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"Portal-spawner, Novel Energy Conversion Device, Stellar Converter, nanite control panel, and our very own Disshoun." Rigby read from the list. The air in the vault was magically crisp and clean, and probably, to the humans, smelled a bit like a forest. Rober, Mogrim, Octessa, and Lithonian listened, spread in a rough circle around the large vault.
"W-Why are we d-d-doing these obsolete artifacts f-first?" Rober asked.
Morgrim answered. "Because until a few weeks ago, very little was known about them, and with the conversion of Zoban Fize to a demonic puppet, the foremost experts remaining in Arcata are in this room. We talk about them first because even if they will never work on Caligo, we need to see if they were what the demons were seeking."
A small snoring from above. Viztria had found something to drink. Rigby wondered if she had quaffed some ancient wine, but decided instead to focus.
Octessa began. "The Portal-spawner twists space and time by the generation of exotic matter. It can create a physical link between locations, and the link can be large. The portal-spawner passed into our control three hundred years ago, the result of a conflict with some extraplanar forces that had landed in the Teryeal Expanse and marched north. It was presumably was damaged, and the users of it, mind flayers and several red eyed humans, were attempting to repair it."
Lithonian looked at the device. Roughly plate shaped, twenty feet in diameter, and constructed out of greenish metal, with a great variety of small wires protruding from the left back side. The right back side had no such damage.
Morgrim said, "It looks repairable with a tweaked version of a repair spell, if the right side is truly undamaged. Can it cross dimensions?"
Octessa replied. "No, that seems unlikely. It looks like a way to transit rapidly in an area where teleportation spells don't function, but without being able to access the astral plane, it would have no way to access the true dimensionality of the realities. It would be limited to one physical plane."
Rigby added, "Ok, so they could use it to, say, move from one city to another, or to link two things that shouldn't be linked, like Foldermart and the middle of the sun. Could it reverse things from right to left, and would that matter?"
orgrim, startled, replied. "I think it's obvious that such a device could be used to destroy a world. I think all of these devices can. The real question is, could it be chained with a magical device, such that it could destroy THIS world? For instance, could it work in the Unbound, and a traditional portal be set up at one end, such that, say, a core portion of a magical area could be extruded into an area here?"
Lithonian had an answer. "No."
The room turned towards him, waiting.
"The Unbound is so named as the Gods have no limits there. It separates Caligo, this physical plane, and even our sections of the astral planes, from the areas where extraplanar forces, such as the Seryantics, have excessive power. The Gods can feel the structure of the place. Even if whatever exotic matter could be generated or would make sense in the Unbound, the moment the structure of the place began to be torn, all Close and Distant Eyes would be upon it.
Buranon, or demons, or Umbrans, would likely know that- at the least, the demons would." There was a bit of silence. Octessa broke it. "Ok, novel energy conversion device. According to notes from when this vault was first organized, this device fires a beam, and anything touched by the beam is converted into a special kind of matter. The matter is completely stable, and exists at a lower energy state than its original form. Any similar matter, which apparently is anything, that it touches becomes converted to this new lower energy state as well, gaining velocity and losing cohesion." She looked concerned, and surprised, as she read the notes. She also looked as if she were remembering something. She looked at Rober, who shrugged.
Morgrim commented "So, given minutes, a whole world could be destroyed. And the 'novel energy' that radiates outward would destroy the other planets in a solar system in a few years, and a whole galaxy in a few million years, and eventually, a whole universe, given enough time. Anyone who ever fires this thing off destroys his universe, just not on a timescale that matters to him, if he manages to teleport away after firing."
"WHY DO YOU HAVE THIS THING????" Rigby shouted. "Come on, even if here on Caligo we are made of some superior form of material, the only use of this device is to end WHOLE REALITIES?"
Octessa replied. "I share your concern, and didn't know about this. In our defense, there is a spell in our library, "Conversion of Destructive Obsolete Materials to Noninteractive Ones". The notes on this were essentially to to reverse a situation similar to the ones described here. Um, it doesn't seem like it would be that great for saving a world, but at least it would turn off the destruction before it proceeded further than that."
"Is that really the purpose of the spell? Or does that just allow a future reckless demon to use this device and not be worried about killing more than ONE planet?"
Lithonian and Mogrim looked at each other. Lithonian spoke first. "Regardless, as Caligo is immune to its effects, this is unlikely what the demons were looking for. It would not function in the Unbound at all, even for a second."
Morgrim asked. "Stellar Converter?"
Octessa read. "Fires a beam of complex energy. Anything the beam strikes is converted into superhot plasma, as you would find in the core of a star."
Rigby asked "Ok, but does that process continue when you turn it off? It's just a really powerful destruction beam, or this is yet another thing that destroys a whole world?"
Morgrim replied "It stops functioning when off, and consumes a lot of power so it would at least be challenging to be that destructive. I guess if you opened a portal to somewhere and fired it from the Unbound, it would be a powerful weapon to whatever it hit."
Rigby said, "So, a demon could destroy Emerald, or an airship."
"It's b-b-broken though, at least.", Rober offered.
The item was a weapon, but not as absurd as the others. The group was quiet until Octessa spoke up again. "Finally, a nanite control panel. It can offer to control nanites, which are very small devices that can build copies of themselves and build larger structures, such as weapons, ships, and essentially anything."
Morgrim offered, "...but it didn't come with any nanites. And they wouldn't function here even if we did have them. Did anyone try wishing for any?"
Octessa continued. "I don't believe so. There's a Nanite Dissolution spell in the library, but it doesn't look like anyone tried to do anything with this. That being said, if it would function in the Unbound, they could build complex devices there that could function on Caligo, even if those were 'merely' Juggernauts."
Morgrim finished, "And last is Disshoun, which could create a very large explosion if fired, but firing it should be impossible. Unlike the Stellar Converter, it's both functional and generates its own energy. However, unlike the rest of the Vault, knowledge of it was very limited, as we took it from the mindflayers ourselves. It poses no threat on Caligo, and if it did, we'd be using it to fix up our own problems."
Rigby fluttered up, a vantage point higher than the others. The vault had boxes full of devices and artifacts, some of them from extraplanar dealings. These were the only technological items that could pose a threat, or suffice as a sufficient demonbait to explain what was going on. His stomach rumbled, but this had been put off for too long.
"Ok, enough of those. Octessa, grab the list of magical artifacts."
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"THAT'S your plan?" Keichi Gahn wasn't even angry. Sitting at Zeth's personal dining table, alongside Rixs, Mayella, Zeth, and Alenka, he took a sip of wine. Mayella looked confused. "Well, certainly!" Rixs confidently stated.
Zeth looked from Keichi to Rixs, and said, "I think I understand your idea- the dragons with the anti magic fields will likely spook him- but he'll actually retreat directly to his 'secret weapon' and..."
Rixs interrupted "It's not a 'secret weapon', it's some device that he claims will grant Voriph eternal peace..."
Alenka exclaimed "But you don't know what it is?"
"Well, no."
"So it's a secret. And everything he's done so far tells us it's a weapon."
Zeth, the point having been returned, continued "...and from there you hope to ambush him, guarded only by his most loyal and powerful retainers, in the place he considered safest, with a device currently in a lead lined box, and from which he meaningfully expects to be as closest to invincible as a man can be."
Rixs' face shifted into a hint of a frown. Alenka read the expression, extrapolated. She understood why his plan would begin at an imperial announcement- the boy emperor's presence would be important, as he was normally hidden from view, possibly sequestered. And Rixs' desire to feed his vainglory was in there somewhere, but the real reason he had talked Maexxna into this plan was obvious: it moved Vix-Thur to a place where he would likely not be able to accidentally destroy the Voriphan people in his loss. But the plan needed some work, if she were to survive it.
Keichi continued. "So, allow me to review your plan. In two and a half weeks, Vix-Thur will definitely be in Fen, the capital city, and the emperor will formally be present to grant Vix-Thur new powers when it comes to defending Voriph. This will be a great celebration, and most of the noble houses have agreed to celebrate, but many are in league with your resistance, and even some of the regular troops will supposedly switch sides. During this announcement, a continent of good dragons and the top resistance movement folks, excepting yourself, will move to attack the general, hoping, somehow, to not harm the emperor. You hope that the anti-magic fields on the dragons- dragons whom you plan to smuggle into Fen by disabling a centuries old defensive system, one which you may not be able to turn back on and one which might leave you vulnerable to a literal spectrum of evil dragons, starting the moment you turn it off and ending maybe never- will be threatening enough that Vix-Thur will abscond back to his special hiding place, where we will be waiting- all of us except your girlfriend, who will wisely be in Emerald, and Zeth, who is just here to offer advice. We then attack him and anything he brought back with him, attempting to do lethal damage, and you assume that a combination of our tricks is your best plan to assassinate him. And in order for us to even be there, we will sneak in through a secret passage that your resistance members have created, but even with such access, you don't know what this secret device is other than it's contained entirely within a thirty by thirty by thirty cube."
Keichi put one of the cheesegrapes into his mouth, while waiting for a correction.
"Yes, that's mostly it. But I want to point out, we may be able to destroy or disable whatever his great secret is before he arrives, and he will likely have split his forces, leaving some trusted and powerful allies that we can pick off. And that we'll have the ability to call off the assault early with the power of grapes, and have all of our magical preparations in place."
Mayella looked at Alenka, likely for support. "What do you think of the plan, Alenka?"
"It's not the worst plan, and it minimizes bloodshed. But the reason you wanted to come here, to Emerald, means you must want help- and not just from us, but from, say, the wizards." She gestured towards Zeth. "Once Breffen alerted you to our presence in Tura, you were there in days, Mayella in tow. You didn't even want to wait- you wanted to plan in Emerald right away. What's the other part?"
Rixs paused before replying. "The resistance... lacks the magical aptitude of Zem Tower, obviously, but our Academy has been entirely neutral, giving aid to Vix-Thur and resisting all overtures. According to them, all is well, even as individual members express discontent. We have less than a dozen psions and wizards of any note in our resistance. We could easily be routed on the magical front. Even with such a carefully crafted plan..."
Keichi coughed. "Cheesegrape", he gestured.
"...we still would appreciate whatever aid could be offered by Zem Tower. Maexxna has drawn up a plan that would grant some favorable trade to Emerald, but I suspect you'll help just based on a desire to see Vix-Thur deposed, and this strange friendship with Umbran warlords aborted quickly."
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"Ok,Second Axe of Strife, Deck of Mostly Good Things, time chair, wishing rod, Selected, Motive Core, S-Sword, a box of infinite demons, and the Staff of Unmaking.
"Selected is in here?" Ash demanded. "The unholy claw weapon of Buranon? No one thought to mention that before this very moment? Also, did you say infinite demons? That seems a rather lot of demons."
"Time chair. I stopped listening after time chair. It is definitely time chair." Rigby commented.
"mostly goodthings aremostlygooooood"
"Ash, would you mind sparing a neutralize poison for my familiar? I don't know what 'time lost wine' is, but there's an empty bottle over here. I'm pretty much done with anything related to time, in fact."
Octessa said, "The Second Axe of Strife you guys brought here. It made that orc unkillable, it's a weapon with Urran's power. There's likely an easier axe of strife to grab, however, and this one was very vulnerable for awhile anyway- that same force of demons could have easily taken it from Vog'shgn directly, back before you went and stopped him."
"Time chair. Do time chair so we can go eat. We've been here like half an hour."
"Rigby, I think it's been longer than that. I'm sure they already had their meal, and are probably discussing martial strategies by now." Octessa corrected. "But, the time chair is a chronomancy device. It was actually used here at the tower, back when that was a school of magic, near the creation of the world. When the Gods forbade time travel, it stopped working, as did all chronomancy."
"The Gods need to forbid pixies from casting wish at will. Then I could do it all the time and everyone would always be super surprised and never take any precautions."
"Or you'd do it once, and then spend the next year talking about it. In any event, if the time chair could be made to work again, or work in a way that the Gods couldn't see or stop it, it would be a greatly sought after item indeed. But there's no evidence of that, and I think the actual time travel and time portal spells, still in our library after centuries, would have been of more importance. Those also don't work, of course."
Morgrim, holding Rober's notes, continued "Deck of Mostly Good Things is like a Deck of Many Things, it has all of those cards in it, but it also has cards that can grant great power, and cards that can remove you from reality entirely. There's rumors that it compels you to draw cards until the bad things happens. Um, according to this, the southern tip of Miara was actually created by someone winning a small keep? Like, it actually rose from the ocean in response to a card, thousands of acres? This is easily the type of power demons would seek, but it's far too unpredictable."
Viztria eyed the deck. "I could use a small keep." She announced mentally.
Monte shared his thoughts "Perhaps in the cold darkness. Yes, grapes grown above, and an endless arena of dark cave beneath, built atop a leyline. Power with but a thought.
Ash commented mentally Morgim, I am convinced you recieved the wrong familiar. Somewhere in Umbra, there's a friendly beagle familiar wondering why everyone is so upset all the time.
"W-w-wishing r-r-rod grants wishes" Rober announced.
"Um, thank you. Yes, the wishing rod grants wishes, but almost always pervented or twisted by some humor. If the demons could use the rod without having this problem, or if the sick sentience trapped within agreed with them, then it would be very attractive to them indeed. But since some demons already have access to wishes, and many wishes are themselves preempted by divine order, it doesn't seem like an obvious choice."
Lithonian had rifled through the notes, reaching the ones he was most interested in. "Selected is one of the weapons of the gods, Buranon's in fact. It's apparently been here, and not known to many, since before the last war. It's certainly possible Buranon was seeking this, and it seems almost assured that HE would know of its presence. Unlike the axes of strife, or that ludicrous cloak that Narso has paraded around in, this isn't something for mortals to use- this is his weapon, which he uses to ritually murder villages whenever he can get away with it."
"And apparently this box of infinite demons can create one demon per hour, forever. The demon created is random, and one in four is bound to serve the caster. There's some... myth? Attached to how a battle was fought in the unbound with this, but it's apparently been in the possession of wizards for centuries. Quite honestly, either of these seem very likely as the sort of unholy artifacts humans would hang on to for a span of time that seems long to them, but not to any longsighted players, such as demons or gods."
Lithonian was visibly cross.
Morgrim continued "This Motive Core appears capable of delivering large amounts of magical power." He gestured to a small box, which Rober opened the front of, revealing a pendant sized device, three inches cube in size, crafted of silver circles at various orientations, and surrounding a variety of small glowing colored stones, suspended in the air inside the circles. "It looks like it's been experimented with as a way of casting spells without expending their energy from the mind, and it looks like it's been determined that it can break through almost any abjuration when used to power a greater dispelling. This artifact has a variety of uses, and it's reasonable to assume that the demons would know of some that we don't."
"The, um, Staff of Unmaking requires a blood sacrifice to charge up, and when focussed, can erase someone from reality entirely- the events of their lives in some cases unravel, and in others, history changes such that they were accomplished by someone else entirely." Octessa said.
"So, it's an evil timestaff? Viztria, do you have any more 'time lost wine'?"
"Well, the magic isn't really time-based, but it's definitely evil. Interfering with fate in such a way seems likely to invite punishment from the gods, after all. We have no way of knowing if this item would still work, but it still radiates an unholy aura."
Ash offered, "You know, in the forest which I call home, there are temples. There is a temple to Latukefu, but also other good Gods. And, rarely, we will gain access to an evil device, or something which radiates evil. And, I know this may strike you as strange, we destroy those things. This way, in the future, they don't accomplish evil. Do you think the Ebon Citadel has a bunch of good-aura radiating devices in their vaults? 'Oh, this is the Grand Smiter of All Umbrans. We keep it here just, you know, in case... the future?' "
"The 'S-Sword' is a p-p-powerful sword from another world. It was used by a hero, and it isn't evil. But it's m-magic is diminished on Caligo.", Rober said.
"What is it capable of?" Rigby asked.
Octessa took over. "It has these five gems, and each gem grants it elemental power. Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Eyes. 'Eyes' is sort of a mental power, the others are pretty much what you would expect. But it supposedly had the ability to cut reality in places, open portals, possess enemies. That's why it's on the list. Demons could probably use it somehow, but only if they were able to find some way to make it work as it used to."
"Can we finish this discussion later? I really can't deal with this stench any longer."
Octessa was puzzled. "Stench? It smells like a forest in here!"
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Mayella was well into intoxication. She sat on Rixs' lap, periodically attempting to gnaw on his ear. Rixs was questioning Alenka, and a servant had announced the imminent return of the magical savants from their journey.
"So, the whole tower was in the realm of the Gods?"
"Yes. We went to Zeugeria to find help, and once we were there, we fought two Pit Lords and their minions. Ash discovered how to channel Latukefu's divine power in a way that was honestly frightening, and that ended the demonic threat, and allowed all the wizards to become human, or elven, again."
"That's amazing! And then what happened?"
Alenka was a bit buzzed, to be honest. Her personal feywine supply, brought to her by Zeth at the start of the evening, wouldn't make her lose a month or two any longer, but was more than capable of giving her loose lips. But not about this.
"Is he asking about the airship we stole for the lawful evil lady in waiting to the Grand Duke with imperial aspiration's wife?"
The mental communication was definitely from Rigby, and prefaced the remainder of the team returning. The mostly empty table put a frown on Morgrim's face.
"Then we were very busy for awhile, training and such."
This explanation skipped the meat of the recent encounter:
The group set out to do Lady Sarah Anne a favor- to secure an etheric resonance chamber. This would optimally be done by stealing a whole airship, but the chamber itself could be separated. They chose the ship with the fresher captain, a generally wiser choice (though both the Crimson Devourer and the Azure Skyhound were similar in encounter difficulty, the Azure Skyhound presented less resilient foes).
The Vailx, small personal airships outfitted with elemental guns, attacked the PCs on the way up, and the crew manned siege weaponry against the PCs, while their champions prepared themselves for battle with a group of high powered adventurers. Octessa and Morgrim eliminated many of the Vailx. As they boarded, the airmen grouped up, armed with their finest crossbows (similar in design to the Arcatan ones, but the added clockwork costs accuracy but aids with reloading) with the Voriphan magical melee weapon, the tural (a device worn on the arm that guides harmful forces and sparks to manifest in front of the wielder as he gestures), and the ships psion prepared strikes against the presumed magic users among the PCs. The ship was guarded by a yellow dragon- a true rarity, but one who, when stripped of his magic, was unable to make good use of his powers. Keichi and Alenka initially rallied hard against him, forcing him to play defensively. An enemy ranger had three small "plasma wolves", an Umbran monstrosity rarely seen in the world of light. Unlike the ones Ash had seen in his link with Ventrashaan, these were medium in size, not monstrous. A weapon master challenged Keichi, recognizing the auric sword as one that belongs to his associate, and one which he seized as a battle prize once Keiche fell to the combined efforts of his allies. The throngs of sailors were dispersed by fire, the psion hammered by precision spells and pixie arrows, and the battle turned quickly in favor of the PCs. The airship, however, shifted, and then began to plummet, leaving the PCs to pick loot from the middle of the ocean, relying on spells and Ioun stones to retrieve their won valuables.
Upon their return to Emerald, Lady Sarah Ann gushed her gratitude, and the team was generally less than impressed, as her actions endangered them- but more importantly, she had clearly not thought them worthy of knowing her whole plan. She did promise the team an airship soon, however.
Edit: formatting readability
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