162: United We...

Synopsis:

Part 1: Preparations (Patarm 12-13 of the 21st Year AS)
Tyvis and Narra concluded diplomatic relations with the shexill queen quite amiably, even if the alien parasites nature and methods were a little gruesome. Narra gleaned that the majority of the Yth are mindless and easily led/ambushed, however two of their lords were terrifyingly clever: Nyarlathotep and the King in Yellow.

They attempted to beseech the Kr'llyand Leviathan for aid, but it was decided unimpressed. Ultimately, Tyvis and Narra decided to keep the planet out of the conflict for as long as possible given the peoples' primitive technologies and (outside the very structured Great Civilization) chaotic nature.

Eilessa and Caiphon learned a great deal about each other's origins, magic, methods, and the supposed nature of the star children, starry maidens, suns, and Life itself when opposed to Entropy and the forces of the Yth. Later on, Eilessa brokered bodies for her sixty-six wards with the vampire queen. Caiphon also introduced himself to the others, wretched though he was. Apparently there was a connection between Caiphon, wild magic, and perhaps Diana that could be explored in the future.

Isabella and Christopher concluded talks with Kaylan, while Diana took a magic bubble leaving trails of leaping, white rabbits and fluttering butterflies (oh, wild magic...) in order to investigate the state of her commissioned astral ships in Ribcage.

Isabella later provided initial funding into her royal mage's 'counterspell' research, using Christopher's universe's gestures and incantations as a guide. Three times the Dragon Prince questioned Ayasha's methods, though she only bristled for realizing his deeper understanding of magic (and her own limits in the process).

As days passed, the party slowly reconvened in the bowels of Castle Saspien to be whisked away to the heart of the Holy Nors Empire.

Part 2: The Imperial Summit (Patarm 14th of the 21st Year AS)
Jewel of Mankind, Noran, in the Crimson Keep...
Exhaustive list of delegates as follows...
Familiar faces...
Divine Inquisitor and Archbishop shenanigans...
Appearance of the emperor...

Objectives: In the immediate future, maintain peace at the imperial summit and make sure no one tries to use the delegation to enact something sinister. Help the Lorannans steer their world closer to peace and end futile hostilities.

In the long term, address the matters of Sev Torban, Shub-Niggurath, the Ythlord below Hastur, and various personal and secretive plots in anticipation for the eventual collapse of the Yg-Rayan front lines (currently Primordials and their archwardens, Primal Spirits, and the bulk of the Gith Armada slowing the approach of the Ythian throneworlds).

Experience: currently level 26

161: There is Good in This Universe

Synopsis:
Eilessa restored Tavishan's soul and, with the help of Nimue and sixty-six redeemed souls, converted Kostitchtie's Torc into her divine respite for the lost and weary. Nimue transferred her consciousness into the demiplane, becoming one of Eilessa's true angels and leaving the Pureheart vacant of a personality.

Tyvis and Narra traveled to Kr'llyand, encountered the reptilian xill, found a surprisingly insect-like society, and discovered the reason lay in their parasitic shexill queen. Survivor of The Great Civilization (destroyed by the Yth), the shexill queen had selectively bred the xill, cir'nak, quitiesh, and draan over the course of ten-thousand generations toward the goal of establishing a second Great Civilization. She made a few 'improvements' as well to immunize them from Yth attacks, including thinking and communicating through chemicals and pheromone clouds (impervious to most psychic attacks), and giving them a more aberrant nature to resist the strange warps and radiations of the Devourer and its ilk.

Narra agreed to link minds with the shexill queen in hopes of discovering some advantage against the Yth in her memories. However the queen herself seems rather Ythian...

Isabella and Christopher continued their visit with the prophet, the Dragon Prince being met with a surprising amount of grace from his alternate-universe mother. Their meal was interrupted by a very rude agent of the Solis, an ugly crone who claimed to have usurped leadership from Sleria. It was only in the last moments of the act that the women realized this hag was in fact Diana returned! A joyful reunion was had by all and minds set to new purpose, the emperor's impending summit and the remaining terrestrial and extraterrestrial enemies on their doorstep.

Objectives: see 159
Experience: level 26

160: The Importance of Being Epic

Synopsis: (pending side completions)

Tyvis met with several of his fellow archdruids in Eglantine, discussing strategies for the inevitable confrontation with Sev Torban. They also located the world tree Tyvis transplanted from the Siege to the Wyld, safely hidden in the likeness of an unassuming tree amidst thousands in the Silverwood.

Isabella and Christopher visited Kaylan Gloriandel in the camp of the free elves, situated around the fallen Celinduil in the ruins of New Veluvia. Kaylan took the news of Thamior's demise better than could have been expected, though her love for the small glimmer of that noble prince would never diminish.

The prophet's efforts to resurrect the golden wyrm remain fruitless, though the late dragon's daughter Rees Duilbrood holds out hope. Isabella and Kaylan made political plans and reaffirmed their undying friendship to one another.

Kaylan also revealed her grandfather had visited her hours prior, and that he and her mother have gone ahead to Corellon to join with the Seldarine and begin transplanting the elven populace from Othyr to the virgin continent. Kaylan's best paladins were already en route to Hastur to retrieve Bella, who would go on ahead of herself and baby Christopher.

Later on, Narra and Tyvis met within the Lord Archdruid's alabaster pyramid to discuss the orphaned worlds which now took shelter in the light of Yg-Raya. A miraculous technology known as arks had allowed for the safe movement of whole planets and their moons, created, Narra surmised, by a civilization long since destroyed (neither the Ibha Varana or Anubians). The pair intended to approach Brilantium and Kr'llyand in hopes of forging peace and new allies before their enemies could do likewise. Narra also warned the planet Xoth was to remain off limits, as a deep-seated evil had overtaken the entire world.

On Brilantium, they encountered the native species, the empathic and joyful solara, as well as their more socially-savvy protectors in the mercury dragons. Narra learned the living arks were called leviathans, and Brilantiums whale-like leviathan was completely harmonized with the world it inhabited- a truly awe-inspiring and moving creature on an already awe-inspiring and moving world. Alliance was forged, sworn in the name of Oxozebius, elder mercury dragon, and The Seven Dawns, some sort of deciding body of the solara.

Eilessa secluded herself in The Sunny Side Inn's royal suite and began unlocking the mysteries of Kostitchtie's torc with the aid of Nimue (Heart of Heaven), intending to transform the soul-trapping amulet into her own divine plane. She was interrupted by a strange character claiming to be a failed star child, drawn by her renewed divinity as a goddess to wanderers and the weary. He called himself Caiphon.

And a young woman emerged from the shores of St. Sulpice, making her way to Saspien with all haste.

Objectives: (see 159)
Experience: level 26

Sacking the Siege

Free-floating Coin
> AD 1400
> PP 23, 008
> GP 1, 345, 628
> SP 34, 568
> CP 200,000,000 (Charon's Hoard)

Companion Boons
Combat Synergy: When you flank an enemy with your companion, you and your companion gain a +5 item bonus to damage rolls against that enemy.
     Special: Each PC may only use this boon on one, specific companion character. 

Encouraging Presence: While adjacent to you, your companion gains a +3 item bonus to all defenses.
    Special: Each PC may only use this boon on one, specific companion character

2 x Companion Slot: Add a semi-permanent companion to the party, understanding there will be occasions he or she is not viable depending on their life, duties, and the dangers or circumstances of Epic play.

Consumables

• 4 x Alchemist's Essence
• Potion of Life

Armor

• Mundane (totaling 1, 239 pp; mixture of scale, plate, chain, and leather from various civilizations across the Yg-Raya system and the two unknown universes siphoned by the Siege)
• Magical (enchantments are able to be transferred)
• +5 Skeletal Chainmail
• +5 Soulforge Plate
• +5 Mindpatterned Feedback Hide
• Unique (enchantments are unable to be transferred)
• +6 Darkhide Ebon Robes of the Archfiend [Darkhide + Ebon Armor (Hide) + Robes of the Archfiend]
• +6 Spectral Godplate of the Displacer [Godplate + Spectral Plate + Displacer Armor (Plate)]
• +6 Voidhide Robes of the Elven Archbattlemage [Voidhide + Elven Battle Armor (Cloth) + Robes of the Archmage]
• +6 Obsidian Kingmail of Dark Deeds [Kingmail + Obsidian Chain + Armor of Dark Deeds]
• +6 Mindpatterned Robes of the Ectoplasmite [Mindpatterned + Robes of Avoidance + Ectoplasmic Armor (Cloth)]

Weapons

• Mundane (totaling 7,309 pp; mixture of swords, spears, maces, hammers, bows, and crossbows from various civilizations across the Yg-Raya system and the two unknown universes siphoned by the Siege)
• Magical (enchantments are able to be transferred)
• +5 Aftershock Maul
• +5 Manifester Quickbeam (Staff)
• +5 Pinning Spear
• +5 Luckblade (longsword)
• Unique (enchantments are unable to be transferred)
• Pixie (+6 Accurate Rebounding Point Blank Dagger) [Accurate Weapon + Rebounding Weapon + Point Blank Weapon + Dagger]
• Glaumerok (+6 Accurate Exsiccating Icicle Totem/Wand) [Accurate Weapon + Exsiccating Weapon + Icicle Totem + Wand]
• Crond (+6 Aura-Killer Elementalbane Cutting Wheel) [Aura-Killer Weapon + Elementalbane Weapon + Cutting Wheel]
• Redwind ( +6 Strongheart Shapechanger's Sorrow Double Scimitar) [Strongheart Weapon+ Shapechanger's Sorrow Weapon+ Double Scimitar]
• Gray Martyr (+6 Reproachful Healing Blade of Annihilation) [Reproachful Weapon + Healing Weapon + Blade of Annihilation]
• Skire (+6 Subtle Executioner's Axe of Retribution) [Subtle Weapon + Retribution Weapon]
• Taurogair (+6 Swiftshot Skyrender Greatbow)[Swiftshot Weapon + Skyrender Weapon]
• Artifact (enchantments are unable to be transferred)
• Twinned Scythe of the Exgod (+7 Deathmark Frost Fury Deathsteel Scythe of the Reaper)[Deathsteel Weapon + Deathmark Weapon + Frost Fury Weapon + Reaper's Axe + Scythe]

Head Gear

• Artifact (enchantments unable to be transferred)
• Helm of the Exgod (You are immune to necrotic damage; Undead that hit you must save or be dominated (save ends); Ignore the first time you would die and all damage and conditions that would otherwise come with it [daily usage])

Footwear

• Magical (enchantments are able to be transferred)
• Time-Jumping Boots
• Boots of Teleportation
• Boots of Quickness

Waist Items

• Magical (enchantments are able to be transferred)
• Sash of Heroic Inspiration
• Wraith's Cord

• Unique (enchantments unable to be transferred)
• Dragon's Girdle of Titan Strength [Girdle of the Dragon + Belt of Titan's Strength]

Arms

• Magical (enchantments are able to be transferred)
• Reflective Shield

Rings 

• Magical (enchantments are able to be transferred)
• Gargoyle Ring
• Greater Ring of Spell Storing

•  Unique (enchantments unable to be transferred)
• Opal Ring of Fluid Memory [Opal Ring of Remembrance + Ring of Free Time]

Neck

• Magical (enchantments are able to be transferred)
• +6 Soul Shard Talisman
• +6 Greater Necklace of Fireballs
• +6 Star-Strewn Scarf

Wondrous  

• Magical (enchantments are able to be transferred) 
• Charm of Abundant Action
• Mummified Hand 

Anubian Technology

• The Demonstar (Cinnabar Polychoron Vessel of the Abyss)
• Iggwilv's Ring (Helm of the Abyss)

159: Death Has a Name, Mercy

Synopsis

•  

Objectives (in no particular order)

• Seek and destroy the two entrenched Ythlords: Shub-Niggurath in the Nightmare Court (Wyld), and the unnamed menace rooted beneath the sands of Hastur (Loranna) before the Yg-Raya system is lost from within.
• Destroy, defeat, or otherwise deal with the Green God (Sev Torban), whose powers have grown immense with the revival of the five world trees. His vast fey and elemental armies currently battle the dark young of Shub-Niggurath in the blackest reaches of the feyworld.
• Attend the emperor's peace summit between the sovereign powers of Othyr, Tir'buk, and Corellon and ensure this isn't something more sinister.
• Find resolution with Emperor Endymion Norson, be it as friend or foe (or father).
• Gather the errant har'venoth and Anubian vessels in a bid to dupe, stop, or at least slow the approaching throneworlds of the Greater Ythlords (5 on their way).
• Only one har'venoth is unaccounted for- Blackheart of Cadavera, stolen by Toben the Many during the events at Castle Ravenloft. 
• Four ships remain out of the party's control, two known and two unknown. 
• Castle Ravenloft, vessel of Cadavera, remains firmly in the control of Count Strahd von Zarovich. 
• The Palace of the Ur-Pasha, vessel of the Elemental Maelstrom, lies beyond the twelfth gate on the City, under the control of the Ur-Pasha. 
• Loranna's vessel remains unknown.
• Heaven's vessel remains unknown.
• Explore or make contact with the six new alien worlds sheltering in Raya's light, and the living arks bonded with them (allowing for their movement at all). 
• Brilantium, Fomalhaut, Xoth, Kr'llyand, Cykranosh, and Garobus.
• Discover the whereabouts and motives of Gloriandel Returned.
• Avoid at all costs the arrival of the Devourer and the end of the setting.

Experience: currently level 26

158: Springtime for Gabriel

Synopsis:

•  The party reconvened in the ruined seminary and decided to press ahead toward the Mothers' Cloister, where the Altar of the Seven World Trees would allow Isabella to summon two orbs.
• Karana was able to guide them, sensing a deep wrongness with the Primal power to the south of the ship, no doubt tied to whatever offense Gabriel was committing against Nature.

• They passed some vile studies, a collection of clay tablets, and an unusually-placed mirror. At a fork in the passages, Eilessa smelled the distinct aroma of sweet oils and rose water intended to mask the stench of decay. Something undead lay at the bottom of twin stairwells, something that began to sing along with Narra's hopeful aura. Though Narra took this as a potentially good sign, the others feared an enemy that displayed even a portion of the psion's power. Mercy sealed it away behind a thick wall of ice, and Karana agreed to keep it bound with all the force of the glaciers is need be.
• Tyvis was stricken by the defilement behind a set of rather plain-looking double doors, having hears tale of anti-druids that betrayed their sacred trust to actually drained the life out of things in order to fuel their wicked magic. Such was the immensity of the aura, enough to prove fatal to those entirely constituted of primal or arcane essence. Even normal living beings would succumb to their power eventually, but between two archdruid's staving the worst, he believed a quick and direct summon and grab could work. He implored Karana remain behind, which she did, and Narra stayed also to guard her.
• In their waiting, Narra again reached out to Terris-Thule, who deemed it wise to appear before the two. Her aura of terror was not so unlike Narra's aura of hope, and the two saw much common ground between them. Terris-Thule, above all things, desired her true divinity back, feeling, as Karana had once put, trapped, stupid, and small. Narra assured her, in time, she would again be whole, and that in the party's company she might benefit. Terris-Thule accepted the invitation. 
• When Kishar kicked down the defiler's doors, a blast of pollen swept over the party, yellow, itchy, stinging, and irritating the lungs. Tyvis dispelled it with a blast of cold, clearing the corridor ahead for their delve.
• The Mothers' Cloister looked like a massive terrarium, the interior a dust bowl, a desert, with wicker huts and a basket-altar on stilts in the center, emergent from a pentagram of terrible age and power. Gabriel's trident had been freshly etched around the pentagram, hijacking the old magic, but the specters which lurked unseen amidst the dry stillness were epochs old. Circling the pentagram were seven stunted, twisted, petrified trees, the hollow shells of what once were living world trees, the spines of seven Creations long since destroyed.
• Isabella began work on summoning forth the orbs, despite her great apprehension in doing so. Meanwhile, Kishar, spurred on by the uncertainty of the party, hacked into one of the trees with her divine render. It spewed back such a concentrated plume of pollen it threw the goddess back and coated her entirely. She began to gasp, as the pollen coated the interior of her throat and lungs. She was suffocating before their eyes.
• Kishar was saved by Eilessa's quick thinking, using water to forcibly flush out Kishar's airways despite her natural instinct. The goddess vomited back up the water and the pollen and was able to takea breath.
• The pollen began spewing from all seven world trees, and Mercy, with an almost forgotten power, summoned forth rains which cleared a minute area. Tyvis expanded the area with his own orison, around which time the draing and the defilers appeared...
• Clearly undead, ghouls with holes drilled into their heads and bodies constantly gasped in one, long, uninterrupted inhalation, threatening something no one in the party really wanted to discover. Curck's aura kept them at bay, though the mindless swarm might have all been destroyed upon the wolf's moon-cold glow if not for a bellowing order barked from the far corner, a creature horned and withered, a defiler.
• Two others emerged from the yellow fog, one wielding a massive flail and the other a thin, wheeling chain. They attacked, but proved little threat to the archdruid or the angel of death, who avoided their attacks and unleashed painful replies. 
• In the midst of the fighting, so moved by the corpses of five trees and the systems they once belonged to, Tyvis did something he promised he would never do again, something he had to do, and sacrificed his life in a combination of the greatest Primal powers at his disposal. It was a risk, certainly one that shocked the rest of the party, but proved, ultimately, to revivify five of the world trees!
• Narra immediately felt the loss and became almost mad with grief. The Abyssal portal was moments from consuming her, when the Primal power source sky-vaulted and Narra and Terris-Thule bore witness to Karana's ascension into true godhood. She assured the grief-stricken Narra that all was well before vanishing into planes far beyond mortal ken. 
• The resulting backlash of life-giving power blasted away two of the three defilers and dispelled every last ounce of undeath from the chamber. The trees, renewed, began to grow. It was a time for rejoicing when, from the swelling roots and widening leaves, Tyvis emerged, reborn from the reintroduction of five more world trees into the Yg-Raya system. He was nothing short of a demigod of Nature now.
• Narra made it a point to appear before Tyvis and slap him hard across the face for such a bold and potentially final action, and yet their exchange was cut very short...
• Isabella continued her ritual, but was almost immediately interrupted when the trees' growth became violent and unchecked. They burst the walls of the Siege chamber itself and threatened to explode further into the ship. All became chaos as the floors, walls, and ceilings exploded around them, and other chambers began to fall or flood into one, massive well where the trunks and roots held dominion. 
• Isabella scrambled to salvage something from the chamber, making her way to the woven basket and exhuming, to her shock, the mummified corpse of the Highking Gloriandel. Why would the fallen king of the elves be entombed in a place like this? And how in all the heavens and hells did he get here after his legendary defeat at the hands of the God-King Nor? Terris-Thule appeared beside her, asking similar questions, and the two found a strange and sudden connection in their unfinished apotheoses (and in their fashion senses).
• Mercy, terrified in the most calm way possible, made a decision somewhere along the lines that the Gate was threatened and that all must be done to protect it, however not even Kishar's blade could deliver any lasting damage- not unless she used its ultimate slaying enchantment, which would only kill one anyway. Tyvis did not consider that an option.
• Matters were made worse when a bubbling thunder and a hideous roar marked the waking of the bloodyth at the bottom of the draining pit, whose thick, bloody tentacles exploded from the churning waves and crushed then nearest branches and roots effortlessly. Something several hundred yards wide like a cross between an octopus, a humpback whale, and a bleeding human skull lurched its way to the surface. A Ythlord...
• Narra attempted a truly long longshot to reverse their fortunes involving the Ethereal, the ships, and herself in an earlier time, but failed to make the proper connections across the infinite gulf of possibilities. Eilessa, frustrated at the apparent waste of time and resources, looked for an alternative means of slowing the trees down, and mid-sentence inspired an idea. 
• Tyvis would utilize his Wyld summons (proven to work within the Siege) to create a momentary portal, which Eilessa and Narra could build upon through ship manipulation and mental amplification, and create a rift in which the other ships could help transplant the trees and maybe nullify the threat of the waking ythlord. It was another longshot, but not quite that long...
• As the Siege crumbled and fell around them, the blood pits from the Well of Souls was breached. A tidal wave of boiling blood, ectoplasm, and dying souls raged toward them.  Terrified of true death in such a state, Terris-Thule fled back into the Ethereal. She took Isabella and Gloriandel's corpse with her. 
• Mercy, Curck, and Kishar fled the wave by racing deeper into the heart of the Siege, led by the angel's nether-senses to the Gate. The passage they used was momentary, and closed just after.
• Tyvis, Narra, and Eilessa were left to face the oncoming wave, then attempt to move the trees, defeat the ythlord, and somehow spare the Gate (and the people who now fought for it below).

Objectives:

• Mercy, Kishar, and Curck have taken the opening between crashing debris, roiling roots, and and heaving walls- guided by Mercy's nether-senses to the Gate far below; They will undoubtedly meet opposition, but time is of the essence. Gabriel's hour is at hand, but can three do what the entire party originally meant to accomplish?
• Tyvis, Narra, and Eilessa remain in the growing blood pit, now consuming the majority of the ship, as five world trees reach and rage against the confines of the Siege and the surfacing Ythlord. They must transplant the world trees, spare the Gate, and defeat the bloodyth. But can they be enough?
• Swept away into the Ethereal by Terris-Thule, Isabella must overcome the effects of the pure plane of thoughts, dreams, knowledge, and nightmares and turn the desperation of the goddess of fear to the party's advantage. And why is Gloriandel's corpse beginning to look... well?
• All pray for Christopher, who became separated in the chaos.
• Orcus remains the untapped ally or unseen enemy in the bowels of the ship, his prison potentially breached. However, without his prized skull he is not at his full strength. He does have minions, though, including the Confessor, that make seek to obtain his property during the carnage.

Experience: Level Up 26!