2024/03/06: Defending an Idol Group on Another World Report

General Summary

Buzz, Knight, Kal'vus, Terana, Zaran   The party came together in the Rook in Castle Fallingstar on December 17th, 23 ARL. Kal'vus and Buzz were back from space and had called the others only shortly after their return, hoping to keep pressure up on Necrosa. Terana, frustrated to the brink of tolerance by the continued uselessness of the Greylands elves, tracked down Knight in hopes that he'd have something interesting to do (and something to take out her stress on), and he invited her along on the mission. He also invited Ngel Sfet, offering an opportunity to see more of the world (and other worlds) and put her magic to a field test. Buzz, for his part, brought Azhar as thief and anti-mage support, and Terana brought James, a little hedgehog thing that has great thief skills and is a friend/pet/frequent pocket inhabitant of hers.   Zaran wasn't entirely sure how he got to the Rook, since he last remembered being in the mines near Darkhome two weeks earlier. He'd been landed there with a many-layered drink, though, so he went ahead and enjoyed that. He was promptly recruited into the party. Knight drew a portrait of him with little magical stars and moons fizzing off his head.   The Leithien representative who gave the party their mission details turned out to be Lillith. She was finally getting to play spymaster, distributing info to adventurers and coordinating things.   The target planet/plane is named Halloran. The magical idol group the party was to protect is a band known as Zyth. The world has a slightly lower level of magic than Renedge, but it shouldn't be too hard to fit in.   Terana, Kal'vus, Knight, and Ngel Sfet went to the Mountain of the Mages to get additional information via divination (and also look around for fun). Knight got some attention from the mages, mostly of the "how did you summon that" variety. (It's mage central, of course they thought he was a summoned monster of some sort.) One woman started sketching him.   Buzz and Azhar, reasonably, chose to stay home. Technomancers are not welcome at the Mountain, and Buzz fully expected that he and everyone around him would start being hit by artillery strikes from panicking archmages the moment the wards detected him. He did request that his teammates look for spellbooks on Abjuration, Invocation, and Alteration on his behalf, giving them 200k to buy anything particularly interesting.   Knight bought a bunch of magic books for Ngel Sfet when she inevitably got starry-eyed at the mage market. Her eyes may have been bigger than her stomach, but Kal'vus was feeling generous and Knight refused to let Kal'vus spot any remainder of the cost if Knight's funds could cover all of it.   A little while later, Kal'vus suddenly found himself dressed as a goth western ninja, trench coat and all. He mostly ignored this.   The group finally got to the diviner, an old granny-type woman. Her cat, Mr. Biters (who's old and gnarled and probably has hit dice) immediately liked Terana, which is rare for Mr. Biters and not at all rare for Terana.   The diviner did her scrying. Halloran. Tall skyscrapers, draconic beings flying between them. Lots of anime-style demihumans, from catboys to demon-girls. A cross between Blade Runner and Hyper Police in appearance and theme.   Zyth is magical idol group/band. A bunch of individually semi-famous people who grouped up. Aim to bring hope and make money on the side. Lots of charity concerts. Scattered all over the world, rarely in each other's presence. All well-protected. One of them is an android who is a military secret and also fights kaiju in the ocean. Their names are Allae Nas, June, Tir Oba, Oracle, Una, and Roen.   The party thanked and paid the diviner, and she pointed them to their next stop, Nigel's Occultery. It contained plenty of weird magic books for Buzz. Terana, Buzz, and Zaran all bought a bunch.   With information gathered and their business done, the party teleported to Halloran. Unusually, the teleport manifested as a Terminator-esque sphere of energy around the party. It worked, though, and the group appeared in the stonehenge they were aiming for in the middle of nice piney woods. It was pitch dark, though, and all magical light sources appeared nonfunctional.   The party started heading for a structure Knight identified near the edge of the woods via the sky gem. Along the way, the adventurers started to run across mundane wildlife, and Terana flagged down a passing fox. Fox: "Aside from the people in black cloaks who come here about once a month, not many people come here." Also, apparently illusion magic isn't working well here. Also it's nighttime.   After 20 miles of peaceful walking in nighttime woods (with the most dangerous encounter being a bear that didn't want anything to do with them), the party encountered a group of eight cultists struggling through the woods, carrying a bagged being who was struggling and clearly didn't want to be there.   Rescue theft + martial arts + popup intimidation = very scattered cultists   The party's lead group, who hadn't been spotted yet, decided to go for stealth. Terana and Kal'vus disappeared behind foliage and Knight turned into a shadow puddle in the midst of dark woods.   As the cultists approached, struggling through the woods in the darkness, Terana made her move. She stole the bagged sacrifice off the cultists' shoulders and disappeared into the shadows before they could comprehend what happened. As they started pulling weapons and looking for the threat, Kal'vus slipped in and flipped six of the eight to the ground before similarly vanishing. The scared and confused cultists circled up, weapons drawn and facing outward. Knight took this perfect opportunity to rise up in the middle of the circle, pull all of his weapons, wait for a cultist to notice him, and then flare his armor's fear aura.   The cultists broke instantly. The only one that didn't run screaming into the woods was the apparent leader, who tried to bind Knight with a loop of magical energy. It shattered on his armor. He started laughing, which with his voice is unnerving at the best of times. The leader joined his fellows in flight.   While Knight played horror movie monster with the cultists, Terana opened the bag. Inside was a three-foot-nothing owl person with very big, teary eyes. The panicking little owl girl tried to bite Terana, not that her beak managed to get through Terana's armor. After much careful calming, Terana was able to get some information out of her. Unfortunately the girl didn't know how to contact her parents.   Terana and Kal'vus also grabbed one of the fleeing cultists, who promptly turned into a blubbering, surrendering mess. Ernie Selbright, newly ex-cultist, is a person with minor dog features. The yellow eyes on the cultists went away at some point, possibly when the leader self-destructed in a last desperate attack on Knight, who was attempting to drag the man back through the woods to the rest of the party. According to Ernie, the guy who exploded was a "being of power" who promised all the cultists wealth and fame and anything they wanted if they obeyed and threatened horrible fates if they didn't believe everything he said. He was the cult leader. He apparently had connections with the cops, connections with organized crime, and may have been some sort of hitman.   The forward group noted a few interesting details from the encounter with the cultist leader. He was apparently able to cast his spells without gestures or material components (which is what made restraining him so difficult), and the hellfire he produced bypassed most resistances and dodge attempts even if the actual injuries caused were minor by the party's standards. Regeneration didn't work on it, Knight's focus healing didn't seem to be functioning at all, and while Lillith's healing did work, she suspected she wouldn't be able to recover her spells until she found a local deity to pray to. Lillith strongly suggested (while looking sternly at Knight) that if party members found themselves under attack, they actually take the fights seriously, at least until Lillith was sure she'd be able to get her spells back.   The party left the rest of the cultists lost in the woods and took Ernie and the girl onward to the structure Knight had seen at the edge of the woods. It turned out to be the magic-based gas station where Ernie's car was parked. Ernie drove the party to a police station to drop off the poor kid, then drove the party to the cult headquarters, which they claimed as their new base.   The base is a somewhat burned-out tenement that has some livable basements underneath. It has a little cafeteria area, places to sleep, some supplies (occult and otherwise), and working water and electricity. At Ernie's recommendation, the party's mages started working on safely destroying the cult's "holy book", which was bound in demon skin. The hideout also contained a safe with enough local currency to buy several cars, so plenty for the party to start with on this world.

Rewards Granted

Character(s) interacted with

Ngel Sfet, Azhar, Mountain of the Mages diviner, Nigel, little owl girl, cult leader, Ernie the Ex-Cultist, Lillith, James

Notes

Buzz is level 41/1/1. Kal'vus is 25. Terana is something like 63/30/16/8. Knight is 43/16/4. Zaran is 27/20/20.   Sigil is closed. All the doors are closed. The Lady of Pain shut everything down.   In Halloran (or at least this forest), Knight's fear aura doesn't make red light, but it does make reddish smoke. The fear part sure still works, though!