The Gang Gets a Job and Promptly Gets Lost

The group was hired by the Watchful Order of Magisists and Protectors to hunt down a mysterious artifact that had been stolen from their vault as well as the individual themselves. They were given a list of individuals to investigate as possible suspects in the theft. Each person on this list was approx. 4ft 6in tall, had brown hair and tattoos. After interviewing several suspects, they came upon one Roscoe Tosscobble, who upon hearing that they were potentially with the authorities, immediately ran into his rented mansion and activated his defense protocols. The party called the attention of two nearby guards who entered the home to assess the situation and impose order. Meanwhile Roscoe, pursued through his estate by Katla and Jaeline (though mostly Katla as Jaeline had been downed by one of his traps), successfully made it to his panic room and activated his emergency inter-planar transportation spell. Katla nearly caught up with him but was moments too late.

During the chaos Aquixar, Clementine, and Jaeline discovered Roscoes’ maps of the Watchful Order of Magisists and Protectors vaults, but not the identity of the magical item itself, as well as some strange runes carved into the floorboards of every room in the house.

Katla disturbed these runes, believing that

• A) Her life was in danger as the house was slowly teleported
• B) That disturbing them would halt or even reverse the teleportation process.

Disturbing the spell caused the mansion to rip into two halves, the bottom half slammed into the badlands of Aesh, and the top about a hundred miles away near the mining town of Tuncurry. The group gathered resources from the larder, made desert shawls from drapes, and set off into the desert.

The gang traveled through the scrubland and the day dragged on with nothing but sand and low dried out brown bushes for miles in all directions. Only an hour or two after daybreak it was already well and truly scorching, the two yellow suns above you beat down in full force, not a cloud on the horizon.

They stopped for a water break around noon but were interrupted by a high keening off in the distance. Three small creatures came for the party. Quickly slain, they resumed their trek across the desert.

As dusk approached, they came upon a secret oasis nestled among the stretching yellow-brown desert sands. Lush, secluded, and surrounded on all sides by dunes. No clear water source was visible beyond the canopy of trees. Once they made it to the valley floor, the found lush grass and a small pond of seemingly clear water nearby. During the night they were attacked by a crazed metal man covered in rotting flesh and strange mechanical spiders.

After defeating the assailants the party headed out again, but it was not long before they came upon a young woman and her infant son (Merey and William Bede) being attacked by thugs of the local mining baron (“Lord” Eli Burks). After easily saving her and killing or driving off the thugs, Merey gave them her story and led them to the nearby town of Tuncurry.

Merey had recently escaped from the nearby iron mine, and more specifically “Lady” Lydia Burks. She was having an affair with Eli, and supposedly he was going to marry her instead of Lydia. But three months ago, he started acting strange: avoiding her, ignoring her pregnancy, and he refused to see his son when he was born.

Lady Lydia arrived two months later to marry her betrothed and learned of the bastard child. Merey heard that she had hired some of the guards to kill them both and tried to run to the nearby town of Tuncurry and seek refuge.

They decided it was best to escort Merey and William to town.

On the way they discovered the other half of Roscoes' rented mansion and found it empty, less some drafts of a few volumes of his autobiography.

After safely bringing Merey to Tuncurry, the gang messed around, they left in town and she ran into Merles Trading Post. They all headed to The Chariot Inn and Tap House. Upon meeting the proprietor, Darla, she informed them that Roscoe had been and gone, and that he had left them a note.

Roscoe had to leave and immediately went to Redford, a port town about 3 weeks travel by foot (1 week by horse). The gang overheard Eli Burks talking with the mayor about Merey, and decided that, for her own safety, they should take her into custody and keep her safe from Eli. They barged into Merles Trading Post demanding to speak with Merey. Merle, who had never seen these people in his life refused to tell them where she was. Katla attacked him and bit off a large chunk of his face. Jaeline healed him, leaving him partially scarred for life. They then decided to skip town for Redford (because they were now wanted criminals).

This chapter was really short.

Instead of any cool shit in Tuncurry, which I'm totally not bitter about, they party traveled to Redford, where they went asking after Roscoe. Instead they met Kriv.

Kriv told them he had been ordered by Roscoe to wait there for this group of adventurers in strange dress with strange accents. He was to hire a ship and escort them to the town of Obsidian, where Roscoe had already set off to, so they could look for a way home together.

After selling the publishing rights to the 13th volume of Roscoes memoir, they boarded The Seamaidens Fare, a large trading ship helmed by Captain Sebastian Grimmlocke. The planned route would take them South down the coast of Aesh, past Rosogaths southern border, and into the peninsula of Farneas where the Obsidian Tower awaited.

They spent a week aboard the vessel, getting to know the crew and the other passengers and enjoying a short reprieve from the strangeness of this new land. Suddenly a catastrophic storm came about, driving them below deck for days as the experienced crew attempted to keep the ship alive, which they did successfully.

That night, as they rested in bed, another ship slammed into the Seamaidens Fare, cracking her in two. As they tred the water, Clementine cast a light spell, alerting the crew of the enemy vessel to their position. The entire party was hit by shock-nets and passed out.

They awoke in a cell, unaware of how much time had passed, the sounds of cheering overhead and in the distance. They had been collard with magic-inhibitors/shock-collars and without any belongings. An elven woman, Makaela Fencan, in fine clothes flanked by two Steelborn came into view. She directed them into the Colosseum, where they faced off against, and killed, some defenseless peasants with magic, as well as a manticore.

Magic is considered heresy in Oshear, so they were sentenced to death, but were secretly escorted to see Archbishop Redtek. He forced the party to hunt down and kill a magical monster that has given a rebel heretic access to magic.

You were escorted out of the city, and very quickly found that

• Everyone who wasn't a member of the church was starving
• Every peasant is a slave
• Guns are a thing

You quickly found the rebel leader, found it was Roscoe, and began helping him liberate towns to gather peasants into a revolutionary army. Some people may say you pressed them into service and held access to food over their heads, but that's just some people.

On your return, you found Roscoe had run off into the woods to find this magical beast you had been sent to kill for his own reasons. You set out after him, finding a mysterious man in the woods telling you not to head forward. He warned you of danger ahead and dire consequences should you proceed. You ignored him and found Carriage instead. Carriage assisted you in locating Roscoe, but also informed you that the crew of The Seamaidens Fare had survived the crash and had a “plan”: Get to a port, Steal a ship, save the passengers, and run far far away.

You found Roscoe fighting a beast made of vines and grass, who's presence seemed to infuse the very land itself with life. It proved to be too much for you to handle, so you ran, luckily finding a tunnel that led into an abandoned complex. It was ancient and clearly untouched for centuries, you found a sick nasty hover tank defended by more mechanical spiders. After defeating them and taking the tank, you had a dope fight with the green beast, and convinced it to run from you, so you did not need to murder it.

Taking the tank back to the revolutionary hideout, you felt that everything was in place to take the capital and overthrow the papacy. You sent Roscoe with the revolutionary army to siege the far side of the city while you assaulted the other, hoping to draw the attention of the guard/army away from the peasants.

Instead you found yourself being intercepted by power-armored troopers who blocked your path. You made short work of them, fighting your way into the Citadel. You saw Roscoe and the army fighting a hard and losing battle near the citadel and rushed in to assist. You used the tank to rout the loyalist army and retrieve Roscoe. You immediately made your way back to the Citadel, planning on finding and killing the pope to end the skirmish, but before you could Jaeline insisted you head up the spire. Stories up-and-up you found a giant humanoid man sitting chained in a cell. His long hair the same color as the blood that slowly wept from his arms. Each arm impaled by four steel rods rammed through them, spaced evenly from palm to bicep. An additional one in each leg pinning him to the floor. The slow weep of his blood collecting in bone-white porcelain bowls. You freed this stranger from his bonds, he thanked you, and made his own way out of the citadel, easily tearing holes in thick steel with his hands to make his way.

He directed you to the pope's throne room, and just before he jumped from the spire to the ground, you saw Captain Sebastian Grimmlocke heading into the Citadel from below. You hurried to the throne room, and once there found an emaciated and ancient man sitting on a shining metal throne, dying every few minutes before being revived by the throne itself. Once confronted, he turned into a fucking mech pope that none of you were wowed by. You defeated him in a, by my estimation, fucking epic Hover Tank Vs. Mecha-Pope showdown which you handily won.

You met with Captain Grimmlocke who had secured Theodulf during the chaos and made to escape the Citadel. Aquixar had one of his legs temporarily fade from existence. Roscoe explained that his teleportation spell had been interfered with, and he had not intended on transporting you all with him. He went on, explaining that the botched inter-planar teleportation means you are all slowly fading from existence.

You decided it would be best to get home as fast as possible.

You excited the Citadel, and found a holy battalion had subdued the revolution, and Archbishop Redtek at their head. He chased you out of the city, and you escaped to Port Iron, the main port of Oshear, where Grimmlocke had commandeered a ship for you to escape on. You bribed guards to make your way in, but Clementine, nerves frayed from the news that she could disappear at any moment and jumpy, fired at shadows alerting the guards to your presence.

After shenanigans involving Katla and illusions, you successfully made it to Captain Grimmlockes' new ship, The Arc, loaded your tank, and set sail for freedom.

Captain Grimmlocke persuaded you to buy into his shipping business and asked you to pay for the renovations of The Arc, now officially named The Iron Maiden. He proposed docking at The Flotilla, instead of going straight to Farneas so he may better disguise the ship and the party’s whereabouts, as they are most assuredly enemies of the state on Oshear. Grimmlocke promised to find you a reputable ship to give you swift passage to the Obsidian Tower, as you've learned your lives literally depend on it. You disembarked from The Iron Maiden near the center of the mishmash of floating ships and barges, the Floating Rose, and immediately saved a small red dragonborn from having her hand chopped off. Her name was Dewclaw, and she was stealing food because she was starving, and her brother, Talon, had been taken captive by pirates.

Talon was being held aboard a pirate ship, Royal Fortune, for interrogation. He had been working as a merchant’s errand boy but had overheard someone in the shop saying they were willing to pay top dollar for a staff similar to the one they had seen someone walking with. More than enough for Talon to pay for passage away from the Flotilla and set up a new life once he and his sister had run off. He made a deal with the buyer, tracked down the owner, and stole the staff while the owner was in a brothel. However, someone spotted him leaving the brothel with the staff, and the owner's lackeys tracked him down the next day. Fortunately for Talon, he'd hidden the staff the night before, and was refusing to give up its location to the thugs, knowing that if he gave it up, they'd kill him.

You broke snuck abord the ship and saved Talons life. He informed you of his situation. Dewclaw was right behind you but ran off after hearing her brothers’ story. She went to get the stolen staff so she could return it to its owner and put an end to the hunt for her brother. You need gave chase, catching glimpses of her among the crowded docks as you chased her down.

During the chase, Dewclaw was captured by Pirate Lord Marland Gloom who was the owner of the staff. As it happens, the staff was actually The Rod of Dominion, the staff of the Keeper of the Codes, the first among equals of the Pirate Lords. He threatened to cut off one of Dewclaws fingers every hour until the staff was brought back, and that she would be killed when he ran out of fingers.

Talon led you towards a disused dock in an alleyway and found the staff had been taken by three individuals, the people who had hired him, and the had set out for the Floating Rose, the mega-ship at the center of the Flotilla. You ran through the winding docks and waterways of the flotilla, taking only a few minutes to arrive at the large makeshift harbor where you first disembarked from the Iron Maiden. You caught sight of the men matching the description the old woman gave you on an elevator heading up towards the deck of The Floating Rose.

On the deck of the massive ship was a crowded dry bazaar. Noticing a pair of guards standing at attention but with glazed eyes, standing watch near an ajar bulkhead that lead into the bowels of the ship. Behind the door was a metal staircase, painted a boring gray color, and strange runes illuminated in green hung from the ceiling. White lights were bolted into little cages along the wall about every 10 feet, brightly illuminating the stairwell. Stepping into the hallway at the bottom of the stairwell you found a series of painted lines, red, blue, green, and yellow, running along the wall, with more strange runes painted on top of them. You hear hurried fading footsteps off to your left and gave pursuit.

Rounding the corner, following the breaking off green and yellow lines, you heard a metallic voice ring out, akin to that of a steelborn, but harsher and more commanding “Identify yourselves intruders!” Two sentry guns hung from the top of the ceiling, protecting the hallway. They opened fire on you, and after a brief but intense battle, you tore them from the ceiling. After their defeat you continued on down another stairwell, descending two flights. You found yet another pair of guards incapacitated, standing in a heavy daze. Winding through the bowels of the ship finding more guards in the same condition. Eventually you stumbled upon the armory where the three men were trying to break into a room.

You fought and defeated them only to find they were Githyanki wearing dead human faces to blend in. After killing them, you found some sort of Journal in a language you could not understand. You recovered the Rod of Dominion, a staff of pure yellow-orange radiant light that emanates strong energy and dominates people as long as they are aboard the ship, and controls all the ships networked systems.

You return the rod to Lord Marland Gloom who released Dewclaw, with all her fingers intact, and instead took Talons as payment. He made it clear that he is not in the habit of punishing those who did nothing wrong. Marland gave the party his thanks, and let you go on amiable terms. The next morning, Captain Grimmlocke woke you in your rooms, informing you that he had secured passage aboard a friend’s reputable ship, The Durendal, to ferry you to the Obsidian Tower. It was only after you set sail that you noticed Roscoe and Kriv were not aboard.

Aboard the Durendal you found Slakz and Ogoil already on deck. The captain, Albard Hawkwind, ran a tight ship and you enjoyed a leisurely journey to Farneas. You had a moment to relax and take in the sun and calm seas. The coastline of Farneas is dotted with small towns and hamlets, each seeming peaceful and idyllic. You arrived at the town of Obsidian at 3 PM, just under a week after leaving The Flotilla. The city seemed to be mostly dedicated to Academia, you chose to head straight to the center of the city, the Obsidian tower dominated the skyline. As you approached the gates to the obsidian tower itself, you came upon a tall blonde woman, clad in dark grey-black platemale arguing with a guard at the doors. It became clear that the tower was closed as she, and you, were refused entrance until the earthquakes plaguing the city were resolved.

You all met up with an old friend of Ish: Ho Sem, a disgraced magician. He instructed you on a secret way to get into the Obsidian Tower through the sewers. This information was given in exchange for the promise that the party would retrieve his notes from the basement archives of the tower. He believes that his research on planer travel will help get you all get home before your existence unravels. You quickly set out, only to find the woman from before breaking into the sewers herself. She introduced herself as Aria, a paladin of Gadriel The Stalwart. She commented on how the party is dressed in a strange manner, and that she has seen clothes of similar cut once or twice before. The party and Aria agreed to help each other break into the tower.

When asked, she revealed that she seeks to speak with head mage Rylla, a female halfling and the head of demonology at within the tower. Aria was seeking a way to cleanse an entire town in Kaldar of demonic possession. Time was of the essence, she explained, as the land-steamer she need to take arrived in only a few days.

Once in the sewers: Oozes, Kobolds, Mushroom people (their leader is Crimini), a Cave Troll, a Mimic, and Several Suspicious Crocodiles.

Once through the sewers you traveled through ancient and probably forgotten tunnels under the tower before eventually coming upon a chamber. It seemed to be a forgotten storage area. The large round room was filled with rotting crates and canvas tarps. Upon entering you were ambushed by a Hydra, whose heads evaporated into black ink and smokey mist every time they were killed, only to be shortly regenerated.

Looting the room netted you a small leather sack containing 5 pearls. And deeper in the piles of rubbage you found a metal lock box containing a leather-bound journal (later suspected to be Ho Sems Journal).

You exited the chamber and entered yet another hallway. You found a young Tiefling with an almost albino complexion, no older than 20 years old, wearing armor that was clearly ill fitting and a sword that looked out of place on his wiry frame. He was escorted by a much older woman, at least in her early 40’s, in a well-fitted red half plate with a sigil on the chest and a seemingly permanent scowl on her face.

• Sigil: Five rings surrounding a downward facing white spear on a purple field.

The pair turned out to be Arlo and Vola.

After some brief negotiation with Vola, the party along with Aria agreed to help her protect Arlo in the undercity below the tower and stop the release of a dangerous demon. Vola explained how she is Arlo’s warder, A.K.A. a magically bonded knight. She further explained that the beasts running wild in the sub-city are all manifestations of an aspect of an ancient demon that had recently broken through the seal holding it captive and began the process of escaping. This process caused the tremors felt up in the town of Obsidian.

Note: Recently translated to about 4 months, or the same amount of time that the party has been on Ouran.
Note: The undercity is an ancient pre-collapse manufacturing center with a broken Foundry. It sank under the earth during the Collapse, and the tower has been excavating it to learn about ancient technology.

Most mages in the tower believed the demon had fully escaped its bonds and were trying to kill it with all available Tower resources. However, Arlo believes that's a ruse by the demon intended to buy it time to fully escape.

On entering the undercity, you found yourself standing on a platform used to ferry equipment from the tower into the cavern. Before you stretched a scene of chaos: Hydras rampaging, Wizards, Mages, and Knights fighting for their lives and the lives of everyone above ground, and the bulk of the tower forces focused on a large creature, smoke mephits being excreted from the its back, stomping through a vast but collapsing underground city.

At the base of the platform, you were quickly intercepted by Rylla, who scolded Arlo and Vola for bringing you into danger, and quickly had you sequestered in a medical tent in a nearby resupply station / makeshift stronghold in an old city square that itself sat in the shadow of a giant Black Cube (a broken Foundry) that gently steamed and smoked.

You escaped the resupply station as it was being attacked by Smoke Mephits and other Lesser Demons, using the chaos as a distraction, and made it back into the dilapidated city streets. Aria used her divine senses to lead you in the direction of the demons’ seal. As the battle raged a keening noise began to ring through the air and an explosion bloomed behind you. You watched as the Black Cube began emitting fire from numerous openings in its sheer onyx walls that were not previously there. It began spewing balls of flame and molten steel into the city streets. You quickly found that this was a newly reactivated defense mechanism set by ancient members of the Obsidian Tower. The molten metal in the city streets quickly resolved itself into an army of liquid metal men, who immediately began chasing you.

Just as you began to belie you’d lost your pursuers a building exploded into rubble a just in front of you and a twisting, inverting vehicle straight from some insane gnome mechanics darkest nightmare hurdled and lurched itself down the street in your direction. You, however, were not its concern and it instead focused its attention on the Great Beast at the center of the undercity. Constantly forming great cannons that warped and deformed from the force of its own blasts, it launched great chunks of itself at its target. Consuming the street for raw materials to make more of itself as it trundled towards you, you made a break for the church, heading the opposite direction of it.

Before you stood a dilapidated partially collapsed cathedral. The roof and part of the front wall caved in, waves of powerful daemonic energies pulsing in your chest from the open front door.

Upon feeling the demonic waves pulsating from the church, Aria became a blinding beacon of holy radiant light. As the initial burst of light subsided, the peaceful woman you'd gotten to know was gone, replaced with a holy warrior the likes of which you've only heard about in stories. Aria had grown taller, more muscular, and glowed with divine power. The constant soft silver fire of her hammer replaced with now raging white fire.

You were suddenly tortured with visions of upwards rain, with outlines of horrifying aberrations just at the edge of your vision. Their bodies supported by too many thin appendages, soared high above you, much higher than the roof of even this enormous cavern. Everyone but Clementine broke through the illusion. Vola, on behalf of Arlo, went over the plan again, Mages would rebuild the seal, and fighters would protect the mages.

Roll on the Planar Fading Table: Aquixar has failed twice at this point.

Once inside the cathedral the smell of blood hangs filled your senses and a solemn black sphere, a void in space and reality itself about the size of a softball, floated in the transept of forgotten church. It absorbed all light in the room and the wet sound of flesh tearing filled your ears as the void, the Eye of Infinity, became a hate filled eye.

Aria's holy aura slowly morphed its calming gold yellow into a blood-orange as she turned to you, becoming a demonic figure in only moments. Her piercing blue eyes turned a pallid yellow with horizontal slits, like that of a goat, two horns sprout from her forehead, and the white fire surrounding her warhammer bloomed into a deep burning crimson. You fought the newly turned Aria, and with every strike at her, reality cracked like porcelain before eventually falling apart.

You found yourself standing in the entryway of a simple farmers cottage, dim light leaking through the drawn curtains to either side of the front door. Peeking through the curtains revealed only a writhing mass of eyes, similar to that of the Eye of Infinity, but were unfocused and searching. On the small dining table in the center of the room sat a vase with a few lilies and pink carnations. Searching the bedroom in the back you found a short, dark haired half-elf girl, no older than 13 or 14, sitting on the foot of her bed, crying into her hands.

She was the childhood form of Sylmorn, the previous sacrifice to the seal of the demon. She showed you visions of her past, the worst moments of her life, in an effort to show you two things:

1. That she sacrificed herself in an effort to redeem her dirtied soul.
2. How to seal the demon again.

A full account of her past can be found which can be hound here

After her visions finished, you woke up on the floor of the cathedral, surrounded by four golden walls, with liquid metal men pounding at the windows, trying desperately to get in. Aria stood over you facing off against two Greater Demons. She had been severely injured while you were knocked unconscious by the Eye of Infinity. She was missing her left arm, her holy armor was torn to shreds, chunks of it strewn around the cathedral, and she was bleeding from multiple deep lacerations.

You explained how to seal the demon, simply push the Eye of Infinity back into its slot, and sacrifice who you are to it. You all made a mad dash for the floating black void, but Aria beat you there…

Once resealed, the he liquid metal men began pouring into the cathedral and dragged you all away to safety as all the evil the Eye of Infinity had released was pulled back into it.

You spent a week in recovery at the Obsidian Tower, before going to speak with Master Lo, The head of Interplanar Study. He explained how when you all travelled to this plane of existence you tore a small hole in the fabric of this reality, and as it heals you will fade from existence itself. You need to hurry and return back to your home plane, and to do that you need to create a very small overlap in the two and jump through. Master Lo has a lead on where you can find the parts to a device or spell that will allow this and will set you up on an expedition to investigate. This will be at the Towers expense, as a thank you.

After your meeting you went to meet Aria, who had lost her connection to her god, to comfort her. Aquixar immediately kicked her while she was down and made her cry.

Afterwards y'all went shopping and went to return Ho Sems journal to him. You found him brutally murdered and set to the task of finding his murderer. You did, by setting a trap (Ish pretended to be Ho Sem) and caught the murderer. He was a very large, extremely well-muscled man with a very small face. Like seriously small. He had killed Ho Sem because he was more jacked than he could ever be.

Oh the Places You'll Go a.k.a. The Gang Ruins Mat's Setting

Katla learned some Engineering. Aquixar learned nothing. Clementine became closer friends with Arlo and Vola Ish ate all the meat and met Alexander de Braun and Sigurd Lodbrok in a game of chance And Jaeline learned more about the world, and less about a God.

The gang boarded the Heirophant Green

Current Arc