For a change, we are all back to normal today. Chris (Gruul), Chuck (Galen), Paul (Marik), Mike (Kellin) and Bruce all show up on schedule and head off to lunch. Tim (Antok Six-Hearted) decides that being an industrious member of society is more important than hanging out for lunch. He promises to join us slightly later.
We conclude that this cannot possibly be a trend. Especially when 14:00 rolls around and Tim is nowhere to be seen. Hope is restored when Tim finally appears. Trumpets call and cymbals clash in a triumphant chorus, echoing to the highest of the Spheres.
The characters have finished savaging the thrux magician Kurf and his Gua Far allies. Of the Gua Far, only two remain alive: one who has surrendered to the characters, and one sentry who fled from the camp with Kellin's arrows at his heels. Marik indicates that the most important thing is to track down the survivor and make sure that he doesn't warn anyone else about what happened. Kellin points out that he has both Night Vision and Acute Vision and is quite happy to oblige. Even better, he is still enjoying the effects of Marik's Flight spell. He zooms off into the night, seeking for the escaping survivor. Marik casts a Flight spell upon himself and follows on Kellin's heels.
Kellin heads for the Lower Juffey River and then flies along the riverbank. Marik remembers that there is a culvert near the edge of the river and heads that direction. They see nothing, up until Kellin hears regular splashing out in the river. He sees a Sangorn running away, across the surface of the river. He takes careful aim and shoots him in the leg. The man vanishes underneath the surface of the water.
Marik flies down close to where the sentry went under water, then attempts a casting of Consume Thrux Slave. He does not find out if the spell would work, as the sentry resists the spell. He then tries casting Seeker to locate the man. This works out rather better: he determines that the man is about three meters underwater. And very much dead. This works in Marik's favor, as he can cast Apportation upon a dead body. He brings the body back to the camp.
The characters settle down at the thrux camp to see exactly what they have on their hands. The one prisoner is a Sangorn named Yulgey. Antok of the Storm Tribe is guarding him with the sort of attention that is normally used by starving men examining a roast chicken. Antok's attention is only barely diverted by his need to keep the Chel Auxur-Dau secure.
The characters strip the boots and armor from the dead sentries, and collect everything else of value the thrux and the Gua Far had been carrying. The characters debate upon exactly how the one sentry had been able to run across the surface of the Lower Juffey. Gruul points out that the characters (in particular, his predecessor Dojango) had seen Gua Far raiders using a magical artifact to allow horses to run across the surface of a river. A quick search turns up an empty potion bottle on the drowned sentry's body. Galen exclaims, "Waitaminute! There's a potion that lets you walk on water!" Marik shakes his head sadly (with a side glance towards Antok), "So, he was a potion-drinker."
Gruul calls out, "Hey, Antok! You've got the skinning knife, right?" Antok: "Yep." Gruul: "You want to skin the thrux?" Antok: "Yep. Was he a magician?" Gruul: "Yep." Antok: "Then I'm eating his heart too." The characters conclude that this display will probably demoralize their prisoner, and are hard-pressed to think of a bad side to this.
Antok is quite distraught to realize that the thrux took a hit from Ghelgul's Terrible Heartseeker and no longer has a heart left to eat. He cuts the thrux's hands off, hoping to hollow them out, perhaps with lye or boiling water. He cleans out the thrux's severed head and talks about cutting the thrux's face off so it can be mounted on a hinged helmet front.
The characters determine that the thrux Kurf had been wearing magical armor, but that it had been destroyed by the various permanent things the characters had done to him. He also had a Wizard's Staff (enchanted at Power-15) and a scroll case containing six scrolls, all written in Parqui. Galen examines them and determines that they are Create Servant (x3), Create Brute (x2), and Restoration (x1).
The leader of the Gua Far was a Faian named Wengrel Bird-Footed. He had a fine broadsword and a magical amulet enchanted with See Invisible at Power-15 (4 energy to cast, 2 to maintain, duration of 1 minute). He was also carrying 400 clavars and a note in Parqui from a moneylender in Lin Vu Quo claiming that Wengrel Bird-Footed's credit is good.
The gear carried by the Sangorn Gua Far warriors include six sets of human-sized Leather armor, six spears, six medium shields, and 180 clavars. There are also two ghulkraw hide cloaks (PD 1, DR 2, 5 lb) enchanted with Berserker at Power-15 (free for the wearer to activate). Characters decide that the berserker cloaks are none too useful to them, so they should be sold. Marik points out that it costs 500 energy to create a cloak like this, so they should bring a good price. Beyond the more military items, the characters retrieve three tents, bedrolls and camping gear for eight people, and 50 man-days in dried foodstuffs.
Gruul and Kellin sit down next to Wengrel Bird-Footed's body and do their best to sketch his face. They hope to provide something good enough to allow one of them to be disguised at him someday in the future. Kellin's efforts are surprisingly lifelike, with a good sense of tone and form. Gruul's efforts look much more like a cartoon, the sort that you might purchase from a sidewalk caricaturist. The characters decide to keep hold of Kellin's illustration.
Gruul distributes the money evenly among the group; each share amounts to 116 clavars. Antok takes Wengrel's See Invisible amulet. Kellin takes the fine broadsword.
The characters sit down to interrogate their captive. Gruul starts out by asking him if anyone other than the thrux was a magician. Yulgey explains that Wengrel had a knack to make him very fast. Antok immediately heads off to extract the fellow's heart. He is disappointed to find that Wengrel wasn't enough of a magician to do him any good.
Gruul then asks if Yulgey knows when the jumping man will be coming back. Yulgey admits that he doesn't know. He also doesn't know who the thrux Kurf was working for. He does know that he is a native of the city of Bao Am, and that he works for the Gua Far. He has been part of two previous expeditions to the Old City of Nircharstal. In all cases, the expedition has come down the river, using a boat that they purchased from some folks upriver. Gruul is upset at the idea that there might be guys upriver who are selling things to the thrux and not mentioning it to anyone else.
Yulgey requires little prompting to describe the normal routine of the expeditions. The group would avoid the city, instead camping on the shoreline away from too many prying eyes. They would make several forays into the city, during which the Gua Far warriors would serve as bodyguards for Kurf. The thrux magician would cast a series of spells, referring often to a series of mysterious papers, and then lead the group to various locations where he would instruct them to dig. In each case, they would find a small black stone covered with runes, which Kurf would place into a belt pouch. In their first trip he found eight stones. In the second, only six. Yulgey doesn't know what Kurf did with the stones after each journey. He explains that when the Gua Far returned to Bao Am they would normally stay in the barracks there, while Kurf would go to the Elders' Hall or the Tower of the Virator. Sometimes Wengrel Bird-Footed would accompany Kurf, but more often than not the thrux went alone.
Galen asks, "Why are they taking the binding stones out?" Yulgey responds, obviously confused, "I don't know." Galen snipes back, "I wasn't asking you! I was just thinking out loud!" Primed to look for something, Kellin rummages back among Kurf's things. He finds a small folio of pages in the thrux's tent, apparently an inventory of about 130 demons written in very small, very precise Parqui. About fifty of the names are marked through. Marik estimates that it will take him four or five days to cross-reference this list with the surviving demons in the Chel Auxur-Dau. He notes that there are only 19 pages left in the Chel Auxur-Dau.
The characters speculate on what the thrux are trying to accomplish by gathering the stones. Perhaps the thrux are taking away the demons. Perhaps the thrux want the stones for some other purpose, and could care less about the demons. Perhaps the thrux can attach new demons to old stones more easily than they can make new stones.
Whatever the case, the characters agree that there is a mismatch in numbers: Kurf took fourteen stones from the city, but there are only eleven active demons left (not counting the eight members of Eyeslither's gang who are "pending"). Antok points out that the characters don't know exactly what happens to a demon's rock when the demon is killed by the Book.
Kellin suggests that the demon-stones might persist even after the associated demon has been snuffed out by the Chel Auxur-Dau. He suggests that once the demons are all cleared out the characters should offer a reward for any demon binding-stones the locals can find. Everyone agrees that this sounds like a lot less trouble than looking for them themselves, particularly since most of the surviving stones are buried under collapsed buildings or similarly inaccessible places.
Marik speculates that the thrux back in their home territory probably know that the characters have been killing demons with the Chel Auxur-Dau, but that Kurf and his companions might not have known because they have been traveling for most of the time that the characters have been demon-hunting.
The characters don't know exactly when Jelfinn the Jumper might be coming back, but they'd like to know when he does arrive. Galen places a Watchdog spell around his landing spot.
Gruul heads around to the new city to collect a dozen dugun as a work detail to clean up the camp. He tells them to make the boat, the bodies, and all of the camp supplies go away. He indicates that he wouldn't mind if the bodies were simply dumped in the river. The dugun leader vul-Helten Isek expresses some distaste at this plan. He indicates that he will arrange an appropriate ceremony performed over the bodies, and then have them cremated. He explains that treating the bodies of fallen foes in too disrespectful a manner can cause them to come back later on, a problem that he would prefer to not have to deal with. The characters agree, with one significant exception: they explain that they are going to take Kurf's and Wengrel's heads to Mournful Sarah so she can talk to them.
The characters keep the camping gear. They give over all the extra weapons and armor to the dugun.
The characters decide to head back to the villa where the Eyeslither's gang died so the characters can ambush them as they reform. While they wait, Marik agrees to study the thrux's crib notes.
The characters set up their base camp on the second floor of the main building in the villa. They reason that Marik can read the Chel Auxur-Dau just as well there as on the first floor, and that the closer they are to the roof the easier it will be to deal with any fell shadows that reappear unexpectedly. They set up some fairly simple ground rules for behavior. The most important of these is "Nobody goes off by themselves."
Galen and Gruul spend their time in throwing-axe practice, though they are forced to moderate their beer consumption.
Marik pre-marks the appropriate pages of the Chel Auxur-Dau. His opinion is that the fell shadows are the ones that need to go first. Gruul's view is simpler: zap the first demon to show up, and the put Glue on any following demons to keep them in their places until Marik can get to them. Marik mumbles something noncommittal and heads off to compare Kurf's demon list to the remaining pages of the Chel Auxur-Dau.
Antok is in his home element. He spends his time setting up traps. The first is a deadfall at the doorway leading to the room where Marik has the book. He then identifies the specific places where two burning men, two twisted mouths and Eyeslither were killed. He prevails upon Galen to use one of the Air-Golem scrolls and a shovel to dig a deep pit trap on each site. He is absolutely enchanted with the notion of demons reforming and immediately falling three meters into a pit.
Three days later, Marik figures out that Kurf's list of names is a list of all the demons originally in the city. He suspects that Kurf was missing a page, as he knows that there were originally thirteen thirteens of demons (169, that is), rather more than the 130 names Kurf had. The marked-out names are actually subdivided into three groups: demons given to masters, demons gone forever, and demons gone temporarily. Eyeslither and his guys are among the "given to masters" group.
Marik thinks about Yulgey's description of Kurf's activities, and decides that there is a good chance Kurf was simply using the Seeker spell to locate the binding stones. By that theory, Kurf needed the list of names (which actually includes a fair amount of technical detail on each demon) to overcome the penalties for Seeking unfamiliar objects. Marik has both the list and the Chel Auxur-Dau, so the process should be just as simple for him. He tries this idea out on one of the demons that is still outstanding, and gets a hit. The clarion call goes out: "To Stone Street!"
Marik leads the other characters to a rather unpromising pile of rubble on Stone Street. It takes Galen's second Air-Golem scroll and five hours to clear enough debris out of the way to see the binding-stone. Marik Apports it out of the pit and promptly crushes it. Antok howls out, "Hey! Warn me before you do that!" as flames shoot out of the Chel Auxur-Dau.
Marik tries his experiment again. He strikes out once, but then manages to trace a second stone underneath a pile of offal in the Pickers' Quarter. Everyone stares at it for a little while, each hoping that someone else will be the first to start digging through it. Various ideas are floating for dealing with the situation: "Set it on fire!" "Pee on it!" Marik finally just uses spells to clear it away, exposing the binding-stone underneath. Crack! Foosh! Another demon down.
Marik waits the required seven days, and then tries to locate the final demon still in circulation. He gets a sense that the demon is in the center of the Tardotaan Palace. On the way over, Gruul points out that there is supposed to be a demon the size of a house somewhere in the city. Galen scoffs, "That's just a myth!" Antok backs Galen up, pointing out, "Besides, there's no intact buildings left in the Tardotaan." Gruul looks unconvinced. Marik doesn't help his mood by pointing out that according to the Chel Auxur-Dau this demon is a "unique" - it doesn't fit into the normal characteristics.
The characters offer their opinions on how this demon might be unique as they pick their way across the rubble of the Tardotaan. None of these are very reassuring, particularly as most of them focus upon how a building-sized demon could be lurking somewhere nearby.
Marik's magical senses lead the characters into what was once the Royal Hall. Both Galen and Kellin remember that the floor of the Royal Hall floor was inlaid with a mosaic of a river. Galen tells the others, "It was just like a fountain. A natural fountain." Kellin nods dreamily, lost in the beautiful memory. The non-Faian members of the group exchange skeptical looks and exchange bets on whether either of the Faians are going to trip over debris while they reminisce.
Marik finally stops and claims that the Seeker spell tells him the binding-stone is buried in the middle of a large, smooth, uncracked piece of stone that very obviously has replaced a large section of the original mosaic. The characters estimate that the top of the stone is five meters on a side. Someone asks, "How much will that weigh?" The answer turns out to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-500 tons, depending upon how deep the stone goes. After a short debate, interspersed with occasional whining about how someone in the group should have learned some Earth magic, the characters decide to head back out to the New City and return with stonecutting equipment and rock drills.
On the way out, Marik offers, "The description of Create Food in the book says I can create food from stone. So we can eat our way through the stone." It turns out that this won't work all that well, as he will need to cast a spell big enough to affect the entire stone all at once.
It takes two hours to get the necessary equipment from the dugun, and several more hours to drill out a series of holes across the rock face using the last of the Air-Golem scrolls. Most of the characters stay back and keep guard as Galen maintains the air-golem and Antok conjures water around the drillbit to keep it from burning up. All through the process Marik notices that the Chel Auxur-Dau has become quite hot. It is clear that something very large is very close. After the rock has been prepared, Antok uses his magic to fill the holes with water and then freeze them, cracking the stone into pieces.
The characters are a bit disappointed when nothing furious and violent leaps up out of the shattered stone to massacre them all. But only in a theoretical sort of way. Gruul climbs down into the rubble pile and clears rocks. He keeps on until he encounters something large, smooth, cold and black underneath the fragments. He yells out, "That's not a rock!" and leaps to safety. Everyone gets very paranoid very fast.
Antok is the first to return to the pit and investigate the thing Gruul discovered. He feels the black stuff and determines that it is cool to the touch and smooth like glass. Or chitin. Marik approaches and tries reading the appropriate page of the Chel Auxur-Dau, to no visible effect. The characters conclude that the creature's ears may still be buried under stone. Or that it may be deaf. Kellin offers the cheerful thought that the thing might be a big insectile demon sleeping right on top of its demon stone.
Galen looks over the situation and comments to Gruul, "I haven't tried using the Heartseeker on a demon yet. Why don't you try it?" Gruul asks the Faian, "Why are you asking me to do this?" Galen responds very evenly, "Because I want to live." Gruul ignores this jab, but does agree that doing as much damage to the creature as possible before it wakes up is a really good idea.
The characters eventually develop a well-thought-out plan. Gruul and Antok will do as much damage as they can to the creature, and then fly away (thanks to Marik) when it wakes up. The remaining characters will act as decoys and get the maddened demon to chase them while someone (probably Antok) sneaks back into the pit to destroy the binding-stone. Galen listens to this plan and points out that he is a Curious Glory Hound so he'd better be in the pit as well. Kellin and Marik stand some distance away, none to happy with their position as "decoys."
Gruul determines that he can do 4d+2 damage with his magic axe if he makes an all-out attack. He takes a firm stance and prepares to strike. Yaaaa! A thin white fracture line appears on the creature's back. Yaaaa! Another tiny fracture line. Yaaaa! And another. Fifteen or twenty strikes later Gruul stops swinging. He tells the others, "I think it's getting bored." The others decide that Gruul is making some progress, but that the creature seems to be substantially harder than the rock around it.
Galen steps up to the place, Ghelgul's Terrible Heartseeker in hand. His first strike inflicts a paltry 9 points of damage, but does prove that the thing has a heart and that the Heartseeker will seek it. The blade is embedded several inches into the thing's back. His second strike goes even deeper. Galen notices that each time he hits it becomes more difficult to pull the blade back out of the wound. He concludes that an alternate plan might be desirable, perhaps a plan that doesn't risk burying an impressive magical weapon permanently in the back of a demon.
The characters decide that they might have a better chance to harm the creature if they could see more of it. But at the same time they don't really want to be the ones pulling broken stone away from a potentially-lethal demon. It is at this point that one of them suggests, "We have a bunch of Big Eddie's more incorrigible gang members locked up! Why don't we get them to do the really dangerous work?" There is rapid agreement with this plan.
Soon enough, the characters have fetched out the four "hard cases" from their cell and put them to work clearing the stone from around the demon. Antok and Galen repeat their drill-and-freeze trick as needed.
While the work proceeds, the other characters debate what to do with the thing once they've pulled it out of the ground. Gruul suggests, "Let's roll this thing towards the water." Marik points out that this could be considered either deliberate pollution or ecological terrorism, and paints a none-too-promising vision of the creature waking up and flattening the entire new city.
The final pieces of stone break away with a horrible crash. Freed from the stone, the demon starts to stir. It is a terrible thing, a forbidding fusion of child and cockroach in black stone at least four meters long, curled around an iron box. Marik catches fright and flies straight towards the Temple. The four convicts run in all directions. The other characters are made of slightly sterner stuff and stand their ground while Kellin breaks out the binding stone from the iron box and smashes it. It takes the demon an hour to burn down into a piece of black rock and ash.
Kellin watches the remains blow away in the wind as the fell mist clears from the city. He exults, "The city's liberated. Yay! Let's talk about a feast in our honor."
Gruul grumbles, "We got so lucky that all it did was twitch around and burn."
Antok can only look at the Chel Auxur-Dau. The book's cover is noticeably charred after the Fell Mist's page burned out.
Once the fell mist clears, Marik swiftly casts Seeker to find the Saber and Circlet of Nircha. He gets a clear impression that they are in the Temple. And probably had been there all along. Dammit.
The characters go into the Temple and pray to Yaggo with Otanan. Once again the referee is shocked by the idea that the characters are actually religious. As the prayer concludes, the characters are able to see that the Circlet and Saber are mounted upon the wall behind the altar. They ask to keep the Circlet and the Saber safe until they come back to claim it. Otanan agrees to guard them for a while longer.
By this point, it is impossible to hide the fact that something very substantial has happened: everyone in Nircharstal can see that the fell mist has cleared away from the Old City. But this isn't enough to dissuade the characters from doing what needs to be done.
Gruul packs up a few days' of food and goes looking for the convicts. The first he finds quickly: the fellow is starving in the wasteland. The second and third are only slightly harder to find. They still come along quietly when he challenges them. The fourth takes even more effort, but still comes along peacefully.
Kellin sets several groups of dugun to clearing the streets while he travels around fixing magical fountains. He manages to get fifteen of them to work. There are fifteen more that cannot be repaired. He sets another group of dugun masons to repairing the temple. And two more teams dedicated to repairing living quarters in the city.
Marik initially suspects that there might be as many as four straggler demons in the city, but he's not sure. After repeated castings of Seeker, he figures out there are no demons left in the city. Half of the remaining demons in the book are very far south. The other half are nowhere tangible. An attempt to summon one of the "nowhere tangible" demons leaves him holding his head and searching for beer.
The characters decide to move into the city to allay the fears of those locals who say that the city is still haunted by demons. Gruul gathers a group of 20 dugun masons and carpenters, plus some similarly skilled Faians. He appoints the dugun banker as leader, giving him charge of labor, wages, materials and money. He hands the banker two white clavars and tells him that if he and his men rehabilitate the three villas near the Agora, they can have the smallest to live in. The characters intend to claim the other two, plus a warehouse on Stone Street and a large building in the Picker's Quarter, and some shops on Monger's Row. Gruul gives the Tyrant a white clavar to compensate him for all this property.
At this point Kellin chirps up that he would like to own the Agora. The Tyrant, who had been fairly accepting of the characters' designs on various pieces of property, starts to object. He points out that the Agora was originally built by the Firstman as a center of trade and exchange. It was an economic center of the community. Kellin rather ingenuously offers, "But I want it to be an economic center for me." Calmer heads prevail, and Kellin is dissuaded from this ambition. Whereupon he suggests that the characters should be exempted from civic taxes forever. Once again, the Tyrant objects. He rather reasonably asks, "If I can't tax you, who can I tax? Nobody else in this place has any money. And besides, you are easily the most important people in the community and should have some interest in paying for it's well-being." Kellin backs down.
Each character gains five experience points, plus the 15-point advantage Patron (Otanan, Spirit of the Temple). Antok uses his gains to increase his Spear skill and Feint maneuver.