Much has happened since we last saw our heroes. Gent struggled to use his new magic to stop the onset of Ratu's hordes. Garamond, Gnur, Eoghan, and Serym needed to outrun of a completely different (but equally deadly) horde of Ratu's army, and the party met up with a new person of star-struck destiny in Nir, the Water Adept. This story does however have a mostly happy ending.
Today's cast:
- Eoghan - The half-elven ranger, beloved of his wolf Cana
- Garamond - The human paladin, servant of Utar
- Gent - The human wizard, cloaked in robes of glowing silver
- Gnur - The halfling barbarian, wearing only a loincloth and 2 bandolier
- Nir - The human water adept, sent to this plane by his master as a test
Gent's proclamation to cease fighting in the Arcanist's District were quickly dismissed and the fighting started back up again. He managed to meet up with the delegation from the church of Nantosvetla, who were providing aid to those resisting the Arcanists' Guild. During this time, he met another human, Nir, who appeared to have some proficiency with the element of water. All of the fighting in the courtyard stopped when the rumble of Ratu's minions made itself known. As the valiant resistance and cowardly Arcanists fled the district, Nir and Gent were able to combine their prowess to erect enough barriers to allow everyone to escape. For his efforts in saving various people, Nir gained himself two friends.
Garamond got separated from the others, and found himself escaping a giant mass of black tentacle monsters by ducking into the rubble of The Purple Cocactrice. Inside, he found Rolph mourning over the dead body of his lover. Rolph charged the noble paladin with seeing his only son, Jim, to safety up at the castle grounds. The horrendous sound of Ratu's hordes was heard and Garamond escaped the inn before it was crushed under a writhing mass of monsters.
The paladin continued to make his way toward the Arcanist's district, as the red bubble over that had since dissipated. On his way, he passed by the temple of Nantosvetla which appeared to have been untouched by the turmoil besetting everything else in the city. Inside, the blind matron of the temple allowed him to use their pools to obtain divine healing, and charged him with protecting another human she foretold as being a chosen one (or some bullshit). As he was leaving, she revealed that she wasn't blind, and he could hear her laughter in his ears until he met up with the horde of people fleeing the Arcanist District.
Gent and Garamond quickly reunited, along with the dubious company of Jim as they traveled up to the castle in a large group. As they neared the outer perimeter of the castle grounds, Jim was possessed by evil thoughts, and broke off down a side road at a full run. Garamond ran after the fool child, only to find himself set upon by Ratu's minions. Gent, Nir, and Nir's friends came by quickly afterward to render support & rescue the kid. Gnur even made an appearance, hacking a few limbs off of evil creatures before disappearing off elsewhere with a group of teleporting satyr creatures.
Teenage dwarf in tow, the group made their way up to King Octavian's location, doing their best to keep moving despite various impediments. Gent laid out the option of using the necromantic ritual to open a portal to the material plane, and the king wanted to enact this plan as quickly as possible. He pointed out that the options were either a dodgy necromantic spell, or certain death at the hands of an evil god.
Needing a power source for the spell, Gent was considering using the relic he received after his jaunt in the Astral Plane shard, when Nir offered to sacrifice his life in order to allow these people to escape. The matron of Nantosvetla's prophecy rang in Garamond's ears as he looked at Nir, hearing "He's the chosen one (or some bullshit). Sacrifice your life in lieu of his to receive the tools to achieve your quest." Stepping up, he volunteered his life in place of the Water Adept's.
Gent prepared the ritual, instructed the participants, and began to invoke the spell. After the beginning of the invocation, he plunged a knife into Garamond's chest, and all participants recited their portions of the spell almost perfectly. Every living thing felt their life force become bound to the powerful ritual as they felt their city blasting off through the stars.
Many strange things transpired, many visions received, and even a few helpful mutations bestowed upon all present as the city of Redrock traveled through the Astral plane. The skies opened up and everyone could see a vast open plane below their current trajectory. The city and its inhabitants plummeted toward the grassy plains, and impacted with what should have been a thundering roar.
Instead, everyone was pleasantly alive, and all of the hordes of Ratu had been left behind. The city, in all of its freshly ruined splendor, appears to have made the journey as well. To anyone who had observed this arrival from the perspective of the Material plane, they would have seen the city form itself out of the very earth, with people materializing where they had been just prior in the plane of fire.
This was all fantastic, except for a few minor details:
- The dwarves had just spent almost a millenia perfecting the skills needed to to survive on the fire plane.
- Winter is fast approaching in these northern reaches of the material plane.
- Nobody knows exactly where the city landed.
- The skills needed to survive on the fire plane are vastly different than those needed to survive a harsh winter in the material plane.
- Garamond, and the knife that had been used to sacrifice him, were both missing and unable to be located.
Serym and Eoghan set about trying to train the dwarves to survive, with every good intention being punished with accidental death. Eoghan luckily managed to discover the remnants of the orcish druids that had raised Serym and accidentally integrate them into the city of Redrock.
A few weeks after their arrival, an emissary of The Empire of the Gilded Wing arrived at the gates of the city. As the weeks of talks proceeded, various members of the party knew that the Empire did not have Redrock's best interests at heart. Around this time, Garamond reappeared.
It seems he had woken up inside of his tomb, in the ruins of the temple of Nantosvetla. Garamond had a weird sword, a nice conversation with a ghost, saw a prophetic map showing him his eventual defeat of the dragon Lengeth, and revealed the location of The Throne of Utar in the mountains north of Redrock. Paradoxically, he appears to be a bit older, and he's wearing an antiquated set of (quite functional) golden armor adorned with the symbols of all the gods in his pantheon. Despite Garamond's soul not being quite properly attached to his mortal form, nothing seemed to be wrong with him.
Serym attempted several ways of getting information out of the Empire encampment. On one trip, he purchased a halfling slave named Bernard, but got kicked out of the camp before anyone remembered to remove the force amplification collar placed on slaves in the camp. On another trip, he was able to get some useful information out of the magician who guards the emissary after treating the mess hall to a fresh roast trimmed with tongue-loosening herbs.
He was also thankfully able to reestablish some of the druidic tradition among his people, training several new younglings in the traditions of his people. Luckily it seems that some of the dwarves also have some talents.
Gent spent some time learning to properly cast a new spell of his, which would allow for instantaneous travel anywhere else for himself and up to 5 friends. Hoping to use this to set up trade routes and learn their position in the world, he and Garamond traveled to the monastery where Garamond grew up. Upon their arrival, it seems that black dragon cultists of Lengeth were attacking and razing the monastery.
After dispatching a few half-dragons in the courtyard, Gent and Garamond went inside, where they scared a rather large fellow away from killing another one of the monks. After stabilizing the man, they utilized a secret passage and found Abbott Geoffrey maintaining a holy spell of protection in the middle of the floor of his study. Having lost the restricting medallion he was wearing, the dragon man had grown to be 8 feet tall and was belching fire with tremendous force. Garamond dropped down from the floor above to protect the abbot, and Gent was able to constrict the dragon's movement with a spell. Sadly, the dragon had been preparing another massive breath of flame, and his mouth was now pointed directly at the wizard. Being out of good options, Gent flung himself into the room and landed on the abbot. Thankfully neither were terribly hurt, and the spell of protection only minorly diminished.
Meanwhile, Gnur found himself materialized inside of a tavern called The Wolf's Den somewhere west of the monastery. By meeting up with an eccentric Tinker salesman, he ended up making his way over to the east to the monastery. Despite being hired to guard the man and his wares, both were robbed by a robbing band of bandits, and Gnur was made to put on shorts. They arrived at the burning monastery of Utar shortly after Gent and Garamond had entered the central building.
Everyone is trying to help their adopted city of Redrock in some way, however all of their forces are spread thin. Will they success in their quest to bring peace to a displaced people? Find out... (maybe?) some time!