Conquering the Planes

[Croverus]

Seventy three years ago a powerful inter-planar group refered to only as The Organization rose to power on the Material plane. Under their own pantheon of gods they spread across the plane and quickly forced every kingdom in their path to submit to their rule. In less than a decade the entire Material plane was united under the Organization, the largest of the cities converted into the anchor to the demiplanes of the five gods. Over the next 60 years they began expanding into other planes of existance, sending in infiltration groups, and in the most difficult planes they began sending in entire armies. The techmathuergists of the five gods proved being able to use science and amgic in ways never before seen. At the center of the Organization's heart, the greatest warriors are trained as strike teams to take on the most powerful of enemies. The following story is about the greatest of the Organization's Strike teams, Team Requiem.

All of you have been a part of the Organization for some time, having been trained heavilly for combat, both individually and as a team. It is the middle of the day, most of you would either be in private training or in the mess hall eating. Each of you were given a wristband that monitors your vital signs, tracks your location, helps you adapt to extreme environments, and acts as a communicator for the Organization to contact each of you and to assist the group in finding eachother. All of you receive a message to report to Breifing room 7.

[Eric Scott]

Molos reports to Briefing Room 7, as promptly as possible.

[MikelaC1]

Ka'Rishta had been training with her swords, putting on displays of six weapons moving as one that would leave lesser warriors dizzy. As her wristband goes off, she sheathes her swords promptly.

Maybe more of a display later, boys

She slithers, rather than walks to Briefing Room 7.

[Man on Fire]

Drinna was reading. She did that a lot. She was working as an archivist, she was researching several subjects, often at the same time, her training involved a lot of reading and it was a pleasure of sort. Expanding her knowledge, getting her brain to work, that was the best. Others would like to eat a good meal, get into a brutal fight, enjoy companion of people they called "friends", take a regenerating nap or seek warmth in the arms of other being.

It just wasn't her style.

Read to keep your mind open. Meditate to keep it sharp. Create substances that could give you death or salvation, or just short-sighted pleasure to keep your grasp on the basics. Explore, research, find, name and tame the unknown, then shape it to your will, to expand your horizons. Train to keep your mind and body running. Plan ahead to never be suprised. Observe others to learn about them. Ask questions nobody ever asked and see where they lead you. And where you have it all, combine it and use at your will. That was more like her.

She was very strange worshipper of Ilneval. At first god of war and conquest couldn't have less to do with her. And yet she respected him to some level - he was taking, conquering and setting things up according to his own will. This was something she could understand and follow, even if she couldn't care more about ideals behind it.

Her relationship with The Organization was strange. On one hand, she respected them, maybe even felt a little bit of sympathy for them. They reminded her about Amon. They did what he couldn't, conquered the world and created utopia he dreamed on. And even reacher futher than that. But that was only a touch of nostalgia. Because on the other hand, Amon was fool who got himself killed for his ideals with his head ripped apart by some dumb barbarian. And the Organization will probably one day share the same fate, when their ideals will lead them to the oblivion, like they always do.

For Drinna there was only one thing that matters. Power, in how much knowledge you can gather and how effectively you can use it. She was working for anyone who can give her more knowledge and Organization knew it. And she knew that they knew. She was loyal to them. But only as long as they can top anybody else's price.

Having been called to the brefieng room, Drinna didn't wasted much time and went there, her Ioun Stones floating around her.

"This is better going to be something important, I was in the middle of fascinating lecture about abnormal behavior in Beholder's mating rituals." She said, entering the room.

[Cassus]

When her bracelet went off, Amani was in her chapel, eyes closed in reverence, standing in front of a small stone pool. Short rods of varying substances were socketed all around the pool, their heads angling inwards. Whispers filled the room, curling around the rods and slipping into her ears. The pool itself was filled with varicolored blood.
Report to Briefing Room 7.
Her eyes snapped open. "They're ready for us." With a loud hiss, the pool began to churn. Slowly, the end of a tiny athame, innocent of any hilt, extended out of the pool towards her. She seized it, and the multiracial blood faded away.

The Organization's servant tucked her weapon into her broad cloth belt and left the room, heading quickly towards Briefing Room 7. Her chapel's doors slid into place behind her.

[Barbarian MD]

Henry Jacobsen

Henry's armband went off as he ducked under a sword thrust.

"Hold," he called to the soldiers. Without another word, he slung his tower shield over his back and loosened his grip on his light shield, letting it rest on its straps on his right arm.

With his hands free, he withdraws a cigar from his best pocket and lights it, strolling towards the briefing room. He enters with a silly grin and a roar.

"Requiem! Lovely to see you this fine morning!" the half-ogre's shout rumbles through the room, rattling small objects. He slams a heavy hand onto Molo's shoulder in greeting, and then leaves it there in affection for the squishy little guy. He continues to puff on his cigar, waiting for things to begin.

[Kazyan]

Athena glances at her wristband and grimaces. She'd only been on the running track for a few hours--not enough to calm herself. What do they want now? With a burst of speed, she sprints along a straight segment before veering off of the track and finally slowing herself to a walking pace.

A few lesser trainees stare at her as she walks. She locks eyes with one of them. "Oh, go awa--" she stops herself and clenches her fists. Stay calm. "...it's my equipment. Go away," she repeats in a less irritated voice, then continues to the door and leaves.

Why does nothing work well enough!? Athena can already feel her nonspecific anger welling up again. She should have been kinder--there should be at least a few people besides Requiem that think of her positively, instead of as a flask of alchemist's fire waiting to be cracked. She clasps her left hand over her right fist. Just...keep it together for Requiem. For them, she could always keep herself in check, even when she felt just a hairsbreadth from throwing a Veil over the world.

It takes longer than usual for her to enter the briefing room, something to be expected due to the weakness in her legs from long-distance running. "Hi, everyone." Aha, that comes out friendly, at least. Still with a scornful look on her face, Athena avoids Drinna and Henry as she makes her way to Ka'Rishta's side. Her friend. "Hi, Ka'Rishta." Athena endures the feeling of being ever so small. There's no other option.

[MikelaC1]

KA'RISHTA

Ka'Rishta smiles upon seeing her friend Athena entering, rising to greet her and moves ever so much to give her spot to sit beside her.

Maybe this time they'll finally give us an important mission instead of those chip shots we've been doing for them.

[Kazyan]

Athena smiles in return, though it is paired with a frustrated exhalation. "After those? I never fancied us as a multiversal janitor squad." She takes a seat and leans into it, letting her aching legs rest. "I know they have something more satisfying deep in the bureaucracy." She places her hands on her thighs and closes her eyes.

[Eric Scott]

Hello again Henry. Molos says while shifting into his Elemental Form, an Elder Earth Elemental.

[white rider]

On the ethereal plane, Seinax sits. Actually, hovers might be a better way to describe it. There is no gravity in the ethereal plane. In any case, Seinax has been in the position he is in now for several days. No emotion passes through his mind. No thoughts flit over the surface of the void that is his consciousness. As his bracelet beeps, emotions and thoughts flow into Seinax's mind, but the void still remains, somehow.

Seinax carefully straightens himself, than steps forward, through the fabric of reality, appearing in the middle of the briefing room. As wings of mist slowly materialize around his blurred form, Seinax speaks."Greetings, all.", he says with a slight bow.

[Croverus]

The breifing room is a circular chamber with cushioned benches lining the wall a a pool over silvery liquid in the center. The liquid doe snot move or ripple at all, but all of you know almost instinctively that touching it and prodding it is a bad idea. As at least half of the team has assembled the liquid finally reacts, as if a drop of water has hit the center. The water bubbles and roils and then mass of it rises up from the center. It swirls about in place and floats above the center. It settles into a sphere, but the surface bubble and swirls as a voice comes from it.

"Requiem, your moment to prove your ability to work as a team has finally come. Our progress on several planes is going as planned, except in Abaddon. The demonic forces there have called forth aid from beings that have been slumbering for aeons, until now. Most of our armies are no match for the beasts, and many of our strike teams are preoccuppied establishing new entry points into other planes. You will be sent into Abaddon to a forward location, the commander there is to relenquish any gear and troops you require within reason. The beasts, when slain, die, then rise again within hours, showing powerful resistance to what last slew them. We have identified an enemy outpost that may hold the key to shutting the beasts down permanently, but it is protected by a barrier powered by several prisms.

Your task is three fold: Defeat the Beasts, destroy the prisms to lower the Barrier, then find what is bringing the Beasts back and either neutralize or destroy it. Our archivists would prefer that an artifact such as this one be brought back for study, but only if that seems possible.

Once you arrive on Abaddon you will have 96 hours to find the outpost and complete the task. According to our diviners, that is the timetable till one of the Lord's of the Abaddon armies arrives at the outpost. We'd prefer you don't draw that much attention to yourselves. All your gear is ready for you in the portal room, all questions are to be forwarded to Archivist Andariel prior to departure. You have 4 hours to prepare and be at the portal rooms. Good Luck."

With the end of the briefing the liquid collapses slowly into the center, pooling up and settling into its undisturbed state once more.

[Barbarian MD]

"Hells yeah! he claps Molos unpleasantly firmly on the shoulder and whoops with excitement. "Thise devil sons of ******* won't know what hit them! And we'll see how well they can rise from the dead when their souls are trapped in my shield!"

[Man on Fire]

Mysterious monsters, with apparent adaptability, object that ressurects them..yeah, there was a mystery in this. Mystery worth cracking. She wanted to put her hands on this item, to touch it, to observe it, to find it's every secret. Some would say that knowledge is for her like sex. They would be vastly underestimating her. Knowledge for her was better than sex, eating, drinking, sleeping, swimming, playing around, dancing and every single other form of wasting time combined.

"I'm pretty sure somebody already tried soul bind or similiar way to deal with them. And they're demons*, not devils, how many times do I have to explain this to you?" She tells Henry, walking out from the room.

First she is going to find Andariel and ask him following questions: 1) What is know about the beasts, 2) what kinds of tactics they use 3) what means were already sucessfull at vanquishing them and 4) do they seem to increase in numbers or is it constant. Then she is going to find something about the bests, send it towards her teammates, prepare what seems to be most approirate spells and take an hour long sleep.

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Once Drinan gets the data from archivist Drinna is going to research her library and memory so I make rolls on:
Knowledge Planes (1d20+37)[41]
knowledge Arcana (1d20+37)[53]
Knowledge History (1d20+37)[38]
Knowledge religion (1d20+37)[57]
general lore check in search of legends about creatures (1d20+33)[36]

[Barbarian MD]

Henry Jacobsen - Shield Warrior

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It will help me greatly if people would post their character name and two word summary of their character until I get it all straight.

The hulking half-ogre calls after her, "Devils, Demons, red-skinned fiends from the pits of hell, what do I care? Just give me the opportunity to beat them to death! And we'll see how well they can hang on I their souls." he strokes his shield affectionately.

With a grunt, he follows after along with the others, heading to their departure point after swinging by his trunk for his things.

[MikelaC1]

KA'RISHTA

Ka'Rishta slithers along, matching her pace to Athena.

Now we're talking. We do the beat stick on the Beasts, and then the finger-wigglers take down the magic. Exactly the way things should be

As she slithers along, she begins to polish and sharpen her blades, she is obviously looking forward to the potential conflict.

[Eric Scott]

Molos - Not-so-squishy Conjurer


Molos sinks into the floor... as he sinks he says If you need me, you know where to find me.

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He means he will be relaxing in the floor until needed.

[white rider]

Seinax- untouchable swordsman
"Finally, a true challenge. Not like our last mission." Seinax snorts. "The fearsome horde of manes that could almost kill one mediocre wizard."

Edit: Seinax steps backwards, onto the ethereal plane.

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We can ad lib details about things we have done before.

[Cassus]

Amani Ailir - Lawful Spellthief

As the group turned to leave after the briefing, Amani smiled eagerly. "We should all meet in the readying hall near the portal rooms, perhaps an hour and a half before we're due to leave? Then we can share information, and share our power." It was unfortunate that some of the group's magic took so long to apply, but the results were definitely worth it.

After they separated, Amani followed Drinna to track down the Archivist.

[Man on Fire]

Drinna - Halforc Mystic Theurge and Loremaster

"Some would say the same about you and me, Henry." Drinna responds, walking away from the room. She goes to the Portal Room, looking for Andariel. She remembered a certain kind of creatures that sounds similiar to the ones they were about to fight (*my rolls did good*) and wanted to ask him about them.

[Croverus]

Drinna finds Archivist Andariel in the portal room as expected, fiddling with one of the consoles that mix technology and magic to control the chaotic energies used to power the portals. Andariel is a halfling, a bit tall by the race's standrds, with lightly tanned skin, a large nose and wide ears. Goggles cover his eyes, various attachments switching back and forth as he fiddles with the innards of the console. He wears plain robes and has a bit of oils on the front of them, his hands are covered in oils and grease almost up to his elbows. He doesn't notice Drinna approach right away, as he seems to be replacing a piece of the console.

[Man on Fire]

Drinna, knowledge junkie.

"Hey, do you need a help with that?" Dinna asks to catch Archvist's attention. She sinicerly wants to help him with the device. Of course not for altruistic reasons. She wants to learn something more about the thing and how it works. And she could ask her questions during the work. If not, then she is going to ask them anyway.

"We have few questions about our mission. What is already know about the beasts? Do they increase in number or is it constant, how they fight, what strategy, if any, they use, what already seemed to have work against them and the most important - when they are killed and come back, now resistant to what killed them, is it only them, or entire species suddenly adapts? Oh, and little Amani has something to ask to, right darling?" Saying the list line is the first time when Drinna looks directly at Spellthief longer than a passing glance this day. They both knew Drinna didn't liked her but also knew she was too scared of her to get on her bad side. If things would break between the team, she would probably be on the same side as Amani. Unless price was high enough to outgrew her threat, of course.

[Croverus]

Archivist Andariel looks up from the console and chages the lenses on his goggles then smirks. "Help? Sure, pass me that bundle of wires and that pair of tweezers." He accepted them and weet back to work, saying nothing for a moment, then answering quickly, speaking directly to her while staying completely focused on the console's innards.

"We don't know much. Their numbers do not appear to grow but so far we have seen them spread out over such large areas and reports are spread across a long enough time that some may be the same creature spotted twice as it moves. Our best guess there are at least 12 of them. They fight like a pack of intelligent dogs, seem to have some ability to displace themselves, sometimes phasing through attacks, other times teleporting short distances. Only five have been confirmed killed, the bodies waste away to ashe quickly so we are unable to get samples. Each one is very distinct, and as far as we can tell their resitances are only individual. They have minor features that make them distinctive from one another, which lets us know when one that has died has risen anew, and their resitance to damage varies a great deal. One slain by a siege weapon showed up later and was barely flinched by the same method, while another slain my a group of our mages with ice later was able to storm through their ice spells and slaughter them. When one dies, there seems to be a compulsion by the others to seek out and kill the people responsible, so when you kill one, I advise Requiem stays on its guard as the others will find you in time. Ah, that did it!"

He closes the panel and the console hums with power, both from science and magic. He starts wiping his arms off with a cloth, though there is so muc grease and oil on the cloth it doesn't really do much help.

"Any other questions then?"

[Cassus]

It took Amani longer to process the Archivist's words than it took him to say them. After that, she paused a little longer in case Drinna had further questions. It was only polite. And since the half-orc bore her some kind of grudge, politeness could only help.
But she did eventually offer a few of her own questions. "Were these 'slumbering beasts' ever awake before? If so, when was it and what made them go to sleep?"
Then, more practical questions. "What sort of facilities do they have at the base we're going to? The briefing didn't cover what 'reasonable' meant; what assets do they have to spare?" It wouldn't do to requisition too much from the apparently hard-pressed forward base, but on the other hand the Organization's resources were legendary. "Also, is it possible to transmit a secure message to the base commander, to have some of his arcanists prepare certain spells for my use? Particularly Teleport Object, Telepathic Bond, and Remove Fatigue?" Her tone was pleasant enough, but it felt clipped. You could practically hear the bullet points next to each sentence.

[Croverus]

He paused for barely a moment of thought after she finished asking her questions before answering each in turn. His answers matched her question in prsentation."

"Last time they were awake was during their origional creation, back when some demon god used them on his hunts across Abaddon. They fell into slumber aaround the same time that the demon god was brought down. Not sure what caused them to wake up, but I'm sure you will find that out. The base currently has 400 warriors, 100 archers, 30 Sergeants, 4 LTs, and 1 captain, as well as 20 acoloytes and 2 surviving mages. There are also 300 support staff, mostly cooks, labourers, porters, a few smiths and engineers, and a handful of siege operators, who work the 4 seige turrets that are placed on the corners of the outpost. They have enough food to feed roughly 1000 people for a week, but should get restocked within 3 days time incase the enemy target their supplies. You'll have to speak with Captain Picard when you get there about what he'll be willing to give you. Currently all messages of magical communication are being focused on other theatres so any message will be sent by courier, and considering how desperately the Captain needs all his magic users on either healing duty or ranged support I doubt he'll be able to prepare those spells but I'll send the message anyway."

[Man on Fire]

Drinna got what she wanted. She was now sure that she knows these beasts. [color]"How do we call the monsters? Devacu Kularesh, am I right?"[/color] Having aquired confirmation, she goes to her study to research the monsters* and means to fight them.

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knowledge the planes (1d20+37)[45]
knowledge history (1d20+37)[41]
knowledge religion (specifingly demons and their role in it's history)(1d20+37)[51]
knowledge arcana (kind of magic that could prevent beasts from ressurection or bypass their defences) (1d20+37)[39]
Lore check (1d20+33)[37]

Then she is going to prepare appriorate spells and prepare herself to use them, after which she is going to attend the meeting Amani mentioned.

* - Or, if Andariel will deny that, she is going to research all kinds of similiar creatures and other monsters used by demon lords.

[Man on Fire]

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I forgot, also Gather Information skill check if it applies: (1d20+31)[34]

[Kobold-Bard]

Viran - Cerebremancer

The Elven Mage moves straight to the portal room to examine his goody bag for this mission, leaving his familiar; a Raven with a purple crystal around it's neck to record Andariel's answers for him.

[Man on Fire]

Drinna, makes a lot of knowledge checks.

Drinna, finishing her research prepares what she knows, prepares her spells and goes to the meeting, ready to give all the data she found.

For everybody:

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I'll wait with reposting what DM pm'd me once I know everybody is in the room, I don't want someone to have their character miss the info.

[Aneurin]

Griever - Goblin Necromancer

She quite noticably keeps her distance from Henry - in the sense of standing as far away from him as she can get whithout leaving the room - during the briefing, and barely seems to be paying attention, instead leaning on her staff and sucking at her teeth.

After the briefing the withered goblin, with dry, cracked skin and sunken eyes, looks wearily around the robe at the others before nodding to herself. She gathers the ragged black robes she wears around herself, and shuffles off in the direction of the Ogranisation's graveyard.