RQG 123 - Plane and Simple

## Content Warnings

Kidnapping (adults & child, off screen), unreality, mild body horror (body distortion), mental deterioration/ memory loss, mild secondhand embarrassment. SFX: persistent droning

## Summary

Grizzop goes for a walk with a concerned party and Einstein acts odder than usual.

## Synopsis

We start with Grizzop, who is sharing a moment of solidarity with a stranger in the base of the People’s Front of Damascus. The stranger is a female elf; she’s tall, speaks in “flawless received pronunciation,” and is dressed elegantly with lots of jewelry, which immediately sets Grizzop against her. She looks very out-of-place. Grizzop asks if she’s getting him to Rome.
The stranger asks if he’s Grizzop, and says she would be willing to bring him to Rome if he answers a couple of questions: “is Sasha there?” Grizzop asks who wants to know. The stranger responds that she used to be her tutor a long time ago, but has been looking for her for a very long time. She asks again if he’s Grizzop, and Grizzop says that of course he is, and who is she?

The stranger asks Grizzop to tell her something about Sasha that only someone who actually knows Sasha would know. Grizzop asks for her name again, and they go back and forth stubbornly for a bit. Grizzop says that Sasha wouldn’t want him to accept help from someone who claims a connection to her but won’t say their name. He threatens to leave and shoot her eyeballs off because she’s annoying. Grizzop asks if her name is Bi Ming Gusset and talks about imprisoning and almost executing Barret, both of which garner raised eyebrows from the stranger. He offers to do the same to her.

The stranger says she’ll get Grizzop to Rome but asks him to first prove that he’s a paladin. Grizzop shoots an arrow lit with holy fire between her feet, and demands, again, to know her name. The stranger casts *detect magic* on the arrow and says her name is Eldarion, which Grizzop doesn’t recognise. Grizzop is extremely annoyed at Eldarion at this point.

Eldarion asks where in Rome they are, and Grizzop says “the worst bit.” Eldarion says something to the old woman revolutionary in Arabic and gestures for her and Grizzop to leave. Grizzop informs the old lady that they’re terrible spies. As Grizzop and Eldarion are walking out, Eldarion murmurs that they’ve had to spend a lot of resources to keep the People’s Front of Damascus out of trouble. Grizzop doesn’t care. He says that Eldarion reminds her of Wilde. Eldarion tells him to be quiet.

Back to Rome. Einstein has been totally useless. Hamid tries his mobile stone, but only gets more Latin garbling. Hamid asks Einstein whether Sasha’s bomb was the cause of the Gate spell going wrong, and Einstein says probably not.

Meanwhile, Sasha and Azu search for the Squizzards and the hostages. Sasha doesn’t find them, but in the basement, she does find a large amount of mundane supplies, such as climbing equipment, clothes for humans (but not halflings and gnomes), and food, as well as a large collection of “magic-y stuff,” such as incense and pieces of paper. Sasha puts it in a bag of holding to bring to Hamid.

Hamid is still talking with Einstein about the Gate spell, mentioning that it’s odd that it’s lasted more than a minute (Einstein remarks casually that Curie is a “big fan” of the Gate spell, though she never talks about it.) Hamid asks how to tell how long the spell’s been in this state, but Einstein isn’t helpful. Hamid casts *detect magic*, but falls down with a headache.

Back to Grizzop, who’s standing for a long while with a quiet Eldarion, strangely not casting a spell. Finally, she warns Grizzop that he can’t lose sight of her, or else she won’t be able to find him again when it’s done, and his god won’t be able to find him where they’re passing through. Grizzop says it’s fine, because they have Einstein, and Eldarion hopes that Einstein hasn’t been teleporting Sasha around. Eldarion begins casting what Grizzop recognizes as a “not-unnecessarily flashy spell” — it’s long and methodical, and eventually everything goes quiet and all the wind starts blowing towards them, at which point Eldarion offers her hand to Grizzop and warns him not to let go; Grizzop takes it, and they step together out of the world, beginning their planes walking.

Both Grizzop and Eldarion immediately stumble and catch themselves because “up is shifting constantly.” Grizzop opens his eyes, and while he feels like he’s in the same place, every movement he makes warps the entire landscape, and the further away something is, the more warped it gets. Eldarion advises Grizzop to close his eyes, but he think it’s cool. As they step forward again, the world rolls as if they’re inside a sphere and he knows they’re not in Damascus anymore. Grizzop feels his body warp, and shuffles a little closer to Eldarion even as he keeps his eyes open. They take another step, and he feels his knees go wrong. They appear to be on a sea bed, but the ground is the sky. On the next step, Grizzop is slightly out of time with Eldarion, and feels himself painfully stretched over a thousand mile space. Eldarion picks Grizzop up, warning him that it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Back to the party at the villa, where Sasha has turned up with the supplies from the basement and have a barbecue.

**BREAK**

Einstein pours over the magic stuff from the basement, and hands Hamid a paper of “complete nonsense.” Hamid casts *read magic*, and discovers that it’s a ritual that’s an attempt to close the *gate*, but it’s largely improvised and made of ill-advised elements. Hamid knows that Einstein should be able to easily deduce the same thing, but he can’t. Hamid starts “techno-babbling” Einstein as a test and Einstein responds in kind with high-level irrelevant information. Azu, watching this, recognizes that there’s something weird going on with Einstein. She asks Einstein what’s going on, and asks him to stop being so weird, which offends him. Azu pulls Hamid aside to talk about Einstein — they’re both confused about what’s up with him.

Back to Grizzop and Eldarion, still Planar Shift-ing. It’s a long, horrific process, and Grizzop copes with it by squeezing his eyes shut, letting his mind wander to Artemis, his friends, and Vesseek. Finally, the journey ends, and it takes a moment for Grizzop comes to. Eldarion puts Grizzop down gently, then collapses onto the floor: they’re at the outskirts of Rome, which seems mostly to be blasted.

Grizzop casts *endure elements*, reaching out for a god that isn’t there, and when he can’t connect with her, he grabs one of his symbols of Artemis and tries even harder, succeeding partially and exhausting him. Grizzop lies to Eldarion that he’s fine, and Eldarion stands up and starts casting a spell on herself, but Grizzop advises against it. They start walking into the city, trying to be sneaky, but Eldarion is a very tall, pale elf, wearing large amounts of glinting jewelry and possibly heels, so she’s not sneaking well.

Back to the rest of the party. Hamid returns to Einstein and asks him to explain some parts of the ritual paper to him, pretending that he’s less knowledgeable than he is. Einstein appears to be really bad at teaching, since he keeps only talking about high-tier magic. Sasha, watching, realizes that Einstein is specifically avoiding specific topics.

Sasha says that she’s going to look more into the shards, and pointedly suggests that the others come with her. As she walks off with them, she tells them that Einstein’s being deliberately avoidant, and suggests that he might have left some of his brain behind when he teleported.

Back to Grizzop and Eldarion, who stops and asks Grizzop for help, and he says no and doesn’t understand what’s she means. At Grizzop’s suggestion, she takes her jewelry off and puts it in her bag.

Back to the rest of the party. Einstein pulls Azu into a corner and makes her promise to keep a secret from the rest of the party, and Azu promises on the replica of the Heart of Aphrodite. Einstein confesses that in Newton’s study, he lost a significant amount of his magical abilities: he “teleported really skillfully all of the knowledge and skill [he] had accrued through a lifetime of study… somewhere [he is] not.” He can now only cast Teleport and *prestidigitation*. He’s baffled that he’s the head of faculty at Prague. He doesn’t want Hamid knowing, because he thinks Hamid looks up to him, and warns that he can’t do much except get them out of Rome. Einstein’s crying at this point, and Azu hugs him.

Back to Grizzop, who hears approaching howls, realises too late that he can’t take the giant flying dogs, and starts running, with Eldarion struggling to keep up.

Sasha, Azu, and Hamid hear the dogs approaching, and Sasha and Hamid see the teleporting dogs, Grizzop, and Eldarion. Hamid casts *fireball*.

## Quotes

**Eldarion**: "I could get you to Rome, if you’d be willing to answer me a couple of questions."
**Grizzop**: "Depends on the questions, get on with it."
**Eldarion**: "Is Sasha there?"
**Grizzop**: "Who wants to know?"
**Lydia**: "Eyyyy, that’s my boy! Sasha doesn’t know why but her heart just...she feels loved."
―Grizzop refuses to give Eldarion any info about Sasha.

**Eldarion**: "I need to know if you’re Grizzop or not. I can leave and you can just wait for Rome yourself. It’s not going to come to you."
**Grizzop**: "This Grizzop character, what do you know of him? Is he in fact a goblin paladin of Artemis?  Because either this is a ridiculous coincidence or YES, obviously, because when I walked in the door you said, "Grizzop?" Yes, I’m Grizzop, now who are you?"
―Grizzop and Eldarion get off to a rocky start.

"If I actually knew Sasha, I’d know that she wouldn’t want me to take help from somebody who won’t tell me her name and then claims a connection with Sasha. So, what is your name? Or...I will leave and maybe shoot your eyeballs off, because you are very annoying."
―**Grizzop has no patience with Eldarion.**

**Einstein**: "This is kinda hard for me. You know, ever since Newton’s study, you know, way back when, I’m really really good at em, you know, the teleporting — I’m super good, you know, it’s Einstein, eyy, Einstein, you know!"
**Azu**: "Yes, we appreciate that."
**Einstein**: "And you know what, *prestidigitation*, so good, super, you know, I’ll clean your clothes like anything but… I may have lost quite a lot back when I tried to, to get into Newton’s stuff… em… that’s all I got."
**Azu**: "You’ve forgotten?"
**Einstein**: "Forget’s a strong word."
**Azu**: "What word would you use?"
**Einstein**: "I… teleported really skillfully all of the knowledge and skill I had accrued through a lifetime of study… somewhere I am not."
―Einstein confesses to having lied about the magical knowledge he possesses.

"It’s not alright, though, is it? I’m gonna be a teacher, you know, and they’re all like asking these questions and I don’t know, so, so I just tell them things about teleporting and then they make me the head of faculty. I mean, for teleporting, thank god! But you know, like, this is, this is — they’re all like, oh, you know I really struggle with, with, with, you know, *detect magic*, and I’m like, it’s fine, just don’t do it!"
―**Albert Einstein**
## Dice rolls and Mechanics

* Azu and Sasha make Perception checks while investigating: Azu gets 10, Sasha gets 27
* Hamid casts *detect magic* and collapses.
* Grizzop makes a Fortitude save while planeswalking: 12
* Grizzop makes a Reflex save after stumbling: 20
* Grizzop makes a Fortitude save while planeswalking: 28
* Grizzop makes a Fortitude save while planeswalking: 22
* Grizzop makes a Fortitude save while planeswalking: nat 1
* Grizzop makes a Reflex save after the crit fail: 19
* Azu makes a Spellcraft check on the magical script: 17
* Hamid casts *read magic* on the magical script.
* Hamid makes a Bluff check to technobabble Einstein: 27
* Azu makes a Sense Motive check on Einstein: 15
* Grizzop makes a Fortitude save while planeswalking: 11
* Grizzop makes a Reflex save: 24
* Grizzop makes a Fortitude save while planeswalking: 19
* Grizzop casts *endure elements*. Because he's in Rome, he casts it a second time, using the symbol of Artemis, and it's successful
* Grizzop makes a Bluff check to lie to Eldarion: 16
* Grizzop makes a Stealth check to get through Rome: 28
* Hamid makes a Bluff check on Einstein: 16
* Hamid, Azu, and Sasha make a Sense Motive check on Einstein: Hamid gets 11, Azu gets 14, Sasha gets 20
* Azu takes 10 to comfort.
* Grizzop makes a Survival check in Rome: 2
* Grizzop makes a Fortitude save in Rome: 20
* Hamid, Azu, and Sasha make a Perception check to find Grizzop: Hamid gets 27, Azu gets 17, Sasha gets 30

## Trivia

During this episode, Grizzop asks Eldarion "who are you?" or "what's your name?" eleven times in under 2 minutes.