I can still feel the aftermath of the last quake. The air is just charged with energy. That was one powerful quake!

We refresh at a nexus and start setting up camp for the night. I take first watch with Kith and Ed. I want to talk to Kith, but I need some time to consider what I've seen about my traveling companions.



My watch ends and I finally get to sleep when four overcharged orcs appear from the nexus. Their skin is covered in tentacles and their eyes are glowing with nexus energy. I look into their past to see that they are from the wastes. I know the technoprophets use the nexuses for transportation so that must be what has happened here. Maybe that blather about inoculation wasn't just a stonewall. The orcs seem to have been corrupted by the journey.

The fight doesn't start off well. They take down Ed and the bear with little trouble. Things are looking desperate when Biger summons some glitter dust and I send a couple off to dreamland. We get Ed back up, and with my help, we manage to kill them.

Unfortunately, we were joined by another friend of theirs. This one was larger the others and begins to rage. We manage to confuse him and take him down.

While we are cleaning up, the orcs that were merely dead manged to get up. We stopped the big one again, but two of the others touched a ley line and managed to teleport back through the nexus.

A few of the others clean off the items they left behind. I don't really have any interest in any of it. It does seem curious that everything except the rings they were wearing seemed corrupted.

I'm glad we can hold our own in a fight. Where we are going is only going to get more dangerous.

We learned that Joe is a necromancer who can absorb and recall the essence that remains in the dead. Though I don't know if he's more or less creepy than Sahret. Probably more. So far Joe seems to make practical use of his abilities, and isn't consumed by them. I'll just keep a little distance to be safe.

Sahret performs a cleansing ritual on the nexus. This should protect us from any more unwanted visitors for the remainder of the night at least. I've seen the ritual performed before, but I cannot perform it.

We discussed the attack on the city. I mention that I saw the emperor dead with the sword though him. Sahret claims the sword was destroyed, though I don't know how he knows that, or how it happened. But it's our best guess at what the necromancers are after.

I have many questions of my companions and will need to ask a lot of questions in the morning. This attack has also raised a lot of unanswered questions.

Who sent the orcs?

Where they deliberatly sent after us, or for another reason? Were they just stragglers from the invading force?

Is this how the invasion force was assembled?

What, if any coordination was there between the necromancers and the invasion force?

Why was the emperor killed? Does that have anything to do with my vision about the empire causing a catastrophe?

What lies ahead?

Journal of Joesph Vernor

(you skip ahead several entries to where you left off last time)

Entry 7(cont...)

We split up the watch into shifts, and I'm just entering this entree before I nod off.  Even though this is the feywood, we seem to have been fairly lucky so far.

Entry 8: I should've known

I had to write this down now what I've seen what I've seen.  I was suddenly awoken by our...bardic warforged, only to find there were strange orc's coming out of the nexus.  And when I say strange, I mean covered in flipping tentacles.  They were also bigger then usual.  Thankfully those on the watch were quick enough to engage them immediatly while those who were sleeping got on our feet.  Unfortunatly for Barnabas, these Orcs were stronger then we would've believed, as they felled him in one concetrated strike.  In fact, one of them started trying to eat the poor bear.  The bard proved quite useful when it used some kind of blinding magic, which made Sahrit's attacks more effective.

By the time I'd finished buffing myself, things were not looking good for us.  The humanoid Warforged began fighting hand to hand, but didn't last long against three of the orcs, and fell to the ground.  I was well hidden, thanks to those cloying shadows, but without someone like Isaline to keep the orcs off us, us magic users were in a tight spot.  Taking a tremendous risk, I decided to deploy one of my ghouls.  Sadly it lasted even less time then Barnabas, but it did buy us enough time to recieve further boosts from the bard and take down one of the orcs.  Simone cast a sleep spell of some kind, which thankfully dropped the orcs as well.  I figured we should further study these orcs, so I told my allies not to kill the orcs and I made my way to one of the fallen and tried to wither it.  While my allies were finishing the rest, I finally broke through its resistance.  So much energy!  It had to be some kind of Nexus corruption, but I'd never even heard of this much corruption.

Unfortunatly, we had not yet finished defending ourselfs, as out of the Nexus stepped an even more pronounced case of infection.  The orc was even larger then usual, and I had a feeling he was far more dangerous.  However, he was quickly blinded and taken out by my companions.  I regret how hard it is to stop withering once I begin, I mostly sat there and withered the orc.  However I did succeed, and finished.  I then moved on to a second, for the others were not too keen on my method, seeing as I seem to be absorbing them.  Sadly this second orc was just too much and I was unable to keep his essence.  However it would later be fortuitous that I destroyed two of them, as they revived after we had taken their equipment and tried to escape into the leylines.

We were distracted by the large one awakening first, which we quickly dispatched(Ed wiped it out with a startling flurry of blows), but the smaller two simply touched the leyline and disappeared.  This time we dragged the body further from the Nexus.  Maybe some kind of refreshing power?  I know its sometimes possible to bring back the recently deceased at a Nexus, at least when a sufficently powerful Geomancer is present.

We were able to dress Barnabas and Ed's wounds, and Sahrit began doing something decidedly odd with the Nexus.  He performed a very long Geomantic ritual, and somehow too out the...heart...of the nexus.  He cast some spells on it, and then returned it to whereever it belongs.  He explained he was trying to prevent the creatures from returning with reinforcements, and honestly I don't think I'm one to talk about using strange blaphemous powers.  I'm honestly suprised my allies were not more upset by my having suddenly summoned a ghoul, and then withered someone to death.  Oh well, I must try to get some rest before my watch.

(Continued in Session 3)

Damn uncomfortable questions.

Kith huddled in the tree, staring down at the bizarre assortment of people he'd managed to fall in with. Two bizarre mechanical beings, a tall round-ears that could be ANYTHING, necromancers, geomancers, warriors... How had he, a simple grig, become attached to such a peculiar crowd?

And they asked questions. They were not smart enough to keep their mouths shut and their ears open. The answers were there in front of them, and they asked the questions anyway. He hung from the tree branch from one tough hind leg, remembering with queasy vivid imagery the time that it had been broken. The look of it in five pieces, all bent at horrible and hideous angles.. and that wasn't even the worst. The worst was the laughter. The damnable laugh...

Not here, not now. Kith had a watch to keep. He owed one of these people, and he would keep his promise.

First: The below may very well contain spoilers.  Second, I slip in and out of character in my notes.  Third, I do try to take notes for stuff that's happening which my character is not percieving.  Fourth, I tend to do some wild mass guessing in the middle of my notes, but I try to make it clear when I'm just guessing, and when something actually happened.  With those disclaimers out of the way, My notes for this session:
 

Again, Big spoilers may be ahead, esp. for those in red group, who didn't hear any of this.

08/07/2009
session 2

We refresh/recharge at the nexus and continue further in.  After that quake that replacesd nate and Jesse's characters...  the flow is different...   the aftershocks of that quake are still kinda there.  Flow is high.

THis Leads Simone to recieve heavy visions (Privy only to Simone, but copied here). 

A common thing throughout all of us... one of these is that the lens isn't whole.. there are inexplicably missing pieces of the lens... that's unusual.  In addition, something really rare, but each of us has some fountain of life energy that appears in our past... kinda like a nexus, but not.  Very very uncommon...  This fountain has only ever been felt... usually unusual quakes... and the one from just now, and there was one other that did this. 

Visions of me:  The lens is fairly normal, but its got a large crack through it centered through an event.  Something strange happened in his past.  Sees my history as a pwerformer...  delivering messages and performing music.  I'm on a journey with some other travellers... a cleric with a holy symbol of Olidamarra turns the crank...  then the lens fragments there... that is responsible.  Something is clearly something missing.  Sees me being built..  there's a team of builders surrounding me... one of them is Yolalen Budonga...  A bunch of gnome tinkerers.  A half finished from in the dark...   a small gold cloaked figure (Fountain of life energy) is there next to the form, and attaches a small crank to the torso.  My leopard:  It's Wrin.  Its past lens is very narrow and focused:  It's very clear.  It's 'new' This thing reads as an object, not a person.  A gnome with golden hands with welding tools... also fountain of life energy. 

Visions of Ed:  His lens is very varied... me so than many warforged.  Warforged usuall have just a narrow, focused lens.  Ed looks like a person...  He's awesome at what he does.   He battles with another warforged either as an ally or enemy... this warforged is at least 1 size category larger...  a fountain of life quake appears and the female eladrin was removed, replaced with a flying machine.  An elven woman beats him, but... in a caring way.  Also sees flashes of fighting this woman in the streets...  it's unclear which of these happened and which could have.  She's trying to destroy him...  and a woodsman is with her.  Ed drops the woodsman...   lastly, Ed is built and rebuilt many times, 2 gnomes cursing over him much more than Biger's builders.

Visions of Joe:  There is no lens... just the past...  It has never been this clear... seems there hasn't.  See flashes of Joe battling th dwareven necromancer we encountered.  before that, he is in a shambled house... several people had been living there just because it was shelter.  See Joe bringing food to the house to a girl who was living there, but she's badly withered... clearly somethign terrible happened to her in her first few years of life and she wasn't able to refresh at a nexus.  Joe reaches out and grabs her shoulders.  Sense energy flowing out of him and her face do things.. but Joes face withers in its place...  he realizes he's withered.  In some kind of frenzy he grabs her shoulders again, and his youth returns as does her withering... and her withering grows worse until she withers to death... she cries out, but turns to dust.  Joe vomits.  In a village of other humans... which is in shadow...  It's definately not an alternate past, but it may be an illusion...  on a night, he's with someone, but it can't be seen whom...  then a fountain of life quake, and he and everyone else in the village is 'scattered to the winds'.  

Visions of Kith:  His past is kinda obscured... probably by magic...  not terribly uncommon.  what was going on with Kith during Eluise is shrouded by magic.  before that, Kith was in a back alley talking to a dirty man, who feels very familiar...   as though previously met, but hasn't quite been.  Further in the past, he's badly injured and a young girl tending to him.  Before that, Zelater, which is a cave fortress thing..  surrounded by monsters... upon a throne sits a handsome yet terrible Satyr (A fountain of life)... some rape thing.  His cage smashes to the ground, door ajar, and he slips out, but somethings missing...   flashes of the cage breaking, but something is stopping the sight of how it happened.  Clearly not because of protective magics though... the lens is damaged.

Visions of Sahrat (nates character):It's more like a pair of glasses than a lens... there are many similarities, but the lenses are different... sees flashes of the fochluchan incident... but something is clearly missing... something is here but can't be seen..   flashes of a human in  adark brown cloak... another fountain of life.  He brands Sahrat with his hand.  The man looks familiar... it's the same man who attacked Simone, but he looks more human, more normal (less undead). He's human.  Peering backwards... a brief flash of Sahrat in ecstasy...  the man or woman he's with...   Now it starts to diverge... in one lens eye, an eladrin woman giving birth... that fountain of life watches again... the man caesses the mothers cheek and something dark and malevolent passes (Mother is an elf), in other lens, same thing, but without the malevolence... and the mother is an eladrin instead of an elf. 

(End visions)

Simone is kinda quiet. 
(I know Ed's activation phrase.) 

Kith Plays music, and Biger and Sahret

Watch 1: Kith and Ed, Simone
Watch 2: Biger and Ed
Watch 3: Biger and Joe, Sahret

During watch 2, 4 twisted figures emerge... they all appear to be orcs, but... soemthing is clearly wrong witht hem...  their eyes glow with nexus energy and there are boils on their flesh which have sprouted into tentacles...   they look enraged.   (Sahret woke up).  These monsters seem to flow through the energy... the difficult terrain under the nexus doesn't bother them... they're like gliding on the nexus energy.  We've never heard of things attacking from the nexi.  Teleport circles in technoprophet cities are kinda like this.  (They give a morale penalty.)  These creatures seem really stupid. 

THen a large orc appears.  He fuckin rages... and Ed and Simone tear him apart once I glitterdust him.  glitterdust FTW! 

Joe Withers one of the orcs to death.  Absorbs it.... The pseudonatural bits of them are still twitching.  Ed takes the large axe, but it resizes to Ed...  It's encrusted with pseudonatural shit, but ed buffs it off.

Those things inflict disease upon things they eat,

The orcs history as viewed by simone...  the orcs were just around, and they get crumbled, shoved through the ley lines, (Nate does a ritual within the nexus). 

THey have iron rings (prot +1, untainted) and hide armor (+1).  javelins (nonmagical), magical greatclubs (+1).  They're all conjuration and transmutation, just like the nexuses (Which are conjurations).  big guy had battleaxe (+1), nonmagical javelin, and a chain shirt (+1).  Everything but the rings seems to be infected witht he pseudonatural nature such that now that they're not being wielded by their owners, its consuming the magic of the magic items.  But removing the pseudonatural gunk quickly saves it. 

The hide armor is drained: it's now nonmagical, masterwork hide armor, clean it of the gunk.  The gunk does see to slowly decay the material. 

After a while, the big orc seems to get better.  It seems to be regenerating.  It was one of many orcs that were funneled in this fashion.  They were pulled from a common tether.  They were regular orcs at the time. 

The two other orcs escape through the nexus.  But we manage to stop the big guy from doing it.   On the nexus, there is the faintest hint of the oversaturation... taint...  maybe just because they used it...  THis sort of thing doesn't seem to happen in the Feywood typically. 

Sahret doesn't detect as evil,  But he's got an evil growth of overwhelming evil.  I know the grig is evil.

I recognize the symbol of the tribe.  It is one of the same tribes (Its tatoo symbol is a flaming hammer) that attacked the town we started at... 

An attack similar to this one was done at Arx.. a cargoship was attacked.  (The necromancers were after the sword which was destroyed). 

Simone found the emperor dead with a sword sticking out of it.  (A unique crystalline blade).  The blade was unmistakeably left there for at least a while.  The sword was destroyed (According to Sahret).  It's what the necromancers were after.  The sword is kinda like (The evil seed on Sahret).

(Kith was intentionally keeping quiet and offering limited information.)

It seems someone figured out how to send people through ley lines like this... 


Simone says that she wasn't allowed to use the teleporter because she wasn't "inoculated"...  she thought it was a BS excuse...  Seems like less of an excuse now...

Sahret says he's extracting the core of the nexus.  His evil seed is an... unfortunate problem of his. 
Sahret withdraws a glowing orblike thing from the nexus after an hour of work.  it's the Core of the nexus... 
He incants some blessings over core...   Simone also helps bless the think... the aura of the nexus is strengthening further.  This will protect it from a time from that (Feels Sahret).  This is something I've never witnessed before.  nate puts the glowy thing back and the undergrowth seems more verdant.  Sahret says the nexus is warded against any such travelers at this point... for a short while. 

(Sahret dreams: something in power lies in the forest... contact not the empire... the userper now knows this... and we should find this power before the userper's agents do.) 

Sahret used to live in the wastes.  (Hey, why weren't the rings corrupted... they were less a part of the barbarian's psyche, it may be)