Test Of Sacrifice

After some soul searching, Chul chooses to jump into the plasma. The rest of the group watches as Chul's body begins to disintegrate before their eyes...but, as if time is slowing, the pieces of Chul's body slowly stop spreading apart and then draw back together, leaving an alive and breathing Chul on the floor before it. Chul experiences a series of long vision in a few split seconds. The only physical changes to Chul are to his left eye, which now is a small candle-sized flame with small wisps of smoke rolling off. When Chul is fully awake and back with it, he knows that divine intervention has saved him from annihilation, such a boon is not to be granted again.

Chul can feel something has changed, a reservoir of power that he isnt sure how to get at. With some experimenting he finds he can see things if he concentrates, such as Snake in a desert travelling with what appears to be a caravan to some fantastical city, Maavu in Cauldron rebuilding his wrecked warehouse, Kristof having an argument with a Wee Jas acolyte, and Jenya being disciplined by a superior. Chul tries to view several other people, but fails...unsure if its his lack of knowledge on how to use his new-found power, or a limitation to it outside of his control.

Chul concentrates on the desert and city they saw Snake at, attempting to "teleport" the group their, but nothing happens. Chul concentrates on Cauldron, the picture of the Church of St. Cuthbert in his mind. Like sinking into a deep lake of water, Chul can feel a power wash over him as he loses control and the group feels a sickening sensation as things go hazy and they all find themselves in the church standing in front of Jenya.

Jenya is shocked, to say the least, and overjoyed to see the group has returned safely along with Alek. She thanks them for Alek's safe return. She explains Skellerang's death and says she attempted to speak with his corpse, but he did not want to speak to her and she was unable to force him to do so. On the side, she speaks to Chul about concerns with the growing rift between Wee Jas and Pelor. Kristof's claims are not totally unfounded she explains, the Wee Jas clerics have become less and less approachable, turtling up inside their citadel. Why, Jenya doesnt know. But she tells Chul that if Kristof needs any help to let her know...Kristof has a bad habit of not asking for help when he needs it.

The group visits Maavu next. He informs them he is forming a loose alliance of like-minded invidivials in regards to the current city government. This loose network of people consists of many people whom the Crimson Tear's would call allies. Maavu tells the group the information he was able to gather from the stolen ledgers. They document much of the taxes diverted toward the half-orc mercs, and to Vhalantru, ear-marked for the Church of Wee Jas in return for services they were to provide, such things as labor and magical resources. The ledger doesnt go into details, its just line items. Almost all the money gathered by the higher taxes since around the Flood Festival have gone to various projects under Vhalantru's name, he also finds Rhiavadi's name besides Vhalantru's in many cases. There are a few exceptions, including the founding of the MTA, which appears to be Navalant's project.

With this information, Maavu has informed the Striders, who are now monitoring Vhalantru and Rhiavadi's house, and the Church of Wee Jas. Tyro has a contact in the Church of Wee Jas in Sasserine he trusts whom he has queried about the local church's behavior.

Returning to the Drunken Morkoth, Morgan offers the hired hands a more permanent employment opportunity. Only Kreed accepts, the others take their pay and return to their respective lives for the time being.

Chul visits Kristof at the Tower of Pelor and finds Baleson (one of the missing miners) waiting for him. Baleson claims to have seen a vision of Chul talking to the sun god. The sun god promised Baleson that Chul could cure him of his sickness. Chul can see sitting in the gut of Baleson, a dark curled up creature. As Chul approaches, the blackness unfolds and grows becoming a full sized jaguar. Chul can clearly see the creature latched onto Baleson, as Baleson screams and writhes in agony, his body transforming into some half human and half jaguar hybrid. The creature that now is Baleson jumps at Chul, clawing and biting. Chul grapples the black creature he sees and rips it off of Baleson. The blackness erupts into flames and roars and thrashes about in Chul's arms. The flaming creature turns and latches on to Chul. The flames subside and Chul finds he now has the creature curled up inside of him, but instead of blackness its a bright flaming ball.

Unsure of what make of it all, he helps Kristof attend to an unconscious Baleson. Chul decides to take his leave, and as he leaves the temple he runs into the group of orphans who now live as altar boys at the church. One of the boys has a curled up ball of blackness in the rough shape of a bear sitting in his gut. Chul decides to leave it alone for now, and queries Kristof to see if he has seen anything odd with the child. Kristof says no besides an enormous appetite. Chul tells him to keep a close eye on the child, and takes his leave.

The group faces a few days of rest and relaxation...

The Black Flame

Shortly after settling down to have a long rest, those on watch hear the low distant sounds of sceaming and wailing issuing forth from the walls around them. While a little unnerving, the watch continues, and on the second watch of Chul and Snake, the sounds get louder and louder as if getting nearer and nearer. As Chul and Snake intently watch the stairs, which seems to be the direction the sounds are coming from, Snake spots out of the corner of his eye a featureless human-shaped creature pulling itself up out of the earth and reaching for Chul. Miniature ghostly apparitions float over its body, the source of the screaming and wailing.

Snake attacks the creature, and cries out an alarm to wake the rest of the party. Salla, as he wakes up, has another one of the creatures attempting to slam its balled fists into him. The creature attacking Chul successfully connects and Chul staggers about as one of the ghostly apparitions floating about the faceless creature, flies into Chul. A white ghostly face imposes itself over Chul's as it screams and wails. Chul is able to recover, but the experience is hideous, leaving behind awful memories of death and pain from someone else.

The group fights these featureless creatures, slaying one and routing the second. As the group recovers from the battle, a chilling voice, with no discernible source, fills the room. The voice says little of sense, babbling about the "surprise" its pets had found.

It is decided to attempt to finish resting, which happens with no more interruptions, other then the constant and unnerving wailing that can still be heard. The group begins to prepare for what they believe will be a fight just up the stairs. During this time, they realize Kara'fen is gone.

Leading the charge is Salla, who runs up the stairs and into a 60' by 30' cave, in the middle a large black flame envelops a plate-clad black skeletal creature. Between the skeletal creature and the stairs is a moving pile of rocks in a roughly humanoid shape. Salla and Snake move in, with Snake leaping into melee with the skeletal creature (a silence spell cast on his person). When Morgan moves into the chamber, the rocks charge at him. The rest of the group piles into the cavern.

Two manticores appear from nowhere in the middle of the cave, and from smaller tunnels leading off the side of the larger chamber, several malformed (demonic in appearance) apes and boars charge out surrounding the group.

While the party whittles through the fodder, Kara'fen makes an appearance throwing a bolt of lightning that bounces through the party. Chul, suffering major burns from a shield of fire that wraps up Kara'fen, manages to stun him and then uses Alakast to take him down and pulp his head.

Meanwhile, Snake and the skeletal creature dance about, and once the creature gets out of the "bulls-eye spell", I mean the silence spell, it chants a foul curse and Snake disappears. Unfortunately, it cant stand up to Morgan hacking at it with his giant sword and is cut down.

After Salla puts on his thinking hat, the best he comes up with is that Snake was dismissed from Occipitus back to their "home" plane...somewhere.

At the other end of the chamber with the black flame they find another set of stairs leading up. These lead them to what can only be the eye socket of the giant white skull. A geyser of plasma spouts out the red burning material that makes up the sky of Occipitus. Nearby stands another wrapped corpse in decorative full plate. It welcomes the group to the final test, the Test of Sacrifice, and tells them they must sacrifice an ally to the geyser to become the new ruler of Occipitus.

Whom shall be sacrificed to claim the final prize?