The Golden Pony inn serves the PCs well, but they spend a bit of time learning about their temporary location, so far from their homes. While slavery is illegal inside the borders of Hoop De, it is in effect throughout most of Queris. Lizardmen live a bit north and inland (west), and a great road (fraught with danger) covers the massive distance between the coast and the central lake with its two cities (Dehoob and Aaarn)- this is mostly a trade route, though a few walled towns exist. Mostly, the area is fraught with the trappings of barbarism, and the thick jungles that pervade most of the continent are largely opaque to civilization.

However, here, there is wine. And trade. And a lot of other things. Rigby goes about finding some of said other things, locating a small manor built in Kuromeran style. A bit of natural invisibility, flight, and a willingness to steal later, he is burdened with an overabundance of magical trinkets and gold, which he distributes to his closest friends, perhaps in a bit of apology for taking the 20k gold last time. Alenka, and eventually the entire group, socializes with a party consisting of two barbarians, a friendly Umbran (with normal eyes) who worships Virin (and has tattoes to show it), and a well dressed sorcerer. Lithonian is offered by the waitress a selection of fey wines. They are rather pricey for drinks, but PCs are big money ballers, and a few gold for a drink doesn't dissuade them normally. Alenka has some feywine, presumably because she never read about feywine. A sneaky pixie also has some feywine- and not much else. He escapes, and returns disguised as a elven-looking human woman, to whom the bartender gladly serves feywine (and whose drink is paid for by some men looking to get to know her). After a bit, he introduces himself, and the group then chats some more. The two large barbarians are gregarious, but also horny- eventually they are pushed off onto a local barmaid, who seems rather impressed with their, er, impressives. The ex-Umbran asks about the state of affairs (and is rewarded as Keichi and Morgrim easily fill him in on the latest in Arcata), and the sorcerer mentions that they are questing for a special gem. The pixie is pretty old- his hairstyle is ancient, he doesn't live with many other pixies, and he has blanked his own memory at least once. He has plenty of arrows to trade to Rigby in exchange for learning how to make fire pixie arrows (a race he thinks are meany-savages).

The next morning features a passed out Alenka. A bit of research and they realize she will likely be unconscious, having vivid and semi-lucid dreams of mostly pleasant far away places, for weeks. This not being acceptable to their strict timetable of actually getting shit done, they seek out someone who can cure her. Given the general lack of advanced spellcasting in this section of the world, a bit of asking about reveals the presence of a reasonably powerful Wu-Jen, temporarily settled in town and more than willing to charge for spellcasting. One polymorph later, and Alenka is temporarily a male sea elf. As everyone knows, if you are a lady adventurer and you want to pee in the woods, polymorph is the only civilized answer. In this case, Alenka quickly sobers up, as elves do not suffer such effects from feywine. After an intricate examination of his new, uh, gills, Alenka is back to her old self again.


Next on the agenda is actually finding a boat willing to sail them to the correct spot. Right after that is locating the correct spot. That is a secondary concern- with such access to divination as Morgrim and Ash have, I wasn't concerned about them being unable to find the correct spot, especially while holding the key. Instead, however, they bypass the entirely reasonable chaotic pirate captain and go with the polite (and expensive) crew of an elven softrunner- a small two-hulled ship that runs in a very close fey border-plane of life and energy instead of strictly in boring old physical space. The experience is disorienting for the more realistic minded creatures, and so Morgrim and (most of) the humans spend the initial journey below-decks. Alenka spends a bit of time absorbing the expanse, the neon flat water, and the dark sky that seems so close and... how did she end up below? Who put her there? Lithonian enjoys the entire experience, fully grasping the slightly alien and more vibrant view of the ocean. The key to the proditial region of Caelum? That was put in a searching-device, which the pilot uses to guide the ship.

After a rather short amount of time, they find themselves beneath the proditial region. Lacking the ability to get that high with a single fly spell, the group makes use of rope trick and an overnight stay in a pocket dimension to make their way up to the roughly stationary cloud. Upon arrival, they see the proditial region, several spires and mostly one large structure, composed of ancient metal that isn't quite familiar, and doesn't seem harmed by the time. That there is an ornate door is obvious enough. Also obvious is that there is actually a very small airship docked at the edge of the cloud. And the last new thing that the group finds is that there are fruit bearing trees and tubers- the plants here are obviously magical.

Rigby investigates the boat invisibly and flying (Rigby does pretty much EVERYTHING invisibly and flying, including digestion, philosophy, and mathematics), but the very old man and merely old woman gesture him down. She introduces herself as Chrysanthemum, and he asks that his friends come on over too. They aren't evil, and eventually the party comes by- but they are very suspicious. The old mage offers to trade spells- he has quite a few spells that Morgrim hasn't heard of (and that the players recognize as being mostly unconverted from 2ed). Chrysanthemum mentions that the fruits that they found are beneficial magical fruits, originally meant to grow across Caligo- but they can only grow near the proditial region of good gods nowadays. They discover that some can cure illness or disabling conditions, and stockpile a bunch. Eventually, the third arrives- Haluk, carrying wood for the fire. He's a bit more outspoken than the others, and expresses some friendly doubts. But the suspicious crew do mention that the Proditial region might have something else going on inside it than is normal- normal would be trials for adventurers, ascending in difficulty. Before the conversation can get really good, Rigby, concerned that these entities are hostile, borrows and reads the Words of Time Inviolate, the primary effect of which is to call the attention of the god guarding this time sort of thing. Everything goes quiet as the three apologize, make their exit, and depart on their small airship. Once it is out of sight, the birds begin to call again and the wind makes soft noise- things missing during their interlude. After a few more moments, the entire area begins to have a disconcerting feel to it. The party makes their way quickly towards the door, as the sky darkens. Rigby looks around quite a bit and sees nothing, but eventually senses the aura of a menacing figure with two bladed guantlets somewhere, many places, approaching. No visual contact is made, but once the party is "safe" inside the structure and the door is closed, Ash confirms that what Rigby felt is a pretty sharp match for Buranon, an evil god and well known selfish jerk!

Once inside the Proditial region of Air (Caelum's Proditial Region), the group begins by being told that they can't see, and lighting a torch. They will proceed to forget about the torch, the line of sight, low light vision, and all of that as whiskey is consumed (but we should be good for the first half tomorrow at least, before all the humans gain darkvision again). They see a dim yellow outline on the ground- passing over it causes a mild buzzing sensation. Going to the room on the left, they see the outline only contains the quarter of the room that is towards the inside of the structure- but they also see a guardian inside that area, a mesh of faintly luminescent and translucent yellow and pink small triangles, shaping up to a roughly man-shaped tripedal energy construct. Of more direct concern is an iron golem and air elementals, all of which pretty much instantly attack the PCs. The guardian fires bolts of disruptive energy, but definitely can't cross the yellow line. There is also a slightly more defined, but similar looking red line on the ground, whose plane of red energy is visible. The guardian doesn't seem to be able to pass through that either. When disabled, the guardian simply walks through the walls, which don't seem to present any hindrance at all. The air elementals die (slowly omg), and the iron golem is also destroyed by consistent application of weapon blows.

The north side of that room is covered in rubble, however- twisted metal and rock cover the area floor to ceiling, blocking easy passage. Instead, the group tries a different side, where they find even more of the Servants of Caelum who guard this place, and even more elder air elementals. An obscuring mist offers defense from the ranged disruptive attacks, and Rigby, once the fight is under control, allows himself to be attacked with his Mastery of Lesser Blue Magic active, such that he can learn the cool tricks and powers that these guardians have. Sure, he almost dies, but hey! New power! Mostly he just had to keep on par with Morgrim. Keeping up with the Wizards, you know how Sorcerers are.

Since Buranon's overview of the area spoiled the magical fruits that they had stored, the group is forced to deal with the air elementals without the easy way out (the turbo apples, obviously). Instead, they slowly disable as many of the guardians as possible (forcing them to retreat), and in fact even defeat one, causing it to mostly discorporate and be reabsorbed into the energy walls.

With the room at least temporarily clear, they explore a bit- there is an obviously magical device inside the area that the guardians can patrol- three bronzed looking legs rising from the floor concavely to meet in the middle, where there is a sphere. Who will touch the sphere? Who is brave enough?

If you've been paying attention to who puts themselves in personal danger to learn stuff, that clearly would be Alenka. She touches it, and is immediately... changed. Now a melange of neon colors in an outline, she is visible but not audible. To her senses, everything changes- the yellow line becomes a plane, which she understands to be the edge of the world (though she doesn't go stand next to it). The red lines become horrible walls of pain, unnatural and unwelcome. Beneath and above, such red planes, previously hidden in the ceiling and floor, become visible. They also shouldn't be there. Touching any of these would hurt, but Alenka isn't silly enough to do anything like that- she's more than happy to hover here, just as she always has.

She eventually decides to communicate with her friends, but since they aren't anywhere to be found and she can't speak, such a fanciful idea departs quickly enough. Eventually, she gets the idea to touch the grounding sphere, an odd device right next to her. She is back to normal.

Also in the room is a staircase, fully blocked off, and detailed in the other thread a bit more, as well as another door.

The PCs camp out in a rope trick. Their doom lies about one floor away (maybe less!). What will they do? I mean, besides die. Will their deaths at least be meaningful?

Find out, in our next episode of Where In Living Fuck Did My Sheet Of Proper Names Go, Oh Well Fuck It It's The Day Before And I Need To Press Submit.

LOL @ the polymorph comments

The recap definitely helps. Thanks, buddy.

Let's not dwell on who did what to whom... let's just remember I gave them presents because I'm awesome.


Winning!


You'd think this would be followed by the Walk of Shame from Fraternity Row back to her sorority...


...but this is better.


The thing with a pirate captain is that, if things get bad, the worst thing you can do is sink their ship. The problem is when you're on the ship.


I think I could make a killing in porn.


And the cheap bastard has ensured that blue magic dies with us...


Information about the changing of the Time Guard would definitely have influenced my decision.... sort of like running across a field to get to the other side because no one thought to mention it was fucking mined.


Welcome to "Why Almost All My Dungeons Are Already Lit For Non-Majors 101." It's too damned complicate to remember who can see how far, where the torch is, etc. Fuck it.


Hey, there's a little error there. During the waning parts of the battle I took 3 hits from those buggers and was just fine. After the battle no one was willing to peak around the corner. I did, but some jackass decided that since I had a pebble those little fuckers could all target me with full attacks. That's what nearly killed me.


He's protecting time but ruining fruit? What an asshole.


We're trying to save the world and she goes to a rave? WTF?


Now... are you sure you didn't make a mistake here? Those Ray Bastards could not get to us, but they knew we were there since they were targeting the hell out of us. So now you're saying she can't sense we're there when she enters their set of walls and whatnot. I thought it was entering their perception, but there is clearly a difference there. I just want to make sure that's accurate.


Sometimes, as crafter of the puzzle, it seems very clear.


I'm thinking about heading out to find me a nice fire pixie.


Thanks for the update and colorful details of the World of Krispy Kreme.

When standing at the edge, there is another effect that Alenka didn't experiment with. Additionally, every room with guardians has featured other creatures, and after their elimination, the guardians have stood near the edge.

While walking toward the perceived edge was tempting, Alenka was not about to "experience" the sensation of falling off... I do remember once returned, she did her best to describe what she was able to see and sense.

This is clearly going to be a "I hate adventurers" puzzle dungeon. We're probably all going to have to do this to get through various places.

Heights aren't scary. Voids on the other hand...

I get 4th level spells! Yay! Well, just one. Choosing one is difficult. I'm currently thinking Orb of Cold or Orb of Force. They will both do the same damage now, but Force caps damage earlier than Cold. Cold can also cause blindness for a round or something. Cold, on the surface, sounds clearly better, but very few things resist Force. It is an inherently more valuable energy type. There is no spell resistance and no save (except for the save to avoid blindness from the Cold one). It's range touch.

I also have 10d6 Fireball now, which is why I am debating Orb of Cold.

What do you think? I'm leaning towards Force, I guess.

Damn, that's a tough one. I'd also lean toward Force. I mean, if for no other reason, right before blasting some enemies, you can yell "May the Force be with you!!".

Winner winner chicken dinner!

Oh! And orb of force is medium range whereas the elementals are close range.

Firefox thinks "elementals" isn't a word. WTF, mate? Wasn't it coded by nerds?

The Orb spells are a dash too good. I nerf them to not pierce AMS, which I believe was an oversight.

Generally, each spell requires a ranged touch, and does up to 15d6, plus a status effect. Fire, I think, is the best of them, but all ate quite good.

Force stands apart: with less total damage, its bit pull is that very few things resist or mitigate force damage: if you can aim the sphere, the damage happens.

They're conjuration, and that seems to be how they get around spell resistance. I would assume their way of getting around spell resistance is their same method as going through an anti magic shield (I want the 2 minutes of my life I spent figuring out that acronym back, asswagon). Supposedly you summon the pure essence of fire, ice, force, or whatever, and then you throw it.

I'm not sure WTF that is really supposed to mean. I use magic to summon non-magical fire, and then I throw it? That is absurd enough, but... I summon non-magical Force and throw it? Er, ok.

I'm fine with it being blocked by an anti magic shield. In the very least it could splatter against it. Perhaps magic is being used to hold this ball of non-magical fire together. If it hits a person, it doesn't matter if the magic instantly dissipates because there's fire to do damage. If it hits an anti magic shield, though, the "magical container" dissipates and the fire just sort of erupts around where the shield was.

Edit: Should have been AMF. Antimagic Field doesnt block the orbs by rules, but in my games it does.


And getting around SR only bugs me because of the status effect, which you MAY have to roll SR on. The damage is fine, that is probably why they tagged the conju. But I get the burning but status effects are clearly magical in nature.