Seldon "Quill" Galanodel's page

While we gathered information on the temples that might have the people able to resurrect Auremestes, we traded some of the goods we had gathered for more useful items. The temple of Calistria seemed to be the most appropriate.

The resurrection was fascinating. The body built up from it's most basic parts. Bones, then organs and flesh and viscera and skin. Riveting.

As his consciousness returned, we let him know where he was, signaled our membership in the squads and let him know that we were not alone (the clerics).

Accompanying Auremestes as he re-equipped himself, we were accosted by a few bands of thugs. After one of the leaders stepped out and found the tip of Phos's rapier jutting from the front of his chest, they all seemed to miraculously disappear.

We brief the chairman and returned to Thorn's end. Auremestes's return was everything I could have hoped. He immediately began whipping everyone into shape. One of the first things was to call a meeting of the Council the following day. Zara and Aubrey, as acting heads of the squads, would provide a full briefing.

During the meeting the Ghaele was dismissed from the council chamber, but squads 5 and 23 took up position around the room (most near the Spike). The Councilors seemed better, but still deeply affected by the isolation. However, none of them could agree on anything, even after the captains' eloquent and pointed briefings.

As they argued, He'alin suddenly stood and attempted to turn the stone, around the spike, to flesh. Of course, we were all on high alert and managed to take him down and counter the spell in moments. As he slumped to the floor, we saw what we had not in the flurry of arrows and spells - he had changed. He'alin, the drow, lay in a smoking heap at the table. Auremestes dismissed us.

After some time we were allowed to speak to Auremestes again. He admitted us to the Archives and we were able to study He'alin's notes on Alevra's research. The specifics of the process for calling down the rocks were included (see Appendix 5 to this report). In summary, there are large glyphs that allow the user to find and control asteroids. Over time, pulling it towards the planet. We also found a vague description of The Shrine of the Bound Earth which is near the Land of Black Blood. Hopefully, this will be enough for us to teleport to and, hopefully, someone will know the way to the Land. Quite thin, but we have done more with less before.

The other option that we have discussed is scrying on Alevra, now that we have an image of her (copied from the Mended picture of her in Thorn's End) and items that belonged to her. The risk is that she will detect this. And, even if we are able to neutralise her, we still need information about the Glyphs.

Auremestes formalised the appointment of the captains and lieutenants for each squad. He encouraged them to fill out our ranks and admonished them to remember that they no longer fill the roles they once did - They are now leaders, not melee experts or scouts.

We decided that it might be worthwhile to check the rumours that Kwava passed along about the 'blot in the sky' above Jol. Knowing if we have one or two threats may be valuable. Unfortunately none of us have been to Jol in our travels. We will teleport to Kelwinvian and Wind Walk from there. This will also give Aubrey the time to recruit Shells, her sister, into her squad.

We were all elated (shown to varying degrees). We had restored the Council! The world was still under a threat of catastrophe, but suddenly the odds didn't seem so awful. We had no idea what we were about to face.

PCs:

Celias "Syl" Gorgorathtel'taur (ranger 8/fighter 3)
Elidlara "Aubrey" Seldanica (evoker 11)
Merisiel "Mule" Galanodel (cleric 11)
Phos Adanien (rogue 9)
Seldon "Quill" Galanodel (cloistered cleric 11)
Zara (paladin 11)

Having traveled by quite a number of gates, the succubus led us towards Thorn's end. We drew the attention of a host of demons. In a face-to-face battle a few of them looked like they would be a challenge for us individually, let alone in the numbers that greeted us. Aubrey confirmed this.

The leader seemed familiar with Quilindra and she quickly convinced him (a Nalfeshnee) to allow us entry. She encouraged us to be quick about returning with the Spike. We assured her that we would do our best.

Approaching the building protected by the Spike, Phos scouted ahead. Approaching the entrance, vicious plant creatures rose up out of the nearby muck to attack. He and the rest of the squad made quick work of them. The demons seemed highly amused at having had their bit of fun at our expense.

We briefly debated ways to signal to whoever might be behind the door that we were allies. We decided that it would be too risky to allow the watching demons to learn any of our signals. We settled for simply calling out that we were not demons, but elven allies and slowly opening the door.

Greeted with a wall of readied weapons, we were brusquely invited to 'prove it' by stepping across the threshold. Hurrying inside, we all gave various confirmation signs once we were safely behind closed doors (and the prying eyes of any of the demons).

The leader of the guard, Armistril, established who we were. Hearing that some of the squad is originally from Squad 23, he separated us. His choice of words made it seem that 23 might be facing the points of the guards arrows, on the spot. However, he wanted to inform us that their council member had turned to the path of the Others. Taking charge, the captain assured him that they are trustworthy. (She seemed to have made an almost full recovery since the time Below. Cyl seems to take a perverse pleasure in needling her, though).

Armistril filled us in on the situation. Alevra had revealed herself by killing Auremestes, head of the Council. With such a betrayal and no strong leader, the rest of the council had fallen into various states of apathy or seeming madness, although Armistril was somewhat diplomatic in his description. All of them seemed to have one thing in common - they wanted to end the siege by deactivating the Spike's protection. They, and the guards, believed that as long as they held out as long as the Spike did, they would go on to their just reward in the afterlife.
The guards had been just hanging on to this promise to keep them going. Food stores had run out long before - they subsisted on magically created gruel and duty.

Thing were worse than I had imagined possible. I had been prepared to find that our leaders had been viciously and utterly destroyed - or maybe held and tortured. That they had simply given up was almost too much to fathom. We had been killed on the shadow plane, fought our way back to our former selves, discovered an Others plot, been instrumental in foiling an incursion into one of our oldest cities - relying on just ourselves almost completely. And these SUPPOSED(!) leaders couldn't be bothered to even try! How could the actions of one person have brought the core of our oldest and strongest organisation to it's knees?! The only thing keeping them from ending it all for themselves and all the Council Guard was the Guardian of the Maleficus Spike - Ghaele (or possibly a Ghaele).

We decided that we would try to get through to Council as well as investigate Alevra's lab. We still needed the location of the Land of Black Blood at this stage. Armistril gave us information on the members (Names, areas of interest, assigned squads). He seemed to think that He'alin was the least insane/erratic. He was the wizard liaison of squads 11-15.

Before going to the upper levels, we distributed what food we had. Merisiel's gift of a bag of salt was treated as if it were the greatest treasure these men had ever seen. [*One of the things that Merisiel "Mule" does is try to always have whatever it is the party could possibly need. I think that she has at least one of everything off of the basic equipment list.*]

After a little back and forth to sort out how we would proceed through Thorn's end without having to convince each guard that we were not invaders we began in earnest.

On our way to the wizard, we passed through the council chamber. Like the majority of our most important places, much attention had been lavished on its decoration. It was marred only by the Spike, impaled in a wall. We made sure to give the artifact a wide berth and loudly declared our intention to leave it alone. We did not encounter Ghaele.

The guards closer to He'alin told us about a golem that guarded the path to the rooms where he spent his time. As we had no desire to disturb any guardians unnecessarily, we called out to him from the threshold of the golem's room. He told us to go away at first. He had now intention of talking to us "anymore". However, when he heard that we had members of Squad 23 amongst us, he deigned to speak approach us. He dismissed Squad 5 almost immediately. [*The backstory on the Squads is that 5 was more of the real-world type of special ops force (Thugs, in He'alin's mind). 23 often dealt with missions of historical, cultural or esoteric significance*]

Squad 5 retreated to the nearest guard room, where all the guards were eavesdropping (He'alin was not the quietest of speakers). He'alin seconded Aubrey, current leader of 23, to Squad 11 (one of the ones under his control). He gave Aubrey a day to get rid of the rest of her squad, as only captains are supposed to enter Thorn's End. After that, he would allow her past the golem to our destination. There was, of course, just one thing. It seemed there was this pesky item in the council chamber. It blocked magical travel, which was needed to proceed. If Aubrey would just remove that item, He'alin would be able to help her.

We were out of luck with the 'least erratic' of the Countil. We determined that we would escape, resurrect Auremestes (leader of the council) and hope that his influence (if not mere presence) would work to fix the Council. Aubrey and I devised a way to create a save and secret exit. She would Passwall downwards, beyond the influence of the Spike, I would shape the stone into a distinctive room and we could teleport to and from there. This would keep us from the eyes of the demons and, even though the entrance would be sealed by the magic of the Spike, the room would remain.

With our plan set, we decided to make contact with 5's Council member. Apparently she (Malandil) had become entirely apathetic, other than for her...amorous...pursuits with one of the other council members. We decided that we would try to have her pay us our back pay, offsetting some of the cost of having someone cast True Resurrection on Auremestes. Not finding her in her own room, we made the circuitous trip to Arlindil's room (The object of her affection).

Our wanderings took us through a map room. We checked for a listing of the Land of Black Blood. To our amazement, there was one. Of course, Alevra had been thorough and the scroll, itself, was missing.

We also came across a Chapel with one statue of Calistria in it. Its twin was notably absent. We guessed that Alevra probably made off with it during her escape.

We found Malandil in Arlindil's rooms. She seemed only mildly surprised to see us and readily agreed to our request, asking only for a few more minutes. We chose to spend the next ten minutes well out of earshot of the chamber. We thought it best not to speculate too long on the activities of an amorous druid. Finding us after a while, Malandil was content to pay us, as long as we understood that we were to immediately disband afterward. She encouraged us to follow whatever pursuits might make us happy. A most disturbing attitude for a leader of the Winter Council.

As she led us through the building, we wrung all the information from her that we could, regarding the appointment of new Council members and the authority of the leader of the Council. Arriving at the treasury, she was surprised to find magical seals on the doors. Aubrey made short work of them. Malandil scooped coins into our bag without any real concern for amount or type. Once satisfied, she wished us well and dismissed us. Phos made sure to lock and then disable the locks on the treasury.

We left for Absalom. We had high hopes that we would be able to raise Auremestes and that the return of his leadership would begin the rebuilding of our organisation.

PCs:

Celias "Syl" Gorgorathtel'taur (ranger 8/fighter 3)
Elidlara "Aubrey" Seldanica (evoker 11)
Merisiel "Mule" Galanodel (cleric 11)
Phos Adanien (rogue 9)
Seldon "Quill" Galanodel (cloistered cleric 11)
Zara (paladin 11)

(While my previous summary captured something like an appropriate tone for a debriefing, it totally sucked the fun out of the summary. So, I'll be using a different style)

Interviews for sailors proceeded more quickly than expected, with the Captain (Zara) vetoing anyone with the slightest taint of evil around them. Luckily, we were able to assemble a skeleton crew out of those remaining.

The sole exception to the rule was an excellent navigator and pilot, 'recommended' by Avery Slyeg (the crime lord). It seems he, Hin Mayval, had done some work for Slyeg that had won him the enmity of Split Face, the master of Riddleport's beggars. Slyeg offer 200gp/month that we keep him alive. This amount rose to 250gp and then 300gp as we asked questions. Knowing it would probably cause problems, we agreed anyway.

The rest of the crew are:
- decrepit dwarf (partially healed by Merisiel)
- intelligent & curious Shoanti with decent piloting and navigation skills
- human priest of Besmara
- Chelish paladin of Iomedae
- a couple of regular human sailors
- Ulfen named Tügrik Trollbane (Tügrik has a worrisome effect on the female members of the squad, particularly the Captain)

We made our way towards Magnimar. The trip went off without incident, other than a minor mishap as we left port, scraping the side of another ship. I don't believe that it will take more than a few days to fix.
One of the sailors took it upon himself to prepare the duty schedule and generously offered to oversee it. Hin seemed to have a little trouble plotting the course, but it didn't take us an overly long time to get there.

After letting the crew off in groups, we made our way back to the former home of Variel the Untrustworthy (our contact from the list). The current owner said that Squirrel had picked Variels old items, that the occupant had been able to buy back. In typical human fashion he tried to trick us into paying for effects, even though Squirrel had clearly already done so.

We made our way to Lady Siliarvanendri's home to take a look. She greeted us eagerly. Sidestepping questions about our activities, we inquired after Variel's possessions. She promised to retrieve them from storage by the following day.

Aubrey, Celias and I visited Professor Quicksilver. It seemed his star had fallen significantly at the University, due to his experiments and theories regarding the Celwynvian Charge statue. Apparently thinking we were going to be keeping his staff anyway, he offered to let us keep it in exchange for us accompanying him to Crying Leaf and Celwinvian. He has got it in his head that this is the only way to determine the cause of the problem with it. We were unable to convince him that this is a dead-end.
Our best option for dealing with this is, probably, planting a false memory of a visit (via teleportation) with the wand. Unfortunately Phos is the only on who can use it and he is 'away' at the moment.

The rest of the day was uneventful.

Back at Oparal Siliarvanendri's, she presented the items, including the encoded message from Variel. Examining it, I quickly determined that it had been made within the last 24 hours. I pointed this out to the Captain and Oparal expressed shock. She immediately began to leave to find who had breached her security, but her protests just did not ring true (to me at least).
<**These were a couple of max rolls with the aid of an action point die each**>
With my shouted warning, we sprang into action as one. The Captain blocked her way and Oparal had a magical mishap (lowering her resistances) as she tried to blast Zara. <**Critical Fumble Deck**> <**tbug doesn't softball us, it was just one of those times that everything went our way**>>
This enabled me to land a Silence on her and with the rest of the squad doing their thing, Oparal quickly surrendered.

Silencing the doorway to preclude the summoning of help, we set to questioning her - Aubrey reading her surface thoughts.

We learned that, to her knowledge, nobody has heard from the Winter Council in more than a year. She quite casually admitted to being a traitor, saying, "We're all traitors here." TRAITORS! Apparently our squads were supposedly traitors and we were sent to our deaths because of that. She also revealed that her squad had mutinied against their leader, killing him and separating. She had sealed her fate by this point.

She tried to bribe us and arrange a meeting with her current bosses. As we were unwilling to deal with a traitor, Aubrey and I tagged teamed her for whatever knowledge we could get, learning that she is working for some sort of powerful group that seems to only be interested in money and power. She betrayed the cause for MONEY!?!

As soon as we had everything we could reasonably get from her, she was dispatched and hidden in our storage bags. We devised a plan to have Merisiel pose as her, leave a while later and simply never return. We would ask after Oparal over the next few days, eventually 'give up' and leave a message for 'when she returned'.

As we made to leave, Squirrel approached with one of our sailors - the ship had been attacked. We raced to it in Oparal's coach.

The crew had acquitted themselves well. The big Ulfen was unconsious, but had slain a number of the attackers. It seems that we may have a traitor on board, as the boarders had been after Hin. Thankfully they were not successful, although they had made it below decks. As we suspected - trouble.

Celias (ranger 3/fighter 2)
Elidlara "Aubrey" Seldanica (evoker 5)
Merisiel Galanodel (cleric 4)
Seldon "Quill" Galanodel (cloistered cleric 4)
Zara (paladin 5)

Debriefing 4708-S5-DS (continued)

4708 Rova 20

We meditated until first light. We left for the area that the Cyphermages were said to be in - a tower, in a tiny village called Witchlight. No blue tentacle creatures were encountered.
Witchlight was next to a cliff , next to the ocean, that had been erroded since the buildings were first built. The tower was on the edge of the cliff.

Sometime before this S5-MS had declared herself the captain. She seemed as good a choice as any. I attempted to reinforce her leadership, when possible, because of the loss of chain of command.

Approaching the tower, we spotted a number of bodies. S5-MS determined, from approximately 50ft away, that they were tainted with evil. S23-HE turned these four undead, forcing them off the cliff. A Cyphermage, Samaritha (who had arranged the sale of the Cyphergate information in Riddleport), called from the tower that there were tentacle creatures on the way. She opened the door for us. The squad first decided to stand and fight. Although the creatures were not extremely tough, there were approximately thirty of them. We decided to enter the tower and barred the door.

The creatures continued to attack. S5-MS, S23-MD, S23-HE and S23-TF shot from the top of the tower. Samaritha had two wounded companions on the second floor. These were all that remained of the Cyphermages. She expained that the creatures attacked when there was movement or when their offspring were attacked.

As the creatures attempted to get into the tower, it began to shake. Then it began to topple over the edge of the cliff. I made it out a window. S23-TF made it outside with a wounded Cyphermage - he had Spiderclimb Slippers. S5-MS climbed out with a grappling hook and rope and then slid down. S23-MD and S23-HE were caught on the 4th floor. S23-MD levitated the rope. She and S23-HE were able to survive part of the fall by holding this rope. S23-TF unhooked the grapple and they all floated free. The captain and I retreated to the tower attachment. She held the door while I shot past her.

The Cyphermage told us about another who had gone to a lighthouse on the eastern tip of the island. He had not returned. We headed towards it and some ruins on the way.

As we approached the ruins, we heard the noises of people. S23-TF snuck up on it, hearing the talk of a number of people packing up camp, including some sort of monster. While he was away, I attempted to loca the nearest starmetal ore. Nobody we had met had found any and it sounded like there were a number of people who did not sound concerned. The nearest ore was off towards the cliffs. This was surprising. When S23-TF returned, we narrowed its location to very near the edge of the cliffs. He climbed down. There was a cave with some sort of structure and movement. It was too dark for him to see and he returned.

We went to the camp, disguised as humans. It was Clegg Zincher's (we had sold his agent the Gold Goblin). His second in command had no helpful information, but did offer to pay us for information regarding the lighthouse. He believed that we were also treasurehunters who had decided to help the Cyphermages. The captain and S23-HE seemed overly concerned with preventing the shipping of the monsters to Riddleport. I was beginning to lose confidence in the captain's focus on our mandate.

We continued to the lighthouse. S23-TF scouted, finding the dead Cyphermage and no movement at the lighthouse. The squad approached. The captain determined that there was something evil moving inside. We entered and it appeared that the evil thing had moved outside. Going outside, we saw nothing. Triangulating, we determined that it was in the walls. S5-MS, S23-HE and I all attempted to drive it from the walls. It eventually fled the wall, into the sun and then straight into the ground. It appeared to be a wraith.

Returning to the camp, we encountered Clegg Zincher. He invited us into his tent for refreshment. He told us that he had gathered very little starmetal, but was going to use the creatures in the fighting pits. His phrasing, and barely perceptable pauses, revealed that he must be under the effects of mind-affecting magic and signalled the squad. S23-HE excused herself, cast Evil Protection and returned in the guise of one of Zincher's men. She discharged the spell, temporarily freeing him. We told him that we were there to help him and that he only had a few minutes before the mind control returned.

He was being controlled by The Enemy. Calling for his 2IC, he continued. We 'speculated' that they might be in disguise to trick him. He seemed to believe this. Every night Zincher went to their secret cave to have the spell refreshed. They wanted the creatures taken to the mainland and the starmetal gathered. He was to leave on a ship that night. He instructed us to tie him up and to have his men attack The Enemy in the cave.

We did so, with his 2IC. The 2IC took him to the bedroom part of his tent. We quickly decided to alter the 2IC's memory of Zincher's story (using the wand) to having included that The Enemy appeared as The Enemy as well as a number of mythical beings. We determined Method 2: Bad Disguise would be sufficient to hide The Enemy's existence. This would allow us to take the men to help us fight, without having to dispose of them.

The 2IC returned. S23-TF altered his memory. He revealed that he was an undercover agent for Korvosa, sent to bring Zincher in for no payment of sin tax. He offered us, first money, then Zincher's effects, as a reward for helping to get him off the island.
There was some debate, as Zincher owed us for the Gold Goblin. We agreed. He would remain with Zincher while we attacked The Enemy's location with Zincher's men. We began to plan.

PCs:

Aubrey (evoker 4) S23-MD - Massive Damage dealer
Merisiel Galanodel (cleric 3) S23-HE - Healer
Phos (rogue 3) S23-TF - Trapfinder
Seldon "Quill" Galanodel (cloistered cleric 3) S5-DS - Data Specialist
Zara (paladin 4) S5-MS - Melee Specialist [officially] Meat Shield [unofficially]