Hub:Chapter 1-5
The Book of Pussich: Chapter 5
Recovery
The next day, Alekzie and Asterix finished healing our wounds, and Gwen woke up. Byron brought in and hooked up some equipment he said would feed Nigel and keep him comfortable until he woke up. Iam got the brilliant idea to stick broccoli up Nigel's nose, and did so, but it was promptly removed.
Eight days later, Nigel woke up screaming. He tried to get up to pray, but fell on his face and prayed there. We asked him how he felt, and he said, "I feel fine...but why does everything smell like broccoli?" As soon as Nigel was up and about, we went to talk to Scott about our escapade in the cave. We were brought to the observatory where Scott and Xera were waiting. He told us that a new religion had been expanding in all the major cities--a new religion that started with Nigel, who promptly utters a "Praise Pussich." Scott remarked on how quickly it'd been spreading, and how unusual this is for a religion. We decided that we would have to build a temple, and we should go back to Skryfe.
Orb of the Gods
Scott told us how his group's exploration of the cave went. They found the orb, but didn't know what it was. They found that it was growing and wass a large focus of energy. We told him about the orb and Pusicch, and described the power of the orb, and he said that in order to protect the orb, he shouldn't let us go with the knowledge of the orb. He gave us two days to research the orb in his library, in the hopes that we could find something that would allow the orb to be protected and allow us to leave.
Elly found a book written in a Elven script too ancient for her to read, but Aremis could read it and told her that it detailed the "Orb of the Gods." The book explained its abilities as follows: the orb has the power to raise fallen gods if they still have followers, and to give god-hood to those that have completed the required tasks proving themselves to be worthy (though no details were provided here) and have followers who believe him to be a god. Additionally, the orb can be channeled by mages, and it exists in all dimensions sidereally, thus the mage would channel the power of all the orbs. After raising a fallen god, the orb needs several lifetimes to recharge, but given the power of the other orbs, believed to be infinite in number, it is still very powerful and dangerous. We began to understand that this is how Dolric got home in the first place. We debated where our loyalties lie now.
Spilling the Beans
We decided to tell Captain Richards (Scott [The Dark Overlord]) everything about Dolric and all he had sent us to do. We had a long conversation with Scott and Xera about the mage and the orb. Xera turned very pale. They told us that Scott's fortress used to be Dolric's mage tower, that he was the leader of the mages, and that he knows the tower better than they do. Xera excused herself halfway through the conversation, and Aremis heard her say "He knows now," outside the door. Elly told Scott, who didn't seem to think anything of it, because he trusted his people completely. However, the group believed that the commander might be a traitor. While we thought that we might want to stay in the tower for a while, Scott decided that it wasn't safe for us to stay. We agreed to go to Scryfe and stay there for a while.
We did another day's worth of research and found some interesting things. Elly foud two spellbooks hidden in the library: one was very big, the other was small, and both were locked. Elly had Asterix rip the lock off the smaller one, and tried to read it, but was bitten by a magical snake and frozen in time. Nigel took care of her with a dispel magic prayer, and she decided not to try to read the bigger book. Alekzie found a few magical items, including a set of gems that floated around her head, a puzzle-box, and a portable hole.
We told Scott about these things. He knew about the books, and said we could keep them, but didn't know about the items. He said we could keep them as well, though. Alekzie opened up the portable hole. Elly and Gwen reached into it, searching for any items left inside. Gwen found two keys, probably for the spellbooks, and Elly found two very large pearls. She put them in her bag. Nigel cast a gylph on the small spellbook, preventing Elly from reading it again.
That night, Gwen managed to find somewhere else to sleep, and we had our quiet guesses as to whose bed it was. In the morning, Scott sent us away with our new toys and some supplies, and we started heading back to Skryfe.
