The Cave of Worlds Campaign Blog, Session #11

When last we saw the party, they were in a very different new world, the second one they'd been to: the Floating Isles. They had met a small and hyperactive winged creature, a Scrivley named Kleel, and his four babysitters. After various contretemps, they packed the Scrivlies onto their airboat and set off in their own airboat with the Scrivley airboat in tow. Their mission: to return the Scrivlies to the "Master", a Scrivley who apparently took care of them and lived in a jungle. But on the way, they were intercepted by a strange arrow-shaped craft of metal.

[Sithliss remained unconscious throughout the adventure, as Mike wasn't present. Fortunately, it's not unreasonable for dragonewts to suddenly and inexplicably enter a catatonic state known as "Dragon Sleep"; they're weird that way.]

The pilot hailed them once they were in range. He or she had bluish-grey skin and seemed roughly humanoid, in an elongated sort of way. It introduced itself as Liator #12 of the Great Library - a sort of free-ranging researcher, explorer, and investigator. It carried "records" around in the form of a silvery, animated sphere: a RQ3 hellion.

Somehow, the subject of Scrivlies came up. #12 expressed interest. All of the party appeared to be of races unfamiliar to him (I'll call him "him" from now on for convenience), but Scrivlies were well known to him; they were used as servants at the Library. Did their races use Scrivlies in a similar fashion? And where was the party from, anyway?

In the ensuing discussion, Gormuz the troll blithely revealed that they also had a winged Scrivley, which interested #12 very much indeed. Gormuz held little Kleel up in the air for display, causing all the other Scrivlies to moan in anguish (some of the players were a bit anguished too, I think). #12 asked if the party would be willing to release Kleel to the Library for examination and study, since he was not aware of any record of winged Scrivlies. He hinted that the Library might insist.

At this point the party became somewhat divided. Ophelia regretted that Gormuz had revealed the Scrivlies and Kleel, while Gormuz seemed to feel that #12 was probably trustworthy ("He's a librarian! Who ever heard of an evil librarian?") and wouldn't harm Kleel.

After some discussion, the party turned their ships around to show #12 the island from which they'd entered the world of the Floating Isles. As some of them distracted #12 inside the observatory, Ophelia arranged for the Scrivlies to get into their craft along with Kleel, untied it, and let them "escape". When #12 discovered the loss, he did not seem terribly upset. Instead he sent a message to the Library via an odd sort of homing-creature, calling for a full research team.

The party decided that they did not want to be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered, and that it was time for them to leave that world. Claiming that they wanted to show #12 the entry back to their world, they went past the point at which those not blessed with the ability to cross from world to world could no longer pass. To #12, it appeared that they simply passed through solid rock. #12 waited for a while, then exited the cave, leaving behind his hellion. Gormuz came out, and the hellion cleverly slipped between him and the exit. When Gormuz tried to duck around it and escape out of the world, it let loose a bolt of strange energy which instantly rendered the troll unconscious but did not otherwise hurt him. Someone - I think it was Ophelia - then attacked the hellion from the other side of the portal, doing considerable damage and causing it to flee. They dragged Gormuz into a place of safety beyond the Isles, and after a while he woke up. He was very tired, but otherwise unharmed.