31 Mar 652 – clear skies, light breeze, warm temps
I sit here in Anyport scratching once again into a journal. It has been many moons since I last did such a thing. Let’s see, much has happened to me since I left the army I won’t detail it all, but rather, sum up.

After hitching a boat ride to Anyport, I found myself joining the West Sea’s Guild as they are trying to tame this small set of islands and do not care must about your past, so don’t ask many questions. My first job with the guild members Asuul and Oak involved helping a mine owner, Brynthe Silverthorn, in the nearby town of Dolar to rescue her husband Zander from the Clockwork Queen — which turned out to be Terrine Silverthorn, her sister. There were many smashed clockwork servants and we managed to avoid being eaten by a young white dragon by shoving it back in its special warm cage. By the time we reached the top of the tower, we discovered the job itself was a ruse and that her husband left her for her rival and we were caught in the middle of a love triangle / spat.  We decided to help the husband subdue our original employer.  It was in the lab here that we discovered Eleki Doomstaff, the brain-in-a-tinker-box, which is now employed in the Mage Academy as the tinker professor.

The next guild mission I participated in took place in the town of Kessler whose defenders had gone missing and the stable master calling out to the guild for help in locating them. Several of us went looking for them in the woods… we found them all right… but… they were changed.  They had become these giant frog creatures which was a hard fight to defeat them, but we did manage to prevail.  However, a couple of us, myself included became infected with something that was going to turn us into more of those frog-things. That’s when this so-called witch came out of the hut we fought next to and offered us a choice — “prove our worth” or be turned into one of those frog-things.  The others at the time started to protest, but something itched under my scaly skin.  I firmly believe we were in the presence of some kind of deity in disguise and not merely some witch in a hut.  As such, I didn’t protest, but strode forward confident that I would be found worthy (as I REALLY did not want to become a frog-man, yuck!). The witch opened up a door and told us to follow… it was a magic door that lead to, um, “elsewhere”.  It seemed to be an “in-between” space with 6 doors with riddles upon them.  Each door, once we solved the riddle, opened into another dimension.  One was water, another fire, another treasure, another was ?-I-forget, yet another was time and finally one of darkness. We solved each door eventually, with my channeling Helm to light the darkness to solve that door — which is where Anybar got it’s brooding corner darkness torch.  After solving all the riddles and doors, the witch declared we proved worthy and cured us from turning into giant frog men, then handed each of us medallions to prevent us from ever turning into such things in the future and departed. The group decided to burn down this hut and the only thing left standing was the magic door amongst the ashes. Good times!  We also were given a horse as payment, which I named mine Sunshine.  🙂

Investigator Wilpip discovered the location of Savix Vagrant, a person of interest the guild has been running into on several missions. He has apparently been running a large bandit clan called The Brotherhood, but we have no proof of that (yet).  These particular bandits are keen on stealing more than mere gold as they have been known to steal and collect body parts of their victims. Who knows what unspeakable horror he has planned with such blood and gore. We were to find proof of a link between Savix and the Brotherhood as well as find a guild messenger that went missing near his “monster arena” which is a camp set up specifically to bet on challengers that fight 3 rounds of monsters he collects. Half the group split up to enter the arena and be the distraction while the rest of the group searched the camp for our missing messenger.  I was on the arena team with Drag and Andrea and we faced three Salamanders, an ogre with its pet bear-pig, and an invisible flying tentacle beast — were spectacular and victorious!  We bought enough time for the rest of the party to find what was left of Steve… he had perished, unfortunately. In the process, we discovered a half elf named Rissdol Birvir with a large bounty on his head. We set him free and discovered the reason for the large bounty on his head was that he was next in line to the throne and his step mother wants him dead so she can rule the kingdom. The guild decided to help him out rather than turn him in, but that is a tale for later.

Kovat is looking for a book, an artifact, that if read, tends to make the reader insane. He had heard rumors of an insane individual running around naked from some fishermen and funded a couple of expeditions to retrieve said individual so that he could interview him and see if he could learn more about this book artifact. Hixtra, Illyana, Poppo, and I decided to hire the fishermen to take us out to the location where they spotted this insane person. We had them camp near the spot on the beach to wait for us while we investigated the area. We met some sahaguin fishmen near this unnatural depression (I firmly believe something fell from the sky to create it… maybe Sparkle?) on the beach and Illyana tried to deal with them as best we could without violence, but the moment those greedy bastards attacked her in order to steal her necklace, we fought back and slaughtered them all. Love Poppo’s Haste spell, making a charge and a leap to skewer one of those fishmen was a thrill I cannot deny!  A strange woman that rode away on a large boar sniped at us and ran; her name turned out to be Kuan and the boar is Jeffy. We tracked the boar to a road that led to a tower, which the sahaguin mentioned seeing the insane guy running towards, so we went to the tower instead of tracking the boar. Near to the tower, we met Paul, whose brother disappeared inside the tower and he said if we helped him out he would lead us to the naked guy named “Steve”. We convinced him to help with my crossbow in tow and we investigated the tower.  Lots of undead and mephits later, we slew them all; however, Paul’s brother turned out to be one of the zombies. Poor guy. We found a book inside the tower and Illyana dived into the basement with a bunch of rotting corpses to look around. She did manage to find an old symbol of Sylvana, but man oh man did she stink!  I gave her my extra set of travelling clothes that I brought specifically for the naked insane guy, but she needed the change of clothes badly. Paul led us to his small, mostly deserted town where Steve the Insane guy was being kept. Part of Steve’s insanity made him keep repeating “Scissors always wins” and I made a fist and said “Rock beats scissors!” at which point he calmed down and followed me.  We led him back to Anyport where Tiso is taking care of him.

Joyce Ruthers of Ruthers Real Estate Investments hired Uthal, Asuul, Hixtra, and I to discover what happened to a farmer who is behind on his payments (by months) and to prep the estate for resale if possible (and necessary). This particular mission disturbed me greatly as it reminded me of the fate of my own wife and kids. Turns out a fungal growth infested the root cellar / well of the estate causing anything drinking from it to go insane. The growth also turned the fruit of the fields rotten and those who fed on it became some sort of undead monster (shudder) even the children. I went berserk upon seeing the state of the children as I recalled what I had to do with my own. … anyway… we finally found the secret niche where the fungal growth hid and chopped and burned that sucker to bits.

Kovat, after extensive interviews with Steve The Insane Author, believes that the Insanity Book Artifact he is looking for did not cause Steve’s mental problems; but rather a magic artifact called the Forever Stone. He’s been trying to figure out where we should start looking for such a thing and has deduced it lies somewhere on the far side of the nearby mountain range. Steve the Insane mumbles several phrases repeatedly, such as “avoid the laughing door”, “scissors always wins”, and “do not want to go back to the abandoned dwarven mines!”. Oh, and Oak’s Sparkle rock pet thing was also found during the same missions that found Steve the Insane Author; so Sparkle might be a part of this entire mystery, though no idea how it would fit in.”

Soon after, I ventured out with Illyana, Asuul, and Vlitz to clear a mountain passage to the far side of the mountain range. We found an abandoned underground town with giant spire in center. We ended up destroying a giant rock golem and several trap door spiders.

Uthal, Asuul, Oak and I rush to help Samdull, who is in trouble over on a small island, according to the frantic boatman that arrived in Anyport recently. Once the boatman ferries us to a nearby island, Samdull appears at the beach looking frantic and crazy-eyed shouting at us to hurry up. We start rushing through the jungle to keep up with Samdull and he keeps saying things we don’t quite understand, like “the artifact is near!”, “it’s just a demi-god”, “my mission is nearly complete”. We rush out of the jungle into a clearing to see a pyramid overgrown with the jungle and Samdull trying to climb its gigantic steps. Before we have a chance to ask him to clarify things for us, the ground gives way beneath us and we tumble down into depths unknown. I cast light on my greatsword and checked out our surroundings. We were in some kind of large room with the way to the surface caved in behind us. No way out but to explore the depths we found ourselves in.

The room turns out to be some kind of story telling room. Every wall has little shelves of figures that animate and tell a short vignette of a story about the people that built the pyramid. There is even a free standing diorama in the middle of the room, too. One depicts a river with commoners fishing; another farmers tending their crops guarded by warriors and overseen by a priest in an eagle outfit; still another shows various crafting activities; one shows black figures fighting and defeating red figures and then charging the viewer; one shows this temple with people leaving gold and jade offerings while a bear, a snake, and a coyote garbed guard watch over them; the last one showed their world creation story: non-human statues, a green Quetzalcoatl mixing up ashes and blood to create man, 4 demi-gods committing suicide, a figure engulfed in flame and another with its back to everyone. The free-standing diorama depicts a hunt with 12 warriors, a scout, and a mastiff chasing a panther. The only exit leading out of this room was a brass double-door that had 8 holes, each 1 inch in diameter and equally spaced over them. I tried to see if maybe the figures held some key to opening the door, so I picked up the priest clad in an eagle outfit figure and put its base in the first hole.  Nothing “clicked” nor gave any indicator that something was right or wrong, so I twisted the figure in the hole a bit… until the head came off in my hand —  “oops.”  Asuul commented from the peanut gallery, “Way to go!” That’s when Uthal pulled out his portable ram and we just busted through the doors rather than try to figure out any kind of pattern.

BOOM! We breached the doors and a poisonous gas greeted us as we coughed our way further into the temple. In the next large room was a large rock and an equally large crab guarding it. It just threatened us with snapping claws, but didn’t attack us on sight, so we left it alone. We found a large obsidian sarcophagus in a room with lots of strange writing. I ritually cast Comprehend Languages and started explaining the writing to the others. Tloques Popolocas was interred there, “54-3-9” etched on the lid and all around a warning to anyone that disturbed her. On the far wall was an axe embedded in the stone that could not be budged. When Oak tried to grasp it, his hands would disappear… and then reappear once he brought his hands back to his side. Very strange, indeed. We wondered if the artifact that Samdull was looking for was inside, so we combined our strength and pushed off the lid… and awoke the mummy inside who started to gather sand and dust to take form and slay us all.  We found some bracers and a ring inside as well, which we quickly snatched up. After a bit, Oak figured putting on the bracers and ring might let him wield the axe… which it did! Upon yanking the axe out of the wall, a torrent of sand poured into the room and engulfed the mummy, obliterating it. The axe turned out to be a Beserker Axe which no one really wielded, but kept anyway.

Wandering around, we found a big statue which Uthal helped me climb up it as we found a cool looking magic Macuahitl sword — a wooden blade with obsidian teeth embedded around its edge — which Uthal wielded to great effect. The next room held a giant blob in a shallow pool. While the rest of us were planning to cross the room without disturbing the blob, Asuul shot an arrow at it and woke up the giant snail it turned out to be, lol!  After a few seconds, though I found I could understand it’s shouting and we stopped attacking it as it promised to show us the safe way across if we just let it live. We were much obliged. Someone found an amulet that read “King of Snails” and we gave it to the snail for which he was immensely pleased and even opened the door for us to continue on.

In the next large room, we met a naked lady standing in a pool by a small beach that we stood upon and our exit was beyond the pool. She is a servant of Zotcilaha and she and her super giant eel attacked us. Near death, however, she begged for her life, which only I could understand. I bid my companions to let her live, for which she both opened the door for us and showed us a secret cache of loot we could have in exchange for her life. We let her live and moved on, still unsure where this artifact could be found as well as an exit to this strange temple.

A hallway had several stone heads of various animals, and in the one animal that was not portrayed in that first room we fell in, I found a very large gold ring inside its mouth.  We yanked it out and thanks to my Comprehend Languages spell, could read the Giant Runes etched on its sides… which did not really help much as they were just names I could not recognize.  Assul put it on his arm and it granted him the strength of stone, but was also cursed somehow and could not remove it (until we got back to Anyport). In a side room, we found a gold coffer which had the name “Ilnedraw” written on it; inside was a copper-red fish statue that upon hearing its name spoken aloud, immediately animated and flew off into the depths of the temple never to be seen again. I firmly believe it to be a “red herring” and we did not pursue it.  (get it? lol)

The next large room held a veritable army of statues made of clay. Various archers and spearmen, swordsmen, royal guard and a sedan chair — all very old and rotten. During our search of this room, as we felt confident the artifact would be here, we discovered a decent amount of treasure and a dried Yaun-Ti heart which allowed Asuul to speak to snakes (he ate it raw and dipped each piece in wine, I hear). We fought another mummy in this room, but we were on the top of our game in that room and dealt with it like a well-oiled clockwork machine.

Pressing on further upwards inside the ancient pyramid temple, we come across a room must like the first one, but instead of little figures depicting the lives of the ancient peoples that built it, this room covers various regions of the afterlife. A miniature mountain in the center with little figures trying to roll a rock the size of a watermelon up to the top with desert and swamp surrounding it. Above the mountain peak was a dim light affixed to the ceiling. Across the only path through the room was frozen tundra for most of it and up in the corner was an idyllic meadow with tiny antelope frolicking in it. At the end of the path was a door. The hill with the rock being rolled up it reminded us of that ancient [myth of Sisyphus] being forced to roll a rock uphill for eternity, the kind of tale you tell your kids to get them to behave. (smirk) It quickly became known as Syphilis Hill. Oak tried to climb it to see if the light thing attached to the ceiling would be useful… and in the process discovered there was a depression atop the hill the size of the rock in the diorama. He promptly fell off the hell into the desert and he became overcome with heat, dropping his scalding axe. Meanwhile, I checked out the meadow in the corner, looking for clues. I was so overcome with peace and tranquility so profound, I did _not_ want to leave… EVER! I still think about that meadow now and again. Asuul rescued Oak from the desert and tried to rescue me from the meadow, but since I am so much stronger, nearly pulled him in, too. “Come to the meadow, you guys, it’s so wonderful here!” Thankfully, Uthal managed to pull me out of that crazy place and break the trance I was in. We opened the door and destroyed some blob monsters we found inside.  That’s when we decided it would be a good spot to rest a while… at which I promptly tried to lead them back to the meadow!  “I know a great place to rest, follow me!”  Oak barred my way and kept me from making that mistake again. Thanks, Oak! 🙂

After resting up a bit, Asuul climbed the hill and this time took the boulder with him and dropped it into the depression at the top of the hill. It quickly opened up into a tunnel passage. It was a tight squeeze for us, but we managed somehow. We found this secret room with several different mirrors in it. The one I looked into showed me being crushed to death by a large kraken which upset me greatly. Another one turned into a jelly and started attacking us. My greatsword split it in half so that two of them started beating on us!  I hear Asuul tease, “Way to go!” We manage to slay one of them and then dropped the remaining portion into a trough of yellow liquid that turned it into gold! Alchemical miracle! ( It would have been worth a fortune, but as we boarded the boat to return to Anyport, it reverted back to the blob… which we quickly stuffed into an iron pot and sealed away… it’s now Oak’s pet, Slimer. )

The mirror that became the slime hid a secret door behind it which led to a room with a large metal kraken on a pole in the center of the room JUST LIKE IN MY MIRROR VISION!  I am loathe to admit, but the sight of it made me cower in fear and I refused to enter that room. Uthal, Oak, and Asuul searched it… only to have it come alive!  Ok, well, not alive so much as it just started spinning in place. Oak got caught up in it and was spinning around faster and faster.  …ooooOOOOoooo….ooooOOOOooooo…. Uthal and Asuul managed to save Oak, but all I could manage was to remind them of what I saw in that mirror.  I was so glad we left that particular place and moved on.

Near the stairwell that let up to the top of the pyramid we found a couple of very lifelike statues resting on divans. Odd. Of course they came alive and attacked us. After destroying the strange couple, we discovered a poison that puts you to sleep for thousands of years that they seemed to have drunk from. Willingly? Who knows, but at least now they can move on to the afterlife rather than be stuck here waiting for millennia.

After finally reaching the top of the pyramid temple and the exit, we find that Samdull had managed to scale the crumbling stairs and was now in the grip of what must have been that demi-god he spoke of having the breath of life choked out of him. I quickly called upon Helm to lend power to my command and ordered it to “DROP!” at which Samdull quickly joined us. While he at first insisted the artifact he needed was in the box the demi-god was standing on, we quickly recounted everything we’d found inside. It turned out that the cursed giant ring that was affixed to Asuul was indeed the artifact he was searching for and we skedaddled out of there right quick!  Samdull was able to remove the curse long enough to slip the thing off of Asuul and Samdull took possession of his prize.

The next mission I participated in had several guild members escort Rissdol Birvir and Varic, his old sensei, on a ship voyage and overland march to Al Qahara, an elven cave city within the Rahrune desert. Rissdol needs to depose his step mother, the pretender to the throne, and the only way to do that is to get a hold of the Sword of the Rulers which will prove his heritage. Upon arriving at Al Qahara, the portion of the city outside the cave is relegated to non-elves and is basically a warren of slums. We meet and tail a rich elf named Lirrox, the appointed head trader that slums with the humans and extorts money from them. He wears a medallion that allows him entry to the city. We snuck into the brothel while he was busy there and Liasatra snuck in and stole it from the room he was in. With Liasatra wearing the amulet and the rest of us covered head to toe in armor disguise, we march into the city and declare we have news of Rissdol’s death. We were taken to see Tirax Loran, the elven general who might sympathize with Rissdol, but we cannot take that chance openly by asking him. Instead we are allowed to stay at some abandoned barracks that used to house the non-elves of the guard until morning. We plan to create a diversion while Rissdol and Varic sneak into the palace via a secret tunnel only they know about. We decide the best diversion would be a fire so we find the camel stables and proceed to chase the camels out of the stables and set it ablaze — when that did not bring out the palace guards, we pretended to attack the palace gates and drew out just enough guards to let Rissdol and Varic sneak in and grab the sword. It was fun to have illusionary wings, a flaming sphere, dodging, while intimidating and taunting the guards to draw them out. After some time as more and more guards come rushing us, a bright light emanates from the palace — Rissdol made it to the sword!  He marches out from the palace beside Varic, who turned out to be his uncle, and made the guards stand down. We patched up the worst wounds, but thankfully no one died. Maybe their racism will tone down now that they’ve seen what dragonborns, half orcs, humans, and half elves are capable of!

And now I’m caught up!

Rohst

 

04 Apr 652 – clear skies, stiff breeze, warm temps
Temporal Castle of the Dawn and Dusk

Lucius Triblydale wants a group to investigate a “temporal anomaly” which turned out to be a stone keep that appears at dawn and disappears at dusk at various places around Faerun. The keep was quite odd at first… the left half of it appearing white with themes of light whereas the right half was dark stone and surrounded by themes of night. We managed to open the front doors by reflecting a couple of beams — again, one white, the other dark — onto some carvings over the front door which caused the doors to open of their own accord.

Once inside, Uthal, Asuul, and Oak were presented with a chessboard with 4 light themed statues and 4 dark themed statues standing opposite them. Every square on the board caused that row of the floor to slide left or right.  After some experimentation, we discovered the white squares would make it slide left and the dark squares slide it right. Everything was going pretty smoothly crossing the strange floor until I stepped onto a white square that caused one of the dark statues to cross the middle of the room… at which point it animated and started attacking! “Oops,” I said.  And in a moment of deja-vu, Asuul said, “Way to go!” We manage to destroy the statue with a bit of effort. Afterwards, we made sure not to let any statue cross the center of the room as we made our way across.

We found a small room with an alter after the chessboard room with two stairwells on opposite sides. The left stairwell lead up into a long hallway filled with bookshelves stuffed with books. The books were all about good and neutral gods, nature, light, and subjects that dealt with balance in all things. The right side led down into a similar hall with books about dark and neutral gods, the Underdark, moon phases, and also subjects that dealt with balance in all things. We discovered a mirror at the end of the hall which produced a doppleganger of whomever looked into it. We managed to kill the doppleganger and destroyed both mirrors.

At the end of each hall of books, however, was a yawning abyss with no end in sight. How would we cross it? Serendipity led us to discover that the tiles from the chessboard room stuck out into these two areas and we could use that fact to create a way across them. We did so and crossed the light side first. On the other side of the chasm, a circular room was discovered with a celestial(?) in the center of the room; however the floor surrounding him was on some bizarre cantilevers that tilted it in whatever direction had the heaviest weight. We managed to convince Mr. Existing as we named him that if we got rid of his dark counterpart, he would give us his white shiny ring.

Making our way over to the dark side of the temple proved time consuming, and we had to be sure we were out of there by nightfall or be trapped inside forever. Once we got to the dark circular room which was the counterpart to the light side, we found a solid floor, but the center was shrouded in darkness no regular light to penetrate. Oak threatened him and in answer, I got a crossbow bolt bouncing off my armor. I called upon Helm to banish the darkness and we discovered the dark being shrouded within; it did not last long before the darkness surrounded him again, but we managed to permanently banish him and his darkness; leaving behind his black ring which we took back to the light side Mr. Existing. He could tell the dark one’s presence was no more and he surrendered his white ring to us.

We took both rings back to the alter and placed the white ring into the black slot and vice versa… and when doing so, they combined to create a magical grey ring that enhances a casters direct radiant/necrotic damage as well as lets you cast light and thaumatergy. We tried to take a book or two with us as we left, but they animated and started attacking us. We just left the books to themselves and skedaddled out of there to ensure we were out before the sun set.

Lucius Triblydale was waiting for us outside and very excited about everything we found as we recounted our adventure within the temple dedicated to balance between dawn and dusk. Mr. Triblydale plans to stick around Anyport for a while doing some more research, so maybe he’ll have more research work for us in the future.

Rohst

Following a pirate cove adventure where Hank supposedly flipped a lever and caused many a casualty of mostly-friendly forces, Rohst penned this passage hummed as homage to the Gillagans Island theme:

Sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful flip…
that started out from Anyport, right near the pirate slip…
the mate was a mighty sailing man… (picture of Hank, vomiting)
the skipper brave and sure… (picture of Oak with his Pirate Hat)
five adventurers delved that day, for a 7 hour tour… a sevennnn hourrrrr tourrrrrrr…
the sahaguin started getting rough, and Hank’s lunch was tossed…
if not for the courage of our fearless troupe, the adventure would be lost, the adventure would be lossssst.

the troupe came back to Anyport, which resides on Founders Isle…
with Hank the Bard… (another pic of Hank vomiting)
the skipper too… (Oak with a shark-tooth grin and his leg up on a keg of ale looking manly)
a million silver coins and some gems…
a movie star… (Illyana with her hair blowing in the wind)
the professor and Asuul the Monk… (Vlitz and Asuul in a buddy shot pic)
Here on Founder’s Isle!

08 Apr 652 – cloudy skies, slight breeze, warm temps
Thomas Is Missing!

John Cornwall wants us to find his grandson who went missing a week ago. We arrived in town as it was being attacked by a water elemental. Hixtra, Illyana, Vlitz, Asuul, Poppo, and I saved the town from being destroyed by it. After speaking to John and healing up some of the worst off townsfolk, we followed the elemental’s track back to the beach where it came from.

On the beach we discovered several sahaguin, another water elemental, a whirlpool just off shore, and an unnatural storm brewing. Illyana and I, using Comprehend Languages, went up to parlay with the fishmen who didn’t understand us… but through some clever pantomiming our intentions, managed to get across that we were friends of Thomas (whom Illyana cast her likeness as) … at which point they said “all friends must DIE” and started attacking! “Oops,” I said.  And in yet another moment of deja-vu, Asuul said, “Way to go!” (smirk) Seems to be a running theme these days. 🙂

I activated the Warding Bond between Illyana and myself since we were immediately surrounded and the battle was on! Back to back we stood facing our foes, Illyana summoning her spirit guardians to swirl about while I hacked and slashed at anything that came close.  Crossbow bolts, fists, magic, and spears flew back and forth across the battlefield!  The tide of battle turned against us when a giant fish man came out of the whirlpool and joined the fight upon the beach and I was brought to a knee struggling to get up. Thanks to Illyana’s quick Healing Word, I was back into the fight. We prevailed in the end; but I was nearly spent. We didn’t know if we had time to rest, so we pressed on into the whirlpool to attempt to rescue Thomas, for better or worse.

We found ourselves on the Plane of Water, swimming towards a floating structure. It was built from the husks of several ships and had a tiny dock at one end. We stood upon the dock and walked inside. We discovered Kniviria, the mermaid wanna-be goddess with Thomas under her thrall standing next to her and eyes all aglow along with some more sahaguin guards. She bid us welcome and we came inside to parlay with her, trying to secure the boy’s freedom. Of course, she sprang her trap and tossed an exploding ice ball into our midst. Some of us were tore up pretty good and the initial assault of the fish men seriously wounded me and many of the others as well. Thanks to Poppo’s haste, I was able to counter the sahaguin’s viscous assault while striking back at them. Illyana managed to patch me up while I guarded her and Vlitz, meanwhile Asuul did his best against the mermaid bitch and Hixtra and Poppo cut down her guards. Once her guards were dead, we took the fight to the mermaid herself and emerged victorious!  We saved Thomas, yay!  Turns out the boy is the one that could create the portal between the Plane of Water and ours, so thankfully returning home was not a problem. We think the experience has left Thomas with some innate powers as his eyes still shown with inner light the color of the ocean. He will likely be tutored by Asher at his acadamy. Is that the last of the wannabe god? I hope so. If not, I’m sure Illyana will be first in line to take her down a notch or two. 😉

Rohst