Reflections

Chapter 16 - Staff of law, party of chaos.

The party, the genie's having fled, turned two of the statues to stone. One was a man named Kale who seemed calm though faint after being restored to health. He identified a friend, an archer, who they also turned back, but he did not survive the process and Kale wrapped his dead body up until the Kory was able to try and raise him.

Then Xej left with a pile of loot, saying he'd return tomorrow. He teleported back to his stronghold with a large pile of carpets, coffee, silk, and furniture. He tried to teleport back but it went awry and he ended up in some medium sized town in, what he figures was Mulhorand.

Back at the Caravanserai, the party searched everywhere for the staff but couldn't find it. When they were finishing up, early in the morning, Gondogal went to talk to them (bad choice, since he doesn't speak very many languages), and after finding the common tongue of elven, they told him, rather unkindly, to get lost. He didn't find out much.

At this point the soldiers began searching the compound. Kale and Kory were forced to make a quick exit over the back wall and down the cliff to keep from being discovered. Before letting Kory go, Lark tried to convince her that the staff would be safer with him. She refused to see his point of view, even after he used a powerful power word stun to prove that she couldn't defend herself. He eventually gave up and Kory and Kale, watched by the dragonette and Lark large dog hid in some rocks behind the place. The soldiers sacked the place, taking the valuables from that Xej hadn't taken yet, and then they left.

Both Gondogal and Lark, invisible, had watched the entire scene and left the soldiers to splitup and journey off into the valley in three seperate groups. The party went back up into the Caravanserai to wait for Xej to come back. He did so, at 1 am the next morning. He returned, and talked with the party before turning the last three people back into flesh from stone. One was a gruff woman guard who seemed to find the events going on around her rather too much to handle. The next was a man who died, the final one was an alert, suspicious seeming man who had some magic item strapped to his stomach. When the party asked him to show it to them, he tried to fake them out with a necklace, but when they persisted, a glance at the doorway was enough for the party to tackle him, use a powerful power word stun to knock him out, and then tie him up.

They took what was indeed the rod peice off of him. When he became unstunned he was angry at the group for stealing what was his. He explained he had found it in his backpack (a story the party thought was unlikely). At any rate, Xej ran away with the staff, fearing that this man, Lars du Gal, would try to take it back when the party untied him. Kale followed Xej. The party untied Lars, and after a discussion when he thanked them for freeing him from the stone, and then stealing his item, and claimed he would go find some soldiers to get his stuff back from the brigands, he left. The party talked for a bit before hearing some sounds of fighting...

As it turns out, Lars came *sniffing* after Xej and Kale and found them in a small room where Xej had been hiding. Xej immediatly reacted, dropping into the solid rock beneath him as he let out a volley of magic missiles. As they struck Lars, his face suddenly bristled with hair and he leapt into the room at Xej. Kale blocked his way and they two went falling to the ground. The party came out to find Kale and a werewolf wrestling on the ground. They broke it up and Xej came back.

Xej was all for killing the werewolf, but Kale, a self admitted Paladin, said he could sense no evil in Lars. Kory agreed with a true sight tagging Lars as a neutral being. Kory agreed to fix his affliction and Xej teleported away thinking they were crazy for not just killing the werewolf.

The party waited a day for Kory to try and raise Kale's friend (which failed), and then cure the werewolf (which seemed to succeed), they then waited another day before windwalking to the city and dropping off the woman and the ex-werewolf. They then traveled north east following the direction that staff had told them, and then when Xej finally came to them two days later, he pointed them back south west.

Chapter 17 - Band of the Hand

They party wind walked all the way back south west to the Calim Desert. There they camped and the next day continued wind walking across the desert. They eventually found there way back to the same valley in the Calim desert that they had left 3 days earlier, the one with the Caravanserai in it.

The party used triangulation to figure out that the staff peice was NOT in the caravanserai, and also that it in fact had obviously moved sinced they had left the caravanserai. Excepting trouble, they party "powered up" and quickly jogged to the approximate area. As they neared the area they were a little more cautious, and then Gondogal noticed a man, wearing light desert clothing, skulking behind some rocks a couple hundred feet away. He motioned for the party to hold up...and a couple moments passed with a little bit of unsurety as to what to do...and then Gondogal saw the man casting a spell and shocked into yelling "split!", but nothing more useful, the party was suddenly blasted by magic.

The battle began with a powerful sonic blast that zapped about the party and left their bodies bruised and ears ringing. A deadly and blisteringly quick battle ensued as the party was engaged by the human mage, an archer firing down upon them from a cliff a few hundred feet away, a half-orc monk, a heavily armored dwarf with a huge axe, and a small very well hidden halfing with a crossbow unleashing poisoned bolts.

The battle took only about a minute, but a great deal happened. Highlights were the giant hand stopping Gondogal from killing the flying mage and then plummeting to the ground as the mage dispelled his ability to fly, the archer and halfing seemingly slaying Lark but somehow him surviving and raising a magical force field to protect himself, Kory casting destruction on the mage and slaying him with an awing display of power, the archer loosing an arrow of human slaying and killing Xej, and the armored dwarf nearly felling Gondogal but finally being held and slain.

In the end, the party killed the dwarf, the half-orc, and the mage, but the archer and halfling both got away. After only the quickest looting to find a few magic items and the rod peice, the party picked up Xej's body (who had already been looted by his familiar Gexbat), and they all flew/rode off into the desert, battered badly from the fierce fight.

Chapter 18 - The Forgotten Temple

They found a place to camp a few dozen miles away, deep in the open desert. Given the time to relax, shore up their defenses, and think, it suddenly occured to them that they may not have payed close enough attention to looting and might have missed something. They looked at each other rather accusingly when not even the mages spell book was among the loot.

At any rate, the tired group managed to rest the night, and as the dawn came the next morning Kory summoned the power of the morninglord Lathander, and brought life back to Xej. They had a discussion about the party, interrupted so that Xej could teleport back to the scene of the battle and investigate. Apparently they bodies had been further looted and a finger taken from each body. When Xej returned to the parties camp he explained this. Lark then used his crystal ball to locate the wayward survivors that were holed up at a small oasis apparently.

Xej and Lark were proponents of teleporting to them and finishing them off. Lark's reasons went unmentioned but Xej displayed fear of constantly leaving enemies behind. Kale spoke up against killing them for no good reason and with the help of Gondogal's guilty conscious, managed to get Gondogal to also take his view. In the end, no real decision meant that for now they'd just continue their journey. Something must be said for the power to be able to return and slay an enemy at any moment of their choosing.

The party followed the 5th peice of the staff that pointed north-east. Later that day they came upon a huge area of pink clouds. The investigated but could find no reason for it and continued on. That night and the next day they identified their recent loot. Some time was put aside, mainly led by Kory, to determine a valid method of splitting up the loot. In the end they chose a bunch of rules to control the distribution of loot and followed them.

The next day they journey on. They found a town the next day and stopped in it for supplies and such, though were interrupted as thorns rained from the sky and grew into a wild land of bushes and quickly growing thorny plants. The plants apparnetly could fire their thorns at people nearby, and some were poisoned. The group did what they came for, offered some help to the city, and then left it in the hands of it's army.

A couple days later the party had flown clear across the Sea of Fallen Stars and arrived at a peninsula in Aglorand. They followed the rod until they spotted a small deserted village. Checking it out, they found cocooned desecated bodies years old. They investigated a little more then followed the staff for a while longer finding themselves at the ruins of an ancient temple. They snuck about the ruins for a short time finding very little of interest. They then found that the staff pointed back the way they had come. Walking out the front gate both Kory and Xej vanished.

A portal that only could be activated by a rod bearer was located and the party journey through the portal to a time or place where it was a cool spring night with a nearly full moon, and the entire ruined temple was whole again. This time, with much more cautioun, they began exploring the place that was obviously a temple dedicated to great evil.

Chapter 19 - Friends and Fiends

The party snuck around and noticed some demons in the rafters. They set up an ambush, but when they tried to lure the demons into it, one went for help and a major battle unfolded shortly thereafter.

The demons, the evil cleric, a pit fiend, and dozens of powerful undead all clashed with the party i a titanic battle of magic and swords. The cleric was imprisoned in a forcecage by Xej and effectively removed from the battle. The devils however, the pit fiend in particular, proved to be a challenge as some party members were Blasphemied off of the micro-plane that held the intact temple. The party returned however and pressed the fight. Again Xej and Kale were blasphemied off and a magical meteor struck Kory dead center and caught some of the others in it's blast...she somehow survived.

The meteor strike took out most of the undead in the way and they managed to make the fiend retreat. Quickly running downstairs to seek out the fiend and finish him off, the party was suddenly attacked by more demons, which they turned to fight.

Chapter 20 - Deal with a Devil

Back on the Faerun, Kale and Xej were ambushed by spider fiends and forced to retreat. They teleported to Waterdeep to look for backup but couldn't find any. Kale insisted on returning to at least warn the others before they were to get ambushed but the teleport went awry and Kale and Xej were forced to hide in a forest to get away from snowstorm they were caught in.

Meanwhile, the group struck at the demons but walls of fire began hemming them in and the pit fiend, fully healed again joined in the battle. They drove him back yet again, but were definetly hurting. They made it past the walls of fire and the pit fiend was there, ready to face them. They struck at him a couple times but couldn't hurt him and he seemed unstoppable....they teleported above to consider fleeing.

From the church entrance, they appeared and were going to go for the main gate, but the pit fiend was already there, blocking their escape. Walls of fire erupted around him as the party tried a couple powerful spells such as disintegrate that simply evaporated off of his demon hide. Then they tried to teleport next to the gate and quickly leap through before the devil or fire could stop them, but the devil was waiting. It grabbed Kory and flung her away into the grass and then let out a powerful Blasphemny that struck Gondogal and Lark confused and banished them back to Faerun.

Lark and Gondogal waited outside a short ways away, and Gondogal noticed some hidden spider fiends hiding nearby but not attacking. He waited and watched. Kory appeared about an hour later, apparently unscathed. The spider fiends attacked, but Gondogal managed to use his flight and a dimension door to escape from them and met up with Lark a while later. They decided it would be best to head to Xej's stronghold so teleported there. Xej was obviously not there, and had not been according to Elric who was there doing some studying.

They waited until the next day and Xej and Kale appeared. Kory's story was well known by then....

She was stunned slightly from hitting the ground. As her vision cleared the demon leapt upon her, the wind knocked from her as it grabbed her with it's two burning powerful arms. It's foul breath poured down upon her from it's open maw. With her arms pinned she couldn't cast any spells, and she struggled vainly to reach for a dagger but the thing was just too big and too overpowering. It was then that she heard it's whisper in her mind, "In this battle of law, you are foolish to think that good and evil makes a difference....despite what you thoughtless walking carcasses believe you know, I am on the same side in this matter." It paused to let this settle in.

"Little fragile creature that you are, you have power, I've seen you exercise it with great will. Your allies also, though without a synapse among them, are considerable warriors. Your brainless persistence was admirable. Why do you want the staff of seven parts? If the answer is right I may give you mine, if it's wrong, I will kill you, annihilate your body, and imprison your soul as a keepsake." Again, he let this settle in.

When Kory finally spoke, it was with a timid conviction. "We seek the staff to use it to slay chaos, to cripple the queen's army. We want it to kill her general Miska." She held her breath.

The fiends grip loosed and his foul thoughts seeped into her mind yet again, "I do not get to slay you today, much the pity. You'll get the sixth staff section from me. It was safe here, as only a bearer of the staff could come through that portal, but it will not be contained forever, I know this, better it go to a creature of my choosing. Do you know of the ruins needed to put them together?"

"Um, of them." she replied.

"I have the books describing the process if you can not find them yourself. You will also need the hair from a powerful evil lawful creature, and a powerful good lawful creature, given freely. I give you mine now, on one condition, you must swear an oath. You must swear that you will use this hair to scribe the ruins for the staff of seven parts, and for nothing else. You must also swear, upon your very souls freedom, that you will use the staff of seven parts to slay Miska."

"I swear it." she replied somberly. And next thing she knew, she had the staff peice in her hand, she was standing next to the portal out, and the fiend was nowhere to be seen. Not one to take her chances, she quickly left.

The party took the sixth piece and followed it to a portal in the plains to the east that was gaurded by Kir-rin that explained much about the seventh peice, apparently kept with Miska in his prison on Pandemonium. The party decided to get the 3rd peice before going after Miska and the final peice.

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