Broadcaster Quest (D&D SI Multicross) (AKA "Can someone turn down the volume?! I can't hear myself think!")

[Mr. Cloak]

HELLO SUFFICIENT VELOCITY (and a very happy Christmas/Yule/Winter Festival/Dark Time to everyone!)

It is I, Mr. Cloak, with a new story- one that's a QUEST!

Welcome to The BroadCaster's Quest!

So first: obvious probable questions:

• Yes, that is the title.
• Yes, I will continue updating my other stories when I can.
• No, I do not have as much free time as I used too (the startup I am working at just went live, and our grand opening was November 2nd, but I have a full time job -8 hours every day except Monday, where I have 4 hours-, and I have very little free time).
• Yes, I am throwing another clone of me into a horrible, horrible place, so… Yup, SI it is.
• This is going to start as a D&D quest, but may become a multicross if the MC survives that long. Once the MC begins to adventure, then one of the options has a chance (I will roll some dice for it) to eject the MC into the next universe (this chance will increase the higher level he gets).

Now with the more likely questions out of the way, the rules of this quest:

1) I am planning to post once a week for this quest. This MAY not happen, depending on how intense RL gets, and whether or not I can get enough sleep to remain lucid while I dream. My muse is a fickle airheaded mercurial little CENSORED, so I hope other people directing the path of this quest will make this easier to push through.
2) The voting in this quest will not control the main character- rather, it will set the scene for what the major risk that will threaten the world/continent/city/town/place (with the exception of the first voting sequence, which will determine one other major factor in the story). I will then write between 1-3 (on average) posts for what happens, and how the MC reacts to the threat.
3) The style will vary. I am not sure how I want to write this, so it will probably change.
4) Each option will have a number/letter associated with it. Like {1A}, for example. However it's picked, make sure to use the brackets and capitalization EXACTLY like it's listed in the option, otherwise your vote may not be counted.
5) The options will be in a separate, secondary post immediately after each story post.
6) Rolls might be disclosed… Not sure yet. Let me know.

With that done... Time to set the scene!

I have been working on making a set of rules for Psionic classes that makes them *feel* different than another reskilled class. In terms of mechanics, the changes are very complex (and I may post them below when I feel like the document is complete), but it boils down to this: Psionic characters generate power points, and can spend them- they do not have limited spell slots, but some spells require more capacity or power generated over a certain time period to make the effect work. Think about them like warlocks, with a fount of power within each class that allows them separate things without a number-of-casts limitation, in exchange for relative fragility and significant maluses relating to normal Magic.

The classes I have designed so far:
- Psion: wizard-like caster, with the ability to pre-cast their abilities into floating manifestations of power. Low-Medium Generation, High Capacity. Great range of abilities, and large 'battery', but recharges slowly. (MY MIND CAN MAKE ARROWS)
- Channeler: druid-like caster, with abilities dependant on surroundings. Introvertion/Extroversion given psionic power. Either Low Generation, High Capacity if in the Wilderness, OR High Generation, Low Capacity in towns or cities. Power and part of the spell-list changes depending on the terrain. (OW- MY BRAIN)
- SoulKnife: Rogue/Monk-like, all abilities focus around manifestation of their power as an energy weapon. Said weapon has a LOT of utility, depending on the user's creativity. Medium Generation, Low Capacity. (MY MIND IS A KNIFE)
- Breaker: Fighter-like, Breakers channel their power through a weapon for specialized attack options. Low Generation, Low Capacity. (MY MIND IS STRONK)
- Delver: the cleric's cleric, Delvers submerge themselves into a concept, and attempt to embody it (and it's opposite). Their power manifestations are specialized for their concept. Medium Generation, Medium Capacity, and limited (though dangerous and creative) abilities. (Ooohhhh... Existential conflict...)
- Runner: no class equivalent, Runners specialize in movement. With a running attack, and increasing landspeed, they define the phrase 'hit and run'. Low generation, Low-Medium Capacity. (GTFO/I'M THE F*CKING FLASH)
And Finally….
- Broadcaster: the ranged option, Broadcasters are the ultimate telepaths and telekinetics. High Generation and High Capacity, Broadcasters are fonts of psionic power- and that is all they can really be (they cannot multiclass), but their abilities allow them to perceive, communicate with, and attack minds directly. Of course, they are made of glass, so… Guess which one I'm going to shove a clone into? That's right- the one that will die if they stub their toe.

This version of me is going to be so pissed.

But I'm biased.

Now, besides these new classes (which have their own complex rules, and with the exception of the Psion and Broadcaster are not finished yet), I have also introduced a new concept: LEARNING.
Specifically, Psionic skill copying. Rather than multiclassing to other Psionic classes, a psionic character can spend a level's xp to LEARN an ability from it's own class (any unchosen options from the alternate level paths), or a primary skill from another class (assuming they have access to a member of that class and time to learn said ability). This lack of leveling but increased skills allows for lower 'level' characters to be able to have more abilities while being more fragile than their compatriots.
There is magical learning as well, but that has different mechanics, and since Mystra locked the spell types to the different types of classes, magic kept becoming more and more difficult until it got to the point it is now- but worldbuilding will happen with the story.

With all of that said, Welcome, one and all, to the Broadcaster Quest!

I hope RL doesn't get in the way too much of this.

 

[Mr. Cloak]

-

There are some good days, Umator thought, as he soared above the forest.

With the Sun illuminating his domain, the wind in his feathers, and the forest pristine below him, Umator felt that he had made the right choice in becoming a druid. In giant eagle form, a form he had worked diligently on for years, he was the undisputed sovereign of this forest, and the local villagers knew it.

He would have smirked if he had anything other than a beak.

The 'civilized' peoples liked to use the woods in his forest, as the titanic trees he ruled and protected were known for their exceptionally light woods. As he was told when he had been assigned this forest, the wood could be easily carved and formed into various shapes, but when treated, it would become incredibly strong. So over the decades, teams of loggers and merchants had traveled into his domain, and either left with maybe a small tree or two (if they were polite and respectful), or never returned at all (if they were NOT polite and respectful).

He reminisced at some of the more amusing conflicts as he flew, lazing away the day, before there was a titanic thundercrack that shook the branches below him and tossed him through the air like a newborn chick.

Umator of the Falling Claw, 4th ranked Druid of the AirWood forest, righted himself in midair, and shook off the ringing ear pain. With speed born of experience, he scanned all over the forest, and saw… Nothing?

No-one was attacking his forest, but… He looked up, and saw… Was that a burning body?

He banked, and swooped around to see the figure fall. Umator wasn't close enough to catch it, but he wouldn't have done so anyway- dodging meteor swarms from that one asshole wizard was more than enough to instill an apprehension of burning things hitting him from above. So he watched as the… Human? Yes, probably human, figure, fall through his trees.

Only then did Umator realize that the figure was screaming- a moment before it hit, and broke, a branch.

He waited, still circling, as the figure eventually landed (with a sickening **thud** and cessation to the screaming), before landing on a nearby branch and assessing the situation.

It has been a human. Probably. But the charred limbs and crispy, well, everything, indicated that it had just experienced a horrible fate- burning and falling.

Still, the forest took precedence, so he sighed, and turned back into a gnome with a 'pop'. Once his form had settled, he pulled out a small, sealed box, and, with a tiny exertion of magic, the sealed box popped open, and a tiny piece of carved quartz became visible.

Umator steeled himself, and touched the stone with a finger. There was a tingle in his head, like there was a thunderstorm nearby, and he made sure to mentally accept it.

<Hello Mr. The Falling Claw. This is Sarwen, Broadcaster of the PsyNet, and what do you need today?> The perky-sounding voice sounded in his head.

It itched.

Umator grumbled for a moment, but soldiered on. "I would like to purchase a small rainstorm over my position."

<Checking…. You currently have 123,892 gold pieces in credit. A brief rainstorm will take a moment to get into position, and 10,000 gp. Would you like to accept?>

Umator rolled his eyes. His forest had a couple of Rocs, and their eggshells and a few dozen shed feathers would cover that, and while it would take a few weeks to collect the components, the life of the forest was worth it. After all- this was an unusually dry season. "Sure."

<Good. The brief rain will last a few seconds, and will be done via temporary portal to the water plane, so please make sure you have clear sky above the stone.>

Umator looked up, and extended an arm past the branches, while the slowly-accelerating flame began to pass below him. "Ready."

<Prepared… And Launched.> There was a spark of light that rapidly ascended. Above the Druid, several hundred feet up, a ring of eye-twisting purple-green light flared, before beginning to spin. In seconds, the ring was throwing water everywhere around them, and below, the flames were abruptly snuffed out.

There was a brief flash, and the source of water vanished.

<Thank you for your patronage. You now have 113,892 gold pieces remaining in credit. We look forward to future business… And next time, we can cast targeted 'Smother' effects over the same area for 800 gold pieces less.>

Umator glared at the stone, and placed the piece of carved quartz into it's box, but did not close it. "Oh, and before I forget, can you connect me to Zumixador the Diviner?"

<I understand that will be 1 gold piece, as her connection is limited. Will you accept the charges?>

"Yes." Umator deadpanned.

<Connecting…>

"Umator? I thought you would never call? How's the current clutch?" A cheery elf voice echoed out over the connection.

"Ah, yes, well… Something just landed in my forest. It looks like a burned torso, and… Hold on." Umator stepped off the branch, and drifted to the slightly-smouldering and damp earth. He walked up to the charred torso, and when he got closer, the druid heard ragged breathing. "Yup. Somone's alive, and their landing nearly set my forest on fire. You might want to get in on this- I want to know why this person set my forest on fire."

"…" The gnome could hear the pause as the wizard digested this. "Okay… You have the bag of holding we gave you?"

"Yes?" The druid still had it on his belt. "What do you need me to do?"

"Well, remember when we did those tests with the teleportation circle on that rug?"

-

It took a few minutes, but they had managed to move the barely alive torso into the wizard's sitting room. Specifically, the one chair that was booby-trapped to the 9 planes and back. To be honest, calling it a chair was like calling the sitting room a 'cave'…. Technically correct, but it did not give pertinent details.

More specifically, the torso was getting ash and slowly-dripping blood onto the chaise longue in question was immaculate even so. Made out of demonic (purified) unicorn leather, the enchantments on it kept it clean, and indeed any occupant would realize they were just ever-so-slightly floating on a cushion of air over the seat itself. Of course, with the right command word from someone attuned to the chair, it would be able to function like a decent flying carpet, a small bunker, and, if necessary, a Wand of Disintegration (3 charges).

With the wrong command word, chair had been able to keep a Lesser Fiend contained for several days while the group of adventurers that Umator and Zumixador had been part of slowly took it apart (in the name of discovery and finding their warlock friend).

Some say that too this this day, you can still hear the screams of the fiend as it begged for mercy…

"Zumi, why is the chair screaming?" Asked the somewhat concerned druid gnome. "Seriously- what have you done while I've been tending my forest?"

The elf shrugged, blond hair cascading over her shoulders. "That's mostly there to mess with people. SILENCE SCREAMS. " The screaming stopped. "It's a little trick I play on clients who want a fortune told or similar. Usually makes people jump, and the screaming stops then. The fact that it didn't stop after a few seconds is concerning- I will need to check my manuals. I don't know what the others were up to though. Not really a reason to look in on them. Now… CONTAIN"

With that last word, glowing golden light flashed into position around the chair, surrounding it in a cylinder with insufficient room to move their arms- if the current occupant had arms.

"Good- it's contained. Now…" The elf drifted over to a segment of wall, and pressed on a flower engraved into the stone. The wall slid back, rotated, and a shelf of materials came forward. "You said it landed in your forest out of nowhere?"

The gnome jumped up and sat on one of the stools. He knew they were probably not booby-trapped like the chair there. "Fell right out of the sky trailing fire! Frankly, I was more worried about the forest than anything else, as it's been the dry season. I thought he was dead- some unfortunate adventurer who stumbled on one of the HeightReacher traps- you know the ones."

Her face screwed up and she shuddered. "Why that ass would mix elemental effects with a teleportation spell I would never know- he used the damn things! In any case, first thing we need is to figure out who it is." She reached out, and paused. "Actually, let me check to see if he has any magic on him."

The ritual in question took a minute to cast, but with her spell book in hand, Zumi looked over the charred figure with glowing eyes.

"Hmmmm..."

Umator looked up at that. "What?"

"He isn't magical."

The gnome looked confused. "Most people don't-"

"I mean at all. Magic has no hold on him. In fact…." She chanted a few words under her breath, and the glow on her eyes shifted between several colors. "It has less magic than the background levels. That body is not even reacting to the background levels… And it's blood is landing on the couch."

That got Umator's attention. Nothing got on the couch when they… Lets say 'Dismantled' some things on it. Now? It looked like his blood was splattering on the couch. "Really?" He didn't really know about how it worked, but he knew the repelling effect worked through several methods, and that the wind-elemental that held up larger items had a separate function to how the couch kept itself clean… Something about the properties of magical repulsion.

"Yup. No magic in that body- and it's almost a corpse, but seems stable." She pulled a couple wands over from the wall. "Now, a basic check for… Well, Good and Evil."

"Isn't it 'Detect Evil and Good'?" Asked the druid.

"Technically, but it tends to check for 'good' extraplanar entities before 'evil' ones." The wand flashed several colors, before settling on an irregular pattern of deep, deep purple. "That's 'unknown'?…. Never seen that before- no, I tell a lie, there was that Aboleth tentacle that one time."

Umator looked nausiated. "The one that liked to make cavern with the lakes on the ceiling? And the impossible fish-things with eyes coming out of their-"

"The very same one that we all agreed not to speak of ever again." Zumi deadpanned as she put the first wand back, and pulled out the second. "This is a Wand of True Seeing, and BY MYSTRA'S BURNING…" Her oath was stopped as the figure on the couch managed to make a creaking groan and flake off even more burned flesh. "It's male, human, and is doing something seriously disturbing with it's, no, HIS soul."

The druid frowned. "How?"

"I don't know! It's like-" She froze, and stared for a moment, before walking over to a carved quartz crystal mounted on a stand. She then waved the wand over it, and glared at it. "It has a similar 'color', but his soul has shapes in it I have never seen- and they keep changing, depending on what angle I look at it, the shapes are never the same."

The wizard thought for a bit longer, and then picked up the carved quartz crystal. Then her eyes closed, and she silently mouthed various words for a few minute.

She carefully replaced the quartz crystal on it's stand, and waited. A few seconds later, a portal opened, and a fairly cross-looking grey dwarf stepped through. He had a long beard, one that seemed to be going black rather than white, but other than that he had no other hair on his head.

Not even eyebrows.

He was wearing armor, not unusual for any kind of dwarf, but it seemed to be more of a robe with the normal armor-parts of armor being strange, floating bits of metal. All over it, strange patterns of straight lines and intersecting angles rippled with a faint green-purple, and on a holster on his hip, several rods of crystal, each of them with their own circuit-like engravings sparkled faintly in the light.

"You found someone with Psionic potential?" Rumbled the dwarf, even as several glowing symbols floated around his head like a small halo. "I'll be the judge of-"

O͠O̧O͞O҉OW̛W̴WWWW͡W̛W̛WW̕ẂW̵

The deep dwarf had exited the portal with his back to the chair. With astonishing speed, the elderly dwarf turned to face the reclining occupant, and was visibly disturbed. With a flick of his wrist, a pair of the glowing symbols flared to life, and his eyes lit up.

"Du yuh knaw wat yu haf heer?" The cultured Common accent had disappeared, to be replaced with a thick accent that had strange pronunciations in it. "It's bee-in a Broad-Caster. Sort uf…"

"Really?" Zumi looked at charred being on the couch. "No idea what that is."

"'Ell, he's humin. But loik, yu ar a wizzard, the stick ovr there's a druid, an' I'm a Psion." The dwarf elaborated. "Yur… Vocation? Job? Class, I guess any murder-hobo would call iyt."

Umator looked slightly afronted at being called a murder-hobo, but he didn't really care that much. "So… I'm a druid then?"

"Aye…" The dwarf agreed, and began pulling amathyst gemstone rods out of a pouch. "C'mmune wit da trees n' all dat." With a flick of his hand and a muttered activation word that neither of the ex-adventurers could recognize, the rods arranged themselves around the groaning body, floating in midair. The candles around the room began flickering as the air began spiralling around the rods, and the space between them seemed to twist in an indefinable way.

"What are those?" The wizard asked, leaning in curiously.

"C'ntainm'nt Rods." Muttered the dwarf. "He's broad-cast'n… Uncntrlled broad-cast'n too, which is vera BAD."

"Can you go back to speaking proper common? Your accent is rather thick." Asked the uncaring druid.

Zumi whacked him upside the head.

"Sure…" The Dwarf extended a hand, and one of the rods was enveloped in a purple-green fluctuating glow. "Sorry about that- I was rather surprised." His accent was very suppressed now.

The rods, and near-corpse, rose off the couch, and began floating towards the portal.

"Hey- where are you taking my slave?" Umator demanded, the diminutive druid beginning to glow with unreleased power. "He damaged MY forest, and I demand compensation!"

"I don't actually care, but you can come with me if you want to dispute it." The dwarf didn't even acknowledge the gnome's magical flexing. "I, on the other hand, don't want to have to explain to my boss why I let an uncontrolled, and apparent accidental, Broadcaster Initiation fail, or have to pay the costs of fixing everyone within a few miles of this position when crispy there-" he jabbed a thumb at the well-done torso, "-begins psionically screaming."

Zumi laid a hand on her companion, who abruptly stopped glowing. "I think…" She said carefully. "That we should accompany you. And the value of the damages to the forest-"

"Are worth only time spent in labor!" Grumbled the Gnome. "It is the natural way."

"Be that as it may, we do not want to pick a fight with… Which Enclave are you part of?" Zumi pulled out a small homemade notebook. "I don't think you mentioned it."

"Gateway-near-SmallTooth Mountain Enclave. We mainly make dorjes and items like these." The dwarf jabbed a thumb at one of the Rods. "Make a nice coin selling to the Githzerai, and pointing Githyanki hunter-killer parties at mind-flayer lairs. But on a more serious note, are you coming-"

M͝AK̴͟E҉҉̢͡ I͜͡͠͞T̴̴̛́ S̵͘T̨̡̕O͢͏̧P̢ ̶̕PL̨͘E̸̕͟A̶̕͢͡S̵Ę̛?̨!̸̢́͝

"-because I need to get this one out of Murann before people start dropping into comas." The dwarf deadpanned.

"We're coming- and I expect recompense." The gnome snorted. "I can't just let this go-"

The dwarf sighed, and beckoned. "C'm on then." And walked through the portal, the suspended charred torso following placidly, but with tiny lights flaring around it as the human began twitching.

The wizard looked at the druid. Said druid glared at the dwarf, and followed them through the portal, only to stop as the portal snapped shut behind them, staring at the view that the glow of the portal obscured.

It was a cave, that was immediately obvious. But when Zumi and Umator looked up, they saw the midday sky easily visible through the rocky ceiling far above, even though they could also see the ceiling that was obviously there. Indeed, the titanic stalactites above had lights in visible windows as well, and hundreds of glittering glass panels looked like leaves that coated the stalagmites.

There was a tap on Zumi's shoulder, and she turned, still taking in the scenery for a moment, before making a disturbed squeeking noise as she saw what had touched her, and flinched away, bumping into the druid, who abruptly

It looked like a green halfling to the Gnome, but after a moment he realized that no, it was too bug-like to be a halfling (although it was the right size). The eyes and antenna gave it away- that, and the weapon it was holding was glowing slightly with the same purple-green light that the dwarf had used to manipulate things.



"Excuse me- Adjudactor-Seeker Thydus went that way." He, or she pointed, and Umator noticed that his hand had only three fingers- and for whatever reason, the mixture of that ON TOP of the generally androgynous form creeped him out.

Significantly.

"I see…" Zumixador nodded as she gently guided the gnome down the obviously-worked hall. Above them, small nodules of crystals glowed with a soothing blue light, and along the walls, various doors, each carved from what appeared to be singular pieces of solid granite stayed shut, a little red crystal glowing above the handle that would, with all a likelyhood, open the door normally- until they came to the end of the hall.

That door had a green glowing crystal embedded in it right next to the dull red one. Said dull red one was blinking, very dimly.

The dwarf- Thydus (?)- poked his head out from behind the door. "Well? We need to get you two de-resonated quickly, before we can finish the process." With a flourish, he pushed open the door to reveal- more crystals. Hundreds of crystals, most of them taller than humans or even goliaths, filled the walls and floor. In the middle of the room, a massive column of dozens of such crystaline structures stretched from floor to ceiling.



The air was filled with an eldritch glow, and in the large central open area, Zumixador could see the charred torso floating in midair, surrounded by a motley assortment of beings in robes, each of them surrounded by an aura of crackling power. Small bolts of purple-green light arced off them, as the torso dripped and glowed, a pulsing nova of power visibly being contained by mostly-invisible shields that hovered just beyond the fingers of each of the robed figures.

One of them stepped back, and the rest of the group closed ranks before the space could be more than briefly overwhelmed by a prominence of crackling, twisting power, and walked towards them. Unfortunately, the robe it was wearing was shredded by the blast, revealing the alien figure underneath.



Her first thought was 'an amethyst golem?' but the fact that it was carrying a crystaline polarm of some variety, made that unlikely. Then, when it spoke (in the voice that made her think of fingers on a wineglass, but masculine), she was very sure it wasn't a golem.

"Ah, Thydus- you have brought the two that were exposed to this one?" The oversized right arm indicated the strange torso behind it. With a swift movement, it sheathed the crystal polarm into a holster on it's back, and, with it's smaller arm, held up it's fingers in a strange gesture. Above it's fingers, various shaped appeared, visibly moving as one of the interlinked circles tracked both Zumi and Umator.

The gnome flinched as the symbols went from green to a deep, pulsating orange.

"Yup. Medium power spillover. Give me a second…" The symbols vanished as he stopped holding the hand shape, and it reached into a belt-pouch, pulling out several… Quartz cubes?

The figure flicked it's fingers, and the cubes began orbiting the Wizard and Druid. Streams of purple light started arcing out and 'grounding' into the cubes like small lightning bolts, and Zumi felt a strange pressure begin to relieve from her mind.

"What are you doing?" Zumi asked, looking at the unadorned cubes that still orbited her. "I don't recognize this effect." She glanced at the gnome, who was beginning to look very, very hairy as his fingers began curling into claws. "Umator, do not attack them. Remember the aboleth? It's un-corrupted slaved? How they began going mad while leaking purple light that looked *exactly like this?!*" She stressed.

"An aboleth? Nice. Yeah, I have to deal with the effects of excess power spillover fairly often." The cubes stopped rotating as the extra purple glow receded into pinpoints within each cube. The crystal man flicked his hand, and every cube shot over to orbit the pulsing (and faintly screaming) torso. "Aboleths usually use it to make temporary psionic adepts, and they usually can't handle the power without a telepathic connection to their watery master. And I just removed the excess psionic power that torso-boy here accidentally released while his mind began s͝͝͡͏҉̀͘͡͠͞e̷̢̨̛͜l̴̢̢̡̨̛͘͜͏̸͠͡f̸̴̨̨̧̡̛̛́̕͟͟͜͡͡͠͞͝͝-̧̧̕̕͘͞͝҉̧i̷̶͡͏͟͟͢n̵̸̴̛͢͞͝͏̡́̕͢͝t̴̶̶̵̴̶̡̕͘͟͟͝͞͡͝͞ȩ̵̴̷̢̡̧̀͏r͞p͠҉̀͏̕҉̶̶́́̀͢͠҉̶̷ờ̸̷̶̵̷̡͘͘̕͢͢͠l̴̢̀́̕͜͜͝͝͠͡á̸̧͜͡҉҉̸̢̡́͟͜͝͡ţ̸̶̴̛̛́́͘҉҉͘҉̴̀͘͜͜͡į̴̴̢̨̧́̀͘͘͘n҉̸̸̸̵̡̡́̀̀͟͠͡͝͞҉̀͠ǵ̷̸̵̢̀̀̀̕͢͢͟͜͝ earlier- otherwise, you would probably go mad within a week… But that's not important! Thydus, can you escort the lady elf and crazy were-weasel to the bankers?" The last bit was directed to the grey dwarf behind them.

"Yes I can, Master-Delver Kubaba." He bowed slightly to the crystaline being, and turned to the stunned wizard and angry druid. "Zumixador the Diviner? Umator the Falling Claw? If you would come with me, we will go to a location where your remuneration at finding a Broadcaster and restitution for damages can be negotiated."

-

A few hours later, the ex-adventurers stepped back through the portal into the wizard's study, both carrying several hundred gold more than when they left.

The portal closed behind them as both gnome and elf looked at each other.

"So… Are we going to talk about this?" Asked the wizard as she emptied the pouch into a rune-covered bowl and she watched carefully as the gold disappeared into it, with numbers appearing over the bowl as each coin vanished.

"Nope." The druid flipped a coin into the air, and caught it. "I'm going to grab some saplings to replace the trees in my forest. You have the address of that market they mentioned?"

Zumixador nodded. "You want to go shopping now?"

"What else am I going to do with all this gold? Besides, it's within a few days of flight of the forest if I read that map correctly, so I can pick up the saplings from some farmers, and some other stuff, then head home." The gnome nodded wisely. "Now... Get to spelling!"

Zumixador glared. "You are a short ass."

"I know." Grinned the gnome druid.

-

[Options for voting posted in next post]

-

 

[Mr. Cloak]

Spoiler: BQ 1 vote results

CHAPTER 1 SELECTIONS (oh, and 2E was supposed to be 1E. Typo)
Part 1:
2 - {1A} There is currently a cult of demonic worshipers in the nearby town.
2 - {1B} Colossal dragon tutles have been seen recently, and diviners are concerned that they are preparing to spawn. The local druids have gotten out of dodge, so the diviners may be on to something.
0 - {1C} Locals have been dissapearing, only to return without their skin, as zombies, in cities all along the coast.
1 - {1D} Inevitables have been seen looking for the Psionic Enclave.
2 - {1E} Random-ass Dragon bullshit.

Part 1 Result: Cult of Demonic worshipers make their move as the Colossal Dragon Turtles are sighted off the coast for spawning season, and a random-ass dragon shows up.
*Fusion Result for part 1: Due to the number of issues present that the Enclave is dealing with right now, the MC will NOT be fully healed.*

Part 2 (this is a world-building choice):
0 - [1A]The MC was randomly dropped here by unknown parties (ROB entry, no major plot points)
0 - [1B] The MC was part of a set of 3, and was discarded before arrivial. The other two were summoned by the head clerics of two different gods for a holy war. (Major overworld plot: The Battle of the Two (3?) Heroes)
2 - [1C] The MC fell through a rift in the universe that formed because the current Mystra nearly died. AGAIN. (Major overworld plot: Time of Troubles- Wait, we already did this! Damnit Mystra!) (May involve holy wars. Deus Vult! Deus Vult!)
5 - [1D] The MC fell through an accidental portal created by a cult that ejected him at a weird angle to reality. Now the cult wants their 'chosen vessel' back. (Major overworld plot: You want to do WHAT to my liver?!)

So it looks like the MC will be recovering from orbital ejection during a time when the Enclave is dealing with *deep breath*: A cult of demonic worshipers, the Colossal Dragon Turtle Spawning, and some Random-ass Dragon Bullshit, while he personally is going to be hunted by a cult, and will not have full functionality.

…

My initial estimate for his survival may be optimistic…

-

The torso lay in a bed, with simple cotton sheets covering up the naked torso.

Thydus stood at the side of the bed, while a human Delver hurried her work, finally removing the remainder of the burned flesh from the breathing, and awake, human. Well, ex-human. As soon as she was done, the torso began to twitch, and she nodded to the Dwarf, before leaving.

"Manling." Rumbled the duegar. "Can you understand me?" He asked in Common.

"̷̡̕͢͝Wh͟at͏̴̸̨͡ ̴̷̨did̨̢͡ ͏͝͏͞҉y̵̷̶̶o̴ų̸̶͢ ҉̴͡s̀͟͝͝͡á̢́́҉y?̴̶̢̨͝ I ̷̡̨͡ḑ̶̡͞ì̕d̴̛̀͜͝n̵̕'t͏̀͡ ͢ú̷̡̢͞n̵ḑ̕͏̢́er̷̵̢͟͏sta̸̷ń̷̵d̶̵͡ ͢͟t̸̡̛͜͞h̸̶͟͠a̵̷͝t͟͠҉̛.̢͟͞"̶̨̧͘͘ The not-quite-human was obviously not speaking the same language he was using- not exactly surprising. "̶͢Ẁ̶͜h̨͟a̷͢͠t ̵̧́͟҉h̶͜a̴͜p̀͜p̧̕e̴̶̷͟ne̴d ̵͜͞t̀̕o̸ ̨m͞҉̵̀y̢҉̵ ̨́͜͢͡ą̸̴̛͞r̸͜͡m̸̷̢͡s̶̶͞͡҉? ̵̨͠O̡̡͢r͞ ̀͝ļ͡é̵ǵ̛̕s?!̷̴̸̡͜ ̷̢Oh̨҉̶̸…͢҉҉.̨́͘͝ ̕͞S̡hì̸̛͏t̴̕͡.̸̨͏̧̛"̡̀

Thydus nodded. "Not unexpected." He placed a finger on a communication stone in his pocket. <Head-Broadcaster, I do not think he speaks common, or any other local language. I'm going to cast a Zone of Understanding.>

<Understood. I am recording.>

A bee flew into the room through a the window in the door, and settled on a bedpost. The amputated human's head snapped towards it, before blinking a few times, and then going back to looking back at the Psionic Underdark Dwarf. "̀What ̷̛͟a̴͘͞҉͟ŗ̛͜͝͞e ͝y̸̛̕͜͡o͞͝ư̶-҉͝͏"

One of the glowing symbols of a psion's pre-cast effects slipped out from beneath the Dwarf's shirt, and writhed in the air before expanding into a twenty-foot sphere before fading, easily engulfing the torso in the bed.

The sense of comprehension spread over Thydus like a cool blanket, and he saw the man laying on the bed blink, and look confused.

"Can you understand me now?" Thydus patiently asked.

The amputee stopped looking confused, and nodded. "Yes, I understand you- wow, this feels weird."

"Good." Thydus pulled a scroll out of a pocket in his overcoat. "You are currently in debt."

"What."

"Deep in debt." The duegar unrolled the scroll. "When we found you, you were burned, nearly dead, and had somehow-" He looked sidelong at the unfortunate not-quite-a-corpse, "-experienced two partial rituals that,-" He pinched his brow. "-at the point that you were exposed, if we hadn't gotten to you within an hour and a half, you would have destroyed everything within a few miles." Thydus glared at the quaking man. "We had to complete two rituals at once, while removing the excess power you were leaking all over the place, and one of those rituals was incredibly material-intensive."

"What do you mean by 'rituals'?"

Thyden opened his mouth, only for the bee on the bedpost to buzz it's wings three times, then fly out of the room. "I'd explain more, but I don't have time. We spent 128,100 gold pieces worth of effort, goods, and time saving your life as well as repaying the gnome whose forest you landed in." He tossed the scroll onto the bed next to the torso. "You will repay it- and I will leave your fellow coworker to explain it. T'hackchkaa? You are up. The translation spell didn't need any tweaking, so your project *should* work."

The dwarf stood up, and left quickly- he had a meeting to catch.

-

Meetings in the Psionic enclave were either done over communication stones, or in person. Most were indeed done over communication stones, as everyone in an enclave was usually busy teaching, building, carving, copying books or scrolls, or other work such as creating the various psionic artifacts that their dealers would sell to various governments/ adventurers/ militaries.

Basically, if you were meeting in person, it was either because all parties had a bit of spare time, or if there was something going HORRIBLY WRONG.

Thydus walked in, and looked around, before walking over to take his spot behind his mentor, who was standing at attention with his(her?) psycrystal, a cube of pure pyrite, floating serenely at their side. "Master-Seeker Purple-Toned-Notes."



The Thri-Kreen nodded towards her(his?) student, an interesting gesture that Thydus always found strange due to the fact that his mentor rarely turned their neck, merely bounced their head in the direction of the person they were acknowledging. "Young One."

"Why are we here?" The dwarf grumped. "I have to get the extension to the redirction-crystals ready for charging on the new segment of tunnel, and-"

His mentor held up a hand (claw?). "The Lead Broadcaster has urgent news for us. We are needed."

The duegar looked around the room. In the middle of said room, a glowing sapphire gemstone the size of a small horse rotated several feet off the ground.

Across from them, the Shardmind, Master-Delver Kubaba and his apprentace, a strange albino lizardfolk with faintly-glowing blue patches under their eyes, both stood at attention.

To the dwarf's left, Master-Breaker Krom the Slab stood, his titanic weapon stabbed casually into the solid quartz floor, the strange metal shimmering as he waited.



To the dwarf's right, stood Reflects-In-Leisure, a changeling and Master-Soulknife. Every-so-often, Thydus would see a slight flicker as the changeling flicked the blazing soul-knife that she could manifest from hand-to-hand faster than his eye could follow.



Then the Drider walked in- or more specifically, crawled in from a ventilation hole in the ceiling.



Thydus shuddered. He knew that Master-Broadcaster Kirin was behind those eyes, but even with that knowledge, the bodies that the high-level broadcaster had taken control of over the decades disturbed him.

There was a brief sound of footsteps before something blurred into the room, and the now-visible halfling looked around. "I'm not late, am I?"



"No Ahrina, you're just in time. As always." The drider said, nodding at the halfling. "Now that we are all here, I can begin." The drider reached out, and placed a Communications Stone on the table, which immediatly began to project an image of… Several things simultaneously.

The Broadcaster driving the drider brought a single picture to the forefront: a view of the nearby town of Athkatla, seen from the air. Lines of carrages and horses were easily visible from all over the city, except for one district that seemed entirely unconcerned with the migration.

"As of two days ago, diviners and sages, as well as several higher-ranking priests in Athkatla, began receiving warnings of various forms, indicating impending danger. Yesterday, the reason crystalized- all of them are predicting an incoming dragon-turtle spawning on this segment of the coast."

The image changed to show a massive turtle about to take a bite out of one of the many larger non-flying ships that the port of Athkatla serviced.



"This was taken an hour later, as several younger dragon-turtles began waylaying ships off the coast. A few ships were destroyed when they began using their breath weapon from underwater. Now, usually dealing with this sort of thing would be left to the local druid contingent, but most of them were found dead by one of our Runners." The drider looked at the halfling.

"That's my cue." The white-haired halfling muttered to herself. "And this brings up the second point- we have a local demonic cult that needs to be dealt with. My runner found several Quasits, and killed them- as well as a summoner."

Thydus frowned. "What's a Quasit?"

The drider glanced at him, and a new picture appeared above the projection gem. "This is a Quasit."



"It's the demonic equivalent to the devil 'Imp'- not particularly tough, but the issue was that the summoner had- how many?" The drider turned to the white-haired halfling. "You didn't tell me earlier."

"Fifteen of them." She glared at the image. "Nearly killed two of my better Runners. We called in support, but my scouting force was nearly overrun in less than a minute. They were trying to open a portal."

"That's bad." Rumbled Master-Breaker Krom. "Demons summoning demons are a runaway problem."

"Indeed." The crystaline Master-Delver Kubaba tapped on the large gem. "Mind if I?…"

The drider plucked the Communication stone of the gem table, and nodded.

The Shardmind placed his hand on the table, and a topographical map of the city and surrounding lands appeared. The Enclave, buried in one of the mountains to the north of the city, highlighted. "As of noon yesterday, several spots within the city and the east forest-" The areas highlighted flashed momentarily. "-all began attempting to penetrate the planar boundary layers. The Pillars protected the area from most of the attempts, but this one, in the temple district-" One of the spots flashed in red, right underneath the road in the Temple District. "-broke through as of an hour ago."

The changeling leaned forward. "Demonic incursion?"

The drider glared at the map. "It looks like. It's a good thing that the civilians are leaving the city. Master-Breaker Krom, Master-Seeker Katch'ka, and Master-Soulknife Relfects, I will need several teams prepared for rapid deployment."

The Half-Giant Breaker, Thri-Kreen Psion, and Changeling Soulknife all nodded.

"I will personally make sure we can get the teams where they are needed. Master-Runner Ahrina, I'm going to need you to do a sweep with Master-Delver Kubaba's best sensory Delvers providing detection. In addition, Master-Delver Kubaba, I'm going to need your people to begin reinforcement on the Pillars- we cannot make due with only the current level of Planar shielding. If no-one objects, then I am going to pay for another layer of Anchor Pillars for the Enclave and local environs."

The drider looked around, but there were no objections.

"It will take some time to get the next layer of Pillars ready." Remarked Master-Delver Kubaba. "As Planar Anchor Pillars can take a month to make a single one, if I take everyone off their main tasks, and we will need at least 8 or more of them. This will take a year, at least."

The drider pointed at the still-highlighted spot on the floating map. "That's fine. We prioritize getting a Pillar placed in the prime spot to protect the city, then re-enforce the rest of them. I will send a body so we can move the Pillar array around- we can shrink it slightly and begin setting up overlaps over the city and our enclave. That will prevent any new portals from being opened in the city, and make it easier for the Runners to-"

Ahrina's head snapped towards the drider from her initial focus (which was on the map). "You want us to chase them down, don't you." She sounded very, very tired.

"Well-…." The drider cleared her throat. "Yes.... And and if no-one has any objections-" There didn't seem to be any, although the halfling looked irritated by the pun she had interrupted. "-meeting adjourned."

The spider-elf-centaur-thing ascended back into the vent, and the rest of them broke up to start on their own specific tasks.

Thydus followed his teacher, who began walking back towards the main psion work area. "Master Purple-Toned-Notes, do you know who you want on the attack teams?"

The insectoid Thri-Kreen glanced at him. "I have some ideas Thydus… But you keep using my long name. I thought I asked you to use my shorter name."

The dwarf grimaced. "I forgot.… Katchka."

The mantis-like head nodded. "That's better. Now, I think we are going to go for bombardment methods, so I need you to check our people and see who is familiar with Elemental Sphere or Elemental Line. Ideally boosted, but we can work with initial casting for the tactics I am thinking about...."

-

 

[Mr. Cloak]

Current Environs status:
City (Athakatla): Evacuated
Enclave-By-Athakatla: Preparing to search the nearby city
Plot-lines engaged:
Part 1 Result: Cult of Demonic worshipers make their move as the Colossal Dragon Turtles are sighted off the coast for spawning season, and a random-ass dragon shows up to (rolls for plot: 84) take over the port city.
*Fusion Result for part 1: Due to the number of issues present that the Enclave is dealing with right now, the MC will NOT be fully healed.*
Mallus gained: I used to be right-handed… Limbs removed.
Hidden MC Plot: You want to do WHAT to my liver?! (fell through accidental portal that appeared, and the cult wants the chosen vessel back for unknown reasons)
Debt: 128,100 gold pieces (12,810 platinum pieces, or 12.81 Platinum Bars)
-

T'hackchkaa (Hackie to her friends), pushed the wheeled chair along the coridoor of the enclave. "So… What did you do before you arrived here?" She asked, feeling bright and cheery. It was a new day, 'Full of Opportunity', as here father would say.



That, and they had a new test subject.

"I worked as a bookkeeper for a startup." The arm and leg-less man twisted to look at her, the ringed irises twitching as the different layers focused on her. "Um… Why are my arms and legs missing? The… Little person earlier-"

"Dwarf." Hackie deadpanned. "He's a dwarf."

"Yes, the dwarf from earlier, said something about an incomplete ritual? And a debt?" The amputee looked very concerned now as he looked down at his stumps. "I… Don't think I attempted any sort of ritual- Wow…"

The two of them passed over a bridge, giving them a great view of the inside of the cavern and the Psionic-Reactor shipyard, where a twisted donut of carefully manufactured solid quartz was being charged by a dozen psions while others lowered it into the main drive assembly for a Spelljammer.

Hackie nodded. "It's nice right? The view is great if you're facing the cavern." She started pushing him a little faster, and they went back into the side-passages. "But to answer your questions in order: I don't know, an Elan-Conversion Ritual and a Broadcaster-Sparking Ritual, and your debt is the cost at standard rates (as of the execution time) for finalizing of both incomplete rituals. It's written on your chart here." The half-orc tapped the relevant clipboard. "And before you ask, yes, you are now an Elan."

"What, like the D&D race?" He sounded initially skeptical, but then seemed to freeze for a second before sounding slightly panicked. "Wait, Broadcaster?! As in, the class I had written specifically to give a support role in a party for D&D games?"

Hackie looked at the limbless Elan. He didn't look insane, but this sort of talk was… Not indicative of sane thoughts.

He looked down at his missing limbs, and the wooden wheelchair.

"This isn't a dream…" He muttered.

"Unfortunately not. Although this time, you won't be drafted into a test project to reach beyond an information horizon, so that's one good thing!" She chirped, relying on the weirdness of the statement to get the test subject a bit cheered up, and discounting what he just said, as it implied… Many strange things about the universe.

It worked. "Wait, what?"

-

The two eventually walked (and rolled) into the Research&Crafting 8 Room.

Vakgar the Glowing looked up from his notes.



"Ah! Little Hackie! So good to see you on this beautiful day!" He turned his attention to the man sitting in the chair, his Elan-ness obviously on display as he wasn't hiding the obviously-inhuman eyes.



"And your name is?" Vakgar prompted his newest test subject.

"____."

The Elan's mouth opened, but nothing came out. He frowned.

"____! My name is ____ _____!" He sounded rather distraught. "Why can't I say my name?!"

Vakgar nodded knowingly. "Ah yes… I have read about this. Normally, Elan don't have an issue with their name. But-" He held out a hand, and with a quick pulse of psionic power, a book sailed off the mammoth shelves into it. A moment to rifle through the pages, and he found what he was looking for. "- entering into the material plane from a realm outside the crystal spheres without the proper precautions takes a toll on the user. The first Ethernauts lost more than just their names…" He closed the book with a snap, and tossed it over his shoulder, where another slight pulse of power sent it sailing back to it's spot on the shelf.

"That's… Disconcerting." The Elan sighed. "Well then, I guess my name is ________…. No, that doesn't work either. How about Lex? Oh, I can say that, but not the other name?!"

His arm-stumps wiggled with irritation, and Vakgar noted that his daughter was having a hard time not laughing.

"Well met Lex the Irritable!" Vakgar boomed, even as the amputated Elan whispered "please don't let that stick…" under his breath. "I am Vakgar, the Glowing! Psion of the 12th rank, maker of prosthetics and other great works of psionic crafting, Ravanger of Sorceresses-"

"DAAAD!" Hackie covered her now-red face. "Do you need to the full introduction every time?!"

He grinned. "It's half the fun Hackie. Now… What sort of budget do we have here…."

Hackie handed him the clipboard.

He grinned wider. "Ah, a debt! Well then, it looks like you don't have much of a choice in the matter."

"I don't want peg limbs." Lex deadpanned.

Vakgar dismissed the notion with a wave. "Of course not! I mean, sure, normally I would add to your debt and get you a fairly normal set of prosthetic limbs- but that would add another 5000 gold to your debt, and all you would get are limbs like this."

He pulled out… Well, not his finest work. Really, it was just usable. Rugged, with a gemstone embedded in the limb-holder, it would allow someone with a smidgen of psionic potential to link to the limb and use it… But it wasn't that good.



"It's not the best, and I would need to make another leg for it. But…" His grin seemed to get even wider. "If you agree, I could have you use a prototype of mine that I haven't been able to get a volunteer for yet."

Lex looked somewhat resigned. "Do I have a choice?"

Vakgar clapped. "Great! I'll go get it."

"I see that's a 'no' then."

He ran off, and ducked into 'his' part of the lab. There, on his desk, sat the stone.



It wasn't too big- but it didn't need to be.

Vakgar strode back out of his lab, to find that yes, Hackie had followed with Lex's wheelchair. The Psionic Orc brandished his creation. "This is the Mark-8 Symbiotic Multiform Prosthetic. It has it's own miniature psionic reactor, and can fuse with your personality-crystal in the event of body-death, as well as mesh perfectly with your body even through the restrictor-circlet on your head. I just need to place it on you… Hackie, please open his shirt."

"Okay, wait- I'm concerned about some of things you just said!" The Elan tried to resist, but without limbs, he had no way to stop Hackie from untying the side of his simple tunic and revealing a bare, emancipated chest.

"Now, this probably won't hurt…" The Orc Psion carefully pushed the green crystal into the man's skin, and his skin rippled as the psionic programming went to work. The green egg-shaped crystal vanished into the Elan's body, and after a second of still-rippling skin, the front emerged from his chest slightly.

"What just happened?!" The Elan looked down at his chest in concern. "And why do I look so… Emaciated?!"

"Don't worry about it-" Vakgar reached out and tapped the protruding crystal. "-and I'm not a healer. But the prosthetic has initially linked up correctly, I just need to spark it, and…." There was an unsettling noise as a blue-and-orange limb extended from the stub. "There we go! He should be able to make his way back to his quarters on his own."

The limb flopped to the side of the wheelchair, and twitched.

"Well… It might be finicky. Hackie, can you get him to his quarters, and get his arm working? I have to get back to work." Vakgar grabbed a sheaf of papers that had been floating beside him, placed on his own personal PsiCrystal.

Hackie nodded at her father, who went back to his work, and then began pushing the Elan back to the infirmary. "Thanks father!"

"Make sure to keep me informed and whether or not the prosthetic rejects him. Oh, and put the cost of the prosthetic components on his debt." A slip of paper floated through the air propelled by a writhing sphere of green-purple energy, and Hackie snagged it out of the air.

"Hold on-" the amputated elan looked very, very confused. Confused and angry. "-is anyone going to answer any questions?"

-

 

[Mr. Cloak]

A/N: I wanted to update this earlier, but a mix of work getting INCREDIBLY HECTIC and a freaking PLAGUE of all things decided to show up.
So... Enjoy! I love comments, and I will be posting the next poll. As always, polls close within 48 hours.
Thanks!
-

Spoiler: Current Environs Status

City (Athakatla): Evacuated
Enclave-By-Athakatla: Preparing to search the nearby city
Plot-lines engaged:
Part 1 Result: Cult of Demonic worshipers make their move as the Colossal Dragon Turtles are sighted off the coast for spawning season, and a random-ass dragon shows up to (rolls for plot: 84) take over the port city.
*Fusion Result for part 1: Due to the number of issues present that the Enclave is dealing with right now, the MC will NOT be fully healed.*
Mallus gained: **I used to be right-handed…** Limbs: 1 (prosthetic)
Hidden MC Plot: You want to do WHAT to my liver?! (fell through accidental portal that appeared, and the cult wants the chosen vessel back)

Debt: 128,500 gold pieces (12,850 platinum pieces, or 12.85 Platinum Bars) (+500 gp for prototype limb)

-

Dear Journal-
Stardate- I don't fucking know-
Entry 1
I have read a lot of fanfiction, but being in another world… SUCKS HORRENDOUS DONKEY BALLS!!!!!
Still, can't get too angry, otherwise I will have another splitting headache… So, best to document all this BULLSHIT for posterity, and to hopefully keep my sanity in the face of being torn away from my own world.
Current state: confused and pissed off royally. Oh, and can't forget that I don't have any of my limbs.
Location: Somewhere in the D&D universe. What's worse is that this one seems to be a D&D verse that I had some hand in- or, at least, I have some idea of what's going on… And it's bad.
Or, at least, not good.
It's hard to focus on everything else that's going on around me with the fact that I LOST MY ARMS AND LEGS.
Actually, I think I'm going to lay down for a while. This arm is hard to use.

-

Entry 2

Okay, so I feel more sane now. Still freaking out, but being able to write is good. Damn this hand itches- but it hurts less than my old one, so, pro's and con's!

It also looks like something that was torn off of Deoxys.

First: I am not human anymore. Sort of. I am what the locals call an 'Elan'. Anyone who played D&D 3.5 (and were interested in psionics) would recognize the term, but their abilities line up more with what I was initially designing for D&D use a while back…
That means that I don't 'age' exactly, but I do get more alien.
Specifically, according to the person assigned to watch over me (a Psion named T'hackchaa, lovely woman), I should gain more alien traits. My eyes already look like something out of Naruto (T'hackchaa brought me a mirror), and she thinks I would have some weird proportions due to the way my shoulder blades and limb-stubs appear to be shaped wrong. Oh, and when I learn how, I should be able to survive nearly-indefinitely on just my psionic power, as well as reshape my body once a year.
Said ability to reshape my body won't help me get back my limbs though- I'd need to get one of the higher ranking Psions, Broadcasters (what I am), Delvers, or Channelers to cast Regenerate. It has a ritual equivalent, which I might be able to cast with the help of several others in a few decades, as I am currently a 'Broadcaster of the 21st grade'.
I'll come back to that in a bit, but there is one more major thing about Elan that wasn't mentioned in the game: Elan were the Psionic attempt to evade or bypass what they called the 'Record Horizon'- a recurring event in these worlds (yes, plural) that I will describe better in another entry.

Second: I am a Broadcaster. That means 1) I am a nigh-uncontrolled font of psionic power at the moment, and 2) I have a fancy piece of jewelry effectively glued to my head until I can gain some control over my own power.
On top of this, I am not like the other 21st grade (I think it would be a level 0 in D&D terms) Broadcasters- of which there are 3 of them besides me- as I am currently under observation, and I have already been identified as an extra-Crystal-Spheres (another item I will have to describe better later) entity.
Broadcasters, as their name suggest, focus on communication. All I have been taught how to do at the moment, is link my mind with a Communication Crystal (one that belongs to someone else), so I can learn, from exposure, how to shape my power to do things.
To do things voluntarily, rather than what WOULD have happened if I had apparently remained uncontained (explosion that would have left a glassed crater and miles of insane people)….

Oh yeah- remember when I wrote (a paragraph or two ago) that there were other New Broadcasters? Well, thing is, they are annoyed at me. See, due to some treaties with the regional Wizard Universities, Bard Collages, and dominating Religious organizations, there are only 25 Broadcasters that are supposed to be allowed in this Enclave. There were 4 slots open, and 4 entrants were slated to go through the ritual to become Broadcasters.
Two of the entrants had already gone through the ritual, then I crash-landed. I used up one of the slots, and the other two entrants ended up having to decide whether or not to go through the process. Three of the prospective entrants were Dwarves, one was a Human (who was also scheduled to undergo Elanization {the process of being turned into an Elan})… And one of the Dwarves got left behind.

The four of them have declared a grudge against me.

THIS IS FINE.

I WOULD DRAW THE MEME HERE BUT I CAN'T DRAW FOR SHIT!

-

The Elan, Lex, put his stick of charcoal down, and leveraged himself into the wheeled chair with a grunt. With a distinctly careful set of movements, he wheeled himself over to the table where Hackie had seated herself, and the half-orc was having trouble not laughing as the unskilled Broadcaster used his single blue-and-orange hand to push himself into the right orientation for the edge of the table.

"Good morning..." Lex looked out of breath. "What is the exercise we have today?"

Hackie pulled the Communication Stone out of her pocket. "No exercise- but the simple mental extension you managed to get working within a *day* will be necessary." From her perspective, that was very fast- it took her a few weeks to get the effect herself when her father was teaching her how to reach out even in this basic way. "As there is currently a large-scale deployment of enclave members working in Metaconcert to deal with demons, I have decided that I will guide you into the Metaconcert, so you can see some of our abilities for yourself." She smiled slightly. "Seeing a goal to reach for is always a good thing."

Lex nodded, his red-rimmed eyes glancing between her and the stone. Poor elan had been crying again- and writing on those cheap slate panels in his foreign language. "So, do I do this-"

Hackie started as she felt a tickle against her mind. *Already reaching out? Damn this kid's fast.* "Yes, but towards the stone, not me." She *pushed*, and felt his tendril of power, guiding it down to the stone as she did the same. "Do not fear the Metaconcert, for when you feel it, you will understand-"

The tendril snapped back abruptly. "That sounds really bad."

Hackie blinked- the feeling of *loss* was very distinct.. And smirked. "Really?" Then she thought it over for a few seconds, and her smirk deepened. "Let me lead you into this new, *intimate*, experience~…" She barely restrained her chuckles. "There's a hole-"

"Please. Not more sexual inuendo." The Elan deadpanned. "I don't even know why you bother- it's not like I have any reason to-"

Hackie sighed. "Just.. Look, the Metaconcert is a meld of minds and powers. You will be able to communicate instantaneously with everyone else in the Metaconcert, and feed it some of the SIGNIFICANT power that all Broadcasters have access to-" Not that she was bitter or anything, but only long-lived races could become Broadcasters unless they wanted a generation or more to be in debt, and so as a half-Orc she was disqualified. "- while more presicion-oriented casters like myself and the brave men and women who are scouring the local town for the Demon nest our detectors noted."

Lex tapped the table with a finger as he thought, then placed his arm on the table's surface, and closed his eyes. "Fine."

The tendril of power extended again, but Hackie kept going. "THEN the entire Enclave will be working on a dragon-turtle deterant, as we need a very, very large illusion to convince them that this is not an ideal nesting site."

"… Okay, I have a LOT of questions about that last item. A dragon-turtle? Why would they want to nest on a town?" He looked puzzled. "I mean, turtles, like sea-turtles, don't usually try to nest anywhere with exceptionally heavy obstruction, and prefer clean beaches to lay their eggs-"

Hackie's mouth dropped open.

"-what?"

"What were you- no, nevermind. It will be faster in the metaconcert. Start reaching- I will guide you in." She reached *out*, and when she felt his mind heasitantly reaching, she pulled it down and linked it to the communication stone.

Then there was INSIGHT.

Hackie always enjoyed linking to Metaconcerts- the surge of power, the sudden *awareness* of the situation, the feeling of being able to focus on multiple points at once while others helped by providing 'spells'-

Then she looked sideways, and saw the being she had dragged along.

'Sight' in the Metaconcert was a nuanced thing. Her physical senses worked normally, and with the Broadcasters (or at least, most of them) acting as relays and telepathic-Viewing boosters, she also had a 'view' of the minds of all those who were linked into the Metaconcert. One could not simply read minds without using a much more complicated psionic construct, or cheating the arcane casters, but all psionic casters could, to some degree, perceive the minds around them.

Animal minds were fairly simple shapes- predatory ones were like arrowheads, sharp and focused, while herbivores were often aimless and cloudlike, only focusing briefly to determine if there was a threat.

At least, in general- the 'shapes' were more complex than that, but it was a good general rule for animals. The more intelligent a mind, the more complex the shape, until you reached the level of minimal self-referencing, where the mind became exponentially more difficult to understand.

Intentions and emotions colored the insanely-confoluted loops of a human/ork/dwarf/intelligent being, but thoughts, without a ThoughtLink or Metaconcert, were hard to perceive- and even then, reaching beyond the surface thoughts or whatever the other person wanted to say was very, very power-intensive.

Seeing Lex's mind in the Metaconcert was… Strange.

It was like looking at a somewhat-normal sentient mind, but more… Mechanical. Instead of writhing trains of thought like most sentients (and herself, her father and mentor told her) that organically fused and transfered between different points as their attention shifted, there were…. Six? Yes, six 'eyes' that each alternated looking around and dealing with a train of thought, disassembling it into smaller components before reassembling it and passing on to the others.

She watched every 'eye' of Lex's mind scrutinize the thought before it was finalized through the intersecting 'core' and passed out towards her.

<Are you staring? It's hard to tell.>

It was deeply unsettling watching Lex think, she had never heard of any being that 'looked' like that, but, well, every psi-user saw the world a bit differently.

<It's the first time looking at you like this...> She hesitated- because the Metaconcert was hesitating. It wasn't like a hive-mind (she had spoken with them before, and they were usually quite strange) that did things on the directives of everyone as if they were one being, but communication and energy transfer was easy like this. Still, if there were strong enough emotions…

It got other beings' attention.

The distinctive web-like shape of Master-Broadcaster Kirin 'pulled' at them through the Metaconcert, and suddenly their minds were observing each other.

<Interesting.> The voice of the 1st rank Broadcaster was androdginous, with the 'feel' of a chorus of voices all speaking as one. <New Broadcaster- Lex, was it? You have information that may be useful to one of the current predicaments?>

<Yes.> Replied the new Broadcaster. <I have knowlege of sea turtles from my home...>

The streams of 'thought' sped up around the new psionic for a few moments, before one of it's 'eyes' turned to look at itself. The streams accelerated, faster and faster, before several other streams began to weave in and out of each other, forming a knot that tightened, rolled up, and snapped into shape.

This shape (not a sphere, as it was covered in facets) was offered to her and Master-Broadcaster Kirin.

The web of tendrils that was the mind of the Master Broadcaster 'peeled' the offered sphere, and she was able to reach in and saw-

*-a multitude of cross-sections of sea-turtles / the history of developing bodyplans and a history of ancestors slowly changing shape for different reasons / devistating disasters of black oil that kill hundreds of sea-turtles in several shapes and sizes / strange pla-sticks that large soft-shell turtles died trying to eat / egg-laying habits from several species-*

What she saw gave her a splitting headache.

Master-Broadcaster Kirin wasn't as limited as she was though, and she could 'see' the different data layers as they were extracted, translated, condensed, and rewoven into a perfect sphere.

When Hackie next touched the sphere of information, she now had context, and, with a mental nod to the master Broadcaster, flicked the data packet deeper into the Metaconcert.

<That will make things easier.> Master Kirin stated. <And you have just begun your training?>

<Yes.> The new broadcaster felt… Disturbed? Concerned? Uneasy, yes, that was closest.

<I will make sure you are compensated appropriately.> Kirin gave the mental impression of stroking his chin. <Extrauniversal and extra-crystal-sphere knowlege and data, while not always applicable, is always valuable- if only in terms of contrast. I'd say, due to the current impending issue… That's worth 1000 gold off your debt. I will let the accountants know of this repayment.>

<Thank you.> The movement of Lex's mind indicated that he was thinking, very hard about something, but it was complex.

<Now, back to work with you. The more eyes we have observing the town, the better.> The master broadcaster turned his attention away from them, and Hackie mentally let out the breath she had been holding.

<Alright- What I was going to show you was how to join with the current mass-Viewing that's being cast. Follow me.> Hackie began pulling the new broadcaster away, checking repeatedly as she pulled the new guy to meet with the twitchy group of Psions that did most of the watching.

Hopefully they wouldn't be as jarred by the new guy's appearance as she was.

-

Debt: 127,500 gold pieces (12,750 platinum pieces, or 12.85 Platinum Bars) (-1000 gp for valuable knowlege relating to seaturtles)

 

[Mr. Cloak]

Spoiler: A/N

As usual, I love to see your comments. Let me know what you think, and the next vote will be in the post after this one.
I'm trying to write a little faster, work is slowing down a bit (thanks to recent sickness, I am home to prevent catching the current plague in case I am one of the casualties who was vulnerable due to 'prexisting conditions, and so people can't use me to get out of doing their own work), and I am able to do so.
Fight scenes are usually hard- and this one was weird.
Anyway, enjoy- and I hope it comes out well.

-
Results are as follows for the last vote:
3x Demons- 1
7x Demons- 1
Averaged due to equal low voting: 5 demons.
Low demons numbers require rolling a dice for the average CR of each demon. Results (9, 1, 14, 8, 8) Oh, and I'll add a few player-class levels to one of them, for shits and giggles.

Spoiler: Current Status

Current Environs status:
City (Athakatla): Evacuated
Enclave-By-Athakatla: Preparing to search the nearby city
Plot-lines engaged:
Part 1 Result: Cult of Demonic worshipers make their move as the Colossal Dragon Turtles are sighted off the coast for spawning season, and a random-ass dragon shows up to (rolls for plot: 84) take over the port city.
*Fusion Result for part 1: Due to the number of issues present that the Enclave is dealing with right now, the MC will NOT be fully healed.*
Mallus gained: **I used to be right-handed…** Limbs: 1 (prosthetic)
Hidden MC Plot: You want to do WHAT to my liver?! (fell through accidental portal that appeared, and the cult wants the chosen vessel back)

Debt: 127,500 gold pieces (12,750 platinum pieces, or 12.85 Platinum Bars) (-1000 gp for valuable knowlege relating to sea turtles)

-

Master-Runner Ahrina Lightfoot was well named.

With her years of experience, and natural skill in moving over unstable terrain, boosted by the Metaconcert as her allies provided power for her own abilities, she surged over the rooftops with her squad. All of them were Runners, like her, and could jump from point to point with an alacrity that surprised anyone who hadn't seen a Psionic Runner before.

The roof under her began to deform- maybe wet planks, or a broken support beam, but she didn't know. Instead, she shot to another position across the street, her Accelerated Perception allowing the time to crawl past as she backflipped over a small chimny and into a stone balcony around Temple Street.

Below her, she could see/feel the information from the Broadcasters that had been collected, giving her a form of display that, from her perspective, overlaid her vision. What did that new Broadcaster-trainee call it? A heads-up-display?

Something like that.

Anyway, she and the other Runners could 'see' five distinct mental signatures. Each one had the charicteristic 'cloudyness' of an intelligent mind, but all of them were sharpened, and GLOWED to the combined Viewing. Glowing mental states ususally indicated Outsiders- angels, demons, devils, fey, all of them had different colors to the Veiwing.

All of them glowed a deep, sickening blood red.

All of them were demons.

And all of them were below the cobbled street.

Mentally, she reached out to the Metaconcert. <Something is here, but I can't see it. It must be in some underground tunnel.>

She could feel the collective mental nod, and the subsiquent discussion before a verdict was reached.

<Ahrina, please place the spare communiction stone on the ground, and prepare your men. The Psion Task Force is standing prepared and charging for a massed elemental Thunder-Sphere.>

Ahrina grinned grimmly, and jumped, landing softly with a Featherfall, before placing her spare stone on the cobblestones, and subsiquently jumping again while signalling to the rest of her squad with several gestures.

Her team consisted of a Half-Orc, a Goblin, a half-elf, a human, and a drow. They had been working together for the last decade, and all of them took up positions where they could easily get down to street level, but where all also had quick escape routes.

Other teams were on the way- Ahrina could just barely make out, in the Metaconcert, the other Runner teams getting new information, and could, with a tiny amount of focus, 'see' the relitive positions of all the forces on the ground.

Then there was a thunderous scream like the laugh of a monsterous hyeena, and the street erupted. Bricks flew through the air, forllowed by a torrent of stagnant, rotton water as the beings within escaped from the (very deep, it must be said) sewer.

Her first thought was some sort of mutant whale- but with the glow of the mind, it was a demon, with… Smaller demons inside it?



The massive creature landed like a whale dropped from a Roc, sans exploding, and pushed over one of the churches that ringed the square. It's flabby bulk settling onto the cobblestones as it's tail drooped into the pit it's entrance into the surface-world had created.

Teeth the size of children began to pull apart as it's multitude of tongues slithered out, and then the Master-Runner made her move.

<Base, we need that Sphere, now. Runner Teams, draw off Metaconcert. Psions, I need a Fall-Wall now please."

The tingling presence of the Head Broadcaster pressed gently on her mind. <I am providing power. Cast at will.>

Her left hand moved of it's own accord, and she saw/felt the air ripple as titanic amounts of power was applied to reality.

In front of her, and each of the other Runners that now encircled the monster, a shimmer, like a heat haze, enveloped the buildings and road in an unbroken wall around the leviathan.

<The creature is a Crokek'Toeck, and Demons use them as a mix of transportation and assault-landing craft. Firing Migraine-Spike now.> The feeling of the Broadcasters speaking in sync was quite strange, like a harmonized echo of choruses.

There was an almost-visible pulse of psionic power around where Ahrina guessed the creature had it's brain, and the creature stilled, rendered temprarily braindead from the attack. It's mental processes (what little there were of them) ground to a halt as it fell into the demonic equivilant of a coma.

<CAUTION: Demonic minds regenerate from Spike damage. It will become functional within the next few secounds., albeit minimally, and it WILL be omincidal. It may attack it's allies- or just try to leave. It's not predicable when it awakes.>

A grumbling noise came from inside the crokek'toeck, and out stepped…. A small, greenish thing that quickly shimmered out of visibility before it had fully come to light.

That one she recognized. <Quazit. Not too bright.>

The spark of it's mind made a beeline for the edge of the square, only to encounter the semi-visible boundry of the fall-wall and get thrown back to impact the crokek'toeck's left leg. It subsequently burst into visibility, hissing angrily.



It looked rather disturbed though, and trundled back to the mouth where it started to speak in a ghastly tongue.

<Abyssal language detected.> That was one of the smaller Psion circles. <Adjusting 'Lingual Comprehension' ritual to adapt…. Complete.>

"Grhhr Gahenal hranna oookhrant wall out here you bitches! Get out here you bitches! We're surrounded!" Shouted the Quazit.

A large, red two-fingered hand reached out from between two teeth, and grabbed the green demon's neck. "Shut up bitch…" Rumbled a deep voice as the second of the four beings walked out of the mouth of the crokek'toeck. It was roughly the size of a Goliath or Troll, and resembled a red, armored toad with shark teeth more than anything else.



<Herzou. Not too smart, but tough. Very dangerous.> Stated one of the Psions in the batch that was currently perusing their books on demons.

Followed by the third. This one looked like a dog, or hyeena, that was both emaciated and lit with an inner light. It's long, whiplike tail, half-again as long as it's body, swished behind it as the stinger twitched and dripped an acid that scorred the stoned beneath it.



<…. Shoosuva? What are these things doing together?>

"Don't kill it." Hissed the white demonic dog. "It's a good chew toy."

The quazit squeaked, it's eyes begining to bulge out of it's head.

"THE FUCK IS GOING ON OUT-" The angry voice from within the crokek'toack was abruptly cut off as the huge thing's mind sparked back to life, closing it's jaw and jumping back towards a gap between two of the Runners.

The crokek'toack hit the Fall-Wall, and, in midair, slowed, stopped, and abruptly reversed back to slam into the three demons already present.

The quasit died on impact, while the other two were growling and scrambling from underneath the large demon, unprepared to deal with it's abrupt return to awareness.

<Okay, that's enough messing with them. Boosting Fall-Wall.> The Head Broadcaster sent.

While the crokek'toack carefully righted itself, the walls became VISIBLE, as loose tiles and stones began 'falling' away towards the center of the square, the artificial gravity gradient begining to rip apart the houses and building that the Runners were standing on.

<Veiwing locked on being within the crokek'toack. Firing Thunder-Sphere.>

Master-Runner Ahrina had seen Fireballs go off- and when she learned how to cast the Elemental Sphere effect, she understood how similar the two techniques were. The Psionic version was just oodles more flexible and scalable- as this casting proved.

The crokek'toack suddenly swelled, as waves of sound blasted it from the inside, the concophonious roar of a Sonic-element bomb going off inside the creature tossed it's gargantuan body like a rag doll into the air as it's insides abruptly were liquified by the blast. It's leg bones, bigger than some hill giants, shattered midair from the continous detonation turned the solid structures within it's blast radius to powder- including some of the cobbled street below where the demon once stood and the bodies of the red & white demons that had been beneath it.

It's mind dissapeared, the damage too great for it's body to sustain, and then only the single, now very angry mind, within it remained.

A large, bladed claw tore it's way out of the crokek'toack, and out came a <Galbrezu>.



The fanged snout sniffed the air, and growled at them- but especially Ahrina. "You!" It snarled. *"Insolent Halfling! You dare stand against the might of one of the captains of the abyss AGAIN?!"

It pointed a claw at her, and spat a word that made her ears smart. The open claw was abruptly filled with an eldritch glow, which flung itself towards her.

Ahrina made to dodge, of course, but she didn't really need to. The Fall-Wall effected the eldritch blast like it would an arrow, or catapult stone- by acting as though the thing was traveling a farther path than it was actually traveling.

She measured it once- a Fall-Wall could make a ballista bolt slow to a stop, or throw a Runner (her at the time) hard enough to clear a river with minimal effort. The Abyssal Captain's eldritch blast didn't even travel a quarter of the way through the wall before sputtering out and disapating harmlessly.

It was one very confused demon that looked at it's claws, then at the Master-Runner, then back at it's claws, then growled. "NO! I WILL NOT BE BESTED BY A HALFLING SEXTOY! FLESH-TO-STONE!" It gestured with it's humanoid hands in a particular fashion, and a streak of light shot towards her.

<STILLING FIELD!> Roared the Master Broadcaster through the Metaconcert.

Ahrina felt the somewhat-oily feeling that the world outside the Psionic Enclave had abruptly vanish, and the light winked out before it even entered the Fall-Wall. The Stilling Field was one of their greatest defenses- active antimagic!

"RHAAAG!!!! WHY WON'T YOU DIE!?" Screamed the galbrezu.

The air around Ahrina rippled slightly, but nothing happened.

She smirked.

"What's wrong, captain? Impotent?" It wasn't a particularly clever, but the demon just tried to use a 'Power Word: KILL' on her, so she wasn't at her best, banter-wise.

The demon screamed, and began trying to throw blast after blast at her- none of them reached farther than a few inches beyond it's claws.

<While amusing, that's enough. Elemental Line: Radiance- firing.> Chuckled the Head Broadcaster in their head.

Above the swearing and raging demon, a spark of light appeared, brightening over a second or two enough to completely erase the shadows of the demon below it.

The galbrezu looked up. "What-"

The spark of light blossomed, turning into a pillar of light that was simultaniously white-blue while giving impressions of green-purple at the edges.

It's mind dissapeared from within the pillar.

The pillar of light vanished, as did the torso, head, and legs of the demon, leaving the upper claw-arms to drop to the floor next to it's hands and wrists.

<Containment.> Ahrina signaled to her Runners, who began all walking towards the center of the area. The Fall-Wall was still up, so when they did so, it's boundery pushed all the extranious material together.

The Psions were ready with a set of mixed Elemental Spheres to clean up the remains.

-

Spoiler: Combat Results

Result: Demon incursion stopped.

No experience points earned- Mass Metaconcert prevents experience gain.

Enclave & Town initially secured.

-

 

[Mr. Cloak]

-

Spoiler: Previous Chapter Combat Results

Result: Demon incursion stopped.
No experience points earned due to metaconcert effect.
Enclave & Town initially secured.

Spoiler: Vote Results

(RED):2
(GREEN): 0
(ORANGE): 2
(PURPLE): 0

Result: Corrupted Ancient Bronze Dragon (5th level sorcerer), kobold hordes, and Kobold Warlock (15th level).

Spoiler: Current Status

Current Environs status:
City (Athakatla): Evacuated
Enclave-By-Athakatla: Preparing to search the nearby city
Plot-lines engaged:
Part 1 Result: Cult of Demonic worshipers (worshipers killed, demons killed) make their move as the Colossal Dragon Turtles are sighted off the coast for spawning season, and a random-ass dragon shows up to (rolls for plot: 84) take over the port city.
*Fusion Result for part 1: Due to the number of issues present that the Enclave is dealing with right now, the MC will NOT be fully healed.*
Mallus gained: I used to be right-handed… Limbs: 1 (prosthetic)
Hidden MC Plot: You want to do WHAT to my liver?! (fell through accidental portal that appeared, and the cult wants the chosen vessel back)

Debt: 127,500 gold pieces (12,750 platinum pieces, or 12.75 Platinum Bars) (-1000 gp for valuable knowlege relating to sea turtles)

As usual, vote options will appear in the following post.
And of course, discussion and comments make the writer happy, and my muse more content. You want my muse to be content and productive, don't you?
Don't you?
-

Journal Entry 3:

So… Demons are real.

It's a bit hard, internalizing the fact that I am currently stuck in a D&D universe. One that isn't Ebberon, or Steamforge, or the Forgotten Realms, or one of the high magitech ones- but they know of them.

Anyway, cleanup is over now. It's been a few days since the demons attempted to… Do something. Set up a beachhead perhaps? Evidently, the Galbreazu and his chums ate the cultists (as you do), and had a damned living assault boat.

The size of a fucking whale!

Anyway, it was dealt with. Containment, and then bombardment from long range. I got to see it in realtime, and felt th power that was being weilded- and it was AMAZING.

I won't be able to learn it for some time, but Hackie (my tutor) told me that Broadcasters can learn to mimic ANY of the other Psionic disciplines, so that's something to look forward to.

Anyway, now there's a big hole in the nearby town's main square in the temple district, and while it isn't covered in demon viscera any longer, it does have a lot of ash there now.

-

Journal Entry 5:

I'm making good progress with my telekinisis, and better with my telepathy.

Hackie thinks that I should be ready to begin paying off my debt in just over two years- which would be depressing, but I went through college once, so…. Same song again, then?

-

Journal Entry 10:

It's been a couple weeks since the Demon skirmish. The Dragon-Turtles are arriving, and while large-scale illusions are fooling the young ones, it's the older ones that tend to ignore them.

I hope we can mitigate this.

-

Journal Entry 17:

It's been over three months since the Demon skirmish. Dragon-Turtles are arriving in larger, and larger numbers, and there is a constant rota on forming/maintaining the mass illusion.

I saw it from the outside once- it makes this entire bay look like we have overhanging cliffs instead of the gentle slope that's there. I can't provide the right motive thought to be one of the people that focuses on the illusion, but I can help power it in the Metaconcert. (I'm on break for the next twelve hours or so).

It's a good thing I barely need to sleep anymore.

Thing is, the largest of the dragon-turtles are coming anyway- the smaller ones have taken up positions to the northern rocky beach rather than nest where this town is, but the big ones…

Let me put it this way- the things literally have trees and forest growing on their shells. If I didn't think there was more than basic physics telling matter how it was supposed to work, seeing one of those monsters would do it.

Oh, and there's a dragon flying around now… So that's a thing.

-

Ulhamjalanbaladarrh was searching for the dragon-turtles in the best way he knew- from the air.

The ancient bronze dragon was bigger than many houses, and his wings sometimes scythed through small trees if he landed in wooded areas- but collaterall damage was the last thing on his eroded mind.

All he wanted to do was find the turtles' nesting site- and collect a few eggs.

It was what they wanted, and it would happen. For they're speaker brought the b̴̵̧̙̪̲̄ͤͦͭ͒̀͠ê͚ͩͣͪs̸̺̘̝͈ͩ̄̐̓̽́t͔̫ͤͯ̔҉̷̢ treasure, and Ulhamjalanbaladarrh needed more.

The ancient bronze dragon did one more circuit of the location where the dragon-turled spawned every 370 years… Or it would be, if there was a city there!

How did the groundlings change the beach into a cliff?! It made no sense!

Cocking it's horned head, the dragon came in for a landing on a rocky outcropping- and for one, beautiful moment, Ulhamjalanbaladarrh felt like life might not be just for hoarding treasure that they made.

Spoiler: Agent Orange on a rock

Then he fell through the illusion with a startled squack, and landed, heavily, on a townhouse.

Even in his 'intoxicated' state, that got to him. Possibly more than it would normally because of said intoxication.

"HOW DARE THOSE CREATURES BUILD TRAPS FOR ME!" Bellowed the dragon as he tried to pull himself out of the rubble.

With an angry swipe, he pulled off the crude humanoid skull he wore as a necklace, and slammed it into the ground. The pre-cast spell within activated, sketching out a massive ritual circle that BURNED into the ground with a vengance.

Ulhamjalanbaladarrh carefully poked his shoulder with a foreclaw, and lifted a single drop of blood from his own flesh, briefly wondering at the slight orange glow his scales shone with. As an ancient bronze dragon, he should have been becoming more green- but he was now looking more orange than he ever did as a baby.

Spoiler: Agent Orange

Ulhamjalanbaladarrh shook his head, and let the drop fall into the circle- finalizing the reaction.

"COME FORTH!" His voice rumbled. "Attend me wingless ones!"

Hordes of Kobolds in the dozens flooded out through the tunnel, chattering as they did, but remaining defferential to his austere self, as was proper.

Their speaker ran out with one of the hordes, while nearly a hundred kobolds hovered around him- removing debris and digging him out in less than a minute.

Spoiler: The [I]Speaker[/I]

"Ancient and revered one," Hissed Their speaker. "Are you injured? This place feels of foul mind-magics!"

"I am uninjured, merely inconvenienced." Ulhamjalanbaladarrh growled. "This is the ancient dragon-turtle nesting site, although the human town is new." He snorted, and a line of electricity arced from a nostril, accidentally lighting a part of the rubble on fire. "There is an illusion over this town- one that I could not detect… And it's not magical in nature."

"Interesting, oh iridescent one." *Their* speaker stroked his chin-scales. "This may impede our goals."

Ulhamjalanbaladarrh looked around, and saw a humanoid figure poking it's head out over a distant roof next to a crystaline pillar. "And we can now get answers." He growled, menacingly.

-

Kurz Killian, Scout Runner 17th class, rookie of squad 7, ducked behind the wall, hyperventallating.

He KNEW that the dragon had spotted him.

He knew that it was a bronze dragon.

And he knew that bronze dragons were not supposed to look… Cracked.

It was somehow viscerally *wrong*- metalic dragons were supposed to lustrious. Radient. Or at least, look metalic.

This dragon looked EXACTLY like a normal bronze dragon, except for the simple fact that it lookedlike it's scales were cracked, and only the cracks appeared metallic. The rest of it's scales looked pastel- giving the distinct impression of a chromatic dragon.

Moreover, the cracked shiny parts of the scales flickered with lightning, indicating a magical system undergoing either catastrophic failure, or… Something else.

Kurz wasn't a specialist on magic, but he knew as much as most other Runners did. Whis was, admittedly, not alot.

He took a deep breath, and poked the broadcaster through his Communication Crystal. <Anomaly clarified- Ancient Bronze Dragon in shape, does not match standard color or actions. Need Metaconcert.>

The voice that answered back was prompt. <Contacting others that can be linked on short notice.>

"HUMAN!" Roared the not-quite-bronze dragon, as it leapt into the air, wings slamming down as the building-sized reptile jumped into the air. "YOU WILL OBEY ME, AND STOP!"

<Squad 7, incoming!> Kurz did what he was best at, and *ran*. He wasn't the fastest Runner, but he was fast. As a 17th-class Runner, his maximum speed wasn't too fast, but he could maintain a speed of more than 10 feet per second. Which while not as fast as the dragon, meant that he could keep out of range for a little while.

The rest of his squad began to converge, but they wouldn't get to him before the dragon did at their current maximum, maintainable speeds-

Kurz dove to the side as the dragon made a choking sound, narrowly evading the line of lightning that shot out and shattering a building. The dragon banked around him, and he saw the giant reptilian creature glare at him even as the claws of the first two legs began to make acrane gestures.

The dragon pointed, and hissed a strange word.

Kurz swore as a fire-elemental ray hissed out at him, and burned a hole in his shoulder- but he kept moving, even with his right arm slumping limp.

<Connection to Metaconcert ready. Connecting on Mark.>

He grinned, even with the smoking hole in his shoulder. <Mark>

His world expanded in a moment, an eon in a second, and the metaconcert linked its power to his own, and he suddently had the power of a dozen high-grade psions at his disposal.

Kurz started laughing- every time he worked with the Metaconcert, it felt AMAZING.

<Okay team!>Kurz blasted away, clearing over a hundred feet in a handful of seconds, legs and arm blurring as he went faster and faster. <We have some mutant metalic dragon here! And a horde of kobolds! Any ideas?>

"INSOLANT APE! I will find you and when I do, you will beg for-" The dragon was now out of earshot.

But it looked pissed.

-

 

[Mr. Cloak]

-

Spoiler: Previous Chapter Combat Results

Current invasion:
1 Elementally-Corrupted (Lightning) Ancient Bronze Dragon
1 Kobold Warlock (Djinni Patron)
300+ kobolds

Spoiler: Vote Results

0 - (a) Plan Bunker: finish installing planar tap blockers, and retreat to the enclave. Only maintain the illusion- leave the kobolds to the inhabitants when they return. (100% chance of kobolds infesting the town. 80% chance that the dragon will attack the enclave within a year. 10% chance of fae. 15% chance of Dragon-Turtles breaking the illusion.)
2 - (b) Plan Spearhead: attack with the overcharged Scout force. Let the Runners show off a little. (100% chance of an ass-kicking. 20% chance of at least one member of the scouts to die. 15% chance of Dragon-Turtles breaking the illusion. 100% chance of seeing how psionic enclaves deal with corpse disposal.)
0 - (c) Plan Bombardment: Metaconcert preforms a series of strikes against the dragon and forces. (100% chance of collateral damage. 80% chance of kobolds escaping into the forest, and preforming attaks later. 30% chance of Dragon-Turtles breaking the illusion due to pulling too many casters together to take down the ancient dragon.)
1 - (d) Write-in. Not sure how to handle this, but we can discuss it if the plan is awesome enough.

Result: (b) Plan Spearhead

Spoiler: Current Status

Current Environs status:
City (Athakatla): Evacuated, under invasion
Enclave-By-Athakatla: Preparing to search the nearby city
Plot-lines engaged:
Part 1 Result: Cult of Demonic worshipers (worshipers killed, demons killed) make their move as the Colossal Dragon Turtles are sighted off the coast for spawning season, and a random-ass dragon shows up to (rolls for plot: 84) take over the port city.
*Fusion Result for part 1: Due to the number of issues present that the Enclave is dealing with right now, the MC will NOT be fully healed.*
Mallus gained: **I used to be right-handed…** Limbs: 1 (prosthetic)
Hidden MC Plot: You want to do WHAT to my liver?! (fell through accidental portal that appeared, and the cult wants the chosen vessel back)

Debt: 127,500 gold pieces (12,750 platinum pieces, or 12.75 Platinum Bars) (-1000 gp for valuable knowlege relating to sea turtles)

As usual, vote options will appear in the following post.
And I hope y'all are enjoying the Quest! Feel free to ask any questions, comments, or ideas, and I will answer any questions reguarding the vote or events in the chapter people ask about!
-

Runner 5th Class, Shin Johstar shot to a stop next to his subordinate with a THUMP of displaced air.

Spoiler: Orc Runner

Kurz made a tiny scream- he still wasn't used to fieldwork.

Shin grinned slightly, before nodding to Kurz. "Report."

Kurz snapped to attention. "SIR! The dragon and it's horde of kobolds are currently occupying the temple district. Orders?"

Eli'Markines, his half-elf second-in-command ran over silently, her footsteps barely disturbing the brickwork.

Spoiler: Half-Elf

"Sounds about right." She commented, pulling out a small telescope and looked at the kobold hord that was attempting to assemble some devices through the portal. "Sir- they are trying to build something."

Shin pulled out his own telescope and grunted. "They are. Looks like a... Crossbow?"

Spoiler: The Kobold Kanun (The Good Better Edition)

The Orc slammed his telescope closed. "That's a Kobold Kanun."

Kurz, who did not have his telescope, was trying to get a better glimpse of the device. "With two 'k's?"

"Indeed." Shin stroked his bald chin- he was still irritated by the fact that he couldn't grow anything more than one of those deppressingly-small 'soul-patch's. "I believe I still have a plan. We all have a connection to the Network, and are receiving power?"

Both of his team members nodded.

"Good. Kurz- did you learn how to cast Enthrall and Boosted Step?"

The man nodded slowly. "Yes?"

"Eli, you can do the same?"

The half-elf gained a look of understanding. "I do…"

"Good." Shin grimaced. "If you can Enthrall the Kobolds, I can deal with the dragon. At least-" He held up a hand, and nearly-invisible blades three feet long extended from his fingers, dripping with frost. "-with the Network's power, anyway."

After a second or two of no movement, he glared at the two Runners.

"What are you waiting for? GO!" Shin roared, even as he fed power into his body. The roof under his feet cracked as the Orc slammed out over the rooftops, heading straight for the ancient dragon.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw both of his teammates running, shooting over the rooftops at speeds that he would be hard-pressed to reach on his own. Both began to shimmer, as they started to Enthrall the Kobolds as they ran circles around them.

His next step cracked the stone wall under the tile (which had shattered into powder on impact with his foot), and he PUSHED.

Normally, doing something like this with as much power as he was throwing at it would toss him several hundred feet across the cityscape, but there was something in his way.

A dragon.

280 lbs of Orc slammed into the chest of 15000 lbs of Dragon as it stepped between two buildings. Normally, physics would insist that the smaller being would crumple, or dig into the larger one. Like a bullet hitting a steel plate.

However, this Orc had just burnt 30 times the power he would usually use (courtesy of a bunch of psions that were not using their power at the moment), so the Dragon, with a surprised squack, was thrown back across the city like a child's toy- all the momenum that the Orc had collected transfered completely. Perfectly.

Violently.

The gargantuan ancient dragon, lightning arcing from it's cracked scales, tumbled wildly as it encountered a house.

The house broke, leaving a dragon-shaped and sized hole where it passed through the building.

Then another house suffered a similar fate.

Then a restraunt of some description.

Then the Kobold Kanun- which exploded into shards of metal, fragments of kindling, and body parts of Kobolds tat had been working on the thing.

Shin grrinned widely, and felt around the edges of his power, before blurring straight up.

There was a reason his nickname was 'The Meteor'.

-

Ulhamjalanbaladarrh shook his head as he dislodged the bricks that had gotten lodged in his scales. "Hrrrr….What was that?!" He demanded, only to be met with silence. Well, silence and falling masonry.

The bronze dragon looked around at his Kobolds, and saw that they were… Staring at nothing? No…. Two figures were blurring around his slaves. Their outlines wavered and flickered, and any Kobold that saw them started to waver on their feet.

It was like…

"Enchantment…" Growled the Dragon, before he inhaled and released a thunderous lance of lightning at one of the figures- who dodged it cleanly.

The ancient dragon blinked.

"That's new… Fine. Distant Empowered Magic Missle. " His clawed fingers flexed, and the Weave surged as three glowing bolts flared into existance.

These missles followed their namesake, shooting after the red-headed half-elf, who kept running, but swerved between two buildings for a moment. As she ran out, the magic missles, which were evading the various obsticles in the way, finaly had a straight path to slam into her- only to evaporate a foot from her skin.

"ANTIMAGIC?" Snarled the dragon. "HOW? WHEN?"

-

Eli sighed, and vaulted over a cart that had been, several seconds ago, been being pushed by two kobolds.

It had been worth it to learn how to cast Normalize, despite the cost of learning it .

Damn magic tutors.

Of course, Normalize effected her too, but connected to the Network as she was- she had power to burn.

-

Several hundred feet up, Shin was bouncing on his power in midair. He didn't need the Network for this type of thing- but the extra power WOULD allow him to make the most of it.

Flipping over between one step and the next, Shin pushed 'off' the air, again channeling HUGE amounts of power into his descent.

Normally, it would take a few seconds to fall this far. Over five hundred feet up, he would take some time to reach the ground. Moreover, he wasn't sure if he would kill the dragon if he just 'fell'.

But the same skill that let him push off the air to fly could be used to move faster than the air would allow him to go on the way down.

He felt the air like a wall before him, but that didn't matter.

Killing a dragon? That mattered.

He extended the ice-cold claws, and grinned even wider as he fell through the air like a vengeful meteor, moving faster and faster….

IMPACT.

Orc meets Dragon, feet and claws first.

-

The Speaker was not too old, for a kobold. Preportionally, anyway.

Spoiler: The Kobold Speaker

He was only a mere 85 years old, not even a Great Wyrm yet- but he had seen a few things.

A dragon falling for his manipulations? He had been entreating them on behalf of his patron for nearly 80 years now, and she knew how to enthrall the great dragons to her will.

The Speaker hadn't seen a dragon get punted through several buildings before though, and like any smart warlock, he immediately cast Dimension Door (using one of his FOUR spells), to get out of dodge. This was far enough to get him close to the edge of the city, but when he looked back at the dragon, he saw several things that disturbed him.

Firstly, there were two figures running circles around the horde he had gathered for this plan- and the horde had stopped moving.

And secondly, and more pressingly, he saw his twisted dragon (not a true dragon of course- it fell all too easily to collecting the trinkets his patron had had him passing on, but it would be a decent vessel for his patron to shape when it 'ripened') aim at one of the figures and MISS! Twice!

One of those times was a MAGIC MISSILE! That was not supposed to be able to miss!!

The Speaker snarled under his breath. This may not have been the best option to getting the Dragon Turtle shell his patron wanted- but it would have dealt with the local human element, and he had THOUGHT that this would be a soft target for an ANCIENT dragon-

It was at this point that streak of angry green fell out of the sky, going faster than he thought was possible, and slammed into his dragon's head, slamming it into the ground sending kobolds all around the impact point flying for over a hundred and fifty feet in every direction!

The ripple in the air was visible, and where it passed, kobolds died.

Then he heard the thunderous BANG of the impact, and all was silent for a few moments, while the other running figures all formed up together with the green Orc in the middle of the crater.

The Speaker shook himself as he watched nearly 8 years of planning and investment expire in the crater there due to having it's spine nearly completely crushed behind it's head. He had to turn away from the twitching body and remains of the horde.

It hurt to have so much of his work get destroyed in less than a minute.

He had raised many of the Kobold Klans that he had called upon for this 'easy' operation. Some of them had been the gandchildren and great-grandchildren of his own clutches.

Two more Dimension Doors, and he was past the outskirts of the city- and a hastily-cast Fly let him quickly escape into the sky, where he pulled out the sealed lamp from a hidden pocket in his robes.

It took a few minutes before he was high enough and far enough to find a sufficiently-dense cloud to summon his patron, but he felt that he needed answers.

He rubbed the lamp, and muttered the name of his patron under his breath, then had to drop the lamp as it sparked with lightning on his claws. The lamp fell through the cloud for the moment before landing with an audible CRACK.

The clouds parted into a vaguely-illuminated cavern as a blue smoke seeped out into a humanoid-shape that, between one blink and the next, formed into the shape of one of his patron's greater servants.

Spoiler: Lesser Djinni

She grinned at the kobold. "S͘MA̡LL͢ O̴N͡E!͟" Her voice sounded like thunderstorms, smelled like gales, and felt like the tickle right before lightning struck. He tasted metal on his teeth. "IT ͡HAS͏ B̀EE͝N ̷T̨OO̡ ́L̕ONG̛!̸ ̀H͢AV͜Ȩ YOU GOT̢T҉ÈN̴ ͏T̸HE D͜R͢AGON͏-T҉URT̛L̵E ̢S̕H̕ELL̶ ͝T̀H̷E G͘R̶EAT ͏O͠ŅE҉ W̶A҉NTS̀?"

She drifted down, sensually, and twined around the warlock. This was surprisingly sexy for the kobold, despite the… Differences between humanoids and kobolds.

"Unfortunately, no…" Sighed the Speaker. "Some not-magic-users killed Ulhamjalanbaladarrh, an are HIDING the city where the Dragon-Turtles were predicted to be laying eggs this millenia."

She stopped sensually winding around the kobold. "W͏AIT͡-̨ ͠N̴OT̸-͝MAG̵ÍC̸ ͡U͠SE̕RS̴?҉ WHAT҉ ͟DI̶D͟ ̵THE̕Y̛ D͘O?"

The kobold opened his mouth to reply, and then the djinni held a finger over his muzzel.

"D͏ON'T̛ ҉T͟EL̛L ̡M̕E, ́S̀H҉OW ̶M̷E̸." The djinni waved her hand, forming a wisp of cloud into an opaque sphere. A few seconds of motion in the sphere caused it to glow, soon showing an image of the world below.

The Speaker had used a cloud-scryer before, and so, with a moment's concentration, he was able to direct the image to oversee where the village had been…. Only to show the cliff that Ulhamjalanbaladarrh had fallen through.

"I SE͝E…" The djinni leaned forward, eyes thinning. She muttered a few times, making abrupt gestures, getting more and more frustrated until she froze, eyes glimmering with released power that sparkled like contained lightning. "T͜H̢E͜ ͢M͢I̢STR̡ESS ̢M͟US̛T̀ B̶E ͟ĮNF͘ORM͘ED OF͟ ́T͜HIS- SHE͟ MA̡Y YET ͟GE̢T H̡E͢R ͠P̷RI͞Z̢E. ҉YOU̡, ͢SPEA͞KE͝R-҉OF̨-T͟HU͞N͜D̡E̴R̀HEADS, MAY NE͢ĘD ͟T̕O̴…͢ TR͘EAT͜ ͠WI͟T̨H̨ THE ͞DEFE̶NDE̛RS O̕F͜ ́THIS̡ AR͏E̷A͘.͜"

The Speaker-Of-Thunderclouds nodded slowly. "I see…?"

The lesser djinni giggled. "Y̸OU̷ DO͢Ń'͟T̨ YE͞T̨…̕ ̢BU͢T YO͟U̡ ͠WI̷L̷L͏."

-

In the ocean, several things drifted with the tide away from the city.

They used to be kobolds- but now, they were broken and leaking bodies. Bodies that had been thrown from the impact between Orc, Dragon, and stone, landing in the cracks between the cobbles that led to the sewer, and were pushed into the ocean by the active sewage systems that the enclave had placed in the city several years before.

It would be several days before the parts would reach the horizon, moved by wind, tides and currents as they were, but the illusion had been broken now, as adolescent Dragon-Turtles would investigate the new source of food.

-

Spoiler: Combat Math

A Runner, using *Airstep*, can exceed the 20d6 damage limit of fall damage defined by the player's handbook. Using *Impactful Displacement* to hit a target deals 2x (distance falling: 500 feet / 10 feet) d6 damage, with the elemental effect of Elemental Claws (5d6 Cold/slashing), for a total of 100d6 Falling + 5d6 Cold/Slashing damage.
That's 385 damage.
An ancient dragon has 444 hit points normally.
The first strike that knocked him through several buildings, that did 40d6 damage (2x (distance falling: 200/10)d6), or 139 damage.
Between the two, the dragon did not have enough HP to survive that.
Moreover, *Impactful Displacement*, if it does more than 30 damage on landing, can cause splash damage. First in a 10 feet radius, but for every 10 extra damage, that effect grows.
385 damage on landing equates to a blast radius of 175 feet. Everything within that impact zone is dealt the damage, decreasing from the point of impact as you go out towards the edge, meaning that for every 5 feet closer to impact center, another 10 damage is added.
On the edge, that's 10 points of damage, but it increases every 5 feet closer to the center.

With the ancient dragon having been **tossed** into the center of the kobold horde…. That's a LOT of damage.

Spoiler: Results of Major Descision Rolls

Runner Team death chance: needs to roll a 4 or lower on the d20. Results: 8, 5, 19- NO RUNNER TEAM DEATHS
Survivors: DC 13 to survive. Dragon = 2, fail. Kobold Warlock = NAT20, survives, may succeed quest. Kobold forces= 10, 8, 3, 7, 12, 11, 2, 1, 1, 1, 14, 2.
Kobold Survivors: rolling 3d20= 21. 21 Kobold Survivors.
Chance to break illusion some way: DC 3 needed, roll = 1. Incoming Dragon-Turtles.

-

 

[Mr. Cloak]

-

Spoiler: Previous Chapter Combat Results

1 dead corrupted bronze dragon
300 or so dead Kobolds
Kobold Warlock ran away to approach from
21 captured Kobold survivors

Spoiler: Vote Results

(1) Adolescent Dragon-Turtle
(2) Kobold Warlock
(0) Adult Dragon-Turtle Swarm

Result:
Kobold Warlock story incoming.
1 Adolescent Dragon-Turtle swims by.

Spoiler: Current Status

Current Environs status:
City (Athakatla): Evacuated, under invasion
Enclave-By-Athakatla: Preparing to search the nearby city
Plot-lines engaged:
Part 1 Result: Cult of Demonic worshipers (worshipers killed, demons killed) make their move as the Colossal Dragon Turtles are sighted off the coast for spawning season, and a random-ass dragon shows up to (rolls for plot: 84) take over the port city.
*Fusion Result for part 1: Due to the number of issues present that the Enclave is dealing with right now, the MC will NOT be fully healed.*
Mallus gained: **I used to be right-handed…** Limbs: 1 (prosthetic)
Hidden MC Plot: You want to do WHAT to my liver?! (fell through accidental portal that appeared, and the cult wants the chosen vessel back)

Debt: 127,500 gold pieces (12,750 platinum pieces, or 12.75 Platinum Bars) (-1000 gp for valuable knowlege relating to sea turtles)

As usual, vote options will appear in the following post.
-

Journal Entry 19:

Even with just having dealt with a potential invasion, a demonic incursion, and with a swarm of Dragon-Turtles searching along the coast for this city and the beaches therein, the business of the Enclave must go on.

Of course, dragons make for a nifty prize, so that's interesting.

Hackie said that some kobolds were captured, so unless we can figure out where they came from (much harder than you'd think what with all the lack of education, maps, or other reference markers in these places), they will have to, like me, work off the debt that they helped encurr.

Thankfully, I'm not going to have anything to do with that crap, as I'm a) still paying off my own not-so-insignficant debt at a rate of around 65 years or so, and b) I am crippled somewhat.

-

Journal Entry 20:

I have got to stop taunting Murphy. I have been assigned 3 kobolds to 'assist' me with my studies.

On a seperate note, I have finally reached the next point in my studies, which is using the unique, and possibly most gamebreaking ability that psionic beings can learn: PRINT. It's acutally fairly easy, since I figured out how to split my 'arm' into two sharp-tipped tentacles, one blue and the other orange.

But yeah- PRINTING (and yes I am always going to capatilize it) is the method by which a Broadcaster can literally burn a copy of text from one page onto another page without reading it. It has to do with 'conceptual imprinting' and 'collective consiouness references' according to Hackie, but it's actually a lot simpler than that makes it sound. To do it, I put one hand (or tentacle) on the first page of the completed book, my other hand on the other book, and run power through the page, cycle it through me, and then push it out onto the page.

The area under my hand will be copied in greyscale gradients exactly, so I just made sure the contact surface of my tentacle was stretching the length of the page, so I could do a single sheet in just under a second.

I wasn't the fastest Broadcaster to print various books, but I could do scrolls faster than almost anyone, so that's nice, I guess?

Which brings me back to the original point, my three kobolds. Rux, Riva, and Ula.

Turns out, as I slept, the people in charge started trying to figure out what to do with the Kobolds, and when 'let them go' was not voted for (as well as very difficult, as the other enclaves were not able to figure out a good place for them in any case- kobolds were not considered more than vermin in many countries, and several city-states had bounties for kobold heads), the kobolds were asked what they had wanted.

Interestingly, they didn't know. Their whole cultural identity, as much as they understood it, was based around dragons.

Thus, I, and several other random people in the enclave, were collected at 'too-gods-damned-early-o-clock', and shown into a room where the catured kobolds were staring at the Master-Broadcaster, in 3 of his bodies.

One dragon.

Spoiler: The Dragon Body

It's hard to get the colors right- it looked like a black dragon that was slowly begining to turn into living gemstone at the extremeties.

One elf.

Spoiler: The Elf Body

And a drider.

Spoiler: The Drider Body

(Oh, and I drew these pictures using the PRINTING ability. It's actually really easy to draw these sorts of things now.)

His dragon-body gave a short speech to the kobolds, about how they were now part of the enclave, and then touched one kobold on the head with an extended claw. There was a sparkle of purple-green not-light, and kobold felt a little… Brighter, to my viewing-sense.

He proceided to do the same to every kobold over the next half hour, and then I was shown my three… Not slaves, but… They were mine. 'Gifted', as it were, according to them, by a 'great dragon', to help one of his subordinates.

When I asked them about that, all three chorused the same words: "He has spared our lives- we are eternally grateful."

Gave me some toy story flashbacks, and made me feel rather sad. Both for missing home, and for them.

Anyway, I need to get back to work- when I manage to get color working consistantly, I will be able to start working to pay down my debt!

-

Journal Entry 21

I learned, earlier today, what allowed the enclave to support itself.

The answer: Psionically-created products and services.

Now, that's a very simple way to say something horribly complicated, so I'm going to list here what's up with this place.

First: Books. Broadcasters can copy books very, very cheaply. They just needed a scroll of the right length, or the right number of bound pages to duplicate a document. Moreover, we could do so remotely, to some degree (a not insignificant factor), and because of that mages around the world paid Psionic Enclaves to hold encrypted copies of their spellbooks. Other documents that were the property of various governments were also kept, in encrypted, crystal-sealed storage in the Enclave's vault.

Wizards were DEATHLY afraid of losing all of their spells, and the various colleges and governments paid a pretty penny for our safety, security, and reputation for being both unbiassed and secretive.

Ever since the Enclaves had begun offering this service, no adventuring party had managed to steal any documents we had made backups of.

And we made copies of everything.

Second (and this plays into the first): The enclaves all were surrounded by either an ambient or enforced anti-magic field. Many magical artifacts (specifically books such as the *Tome of Leadership and Influence*, *Tome of Understanding*, and the *Tome of Clear Thought*) could not be duplicated without an antimagic field or a high-ranking magic-user of some form who is willing to push a great deal of their power into an artifact…. And write all of it by hand. Normally, even with an antimagic field, a mage would need to cast the spells needed, and there are very few magic-users that are that powerful and that aren't dragons of some form.

Or elves. Most elves were insular and somewhat xenophobic- but they also HATED psions. Being instrinsically magical tended to do that.

Anyway, some hundred years ago or so, an Enclave discovered that using PRINTING to copy a magical tome and then dropping it into an area high in wild magic would auto-enchant the book.

Afer that, the Enclaves got right down to business making copies of the most expensive magical books they could find. Every Enclave (and this was NEVER supposed to be told to outsiders) would make copies of books such as the *Manual of Golems* (a costly endevor, but one that paid off quite nicely), the *Manual of Quickness of Action*, the *Manual of Gainfull Exercise* and the *Manual of Bodily Health*, among other magical books and tomes.

Of course, I could only get 1/10th of the sale price of any magical book I copied, but that wasn't nessesarily that bad.

And to make this more complicated, in order not to saturate the market, the books that were made in this way were regularly auctioned in a rolling method, so no one city, state, or area would get too many of the more expensive books. A city had actually gone into debt doing this once, and the Enclaves had to deal with the resulting fallout.

Third: Banking. Having a population that can pass information on over vast distances easily and cheaply meant that every single bank on Toril was linked together through the Enclaves. Psionic Enclaves tended to collect a lot of gold, so we lended to banks, and facilitated their communications.

Fourth: Communications. Instantanious real-time unlimited-wordcount messages? It's like the Diskworld and the Clacks- we faciliated stocks and communications between various cities. Yes, wizards and other casters still used Sending, but our way was faster and more affordable.

After all, a message could be like a phone call, a video chat, or a letter. We were the internet, and everyone paid for that privalage. Psionic Enclaves had a lockdown on the fastest methods of communication, and every country used our network of communication for one thing or another.

Fifth: Unique services. Since all psionics could cast anywhere they had active Viewing running, and Broadcasters had an insane range (even with stone dampening the effect, I knew the range of my own viewing was several hundred feet), with a Communication Stone and permission, we could cast effects from hundreds of miles away.

Some rich people had standing contracts and credit with us, using the enclave as a caster that would not be pursuing their own agenda in court. It such a common issue that many kings had both a court wizard and a locket with a Communication Stone in it that we marketed these properties out to prospective clients.

Besides- why have a dedicated druid or sorceror when a quick call and a few gold can get you the result you want, on demand?

And Sixth: Spelljammers.

Yes, the flying ships. Turns out, if you want a Spelljammer that can do more than travel between three crystal spheres, you needed psionic components to provide the shielding and propulsion. Moreover, there were… THINGS, in the phlogiston between the different crystal spheres that were inherantly anti-magical, and indeed fed off of magic if they noticed a spelljammer passing within several sphere-diameters of themselves.

(Note to self- the term 'sphere-diameter' is unweildy and due to the lack of understanding of astronomical phenomona, try to introduce the concepts of a 'light-year', as light should be a standard of measurement for stable physics.)

As such, the Enclave was constantly making parts for the few extra-crystal-sphere vessels that were used, as well as the less exotic flying ships that were used for shipping or other duties large mobile vessels would have.
~~~~~~
And now I've been forced to draw the short straw on another task.

I wonder what they need from me this time?

-

The Speaker-Of-Thunderheads was very, very nervous.

First, his dragon was killed. And army destroyed. And now… He was going to try to negotiate with the group that did that to somehow, some way, collect the Dragon-Turtle Shell he needed for his patron- and hopefully not die in the process.

He once traveled to the Elemental Plane of Air, and got to see firsthand what his patron did to those who failed her tasks AND died in the process. He did not want to be shoved in a bottle and slowly turned into a genie.

He still had nightmares about it, sometimes…

Speaker-Of-Thunderheads shook his melancholy thoughts out of the way, and looked at the strange pillar in front of him. Maybe obelisk would be a better description?

Spoiler: The Psionic Pillars

He could *feel* the connection between his patron and his patron straining as he got closer to the pillars, but he was able to touch the pillars without the connection snapping. It was the best evidence he had of the connection in the first place, and it SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF HIM.

The Speaker-Of-Thunderheads pulled his hand back from the stone with a snap- while he wanted to be free, there was something viscerally disturbing about feeling your soul bend in such a way.

He never wanted to feel it again-

There was a pulsating lights from out of the corner of his eye, and he dove for cover. After a second of poking an eye out of the bush he had head-first dove into, he was able to see that the teleportation circle in the town was active.

The circle was glowing, filling with the bright light of an active teleportation spell… And when the light left, he saw… An almost steriotypical adventuring party.

"Look, all I'm saying is that we don't NEED to keep the mayor alive if he thinks we were smuggling DreamRoot powder." The one wearing heavy, concealing dark robes was arguing in a very annoyed tone.

"Algernop, for the last time, we are not going to kill that mayor." Growled the elf archer.

"Why? We don't need him alive, and I am sure Cheryl can kill him sublty…." Everyone in the little group looked at the psycotically-giggling halfling. "Okay, maybe not subtly, but in a way that deals with potential blackmail against the group that would be difficult to trace to us."

"Al, my man, that's not going to happen." One of the humans. "For one, he doesn't think the GROUP was smuggling DreamRoot powder- just you."

"That's fair Archer." Huffed the necromancer as a small bone-spider made of several human-sized fingerbones crawled out of his long sleeve and perched on top of his head.

"And you keep getting caught robbing graves!" The female goliath rumbled, a grin stretching her face significantly. "And getting caught forging signatures for waivers to raise corpses, and-"

"Yes Pam, Algernop is a twisted person." The flamboyant elf wizard flapped a hand. "And none of us have space to talk here."

"Hey!" The goliath named 'Pam' pouted.

"Ray's right." The halfling 'Cheryl' raised a burning finger, and stared at it. "Pretty…"

The human 'Archer' shrugged. "In any case, we have an appointment." He pulled out a hip flask, took a swig, and replaced it next to four other flasks. "Who was it that we were meeting again, Lara?"

The elf archer 'Lara' frowned. "We are meeting with a member of the Psionic Enclave-By-Athakatla, Archer, and I don't know how you forgot this- we just walked out of the breifing for this meeting!"

"I don't know- maybe because I don't NEED to remember it? I'm not a necrophiliac necromancer-"

"Hey!" Algernop the necromancer protested for a moment, but then shrugged. "That's fair."

"- or a psychotic pyromaniac sorceror-"

"Yup!" Grinned Cheryl the halfling.

"- or a barbarian who likes to chew on bones when she's not eating anything that doesn't run away fast enough-"

"…" Pam didn't reply, as she had pulled an entire leg of cow out of the bag on her back, and was chewing.

"-or a gay elf-"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Snapped Ray the gay elf wizard.

"- so this meeting won't benefit me directly." Archer ignored the elf wizard. "I know why we're here, I just couldn't remember the name of the place."

There was a rustle, and a new kobold came out of one of the bushes, completely unconcerned by the sudden weapons being brandished towards it. Speaker-Of-Thunderheads was not sure how long that kobold had been hiding in the bush.

"Hello. You are expected." The kobold looked vaguely familliar to Speaker-Of-Thunderstorms, possibly a survivor of that horribly-destructive metoric attack. "A lesser psionic gate will open in 3. 2. 1."

Speaker-Of-Thunderheads had seen, heard, and FELT a lot of portal-like spells over the years. This was NOTHING like those at ALL. As a warlock, his senses and focus on gateways and inter-planar travel was trained and turned to great sensitivity…. But this was WRONG.

It was like the world split along a seam, unrolling against itself as flickers of not-light arced like some form of corrupted lightning in hands that reached out to pull even more of *here* to *there*, smoothing out the fabric of the world as it went, befoe stabilizing in a subltle play of green-purple light around the edges that his eyes, in the pre-dawn, could barely see.

"You too are invited, mister warlock."

Speaker-Of-Thunderheads nearly jumped out of his skin as he saw the kobold looking at him with… Irritation?

"Yes, I know you are there. You have been skulking around the anchoring pillars for some time now."

The party of adventurers seemed very surprised when he stepped out of the bush, which soothed his disturbed faith in his skills. "Yes…" He croaked, cleared his throat, and nodded. "I have come to bargain."

"This is assumed…" The kobold smirked slightly. "Reguardless, you and the Sabotaours are invited. Follow."

-

Journal Entry 22:

I met with two groups today, as the 'Broadcaster Representative'. See, there is still politics (insert retching sound here) even in an enlightened democratic system like the one that psionic enclaves use, and it follows a fairly simple set of rules:

- The network and Metaconcert is used to determine the outcome of descisions that would effect the enclave as a whole.
- Training is left up to the different specialties.
- Every Psionic specialty is self-governing, and any crimes that happen must have a representative from the victim's party, the victimiser's party, and the network in metaconcert to make sure any ruling is fair on who is punished and where remuneration is implimented.
- Any major purchase of goods/services or sale of goods/services requires a representative from each of the specialties that make up any enclave. One for each of the Breakers, Psions, Runners, Channelers, Broadcasters, Soulknives, and Delvers, if there is a population of them within the enclave.

At least, that's the summary I could put together. There are other rules, such as for debt repayment, but it gets complicated quickly, and frankly, it's the last rule that's important here.

I was the 'Broadcaster Representative' for the two groups today- one of which was an adventuring party called 'The Sabotaours' that specilized in, well… Applied Necromancy, assasination, and black operations.

And, for whatever reason, they were dead-ringers for the cast from the TV show Archer.

They had a contract with this Enclave that allowed them the first right of refusal in the purchasing of enemy corpses and bones, in exchange for a tithe of food from the many skeleton crew farms that the Necormancer helped provide the labor for.

It's actually really clever- skeletons, as undead, can follow simple commands. Farming doesn't NEED to be complicated, and their necromancer (who looked like Kreiger if he had dabbled in the darkest of magical arts- so give him goth makeup) could create control necklaces and artifacts with dozens of slots to control skeletons. These artifacts were magical in nature, and the skeletons, once linked, could not attack or harm anything, but they were good at basic farm work- and, in the event of emergencies, could dog-pile threats.

Anyway, there was some haggling, I got some side-eye-glances from the giggling halfling, and the elf archer seemed disgusted by my missing arm.

The rest of me was hidden by the table.

The second group that the representatives were meeting was a single individual- a kobold, who had last been seen advising the dragon that was attacking the town.

Mr. Speaker-Of-Thunderheads is a) a warlock, and b) had been manipulating the bronze dragon into (hopefully) setting a trap up so he could harvest the shell of an Ancient Dragon-Turtle… And was willing to exchange quite a bit of treasure for it.

He knew where the Bronze dragon, Ulhamjalanbaladarrh, had laired. It was a few miles up the coast, within another cliff, where the entrance was only accessible via digging (kobold tunnels) or by going through the trapped main entrance, which opened up under the sea near the dropoff. Said dropoff was now past the lines of the slowly-advancing dragon-turtle swarm.

With the exception of the massive dragon-turtle swarm that was currently slowly drifting over the entrance of the lair, it would be accessable.

Since it wasn't, and he admitted to working with his patron to corrupt the dragon with elemental-resonation-corruption (which I still don't quite understand) to entice the dragon to kill a dragon-turtle, he is therefore responsible for the damage caused by the fight to the town. Speaker-Of-Thunderheads the Kobold Warlock has agreed to pay reperitions out of the hoard for the town's reparir, the Enclave for collecting the requisite corpse for his patron, 1/3rd pf what remains to be gifted to the Enclave as an apology, and the rest to be distributed to the dragon's descendants, which the Enclave will find after this current issue is dealt with.

So… Now someone who outranks me (which is everyone) needs to determine how we are going to harvest an ancient dragon-turtle.

Glad I'm going back to training- I can't help with this much. Hell, I don't even have a leg to stand on!

…

Okay, I made myself sad.

-

 

[Mr. Cloak]

-

Spoiler: Previous Chapter Combat Results

No Combat previous Chater

Spoiler: Vote Results

The enclave needs to start Dealing With Dragon (turtles), and therefore, three plans have been written up:
0 -(a) Keep up the illusions, but try to drive the turtles off if they try to land in the city.
2 -(b) Artifically extend the 'beach' area so the turtles can lay their eggs and leave, but keep up the illusion, and try to farm the turtles.
2 -(c) Plan (b), with attempt to impress on the Dragon-Turtles that they are being helped.

Result:

Spoiler: Current Status

Current Environs status:
City (Athakatla): Evacuated
Enclave-By-Athakatla: Preparing to search the nearby city
Plot-lines engaged:
Part 1 Result: Cult of Demonic worshipers (worshipers killed, demons killed) make their move as the Colossal Dragon Turtles are sighted off the coast for spawning season, and a random-ass dragon shows up to (rolls for plot: 84) take over the port city.
*Fusion Result for part 1: Due to the number of issues present that the Enclave is dealing with right now, the MC will NOT be fully healed.*
Mallus gained: **I used to be right-handed…** Limbs: 1 (prosthetic)
Hidden MC Plot: You want to do WHAT to my liver?! (fell through accidental portal that appeared, and the cult wants the chosen vessel back)

Debt: 127,500 gold pieces (12,750 platinum pieces, or 12.75 Platinum Bars) (-1000 gp for valuable knowlege relating to sea turtles)

As usual, vote options will appear in the following post.
-

Journal Entry 23:

I learned how Broadcasters die today.

Debt defines the life of ALL Broadcasters until we pay it off. It can take almost a century to pay off that debt, and most of the time, a Broadcaster will take an extra month or so to save up some money after their debt is paid, THEN go on vacation…

We are brittle.

When I designed the Broadcaster class, I gave them a d4 hit dice as a form of balance, and now I know what it actually means. The world feels… Unreal, almost, and when I met up with the other Broadcasters earlier today (a wake for the broadcaster that just died- his name was Jerry) I saw treated the world very… Gingerly.

Of the other Broadcasters in the room, they were either dwarves or elan like me… And one white-scaled more sleek-looking lizardfolk.

Blueback was very nice, and introduced me to her family, who were all albino lizardfolk who did not have spines on their backs, instead had a series of bioluminesent patches on their bodies, and were named for their patch-pattern.

Getting back on track, every Broadcaster looked… Almost meek, when moving things. A table that I would have moved on my own (if I had all my FUCKING LIMBS) was either lifted with psionic mage-hand (it was not Telekinesis, and the reaon behind that is very, very complicated) or several Broadcasters would work together to lift it carefully.

Then they lifted in the body, and… Yeah, his skull was caved in. Someone tried to knock him out, and it killed him.

Poor Jerry.

His soul-crystal had been stolen, so until he self-awakens, he won't be able to join the Network- and may attempt to kill everyone around them if he feels that he has been betrayed. Or under threat. Or just that angry really.

Jerry had taken a sky-ship to the island city/nation of Nimbral, and died there. On his vacation. Just because he decided to take his vacation in a place full of elves, half-elves, and magically-inclined humans.

It is rare that elves, or any magic user, likes being around Psionics. The debt-free Broadcasters that survived their vacation had tales of how most people would find that the slight magical sense that most intelligent life had here, found any psionic person easier to dislike- often to the point of coming to blows.

One of the Elan was thrown out of a bar, then chased out of a small town by a mob with literal pitchforks and torches. That may have been because, as Elan, we tend not to look… Completely human any more in ways that make most humanoids place us into the uncanny valley (symetrical to the point of being inhuman, and inhuman traits such as my Rinnigan eyes now), and the psionic aura doesn't help much with that.

Yes, I have Rinnigan eyes. Yes, they are purple and black, but they don't do anything that I can tell, except have very good vision. Plus, I share these eyes with one of the other Elan- one of the ones that is friends with the dwarves that have a grudge against me.

They still have a grudge.

I'm off topic again…. Eh, doesn't matter. No-one is going to be able to read this journal anyway.

…

I miss my family. And our dogs.

(The rest of this entry was smudged with tears into illegibility)

-

Hackie waited on the deck with twenty other psions, all linked to their project's newest Metaconcert.

As she waited for the signal, she mused on how… Strange, this idea was. Farming dragon-sea turtles was… An audacious plan, but the higher-ups knew that it wasn't exceptionally feasible. Farming their eggshells though…

That might be feasible. Maybe the elder ones that were near the end of their life cycle- but she wasn't sure. Dragon-turtles didn't get smarter as they got older, like true dragons, so it was a bit… Nebulous on how farming them would work.

Still- she had put in her opinion earlier, during the voting metaconcert, and her opinion had been weighed just like everyone else's.

Now, she stood, holding onto the railing of one of their spelljammers, *The Potbelly*, as the other psions filed in, and watched as several of her fellows made minute adjustments to the crystaline clockwork that had been sand-welded to the deck. It was a peice of art- and seriously complicated, but the function was fairly simple.

It was the second of two Gate-drives, and unlike the one built into this ship, this one was not designed to move the ship, but rather, move large ammounts of other material.

The Broadcaster that was handing navigation on this journey was standing behind the control panel, her eyes closed as she scoped out and good a good vision of where she was jumping the ship to… Then her eyes snapped open. "Ready to Gate."

Hackie didn't blink as the portal snapped open in front of the ship, unlike some of her compatriots. Yes, traveling by Gate-drive was disconcerting, but it wasn't supposed to be nausia-inducing.

At least, not for her. Maybe for the poor sap who was throwing up over the side.

They had traveled from the Enclave, all the way to an unclaimed segment of the Anauroch desert, in only a few seconds.

Another ship appeared, it's Gate-drive pushing the portal around it and dropping the ship into the sky above the sands within two miles- but she could feel it, through the Metaconcert. Everyone shared the Broadcaster's range when they were linked thusly.

There was a slight touching of minds as the Broadcasters on both ships established a mental handshake, and then the link was made- only a ThoughtLink though… Different Enclaves disliked engaging in Metaconcert unless they absolutly needed to.

Enclave-By-Athkatla didn't have a second working mass-lift machine, so they had used a favor that Enclave-By-Baldur owed them to get a very, very temporary loan of their Gravity-Engine.

Everyone remained silent, as the psions on both ships focused, and those who were reponsible for their own devices turned them on.

Then the psions cast, machines were activated, and everything happened at once.

The sand began falling upwards in the space between two ships- slowly at first, then very quickly, as a portal large enough to let a Tarasque fall out of it screamed into reality between the two ships, several hundred feet higher than either of the two flying vessels.

Air and moisture shreaked out as the difference in air pressure brought sea mist to this high desert- which was met by a hail of sand that was being directed by Fall-Walls into the Gate.

Hundreds of millions of tons of sand fell, freely, into the Gate, and, on the other end, she knew the other side of the Gate was being moved, carefully, in specific areas around the harbor in areas that wouldn't effect the shipping around the port.

The sand fell down in torrents in the now-empty bay, as it experienced dozens of gravities of pressure that the Enclave-By-Athkatla had used their own Gravity-Engine to PUSH the ocean out of the way for their terraforming.

The legion of psions, runners, and other psionics on the harbor-side were buisy as well.

Linked by Broadcasters, Runners were doing laps of the area in the ocean the Metaconcert had determined would be viable while Psions and Delvers cast through them, and both Breakers and Soulknives kept an eye out, their weapons humming/glowing omniously from every seaside point around the harbor.

There was a good chance that the Dragon-Turtles, non-native Dragon-Turtles that were from the elemental plane of water.

The Masters of each discipline were standing on the air, overseeing the project from the air over the city- still covered by the illusion of cliffs, but feeling the minds of the hundred-or-so dragon-turtles that had gathered to lay eggs beyond the maelstrom that their work was creating.

The largest, and eldest of the dragon-turtles, one nearly half-a-mile wide and three-quarters of a mile long in the shell, began to slowy push through the whirling water, it's head wider than a merchant ship parting the wall of water like, well, a giant head pushing out of the water.

The titanic turtle glared as it's eyes, each as tall as a grown man, passed through the wild water that formed the around the new sand. The jaw creaked open, and it's voice rumbled in the deep subsonics.

The Master-Broadcaster's mind stretched out over to touch that of the immense turtle- and Hackie twitched as she felt a mind no larger than that of an average human's.

*How could such a tiny mind drive such a large body?*

None of the others in the Metaconcert could answer that.

Reguardless, the Master-Broadcaster gently established a Thoughtlink with the massive beast, and sent the opening message.

<Great dragon-turtle, you are currently attempting to nest in occupied areas->

The turtle thrummed with annoyance. <WHAT IS THIS? WHO DARES SPEAK TO ME THIS WAY!>

Everyone in the Metaconcert felt the Master-Broadcasters' humanoid bodies begin to massage their temples. His irritation for this sort of crap was begining to bleed into the Metaconcert, and Hackie felt herself frown in sympathy.

He attempted to resend the message. <Great dragon-turtle->

<FURTHERMORE, WHAT IS THIS CLIFF DOING HERE, STRANGE TELEPATH? I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER THIS AREA BEING A RIVER ENTRANCE! DID YOU DO THIS?> The humungous turtle glared at him, steam begining to waft from it's nostrils.

<Please stop cutting me->

<SHOW YOURSELF COWARD! I WILL NOT BE ENTREATED BY SOME PATHETIC HIDING VOICE! AND, IF YOU CANNOT SPEAK THE DRACONIC TONGUE, DO NOT SPEAK TO YOUR BETTERS, CRAWLING THING!>

All within the metaconcert frowned at that last bit. Psionics had not, historically, been well received by most empires- or kingdoms. Many of those listening were quite irritated, as they had browsed the library and experienced the memories of early psions as they experienced the initial conditions for creating the first spell-effects.

The memory-fragments that had survived the repeated changes between each knowlege horizon anyway.

<If you could let me speak->

The island-sized turtle snorted, and exhaled, breathing a cone of steam that JUST was too short to hit one of the flying Runners. <I NAME THEE COWARD, AND FACELESS, NOT WORTHY OF SPEAKING WITH ONE SUCH AS IIIiiiii*->

The Master-Broadcaster had, at this point, had enough. His mind snapped out like a spear, scything through that of the titanic turtle even as it's body shuddered with the impact, oblitering it's mind in a single thrust.

The Dragon-Turtle's head WAS larger than ship- but that attack had caused something within it's head to break, with it's eyes and nose begining to leak liquified brain matter. Eventually, the husk was pushed back and started floating to the surface by the Fall-Wall that it had been trying to push through.

Master-Broadcaster Kirin, taking advantage of the shock percolating through the other turtles, selected the next-largest one. It was only an eighth of a mile long, but considering how the rest of the house-sized turtles began swarming around it, it was probably next in line.

He established a connection, and tried again.

<Great dragon-turtle, you are currently attempting to nest in occupied areas. Your predicessor was unwilling to let me speak- are you at least willing to talk before attempting to threaten, cajoll, or otherwise act aggressive?>

<The Great Grandmother is dead?> The other dragon-turtle's huge head snapped towards the drifting corpse. <I see… And agree. You are?>

<Master-Broadcaster of the Enclave-By-Athkatla, spokesperson for said enclave in this instance. Your historic egg-laying grounds are currently unavailible due to it being an inhabited city, and so we are preparing other egg-laying grounds for you. Will you accept them without further… Bloodshed?>

The gargantuan turtle poked it's head up above the water, and looked at the coastline. <It looks very different than what I remember… There used to be a vast expanse of land there. Is that why you pushed back the water, and made it into a cliff? To protect the land-nest/city/town/port?>

<We did. Your answer?>

<The beaches being formed beyond the edge of the water- are they for us?> Asked the turtle.

<That is our intention. We would also request that, if your elders are willing to come here to die, we would insure they have a quick, clean, and painless death.>

Hackie smirked while maintaining one of the many fall-walls controlling the massive sand geyser. Broadcasters can lie- but in this case, it was more… Omitting things.

<I have never heard of any of us dying of old ages…> The second-in-command's eyes narrowed. <But you are offering to kill us?>

<To release you from the pain of old age, when it makes life unbearable… Yes. Then, we will. And those around here will help guard your young, until they get to the ocean themselves. Is that not what you want- to have a safe start for your young ones?>

Hackie had heard the Master-Broadcaster speak before- and this was why people didn't feel comfortable around the Elan. They could sound reasonable, comforting, smooth- but it was impossible to see the true intentions under those alien eyes. Even telepathically, you could always hear that there was some level of 'other'-ness that not even Illithids could match. It was ingrained into the psyches of all life within Ao's fragment of the crystal spheres, and it had shaped, instrinsically, the world by it's mere presence.

The Dragon-Turtle did not immediately respond, rather, it began speaking with the multitude of other dragon-turtles under the waves. After many, many, minutes of discussion, the beaches were almost completely done, the psions near the edges of the beach were shaping the edges of the piles into titanic quartz barriers to hold onto the sand, and provide shelter from the tides and large waves with said wall poking out over the surf by over fifty feet of solid quartz.

The sea-wall had been designed by her new student, based on his memories of similar structures that had learned about over the years- and would, with all hope, prevent the beach from being completely eroded by the ocean in time.

The wall finished, and the casters running over the waves around the quartz structure began to pull the Fall-Walls back slowly, as not to destroy the new structures.

Eventually, while the turtles were still discussing the different options they could take, the Runners had retreated back into the illusion of the cliff.

Hackie, and the other casters around her, released their effects as the gravity-engine on the other ship was turned off, and the portal above winked out as their machine did the same.

Both Broadcasters piloting the seperate ships exchanged a few more messages, then the ship from Enclave-By-Baldur Gated out, and she blinked as their own *Potbelly* did the same. Going from the a desert, during the day, to the well-lit interior of the enclave was disorienting- if only because her spacial sense that came with the link to a Broadcaster had gone from 'nothing there' to 'something is interfereing with my range'.

As she filed out of the boat, she kept the link up- the turtles were begining to look like they had made a descision.

<We intend to take your offer.> The elder turtle rumbled back to the Master-Broadcaster. <Not needing to fight for nesting space will be an… Interesting experience.>

<We are glad to hear that!> Broadcast the Master. <Please enjoy the beaches, but be aware we will be dropping the illusion we have cast on the city- and do not attack it after laying your eggs.>

<We will not. Do you have any other requirements for this safe area?>

Hackie grinned, and kept an ear on the conversation, but put her mind to getting food. Doubtless she needed some after that mental workout.

-

Spoiler: Previous Chapter Combat Results

Legendary Great Ancient Dragon-Turtle rolls to intimidate: d20+cha modifier. 20 (19+1).

Metaconcert save: 22, 21, 14, NAT 20, 18, 6, 5, 3, 8, 7, 12, 23, 29….. Average*2 due to metaconcert will-bolstering: 22. No effect.

Broadcaster (20) Kirin has active Veiwing (no attack roll needed), and casts Migrain(Spike) from 3 bodies on each body's turn.

Migraine(Spike) (1): Targets INT. 8d4 INT damage. Casting cost: 8 power points for damage + 10 to increase save DC (18 total). 18 INT damage + DC 23 save.
Migraine(Spike) (2): Targets WIS. 8d4 WIS damage. Casting cost: 8 power points for damage + 10 to increase save DC (18 total). 23 WIS damage + DC 23 save.
Migraine(Spike) (3): Targets CHA. 8d4 CHA damage. Casting cost: 8 power points for damage + 10 to increase save DC (18 total). 14 CHA damage + DC 23 save.

Target has 10 INT, 12 WIS, and 12 CHA. Saves: 4, 21, 2. Target takes 18 INT damage, 23 WIS damage, and 14 CHA damage.

Target is in a coma. Target has 6100 HP, with legendary resistance.

*POP* ability activates- target takes 32d8 damage per round until out of coma. Head-splosion option not selected.

Turn 1: 151/2 damage to body.
Turn 2: 138/2 damage to body.
Turn 3: 155/2 damage to body.
Turn 4: 145/2 damage to body.
Turn 5: 132/2 damage to body.
Turn 6: 146/2 damage to body.
Turn 7: 101/2 damage to body.
…
Turn 183: 32/2 damage to body. (NO WAY IN HELL AM I GOING TO WRITE OUT 183 TURNS OF NUMBERS COUNTING)

HP=0. Death saves auto-fail due to lack of mind or soul connection.

Legendary Great Ancient Dragon-Turtle dies.

Loot collected by enclave: 1x Legendary Great Ancient Dragon-Turtle corpse.

Spoiler: Results of the chapter

MC gains +800 GP for passing on knowlege of Sea-Walls and artifical beach construction.
Debt: 126,700 gold pieces (12,670 platinum pieces, or 12.67 Platinum Bars) (-1000 gp for valuable knowlege relating to sea turtles, -800 gp for valuable knowlege relating to constructing artificial beaches.)

Enclave gains one Island-Sized giant dragon-turtle corpse.

-