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Message: <blockquote data-quote="djotaku" data-source="post: 9806105" data-attributes="member: 7054471">Session 12<h3>Gameplay</h3>Grif the Kobold from the Keeper of the Keys meets the adventures as they cross a bridge into The Smithy. He expresses happiness that they found their way to The Smithy after the attack. They give him a summary of what they did. Eventually Griff tells them he will take them to meet Kontak Tekar (head kobold mechanist of the Keepers of the Keys) to repair Ariana’s key.As they walk around they see steam and multicolored smoke bellowing out of various workshops. They head towards the hill at the middle of the city where the Citadel of the Keys is situated. As they walk to the citadel they see mechadron caravans and celestials bargaining with fey over goods.Archmage Alana (human) has her villa at the citadel. As the team arrives, they see an ancient brass dragon landing on a tall tower within her villa.Kontak’s workshop has tons of kobolds, gearforged, and dwarves working on creating tools and arcane weapons as well as keys. Ariana can understand draconic so she hears them cursing as they drop various things while working. Kontak meets with the party and agrees to fix the key. Advises them to visit the marketplace and get kitted up.They first head into an Item shop run by purple Tiefling with a black cat familiar. Someone shows up wobbling around. Jackal is suspicious and quickly opens the trenchcoat to reveal 3 kobolds and they run out. The team buys a few supplies, but none of the magical supplies.Afterward they visit an Armor/weapon shop run by dwarf where Jackal sells his light crossbow and buys a heavy crossbow.As they leave the shop they hear a voice call out “I found you, you ugly beast!” A bearfolk dressed in wizard robes in front of them turns around and says in a deep voice, “You talking to me?” It’s the fey hunter from Zobeck who has tracked Jackal here. She shoots an arrow at him and the team begins to fight. About a minute into the fight a Destroying Angel joins the fight. He was sent by the Servants of Nidhogg to attack Appaluna. The fight is quite chaotic and Appaluna deals the most damage, but Jackal deals the killing blow to each, including beheading the fey hunter with his axe.They go to sleep and the next day head to the workshop. After they get the key, they need to take it to get blessed at the Clockwork Temple of Rava. A tin flitkith who works for Little Timmy shows up and gives Ariana and Appaluna each potions of superior healing as a thanks for sparing him when they found him in the airship. There Holdevar (human), the Queen of the Labyrinth blesses the key.Appaluna asks Hodevar about the Servants of Nighogg and Holdevar says a scout will return with information on the whereabouts of the cultists within a week.Since they have a week before they can find out the information, Jackal yanks the key from Ariana’s hands and opens the portal. The team steps through and emerges into a forest.Session 13<h3>Gameplay</h3>(started off with the following flavor-text)At first Jackal used his survival skills to lead the party, but they started to notice that the forest seemed to be making things extremely easy for Ariana - branches moving out of the way, brush clearing itself. So Ariana took the lead and a stag leads the party to a river. There they follow the river to a large lodge.When they enter the lodge they find The Great Druid Oberic Thorn (human). He looks up expectantly when they enter, hoping they are the folks he sent out due to the attack, but it’s the adventurers. He asks who they are and introduces himself. He asks them to please rescue Ysabel Sunbloom (female halfling bard) who was taken in a surprise attack against the lodge. He explains that she is extremely important to the cause of the Elders of The Ring. Although he is The Great Druid he cannot look for her because he’s coordinating the efforts of a large group who has fanned out to try and know to figure out who attacked and to organize a counterattack. He lets them know the south hasn’t been searched yet.As they go south to explore, Ariana touches a tree and asks if it knows where to go. Since Ariana doesn’t know what Ysabel looks like, she can’t directly ask the trees, but they respond that a large group went trampling through the forest in a certain direction. This allows the group to go in the right direction for a while. When they reach the area where the enemies began to pick their way more slowly through the forest, the forest cannot add any more aid. However, Apaluna calls upon her patron and gets the aid they need to move forward.They arrive at a clearing where a hag is interrogating Ysabel who has been tied up and her flute thrown to the side. There are 3 centaurs in a triangle pattern keeping watch. Jackal surprise attacks one of the centaurs and the battle is on. The hag gags Ysabel to keep her from using any bardic magic. The balance tips in various directions, but Ariana helps keep things going by healing Jackal in a key moment. Eventually, the hag is getting annoyed and decides to try and kill Ysabel. Jackal rushes the hag and attacks. Within another half a minute, Appaluna also rushes the hag to try and keep her from killing Ysabel. Using her pact powers, she does an epic Eldritch Blast and explodes the hag. The hag’s glamour fades and they can see she was an ambush hag - looks like a giant purple insect. The centaurs run away.They go back to the lodge and Oberic gives them food and advises them to rest so they can speak the next day. Apaluna asks Oberic about Ariana’s parents. Oberic asks for the portal key and realizes who Ariana is. He tells her that he had called for important druids to come help the Elders during a war to save the Elder Ring. They left Ariana to be adopted since they would be engaged in war. They died in battle and are in the celestial worlds. He lets them know they could use The Labyrinth’s paths to visit them. Mossbeard shows up and recognizes the party from when they went to <a href="https://www.ericsbinaryworld.com/2025/04/04/tales-of-the-valiant-campaign-01-sessions-03-and-04/" target="_blank">Moonlight</a> to go to Ariana’s friend’s wedding. As a thanks for saving Ysabel, who is important because her bardic magic can help cure people of void taint, he gives Ariana a Dragon Slayer scimitar sword, Jackal a pair of Gloves of Missile Snaring, and Apaluna an Oathbow. Mossbeard then opens a portal to his forest at The Smithy.Session 14<h3>Gameplay</h3>As the crew leaves Mossbeard’s forest near The Smithy, Jackal looks up and sees a Ratatosk in the trees. It jumps down in front of them and it’s wearing a uniform and has a cylindrical container on its back. It casts a verbal and somatic spell to identify which of the heroes is Appaluna. As she glows, he knows to give her the letter.She reads the letter from her patron inviting her to the palace of Countess Levosu, mentioning that she needs to come right away, and it tells her to go via the River Styx and also includes the fare for 3 folks to ride. Appaluna finds a dwarf within The Smithy and asks how to get to the River Styx. She’s told to go to the Five Ways Bridge. When they get there they see a few piers on the banks near the bridge. There’s a robed man with a bluish tinge to his skin on a gondola-style boat. They pay for passage and find out his name is Thomas.As the river flows into the River Styx it widens to be about a mile wide and it gets so deep that Thomas just steers within the current to avoid any obstacles. The party sees much larger boats sailing the river, including galleons. After a day of travel they stop along the banks to rest. Jackal immediately goes to sleep. The girls pull out their bedrolls to sleep.After a bit, the girls wake up to see a Styx Demon eating Thomas. Appaluna intimidates the demon by manifesting her weapon via her patron’s powers. The demon recognizes who she serves and runs away with Thomas’ body.Since they no longer have a boatwright to navigate the river they try to get the attention of a ship passing by. It’s too far away and when someone aboard the ship looks towards the shore they think Appaluna is dancing. Another ship passes nearer and Appaluna uses the Message spell to communicate with them to come pick her up. She shows them her invitation and they take the adventurers the rest of the way.When they climb up from the docks they arrive at the gates to the Greater Hell of Tyver-Sarok. Appaluna presents her invitation to the demon at the gates. He calls for a carriage to take them to Countess Levosu’s palace.They arrive and a demonic butler opens the door and escorts them to the chamber where Countess Leovosu (an Erinyes with golden skin and a floor-length, form-fitting red dress) lounges on what is not quite a throne. To her side is Appaluna’s patron.The countess praises the patron, who she names Mr. Smith because his true name would cause trauma if heard by mortal ears, for selecting Appaluna for his patronage. She sees so much potential within her .She then explains why the hells don’t want the Servants of Nidhogg to succeed. The demons and devils are not so much evil as concerned with power. And there would be nothing to have power over if the Servants of Nidhogg were to reduce the worlds of the Labyrinth to nothing. She also says the reason Appaluna’s sister was kidnapped was because they needed someone with a connection to royal birth, but someone so low down the line of succession that it would be likely no one would come to save her. Spymaster Barrosh’s spy network revealed the location and purpose of the ritual. Countess Levosu says it will occur the next day so they should rest up.The next day Appaulna’s patron sends them with a trusted Demon boatwright to the world where the ritual will take place. It is a world that has been drained of its vitality. The leaves on the trees have withered away. The sun barely has any energy to shine. The ground is cracked and dry.The party spots a temple of the Servants of Nidhogg. Jackal begins sprinting towards the temple. There are two cultists on guard outside in green robes. From when they went to the Lost Tomb of Nargoth, the party knows the green robes the cultists are wearing denote that these are the second from the lowest level within the cult. One of the cultists spots Jackal and runs to set off a bell alarm. Ariana sets him on fire and he dies. Jackal kills the other by throwing his axes. Ariana dresses in the robes of the cultist they did not set on fire. Jackal and Appaluna use Disguise self to look like the people they killed. They enter the temple and Jackal uses his memory of the orientation of the previous temple to guess where to go.They find another pair of cultists - this time in purple robes. (Meta: these are Fanatic Cultists) They convince those cultists to run out to the front to investigate the situation outside - saying that the bell is broken and that they thought they saw someone attacking. Jackal and Appaluna then once again change their appearance to that of the purple-robed cultists.Ariana takes the lead and they arrive at the doors to the inner sanctum. They can hear a ritual going on within. But blocking the door is a Satarre and Satarre Destroyer. They lie to the Satarre Destroyer and he believes their lie, but also believes that the ritual they guard is too important to abandon their post. They leave the room and cast thaumaturgy to make the ground shake and come in yelling that someone or something is tunneling beneath the temple. The Satarre Destroyer sends the Satarre to investigate. Out of ideas, Appaluna uses magic to make the Satarre Destroyer fall asleep.They open the door to the inner sanctum and find a Necrocraft Cultist performing a ritual over Orangeterra, who is bound laying on the altar. They also see a young void dragon near the altar. Unfortunately, he notices them entering. He bids them to leave because this ritual is too important to be interrupted. It will be completed in a mere half a minute.Chaos breaks loose as Ariana and Jackal attack the dragon; Ariana using the Dragon Slayer that Mossbeard gave her. Appaluna interrupts the ritual by succeeding at using Command and interrupting the Cultist’s concentration. As the fight progresses the cultists that were earlier deceived come back and join the fight. A little later the two Satarre join the fight. Eventually, the party slays the Nerocraft Cultist. One of the Fanatic Cultists tries to continue the ritual, but keeps getting interrupted. Eventually Jackal lands the killing blow on the young void dragon. After that it’s not too hard to finish off the rest of the enemies.Appaluna drops her disguise and unties Orangeterra. She realizes that her sister has been drugged and has no idea what is happening; she thinks she’s at a party. Ariana casts restoration and cures Orangeterra.Ariana then uses her Portal Key to take the party to the Old Ring. There The Great Druid allows them to rest.The next day Mossboard opens a portal that leads to the forest where Ariana’s friend got married. Appaluna takes her sister back to her house. Her father has to admit that her interaction with demonic powers was key to saving her sister. Appaluna’s status and original titles are returned to her and, in recognition of saving the world, she is given a dornitian barony.Ariana chooses, for now, to live at Oakroot and provide her druidic services there.As Jackal is at an inn somewhere in Midgard, a wizard enters. He mentions that his great-great-great-great grandfather invented owlbears. This wizard wanted to be famous for his own hybrid creations so he created Jackal. He buys Jackal a drink since his creation is famous for saving the world.</blockquote>

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