We're gonna stick one up the Dark God's A$$
After checking up on Forgan's people in Calicess, the party heads off to find the King. Our intentions were to help cure Vendrill in Malfestus, but we ended up helping him and his army in a fight against Orcs. After a full day and night of battling and reminding Forgan to solve that puzzle to fix Forlumb's soul, we're about ready to head back out. But this time, the party is split in two.
Jennifer and Elonora followed Gray's lead. His sword (formerly the sword of Targeis) was calling him to Targeis' layer for some reason and he needed to know why. We arrived to the hidden location (We're still not sure where it is exactly) and found that it had been defiled. Targeis was the first Dragon Knight - he was born a Dragon Lord and forsook his dragon form to live life as a man, so the inside of his lair was pretty much all human sized with human stuff. There was a big hole in his living room wall, love letters were burnt, treasures were taken, weapons were cursed and worst of all, 2 dragon eggs were murdered and one kidnapped. Fortunately, there were two left under a magical ward that were still safe. After Gray sat on them for an hour in his Targeis form (the form he got from Targeis' sword), he decided to put them in the Haltessan Temple here in the lair for safe keeping. Little did he know that he was really entering Haltessa's Bathroom! Gray offered up the two eggs and the golden sword and armor. Targeis' children were the first two Angels of Haltessa!!! Gray watched as they were born!...Forgan is gonna be so jealous!!! Still, afterwards, Gray was exhausted. It wasn't even noon yet and we had no way to get back and we didn't know where were even were! To pass the time, Jennifer read a few books from the library and Elonora played with Targeis' telephone....and accidentally pranked the Holy Flame! OOPS! She got pissed and sent her daughters out to arrest us for intruding on a Dragon's Lair uninvited. The party was brought to her directly for sentencing and our punishment was that we were never allowed to enter a dragon's lair that was under her juristdiction unless invited.. She then dismissed her daughters and begrudgingly thanked us for the whole Angel thing and removing the Dragon Spirit from the belly of Tohorne. To show her thanks, she gave the heart of the world over to Gray. Then she kicked us out. It was still early in the day and we have no way to go home...or back to the King...and we're in Vok'Norr! To boot, now To'horne knows we have the heart of the world and he's not gonna want to give up control of the weather. Just as we begin to head out, a storm rolls in. A blizzard in fact! The three of them fly into a ravine for shelter until the storm blows over (yeah, right) or at least until the net morning. Gray is now overly exhausted and freezing, missing his sword and armor and none of us have any winter clothing. Great. It's about 6 degrees here. After we burnt out our only firewood, we search the ravine for more. That's when Eye Man and Snake Bitch arrive! Jennifer is kidnapped and Gray manages to teleport himself and Elonora back to the army, crippling himself in the process.
The other party, Forgan, MacCarr, Vorren and Khyros make their way over to Ishayle. There is a book that needs translating that was taken from the library of the Damon Lords. Apparently, only celestials can read it because it was written by the God of Creation. For now, Forlumb and the Watcher are calling it the Dragon Tome. The reason they wish to go to Ishayle is that the angel Tarren Base can read it and he can only speak with and through Raquel. They arrive inside the Cathedral and find Raquel. After a whole lot of complaining and banter, Tarren agrees to read the book. Here's the basic jist of the story:
I am the God of Creation. Love me. Fear me. You're not nearly as cool as me.
In the beginning, I made some cool Gods. Karkesh (Kark, the Evil God) had a big ol' crush on Haltessa. She was a little girl who didn't like him one bit and ran away because he was so ugly. I wanted them to make a baby, so in order to get them together, I took away Haltessa's thoughts.
Then, Ba'Klor stepped in between, stopping their union. This made me mad, but I know he did it out of compassion. So I took that away from him and made him in charge of life and death.
THEN, Venna tried to stop the union by kicking Kark's ass, so I took Ba'Knlor's heart and put it into her chest so she's be overwhelmed with compassion and love and not able to be violent ever again.
Then Haltessa got pregnant. It was good.
Then I took a piece of Haltessa, a piece of her baby and a piece of myself and made Hale. I breathed life into her and told her to watch over Haltessa as a mid-wife at all times. I also told her to ignore the one that looks like her when he comes around.
Then I went over to the fields where my first creation, Cain lived. He was faithful and loyal. I liked him. I told him that Haltessa was going to have a baby and he should be there for it...but ignore the one who looks like you.
Cain went to the birth and Hale totally hit on him and her lust overpowered her duty to Haltessa. Haltessa then gave birth to a super-destructive beast because of it! Hale pleaded with me to save her and that she's sorry, but I didn't care. It was her fault in the first place. I told her that if she ever gave into those acts EVER, she'd pay the price. Then Cain pleaded with me to protect my creations, so I made these chains to bind the monster to the Earth. They can be raised again, though.
Then, this great beast was split up into 10 parts - the dragon lords.
Ain't I cool?
Well...that was...different. At least we know why the gods are the way they are and why Haltessa is known as the Dragon mother...and a speculation as to where the chains for the Dark Conjoined came from! Crap! Before they leave, the party speaks with Brekarium. It turns out that the Vorrexian reinforcements on their way to Ishayle have been turned to stone! CRAP! Raquel taked Vorren to meet Randi - he's still looking for some Dragon booty, so why not half of the Silver Conjoined? She gets pissed and storms off. He seems to like her though! The party then heads back to Camp and waits out the rest of the day. At this point it is barely noon.
Gray and Elonora arrive a few hours later and Gray is taken to the healer's tent. Elonora guards over the heart of the world as Gray sleeps and the two parties fill eachother in on the stuff that has happened. The day goes by and the King and the Watcher come back from the front lines for the night. After a loooong rest, Gray finally wakes up. He tries to get into Brenin's head to find Jennifer, but can't. The Watcher skries to find her as well and can't. Hmmm... A search party of Elonora, Forgan, Khyros and Vorren head back to the Ravine where she last was seen. Gray mentioned that Snake bitch took her out a dimension door - that would only go a few hundred feet away. The party searches around, but the snow is so wind-blown and deep, tracking is useless. They searched a few caves and unfortunately stumbled across her battered, raped, naked, murdered body. The dagger embedded in her heart could not be removed. The search party wrapped her up and took her back to camp. Upon seeing her face, Gray is overwhelmed with images flooding his mind. Brenin was the one who raped her and killed her. He took the lesser aspect of To'horne and left these images as a "message" for Gray since he couldn't tell him while it was happening. After the images fade, Jennifer and the dagger both burst into flames. Forgan tries to dowse her with Haltessan holy water and eventually puts her out so she can be burnt by normal flames instead. No ashes were left. No trace of her. After some thought and reflection, it becomes evident that Jennifer was HALE! That's why she was ceremonially raped - they knew the contents of the book because the Demon lords could summon demons to read it for them. They had the time to figure it out and formulate a plot before we ever got our hands on it....those rat bastards!
The whole party is really sad and really angry at this turn of events - especially Gray since he saw and felt the images of what happened. He wants all out war. He's going to finish his quest and re-install the heart of the world. He knows Brenin will be there and he knows it will be all out war. The preparations begin and allies are called forth. As Gray said, "We're goinna stick one up the Dark God's Ass". We called up everyone. The Dwarven Vorrexian paladin that dueled Gray showed up with his squire, Grolg came along, Sashraddon was contacted and showed up with Esol the Earth Elemental cat, and even Wolfgang and his cronies agreed to help! Gray headed to his settlement and called upon a few of his hard-hitters and the aide of Roger the 200 year old mage. Roger allowed us to contact our allies outside the settlement with a crystal ball and he teleported us all when we were finally gathered together at about 8:00 that evening.
We arrived and the crap began.
...
but we'll have to see what happens in the NEXT EXCITING ADVENTURE of JAYSTORM!!!!!