Session Recap

  • Owyn meditated within a memory, one not of his own making.

    He watched the battle within the control station of Worrel through her eyes, seeing himself and his companions strive against the koll brothers. She had been there but not there, a mind projected. He replayed the events over and over looking for some kind of clue, some tell which would point in the direction of Paldurat. The king of the koll had simply disappeared, eluding even the sight of the Avatar of Ioun.

    But the sight had to be focused, and at this point in time it was focused on the Heroes of Heshema.

    The Heroes of Heshema.

    Owyn had been one once. He was something else now.

    He found nothing useful in the memory of their battle with Lortuanos. In frustration, he projected himself across Worrel to various inns and establishments near to Veldonmaaki, listening to the news and small talk of ordinary folk, searching, always searching.

    Paldurat was in the wind.

    Owyn hesitated for a moment. Then he resigned himself to checking just one more time. He projected himself within St Virgil’s Cathedral. Creighton was humming to himself in between bites of a pastry. Thick, clawed hands waved about delicately, weaving magic into new shapes. The slender form of Antillion lay curled up like a cat on a nearby bookshelf.

    Cornelius stood with his back to Owyn’s sight. “Good,” the tarrasque said. “Now fold the energy along its hemispherical axes and thread it through the anotomiara.” Creighton bit the side of his cheek while concentrating. Tendrils of arcane energy coalesced into threads of impossible shapes.

    “You almost have it,” Cornelius said. “Bring the two ends of the dialongishina together and focus the output site in your mind. Make it clear as a reflection.”

    Creighton did as instructed, and as the two ends of a luminescent, arcane string touched, a surprised look crossed Creighton’s face and he suddenly disappeared without the use of a teleportation circle. A brief flutter of wind ruffled Cornelius’s peacoat.

    The tarrasque turned his head toward Owyn’s presence.

    “I thought last time was the last time,” Cornelius said. He spoke to nothing physical, but Avatars could sense the incredible power of one another, though Cornelius’s power was far from what it once was in a darker age.

    Owyn shrugged metaphysically. Cornelius gave a small, genuine smile and nodded. Owyn pulled himself from the projection.

    “I wonder what the others are up to?” he said to himself, but there wasn’t time right now. He stood and blinked. Then he suddenly left his small dwelling and landed firmly in an empty alley behind Sybil’s old shop in Baldan. It was a fresh morning, and he could hear the birds twitter from the nearby park.

    The Chipped Saucer was a short walk away. He went to his weekly seat and waited. A small man in humble white robes arrived right on time. Owyn preferred to be a little early.

    Valmont took his seat across from Owyn and ordered for them both. Owyn nibbled at a cookie.

    “No such luck, I take it?” Valmont asked in his rural accent.

    “Unfortunately not,” Owyn replied. “He still eludes my sight, and I’m not sure how. I’ve searched all the memories I can find from Sybil and her progenitors, but there’s no clue as to where Paldurat is holding up or where he’s headed.”

    Valmont stroked his white mustache with a thumb and forefinger.

    “It’s as I suspected. His greatest strength was always his mind. And it’s tough to predict what a creature as ancient as he would do. His plans aren’t always logical.”

    “That’s not necessarily true,” Owyn said without realizing he had spoken. It was as if an ancient memory had flung itself out of him before he could react. It wasn’t like he didn’t intend to say it, it’s just that Owyn still wasn’t accustomed to having so many memories that weren’t his rattling around in his broad mind. Sometimes those memories of who once was Avatar spoke for them all.

    Valmont raised an eyebrow. “Which part isn’t necessarily true?”

    “His plans are logical if we consider that he intends to live for another thousand centuries. Perhaps he’ll just wait us out.”

    The eyes of Valmont hardened. Owyn had grown accustomed to seeing that otherworldly determination on the mage’s face.

    “He can try,” Valmont said.

    Owyn pivoted topics. “And on your end, did everything work itself out with the Maikon Vath?”

    Valmont nodded solemnly. “Yes, everything is under control. The Well is stable. The prison is at capacity, thanks to Sybil, but we should anticipate a reduction in capacity within three hundred years. Additionally, the Order of the Aegis is firmly under my control, and that upstart of yours has been eliminated. He really wasn’t a threat to begin with, but you did ask me to deal with it personally. Now that it’s done, you can answer my question as we agreed. Why did you want me to personally handle him?”

    Three hundred years. The Well wouldn’t last long without their unholy alliance.

    Owyn had more work to do. He breathed in and exhaled once. “I didn’t want him to suffer.”

    The white mage considered his words. He was smart enough to figure it out, Owyn knew. He was, after all, perhaps the smartest and most driven mortal to have ever lived upon Worrel and possibly beyond, so it wasn’t that much of a leap that Valmont would put two and two together.

    Xalacian hadn’t been a threat, but with enough time he would be. And there can be no threat to the Well. Owyn felt sad. He pushed himself up from the table and started to walk out.

    “Oh, one more thing,” Valmont said. “Bashetan sends his regards.”

    “How very wonderful. Where is he now?”

    Valmont pulled from the folds of his robe the small skull of a rat. Two red eyes glowed within the sockets. Owyn sensed hatred. He bent down and made eye contact with the skull.

    “I think he could use a longer timeout,” Owyn said to Valmont, eyes never leaving the skull. “Keep him in this prison a bit longer, will you?”

    When Valmont didn’t reply, Owyn looked to the white mage.

    “I don’t enjoy this type of chastisement,” Valmont said. “Worrel is a prison enough already.”

    “No, it isn’t,” Owyn said while turning to leave. “It’s a chance for the rest of the multiverse to be free.”

  • Jugandi’s desire to establish key trade and diplomatic partners with foreign nations proved to be wise in the history of Heshema, for there were many tribulations to come for the newly crowned king.

    The population of leonins was devastated in the invasion, and the unifying leadership held by now-banished Si’kar quickly dissolved as the gnoll bodies continued to burn and the stench of their corpses pervaded the realm. Bahati lay in ruins, her marble halls scorched and plundered by the flame-breath of opportunistic red dragons. The lands of Nyandi were scoured by abyssal energies. The waters of the Masharibi River were poisoned, bloated fish bobbed in the murk, and the village of Kati along its banks was abandoned entirely. The port city of Umisha, once a pirate enclave loosely governed by Heshema, now became the sole sea entrance to the kingdom, and the pirates siphoned wealth from the lands. The blue dragons Chezarran and Umasophiria claimed the lands east of the mouth of the Mashariki River near Shamba, the most fertile lands of Heshema, as was the agreement between the dragons and Si’kar, and they were provided with flocks of sheep for their appetites even as the leonins mourned for the loss of husbands, sons, and homes.

    The internal politics of Heshema simmered toward a civil war, and young King Jugandi became the subject of an assassination plot as his in absentia leadership was called into question during a trip to Akiokuwe. Greenpaws who had their lands seized by Si’kar in Shamba to pay for the loyalty of the blue dragons weren’t willing to part with such a large portion of their territory now that the war is done (though the lands gifted to the dragons were perhaps the least fertile), and they eyed the throne as hatred for the king seethed. They gathered and plotted.

    Jugandi arrived home in time to stitch together the factions which had unraveled during his mother’s temporary rule in his stead, redistributing resources, making bargains and promises, and dispersing the little wealth left in the king’s coffers. Yet, the assassination progressed, and it was foiled only by Manny who, by chance, was lazily relaxing upon a tower in Kiburi. In the late afternoon sun, Manny became privy to a conversation best had with drawn shutters.

    Manny came to the king, his friend and master, and Jugandi heeded his words, challenging though they were for Manny to speak. The architects of assassination were uncovered and allowed to carry out their act. They arrived in the throne room to find Jugandi alone for their predetermined meeting. As blades were drawn, the side doors burst open and the Kingsguard rushed to defend Jugandi who laughed and danced with his rapier, his own talent as a blademaster underestimated by the assassins.

    Foremost among the defenders was Manny whose eyes bled with rage.

    Those that weren’t slain during the assassination attempted were summarily executed in public by the king himself. The kingdom was unified.

    In honor of Manny Jugandi formed the Manticore Guard which became the personal sentinels of the king and his family. They bore the banner of a golden manticore, and the many cubs of Manny were trained as riders for these elite warriors and the Skymane family, no longer sky mane in name only. The successive generations of the Manticore Guard became stronger, larger, swifter, and more intelligent such that they would constitute a breed of manticore not before seen upon Worrel. And though they were prized for their intelligence and fierceness, their greatest quality was loyalty, and it was given to the King of Heshema and his children.

    Ere the Kingdom of Heshema became the lands of another realm, as all realms must inevitably yield to the declination of eternity, King Jugandi ruled and ruled well. In the third year of his reign Jugandi made his second great pilgrimage, traveling from Kiburi northward, beyond the Masharibi river, and into the mountains. There he met the enigmatic Archon Bharesh whom crowned him king.

    Jugandi learned much from this ancient figure in spite of the serpentine teachings of Archon Bharesh whose wisdom extended beyond direct instruction. It was for Jugandi to obey the honor that Bharesh demanded from a good king and to make the best decisions he could for his people with his honor in consideration.

    But there was other knowledge too, knowledge that must remain secret for the kingdom to thrive, for Bharesh understood it was only the strength of a people that led to a strong kingdom. It was for the king to uphold justice and rule.

    With these lessons in mind, Jugandi returned to his people and drew them forward from the past, and his people looked no longer back to the woes of the gnoll invasion but to the future and the hope of what was to come. Jugandi’s boon from Queen Titania, that Bahati become a key trade city, was realized. A kalokera dragon arrived in Heshema and bored a route into the lands of Summer where eladrin issued forth and helped reclaim the city from the de facto rule of the Bone Roost. Once retaken, Bahati became a trade partner with many other nations that Heshema had previously found too distant to be of interest. Wealth returned to the leonins.

    And as the years turned, the leonins of Heshema grew once again mighty. King Jugandi ruled wisely, insulating his people from the greater troubles of the world with the power of allies. He bore many sons and daughters who in turn ruled the lands by the strength of their father’s wisdom. When his time neared, Jugandi made a third and final pilgrimage beyond the high gardens of Kiburi. This journey he made on foot, electing not to ride one of his Manticore Guard to the cursed forest of Imekatazwa. While the oldest trees remained dead, the sprouting of new life could be seen amid the burned remains. The abyssal energies which had permeated the forest were contained. He made his way through the green brush to the cave where a battle was once fought.

    There he found someone he did not expect, a long lost friend who disappeared in his own time, never to be heard from again.

    Owyn awaited the king. The king smiled. Owyn had not aged a day while the king neared the terminus of his story. It was a smile turned to sadness at his own ending.

    They spoke briefly, and their words remained between them. Thereafter, Jugandi entered the cave containing the imprisoned form of Yeenoghu. Its amber had been annealed, and the trapped form of the demon prince writhed in stillness. Jugandi sensed the creature but its power seemed further diminished.

    Elio approached from the darkness with a blazing sword, saw who dared enter his demesne, sheathed his blade, and embraced the king.

    They spoke at length, and the king told Elio of his many deeds, of the lands beyond the cave which Jugandi had ruled and made fit for his people. He spoke of the old wars, of his many grandchildren, and of the beautiful woman who he made queen that already awaited him beyond the Great Wheel. Elio listened to him speak, and when the king grew tired, the warforged guardian set him down onto a pallet of blankets. The king expired there, and though Elio could not produce tears, he nonetheless wept over the body of the king.

    Owyn bore the body of Jugandi back to Kiburi. The children of the king buried their father next to Manny within the golden plains of Heshema, and it is said by the Mganga shamans that the spirit of the king never truly rested but dwelled within the lands and watched over the leonin people for the rest of their days.

  • When the heat of the summer days waned to blissful autumn evenings, a figure came to Sora amid her recuperation in Ferncombe. She still played the part of an old woman named Olga, in part due to her nature as a changeling in which even the emotional and physical connection of her skins are real and enduring, and she avoided the return to the cold justice of Winter until the time when a stranger knocked on the round door of a tortle-built home. Olga stood with the pop of her hip from a rocking chair and waddled toward the door.

    The man had an unfamiliar face: dark eyes rimmed by unkempt hair beneath a ratty hood of a traveler’s long cloak. Standing comfortably far from the door, Olga noticed that his boots were overworn, his posture slightly slumped from what was fatigue and perhaps a back accustomed to planting vegetables in neat rows of soft, black soil. Even the stale stench wafting toward Olga blended the senses to create the illusion of a simple, honest worker.

    But Olga knew different. His body language spoke of a hidden awareness that only a changeling could detect. It was just a little too relaxed. The fear of a cruel, unforgiving world tended to create a defensiveness even in the most uncaring or brave youths not yet ripe for anything but folly. This man lacked that seed of doubt, however small, that one must possess to be a commoner, and only someone like Olga would have known the difference.

    His eyes twinkled.

    Olga left the door open and returned to her seat, rocking gently next to the smoldering fireplace. She tossed another log on the embers.

    The man entered, eased the door shut with a boot, glanced at the room, and sat on his haunches across from Olga.

    She avoided his eyes.

    A brief moment of silence passed. It was a gift from Starozh Vhurdaer, the last few seconds of peace. He let her breathe in the perfume of the home until she turned and met his gaze.

    “Time to go home,” he said.

    ~

    Arctis Tor defied even the imagination of the fey. A spire of ice spiraling into the air as high as anything could, the fat base of the tower thinning at a point beyond the milky clouds of the deepest realm of Winter. It hung over the city as a testament to Mab’s frozen wrath, and as such was nicknamed “The Fortress of Frozen Tears” for the woe that was wrought by the Queen of Air and Darkness.

    Lumbering ogre sentinels patrolled along Arctis Tor’s battlements. From the distance they looked no bigger than ugly grey dots. Glacial dragons soared to their roost at the top of the tower, their roaring muted by the freezing wind and perpetual icy rain.

    Queen Mab sat upon her throne, elegant and poised. The Voice of the Queen spoke for Mab, lauding the efforts and accomplishments of her lesser soldiers. As the ranks increased so too did the rewards. Weapons, gems, and mortal riches were showered upon the favored. One troll guard received a necklace of bone made from the spine of a young red dragon he helped slay. The troll laughed in glee at the unexpected honor and tap-danced in circles. The floor rumbled.

    A general of the winterborn mortals was granted a night with one of Mab’s many beautiful fey daughters. The man nodded solemnly. It would be a heavy duty, but he seemed determined to honor the queen.

    Sora’s name was called. She approached the throne. Mab leaned forward but did not speak. The Voice of the Queen continued.

    “For your continued loyalty and commitment to the cause of Winter in the face of such powerful forces, Queen Mab in her righteousness and might has granted you a boon. What request would you have of the queen?”

    Sora spoke, and Mab’s eyes narrowed. The queen rose from her throne and, with all the grace of a season’s first snowfall, sauntered toward the changeling. The hall was silent as a tomb, all eyes on queen and her servant.

    The Voice cleared his throat, sweat beading onto his forehead.

    “Is this truly your… your… request?” he stammered. “You would ask for support in fighting the daughter of our queen?”

    Sora answered again. Queen Mab smiled and showed the brilliant white teeth of a predator still in its prime. She leaned toward Sora.

    You are something special, Mab whispered. Sora’s head began to pound. The queen touched Sora’s face with the back of her index finger. The skin of her cheek froze.

    I sense no fear, only dedication, the queen continued. How unique. Sora’s nose bled, but she did not wipe at the droplets of crimson trailing down her lips. She sensed the hall leaning in, straining to hear any word from the queen, curiosity outweighing prudence.

    The queen grinned again.

    Granted, she said. I’ll have to keep my eye on you… Commander.

    Sora’s vision blurred to a tunnel, but the pain in her head receded as Queen Mab returned to her throne. Mab sat, a pleasant smile held beneath eyes too intelligent to be trusted. A soldier approached Sora and led her from the hall.

    ~

    Lattices of spidersilk stretched between the towering fey-pines hundreds of feet in the air. Vibrations alerted the sentinels of the Nightweaver to the heavy-handed assaults by an irritated and impatient Lolth. Thousands of spiders swarmed the tree-camp. They met resistance. A hundred veteran winter eladrin landed perfectly-aimed arrows into the cephalothoraces of the oversized warrior-spiders of Lolth.

    The Nightweaver reveled in the screams of the dying spiders as they fell to the frozen ground. She retreated with her warriors along her webs, drawing in those simple beasts who continued to pursue. Something cut the webs after the vanguard of Lolth’s forces advanced, trapping them among an isolated grove. Some of the spiders began to climb down the massive trunks, but pouring out from hollows in the trees were hundreds of driders loyal to the Nightweaver. They cut through the panicked forces.

    In the distance the Nightweaver heard the unmistakeable howling of Lolth as she learned of her forces’ defeat. Another small victory for the Nightweaver. She smiled and skittered along her webs, planning, calculating. Many more battles would she lead against Lolth before a return to Mab was demanded, and the Nightweaver intended to win everyone of them.

  • After the events at Wilcryn, Kindle would remain in Ferncombe for the rest of the summer before bidding farewell to his elder, his friends, and the comforts of a warm home.

    The journey north was at first lonely, the firbolg Champion having grown accustomed to companionship, but as the days passed and the safety of Maerwald began to wane, so too did the loneliness. Many people needed the support of a hero near the raider-ridden highlands of Cragmarch and the harrowing forest of Wastewood.

    Knowing he had much time to reach his destination, Kindle linged in these lands and aided the people and the outposts against threats which ebb and flow from the cursed forests.

    The striking of his sword and the blazing sunlight of his magic dispelled both darkness and doubt. During one moonless night Kindle saved a huddled township of villagers against a foray of direwolves and shapeshifters. They praised Kindle, and though he told them his name, the villagers could not release from their minds the radiance of the Summer Champion, and he became known to them as Kindlelight, and that name carried far beyond the hamlets of the Wastewood. Many prayers were given to his health as Kindle continued north.

    The Champion traveled through forest and steppe, riding for a time with the Roving Clans and gaining honor with a tribe of Ashen Orcs. But as his travels brought him closer to his destination, the days became scorching and the nights bitterly cold. The swings of weather and temperature left the landscape barren, devoid of flora or fauna. Bodies of unfortunate folk who wandered too deep into the capricious region lie unburied as markers toward the forbidden city.

    Kindle grew hot during the day, but he fed upon that heat with the power of Summer, and during the cold nights, his heart kept him warm. He carried forward until the landscape shifted to a peaceful relic of what it once was as vision of the World Tree rose above the remnant forest. Kindle had at last arrived to the neutral fey city of Yindove, ruled by elves, and long abandoned except for a small cadre of immortal caretakers.

    Faera waited for him at the Opalescent Gates.

    Their time together was brief by all celestial records, but for the firbolg lovers it was everlasting. And when in times of darkness the firbolgs were separated from one another, they were yet bound together by the same stars beyond the same shimmering sky, and even the power of the Courts could not forbid their union within Yindove - for a time.

    Much work still was left unfinished, and both were honor-bound to serve their Queens and patrons. Their time together drew to a close. They departed from one another as they had arrived, embracing beneath the Opalescent Gates: Faera to deal Mab’s justice upon those who assaulted her realm and killed her concubine king, and Kindle to fight for Summer’s blossoming upon the plane, restoring that which had withered in the unwise lands of mortals.

    When Faera at last fell fighting for her patron, hundreds of bodies strewn about her like threshed hay, she was buried along with the other dragonriders of Varudosa within the ice tombs of the Winter Court, and her visage was enshrined as a frozen statue within the Halls of Mab as befits a Champion.

    Kindle survived for many more decades, but in the first year after the passing of his lover when his grief became a poison and the flowers wilted at his passing, there came to him a child having not yet reached manhood.

    The child possessed his father’s honesty with his mother’s defiance even in the wispy years of youth, though he was hard from a life lived among the winter fey. Tempered by his father’s teachings and free from his mother’s obligation to the Winter Court, the child grew to be gentle and a strong leader, though he would always possess his mother’s obstinacy. And by the wisdom of his father, the child remained free from the fey, living instead with the free people of Ferncombe.

    Salas, his name was, and after his father perished in the defense of Baldan, he would accept the role as Champion of Emmantiensien in defiance of his father’s wishes. Though Kindle tried to protect his son from the path of a warrior beholden to the fey, many lives were preserved by Salas and shepherded by the strength of a child born to Champions.

    Kindle was laid to rest along the promenande to Queen Titania’s Bough in Senaliesse. Emmantiensien, Lord of Treants, planted with the body of his champion a sapling which he molded into a statue of Kindle’s valiant form, standing tallest among the warriors of the Summer Court, shield bearing the blazing symbol of Titania.

    Salas would at times visit the tree of his father, speaking of his own deeds and of the people he’s helped, the friends he’s made, and it is sung by the eladrin that the tree-statue of Kindle would bear the most fruit in the years visited by his son.

  • The Elder of the Spore Clan of firbolgs found not the solution for the blight which plagued his people and his homeland upon the Isle of Savalyr, and with a heart losing hope, Yew turned to the last the person who might aid him.

    They journeyed together through the Shadowfell, fighting the dread which permeates this strange portion of the fey realm and arrived at last at the doorstep of the Fortress of Memories, home of the Raven Queen. Eden led Yew through heavy banded doors and into the foyer. Though they were alone, Eden spoke in a hush, saying that he could go no further. Yew continued alone through the vast fortress of diminished torchlight and high, domineering walls. 

    The Raven Queen sat poised upon her throne, eyes downcast upon the glass sphere containing slowly swirling mist held in her delicate pale hands. She did not look up as Yew encroached the throne, the tap-tap-tap of his walking log impacting the cold stone floor. When she did lift her face, Yew felt the breath catch in his chest as the milky white eyes of a Fey Queen bored into his soul.

    Their exchange was brief and altogether underwhelming. Perhaps Yew expected a more humbling experience or a heavier weight of knowledge and power. Or perhaps it was the loss of his most precious memories of friends and family that made the experience seem mundane. Whatever the case, Yew knew what he must do, who he must face, and which paths must be chosen. 

    The Elder of the Spore Clan departed from the Fortress of Memories and the Shadowfell alone, having no recollection of the friend who led him here. Eden stood in the shadows and watch his friend exit the castle. 

    There was little point to visit his family upon his arrival to Savalyr. They would remember him as a dear elder, but he would not know them and could never again understand who they meant to him. Yew descended into darkness below the earth. 

    For many weeks he journeyed alone into the Underdark, fending off roaming packs of undead which patrolled the caverns. Other creatures waylaid Yew, but he dealt with them in kind but not without suffering injuries of his own and feeling the taint of the blight creep into his own body. The energies of this force were Yew protected himself against but not entirely successfully. A greater power lurked nearby, and only by the gifts of the Raven Queen was Yew able to withstand these forces enough to continue. Yet a portion of this underground kingdom remained unexplored, the necrotic energies simply too strong to withstand.

    After traveling for nearly a cycle of Laira, searching through the winding tunnels for an entrance into a deeper, hidden portion of the Underdark, Yew came across a tribe of sentient fungi somehow entirely immune to the blight and abyssal energies permeating from a portion of the Underdark. They felt Yew’s emotions, read his thoughts, and communicated back in turn telepathically as a hive mind of connected individuals. 

    From this tribe Yew discovered the solution to the blight, and it was with him the entire time. He simply had to learn to harness his own powers and gain the strength necessary to grow fungi upon his body as it were part of himself and not merely a decorative reminder of home.

    The tribe aided Yew in this transformation, and the Elder of the Spore Clan became more spore than firbolg. The blight was now to Yew a source of nutrition, and he fed upon the necrotic energies into the core of the Blight.

    The caverns transitioned from stone to swamp, bubbling mires of black ooze and abyssal energies. Creatures of no discernible shape attacked Yew, but the Spore Elder defeated them and fed upon their corpses, discovering blightstones in the thick pools of black ichor. 

    Yew continued forward until he met at long last the source of the Blight. The Lady of Rot festered upon an outcropping of pitted stone. Foul liquids seeped from wounds in her form, flowing like molasses into the moors. Fungi of species Yew had never seen before, acquired on worlds beyond the plane of Valdhaim, coated her form. 

    What could be roughly considered a face turned to him, and a powerful voice echoed in his mind. 

    “YOU HAVE COME AT LAST,” it said.

    Yew nodded.

    “I HAVE WAITED SO LONG FOR A VANQUISHER.”

    Questions formed in Yew’s mind. Zuggtmoy, the demon queen of Fungi, read these questions and answered before Yew could form the words.

    “YES. A VANQUISHER. I TRIED TO COME HOME BUT THERE WAS NO HOME FOR ME HERE… I AM OBLIVION.”

    The anguish of those thoughts rattled the cavern and the pools of necrosis shifted in the wailing of a wounded demon queen.

    Her form then shifted, grafts of cuticle pulling back from her face and shoulders to reveal a wax-coasted face not unlike the one once possessed by Yew, now also transformed by fungi. It was the face of a firbolg. 

    What could more shatter the world of someone seeking knowledge than to discover that things were not as they seem?

    “YES. WHAT MORE COULD SHATTER YOUR WORLD? LET ME SHOW YOU.”

    His mind was invaded beyond his control, and Yew saw the visions of Zuggtmoy. 

    A young firbolg, fiercely independent, disobeyed the laws of her people and her queen, and she fought for the firbolgs against the yoke of the Summer Court who controlled the gentle giantkin and used them in their wars. The young firbolg united the clans against Queen Titania after gaining incredible power, and she led them to a home far from the troubles of the fey. She led them to a small island called Savalyr. 

    Queen Titania in turn cursed her, and the young firbolg became tainted. Searching for a cure only led her deeper down a road of power and pain until her mortal form expired and her soul was sifted to the Outer Planes. She couldn’t let go, and she rose among the dead souls of the Abyss into positions of power, conquering and enslaving anyone who stood in her path. She carved out a home among one layer of the Abyss and ruled for many years before a powerful tyrant coated in horns called the Demon Princes to a war on the Prime Material Plane. 

    This plane was once home to the young firbolg, and so she came eagerly in search of her once-people.

    But she was wounded, and she fled from capture, and Zuggtmoy found at last her home. Her people fled from her, and in broken spirit, Zuggtmoy descended into darkness to await a time that she may heal from her wounds and escape the essences she generated.

    That time never came. Her wounds never healed. She tried to go home to Shedaklah, but that home was somehow blocked from her now. She tried to heal, but her wounds only bled more. She tried to move but was too weakened to gather her form away from the lands she once called home.

    And thus the curse of Titania was revealed. The young firbolg watched for 1900 years as she poisoned her youth’s homeland, killed the life that lived there, and sickened the descendants of the people she once loved. 

    The vision ended. Yew fought nausea. 

    “I HAVE WAITED SO LONG FOR A VANQUISHER.” 

    Yew found that he could not cry. Mycorrhiza threaded through the tear ducts of his firbolg body, and the moisture that should have spilled upon his hirsute cheek instead was recycled by the fungi grown into his form. Nevertheless, Zuggmtoy felt his sorrow.

    “I AM SORRY LITTLE WARRIOR. YOU MUST NOW CARRY THIS BURDEN. BUT IN YOU IS THE STRENGTH TO CARRY IT FAR FROM HOME.” 

    Yew nodded. All roads led to this moment. He stepped forward and approached the tendrils of fungi growing from the Lady of Rot like thick roots of hair. An arm reached out and caressed his face with inhumanly long fingers. 

    “RELEASE ME NOW.”

    The power which transferred into Yew’s form was never intended for a soul which hasn’t yet passed through the veil, and it shattered his soul into pieces like a heavy smithing hammer. 

    What remained of Elder Yew was nothing which either outsiders or family would understand. But the fragments of his mind and his memories were pieced together by the strength of his will, and Yew knew that he must journey far from the Isle of Savalyr, though he wasn’t sure why that mattered so much to him.

    With him came the sentient fungus folk. They were his children, his friends, his servants, and the only creatures which could ever withstand proximity to his corrupted power.

    Thus the journey of Elder Yew came to an end and the life of a living demon prince haunted the fey realm for many centuries to come.

  • Finding himself at long last weary of the travels and tribulations of adventuring throughout the Cursed Lands of Worrel, Creighton would settle down in the newly-formed independent nation of Ferncombe as an elder of the Greatshells.

    The destruction of Wilcryn brought much sorrow to the Greatshells, their numbers reduced by the war and by the loss of something irreplaceable - one of the twelve gargantuan Guardians who carried upon their back entire clans of warrior turtles.

    The Guardian - Virgil he was named - fell in the meteor strike on the gnomish capital alongside his Grovekeeper Cade. The members of his clan sang a mournful dirge for their guardian as the city rose above the ground and floated toward the sea.

    As was agreed upon when Takai Usha came to Queen Titania in the Age of Amethyst, beseeching from the Summer Court assistance in the war that had come to the Verdant Lands, the Greatshells of the Virgil Clan were no longer bound to the Summer Court at the death of their Guardian. The two thousand surviving Greatshells of the clan were now homeless, unhoused, and in deep mourning. They bade farewell to the eleven other clans as Queen Titania had recalled the surviving Guardians to Senaliesse.

    Takai Usha arrived alongside Creighton to bring the Greatshells home to Ferncombe. While the Greatshells of Clan Virgil praised the return of their unforgotten friend, they were unwilling to leave the body of their Guardian to rest next to the sea lake that once was the root of Wilcryn. At the insistence of Creighton, Takai arranged a deal with a faction of the surviving gnomes who were equally mournful in the loss of their city and many thousands of people.

    In exchange for the gnomes rigging the shell of Virgil with the same technology used to fly their skyships, Takai would grant the gnomes reprieve from their conscious and allow them to settle in Ferncombe alongside the clan of Greatshells as equal citizens. A large portion of the gnomes agreed. Many others did not, and they departed in various directions to find a new fate for their people.

    Those that accepted worked for the remaining summer as the shell of Virgil was temporarily repurposed as a skyship. By the beginning of Redfall, the modifications were completed and the shell of Virgil began its journey across the continent of Worrel as a vessel for two clans of lost, broken kyth.

    When the skyshell arrived at last to Ferncombe, descending on a crisp Snowmoot morning, it became part of the city, the thrusters and antigravity machinery removed and returned to the gnomes. Saint Virgil’s Cathedral it became, a temple for the greatshells and a school for a new generation of wizards Master Creighton would instruct. The Verdant Order became a denomination of battlemages dedicated to peace through strength. Their power would protect Ferncombe after the death of King Zakaraia and the fall of Maerwald when the surviving metallic dragons of Maerwald would take up roost within Ferncombe along with thousands of other survivors fleeing the flames of war.

    Along the battle lines the Greatshells hummed their war dirges. And in the vanguard of the host of noble defenders was a tortle wizard atop a mighty fey dragon whose form was wound with gold and emerald.

    But there was yet time from that turmoil to the present, and Creighton was determined to make the most of his elongated life until shadows rose again.

    A life filled with pastries!

  • The fight for Wilcryn began with Lortuanos striking the party with an explosive ring of lightning, siding with his brother and koll king Paldurat. The party focused their attention on Lortuanos and the machine in the center of the room buzzing with energy and flashing with light. Two clockwork guardians joined into the fight in aid of Lortuanos who remained weakened from his reconstitution, though he was outfitted for combat with koll battle armor.

    As the Heroes of Heshema concentrated on first downing the clockwork guardians and disrupting the flow of energy into the device in the center of the control room, Paldurat sparred with Valmont who himself floating lazily above the ground in draped white robes.

    In the tense conflict the party managed to destroy the main conduit feeding energy to the control power station, and the gentle rumbling of the Wilcryn’s antigrativity engines began to whine down. The city lingered in the air.

    Lortuanos cast a spell which surrounded the broken conduit line to force energy back into the machine but not without taking a massive blow to himself in the process. Smoke spiraled from his blue skin.

    The clockwork guardians fell despite their resilience, the gnomish pilots unconscious or dead, and the party moved to disrupt the three outputs of the energy machine. The city began to power down despite the attempts of Lortuanos to preserve the integrity of the control station.

    For all his many centuries living as an elder race king with knowledge and power beyond any mortal possession, Paldurat found himself equal to the White Lich Valmont. Their battle stalemated until the party succeeded in permanently disrupting the control station and slaying Lortuanos.

    Arcs of lightning issued from the control station, and the city listed dangerously. Valmont ordered them to flee. Paldurat secured his brother’s ring containing his returned soul before he himself fled from Valmont and the inevitable destruction of Wilcryn, leaving the remaining gnomes of the city to perish.

    As the city began to plummet, Creighton realized he would not be able to construct a teleportation circle in time to save them from the fall. Luckily, Yew had prepared and cast a spell to shift the party to the fey realm instantaneously, and the Heroes of Heshema escaped the destruction of Wilcryn.

    The party arrived near the peaceful waters of Senaliesse and traveled immediately from the Summer Court to Ferncombe to find the city untouched by the war in Wilcryn. They were welcomed by Grovekeeper Rigby and the various inhabitants of Ferncombe where a long rest awaited an exhausted and reflective party.

    Thus did the journey of the Heroes of Heshema come to an end after being embroiled in the powers of gods and the vicissitudes of fate. And while one of the greatest cities of Worrel came to an abrupt and disastrous end, many more lives were saved by preserving the Well of Power, though not without cost. Only time will tell what changes the new ruler of Veldonmaak would make and for whom.

    Though all but one member of party would never fully understand the depth of their actions, the Heroes of Heshema would become famous throughout the kingdoms of Worrel, their stories transforming into legend.

  • On board the Dreadnought, the party gained a clear view of the distribution and size of forces. The Summer Court with five Greatshell Guardians flanked the southern portion of the city while Erengrath held the north with a hoard of undead amid a darkening sky.

    To the west a white flag rose next to a small tent; a parley was to take place before the unfolding events.

    The party descended from the airship and made their way to the tent, finding Erengrath seated behind a long oval table.

    Verenestra was the first to arrive, greatshell and eladrin warriors in tow.

    Faera and Varudosa arrived next, their scars prominent from a hard-fought battle against Erengrath the previous year. A quick conversation with Kindle was all there was to have before the Champion of the Winter Court took her place at the table.

    Arriving last was Varic Kel’vas, Speaker for the Wilcryn Council.

    Erengrath began with the florid speech of a practiced diplomat before each party stated their demands. The Great Green Dracolich, as commanded by Valmont, demanded that the koll cease all tampering with the Well and for Paldurat to submit for entombment within Veldonmaak as Valmont had done to all koll.

    Verenesta brought forth a mighty force on behalf of Queen Titania to preserve the balance. Too much power was being concentrated which could unsettles the Courts and the prime material plane. She demanded the conflict cease.

    Faera, as voice of Queen Mab, echoed Verenestra’s demands and demonstrated an allegiance among the Courts. The balance must be preserved, and all things must at some point perish.

    Varic Kel’vas demanded that Valmont and the Courts leave their city in peace.

    Each party’s demands were heard and dismissed by the others. Erengrath parried a few more words with the group before he himself departed, his projected image deteriorating.

    Verenestra returned to her camp with her guards. Faera departed after an acknowledgement to Kindle.

    Speaker Kel’vas remained, urging surreptitiously to Owyn that the gnomes needed help. Varic implied that they too were caught in a power struggle. Owyn made the connection alongside Creighton’s insight that all this could be avoided if Paldurat was stopped.

    But it was already too late.

    As the party marched south toward their interpreted allies, the darkness enveloped the city and encampments. Only the barrier and luminescence of Titania’s daughter provided any respite from the unlight.

    Above the city bloomed a red star, growing quickly larger. Warhorns sounded and the Greatshell Guardians retreated as fast as their lumbering masses could move them.

    The red star grew brighter. A meteor hurled itself from the heavens onto the capital of the gnomish civilization. It began to break apart. Smaller pieces impacted the lands before the largest chunk slammed into the barrier of Wilcryn.

    The world was thrown into chaos. Fire and rock blanketed the land. The city itself shifted on its foundation, titled toward the north. Smaller meteors hit the ocean waters and cast tsumanis to the shore.

    After the implosive roar, the party looked to the city to find the barrier gone, darkness pouring in like mist.

    The undead hoard screamed in unison and flooded the city.

    The warhorns sounded again, and the Greatshells turned back toward Wilcryn. One of the Guardians took a heavy step and collapsed, a wounded leg from the meteor strike unable to sustain its weight. It tried to rise again and collapsed, lying still.

    As agreed by Varic, a small and fast airship descended from the city and scooped up the party as fast as it could move. The Speaker ushered them onboard, and they zipped to the Skydock.

    Wilcryn creaked and cracked, and the city began rising from the earth. The circular stream drained through cracks in the ground and large devices which had been hidden in the water now glowed brightly.

    The Heroes of Heshema landed and maneuvered with Varic to the elevators, descending with all expediency into the heart of Wilcryn as the city itself rose to the heavens.

    Towers collapsed and rumbled the interior. Blasts from arcane cannons aboard the Dreadnought bled through the thick stone structure. The party arrived at Engineering to find it mostly deserted with weapons scattered about the large space. They scooped up a few hand cannons and pivoted to the Barrier Control Station.

    The door of the control station was thrown off its hinges, the stone ceiling compressed and weakened. Stepping through the door led the party into a room filled with technological mechanisms necessary to move through city through space and time. Paldurat was seen writing hastily on parchment as gnomes at their stations looked to him for guidance.

    Owyn called to the koll, and Paldurat initially dismissed them. Olga cast Wall of Stone and utilized Sparky to damage part of the cylinders which carried power around the city. Paldurat’s attention was gained.

    The King of the Koll told them that only their people could rebuild Veldonmaak, and that the release of Koresh’dun was not something that could be avoided, especially not with Valmont in control. But the Koll could rebuild their strength if Paldurat succeeds in drawing his kin from the Well, and there would come a time when Koresh’dun could be re-imprisoned.

    Owyn weighed the words while gaining insight into Paldurat’s mind.

    A still-weakened Lortuanos entered the room, demanding to know what was going on. Paldurat’s journey to reconstitute his people at the expense of the Well’s stability and the lives of those within Worrel was communicated to Lortuanos.

    There was only one thing the long-dormant koll could do against his brother’s loyalty to his people: Lortuanos attacked the party as a small human in white robes appeared behind Paldurat.

    The fate of Wilcryn now lies in the hands of The Heroes of Heshema in one final conflict to determine who would command the power of the Well.

  • The quiet, unused halls of the deepest roots of Wilcryn remained free of enemies as the Heroes of Heshema navigated their way toward a central chamber, discovering a device for transportation vertically through the city. A map within the interior of each pod revealed a number of destinations. The party chose to head to the nearest floor, the only one which remained unnamed.

    The doors closed and the device quietly hummed as the party pushed in the button to the unlabeled level. A gentle moving sensation followed for the next few minutes before the doors opened. The hallway was well-decorated with the flowing design and architecture of someone possessing intricate knowledge of engineering with the detailed ministrations of an immortal mind. Various hallways led to rooms barricaded by heavy brass doors. Only a single room shed light into the hall, its door slightly ajar.

    The party followed the light and slight whirring sounds.

    The tall, thin form of a blue-skinned koll stood at a workbench, a device in his hand casting bright light upon a clockwork instrument glowing with the dull orange of heated metal. Mechanical spiders bearing small orbs filled with a swirling radiant energy climbed over standing alloyed sarcophagi large enough to capture a firbolg. These devices were not unlike those Vadan himself was trapped within.

    Paldurat turned to the party, removing the clockwork goggles from his eyes. His gaze swept over the party in an expression of bemusement and intrigue.

    His perplexity of your arrival soon resolved into a careful conversation. Owyn relinquished the ring in which Lortuanos abided in his long slumber. The ring was placed in one of the sarcophagus chambers to the sound of a gentle humming.

    Paldurat led the party into a lecture hall filled with pews and chairs, continuing the conversation. He discussed fate and consequence, extending his own knowledge and perspective. Mysteries which had plagued the Heroes now unwound their complicated threads.

    Paldurat, a king himself, claimed to be the last of his people, those whose lives spanned centuries as the lives of kyth spanned years. They did indeed build Veldonmaak to house a great and terrible force, an elder god named Temnota who is the terminal manifestation of destruction and entropy and from whom the end of all would issue from: the Coldmourne. Koresh’dun he is also called, The Chained Oblivion, for his body lies trapped within Worrel by the Chains of Creation charged from the Well of Power - the Maakon Vaith.

    Bones began to take shape in the reconstitution chamber, seen through the glassed enclosure, formed from seemingly nothing. The humming of the chamber continued.

    Many times had Temnota gained the power over countless eons to bring about the Coldmourne, but another iteration of the multiverse would issue forth, and the fight would begin anew. The gods contained faint memories of these previous events, no more than echoes of the previous iterations, and so they strategized a way to end the cycle forever by imprisoning Koresh’dun.

    Flesh began to form in the chamber, stitching together as though regrown by the power of holy priest.

    Sealed away physically by the Chains of Creation in Imarstaldt, Koresh’dun is prevented from attaining his ultimate strength, his spirit forever chasing his brother Agon in the Far Realm. As long as his body remained trapped by the Chains, powered by the Well, then he would not have the strength to free his spirit from the Far Realm, and thus would the end of ends be staved.

    Guardian of Kyth, Sentry of Imarstaldt. By mine blade is Veldonmaak shielded ‘til the Coldmourne, the blade of Elio read.

    Paldurat feared for the Well for there was betrayal among those whose duty was to protect it. Valmont, himself once a prisoner in Veldonmaak, was released and gained incredible power over the device, infiltrating the Order of the Aegis, and installing a pawn to rule the organization.

    The King of the Koll wished to free the souls of his kin whom Valmont imprisoned in Veldonmaak, drawing them forth from the Well before Valmont could further weaken it, and reconstitute their forms. Then he and his people would depart from this world and this time, searching perhaps for those of his people who never returned to relieve their watch over the Well, that city which flew across the Great Blue Beyond and returned nought.

    Skin began to form in the chamber, a faint blue hue hinting at its final tone.

    You would depart with only your people and leave the rest of us to fend for ourselves? Creighton asked incredulously.

    Yes, Paldurat said simply. But you could come with us. Fate has brought you to me for a reason, and even I who has seen a thousand centuries do not fully understand the workings of providence.

    The reconstitution chamber fell silent, and Paldurat helped his brother Lortuanos from its interior, the first steps of the ancient Koll in more than a thousand years. They embraced and Lortuanos was led to a chamber for rest after a quick word of gratitude to Owyn.

    The discussion ended abruptly with the call from a communication device on Paldurat’s workbench. The nasally voice of a gnome bled into the room, a tinge of hysteria announcing that the city was besieged. Erengrath hath come, and with him is a host of darkness pouring from the ground and surrounding the city from the north.

    The gentle shaking of the room announced another comer to the city. The heavy, implacable footfalls of three Greatshell Guardians broke through the seas and landed upon the beach of Wilcryn, surrounding the city from the south.

    The party vacillated, the stakes so very high that doubt was sewed and frictions arose between the Heroes. Paldurat temporarily united the party with a plea for them to defend the city by joining the weapon he’d been building, an airship of war. The party rushed to its location in the hangar, finding it preparing for departure. Arcane cannons the size of carriages lined its hull, and the vibrations of its engine began to churn the stomachs of those nearby.

    Creighton at this point staunchly refused to fight against his people while Yew could see no other way than to oppose the liches in all that they might accomplish. The two perspectives clashed until aboard the mighty Dreadnought the Heroes witnessed a skirmish between the Guardians and the undead, though the conflict did not boil over as the undead retreated and the tortles held their siege to the south.

    From the perspective of the Dreadnought as it rose above the city in spirals, a lone figure could be seen flying above the ground, garbed in a white robe. Behind him the noonday sun was obscured in a growing darkness.

    To the south Verenestra, daughter to Queen Titania and Warmaster of the Summer Fey, could be seen atop a Guardian as a beacon of light. Her three Greatshell Guardians towering over the walls of Wilcryn as thousands of tortles could be seen atop the roving giants, brandishing their axes and singing a rhythmic war-dirge. Further out to sea, two additional Guardians lumbered toward the shore.

    The conflict appeared poised on a three-sided blade: the undead hoards of Valmont and the Greatshells of the Summer Court catching the gnomes of Wilcryn as between hammer and anvil, though neither hammer nor anvil seemed to be in open alliance.

    As the Dreadnought ascended beyond the barrier of Wilcryn, a small halfling figure appeared to Owyn as time ceased to turn.

    Owyn found himself awakening in a soft bed. Next to him sat the harried form of Sybil, Avatar of Ioun, whose grey hair frizzled out of her bun. She held a sad smile.

    Sybil told Owyn that he has passed her tests, all but one, and that of course by now he understood that his coming to Worrel from the Golden Empire was a ruse to extract the best that the temple had to offer. Father Vasili, Priestess Eva, and Loremaster Wrenn Folkor had all failed their tests as Owyn had succeeded. One last trial remained.

    Owyn was led into a small room with a round table, a steaming pot of tea being poured by a bald man in white robes. No other adornments or jewelry were seen on his person. He smiled warmly and spoke to Owyn in a rural accent, naming himself Valmont. Sybil seated himself across from Valmont and Owyn carefully took his own seat.

    Valmont spoke of the gods, of power, of choice and consequence. He spoke of duty and knowledge and the responsibilities that said knowledge brings.

    The gods themselves are more forces of nature than conscious being. Their power constrained by their aspects. And thus they created Avatars of mortals to act with great power but make choices that the Gods could not, The lich said.

    The pact was made to bind Koresh’dun, Valmont discussed, and the pact extended to sequestering Worrel from the multiverse by the will of the Gods. But it was imperfect, and the well now lay vulnerable; the Koll have seemingly failed in their duty. Valmont himself became its de facto protector for no other held the will nor attained the power to before make a difference. He infiltrated the various organizations and structures which guard the Well, setting into motion machinations to return power to the Chains by any means necessary, even if it calls for the release of demon princes not seen since the Age of Terror.

    By any means necessary, including the imprisonment of all life on Worrel if the gnomes are not stopped. Paldurat would destabilize the well with his own selfish desires.

    Valmont cannot let that happen.

    Owyn noticed tears began to form in Sybil’s eyes, a silent weeping coming from the matronly nexus of Ioun’s power upon the mortal planes. Owyn sensed that the weeping was for himself.

    Valmont revealed that he too was once a disciple of Ioun, trained by Sybil herself, as were all the other liches, though perhaps their motives have shifted over the centuries. Valmont is committed to preserving the Well to ensure that Koresh’dun remains imprisoned so that the multiverse does not descend into uncontrolled entropy.

    Thus the gnomes must be stopped.

    Are you willing to sacrifice your own beliefs to truly serve your god? Valmont asks Owyn. It’s the heaviest burden that only the most righteous can make. To change themselves into monsters in protection of others, to sacrifice themselves and their reputations for the greater good, and to wield knowledge as a weapon when Ioun herself instructs otherwise?

    Owyn agreed that he was ready and that he would do as needed.

    Sybil spoke to Owyn, telling him that after the events in Wilcryn he would take upon himself the Mantle of Ioun, becoming an Avatar of the Goddess of Knowledge and walk among Worrel as a righteous protector of life, doing what must be done even if his god could not.

    Owyn understood. The gnomes must be stopped. Paldurat must be stopped. By any means necessary. Otherwise the Well would be weakened and Koresh’dun could finally attain his freedom and usher in the beginning days of the Coldmourne.

    The vision hazed and Owyn found himself on the deck of the Dreadnought, his companions none the wiser at his conversation with Valmont and Sybil.

    Standing on the deck of an airship armed with arcane weaponry not before unleashed upon the face of Worrel and caught between opposing forces with no true understanding of the cost and consequence of each decision, the heroes must nonetheless act. Paralyzation would be far worse than choosing the wrong side. And only in hindsight can we see that our actions had a profound impact on those nearest to us and to the world.

    We hope it was for the better.

  • Departing from Kementari, the party follows Malegina into the Underdark via teleportation, arriving somewhere north and west of their original meeting place with the elven necromancer. The hunt for a mindflayer commenced.

    With Malegina pointing the party in the right direction, quick work was made of the trail, discovering numerous victims of the mindflayer’s feeding: brains missing and skulls cracked open like eggs. The aberration seemed to make its home somewhere in the ruins of an old dwarven kingdom.

    The illithid discovered their presence and psychically communicated to Kindle. The Champion of the Summer Court issued a challenge and thus the option for bargaining was terminated.

    Ringed by thralls and supplicants, the mindflayer allowed the party to charge into its lair before cutting off the vanguard from the support. Kindle was ripped from his steed and flung into the abyss by the illithid’s psychic powers. A quick reaction by Olga infused a stone table below Kindle to prevent his continued descent. Grells and gricks issued forth from their hiding places along the cavern’s walls and the battlefield become claustrophic.

    A charge of psychic energy crippled all but two members of the party while a githyanki carved into Yew and a Great Ape Creighton. Owyn was pincered by umberhulks, and Olga pumped healing spells into the cleric to keep him alive. Kindle dispatched the lesser minions while Yew forced the mindflayer to retreat with a Heat Metal spell.

    The battle turned in favor of the Heroes of Heshema, and the mindflayer, realizing his chance of winning depended upon downing the casters, attempted to dominate the mind of Creighton. Unfortunately for him, the illithid was in range of a counterspell, and Creighton dissolved the magical weave ere it could manifest.

    The mindflayer met his end with a bolt of energy from Elder Yew, burning off the mucus of his face and carving through his own skull. The surviving gith, who previously attempted a tactical retreat, was suddenly felled to the floor and seemingly free of the mindflayer’s influence. The party interrogated him through clever use of comprehend language to learn that his name was Vesseg, and he was from a place beyond this plane, enthralled and angry, he wished to return home. It was decided to allow him to search for the mindflayer’s Nautiloid, a ship designed to travel the stars.

    With their debt settled, the party chose not to continue working with Malegina or her father The Great Green Dragon Lich Erengrath. They resolved themselves to discover the secrets of Wilcryn on their own.

    Through crevices beneath the root of the city, above an enclave of Fire Giants, the party utilized Wind Walk to climb upward, uncovering the extent of the magical barrier of Wilcryn and discovering an opening in the rock leading to a hallway. The faint light of a glowing sphere illuminated the silent tunnel.

    What secrets await the Heroes of Heshema within the city of Wilcryn where all Worrel’s powers seek answers to the gnomish designs?

  • The party entered the demesne of Erengrath the Great Green Lich Dragon, stepping through Malegina’s portal into a dark forest. The path led across a bridge to a tower, a shining beacon of light illuminating the shrouded landscape seemingly located near the Shadowfell of the Fey Realm.

    “Welcome to Kementari,” Malegina said with a smile.

    The party was allowed to rest before meeting with Erengrath. They witnessed blade singers practicing in the open fields near the tower, saw changelings in their natural form, and noted a few wilder firbolgs among the soldiers. There was a sense of tepid hospitality experienced by the party.

    Erengrath received the party at the top of the tower. The bright orb casting a summer’s warmth and illumination at Kementari’s pinnacle. Erengrath sat comfortably within the gardened throne room adorned with high glassed windows, ivies flowing down from wall sconces and bright flowers juxtaposing the dreadful darkness beyond the Tower of Kementari.

    The Great Green Lich was small, gnarled like a root, and hospitable. His image reminded the party of Masseras, and it was revealed that Erengrath was indeed once of the Summer Fey, an Emerald Dragon long ago beholden to Queen Titania. Now he is his own master and commands his own family and kingdom.

    Many questions were asked and many answered received in seeming honesty. Erengrath also wished to discover what Wilcryn was hiding, what their machinations were leading to. He offered the Heroes of Heshema a bargain: to assist him in his discovery of the gnomish designs would return an end to the bounty which harrows the party. But the party also is in Erengrath’s debt, having slain a beholder which belonged to him. They must now in return bring him an aberration.

    With a quick dimming of the radiant orb overhead, Erengrath revealed how he intended to approach the Wilcryn puzzle - by assaulting the city with a massive undead army hiding along the perimeter of the orb’s penumbra.

    The party also learned that Erengrath had similar visions of breaking out of Worrel and using the Well of Power to fuel his escape. His thoughts on the Gods and Veldonmaak were disdainful.

    Vadan inquired about his own history, having woken up from imprisonment in Veldonmaak with an assault on Erengrath. The Green Lich gave his own take, explaining that he came to consume the souls of monsters and that it was Vadan’s own people who released more than Erengrath could contain. Erengrath claimed to have previously gathered the survivors of Vadan’s tribe and gave them a home as his guardians and warriors, and through a conversation with Riga, the elf-orc leader of the singers in Kementari, Vadan learned that she was content with serving the lich.

    Olga spoke with the changelings as they played a card game of Purple Dragon, learning that they used to belong to Mab but gained their freedom by joining Erengrath. Now they wear their natural forms openly, without fear of reprisal. Olga noted their names: Wyatt, Aisek, and Sia.

    The party weighed their options throughout evening. Vadan, Creighton, and Yew each contacting Erengrath in some manner over the evening’s rest to forge their own agreements.

    Yew was shown the true form of Erengrath, a gargantuan bone dragon resigned to an existence without the pleasures of the flesh, a heavy burden in exchange for immortality. Yew declined this path.

    Vadan was restored in a fashion by Erengrath, some memories lost forever from his time in Veldonmaak, but others become more crisp and clear.

    The party set out the following morning with Malegina in search of an aberration to square the debt with Erengrath. Three choices were given by Malegina: to seek the slaads amid a vast lake, to pursue the illithids in their small colony near Wilcryn, or to search for something else entirely. Malegina would accompany the party to restore in undeath what the party kills.

  • The beholder fight commenced with a surprise round by the party. A quick succession of failed spells revealed the anti-cone emanating from the beholder’s main eye. The party repositioned and unleashed destruction on the undead.

    As the heroes neared the blood pool, it came alive with a vile ooze that grappled the nearest fighter while dealing acid damage. The rays of the beholder cascaded across the party as the undead aberration backed himself into a corner.

    One ray struck Sora, and she would have perished were it not for the Carapace of the Spider Queen. Instead the changeling was healed for massive amounts and the fight shifted into a frenzied tempo.

    Within a few more moments, the beholder was surrounded and burned to ash by the disintegration spell of Vadan.

    The heroes desecrated the blood shrine and healed their wounds. A quick check of the pool revealed hundreds of bones and skulls beneath the murky surface. The heroes departed in haste.

    Humming softly to herself in a rhythm recognized by Vadan atop a drake mount, Aleksandra Malegina made their acquaintance outside the beholder’s cavern, introducing herself as a daughter to a mighty lord who now demands their presence.

    The beholder was slain by this father and Malegina was returning to acquire the asset. The elven figure seemed lighthearted but disappointed at having lost the undead beholder, and she said that a new aberration was owed to her.

    Little deliberation was to be had among a weary party. Malegina opened a portal and the heroes stepped through into a quiet forest knowing that soon they would meet a powerful figure thought to be Erengrath the Great Green Lich.

  • The party began their day with the purchase of a gem-encrusted bowl which they utilized for a Heroes’ Feast the following evening in preparation for a descent into the mines.

    Olga and Yew were escorted into the heart of Wilcryn, over the bridges of the city’s circular river, and up the many stories of the inner city. There they met with Erwin Fiddletop, an eccentric artificer and engineer. While the druids spoke with Erwin and helped him better understand the nature of growing things - which requires love and care more than ingenuity and design - it was revealed just how different the gnomes were from other creatures. Erwin, flanked by his large automaton Cavendish, rewarded the druids with a small token of his appreciation: a mechanical hummingbird.

    This makes for two items of mechanical nature that the players had received from the gnomes, the first being the Instant Fortress gifted by Varis Kel’vas.

    The following morning at the break of dawn, Merwyn Glitterspring came to escort the party into the mines per their request. They journeyed north of the city and took a vertical shaft downward deep into the earth. After the second descent, the heroes arrived at Jaskina, a town within the Middledark as base for mining operations.

    Not more than a moment into the mines, Merwyn having already wandered over to the tavern for a drink, a commotion erupted and large-eyed creatures cut and clawed their way from the north entrance to the camp. The party dealt with them handily and agreed to investigate further.

    They wandered. A subterranean lake ahead lie ahead. Next to calm water was a figure on the cavern floor, propped up against a wall. He was heavily injured and did not speak to the party. Sensing that his death was nigh, he removed a ring and handed it to Olga. She looked down and noticed the design, possessing one of the same. The man perished and with him also departed his disguise. His flesh faded into the alabaster-white skin of a changeling. Silence followed but as Owyn cast Speak with Dead, the fallen creature drew in a breath and spoke to answer the cleric’s questions.

    Upon his person the party discovered a bag of coins containing the equivalent of 60 platinum pieces (including a small stone with a rune on it), two rings (including the aforementioned), a broken health potion, a vial of a deep green color, two hidden daggers, a hand crossbow, a worn lock pick set, and worn but well-made studded leather armor.

    The party delved deeper and beyond the lake was an entrance where torchlight flickered. Dead duergar lay outside the main chamber, killed as if by intense psychic energy. A pool of blood lay thick across the chamber’s interior. Other fallen deep dwarves lay scattered about the room. Something large and vaguely globular lay at the far end of room where some form of shrine was lit with torches.

    Something, it seems, had come into this chamber and dispatched all its inhabitants deftly. Some of the duergar bore hideous gashes across their stunted forms.

    As the heroes ignored the shrine and toss rocks into the blood pool, the dead became alive once again, and the tentacled mass rose into the air, let out a hideous screech, and the party looked upon the form of an undead beholder, readying their spells and weapons for combat.

  • Yew, Creighton, and Owyn found themselves pulled toward a senseless direction amid their black dreams. Something heavy lay on their chests, lungs burning and yearning for breath. They broke through the weight to find themselves buried alive. Wet soil covered them in shallow graves. The monochromatic landscape felt like a dreary dream amid a graveyard of broken headstones.

    Something lingered in the mists nearby. The creature shifted at the sound of the heroes discussing their location and options. It attacked, rushing forward in the dim light cast by the oversized appearance of Laira, the alabaster moon, seemingly too close to the material plane.

    Arms ending in blades and a hollowed face with large, sunken eyes rushed the players. Another rushed from behind the first. The heroes fought them off and hurried down the path leading from the graveyard.

    Foot traffic lead only one way as the road led to a ‘T’ intersection. They took the more traveled path and encountered on the road an older human woman carting corpses to the graveyard. She turned around for them, heading back toward the town.

    The cawing of crows and the occasional grunting of large bovine creatures with necks overly long were the only sounds which the heroes could discern through the cold, steady winds.

    The town itself was walled but small and disheveled, populated with shadar-kai and other humans. The woman told them to seek the bishop for jobs. They were now a part of this place and should settle in if they wished not to be carted back to the graveyard as corpses.

    The heroes caught the eyes of the townsfolk, looking upon them suspiciously, and while a small market could be seen in the middle of the town, little conversation was heard.

    Moving to the cathedral, the players encountered the bishop. Part avian in nature, the stooped figure welcomed them home. The players were not so easily convinced and sought a way from this demiplane. The bishop spoke of place, mentioning that it was guarded and implying that even if it weren’t, the people here wouldn’t be able to use it. Sleeping seemed to make it harder to leave, and so the players hustled to the portal.

    Where marshy terrain would have impeded normal travelers, Yew made the trip far easier with his druidic magic. It proved consequential as the heroes discovered the portal’s location, a muted light shining through the mist and revealing the murky ground. A winged horror landed between the heroes and their escape, and battle commenced.

    Yew hastened to the portal to see if they could bypass the encounter. The creature struck deep into Owyn who lost his focus on Spirit Guardians. Owyn also quickly discovered that the creature was not undead through a failed Turn Undead spell. Creighton focused on what he does best: obliteration.

    Yew retreated to the party, casting Anti-life Shell, protecting the heroes from the monster. The party limped to the exit and found it blocked; it was the be a fight after all. With clever use of the driftglobe, the environment was bathed in daylight and the shrouded form of the creature was revealed - directly above the heroes.

    Creighton unleashed a column of radiant energy after Owyn’s Divine Retribution burned through the creature’s flesh. Yew followed up with his own powerful Sunbeam, and the monster was vanquished, simply too vulnerable to the radiant damage upon this shadowed plane.

    The heroes stepped through the portal to find themselves buried once again. Though this time upon pushing through their shallow graves, their eyes met the rising sun shining above the walls of Wilcryn. They breathed in the warm air of early summer.

    Whatever or whoever had pulled them into the darkness remains unknown.

  • We return briefly to Yew who traveled to Heshema using his druidic magic. In a callous display of power, the spore elder dispatched an antelope with Blight as a gift for Vinny. No one witnessed the kill, and Vinny himself wished not to eat the blighted flesh. Yew however did return with the appropriate documentation which allowed the party to negotiate with Wilcryn.

    Owyn led the charge as Ambassador to Heshema with a stalwart Vadan serving as guard, the rest of the party in tow. The heroes approached the nearest gate, a tower rising from the wall. Gnomes garbed in armor and staves spoke to Owyn and summoned for a more authoritative figure.

    The party was introduced to Varic Kel’vas, one of the noble Speakers of The Hidden Council of Wilcryn. Varic led the party through the gate, passing into the protective enchantment, and across a number of streets until arriving at a mansion. Through the foyer flanked by winding stairs and past the high double-doors, the heroes joined the gnome at a long table.

    Owyn made his pitch well, offering up the minerals and ore beneath Heshema to the gnomish miners in exchange for precious gems, gold, and silver which would flow into the barren coffer’s of King Jugandi’s capital. A moment of clear insight allowed Owyn to connect the geology of Wilcryn as being strongly akin to that of Heshema, and the rewards the gnomes seek would surely thus exist in a similar fashion. Varic Kel’vas gleamed.

    A preliminary contract is to be drawn up, and a scout ship is to be sent immediately to assess the region. In the meantime, the party would gain access for Owyn and another member to the public libraries. Olga was granted audience with an engineer to assist in the development of more nature-based magic for increasing crop yield, and a foreman would show the party into the mines to understand the extraction process.

    Ambassador Owyn included Creighton in his trip to the library the next day. Here was was that Owyn learned much of the Koll that was lost to history. The gnomes’ historical records painted a different picture - the Koll seemed to be the first race to inhabit the lands of Worrel. After many thousands of years, their people dwindled despite their immortality, and they migrated their entire city to the outer seas, leaving behind a small contingent of engineers to maintain the ancient device known as Veldonmaak. It was only after Valmont (as Creighton himself discovered) interfered with the artifact that the Koll returned in force.

    Owyn also researched more of Ioun, finding that she was principal among the gods who worked with Bahamut to intercede on behalf of the mortals of Worrel during the Age of Terror, though many other deities such as Garl Glittergold, Helm, and Pelor also lent their authority.

    Creighton through his own research discovered that the lands in which roam the lumbering saurians and their laconic riders were once the very source of the Grand Tortle Empire as written by Vondalago. Perhaps here Creighton may discover more about his people’s past and the enigmatic patron-cum-world-ending-baker Cornelius.

    Creighton also notably discovered valuable information about Erast Valmont, detailing his humble beginnings in The Hinterlands, the lands north of Wilcryn, a place deeply scarred by the Age of Terror. The progenitor lich was born a poor farmer and through extraordinary talent, gained his way into the Mage Citadel of Teo. It was after his travels through the vast continent of Worrel that he returned, having gained much power and insight at other arcane institutions, most notably Loreos and Mythradragonost.

    Erast returned to Teo a sinister and commanding archmage. He quickly assumed command of the Citadel, dispatching his rivals without mercy, and bore the role of High Magus. Valmont accelerated his research into the residual abyssal energies which permeated the dry farmlands of The Hinterlands. It was through this searched that he presumably unlocked the secrets to eternal life as a powerful necromancer. The histories also noted Valmont’s use of undead as a workforce.

    The party visited a bakery to clear their heads, discovering two rival businesses across the street from one other - Tough Cookies and Mad Batters. Vadan practiced with the Stone of the Fallen Stars on fallen trees to better understand the artifact which once bore the form of an elder god upon the mortal plane.

    The party meandered through the port section of the city, finding it largely independent and trade-oriented. Creighton discovered a possible entrance to Wilcryn’s subterranean structures as he caught the briefest flash of darkness exiting from deep beneath the docks.

    The session ended with Yew speaking to Eden and learning that the location of The Pall, the region of the mortal plane bordering the Shadowfell - similar to The Hedge and The Mare - lies somewhere in the Underdark beneath the Ruins of Umeros, that place which once houses a great tiefling empire.

  • With the dawning of a new day amid the wild Verdant Lands of Worrel, the heroes drove the surviving orc sailors back to Akiokuwe via Yew’s Transport via Plants spell. Captain Lumas departed last among his crew with a final look to each member of the party.

    The distance to Wilcryn remained far but with druidic might the party traveled through the skies as wisps of cloud, and the distance became a trivial matter. The party crossed the lush forests to find it sparsely populated excluding a few settlements along the coast and near the major rivers. Riders of saurians lumbered through the damp trails and pterodons sailed through the clear spring skies. The party traveled without assault hundreds of miles per day.

    The last night before arriving in Wilcryn the heroes stopped in the village of Yarrin where they secured safe passage aboard a large saurian with three horns. Led by Yrossa, a middle-aged halfing woman, the party arrived at Wilcryn without issue, finding an eclectic group of dwarves, humans, halflings, and a few half-elves amid the makeshift encampment north of the city. Most appeared to be miners.

    As the party drew nearer to the city, the walls loomed and the towers pierced the sky. Despite utilizing formidable magic by Creighton to pierce through illusions, the city remained shrouded in a protective enchantment which blocks not only arcane sight but divination magic into the city.

    The party arrived at The Harpy’s Talon on the south side of the city, finding it to be a large, multi-storied inn. Yurifan Bellowsmock worked behind the bar, a human bearing a family’s gnomish name. The party spoke at length with him in private, learning of his half-elven associate Olifir who attempted to sneak into the city by air only to be have his polymorphed form dispelled upon breaching the hemispherical enchantment shimmering above the city.

    Concocting a plan to serve as King Jugandi’s diplomats as a ruse to get into the city, Yew fast-traveled to Heshema, gaining the appropriate documents and livery (along with a modest set of weaponry) to aid their infiltration. A well night’s rest is expected within The Harpy’s Talon as the party prepares to knock on the gates the following day.

  • The adventure began with a final, quiet night in Akiokuwe before the heroes departed upon the open seas.

    (Yew received a small obsidian figurine of a raven to be used as a sending stone to Eden who will continue to fulfill Yew’s Summer Court boon.)

    The following morning, the party left at dawn to board The Falconeer as Captain Lumas and his crew of orcs ushered the vessel out of port and northward across the Fairweather Shoals.

    (Creighton and Vadan discussed their arcane skills and how best to share their knowledge. They estimated that it would cost approximately two hours and five gold per spell level to learn a spell from the other, though the process isn’t a guaranteed success.)

    While the Fairweather Shoals may have a pleasant name, there were portions of the shallow waters which flourished with coral, making it a difficult place to navigate in poor weather. Luckily, the sky was clear and bright, and the other vessels which dotted the horizon posed no threat.

    A great blue whale appeared early in the journey, misting the ship with its spouted water and eyeing the sailors before carving its own path through the sea.

    The following week as the ship approached the main continent of Worrel, a meteor shower lit up the evening sky momentarily like fireflies on a warm summer night.

    The Falconeer skirted the coast, remaining far from The Great Blue Beyond where the untamed waters claimed ships of all sizes. A storm approached during this leg of the voyage, and before it hit, large humanoid figures breached the waves. In giant they sung and bade the storm cease its tumult, and the storm abated. The ship carried on without harm, and the giants of the sea returned below the surface.

    Crossing an open stretch of water the following week, the ship encountered a small island, no more than a hundred feet across, containing the intertwining roots and rising trunks of many smaller trees floating amid the water. Vinny scouted the island and discovered that the trees bore fruit. The glossy orange-yellow texture of the small melons were bitter to the taste but contained freshwater in plenty and could be a godsend to mariners.

    The party made it across the open water and sailed parallel to the coast for another week before encountering an unnatural fog. It was blown away to reveal a large wave headed toward the ship. With the quick thinking of Olga, who utilized a control water spell, The Falconeer was prevented from capsizing as the sailors and heroes strapped themselves to the ship.

    Riding the wave were three oversized toad demons who clawed into the party. The water of the wave did not recede and it hung over the vessel in its own magically altered state, pouring into the hold. The sailors rushed toward the surface as the party fought with aid of a water breathing spell.

    The battle raged as another smaller toad was revealed as the conjurer of the wave and a seeker of the bounty upon the Heroes of Heshema. A fourth toad demon was seen by Creighton who commanded the seas in the form of a giant shark form, ripping holes into the side of the vessel. Olga dispelled the enemy’s control water spell, and the sea around the ship regained its temperance.

    Kindle fought with the strength of a Champion and Vadan remained impenetrable in his song. Yew commanded the sea and sky with his own spells, and Owyn struck with the flames of righteousness from the heavens, sending a column of fire onto the ship. The timbers creaked and groaned. A final lightning call by Yew split the ship in half and sent the bow and midship to the ocean floor.

    In the waters the heroes finished off the toad demons, though the conjurer escaped and presumably fled. Gathering the survivors and the three dead mariners, the party waterwalked to the shore where they collapsed with exhaustion and relief among the sailors.

    Over the course of the night with sounds of the land’s megafauna and saurians a persistent auditory background, the party gained further strength and prepared to navigate the next part of their journey to Wilcryn.

  • Arriving in Ferncombe, newly minted home of tortles and other peaceful folk, our heroes were met with a welcoming site of an evening meal prepared as a community upon the central circle of the town. New homes were in construction, and a number of fresh faces were seen: humans and notably a group of tieflings dressed in white robes stained by work.

    Creighton approached these new tieflings after a brief conversation with Grovekeeper Rigby. The tiefling leader was named Kaithus, and his people came from Absolution to help build the city.

    After learning of an assault in the fey realm through Grovekeeper Rigby, Kindle and Olga ventured through the grove connecting Ferncombe with The Hedge in search of Masseras. Perched upon a rocky outcrop overlooking a vast landscape of silhouetted trees in the early-dark evening, stars shining brighter than upon the mortal plane, Olga and Kindle learned that a simple force of goblins and ogres assaulted their position. It was perhaps no more than a test of their strength, and Masseras conveyed confidence that they could repel future forces.

    Nevertheless, Kindle the Brave, champion of Emmantiensien, offered his services should the need arise to defend Ferncombe. Masseras would contact him via Rigby if such a time arrived.

    In the dark of the night, Vadan was torn back into his memories. He once again heard the oppressive voice in his mind. CRACK OPEN THE LESSER SOULS OF THIS LEVEL. I SHALL FEAST THIS NIGHT. The voice reverberated throughout the darkness.

    The next morning, Creighton broke his fast among the austere and quiescent tieflings and attempted to befriend one of the younger workers. Creighton the Greaton learned of the tiefling’s culture, something entirely foreign to his own. The devil-blooded tieflings shun pleasures of the flesh, eating unsweetened porridge for breakfast, and focusing instead on their actions to help others. The young tiefling Ozadius slipped Creighton a parchment sketch of a happy tortle, a piece of forbidden art, as a token of his respect for Creighton.

    The day then led to Baldan via Circle of Transportation. Much was learned from Sybil as Owyn met for the first in person with his patron upon learning of her status as Avatar of Ioun. Bane, the dark god who also sent an avatar to contest the lands of Worrel, has long been sealed away in Veldonmaak and reduced to energy for the Well. The stone in possession of Vadan is a relic of the avatar which may possess greater power.

    Sybil also revealed that the voice Vadan heard belongs to Erengrath the Green, great lich dragon and former student of Valmont. He is a mighty foe and notoriously cunning.

    Owyn discovered that his peers who previously journeyed into Worrel at the command of the temple did so as a test of faith. Loremaster Wrenn Folkor failed. Priestess Eva failed. Father Vasili failed. Owyn has yet to fail, staying true to his faith even against seemingly insurmountable odds. There is more to his story yet to discover.

    Olga purchased an Amulet of Comprehend Languages ere the party took a shortcut through the feywild to arrive in Akiokuwe. Our heroes chartered a schooner to deliver them to Wilcryn as The Falconeer, captained by Lumas the orc, prepared to sail west to Aedemar.

    Upon arriving in Wilcryn, per the request of Sybil, the party is to search out Yurifan Bellowsmock at the Harpy’s Talon Inn outside the main wall of the city. There our heroes shall discover what machinations the gnomes of Wilcryn have been crafting in their isolated city.

    The party begins the next part of their journey at sea.

  • Vadan, Creighton, Yew, and Kindle began their departure from the seat of the Summer Court, traversing the promenade of Senaliesse toward the Twin Elms.

    Along the path to the material plane, Yew stopped to converse with a stall owner who tendered greenery and exotic plants, one of which was encased in a glass dome which protected the cactus from a more humid atmosphere. Creighton purchased an autumn fern from Elorys, and Yew received a referral to a more prominent shop among one of the elevated structures.

    The Alchemist’s Bowery read from the signage, and it was run by a treant-woman formed of root and trunk named Kali who traded the venerable Yew tendriled, luminescent glowrooms and a yet unnamed yellow-wet fungus for some of the spore elder’s own eclectic collection.

    Meanwhile, Owyn relaxed in the day, soaking up the warm spring sun of the Endolian Archipelago. In a similar fashion, Olga strolled through the gardens of the Dawn Hall and embarked on a request from Vinny to teach him how to read, a task which initially seems very promising with the purchase of Cecil in the Sea.

    The party gathered in the evening at the Rolegonia, the inn within the Cascade District run by the local government. The idea of a dineout sprung up, and the heroes ventured across the street to The Gaudy Macaw, partaking in drink, dinner, and delight as a treat from Jugandi who departed early the next morning to take upon the mantle of King of Heshema.

    The hours bled through the night, and Kindle found himself dancing and performing in the Cloud Harbor District, a young Creighton smiling upon the fun from a nearby table. Olga remained hidden from the two, bathed in shadows, protecting Kindle without his knowledge as ordered by the Winter Court.

    A local man of bronze skin, drunk, staggered toward Olga who slipped from the encounter. The man straightened his walk and his speech, inquiring from the changeling what news was discovered from the gnomes and their hidden plans. Little could be reported at the time.

    The dawn came at last with the execution of a number of spells to remove the effects of hangovers, and the party journeyed to The Rise to meet with Ambassador Saldon aboard his dirigible The Good Fortune.

    The party flew into the air, making a leisurely pace around the island. They spoke at length with the ambassador, munched on gnome-sized sandwiches for lunch, and learned much about the gnomes of Wilcryn. The gnomes seem always eager to share conversation but are guarded and proud of their mechanical and arcane creations. A demonstration of a model skyship was provided, and Rogbin Beetlebop was named-dropped as the current reigning champion of skyship racing.

    The Captain of the ship was named Keldri Ginboterson, and he was more than comfortable to let Saldon do the talking who continued incessantly about gnomish design and the need for more ore and metals.

    After two hours, The Good Fortunate landed softly on The Rise, much to the relief of Yew. The party then delved into The Prismatic Grove, a jungled region along the southwestern portion of the main island. Here it was that the Elder Yew carved a path through the material plane by linking two trees many leagues apart, and the way through the trees landed the heroes back home in Ferncombe.

  • The Heroes of Heshema began their journey on this day by witnessing the demise of Raskar, his body evaporating and leaving nothing but a gelatinous smear on the ground as the rakshasa departed from the plane unwillingly. Our heroes spoke to Mr Witch, divining his role in this charade. It seems that he was under some compulsion or spell that left him with no memory of the past few days. The party exited the Witchlight Carnival in haste thereafter, having found the joyous atmosphere distasteful after so much conflict.

    The following day our party met with the gnome representatives from Wilcryn unexpectedly over breakfast. One garrulous, middle-aged gnome robed in finery seemed to be the leader, introducing himself as Ambassador Saldon. It was his intention to develop a stronger relationship with Akiokuwe to negotiate for mining rights among the scattered islands. Several members of the party also accepted an invitation to attend a luncheon aboard their dirigible the following afternoon.

    Other members of the party followed the river through the Twin Elms into the heart of the Summer Court, arriving just outside Senaliesse, capital of Queen Titania, amid a vast forest protected by treants. There they met warrior Eladrin who welcomed them to the city before wandering through the soft-ground streets among the various structures built alongside the oversized trees, until they spotted a shape bobbing in the water of the Sunspring. The Greatshells have assembled.

    Creighton saw thousands of his forgotten kin, six Guardians of the Greatshells signifying six independent clans brought to Senaliesse by the command of the Summer Queen, ready to be dispersed at her will to unknown locations. The other four clans had already departed, returning a total of eleven independent Greatshell Clans at last discovered by Creighton.

    Along the warm waters of the Sunspring, Yew was approached by a pale figure exuding the wisdom of someone who has suffered greatly, announcing himself as Eden of the Raven Court and his intention to mentor the Spore Elder in his quest to understand and control the natural forces which determine the balance of life, death, and undeath: a boon requested and fulfilled by the Summer Court.

    Within the dim shadows of the verdant forest surrounding the Sunspring, a silhouette emerged and beckoned to Kindle. At last the Champion met his patron face-to-trunk, and the support of Emmantiensien was welcomed by the warrior firbolg.

    Olga received her boon as well, a beautifully-crafted single-pauldron remodelled from the shorn limbs of Lolth. The Carapace of the Spider Queen it was called, and its power shall be used to battle against the scorned daughter of Queen Mab.

    Owyn executed a communion spell with his goddess, and he learned that Raskar’s soul did not penetrate the protection spell surrounding Worrel. Thus Raskar perished forever. And with a Sending spell, Owyn learned from Bashetan that the Red Mage had not personally sent a single bounty hunter to them, or so he claimed, and perhaps their reputation had spurned the attention of other interested parties.

    Throughout this time the party spoke to Vadan and learned of his unique story. The half-elf bladesinger seemingly destined to find the Heroes of Heshema and interweave his own rhythm into their song of conquest.