Revenge is a powerful motivator. After the assault from last session, the party decided to tell the Harmonium to pike off (well, not literally) and try to figure out what the deal was with the attack and Terrazin's vision.

During the few days spent recuperating from massive damage and death, the party tried to understand the significance of Terrazin's Vision and his subsequent Divination on the subject.

"The Gods' Psicrystal awakens and chooses the Six Who Will Choose. The Jester sows chaos. The Colorless seek no change. The Harlot desires pleasure. The Necromancer promotes death. The Seer looks for unity. The Wilders prefer destruction.

Actually, the discussions centered around Terrazin's *first* vision. While the gith was unconcious and near death, he received a second one, which provided at least one more clue as the nature/origin of the psionic event.

The dual waves of flame wash over Terrazin, burning his flesh. A moment later, he feels but does not see the axe bit into his side. The blackness engulfs him as he feels himself fall towards the cobblestones...

***

Terrazin falls, but does not land, as he is borne on the winds. Once more a leaf, blown before the storm. He is drifting away on the air currents, leaving behind the once-green land that is now swarming with the silver ants and the crimson wasps.

As he drifts, he can see that the once-green land was but an island, surrounded by a misty sea. Carried out over the waves, Terrazin sees that he is drifting towards another island, one as green and verdant as the first is now barren and scorched. As he seeks a quiet place to land and end his drifting, another peal of thunder breaks the calm and the clouds roll back over this new island which he now floats towards.

In this new place, the scene is the same as he remembers. The parting clouds reveal the quicksilver sky which falls as rain. Again, the raindrops become the silver ants and the crimson wasps. Again, the land can do nothing as the insect army devours all in its path. Again, longing to do something yet helpless to do anything, Terrazin is borne by the winds up through the clouds and into the silver sky.

Once more he drifts to the source of the rain, the undead horror still riding the back of the crying man and seeking to grasp his heart. Again, Terrazin feels the sympathy, revulsion, and shame that he felt before on seeing the man's plight. But this time, there is a new detail in the wretched sight before him.

Swirling unseen behind the blackened skeleton are other leaves. They look small and pitiful next to the power of the undead horror, but they are not blown away by the storm which it causes. Terrazin wishes to see these other leaves who ride the same winds that he does, and finds that he can move towards them should he desire. As he approaches, he can see that the leaves do not swirl alone. Mixed in with them are an equal number of the raindrop-tears the man sheds. And these tears are ones that have broken free from the threads which tie their twins to the skeleton. Together, the fallen leaves and the escaped raindrops swirl and dance, seeking to create their own storm.

Terrazin longs to join these leaves and drops in their swirling, but again he is pulled away by a force stronger and older than anything the skeleton can hope to imagine. Again he is pulled so far away into the silver sky that the storm is but a tiny dot in the vast, empty expanse. Once more, he floats before the presence of the *something* which is trying to Become.

The light begins to glow, overwhelming the silver of the sky. Once more, Terrazin hears the voice of piercing beauty speak to him. It holds no emotions, but speaks only facts.

"YOU WILL NOT HELP TWO HALVES BUT YOU ARE ONE WHO WILL CHOOSE. YOU ARE LATE IN FINDING ME. SEEK ME BELOW THE PALACE OF THE AZURE EMPEROR. THE VAULT, SEALED FOR SO LONG, IS NOW OPEN. THAT WHICH SLEPT... AWAKENS."

The light grows so bright as to blind. In the instance before the blackness overwhelms him, Terrazin catches a glimpse of *something*...

Despite having a location that Terrazin should be travelling towards, the party decided that it might be wise to determine if this is something that *should* be investigated. After all, this might be something bad that is trying to trick Terrazin into helping it. The first round of discussion quickly settled on the role, if not the significance, of the archetypes mentioned in Terrazin's divination. As there are six figures, and there are also six disciplines of psionics, the party concluded that each figure specializes in one of these disciplines in their role. That is, since Terrazin is the Seer, and seers use clairsentience, Terrazin must then represent the discipline of Clairsentience. The group did assign disciplines to the other figures, but was not entirely confident in their final decisions. (Seer = Terrazin = Clairsentience; Necromancer = Psychometabolic; Harlot = Telepathy; Wilders = Pyschokinesis; Colorless = Pyschoportation; Jester = Metacreativity) Very little research was done into trying to find the identities of these archetypes, but Jack did recall hearing something about a Colorless something on the Outlands.

Some more confusion crept in to the discussion when examining the letter that was found after the attack. The letter indicated that some kind of anti-psionic organization called the Wilders was seeking to destroy all the Six and thus cripple psionics forever. The letter also mentioned a group known as the Colorless Lodge as being the Wilders' ancient enemy - implying some sort of psionic organization. However, both the Colorless and the Wilders were mentioned as part of Terrazin's divination about the Vision and the Six.

After discussing all the background, the party decided to track down their attackers and try to determine their identity and base of operations. Somewhat surprisingly, the group seemed to be based in Sigil, down in the Hive Ward. After tracking down some rumors and gathering information, the party was able to confirm this fact, and Terrazin was then able to remote view and pinpoint their location (along with some magical aid from Dr. Fever, Mark 3).

Since turnabout is fair play, the party decided to ambush their ambushers. Dr. Fever and Greymankle took to the air to attack via dropping through the roof. The rest of the party would rush in through the front door. A decent plan, involving a two-pronged assault. Naturally, things didn't go nearly as planned.

First off, there was a trap on the front door which Twig and Rusteen failed to detect. This rune inflicted fire damage on the group, causing some unexpected damage. The next wrinkle to appear was a golem made of red crystal which guarded the lobby. This construct was very powerful, delivering devastating blows as well as being able to generate a null psionics field every round. While Twig, Rusteen, Terrazin, and Jack tried to deal with this menance, Dr. Fever and Greymankle did shatter the roof and surprise the dwarf and gnome of the assault force. Unfortunately, the bald female was in a room across the hallway, and so was able to summon a nightmare to help repel the assault. The one thing that helped to save the two metal genasi was the fact that the mage cast high damage, area affect spells without regard to her fellows. This extra damage helped the PC pair live longer than expected.

After a short but furious battle, the party did prevail. The dwarf and nightmare were killed, and the gnome was captured. The golem fell primarily due to Jack pouring every single ounce of electrical power he had into the thing; although Rusteen and Twig each managed to land one blow which helped accelerate its end. However, there was no rest as the bald wizard had cast dimension door and escaped deeper into the building. The party quickly burst through the door leading in that direction - and encountered a room with the fleeing mage, three of the floating mummy things and a figure in red robes.

Charging somewhat heedlessly into the room, Greymankle did kill the mage with a well-placed kick. As the other PCs closed on the remaining foes, the figure in red robes cast a lightning bolt - which then proceeded to arc to multiple PCs! However, Rusteen and Twig did engage the figure and managed to land a blow. This physical damage prompted the figure to leave by teleportation, but not before throwing some yellow flowers on the ground - which caused both Terrazin AND Rusteen to flee in terror! Two of the mummies also escaped, but Greymankle killed the third before it could escape. (It seemed that the leather straps were containing some kind of salty ooze which teemed with maggots. Other than the ooze and maggots, there was nothing else physical inside the wrappings.)

After surviving the combat, the party was able to catch its breath and loot the place, coming up with a fair number of magical items, most useful only to arcane spell casters. As the party healed, it had time to identify these items as well as interrogate the gnome.

Travelling Spellbook - Dancing Lights, Detect Magic, Mage Hand, Read Magic, Resistance, Magic Missile, Magic Weapon, Ray of Enfeeblement, Detect Thoughts, Endurance, Invisibility, Levitate, Misdirection, Shatter, Fly, Greater Magic Weapon, Haste, Hold Person, Lightning Bolt, Dimension Door, Dimensional Anchor, Envervation, Ice Storm, Cone of Cold, Dominate Person

Travelling Spellbook - Daze, Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Read Magic, Resistance, Charm Person, Color Spray, Expeditious Retreat, Feather Fall, Hypnotism, Shield, Blindness/Deafness, Blur, Hypnotic Pattern, Melf's Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Dispel Magic, Lightning Bolt, Major Image, Slow, Suggestion, Improved Invisibility, Phantasmal Killer, Polymorph Other

Spellbook - Animate Rope, Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Change Self, Charm Person, Dispel Magic, Fireball, Fly, Glitterdust, Identify, Invisibility, Invisibility Sphere, Lightning Bolt, Mage Armor, Melf's Acid Arrow, Protection from Elements, Shield, Sleep, Suggestion, Summon Monster I, True Strike, Web

4 potions of Cure Serious Wounds

Amulet of Natural Armor +2

Cloak of Resistance +1

Ring of Protection +2

Wand of Lightning (Moderately Charged)

Wand of Mage Armor (Weakly Charged)

Scroll of Dispel Magic

Scroll of Charm Monster

Bracers of Armor +1

Ring of Protection +1

Wand of Magic Missile (Moderately Charged)

Battle Axe +2

Handaxe +1

Chain Shirt +1

Wand of Blindness (Moderately Charged)

Wand of Lightning Bolt (Moderately Charged)

Wand of Web (Moderately Charged)

Wand of Cat's Grace (Moderately Charged)

A bit of brain tissue encased in glass (Terrazin recognizes this a Psionic Capacitor of illithid manufacture)

The next session will deal with the interrogation of the gnome, as well as trying to determine the next step of the puzzle - track down the red robed figure, investigate the Colorless Lodge, locate the remaining five of the Six, or try to locate the source of the Waking Event directly.

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

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