#alithra

Giles and Dreya get pretty fucked up, cry a lot, hit on each other and decide to get tattoos of each other's names, but being as drunk as they were, told the tattoo artist they were spelled “Gile” and “Drina”.

Meanwhile Umong is sober, attempting to keep order among the party, and Aal drunkenly robs a random dwarf for their last gold piece. At some point, Umong says Giles needs a bath cuz she’s filthy and Giles runs amok, climbing on roofs and hiding in merchant’s tents, followed by police all the while.

Umong manages to get Aaliyah to the local inn, and meets a mysterious and enchanting strange woman in a blue robe. Umong tells her that they’re headed to Neverwinter, and the woman tells her that Neverwinter is ablaze and warns her against going.

Meanwhile, Giles and Dreya are drunkenly trying to find their room and burst in on a man shaving his ass. Giles verbally assaults this poor strange man, who viciously mocks her in return, nearly killing her with powerful wizardly magics.

Sam takes everyone to meet the dryad, a thick-limbed, huge dryad with fall coloration and golden eyes. Sam introduces the party and assures the dryad that they won’t harm her, yet she’s still cautious. Her name is Derwa, and her tree is a gorgeous oak that produces acorns that give one health when eaten. Derwa offers the party some of the acorns to take with them. Sam casts protection on the party that will shield them from the view of all evil creatures and beings for a limited time span while they search Neverwinter. Using a necklace Aal found on the beach in the second session, she transforms herself into a plesiosaurus in a river that Sam assures them leads into the city, and everyone hops on her back and they head to Neverwinter.

Even approaching the city, they can see how bad off it is. Smoke in the sky, buildings aflame, demons and fiends flying about. Once they’re past the walls, they see a rift that split the city apart and is pouring demons and fiends into the sky. The party notices a building shimmering in the same glow of protection that Sam put on them and head towards that, hopping up on a dock, getting Aal back to normal, and heading inside. The building has been untouched by the fires that ravage the city and within they find a portrait of Alithra, confirming it was indeed the robed woman in the town of Shamwow, as well as a Talisman of Pure Good that Dreya claims for her own. They spend a bit of time searching around and as they leave, the glow of protection fades. The roof of the house ignites from the other homes in the row, and they’re quickly spotted by a huge demon covered in chains.

The chain devil proves to be a terrible foe, forcing them to relive their worst fears and doing some significant damage physically and psychologically. Giles sees her dead lover Willow burning, Dreya sees her missing sister dead and bloody, Umong sees her grandmother dead, and Aaliya sees her long-lost pirate friends destroyed. Once Dreya overcomes the illusion, she uses the new Talisman to cast the demon into the pits of hell in a flash. Thoroughly disturbed and shaken, the party manages to sneak into a boat and avoid any further conflict, sailing out of the city.

They make it back to where they left Sam and Derwa and ask for help to both calm down and to find Alithra. Aaliyah passes out at some point, and Sam casts calm emotions on everyone else, lifting their spirits significantly. Umong hangs out in the boat with Aaliyah, and Giles and Dreya have a talk about Giles’ dead lover Willow as they both sit on Derwa’s beefy dryad lap. One thing leads to another and Giles, Dreya, and Derwa go off and have a wild threesome.

Once everyone is good and calm, Sam and Derwa suggest they speak with Grandpa Arahkor, an ancient treant in The High Forest to the west. Everyone hops back in the boat, Aaliyah wakes up, and they head up the river to the west as far as it’ll go before hitting land and walking to the town of Longsaddle.

As they walk up the dirt road to the small town, they see a large golden palanquin with flowing silk panels flanked by several tieflings wearing masks and robes. Dreya is very excited to see tieflings out and about, hoping maybe they might know something of her sister. They all move out of the way, except for Aal, who stares at the palanquin from the middle of the road. A voice booms out, ordering her to move, and she refuses. She ends up being charmed, and is forced to enter the palanquin. Umong runs after her and is horrified to find her cruel ex girlfriend Amari within, now in full control of Aal. With a few sharp words, Amari manipulates Umong into staying in the palanquin with her. The tieflings pick them up and begin to move once more, and Dreya panics, igniting the silk of the palanquin after unmasking one of the tieflings and finding a strange symbol on her head.

Everyone begins to fight but Aal turns on Giles and begins to choke her and Amari gathers the six tieflings, forms a circle of held hands and they teleport away, but not before their masks drop off and Dreya realizes one of them is her sister, obviously under some controlling spell. Aal goes back to normal, Dreya passes out, and they move into town to find a hospital.

The doctor is a nice little country man and helps nurse the party back to health, giving calming potions and patching up all of their wounds. Aaliyah goes to wander the town alone, angry and looking to release some anger. She happens upon a barn where an orc woman is churning butter, and the woman offers her a job helping her. Aal seduces the butter orc and they make sweet, buttery love, but the orc is REALLY bad at it, unfortunately, so Aal leaves more frustrated than she was when she arrived.

They set off on the road with this mysterious, heavy package, on the road north. A few miles up, they come upon a distressed young girl. She introduces herself as Emily. She’s ten years old and her family runs a temple just north of where she was, and says her family was attacked by bad monsters. She begs everyone to help and they agree, some begrudgingly. Giles does not trust this little girl one bit, and is very rude to her and everyone else in the party. Dreya equips the girl with a dagger, and they head off towards the temple.

The entrance of the temple is gloomy and creepy, covered in vines and looking very abandoned. Emily assures everyone that it was an active and safe temple before the monsters took over, though she wasn’t sure what exactly her temple worshipped. She recalled a lot of nice potlucks and gatherings, and begged everyone to please help her family.

Upon entering the temple, it’s very clear that this temple has been out of use for a while now. They move on regardless, entering a room to their right and warding off a magical trap as they go. A swarm of bats flies overhead and Aaliyah deftly reaches up and snatches one out of the air. It immediately transforms into a quasit, and gets to its feet, ready to rumble. Dreya charms the quasit, and it introduces itself as Roger. Dreya asks about what is in charge in the temple, and as Roger begins to respond, he seems to begin choking, eyes bulging, and he passes out before them. They move into the room beyond, finding some potions and a dead end, and head back.

The party goes through another door and finds themselves in a sort of common area. Several quasits greet them and they easily mow them down. One tried to intimidate Aal but critically failed, shat itself and ran off. Another threatened, “You’ll pay for what you did to my friends!” Aal asked, “How much?” And it replied “Two dollars and fifteen cents!” to which she said “Yeah, we only have gold, so,” and then killed it.

After defeating the quasits without much of a scratch, they enter a chamber that seems to be a place of worship. A large, demonic statue was across the room with several stone benches facing it and an altar before it. Several shelves lined the room and the party began to search the room. The door behind them sealed shut and Emily walked to the altar, watching them all. Aal was the first to notice that her eyes began to glow and her form shifted completely, and a fully grown doppelganger monstrosity stood before them. She telepathically requested that Aal hand over the slab, and Aal denied and attacked, running at the monstrosity and shoving her trident at her.

Emily is built like a fucking mountain and her abs deflected the trident without effort. She ran at Aal and attempted a bodyslam and missed, falling on the ground then hopping back up. Giles threw a lasso around Emily’s neck and attempted to yank her back but Emily, again, is a tank, and pulled Giles forward to slam into her back. Umong ran forward to swing her greataxe and missed badly. Dreya cast magic missile and did a good bit of damage. Emily attempted another bodyslam and missed again, and it was hilarious. Aal attempted to shove her trident up Emily’s ass and her strong cheeks deflected it effortlessly. Giles shot Emily in the shoulder with an arrow, and then Umong prepared to throw Giles at Emily and dropped her on her face. After a bit of goofy misses, Umong finally came in with a finalizing swing of her greataxe, and as Emily died she whispers, “I’m just a ten year old girl,” and dies.