Somehow Jack found some interesting things, and a place near the water, his counsciousness seems to swim as if he himself is falling into some sort of unknown slumber from which he is struggling not to fully succumb to the lure of the ethereal music some cosmic lullaby played by Thanos himself.

Jack struggles over and over to not fall into whatever sirens call is attempting to overtake his facilities, will it be that he again awaken in a new world even stranger than this one.....

"Aranea?"
He croaks weakly

The lullaby passes as dulcet tones are wont to do, with a certified flash of images indicating the gods. You vaguely recall getting a free ride from a gondolier gnome. As you begin to awake further, he plys you with questions.

"Where would you like to go? Chances are good we'll run into some patrols but I had heard through the wind that 'the tower' was in full aspect, and so I found you."

He propels the boat further with just a slightly glowing paddle. The sun is setting and you can recall, based on the patterns on the water, that your dream began with sloshing water around your boots.

"The highwall pround so that the lich doest not respawn, good ferryman."

Before he falls into a fistful slumber, he asks
"DId you get my spider lady friend or did she wash out?"

Aranea prodded the ranger with a foot as she sleepily muttered, "I'm still working on the knots Patrice. Some people only have to wear a blindfold..." then she sits upright and clicks her teeth, "Oh, where are we now?!"

She physically drew back into herself but relaxed a bit with a sigh as she realized her transformations may only be a few in number each day but they were still of excellent duration and didn't require her to remain awake anymore.

Jack takes in the sky lights above the swirls of energy, reflected in the surface of the lake below...

"Highwall to destroy the lich for good.  I do not share the burden of your knots, perhaps it is something I can help with..."

"Are the knots the tangles of light in the sky?"

He wonders who Patrice was in the background but is not curious enough to ask, perhaps another man she has known maybe we all look the same...

Aranea let out a puff of air before clarifying, "There was a time where my sister wove a robe of comfort and allure for a gorgon. The customer's petrifying gaze is particularly a problem for spiders who have little choice but to look all around. We have adapted somewhat, being more than spiders, but still...

Patrice was in her human shape and I was in the middle so that I could lay my early silk and still have hands to work with. I was dreaming about it. I had to wear a hood to be safe if the gorgon was in the room. Every female wants to be both comfortable and pretty... and alive.."

Jack enjoys the boat ride the time of lethargy passing away from him as the boat rocks gently to and fro.

Jack looks back and smiles at Aranea
"You are a pretty girl."
Right now I am imagining her as a jumping spider as they seem the friendliest sort of spider...

Not sure what to do with the statement she turned her head clockwise with her nose as the axial point. She often felt her spider fur was luxurious to touch... but to have her humanoid form praised was... unprecedented. "Ah... Thank you... I'm sure that for a... human? You are rather attractive yourself."

Then again, she had little to do with other races before leaving the home nest. An adult would have been less prone to such things and stayed in her home forest.

Jack looks back to the sky....

"I am not sure how much ones form should be used to define something as fantastic as the self, though many limit themselves in definition to the limitation of statements of what they are not, a poor way to define anything...better to define my self in the affirmation of I am."

"Greenham's my name." The Ferryman engages you with a raise of the eyebrows. He lifts up a golden gleaming object which even outstrips the sun in its fervor. The curves of it seem to make time stop and your fugues ever-more interesting and feel-good. Aranea can see some kind of web-like nature to it and Jack recalls the metals in which his blade was forged, opining that there must be some kind of ore that would permit you to shore up a small area, made of the self-same ore in the object. The object is a sextant and they're pretty rare. They're worth 500 gp in Highwall and Baden's Bluff, or approximately. Elves taking to the sea are pretty common and they are able to find replacement leisure within their demenses, worried more about who is coming and going than manufacturing at the ever-rare forges. It weighs 5 pounds and the Ferryman hoists it with aplomb: "Shows me where to go." He brings the mechanism back around, and hitting the light seems to awaken some kind of eye on the water from which emerges Mongo. The hundred-handers of yore seem to give him a boost into the sky and the Ferryman (whose name you figured out was Ferris) spins the device a little an it appears like a spinner. (Sextant, p. 159-60, Goods and Gear +6 checks to Profession (navigator) checks). He proffers it to Jack: "Bring your friend in, he was much anticipated." The mirrors are demonstrably good for the glass furnaces of the palace of Izrador.

The Ferryman drones on: "I can get you to the shores of the south in no time, but it means you will need to provide for me a shard of Poseidon. I can wait here in the sea to have it delivered or I can find you later, your own choice. But gnomes around here are always looking for ways to avoid capture, so our meeting will have to be fleeting." His skin seems to bend with the refraction of the light. Mongo is incarnated upon the ship by the dreams of Jack and Aranea. "Know that your friend's soul will ever be stored in this sextant, so that his image will be with you though not his body." He hefts a plank that he seems to treat with some deference. (Woodcarver, 56sp/month). Would you like for me to try for the wooden sextant? It can be cast in the same light as the metal ones, and I can show you back to the river El to carry you to the next destination. He has a salt-and-pepper goatee with a mop of black hair and unsteady footing despite being a seagoer. The mission now is to start shoring up regions that you might improve the lives of some of the dignitaries throughout the villages.

Group can determine whether to bring the Ferryman with you after his having gifted you a sextant.

Jack listens intently to the words of the ferryman and the demonstration of the sextant, taking it when offered, he attempts to repeat the process that had revealed a giant moments before and brought him from the incarnation of dreams, a dream within a dream, what is that Jack wonders to himself, thinking it is like going back and incepting an idea into someone else and it coming to pass because it had to do so.....

"Thank you for the instrument of navigation, now I just need to obtain the skills of a proper navigator."


The man had mentioned a god and a shard dealing with the water, a being called po seye den, a being named po whos' eye is in the water or den where he lives.....what a shared might be he does not know so he asks....

"What is a shared of Poseidon and how might we provide one to you?"

Aranea supplies a nod of greeting as she works to ensure the new fellow on the boat doesn’t destabilize the small craft. “Stranger, welcome! It would seem you are a gift from the waters themselves. What would you that we should call you by? I am Aranea.”

The goliath grunts "Name is Mongo. Mongo feels strange. Is Mongo still drunk? What did they put in that dwarven wine? They said made from crushed diamonds for diamond juice but that seems wrong. Not crunchy enough."

Jack was looking at the sextant, and imitating what the ferryman had done, when he noted a sudden sinking in the boat, and turns around just in time to see the arrival of a very large gentleman....

Whom Aranea spoke to....
"Greetings Mongo, I am Jack, I have just recently come to this world as well, the main town is called Cauldron, and is set within an old volcano....I do not understand this world very well as of yet."

"Hello Jack. Cauldron, huh? Placed inside a dormant volcano? Weird, but I've seen weirder. Giant hamsters on a treadmill powering a gnomish vehicle, now that's weird. Why is Mongo here?" the large warrior asks. He is wearing a metal breastplate armor that he moves around in as if it were made of cloth, and carries several oversized weapons, the worst of which is a massive 60 lb hammer.

"Sorry lad, I do not even know why I am here, or how I came to be here, or even really where here is.   For a while we were battling things and I thought perhaps I was in some sort of afterlife, or purgatory limbo, but decided that was a bad series of thought experiments to go on, so I have been gathering knowledge and trying to understand this place better, before seeking a way home."

Mongo turns to the lady. "Aranea is a pretty name. You are also a visitor here?"

“I am spider-folk, there are a few varieties of us, my kind tend to hide in our home forest and simply cause people to forget about us to get by. I am somewhat uneducated to the ways of outside races. Other spiderfolk tribes have other ways of ensuring survival. Some are quite brutal, savagely assaulting others.” She made a gesture toward her medicine pack, “I planned to blend in as a traveling doctor to see the state of the world.”

The shores seem to bend around each other as they approach, yielding a view of the sun as the sole absentee in thi twisted landscape, filled as it is with black and grey. Those of you with Nightvision feel it clicking into place and your eyes take on a different cast. The Ferryman's do as well and he knits his brow, offering the newly arrived (and yes he crashlands into the boat) a moment before raising his knitted brow. "It's not too rare to see the gods changing things on a large scale. They are like the wogren, always on the hunt for those astral parasites, the astirax. You might learn a thing or two about the damn dogs in Highwall, or perhaps you have other affairs." You all shift a little as the boat ends up on the black-sand shores, witht he sound of clicking into place matching your Darkvision, which is sometimes gifted by Jack's Ioun Stone, depending on where you are in Erethor. The item is otherwise mundane, but the rest of your magical equipment is hidden by your patron god, if you have one. You can see smoke rising from the city as the Ferryman sloshes out. "The sextant is yours to keep, its mirrors might be of use to the glass Drow or perhaps a glass shipment proper from the city of Highwall. That's what's rumored to be needed for the populace to slay certain of the vampire-esque creatures. Silver does no good around here, I've only heard its use could be determined by roving orcs who guard the mines."

A lightning bolt (caster level 6) dances upon the water (Zeus' presence int the spear of Ares allows you to intuit the caster level), levelling the ripples that die on shore. But the Ferryman ignores them, making his motives a bit more unclear. You can see shrubs in this scrubland (think more grasslands of Africa) waver with the wind, like the receding impression of the shores. No one mills about, but the city stands squat before you. You still have the weapons to deliver from Skie's Treasury, a MW rapier and stone of fire giant summoning to recall your battle in Cauldron. Who knows what dialectic there is between Highwall and Cauldron (or is it Baden's Bluff)? Sizing up the city, you can discern that wizards of Shatterhorn met their end against Ares' forces here based on your past readings. "Did you enjoy the ride? If you saw me, then you are still under the effect of Eagle's Splendor. If ever you see me again and tell tales of the flights of eagles, do not fail to crush the clavicles of jackals who no longer favor the sky."

Mongo shakes his head. "I see you, yet I was under no such spell. You are addled perhaps. I've little magic myself, simply superlatively crafted equipment, mostly done by myself. Where came this symbol on my skin from? Have I been marked by the gods that brought me here?" questions the warrior.

"Master Greenham, yes the ride was illuminating in many ways, but lead to more questions, so how might you be summoned in the future should we find ourselves upon some distant shore and what is a shared of Poseidon that we may properly pay for future passage?"


@Mongo
"I am indeed addled in the sense of trying to make sense of the world as it is or it appears before me.  I will likely need to start writing things down for the benefit of us all."

Tempted to ask the DM to open a "Jack's journa"l thread, just for all those notes.....

The sun sinks lower, offering a fresh glimpse of rosy-fingered Dawn. Eos itself is caught up in the magic, Helios seeming to tinge the sun red with effulgence. Other more distant continents had leveled deserted connections to the distant stars, astronomers branching out even with tools like the sextant. The ground before you is cracked and uneven, reminiscient of an Earthquake spell. Chances are good that magma would tear through this earth in ages past, before Highwall's most initial stakes were set up. It's a town of considerable import, classed as a "City," but some wish to make it a "Metropolis." Which is to say the town is growing, as it has outstripped its origins, replacing wood with magical black glass, some of which you're carrying. Alien creatures flit about here always, tinged with Dancing Lights to make the city stand out in bold. A deep darkness resides here, and not just in the dark glass. Rangers set up shop here, striking out into the nearby woods, which is maintained by Shadow overlords; several of the rangers in Cauldron make trips between the cities all the time, which you know from Knowledge (religion) checks, as they bring sextants into trips across Pelluria. Jack's journal had a colophon suggesting a circular pattern similar to Mongo's mark, and the Tree of Shackled Souls is but a front for deeper machinations, ancient symbols glowing with potent red light. Several rangers on horseback are entering the drawbridge at the same time, and are three of the most powerful people around (level 6 rangers, tracking prey in the King's Woods). Primal forces suggest Perfect Body applies to them, and they all bear the same mark as Mongo. This lets you view them as creatures of Light. Dual-wielding katanas, their belts sag with the authority of Warriors. They possess shields that are slightly larger than usual and sheaths of black glass. The attendant of Izrador sits twiddling his thumbs at the entrance to the city, a half-orc-looking guy.

Cart passing through contains: ten red rubies, bullets +1 for slings, ten panels of black glass, a thunderstone, tanglefoot bag, bag of holding, and quarterstaff +1, scroll of Disguise. It's really dangerous to have these but you will manage. With a Disguise spell, which you all memorized from its sister Jack's Journal, you will be able to make it seem like you're bringing an oxen into the city. Several Izradorian servants mull about aimlessly in the periphery of the city.

Melf's Acid Arrow supposedly strikes the river El from the muezzin/belltower at the center of the city every afternoon, when the water clocks dip down into their tanks. The river runs green around the city, striking throughout the Highlands/Badlands, with mighty gusts of wind caressing the water. The AC of the pallisades is such that it is hard enough to pierce even the thickest armor, and several militia saps seem to be the cargo of the group entering the city behind you.

Jack looks back hoping to catch the ferryman before he leaves, perhaps the details of the city had drawn him in and he had not turned back fast enough to question the man, he added the notes to his journal about the questions still stacking up in the world at large...

He finds himself looking into high wall and noting that it is strange to see the auras of good and evil manifest with just the magic in the air making casting of the spells unnecessary, but how and why do both dwell together in a land of chaos, perhaps there is an abscense of law in this realm, and it is mostly chaos or it far outweighs the law.....


He shakes his head......

"Aranea, Mongo, what do you guys make of this place?"

"Extraplanar, no doubt. Bordering on the Chaos Realms. In viewing the surroundings I am filled with knowledge of types of magics though I have no training in such. Reactive environment as well." Mongo theorizes.

Turning to the ferryman, Mongo asks "What does Shackleborn mean? I am told by Ares, who has never spoken to me before, that the marking on my arm declares me as a Shackleborn. Is it part of some prophecy?"