for long, miserable seconds winds-up caught up in the angry, resentful energy radiating from the Deceiver and in the time he feels the knot of anger growing among the elemental craftspeople and feels powerless to stop the process as it expands... then manages to pull away, still remembering the process...


Lyra's announcement has some effect, the least affected of the elemental crafters wind-up concentrating in the protected areas Lyra creates on-the-fly...

Meanwhile, the battle with the unmasked deceiver continues... and Lyra notices one group of crafters carrying a notably large supply of crystals to a group of assembled outgoing crystal carriers...


Arlo lands a solid blow on the morphed Deceiver, the Arlo Sword cutting a glowing line into the thing...

Meanwhile Azzim dodges the confused, surging mass of elementals, humanoids and others and sends waves of holy fire onto the gibbering horror, reducing it considerably in size but not slaying it... as Terex feels himself carried away by screaming wave of psychic chaos...

The then creature focuses on Azzim, biting and pummeling him (fir 11, 9, 12 and 11 points of damage) while also attacking Arlo (nibbling for 6 points of damage)....

Terex can play confusion however he wishes - by book or otherwise... and he get another save at the end of his round, after the confused actions... Those who saved don't have do the will save but the reflex against the swarm must be made each round


Arlo advances toward the monstrosity, dodging the mad hoard while a couple of screaming mouths attack him from the sides (8 and 10 points of damage, minus DR) and arrives in range to full attack...

Lyra can sense a disturbing psychic vibration spreading through the city...


Azzim waves his and glowing surround Ithith, who previously seemed to be almost flowing around the party, the aggrieved crafters, and tester who had assembled for the "presentation". At that point, "Djin" stops and seems to grow in all directions, spouting multiple heads and arms with mouths showing closer to the true form of this deceiver. Each mouth seems to shout a petty criticism, a stream of browbeating that's horrifying and breathtaking. The effect on the assembled testers is more notable - they seem to fly into a rage, attacking everything around them...

will save 22:

Those succumbing to the cacephony are confused and enraged...

reflex save 20:

Those not dodgy this humanoind-elemental-swarm take 20 points of damage, other take 5 unless you have evasion...

Testers from outside the chamber seem to notice but the cloud of rage seems to be spreading....


So, the large-ish conference room in the Testing Bureau is silent. Ithith, a gray statuesque Djin, begins to operate the view screen as Durnan looks on. However, the device spews static and then a strange light that someone reveal a hellish cast to Ithith and moreover seems to snap the ten or so assembled testers out of a strange they in. At that point, the face of Narvus briefly appears in view screen but also vanishes.

Durnan, a business-like elemental with the form of a very heavyset humanoid made of red-brown clay, seem stunned and his stretches with confusion. Many voices begin shooting at once, either attacking Ithith or demanding answer.

Ithith moves into the crowd, attempting to escape the questions being hurled...


Hello Paizo, back online,

I still will have to post tomorrow, working today.


Terex feels his effort were successful, Next round... one-two more remaining...

Monel smiles as the screen fuzzes... "No doubt this will clear up everything..." while sending telepathetically ::Terex, brilliant but is it possible to reverse the device's effect as well as...


So, with the party and their alllies looking on, Durnan and Ithith, attempt to communicate with Narvus and then activate a giant view screen that takes a while to warm up...

knowledge arcana 35:
This is a sophisticate mind-control device, able to cast mass suggestion when fully activated - in three more rounds....


Azzim finds about a dozen crystal crafters, from shapers to molders to one master engraver spirit named Adel (she's shaped like a giant metal spider with tools at the ends of her legs). Most are actually shocked once they emerge from the depressive funk their (apparent) failure put them into... Only very dark shaper named Mwabin says "I knew it! ... But what could I do?" whereas Adel "Ah, how dastardly but you must understand, we push ourselves hard to produce these amazing structures..."

At the same time, Monel has prevailed on your contact, Mazra to assemble a group of supervisors to visit first the research division to observe the R-n-R but then to go to the Testing Division...

Thus, Mazra' committee enters with the party and several of aggrieved crafter follow along. Whereupon the head spirit, Durnan, a huge elemental, immediately appears challenging the group, "I'm sorry, any investigation is improper since it would threaten our impartiality..." whereas his assistant, Ithith (the known deceiver), "Well, it is understandable that some spirits would complain at our standards - understandable but something we must still resist. In any case, the question must be settled by the highest authorities, Narvus or perhaps one of his lieutenants."


Terex is able to drop into the busy testing bureau without arousing much suspicion. The desks are arranged in a huge, open grid, the beautiful crystal samples are quickly moved from spirit to spirit with sold transport tubes, spirits calling to each in overlapping discordant voices, the entire area has an ... intensity to it.

sense motive 35:

All the work seems legitimate but you sense a similar sort of angry corruption which found with spirits you initially encountered before the city proper. None of the line workers themselves seem like Deceivers however.


Carefully speaking to creator spirits around the city of Helaronthrop, In a space of five hours, Azzim and Arlo discover twenty or more cases in which the testing bureau refused to approve various producers works, demanding strange and unappealing pattern be added to them. Several producers reported being unnerved by the process of producing the modified designs and others complain the designs didn't seem to go through the regular planing process...

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