A Dead God's Dream
I am writing this entry as Jorthan, because Bomilcar didn't take much part in the main events of the day. I still like having some extra characters around to support the main cast, but really I only need one at any moment. The scenario was based on A Dead God's Dream by Dean Paolillo, which you can find here on the Stormbringer RPG site.
Jorthan's narrative
Now that Marion has taken her bit of staff or whatever it is from mid-air, triggering the vision from the Nihrain, the tower starts to tremble ever so slightly. The rumbling gets stronger, and we decide rather hastily to vacate the premises. It's just as well, because once the last of us is outside, the whole thing crashes in upon itself. We aren't sure if this was some sort of last-ditch defence mechanism, or if the Balance has just intervened on our behalf. Whatever - we are happy that our doings have been well covered, which means we can keep the loot we found inside with no repercussions.
The long journey northwards back to Cadsandria is relatively uneventful. We hit a foggy patch of weather that delays us somewhat but which doesn't put us off track, and we have an encounter with a large pack of wild dogs. No doubt these are hoping that they might get a chance to mob one of the horses, but we keep tightly closed as a group and just ride onwards; they don't take any chances, instead running alongside for a while before giving up and loping off into the surrounding plains.
We all pile onto our bireme and head out to sea. The plan is to maintain sight of the coastline of the southern continent off to port as we sail to Dhoz-Kam, famous sinkhole of scum, slavers and pirates, because this is where the Nihrain in the vision told us to go. Apparently we are looking for a dead god's dream, borne by someone from the East - whatever that all means. The voyage will take at least two weeks, so we settle into our by now familiar regime of trying to follow the Captain's navigational calculations and learn a bit from the sailors. Some of us are picking up some useful skills with all this sailing around the place.
There is a bit of a scare on day five as we sight the sail of a large Pan Tang galley on the horizon to starboard; coming from a different direction, it too seems to be angling towards Dhoz-Kam. That port is well known for dodgy dealings with the blackbeards, so we are quite happy to slack off our pace a little and let it disappear into the distance. Four days later we find possible evidence of its passage in the form of a single rowboat that contains a woman, a bit too far out to sea for comfort. She waves at us and we haul her in, incidentally gaining a nice little dinghy for the ship.
Our catch introduces herself as the Lady Alexia, from Elwher in the East. We exchange glances - this is far too convenient to be a coincidence. She notices our response, and fills us in on what has happened to her. She was travelling to Dhoz-Kam in a sailboat, to which her own little boat was attached, with her friend Sarna the Dreamthief - whatever that is. He holds a dead god's dream in his dream staff to give to the Shadowborn; at this, Marion's eyes light up, and she explains that is her surname. Apparently this guy Sarna isn't from our plane, and serves the Balance. The strain of carrying a divine dream from a god of Chaos is slowly killing him, and he is now past the point of no return. He is determined, though, to finish his mission before his soul moves on; he doesn't seem too bothered by the prospect of death. Unfortunately, however, a Pan Tang galley (probably the same one we saw) caught up and closed in on them; the chances are they were able to detect the powerful magical surge coming from Sarna's staff. He told Alexia to cast off in the dinghy while he did his best to delay the inevitable. Anyway, that explains why she is where she is, and why we found her. It now looks a though we need to get to her friend, or at least his weird staff thing if he's dead.
We tell Alexia everything that has happened to us, especially Marion, as well as the news that we are going to be gearing up for an expedition to her homeland in just under a year's time. It looks as though we now have a proper guide - the hand of Fate seems strong in all of this. She looks as though she can easily take care of herself, and has had some sorcerous training. She changed allegiance when she met Sarna, to help him serve the Balance.
We decide that it's probably not a good idea just to go sailing straight into Dhoz-Kam if a Pan Tang galley is present; instead, we keep an eye open for a convenient cove to the north of the town so that we can put in there and then travel overland for a day or two. There are plenty of possibilities - it's not for nothing that this place is a haven for pirates. We pick one at random and head in to anchor our bireme; we reckon it should be reasonably safe with its crew of Pikarayd warriors. It's also probably a good idea if some of us remain here to help out, just in case; Bomilcar and Ehlessa elect to stay behind on guard duty. The rest of us unload our stuff and head southwards towards our destination; Bomilcar lends Alexia his steppe pony for the duration.
We smell Dhoz-Kam before we see it - a low, mostly shanty town with crumbling walls around it, remnants from a couple of centuries ago when this was the southernmost outpost of the long gone Lormyrrian Empire. Destiny pulls a trick with her Demon of Desire to change her features to seem something less inhumanly Melnibonean; I think she only wants to scare the locals when she chooses, rather than it being too obvious who she is. We try as much as possible to dress down, tying rags in strategic places and smudging dirt on our equipment - that sort of thing. This place could be dangerous, so it seems sensible to take precautions. We don't want to be too conspicuous.
As we canter through the wide-open gateway we see people scurrying off in all directions, vanishing at our approach. There are various gangs of toughs lounging around the place, usually on street corners, but nobody comes anywhere near us. Even in our relatively dressed-down state we are obviously far better equipped than anyone else here. As we pass though the filthy streets, we note several reasonably well guarded compounds, presumably belonging to local personages of note, as well as what is left of the old Lormyrrian governor's palace; it seems to be the most active building in the place, and looks particularly well protected, with archers on the roof and so on. There is also a market of sorts in front of the palace, mostly dominated by a slave block. The only other places of note are the docks, with a familiar-looking Pan Tang galley docked there, and a large inn/tavern/flophouse, the only place that looks as though it might have lodgings and maybe even stables.
Since we know from Alexia that her friend was probably captured by the Pan Tang galley, we decide to investigate the slave market first. We dismount, and a very greasy, sweating Pan Tang slave merchant hurries out from his quarters near the slave block. He is extremely nervous as he greets us, obviously hoping that we might be here to do business with him, while at the same time terrified by the amount of weaponry and armour we carry. It turns out that he sold the guy with the weird staff to Azarn, the king of the local pirates, along with a very beautiful Dharijorian concubine brought by some of her countrymen, who were also on the slave ship. He winks lewdly, trying to ingratiate himself with us; "I bet Azarn's girlfriend Si'ule won't be happy about that, and she has a really nasty temper when she gets going. That Dahrijorian has obviously caught Azarn's eye, so the chances are she'll end up as a demon's dinner. Apparently the girl made the Queen of Dharijor so jealous that she insisted her husband get rid of her, and this is about as far as you can go before falling off the edge of the world." Destiny lets her disguise drop temporarily, scaring the wits out of the guy completely. Marion says she is sure she can smell urine coming from him as we turn and leave.
Since we are obviously so intimidating, we just walk straight up to one of the two main doorways into the old palace. One of the guards shambles towards us, and we say we want to meet the pirate king. He scratches his head in case the physical action might help him form a coherent thought, and after mumbling something that sounds like "Wait 'ere, then," he trundles off into the palace to get someone who might have more brain cells. His friends look around, worried; there are six of us and at the moment only three of them, and they obviously don't fancy their chances if this gets ugly. Eventually the grunt reappears with his immediate boss, who turns out to be the captain of the guard - at least that's how he describes himself. 'The name's Darn, from Pikarayd'" he says. "Do come in; we don't often get visitors."
Darn grabs a bench from one of the tables in what as obviously the great hall. I do the talking, because I'm good at this sort of thing. I explain that we'd like to talk to Azarn if at all possible, because we have a business proposal for him. Darn's ears prick up at this; we are obviously very well dressed compared with the locals. He says, "You're in luck. Tomorrow night is the monthly Council of Eight, the board of governors that has responsibility for our fair city. I'll tell his majesty to expect some elegant foreign visitors." Council of Eight my streaky behind; gang of thieves, more like. Anyway, we thank Darn politely and head off to the inn we saw earlier at the quayside, collecting our mounts on the way. Nobody has come anywhere near them. Marion has a glint in her eye; it turns out that she spotted some local roughs eyeing us up earlier and gave them the finger as she flitted in and out of the shadows. "That usually does the trick," she says.
It's now what would be a lovely May evening if it weren't for the fact we're in this sweltering dump, so the local pub/inn/tavern/hellhole is bursting with sailors, pirates, corsairs, more pirates, local barbarians, pirates and a few more pirates. The place obviously does a roaring trade, and funnily enough nobody tries to pick our pockets or cut our purses; Marion has that grin again and she says she is really enjoying it here. She feels right at home. The barkeep, who is also presumably the owner, smells coin and greets us personally. He offers us the best food in the house and also the best drink, although when she tries it Alexia almost throws up all over the table. It seems as though our new compatriot has refined tastes. Even Destiny manages to keep it down, although with some effort. She does, though, remind the barkeep to make sure our horses are well stabled; "Watch out for the black one, though, that's mine. It happens to be a demon." The guy blanches and assures us profusely that his best staff will be on the job.
Looking around, the place is jumping, although many of the clientele look as though they are already on their last legs. A group of Dharijorian guardsmen have commandeered what passes for a booth of sorts, all sitting with their backs to the wall and keeping a really close watch on everyone else, especially us. There is a minstrel singing some shanties and rather bawdy verses; Sir Blanque says that he glanced up at us, and seemed to recognise him at least, when we first came in. As the night goes on and the locals get more and more drunk and start to pass out completely, Sir Blanque goes off to talk with the minstrel. It turns out that he is originally from Ilmiora, and is trying to get together enough coin to head back northwards. "It's difficult finding anyone I might trust, though," he says. Sir Blanque offers him passage on our bireme in return for any local knowledge he might have. This is a shrewd move, because our man tells us that he happens to know that Azarn's girlfriend, Si'ule, is a sorceress in her own right, and is pretty much the power behind the throne. He says that Azarn has just recently hacked her right off, and she is now in an almighty strop, even by her standards. Something to do with a Dharijorian slave girl, apparently. As part of the same batch, Azarn also bought our dream thief, and Si'ule grabbed him for 'interrogation' or something. None of this is good news, but at least we know that the dream thief is definitely in the palace, and we are going there tomorrow evening. We also make the acquaintance of one of the serving girls, who confirms some of what we know. She says she is a spy for Azarn, which makes sense in a place like this.
After this, we pretty much keep ourselves to ourselves, and nobody even attempts to bother us or steal anything from us. At the appointed time the next evening, we head to the palace for our meeting, leaving any obvious two-handed or distance weapons. It turns out that this was the right thing to do, and we enter a hall that is already full of caterwauling, drinking, food (better than the previous night's) and some drinking. Azarn greets us, and sort of waves at his compatriots, the other pirate lords - a mixed bunch. He himself is very much the gentleman rogue, and in another time and place I could see myself warming to him. He slaps me on the back and tells us to enjoy ourselves; he'll adjourn with us for a private conversation later.
Eventually, Darn comes to find us and ushers into a meeting room off a side corridor. We ask Azarn about Sarna, and he says that Si'ule took him for questioning. "She took his funny staff off him and then locked him in a basement cell. Do you want to meet him or something?" Azar seems somewhat distracted; I have a hunch that he is thinking more about the slave girl than anything else. We say yes, but then we are interrupted as some rather high-pitched keening seems to envelop the entire palace. "...is inhuman screeching normal here..?" asks Destiny. Sir Blanque pulls open the door into the corridor, only to be confronted by a couple of naked, seven foot tall women swinging great swords and screaming horribly at a pitch that sounds like forks scraping across a plate. There are two more of them about to burst into the great hall, and another couple behind the first two. The whole place is in uproar; it seems there are even more of these demonic women attacking the great hall from all directions.
Alexia shouts, "Elenoin!" Whatever they are, these women have long, writhing red hair that reaches almost to their ankles and dances around with a life of its own. Their eyes are bright yellow with back slits instead of pupils, and their teeth are large and pointed. They don't seem overly bright, being more interested in hacking their swords at anything that moves. The weird scream tells of their battle lust, and Sir Blanque is frozen in place; one of the things slices right at him with her great sword, but fortunately he is saved by his displacer cloak. Before he ends up diced, Destiny gets her recently acquired air elemental to pull him back into the room; she also orders her water elementals to attack the Elenoin who just tried to kill our dear friend. Marion helps with her throwing knives. Our immediate target goes quiet as the water elementals try to drown her, and I take the opportunity to rush at her with my broadsword. I get in a really clean thrust straight to her chest and she goes down; Nadjana grabs the fallen demonic woman's two-handed sword. Destiny scares off some of the others with her fire elementals, and they mostly rush off to help in the great hall. Two more remain, but it quickly transpires that they are no threat as they start to eat the body of their fallen comrade. Obviously, chaos has no manners.
We jump past them and Azarn tells us where to find our thief friend. The pirate king warns us about Si'ule; "She has obviously done her nut right good and proper this time. You'll find her in her summoning place in the cliffs to the south of the town. But be careful, she is obviously doing something really nasty, even by her standards. Oh, by the way, here's the secret passage that leads out towards the foot of the cliffs." Good. At least this way we won't have to try to get past those demon women things with the pointy teeth and unfeasibly large swords. We head off to the cells while Azarn and Darn go for reinforcements. The sounds of battle from the great hall have died down a bit; whether this is because it's all over, or because the Elenoin have started feeding, we don't know. We definitely do not hang around to find out, and with Marion leading the way we go to find Sarna the dream thief.
He is waiting for us, having already picked the lock of his own cell. "About time you lot arrived," he says, rather disconcertingly. He also coughs elegantly. "We don't have a lot of time. I'll be dead soon, but don't concern yourselves with that; my kind have some tricks when it comes to death, so I'll probably end up being born on another plane with no memories of any of this." He turns to Marion. "That's probably what happened to you. It's common enough for those of us who serve the Balance. Speaking of which, the dead god's dream is in my dream staff. You will need to grab it before that mental woman Si'ule uses the chaos essence from the dead god to complete whatever great summoning she thinks is somehow a good idea. Off you go now; the dream is intended for you, so my dream staff will attune itself to you when you take it. Don't worry about me."
Weird conversations are becoming normal for us, so we just look at one another, shrug and go out through the secret passageway Azarn mentioned to us. As we emerge from the secret tunnel, we see a very strange, pulsating multi-coloured light from a cave near the top of the cliff. There is a staircase of sorts carved into the rock that leads upwards, and the very air writhes around us, as do the waters. An enormous chaos storm is blasting into existence above us too. This is looking well dodgy.
Marion leads the way upwards, merrily skipping up the treacherous stairs, slippery and wet from all the outraged elements and storms. She seems to think this is fun. At one point the waters form into a great column that crashes down on top of us; fortunately we all hang on, and nobody is swept off into the maelstrom. The summoning is obviously reaching its height, and a horrific great tentacle sweeps down from the clouds above us, aiming right at Nadjana; she somehow manages to avoid its grasp, and it thrashes back, leaving a massive acidic hole in the rock where she had been just standing. "Kyrenee!" says Destiny. Personally, I'm getting a bit ticked off by all these chaos things. Let's just get her!
Sir Blanque orders his own water elemental to shut down Si'ule's voice so that her summoning ceases, and this is exactly what happens. At the same moment, Marion takes a running jump at the top of the stairs and leaps to grab the dream staff. All suddenly goes still, and a vision sweeps over everything:
A warrior in black armour chased elegantly with gold brandishes a small staff at the writhing essences of old lords of chaos. The staff streams orange wisps from its rune-carved surface. "I, Sepiriz of the Nihrain, call on the power of the Runestaff to banish you, Darnizhaan and all your ilk!" He thrusts the staff into the formless chaos stuff and they are all dispersed, howling; the staff is shattered into eight pieces, all of which hurtle into the void apart from the end still grasped by the warrior in jet and gold.
Jorthan's narrative
Now that Marion has taken her bit of staff or whatever it is from mid-air, triggering the vision from the Nihrain, the tower starts to tremble ever so slightly. The rumbling gets stronger, and we decide rather hastily to vacate the premises. It's just as well, because once the last of us is outside, the whole thing crashes in upon itself. We aren't sure if this was some sort of last-ditch defence mechanism, or if the Balance has just intervened on our behalf. Whatever - we are happy that our doings have been well covered, which means we can keep the loot we found inside with no repercussions.
The long journey northwards back to Cadsandria is relatively uneventful. We hit a foggy patch of weather that delays us somewhat but which doesn't put us off track, and we have an encounter with a large pack of wild dogs. No doubt these are hoping that they might get a chance to mob one of the horses, but we keep tightly closed as a group and just ride onwards; they don't take any chances, instead running alongside for a while before giving up and loping off into the surrounding plains.
We all pile onto our bireme and head out to sea. The plan is to maintain sight of the coastline of the southern continent off to port as we sail to Dhoz-Kam, famous sinkhole of scum, slavers and pirates, because this is where the Nihrain in the vision told us to go. Apparently we are looking for a dead god's dream, borne by someone from the East - whatever that all means. The voyage will take at least two weeks, so we settle into our by now familiar regime of trying to follow the Captain's navigational calculations and learn a bit from the sailors. Some of us are picking up some useful skills with all this sailing around the place.
There is a bit of a scare on day five as we sight the sail of a large Pan Tang galley on the horizon to starboard; coming from a different direction, it too seems to be angling towards Dhoz-Kam. That port is well known for dodgy dealings with the blackbeards, so we are quite happy to slack off our pace a little and let it disappear into the distance. Four days later we find possible evidence of its passage in the form of a single rowboat that contains a woman, a bit too far out to sea for comfort. She waves at us and we haul her in, incidentally gaining a nice little dinghy for the ship.
Our catch introduces herself as the Lady Alexia, from Elwher in the East. We exchange glances - this is far too convenient to be a coincidence. She notices our response, and fills us in on what has happened to her. She was travelling to Dhoz-Kam in a sailboat, to which her own little boat was attached, with her friend Sarna the Dreamthief - whatever that is. He holds a dead god's dream in his dream staff to give to the Shadowborn; at this, Marion's eyes light up, and she explains that is her surname. Apparently this guy Sarna isn't from our plane, and serves the Balance. The strain of carrying a divine dream from a god of Chaos is slowly killing him, and he is now past the point of no return. He is determined, though, to finish his mission before his soul moves on; he doesn't seem too bothered by the prospect of death. Unfortunately, however, a Pan Tang galley (probably the same one we saw) caught up and closed in on them; the chances are they were able to detect the powerful magical surge coming from Sarna's staff. He told Alexia to cast off in the dinghy while he did his best to delay the inevitable. Anyway, that explains why she is where she is, and why we found her. It now looks a though we need to get to her friend, or at least his weird staff thing if he's dead.
We tell Alexia everything that has happened to us, especially Marion, as well as the news that we are going to be gearing up for an expedition to her homeland in just under a year's time. It looks as though we now have a proper guide - the hand of Fate seems strong in all of this. She looks as though she can easily take care of herself, and has had some sorcerous training. She changed allegiance when she met Sarna, to help him serve the Balance.
We decide that it's probably not a good idea just to go sailing straight into Dhoz-Kam if a Pan Tang galley is present; instead, we keep an eye open for a convenient cove to the north of the town so that we can put in there and then travel overland for a day or two. There are plenty of possibilities - it's not for nothing that this place is a haven for pirates. We pick one at random and head in to anchor our bireme; we reckon it should be reasonably safe with its crew of Pikarayd warriors. It's also probably a good idea if some of us remain here to help out, just in case; Bomilcar and Ehlessa elect to stay behind on guard duty. The rest of us unload our stuff and head southwards towards our destination; Bomilcar lends Alexia his steppe pony for the duration.
We smell Dhoz-Kam before we see it - a low, mostly shanty town with crumbling walls around it, remnants from a couple of centuries ago when this was the southernmost outpost of the long gone Lormyrrian Empire. Destiny pulls a trick with her Demon of Desire to change her features to seem something less inhumanly Melnibonean; I think she only wants to scare the locals when she chooses, rather than it being too obvious who she is. We try as much as possible to dress down, tying rags in strategic places and smudging dirt on our equipment - that sort of thing. This place could be dangerous, so it seems sensible to take precautions. We don't want to be too conspicuous.
As we canter through the wide-open gateway we see people scurrying off in all directions, vanishing at our approach. There are various gangs of toughs lounging around the place, usually on street corners, but nobody comes anywhere near us. Even in our relatively dressed-down state we are obviously far better equipped than anyone else here. As we pass though the filthy streets, we note several reasonably well guarded compounds, presumably belonging to local personages of note, as well as what is left of the old Lormyrrian governor's palace; it seems to be the most active building in the place, and looks particularly well protected, with archers on the roof and so on. There is also a market of sorts in front of the palace, mostly dominated by a slave block. The only other places of note are the docks, with a familiar-looking Pan Tang galley docked there, and a large inn/tavern/flophouse, the only place that looks as though it might have lodgings and maybe even stables.
Since we know from Alexia that her friend was probably captured by the Pan Tang galley, we decide to investigate the slave market first. We dismount, and a very greasy, sweating Pan Tang slave merchant hurries out from his quarters near the slave block. He is extremely nervous as he greets us, obviously hoping that we might be here to do business with him, while at the same time terrified by the amount of weaponry and armour we carry. It turns out that he sold the guy with the weird staff to Azarn, the king of the local pirates, along with a very beautiful Dharijorian concubine brought by some of her countrymen, who were also on the slave ship. He winks lewdly, trying to ingratiate himself with us; "I bet Azarn's girlfriend Si'ule won't be happy about that, and she has a really nasty temper when she gets going. That Dahrijorian has obviously caught Azarn's eye, so the chances are she'll end up as a demon's dinner. Apparently the girl made the Queen of Dharijor so jealous that she insisted her husband get rid of her, and this is about as far as you can go before falling off the edge of the world." Destiny lets her disguise drop temporarily, scaring the wits out of the guy completely. Marion says she is sure she can smell urine coming from him as we turn and leave.
Since we are obviously so intimidating, we just walk straight up to one of the two main doorways into the old palace. One of the guards shambles towards us, and we say we want to meet the pirate king. He scratches his head in case the physical action might help him form a coherent thought, and after mumbling something that sounds like "Wait 'ere, then," he trundles off into the palace to get someone who might have more brain cells. His friends look around, worried; there are six of us and at the moment only three of them, and they obviously don't fancy their chances if this gets ugly. Eventually the grunt reappears with his immediate boss, who turns out to be the captain of the guard - at least that's how he describes himself. 'The name's Darn, from Pikarayd'" he says. "Do come in; we don't often get visitors."
Darn grabs a bench from one of the tables in what as obviously the great hall. I do the talking, because I'm good at this sort of thing. I explain that we'd like to talk to Azarn if at all possible, because we have a business proposal for him. Darn's ears prick up at this; we are obviously very well dressed compared with the locals. He says, "You're in luck. Tomorrow night is the monthly Council of Eight, the board of governors that has responsibility for our fair city. I'll tell his majesty to expect some elegant foreign visitors." Council of Eight my streaky behind; gang of thieves, more like. Anyway, we thank Darn politely and head off to the inn we saw earlier at the quayside, collecting our mounts on the way. Nobody has come anywhere near them. Marion has a glint in her eye; it turns out that she spotted some local roughs eyeing us up earlier and gave them the finger as she flitted in and out of the shadows. "That usually does the trick," she says.
It's now what would be a lovely May evening if it weren't for the fact we're in this sweltering dump, so the local pub/inn/tavern/hellhole is bursting with sailors, pirates, corsairs, more pirates, local barbarians, pirates and a few more pirates. The place obviously does a roaring trade, and funnily enough nobody tries to pick our pockets or cut our purses; Marion has that grin again and she says she is really enjoying it here. She feels right at home. The barkeep, who is also presumably the owner, smells coin and greets us personally. He offers us the best food in the house and also the best drink, although when she tries it Alexia almost throws up all over the table. It seems as though our new compatriot has refined tastes. Even Destiny manages to keep it down, although with some effort. She does, though, remind the barkeep to make sure our horses are well stabled; "Watch out for the black one, though, that's mine. It happens to be a demon." The guy blanches and assures us profusely that his best staff will be on the job.
Looking around, the place is jumping, although many of the clientele look as though they are already on their last legs. A group of Dharijorian guardsmen have commandeered what passes for a booth of sorts, all sitting with their backs to the wall and keeping a really close watch on everyone else, especially us. There is a minstrel singing some shanties and rather bawdy verses; Sir Blanque says that he glanced up at us, and seemed to recognise him at least, when we first came in. As the night goes on and the locals get more and more drunk and start to pass out completely, Sir Blanque goes off to talk with the minstrel. It turns out that he is originally from Ilmiora, and is trying to get together enough coin to head back northwards. "It's difficult finding anyone I might trust, though," he says. Sir Blanque offers him passage on our bireme in return for any local knowledge he might have. This is a shrewd move, because our man tells us that he happens to know that Azarn's girlfriend, Si'ule, is a sorceress in her own right, and is pretty much the power behind the throne. He says that Azarn has just recently hacked her right off, and she is now in an almighty strop, even by her standards. Something to do with a Dharijorian slave girl, apparently. As part of the same batch, Azarn also bought our dream thief, and Si'ule grabbed him for 'interrogation' or something. None of this is good news, but at least we know that the dream thief is definitely in the palace, and we are going there tomorrow evening. We also make the acquaintance of one of the serving girls, who confirms some of what we know. She says she is a spy for Azarn, which makes sense in a place like this.
After this, we pretty much keep ourselves to ourselves, and nobody even attempts to bother us or steal anything from us. At the appointed time the next evening, we head to the palace for our meeting, leaving any obvious two-handed or distance weapons. It turns out that this was the right thing to do, and we enter a hall that is already full of caterwauling, drinking, food (better than the previous night's) and some drinking. Azarn greets us, and sort of waves at his compatriots, the other pirate lords - a mixed bunch. He himself is very much the gentleman rogue, and in another time and place I could see myself warming to him. He slaps me on the back and tells us to enjoy ourselves; he'll adjourn with us for a private conversation later.
Eventually, Darn comes to find us and ushers into a meeting room off a side corridor. We ask Azarn about Sarna, and he says that Si'ule took him for questioning. "She took his funny staff off him and then locked him in a basement cell. Do you want to meet him or something?" Azar seems somewhat distracted; I have a hunch that he is thinking more about the slave girl than anything else. We say yes, but then we are interrupted as some rather high-pitched keening seems to envelop the entire palace. "...is inhuman screeching normal here..?" asks Destiny. Sir Blanque pulls open the door into the corridor, only to be confronted by a couple of naked, seven foot tall women swinging great swords and screaming horribly at a pitch that sounds like forks scraping across a plate. There are two more of them about to burst into the great hall, and another couple behind the first two. The whole place is in uproar; it seems there are even more of these demonic women attacking the great hall from all directions.
From Drivethrurpg
Alexia shouts, "Elenoin!" Whatever they are, these women have long, writhing red hair that reaches almost to their ankles and dances around with a life of its own. Their eyes are bright yellow with back slits instead of pupils, and their teeth are large and pointed. They don't seem overly bright, being more interested in hacking their swords at anything that moves. The weird scream tells of their battle lust, and Sir Blanque is frozen in place; one of the things slices right at him with her great sword, but fortunately he is saved by his displacer cloak. Before he ends up diced, Destiny gets her recently acquired air elemental to pull him back into the room; she also orders her water elementals to attack the Elenoin who just tried to kill our dear friend. Marion helps with her throwing knives. Our immediate target goes quiet as the water elementals try to drown her, and I take the opportunity to rush at her with my broadsword. I get in a really clean thrust straight to her chest and she goes down; Nadjana grabs the fallen demonic woman's two-handed sword. Destiny scares off some of the others with her fire elementals, and they mostly rush off to help in the great hall. Two more remain, but it quickly transpires that they are no threat as they start to eat the body of their fallen comrade. Obviously, chaos has no manners.
We jump past them and Azarn tells us where to find our thief friend. The pirate king warns us about Si'ule; "She has obviously done her nut right good and proper this time. You'll find her in her summoning place in the cliffs to the south of the town. But be careful, she is obviously doing something really nasty, even by her standards. Oh, by the way, here's the secret passage that leads out towards the foot of the cliffs." Good. At least this way we won't have to try to get past those demon women things with the pointy teeth and unfeasibly large swords. We head off to the cells while Azarn and Darn go for reinforcements. The sounds of battle from the great hall have died down a bit; whether this is because it's all over, or because the Elenoin have started feeding, we don't know. We definitely do not hang around to find out, and with Marion leading the way we go to find Sarna the dream thief.
He is waiting for us, having already picked the lock of his own cell. "About time you lot arrived," he says, rather disconcertingly. He also coughs elegantly. "We don't have a lot of time. I'll be dead soon, but don't concern yourselves with that; my kind have some tricks when it comes to death, so I'll probably end up being born on another plane with no memories of any of this." He turns to Marion. "That's probably what happened to you. It's common enough for those of us who serve the Balance. Speaking of which, the dead god's dream is in my dream staff. You will need to grab it before that mental woman Si'ule uses the chaos essence from the dead god to complete whatever great summoning she thinks is somehow a good idea. Off you go now; the dream is intended for you, so my dream staff will attune itself to you when you take it. Don't worry about me."
Weird conversations are becoming normal for us, so we just look at one another, shrug and go out through the secret passageway Azarn mentioned to us. As we emerge from the secret tunnel, we see a very strange, pulsating multi-coloured light from a cave near the top of the cliff. There is a staircase of sorts carved into the rock that leads upwards, and the very air writhes around us, as do the waters. An enormous chaos storm is blasting into existence above us too. This is looking well dodgy.
Marion leads the way upwards, merrily skipping up the treacherous stairs, slippery and wet from all the outraged elements and storms. She seems to think this is fun. At one point the waters form into a great column that crashes down on top of us; fortunately we all hang on, and nobody is swept off into the maelstrom. The summoning is obviously reaching its height, and a horrific great tentacle sweeps down from the clouds above us, aiming right at Nadjana; she somehow manages to avoid its grasp, and it thrashes back, leaving a massive acidic hole in the rock where she had been just standing. "Kyrenee!" says Destiny. Personally, I'm getting a bit ticked off by all these chaos things. Let's just get her!
Sir Blanque orders his own water elemental to shut down Si'ule's voice so that her summoning ceases, and this is exactly what happens. At the same moment, Marion takes a running jump at the top of the stairs and leaps to grab the dream staff. All suddenly goes still, and a vision sweeps over everything:
A warrior in black armour chased elegantly with gold brandishes a small staff at the writhing essences of old lords of chaos. The staff streams orange wisps from its rune-carved surface. "I, Sepiriz of the Nihrain, call on the power of the Runestaff to banish you, Darnizhaan and all your ilk!" He thrusts the staff into the formless chaos stuff and they are all dispersed, howling; the staff is shattered into eight pieces, all of which hurtle into the void apart from the end still grasped by the warrior in jet and gold.
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