Gabe3e

We looted the orcs, red-skinned beasts and glabrezu. After emptying a bag of holding, we tossed it over the necromantically ensorcelled gem and pushed it in
with a quarterstaff. With the Barne’s corpse and the Queen’s unconscious and adapted body carefully placed in a hole, we teleported back to Jaran’s house. The butler is told to not allow anyone to disturb them, as everyone will be quite busy enchanting items and researching. Evan and Falderian are asked to protect the Queen while the rest of us research and craft.

The next morning, Lyta determines the gem is a soul binding gem. Kalcryx clarifies that it should be safe to touch, and that it must already have a soul within. We question Barne’s body, and find that he wants to be true resurrected. After finding the necessary diamond dust in Waterdeep, and carrying out other loot/shopping chores, Jaran returns to Velen and Kalcryx performs his first Helmite true res ritual. Barne is restored to life, and eventually tells us that “Silverhand’s soul was in trade for his own,” according to the snake bitch.

We head to Fidalaine and make arrangements to teleport the Queen to the castle in the evening. Fidalaine has a ‘lower room’ outfitted properly. We have dinner there that evening.

We contact Zonas, and he asks that he be allowed to hold the gem in safekeeping until he decides what to do. Jaran, Lyta and Falderian teleport to Zazesspur briefly, drop off the gem, and ask that the gem be returned when Silverhands soul is finally released from his prison.

As sunset approaches, the normal spring Alturiak weather changes into a heavy rainstorm. Jaran and Lyta arrive back in the middle of the torrent, and Kalc and Barne have been too busy talking about Helm and dragons inside to have noticed.

We head to the castle to investigate. Warning Fidalaine that there may be an attack, we settle in near the Queen and Fidalaine for the evening. While everyone takes watch, Lyta summons many small investigative eyes which scour the edges of the city, looking for things afoot. In the middle of the night, several eyes return. Falderian eventually notices them and Lyta is awakened from revery. The bobbing eyes pause in her hand, her eyes flicker, and after a few minutes her eyes open. She reports that several wherehouses have been destroyed by some kind of invisible force near the waterfront. Falderian, Barne and Lyta decide to take care of it in the morning.

The next morning, we enlist Jaran’s guildmembers to search through the wreckage of the three wherehouses. We find only that they seem to have been battered from the outside, and that there are strange pools of water (not rain related :) ). We decide to watch that evening at Falderian’s dock for whatever it might be.

Sunset arrives again, with another preternatural storm. That evening we hear distant crashes. The dash to the site of the attack, but despite magical senses and the ability to see invisible, no one sees the source of the destruction. Four more wherehouses are destroyed.

The next morning. Jaran asks her local guildleader, Arrowseer, to speak with some fish or animal in the sea and find out what they might know. Handing him a sea-beholder mask to allow him to breathe water, he jumps into the sea with Jaran and Kalcryx to help protect him. He tracks down an otter, who tells him that all the fish flee the area during the deep night.

That evening we all take to the air, spread out across the wherehouse district, waiting for some sign of an attack. A building near Lyta crumples. Barne rushes to the sound first. Lyta calls out to warn others nearby. Kalcryx skims the water to the edge of the dock, with Evan close behind. Jaran hears the noise as well, warns Falderian and spends several rounds flying to the scene.

Lyta draws near the water, and is snatched from her giant fly and dragged beneath the water with a gasp for Help. She dimensiondoors out of the grasp of the beast. Kalcryx arrives near her position. He’s attacked, and he swings mightily at some kind of barely seen multi-limbed sea creature. Kalcryx is then the center of a flurry of attacks, and he falls unconscious, his body floating a few feet above the roiling ocean.

Jaran and Lyta pepper the area with cold, fire and acid. Barne draws too near the edge and is drawn beneath the sea as well. Jaran casts ‘locate creature’, pointing out it’s general location, then finally spotting it with her own eyes. She casts polar ray, freezing it a bit. Lyta smacks it with fire from widely spread meteors.

The creature finishes swatting at another five wherehouses. Leaving Barne drifting to the bottom of the sea, it leaves. Kalcryx revives from Evan’s tending. Kalcryx and Jaran look for Barne, and Jaran drags him back to the surface with her broom.

1359DR Ches 29

Having killed the naga guarding the entrance, we continued into the Helmite fortress embedded in the cliff face. Lyta brings down her crackling black sphere of nothingness and it eats through the outer steel portcullis. The interior is shadowy, and the stables to each side smell of fresh hay. Kalcryx moves in and explores one of the ten stables. A red-skinned creature lurking in the shadows throws five brightly glowing missiles at him. Jaran gestures and a thick sheet of iron rises out of the ground, sealing off five of the stables. Five more red-skinned humanoids appear from thin air past the iron wall, and the air becomes thick with volleys of green and blue rays.

Lyta’s black sphere rolls inexorably towards the next portcullis, disintegrating several foes along the way. More magical volleys fly in from the next room. Slowly the enemies fall to magical and physical punishment.

Jarl boldly steps through and opens the temple doors. Inside, a glabrezu rears up to full height. Jarl and Kalcryx smash at him and he dies quickly, but not before confusing the whole battle with reverse gravity. Suddenly Jaran, G’kar and Jarl are falling to the ceiling.

The black sphere rolls through the last portcullis, and into the main dining hall. A wild surge of noise erupts as orcs pour out of the neighboring bedchambers, weapons drawn and mouths snarling.

The orcs fall upon themselves in growing anger. Then a roiling cloud of cold sweeps through their ranks, and their bodies fall like cordwood.

At Kalcryx’s suggestion, Lyta drills a hole through the floor with the sphere, winging the portal as it wends it’s way downward. Arcane words are spoken, and Lyta’s sphere of destruction suddenly winks out of nothingness. Lyta casts disintegrate, and the portal collapses upon itself. The red swirl of mist within the portal evaporates.

A gruff voice calls out from below, “Send no more your magic, or I kill woman.”

Tired of waiting, Jarl and Falderian decide to take a more mundane route, and continue past the piles of orc dead towards the stairs. Hearing noise through the door leading to the stairs, Jarl cautiously opens it, sword ready. More orcs swarm out, but Jarl ignores them in favor of the snake bitch hiding behind them.

Lyta rushes to help Jarl. Snake bitch blocks off the rest of us by erecting a wall of shimmering force. Jarl wades through the orcs and furiously swings at the snake bitch.

Jaran, after some ceiling fumbling and a spider climb spell, jumps down to the portal room, provoking another volley of acidic missiles. Tumbling through the foes while running at full tilt, she gets to the door and rains fire down upon more of the hiding red skinned humanoids. The lead orc, cowering behind his female captive, warns, “You friend stupid. No more magic or Queen dies.” More acid arrows fly.

Kalcryx realizes he can mold stone, and rends several doorways through to the blocked hall, ordering Barne to get through and help.

Jarl is chilled by a polar ray, and his mighty sword falls from his hand as his heart slows to a stop. The snake bitch backs towards the stairs, and Lyta gives chase. Falderian lifts Jarl and dashes into a side door, following the sound of Kalcryx’s spellcasting. Seeing Jarl’s limp body, Kalcryx revives him.

Barne spends a fair amount of time paranoidly slapping at undead hands reaching through the floor.

Jaran tries to smack snake bitch with a Blackstaff, but it seems ineffective. Kalcryx catches up and runs her through with his sword. Cackling, she calls out, “Now I see where the power lies, I shall go visit your friends.” Gesturing, she brings time to a crawl, and with a blur she disappears.

Everyone dashes off to make sure the others are okay. Falderian hops down the hole, and helps Jaran bargain for the Queen’s life.

We find Barne is sealed off from us with more walls of force. When the walls finally drop, his charred body is cooling upon the ground, and Falderian and Jarl’s weapons are gone.

We loot.

Aaron watches me with disdain as I fill my bowl with water and stir the spoon through it. He seats himself on the rock beside me and digs two trailcakes from his pack. “Lady, please…” he says, and holds one out to me.

I smile and I shake my head. “Keep your trailcakes, Master Aaron.” Jaran’s words were not encouraging, nor was her tone. We know precisely where we are, and yet we are still lost. “You may be eating gruel with me soon enough.”
(more…)

Per now-Baron Zonas’s orders, we escort Fidalaine of Sune to the city she is to rule, Velen. Teleporting in from Zazesspur to the city, we head to the castle and request a meeting with Lady Zaranda. Showing her the sealed documents from Zonas, she proclaims a feast for the evening with a promenade through town the next day to proclaim dual rulership.

The promenade goes without a hitch. Fidalaine is showered with gifts from the adoring populace.

We teleport back to Zazesspur and drop Lady Zaranda off with her love, Zonas.

and…er…something else happens.
Oh yeah.

Zonas asks that we find Lord Silverhands. Divinations fail to locate him, and without more guidance, we decide to take back the Helmite keep. We know the Queen is held there, and that the snake bitch watches over her. A direct teleportation into the keep fails, so instead we arrive just outside.

Perched atop the cliff is a human-headed snake, as large as a man but twice as long in length.

We kill it.

He studies the broad-leafed trees about us, and wipes the sweat from his forehead.

“Chult,” he says.

I frown down at him.

“I bet we’re in Chult.”

I sigh. “We are not in Chult.”

“We may be in Chult.” He pushes a low branch out of the way, and I urge Hadrian forward. “Have you ever been to Chult? How can you know we’re not in Chult?”

I ignore his questions and we walk on in silence while I take in the world around me. Yellow sunbeams slip through openings in the canopy and cascade from limb to vine to leaf. Strangely muted birds and insects chirp in the distance, then hush as we approach. The smell of moist loam seeps upward from the ground. The air squeezes me like a sweating fist.

It is exactly as Hadun described Chult. But we are not in Chult. We are not anywhere in Toril.

“The Weave is not the same.”

His lips flatten into a grim line and he nods reluctantly. He feels it, too.

“I hear the Yuan-ti worship different gods than men,” he tells me. “Perhaps Mystra shows the people here a different face… A different Weave…” He means to keep my spirits high with hope, but he himself is unconvinced. Still, I do take comfort from his words.

The Weave is here, at least.

“Perhaps Mystra does show the people here a different face, Master Aaron.” I smile down at him, and he smiles up at me. I shake my head and I chuckle. “But we are not in Chult.”