Today on this episode of Planescape: Sense of Adventure, "The Quest for Squirrels".

Under Twig's urging, most of the party agreed to come along and find out what, if anything, was the problem with the local tribe of ratatosk. Rusteen, Jack, and Ginaea stayed behind in Crux, for a number of reasons. Rusteen and Jack, being Primes, really didn't understand the potential significance of a fundamental shift in the nature of a native planar race and so didn't view the side trip as important. Plus, Rusteen didn't want to waste any more time on side quests that didn't further Augustus' mission. (Mainly because he couldn't justify an expense report for monies spent while not following the Sensate's directions.) Also, by staying behind, the pair could serve as guards for the recovered bottles of stolen beauty, so the group wouldn't have to drag them along while looking for the ratatosk. Ginaea, although she did want to see the squirrel-folk, realized that there were a whole bunch of freed slaves in town who were really in no condition to escape her incessant questions.

So, the expeditionary force consisted of Twig, Dr. Fever, Que, Zin, and Shazarr. The first part of the journey was the easiest; they simply had to leave Crux and travel along the circumfrence of the trunk for a short distance. While doing so, the group noticed a single khaasta spying on them from a clump of leaves. However, when Twig and Zin started to approach the position, it fled. Not seeing any point in chasing it, they rejoined the group and prepared for the second part of the journey.

This would be the most difficult portion, as it involved a several hours' climb straight up the trunk of the World Ash. Despite the potential dangers, the group actually made fairly decent progress as Twig was finally in her element and climbed ahead of the main group, setting pinions and ropes to help the others ascend. Dr. Fever, not being built for climbing, decided to be pulled up the trunk like a crate by the two pack beetles the party had acquired in Crux. The group had a little trouble at a particularly large patch of moss, but otherwise made it the next branch without disaster.

Upon arriving at the branch, the group was immediately discovered by a pair of ratatosk. The squirrelfolk engaged in a favorite game of "pelt the travellers" - they threw acorns at the party, in an attempt to get them to play. The group tried to ignore them to make the game end, but someone apparently encouraged them by painting a large target on Shazarr. The group decided on a different tactic when the tiefling became entangled in a mossy net. It was at this point that Twig decided to become the diplomat, and engage the ratatosks in dialogue. She did manage to get them to stop dropping things on Shazarr and come down to talk to her.

Despite the language barrier, she proceeded to engage in another ratatosk tradition - the riddle game. Usually, the squirrelfolk prefer other races to answer riddles before they are willing to engage in anything resembling normal conversation. These particular ratatosk favored riddles that were decidedly bleak, with answers like "night", "darkness", and "blood". Finally, she convinced the pair to take the party back to their nest so that they could speak with the tribal elder. (In addition to being the only real authority a ratatosk will listen to, the tribal elder is also the one whom the rest of the nest models their behavior after. So, if this tribe was depressed and gloomy, the elder would be the one to know the root of the problem.)

The elder's name was Glittereye, and the tribe's nest was actually inside the branch of the World Ash. The party, with the rectangular exception of Dr. Fever, crawled into the narrow tunnel to meet with the elder and the rest of the tribe. This proved to be a sticky situation - literally, as the branch is still alive and was oozing sap. While everyone did get some sap on them, only Shazarr was lucky enough to discover the potential reason why the ratatosk act as they do. It seems the sap has some strong, but short-lived, hallucinagenic properties. So, he started reacting to threats that weren't present while Twig and the others tried to find out what the deal was with the tribe.

Glittereye told the party that Yggdrasil was sick. Something bad had happened a number of seasons ago, and that the Great Tree was still feeling the aftershocks. And, since he worshipped the World Ash, whatever happened to it esentially happened to him. The elder then revealed that he did know the source of the trouble; a place nearby the ratatosk called the Warpwood. So, the party got the elder (and the rest of the tribe) to take them to the Warpwood to see the place for themselves.

While journeying to the Warpwood, the party ran into the most dangerous creature in existence - at least, it was as far as Dr. Fever was concerned. Along the branch the party found a lone pentadrone; another member of the modron race and part of the caste that was superior to the rogue's former caste. This meant that not only would Dr. Fever have to constantly fight the urge to obey its every order, he would also be in danger of being attacked if it detected him as being a rogue unit. So, he did the only logical thing - he turned, ran, and hid. Que, after realizing the source of the panic, went back to Dr. Fever to try and come up with a plan to prevent the pentadrone from destroying the rogue modron. For its part, the pentadrone never saw Dr. Fever and forced itself upon the party as it determined that they had agreed to escort it back to Mechanus.

Eventually, everyone (save Que and Dr. Fever) arrived at the Warpwood with the ratatosks. The Warpwood was definitely something unusual on the Great Tree. The wood looked much like water does when a stone is dropped into a pond - the wood was frozen in a rippled pattern spreading out from a central core. That core was a disturbingly pitch black disk about 100 feet in diameter. Beyond the core, towards the end of the affected branch, it was obvous that the World Ash was ill, possibly dying. Something very powerful had to have happened in order to change the fundamental nature of what is essentially an outer plane.

It was at this time that Glittereye finally succumbed to the madness that the Warpwood was bringing to its worshippers. He commanded his tribe to attack the party, which they reluctantly did. With the help of the pentadrone, the party was able to quickly subdue the ratatosks without (permenant) injury. While trying to tie them up so as to prevent future attacks, Que arrived on the back of his trusty war bird - an illusion-cloaked Dr. Fever. While the rogue modron attempted to act like any other talking, flightless bird with hairy feathers, Que strode forward to examine the Warpwood for himself. Zin had attempted to examine the area earlier, and determined only that the place was the result of something very, very evil, and was still dangerous. Que, possibly due to his Cipher beliefs, managed to get perfectly in tune with Yggdrasil and determine with near perfect accuracy what this place actually was.

(DM Note: Although I gave Alan the following information, I don't recall if he ever shared it with the rest of the group. However, lest I forget what I told him, I'm going to write it down here. If Alan didn't share this info, please consider it Player Knowledge.)

The Warpwood is the remains of a color pool. Something that was absolutely saturated with Negative Energy came through the portal, destroying it and hurting the World Ash in the process. However, in order to destroy a color pool (a planar phenomenon) and damage the Great Tree (essentially a plane), the "something" would have to have been incredibly powerful - on the level of a god. So, logically, there's a god that's just dripping with Negative Energy wandering around on Yggdrasil.

With nothing more to be done, Twig gave the ratatosk some brandy and told them to keep their leader drunk for a while so that he could recover from his sickness. After they left, the group headed back to Crux - with the pentadrone still in tow. Despite his fear, Dr. Fever had been observing the modron closely and had come to realization - the pentadrone was "on edge" and was possibly in danger of going rogue itself. (The repeated use of the phrase "Insufficient Data" was one key warning sign.) So, the rogue modron and Que hatched a rather devious plan to see that this would actually happen.

And, despite Que nearly getting himself and Dr. Fever killed, it was carried out. (It yet remains to be seen if the plan actually succeeded.) The blunder occured when Que tried to cast a hypnosis spell on the pentradrone - forgetting that as part of a hive mind, it would be immune. Since he cast a spell, Que had to stop concentrating on the illusion which was disguising Dr. Fever. Fortunately, the pentadrone was desperate enough for a fellow modron that it did not question why Dr. Fever had been covered in an illusion and failed to realize in time that he was a rogue unit. As a result, Dr. Fever tricked the pentadrone into using his "naked time" magic device and made the modron polymorph itself into a ratatosk. For the next hour, the party proceeded to mess with the modron's mind by implying that it had always been a ratatosk and anything else was just a delusion. (The fact that Que cloaked Dr. Fever in the illusion of another ratatosk also helped.) At the end of the hour, the party left a very confused pentadrone alone with directions on how to reach Crux.

For their part, the party moved ahead and returned to Crux without incident - almost. As they were climbing back down the trunk towards the burg, they spotted nearly 30 khaasta waiting in ambush for them. This is where the session ended, so we'll pick up with how the group wants to handle this obstacle next time.

Authored by: Ken Lipka E-mail me: krlipka@yahoo.com

Return to Stories Page