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PCs NPCs Maps Calendar Post Archive Old PBeMs: The Darkening The Game	Something Stinks! I Think It's Kale. Tang's Story - Part 3 Strange Travels cont. Tang searches for a better part of the day to no avail. He finally decides to catch up to the group and makes his way up the mountain trail, soon deciding to cut across through the solid stone. After what seems like an eternity of travelling through solid rock, Tang emerges on the other side. He finds no trace of the group and finds night is soon falling. He decides to track his way up the mountain and see if he can spot them from the top. As the evening's darkness envelops him, he decides it may be better to find a place to sleep for the night and look for the group when the sun comes up. The kender spends the night resting fitfully, not used to being away from his companions, nor used to sleeping on the rock face. Tang awakens early and begins his tired travel up the slope of the mountain. He makes it to the top but still finds none of the group. He figures he must have missed them and wanders off to the northeast a bit for a better view. Later in the day, Tang spots the grey skinned man again. This time he looks a bit worse for wear, like he'd been clobbered by something fairly recently. Using all his stealthy abilities, Tang moves closer to the thing and his fog shadow. He tails them and when they stop, Tang pulls out his whip and whacks at the foggy ghost-like shadow of the man. The unexpecting creature takes the full brunt of the whip and then fades from view. The grey-skinned fellow reacts strangely, somewhat relieved and somewhat upset. Tang tries to lash out at the man with his whip, but finds that the man is uneffected. Tang mutters to himself, "I guess I can only touch things that are made of this same foggy material as I am right now." The kender stays with the assassin, not knowing what he could actually do if the man tried to kill another of his friends. However, in the morning, the man in gone when the kender wakes up. Tang figures he'll try and find his friends again and makes his way through the mountains, coming out in a rather out of the way valley, with his friends no where in sight. Another day of searching brings him no closer to finding his friends, whom he's almost giving up on. The next morning he starts searching again, but runs across two creatures that seem interesting to him, interesting enough to subvert his mission for a while. The first creature is a seven-foot tall thing with the body of a man but the head of a bird. He has a large head and taloned, avian feet. On his back are four feathered wings. This creature flies in the air, locked in combat with his bizarre looking opponent. This nine-foot plus tall creature has a muscular humanoid form, two small horns on his head and dark eyes. His hair is ash black, and he has a small tuft on his chin. He wears a brilliant suit of armor, though dark and twisted. Scattered along the ground are the bodies of other strange creatures. A dozen eight-foot tall reptilian things with wings and six fanged, horned and winged beasts who are about 12-feet tall. All seem to lie dead from various wounds and around them lay various weapons. Not being afraid, the kender walks among the dead bodies, paying none but the least amount of attention to the flying creatures locked in battle. And sitting among the dead bodies, Tang spots something strange. A staff. The kender wanders up to the staff, which seems to have been made for the shorter races, and grasps it. It's made form a type of black wood that Tang has never seen before and the workmanship is magnificent. "One of them must've dropped this," he mutter to himself. "I'll keep track of it so it doesn't get lost." Looking up, the creatures seem to move further and further from the kender, until the fog completely covers him. Figuring they'll come find him eventually to get their staff, Tang heads off against to find his friends. For the kender, his journey to find his friends takes a long time. He travels several days, running into creatures more frequently. First he comes across several creatures with the bodies of bloated buffalos, but extremely long tails and necks. At first they seem to be threatened by the kender's presence, but he informs them he's a friend and they seem to be comforted by his voice enough to leave him be. Travelling southeast, still trying to catch his friends, Tang runs into a ghostly creature of some sort, of which type he knows not. Tang regards the creature curiously, but feels like it threatens his existence. He orders it to stop or he shall kill it. Then the kender finds that his new staff is an excellent weapon to use against the undead, slaying the thing. The spirit has a small stash of gems and things which Tang stashes away for later. He figures the spirit must've robbed someone and thinks if he can hold onto the items, the owner will pop up sooner or later in his travels. The next day, the kender spots a golden colored, lion headed dragon to the south of him. The dragon-thing looks right at him it seems, but is never seen again. Later that same day, Tang finds two crystalline creatures underground in a cavern of the mountains, who seem to be made of the smoky material. He tries to tell them he means no harm, but the creatures seem rather evil, and he thrashes them with his staff. As he leaves the crystal creatures in pieces, he wonders where he left his hoopak, having not remembered using it for some days. Another day passes as the kender travels and he comes upon a group of large dogs who have large heads with wide-set, bulging eyes and huge mouths with large fangs. The long tailed dogs see him and each turn into the smoky material. Strangely enough, they communicate with the kender and seem to be friendly. They sleep near their new friend and become travelling companions the next day. But that day ends up being the last they see of each other. Early the nest day, the kender is travelling along with the funny looking dogs, whom preferred to be called "foo dogs", when one starts howling a warning. "What is it?" asks the kender looking up. "Cyclone!" warns the foo dog who takes off running. Not one to run from a new experience, Tang stares at the sinuous, serpentine column that spins toward him, casting all loose material aside. The kender realizes he should run, but does so too late and is sucked into the cyclone and whisked away. A long time passes with little to be remembered by the kender. Everything swirls as the cyclone whips him away into the fog further and further from his friends. Tang remembers hitting a bright blue-green curtain of light and then more of the greenish-grey fog he has become so used to. When he comes to, the kender finds himself in a completely unfamiliar area, the fog denser, the ground undefined. There seems to be no up or down, no north or south, and Tang is thoroughly lost. He yells for someone to answer but gets none. He tries travelling, just picking a random direction, figuring he'll hit someone sometime or another. If he thought the travel was boring in the foggy version of Terra Dyne, he is bored out of him mind here where everything is the same. Being lost in a different plane is one of the worst experiences of the kender's life. Gone are the exciting new places to explore. The plane of fog leaves everything to the imagination and saps it at the same time. Tang spends 198 days lost. He runs across many of the denizens of this place. One of the first were more of the crystal creatures he had run into before. Even more perturbed by these beasts, Tang handily defeats them and finds a stash of gems in their broken bodies. The kender spends several days stopped, waiting for someone to find him. He finds that even more boring that the aimless wandering. 46 days into his journey, he meet another large group of foo dogs, which he convinces to stay with him. They agree to lead him to a human development they know of, acting very friendly and protective of the kender. Travelling with the dogs proves to be the kender's wisest move. His new friends help him fend off and defeat many deadly creatures including several elementals and a demon called "Vrock" by the dogs. After over 90 days of travel, the kender and dogs find a magnificent castle built in the plane, called the "ethereal plane" by the foo dogs. Try as they might to get in, the guardians of the castle warn the group away, saying their master, a powerful mage, wishes to see no one. The dogs know of one other place to check and lead the kender again for another 62 days before they reach a small village of sorts, a waystation for travellers of the ethereal plane. Go to Part 4