We sent the Orks back to Camrish, and went to Newton. We got pushed away by the swordmaster guarding the Adept bureaucrats, but managed to find the Minister of Defense (the Trollish skyraider) who was trying to build a skyship. We gave her a little bit of information about fire cannons and skyships, and she gave us a quick tour of the defense systems and promised to meet us in a bar about an hour after sundown.

Meanwhile, Thwak found some gossip from the folks in the bar:

  • Take back Camrish (defense minister is pushing this) or keep our city and ignore them.
  • What will we do with the non-Adepts? Help them regain their memories, or keep using them as personal servants? There's an Elven Troubadour movement to drop everything and help the mundanes.
  • Food: we need food.

    Kelios Phoenix walked up to us, interrupting our exchange of information, and started fawning over the "people who brought us out of the Caer". She asked to join the group, and we had a lot of conversation. I am becoming convinced that they simply don't teach social skills in Camrish, and that everyone is just rude.

    When the Minister of Defense arrived, we told her the story of our trip, and she asked about:

  • The chances Camrish will attack
  • West Hills Tribe and Myrkridia
  • Defending Camrish--towers are all well and good, but airships would be better
  • What's upriver and downriver--we need signals upriver, and trade downriver, we need a base in Travar, and income in real currency
  • What's the feeling in Throal?
  • Overland Trading Company: what shall we do about it, and what will their response be?
  • More complete map, with True Element access, horror locations
  • Cult Village: what do we do about it? I gave her the summary of my thesis on the Myrkridia, but she wants to know more about what they'll do if people cross their land, move into it, etc. She said she thought that we'd be most useful far outside of town, dealing with things like Travar and the human cultist city. Kelios invited T'Karish and I to stay with her, Thwak took a guard shift, and the others stayed in the bar. (She's not intentionally rude, I think. Maybe just nervous or something)

    In the morning, Thwak reported that he, while on guard, noticed a large explosion somewhere due South. The party decided to walk about half a day into the Forest, and notices a grey misted swamp that Gilad, Thwak and Donk seem to recognise. As we walked back, they explained that during their SpiritQuest, they found a swamp that looked remarkably like this, in the center of which was a dragon. This lead into an explanation about dreams: that there had been two of them that most-everyone had, but some others, that they occurred before the party met each other. Gilad explained that he had been a Questor in his dream, and when he pledged himself in Camrish, Thisoneus said "Welcome back." The other dream was of a land called "Boston", where machines had the same effect as much of magic here, and magic was random and raw-cast, but that was safe since there were no Horrors.

    Gilad continued that the SpiritQuest began in the temple in Camrish: there was a door in the back, and they met the guy guarding the door. He asked them what they wanted to do, and the went on a Quest to find the missing members of their party. He mentioned that they are deep, intensely personal, and relatively painful experiences, because you find things that you might rather have not known.

    We get back, hand the jewels off to the Nethermancer (who appears 6th circle or so) and decided to go off to deal with the human cultists first. I also had a quick conversation with the M.o.D. , explaining that Thwak noticed a plume of flame and we found a swamp that may have a Dragon in it.

    We headed along the south side of the river, camping and mapping the area as we went. The second night, we encountered a Brithan, an honorable but not intelligent beast. Gilad encountered it first, and so it challenged it to what should have been a ritual combat. Gilad, of course, tried to kill it by shooting it through the eye with an arrow. I cast several incarnations of "stimulate healing" on it, but they didn't seem to be working. In the mean time, about 15 of its tribesmen surrounded the clearing. I sent T'Karish off to try to get some herbs to help it while I continued to try to help. As morning came, three of them entered the circle. One reached down and bit its neck, killing it, and the other two dragged its body towards the river. The new leader rose up on its hind legs and roared in the direction of the party. Thwak moved forward and challenged it, but it hit first. He still hit it, but then realized his mistake and backed down. We thought this might be a good time to get going...

    We crossed the river, passed the caer (which now has physical tenticles) and snuck around past the human village to ambush it. The archers started to knock down mooks, missed the altar but took out the moose-shaman sitting in front of the gecko's pavilion. Kelios threw an explosive fireball into the hut, but a gecko-horror climbed up onto the altar. It cast "Terror" on us, and said "You know, if you take out Thwak, you can use my Karma" but I was able to shake it's effect and hit the gecko with an Ephemeral Bolt. It tried to disbelieve, but couldn't manage it, and instead unravelled my Silver and Purple matrices. I reattuned my blue matrix to True Ephemeral Bolt and threw two, just barely missing both times. Kelios flew up into the air, as another gecko was carried out of the hut, which Gilad speared repeatedly. Thwak managed to shake off the terror effect as well, but missed the gecko as well. His next two arrows hit the one on the altar, and Gilad's next 4 of 5 hit the one in the cage, as I, again, just barely missed.

    Thwak and Gilad both managed to pin the two geckos to the ground, and it managed to resist forgetting that it should be on this plane. Kelios threw a missle spell at me that caused me to fly up into the air with her, conveniently putting me out of the way of the zombies attacking Thwak and Donk.

    We managed to kill the gecko and the zombies and knock out the 20 or so still-humans who had been worshipping the horror. Now what do we do with them?