February 21st:

"The trees are magical, but not in the way you might think. It all feels natural to me, like it's something that the trees did to adapt to this environment. Perhaps a mutation took place somewhere in the distant past," Kolson shrugs. "Would walking through the valley give us any advantages at all Snarg?"

"...guess not." Snarg opens his eyes and sighs, withdrawing his hand from the tree. "Guess not," he says again. Fumbling with his cloak and blanket, he reorganizes it again with his two hands holding it against himself tightly. He looks towards the Reedsharks, shrugs, then turns back towards the party. "Advantages? Not if someone's wanting to attack us or if we're looking for any survival stuff. If you're wanting to go all that way, it's going to be a bit of a trip - especially if we don't even know where we're going. Does everyone have some water? Food? Shelter? Wood? If we're making a trek out there, we don't want to run out in the middle of nothing. That's just desolate tundra"

"Tha'th a 'no', then," Rory replied, reaffirming his decision. "We go 'round."

Kolson nods in understanding, "Is one way as good as another then?"

"Whatever. We'll go weth't," he answered, then mumbled, "That direction'th thaved my life more than onthe before..."

"Same deal there. We'll need some supplies before we go and we can get some here in the forest. I've seen some game around that we can use for food, although water's going to be a problem if we can't find something." He kicks lightly at the snow with his foot. "I don't know about this snow either. Don't know what eating or drinking the stuff here is going to do to be honest."

"You know," he looks towards the Reedsharks curiously, cocking his head at them, "where there's a domesticated Reedshark, the person that did it isn't too far off. It might not be a bad idea to follow them back to whoever they're with. They might be willing to trade or give us some direction. Not saying it's the best plan, but you don't turn down possible help out in the middle of a cold tundra."

Spoiler:

"Well, do what you think ith beth't," Rory replied. "I'll help hunt if that doethn't work out."

"That sounds worth a try. Lead on Snarg."

The group makes their way west-ward towards the west-most mountain range that surrounds the valley. As they move along, they notice the Reedsharks have stopped following them, but are standing still where they'd stopped last to examine the valley.

"Hold up." Snarg raises his hand to signal a stop. Looking at the Reedsharks in concern, he walks slowly towards the back of the party, keeping the creatures in sight. "They've stopped. I don't like this. Either we're out of their territory or we're going someplace they don't want to go ... maybe both and for a good reason." He sniffs the air and looks back at the vast expanse behind him. "I don't like going out there without knowing what we're looking for, without supplies, or even a map in hand." He taps his head with a finger. "I can't remember everything that scarecrow showed me about this island ... not enough to know where to go. Let me at least see if they're willing to lead us."

Snarg begins approaching the Reedsharks slowly, dipping his head down, hands clearly in sight in front of him.

Spoiler:

As Snarg slowly approaches the Reedsharks, they all inch backwards in direct proportion, to the point where Snarg never actually gets closer to them as he slowly gets further and further away from the rest of the group.

"They're pretty well taught all right," Snarg mutters, stopping after the Reedsharks back away several yards.

Spoiler:

"Then we leave them," Rory replied. His tongue was starting to get feeling back, but it would be a while yet before he could shake the lisp. "Don't have to worry about being followed or dealing with whoever ownth 'em."

"Hrmph. Can't do this right now." Turning back towards the group, Snarg trudges back over to the group, glancing over his shoulder at the Reedsharks.

Snarg, now a few dozen feet away from the rest of the group, is still eyeballing the Reedsharks when without warning they all turn and bolt, running away.

Within seconds the ground underneath the group shudders violently and four massive, thick steel walls rise up to surround them. The walls are featureless and smooth, with strange spiked blades on the tops that you spot before they rise up out of view, and are at least 20 feet tall. There is no top nor ceiling to it, so you can still see the increasingly overcast sky above.

"Shit, it'th a trap!" Rory shouted as he drew his axe, taking a defensive  stance.

Snarg scrambles to reach the edge of the walls as they rise, but comes up short, pressing his fists against the wall as he skids to a stop in front of one. "Right," he grunts, tapping the wall lightly with his fists, "of course there's steel walls out here." He chuckles half-halfheartedly as he surveys the top of the wall, "hah, at least we've got shelter now. Hang on, I've got something for this..." Reaching around towards his pack, he begins extracting rope and coiling it around his arm.

"Well, maybe thomeone'th nearby," Rory suggested. "If we can't climb over, it might be better to juth't call out to them, they'll get here eventually anyway. Bethide'th, we want to make a good impression, right?"

"Don't want to stick around here if no one comes soon. That's going to get us killed if we just stay in here. Besides, it'll be easier to signal up there." As he finishes spooling the rope, Snarg digs around again and produces a grappling hook, which he begins tying on to the rope.

Spoiler:

Snarg:
The spikes were barbed and hooked so will definitely catch, and based on the design this looks like a trap designed more for creatures. Large creatures, for that matter, given the thickness of the steel, so it's likely the spikes will easily hold a humanoid's weight.

"Alright, hang on a sec. Stand back." After finishing his knots, Snarg divides the rope from the hook, taking the grappling hook in his right hand. He looks up again at the upper area of the wall and sticks his tongue out to the side, eyes squinted in concentration. "Okay, here goes!" He gives the rope and hook a couple practice swings before hurling the hook up towards the spikes.

Spoiler:

7/04/13 Summary. Today's session was done in voice chat. I will now provide a brief summary.

The group found themselves, with the exception of Snarg, caught in a trap. Snarg threw a rope up over the edge and climbed up looking for someway to break them loose or otherwise free them. As he climbed the reedsharks moved in to circle the cage and he caught sight of a group of humanoid, not tuskers off in the distance. Knowing that the humanoids would be upon them before they would be able to get everyone out, the group decided to wait.

Upon reaching them they spoke to Snarg, who was currently hanging from a rope waving at them, in a language they didn't understand and were staring at him quite curiously. Snarg responded in every language he knew, and it was discovered that they both spoke common. The humans repeted, "What are you?"

Snarg, "I am Gnoll... Wildpaw... you know like you're human?"

Human, "Oh, okay. I've never seen one of your kind before."

Rory meanwhile, hearing voices called out to Snarg, "HEYY arsh, you gurna let us out?" (he still had the lisp thing going on)

Which prompted one of the humans to pull out a device and retract the cage, leaving the ground looking just as it had before the cage popped up. The humans (3 of them) immediately ran over to Rory and began speaking to Rory in that language they had spoken in previously.

Rory was like, "hurmp?!?! Common please?" (or something like that sorry i dont actually remember exactly)

The conversation turned to where he was from to which he responded with "Vassaen Lassel."

They immediately pulled back and in some kind of device at his ear one of the humans began speaking. Shortly thereafter a 23 foot tall, golden furred tusker arrived and bodily picked up a furiously fighting and squirming Rory. Holding him at eye level he asked, "Are you from Vassen Lassel?" To which he wisely responded honestly.

At this point an "airship" [insert description from brother] the likes of which none of the group has ever seen arrived and the group was herded onto. Everyone found this extremely disconcerting and uncomfortable for unknown reasons. Kolson spoke up, "This... was not woven...." and Gwydo "...it was... mass produced somehow... it is as if it was made from a mold... one that was designed so that it could be... replicated ... many times over... like we do with weapons and armor." About this point the "airship" lurched forward, something that threw the ENTIRE group off, because true airships magically negate the momentum of movement. This ride felt like being in a fighter jet with no seat and no harness as it did stunt maneuvers. Characters would have whiplash and be flung around all over the place. [insert dialogue between tusker and Snarg] [insert description of landing and city]

Rough Outline:

Group boards pseudo-Airship, heads towards massive underground city, is escorted by silver-fur Tusker to an Analysis facility because they need to be checked out to determine if they are fit for remaining on Aphus Lassel or must be returned through the Vein they came from. Party learns that these people have no concept of the Elements or Magic in general, that they've been here for as long as can be imagined, and have a highly advanced sense of science and math, and advanced technology. The Tuskers and Humans, who have both lived on Aphus since as long as they can remember, enjoy nothing more then a good debate and find most of their entertainment in discussion. During the analysis they find out that they can't classify Fairies based on their species, and that Rory is a highly 'mutated' Human from what they consider the norm.

Then they analyze Fierneceal and every alarm in the entire facility goes off at once, massive hooked blades reach down to grab her, and the Tusker escorting them, in a panic, grabs the group and runs, stating he will get the party to safety. They all leave the pyramidal facility which is put into total lockdown; windows, doors, everything. The party (naturally) tries to get back in to save Fierneceal and several uniformed looking individuals approach and, through a series of events, the party learns that they believe Scions to be incredibly dangerous and that the party is currently under her mind control powers. They try to reason with the party, fail, and stun most of them to take them with them to a containment facility, where they will very shortly be 'purified'.

While at the containment facility they notice a large bookcase and Snarg, of all people, starts flipping through one of the books and learns through his knowledge of the Scionic 'language' that it was written BY a Scion, who was posing as something else, and laid down the basic tenats of history and culture for these people centuries ago. The Tuskers and Humans both were warned that the Scions were horrible, evil, dangerous creatures to be treated with utmost caution and absolute firepower.

Our story has paused when the party has been taken into a large room with a uniformed Human sitting peacefully with his arms folded at the end of a long table, with chairs enough for the whole group.

Our party tried, at length, to convince the human dealing with them that there was no threat from Fierneceal and that they were not under mind control. This met with zero success, and the individual tried to stay patient with the group but it was clear he was terrified to even be in the same room with him. After some efforts he left, and the group was scanned, resulting in several members freaking out and the chairs coming to life to grab them and hold them down. Further, the room itself opened up significantly, the floor lowering so a massive black-fur Tusker could fit in, who continued negotiations with the group.

This went slightly better, as the Tusker was clearly completely unafraid of the party, but after significant discussions they learned that the entire facility where Fierneceal had been scanned was now a perfectly spherical hole in the underground city. The Tusker leader planned to self destruct the city as a desperation measure, and evacuations were already moving along. The team negotiated a compromise; they try to capture Fierneceal, unconscious, both as proof that they aren't mind controlled and to save the city, though at this point it's doubtful the party cared much for these people. The Tuskers agreed.

The party was given exactly 10 minutes to signal before the detonator was pushed. They hurried off and found that, sure enough, one section of the wall, ceiling, and floor where the pyramidal Analysis Facility used to be was now just an empty sphere-shaped hole. There was some powerful Elemental energy emitting from the base of it as well. The party, with some hesitance, rushed in while Snarg tried to 'speak' to Fierneceal through the Scionic link. It turns out she had been unconscious, and was blinded by the powerful energies coursing around her. From her perspective, she had been captured by the Analysis Machine after identifying her as a Scion, and then she woke up here, surrounded by light and energy. After some effort, they convinced Fierneceal to try and absorb the energy, which succeeded, leaving her glowing with a repelling energy. They then quickly realized they needed to knock her out to prove she was unconscious, which they did, with about 40 seconds to spare on the clock.

After a couple minutes passed another helicarrier came by, filled with Humans, who gestured for the group to come onto the ship with them as they took custody of the captive Scion. They learned the Humans had sound and sight dampening equipment on, as they were ignoring them at first, and that one of them was Tolsen, someone they called a Delegator. He demanded to know what was going on, and Kolson decided to fill him in... roughly... on their mission to stop Gaerlan, the One Who's Name No One Can Spell Properly. The Delegator didn't fully buy it, but he was willing to let Fierneceal and Gaerlan 'duke it out' and eliminate both problems at once. The group was allowed the night to rest, and the next day they would be shipped off towards where the Sanctum was located.

There was still the problem of Rory. They decided to take turns keeping him awake, but during a light boxing match Rory accidentally knocked out Snarg, so Gwydo ended up watching after him, resulting in Snarg getting a nap but Gwydo not having enough sleep to recharge his Mana. Similarly, Rory was left utterly exhausted by this.