Thadeaus' Blog

Darion awakes that morning with the sword by his side. He heads down to the Steam and Steel. Bringing back what they had lost to the Xanathar thugs.

He knocks on the door and is greeted by the familiar faces of Embric and Avi the fire and water Genassi. Avi organizing the shelves and Embric already hard at work hammering away at the forge. Avi lifts her head and smiles gently at Darion as he steps through the entrance. Darion reaches down towards his hip and brings up the golden coloured scabbard at his side for Avi to see. Her eyes look confused at first and then realizes what he is holding, their sword. Embric not hearing words being spoken looks up, curious at the sound of silence. A loud clang breaks the quiet as he drops his hammer against the Anvil. 

"Darion..." Avi says softly as she approaches with Embric, "How did you get this?". 

Darion looks up and says "It's a long story, I would rather not say, just know it is out of their hands now." He offers up the sword and scabbard for them and Avi gingerly takes it into her hands, Embric puts his arms around her shoulders, both of them staring at the sword like a mother and father looking at their newborn child. They gently take the massive great sword out of it's home and enjoy its presence for a few moments longer before they look up at each other. 

Avi pushes the sword back to Darion and says "Will you continue to do good by this city and by us?" 

Darion, thinking about his past misdemeanours and wrongdoing in the city almost denies. But the thought of the recent escapades with his newfound comrades pushes down the fears that he would fall back into a life of unjust crime. Darion reaches out to take the sword from their grasp and says "I promise." Avi and Embric look at him knowingly.

Emrbic, speaks for the first time since mentioning his name to Darion weeks ago. "We trust you to make the right decisions, and help us out. We put a safety on the sword when those thieves took our wares, look." Embric slides closer to Darion and slowly runs his finger along the blade and down to the hilt of the sword. A soft click is heard as Embric turns a dial and blue and red lines give off a soft glow along the bronze-gold hilt of the sword and up the blade. Embric takes the blade back into his hand from Darion and speaks his own name "Embric". An edge of the sword ignites into flame, giving off a warm glow as he says it. Embric then looks over to Avi, smiles and speaks her name "Avi." The room fills with a sizzling sound and a mist emanates from the sword. The other side of the sword begins to be enveloped with a frost. "This is Brume, our child, and it's about time she seems more of the world, take care of her." Embric explains in a fatherly tone. Darion accepts the blade back, the frost melting from the blade and puts it back into the scabbard, which he secures at his side. 

The group of heroes, Thia and her band of murderers, had finally gotten back to the main fort with the rest of the townsfolk. Grigori was stumbling awake, with more cuts and bruises on him than usual. The town was rushing around trying to get their lives back together, but still a somber mood around for the amount of loss that everyone suffered.

Some point into the next day Governer Nighthill came to say hi to us and thank us for what the group had done to save the town, or at least protect what was left of it. He gave Thia some coin out of their reserves to help our heroes on their way and provided a new opportunity. With the camp seemingly nearby and a large horde of cultists easily trackable, he asked the group to investigate the camp and find out more for him. He provided horses and all the equipment that was  needed. Our heroes boldly agreed that they would go after a bit more rest.

First goal was to get back to the original caravan and let them know that the flour was protected and that they could go and pick it up from mill. Gold traded hands once again and the caravan was left to their nefarious deeds of smuggling whatever it was they were smuggling.

After re-equipping themselves, our heroes headed out south, where the cultists retreated to their camp. Following fairly obvious tracks along the way, the idea was to get to the cult and try to join up as followers of Tiamat. Along the road we found a group of cultists that had set up camp, Clint snuck up and the rest of the party followed then ambushed them and kept one cultist alive. A lot of information was gained from the Cultist, including a better direction as to where the camp was and some info about their organization’s structure. The people in purple cloaks were the leaders, there were the two half dragons that we knew about and they worshipped Tiamat, the dragon of chaos. He told us all of this information, but after what he did to the town of Greenest, he was murdered anyways by the team. Lanse was a bit shaken up about it but we tried to rationalize the killing as taking revenge on the townsfolk lives that were destroyed and that he would have continued to do bad things.

Continuing down the road the group encountered a strange valley between some rocks, they approached cautiously as it looked very ominous and could have been some sort of trap. Of course, it was some sort of trap and even though Lans with his keen eyes was on alert, a trap was sprung. Leaping down from above were some cultists and kobolds, with some sort of sergeant leading the ambushers. Grigori and Lans were trying to handle the onslaught of kobolds that were overrunning us while Clint and Thia climbed up to attack the sergeant. Clint quickly got surrounded by cultists and after a few dire hits, fell, badly wounded. The cultists were grouped over his body however and Thia made a risky maneuver by blasting back the cultists with a wave of force that also sent Clint’s body flying, bringing him closer to death, but she managed to down or injure the majority of the cultists. The sergeant turned to her and began attacking. Meanwhile, Grigori had a multitude of Kobolds on him and nearly was taken down if not for the supporting firebolts from Lans, who quickly turned to help Thia and Clint when he saw them go down. After withstanding some blows, Thia rushed over to Clint quickly sealing his wounds with a spell for him to come back and stab the sergeant in the back, with Lans finishing him off with a blast of fire. While Clint was focussing on the Sergeant a cultists came up behind him and cut open his leg and he once again went down. The other three finished off what was left of the cultists, helped Clint up with a healing potion and eventually carried on their way, looking bruised and beaten up.

Eventually the group made their way to the camp, they dirtied themselves up a bit (not hard after yesterday’s escapades) and walked up to the guards on duty. Thia explained that they saw the damage they had done to greenest and wanted to be on the side with power. The cultists took them in without too much questioning due to Thia’s unwavering expressions. The party pushed forward and talked to some of the leaders of the camp and were permitted to stay the night and go through initiation the next day.

While sitting around a campfire, Thia caught the attention of some of the cultists. One man, named Quinn, was very interested and she started some light flirting with him, but told him that he would have to get through Grigori if he wanted to prove that he was tough enough to chat with Thia. the man took on the challenge and Grigori fought the guy after the cultists through the first punch. Quinn’s goons (the Blue Boars) were cheering him on and Lans was in the back taking bets, while Thia played some battle music. Clint took the time to try and explore more of the camp. While exploring he ran into an old friend of his, Leosin, tied to a cross, guarded by two cultist. Clint tried his hardest to convince the guards to leave but they got suspicious of him, so while the fight distraction was going on he tried to take the two guards out, but was quickly restrained.

Meanwhile at the campfire, the fight was getting bloody but Grigori finished Quinn off and Thia ran up to hug him. This distraction brought us to the attention of one of the leaders of the camp, Langradosa, the same half-dragon that Grigori had fought the day before. Previously the group had come up with a strategy that they would say they were changing sides to the one with more power if they were caught.

Landradosa brought the group into be questioned one by one. Thia was brought in first and stuck with the lie, not much was done or said from the half-dragon and Thia was let go, on her way out however she tried to “Suggest (use the spell suggestion) that Langradosa should let her companions go, but it did not seem to have much of an effect. Clint and Lanse followed suit in their stories, but Grigori sold out the group, saying they were there to take over the camp and find out things.

The group found themselves being sent to be tied up with a variety of other prisoners, seemingly from greenest or other surrounding camps. Once they were left alone, with guards outside of their tent, Thia tried to pick the lock with the bobby pin in her hair, but dropped the bobby pin and couldn’t find it. The guards took notice and came in, Thia purposefully dropped her flower from her hair on the ground and said she was trying to pick it up. The guard squashed the flower and threw it away. This was a precious gift from her friend that she lost and was pretty devastated. After a few more attempts of getting out, Clint finally realized that he needed to break his wrist to escape the chains and did so, quietly. He then snuck up on the guards and tried to take them out, he got one and Thia with some magic got the other. The keys were there to unlock the group and everyone started to make a break for the exit. Clint went off to rescue his friend Leosin, while the rest of the party got the townsfolk on their horses then ran off. It was a very close race out of the camp, some spells being shot out behind, boxes being knocked over as they made their way. The townsfolk got out without much problem on their horses. Finally Thia, Grigori and Lans were able to outrun (or kill) the remaining cultists.

Once the group got back into town, there was no sign of Clint, so they went to the Governor and told them what had happened. The Governor was happy with the outcome and that some of their villagers had been returned, many families were overjoyed and we did our duty to the town. He had also not seen Clint, but there was another stranger that had made his way into town from that direction that was injured and was staying at the church, recovering in town. Our heroes made their way over and discovered Leosin, Clint’s friend who had been rescued during the escape. It turns out that Clint and Leosin had been climbing the cliff at the back of the camp to escape but Clint had a terrible fall due to his wrist and was likely dead. Leosin barely made it back alive but had some information for the group, that they should go north as that was where the cultists were heading. He also mentioned that the cultists had actual dragon eggs with them.

The caravan came to a halt as we approached the outskirts of Greenest with unrest among most of the party. Slade, the oldest member of the caravan crew told us that we were supposed to be picking up a shipment labeled Sorghum Flour from the mill. Getting there might be tough however seeing as most of the city was burning and we saw black shadows moving quickly around, not sure if they were friendly or not.

The four heroes, Clint, Grigori, Lansosan and Thia made their way quickly, but silently through the streets, eventually seeing some Kobolds attacking a group of what looked to be common townsfolk. The group attacked the Kobolds, Lans picking them off with firebolts, Thia with her crossbow and Clint and Grigori got up close and personal to try and defend the innocent folk. The Kobolds were disposed of fairly quickly and the woman who we found out to be Linan Swift thanked us greatly. Her husband was wounded pretty heavily and Thia stepped in to bring him back to consciousness. Their three children seemed terrified and Grigori told them to head back the way we had come since there were no Kobolds on the path back. The caravan would be a good place to stay in the meantime. However, Linan didn’t agree and decided to follow the group from a distance. She did give up a useful piece of information, that most of the town had retreated to the main keep and so that was the next destination.

On the way to the keep there were some cultist one was killed, the other captured. Our adventurers didn’t have a lot of time so they took what they could and killed him anyways as getting info out of him at that moment didn’t seem like an option. Moving farther towards the keep, they found multitudes of kobolds and cultists trying to break in. The group, charing towards the gate cleared out most of the group with Thia stepping up first to knock a huge chunk of them out with a thunderous wave of force. Grigori was bashing skulls with Clint and Lans was hitting the ranged Kobolds with fire bolts. Clint and Grigori were taking a beating and Clint went down before they could all make it inside as a giant ambush drake jumped on him. Thia dashed over, quickly saving his life and Grigori, after finishing off the drake, carried Clint in, with the family close behind us. The entire group made it in, but were exhausted.

A small red haired dwarf by the name of Escobert the Red and a man by the name of Governor Nighthill came to welcome the group to their base of operations and thank them for helping their people. They offered up food and some supplies while the group rested and let them know the situation in the city. The dragon cult had attacked in the night, with support from an actual dragon occasionally. The keep had held but the rest of the city was under siege. There were two main points of contention, the church and the mill. Knowing that the main goal with the caravan was to get the Sorghum Flour the group decided to head that way.

Crawling through the sewers under the city the gang followed a hidden path that the Governor had pointed out to them. Some swarms of rats were startled but Grigori and Clint made quick work of them with Lans finally scaring them off with his fire. A gate blocked the exit and so Clint tried to pick it, and failed, so with the interest of time Grigori kicked down the gate making a huge echo sound that filled the sewers. Stepping out of the disgusting sewers, it was made clear that our noise alerted some nearby cultists as they rained down projectiles. Thia picked off a couple from a distance with Lanse aiding her. Grigori and Clint leapt up the slope of the sewer opening and the invaders were incapacitated.

Sneaking along the riverside we made our way towards the mill where this so-called Sorghum flour resided. There were two entrances and so we split up, Thia went in through the front and the others took a peek where the cart entrance was. Thia found a small child crying behind the receptionist/office counter and told them to stay hidden and safe and proceeded into the main warehouse part of the mill. As she entered, she saw a sack of flour fall from the rafters on top of Grigori who looked slightly dazed but pushed it off of him. Intruders were above us and so they group fought the few that dared jump down, while dodging the rain of grain that fell from above. With some good footing and quick thinking the gang finished off the lower floor and made their way up. Grigori got up close and personal with one of the cultists, at first he was pushed back almost over the ledge of the rafters but turned the tides to send him falling down to his death below.

With the dragon cultists finished off, our heros found their item they were supposed to get and hid it away in the back to make sure that the caravan could come and pick it up without any problems later. They talked to and comforted the boy and rested momentarily as the Governor's men came riding over the horizon. They offered to continue to defend the mill. Instead of head back and report to the Governor, Clint, Grigori, Lans and Thia went off to another part of the city that was under siege, the cathedral.

Once again heading along the river, and this time sticking to the woods surrounding our heros approached the cathedral unseen. Once they approached the wall surrounding the church they saw the conflict that was unravelling. A patrol was circling the inner grounds and a group was trying to break into the back doors of the church. Deciding to wait for the patrol to go away and quickly take out the distracted group at the back. At first it worked, attacking over the wall and keeping up the confusion, but as the group got too confident and charged forward the patrol, alerted by the noise came to aid their companions. Thia kept the group alive as she inspired her friends to defend the church. Clint stayed in the shadows throwing darts with pinpoint accuracy. Lans dropped the magic act and went back to back with Grigori cutting down kobolds and cultists with his father’s sword, but falling to an ambush drake. Thia went to help up the wounded wizard while Grigori and Clint fended off the rest. The party had just struck a huge blow to the enemy forces and made their way into the cathedral after convincing the villagers they were on their side.

Sitting under seige in the church, plans began to be formed about how to escape. Lans and Thia were going to provide cover from the above windows while Clint and Grigori cleared a path. The cultists started to grow in numbers outside of the church as this was decided and eventually we heard a booming call from outside. “We have your family, and friends, come out peacefully and we may let you all live.” Then a scream from a woman. One of the villagers let slip an “Oh god”, as he recognized the voice of this woman and rushed up to the windows only to see his family held by the cultists and two half dragons standing outside menacingly. The man was terrified, not sure what to do, but Grigori stepped up. He convinced the dragon he was the one they wanted. The blue half-dragon’s name was Langdedrosa Cyanwrath and challenged Grigori to a one on one duel to let the villagers go. Grigori puffed out his chest and walked outside. Lans was watching from the windows above and Thia and Clint were standing at the door, not permitted to come any father as a circle of kobolds and cultists surrounded the two in a makeshift ring.

“You ready to die? After what you did to all of my people?” roared Cyanwrath. “I think it is you who has to pay for the destruction you’ve brought,” Grigori grumbled in reply as he charged forward. Grigori landed a critical strike with his first attack, knocking the wind out of the half-dragon and pushing him backwards. The entirety of the crowd stood in awe as this man had just dealt a crushing blow to the dragon, however it was now the beast’s turn. It stood up, roared and charged at Grigori, now fueled with rage at the embarrassment and brought down their sword. Grigori raised up his mace to stop it but the attack was too powerful and the blow powered through his defenses. Grigori now had a sword sticking out of him, and with that one blow fell to his knees, bleeding and passed out on the ground. Cyanwrath turned from the body and lead his troops away, leaving the prisoners behind. Not having to say anything as the group witnessed the power they opposed.

Our heroine, Thia, after escaping her troubled youth in Waterdeep, went to the college of Ollamh in one of the mountains surrounding the city. Thia eventually ended up in Elturel after wanting to go on her own adventures after hearing about some amazing stories from her studies. It was her first day there and she was asking around about an inn that might give her some work. Some shadier looking guys told her to follow them and lead her into some of the grungier parts of town. She was attacked by these men and while able to hold them off momentarily with her bardic power, they were winning the fight in the alley, but Ontharr Frume (a Paladin) showed up and saved her from the creeps.

Ontharr took Thia under his wing and mentored her towards good and that turned her from being a woman who wanted only to get through the world, to try and be a better person, mixed with all of the stories of heros she learned while in college she knew it was her destiny to be one of the heros in the stories she told.

After making a fair wage and training under the watchings of Ontharr she felt that she was ready to venture out into the world. Ontharr gave her some information that Greenest had some dragon activity around it. Immediately Thia’s ears perked up at the thought of being a dragon slayer and she accepted the quest. There was a famous scholar named Althidon Greyahl in Baldur’s gate that knew a lot about dragons so Thia set out to find him and learn what she could.

Meanwhile in Baldur’s Gate Lansosan, Althidon’s son, wept. His father had recently passed and he was having a funeral. As he slept, a tall man with a chiseled jaw and a scar running across his neck came into his house and woke him in his bed. In a raspy voice he asked information about the dragons and if he would come along with them. Lansosan, scared shitless, decided he would go along and stole his father’s old sword from his home. They decided to leave in the morning. Thia had already been there a couple of days and decided to come along with the party, now she had her own adventuring group! It was what every hero needed. Lackeys to assist her heroic goals. A scrawnier man, but just as tough looking as Grigori was waiting outside, Clint.

The four of them ventured off, passing through some towns along the way, They grouped up with a caravan which was run by a sister gang to the one Clint and Grigori were in and with us helping out with protection and Thia’s entertainment along the way we got food and a small bit of pay.

In one of the bars we passed by, Thia was leading on some men, trying to get a bit of information out of them about the dragon cultists down in Greenest. They got the wrong idea though and reached out to pull Thia a bit too close. Luckily Clint stepped in with Lansosan and they made the assholes back off. Clint was a good man at heart, just a bit rough around the edges. The barfight was the first taste of battle Thia had on this adventure and she was hungry for more.

Farther along the road they were also ambushed by some dwarfs with dogs along the way, Thia made fun of one of the dwarfs which crippled him, then shot at him to kill the short stack. The rest were grouping up and destroying the onslaught of dogs. Eventually we chased them off and all was good. Doing our due diligence for the caravan and earning their pay. Sadly, the party’s victory celebrations were cut short when they saw clouds of smoke rising from Greenest in the distance.

Entering the Monastery, with a good night's rest from the Inn morale was low but we decided to give it a go anyways. Pushing harder and farther to get the magical items that we came in here seeking. We messed around for a bit longer, rescuing Guy’s robot Orage that we had left after our fight with the Skeletons. Guy snuck up and slowly took the parts back down and spent a good chunk of the day repairing him. We also ventured into a few more rooms around the west side of the Monastery again, fighting some Goblins and finding a teleporting closet that sent us to the bottom of a pit trap, something good to remember for later. However we were injured and after seeing our friends die, we decided to venture back outside to rest some more and start taking the Black Monastery a bit more slow. However, upon leaving the Monastery we were greeted by desert as far as the eye could see, with a single figure walking towards us. We ended up camping in the shade of the entrance, waiting for this mysterious figure to get closer.

Upon our next entrance into the Monastery we decided to continue towards the same side we had started on. Pushing further and further into the Monastery we encountered more of the same that we had seen previously, mysterious rooms with powerful creatures, trapped doors that we learned very quickly to use mage hand or the open spell to open. One room was filled with dark winged creatures that let out a spell that surrounded us with a blackness, making it nearly impossible to see. Meanwhile they were screeching at us. However, we finished them off without taking too much damage.

Next we arrived in a room and I saw a blank canvas. Being the handsome, charismatic being that I am, I thought it would be a good idea to grace future adventurers with a picture of myself. When I finished the last stroke, the picture blinked at me, and then proceeded to pull itself out of the painting. I drew my blade but the copy simply said “Hello Felix, wow do we look good.” I pretty quickly knew that this was a good guy. The painting had let me bring another Felix into the world. I was not sure how to feel about having another me around, one hand the shenanigans we could pull of were going to be fantastic, but also now I have someone to compete with for being the best magician ever.

With a new party member we decided to take on some spiders that we had seen in a room close by. Guy was a key part of dispatching the spiders as he was able to slow them and cause lots of damage to these massive beings coming towards us. Eventually after some back and forth we did kill off the spiders but suffered heavy damage. We once again decided to pull out of the depths of the Monastery and push back once the wounded had rested up. While they were resting a couple of us decided to take some stairs down into the basement that we found, but were immediately ambushed by screaming skeletons that would not take damage and drained our energy from us. We went back and regrouped with the resting members of the party after hastening ourselves and running away from the black skeletons and with that decided to leave this side of the Monastery and try a different route.

We moved towards the west part of the tower and after encountering a crushing wall trap, some orcs and other vermin made it to one of the spires that we could see from outside. We found some beds and napped and played cards, getting some of our morale back. We even found some expensive wine in a cabinet, one of which I took for myself and the other was split for the party. Feeling invigorated we made our way upwards and found some paintings that we disturbed and ended up fighting life-draining bug creatures but that didn’t put our party down. We continued up the spire looking for more, on the next floor however was a much more deadly foe.

We opened a side door after coming up the stairs and mummified creatures came out of the room. We had a good choke point with Maddy and Kihaul right beside the door. Both Felix the Fantastic (the new Felix) and I were staying at a distance with the wounds we had suffered from the last couple of fights. The mummies came out and when our group saw their hideous faces had to make will saves or be stunned. Elric was stunned pretty quickly and then on the next mummy's turn it pushed forward dodging attacks from Kihaul and Maddy and in one swift motion broke Elric’s neck. We had seen Elric die before, but this was one of the most convincing deaths we had seen. Enraged, yet scared at our friends death we hammered on these mummies a bit longer, but another one of their fear effects stunned Kihaul and Dantoine. The mummies were quick and dispatched of Dantoine. However, I wasn’t about to let another friend die and saw an opportunity before the other Mummy could reach Kihaul. I pulled out a wand and pulled off one of my most amazing tricks ever, made Kihaul disappear and saving her from the clutches of our foe. Guy, Maddy and both me and my twin were able to hold the mummies off until Kihaul came to and appeared out of thin air to slice through the final enemy.

Our friends were there, dead, lying there on the floor. We of course took them down to the safer, lower levels of the spire where we found the beds and burned them. Giving them a send off that Elric would have wanted, sacrificing him to his god, the Fire Keeper. We sprinkled a bit of gunpowder on top of their flames and a wondrous plume of fire erupted finishing off the small ceremony.

There didn’t seem to be much more of the tower to climb and so we decided to venture forward, Maddy, Kihaul, Guy, Felix the Fantastic and myself. We climbed up and saw a few skeletons on the walls, maddy being her curious self decided to poke the hat off of the one dressed up like a bishop. Immediately the rest of the room came to life and we recognized these as the same kind of skeletons we had run from in the other part of the Monastery. Felix the Fantastic was immediately killed by one of these enemies, I ran as fast as I could, while Maddy summoned an angel to try and fight alongside the party. The rest of the group was getting beaten down and decided to run. Kihaul wanting to repay her debt to me for saving her in the last fight grabbed the downed Felix’s body and dragged him down the stairs to safety. Guy and Maddy were last to leave, not before opening the door to a bedroom of what we assumed to be the ruler of this spire of the Black Monastery, the evil asshole. Killing my friends (indirectly).

Maddy was incredibly interested in the Monastery and happened to have some incredibly powerful goggles that she picked up while looking for relics in other places. She was a bit gruff to chat with but pleasant enough. These goggles allowed for her to see hidden doors, on our immediate right as we entered through the gates we came across a secret door and we couldn’t pass it up. Kihaul leading the way we went through and saw at the end of the hall a Donkey run through a wall. It was quite a sight but we chose to mostly ignore it, however as we got closer, a man came by asking about the donkey and we told him it went through the wall. He appreciated the advice and followed the donkey through the wall. We decided to ignore that strange invisible doorway and move on though regardless of the amount of people we saw go through.

The group decided on using the left-hand rule (for the time being at least) in which we took every left hand path until we had to backtrack. We found another secret door and went through. Eventually we came to a door, seemingly, finally, to a room. We stood back and I opened the door and saw 5 statues, one which had a black liquid inside, a large man in armor one shot out a set of magic missiles towards the party dealing a bit of damage. However, I turned my gaze directly towards a maiden who drew me towards her. I ran up and started dumping my magical items into the pond. I threw three wands in before kihaul came up to me and restrained me. They dragged me out of the room but I kept being drawn back. Eventually Dantoine stripped me down of everything and the curse was lifted. I no longer felt drawn but we stayed clear of that room.

Next up we wondered around some of the nearby rooms. Dantoine picked up some really cool swords from a room, we got a couple of other basic magic items. Some corpses of the villagers that matched the descriptions that Yohan gave to us. We heard some scratching in the hallways and heard some scratches along the walls but couldn’t see anything. There was a room nearby so we dipped inside and it seemed to be a candle making room. There was a vat of wax which we, of course, decided to remove the wax from and throw on the walls outside to hope to get marks from the invisible scratching around us. Upon getting to the bottom of the vat of wax we found a cap that made the wearer feel much more refreshed.

Going further into the Monastery we encountered more room using the left hand rule, one had 3 trolls inside of which we dispatched of fairly easily. They had some basic weapons and a single bracer which we left alone and continued on.

Just past the room with the trolls there was a huge cavernous room that we heard chanting coming from. I broke off from the party and snuck ahead to see a ton of cultists that were all wearing black capes. We decided not to engage the 30 or 40 cultists that inhabited that room and instead moved on. We passed by a couple of odd rooms. One had a creepy skull that was pouring water into a vase. There were other vases nearby that had some white powder inside. We decided to pour the water in with the powder and felix drank it. He all of a sudden felt quite a bit smarter.

The next area a man looking like a merchant told us to not enter, not to go past. We approached him but he disappeared as we got closer. Maddy, being her actionable self decided to go around the corner and we saw her instantly turn into a pile of ash. We were pretty sad that our newest member of the party was gone, but all of a sudden she returned to our plane and said that she had felt like nothing had happened. We decided to ignore this corner of the Monastery and move on.

We then approached a broom closet looking room. There was a key hanging on the wall inside, Kihaul stepped in and grabbed the key. Then Maddy entered and disappeared again. We were really confused as to what was happening but after the magic previously that reappeared her we weren’t as worried. Elric stepped through next with no effect, then I entered, instantly being teleported outside with Maddy. As I materialized we saw a Barbarian looking character charging towards us. It made a few powerful swings against us and both me and Maddy were getting pretty beat up. We pushed back. I was carving into him with my rapier and maddy was smacking it with her spear. However, the Barbarian got a really heavy hit against me and I thought I would die for sure, but then, out of nowhere a ghostly figure appeared and blocked the hit. I recognized her as Clara, or now the Jade Sorceress. She called out, “He’s mine” as she blocked the attack and then disappeared again. After another couple of good strikes me and maddy were able to take out the Barbarian. We decided to head back to town to heal our wounds, as we were doing so we encountered our party who had left the Monastery after having a couple of party members disappear.

With Franz gone off to support Marble, his new wife from the earth plane the rest of us decided to head back to the mortal plane. We got Marble to teleport us back. Our goal was to build up our strength to maybe one day take back Hansleport, or go about our own goals. We knew the Black Monastery was a place that was going to be rising again soon and so that was our destination. With the promise of powerful artifacts and a great training ground for us it seemed like the perfect place to rise up.

Teleportation magic is fickle and so we ended up landing above the mountains of Kaldurm, about a weeks journey out from Panshaw where the Black monastery usually pops up. Along the way we ended up encountering two members of the archaeological society that were sent north to research some ruins, a colorful monk named Madeline (Maddy) and a sorcerer with a robotic pal, Guy and Orage, respectively. We filled these two in on what happened in Hansleport and they agreed to fill the empty slots in our party which Franz and Holly left or in the latter case, was teleported off to gods knows where.

We had a run in with some various beasts along the journey but were able to make our way to Panshaw without much issue. Upon arriving we noticed that the town’s doors were boarded up, most things were closed and there was no one on the streets. We went to the bar we visited last time and said hi to Yohan. He caught us up. Apparently the Monastery had come early this year and the majority of the town was spooked. Many people go missing during the Monastery weeks, it was a surprise anyone even lived in this town. Some of them were adventurers like us that went in seeking treasures and never came back, but there were other reports of people disappearing from their beds. We all grabbed some supplies, healing potions, rations and nearly cleaned Yohan out of stock, got a good night’s rest after a long trip on the road and prepared for our journey out to the monastery the next day.

As we approached the colossus of a building, two spires shooting out up to the sky and a general dark ominous aura growing out of it. There was a mysterious set of clouds only over the monastery and it got darker and darker as we stepped closer. We were surprised to see a familiar face sitting outside. Lars Wolfe in his adventuring gear was leaning against a statue in the courtyard. He stared us down and we approached him. Asking a bit more about the events of Hansleport but he didn’t know much more than we did. He got out of there as soon as he could. He gave us his old line of “Stay out of my way” and we left him to sulk in peace. It almost felt like things hadn’t changed, and I guess they hadn’t too much, just that a dragon was preventing us from going home.

Still going a bit crazy by being trapped in the city by the Orc army, we decided to pull cards from the mystical deck we found. The rule was that you had to decide beforehand how many cards you would draw from the deck and pull those cards with their effects happening in order. We had no idea what kinds of things were in store for us in the deck but we were ready for something to entertain us.

Franz went first, he decided to pull three cards. The first made it so that if Franz ever lied, he would turn into a random animal, the second was a trader which he could give up chunks of his life for incredible items. Franz valued his age much more than the items and turned him down. Finally, a beautiful woman came out of a portal and said her name was Marble, from the Earth plane. She was a big fan of Franz and wanted him to marry into her family. She was madly in love with him and if he did not marry the wrath of the Earth plane would forever be against him. He accepted and decided right then and there that this marriage would be the end of his adventuring career. He was still going to run the guild, but from a distant with his new bride. Franz was tired of all that was going on and needed to slow down a bit.

I was up next and also decided to draw three cards, the first gave me the knowledge of a great demiplane that existed just for me, however I had no way to get there. The second pull gave me the power to up my prowess in hand to hand combat at the cost of breaking something metal nearby me. Finally, I pulled a card that disintegrated my body and put all of my soul and belongings in a glowing gem that needed to be resurrected. Two out of three isn’t bad…

Kihaul gained the same increase in hand to hand combat that I did, but also felt like there was constantly someone else behind her, giving her flanking. Holly pulled a card and fought a giant air elemental which defeated her quickly and sent her to the air plane. Elric pulled it and got a level up, and summoned a devil looking character. This isn’t the first time we had seen the red skinned, yellow eyed humanoid. Kihaul recognized him almost instantly as the strange creature that had watched one of my magic shows. Apparently he had been the one that was giving Elric these notes and had empowered his bird, not the fire keeper. Elric was praying to a false god and it nearly destroyed him. However due to the deck, Elric had to take a task from the devil or die, and so he was tasked to bring the devil the head of the dragon that was terrorizing Hansleport.

With our lives now thoroughly changed it was time to plan the wedding. We dipped into the Dragon’s hoard and focussed our energies on preparing for that. We tried not to worry about the impending doom of the army slowly gaining ground on the castle or the Dragon that was out to get back his gold. Nobles around the city were invited, as well as Marble’s family from the Earth plane. Rupert volunteered to lead the proceedings and wed the two. A giant marble structure was erected behind the manor by the Earth plane nobles. All was set and the proceedings began. Franz and Marble looked lovely and for once everything seemed to be right.

Rupert began to speak, but he had a strange smile come across his face as he did. He started to speak in a strange tongue. Something was definitely not okay. The ground underneath of the earthen nobles turned into lava and engulfed them. Marble cried out as she saw her loved ones sink into the molten pool. Rupert spoke up in a familiar voice of the dragon. He beckoned the King to him. I got up beside the king and started to lead him closer to the dragon. Meanwhile, Dantoine and Elric with their new guns they had made over downtime took aim. They shot at the archway over top of dragon which collapsed it upon him. The dragon was stunned for a moment and some of the nobles were able to escape as we closed in on him. The dragon quickly transformed and flung the rubble off of himself. Moved forward and ripped the head off the king. There wasn’t much we could have done, but we were out for vengeance. Franz started hacking at the dragon with Hansle’s dragon slaying sword, meanwhile the rest of us did what we could to take it down. However the dragon was too powerful for us and decided, with its deed done, flew away out of the marble building. We were left standing there feeling defeated and stressed out. Most of the town was in chaos and we heard war drums getting closer. There wasn’t much left for us in Hansleport and so we got Marble to teleport us out of the building into the Earth plane, just as we saw a group of orcs parade into the wedding grounds.

Overflowing out of Kihaul and Dantoine’s room in the bar were thousands of gold worth of equipment and treasures. We immediately realized that the Rod was the only thing that could have done this for us. We also found the plans of the Dragon’s army which involved a forward attack and then the assassination of the King of Hansleport. I flew the book immediately to the guards and convinced them that we came into possession of this book. They somehow believed us that it was real and took preparations. We failed to tell them about the dragon’s horde we were sitting on. As I was talking to them though, we saw fires in the distance from the top of the ramparts. Panstock’s clearing was ablaze, the Orc army was on the move towards Hansleport. It seemed as though we had sped along the armies process.

Past giving the book to the guards, there wasn’t much we could do. An entire army was out of the paygrade of the Archeology society and now we were seemingly trapped inside of Hansleport as we might end up in the army’s grasp again if we left the walls. We moved the gold to our newly built safe and saved it there. During the move, Kihaul stole a huge chunk of the gems for her own use. She was caught by Dantione and they had a talk about why she needed the gold. Apparently she was cast out by her own people and her family. She needed the gold in order to regain status in Kaldrum and rise to power. Then she would get her revenge on the families that disgraced her. Meanwhile, i was slowly taking the wands and scrolls that I thought might be useful for my adventures, Franz’ was fine with it and so I liberally loaded my pockets.

During a couple of days of downtime while we decided what to do with the gold, Elric was receiving notes from the fire keeper. Apparently he had received a burnt up piece of parchment which told him to get a package from the Red Skipper, then to deliver it to Aline. He did so, no questions asked. There was some clock in it that scared her out of her mind and she rushed out of her office. Elric was left confused with lots of questions, however he felt that the fire keeper would be looking out for him. I, on the other hand, felt he was being manipulated. I decided to sneak into Elric’s room at night, burn a note slightly and write that he should recieve another package from Fabian at the Red Skipper and deliver it immediately to Franz. Of course, Elric followed blindly in his devotion and delivered the package. Franz’s eyes were wide open and his mouth agape as he saw the giant sex toy laid out for him in the box. I, however was giggling like a madman in the corner of the room.

It was obvious that being cooped up in the city was getting to us and that we needed more work to keep our sanity, so we went after the one lead that we still had in the city a group of cultists that had taken over the sewers. We geared up and went down, sneaking around until we found a few cultists which we took out pretty quickly. We then entered a more central chamber and were fighting a good fight, finally relieving some of the pent up rage about the armies confining us. However, a very powerful being came out of the doors at the end of the room and immediately halted the fighting. Franz waved the Rod of Wonders and it did nothing, the powerful being pulled the wand towards him with what looked like no resistance from Franz. He asked us to leave and not come back. Franz seemed to think that this was the dragon that was leading the army. We started backing away and somehow it came out that we had the dragon’s horde. I thought Franz was out of his mind giving them that information. However the dragon was calm and still let us go, only to remind us that he would be taking the gold back in a couple of days.

Ever since Franz and Kihaul were captured by the Orc army, they have been a looming threat over Hansleport. Small reports of a Dragon coming to power and more Orcs running around. Renglot the Red Dragon was back and we had set out our contacts to search for information about Hansle’s famous dragon slaying sword. Today we finally heard more about its whereabouts. It was rumoured that a man by the name of Lucky Lester getting his hands on the sword and so we were off to interrogate him. I went to follow him first into a bar that he frequents, but as soon as I brought up the sword he ran out of there and I was pretty quickly stared down until I left the bar. We waited a few more days, staking out the bar and this time were going to ambush him once he left. We caught him in a back alley and gave him a few punches to the gut until he told us that he had pawned the sword to a man named Burkhart Shneller. Lucky just kept giving us information, spilling that Shneller was a big criminal hiding under the alias Pepe Silvia at the Silvia estate just outside of town. Lucky let us know that he was a fan of the theatre and would likely be going to the show happening (That we had bought tickets to recently).  We figured that was our in. We got lucky today with all the info, Lester, not so much. I slipped him a couple goold into his pocket as we let him go and left him in the alley.

It was time to plan the heist. We agreed that me and Holly would go to the play and she would act as my assistant. We would get into the VIP room after the performance by using our in with Cedric, the lead of the play who we had helped in one of our first adventures. We successfully got into the VIP section and put on a fairly good magic show for the upper class. Then we went to work, walking around and talking to people offering my magic services for any after parties that might be going on. Eventually, after we earned some rep around the crowd we encountered a person who told us about a party at the Silvia estate and that we seemed pretty good. I showed them a letter of recommendation that I had received from Cedric and we were given copper token to bring with us to the party. We weren’t allowed to go with the wagon with this informant, but me and Holly followed after him quietly on our horses.

Meanwhile, Franz, Kihaul, Elric and Dantoine waited in the bushes on the way to the estate. As soon as I got close, I used the spell message to contact Franz and let him know to jump this wagon. He threw out some caltrops, we offed the bodyguards and took the informant and his wife hostage. These were also criminals and had bounties on their heads so Elric, Dantoine and Holly made their way back to town with the criminals to collect the bounty while I went to the estate to get the sword. Franz and Kihaul followed me to watch over and make sure nothing bad was happening and would intervene if they saw anything and get me out.

Walking up to the front guards, getting in was a breeze with the coin I retrieved. I set up for my magic show and put on a fairly good performance, and took a short break, going to the bathroom but taking a look around the hsoue in the meantime. I found an open door to a study in which a girl was sitting in and told me to get out, not wanting any of me. I got back up on stage and put on the best magic show I had ever done, sparks were flying, making things dissapear and reappear in a blank of an eye. As I stepped off the stage, I was approached by a man who matched the appearance of Burkhart, the criminal in charge of this party and owner of the sword. It chatted him up for a bit and we talked about the play a bit. He enjoyed my company quite a bit and ended up showing me around the house. We went, alone to and underground area where I heard screaming coming from down the hall but pretended to not hear it, whatever he was doing I didn’t want to get involved. Eventually we entered his vault and he showed me some of his most prized possessions including the sword. I had a thought to take my sword out of the can-scabbard I was using and stab him in the back. I could have easily grabbed the sword and flown out of there as an eagle with my new cape, but he offered me a deal. He was going to give me 800 gold a performance at his parties. Something pulled at me, this was a lot of money, but the sword seemed a bit more worthwhile to grab so I tried to bargain for more. Immediately Burkhart got very angry at me for turning down his generous offer and trying to get more money from him and took me upstairs, I said fine to his 800 a night and 200 for the current night and we left the sword downstairs.

As we got upstairs he left me and I was pulled aside into a side room by none other than Lars Wolfe, the vigilante that we had sent to jail (not that he knew we did that) and who Elric had some infractions with in the past. He was furious to see me here and told me to stay out of his stuff. I just told him I was working the night here and walked away from him. However, as soon as I got out of the room, I was intercepted by Burkhart and his bodyguards saying he wanted me to follow them to get the paperwork sorted out for my payment. I followed them up but ended up getting a bag over my head, knocked out and then blackness. I had failed my mission due to greed, I could only hope that Franz and Kihaul had seen something and would come rescue me, but I know it was my fault for messing that up.

In the morning Franz and Kihaul noticed that I never had left the mansion and so they went back to gather the rest of the group, they were going to storm the estate, hoping everyone would be hung over and that they might have an advantage they grabbed rupert as well and charged the estate. They encountered a couple guards at first, but more and more showed up, Kihaul and Franz were cutting down guards left and right, bodies were piling up on the grounds of the Silvian Estate. Franz got badly injured, almost knocked out by one, but Rupert cast a spell revitalizing him and repairing his wounds. Kihaul cut through three enemies at once, slicing them open, meanwhile Elric was providing support from the back launching volleys of arrows into the oncoming guards. Holly holding them off and providing support where needed. Dantione was using the Rod of Wonders from a distance, not seeming to have much effect on the fight, a couple small damaging spells but mostly it seemed to do nothing in the fight. After what seemed like hours of fighting (but was only about 10 minutes) they had obliterated  almost 30 guards and started to make their way into the house, and one figure fleeing away from the house that they couldn’t catch.

Meanwhile, I had awoken in a cell, hoping that I was still in the Silvian Estate. I was locked in and so I summoned my horse, Casper. He was a pet that I picked up in my growth as a Cavalier which I could summon at will. I tried to get him to bash open the cell to get me out of there. I heard someone on the other side and readied for a quick fight, however when the door was finally broken open by Casper, I saw Lars Wolfe coming to rescue me. He was confused about the horse in my cell and just brushed it off to the weirdness of the Archeology Society. He gave me a weapon and we worked our way upstairs, it seemed like we were in the same hallway that I had heard the woman’s screams come from, but once again we decided to get out rather than save this woman.

Once Lars and I had reached the upper part of the house we found ourselves facing up against the captain of the guard. We continued to flank the captain and tried to dispatch of him, he did a lot of damage to Lars, who chugged a health potion as I went in for another attack. With this attack I took some of the glitter I had from my performance the previous night and blinded the guard. From there it was easier to take him out and we successfully took him down. Immediately we got out of the house and headed to the guard’s quarters to retrieve my stuff, but we saw Silvia (Burkhart) trying to escape, as well as the bodies of a lot of guards and my friends! They did come to save me, thankfully they were there as Franz chased after our target and knocked him out before he was able to mount up on his horse. We quickly collected our stuff, got the sword from the vault and freed the woman in the basement. It turned out to be a successful venture afterall.

Elric and Dantoine were bouncing off the walls in excitement with the gain of their newfound knowledge. Now being technologists, they had some intuition on how they could build incredibly powerful guns past the basic pistols Dantoine was using. They started to train together, learning how to use these new weapons as well as how to create them. They needed a lot of time to do so, a couple of weeks, so the rest of TAS was in downtime mode. Kihaul and Franz were both looking to bulk up a bit and spent their time off working on their health. Holy decided to take her newfound ninja skills to a usable level and started to develop some poisons for us to be able to use. I was the only one left to find something to do, I ran a magic show one day without too much gained and the rest of the time was assigned to do some research for the group. However, I am terrible at research. Felix was built as a street smart rogue that gets out of situations using tools, not books. So research was very slow, I tried to find out more about the jade sorceress and where she might be to no avail. I tried to learn about Horocalcum, but that was useless as I thought it was some kind of manure (not the metal that it actually was). Eventually Gusvindta gave us some hints on some artifacts around town that we might want to check out. There was a deck of cards, a crown, a magical amulet and a cloak.

With the town happy with us, the cultists put down for now and not much else going on we took some down time. During this time we heard of a few new activities going on around the town. In a couple of weeks there was going to be a play that a friend of ours was in that we first helped out and so we bought tickets to the first show. We also heard some news from Gusvindta while hanging out in the Red Skipper one day. She told us of a mysterious cube that she had heard about around town and did some research. Franz pulled us off our asses and we set out to find this next dungeon to delve.

The cave was easy enough for us to find with Elric leading the charge through the wilderness. The first room we entered had a puzzle with the passage “Word of the king, blessing of the clergy, will of the warrior” and a panel that looked like this below:

We touched the rod of memories too it and saw a person press a square only to end up being engulfed in flame. We were wary after that. However it started to make sense, there were seemingly three distinct patterns along the squares. The square at the center of all of the “boxes”. We thought of other square based things with patterns like this and eventually landed on chess, of course, the King was the biggest clue and one of the pieces, the clergy is the bishop and the warrior is the knight piece. We had to press them in that order according to their moves. We pressed the appropriate buttons and immediately were let in.

The next room that we entered was a stone statue in the middle of the room who spoke to us when we got close as well as two doors. It asked for knowledge in return for clues on how to get through. We were a bit scared to tell him the things that we knew, you never know who is listening. However this seemed like an important relic to go after so we told him that the Hero was dead, killed by my own hands. He told us that the door on the right leads to death. We then offered him another piece of information that the ring on Elric’s finger was holding back the might of the old gods from returning to Fioria. Which gave us the clue that the door to proceed lies between the two that we see. Finally, we told him that the Fire Keeper told us to go north and that there were great happenings up there. We then found out about a secret lever between his legs that we must pull, this opened the hidden door and we were able to make it past unharmed yet the burden of someone knowing our secrets made us uneasy.

Upon entering the third room we saw a large bridge and were wary of going across it. So we sent Elric’s bird across first. This triggered some kind of release which made swarms of giant locusts fill the room. We used fire and the blunt sides of our weapons to finish them off without taking to much damage. The bridge was a breeze after that and we saw the cube resting on a table, with a huge golem in front of it. After seeing Kihaul and Franz’s sword bounce off of the golem, I ran past it and took the cube. Upon touching it I had a vision to a past life, no, to my ancestors a great cavalier riding forwards in search of battle.. I also saw people working with mysterious metals. Upon this happening I gained a level in cavalier and the technologist feat, allowing me to make fantastical weapons.

We had finally returned to Hansleport after our journey of just over a week. It had been quite an adventure and gave us lots to think about with the Fire Keeper appearing and Elric dying he was a bit shaken at first, but his devotion to the Fire Keeper grew stronger. We had some errands to get to for the guild, first was to stop by Vigo Alverez as well as Aline Cadwell, so we split up to do so. I handed back the rod, we were able to interrogate some of the cultists with the Rod and find their memories for where their hideout might be. We had heard that there was activity in the sewers but a big cave of them that elric recognized just outside of town that we decided to go visit ASAP. Meanwhile the other half of the party had delivered the relics back to Alverez but something seemed off with him, he was acting differently than he had in the past. Still, we received our payment and gave him back his stuff. Elric watched him put his stuff in a safe and saw the combinations just in case we needed it for later.

Grouped up, we prepared ourselves for the ambush on the cultists’ cave. We recruited a local healer, Rupert, with the help of Aline to aid us on our Journey since we had often found ourselves needing more healing that what just Holly or potions could provide. He was an interesting fellow, head was a bit up in the clouds (he was just constantly High).

We approached the cave and decided it was time to just charge in and destroy some cultists that had been parading around our town. We rushed into the main chamber which had a huge bronze skull at the front with snakes oozing out of it , clearly a representation of whatever they were praying to. We decimated around 6 cultists with more coming in to help. Rupert was extremely helpful, healing us over and over again and as more cultists came to see what was going on we continued to clean them up. Overall it was a relatively clean operation to just rid this cave of the cultists. We came to their sleeping quarters and I tried to sneak in to capture on alive, which is something that the guard had yet to do. However, Elric decided to run in and wake the guy up before I could prevent them from taking their suicide tablets. We scored a bit of loot from the place but mostly were happy to have an excursion go on without too many issues.

With the Rod of Memories in our grasp it was time to head back to Hansleport and deliver the Rod to Aline Cadwell. However, we had some stops to make along the way. We were going to some tombs for Vigo Alverez as he had a hefty reward for us and we didn’t want to have to come back out on the road. Along the way to Panshaw we encountered a leathery, winged creature that tried to steal some of our valuables. It ended up taking some things from Elric and we shot the rod of wonders at it and the creature started to ooze wine out of itself as it flew away with a few of our valuables. It followed us all the way to Panshaw where it tried to steal more of our things while we were sleeping in an inn but we chased it away, hopefully for good.

We had three tombs to venture to in the vicinity. The first was fairly easy to find and had a puzzle for us to solve in order to open the door, the only clue were the words “may the prince rest in peace, may his assassin lay asleep in eternal nightmare, Let no visitor forget nor forgive”.  Of course our fearless leader, Franz, tried to just open the door and was blasted by a huge fireball. I simply walked up to the door, recited the passage a few times and said that I forgot the prince and forgave the assassin and the door opened to us. Waiting for us was a tiefling who we talked to but then she pulled out a knife and tried to kill us, we finished her off quickly and retrieved a cloak of protection for Mr. Alverez.

The second tomb we went to find was actually at the edge of a cliff and seems to have fallen off into the water below. After going back to Panshaw to pick up some breathing potions Elric and Kihaul were lowered into the depths below to retrieve the artifact. They were intercepted by a barracuda and took on some scrapes but came out mostly unharmed with a crown that gave the user a charismatic glow, Kihaul was looking at it greedily but we needed to get the relics back to Alverez.

The book we received from Ms. Cadwell lead us to a clearing just by a waterfall by following the layout of the stars. We also knew from the book that there was a hidden entrance behind the waterfall (isn’t it amazing when you read and plan for things!). We traveled up some stairs to a small alcove behind the waterfall inside of the rock formation. As we approached an entrance that seemed to lead farther back into the mountain a huge elemental rose from the waterfall and approached us. It laid out a bowl and nodded towards it. With none of us able to speak with the elemental Franz decided to put some gold into the bowl. The elemental looked happier but started to move towards us when Franz began to step forward. Franz then pulled out something more valuable out of his pouch, something he planned on putting in the museum and placed it into the bowl. The elemental gave him a nod and Franz was allowed to pass. Elric decided to put his old bow in the bowl and was immediately allowed pass. I tried putting lots of money in as an offering but the elemental was still unhappy. Holly passed by using a holy symbol and at that point we figured it out, we needed to put in something valuable to us. I ended up parting with my entertainers kit and Kihaul begrudgingly gave up one of her weapons. We were all allowed to pass and the elemental shrunk back into the waterfall.

We then came to the door. Locked, stone and seemingly impenetrable, there was a bunch of words over bowls surrounding the door. We were able to translate the words into morning, dusk, noon, sunrise and afternoon. Kihaul brilliantly came up with the idea to fill the bowls in the order that they come up in the day. Upon doing so the door opened and we had passed the second puzzle.

Travelling deeper into the cavern the party encountered some water. Only Franz and Kihaul have any kind of dark vision so we elected for them to lead us through the waters. Kihaul was sent first with a rope tied around her waist and a simple system of her tugging on the rope twice to be pulled back. She found one pocket of air and we all followed her along the rope. The next location in this underwater stream was a massive room with a huge golem blocking the path, immediately upon seeing the huge construct Kihaul tugged twice on the rope and we heaved her back to safety. The golem did try and talk to her so we sent Franz and Elric to talk to the beast and see if we could pass by it diplomatically. However, it just approached them saying one phrase: “password required”. After consulting with what we remembered from the book we spoke to the defender “lamas dae numiens” Which allowed us to pass without any issues.

Upon entering an even more massive room inside of this cave system we saw a long ways in the distance, the Rod of Memories, perched on a pedestal on an island surrounded by 100ft of water. We had read in the book given to us that these were waters of purification. Scared of the water we all approached very cautiously. Franz was the first to try out the water, first by dipping a copper piece in which nothing happened. Then, tried his foot and as soon as it touched the water he saw some of the silver coloring leave his skin. Almost immediately we realized this was not deadly water, but water that destroyed magic, to keep the Rod on the island. Swimming was definitely an option but to be able to get it across so much water without a splash would be incredibly difficult. We though that maybe we could make a boat, or some kind of zip line with the rope that we had. Both these seemed pretty dangerous. I was reminded that I picked up a scroll of levitation from our fights during the our travels. Me and Kihaul planned to swim across, I was to use my magic to levitate the Rod and she had to carry the scroll safely. However, as soon as I dived into the water I felt… cleansed… something came over me. I was alone? I realized that emptiness I felt was the place that Bjorn used to be. I was finally cleansed of the troubles that had been haunting me. Still however I felt a bit distraught as he was a part of me. I had begun to like the adventures with Bjorn. Now was not the time for finding myself however so I brushed it off and got on with our work.

Kihaul masterfully carried the scroll across the underground lake, it took a few tries for me to properly activate the levitation scroll, but finally I got it. When I touched the Rod to the rope however, I froze and was teleported into a field of hemp, farmers cutting it all down, and then to another place where I saw a tired looking man weaving together rope and finally into a workshop seeing the rope that I was holding being constructed, then sold to myself. This Rod was incredibly powerful, there was so much to do with it. We successfully got it across the lake and pondered what we could accomplish, maybe figure out what Bjorn and the Jade sorceress were up to while I was unconscious or even more tempting was to figure out what the first wish was used for on the ring of wishes.

Today the part was Elric, Franz, Kihaul, Holly (the newest recruit) and myself (Felix). With the rod of memories in our sight we ventured out along the coast. We had known of lots of Elven activity and they were not friendly. Elric, while half elf, was even more hated. Worst of both worlds in his case. The beginning of our journey was uneventful and we rode into the most boring town along the coast, Hogsfeet. There were few people at the bar, nothing really going on, so we found an inn and slept.

We then went off to Panshaw and was introduced to the bartender Yohan. I tried to put on a magic show to liven up the bar, he said it was ok. I was upset and promised I would be back with the best performance he has ever seen. He then released to us information on a massive black monastery that appears once a year. The mages in guild in town were trying to track down what happens during that time. But most of the town just closes down as everything gets very chaotic and people go missing during the week that the monastery appears.

Continuing up the coast we encountered some restorative grass that we mostly ignored, but all of a sudden saw a wonderous horse near the sea. Holly was instantly entranced and started to walk towards the beast. The rest of the party saw something pretty fishy about it. I pulled out a scroll of charm person and overrode the spell that had been placed on Holly. We lured her back and the beast, which we later learned was a Kelpie and that would have been incredibly dangerous had we gotten to close.

During the night we were ambushed by a massive sea creature. It instantly took out Holly. I stunned it and Elric let loose arrows taking down its health. Sadly, it didn’t seem to be doing much. At first we were going to try to take Holly and run, so Kihaul grabbed some of our equipment and took to the horses, however Franz decided to use the Rod of Wonders then charge the beast. His teeth turned to sponge from the rod, but he got a solid hit in. I started to deal small amounts of damage, and Elric was doing most of it. The creature picked up Franz, but he quickly threw the rod back to Kihaul. She used it against the beast and summoned a massive sandstorm around herself, and once again to make the complete bottom of her mouth disappear. Franz was about to die, and I was badly wounded, Elric had been doing a ton of damage to it and Kihaul came in for one final huge hit to finish it off. We got back a scroll of levitation and a wand of mage hand, those were the only items I was really worrying about.

We healed up in the morning and continued on our quest. During the day everything is fine, but we camped then near the forest and a huge owl-bear attacked. This enemy knocked me out immediately so I don’t know much about the fight, but we did end up defeating the beast, with Elric once again doing a lot of damage. Once again we healed up and moved out.