The Planar Incident

## The Planar Incident, aka The Rift

The incident at the Mage's Guild, known by scholars as The Planar Incident, and by common folk as The Rift, was an event that transpired in the early summertime. Many people were in awe when the skies above Stilde began shining in many brilliant, vibrant colors, all seemingly stemming from the Mage's Guild. While at the time it was considered an interesting curiosity, few knew the truth of what had happened that day. According to accounts from surviving members, the Mage's Guild council convened and attempted to open a permanent portal to the Feywilds.

This ended in disaster, as when the portal opened, the council were all pulled inside, and those in the room, but far enough away to avoid its pull were cursed in other ways. Their dearest memories were ripped from them, as well as one of their five senses. Cinder is noted as having lost her sight, as well as any memories pertaining to the Adventurer's Guild member Rylik. Markus who was already mute had lost his sense of hearing, as well as memories he had of being out boating as a youth. Eyewitnesses state they saw Cinder blindly navigate her way through the city to the Adventurer's Guild to seek assistance. While she was out gathering help, the Knights of Stilde swooped in and put the Mage's Guild on lockdown.

Although things returned to a relative normal after the event, many people now herald it as a sign of bad times and are quick to blame the Mage's Guild for any ill happenings.

## The Feywild

When the Adventurer's Guild members made their way to the Mage's Guild, they were met with large vines growing all over the guild, and strange creatures flying in the air above them. Some Mage's Guild members claim they saw a Gnome talking with some of the creatures, but no one has stepped forward with additional information. From here, they made their way to the top of the Astral Tower, which was now in ruins. Amongst the ruins a shimmering portal laid in wait, sprouting additional vines, and conjuring more strange creatures.

Once through the portal, the Guild Members found themselves in a free fall, what was just a moment ago across, had suddenly become down. Surviving the fall, they were met with an alien landscape of twisting purple flora, and large grotesque fauna. The fauna included large toads that attempted to eat the party. Shortly after surviving that encounter they ran into small gnomish creatures wearing large spiked boots, and blood red hats. These Redcaps were harrassing a wolf, which the party rescued. The wolf turned out to be an Eladrin, claiming to be from a "Court of Spring." The party, having no other leads, followed the woman back to her village.

### The Court of Spring

The party, after following the female Eladrin to the spring court, was surrounded and detained by Eladrin warriors due to the Eladrin being unsure about what was causing the issues in their lands. After questioning them, they were invited to a meeting with the queen of the Spring Court, a warrior queen named Kaimynis Jarriele, where she introduced them to their first "Husk", a former Eladrin who had lost all senses and became violent.

From here, she suggested that they meet up with her scout network that is currently in the Court of suimmer to see if they had any additional information about what was causing these issues throughout the Feywild and the material plane.

### The Court of Summer

Here the party, after suffering a series of pranks at the hand of the scouting party of the Spring Court (who turned out to be pixies), they arrived at the camp. The information they gained from the scouting party lead them to head towards the court of stars and the prophetic witches who live within it. Kingle was separated from the party and ended up finding his way thanks to a Great Elk, who pointed him towards the Court of Stars.

### The Court of Stars

Once the party (and Kingle separately) crossed into the Court of Stars, they were buffeted by the most intense cold that they had ever experienced. This cold caused the party to quickly become exhausted and seeking warmth, but they managed to suffer through to find a large frozen lake and a small house sitting in the center of it. After making their way to the house, the party ended up getting access to the house thanks to a small Kenku servant of the witches named Cheep. From here the party thoroughly beat the witches, leaving one alive to learn that 'The Wanderer' would be found in the goblin kingdom below the Palace of Stars. After leaving the hut, Cheep in tow, the party was intercepted by Eladrin riding polar bears, where they were clothed in warm clothes that protected them from the cold, and they were brought to the Palace of Stars

Kingle on the other hand, arrived in a different area of the court, and nearly froze to death. As he lay dying, Kingle made a deal with a mysterious figure to 'no longer have to feel the pain of the cold'. Thus, Kingle lost the ability to feel anything physically as well as his good memories of the time with the man who trained him. Thankfully, before he could become a husk, the creature was scared off by the arrival of Eladrin on polar bears, who picked up the frozen Kingle and brought him back to the palace.

### The Palace of Stars

Upon arrival at the Palace of Stars, the party and Kingle were reunited, and here the Queen of the Eladrin Lyvhyssa tested them at the fountain of her Goddess of youth and beauty, known to those in the material plane as the fountain of youth. Here each party member found themselves viewing two pieces of their lives, the good and the bad, and they were reassured by the Goddess that they were not the defined by the bad. Each came away with a vial of the water from the Fountain of Youth. Lyvhyssa allowed the party to rest at the Palace before they headed off to the Goblin kingdom.

### Below the Mountain

Kingle, having accidentally stumbled upon an entrance to the goblin kingdom in the dormant volcano below the Palace of Stars, guided the party back to this entrance. Here, the party accidentally activated a warning rune, letting the Goblin forces know they were there. Fighting their way to the lower levels of the kingdom, they hid themselves in the lower city levels where a festival was taking place in which goblins would dress up as different creatures from across the planes.

Believing that the leader of the goblin kingdom (The Great Gark) was the being behind the stealing of Cinder's memories and sight, they snuck their way into the main palace through one of the large brass pipes that pump hot water into the palace's bathing room. Here they found a room full of goblins that were husked similar to that first Eladrin, and they found their way to the throne room. From here, the Great Gark attacked them with his "magic" (Really just a clever collection of devices controlled by levers in this throne), and the husks from around the room. After his defeat, it was quickly dscovered that he had made a deal with the Wanderer. Finding a secret passage behind the throne, the party found a large white dragon who was acting quite strange and violent (infected with a mindflayer spawn, which the party never found out), and who was the true leader behind the gobling kingdom. The party managed to defeat this dragon and escape through the portal at the back of its lair before the lava rose up and filled the room.

## The Outlands and The Concordant Opposition

### Excelsior

Upon arriving on the other side of the portal the party found themselves within the runes of a marbled and gold city, which unknown to them at the time, was Excelsior (Mount Celestia's gate-city in the Concordant Opposition). Following the sound of fighting, the party helped fend off a group of Slaad who were attacking a githzerai and a couple of devas. After the battle, the Githzerai Shakk Ann brought the party into his hiding place, and learned that they were hunting a hooded creature. He informed them here that he had killed this creature, since it was a illithid (the sworn enemy of the gith people).

Now aware that the Illithid are the ones causing everything, Malady attempted to speak to the dead Illithid but the Illithid hive mind intercepted and gave them little to no information, and Bertram blew off the creatures head before it could establish more of a control on Malady.

Shakk Ann informed them that, as they were looking for some methodology to track the missing wizards council throuhgout the planes, which Bertram believed would lead them to the same place as these Illithid, they needed to head to the Bazaar at the center of the concordant opposition to gain the assistance of the artificer Zappo.

### The Bazaar

After sailing down the main river on a stolen barge full of celestial grain, the party sold the ship for some electrum (the concordant opposition's currency) and found their way to Zappo, who was distressed as he lost all ability to use his artificer magic to the demon known as the Gambler who ran the Seven Hells casino. He promised if they could get his ability back that he would help them.

### Seven Hells Casino

The party found their way to the casino, where they managed to win enough chips to enter the high roller room thanks to Rylik winning the fighting arena. The high roller room ended up being a portal to the actual seven hells, where the owner of the casino (named The Gambler) challenged them to the best of five games for Zappos magic vs various wagers from the party including Rylik's fighting ability, Ban's life, and so on.

The party managed to go 2-2 and ended up winning the final game which was Monsters and Magic. After this, feeling bad about the deal he made, The Gambler informed the party that he had made a deal to try and make the party gamble away their abilities so that the illithid hiding outside the room could easily beat them.

Since he failed, the party managed to beat the assaulting illithid force but not before Malady was killed by an intellect devourer. She had a vision of a strange twisting forest and heard the call of a creature telling Malady that she should stay home, before she was brought back by Ban betting the gambler his own life against a spell of greater restoration in a simple game of dice.

### Pandemonium

After returning to Zappo with his magical ability, Zappo crafted the party a compass that could guide them to the location of the missing wizards using a piece of an old wizard staff the party found in the palace of the Great Gark. In addition, he gave the party a strange item called an Aidstone, and told them to not use it until absolutely necessary.

The party left with Shakk Ann towards Pandemonium, his home plane of chaos, where he told them he had a portal that led to a secret Spelljammer vessel with which they could sail the astral sea.

## The Astral Sea

### Locating the Mage's Council

Using the compass that they received from Zappo, the party took the helm of the Spelljammer and followed it to a cloudy area of the astral sea. Here the compass spun, indicating they found what they were looking for but could not see it. Bertram quickly figured that this was a large cloaking spell, used to hide whatever they were looking for, and they needed some sort of anti-magic field to clear it.

### Luring the Beast

Nervously, Shakk Ann described how the Spelljammer helm had a feature to locate nearby Astral Dreadnoughts to avoid them. Instead, Bertram and Shakk Ann suggested driving right toward one and luring it to the area, so that it's natural anti-magic field could clear the way to their target. Following the plan, the party managed to lure one towards the area, barely avoiding the anti-magic field themselves which would have shut down the Spelljammer ship and allowed the dreadnought to devour them.

### The Sacrifice

Luring the Dreadnought to the area, and revealing a hidden Nautilus vessel within the cloaking spell thanks to the anti-magic field, Shakk Ann told the party to load into the lifeboats and allow him to lure the beast away with the main vessel. Saying their goodbyes, the party sailed off towards the Nautilus ship, looking back and seeing the Spelljammer ship with Shakk Ann on it lure the Dreadnought away before being torn apart by the creature.

### Battle on the Deck of the Nautilus

After landing on the deck of the Nautilus, the party was greeted by a relative army of mindflayers, thralls, beholderkin, and intellect devourers. Upon the steps behind the army, they were greeted by the sight of a familiar face, Cinder's former master that had betrayed them during the 100th Annual Winter Star Festival. Here he explained that the garbage chute they dumped him in during the final battle there in the ethereal plane dumped into the astral sea, where he was found by the mindflayers and offered access to the material plane through the mage's guild in exchange for both revenge and power.

Realizing that they were facing down their end, as they were hopelessly outnumbered, Bertram determined that this was the 'time of greatest need', and shattered the mysterious aidstone on the ground. As he did, color portals began to open up around the party, spitting out various allies from all times and places including Zappo himself, Rhysand and the crew of the Gilbane's Pride, Kalgrin, The Gambler, Geese and the owner of the Soggy Duckling, Jousting Knights from the winter star festival, Gary, and many more.

Finally, Cinder of the Scorching Flame appeared at the party's side, saying "Rylik, I don't know why I can't remember you, but there's something inside of me that makes me want to fight for you." Before unleashing a massive fireball on the enemy forces and starting the battle.

Together the armies clashed and the party fought their way through the center to confront the evil wizard for the final time.

### The Final Battle

Entering the main sanctuary of the nautilus ship, the party was greeted by a horrible sight. The white dragon that they had killed earlier had been risen from the dead by unholy means, and upon his back was an elder brain twisted into a horrible creature. The creature, introducing itself as the true Wanderer, entered into battle with the party. The battle was hard fought and were it not for a death ward placed on Rylik by Malady, he would have been killed by the creature. Instead, this offered him the ideal opportunity to shake himself from the grip of the creature and deliver the killing blow, ending the curse of the wanderer and freeing all the memories and senses that the creature had stolen and stored within its swollen brain. With its death, so too did the evil wizard finally disappear to nothing.

Victory came with a cost however, as to survive some of the party had to drink from the vials of the waters of the fountain of youth given to them by the Queen of the Court of Stars. As such, they de-aged a bit but also suffered a permanent side effect that changed them forever. For example Jayla will forever appear 13 years old, and Rylik can only enter his Aura of Dread when he is bloody and injured.

## Reunited at Home

Returning to the guild hall, Rylik and Cinder are finally reunited, her memories returning to her with incredible force reminding her of the love that they share. Cinder takes over as the master of the mage's guild, and Bertram helps her to rebuild the council, and the rest of the party enjoy a well-deserved rest after an incredible stressful journey, some now having to learn to deal with the permanent changes that they have suffered.