Tremors and Treason

April 11, 199

Gigs

Koritha

Artemis

Abe

Warren

Blažej

Tenebrae

Alto

Tanarukk

Katavasi

Zinli

Silvius

Baqir

After defeating the Shadow Sprite, Tarthurac, Koritha and Yao were greeted by a messenger of Kord and a messenger of Larithon. Radz's spell would allow them three questions, which they used to ask who was behind the snow storm, but the spirits did not know. The only real information they were able to glean was that the storm was made of malicious intent and that one of them had been betrayed.

The group discussed who may have been the betrayer. Koritha thought it might be her since she had gone drinking without Yao, but Tarthurac was sure it wasn't her. Tarthurac was still in a rocky spot with Blazej after the giant war and suspected Blazej could be the traitor, by accident or on purpose. After some advice from Radz, Yao thought the betrayed might be Anu. Yao remembered he had given some of the formula Anu and his monks used to Blazej to identify but had never gone back to see what it was. Koritha sent a sending to Blazej, but it didn't get through.

On the elemtnal plane of air, Blazej, Artemis, Warren, Tenebrae, and Abe entered the tomb with Adjjet and Whirl to explore and possibly fine loot. Inside they became stuck in a room with the wizards on one side of a door and the rest of the group fighting air elemental spirits. Tenebrae was able to figure out that the elementals were being spawned by the shackles worn by the bodies in the tombs. He and Adjjet destroyed the shackles and freed the spirits to leave.

As Abe tried to turn the door to iron his staff kept disappearing. After repeated attempts to re-summon the staff, suddenly another Abe appeared in the room and grabbed the staff from him, claiming the staff was his. This other version of Abe pulled the Abe from our party through a portal and both disappeared.

Undaunted the group continued in farther down, but in a room with an enchanted suit of armor, Tennebrae was struck by a symbol of pain and the group grabbed him and retreated after he fell to the floor screaming. They exited the elemental plane of air with the Type 4 Zidalian crystal and ended their mission successfully.

Back in Manderu, Yao and Koritha questioned Asa, one of Anu's misty monks about Anu's location. She was very uncomfortable with their lines of questions and she left quickly. They followed her to the training cave where Anu succeeded against Koritha's unannounced Zone of truth. They began to questions him, and he was evading their questions for a time before Koritha began to feel earth tremors. Afraid the fey stone could be under attack, the group retreated to the inner sanctum.

They regrouped and as they reached the inner sanctum a massive snake burst through the floor. The group moved in to attack it, but Anu called out to Yao that it was likely just a distraction and the two of them rushed past it to the secret chamber. Gigs, Tarthurac, Sohate and Koritha defeated the serpent and followed.

Once inside the chamber Anu sealed them in and admitted he was using the fey stone to fuel his style. He was addicted to the mist and he planned to absorb the fey stone's power to make himself more powerful. Yao fight him, but Yao was defeated in battle as Anu stunned him and beat him down. The rest of the group tried to get past the icy seals and barely managed to get into the chamber after Gigs, Koritha and Radz used their fire magic to break the seal.

They raised Yao who grabbed Anu and pinned him against a wall of Ice Gigs was making to protect the fey stone. Anu said he was sad Yao wasn't joining him, because it was Yao's drunken master style that had inspired him to create the misty monk style. Anu Used the power he had taken from the Fey Stone to dimension door away. Gigs found his trail and Yao chased him long into the night, but misty monks are too fast and Yao ran for hours until he collapsed from exhaustion, unable to catch his opponent as he escaped into the Varana jungle.

Koritha, Gigs and Yao all agreed to stay at Manderu to defend it from whatever was causing the storm while Tarthurac went back to the guild to fill everyone else in on the situation.

### Meanwhile

Almost a year ago, atop the plateau, Zero Base sat with five newcomers waiting to gain entrance. Zinli, Silvius, Katavasi, Tanarukk and Baqir had been hired by Phoenix to hunt a Behir. They were unable to find a behir but they slew a Tobi-Kadachi and slew it instead, retrieving a similarly potent gland from its body. They now waited outside Zero base to meet Phoenix and request entrance to his League.

Chaplain escorted them inside and introduced them. Katavasi was almost immediately accepted into the league. After a lot of deliberation between Tanarukk and Phoenix about Phoenix's long term plans to defeat Avalon, Tanarukk and the others agreed to join as well as a way to make profits and get some payback against those who had wronged them as well. None of the new league members trusted one another yet, but they all greed to the tenuous alliance.