1. Journals

Session no. 22: Gathering information

Charlie's Session Notes

Who is around

Where are we

House Marivaldi

 ✏️ Someone else is hunting down artifacts of the Mithril Moon. We got a fruit basket with crystals from Arhjan. We travel to Earthshaker Temple, where we meet Yalana's childhood friend Cory, and they spar. Cory warned about drow in the area, as well as some kind of reptile. Left for Plexstin and on the way Khohros meets Skyroar the giant boar. It comes with us. We arrive at Yalana's mother's home and we listen to some lore. Elissa and Khohros go on a walk and Elissa have a revelation that she may have living relatives. We speak about the Heaping Eyes looking for the Tuning Fork in the Mountains, and then use that to get the Matron's Embrace. Yalana scries on her dad, and he was on a battlefield.

Morning

We wake up in House Marivaldi, and those of us who have windows facing the garden can see that there is a banquet table set up there. It has been raining overnight, and the grey sky is slowly opening up, letting in the morning sun.

Yalana tries to give the Orb of Scrying back to Sai, and then catches her mother Rhyssa's attention, showing that they need to talk about Yalana's visions of her father from last session.

(A drow man in full armour, commander's regalia. He is standing on a hill, yelling out commands to subordinates. He is playing the violin, and clearly currently involved in a surface raid. At the very end, things seem to die down, and he clips the violin. A sword sheathes itself at his back. Someone bring me a meal, because something is going to happen. He enters a tent and sits down at the dining table, people putting out fires around him. Right before the connection ends, he makes eye-contact with Yalana.)

Elissa and Sai ask Luisa about her studies and get only very basic answers. Something which becomes apparent as we stay, is that there are seemingly no servants working the house.

As breakfast wraps up, Selise grabs her bag and starts heading out for work, and Rhyssa starts clearing away the banquet table. Luisa's private tutor arrives, a silver haired foxy slender man, with a stack of textbooks in his arms and what seems to be half an office sticking out of his bag.

As Luisa leaves, she brushes past Elissa and whispers something in her ear, almost seeming embarassed.

"...I like your jacket."

📖 Lore Summary from Josie
Sai scried on the Heaping Eyes and overheard them talking about the Matron's Embrace and how they need to get to it first. other ppl are also trying to get to it, some to destroy it and some to use it they were talking about finding a "tuning fork" in "the mountains" we know of a tuning fork attuned to the feywilde located in the mountains outside of riverstage/tosc'alia (spelling?). its with a hag we've dealt with before. we cant be sure its the only one, ofc, but we think so the matron's embrace is an item/set of items that belonged to a champion of the raven queen. said champion lived a long time ago, but no one knows what happened to them bc they ended up basically saying fuck this and disappeared as for the abilities of the matron's embrace, the abilities arent 100% known but are uh. IIRC said to be time related and also powerful

So, what now?

Isaac asks Yalana what our plan is. Yalana says she wishes she could give us a plan of any sort, and that frankly she does not know what to do. The short story of the situation goes as follows.

  • Yalana was brought up in a very bad place. Both she and her mother were treated very badly, and they felt they had no choice but to run away.
  • Her father was a noble in high standing. Raiding is what he mostly did.
  • Yalana and her and mom eventually escaped, but not without struggles. She hasn't heard from her father since.
  • Since she got the letter she wants to make sure they don't arrive before she does.
  • She can't think of anyone from before that she would consider a friend.

The Situation

  • Last night Yalana scried on her father; he is on surface raiding.
    • This side of the Bastion, not north(?). East something.
  • Torn between wanting to be here when they arrive, and not wanting to leave the raiding party to go unchecked.
  • Couldn't use Word of Recall to bring us back here in an emergency.
  • There are many places you can get up from the Underdark, so we can't know what route they took.
  • We might be able to find out through word of mouth of where drow raiding parties have passed through.
  • We should also contact the Legion and check if they have heard anything.
  • Yalana wants to speak to her mother about the situation.
  • Maddox is arriving in port today.

Briefing Rhyssa

Tells mother that she scried last night, and that her father is active again. He is someplace this side of the Bastion. She seems worried, and Yalana promises we won't let him go unchecked, and that she won't allow him to get anywhere close to this place. Rhyssa thanks Yalana, and goes to put on her gardening gear, grabbing her tools in thoughtful silence. She snaps out of her 'trance' and says she will be in the garden, and that she needs some time to think.

Isaac asks Yalana about it after, and she is frustrated, because she thought they were safe, and that since so much time had passed since they escaped she had naively believed it wouldnt come back to haunt her. She doesn't want to drag her mother into all this.

We gather up, and start heading towards Plexstin.

Plexstin

Sai wants to cast Find Familiar, and buys components for this, plus some grease, fishing line and little bells for making traps. Fang picks up some dried herbs and animal pelts, wanting to see if he can learn to craft with them.

Khohros looks for a traveler or merchant who seems to have come here from inland, and he finds one merchant traveling by cart.

Halfling, clean shaven man, poofy curly orange hair. Well made yet worn suit.

Doesnt know about drow, but has been warned about the 'night people'. Lone travelers and smaller villages where the houses are more spead apart. People have been going missing in a triangular area between here (Plexstin), Oakenveil and Grynsteim. Havent seen them, but that is the name they have been called.

Khohros buys a lilac scented beard oil as a thank you.

Isaac looks at a quest board, and finds a quest for taking out a manticore nest. There are general caution notes, but none specifically about drow raids. They ask around in a guard's office, and get much of the same information as Khohros. One of the guards, a very young halfling woman, steps forward. She heard of some kind of attack in a place called Pineshire (not on the Flythandra map?). Someone talked about finding a town square of corpses without any visible injuries.

Elissa goes to a second hand bookstore and looks for books about her mother. She finds one called Icons of the Realm, and finds a chapter about Delilah Woods. There is also a very worn copy of Bardic Tales III, of which we already have a few copies.

Icons of the Realm covers her artistic life, and her travels. The last pages are a short interview, having caught her in a dinghy bar. The end of the interview has her scrawled signature.

The Bardic Tales III is missing pages, and maybe 1/3 of the book can actually be read. We don't know how many copies there are in the series.

Our copies of the Delilah's Bardic Tales so far:

  • Bardic Tales I
  • Bardic Tales II
  • Bardic Tales III (badly damaged)
  • Bardic Tales IV

Reuniting with Maddox

As we gather back in the port we see a ship, with Maddox sitting up front and a Reef-born wearing a fur coat, clearly very cold.

Maddox and Sai are officially introduced, and Maddox finds him to be quite rude. We catch up about our year away.

Maddox hands out pairs of enchanted earrings to everyone.

 💎 Maddox' Earrings of Communication A single dangly earring per person which allow us to communicate indefinitely, with a range of 8 miles. (About 2 hrs travel. Touch them and speak, and everyone wearing them will hear what they say. No attunement required. All of them are personalised, and Khohros' one is made with a pearl.

We are really thankful. Since Maddox has spent time with the Silver Legion, Yalana asks if she has heard anything about the Legion mobilising in response to anything major.

They want to dig into the history of the Legion, and more specifically where the divide happened between the Underdark and the Surface. They also want to understand why gates to other planes are more likely to open up in the Underdark.

Eilathriz Yauntar arrives

Someone is at the gate, looking for Yalana.

High elven woman, white blonde hair, leaning against the gate. Dogs angrily barking and ignored. Beret and pieces of armor strapped on.

Greets Yalana with a 'There you are!'. Yalana remembers her as Eilathriz Yauntar, her former squire(?). Eilethriz Yauntar compliments Yalana's hair.

We get in to speak, and we find out this is the person who sent the letter.

  • Confirms that Yalana is from a certain drow-house (ask what it was called).
  • Yalana's dad is leading a search party
  • Looking for the 'Leyline Map'.
  • He has narrowed it down to 5 places, not found it yet, but has 3 places left on list
    • Wheatband
    • Deercrest
    • Shuril

Why the secrecy? - Because the drow are tricky. Also because not alone in looking for that, judging by the way he's been talking about it. Snuck into camp once, managed to catch Aaron(?) before running away.

Connection to the crazy wizard in Perdutaboco?

Leyline Map might be connected to documents Sai found in the house connected to the Mind Spiders (Session no. 15: Arachnophobia.)

  • Way back in the tunnels and mind spiders, wizard had research papers in which he mentioned having colleagues in the cities Eilathriz mentioned, but has allies there. They might be alive still.
    • Cormin Cherryseeker - Wheatband
    • Vezurz Flare - Deercrest
    • Hulo - Shuril

Yudel Shademark is Yalana's mothers old friend, a smith in Wheatband.

Arnold Sheepskin, retired fisherman, might have a ship we can rent/buy. We are trying to get to Wheatband.

We rush in towards Plexstin and find the home of Arnold Sheepskin. His boat might be a little small, but should be acceptable for our needs. He is willing to sell the ship, but not to come with us to Wheatband.

Elissa volunteers to learn how to steer a ship, since her father was a fisherman. Elissa's father was named Calrose. He didn't have a surname, since he was the one from Shroomshire and they already have so many names.

We rent the ship for 40GP+5 for every day we are away. Sai recruits 3 sailors to man the ship, and we set off, most likely going to reach Wheatband in the evening.

Sailing to Wheatband

We want to make a plan of attack while we have some downtime on the ship. We ask about Yalana's father. Isaac asks if Yalana wants us to kill him. She says yes, at least if we enter combat with him. He is a spellcaster, controlling a 'dancing blade' with a violin.

We ask Eilathriz about Yalana's fathers forces. He most likely has a couple of spellcasters, and a couple of Basilisk Riders. There are also warmachines. Traditional launchers, but also arcane cannons.

Jegdall Blunddune

Deep emotional talks, Elissa doesn't accept Sai's apology.

We arrive later than intended, around 10PM. It is getting quite dark, but not yet pitch black. Wheatband is slightly bigger than Plexstin, and it actually has a wall surrounding it. We send Simon and Bebe to scout around the town.

Khohros sees a large dark shape in the sky circling Wheatband.

Split up for Eilathriz, Maddox and Fang to go find the war machines, and the rest of us are going to try warn the townspeople. Sai is trying to find someone find Cormin Cherryseeker.

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