Previously: Chapter 89: Hala
Resurrection
When the party emerges on the other side of the barrier they go straight towards the “center” of the grove, next to the pond where they fought Rootspeaker. Thistlethorn notices that she gets a few looks of mixed signals, happy to be freed from the influence, but then again, they were “happy” under Rootspeaker’s control. They all apparently know something has happened, as they see the wounds and soot on Thistlethorn, Kal, Penny, Relic and Berry, and the absence of Brónach.
Without saying anything, she takes out the pocket ball, and releases the corpse of the firbolg, who appears on the ground. A wave of shock travels through the gathered crowd, but Kal makes sure to hold them back to give Brónach space. Thistlethorn places a hand on his chest, activating her spellwrought tattoo. It burns, moving the magic through her arm and into Brónach. The wounds close themselves superficially, and he takes a breath, opening his eyes.
He seems confused, wondering about what happened. Thistlethorn explains what he went through, and he seems to remember transporting to the Old Oak, but soon fell unconscious after seeing a terrifying visage with dark bleeding eyes, and then an eagle, a lot of pain, and then he woke up. Thistlethorn is sorry to say that she had to drag him away, lest Hala drained his magic away completely, which in the end killed him. Brónach tells her that she is forgiven if she can give him some clothes, which she produces.
He gets dressed, and soon Thorn the Indomitable and Oakheart the Stoic make their way over to Brónach, helping him over to a chair in order to rest. Kal casts a spell to help him regain his strength, and with a couple of spells of his own, he is soon fully rejuvenated. He helpfully offers to top up anyone else who was wounded in the fight against Hala. He asks the party what happened to the Old Oak, and is saddened to hear that it was destroyed, telling them that he will just have to plant a new one.
Brónach seems to be coming back to himself, remembering that Hala seemed pleased to see him, as he would be “the perfect bait”. He apologizes for being captured, but the party reassures him that Hala is to blame, but hopefully she is now dead for good. Kal asks if he still has the sending stone they lent him, but he does not know what became of it between his capture and release. It probably still is around the ruined oak, if the party goes to look.
Tired, and realizing that the barrier was weakened by Hala’s influence, Brónach tells the party that it will take time to return the barrier to full strength, so he shall begin immediately. He heads back to the part of the grove where he was imprisoned for thousands of years, to focus and rest. The rest of the party take the rest of the day to cool down after awakening the Heartwood staff. Kal continues to read in the tome of understanding, while Penny continues her studies, and finally finds herself confident enough about the material, realizing that she can finally read. Relic stifles the urge to chide her parents for not teaching her to read.
Before going to bed, the party talks about what they are going to do next. They consider going to Tempervale to get more tattoos and buy more supplies, but they feel that they should head towards Nezznar’s lair to hopefully catch him off guard, and perhaps awaken the final artifact at the same time. Penny asks Morgan if he’s ever been in the area, with him regaling of a time where he was on a solo tour, landing in Smoulderharbor, the hub of trade in the Akstan Kingdom. He tells them that it’s been a while, but he can probably teleport them there if needed. Around them the grove is lit by thousands of fireflies, who seem to be drawn towards Thistlethorn and Brónach.
They decide to make a precaution of having a heroes’ feast before going to bed, to ensure that they are as prepared as they can be to face Nezznar. They also want to make sure he’s there, so Penny suggests scrying on him to find out where he is, but they decide to wait with that until they are out of the grove, just in case. Morgan also suggests maybe disguising themselves, as the Akstan Kingdom is made up mostly of elves and humans, and have a tendency to lean towards xenophobia. There is no denying that the party stands out in a crowd, so Penny agrees that she will do so with a spell. After eating, the party finds a place to sleep, with Thistlethorn sleeping between her parents, the others finding a free spot in the open.
Smoulderharbor
The party starts the new day by preparing their spells, and making sure that everyone agrees. Before Morgan attempts to teleport them there, Penny casts seeming on the party, turning Relic and Thistlethorn into high elves, Kal into a wood elf and herself into a human. Berry gets turned into a large fluffy dog. Morgan gathers them all around, as he casts the spell, trying to focus on his last visit.
Luckily, the spell goes through without issue, and the party finds themselves behind a couple of large warehouses. They hear industry all around them, with people working with metal and wood, as well as transporting goods and wares around. Morgan wishes them good luck, before returning to the grove. They emerge from the backstreets, finding thousands of people in a large harbor area stretching over a mile in each direction. Hundreds of ships are either docked or are anchored in the bay, with goods and passengers disembarking or boarding at a constant rate.
Penny uses her detect thoughts, and are almost overwhelmed by the amount of random thoughts that litter the scene. She gets various impressions of people missing their home, tired of their journey, and various ponderings on fish. Nothing that sticks out to suggest that they are being watched or in danger. They see no obvious shop of any kind, only some ships unloading supplies for merchants to sell, so they decide to head out as soon as possible to not waste time.
On the way out, a man bumps into Penny, and immediately seems confused as his hand reaches into her illusory vest. Thistlethorn grabs his jacket from behind as Penny grabs a hold on his arm. He tries to wrestle himself free, feigning ignorance, but the party sees through his facade, that of a pickpocket who got caught in the act. They force him to introduce himself, and he tells them he’s Eddie.
Thistlethorn thinks he looks familiar somehow, and he asks why she’s staring at him. She asks him where his family is from, with Eddie revealing that his grandfather was born in Maplemere out west. The rest of the party also notice the similarity, realizing that this might be a descendant of Chester, both redheads with freckles. They tell him that he might have family in Ravenforge, and with that, Eddie says that he noticed that they weren’t local, but they clearly haven’t come on a ship. He’s very confused about why they would tell him about him having familiar ties in a large city. Kal just tells him to seek out the cleric of Udall if he ever finds himself there. In return, as a way of apology, he offers his services if they need a guide or any… “help”. He doesn’t say more, but tells them that he hails from the ship “The Mermaid’s Ass”. He then disappears in the crowd.
After around 20 minutes they made their way to the outskirts of the harbor area. Continuing onwards, they follow a path that leads southwest, before veering off towards the coast to the east, and towards Nezznar’s lair, if Vhalak’s information is correct. Making sure they are hidden from prying eyes among the foliage, Thistlethorn takes out her looking glass to see if she can get a glimpse at Nezznar’s whereabouts.
Thistlethorn peers into the mirror, using the sending stone they took from him as a focus, and finds herself dragged into a vision. She looks around herself and sees that she is in a massive underground cavern, big enough to house an entire city, which spans out in front of her, with a river running through it, ending in a waterfall that leads to an underground lake far below. She’s standing on a balcony, with the visage of Nezznar standing in drider form in front of her. He’s speaking to someone, a drow woman dressed in fine red robes.
They are having a conversation about keeping someone from escaping again. Nezznar refers to the woman he’s talking to as Zyn’avel. The woman looks down on the ground in reverence, as Nezznar paces in front of her. He tells her that she cannot fail him again, and "don’t want her to escape again." Zyn'avel looks up, meeting his eyes.
“You can rely on house Shobalar. We will not allow Zeerith to escape once more.”
Nezznar gives the woman a court nod, and then turns towards the city, hands clasped behind his back, as Zyn’avel retreats. Thistlethorn is pulled away as the scrying ends.
She immediately tells the others that Nezznar is not in his lair, relaying the names she heard in the vision, as well as describing the city. Relic and Penny have both heard references to the house name, which is the ruling house in Xar'theris, the biggest drow stronghold in the underdark.
Even though their quarry is out of their reach for now, they know just about where the city lies, somewhere in the caverns deep below Tempervale. In either case, they didn’t come this far for nothing, so they decide to not waste more time than necessary by using wind walk to quickly get to their destination, with Relic casting a telepathic bond so they can stay in touch, since the lair should not be too far away.
The Lair
As the party follows along the coast they fly over the forest near the mountains, which is filled with various fauna. Kal is mesmerised by a troll and a stone giant having a bout, ending in a tie, before she follows after the others. After a while they see an old dock on the coast, with a lone brig docked to it. There are a few figures working around on the deck, but the party is hesitant of getting too close, so they decide to instead look for clues of the lair. The mountains inland appear to be bleeding clouds that fall over the forest, but seem to be avoiding the general area they find themselves in. Thistlethorn is the first to spot the tracks of what looks like a carriage that goes from the dock towards the mountain, a couple of miles away.
When they fly closer to investigate they find what appears to be a single entrance hidden behind a large boulder, surrounded by foliage. They decide to get a better read on the area before just jumping in, so they land in the nearby forest edge, making sure they aren’t spotted as they emerge from the cloud form. Thistlethorn immediately does a commune with nature to learn more about what can be found, and she learns that their suspicions are correct, as the people on the boat appears to be drow, as well as there being a group of drow in the cave in the mountain, with a smaller group behind them somewhere in the forest. There also appears to be a strong abyssal influence nearby.
They decide that they want to get a closer look of what is within, so Penny summons Riff as a bat, while using a spell to cast invisibility on herself, Thistlethorn and Kal, with Relic using a charge from the Arachnostaff to do the same. They move closer, sending Riff into the mountain opening. The foliage surrounding the rock appears to be mere illusions, and they also can spot a few runes which basically means “if you can read this, retreat, or face your death.”
Penny enters the senses of Riff, seeing through his eyes as he flies into the cave. There appears to be a long straight passage leading inwards, and to her horror the ground is covered with glyphs of warding, but they appear not to trigger on Riff. Theorizing that small animals might not trigger it, they start to think up a plan. At the end of the passage which is about 100 feet long, Riff sees a larger chamber with two drow guards patrolling, before Penny loses contact.
The party debates what to do, with Relic suggesting that they might use an arcane gate spell to bypass the glyphs entirely, taking out the guards. The party agrees on this plan, but before they can put it into motion, they sense movement from behind. Still invisible, the party turns around, seeing three drow warriors emerging from the forest edge, carrying a dead deer. They immediately manoeuvre themselves around so as to not be discovered, hoping to overhear a password perhaps that bypasses the glyphs, an easy task considering they are invisible, but Thistlethorn is almost discovered as they almost set the deer down at the place where she is standing. A quick reaction from Kal who drags her away is all that saves them, and the drow seem none the wiser.
The drow begins preparing the deer, as one of them goes over to fetch firewood. The party agrees that it would be best to take these out silently before they can call for help. Biding their time for the drow to sit down and relax, allowing them to finish preparing the deer and starting the fire, Relic quickly summons a wall of force around the cave entrance to block some of the sound, while Kal, Thistlethorn and Penny attack the drow along with him. With the drow being sensitive to the sun, caught off guard, and not wearing their shields, they are quickly dispatched by the group.
Relic begins looking through the belongings of the defeated sentries, hoping to find something that would help them bypass the glyphs, but all they carry are their weapons, and about 30gp in total. They return to their original plan, manoeuvring themselves near the cave entrance, as Relic casts an arcane gate, stepping through it, into the lair of Nezznar Khalazza.