[Season 9] A Tense Briefing
Dec 6, 2021 22:32:55 GMT
Ian (Menace), Jaezred Vandree, and 3 more like this
Post by andycd on Dec 6, 2021 22:32:55 GMT
Just before the Finale starts...
Aurelia looked out of the window of her office, over the marketplace below and down the hill of Daring Heights.
“You’re sure?”
“As sure as we can ever be, Aurelia. Nicnevin has been very forthcoming - hopefully a refreshing change of pace from our previous fey dealings. With the Shadowfell and Feywild locations known, the calculations for the Material Plane were apparently possible. I sent you the notes they gave me.”
“I looked at them - the calculations are correct.” Her fist hit the wood above the window. “Damnit, it just has to be on our doorstep, doesn’t it?”
Saria shrugged. “Saves us worrying about someone else screwing it up, doesn’t it?”
The archmage laughs. “I suppose there’s that. Will you handle the logistics?”
“I’ll get the plan together, but you should deliver it. They’ll be fine. The Duchess has faith in them.”
“She always will.”
The Great Hall of Fort Ettin is packed. Adventurers from across the Dawnlands have been summoned here at the Council’s request for something important. More people have shown up largely to see what all the fuss is about. Weapons bristle on backs and the occasional flash of magic catches the eye as the calm figure of Aurelia Archselon climbs up onto the stage at the side of the room and clears her throat. The room grows quiet in a wave.
“Thank you for coming. I’ll get right to it.
You are hopefully all aware of Langston Farstep and Jack the Hexadrone. Assumed to be the culprits in the murder of Queen Sarastra, they have been working for months now on a mysterious project.” As she speaks Aurelia waves her hand and images flash in the air next to her, both visual aids and a transcript of her words.
“We now know this to be a machine to control the Anchor of Sigil. This artefact is of unknown ability but it is singularly important to the Lady of Pain who, for those of you who don’t know, is theorized to be the most powerful being in the universe. Jack and Langston now have her undivided attention.
Thanks to the efforts of all of you, and our own Intelligence Service, we now know the following:
The Anchor hooks through three planes, the Feywild, the Material and the Shadowfell. The Feywild location is known to the Fey Ascendant, and apparently coincides with the cave of a gold dragon named Zmee some of you have encountered before. Reports indicate that Zmee was recalled to another location some time ago following the theft of some dragon eggs, leaving it unguarded of late.
The Shadowfell location was just scouted by some of our most powerful adventurers. It was heavily defended though those defenses have been at the very least dented. The machine there has a powerful shield defending it apparently, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.
Now, the Material location has been triangulated using planar geometry. I have double checked the figures and I can confirm that it sits just north of us - in the Angelbark Forest, the same spot that the Twilight took as their home many years ago - which in retrospect makes a lot of sense.
Finally, the Lady of Pain has contacted Queen Nicnevin to explain an additional aspect to this setup. Jack and Langston have engaged the Lady in a negotiation of some kind, presumably extortion. She cannot act against them directly for fear of her Anchor, but she has managed to throw up some sort of time dilation effect around the negotiation spot, buying us time to get in place. Nicnevin believes they have now already been at that table for more than a ten-day. This table is, apparently, floating in the chaotic wastes of Limbo.”
Aurelia pauses, letting everything sink in, the last images and transcript fading next to her.
“My understanding is that they want to become gods. I think at this point most of us can agree that seems less than ideal. So discussing with Nicnevin’s agents and so forth, we have a plan of attack.”
New images flash up. “We need four groups of you. A group of you will be sent to each location. For those of you going to the parts of the Machine, we have a plan to sabotage it.”
“For the Angelbark - you will head directly there with Jenna and Kaltenzahn. She can provide you with the details, but please try to avoid setting fire to the entire forest.”
“For the Feywild - you will be accompanied by Imryll Elamaris, right hand mage to the Witch Queen. The means to which you will be able to sabotage the machine there are already being prepared and, once in the Feywild, she will manage your movements.”
“As for the Shadowfell,” Aurelia’s all-business demeanour falters for a moment. “The Witch Queen has personally summoned an ally to break that shield I mentioned. I will leave you to deal with that how you will but… be extremely careful”
“The three Machine groups need to all be implementing their sabotage at the same time - that is, you do not need to start at the same time, but the machine needs to be disrupted at the same time so you will need to maintain this.”
“Finally, Limbo. We can get you to more or less right outside that timesink - once there we can only assume the Lady of Pain will drop the distortion so you can approach them and distract, disrupt and hopefully, eliminate the original Langston and Jack. They may not be gods yet, but they can expect to be extremely well defended. They’ve been preparing for this moment for who-knows-how-long.”
“This will not be easy, b—,” Aurelia cuts off abruptly. “Sending, apologies,” she says, tilting her head to the side, concentrating. After a moment, she curses softly in Celestial.
“I need a fifth group. We’ve got trouble at home too, it seems. Some of you need to stay locally and deal with that.
Now… this will not be easy, but you and those before you have excelled at the impossible. Good luck.”
...and now we avoid a long speech at the start of the session
Aurelia looked out of the window of her office, over the marketplace below and down the hill of Daring Heights.
“You’re sure?”
“As sure as we can ever be, Aurelia. Nicnevin has been very forthcoming - hopefully a refreshing change of pace from our previous fey dealings. With the Shadowfell and Feywild locations known, the calculations for the Material Plane were apparently possible. I sent you the notes they gave me.”
“I looked at them - the calculations are correct.” Her fist hit the wood above the window. “Damnit, it just has to be on our doorstep, doesn’t it?”
Saria shrugged. “Saves us worrying about someone else screwing it up, doesn’t it?”
The archmage laughs. “I suppose there’s that. Will you handle the logistics?”
“I’ll get the plan together, but you should deliver it. They’ll be fine. The Duchess has faith in them.”
“She always will.”
The Great Hall of Fort Ettin is packed. Adventurers from across the Dawnlands have been summoned here at the Council’s request for something important. More people have shown up largely to see what all the fuss is about. Weapons bristle on backs and the occasional flash of magic catches the eye as the calm figure of Aurelia Archselon climbs up onto the stage at the side of the room and clears her throat. The room grows quiet in a wave.
“Thank you for coming. I’ll get right to it.
You are hopefully all aware of Langston Farstep and Jack the Hexadrone. Assumed to be the culprits in the murder of Queen Sarastra, they have been working for months now on a mysterious project.” As she speaks Aurelia waves her hand and images flash in the air next to her, both visual aids and a transcript of her words.
“We now know this to be a machine to control the Anchor of Sigil. This artefact is of unknown ability but it is singularly important to the Lady of Pain who, for those of you who don’t know, is theorized to be the most powerful being in the universe. Jack and Langston now have her undivided attention.
Thanks to the efforts of all of you, and our own Intelligence Service, we now know the following:
The Anchor hooks through three planes, the Feywild, the Material and the Shadowfell. The Feywild location is known to the Fey Ascendant, and apparently coincides with the cave of a gold dragon named Zmee some of you have encountered before. Reports indicate that Zmee was recalled to another location some time ago following the theft of some dragon eggs, leaving it unguarded of late.
The Shadowfell location was just scouted by some of our most powerful adventurers. It was heavily defended though those defenses have been at the very least dented. The machine there has a powerful shield defending it apparently, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.
Now, the Material location has been triangulated using planar geometry. I have double checked the figures and I can confirm that it sits just north of us - in the Angelbark Forest, the same spot that the Twilight took as their home many years ago - which in retrospect makes a lot of sense.
Finally, the Lady of Pain has contacted Queen Nicnevin to explain an additional aspect to this setup. Jack and Langston have engaged the Lady in a negotiation of some kind, presumably extortion. She cannot act against them directly for fear of her Anchor, but she has managed to throw up some sort of time dilation effect around the negotiation spot, buying us time to get in place. Nicnevin believes they have now already been at that table for more than a ten-day. This table is, apparently, floating in the chaotic wastes of Limbo.”
Aurelia pauses, letting everything sink in, the last images and transcript fading next to her.
“My understanding is that they want to become gods. I think at this point most of us can agree that seems less than ideal. So discussing with Nicnevin’s agents and so forth, we have a plan of attack.”
New images flash up. “We need four groups of you. A group of you will be sent to each location. For those of you going to the parts of the Machine, we have a plan to sabotage it.”
“For the Angelbark - you will head directly there with Jenna and Kaltenzahn. She can provide you with the details, but please try to avoid setting fire to the entire forest.”
“For the Feywild - you will be accompanied by Imryll Elamaris, right hand mage to the Witch Queen. The means to which you will be able to sabotage the machine there are already being prepared and, once in the Feywild, she will manage your movements.”
“As for the Shadowfell,” Aurelia’s all-business demeanour falters for a moment. “The Witch Queen has personally summoned an ally to break that shield I mentioned. I will leave you to deal with that how you will but… be extremely careful”
“The three Machine groups need to all be implementing their sabotage at the same time - that is, you do not need to start at the same time, but the machine needs to be disrupted at the same time so you will need to maintain this.”
“Finally, Limbo. We can get you to more or less right outside that timesink - once there we can only assume the Lady of Pain will drop the distortion so you can approach them and distract, disrupt and hopefully, eliminate the original Langston and Jack. They may not be gods yet, but they can expect to be extremely well defended. They’ve been preparing for this moment for who-knows-how-long.”
“This will not be easy, b—,” Aurelia cuts off abruptly. “Sending, apologies,” she says, tilting her head to the side, concentrating. After a moment, she curses softly in Celestial.
“I need a fifth group. We’ve got trouble at home too, it seems. Some of you need to stay locally and deal with that.
Now… this will not be easy, but you and those before you have excelled at the impossible. Good luck.”
...and now we avoid a long speech at the start of the session
