The first part of the story covered was a personal side plot involving Shazarr. Upon returning from the party's extended mission to Heliopolis, the art collector checked in with his "fixer" to see if there were any commissions available. There was one, and a potentially lucrative one at that.

It seemed that a certain gentleman (presently unnamed) was looking for a very specific piece of artwork. According to Shazarr's fixer, the gentleman in question is actually seeking to collect pieces that complete a unique, matched set of portraits. (The theme of which is based around some sort of prime divination ritual that involves the use of cards.) The tiefling's contact indicated that this job would be quite lucrative, and there would be the potential for more as other portraits are located. The fixer's information indicated that one such portrait had been found and was presently located in a gnomish art museum on the plane of Bytopia. Shazarr wisely decided to accept this mission, but rather greedily decided to pursue the job on his own.

To reach the target, he first had to travel to the Outlands gatetown of Tradegate, in order to take the portal onto Bytopia. But this was to be the first challenge of the mission. It seems that Tradegate's portal is actually a sentient creature, a large male bariaur known as the Master Trader. As a being, the gate is never in one place for very long. Once Shazarr located the portal, he then had to negotiate with it in order to be allowed to enter Bytopia. Although this was a somewhat expensive proposition, it was still the most convienent as the Master Trader could create a portal directly to the desired destination. (The portal took the form of a tent, that when pitched became the portal. This would also allow exit from Bytopia no matter where one travelled on that plane.)

Once through the portal, Shazarr arrived at his destination - the burg of Yew Groves. The town is an independent settlement (i.e. not in the realm of any power) that is inhabited by gnomes and halflings, with a scattering of dwarves. Although his disguise skills are good, Shazarr found that they weren't good enough to keep him from being one of the tallest people around. Having arrived in the evening, the art collector took the time to get a feel for the town and get some background information on the museum, known locally as the "Museum of Appreciation for the Beauty Inherent in the Expenditures of Great Effort and Patience".

Obviously owned by a gnome, the museum houses pieces that, while not always art, involve a great attention to detail and take a great amount of time and effort to produce. (Examples include carved dioramas, photo-realistic paintings, intricately designed stained glass and mosaics, etc.) The portrait that Shazarr was looking for was housed on the second floor, and was in the form of a mosaic. (A title which was part of the artwork proclaimed the subject to be the "Page of Cups".) Although the owner has no desire to sell the portrait at present, he did express his willingness to trade it for another piece of art that would fit his museum as well if not better. Shazarr, in consulting his notes, did know of a place to find something that might fit the bill and so promised the owner to return at a later date.

Fortunately for the second part of the story covered this session, this investigation returned Shazarr in time to learn that Rusteen needed some help back home. Apparently, Rusteen is so desperate for help is that he was willing to ask the rest of the party to come back to his home, a Prime world that has no exposure at all to anything Planar. Plus, it being a Prime world, most of the party really didn't care one way or the other about a crime wave disrupting the local way of life.

But, the first order of business was to find a way to disguise the tiefling, the genasi, the two githzerai, and the rogue modron so that they could travel about the woodsman's home town without being shot on sight. Shazarr, the "medusa", decided to rely on his own talents and a really big hood in order to keep his racial identity a secret. Rusteen borrowed the impressive disguise talents of one his bar wenchs to turn Ginaea into an elf and Zin into a (rather scrawny) half-orc. Twig, who'd spent some time talking to Jack, came up with her own disguise - a nun of the local religion, the Order of Light ("Sister Mary Clarence"). (However, there are still a number of issues with it, as her hair is still green, and under the robe she's wearing only her combat boots, her suspenders, and a number of body piercings.) Dr. Fever received the most drastic disguise. The party purchased a polymorph other spell to be cast on the rogue modron, with form chosen by Que. As a result, the modron became a female ogre ("Bo").

With the disguises in place, plus the admonishment that if anyone asked the party was from a place called "Jodara Twins", Rusteen led the group to the portal back to his home city of Brandolyn. It was in the basement of his tavern in Sigil, and had a rather amusing and slightly embaressing key - one had to moon the portal to get it to open. After some discussion and Twig taking her turn at it, the party stepped through. The planars among the party were somewhat disappointed to find out that the town wasn't in the midst of some kind of riot or war. From the arrival point, Rusteen took his friends over to meet his Uncle Beavis, who runs the shipping docks. While the woodsman got an update on the latest news, Que stole a map of the local geography.

From the docks, Rusteen led the party out of town to a nearby farm in order to find out if his younger brother was still out there, tormenting the local chicken population. Although not locating his sibling, the party did discover that a bandit raid had happened in the past couple of days, and that the most likely location for the bandit base was one of two abandoned mines in the nearby mountains. Heading back into town, Rusteen led the group to an evening meeting with one of the local judges, to find out some more information about the crime wave. The judge informed the group that there had been six rather grusome murders in town over the past couple of months, as well as a number of robberies. (They have caught a few of the robbers, but no leads on the murderer[s].)

The session ended with the judge promising to look into the case files and get the names of the victims and the party retiring to a local inn for the night.

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

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