Wild:56 Far Out

Starring: Bo, Fuelwen, Brilla, and TskTsk
Guest Starring: Callow, Mind Flayer Worshipper
Challenge: Time Elementals
Location: Fan Empire, Far Inner planes?
Date Played: 08 Mar 2010

Ko: Gaah! Human-breath!

The "easy" choice is to quell the rebellion

TskTsk: Injured and bleeding, we limp to the harbor late, hoping to find that Takeshi remains to meet us. We find rocky harbor to be abandoned, or so we think. We discover that Takeshi was hiding in the water and that his true nature, that of a dragon turtle, allows him to hide in the water with precision.

Takeshi offers us information in exchange for a favor, and we have two options, easy or hard. The easy choice is to quell the rebellion in the Fan Empire. The hard choice was for us to go to an unknown plane and retrieve an unnamed item for him. By Kord, everyone agrees with me and we choose the hero's choice, the hard way.

We all climb into Takeshi's mouth for transportation. One of the creepiest moments of my life.

Brilla: We eventually met up with Takeshi, a dragon that looked much like a turtle with a long beard. He was slow to stir and eventually prompted us to make introductions. I was a bit wary and waited for Bo to introduce us as this is his culture. Much as to be expected, he didn't and we fumbled over our own introductions.

The conversation was pleasant enough and Bo provided some tea for us. We were given two options in order to get the information we wanted. We would either have to stop the rebellion in Fan or retrieve something for Takeshi. We decided to go the easier route and get whatever it was he wanted. When questioned more, he only told us that we would know it when we see it. Not very helpful, but much more plausible than stopping an entire rebellion.

We were led to a portal that would take us where we need to go. Evidently we needed no precautions to survive in the plane, so he hopped right in.

Fuelwen: We arrived at the meeting place and waited. I went out a short distance to sea, when a wall of flesh appeared from the darkness- Takeshi. I made the proper obeisance to a powerful creature and introduced him to the party.

He required a favor in exchange for "ensuring that the proper procedures were engaged by the bureaucracy to ensure best practices and high visibility into the island-moving paradigm change". While quelling the rebellion would have been the "easy" task, it wasn't an interesting task. We couldn't bring more force to bear than the entire military might of the Fan empire- so simply crushing the rebellion was simply out of the question. The only real viable path would be a long, drawn out war.

Besides, Tsk'Tsk wanted the challenge, and I couldn't argue that logic. Takeshi took us to a portal deep under the sea (not at an island? curious!)

🎲 DM Since you were traversing inside his mouth, it's hard to get a sense of bearing from going there. On return, you noted that you were far from shores, in what would be a Wilding area at sea.

Travel to an unknown plane

TskTsk: We swim quickly as we are released into the deep sea near a portal. As we step onto the other side, most of our group has their age changed, though my own remained stable. Perhaps my near miss with the disintegrating elemental provides me with a measure of resistance? Who knows.

This plane has objects like logically sided small moons that we jump to and fro on. The first creature we encounter is a docile bison, and this reminds us to eat. As we stalk close the thing's skin crawls off of it, tentacles burst forth, and it hisses in an unnerving fashion.

As we travel our clutch mother begins to hear a voice in her head. So we follow them.

Brilla: The plane we entered was very odd. We were surrounded by various polyhedrons floating around with subjective gravity. We hopped or flew from cubeite to cubeite until we came upon what we needed.

One of the first things we ran into was a bison. It wasn't doing much of anything, but it creped us enough to leave it alone.

I eventually started to hear a voice that was guiding me through the cubes, beaconing me to go a certain direction. I wasn't sure who the voice belonged to, but it was more of a lead than any of the rest of us had.

Fuelwen: A strange plane indeed- possibly the strangest we've yet found. We move from polygonal prism to polygonal prism. Along the way, we encounter a bison; the way its flesh crawls suggests that it probably isn't good eating, but once you get used to it, it is somewhat cute.

Brilla set our course, based on a voice in her head. One might wonder about the wisdom of following strange voices in strange planes, but with to clear idea of what we were looking for, we were directionless.

Just wants someone to worship

TskTsk: While scouting ahead I encountered a mind flayer who seemed to believe that I was the incarnate of some deity that he/she was seeking. Eventually it clung itself to Fuelwen.

Brilla: We eventually came upon a mind flayer that was looking for someone to worship. At first I though I was following the voice of this creature but I was wrong. I continued to follow the voice as the illithid bonded itself to Fuelwen. Doesn't he have enough people things following him around already?

The voice was found to be Amon after some more traveling. It seems that all he really wanted was some conversation and some slight gloating. His aura... it is a lot stronger than I expected from one of the first tier. He says he will ascend that soon as well. Once we get a chance, I will have to scry on the elder again and inform him of what is transpiring. Sadly, I will probably need to remove him from power once this is all over as his many lifetimes has him bound to the idea of the ancestors to a point of holy fervor.

Fuelwen: At first, encountering the powerful mind-flayer that wanted little more than to obey me was an enjoyable experience. I am slowly amassing my own force. Unfortunately, his mind is even more useless than Splat's. He thinks I'm one of the deep tentacled gods, so I can't even hope to convert him to Sekolah.

Why can't I attract powerful entities into my service?

Speaking of powerful entities, we encountered Amon, Brilla's "ancestor". He wants to come back to the Prime with us- it's a bad proposition, only because it would disrupt an already volatile situation. And it runs counter to our own goals of banishing as much planar influence as we can.

Fight against time (elementals)

TskTsk: The fight with the largest of the luminescent time elementals and the battle goes poorly for our side as we had picked off more than we could chew. Fortunately we separate and decide to attack one of the smaller ones and are successful. We attacked it to take as a trophy to Takeshi. Some in our clutch believe that this carcass is what he is looking for. I believe that he is merely testing our strength and resolve so that he may trust us with the information we seek from him.

Brilla: We eventually came upon some time "elementals" in our travels. After some talking, we decided that these must have been what we were sent for. Bo was able to quell two of the smaller ones but he gained the ire of one of the largest.

Saying the battle went poorly was an understatement. It was able to ignore most of our attacks and attack our bodies with the ravages of time, something even healing magic can not heal. I was lucky not to get hit, but the others suffered from its touch.

The large one eventually teleported away, allowing us to wrangle one of the smaller ones. After all of the trouble these things gave us, I really hope that this is what he wanted.

Fuelwen: The Time Elementals posed an interesting challenge, but we beat the strongest one off and captured one of the weaker ones. A good day's? work.

Rescued by an invasion ship

TskTsk: We return to the portal and depart this plane of shaped moons and tentacles and return to the ocean, swimming quickly towards the surface. I am glad to have drunk a potion of waterbreathing, as the swim to the surface took HOURS. I was not hurt but the elder had pains from the insides. Fuelwen muttered something about inflatable bladders. I believe that this is a sign of his transformation into something not quite mortal.

Our ship is as a squirrel to a cow when compared with the ship that rescued us. Row upon row of oars move the battleship along, on it's course to invade Fan.

Brilla: So evidently faith in Fuelwen will let you breathe under water. I don't like where this is going...

Ko's lack of faith almost let to a drowning dog. He has been such a strong companion throughout our travels I could not have let him suffer such a dark fate. He and I took turns sharing the pearl as we climbed to the surface. Not one of my most proud moments, but I did keep him alive.

When we broke the surface we saw a large ship in the distance. It called out to us, offering us passage to Fan. This ship, sadly, is on its way as a conquerer. Things always seem to have a way of going from bad to worse. Perhaps there will be a way to stay this invasion before we touch land.

Fuelwen: When we departed, I eyed my new "companion" (whom Splat hates, shockingly). "Can you make yourself breathe underwater?" "If you say I can, master," he replied. I decided that him drowning would be no great loss, so I had him follow us after saying, "Certainly- have one of my scales, and it will let you breathe under water."

And then he did breathe under water. I'm not sure what to make of it- I saw no signs of spellcasting. I may have made a terrible mistake…

When we arrived at the surface, we found a ship not too long after- a rebel ship bound for invading Fan. I hope that means we haven't been gone through the portal for some long period of time. I mark the rough location of the portal, however- it could prove useful in the future.

Rewards

Wiki update:

• TskTsk: Resilient against planar alteration effects (open to interpretation when it happens).
• Brilla: Hmm...
• Fuelwen: Absent-willed Mind Flayer flesh doll.