Unlike last session, this one I can blame on Rusteen. While the sub-set of the party was off working for the two thieves, Rusteen had gone back to visit his homeworld after several months away. What he found inspired him to drag his friends back to the Prime once more, this time to kick some serious ass.

Rusteen's arrival on his homeworld of Dominion immediately showed something to be wrong. The portal, which used to exit in an alley next to a local tavern, now appeared underneath the city docks. (Effectively meaning that Rusteen would now be limited to enter/leaving Brandolyn at low tide, unless he wanted to flood the basement of his tavern in Sigil.) This unexpected change led to a week's worth of frantic investigation on the part of Rusteen, Jack, and Zin.

The extremely short version of what was uncovered showed that not only were Isilith (Latishous, female tiefling, member of the Fraternity of Order) and Ving (Vermillion, female tiefling, member of the Mercykillers) still in town, they had further consolidated their control over Brandolyn's legal system. Even the Mayor had started to come around to their point of view. Further complicating things was the perception that Rusteen and his friends, while helping to solve the murder spree and the bandit issue, were responsible for the undead that now roamed the countryside. The party was being blamed for reawakening and magnifying the curse of the Silver Death Mine.

Over the course of the week (plus a few additional days, once Rusteen was able to find Jack and Zin), Rusteen spied on his two sworn enemies to discover their plans and find some way to thwart them - and hopefully kill the pair in the process. They did learn that Isilith kept a journal, and Rusteen broke into her house to read it. Although there was no firm legal proof, it did show that Isilith wasn't from Jodarra Twins, and was one of the people behind the creation of the crime wave in the first place. It also revealed the presence of two more people involved in the plot - one was the githyanki Berix, which the party knew about; the other was a mysterious female named Dhall, which was new news.

At the end of the week, Rusteen observed his two foes going to dinner in the Mayor's house. He also saw the arrival of a mysterious and cloaked figure which appeared out of nowhere. He first assumed this to be Berix, but later evidence (including the reading of the journal) pointed towards this as being Dhall. Some careful magical observation by Jack showed that the Mayor was under the influence of an Enchantment effect after this dinner meeting. Some careful psionic observation by Zin located Berix, and showed that he now appeared to be dead (or more likely, undead). They guessed that the gith was hiding under the ruins of a haunted farm outside of town. Rusteen scouted it, and noted the house was populated with ghouls.

After much discussion, the three heroes in Brandolyn decided to undertake a frontal assault on Rusteen's enemies, starting with Berix who was their only way on and off the planet. While in Sigil obtaining supplies, they ran into Shazarr and convinced him to come along, with the promise of treasure. Rather surprisingly, they also ran into Twig and Dr. Fever, and managed to convince those two to come along as well. (Dr. Fever was rather different; apparently he'd died and his Godsman beliefs brought him back as some strange Metal Genasi-Modron hybrid creature.)

With the entire party assembled (save for Greymankle), they all returned to Brandolyn and prepared to commence the assassination of the most important civic leaders of the city (as well as one undead monster). Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that Rusteen's investigations had been discovered. Ving had come and arrested Rusteen's younger brother, placing him in "protective custody" until such time as they could meet Rusteen and discuss a business deal. The letter relaying this threat was signed by Brandolyn's mayor.

Being implusive, bloodthirsty, and pissed off, Rusteen decided to continue with the attack on Berix and then try to short circuit the commanded meeting that evening. And thus began a hard fought battle.

Using some supplies bought in Sigil, Zin teleported the entire party (save Jack - weight considerations) into the room where the githzerai knew the githyanki to be. Unfortunately, it was a rather small room, so everyone was instantly in melee range. Berix was not alone in the room; there were two ghouls (quickly found out to be vampire spawn) present as well. Although the githyanki was able to deal out significant punishment, Rusteen was (barely) able to stay on his feet (with help from Zin) and dish out an equally impressive amount of damage. Although Twig and Dr. Fever were mind blasted into inaction, and Shazarr suffered the energy drain of two levels, the party managed to turn the three undead into gaseous clouds and send them running for their coffins. Although the party was able to locate two coffins (of the spawn), the search combined with an attack by 10 ghouls delayed their efforts enough such that the gith was able to plane shift to his coffin.

The party thus had to be satisfied with destroying two spawn by destroying thier coffins and scattering the pieces out into the sunlight. After this combat, the party headed back to town restore Shazarr's life energy as well as decide what to do about Rusteen's brother.

Psionic scrying located his brother chained up and guarded by undead. Clues showed this to be somewhere within the Silver Death Mines. After a quick debate, Rusteen decided that it would be better if the party attacked his enemies first - before the meeting where it was expected they would have had time to prepare. As a result, Rusteen soon lead the party to the home of the Mayor, which was the only place the two foes could be. Zin confirmed that the two, and the Mayor, were in the foyer of the home. The party decided to attack. So, Zin did a mind blast through the doors and Rusteen kicked them open. The rest of the party changed in and...

Here endeth the session. Next time, we will pick up with the results of the party's surprise round and begin combat in earnest. We'll see what the results of this rather loud and obvious attack on the Mayor's house in the evening in full view of the general populace are.

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

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