Meeting up again
Thervan Avalast, the Head Wizard of Ravenforge, gathers Ethalyn Stakes, Rurik Brawnanvil, Azzakh "Ash" Pyraxtallirn and Ansgar Cain up for a new quest.
Ansgar and Rurik meet up with Thervan and a halfling. She introduces herself as Keleni Summerwhistle. After a while, Ethalyn and a Kobold enter. The kobold introduces itself as Ash, telling the others they had an accident.
Keleni and Ethalyn, apparently hail from the same town, although Ethalyn struggles to remember.
Thervan tells them he needs help to retrieve the “Sjelestein” from somewhere far north. Hadvar Shade-Plank is a name mentioned, and they should buy the sjelestein, and they are to travel as far north as possible to the town of Borgstrand, and they are given a chest of platinum to use as bargain, or to keep for themselves.
They are to return with the sjelestein within 90 days, or they will send a Royal Incinerator after them to retrieve them. Ansgar is perplexed by this, but Thervan assures that this is standard procedure considering the amount of faith and money they are giving the group. He has no doubt that the party will be honest and deliver on their promises.
They advise them to bring along warm clothing as the days are short and cold.
As they talk, Ash notices a symbol they know they have seen before. Along with some documents about the Black Prince. When asked about it, he brushes it off as “research”, saying it is none of their concern for the moment.
Shopping
He tells them to visit Scry me a River at the docs, as they are a co-worker of Thervan.
They meet a white haired lady, Vontara Vishara. She has a barn-owl called Buttons.
She sells Thermal Cubes (50gp), ring of warmth (480gp), Ring of protection (3000gp) among other things. They do some shopping. Quite a lot of shopping, actually…
Setting sail
Eventually they move on to the docks, where they find their boat. It looks like a brig, manned by about 10 crew. A lion-looking tabaxi meet them and introduces himself as Windy in the Wind. He introduces the rest of the crew, and the ship as The Unsinkable II. The name strikes worry in a few of the members, making them wonder what happened to the first seemingly unsinkable boat. Windy introduces a few more members, an orc carrying 2 goats and a new deckhand.
Ash asks Windy to teach them to be a pirate, but WIndy is not impressed. Not much of a pirate?
He requires a payment of 60gp per person, per trip
The trip to the north is said to take about 3 weeks. Ash summons an air elemental once per day to help shorten the trip.
Once they cross the threshold from Empire of Moroxia to the Thax'ning Tribes, they notice a small island of the coast with about 8 creatures on it. Harpies. Windy is not impressed with this, as they have encountered them before. Ethalyn and some of the deckhands are enthralled by their singing, but the experienced crew makes short progress, and Keleni starts to blast music about pirates and harpies, while spectral backup singers appear behind her. After this point, the weather grows colder.
By week two, the days grows shorter and the crew keeps a close look at the waves. Tentacles starts to rise above the water, apparently there is a kraken! Windy grows a bit agitated, asking for one of the goats. “We have an agreement, it’s fine!” he says as he slaughters the goat and pours the blood over the rail, along with some flour. They pass safely, the kraken evidently pleased with the somewhat unconventional baking ingredients.
Rohesia van Es has been with Windy for a while, and Keleni asks her about the story of a kraken. She tells her that Windy apparently asked it what it wanted, and maybe had a telepathic conversation with it, and gave it a goat and some flour. Keleni spends a lot of time talking to the crew. Every time someone asks about the previous boat, people deflect the question, and Windy straight to ignores the question.
Ethalyn talks to one of the crew that mostly keep to himself, and he refuses to speak to her.
Ash aks Ethalyn if she wants to do something fun, and proceed to tie ropes around their waists and cast Waterwalk on them (and 8 more unsuspecting people), and they waterski behind the ship.
The week progresses with more of Ash’s antics, and as the third week of travel approaches, the travel is smooth and they arrive before time.
Arrival at Borgstrand
As they arrive at the port of Borgstrand, in the north, the snow is picking up. Giths. They ask them to give away their weapons, to which the group refuses. The Giths claim the town is under their control, and Ansgar blows up his chest, saying the town seems dissatisfied under their control. A fight breaks out.
The group makes short progress of the Giths, with one trying to run away and warn the others. As Rurik knocks their leader unconscious
s, Ansgar tries to address the people of the town, claiming to help them out of their oppression. An elderly man peeks out, saying they should get out if they know what’s best for them, that there are too many. Keleni is able to extract information that if they want to know what's going on, they should go to Hadvar is missing and that they themselves are looking for them. There are about 40 githyanki, who came about 3-4 weeks ago. Most of the citizens were taken to the town hall, likely including Hadvard. There is a resistance, but they currently consist of about 6-7 people, among them Yvonnel, Maya and Marcus.
The current “strongholds” of the enemy consist of the Town Hall, the temple and the inn.
A human man with red eyes comes, presents himself as Marcus Ainsworth. He won’t join in an attack as they might kill his family. Yvonnell, however, will join the group.
Marcus say some of the soldiers have scary weapons that freeze enemies in pain when hit.
Maya comes up from the basement and joins them. She tells them that Calamity, a warforged, is at least one that they look to for something. He was there about 6 years ago, and killed her husband and son. She requests that they kill him for her.
Haast is one of their leaders, along with one more named Theta.
The githyanki are constructing something and are close to completion, but they don’t know what it is.
Emptying Town Hall
Yvonnel leads them to Town Hall, and they hear speaking around the courtyards. The building stretches over two stories and sadly only has one entrance. Keleni makes Rurik fly, and they are all flown up on the roof. In the courtyard they see 6 enemies, and Ansgar blasts a fireball in their midst, burning them quite extensively before the rest of the party jumps in to fight and makes rather short progress on the sufficiently surprised enemies.
As they gather the dead bodies out of immediate sight, Ethalyn discovers they have nothing on them. No notes or keys, and although their weapons seem dangerous, they don’t seem particularly well-off. They reconvene with Yvonnel, and she is surprised with their efficiency. According to her, the prisoners would be kept in the basement, and lead them there. She asks them to go to her house.
Hadvard, a very large man with red eyes, comes up to them and thanks them for the help. They ask him about the Sjelestein, and he tells them Doctor Calamity has taken it to fuel the contraption he has been building. Ansgar stumbles over his words a bit, and Hadvar is a bit irked, but Ansgar somewhat smoothes it out again, and Hadvar offers them a bit of a discount.
He talks about a mine 5 miles north of the town..
Hadvar tell them Joakim, the tavern-keeper is locked up in the tavern, making food and drink for the githyankis that has taken the place. Harvard asks them not to damage the tavern too much, as Joakim has poured his heart and soul into it, and he goes off to be with his family.
The Reeves Office
As the Reeves house comes into view, they see a soldier outside, entering into the building. They sneak towards the house, and see only one enemy inside.
They look towards the temple, its stained glass windows broken. As the windows are placed high up on the wall, no enemies can be seen inside. Well, probably makes it easier not to be seen.
They sneak up on the unsuspecting, lonesome warrior and take him down. They stuff him into a locked, giving Marcus a surprise when he gets back to work.
They search the place and find a couple of journals and documents and details the process Calamity started when he arrived 6 years ago. He was trying to create a Forge Dragon and was almost complete, but was missing a crucial piece called the Sjelestein. Which he now has thanks to taking it from Hardvar.
The Temple
Onward to the temple! Inside they hear 3 voices speaking to each other, seemingly in a complaining manner. There is only one entrance. Rurik kicks the door open, and the party indeed sees 3 enemies inside. They seem somewhat ready for a battle, having prepared for general resistance in the town. They seem tougher than the other soldiers they've come across so far. The weapons of the enemies are quite nasty, but the party prevails and vanquishes the foes.
The temple is dedicated to Elios, its statue lies in shambles on the floor.
God of life, connected to the beast-land. The husband of Mova, many regard Elios as the father of all life.
Ansgar, Ethalyn and Rurik find out that the githyanki comes from the quasi elemental plane of Salt. The group of Githyankis hanging out in Borgstrand is only a small part of a larger organization commonly considered to operate in their home-plane. It is odd to find them here.
As the battle dies down, the crisp wood of the temple catches fire. Ansgar and Ethalyn makes swift work of the flames, while some of the other members of the party notice that the tavern and the rest of the town is eerily quiet..
Outside of the temple stands a tall and lean gith lady. Around her stands ten soldiers. “So you are the ones causing the ruckus in town? Where are the prisoners?” She introduces herself as Theta
Keleni tries to intimidate them, telling them they didn’t take any prisoners, and that the Gith will suffer a tragic fate. Theita doesn’t seem too impressed by this.
Suddenly, the air elemental, having gotten the command to attack hostiles, burst out of the church, attacking the Githyankis.
Fighting Theta and her Minions
The summoned Air Spirit observes the Githyankis outside of the church to be hostile, and following the only order it has received (“Attack our enemies”), it bursts out of the church, attacking with all its might. Suddenly, the group finds themselves in another battle.
Some highlights from the ensuing battle are among others; a well placed fireball from Ansgar, Rurik defending both Saber Tooth-Ash and Ethalyn stabbing the leader-lady.
The Air Elemental, however, only survived a couple of seconds, as it got critically injured by the leader, and then caught in Ansgar’s fireball. Poor thing. Oh well, at least it soaked a lot of damage that would have hit another member of the group.
Ethalynn gets swarmed and was for a while under heavy fire from all the enemies. By nothing sort of a miracle she somehow survives. Ash reverts back to themselves, and sparks fly as the battle rages on.
Theta, the Gith Leader, yells something in her language to one of her minions, and he turns and blots away. While the entire adventuring group stands outside the church, fighting tooth and nail, barely scraping by. Ansgar stands within the safety of the church, blasting away at his enemies from the distance. Theta goes down in a pool of blood.
“Being an adventurer isn’t that big of a fuzz, really!” He muses to himself, seemingly oblivious to the blood-spatter outside. Ethalyn retreats into the church, drawing her breath, and Ansgar gives her a friendly pat on the shoulder. “This is going swimmingly, wouldn’t you say?” he says.
Tying up loose ends
Ash and Keleni does their best to catch up to the fleeing minion, but he is fast, so Ash wild shapes into an Allosaurus, and follows hot on his heels.
The battle drags on, Theta dies, and the battle quickly comes to a close as Ash catches up to the running minion, pouncing on him.
Keleni runs in a different direction, catching up to another minion who previously ran away, and mocks him to death. They all convene around the minion held by the Allosaurus and tie him up.
The Drow from town, [insert name here], comes over and makes her doubts known about getting useful information from the minion. Rurik and AllosaurAsh intimidate the poor guy, and he yields some information.
There are 25 more minions scattered inside and outside the mine, in addition to the Doomlord and Doctor Calamity. They do indeed try to get their Forge Dragon up and running. The party gives the surviving minion to the villagers, to extract their revenge.
AlloAsh(Ashosaur?) picks up Thetas’ weapon, but finds that though it is a very fine sword, the effect is not the same in their hands.
The Barman
Joakim comes out and offers the lot his gratitude for freeing the city and saving his inn. He offers them all drinks on the house in a very peculiar accent, and they all join in at the inn.
Hadvar, that owns the Sjelestein, offers his axe on their adventures. He offers information that Doctor Calamity is a “man” made of metal, and is very tall.
As a thank you for saving the town, they are awarded with 7 Health Potions.
They talk back and forth a bit, contemplating going to the mines and seeing if they can sabotage the Forge Dragon, which leads into a tangent on how Ansgar came to be the only tall person in their group, as Ash used to be taller. They lead them in on a secret, that they and Ethalyn ran into a chimera in some old witch hut, and Ash was killed and reincarnated as a kobold.
Traveling to the mines
Eventually they pack up and leave on the sledge/cart, and turn their noses towards their impending doom.
They come upon the mines, metal appendices adorned with arcane runes can be seen around the place. The runes are unknown to both Ansgar and Keleni.
There’s a cannon to the right of the opening. A large metal plate on the ground with lots of ice on it, seems really slippery.
They are all being as stealthy as they can, and Ash tells them they can summon 3 creatures to help them.
An albino brown bear, a Giant Goat and a Lion are pulled out of a small bag.
They spend some time discussing their plans.
Rurik will ride the Giant Goat, while Ethalyn will be invisible and sneak up behind them to drop a considerable amount of ball bearings. Ash rides a Lion to battle, and Keleni does some sneaking to get closer. Hadvar follows the Giant Goat carrying Rurik.
The enemies are alerted as Ansgar fails to make his way quietly through the snow. The party fights bravely against the many minions along with a very dangerous turret.
Both Rurik and Hadvar go down during the fight. The goat goes down and melts into the aether.
They are fighting for a while. Rurik goes down!! OH NO! Hadvar almost bleeds out. Rurik dies….. :(
Ash throws some healing on Hadvar to keep him alive, and throws flames in the eyes of the bigger enemy woman fighting us. Every enemy is down and dead before Ash revives Rurik from the Dead.
After a brief break where they lick their wounds and try to recuperate, which Ansgar didn’t really need, they continue into the depths of the mountain, the weird turret they were attacked with in tow. The walls are made of intricate metal designs.
A wall of heat hits them as they reach the giant chamber. There is a glorious metal bridge going across a sea of lava. On the far end Doctor Calamity and Doomlord Hast are working on a big metal dragon. There are several minions moving about.
Facing the Calamity
Coming into the interior of the forge, Rurik slams down the turret, and they prepare to fire the bolt at the enemy. But before any of them manages to get a shot off, a mysterious portal suddenly appears above them all. Both the Githyanki, and the party, stands there in awe, as an elf-woman suddenly falls to the bridge. She looks at both sides, before the party plead with her to help them take down their enemy.
The battle is tough, but the party makes good progress of taking down as many enemies as they can, even managing to get a few shots off on Haast who is still working on the dragon with Calamity. Calamity does what he can to delay them, throwing smoke bombs around to block their view, but the party is cunning, with Keleni managing to fling an elite soldier into the fiery lava below, after they tried to throw them off first. As the party manages to vanquish half the footsoldiers, Calamity tells Haast to join the battle. Haast tells him to “finish what we have begun”, before drawing his sword and his shield, to join the battle. He doesn’t manage to get far however, before Ansgar manages to banish him back to his home plane, removing him (hopefully) from the battle for good. With just two foot soldiers remaining, the battle looks winnable, and the party seems to be in good spirits.
The joy of removing Haast is short lived however, as a few seconds later, Calamity picks up the sjelestein, puts it into the chest of the dragon, and the dragon slowly becomes active. Calamity glees menacingly, before telling it to “kill them all”. The party continues to battle the foot soldiers, Ash mostly in Allosaurus-form, Ansgar standing to the back to keep Haast away, Keleni being targeted by many Gith, who doesn’t manage to grab her, Ethalyn doing her roguish routine, and Rurik smashing whatever comes close enough.
As the dragon completes its activation phase, it flies up above the battlefield, and blows out a massive cone of mind controlling breath, making everyone, except for Mara who manages to resist the effect, and Ansgar who is luckily standing too far away, charmed by the dragon. They finish off the final two soldiers, and turn their eyes toward Calamity, the only present danger. But as the dragon has to recharge its breath weapon, it lands, making attacks on whomever it can see, snapping people out of the charm one by one. Ash wants to take down Calamity, hoping that with him down, the dragon will stop attacking, but after him firing a few shots from his pistol, gravely wounding both Ashosaurus and Mara, he simply proclaims to the dragon “It looks like you can finish this fight off by yourself.” before he plane shifts away, leaving the party alone with the dragon.
The outlook is grim. People going down left and right, bleeding out, before being brought back on fumes. Almost all of the health potions they had are expended. Hadvar has left the battle in a panic, seeing no hope as the dragon is immune to regular weaponry. Rurik, Keleni and Ansgar do a desperate move towards the turret, hoping that it might do damage against the dragon, considering the ineffectiveness in all their attacks. But with a lucky strike, the front panel of the dragon's chest breaks open, revealing the sjelestein inside, glowing bright purple. Ash, Ethalyn and Mara all try to grab the stone, but fail, before the dragon throws its fiery breath towards Rurik, Keleni and Ansgar. Keleni is instantly incinerated, with Ansgar going down, along with Rurik.
With Ansgar going down, Haast returns, as the banishment fails 12 seconds short of the target of being permanent. Haast looks around, shocked at the loss of his men, berating the group, before moving to kill Mara in front of Ash and Ethalyn. The dragon however, was told to kill everyone. So it goes after Haast. It knocks him prone, and manages to bite and claw at him, with him being enraged by the dragon's fury as he helped build it. Ethalyn makes one final push towards grabbing the stone, after Ash decides to run away as well, and manages to just barely snatch the stone out of its socket. The steam building up inside the dragon suddenly releases, its mechanics ceases to function, and it slumps down, inactive once more. Mara tries to run away from Haast, with Ethalyn making a dash towards the front of the cave, to help her friends. Rurik breathes his last breath, and passes away. Haast dashes towards Mara, hoping to cut her off, but Ash jumps at him, biting his neck, before Ethalyn manages to jump up, and slice his entire skull and neck into two parts. He falls over, brain leaking out on the floor.
What Remains
As the party manages to finally get a breather, Mara has her eyes on the sjelestein, and commands Ethalyn to drop it, which she does. Ash quickly swoops in to grab it, while Ethalyn runs over to give Ansgar a healing potion, bringing him back from the verge of death. They look over their fallen comrades, mourning the loss, and taking the items that they no longer need.
They ask Mara where she comes from, but she herself is not really sure. All she can remember is that she was fighting another Wild Magic Sorcerer, and both their wild magic triggered at the same time, shunting Mara to… wherever she is now, she doesn’t really know, and Rinn, whom she was fighting somewhere else. Hopefully into the lava pits below, Mara laughs. The party tells her where they are, and Mara seems a bit annoyed, as her bag and supplies are somewhere in the Lowlands. They agree to pay Mara 350 gold for helping out, which should be enough to take her back home to Manath. They take the charred corpse of Rurik outside, along with what is left of Keleni, to hopefully preserve the bodies, so they can take them back south to bury. As they return inside, they push the dragon and all the corpses into the fiery depths below, so that Calamity has to start anew if he decides to return.
As the party rests for the night, Mara uses Ruriks and Kelenis bedrolls, and when they wake the next morning, they start trekking south towards Borgstrand again. Ash summons two lions and a giant goat from her bag of tricks, while Mara polymorphs into a Mammoth, as Hadvar had taken the sleighs with him when he left, thinking them dead. After a few hours, they reach the borders of the city, seeing people gathering up the corpses of the Sunken in a pile to burn, with Yvonnel greeting them, being pleasantly surprised, as Hadvar told the rest of the town that the situation looked unwinnable. Maja approaches, asking if they managed to kill Calamity, but the party has to give her the bad news that he escaped. She is visibly distraught by this, but takes solace in the fact that the Sunken has been dealt with.
Hadvar returns, looking bruised and with bandages everywhere, happy that they survived, with a slight inkling of shame in his eye considering he abandoned the fight. He still wants to get paid for the Sjelestein though, as it is a family heirloom, so he wants at least 2500gp for it. Ansgar takes him a bit to the side, and points out that Calamity will most likely return for it at some point, and that two of their companions perished in the fight for it, so he should be glad they are taking it off his hands. They come to an agreement of 1500gp for it. As they sign up the paperwork for the sale with a receipt, Ansgar suddenly gets a message in his head. Thervan is contacting him, asking if they have arrived yet. As Ash used an air spirit to shorten the journey, they got there a day early. Ansgar replies that they have indeed arrived, fought a dragon, and lost two of their companions on the journey. Thervan seems surprised by the news, a bit shocked actually, but is looking forward to hearing the whole story when they return. Ansgar asks if he has a way of teleporting them back home, but gets a response that if he did, they wouldn’t have needed Windy in the Wind and his crew in the first place.
The party says their farewells to the citizens of Borgstrand, making sure that the people let the man who gave them their healing potions know that they made the difference, and departs with the Unsinkable II, with some decent food from the Borgstrandians in tow.
The Journey Home
Windy in the Wind is surprised and a bit saddened by the fact that Rurik and Keleni didn’t make it, but seems happy that Mara is joining the journey. The sailing down to Ravenforge takes 20 days, as Ash once more shortens the journey again. As they reach the waters where they med the Kraken last time again, Windy in the Wind again does his ritual with the goat and the flour, which seems to please the Kraken. Ansgar asks about why he does this or how he came up with it. He tells them that the Kraken spoke to him when he was a young sailor, with his first ship in these waters, demanding a sacrifice. He had a goat ready, so he cut its throat and threw it overboard, which seemed to please it. Ash asks what the flour is for though, and he admits that it spilled over when he first made the sacrifice, and he doesn’t want to take the chance to NOT do it, in case it makes a difference.
The rest of the journey goes well, no Harpies this time, as Windy in the Wind takes the long way around, but they can be spotted in the distance. Coming into Ravenforge, after almost 6 weeks at sea in total, Mara jumps off the ship the first chance she gets, before the ship has even docked properly, saying her goodbyes, laughing maniacally, and disappearing in the streets. Windy in the Wind is glad she is gone, as she spent the whole journey holed up in her bunk, laughing randomly, staring into nothing. The party agrees that she is disturbing. Hopefully she makes her way back home. Throk comes up from below deck, bag in tow, telling the captain that he thanks him for the opportunity, but the sea life isn’t for him. He finds it dreadfully boring, and he is sure that one day, the goat and flour trick will not satisfy the kraken, and he doesn’t plan to be around to find out. Ash asks him where he will go, but he is unsure, maybe south, maybe east, wherever the road will take him. Ash tells him that in the meantime, he should apply to work at the Lucky Duck, a local inn here in Ravenforge. He can even use her as a reference. The other party members think this is a splendid idea, as they immensely enjoyed his cooking. He thanks her for the tip, says his goodbye to the party, puts the bag over his right shoulder, and ventures into the city.
Thervan shows up by the docks as the party says their goodbyes to Windy in the Wind, having spotted the distinctive ship approaching from the horizon. He leads them up one of the shortcuts in the cliff next to the docks, and brings them to his office. The desk is clean this time around, no interesting notes or documents to be seen, but across the hall they can see Bertram Honeypot working with some papers.
The party shares their experiences with the forgedragon, the Sunken, Calamity, and the loss of their companions. Thervan is shocked by this revelation, having heard nothing about this group of inter-planar invaders, but promises to look into it. He also promises to give Rurik and Keleni a proper burial, but Ansgar asks if there might be someone in the city that might be able to bring them back. They’re free to look of course, but those with that kind of power are few and far between, and he knows nobody in the city capable of such a feat considering the power needed to bring back someone who has been dead for three weeks. In either case, he holds the Sjelestein in his hand, thanking the party on behalf of his colleagues, and speculates that since this is merely a shard of the Sjelestein, and it can cast any Enchantment spell, then there might be more shards out there that controls other aspects of the different schools of magic. But he tells the party not to worry about it now, they have earned their money, and a rest for now. If something were to come up, there will probably be someone else he can ask for help.