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6 Tarsakh 1471, (Day 11)

Dawn

The Triboar Trail

• Orthanc Hellbringer casts Druidcraft to check the weather for the day
  • He tells The Party that it is going to rain today. 
  • It is actively raining.
    • It is like he has ESPN or something
  • Because it’s raining and we have a wheeled vehicle, travel is more difficult and travel speed is halved for the day
• The Party eats breakfast and packs up camp
• The Party decides to travel in the rain and leaves
• "Rig" asks Meilu if she can act as the guide and just… stay on the road. 
  • Meilu looks at her like the answer is obvious and starts walking.

Midday

• Orthanc forages for the day and is successful 
  • 5 total food or rations in any split he wants
• "Rig" scouts, stealthing through the woods ahead of The Party, see’s shaking grass. 
  • "Rig" alerts Meilu and gets between the cart and the grass she saw

Combat

• Giant Insects burst from the grass and attack The Party
• "Rig" is caught in the Pincers of a Giant Insect. While it grapples her she stabs it.
• Orthanc hears the combat from the woods where he’s foraging and dashes to help and goes into a rage
• Vala casts chromatic orb at the insect that has "Rig" grappled. It is damaged, but doesn’t release her.
• Vala gives Meilu bardic inspiration.
• Someone (maybe it was Valas spell but I could not hear who) hit the Giant Insect in the head and it let go of "Rig".
• The Giant Insect tries to burrow back into the ground to escape The Party. "Rig" stabs it in the head as it tries. It escapes.

• Vala asks "Rig" to help her check on Meilu and "Rig" agrees
  • Vala and "Rig" wipe the acid off of Meilu’s face 
  • "Rig" heals Meilu with her healers kit
    • Meilu look at them gratefully
  • "Rig" smiles at Meilu and knuckles her earhole
    • Meilu loves that and leans into Rig
• "Rig" heals herself
• The Party gets back on the road

Afternoon

• The Party travels until sundown and starts looking for a good place to camp
• Vala sends her Tressym to fly overhead and, looking through Miss Tra’s eyes, finds a good spot off the road

Camp

• The Party Sets up Camp
  • Orthanc grabs large branches overhanging and ties them together, creating an overhang to light a fire and shelter under
  • Vala sees Orthanc’s work and starts filling in the cracks between the larger branches, solidifying the structure
  • "Rig" manages to find dry branches beneath larger debris and gathers them up to start a fire
  • Vala ritual casts Alarm around the camp
• The Party relaxes 
  • Vala gathers 2 water rations
  • Orthanc tries to relax but everything looks very different from the mountains where he’s from and he can’t
  • Rig’s under the cart again with her feet up, straight chillaxin
    • "Rig" carves an anatomically correct heart into the bottom of the cart with her stiletto and gains inspiration
• The Party eats and drinks
  • Vala gives "Rig" one of the water rations she collected, assuring her she did not make it with magic
  • After feeding their hirelings,The Party is already running low on Rations
    • "Rig" notes that they need to hunt and seems worried about starvation
• The Party sleeps
  • "Rig" goes to bed early and wakes up early to hunt
  • After feeding themselves and the hirelings again, The Party is extremely low on food and water rations.

7 Tarsakh 1471, (Day 12)

Dawn

Camp

• The Party wakes up hungry and it is raining even harder
• Considering the inclement weather, The Party decides to stay in camp for the day instead of traveling
• Vala rigs up a massive water collection device and collects more than enough water to last for awhile
• Orthancand "Rig" decide to go hunting
  • Vala wants to send her tressym, Ms Tra, with them, but the cat isn’t entertaining ANY ideas of going out in the rain
  • Orthanc attempts to endear himself to Ms Tra with limited success. She is friendly but still very wary of him
  • Orthanc fails to find any game in the bad weather
  • "Rig" manages to find some small game and brings back 3 rations of meat

Evening

• The Party settles in for the night and performs Camp Activities
  • "Rig" attempts to stretch some food rations and begrudgingly accepts some help from Vala
    • They fail to stretch the rations but get some temp HP from improving their food a bit
• Orthanc attempts to stretch rations but also fails
• The Party eats and drinks but is running low on food rations
• Orthanc mentions that he wants to find, kill, and eat some goblins
  • Slûûp is a little afraid, asking Master Orthanc to not eat him, nor eat any of “his kin” in front of him
  • Slûûp does admit that’d he’d eat goblin in dire times, because he is highly motivated by self-preservation
• Vala prays to her gods and burns incense
• "Rig" prays and appeals to Tymorafor a break in the bad weather
  • She flips her favorite Unusual Coin and asks for the blessing of Lady Luck
• The Party rests for the night

8 Tarsakh 1471, (Day 13)

Dawn

• The Party awakes to find the rain has stopped but the weather has become very strange: there is a dense, electric purple fog covering the land
  • Vala succeeds on an Arcana check - remembering that the Purple Haze is a magical phenomenon that sometimes occurs in the region
    • The fog is illusory - some type of wild Illusion magic - and once inside the fog, one has unobstructed sight but everything has a purple tinge to it
  • Vala explains the phenomenon to the group, trying to persuade them that travel will be safe
    • "Rig" doesn’t trustVala or the magic around her and covers her mouth with a handkerchief to prevent breathing in the fog
    • Despite Orthanc and Rig’s reticence, The Party sets out on the road

Morning

Triboar Trail

• The Party comes to a crossroads with 3 routes
  • A newer but very well-traveled route continuing east along the established Triboar Trail
  • A very old and heavily used trail heading northeast, almost parallel to the Triboar Trail
    • The Party finds a partially destroyed sign that suggests this is the old spur of the Triboar Trail that headed to Conyberry
    • Vala recalls the history of Conyberry and that Sister Garaele Xil'oama warned them to steer clear of the town
  • An older but less used route heading north towards Neverwinter Wood
    • The Party assumes that this is the trail to Agatha's Lair, and follows the north path
• While deciding what to do at the crossroads, Vala begins to contemplate on her uncharacteristically dirty state
  • She realizes that her boots are VERY dirty considering she cleans them every night before sleeping
  • "Rig" has been, very stealthily, re-applying mud to Vala’s boots every night
    • Vala suspects something is amiss with how dirty she is getting, despite her efforts, but does not know the exact cause of it
      • Vala gains 8 stress in dealing with the trauma of being dirty for the first time in her pampered life

Afternooon

Agatha's Lair

• The Party finds a disused trail heading into Neverwinter Woodand follows it, eventually coming upon an extremely old and decrepit herbalists’ cottage built into the side of a small hill with a massive, gnarled tree growing out of it
  • The Party assumes it is Agatha's Lair and discusses how to proceed with interacting with her
  • "Rig" succeeds on a History check to remember that banshees are usually evil, malevolent spirits that usually exist only to torment and kill mortals
  • Agatha the Banshee is a very rare type of banshee that retained knowledge and identity from her mortal life
    • Others have successfully bargained with her, but she is very fickle, vain, and obsessed with tokens from her past life
  • The Party warily approaches the entrance
    • Vala knocks on the door frame and some of it crumbles away - nothing happens in response
    • "Rig" reconnoiters the house - admiring its quaint, naturalist architecture and finding an abandoned garden and a window looking into a kitchen/herbalists’ workshop
• The Party pushes the open front door, revealing the interior - it is mostly empty, evidently abandoned for hundreds of years
  • Vala enters, grasping Agatha the Banshee’s Silver Comb, in her hands and announces The Party’s presence and that they have a possession of Agatha the Banshee’s Silver Comb
  • The room suddenly gets very cold and a faint glimmer of an ethereal face appears to them asking what they have
• The Party converses with Agatha the Banshee
  • In life, Agatha the Banshee was friend to many Harpers and finds it interesting that the Harpers found her Silver Comb and sent The Party to give it to her
  • Agatha the Banshee slowly begins revealing more of her form to The Party
    • "Rig" flatters Agatha the Banshee, using her vanity to The Party’s advantage
  • Agatha the Banshee is interested in The Party’s search for Wave Echo Cave but very disinterested in the wellbeing or whereabouts of Gundren Rockseeker - she cares not for the lives of mortals
    • Agatha the Banshee believes that The Forge of Spells has likely been ransacked and all items of value are likely gone
    • She also believes it would be very dangerous to attempt to begin using the Forge again, if it has been damaged
• Vala mentions that The Harpers sent The Party to ask Agatha the Banshee about the whereabouts of Bowgentle's Spellbook
• The Party attempts to convince Agatha the Banshee to give them information about Wave Echo Cave and Bowgentle's Spellbook in exchange for the Silver Comb, but she agrees to only give information on one
  • "Rig" doesn’t believe that The Party is obligated to trade the comb for information about Bowgentle's Spellbook and wants to get the location of Wave Echo Cave
  • Vala and Orthanc feel obligated to stick to their agreement with Sister Garaele Xil'oama and The Harpers
  • Vala succeeds on a History check about the Harpers and Bowgentle's Spellbook
    • Work to resist tyrants and anyone gathering too much power throughout the realms
    • Numbers and power have been devastated in the past centuries and working to rebuild
    • Bowgentle's Spellbook could provide The Harpers with significant magical power and information to bolster the organization
  • After some deliberation, The Party decides to trade Agatha the Banshee’s Silver Comb for the location of Bowgentle's Spellbook
    • Agatha the Banshee informs The Party that she was in possession of the book for many hundreds of years and read it extensively
    • About 100 years ago, she traded it to a very powerful archmage named Tsernoth, who lives in the city of Iriaebor
      • Agatha the Banshee did not suspect Tsernoth of being a malevolent actor, but she also doesn’t really care for or pay much attention to mortals
    • Agatha the Banshee thanks The Party for their gift and for admiring her then disappears
    • Vala succeeds on an Insight check to determine if Agatha the Banshee was forthright with her information 
      • Vala has no reason to distrust Agatha the Banshee, who was very transactional and known to stick to her deal with others

Evening

Agatha's Lair - Camp

• The Party decides to take advantage of the safety and security of Agatha's Lair and camp there for the night
  • "Rig" and Vala successfully stretch food rations, making each used ration count as 2 and providing Temp HP to The Party members
  • Orthanc successfully hunts a deer, returning with 8 food rations

9 Tarsakh 1471, (Day 14)

Dawn

• The Party awakens to very fair weather - lightly cloudy - ideal travel conditions
• The Party discusses choices for their next destination
  • Vala argues for entering the Lost Hills to either investigate The Old Owl Well or attempt to find the Orcs at Wyvern Tor
  • "Rig" discusses her distaste for “backtracking” on a trail they’ve already been on
• The Party decides to leave the decision up to Meilu - they unhitch her from the wagon, she looks at them questioningly and then begins to follow the Triboar Trail back the way they came

Afternoon

Triboar Trail

• The Party has an uneventful travel day, heading west on the Triboar Trail toward Phandalin

Evening

Camp

• At sunset, The Party comes to an area where they had been told an older section of the trail used to follow, heading into The Lost Hills
• The Party sets camp for the night
  • "Rig" fails to gain inspiration while meditatively sharpening her knives
  • Vala succeeds on creating 17 water rations
  • Orthanc successfully sharpens one of his hunting axes, giving it +1 property for the next 5 attacks using it
• The Party rests for the night

Next Session → Session 008: A Mysterious Meeting on the Road