'Neath a Crimson Throne, Session XV

 Adventurers present:

•Beowulf, level 4 fighter, played by J

•Drauk-Mawk, level 1 dwarf, played by D

•Lady Joan, level 4 cleric, played by A

•Lord Deckard, level 3 specialist, played by M

•Lord Pendor, level 3 fighter, played by R

Their entourage:

•Azaria, level 2 magic-user, demoted to NPC

July 22, 2022/Worms 13th, 748

Azaria, Beowulf, and Lady Joan marched downhill back toward the Omnik war-camp. Along the way, they ran into a weary dwarf soldier named Drauk-Mawk. From him, they learned that the forces of Skullfyre had been at war with the dwarves of the Black Mountains for several months. Drauk-Mawk was the only survivor of his squad, which had engaged the main brass man force nearby. Since he had nowhere else to be in a hurry, he joined the party.

Shortly thereafter, they realized they were being followed.

The person following them was a woman with ashen skin and red eyes. She looked much like Princess Kefe but was much shorter. She introduced herself as Princess Adina (also known as the Flame Princess).

She offered them a great deal of information. This is what they learned:

•She was Princess Kefe's sister, and they had a third sister named Fryða, who commanded the army of brass men.

•Their father was the cruel fire giant Midbög. King Midbög used trained vultures as spies, and by this means had been spying on the Omnik kingdom for a year. Consequently, Princess Adina was well aware of the party's heroic exploits.

•Their mother was the ancient elf princess, Marion. Ever since she had been forced to marry then-Prince Midbög, people had referred to Marion as "the Flame Princess." As an elvish royal, now-Queen Marion had a deep magical connection to the land and sky. She could control the weather.

•For several weeks, King Midbög had been torturing his wife as part of a ritual to exploit her powers and prevent Omnikar's annual spring rains. This was an important part of his military strategy, because rain could kill brass men.

Princess Adina implored the adventurers to help her rescue her royal mother from the top of Mount Skullfyre. When asked about her motives, Adina only expressed her love of her mother.

She did warn the heroes that the chamber where Queen Marion was being held was guarded by a dragon named Fafnor, but she felt that they could handle it. With the brass man army spread out across the mountains, Fafnor and Midbög were Skullfyre's only serious defense.

The heroes agreed to Princess Adina's plan, and to meet her in a certain spot on the mountainside the next morning. First, though, they had to return to the Omnik camp and inform their allies of Lord Pendor's death. When they got to the camp just outside the walls of Oroko, Drauk-Mawk found the workshop where Omnik craftsmen were making weapons for the army, and volunteered to help them.

Not long after they arrived at the camp, Lord Pendor caught up to them. They were overjoyed at his return, and he told them a broad strokes of the following story:

Before Kefe could land the killing blow on him, he had turned around Talon's accursed spellbook and allowed himself to be sucked into it. Everything went dark, and he emerged out of the anus of a giant caterpillar into a library.

The caterpillar told him he was in the Cosmic Library, and that he could not leave until he had achieved gnosis. Pendor asked the caterpillar what gnosis was, but the caterpillar refused to tell him. He said that if Pendor believed he knew what it was, that would hold him back from understanding it.

Lord Pendor decided that, as long as he was hear, he may as well try and find his Uncle Lockdor. He asked the caterpillar about him, as well as about the dwarf bandit, the chicken, and the orc general who had been sucked into the book a year prior. The caterpillar recalled each of them. General Mucous Membrane had destroyed some books, and thus was executed by the moth-angels who guarded the Cosmic Library. The caterpillar did not know where the chicken, the dwarf, or the locksmith were.

Lord Pendor asked if the library had a lost-and-found. The caterpillar confirmed that it did, and told Pendor how to get there.

On the way, Lord Pendor happened to run into Uncle Lockdor! The two of them chatted and caught up while walking to the Cosmic Lost-and-Found. Lockdor had eaten the chicken, and the dwarf was somewhere else in the library studying. Both he and the dwarf had been trying to find gnosis, but thus far had little luck.

When they arrived at the Cosmic Lost-and-Found,  the old man who ran it if there granted them three boons.

The first boon appeared to be a pool-cleaning net with copper wire dangling from it. The old man called it "the Forky Spoon."

The second boon was a cucumber with a human face painted on it. The old man called it "Benecu Cumberbatch, the Perfect Man."

The third boon was the Minnesota State Cheerleading Championships Trophy, 1984.

Pendor also asked for the best place to start looking for gnosis. The old man directed him to the young readers' section on the eleventeenth floor.

Lockdor and Pendor went there. On the eleventeenth floor, they met a witch who carried an electric guitar. She introduced herself as Agatha Christina De La Cruz, or ACDC for short. She turned out to have achieved gnosis years ago, and was free to come and go from the Cosmic Library as she pleased. Lord Pendor asked if she could send him back to Omnikar, and she said that she could. However, she required a favor: the greatly desired an artifact known as the Forky Spoon, which was being kept in the Cosmic Lost-and-Found. Unfortunately, she was banned from the Cosmic Lost-and-Found.

Lord Pendor presented her with the Forky Spoon, since he happened to already have it. She took it and swished it in the air, whereupon it transformed into an ornate, white staff. Satisfied, she cast a spell on Lockdor and Pendor, so that they materialized in Princess Kefe's tent righter where Pendor had left.

Kefe was nowhere to be seen. Lord Pendor picked up the spellbook and looked at it. This time, it did not suck him in. As a fighter, he could not understand the arcane scripts within the book, but he could understand the illustrations. One showed Princess Kefe emerging from the caterpillar's anus, killing him due to her sheer size. The next page showed Kefe looking confused and angry. She set a bookshelf on fire with magic. On the next page, moth-angels appeared and ran her through with swords. On the next page, she lie dead.

Lockdor and Pendor headed back to the Omnik camp, arriving not long after the rest of Pendor's party.

Lockdor went to go check on his shop. Beowulf, Deckard, Joan, and Pendor all went to a tavern in Oroko to celebrate the -dors' miraculous return. There were a great many Omnik soldiers at the tavern, having one last party before the upcoming battle. Deckard and Pendor got truly wasted. When Count Beornwine showed up in the tavern to address his reveling troops, Lord Deckard vomited on the count's boots. Count Beornwine silently turned and left the tavern.