The tales of Tactyl Y'mon

We started out hurtling down a mountain in our carriage under a heavy unnatural storm, being pursued by many demons and one of the horses snaps it's leg and the carriage tips. Eridol gets thrown into a tree and spends the next several hours heavily injured. Veiraen cuts off 3 of his fingers trying to butcher the horse for food. We manage to right the carriage and just before setting off Eridol gets the idea to leave a distraction behind by stuffing his old chain mail with a sack of rice and casting light on it which is just enough to distract the literal horde of flying demons long enough for them to make it to Eridols home town and the contingent of guards waiting along with Eridol’s mum... and his fiancé, Sutha ... and his clerical mentor, Bradul Septima sees Sutha first with his 2000 passive perception and recognises her both because Eridol just talked about her and because Eridol subconsciously uses her image as a spiritual guardian. He and Whisky start yelling "Oh you’re Sutha, Eridols fiance. He's over here. He's right here on the carriage" Sutha comes over to the still very hurt and exhausted Eridol and picks him up in a big crushing hug before asking how he could just leave like that, 4 years without a word and then show up out of the blue with these strangers going on about demons. Eridol apologises but says that this isn't the time to talk about this ... Which goes about as well as you could expect and Sutha throws him down and walks off. Eridol and his mentor briefly talk about how him coming back means things will need to be answered for and that the military will come looking for him and that he can't keep running which Eridol kind of flatly mentions he knows and that's part of why he's here. Everyone gets to meet Eridols parents which goes awfully because literally nobody in the group knows how to talk to people. Veiraen immediately introduces himself as his dad, Whisky grabs photo albums and starts giggling at baby photos and Septima goes all snitchbot and tells everyone about all the things that have happened to Eridol the past year. This commotion gets Eridols dads attention and he comes down and is immediately hard core racist towards Veiraen which Eridol is having none of and threatens to throw him through a window if he starts shit again. Big "I'm gay and stronger than you" energy from the boy. Eridol goes to sit outside to try and collect his thoughts and after a bit Septima comes out and silently sits next to him in the pouring rain. Then the demons show back up, perched on top of the carriage and screech some guttural thing that everyone in 120ft hears in their mind Having been seen the demon flies away and Septima has the idea of asking Eridol who else does he care about that might be taken to get to him and he says just Sutha. Septima animorphs into a direwolf to try and find her scent and is led upstairs to Eridols old room that she was apparently staying in but gosh darn it the door is locked. Guess how long it stays that way with Veiraen around? After a mild amount of breaking and entering, Septima picks up her scent again and takes off with Whisky to try and bodyguard Sutha. Veiraen takes a look around the newly available room and instantly zeros in on the old yellowed note that Eridol left Sutha before he ran away, a note that she had read every day to try and understand and like a bastard, Veiraen read it to himself and then just put it back so nobody would know Septima and Whisky track down Sutha in a bar several blocks away and they bond over how Eridol runs away from things and Septima pipes up saying that since he's known Eridol he hasn't run away from things and has been trying to make the world a better place and then the absolute worst thing happens. Sutha quietly asks them if Eridol came back for her, Septima being unable to read a situation says "No, he brought us here to try and find information from the religious archives" and Whisky says "would you really want him to come back for you?" So Sutha gets up to leave the bar and very clearly says for them not to follow her. They follow her. Sutha gets ready to shoot them with her crossbow and says again not to take another step towards her, she just needs time to process things. Septima takes a step towards her as Whisky is asking that they just want to make sure the people Eridol cares about are safe. Crossbow goes off and because Sutha is a military trained artillerist, the resulting explosion leaves an earth shattering kaboom in the night air. The lingering smoke parts and the crumpled unconscious bodies of Septima and Whisky barely cling to life in the city’s newest pot hole. Eridol and Sutha have a very emotional conversation over all the things he's done wrong, all the things he's trying to do better, how he had to learn how to be a person again and that he always loved her but understands why she would hate him and even if it were just for a few days he wanted her to stay here, so she could at least be safe, he'll stay away if that's what she wanted and then he tries to give her back their wedding ring and says that there is too much happening at the moment but that Eridol genuinely hoped that they could have another chance after all this was finished. Sutha stares down at the tiny man bearing his soul and it just isn't enough and Sutha says to keep it and leaves the house in a rush. In the hastily emptied room Eridol finds an old blueprint of his that she had scribbled on years ago, saying how much she loved his mind. Then morning comes and Eridol tries something. He casts detect magic on himself to try and figure out how those demons were able to track them and the brand on his side lights up like Christmas. Shades of divination, necromancy, abjuration and something else Eridol can't recognise. With that confirmed, Eridol tries something else much stupider in hindsight. He casts dispel magic on the brand. Immediate agony and the boy is unconscious Everyone hears the scream and the distinct sound of a tiny gnome falling down and runs upstairs to find Eridol white as a sheet but still breathing and the brand on his side changed from an open hand to looking curled in like it was grasping something Eridols mentor dumps a massive heal into him and Eridol tells them about what he was trying to do. Septima asks Eridol if it would be alright to try again and with a shaky nod Eridol casts death ward on himself and they try again. Septima calls on his connection to the green to help strengthen their cause and it is not enough and they all hear a very distinctly not Eridol sounding voice come out of the tiny man "By my will, you do my bidding" The brand itself twisting on Eridols side to reach out and grab Septimas arm, black goo numbly racing up past Septimas elbow before shuddering to a halt, his own will just enough to beat the influence and stop a second mark of bane appearing. The group knew about soul bound curses beforehand but one straight from a god sure is something else Stabilised and conscious Eridol asks if they not do that again for a bit and the group discusses options. Obviously this whole demon cult needs to die no matter what Eridol says about greater evils and priorities but they would like to wait a day so Eridol can get his strength back. Eridol does not like this idea, reasoning that the demons already know where they are and the quicker they can make it to the religious city the safer everyone will be while they do research into things. The group wants Eridols parents to come, but the boy knows they won't, his mother has too much work left to do and his dad is way too racist to survive the journey sitting next to Veiraen but ultimately it's their choice. His mother comes in and basically says how he is incapable of letting them through the walls around his heart and they won't go with him

While Eridol lays in bed dealing with the fallout of the last several minutes he begins writing a letter, about an hour later, everyone experiences the telltale sound of of wood and metal tearing itself apart from out in the harbour as an impossibly familiar ship appears from a rip in space, followed by a tidal wave and several finned monstrosities. The ship and all of it’s crew, including the recently departed rogue Emmi and her mother, Sharona, collide with the nearly empty dock. In the minutes it takes everyone to run down to the docks, the ship is heavily damaged by a duo of hydras that had followed them through an arcane gate.

We open with a lone figure paddling through an otherwise still ocean as the moonlight silhouettes a large country that wasn't there a month ago. The figure, drawn forward by a feeling in their gut that this is where they're supposed to be, makes landfall and begins lumbering through the forest as fast as her turtle like legs will allow. It is hours of running peppered with the occasional break to curse whoever thought making towns so far apart was a good idea before our new friend sees the telltale signs of town gates, a place called Merigan it seems. As the guards size up the towering tortle laden with weapons, they shakily ask the barbarian her name and what business she has. Donna Tello Tortellini introduces herself and says she's just looking for a place to sleep for the night, the guards look warily at her large frame and then mention if she's got coin there's a tavern nearby that probably had a room, otherwise there's a stable a few streets away if they promised not to cause a ruckus, the last group they had let camp there were just a constant bother to the guards and town in general whenever they came through. 

Donna Tello asks about the group and it being another in a long line of slow nights the guards escort her towards the tavern, surely nobody could be that much of a nuisance? The guards tell her all about the wicked group that calls themselves Tactyl Y'mon, about the time they had pretended to be ghoulish monsters attacking the town gates and the time they'd arrived with a lively boulder that was very protective over a busted old cart that they wouldn't let anyone get near and the time they had managed to save several townsfolk including the town leaders wife and then tossed his house after staying there the night and got several of the guards drunk, stole one of their pants and jumped through a familys roof before screaming and jumping through their window. As Donna Tello thanks the guards for the hopefully tall tales and mentions she'll definitely try to avoid the group if she can, she enters the tavern for the night and to think about where she might find some decent coin to help her explorations.

It's just before dawn the following day as Eridol is startled awake by the telltale whines of his dog signaling that he needs to go out before the very not telltale sound of his dog screaming about how he needs to pee. Which is enough to slip Eridol's already shoddy grasp on reality with everything that's happened the last few days, this has to be a dream … or insanity, who cares, best to just throw away the whole suitcase of emotions at this point and take his suddenly very talkative dog for a walk. The important questions are asked on their jaunt through the keep, “Could you always talk and were just shy?” “If this were fake, you'd tell me right Pickle?” “Where do you enjoy pats the most?” It's around here that Eridol gets a very familiar reality check in the shape of a golden dragonborn standing just outside the gates of the keep talking to one of the guards, former friend and one time follower of the god of murder, Drackuss. 

With nowhere to run, no weapons to defend himself and no backup Eridol is faced with doing the one thing he swore he would never do, have an emotional conversation with someone who shattered his trust. But Eridol still has his last trump card to get out of the conversation. Freeze up and become unresponsive. Whether Drackuss actually notices or not is irrelevant, the former paladin barrels through what amounts to an apology for how he acted when he tried to brutally disembowel one of their companions before going on a one man murder quest across the country, but how Eridol was part of stopping him doing awful things and he owes the small cleric for that. Eridol breaks and shouts that as far as he is concerned nobody owed him anything, whatever help Eridol gave was balancing a ledger or trying to make up for his own failings. Repayment for all the times that Drackuss had saves the party from otherwise lethal blows. Repayment for Eridol being too far in his own head to notice anything was wrong. Repayment for one of the earliest memories Eridol has of the dragonborn spending days in a rundown church trying to save sick children from a plague. That version of Drackuss deserved a second chance to make his own path but Eridol didn't have to be a part of it and that if Drackuss actually cared what Eridol thought they wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Several familiar shapes creep into the periphery during the silence that follows. The remaining members of Tactyl Y'mon, Whisky, Veiraen, Septima and Emmi wander up from the keep as Core, the groups sometimes government contact and Sukaren, a very imposing blue dragonborn who had been in charge of the front lines to the entry portals to the country march up from behind Drackuss. Core begins by formally thanking the group for everything they had done to shift the country back into the prime material plane and that word had gotten around that the group was at least partially responsible for the shift, people were calling us champions and the like and that there would be some exhibition matches being held in the main city and the group was invited to participate in two back to back. That one would offer a much larger challenge, but if the group could come out victorious in both they'd receive a significant reward for the show. 

Core also goes on to mention that there seems to have been some unforeseen fallout from the whole fabric of reality shifting back into place thing. Hundreds of criminals seemingly disappeared in an instant at the time of the shift back to the material plane. Murderers, cultists, thieves all set to wither in the dark for the rest of their lives gone in an instant with no evidence of what happened and with the official business out of the way, Core suggests walking to the nearest town to spend the rest of the day drinking all of that away like the semi-functional alcoholic sponge he is, the group not ever really needing a reason to drink but having just so many they could choose from decide to go with him. Drackuss shrugs, mentioning that he did what he needed to and that Sukaren and him were heading back to Principium to continue training.

As the two lumbering lizards retreat back to their training regiment, half of the group wanders into the keep to put on pants leaving Core and Emmi standing outside in awkward silence as the last moments of dawn fade away. With nobody else around, Core once again mentions that Emmi’s mother, Sharona really wants to talk to her as soon as possible. That she has so much to apologise for and that she had a plan to find out what happened to Emmi’s father all those years ago. That if Emmi was willing, Sharona would be waiting outside of Principium on a ship for the next week. The silence that follows is almost deafening as she considers the chance in front of her. Inside the keep, Veiraen approaches Eridol and asks if he really meant what he said about Drackuss, that everything he’d done was just rebalancing a ledger and whether that extended to how he thought about the rest of the group. Eridol still not quite over everything that happened outside quietly says that he doesn’t know, that he genuinely cares about everyone and is so afraid of losing people he cares about again. Eridol realises what he said and stiffens before taking a breath and apologising. Everyone deserved better than he could offer, but that he would be a better friend if Veiraen would give him another chance. Veiraen agrees before asking if he could stab Eridol again for funsies and the status quo of bickering siblings is restored like nothing happened. 

Several hours and jugs of grain alcohol later, the group find themselves in a tavern inside Merigan and are alternating between loudly trying to guess what they’d face in the fight pits with Core and how to best announce their awesomeness to the waiting crowd, it’s around the third shout of ‘We’re Tactyl Y’mon, we could fight a swan” that the shouts get the attention of the large tortle barbarian who had been sitting at the bar who with the fading memories of the guards saying to avoid the group, she gets up and introduces herself, saying that she had overheard the group was going to be in some upcoming exhibition matches at the main city’s amphitheatre and that she was a decent fighter and was looking to gather some gold for her travels if the group thinks they could use the extra set of hands in the fights. This is basically all the group needs to hear before collectively welcoming her to the rag tag family and then several rounds later getting around to asking her name. With introductions out of the way and a new friend made, the group staggers slowly back to the keep, singing songs the whole way.

In the coming days, the group train half heartedly before making their way to the capital city of Principium. They enter the familiar halls of the arena that the exhibition matches are held in to raucous applause and quickly take a win in the first fight, much to the joy of the crowd watching. A quick break later and they re-enter for the second match. Whatever the group was expecting is blown out of the air as from the other side of the arena enters faces very familiar to the group. Core, Sukaren, Drackuss, Rorstaad the council member, an old lizardfolk monk ally and a lumbering form of a hill giant with a grudge against the party’s cleric all appear across from them and against the superior combatants and the well oiled teamwork of their opponents Tactyl Y'mon quickly begin to fall. Eridol and Emmi fall within seconds, Veiraen temporarily falls shortly after but by the time he gets his footing again there isn’t anything that can be done. It is only 20 seconds after the fight begins that it ends. Sukaren spits that their time is worth more than mopping up such disappointing fodder. The crowd watching all of this sits deathly quiet, no cheers, no boos, no movement as Tactyl Y’mon quietly leaves the arena, thoroughly defeated by their betters.

We open with everyone still laughing on an empty beach, catching their breath after narrowly escaping a collapsing demi plane that held an imprisoned dracolich that fed off peoples memories and the revelation that they'd been in said hell plane for a month when Eridol, Veiraen & Whisky all collapse on the ground trying to stop their skulls from retching open as the magic Nervlyth had used to repress every memory from before coming to Ostaria shattered and lifetimes of memories snap back into place. While Whisky and Veiraen take a few minutes to shake off their psychosis, Eridol is trapped in an kaleidoscope of his worst memories and is probably stuck that way for a while, whisky offers to stay back and drink the pain away/keep him safe until he's somewhat functional again and the other three decide they need to debrief Core and the council and with their magical fax machine out of commission it means a jaunty several hour trek through the woods to the capital city and we have our first proper split party of the campaign.

It's around sunset that Whisky notices Eridol doing something besides mutely staring directly at the sun and drinking too much beer and she asks if he's ok after everything they went through and in between too large gulps of booze and those gross sad snot bubbles you get when you cry too hard he tells her about his fiance and how happy they were, about the friends he'd lost to cultists of Bane, the torture they had put him through, the brand on his abdomen that won't go away no matter how many times he burns it off. He tells her about being freed from the cultist camp by clerics of Tyr, he's about halfway through explaining how he ran away from his fiance when he clams up, realising what he was saying and without thinking, gets up and mentions that they should really catch up to everyone else or at the very least head back to the keep so it's safer than camping on the ground near a possible exit from hell space and before Whisky can stop him, the tiny heavily armoured drunk wades into the water and begins paddling for the mainland and Whisky has no choice but to wade in after him.

Because Eridol has the emotional processing power of a particularly dense rock, he's too focused cramming everything he just said back in his head that he doesn't immediately notice that he can't hear Whisky swimming behind him anymore. In a panic he frantically scans the water that accompanies this thought shoving itself to the front of his mind he notices several small bubbles clearing the surface 20 feet away and Eridol does what he does best, which is stupidly dive and swim to the bottom of the lake to find a thrashing Whisky tangled in some kelp. He gets her free just as the bubbles stop and she goes limp. With the fear and adrenaline of having someone else he cares about die, Eridol drags her along with his exhausted chainmail wearing self out and with his limited resources, immediately channels all his remaining energy into a single healing prayer and using it to force the water out of her lungs. While Whisky is busy taking her first of many new breaths, Eridol is babbling about how this is his fault and he can make it better as he begins digging through his pack and shakily offers up a small, rough cut gem necklace. Offering apology after apology even as he slumps into unconsciousness.

Whisky silently tries to take stock of the situation which now includes one severely passed out and heavily waterlogged gnome with a pendant laying on the sand just out of reach and with a single solitary “fuck” she scoops up the necklace and begins thinking on how to move what is effectively canned dead weight and decides the best option would be to get the armor off him and at that point he's basically just a toddler sized sack of potatoes. With the armor off, Whisky gets an unhindered look at the hodge podge of scars that make up Eridol's torso. Skin knitted back together over burns, cuts and punctures, a deep cut through one shoulder surrounded by lots of interlocking circles and a large patch of heavy burns on his right side that he would normally keep hidden. She takes all this in for a moment and decides the most immediate need is to draw a large charcoal penis on his forehead before bundling the tiny man up and dragging him through the forest back to the keep before dumping him in front of one of the fireplaces for the guards to find and wandering off to bed.

Meanwhile, the adults of the group were finishing their several hour trek to the capital and began to notice small camps dotting the farmland outside the city, growing more and more dense until they were smack in the middle of a makeshift tent city. Taking a moment to look around they see the normal array of humans, elves, dwarves and the like but also a greater population of half orcs, goblins, bugbears and teiflings than would have been allowed this close to the city before the slight jaunt through time and space. As they wander through the shanty town fearing some kind of attack had taken place within the city walls to displace everyone, they learn that the newly formed ruling council ordered the lower quarters of the city to be upgraded to decrease the gap between the elite at the centre of the city and the less wealthy that surrounded them. Continuing through the city gates and past the city wide work sites, they come to where the ostentatious council building should be. In its place stands a squat, single storey wood and stone hall, a few small meeting rooms sit on either side of the larger council room. A short queue of the days remaining business slowly filtering through the rough wooden doors of the central chamber, which Veiraen, Septima and Emmi attempt to bypass because they’re big damn heroes, but faced with several town guards and a fairly aggressive half orc with a hard on for bureaucracy at the head of the line, they are momentarily pushed to the back of the queue until the council chamber doors open and Core pokes his head outside, spots the responsible half of the adventurers group and merrily ushers them inside to debrief.

They enter the central chamber to find the two remaining council members, Rorstaad, the human and Sharona the high elf. While Rorstaad remains seated, on seeing Emmi, Sharona immediately strides over and hugs the daughter she had magically forgotten for so many years. Emmi doesn’t say anything but just shrugs off the affection and Sharona meekly walks back to her seat and the trio take turns covering the basics of what happened after they had left through the Slyph’s portal, how they found themselves in an overgrown mushroom forest which paralysed or caused hallucinations in some of the party when it was burned. Whisky’s impromptu growth spurt. Fighting off a giant bird that looked like the night sky itself. Following Septimas sometimes moral compass through the woods and to the druidic village of Kincaid, jumping through a tree into a voided hellscape of nothingness that contained a highly intelligent undead dragon that had been eating peoples memories as a way to sustain itself after Septima, Fulgur and Fafnir had sealed it there a few centuries ago. They go on about how the dragon asked for two people to sacrifice their lifeforce because he just wanted the freedom it deserved, that was all and after a clever ruse from Septima all hell breaks loose and then he kind of dies twice because nobody really knows how warforged work and now the dragon is free. Somewhere in the material plane, maybe. Things got a bit fuzzy after that point. But with the dragon gone, Ostaria is now back in the material plane properly and there’ll be no more weird amnesia things going on so it’s a win win really. 

After taking a moment to take all that in and pour himself half a bottle of wine, Core tries to change the conversation and ask where the other members were? It was strange not to see the group together and with the magic words uttered, Septima gladly mentions how Tornur disappeared as soon as they made it out of the mushroom forest and left a note saying he was called for something and they left Whisky next to a non responsive, shaking Eridol back on the beach they tumbled out onto. Hearing all this, Core pours the other half of the bottle of wine into his cup and downs it in an instant, takes a deep breath and begins very uncalmly explaining why literally all of those are horrible choices. They can deal with Tornur when the time comes, but why did they think leaving the easily spooked, emotional powderkeg of a cleric basically on his own was a good idea? Septima mentions it was fine, he had been like this since Veiraen set him on fire before trying to break his curse on top of a mountain with Fulgir the sometimes dragon a few days prior to them leaving. Veiraen to his credit who had mostly been standing there quietly trying not to draw attention to himself doesn’t shy away from the slew of verbal abuse Core throws at him, only offering a small apology before retreating back into himself. With the initial debrief over, Core dismisses the trio but asks that they get in touch with Eridol and Whisky to make their way to the city just in case the council needs some additional information. Septima opens his hand and like the disney princess he is, snatches a bird out of the air and asks that it deliver a message to Eridol about Core needing to speak with Whisky and him, before the trio make their way to the short barracks building they had been using before the keep was built. 

We left off in the aftermath of an emotional bombshell between Emmi and our sorcerer npc patron, Core with Emmi asking how long Core knew her mother was Sharona, one of current ruling council members. Silence hung in the air between them and with the emotional depth of a spoon Core silently take a step backwards, closes the door between him and Emmi and leaves the keep. With no additional information gathered, Emmi returns to whatever drink remains in her room for the night.

Early the next morning, Tornur and Veiraen return around the same time, Veiraen with his self inflicted chest wound and Tornur with healers kits for the group to counter Eridol’s complete failure to react and heal Veiraen after Septima went ape. With the group reunited we receive an urgent message from Core to meet him at the slyph tower, something bad happened. So everyone gears up in relative silence and makes their way to the giant tower outside principium that supposedly links the prison bubble we’re in to the rest of the outside world to find Core and the massive door to the tower having been cut to shreds from the outside. The sylph either unable or unwilling to tell them if anyone had come through recently asks if they would like to travel. Septima steps forward and answers that yes they would and that the thrum of magic pulling him would be closest to a place called the Jaunted Pillars, the sylph explains in their round about way that payment is required to travel, those touched by magic will find it easier but if a sufficiently powerful spell is cast anyone could technically make the trip. Between Septimas eagerness to find whatever missing piece is calling to him, Eridols need to beat something up and Tornur’s general badassary spells are cast on everyone unable to do it themselves and one by one they throw themselves down the slyph’s well with their destination in mind and after a completely innocent description about bodies joining as one and rapturous bliss and the vague feeling of drowning everyone drags their way out of the weird person shaped stargate and into what would have at one time been an exact copy of the tower they were just in … if it weren’t for the pungent and weird spongey material making up the walls that disappeared into the darkness above them.

While Emmi takes one look at the door and decides nobody has time for that, she splits off and starts climbing to try and find a window or hatch in the roof, she climbed hundreds of feet before finding a small ledge and anchoring a rope to it before letting everyone know. Meanwhile down in the peanut gallery we had decided to move on from ripping and tearing at the weird mushroom flesh and moved straight to trying to burn a hole through. As Whisky moves forward into the paltry hole we’d made so far and breaks into a coughing fit due to the noxious smoke being given off by the burning flesh, she falls to the floor screaming and convulsing. Tornur and Septima begin using their various magics to remove the smoke and Eridol rushes in without a thought to get Whisky out of the smoke. Using his last bit of strength before also succumbing to the smoke to throw Whisky out of the hole to an awaiting Veiraen. While Whisky froze and saw terrors, Eridol giddily laughed and began scooting around like an excitable child or a dog with worms. With all this going on the ground, nobody paid attention to the thick noxious cloud wisping its way up towards the roof and towards an unsuspecting Emmi clinging to a wall several hundred feet up. With a brief coughing fit and an unfortunate locking of the joints she falls. Unable to call for help or try to move, the seconds stretch and warp from the mushroom fog in her brain and gravity does its job. 100 feet, 200 feet, she falls 350 feet before Veiraen notices a glint of metal he recognizes moving far too fast for comfort and instinctively casts featherfall. Emmi slows immediately to a crawl, coming to a distinctly non violent meeting with the ground.

With two members of the group dealing with full body lockjaw and one scooting around on his shield like a tiny angry roomba, the still thinking members of the group decide to maybe stop burning through the fungus and give Emmi’s whole roof hatch plan a go after everyones able to move. About an hour later, the relative silence of the room is broken by 3 distinct groans and strings of words best not repeated as Whisky, Emmi and Eridol come out of their respective trances, all varying degrees of sore and weirdly less anxious than before huffing fantasy paint thinner. We all make our way up the inside of what was once a nice looking tower and up through a narrow bramble path towards the now blackened sky and clamber out into a clear, open space made up of dead trees and after a brief sigh of relief from leaving mushroom city, people start noticing things. Pieces of fragile silver looking material, larger than any of the party litter the dead branches and as everyone slowly takes in their surroundings and things click together, one by one they all silently turn towards the centre of the nest and see the gigantic unhatched egg and before anyone can yell to scatter an impossibly large bird the colour or a starlit night crashes into the nest, knocking Eridol unconscious with the blow. With the cleric down and a very large and territorial night roc to deal with, the group splits. Septima, Whisky and Tornur run interference while the rogues and the bird play a nice game of keep away with the sometimes near corpse of the tiny healer, now with authentic battle damage.

What little dips into consciousness Eridol did experience were spent trying to keep the Roc’s attention on himself with large damaging spells and heals as required for the others. With it’s attention divided, Whisky takes the initiative to stun the bird while Septima lashes out with vines from the tree to ground the bird in place. While the rest of the group takes to the sides of the nest to flee, Eridol bears down on the bird with quite a lot of misplaced fury. Both beaten and bloody and extremely near death, the bird begins scrambling back. Taking what would have been it’s precious last seconds of life to try and hide the unbroken egg in the centre of the nest. Seeing the mother try to protect its young snaps Eridol out of his rage and with shame thinking about what he almost did, he heals the bird slightly before leaving. In the time left on Septimas sealing spell. The group silently makes their way to a cramped little hole in the trunk of one of the large perimeter trees, as far as their weary legs will take them from the nest.

Not wanting to waste the moment and wanting to get this over with before the post fight shakes sets in, Eridol calls over to Veiraen to discuss where they stand. With the group tending to their wounds in the background and the oppressive silence of the forest around them, Eridol begins by thanking the drow for keeping him alive in the last fight before explaining about how Veiraen’s done things he can’t forgive. Since they’ve known each other, Veiraen has only ever acted in his own interests, often at the expense of others. The final straws being setting Eridol on fire while he was trying to cope with the latest death he hadn’t been able to stop and Veiraen running off to the forests to try and deal with his psychosis and endanger Septima and a new ally rather than ask the group for help. Emotionally, Eridol mentions that he will still try to keep Veiraen alive like everyone expects him to, but he doesn’t have to like the rogue or forgive him to do that. As far as Eridol is concerned, Veiraen is just part of a job now. The rogue quietly nods before heading back to the group, leaving the cleric to his attempts to contact the groups sorcerer patron as well as sending an apology to the roc for entering its home and endangering its as yet unborn child. If the roc ever needs assistance, it can find them.

With everyone asleep and Septima taking his usual spot of standing awkwardly over someone for the night like an overprotective gargoyle, Eridol takes a mostly uneventful first watch until Tornur gets up and mentions needing to go take care of something and Eridol still being a bit mortally wounded and vaguely concussed just groggily waves at him and slurs something about not taking too long. It’s maybe 30 minutes and two unanswered calls later when Eridol starts getting suspicious that it shouldn’t take this long to go to the bathroom and goes to boot up Septima to help find the wizzing wizard. Knowing how vast the forest is, Septima animorphs into a direwolf to track by scent and with his weary gnome jockey aboard they take off into the night hot on the trail of unwashed dwarf. After about 10 minutes the trail begins to go cold and they come across a piece of parchment stuck to a tree with “This one has been called. I’m sorry” written in a familiar script with the recently purchased bracers of defence and one of the necklaces the group uses to communicate. The only gift not returned was the crossbow Eridol gave Tornur which is brought up sulkily before the duo return to the group. Septima mentions Eridol should get some sleep as he returns to his weird t-posing gargoyles perch over whichever party member will get the biggest reaction upon waking up. While the party slept the remainder of the night away, the last traces of magic surrounding Whisky, the tiny feline monk disappear and she begins to grow to her proper tabaxi form in her sleep. Thrashing around silently like a horror movie creature, flesh contorting and stretching until her previously 2 foot tall frame maxing out the height slider just under 7 feet and she returns to peaceful sleep, at some point wrapping Eridol in her new lengthy tai as Septima passively watched the whole thing instead of intervening or waking the group because it was funnier to not get involved and he is seemingly powered by low level chaos.

Night turns to day and as is tradition and the silence is broken by a mixture of confused screaming and levels of dead eyed resignation normally only felt by retail workers at the nba all star who replaced the tiny monk overnight. The shouting only got worse once it was revealed that Tornur was gone, seemingly summoned by an unknown entity which will definitely never come up in the future. With no further surprises, the group packs up their camp and a whimsical “Follow your heart” sequence begins except its through the bad type of fairytale forest and we’re following the urges of a chaotic warforged with severe memory corruption. Several hours of trekking pass as the forest thins out and becomes less “evil” before we find a worn path through the forest which we begin to follow, still being guided by septima towards his missing piece until we see two figures off in the distance. After hastily diving into the shrubs to not be seen a plan is devised, one of the group is to get out on the path and walk towards the pair to see if they’re friendly while the others creep through the brush to jump in if required. Now obviously it has to be someone who looks the most harmless and disarming at which point everyone just turns and looks at the sometimes gremlin of a cleric and with a sigh, Eridol wanders back out to the path and begins walking as non threateningly towards what we now know are a human and a warforged. After about a minute of walking, the human sees Eridol and confusedly grabs some binoculars to confirm what he sees before promptly yelling and throwing up before both him and the warforged point their spears towards the now halted gnome who puts his hands up and begins yelling at the pair about being a bit lost and looking for somewhere to stay. 

Eridol carefully proceeding towards the pair trying to be as disarming as his crippling mental issues allow the human gets a look of recognition over his face. Proclaiming that he knows who the tiny cleric is and it’d been months since the gnome had come through on his religious quest. As Eridol tries to hide his sheer panic behind pleasantries about how he unfortunately doesn’t remember the hunter at the moment and that maybe they should introduce themselves. The construct just continues scanning the horizon but the human introduces himself as Jeremiah, current perimeter guard for the village of kincaid and that this is way above his paygrade so Eridol needs to come with him to see the village leader. Sensing a complete lack of hostility Eridol agrees, but first asks Jeremiah to not freak out over something real quick as he calls out to the rest of the party who were hidden in the undergrowth several feet away.

After the guard stifles a definitely manly shriek, his face gives way to recognition and curiosity as he seems to remember Veiraen and Whisky and then to pale reverence as he sees Septima. Before stuttering that they definitely need to inform the village leader about the group. The group and their new guide wind through the forest until they come across a village built in a clearing, cozy buildings and vegetable plots intermingle throughout the town as humans and half elves go about their business. An impossibly tall tree waving limply in the background, bands of decay and discolour damaging an otherwise pristine forest. Jeremiah leads Septima and by extension everyone else to the local tavern before excusing himself momentarily as he runs off and returns with an older looking half elven woman who exudes druidic power and introduces herself as Liana Cypher, current leader of Kincaid village and currently very confused as to how we’re all here, especially Septima because he left through to the sanctuary over a century ago and that should have been a one way trip to safety. If septima was capable of showing emotion he would have assuredly been annoyed as he matter of factly informed the druidic leader that where they had come from was no sanctuary, but rather a prison that we had escaped from through the magical equivalent of a secret tunnel and that Septima was being pulled somewhere close by whatever approximates a gut feeling in a magically animated mannequin. This gets Liana’s attention and she asks if Septima would like to talk in private while the rest of the group got settled in the few rooms available in the inn. Eridol spends his time deep in prayer frustratedly asking for guidance and receiving nothing. Veiraen slowly meditating through a song on his violin about the connection he had with whatever was inhabiting his prior sword. As the song reaches its peak he sees the briefest echo of the spirit of Cricket smiling at him before it fades away. While the angsty teens do their thing, Whisky and Emmi sample the local wines and ales … for research purposes, obviously.

We pick up this session with Emmi walking back into the city following a successful few days relaxing on her ship pulling up scavenged treasure from sunken ships and just generally enjoying the weather after a fairly stressful week when the necklace Core gave her to communicate with everyone starts going off, something about explosions and people dying and Drackuss. If she doesn’t say anything, maybe she can just turn around and go back to fishing but as fate is want to do, she runs into everyone trudging after their tiny gnome healer and they fill her in on why they’re moving towards a very possible death at the hands of their compatriot turned foe if he is still in the barracks. Eridol uses what little energy he has left after his stint in the fight pits to put a protective ward over Veiraen and begs everyone to stay outside and try to protect each other as he and Core enter the barracks to make sure it’s clear. They check room after room and find nothing but some missing supplies. Drackuss is gone. Eridol needs to know what happened, Veiraen starts going over the details of the fight in the alley and Core mentions remembering the shield Drackuss had as being Olgum’s and being linked to Bhaal.

All the stress from the past few weeks latches onto Eridol at once before he can try and squash it down again, images of children he couldn’t save, all the times he couldn’t get to someone to heal them in time, Drackuss attacking him while being mind controlled, having to face grieving parents and tell them their son was dead only to have him miraculously return to life minutes later, nearly killing Merla, not being there to stop Drackuss from attacking everyone else, not seeing any of this coming … everything comes to a head and Eridol just starts walking out of the city without a word. Luckily someone sees him leaving and after realising that he’s not responding to anything the group quietly follows him westward. He walks for hours, long after the sun sets and rain starts bucketing down before he collapses in a field and everyone quietly puts up the small tent they have and takes watches keeping an eye on him.

It’s late morning when Eridol wakes up and while being completely emotionally drained, eventually asks why they’re camping and why is he soaking wet, the last thing he remembers is getting to the barracks. Emmi and Veiraen fill him in that he just kind of went very quiet afterwards and decided to just leave and no one could really stop him before asking what happened. Eridol mentions that he hasn’t been doing alright since they got to the underwater temple and he saw that first dead child and things have only gone downhill from there, having the person he trusted most in the world to take care of the group if anything happened fall like this was something he couldn’t even have begun to consider and it hit harder than it should have. In a moment of conversation they all figure out that this seems to have started back in the mistress’ temple when Drackuss tried to pray in a ritualistic circle to Bhaal, Yurtris and the great old one that the mistress had used in her rituals to generate a coven for herself.

Tornur and Whisky begin throwing around Bhaal’s name in conversation, joking that Drackuss has always been like this as long as they’ve known him, Eridol immediately refutes that he wasn’t always like this and tells them about Drackuss helping sick children and taking blows that could have killed other party members because that’s who he always was beforehand and a brief theological history of Bhaal and the other members of the trio of gods that look over the domain of death before meekly apologising and letting himself be led back to the city. They drink and discuss on what to do next, Eridol believes they should contact the other towns to warn them and leave immediately to find Drackuss and stop him before anyone gets hurt while Tornur believes they should stay and wait to hear from someone first so they’re not wasting their time looking into possible dead ends. With neither giving up either argument, it’s put to a vote and the group stays put until they get a lead. Drinking continues until Eridol gets up to use the bathroom and impulsively sends a message to Drackuss. “Whatever forced your actions, I will break its hold. I hope the next time we meet it can be as friends, but will prepare otherwise” he whispers to the ether. A few minutes go by before he gets a response frol the AWOL dragonborn “Once I have attained the power I seek, I will return”. Eridol sighs and quietly returns back to the group, not saying much more as the night continues.

While Eridol’s in the middle of an emotional breakdown surrounded by his friends, Drackuss has made his way out of the city and settled into the foothills near an allied goblin stronghold we visited several months ago and brokered a peace treaty with, knowing that word would soon travel about him, he’s been luring and killing any patrols that come by to make sure he goes unnoticed. Strangely this doesn’t last as long as he might’ve hoped as one patrol managed to slip his grasp and he couldn’t kill them all before the warning horns of the stronghold blare and he is forced to make a quick getaway with his newly summoned fiendish steed. At some point on his path to Bhaal’s chosen victims, Drackuss receives some messages from Core trying to get him to come back. Bhaal bids he finish his work and complete a ritual before it is too late to fully become a champion of the god of murder and Drackuss finds himself, sword ablaze, outside a small cottage containing a small half assimar child that Drackuss himself had brought back to life in an act of miraculous twisting of fate earlier in the campaign.

As visions of carnage filter through his head, showing all the possible ways he could dispatch the inhabitants, Drackuss falters just a little. Remembering the messages he had received from his friends and companions the past few days, mixing with his own feelings of accomplishment at granting the child a second chance and in a forceful show of will, he overcomes the whispers of the god of murder long enough to walk away from the cottage and ride off into the hills. Bhall not being exactly pleased with this turn of events, points him towards a new target that is currently being sheltered in a forest nearby that would fulfil the needs of the ritual. He eventually comes across a small village hidden in a small clearing, this is where his prey is hiding. As he observes the village, he notes it appears to be being overseen by another previous member of Tacty’l Ymon, Raven, the wood elf druid as she’s talking to several people about upkeep and the like. She is hiding all manner of fey and monstrous races that appear to have come through the portals linking the country to the outside world and find the trapping of civility a little too much. A rustling from a nearby tent catches his attention and his prey exits out to the village. Our halfling barbarian, Merla. Ran away because she couldn’t face the possibility of jail after murdering a peasant. She would fit the ritual requirements just fine the whispers urged Drackuss as he sprung into action, sending his wolf to attack Raven and the others as a distraction while he slowly creeps through the bushes to close the gap between himself and Merla. The wolf gets a good swipe at Raven before she panics and wildshapes into a mouse as several townsfolk rush to grab weapons and another druid who looks similar to Raven gets between the wolf and the remainder of the towsfolk. The druid wildshapes into another large carnivore and the battle begins as Drackuss continues to creep towards the confused halfling. Drackuss makes a charge for his soon to be sacrifice as the two large wolves battle in the other side of the small clearing but unfortunately the monstrous villagers notice him before he can attack and now aware of his presence, turn towards Drackuss. Knowing an unwinnable fight when he sees it, Drackuss attempts to flee, calling his wolf as he goes, firing spells and curses off at the party following him and nearly hitting the other druid with a nasty curse that is quickly shaken off.

Drackuss’ wild magic surges and he is lifted into the sky, a brief ability to fly bestowed by chance at the most opportune moment. His escape almost complete, he feels a wrenching in his skull as he succumbs to the feeblemind spell thrown out by the other druid. All intelligent thought leaves his mind as he continues to rocket upwards through the air, only knowing that landing right now would mean pain and death. He continues to rise until the wild magic surge allowing his flight wears off and he begins plummeting to the ground, seconds stretch as the world tumbles around him and he crashes through several trees and into a small lake far enough away from the village that he wouldn’t be easily found. He feebly calls out to his steed and the telepathic bond they share allows it to find him and unable to listen to the whispers of Bhaal he falls back to his base instincts for protection which in this instance is boiled down to “Find eridol, he will protect us” and so the wolf pads off with his master to find help and return to the group.

In the few days since returning to the city, not much had happened for the remainder of Tacty’l Ymon. Everyone was anxiously waiting for instructions and pottering around the barracks. Eridol and Veiraen are in the midst of a heated prank war because someone, not naming names, may have ruined veiraens chances at a date with another drop dead gorgeous drow assassin, Tornur and Whisky are beginning plans for starting a brewing company and Emmi is looking into any additional information into the tower and the slyph and the whole “We’re imprisoned in a bubble outside the material plane thing and if it’s not fixed there might need to be a genocide to avoid overpopulation” thing that’s going on in the background while we deal with our personal dramas. Core comes to see us in the early afternoon saying that he’s found something about Drackuss being seen near the goblin stronghold we allied with ages ago when this whole thing started and possibly sighted in one of the villages to the east. Everyone gets their standard ready up montage while Core wrangles up a contingent of guards to come with them just in case and the groups march out to end this. We march for a few hours in grim determination before setting up camp for the night and sending the guards onward to the town just in case he’s still there.

The first watch goes on without incident and Veiraen and Eridol take the second watch, Veiraen tries to get Eridol to discuss what he’s feeling towards Drackuss and everything but they are interrupted by a loud scraping sound outside the limits of their vision. Everyone is woken up as the sounds get closer and closer before a very large and imposing dire wolf enters their view carrying a bloodied and confused looking Drackuss straight up to Eridol. Arguments are had about what happened to him and what happens next while the wolf refuses to let Eridol leave Drackuss’ side. Tornur and Core work together to realise this was powerful magic that caused this and that as Drackuss is now, he’s no threat to anyone. A decision is made by Core to remove Drackuss’ weapons and armour and escort him back to the city. Eridol bundles everything up and puts it into the bag of holding, making note of the shield to Bhaal and Drackuss’ now tarnished blade having a lingering sense of tainted divinity around them. Everyone discusses what happens with Drackuss now, he obviously isn’t in any state to stand trial for his actions at the moment and can’t be left to roam freely. So for now he’ll be imprisoned while Core and Tornur look into how to break whatever spell took Drackuss’ mind from him, Eridol mentions the tainted ritual that was underway and was affecting the sword and shield and angrily states that he’d look into these before retreating back inside himself like the conflicted, emotional turtle trying not to succumb to like 20 panic attacks that he is.

The group separates with Core taking a now de-armored Drackuss off to a holding cell and mentions that construction on the keep we’d been promised starts shortly so everyone should look forward to that. The next morning comes and the barracks Tacty’l Ymon live in had started to stir with Veiraen making his way down to the kitchen where he finds a hastily scribbled note from Eridol that states he’s sorry but he had to leave. He’s taken the bag of holding minus the party’s collective funds and both his and Merla’s dogs, he needed to go to work out some things before he can face everyone again. Core can contact him if it’s an emergency and he doesn’t know when he’ll be back. A sloppily written post script mentions to not let Veiraen stab anyone and to only let someone stab Veiraen if he deserved it. The rogue crumples up the note before anyone else comes down stairs, adamant to not tell them about Eridol’s apparent betrayal.

We skip forward 7 months, Eridol is still missing, Veiraen, Whisky and Tornur have been spearheading overseeing construction of the keep, Drackuss is still being taken care of in a prison cell inside the main city by Core and several guardsmen and Emmi had entered a very open ended agreement with what looked like a magic item salesman for some new armaments that took the shape of a fabled sea captains boots, swords and cloak before retiring to her ship to fish and excavate sunken treasure when everyone gets a message from Core that he’ll be dropping by the keep in a weeks time with someone he’d like the group to meet and he expects everyone to be there. Emmi returns first, bringing all manner of gifts from her expeditions and is welcomed with open arms. Eridol tries to sneak in a few days later but is found by Veiraen who wants nothing to do with the gnome for how he just up and left everyone like that. How dare he try to come back now and act like nothing happened. What was he even doing that was so important that warranted such a shitty note and no other communication for months on end. Eridol apologises for how he acted, it was wrong of him to run away like that, everything got too much and he couldn’t face everyone like that but he can’t tell Veiraen most of what he was doing while he was away but some of it was working to break the connection between Drackuss and Bhaal as well as researching how to implant objects with divine energy. But he’ll do anything to make it up to Veiraen and the rest of the group. Veiraen mentions he’ll let Eridol in if he lets Veiraen stab him with a poison he’s been working on.

With out much of a choice, Eridol accepts and is lead into Veiraens alchemy lab where Veiraen mentions that the best way to apply the poison is directly to the blood using some kind of stabbing implement, like this handy dagger here. The light stabbing happens and Eridol doubles over in some of the worst agony he’s ever felt as his blood literally boils inside him. The pain is too much and Eridol sees himself back in the underground lair, Drackuss’ sword melting through his armor and splitting his chest open and he panic casts Spirit guardians for protection and Veiraen braces to be attacked by the spirits, but they harmlessly float through him before Eridol passes out into a shivering, disassociating heap on the ground. Veiraen cycles through his emotions very quickly as this all occurs, going from Smug determination to excitement to see the poison in action to mounting concern to fear and then to immediate concern as he spends the next 30 minutes trying to calm Eridol down and get him responsive again. Once their impromptu spooning session is over, Veiraen asks about the spell Eridol cast and why it hadn’t attacked him like it has in the past when they were fighting in the pit. Eridol groggily mentions that subconsciously he must have realised Veiraen wasn’t going to hurt him and that he only remembers it feeling exactly like Drackuss nearly bisecting him which kind of drove him over the edge in a panic.

With hopefully all the revenge pokes out of the way, everyone heads outside to wait for Core and their mystery guest. They arrive and Core introduces us to Septima, a heavily bandaged and covered druid of indeterminate race with glowing green eyes who really doesn’t appreciate Veiraen’s jokes. Introductions are made and Core mentions that he found Septima squatting on an abandoned isle to the south and figured we needed another set of eyes on us considering Drackuss was still out of commission due to the whole feeblemind fiasco. We see Core off and Septima asks if there is any way he could see how everyone fights, to make sure this will be worth his time. We set off to the portals to the north that let refugees and any number of beasties in every dawn. The group travels to the military encampment surrounding the portals and are met with initial resistance as some of the guards recognise Veiraen from when he came through initially and kind of went on a psychotic rampage and maybe killed several people. With tempers rising on both sides, this gets the attention of the commanding officer, a heavily armored dragonborn named Sukaren who comes barrelling over as Septima divides everyone with a wall of wind long enough for everyone to calm down. Sukaren demands to know why we’re at her outpost unanounced and we “calmly” explain that we’re a group of mercanaries who need to test out a new team member and thought why not come and help out the hard working military men and women keeping the kingdom safe and the monsters at bay. Kind of a two birds, multiple stones deal because lets be real our aim is bad at the best of times. We promise there’s nothing nefarious going on, we just want to fight something and then we’ll be on our way. Sukaren begrudgingly agrees on the proviso that our wizard and one of the rogues join up with different groups of infantry for the fight while the rest of us fight without assistance before pointing us towards one of the emptier infantry tents for the night as she stomps grumpily back to her tent warning that if she needs to come out before the sun’s up there’ll be hell to pay.

We start with a bit of a rewind and some Vieraen shenanigans that took place part way through last session. While everyone is out finishing a dark ritual to summon a tower, Vieraen is out to be a menace. He finds some children in an alley and asks them if they know how to delete someone or if there is anyone who would know … how to delete someone. They end up taking him to a ramshackle tent in one of the slums with basically the most kiwi orc ever known named Jake Johnson and then get to talking about poisons and just how good they are. After a bit of back and forth, they come to an agreement. Jake will help Vieraen make some dope poisons, but he needs to test them on the drow rogue … and by test we mean stab viciously in the gut to see how the poison affects someone,. Seeing nothing wrong with this, Vieraen gets poked and takes a ludicrous amount of damage. After a fairly long session of knifey stabby, Vieraen leaves his new friend, both with a greater understanding of how poisons hurt and several minor stab wounds he heads up to one of the main magic shops in town to try and sell some things and get a fancy new dagger. He starts talking with the Halfling shop owner about the dagger he wants and what it would take to reduce the price before he pulls out one of the gems he’d picked up from the tunnels leading to the witches den on our last group assignment. Fun fact about the gems he got, they’re all really good at containing a specific type of magic and the one he was trying to sell was a fully charged fireball set to explode at the slightest nudge. Somehow not noticing the halfling’s wide eyed terror that this drow hooligan basically just walked into his shop with a live grenade, Vieraen mentions he’s got like 10 more in his bag if the owner would be willing to trade. Things escalate, the shop owner wants Vieraen out of his shop, Vieraen reeeeally wants that dagger though. Vieraen mentions he’s not leaving without that dagger as the shop owner uses the moment to cast a suggestion that Vieraen should leave. Under a compulsion to gtfo, Vieraen wanders outside and the shop owner locks up behind him. With that taking up most of his day, Vieraen heads back to the barracks to sleep everything off and wait for everyone to get back from whatever errand Core sent everyone on.

Seeing as the weird sylph didn’t eat anyone in their sleep, the tower crew heads back to the barracks for a quick breakfast and fill Vieraen in on what they found before everyone gets a message from Core about a bar fight nearby he needs everyone’s help with. Feeling the need to brawl, Eridol and Drackuss lead the charge and as they slam open the tavern doors they find absolutely nothing. No brawl, just a couple drunks from the night before passed out on the bar and Core getting playfully batted at by probably the most adorable cat anyone had ever seen. Core introduces his new friend as Whisky Whiskers, she’s a 2 ft tall munchkin cat person and also a monk, also she drunk Core under the table last night.  Honestly, it would have been more adorable if she wasn’t here to keep an eye on Eridol and his constant teetering on the edge of a mental breakdown. With introductions made, Eridol asks if this was the bar fight he needed help with and with the magic words said, Drackuss starts a one man brawl with the drunks at the bar, breaking a chair over one and piledriving one through a table that leaves most of the poor man’s blood on the outside. Everyone tries to stop the dragonborn juggernaut, but it’s our new friend Whisky who manages to stop the beatdown with a stunning strike that lasts long enough for everyone sober enough to act to restrain Drackuss while Eridol feverously heals the men. Drackuss’s holy medallion slides to the floor in several pieces but this goes unnoticed by everyone but Drackuss and as far as he’s concerned, the less people who know about his broken oath at the moment the better. Drackuss apologises, he’s just been so antsy for a proper fight recently and this got the best of him. Eridol is too busy healing the patrons to notice and everyone else didn’t really care that much. Drack gonna drack.

With nothing really to do for the next day and a half due to Core needing to do more research on the giant tower that apparated out of the earth and Emmi heading back to her ship several towns away for some me time, everyone else decides it’s time to hit the bath house to relax and mostly to clean Eridol because even without the gore from the past few battles still hanging off his armor making him smell like ham and sadness, he’s still not really been taking care of things. Most of the group grabs a communal bath to chat and everything while Drackuss gets a bath on his own away from the group. Whisky gets to know everyone and generally makes Eridol uncomfortable with all the invasions of his personal space, asking if he’s ok and just generally not letting him mope, the group starts drinking away the day and having as much fun as a group of hardened adventurers can do in a communal bath house. Drackuss sneaks out of the bath house and heads into one of the nearby forests, driving by an urge and whispers in his head he ends on coming across the camp of one of our previous allies, Olgum the hobgoblin fighter. They have a tense conversation while Drackuss draws his sword, proclaiming he’s been sent here to retrieve something Olgum doesn’t deserve anymore. A shield Olgum has but refuses to use properly. A shield used to solidify a connection to Bhaal, the god of murder. Drackuss needs it and he intends to take it one way or another. It is less a fight and more an execution as Drackuss murders his once friend and ally. With the final blow a new connection is made between Drackuss and the evil god he now serves. He takes the shield, a ring and some trinkets before setting the camp ablaze and returning to the bath house, the rest of the group none the wiser because we’ve been drinking together in the  bath for the past 4 or so hours. They all talk about plans for the next few days, Vieraen wants to head back to the magic shop to see if he can talk that dagger into his pants and Eridol mentions everyone should come to the pits tomorrow to see him fight, it’ll be great. This is definitely not a cry for help, don’t worry about it.The crew heads up to the fight pits to cheer for Eridol as he tries to let off some steam against a hill giant they had all fought as a group several weeks ago that had a bone to pick with the tiny gnome who burst his chest open last time. Bets are placed and buffs are sneakily applied before they fizzle out entirely when Eridol enters the ring. The fight starts with a bang of holy light from Eridol that sends the giant reeling. The show is fierce and comes to a head when the giant throws several boulders, most of which hit Eridol as he is feebly trying to close the distance to the giant with his tiny gnome sized legs. They trade blows for what seems like hours until both are left broken and bloody with just enough energy for one last clash. Eridol gets off a fantastic hit to the ogre’s side, mirroring the last killing blow he gave the giant in the group fight while the giant swung down with his literal tree trunk of a club, hitting eridol dead on. The crowd grows quiet as the dust settles and only one of the combatants is visible. The giant’s hand twitches and a gnome wriggles out from under the tree trunk. Bruised, bloodied and broken but somehow victorious. The crowd erupts in cheers as the fight pit’s healing field brings the giant back to consciousness. Both fighters bow to each other and the crowd, glad to have put on a show and bury the hatchet in each other as it were. The group comes down to Eridol’s prep room to see the gnome slumped against one of the walls, letting the rooms healing aura mend some of his shattered bones as the bruises set in and he starts the process of making sure everything heals properly. Congratulations are given and Eridol gives a shaky thumbs up in response before basically passing out. Thoroughly spent from the fight and mumbling that he’ll see everyone back home once the post fight shakes go away and Eridol gets to take care of what he thinks is a concussion.

Vieraen mentions that they should go back to the magic shop in the mean time and off they trot to the Magical emporium to find it still locked and no signs of life. Which is weird, this place never closes, especially not for days at a time. The group decides this is a mystery worth solving as the poke and prod the building for clues and they end up in one of the back alleys all looking for a secret entrance. Not wanting to cause a scene, Drackuss decides to disguise himself as Core, our government official patron so he can hand wave away any nosey villagers who notice us totally not criminals slinking out behind a shop full to the brim with magical artifacts. After several more failed attempts to break into the place either to look for clues or so Vieraen can steal his dagger, the group decides they should notify Core because this is worrying and obviously someone further up the chain should be told about this. Core arrives out the back of the shop to see the group and his doppelganger that was Drackuss as they go over everything, Core admits it is a bit weird that the shop is closed and if they have any other ideas to get in. Vieraen thinks for a second and pulls out the fireball gem that honestly started this whole mess and mentions if they throw it at the door it should get through and as a group they all decide that yes, this is the way forward and the gem is yeeted at the building. The gem containing a charged fireball. Surprising literally everyone, it explodes and sets some of the neighbouring fences on fire but with no damage to the shop, y’know because it’s a magic shop and has preventative measures for this. Someone mentions that they should get Eridol down here to help treat any of the mild injuries, Vieraen takes it upon himself to call the cleric over their necklaces. With non existent panic in his voice he shouts “Eridol, you should come quick, someone’s about to die”, which gets a genuinely panicked response from the still recovering cleric that he was on his way.Realising that Eridol would be expecting to see some kind of injury, Vieraen turns to Drackuss and asks the now evil paladin if he could “Stab me real bad” which is really all Drackuss needs to hear as he turns on the drow and Vieraen realizes sometime between the first and second hits this was maybe a mistake because Drackuss is actually trying to kill him. Chaos ensues as Vieraen attempts to get away from his would be executioner, Whisky jumps up and tries to stun the dragonborn as Core and Tornur trade throwing themselves in front of the drow rogue with arcane shields a plenty to absorb the hits. No one knows what is happening, Drackuss is on the war path and obviously willing to cut them all down to get to Vieraen. Someone gets on the necklaces to let Eridol know that Drackuss has gone insane which is another heaping spoonful of terror Eridol tries to keep down as he is running through the streets, still covered in gore from his exhibition match in the pits. While Core and Tornur protect Vieraen, Core yells for Whisky to get out and that she needs to find Eridol. Whisky nods and takes off as fast as her tiny feline legs can go. Now without one of their trump cards to slow drackuss down, Tornur comes up with a plan and conjures a thick cube of webbing to restrict the raging paladin and slow him down long enough for Core to cast haste on everyone and get a glimpse of the cursed shield in Drackuss’ possiession. Between the haste, Vieraen’s innate knowledge of the city and Drackuss’ restricted movements they all get away and start running back towards the fight pits to regroup and call on the city guards. With his prey getting away, Drackuss knows the opportunity is lost and starts heading back to the barracks to either funnel everyone into a killbox or to gather supplies and leave to survive another day.

We start the session with everyone wandering back towards the main city and splitting up for now, Drackuss goes to spend the night at his favourite temple where he has a free room, Eridol and Merla are camping in the forest outside of town because of the whole “Merla’s wanted for murder” thing and the rogues trudge back to the barracks to crash for the night. Partway through the night, Emmi gets woken up by Eridol and Merla’s dogs, Pickle and Flufferbuns, scratching at one of the bedroom doors upstairs. She decides to let them in because it’s not her room if they destroy anything. Pickle goes and sits on Eridols bed like the good boy he is, but Flufferbuns gets a whiff of something that reminds her of Merla and starts digging at the floor, this of course gets Emmi’s attention so she dramatically rips the rug off the floor and sees the slightly warped floorboard that Flufferbuns has started pawing at. Cracking it open she finds a very bloodsoaked blanket hastily hidden in the floor. So the obvious thoughts come to mind “This must be Merla’s … but Merla’s too proud and not smart enough to hide something like this. Eridol’s hiding something” So with this knowledge she replaces the floorboard and takes the blanket to the only other lawful person on the squad, Drackuss to figure out what to do about it.

After climbing the frankly ludicrous amount of stairs to the temple, she finds Draccus deep in prayer and offers up the mystery she’s found. A blood soaked blanket, hidden by one of the tiny folk in the group. Either it’s got something to do with Merla or Eridol’s been taking his frustrustrations out on something and trying to hide it. Drackuss looks at all the available information and decides they’ll get their answers in the morning, satisfied with that plan, Emmi heads back to the barracks to sleep and we get to spend some time with the tiny ones in the forest. Eridol and Merla have a quick heart to heart about how Merla’s doing with the whole murder thing and it’s starting to sink in that there’s no getting her way out of this, Eridol sadly brings up that actions have consequences and we need to be held accountable for what we do, even if he understands why she did it. With this final nail in the coffin, Merla breaks into a sprint to escape her friend turned reluctant prison guard. By the time Eridol realises, she’s out of the way of most of his abilities. In a panic he releases a guiding bolt, which hits too true and causes Merla to trip over a root ... sending her neck first onto her axe. After a string of gnomish cursing he runs over and stabilises her before getting in touch with Core to fill him in on the attempted escape and very near murder. Receeving instructions to tie her up and bring her to the gates, Eridol strips Merla of the majority of her weapons and begins carrying her towards town. Feeling deeply conflicted between following the teaching of his god which require justice above all else and having had attacked someone he cares deeply about, Eridol doesn’t notice Merla slipping her bonds and taking off into the woods until it’s too late and she’s too far away to catch up. He sends a bolt of divine energy after her knowing full well it’ll dissipate before reaching her. With a solitary fuck and his fondness for a friend winning over his sense of duty to Tyr he sits down in the road and for the second time since waking up in a prison cell with no memories, Eridol fully opened himself up to Tyr to meditate on whether he did the right thing trying to stop Merla. Drifting off, he finds himself surrounded by an expansive white void, he blinks and before him is a monumental set of scales unmoving as a statue. Perfectly balanced and behind it a single, all encompassing blue eye staring down on the frightened gnome. It takes 30 minutes to come out of the trance, ample time for Merla to have made an escape. Eridol gets up and wanders back to Principium. He meets Core at the town gates and mumbles that Merla got away before straight up lying to the government official about not knowing which way she went. Eridol shrugs off Merla’s pack and her axe, gives them to Core and wordlessly heads back to the barracks and oozes into his bunk to sleep off that “I nearly murdered someone I care about then had to face down my divine sugar daddy to see if I made the right choice” migraine. He awakens to the telltale sound of Drackuss stomping towards his door wearing full armor, fighting the instinct to grab his weapon Eridol stands and really hopes his trust in Drackuss can outweigh his fear at being cut down by that flaming sword again. The door slams open and the ever imposing figure of Drackuss fills the frame, Eridol stamps down his fear before noticing the slightly less imposing figure of Emmi behind Drackuss. They know about the bloody blanket under the floor and that Merla didn’t put it there, they need answers. WIth no reason to hide it anymore, Eridol tells them the truth. He found Merla had used the blanket to wipe off her axe after killing that peasant, he was going to look into it when he had a chance but they had to all leave in a hurry for their last assignment so he hid it so Merla couldn’t get rid of it in the mean time ... but that’s not really of use anymore and he retells how Merla failed to run before succeeding to run away. Everyone receives a message from Core to meet him later in the day and we all get dressed up to head over. With a quick stop over at a local tavern, eager to get drunk enough to deal with whatever fresh hell Core points us towards and never talk about it ever again. We enter to find Veiraen already there making a scene trying to swindle some drunk out of their money before he comes over and with the deftest of fingers manages to steal a control to what equates to a fantasy shock collar he’s currently wearing before legging it out the door with a cheeky grin and a brief “Fill me in later” before setting off for solo shenanigans. Knowing nobody can catch the man when he’s like this, we settle in to have a few drinks to generally grumble about life which leads to drunkenly exclaiming that Core is secretly a devil and an argument over what kind of devil he would be. This gets the attention of a particular dwarf sitting at the bar, a wizard named Tornur specialising in transmutation who up until this morning had been working for the large fight pits in the city helping to maintain their incredibly complicated magical fields but had been sequestered by our wonderful sorcerer patron for an unspecified amount of time

We drunkenly accept the newcomer for a few rounds before heading off to Core’s place for our next group assignment. Which is very similar to the last assignment, head back to the mistress’ underground temple and finish the last ritual to unlock the towers of perdition and hopefully find a way out of the country before population control becomes a necessity. But first some good news! For everything we’ve done so far, Core has gotten the ruling council to agree to give us a plot of land and have a keep built, he just needs everyone to sign some paperwork first to say we agree and being the drunkards most of us are, Emmi, Eridol and Drackuss eagerly sign and cojole Tornur into signing as well. With all the members of Tacty’l Ymon who were present signed and accounted for we head off back to an accursed underground temple that was used by a weird hag and several cultists which is a sobering enough thought to ward off the booze haze everyone except Drackuss was in on the way there. We make our way towards the underground temple in relative silence to finish what we started. A ritual to possibly find a way out of the country, the ritual goes off perfectly and everyone feels a earth shattering kaboom as somewhere in the country, a gleaming tower appears in an instant. Everyone treks back to the city and Core once again tries to get Eridol to open up about the frankly worrying amount of emotional stress he’s putting on himself and receives a quiet “There’s more important things to worry about”  before Eridol moves further away from everyone.

As we exit one of the large forests between the towns, we see it. A single break in the horizon, impossibly tall even at this distance. A tower of perdition. With nothing else to go on, we trudge towards the tower and the small crowd of people who had come to see the new addition to the landscape, a flash of Core’s credentials and the gawkers disperse as we enter the tower to a frankly underwhelming experience. The tower is a singular room containing the usual stuff you expect in an interdimensional hell tower, some books, a skeleton, a stone well, a weirdly animated brick that paralyses whatever it touches. You know. Stuff. As we all look around, Tornur finds a hidden compartment with a singular vial of pearlescent liquid inside and calls it out to everyone. Core demands that Tornur gives it to him immediately, going so far as trying to snatch it out of the dwarfs hands. Without hesitation, Tornur refuses and asks what it could be to get Core so possessive. Core says he doesn’t have time for this and points Drackuss towards our new companion with a dismissive “Get the vial and don’t kill him”. Before anyone else can react, Drackuss has his flaming sword out and strikes Tornur across the side of the head. The distinctive flair of divine magic empowering his strike and making the damage so much worse. Drackuss peels the red hot steel out off Tornur’s fractured skull, taking several sheets of flesh off the mortally wounded dwarf as it goes.

In the few seconds it takes Eridol to make his way over, he is already chanting words as he transfers part of his essence into Tornur. He gives more than he means to in a panic. But still bone fuse, muscle repairs and breath returns until all that is left of the wound is a large red band of scarring running mostly into the dwarfs hairline. Drackuss hands the vial over to Core and apologises to Tornur, he didn’t mean for that to be so much. Core explains that this is a vial of allmagic. Highly unstable, transformative, concentrated magic that shouldn’t be able to exist and is too dangerous to be left in unprepared hands. While the fantasy Mexican standoff eases up between the men, Emmi is searching the room and finds something in the well that gets everyones attention. A figure made of a silvery liquid appears and exits the well. Calling themselves a slyph and asking who wishes to partake,  we have a maddeningly circular conversation with the being who gets the majority of the group to let her test if they are able to travel except Eridol who thinks someone should not let the weird water person mess with their head that they met 5 minutes ago in the weird otherworldly tower. The slyph mentions that this continent was quarantined from the material plane centuries ago for reasons beyond their knowledge, but for a price she can allow travel. With this, everyone decides to break for the night. Tornur and Core return to the city to finish some business and research their respective needs while Drackuss, Emmi and Eridol stay in the tower for the night as security. While Drackuss and Eridol take turns whipping coins and books down the well to pass the time, Emmi dreams of her life.

A silhouetted figure she knows is her mother

A broken ship sinking into the ocean