Airplane

Ochdamh 25 - Naoidheamh 13, 6639; next holiday is Beastnight, 9/35

The Party:

• Rig Bigny, Gnomish Beastmaster
  • Flit, the bat familiar
  • Clench, the Wardog War-Badger
  • Midnight, the Panther
  • Noona, the Lion
  • Faufe Yitaw, Dogwere (Badgerwere?)
    • Rawf, Wardog familiar
    • Aroof, Wardog familiar
  • Llarm Paphyra, Elvish Polydoctorate
    • The Metal Man, construct
• Caranthir, Human Leader of Men
  • Rhea Trueheart, Elvish Nightblade
  • Lucille "Luce" Burwood, Fighter
  • Elenora Garrard, White Mage
  • Gimli Trollriver, Dwarven Fury
• Gróin of Norston, Dwarven Sapper
  • Laurita Gomez, Priestess
  • Herman Thorpe, Ectomancer
    • Baelnar Grimtor, Dwarven Sapper
• Sorvald, Thief (As-yet-unnnamed), Thrassian Gladiator
  • Kurt Steinbacke, Dwarven Deep Monk
• Mor Gibs, the Wonderworker
• Craydos Silverskin, the Gold Skinscribe
  • Pentzkin Singletossle Pocketspringer, gnomish beastmaster
  • Alun Tsornyl, Sylph Ranger
• Te'a Tsuki Megumi, Elven Polydoctorate
  • Harvey Usagi, Rabbitwere
• Fayleen Ross, Darklord
  • Zai-car, Zaharan Ruinguard

Having defeated the dark force holding the tower at bay, and healing the magical vine at the center of the tower, the party exited. As they walked down the large stone steps, they could see vines had already wreathed the tower; as the last foot stepped off the building, there was a deep rumble, and the entire tower was dragged underground! In its place stood a tendril of the vine. The natives stared in shock, then immediately began bowing to the vine. Caranthir grumbled that it wasn't the vine that did all the work, but his comments were largely ignored.

By sheer happenstance, Winklestem Eustache Bottomwobbler, leading his goat Mabel, trudged onto the scene. With a cry of, "Look, Mabel, it's our best customers!" he set up shop, and immediately tried to pawn off his rapidly aging Neutral Water. Te'a and Fayleen were not enticed. They did, however, purchase a joke book, the King of Wands, and a wand of sentience. By way of testing the wands, they turned a wand sentient, and had the King of Wands command it to fire, which incidently used up its last charge. Te'a felt a little bad just discarding it, after that, and kept it around...

Things purchased, they teleported to Caranthir's kingdom, and spent an evening feasting - though Te'a and Harvey went on ahead to Slohaven, and started doing a little research on longevity. The party followed, and began selling off their immense treasure. After two weeks, they sold the lot. Sorvald, meanwhile, found the object of his dreams: the world's most perfect wheel of cheese. Knowing that no other wheel would ever be the same, he spent his entire fortune on the wheel. Its owner, a rather confused Thrassian, kept trying to make change for him, but was eventually convinced to take the whole pile of gold and various magical items. His dream fulfilled, Sorvald bid the party farewell. The Thrassian, realizing anyone with that much money must have quite the adventures - and looking for adventure himself - offered to take the thief's place, and the party agreed to bring him along.

Having a few spare moments on hand, they decided to find the last piece of Elric's equipment: his belt. They teleported to the desert, near where Gróin had envisioned it. They found two things: one, a ruin, with a single building in it, and two, a portal. To the Plane of Air.

In the Plane of Air (surely it's the Airplane? No, it isn't, and stop calling me Shirley), they met the Ying and Yang of the Gem Dragons, Diamond and Onyx. The two moved and spoke in perfect synchronicity; as guardians of the Plane of Air, they were happy to welcome humans and humanoids to their home plane. Various wind elementals, dragons, and other creatures of the air flew near and far; there was no land in sight, which was a little odd for a planet. The party asked where Elric's Earth Belt was; the dragons laughed, and pointed. "You are close, and yet far!"

Onyx pointed far into the distance - stars shimmered in the darkness, but the heavenly body he pointed to was no star, but a planet - the planet the party had just left! Diamond pointed to the portal, from which they had recently arrived. After some further chit-chat, the party returned through the portal, having now crossed that one off their list: they had visited the planes of Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. And had realized that the various planes were actually planets - or planet-like-places, anyway - in their solar system.

Back at the ruins, they met an elderly fellow, and managed to make him slightly more grumpy than he already was by making fun of people with number in their names. Septivus was... not amused. However, he lead them to the basement, where he offered a choice between three items: an item Gróin deduced to be a Sphere of Knowledge, a gold pin in the shape of the Seekers' Eye, and a compass, the symbol of the Instrumentalists. First, he chose the Sphere, which wasn't supposed to be there at all. Second, he chose the Eye, which made the Instrumentalist even more grumpy; he called in two further members, a mage the party had (briefly) met before, and an explorer named Nal McRandy. After much rule discussion, the mage rolled his eyes and left, and the cleric - a Humanist Cleric, granted divine power through his beliefs as a secular humanist - gave up on following the rather intricate regulations, and dumped the various items onto the table.

Along with the belt - which offered Gróin a vision of Elric struggling through a sandstorm, and being pelted with rocks, which he somehow managed to avoid, and showed the belt additionally provided immunity to knockback, along with earth-based damage - the party also was given an eye. A human eye, green, and apparently in perfect working order. Gróin quickly poked out his own eye (yuck) and inserted the new eye; after a moment, he felt he could now cast True Seeing once per day with the eye, and additionally could Sense Intentions and Sense Power, as the proficiencies. It was Ajeela's eye!

There were no encounters, nor treasure, this session, but the XP from selling goods is available:

• Caranthir, Gróin, and Sorvald receive 16040 XP, and 30086 gp
• Rig Bigny, Craydos, Fayleen, and Te'a Tsuki receive 13959 XP, and 25924 gp
• Elenora, Gimli, Laurita, Herman, Baelnar, and Kurt received 8021 XP, plus whatever their share of the treasure is.
• Pentzkin, Alun, Midnight, Noona, Harvey, and Zai-car each receive 6980 XP, plus their share of the treasure.

Additionally, starting XP is now: 137,669 XP.