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Story Hour
Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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<blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8124029" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p>Session 18: Traveling the Aralin River</p><p></p><p></p><p>Players:</p><p></p><p>Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)</p><p>Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)</p><p>Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)</p><p>Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)</p><p>Marxine Deepfoot - Dwarf Fighter (Champion)</p><p></p><p>GM - Everyone Else</p><p></p><p>(Note: This session was held on Discord.)</p><p></p><p></p><p>26 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 57)</p><p></p><p>Bright and early the next morning, we planned for how to spend our last few hours in Lonoj over breakfast. The Riverspark would be leaving in the afternoon for Tunturi so we had a little time.</p><p></p><p>Vinya wanted to visit a magic item shop among other things. We asked at the Soaring Gull, and then at Smolly’s, for a recommendation. Smolly sent us to a shop run by his cousin. Vinya bought a cap of waterbreathing, since we were going to be on a boat for a while.</p><p></p><p>We walked around Facet Square and did some general shopping -- arrows, warm clothes (since we were heading into the mountains), etc. As we were walking Vinya suddenly remembered that she’d told the guards at City Hall that she’d come back if she had time before we left town.</p><p></p><p>So she scurried that way, with Elama to keep her company, while the rest of the party continued to stroll around the now-quiet Facet Square.</p><p></p><p>At City Hall, Vinya went back into her Architecture-Obsessed Tourist act and ascertained that there was, in fact, some sort of spell on the hall that blocked scrying into the council chamber. Which is what we suspected. Apparently it was cast long ago.</p><p></p><p>After that we all assembled at the Riverspark in the early afternoon to meet Mr. Stonebright. We were introduced to the captain of the Riverspark -- a hill dwarf named Captain Strongaxe. We observed that Mr. Stonebright didn’t have any cargo -- he was not heading to Torm Brinnom with a cargo of goods to sell. He had some personal possessions, but nothing resembling trade goods</p><p></p><p>Marxine noticed that Captain Strongaxe...had some sort of tense reaction to Mr. Stonebright. It seemed to be entirely on the Captain’s side. Mr. Stonebright appeared to be totally trusting of Captain Strongaxe, but the Captain clearly did not share his regard.</p><p></p><p>Before we cast off, while Mr. Stonebright was getting settled in his cabin below, Marxine talked to Captain Strongaxe dwarf-to-dwarf. Though a hill dwarf, he had some family who live in Torm Brinnom (as sort of resident aliens). He’d heard of Marxine’s stronghold, Torm Hastraf, near Tash, though he’d never travelled that far. Torm Hastraf is a large stronghold, with 18 clans in it. Torm Brinnom is rather smaller with only 10 clans.</p><p></p><p>After a bit of conversation, when they were comfortable with one another, Marxine turned the conversation toward our employer.</p><p></p><p>Marxine: What vibes are you getting off Stonebright?</p><p>Captain: I don’t really know him, but the story is he’s supposed to have killed someone in Torm Brinnom and is now persona non grata there. I did not ask him to swear on the forge and hammer but he said that he would swear that he did not kill anyone.</p><p>Marxine: I’ll keep that in mind.</p><p>Captain: Either he’s bad enough that he’s willing to lie in an oath on the forge and hammer, which would make him very dangerous, or he’s been framed and there’s a bounty on his head unjustly. Which would make him dangerous to be around.</p><p>Marxine: We’ll keep that in mind, and keep our eyes open, but we want to stick with this job for now.</p><p>Captain: Fair enough…</p><p>Marxine: Either he’s very confident that he’s got evidence that will exonerate him. Or he’s very stupid.</p><p>Captain: In my experience those go together.</p><p></p><p>After that we cast off for a 10 to 12 day trip upriver to Tunturi, where the river would become impassable and we’d have to continue our journey on foot.</p><p></p><p>Once the boat cast off and was sailing, Marxine went below. Vinya, Aldalomiel, and Elama spent most of their time on deck during the whole trip.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day and the night passed without any incident other than watching the city slide away behind us and the countryside roll around us as we sailed toward the mountains.</p><p></p><p></p><p>27 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 58) (Day 2 of the 10-12 day journey)</p><p></p><p>Early the next morning, the party members on deck noticed a small irrigation-type canal that went off to the side of the river -- it was clearly diverting water from the river. About 150’ from the riverbank, water was shooting into the air in a spray like a geyser. There didn’t appear to be any settlements or houses or structures nearby.</p><p></p><p>Elderron sent Oda over to take a look -- as he watched through Oda’s eyes, Elderron said that there was a pipe at the end of the canal that turned upward to the sky and the water was shooting up out of that.</p><p></p><p>Elama turned to a nearby crewman: Hey, has that been that way for a while? Do we need to fix that?</p><p>Crew: Been that way for a long time.</p><p>Elama: How long?</p><p>Crew: 100 years or more. Have you seen the floating islands?</p><p>Vinya: Yeah.</p><p>Crew: There was a guy who had one tethered here and needed water. Then the island floated away and the pipe sheared off.</p><p></p><p>We decided there was no harm in the geyser -- no one further from the river needed the water from the irrigation canal and the canal wasn’t taking enough water from the river to matter downstream. And the boat wasn’t going to stop anyway.</p><p></p><p>So we sailed on.</p><p></p><p>Just after dinner, as people were preparing for bed, Vinya and Elama, still on deck, noticed two roundish humanoid shaped things the size of a house heading toward the river and the ship.</p><p></p><p>Vinya, to a crew member: What the hell’s that?</p><p>Crew: Captain! Hill giants!!</p><p></p><p>The rest of the party came up on deck as the captain did.</p><p></p><p>The giants were walking toward the riverbank, making a line so that they’d be near to the boat. Vinya moved to the side of the boat nearest the giants.</p><p></p><p>Vinya, to the Captain: Are they going to attack?</p><p>Captain: Probably.</p><p></p><p>Vinya held a shot with her bow for one of them to make an aggressive move toward the boat or anyone on it. Elama also moved to that side of the boat and waited to see what they’d do.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel, perhaps having more experience with hill giants, didn’t wait for them to act. She fired two arrows at one of them, hitting with both.</p><p></p><p>In response, the giants threw rocks at her -- from 200 feet away -- both of them hitting her squarely with large rocks that knocked her out almost immediately and punched holes in the deck of the ship.</p><p></p><p>Vinya took her shot against one of them and hit, but barely noticed that in her concern for Aldalomiel and her stress about the damage to the ship. The hull wasn’t breached at all, just the top deck, and the ship continued to sail -- moving closer to the giants.</p><p></p><p>Marxine encouraged the sailors to move the boat to the other side of the river, so we’d be further away from them. Vinya took two shots with her bow, against the same one she and Aldalomiel had already hit, hitting with both of them. Elama cast a powerful healing word on Aldalomiel, who stood up and then started to dodge. Elderron took a shot with his longbow, hitting once on the same one.</p><p></p><p>After Elderron’s attack, the giants stopped moving and we could hear some guttural conversation between them. The one we’d been shooting at made an angry gesture at the arrows sticking out of his body and then stomped away over a hill. The other one looked at the boat, then at his disappearing friend, then back at the boat. Then he turned and trudged after the other one.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Does that happen often?</p><p>Crew: Not often. We should definitely stay alert. They may be back.</p><p></p><p>We helped the crew keep watch, with some of us hanging out on deck, for the rest of the night. But it passed without another visit from the hill giants, or any other incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>28 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 59) (Day 3 of the 10-12 day journey)</p><p></p><p>In the morning, after breakfast, we heard a shout from a watchman in the bow.</p><p></p><p>Crew: Slicks!! Slicks on the water!!</p><p></p><p>We were all looking around in some confusion, except Vinya who’d experienced these before when sailing along this river to get from the monastery in the mountains she’d started her monk training in to New Arvai and the Chiaroscuro Temple where she’d finished it.</p><p></p><p>A moment after the crewmember’s call we suddenly were seeing around us a snow-covered forest with a majestic, huge tree that had a rainbow bridging between it and the sky.</p><p></p><p>Before we could really adjust to that, pretty as it was, we were back, sailing along the river with forests passing by on the riverbanks.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Can we go back to that?</p><p></p><p>Then we were back in the snowfield and there was a beautiful crystal palace visible, with the huge tree distant in the background.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel recognized it as matching the descriptions of Ygdrasil, one of the outer planes. (A chaotic, chaotic good plane)</p><p></p><p>Captain Strongarm: Sometimes on the river there are patches--slicks--that are something like windows to another plane. They can be really bad. This one was nice. No way to tell.</p><p></p><p>After that we enjoyed the balmy (especially for mid-winter) weather and the rest of the day passed without incident.</p><p></p><p>At bedtime, we saw a very ancient and very ruined castle on a bluff that overlooked the river. Elderron sent Oda to investigate and saw that the castle was surrounded, and in places encroached on, by wild forest. It was clearly abandoned.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: We need to go on a history tour, y’all. Visit all these great ancient places we’ve seen. Maybe we could fix up part of that castle and live there.</p><p></p><p>We sailed on into the night, which passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>29 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 60) (Day 4 of the 10-12 day journey)</p><p></p><p>The next morning dawned grey and crappy and rainy and everyone was grateful that the Riverspark had the equipment and supplies necessary to have done rough patches to the deck where the hill giant boulders had broken through.</p><p></p><p>Elama and Vinya stayed on deck, despite the rain, but everyone else was inside. In the morning, they noticed some structures on the sides of the rivers -- arches on either side of the riverbank, opposite each other, and massive stone stubs in the middle of the river. Like there was once a bridge here.</p><p></p><p>Vinya looked for where a road might have gone from the side of the river, if this were, in fact, a bridge, and saw some hints of a road -- an area where the trees were slightly shorter and maybe thinner, that went inland and along the river, possibly toward the castle we’d seen .</p><p></p><p>Vinya marked her map of the continent with the bridge, the road, and the castle we saw the day before.</p><p></p><p>The ship sailed on.</p><p></p><p>Toward bedtime, the river started getting a lot more rough, like we were approaching rapids. Vinya remembered these, and the canals that bypassed them, from her previous trip on this river. Captain Strongaxe ordered the Riverspark to the far bank and weighed anchor.</p><p></p><p>Captain: For what I need to do here, I need light.</p><p></p><p>Then we all went on with our evening.</p><p></p><p></p><p>30 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 61) (Day 5 of the 10-12 day journey)</p><p></p><p>The next morning, we could see why the captain had pulled to the side of the river and anchored for the night -- there was a canal with a lock that went around a cataract on the river. Getting the Riverspray into the lock took a bit of maneuvering. Going through the lock and the canal took about an hour -- there were some people there with a team of oxen to help move the lock gates and to help move the ship into the lock and out into the main canal.</p><p></p><p>Vinya and Elama, at least, watched with interest.</p><p></p><p>Around toward bedtime, we passed the remains of another ruined bridge, stubs of the supports in the river bed and arches reaching out from the shore. Vinya tried to look for a road and saw the traces of one through the forest. It looked like it could also lead to the castle we’d seen.</p><p></p><p>After that it was bedtime and the rest of the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>1 Dorrinin 749 (Campaign day 62) (Day 6 of the 10-12 day journey)</p><p></p><p>It was crappy and rainy again, so Vinya set up a tent-like structure on deck and she and Aldalomiel hung out there for the day watching the shore go by and the rain. Elama mostly basked out in the rain, letting it soak her hair and clothes.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Well, at least Lamie’s happy.</p><p></p><p>Just at sunset, the captain pulled to the side of the river again.</p><p></p><p></p><p>2 Dorrinin 749 (Campaign day 63) (Day 7 of the 10-12 day journey)</p><p></p><p>The next morning, the Riverspark went through another canal with a couple of locks around a cataract in the river. The canal was on the same side of the river as the previous one. Once again there were people and oxen who clearly worked at the canal assisting travelers through.</p><p></p><p>Despite our travels upstream and closer to the mountains, the weather was getting even warmer. It was still raining, hard enough that even Elama went below, leaving Vinya and Aldalomiel in the tent on deck.</p><p></p><p>Just after dinner, there was a cry from the lookout.</p><p></p><p>Crew: Slicks!!</p><p></p><p>Moments later all around, there were gears turning, fast and slow, intricate connections between the large and the small gears as far back as we could see. Aldalomiel and Vinya, out on the deck, were seeing the gears but feeling the rain on their faces.</p><p></p><p>Then we were back on the river.</p><p></p><p>We went through several patches of what Elderron recognized as Mechanus, the plane of pure law. During one of the passages, Vinya reached out and tried to grab one of the gears, but only managed to grab some rain.</p><p></p><p>After we got through the slicks, the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>3 Dorrinin 749 (Campaign day 64) (Day 8 of the 10-12 day journey)</p><p></p><p>The day dawned cooler and clearer and it wasn’t raining, finally. Elama came back and spent the day on deck again, along with Vinya and Aldalomiel. Elderron was on deck and enjoying the very nice day. Only Marxine was down in her cabin.</p><p></p><p>Right after we got out on deck, Vinya saw a winged reptilian creature flying toward the ship.</p><p></p><p>Vinya pointed it out to the others.</p><p></p><p>Elama: Is that what it looks like?</p><p>Elderron: It looks like a winged, reptilian, flying creature. But it only has two legs. I don’t have a good feeling about this.</p><p></p><p>It was definitely coming toward the ship with something that looked like intent, though it was about 320’ away when we noticed it.</p><p></p><p>We alerted the crew and the captain. Captain Strongaxe sent the deck crew below while he stayed on the deck to man the helm.</p><p></p><p>It was flying very fast toward the Riverspark, coming in hot. Aldalomiel readied a sling bolt for when it came within range. Vinya readied a radiant sun bolt for when it came in range (apparently she rethought that because she fired an arrow later).</p><p></p><p>Elderron prepared a slow spell to hit it with if it came within range. Marxine used the Rope of Climbing to climb up the mast -- she got about half-way up before it started to come in range of the various held actions.</p><p></p><p>It was coming in fast when Elderron’s slow spell caught it -- it actually slowed down so suddenly that it looked confused.</p><p></p><p>Elama cast a guiding bolt that did it a great deal of radiant damage and left it marked for Aldalomiel’s sling. Aldalomiel hit it twice, one a critical hit that did it a huge amount of damage. Vinya, having thought better of the sun bolt, shot it twice with her bow.</p><p></p><p>Then Elderron cast a magic missile spell on it -- peppering it with four darts. Marxine, at the top of the mast, was able to throw one of her hand axes at it and dropped it!</p><p></p><p>It landed in the river just in front of the boat with a great splash.</p><p></p><p>The sailors pulled the corpse in, which allowed Vinya to recover her arrows and Marxine to recover her hand axe.</p><p></p><p>The crew said that they were going to sell the wyvern parts, including the venom from the sting -- we only spent a second deciding how we felt about the moral ambiguity of selling the poison before we decided we were fine with that. It’s a natural product and not an inherently evil one.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day passed without further incident, except the sailors harvesting valuable parts off the wyvern corpse.</p><p></p><p></p><p>4 Dorrinin 749 (Campaign day 65) (Day 9 of the 10-12 day journey)</p><p></p><p>The Captain told us over breakfast that we were making great time up the river and that he expected we’d get to Tuntori late in the afternoon the next day. Unless something weird happened.</p><p></p><p>We talked a little amongst ourselves and realized that throughout the trip Captain Strongaxe had been interacting with Mr. Stonebright as little as possible, though Stonebright wasn’t avoiding him at all.</p><p></p><p>In the mid-morning, Elama, Aldalomiel, and Vinya were all out on deck watching the river flow past us. They all saw a ripple in the water that turned into a still space in the current. Then a face that looked up at them and blinked.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: There’s a person down there! We need to rescue them.</p><p>Crew: That face is seen very rarely. It never moves or does any harm.</p><p></p><p>Captain Strongaxe said that he’d seen it once in the time he’d been on the river.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day passed without anything happening.</p><p></p><p></p><p>5 Dorrinin 749 (Campaign day 66) (Day 10 of the 10-12 day journey)</p><p></p><p>In the evening, after a quiet day of traveling, the ship pulled into Tuntori, a small town.</p><p></p><p>Before we debarked, Vinya recommended that we stay at the inn she and Hragdor, her first teacher among the monks, had stayed at on their way down the mountains and down the rivers to New Arvai, a place called Allerd’s.</p><p></p><p>Stonebright accepted the recommendation of Allerd’s.</p><p></p><p>He paid the Captain and went to collect his few bags of personal belongings. When he was dealing with his things, the Captain took the party aside and gave us 500gp as our share of the sale of the wyvern parts. We thanked him, then most of the party went to help Mr. Stonebright as he got off the ship.</p><p></p><p>Captain Strongaxe pulled Marxine aside and said that we deserved more than he’d been able to give us. Since he couldn’t afford to give us more gold, he offered her something else.</p><p></p><p>Strongaxe: I can write you a letter of recommendation to my clan living in Torm Brinnom. You’ll have a place to go if things go badly for your employer up there.</p><p>Marxine: Thanks! That will be a big help.</p><p></p><p>We then all left with Mr. Stonebright and went to Allerd’s inn. Allerd was a human male in his mid-thirties who walked with a pronounced limp, but otherwise looked physically quite capable.</p><p></p><p>Vinya got the sense he recognized her from her trip through town almost two years ago. They talked a bit about what had been going on in the mountains since Vinya left.</p><p></p><p>Mr. Stonebright said that in the morning, he was going to rent a wagon and some horses, if one of us knew how to drive one. We all turned to look at Marxine.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8124029, member: 7016699"] Session 18: Traveling the Aralin River Players: Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave) Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest) Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul) Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster) Marxine Deepfoot - Dwarf Fighter (Champion) GM - Everyone Else (Note: This session was held on Discord.) 26 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 57) Bright and early the next morning, we planned for how to spend our last few hours in Lonoj over breakfast. The Riverspark would be leaving in the afternoon for Tunturi so we had a little time. Vinya wanted to visit a magic item shop among other things. We asked at the Soaring Gull, and then at Smolly’s, for a recommendation. Smolly sent us to a shop run by his cousin. Vinya bought a cap of waterbreathing, since we were going to be on a boat for a while. We walked around Facet Square and did some general shopping -- arrows, warm clothes (since we were heading into the mountains), etc. As we were walking Vinya suddenly remembered that she’d told the guards at City Hall that she’d come back if she had time before we left town. So she scurried that way, with Elama to keep her company, while the rest of the party continued to stroll around the now-quiet Facet Square. At City Hall, Vinya went back into her Architecture-Obsessed Tourist act and ascertained that there was, in fact, some sort of spell on the hall that blocked scrying into the council chamber. Which is what we suspected. Apparently it was cast long ago. After that we all assembled at the Riverspark in the early afternoon to meet Mr. Stonebright. We were introduced to the captain of the Riverspark -- a hill dwarf named Captain Strongaxe. We observed that Mr. Stonebright didn’t have any cargo -- he was not heading to Torm Brinnom with a cargo of goods to sell. He had some personal possessions, but nothing resembling trade goods Marxine noticed that Captain Strongaxe...had some sort of tense reaction to Mr. Stonebright. It seemed to be entirely on the Captain’s side. Mr. Stonebright appeared to be totally trusting of Captain Strongaxe, but the Captain clearly did not share his regard. Before we cast off, while Mr. Stonebright was getting settled in his cabin below, Marxine talked to Captain Strongaxe dwarf-to-dwarf. Though a hill dwarf, he had some family who live in Torm Brinnom (as sort of resident aliens). He’d heard of Marxine’s stronghold, Torm Hastraf, near Tash, though he’d never travelled that far. Torm Hastraf is a large stronghold, with 18 clans in it. Torm Brinnom is rather smaller with only 10 clans. After a bit of conversation, when they were comfortable with one another, Marxine turned the conversation toward our employer. Marxine: What vibes are you getting off Stonebright? Captain: I don’t really know him, but the story is he’s supposed to have killed someone in Torm Brinnom and is now persona non grata there. I did not ask him to swear on the forge and hammer but he said that he would swear that he did not kill anyone. Marxine: I’ll keep that in mind. Captain: Either he’s bad enough that he’s willing to lie in an oath on the forge and hammer, which would make him very dangerous, or he’s been framed and there’s a bounty on his head unjustly. Which would make him dangerous to be around. Marxine: We’ll keep that in mind, and keep our eyes open, but we want to stick with this job for now. Captain: Fair enough… Marxine: Either he’s very confident that he’s got evidence that will exonerate him. Or he’s very stupid. Captain: In my experience those go together. After that we cast off for a 10 to 12 day trip upriver to Tunturi, where the river would become impassable and we’d have to continue our journey on foot. Once the boat cast off and was sailing, Marxine went below. Vinya, Aldalomiel, and Elama spent most of their time on deck during the whole trip. The rest of the day and the night passed without any incident other than watching the city slide away behind us and the countryside roll around us as we sailed toward the mountains. 27 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 58) (Day 2 of the 10-12 day journey) Early the next morning, the party members on deck noticed a small irrigation-type canal that went off to the side of the river -- it was clearly diverting water from the river. About 150’ from the riverbank, water was shooting into the air in a spray like a geyser. There didn’t appear to be any settlements or houses or structures nearby. Elderron sent Oda over to take a look -- as he watched through Oda’s eyes, Elderron said that there was a pipe at the end of the canal that turned upward to the sky and the water was shooting up out of that. Elama turned to a nearby crewman: Hey, has that been that way for a while? Do we need to fix that? Crew: Been that way for a long time. Elama: How long? Crew: 100 years or more. Have you seen the floating islands? Vinya: Yeah. Crew: There was a guy who had one tethered here and needed water. Then the island floated away and the pipe sheared off. We decided there was no harm in the geyser -- no one further from the river needed the water from the irrigation canal and the canal wasn’t taking enough water from the river to matter downstream. And the boat wasn’t going to stop anyway. So we sailed on. Just after dinner, as people were preparing for bed, Vinya and Elama, still on deck, noticed two roundish humanoid shaped things the size of a house heading toward the river and the ship. Vinya, to a crew member: What the hell’s that? Crew: Captain! Hill giants!! The rest of the party came up on deck as the captain did. The giants were walking toward the riverbank, making a line so that they’d be near to the boat. Vinya moved to the side of the boat nearest the giants. Vinya, to the Captain: Are they going to attack? Captain: Probably. Vinya held a shot with her bow for one of them to make an aggressive move toward the boat or anyone on it. Elama also moved to that side of the boat and waited to see what they’d do. Aldalomiel, perhaps having more experience with hill giants, didn’t wait for them to act. She fired two arrows at one of them, hitting with both. In response, the giants threw rocks at her -- from 200 feet away -- both of them hitting her squarely with large rocks that knocked her out almost immediately and punched holes in the deck of the ship. Vinya took her shot against one of them and hit, but barely noticed that in her concern for Aldalomiel and her stress about the damage to the ship. The hull wasn’t breached at all, just the top deck, and the ship continued to sail -- moving closer to the giants. Marxine encouraged the sailors to move the boat to the other side of the river, so we’d be further away from them. Vinya took two shots with her bow, against the same one she and Aldalomiel had already hit, hitting with both of them. Elama cast a powerful healing word on Aldalomiel, who stood up and then started to dodge. Elderron took a shot with his longbow, hitting once on the same one. After Elderron’s attack, the giants stopped moving and we could hear some guttural conversation between them. The one we’d been shooting at made an angry gesture at the arrows sticking out of his body and then stomped away over a hill. The other one looked at the boat, then at his disappearing friend, then back at the boat. Then he turned and trudged after the other one. Vinya: Does that happen often? Crew: Not often. We should definitely stay alert. They may be back. We helped the crew keep watch, with some of us hanging out on deck, for the rest of the night. But it passed without another visit from the hill giants, or any other incident. 28 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 59) (Day 3 of the 10-12 day journey) In the morning, after breakfast, we heard a shout from a watchman in the bow. Crew: Slicks!! Slicks on the water!! We were all looking around in some confusion, except Vinya who’d experienced these before when sailing along this river to get from the monastery in the mountains she’d started her monk training in to New Arvai and the Chiaroscuro Temple where she’d finished it. A moment after the crewmember’s call we suddenly were seeing around us a snow-covered forest with a majestic, huge tree that had a rainbow bridging between it and the sky. Before we could really adjust to that, pretty as it was, we were back, sailing along the river with forests passing by on the riverbanks. Vinya: Can we go back to that? Then we were back in the snowfield and there was a beautiful crystal palace visible, with the huge tree distant in the background. Aldalomiel recognized it as matching the descriptions of Ygdrasil, one of the outer planes. (A chaotic, chaotic good plane) Captain Strongarm: Sometimes on the river there are patches--slicks--that are something like windows to another plane. They can be really bad. This one was nice. No way to tell. After that we enjoyed the balmy (especially for mid-winter) weather and the rest of the day passed without incident. At bedtime, we saw a very ancient and very ruined castle on a bluff that overlooked the river. Elderron sent Oda to investigate and saw that the castle was surrounded, and in places encroached on, by wild forest. It was clearly abandoned. Vinya: We need to go on a history tour, y’all. Visit all these great ancient places we’ve seen. Maybe we could fix up part of that castle and live there. We sailed on into the night, which passed without incident. 29 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 60) (Day 4 of the 10-12 day journey) The next morning dawned grey and crappy and rainy and everyone was grateful that the Riverspark had the equipment and supplies necessary to have done rough patches to the deck where the hill giant boulders had broken through. Elama and Vinya stayed on deck, despite the rain, but everyone else was inside. In the morning, they noticed some structures on the sides of the rivers -- arches on either side of the riverbank, opposite each other, and massive stone stubs in the middle of the river. Like there was once a bridge here. Vinya looked for where a road might have gone from the side of the river, if this were, in fact, a bridge, and saw some hints of a road -- an area where the trees were slightly shorter and maybe thinner, that went inland and along the river, possibly toward the castle we’d seen . Vinya marked her map of the continent with the bridge, the road, and the castle we saw the day before. The ship sailed on. Toward bedtime, the river started getting a lot more rough, like we were approaching rapids. Vinya remembered these, and the canals that bypassed them, from her previous trip on this river. Captain Strongaxe ordered the Riverspark to the far bank and weighed anchor. Captain: For what I need to do here, I need light. Then we all went on with our evening. 30 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 61) (Day 5 of the 10-12 day journey) The next morning, we could see why the captain had pulled to the side of the river and anchored for the night -- there was a canal with a lock that went around a cataract on the river. Getting the Riverspray into the lock took a bit of maneuvering. Going through the lock and the canal took about an hour -- there were some people there with a team of oxen to help move the lock gates and to help move the ship into the lock and out into the main canal. Vinya and Elama, at least, watched with interest. Around toward bedtime, we passed the remains of another ruined bridge, stubs of the supports in the river bed and arches reaching out from the shore. Vinya tried to look for a road and saw the traces of one through the forest. It looked like it could also lead to the castle we’d seen. After that it was bedtime and the rest of the night passed without incident. 1 Dorrinin 749 (Campaign day 62) (Day 6 of the 10-12 day journey) It was crappy and rainy again, so Vinya set up a tent-like structure on deck and she and Aldalomiel hung out there for the day watching the shore go by and the rain. Elama mostly basked out in the rain, letting it soak her hair and clothes. Vinya: Well, at least Lamie’s happy. Just at sunset, the captain pulled to the side of the river again. 2 Dorrinin 749 (Campaign day 63) (Day 7 of the 10-12 day journey) The next morning, the Riverspark went through another canal with a couple of locks around a cataract in the river. The canal was on the same side of the river as the previous one. Once again there were people and oxen who clearly worked at the canal assisting travelers through. Despite our travels upstream and closer to the mountains, the weather was getting even warmer. It was still raining, hard enough that even Elama went below, leaving Vinya and Aldalomiel in the tent on deck. Just after dinner, there was a cry from the lookout. Crew: Slicks!! Moments later all around, there were gears turning, fast and slow, intricate connections between the large and the small gears as far back as we could see. Aldalomiel and Vinya, out on the deck, were seeing the gears but feeling the rain on their faces. Then we were back on the river. We went through several patches of what Elderron recognized as Mechanus, the plane of pure law. During one of the passages, Vinya reached out and tried to grab one of the gears, but only managed to grab some rain. After we got through the slicks, the night passed without incident. 3 Dorrinin 749 (Campaign day 64) (Day 8 of the 10-12 day journey) The day dawned cooler and clearer and it wasn’t raining, finally. Elama came back and spent the day on deck again, along with Vinya and Aldalomiel. Elderron was on deck and enjoying the very nice day. Only Marxine was down in her cabin. Right after we got out on deck, Vinya saw a winged reptilian creature flying toward the ship. Vinya pointed it out to the others. Elama: Is that what it looks like? Elderron: It looks like a winged, reptilian, flying creature. But it only has two legs. I don’t have a good feeling about this. It was definitely coming toward the ship with something that looked like intent, though it was about 320’ away when we noticed it. We alerted the crew and the captain. Captain Strongaxe sent the deck crew below while he stayed on the deck to man the helm. It was flying very fast toward the Riverspark, coming in hot. Aldalomiel readied a sling bolt for when it came within range. Vinya readied a radiant sun bolt for when it came in range (apparently she rethought that because she fired an arrow later). Elderron prepared a slow spell to hit it with if it came within range. Marxine used the Rope of Climbing to climb up the mast -- she got about half-way up before it started to come in range of the various held actions. It was coming in fast when Elderron’s slow spell caught it -- it actually slowed down so suddenly that it looked confused. Elama cast a guiding bolt that did it a great deal of radiant damage and left it marked for Aldalomiel’s sling. Aldalomiel hit it twice, one a critical hit that did it a huge amount of damage. Vinya, having thought better of the sun bolt, shot it twice with her bow. Then Elderron cast a magic missile spell on it -- peppering it with four darts. Marxine, at the top of the mast, was able to throw one of her hand axes at it and dropped it! It landed in the river just in front of the boat with a great splash. The sailors pulled the corpse in, which allowed Vinya to recover her arrows and Marxine to recover her hand axe. The crew said that they were going to sell the wyvern parts, including the venom from the sting -- we only spent a second deciding how we felt about the moral ambiguity of selling the poison before we decided we were fine with that. It’s a natural product and not an inherently evil one. The rest of the day passed without further incident, except the sailors harvesting valuable parts off the wyvern corpse. 4 Dorrinin 749 (Campaign day 65) (Day 9 of the 10-12 day journey) The Captain told us over breakfast that we were making great time up the river and that he expected we’d get to Tuntori late in the afternoon the next day. Unless something weird happened. We talked a little amongst ourselves and realized that throughout the trip Captain Strongaxe had been interacting with Mr. Stonebright as little as possible, though Stonebright wasn’t avoiding him at all. In the mid-morning, Elama, Aldalomiel, and Vinya were all out on deck watching the river flow past us. They all saw a ripple in the water that turned into a still space in the current. Then a face that looked up at them and blinked. Vinya: There’s a person down there! We need to rescue them. Crew: That face is seen very rarely. It never moves or does any harm. Captain Strongaxe said that he’d seen it once in the time he’d been on the river. The rest of the day passed without anything happening. 5 Dorrinin 749 (Campaign day 66) (Day 10 of the 10-12 day journey) In the evening, after a quiet day of traveling, the ship pulled into Tuntori, a small town. Before we debarked, Vinya recommended that we stay at the inn she and Hragdor, her first teacher among the monks, had stayed at on their way down the mountains and down the rivers to New Arvai, a place called Allerd’s. Stonebright accepted the recommendation of Allerd’s. He paid the Captain and went to collect his few bags of personal belongings. When he was dealing with his things, the Captain took the party aside and gave us 500gp as our share of the sale of the wyvern parts. We thanked him, then most of the party went to help Mr. Stonebright as he got off the ship. Captain Strongaxe pulled Marxine aside and said that we deserved more than he’d been able to give us. Since he couldn’t afford to give us more gold, he offered her something else. Strongaxe: I can write you a letter of recommendation to my clan living in Torm Brinnom. You’ll have a place to go if things go badly for your employer up there. Marxine: Thanks! That will be a big help. We then all left with Mr. Stonebright and went to Allerd’s inn. Allerd was a human male in his mid-thirties who walked with a pronounced limp, but otherwise looked physically quite capable. Vinya got the sense he recognized her from her trip through town almost two years ago. They talked a bit about what had been going on in the mountains since Vinya left. Mr. Stonebright said that in the morning, he was going to rent a wagon and some horses, if one of us knew how to drive one. We all turned to look at Marxine. [/QUOTE]
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Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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