Episode 402 - King of the Chaos

Finally, some freaking answers! Our heroes take a seat and get to the bottom of all the crap going on in their world directly from folks with first hand knowledge. No more conjecture. No more vague clues. Finally, we learn just how much danger we are in, and, unfortunately it is a whole lot.

## **Story**

### Long Story

Into the specified teleporting area of The Tower of Gray, a group of people have just spawned. Not sure why I wrote that sentence like a scheming wizard, but what have you. That group, by the way, consists of Queen Aludra Wyrmsbane, Jaela, and Lady Adira Harper. And they find a strange sight. Rowan Grey looks a little younger than she did before, and more blessed somehow. Lahni Caplain (who it's revealed has made it back, so that means the ship is, too) is glowing with a kind of evil energy. But Toby Treacletart, the young gnome who was so excited to meet Aludra and Jaela all those years ago, now looks the most changed. He's got one golden cat eye, and a withered, corrupted hand. He speaks plainly, with little emotion. And he's acting rude (ruder than normal, I mean). He turns his sights to Adira, asking why he shouldn't kill her right now. Aludra jumps to her defense, and Adira drops a massive info dump. Gross.

According to her, Bucky throwing the handaxe earlier is what freed them from their gooey bindings. Adira has been cursed, and physically unable to explain herself, and the whole situation, but seems to be freed once Aludra says that Trant Thumble is Eckhart Dayhammer. She asks about The Artifact, but Lahni doesn't have it. Seems when she took on Orcus's power, she dropped it, and was unable to pick it up again. So that means it's still down there, in The Abyss...

Adira continues. Long ago, before the the fall of Caer and the start of the The Demon Apocalypse, Bigby traveled to the Abyss to research the Artifact. He ended up going missing, for several years. 2 years after the Demon Apocalypse (the start or the end?), a then-unknown figure named Eckhart Dayhammer showed up at the Circle of Seven Headquarters with a nearly-dead Bigby. He claimed that Bigby had been captured by a demon lord named *Kag Thalus*. According to Dayhammer, he and his knights of Rhaegar would make regular descents into the Abyss to cleanse it of evil. He slew Kag Thalus, and rescued Bigby. Adira hypothesizes that Trant Thumble was subjugating the demons of the Abyss and happened upon Bigby, whom he freed to gain power for himself. As for how Trant is still alive after the fall of Caer? It seems that Caer wasn't destroyed in the Demon Apocalypse, but rather, just transported to there. It is now constantly on fire. The City of Flames, from the Artifact! Also, evil beings can't touch the Artifact (like Lahni when she was evil), but remember that Eckhart has a metal arm, because his arm was eaten off or something during the prison arc. During this time, all of the party's items were taken from them, so it's probable that Eckhart tried to grab the Artifact, and that blew his arm off, and he faked the attack to disguise it.

Adira also wants to explain the whole Melora thing. Under Bigby's orders, she was told that taking out Orcus would cause a lesser demon lord to take his place, to restore balance. But that didn't happen. She assumes that this is because Orcus was being held captive with the artifact by Bibgy and Trant, rather than having been killed. This left an inbalance of power, leaning toward Goodness. Bigby claimed that Melora was going to press her advantage, so he sent Adira to the Feywild to collect a piece of the Artifact and use it to stall Melora. Melora was attempting to invade Lolth's domain, so Adira did think she was doing the right thing. But Melora's capture brought about a veritable apocalypse in the Feywild. An army of Drow, led by Lolth itself appeared, and began wreaking havoc.That's when she realized she was being duped.

Rowan questions Bigby's authority on deciding the balance between good and evil, while Toby rejects the notion of good and evil altogether. Adira defends it by saying that without sorrow, there can be no happiness. Without war, there can be no peace. Anyway, once this happened, and Drunkeros was sent into an endless winter, Adira thought it was all over. She took the young Prince Thom Harper, the one person she cared about, to Elysium for safe-keeping. But then Eckhart showed up, which is when she realized he was behind this. That's when she went to Sigil, and began to untangle everything.

Welp. That's one spicey meatball, if I've ever heard one. But what about the Artifact? It can now be destroyed, as it's fully assembled, but it's in the Abyss, so now they have to head back there. The good news is that the bad guys think they've won, so the element of surprise is on our side. Rowan suggests luring Trant out using another god, maybe Lahni's new Orcus powers? They discuss the various gods, which brings up Vecna. Toby's acts strangely in regards to Vecna, which Aludra notices. She drags him away to talk in private. With some hesitation, he admits to having made the deal with Vecna. He encourages her to kill him if he goes off the deep end. They then may or may not party the night away.

### Short

Adira Harper offers the party a ton of information about Eckhart Dayhammer/Trant Thumble. He may or may not be working with Bigby, and currently has the Artifact, which was lost in The Abyss when Lahni went all Orcus-y. She also explains herself with the whole Melora thing. Toby's acting all weird now (weirder than usual), which causes Aludra to therapize him. The party suggests luring Trant out somehow using Lahni's new Orcus aura, but that might wait until Skud returns. The others may or may not party the night away, despite the imminent threat of Trant Thumble with the god-killing Artifact. What can you do?

## **Trivia**

* In this episode, Michael says that Bucky was dropped off in Deephome, before the others came here, but he was definitely here in the last episode. Curious. I am going to go with what he's saying now, and remove Bucky from the last episode. Sorry, Bucky
* Adira is no longer wearing her spider-like dress. Her hair is short, black, and uneven. She's still as badass as ever
* After Lahni took the power inside of her last episode, she dropped The Artifact, and was unable to grab it again, or else it would have destroyed her
* Toby's True Sight allows him the powers that a *Ring of X-ray Vision* would
* Michael provides us with the tier list of the gods, so here's that:
	+ The Good Gods
		- Avandra
		- Bahamut
		- Mordin
		- Pelor
	+ The Un-Aligned Gods
		- Garl Glittergold
		- The Raven Queen
		- Erathis
		- Corellon
		- Ioun
		- Uthgar
		- Melora
	+ The Evil Gods
		- Asmodeus
		- Bane (not that one)
		- Gruumsh
		- Lolth
		- Tharezdune
		- Tiamat
		- Torog
		- Zayhere
		- Vecna
* There's a temple to Mordin in Deephome
* Toby makes a comment about Garl Glittergold being too unimportant to help out in this
* Aludra has been going to therapy since her adventuring days, which is why she's such a good mediator
	+ Harper saw Doctor Frownsmasher, so Toby read all of the Doctor's books

## **In This Episode...**

### **Cast and Player Characters**

* Michael DiMauro - *Dungeon Master*
* Tim Lanning - Toby Treacletart
* Jennifer Cheek - Rowan Grey / Aludra Wyrmsbane
* Nika Howard - Lahnik "Lahni" Caplain / Jaela

### **Locations**

* Drunkeros
	+ Greenham
		- The Tower of Gray

### **Quest Log Updates**

* [On-Hold] - Stop Tiamat!
* [Active] - Destroy The Artifact!
	+ [NEW][Active] - Go to The Abyss and collect the Artifact
* [NEW][Optional] - Forgive Adira Harper???
* [On-Hold][Rowan] - Find Rowan's father, King Theonjon Dayne
* [Side-line][Boris] - Restore the used Planar Crystals that power The *BTS*

### **Quotes**

* **"Are you saying that my son... did wrong?!?"** ~ *Aludra Wyrmsbane*

* **"What if we destroyed everyone with [the Artifact]?"** ~ *Jaela, still dark*

* **"I used it! I used the Artifact! I saw the last piece, and everyone else was dead, and I didn't know what to do, and I was like, 'Well, you know, might as well start what you finish!' so I just plopped it right on there, and... here we are! Surprise!"** ~ *Lahni Caplain*

* **"I didn't lose it! It's right back there where Orcus died!"** ~ *Lahni Caplain*

* **"[On Toby's new cat-like eye]Okay, honestly, Rowan probably would NOT notice."** ~ *Jennifer Cheek*

* **"Aludra Catches the Burrito!"** ~ *Tim Lanning*

## **Rolls**

* **Recap**
	+ Tim - 9
	+ Jennifer - 5
	+ **Nika - 15**

* **Lahni** rolls a WIS Saving Throw - 26
	+ She feels rage boiling up inside her, but she's able to tamp it down

* **Toby** rolls *Arcana* to see what he knows about the hierarchies of the gods and such - 22
	+ He knows the tier list of the gods

* **Aludra** rolls *Insight* to see why Toby's acting really weird - 21
	+ Against Toby's *Deception* - 13
		- She doesn't think Toby's telling her everything

* **Aludra** attempts to pull Toby away, resulting in a contested STR roll
	+ Aludra - 17
	+ Toby - 11
		- She drags him away