Alastor Crossclaw – blogpost 2

The pendant scouts the area, looking for the creature who laughed so ominously. The White Mage tells us that through the pendant, he can see an air and water elemental, and in between them, a water genasi. That must be Zikran. They’re standing in a giant room with a big crystal in the middle. 

We hear a ‘bang’, and the White Mage squints his eyes. Zikran attacked the pendant, but luckily it is resistant to it. Zikran keeps an eye on the pendant and flies toward it. 

“Let’s make a plan: I’ll switch with Zikran. I’ll count down from 3 to 1, and if I don’t say the password – MohanJabari -, then it’s Zikran and you have to act quickly. If I DO say the password, it’s still me, and my magic didn’t work.” says the White Mage calmly.

“I’ll hold him down!” I say.

“Okay. Get ready…” the White Mage looks at us. “3… 2… 1… MohanJabari.” 

Damn, the attempt failed. 

“I’ll let my pendant fly away, so we can get to them stealthily.” the White Mage suggests. 

Unfortunately for us, I’m wearing heavy armor and still have to walk down the stairs. I almost trip, and my morningstar clashes against my armor. Not as stealthy as we’d hoped… I clench my jaw because of the loud bang it makes in the silent room.

“Was are you doing ghere?” asks Zikran in a funny accent. 

“My pendant came to have a look around.” says the White Mage.

“You are in my houze. Why are you ghere?”

“We’re here on behalf of the Djinni, who you trapped inside a book.”

Zikran looks interested. “Whaz? Where ist Afram Gazan?” he asks.

“We want to set him free!” says Jabari.

“Great. I wantz to zee ghim!” Zikran replies.

“Why have you entrapped him?”

“Can you just give me thze book?” he says a bit impatiently.

“No. Laffa gave it to Candlekeep, and we brought it with us.”

“Uh. Dirty Laffa. I should’ve knuwn it waz Laffa. Just give me my book back.”

“No, Djinni promised us a wish!” Mohan says.

“Noooo…” Zikran says tentatively. “Give me thze book zurük. You ghave zhen zecunden…”

It is clear that we’re not giving the book back, so the battle starts. The air elemental flings Mohan into the air, but Mohan redirects his route and flies directly to Zikran and puts his scimitar to his throat. “STOP YOUR ELEMENTALS, OR I’LL CUT YOU!” he says threateningly. 

“No…” laughs Zikran. 

Mohan doesn’t cut Zikran, although he said he would. He doesn’t follow up on his word, that’s not good – pussy. He does in fact hurt Zikran, but he’s still a bit of a coward in my opinion. “This is a warning,” he says. 

“And theze, ist MY warnung!” responds Zikran, disappearing in a smokey cloud. He also clicks a button on a small remote. 

Behind him, we see a cannon with a big blue crystal EXPLODE. It is the air cannon that Djinni talked about. Luckily, no one is hurt. 

“Ah, schade. Too fast. Better luck next time!” Zikran smiles. 

The White Mage shoots a ray from his pendant, and I shout – “One way, or another, I’m gonna get ya!” 

He seems a bit unsettled by the words. I move closer to him and cast bane on all our foes. Mohan flies to Zikran again, and says: “One last chance to surrender!” he’s trying to take the remote from Zikran, but alas, Zikran doesn’t let go, and I hear another explosion. 

I also feel a lot of pain in my flank. I look below, and see my hair is soaked with blood from the icy air cannon – it hit me. 

“He is casting a globe of invulnerability!” I hear the White Mage shout slowly. And yes, Jabaris’ spell doesn’t hit Zikran, it just hits an invisible wall. 

Okay, so, magic cannot touch him. Let’s try it with a javelin. I stand below Zikran, and I throw two of them at his face. One of them hits, but it doesn’t seem to hurt him as much as I’d expected. I growl in disappointment.

Then, I hear a victorious whistle: Mohan got the remote!

“Nein! Maybe you should go to another plane…” Zikran snaps his fingers, and Mohan disappears with a small ‘pop’. 

“I’ll give you ein chance to get your friend back: give me thze book!” he tries to be intimidating, but the accent really doesn’t help at all. 

The White Mage attacks with lightning, and I use my sacred flame. After a short time, the cannon fires AGAIN – and TWICE, but the remote is gone together with Mohan. What is this magic? Something explodes, but it is out of my line of sight. 

“Nein, nein, nein! No, what’s passiert? My stuff!”

To protect himself, Zikran quadruples himself, so I don’t know who is the real one.

From the back of the room, I hear Jabari say: “Here, Zikran. Here you have it!” he drops the book on the table nearest him. What a stupid genasi! You don’t give up the leverage just like that! I’m pretty annoyed, but I’ll just keep fighting to get the elementals and Zikran away from the book.

The book falls open: “What have you done Jabari Djinni!” then, Djinni sees Zikran. “Now you have a problem Zikran! I brought reinforcements, you have to set me free now!’

“Hallo, olde friend.”

In his distraction, I cast sacred flame again, and I can see he loses his concentration. The next moment, Mohan reappears. 

“YOU HAVE NUR ONE CHANCE! Go away!” 

The air elemental sees the book is unattended and hastens over there to get the book and bring it to Zikran. 

Again, the cannon fires. “Was? Again? NEIN! Das ist mine invention!” 

He turns around to the air elemental and takes the book. “Hallo olde friend, we ghave a lot to talk about…” he ties the book to his belt and locks the book again. He looks around again. “Where are you, you kleines thief?” he says, apparently looking for Mohan. 

After a short while, he exclaims: “NUR EINE CHANCE, or ELSE!”

We – again – don’t back down.

The air elemental, the only one left at this point, tries to pull me inside its whirlwind. My paws almost leave the floor, but I stand tall. 

I see Mohan throw the remote in the air, together with some feathers. Those feathers attack Zikran and the remote, and the latter brakes. 

“NEEEIN!” 

The crystal in the air cannon is tearing up, and we hear another ‘boom’ but again, I cannot see what is happening. Zikran approaches the crystal and the cannon. “Maybe we should go NOW.” suggests the White Mage earnestly. 

I take cover behind a table, and command Zikran to do so too – we might need him to set Djinni free, and he’s nothing if he’s dead caused of an explosion. He doesn’t notice, unfortunately. 

In the meantime, I get attacked by the air elemental twice, and can barely sit up straight. 

“NEIN! Don’t dispel!” Zikran shreeks.

The blue crystal blasts open. Everything seems to collapse in slow motion. Zikran was still holding on to the crystal, and one of the beams goes right through him, and he floats in mid-air. The book falls out of his pocket and dangling from the belt, I see the lock dissolve, and Djinni comes out. The wave of the blast reaches me, and I get knocked out…

When I wake up, gravity doesn’t seem to exist. I’m still in the room that is slowly collapsing and exploding at the same time. It looks like we’re in a different plane of existence. 

“We’re plane shifted.” mentions the White Mage. 

“Djinni! I think we freed you!” says Mohan.

“Yes! It’s a long time since I felt this way. What happened?”

“We shifted to the astral plane with the whole building. We have to get back!”

The White Mage says he cannot shift planes with his magic. Zikran could shift, but he is knocked out. Mohan and the White Mage search for him and find a couple of things. They find Winged Boots, one Elemental Gem, and a Periapt of Would Closure. He is stable and has a spellbook in his pockets. They take everything, plus Zikrans’ arcane focus, so he can’t cast any spells. 

Mohan and I kill the air elemental, and it goes up in smoke. Mohan heals the White Mage and me with his magic. It is pretty, it looks like a dragonfly that flies through the air. 

“I KNEW IT!” says Djinni. “This is what you get when you screw everyone over! This is a bounty!” he holds a piece of parchment in his hands, with a bounty of 300 platinum pieces on it for delivering Zikran somewhere in the astral plane. We have no clue where to go, so we search for things of use in the room. We find an amulet with a stone, that the White Mage identifies as an amulet of plane shift. Jabari immediately starts attuning to it, because the environment is still breaking apart, and we need to get back to Candlekeep. 

In the hour it takes for Jabari to attune with the stone, we start to collect stuff of value – intellectual value, mostly. The rest wants to deliver the bounty, but I’ve seen enough of this place already, and I suggest going back to Candlekeep, and if we want to collect the bounty, we are going to do some research on the astral plane, and then we know exactly where we need to go to do so. First, let’s get home.

“Hey, Djinni. You promised us a wish, right?” asks Mohan.

“Yes, what can I do for you guys before I leave? I want to go actually, I’ve had enough of Zikrans’ stuff all around me,” he replies.

“Is it one wish, or more?”

“Just one, for the party.” 

“Okay, we’ll have to think about what to wish for.” 

“You can call me any time. Clap two times and shout my name. I’ll be there for my friends.” 

“You’re free to go then.”

“Good luck.” and Djinni disappears.

Jabari is done with attuning and can get us back to Candlekeep. There is a teleportation circle in front of the gate he can transport us to, so that’s where we’ll go with the use of the amulet. 

Before we all stand in a circle and hold hands, I spot a scroll under a table. It calls me. It’s odd, but I feel an attraction to it. I pick it up and roll it open. It is some kind of contract, and some names are written down below – so it is signed. I’ll read it when I’m back in Candlekeep.

Hand in hand, we stand, and Jabari activates the plane shift. As we move away from the astral plane, I see another blast speed up the explosion even more. 

We’re standing in front of the Candlekeep gate. We brought Zikran as well. 

“Can you take over, Cross?” asks the White Mage holding Zikran.

“Of course.” I toss the limb body of Zikran over my shoulder and watch Mohan get inside with all the books we’ve found. 

“So, next stop: Undermountain?” I ask the White Mage, mumbling through my whiskers.

“Yes. But let’s ask the party to go with us.”

“Take them all? Jabari as well?” I ask unconvincedly.

“Well, the beds were great inside the ring…” the White Mage shrugs.

“Let me sleep on it,” I reply.