Pax Viginti Team 2 IC [5E]

[TriciaOso]

Long ago on a world called Daesic, there was a great war of mages. The fae of the south set their enchantments against the shadowkin necromancers of Blackreach, and in the human lands a Council of Mages led by the wizard Myrddin aided the Sun King in his conquest of the continent of Solus. Beings of great power, twenty times the capacity of mortal men, bestrode the land. Continents sank. Men became giants. Planes transformed. Gods ascended.

And afterwards, the heroes looked down at what they wrought and wondered if it had been worth it.

At the end of the Heroic Age of Daesic, a great piece of the Western Continent was torn away and set in the sky; one last catastrophe of the mages, to promise there would be no more. And the great powers withdrew from the world--to other planes, to other worlds, or to the city in the sky. The City of Lights. Thereafter, when power began to wax in heroes and villains of the mortal world, they were extended a quiet invitation, a promise and a threat. To leave the world in peace, and live among their equals. Or have their peers--all of them, innumerable--turn against them. This was the Pax Viginti, and Daesic was neither the first nor the last place where it arose.

---

These were the laws of the Pax Viginti:

1. There must be a law, even for us. Especially for us.
2. Let us all among us decide the law, and all among us enforce it.
3. Here among our wealth let none hunger or suffer.
4. Let none rule another except by mutual consent.
5. In the world beyond we will not raise our hand except by mutual agreement.

These laws, a compromise between Law and Chaos and Good and Evil, were simple. Of course, all things are simple in their conception; it's the execution that makes a mess, as the hangman said to the midwife.

---

The Pax Viginti allowed for--required--the creation of a paradise, a republic fueled by magic and beyond hunger and disease. The republic required a governing body, a latter-day Council of Mages. Not everyone wanted to concern themselves with these matters, and a system of proxies and vote delegation developed. And as the worlds with similar pacts united, a Council of Councils emerged.

Interventions remained rare, because of self-interest and compromise and the complexity of the world outside. If Myrddin wants to solve a famine in Solus, he must convince not only those who don't care about starving peasants, he must also convince the partisans of other continents that this will not give Solus a conqueror's edge in centuries to come. If there was much good the Council could have done that came to nothing but bickering and bureaucratic maneuvering, there was much evil the Death Lords and Enchanters and Khans were restrained from by the same mechanisms.

But interventions did happen, and not everyone was ready to hang up their staves and warhammers and settle in to parliamentary tricks or artisanal spellwork. If individuals were recruited when their power first grew threatening, they still had far to go to match the greatest of the Council, and some were ambitious. Some believed in the Pax and wanted to serve. And some were simply bored.

The Adventurer Corps arose. Recruited from across the worlds and serving the Council of Councils, they were made up of the waxing powerful from across the astral sea, thrown together and mentored by those who still took more interest in the world aside; a rough and ready lot, not yet absorbed into the separate culture of the Pax. A multiversal diversity, with headquarters and strongholds across the worlds of the Pax Viginti.

This one is in the City of Lights.

---

Daesic is a small world, small enough that the Inner Planes are physically continuous with the Prime. The Plane of Air is visible overhead, the great blue vault that the moon and sun chase each other across.

This conference room, the Aerie conference room, looks out into the Plane of Air. The view isn't as good as the Worldscape room, but only comparatively; the blue infinity spreads out to indigo at the edges. The sun isn't visible--it's beneath the Material Plane right now, travelling through the Plane of Fire--so there are billions of stars out there, some far off, some closer. The ones closer are flaming balls about the size of a house, and you can see Celestial beings fluttering around them.

The view inside the room is almost as impressive, a big burly centaur with chestnut flanks and flowing chestnut beard. He's not wearing anything but a sort of satchel, and a couple of bracers. One bracer has a badge pinned to it, a gold disc with a sword struck through it; the other shows has a different badge, an open palm flanked by semiprecious stones. There are several green ones and one red. He looks... boisterous isn't quite right, and neither is cheerful. He's here on business. Jolly, maybe. Master Volas of Brink looks rather jolly. Maybe it's the laurels in his hair.

[tonberryking]

Compared to Master Volas, the next centaur to arrive seems almost his exact opposite. Svelte, silent as a grave, with a dull black flank and a medium length wheat colored tail that was cropped recently, she wears everything from a hooded leather armor jack with black studs, to wrappings over her hooves; most of her upper body is covered, including her upper face, hidden sullenly by the hood and bushy bangs. Most curious of all, she has a broken sword slung over her right shoulder in a modified shealth, easily mistaken for a wide knife.

She actually starts at the sight of Master Volas, her hooves finally betraying her with a half dozen clicks against the hard floor. From her reaction, this burly, underdressed centaur may well be the first of her kind she's seen in ages, or possibly ever, owing to how piecemeal her memory is. She slowly approaches, encircling him rather than directly approach.

"Ah... Are you Master Volas? ...They told me to report here." she remains about twelve feet away from him, looking nervous.

[TriciaOso]

He chuckles. "Yes, indeed! I am Master Volas of Brink. I'll be assigning and delivering your missions for now. The rest of your team should be here soon!"

He has a merry, booming voice that is honestly a little much for an enclosed space. "I've got something interesting for your first run, I think, Miss Rush!" He gestures with one of his meaty hands at the papers on the large, glossy wooden table.

[tonberryking]

Rush backs up at first and keeps her distance from Volas, her face somewhat red as she circles around towards the table, trying to occupy herself with the papers, expecting a series of maps or reports.

"Thanks..."

[Thokk_Smash]

The door opens to admit a tall woman, head turned back saying goodbye to someone in the hallway. When she turns fully to enter the room, Rush and Master Volas can see a tanned woman with silver hair, mostly braided and kept up but with some bits hanging loose. She is wearing a cloak that falls close to her body, colored in deep purple. Under the cloak is a dashing outfit of lilac and green, comfortable trousers whose legs are tucked into well-worn boots. The outfit covers an obvious suit of heavy plate mail.

"Oh, hello," she says with a confident smile. She adjusts the pin on her sky-blue scarf, as if she's not used to wearing it. "Sola Vale, reporting for her first mission. Master Volas, and..." She trails off as she looks between the male and female centaurs. The most striking part of her appearance, though, is the pitch black eyes that lack both iris and sclera.

[TriciaOso]

The first few pages you look at refer to a world called Thelyss. The papers describe it as epsilon-vi and delta-x, whatever that means, and a lot of other verbiage that must make sense to the Adventurer's Corp.

Volas allows you to read in peace. You manage to digest from the top papers of the file that this is a peaceful little world, barring a bit of a lich problem, but that the Corps is monitoring the situation and offering indirect support to 'local forces.' An intervention has not been approved. Next to the underline phrase 'local forces,' a bold, confident hand has scribbled: The Gledes!

When the black-eyed aasimar enters, Volas turns to face her, with another booming laugh. "Indeed I am. I will be assigning and delivering your missions for now, and Rush will be one of your companions! We're just waiting for one more."

[tonberryking]

The female centaur tugs at her hood as she pours over the documents, only turning to look at the newcomer (and possibly wonder what she is for a brief moment before it would become obvious that she was staring) when Valos introduces her by name. Shifting her legs, a foreleg pawing at the floor for a moment, she gives a polite nod to Valos.

" 'm Rush... that was me he referred to..." she says awkwardly before turning to Valos, "Sorry, but you're going to explain what this underlined word means, right? I don't know what Gledes are..."

[Thokk_Smash]

Hearing Rush introduce herself, Sola marches over with a friendly smile. "Pleasure to meet you, Rush," she says. "Looking forward to working with you. Where do your talents lie? I'm a Paladin, centered on melee combat."

[tonberryking]

Rush takes a step back, looking skittish for a flash before calming. "Um... I don't..." Nope. You have to tell her (at least the basics of) the truth. Otherwise, Rush tells herself, she's not going to be a reliable in a fix for the team's benefit.

"I mostly kill people. ..I mean.. I'm a stealth specialist." her face turns redder; this was perhaps the worst impression she's made yet.

[TriciaOso]

Volas inserts himself, gently, into the awkward silence. "The Gledes--in this context--are an adventuring party. A rather inexperienced one, compared to you ladies. We would classify them as Iron Half. Of the Fifth Rank, as you are of the Twelfth." His voice is still booming, but relatively--relatively!--muted. As if the topic is a somewhat sad one.

He chuckles. "And yes, I shall give you a much more clear and concise version of the situation, once your third joins us. But I did not want to stop you from examining the documents, either."

[Wuff]

Opening the door with as little noise as possible, a wood elf slinks in. Her frame is sleek, although for an elf she looks quite well built and full of life, with a healthy flush to her face. There's a mark of ferocity about her, amplified by the full-sized owlbear cloaked draped about her shoulders, which makes a dwarf of her figure.

Other than her cloak, she is covered in toughened animal hides, sewn together with great care and attention, made to last and to take a few heavy blows too. She examines the room carefully, her eyes flicking from Volas, to Rush and then to Sola as if identifying threats. After a moment, she takes a few long strides forward, covering a frankly alarming amount of distance and thrusting her hand out roughly in nobody's general direction.

"My name is Zarah, is this the new pack?" Her voice is slightly gruff, perhaps a little unusual for an elf.

[tonberryking]

Rush was nearly facing the door when it opened, out from the corner of her eye she spotted the savage looking elf heading their way... and she glides a few steps from the table, immediately assuming she was here to see Volas.

She doesn't flinch at the hand thrust between her and Sola, but she probably wanted to, her resolve finally shaping up after having already screwed up as much as she already good when making a first impression.

"I think I'd prefer the term herd, but it seems that we are that group..." she eventually retorts.

[TriciaOso]

"Haha!" laughs Volas, at his most Brian Blessed. "Welcome, child!" he says in Druidic to Zarah (although everyone understands it), and taps a hand on the papers. "We have much to discuss!"

And eventually, after some forced jolliness via team building exercises, he does begin it.

"The world we are taking an interest in today, my friends, is called Thelyss. It is--well, there are many metrics we use to discuss these things, but the fact of the matter is, it has blessed few adventurers of even the middle rank! We have been keeping an especial eye on a group called the Gledes, who have achieved the fifth rank, because that makes them some of the most powerful folk in that world."

"They are good-hearted folks, according to our local agents, and we have need of them! There is a certain nasty lich... well, that's neither here nor there! For the Council, in their infinite wisdom, do not believe this lich rates our intervention. We are rather depending on the Gledes.... which is why it is so unfortunate that they have disappeared!"

"They stumbled across an old planar ship, an artifact left behind on the ship millennia ago, and have gone off on a rather bigger adventure than they expected! One rather over their heads." He wags his head and great bushy beard.

But then he grins, a flash of white in the chestnut beard. "But while we cannot battle the lich, not being authorized, we do not require authorization to rescue the Gledes, as they have wandered out of their own world and into the wider Astral Sea! Politics, ahahaha!"

[Thokk_Smash]

Sola takes in the mission details, nodding along. The politics are irritating, but she's used to it. Even with a unifying threat, such as the Wellspring, it took years for the cities and countries she had liberated to fully come together as a whole. She hopes they are still working together.

"Okay, I've got all that, that's good. Now, for the important bit: what can we do to leave the Gledes stronger than they were before?"

Sola knows that there is a difference between the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law. But with this kind of decision from the Council, smite the spirit of their decision, and let's do everything we can to make the Gledes strong enough to help their world.

[TriciaOso]

"Haha!" Volas exults. "I like your spirit!"

He clears his throat. "There are limitations on the materiel we can provide to a group like them, of course... but how often do we see, that when a group returns from a dangerous experience like this, outside the world they know, they return with equipment they picked up along the way? The WBL is monitored, of course, but I rather think the Gledes are due for some upgrades. We will have to wish them luck on their expedition."

Volas trying to look cunning looks like... like an enormous shaggy dog tries to curl up in a cat bed three sizes too small for him, and looking enormously pleased with himself the whole time.

"That reminds me--we must make sure you are properly equipped for the mission!" he booms, trying hard to seem as if this entirely separate issue just occurred to him. "It does not do to enter a beholder's lair unprepared!"

Vastly, tragically, he winks.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

You can make an Arcana or History check to see if you have heard of beholders.

[tonberryking]

Rush quietly stands a ways away from the others, listening to Valos with bobs of her head, though his last statement gives her pause. Again.

"...How...generous of you, sir." she deadpans, but at least she understands what sort of subterfuge is being asked of them. "Were you going to give us any specific going away gear? That we should familiarize ourselves with?" if she knows anything about beholders, she's not showing it.

[Thokk_Smash]

Sola blinks in surprise. ”We’ll be facing a Beholder, sir?” she asks. She’s never seen one before—Venger wasn’t nearly strong enough a world for a Beholder to deign to make a appearance. But she’d heard tales.

“It can float, and it can shut down magic that it’s staring at. Some way to blind it would be ideal. Then there’s the smaller eyestalks that shoot out other magic stuff. I don’t know if the antimagic eye will shut down our magic items, though.”. She looks at Volas at that last bit questioningly.

[TriciaOso]

Volas strokes his chin. "Yes, I'm sure we can put together a care package of the appropriate kind.. Tuatua, can you take care of that?"

The kobold attendant lurking by the door salutes and vanishes.

To Sola, he says, "Indeed! Or more correctly, you are rescuing the Gledes from a beholder's lair! If you can avoid the beastie itself, all the better! Their lairs are dangerous enough, always trapped and often patrolled by beings in service to it, and they do not suffer the intrusion of others gladly."

"But above all, a beholder wishes to preserve its own life; I have been told each one believes it is the only really real being in existence, and it as good an explanation as I have heard for their ways. It will expect you to have come for its miserable, paranoid life--that will lead it astray, and you may be able to use that to simply escape with the prisoners."

"One ability of beholders is to turn living things to stone, and this particular creature has made a hobby of artistically arranging such prisoners in its 'sculpture garden.' That is where you will find the surviving Gledes."

"And yes, its gaze is inimical even to magical items, Sola."

[tonberryking]

"Surviving, sir?" Rush grows pensive, "How many were there to begin with, and what were their vocations?"

[Thokk_Smash]

Sola grimaces at the clarification that this will be more of a sneak-and-grab rather than smash-and-hit. She's not really made for sneaking.

"I'm not so good at sneaking around. I could be a mighty good distraction, though, while Rush and Zarah un-petrify them and get them out.

"And do we have a layout of the beholder's lair? Or any other intel on this specific creature?"

[Wuff]

Zarah steps forward and in a bizarre motion, is suddenly holding a massive wooden stave which looks to have been detached from a tree. "I can get us in there nice and sneaky, and if push comes to shove, I'll teach it a lesson on staring into the sun, in each of its big ugly eyes."

She doesn't really seem to pay attention to Volas' smug behaviour, either not fully comprehending it as unusual or perhaps too much in awe to really care.

By her ready language, she looks like she's ready to pounce or spring already.

"I'm not sure what magic would be best suited for the mission. I think I should have all I need at hand, regardless."

[TriciaOso]

"Haha, yes!" Volas is loving this energy.

"We have a rough map of the asteroid, but beholders are known to constantly rearrange their lairs, so any intelligence we have is probably out of date by now. The asteroid serves as a waystation for spelljammers passing through that area of the astral sea; rather than tunnel into a barren rock and hope no one comes nearby, B'xenon has allowed some of its servants to set up a small trading post. The entrance in hidden somewhere behind that facade."

He looks more somber as he speaks of the petrified adventurers. "The Gledes were five; a cleric, a ranger, a sorcerer, a rogue and a warlock. The warlock was killed outright, and we were actually tipped off about where they had gone by her patron. When we attempted to scry, we had trouble seeing through B'xenon's abjurations, but we confirmed that that the cleric, the rogue and the sorcerer were petrified."

[Thokk_Smash]

"Okay, so three of them need to be turned back to flesh. Volas, could we bring scrolls of Greater Restoration to use? Or would Zarah have to prepare those herself?"

Thinking on it, Sola continues, "Volas, how discreet do we need to be? And does time to faster or slower in Thelyss than us? I ask this because, well, you mention politics and all. So, my plan--keeping it simple, as is best--is to make a ruckus that draws B'xenon out, while Zarah and Rush infiltrate and depetrify the Gledes and get them out. Although, if B'xenon won't come out of the lair, then it might be easier to infiltrate, then I lead B'xenon on a chase through the lair while Rush and Zarah free the Gledes."

"If the Pax could spare any sort of item to resist Petrification, that'd be swell. That way I can keep going even if it tags me with that eyebeam."

[tonberryking]

Rush looks between the others, flicking her tail again but when there's a break in the discourse, holds up a hand.

"Wait. What about the Gledes' Ranger? What happened to them if the Warlock is dead and the others have been turned to stone?"

[TriciaOso]

Volas chuckles. "Since we're operating outside of Thelyss itself, we have a little more latitude about equipment. Tuatua, in addition to the equipment we were discussing, let's pack a few potions of basilisk blood, yes?"

A little female kobold none of you noticed standing there suddenly moves and is, very obviously, standing there. She tosses Volas a casual salute and makes a note. (Zarah, you noticed something in that corner of the room but you thought it was a lamp. No one else noticed her at all.)

"For the same reason," Volas says, "we can get a little louder than usual; the Pax does not apply to wildspace. The politics are less, if not gone."

When Rush speaks he does not laugh, but mm-hms along as you speak.

"Oho, well that is a mystery. Not petrified. Not able to be scried. We've tried a commune but it wasn't successful--it's always tricky cross-pantheons. He could be alive or dead, escaped or imprisoned. A mystery,"

[Thokk_Smash]

Sola flinches in comedic surprise when Tua reveals she's been standing there the whole time. "Damn, Tua, give a girl a heart attack," she says with a laugh.

"So! We've got a general plan of attack. Maybe we'll stumble across the Ranger while we skulk around--in fact, do we have the names of the remaining Gledes? Might as well call them by their names if we've got 'em. And do we have a list of that equipment you were discussing handy?

"My plan is we sneak in, find the statues, if they can't be extracted without causing a scene then I'll make the distraction, otherwise fingers crossed we can get them out without attracting B'xenon's attention. I'm assuming that the statues will be in its throne room, though, so I'm preparing myself for being a distraction."

[TriciaOso]

"It's got a display space," Tuatua pipes up. "A sculpture garden. And there's a file there on all the Gledes. Put it together myself."

Volas nods. "Tuatua can take you to the Crossroads for transport. We have a local contact in a spelljammer hull docked right now for maintenace. Tuatua, get what we need from the quartermaster--you know what kind of upgrades the Gledes could use--and make sure to take them past the infirmary to take a tissue sample for cloning, if there's any desire."

After a short flurry of activity, the kobold brings you to the busy Crossroads, a football-field sized square, tiled edge to edge with teleportation circles. "Teleporting into wildspace takes some extra juice, but we maintain a few ships out there just to have points of contact. This one goes to a cargo shipper--no use in a fight, but lets us keep a circle on his deck. He'll be able to bring you back, too."

All around you, people step into portals and zip off; the transport hub is busy this time of day, and Tuatua is jostled by taller commuters constantly. It seems to put her in a hurry to get you out of here. "Off you go!" and she completes the circle with a lash of her tail.

---

Rod's Flow 16 Breathe 'n Gulp is what the magically illuminated sign extending into the phlogiston says; there is a flaming, mile-wide cartoon of a buck-toothed hippo in-between the two rows of words, directly above the 'n.

Less than ten spelljammer hulls are docked at the asteroid; they look like sailing ships of your era, or a little older, but with shimmering glassy layers coating their hulls and spreading tendrils to the deck. Put together, they take up more space than the exchange itself, a funny little wart of stone and metal that takes up, in turn, probably a tenth of the surface of the asteroid. Behind it, almost as big as the post itself, are complicated magical mills spinning in the phlogiston churning Element Air and Water into regular air and water. The rest of the asteroid seems to be barren greybrown rock.

You have never seen anything that looked less like the lair of a vicious, megalomaniacal aberration.

The ship you are on is small, a little dinghy or yacht, and the nervous-looking elven fellow rubbing his hands together must be the captain. You're standing on what looks like a dusty carpet, curling up at the corners like it's been rarely unrolled, embroidered with arcane sigils.

[tonberryking]

Rush nearly starts, all four of her legs wobble until she focuses silently to ward off any more skittish reactions, even if it's reasonable to be startled by time and space warping so suddenly...yet with such an underwhelming destination it's easy to sober up.

"...This is an evil lair?" she's seen much better going by the sound of her confusion. She notices the elf and awkwardly waves, "Um, hello...?" she makes another stellar first impression, "Is that the only building here?"

[Thokk_Smash]

"Uh, wait, what?" Sola asks, first Volas then Tuatua as they walk. "What was that about cloning?"

---

"It wouldn't be much of a front if it looked sinister," Sola says with a shrug, seemingly unfazed by the teleportation.

Noticing the elf, Sola nods at him. "'Yello," she says with a friendly smile. "We're new; how much do you know, or want to know, or need to know, about why we're here? Mind if I ask your name?"

[Wuff]

Looking markedly uncomfortable by all the spelljamming and teleporting and fancy tech, Zarah takes a long moment to fully adjust to her surroundings, taking in as much detail as she can, before whirling her staff in the air. She slams the base of it into the carpet as if to steady herself. "This... Is so far removed from nature. I can't feel..." She scowls suddenly, as if having eaten some kind of sour fruit.

"The gall of... Clones... Blugh, yes, I don't like it here at all, and I don't like all of these... Machinations!" She splurts out the last word.

She turns her attention to the elf, who she inclines her head to, still looking very uneasy.