Nehl Brisby - The Sting

[Continued from the last entry]

"I arrived just as the rest of the party was clambering up onto a roof adjacent to the warehouse where Amyria and Odos had been staying, with several Githzerai in tow for some reason. I assume they had offered to help and Mayim simply hadn't told them no yet... 

As we entered the courtyard, the signs of our combat with the beggar cult from earlier all but gone, Telicanthus and Pennel pulled off from the group of city guards (I noticed at this point that his personal contingent of Githyanki had slinked away. This worried me) and told them that a dangerous group of insurgents slept inside of the warehouse, making this the perfect time to strike. The fools, having no real reason not to trust the Githyanki Lord, charged in. To their credit, they did so with all due trepidation and readiness -- not like idiots who expect to meet no resistance -- but it mattered little, as they were met with an empty room full of straw-padded crates and little else. One of the Githzerai huddled with the party was nudged by Mayim, and he leaped down to lock the warehouse door. I remain convinced that this was more for the guards' safety than our own, but Mayim claimed otherwise. Either she's going soft, or for some reason she's attempting (poorly) to display the slightest bit of humility. My money is on the latter. 

Telicanthus' momentary confusion as the the sudden Githzerai underling was quickly overtaken by the surprise of the Copper Fang descending upon him and his servant from the rooftops, yelling at them to surrender and pay for his crimes. Unfortunately, the pompous ass quickly recovered from the shock of our attack and laughed at us as Githyanki poured from the surrounding alleyways and one of the Githzerai -- A female by the name of Galia, who had been rescued with the others of her kind before I joined up with the party -- suddenly turned and struck down one of her own squad. Mayim later reported that, in fighting the woman, she seemed vacant and sluggish, much like previous enemies they had fought who had been the possessed forms of former allies. She neglected to slay the poor creature, hoping to find a cure for the possession and perhaps save her life rather than end it mercifully. I find this notion naiive, but noble. Something to expect from Mayim, perhaps. She's quite immature in both humor and violence, and this lends itself to a somewhat child-like take on the realities of the world... I'm surprised she's survived this long with that world-view intact, but I find it refreshing... 

The combat with Telicanthus was quite difficult, as both he and Pennel proved to be formidable opponents. However, in time, we managed to overpower them and render both unconscious. We were thoroughly exhausted by this point, but the night was far from over. Mayim and I rushed to the warehouse and opened the door, which was already near breaking from the beating the guards inside were applying to it. The captain of this particular company stormed to the forefront of the group and demanded to know what was going on, surveying the violent scene in front of him that he had only been able to overhear prior. The gods were truly with us for once, as this man proved to be quite sensible for a town guard, taking our story quietly and immediately agreeing to follow our lead for the time being, until such a time as we were able to further prove our case. He did insist on taking custody of the prisoners (we had since tied up any combatant who hadn't been killed Galia in our brawl), so that we would have no chance to assassinate any of them now that we'd gained his temporary trust. We considered this reasonable, and once he was content with the state of things in and around the warehouse, he joined the rest of the party in a mad rush to find Amyria's company (and eventually the rest of the coalition members) to see if they were alright. For my part, I slipped into an adjacent alley and assumed the form of a bat, taking to the skies to scout from above and keep an eye out for other, perhaps unrelated signs of violence.

My eye being elsewhere, the rest of the party found Amyria first, standing in another open avenue with a sword in the gut of one of her followers. It seemed that he, like Galia, had been possessed at some point over the last few weeks and had attempted to strike while everyone was rushed and distracted. Thankfully, Amyria was not so easy to catch off guard. The rest of the party stopped to discuss what's happening with her, so I decided that now was an excellent time to warn Mayim's General Taramin of the danger the Githyanki posed to his life. Getting some directions towards the central Guard Tower in the city from Mayim via the sending stone, I quickly located the General's room from the outside and made a moderately dramatic entrance, crashing through the window and regaining my human form. I was quite fortunate that the man didn't seem to have his sword sheathed by his side at that moment, as I'm not sure I would have survived the landing otherwise. Taramin was on me in an instant, obviously ready to fight off whatever threat I might pose. When I made it known that I was a member of the Copper Fang, and thus knew Mayim, he softened up slightly and listened to my warning of possible attempts on his life by the Githyanki that now roamed the city streets. Taking into account the fact that I had yet to act violently towards him thus far, Taramin nodded and accepted my words. He told me to go and gather the party, if I was who I claimed to be (my absence during the gathering at Telicanthus' mansion meant I had left little impression on the people there...), and prepare to root out these murderous individuals wherever they were. 

The rest of the night was spent in minor combat, bursting into the homes of Coalition members and people of some political clout in the city, halting assassinations and protecting the general populace from those few Githyanki who were villainous to deviate from their stated goal enough to attempt some theft and looting. By the time the sun began to rise on the city of Sayre, reports of violence (and Githyanki in general) lessened and eventually ceased altogether. The only lives lost were the Githzerai attacked by Galia and a few city guards that Assassins had gotten the drop on before being apprehended by larger forces. Perhaps not a happy notion, but in the grand scheme of things, these were acceptable losses."

There is a span of several weeks between this entry and the next.

"Telicanthus, after much coaxing and some 'persuasion' from the city guard (apparently they had offered to bring Mayim in as assistance if he remained obstinate), finally confessed his crimes against the City of Sayre, and we were released from our probationary state of the last few weeks. Many of the actions we had undertaken in protecting the city and its inhabitants had been quite violent, and Taramin had made a point about being sure these actions were fully justified before letting us off entirely. Now that our names were fully cleared, we were lauded as heroes -- for the second time, for everyone but myself -- and Taramin saw fit to grant us several magical items found in a raid on Telicanthus' manor as rewards for our service. In addition, we were offered the use of said manor for a short time as a sort of base of operations before we move on to our next adventure and the land is put up for sale. We declined, much to my own disappointment, but instead the land was given to Odos and the other Githzerai refugees, which is a noble enough purpose for the place. For our own part, we once again raided the ruined Temple of Ioun, this time ousting the beggars for good, and have set up a temporary holding here.

All said, I quite enjoyed this strange turn of events. Had I not been convinced to join up with this band of violent psychopaths, I might never had found out what it felt like to be truly appreciated by a community. Vampire or not, noble or not, the people of Sayre all know me by name, now, and are quick to shout words of thanks or promises of free drinks in my direction while I walk down the street. It is a... pleasant situation. I hope that we can remain here a bit longer, that I might better appreciate what it means to be admired and appreciated, instead of ignored, reviled, or resented...

Nehl Brisby"

Nehl Brisby - Githyanki Secrets

The pen strokes in this entry are particularly heavy. This leads me to believe that it was written soon after the addendum from the last entry. It seems Mr. Brisby was just a bit annoyed with the childish mage at this point.

"After digging in the rubble for several minutes to make a passage I could fit through in my rat form, I returned to the party cleaning up after what seemed to have been a quite brutal, rapid fight. Every enemy was soundly unconscious, bound in rope, and slid back into their bedrolls. Following this spectacle, I came across Alin, the blighter, calmly cleaning his gear while a mage hand wrote in this very journal. How he had gotten it away from me in the first place I have no idea, but I will certainly remember this moment should any other items of mine happen to go missing... 

The room we now rested in contained a very large, very deep pit. According to Nathaniel, the body we could see at the bottom was, in fact, thrown in there by one of his allies. Assuming this is the truth, I would imagine his goal was to alert whoever might have been down there already. Nobody else seemed to consider this an issue, however, and we quickly lowered ourselves into the pit to investigate. Below were a landing and a large chamber, separated by a small chasm bridged by a wooden board. Alongside this chasm was a furnace that appeared to be used for glassblowing and glass smelting. I admit that glassworking is not a specialty of mine, but even had the forge not been surrounded by chunks of colored glass, the large sphere of the stuff in the center of the room ahead might have given it away. The surface of the sphere was nearly opaque, but the vague shadows of a few humanoid forms could be made out in the center of the hollow orb. Mayim, ever the diplomat, decided to enter the thing and attempt to speak with them. By this, I assume she intended to fill the insulated chamber with as much lightning as she could muster. 

The moment one of the sphere's hatches was opened, the sphere reacted, sending out radiating waves of psychic energy. Several of the others seemed pained by it, but I remained unharmed physically. Mentally, however, I was driven into a state of agitated bloodlust, and I charged forward wildly, swiping at the Githyanki as they were thrown from their spherical hidey-hole by Mayim's attacks. Alin, suddenly serious as anyone else in the room, had the presence of mind to separate me from my unfortunate victims with his own magic. He deposited me near Aelon (I wonder if, in his maddened mind, he sees Aelon's similar name and superior knowledge as some kind of threat to his position as the party wizard?), but the shock of the throw itself was enough to jog me out of my crazed state. I had slain one of the githyanki, but the others managed to fight back for a time before we subdued them, leaving them alive. 

There was one strange moment of note during the fight, which was otherwise quite standard as cave brawls go. While Alin and Aelon subdued the psychic emanations of the sphere, Nathaniel -- who had taken a few swipes when combat began -- slipped over to me and requested my aid. As he knew my penchant for healing with the life force of our enemies, he was hoping to borrow a bit of my energies to heal a small blade wound the Githyanki had landed on him, which was bleeding quite badly. In the heat of the moment, I acquiesced, and he seemed to enact some kind of ritual. Blood seeped from my very skin and wove through the air until it reached Nathaniel's wound and sealed it. He seemed slightly put off by the fact that the wound was still quite obviously present, but I believe he had not taken into account the fact that such necrotic, life-draining effects would be hampered quite a bit by my undead nature. Still, it was an odd reversal of fates to be drained of life like that... Funnily enough, Aelon witnessed this exchange and took it in stride. Either he only has a problem with me due to my vampirism, or he is gradually coming to terms with these magical means of exchanging life... Perhaps in the future he might even allow me to borrow some of his life force, should the need arise... 

However, I am getting off track. The combat was quickly over, and we all turned our attentions to the glass sphere. It still vibrated with internal energies. Aelon and Alin noted that the four Githyanki we had just defeated were actually required to hone these energies and direct them towards the communicatory purpose of the sphere. With them gone, feedback from residual psychic messages and those that might be coming in from other such spheres would eventually leak out and wreak havoc on the minds of the city folk above. Thinking quickly, Mayim entered the sphere and let out a terrible explosion of thunder from its center. The pressure and force created a massive spider web of cracks on one side of the thing, into which I slotted my scythe. Using the leverage this provided, I managed to pull the sphere apart, and it shattered as its perimeter was well and truly broken apart. In fact, the destruction of the thing was so complete that the small, stone bridge that ran through the center of the sphere shattered apart as well! We all dove for cover from the falling glass, but it turned out to be mostly harmless, as the individual pieces were quite small and light. There was, however, an... odd sensation. As the sphere broke, it let off a sort of shockwave, similar to those from before but both different and more powerful. For a few moments, it was as if our thoughts were being forcibly removed from our minds. Not that our thoughts were being inhibited or our memories altered, but... it was similar to having an invasive force reading your thoughts, but if that reading was accomplished by tearing the thoughts out entirely before returning them to their rightful place moments later. A strange and worrying sensation, to be sure, but there was little we could do about it now, with this pile of glass shards and stone.

Our job here done, we exited the pit and Mayim and Nathaniel grabbed two of the guards they had fought while I was trapped by the rock slide. Apparently these two had seemed quite important, and they could perhaps be interrogated for information. This seemed like an intelligent plan. We quickly cleared the tunnel we had entered through (Nathaniel using a ritual of repair that he had kept prepared for some time, now to make the walls even more stable than they had been the first pass through) and prepared to leave, when suddenly we heard a commotion coming from a different tunnel. From the sound of the voices, we realized that Telicanthus and Pennel were approaching from the manor house's secret passage. In that moment, we hatched a plan. 

I was given one of the party's Sending Stones and immediately assumed my ethereal form (it occurred to me yet again how wonderful these vampiric powers really are... Had it been on my own terms, I would likely have taken them gladly... Should I ever atone for the lives of my family, I still might...) and moved back into the tunnels to spy on them as they looked over our work. The two men seemed quite agitated, having heard the shattering glass orb and now seen the many unconscious bodies stuffed into their bedrolls like stuffing in so many turkeys. When they reached the sphere's resting place, Telicanthus finally swore aloud. "This is the work of those damnable adventurers, no doubt. I had thought them off my trail after their cordial meeting earlier today, but they are cleverer than I thought." He turned. "Pennel, you have the list I gave you. It is time... We must gather what guards we can and kill them all." My thoughts immediately leapt to the members of the SCPD, and I relayed this information to the rest of the party. They agreed, and set out immediately for the old warehouse where Amyria was staying with the other Githzerai to warn her and begin collecting them to escape the city. Mayim added that she also intended to warn a 'General Taramin' that she had met in Telicanthus' manor. The man had apparently not seemed to keen on the Githyanki Lord, and it was quite likely that Telicanthus would take this opportunity to remove as many political enemies as possible in one fell swoop. 

Both groups set out immediately, Telicanthus and Pennel to an old guard house to collect men for their murderous deeds, and the rest of the Copper Fang to the warehouse district to try to prevent said deeds. I followed the former group, watching as the number of men following in the wake of Telicanthus' carriage grew and they made their way towards the city slums. We were running out of time, and I had my doubts that even we could defeat the force that was heading straight for the party... Things were getting desperate."

[To Be Continued...]

Alin Guest Entry - Off the Record B&E

I am not sure how to describe what it is I have transcribed here. When Nehl discussed the insanity of this team, I had assumed some form of sociopathy, perhaps a true psychopath in Mayim, but this... This is something different entirely. It seems, by some means, Alin the Wizard got his hands on this Journal, and decided it would be fun to write his own entry. I can only pray this never happened again, for both my sanity and my safety... His handwriting is quite pleasant, however.

“Hey Nehl! You totally dropped this when you got caught by that cave in and I stole it from Nathaniel because I wanted to see what you’d been distracted with. Just so you know, I have this nifty ritual I know called Comprehend Languages, so you might as well not bother with the code. [This sentence is followed by a crude drawing of a mocking face, done in excessively bright colors.] 

I also know one called Explosive Runes! Don’t worry I didn’t cast that one here. This time. Probably. It may be enchanted to make you sparkle in the sunlight if you don’t figure out the code though. 

Anyway I figured I’d tell you all about what happened while you were gone because I’m awesome like that.  

So, you were there for the first part, but for the benefit of the people who will doubtless read this after we become legends, I’ll go over it again. We went back to the old underground temple so we could try and come at things from below, only we found the Filth King wasn’t there anymore – that’s really annoying, actually, I bet whoever took him got him all filthy AGAIN; why do I even bother. We spent an hour or so making our way towards the area under Telecanthus’ mansion thanks to my great sense of direction (…okay fine I’m lying, it was mostly Aelon. Guy is insufferable about that, I swear he knows something about EVERYTHING. I mean, sure, I kind of do too but he usually beats me to the punch. It’s been worse than ever since he got his new tattoo. “Oh it lets me draw passively upon the knowledge of my god,” he says. Bah. At least he’s got some awesome gadgets  and I guess in fairness it’s good we have someone who knows this stuff but humbug anyway. I’d mess with his colors or something but I honestly don’t think he’d even notice. Maybe if I can turn him into a canary… but I’m off track. Woops.) 

Anyway we finally found the right area and heard some digging not too far away on the other side of a wall so Nathaniel brought out his Dagger of Exile and we hid in the pocket dimension on the ceiling for a bit. Unfortunately, the digging stopped before they broke through so we had to drop out and go for a more conventional and less traditional ambush (I really wanted to yell out Death from Above, but gang aft agley). We managed to make a small hole without anyone hearing us and snuck through, only for disaster to strike – the part of the tunnel we were in began to collapse. Aelon got caught and you did too, Nehl, though you seem to have got caught pretty far back. Still, we made good anyway! We totally caught the bunch of Githyanki off guard when Nathaniel lit up his hammer and I lit up their table so we could actually see stuff. But then we blasted them around, and I was able to slide people around with ice and occasionally just straight up teleport them, and Mayim did stuff with lightning like she always does (it’s pretty awesome, not gonna lie). The really neat thing was what Nathaniel did though! He charged in and his spellscar did some crazy stuff and he kind of glowed red and spun around and smacked all of the dudes pretty hard, and then he put off some kind of creepy aura that kept them off balance – they were having a lot harder time aiming at anyone with him all up in their faces, it was pretty cool.  Anyway we knocked out a bunch of them and then Mayim straight up glared the rest of them into submission – she’s the scariest one of us for a reason, after all, and I bet she’d be flattered by you saying so in here. Hmm, maybe I should try to set her up with you? She’s no longer got Diane to have weird tension with… Nah, that’s kinda dumb. Oh well. Anyway, we knocked the last couple out and dusted ourselves off. We actually got away from that fight completely unscathed – Nathaniel almost got hit once but I messed with reality a little bit and made it miss instead. I can do that a bit, though usually you guys can’t tell since it’s almost like a retcon but it’s pretty cool to watch on my end, trust me, space goes all octarine and makes these great patterns before it settles.  

Anyway, with that done we managed to dig out Aelon but he was kind of tired from the cave in and needed to sit down for a bit. While he was resting I spent some idle time trying out new hairstyles on the various Githyanki – they have really nice long hair so I could get some pretty funny stuff going on. I think my favorite was the mindslicer, who I left with this crazy red, black and gold spiked pattern with crazy angular bangs that came to me out of nowhere. It looked pretty ridiculous. I gave it some eyeshadow for good measure because, screw Githyanki Mindslicers, they’re the worst things ever. Another one got this pretty funny forward pointing afro that extended about a foot in front of its head. 

While that happened, Mayim heard some voices coming from the direction of this huge underground tower so Mayim and I snuck up on them and found another group of Githyanki. I conjured up some illusory sheep which made ‘em all sleepy and Mayim called up this pretty awesome pattern thingy that glowed and shifted and pulled the Githyanki toward it when they tried to do stuff. We blew through them pretty well again, no one ended up hurt at all (the Githyanki don’t count). One of them managed to get the door into the tower open though, which sucked, and another one managed to throw another one in through the door with its mind. It kind of got KO’d by Mayim as it flew through the door though so at least it didn’t get a chance to shout for help. Mayim’s pretty awesome like that. 

Oh! You missed one other thing. Nathaniel totally did a whole vampiric thing and stole life force to heal himself with his spellscar. Aelon didn’t even freak out at all! Though in fairness I don’t know if he even noticed, he was kind of out of it from the cave-in still.  

So now it’s time for you to try and guess the password! Your hint is that this is what the librarian who you should never call a monkey (he’s an orangutan) says. He’s a pretty awesome librarian actually, appreciates a good prank. Never could figure out where he actually worked, though, but he kept showing up in the library when Nathaniel and I were students, though I don’t know if Nathaniel ever actually saw him. I always did see things kind of oddly I guess but it’s more fun that way. S’how I knew you’d do fine in the group, actually, there’s a nebulous force behind you that’s kind of the same as the one behind Mo’Kaw and Garchomp (who you never met). And no that’s about as well as I can describe it. It’s pretty weird but it’s never been wrong yet, and the weird force behind me seems to give me lots of great ideas! Like apparently I have a naturally high metaphysics skill. Whatever that means. 

Oh, right. So you’d better say the password pretty soon or be doomed to sparkling in the sunlight for a couple of days, pretty boy! [Another crude drawing of a face is found here, this one looking like it’s laughing maniacally.] 

Oh and that goes for you too, whoever’s working on this in the future. I primed it so that this will only go off once per person but as far as I can tell it’s kind of got an indefinite duration. It might have mutated by whenever you get it, too, actually. I kind of did the modifications on the fly, so don’t be surprised if you spontaneously start vomiting miniature purple unicorns or something. Well, I guess that’d be a surprising mutation actually, so do be surprised, and if I happen to stop by to take notes on the effect don’t worry about it too much. Future me will probably be able to fix you if I’m still around by then. Though you might have to convince him to do it. Whoops, looks like there’s a bit of a commotion starting up. I’ll write more later unless you show up again, Nehl!”

Following this, it seems Nehl regained ownership of his book.

"I swear, Alin, if you lay your hands on my things again, you may yet learn why Aelon fears the undead. That said, you have my condolences for whatever it is that wracks your brain so. Thankfully, I have no desire to actually kill you at this time, as I am fortunate enough to have encountered tales of this Librarian you speak of. Your 'password' is 'Ook'. Perhaps I've passed through your hometown along my travels, or perhaps this particular vision is not yours alone..."

I had heard similar tales of this odd Orangutan who kept a Library, though I did not know about his particular language impediment. I learn much from reading about the adventurers of old and from other realms, but it is rare that I am so grateful of their exact knowledge!