The Zenith Chronicles

26th Nov 2019

Chapter 61T What Volcanis Saw

Last we saw our heroes,   The party found themselves engulfed in an instant mountain of Nimbus and Cirrus Clouds within the Ice House. The latest birdbrained scheme cooked up by The Amazing Dr. Grackel nearly drowning the pink haired gnome woman who caught his eye. It ultimately falls to a quick Tiny Hut from to save the party from dying on a golden hill of their own making. Digging their way out, the party quickly takes to the task at hand, attaching the spun together clouds to four points on middle isle of Cloud City, The Storm Peaks.  

  However, four winches must be created big enough to attach the cloud to the main roots of Jack the Beanstalk which are denoted by sites A, B, C and D. Luckily, the storm giant blacksmith Thestrus was among the 8 air genasi who protected the Electrum mint from both the giant rebels AND the orc raiders. Thestrus agreed to help after Randal expressed his doubts about the plans Dr. Grackel cooked up and inability to refine the materials for his parachute scheme. Thanks to some help from Brigit’s Air Elemental form, the 8 priests were able to weave the cloud together into the right shape. Thestrus bent the raw metal he had saved from his shop at the Storm Peaks. The plan was back in business. While they finished their work, they party was freed up to scope out the different sites.   They started at Site A. It just so happened to be in the middle of a battlefield between the newly arrived Aarakocra Militia led by the self titled Sargent Professor Edwin Forebeak. The military history professor from Booksworth Academy agreed to clear a L-Z for the mission. Understanding the need for haste after watching a few of the students fall to the orcish raiders who were drawn to the island after the party fled there with one of their shamans, Firekeeper Loregrammar. They returned to collect the first sites parachute and prepared for battle.   Flying in with their Aarakocra squadron, Varys and Fen opened a barrage of arrows. Their efforts, two out of the three students survived the attack. Kid Hawkins, one of the survivors, was the falcon aarakocra who originally witnessed the party entering the city through the large pine tree in the middle of Laputa Town. Only then did the party come to realize how nearly impossible this task would be to repeat 4 times correctly. Nevermind how difficult it would be to get to the sites, bond the cloud to the roots, and wench up the cloud parachute. The real challenge will be keeping the enemy from destroying already limited size parachutes while they are setting up the next site.   Luckily they were able to speak with the roots to latch onto the parachute, however unluckily, the massive silhouette of Volcanis the Red, now rushed towards them, blazing a trail through friend and foe alike in his warpath to the party.

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11th Nov 2019

Chapter 60T Bird Brain

Last we saw our heroes,   The party found themselves trapped within a gatehouse with their newly rescued The Amazing Dr. Grackel and the orc shaman who was urging his brethren to stop the bloodshed while raiding. With some 200 orc soldiers swarming the gatehouse, the party was able to gather the name of the orc to be Firekeeper Morn Loregramar, an old friend of Brigits. Varys noted that the rooftop of the Gatehouse had a strange portal signature, something would be arriving there in a minute, but who?   Meanwhile, Nyx, Stalwart and Brigit found themselves on the surface of the moon within the great library that makes up Euclid’s Study. All manner of spellbooks and scrolls adorned the table, being retrieved by small wisps of light that only flashed corporeal shapes when adjusting a book on a shelf. There Euclid had a series of tasks which were required to resend the Ragnarok Protocol. Someone needed to press a button at the bottom of a deep well, the catch being that they needed to do so under the effects of a feeblemind spell. Someone else needed to cast 10 levels worth of spells into the runework that activates the protocol, this could seemingly only be accessed on the back of Archimedes who was now dead   Euclid, who had been thoroughly beaten by the fiends who had invaded earlier, was not up to the strain of traversing to the Ethereal Realm on the back of Brigit’s version of the Owl Zodiac. So the task fell to Nyx and Stalwart to accomplish. However the final catch was that both actions needed to be simultaneous. Nyx was loaned a couple of spell scrolls to supplement her own magical capabilities and Stalwart was sent to descend the Well of Knowledge to activate the large Immovable Rod which holds up the Roost Hotel and Casino. After a bit of turbulence, Nyx loosed a couple of hexes at the room which only existed in the Ethereal plane. However, getting a good look, it appeared that the room was inside some giant beast. The sigildry that the hexes were placed upon were serving as some form of shielding for a three piped pan flute. Nyx returned shortly afterwards, but Brigit stayed there. Her work yet unfinished. Stalwart pressed the button without even needing to remember why he was there, his brain foggy and disoriented. He climbed out of the Well of Knowledge with a single thought on his lizard brain: Up. Once reunited with Euclid, they were gifted a smaller immovable rod and sent on their way. Brigit was promised to return after she was done energizing the barrier spell to prevent anything else from barging in.   The portal atop the guardhouse belonged to Euclid, Nyx and Stalwart arriving just in time to witness the flood of orcs reach the rooftop. A pair of collared wizards raining fireballs on friend and foe alike. Sprocket decided enough was enough and opened a gate to safety which he promptly closed after the last of his friends piled through.   The party having achieved safety, rejoined The Thornberry Wilde and Darla back at the Roost. On the way, Sprocket and Dr. Grackle devised a plan for how to keep the majority of the city from falling without having to oust all the orcs from The Storm Peaks. All it would take was about 100,000 electrum pieces. Where would they find that kind of money on such short notice? Why a casino of course!   The party haggled with Mr. Tux who was more than happy to loan the party 150,000 electrum despite the bad blood between him and Dr. Grackle, his roommate at Booksworth Academy. The deal was that at least half would be returned to the casino after the plan had succeeded. With the stage set the party headed to the Icehouse so the duo of tinkerers could revert he money back into its base elements: sirrus, numbus and 3 gold coins. With the aggregate 200,000 electrum the party managed to scrounge up, they would have more raw cloud material than they needed. Luckily the sages who upkeep the mint were not killed in the giant’s rebellion, so all that was left was for the conduit pillars to be reversed.   The job was a bit more complicated than Dr. Grackle had let on, so of course a duel of the minds sprung up between Dr. Grackle and Sprocket. The battle of the brains was neck and neck, so Varys and Fen decided to rope Trixie and Dilbert into the fun. Trixie was there to help but was sidelined by Sprocket, who used his powers of Dominate Person to charm the shipwright and not break the spirit of the competition. Dr. Grackle, who was distracted by the arrival of Trixie, lost the battle of wits. But at what cost? Dilbert asked to be left out of any so called “friendly games” in the future, both crewmates of the Thornberrry Wilde disappointed at Sproket’s flex during the challenge. They didn’t stay mad for long however, it’s hard to stay mad at someone when the whole room fills with a mixture of unrefined clouds!

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