Co-op game synopsis thread

[Ixos 2: the Sequel]

[[Took some liberties with this, hope you don't mind.]]

[[And sorry for any formatting errors; Word didn't want to play nice with the message board. ]]

"It was a gang of maruts," said Brother Gauthak. "You wouldn't have fought em, either."

He glanced at the furry little puffball that had sauntered over to him several minutes ago. He had never seen a creature like that before; it seemed mostly pink fur, but he could see a couple beady little black eyes peaking out at him intently. He figured it was the Astral Plane's version of a rat or some other kind of vermin, but it was a little too cute for him stomp it. It didn't appear threatening, and it seemed to be hanging on his every word, much like pets seemed to do sometimes back home. Brother Gauthak figured that the thing was simply frozen with fear, but he allowed himself to enjoy the idea that it was, indeed, very interested in his story.

"I thought about trying to fight," he continued, "but I was outnumbered. And maruts are very big and strong. Bigger and stronger than me, even."

The pink puffball didn't respond.

"I surrendered, grudgingly, of course. Strangely, they didn't disarm me, which I found very unusual. I mean, have you ever taken anybody prisoner and not taken their weapons? I had assumed that these maruts knew their business, but it seemed rather unprofessional, if you ask me."

The puffball inched closer, as if trying to decide whether to trust him or not. Brother Gauthak decided to keep talking, hoping that the little critter might prove to be an enjoyable pet.

"The maruts were led by a reptile man of some sort, not a dragonborn like Raish, but he did have a couple with him. They took me into Tremka, didn't explain what was going on, but led me to the rest of the Defenders."

The puffball didn't respond at the mention of his band's name.

"We're the Defenders of the Vale," he explained. "We're from the Nentir Vale in the real world. We're kind of a big deal, but I guess I'm not surprised that you haven't heard of us."

The puffball didn't respond.

"Anyway, at about the same time my captors and I arrived at the Trask Estate, Tiamat showed up, too."

The puffball backed up a step or two, as if about to flee.

"Ah, I see you've heard of Her," Brother Gauthak said. "Well, the maruts hustled over to take on the dragon queen - and from what I understand, it was Her avatar, not Tiamat Herself - and we decided that would be a good time to escape. We fought our way through the reptile guys, no problem. But a strange thing happened during the battle: some sort of rift appeared over the estate grounds, and this tentacle came out, snatching people away for a few seconds. Raish was taken into the cloud a couple times, and I asked him what happened there, but he couldn't remember anything about it. Pherril said that the rift appeared because of the massive arcane energies that the battle with Tiamat's avatar had... I don't know, something. I didn't really understand what he was talking about, and I bet he was just making it up, anyway. I'm willing to bet that we haven't seen the last of that rift, or more rifts like it, and I'm not sure I want to know what's attached to that tentacle."

Brother Gauthak looked out over the bow of the Prize. It was his turn at the helm, and it seemed to him as if he tended to do most of the piloting, recently. He didn't mind, much. He liked the solitude, but it was rather boring sometimes. He supposed that's why he was talking to the pink puffball; who else was he supposed to talk to, Kord? Not much of a conversationalist, that one.

"After that fight," he said, staring out at a whole lot of silvery-gray nothing, "our old friend Seeta showed up."

The puffball didn't respond.

"Thing about Seeta is, she's a drow," he said. "If you've never met a drow, well, nobody but another drow would ever call one a friend. But this one was an ally of ours in the Coalition War in the Vale. You see, another drow, Lady Festa Something-or-Other is a worshipper of Vecna, and she wants to conquer the Vale. Naturally, since we're heroes, we are trying to stop her. We are the Defenders of the Vale, after all."

The puffball came closer, stopping only inches from his foot. It looked up at him with its beady little eyes, but Brother Gauthak could read no expression on its face. Or find its face, for that matter.

"We don't know why Lady Festa or Vecna wants the Vale, but it really doesn't matter," he said. "We need to stop them, and we think we know a way. We have the Hand of Vecna, and if we can get the Eye of Vecna and the Sword of Kas, we can kill him. We don't know how, but we've heard it can be done. We know who has both of these artifacts, but we don't know where, exactly. It'ene has the Sword, and she's on Tremka somewhere, or she was until her Mistress Tiamat showed up to save her bacon. And Vecna has his Eye. We don't know how we'll get it from him. Actually, that's not quite the case, anymore. Vecna did have his Eye, and we didn't know how we'd get it, but, well, I'm getting to that."

Brother Gauthak shook his head. Since when had he been so - what's the word? Wordy?

"That doesn't really matter much to you, I guess, but so long as you're here, you might as well hang around and hear it to the end," he said. "Lady Seeta led us to a mansion where we could talk, she said. I very much wanted to talk to her, find out why in the Nine Hells she was in the Astral instead of back home leading her drow army against Lady Festa and the rest of the Coalition. Raish wanted nothing to do with her, which is reasonable; she's a drow, remember, and he hadn't been there when our alliance was formed. But it turns out he was right since she betrayed us. Well, he was sort of right, but I'll get to that in a little bit. She dumped us in a pit. Maugris managed to grab a ledge, but the rest of us fell."

Brother Gauthak looked down at the puffball. It was gazing up at him, and he thought he could read friendliness in its eyes. He picked the critter up and set it down on the surface of the control panel. Just so he wouldn't have to look down at the deck while talking to the thing.

"At the bottom of the pit was a troll and his magically controlled slaves, including a mind flayer, of all things," he said. "I had never thought a mind flayer could become mind controlled, but this one was. We noticed that the troll was wearing a glowing ring, and was giving commands to his goblin slaves and the flayer. We figured that if we could kill the troll and maybe get the ring, we could save ourselves some trouble and maybe make a friend out of the mind flayer."

Brother Gauthak glanced at the puffball, which he imagined was eyeing him skeptically.

"You're right, but it was worth a shot," he said. "Pherril did what he did best, which is kill goblins by the bucketful. We took down the troll, but that didn't free the mind flayer. Poor little Sariel almost got her brain eaten by the thing, but we managed to help keep her brain inside her head. And you know, I can't remember her even thanking us."

The puffball looked at him with sympathy.

"Anyway," Brother Gauthak said, "after that we pressed on into the dungeon. We figured that we'd find Seeta somewhere in there, waiting there for us to stumble across her. I, for one, wanted some answers, and I was prepared to get them in any none-too-gentle way I had to. Raish made the observation that we were doing better than usual, considering that we'd been betrayed and flung into a death trap. I had to agree.

"We came to a chamber where we found half-a-dozen drow waiting for us. That seemed to confirm that Seeta had turned on us, but we still had no idea why. Maybe Lolth was getting mixed up in the business with Vecna, Tiamat, and Vlaakith. That would be a complication we didn't need, but it wouldn't have been at all surprising."

Brother Gauthak turned his gaze ahead, again. Was that a darker speck in the silvery-gray that he could see? It wasn't uncommon to run across drifting detritus in the Astral Sea, flotsam and jetsam just as one could find on the oceans back home. Probably harmless.

"But then again, that black speck out there could be something dangerous," he told the puffball. "I think I'll let the others sleep, for now, just until we get a little closer. Kord knows they need their rest. Unless you disagree?"

The puffball didn't respond.

"So, we killed the drow," Brother Gauthak said, "and Dayereth found himself a nice new shield. He was feeling good, seemingly in much better spirits than I've seen him lately. Which is good; a happy warden is a healthy warden. And that means a healthy us.

"We pressed on, believing that we were nearing the exit of this trap, or at least the cheese where the trap would be sprung on us mice."

He looked down at the puffball, almost expecting some kind of reaction at the mention of cheese and the allusion to a mousetrap. There was no reaction, of course.

"We overheard a voice that said, 'Lord Carrion, it is your job to get the Hand.' Now, we had never heard of Lord Carrion before, but we were pretty sure that the Hand in question was the Hand of Vecna. And we assumed that the voice belonged to Lady Seeta. I wanted to charge forward and get some answers, but Pherril and Sariel suggested stealth. Sariel snuck up on the two of them, but she kicked a rock or something, and was discovered. We charged up, and sure enough, Lady Seeta was there. Lord Carrion was a humanoid in armor with a horned helmet. Turns out he was a death knight."

Brother Gauthak thought he saw the little puffball shiver at the words 'death' and 'knight.'

"I agree," he said. "Dayereth, Raish, and me all charged forward, Dayereth and I cause that's how we operate, and I guess that's how Raish works, too, but I think he's a masochist or has a death wish or something. Whatever the case, as soon as we got close, a couple of giant mummies stepped out of the shadows. Lord Carrion, the death knight, challenged me to single combat, a challenge I accepted.

"He cheated, though. He called down hellfire on us, and this combined with Pherril's own lightning blast, dropped me."

Brother Gauthak paused in his recount of the tale, looking towards the dark speck that had grown larger, but not really seeing it.

"I think I was about to die," he said. "I don't remember much, but I seem to remember seeing Kord's face. I don't remember exactly what happened, but the thought of an eternity spent with the thunder god was more than I could bear, I guess."

He glanced at the puffball, and both of them shivered in unison.

"My soul came back to my body, and I told Kord in no uncertain terms that it would be a long time - a very long time - before I joined him in the afterlife. Strength came back into my muscles, and I regained my feet and rejoined the battle against Lord Carrion. Embarrassingly, if it weren't for my friends, I would have died for true; my experience seemed to have shaken me more than I'd thought. I haven't fought that poorly since I was a boy."

He glanced at the puffball.

"I don't think I fought that badly even when I was a boy," he admitted.

The puffball blinked at him.

"Oh, but I forgot something," he said. "It's kind of important. When we got into the chamber, Lady Seeta transformed. Her dark elf aspect seemed to shimmer away from her, and in her place was a raksha-something. I could never pronounce the name, the shapeshifter tiger-people. Evidently, this raka-whatever had duped not only us, but all the drow we had faced, too. It was after the Hand, and it had the Eye of Vecna! How it had gotten the thing, we had no idea, but there it was, staring like an evil black star out of the beast's skull. It immediately focused its attention on Raish, and commanded him to give it the Hand."

Brother Gauthak shook his head.

"I hate to say it," he said, "but I honestly thought we were all going to die right there and then. Our quest unfinished, the people of the Vale unsaved. And I would have to join Kord in the afterlife right then, after all. He'd never let me live it down."

The puffball looked up at him, and it seemed to shake its head - if head it had - at the injustice of it all.

"But to make a long story short," said Brother Gauthak, "we prevailed. We were all beaten down, weak, and infected with the mummies' disease. All but Pherril, that is. And Raish..."

Brother Gauthak sighed. The puffball waited impatiently for him to continue.

"I think there's a storm on the horizon," he said finally. "And not the good kind of storm with thunder and lightning and tornadoes. I think this storm is going have, I don't know, claws and fangs."

The puffball looked up at him, waiting for him to explain.

"After the battle, we all stood over the body of the shapeshifter. Raish reached down and plucked the Eye from its socket. He held it in his hand, staring at it like a miser staring at gold, lust in his eyes. He looked at all of us in turn, and nobody said anything. We didn't know what to say. The expression on his face was frightening. And before we could stop him, he ripped his own eye from his head and shoved the Eye of Vecna into the empty socket!"

The puffball was stock still, hanging on every word.

"'I can handle it,' he told me," said Brother Gauthak. "'Fight fire with fire, right?' he said.

"'It's evil,' I told him.

"'Then we'll fight evil with evil,' he said. And the expression on his face was... I just think this is a very, very bad idea. He could be right, and maybe we do need to use the tools of the enemy against the enemy, but I think we may have created something much worse than what we're fighting against. I mean, I understand the reasoning, but the glee on his face when he ripped his own eye out..."

Brother Gauthak was silent then, staring at nothing. The dark speck he'd seen earlier was much larger now, and had grown into the shape of an Astral skiff much like the Prize. It was beginning to pull alongside the Prize, and he could see humanoid figures moving on its deck.

"Then what happened?" asked the puffball.

"We walked out of the dungeon and met up with Maugris," he said. "And then we went back to the Prize and sailed away from Tremka. We have no idea where It'ene is, and we're not sure how to find her. And we're, most of us, infected with that rotting disease. Even though it seems like we've won a victory...I think we're...just..."

Brother Gauthak watched as a half-dozen humanoids, mostly humans and elves, boarded the Prize. He shook his head and his mind cleared as he realized what was happening.

"Yeah, sorry," said the puffball, and it sounded genuinely apologetic. "It doesn't work on githyanki, and it only works on drow sometimes, and then not for long."

Brother Gauthak whipped out his greataxe, unsure of whether he would kill the pink puffball first, or turn his attention immediately to the boarders.

"Please don't do that," said the puffball. "You're outnumbered and weakened from your disease. And even if you can kill all of us, my boss can cripple your ship and leave you stranded out here."

"I find these terms acceptable," said Brother Gauthak, his fingers tightening around his axe as he prepared to attack. "Adrift is better than enslaved, or whatever you're going to do to us."

"All we're going to do is talk," the puffball said quickly. Brother Gauthak couldn't help but notice the alarming variety of sharp objects pointed at his heart as the invaders surrounded him. "Hear us out, and then you can decide to work with us or not. My boss is prepared to make a very generous offer, and it won't in any way impede your quest."

"If all you want is to talk," said Brother Gauthak with a growl, "why capture our vessel?"

"Because," said the pink puffball, "you have the Hand and Eye of Vecna."

"Dammit," growled Brother Gauthak, "I knew this was going to get complicated."