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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MarkM" data-source="post: 8478313" data-attributes="member: 7025557">Once a year our adventuring group (which started in person many years ago, but now is scattered from Atlanta to Anchorage) gets together in person to play over a long weekend. This will be a long entry, even though it was written later so is a bit less detailed:Marathon (5-12-21 to 5-16-21):<img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/BBiJ045IbXwxJIvjl1xxWaf8zYiYCLtiQHxD2z65OshWilHaXet2azARniGgNE8I0tRKe3GwZfMp6cy4LiYCti62v6hYr_KoPDK0ijfsOR73QkT-RQ1oLPXgJMPmMlT6c6-kjBee" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The fight with the smugglers wasn’t going well. Hopelessness isn’t an emotion I feel but I could see it on my companions face. I’m not sure the moment it happened, but the fight eventually turned our direction and we brought our enemies down and retrieved the shipment as well as a note worth 10,000 gold that was going to be the payment (these were both later held up as Crissilyr claimed they both belonged to them).The next day, we made our way to McBannin’s mansion to begin the ascent to the top of Cauldron Hill. We were crossing our fingers hoping the skyseer would arrive as we hadn’t seen or heard from him in a few days. Sure enough, about ten minutes after our arrival, he showed up with a retinue of orcs. One was the shaman he told us about who cast the binding spell on Sylvia, Gyldiel and Vic.McBannin gave us the goat blood we needed to make a ring at the top and we set off. We made it to the top not long before sundown, made our blood circle around some large, man made stones and waited for night to fall.It was awful. Hideous creatures came out from all over as the skyseer focused on the stars. Luckily they found the blood and followed it around and around. But… that was still nerve wracking. It took a nasty turn when the Shadowman showed up and threw a light into the middle of our camp. This seemed to wake the ghosts up from their blood circle and it was like they saw us for the first time. (This did lead to the discovery of Nevard’s ability to bestow Skyseer Guidance AKA “Sky Guy” which was… awesome)It led to a fierce fight with monsters that we eventually won but not before the Shadowman got away.The Skyseer finished his vision which was pretty disturbing as it involved destruction in the city and three figures sitting atop Cauldron Hill. Our allies that had been bound to him had a vision of their own which was about a fire being set in Parity Lake that destroyed Nevard’s nephew’s factory.In order to get down fast, we lept off the top and Bell cast a spell that floated us down. Not long after arriving at the bottom, a former student at the academy I knew showed up with a military force quite surprised we’d been the cause of commotion at the top of the HIll. McBannin also showed up and led us back to his house to perform the cleansing ritual.Leaving there, we ran to Parity Lake to see if we could stop the fire from happening. We found two red dragonborn and a few others with a wagon of explosives. They tried to jump us but we took them out and arrested them for questioning later.After a long night, we slept in, reported back to Delft and went to our office to discuss next steps. While there, a bird came to the window pecking. Letting it in, it was a message from Gale saying she’d meet us and we could follow the bird. Taking her up on the offer, the bird led us to the Cloudwood and to a well known area with a waterfall.Gale appeared at the top of the falls and flew/floated down to us. She told us she hadn’t been responsible for any of the arsons but admitted to some unspecified illegal activity. She said there was something awful going on and she’d sent Nilasa to find out what. That’s what got her killed. There was a conspiracy of massive proportions going on and much of what we’d investigated the last several days was connected. She gave us a book with a spell that allowed us to cast a divination that would tell us whether there was planar energy nearby. This would help us find locations where bleak gate energy was strong.When we got back to the RHC, Sylvia and I received a letter from Morgan Cippiano inviting us to breakfast the following morning. We talked to the Wire, our organized crime unit for more info on him and made plans for the next day.We decided we needed to talk to the Danoran Security Chief again and thought we might want to invite him to sit in on the meeting with Cippiano to show him he should work more closely with us. We found him leaving the embassy and instead of inviting him to the next day’s breakfast, we decided to have the convo now. He took us to a wine bar and gave us some good insight into his personal investigation but also let us know clearly he had too much to lose to continue on. But, he wished us well and we parted on friendly terms.Sylvia and I made our way to Cippiano while the rest of the crew hung back outside of his territory. It turned out to be a pretty frustrating meeting as he wanted us to release some of his men in a tit for tat since we’d let some of Kell’s men out in exchange for help finding the Doctor. But, Cippiano wasn’t offering anything specific. He wanted us to go first in a show of friendship… not smart on our part if we went for that “deal.” So… no thanks. We left after only a short conversation.We got word Nevard was planning some kind of rally at midday and we were assigned to attend and keep him safe. Traveling to the location, we cast the planar spell and noticed bleak gate energy leading to a row of warehouses. We also found witch oil bubbling up in small amounts in the middle of the street.Following it, we found a warehouse with strong bleak readings. Inside was a group of workers shredding paper and a golem guarding them! The golem was really tough. A portal opened in the middle of the fight and the workers jumped in. Finally, after we realized the golem could best be hurt by radiant energy, it fled into the portal itself pretty wounded. We found plans for some kind of cat creature infused with witch oil… not good.Making our way to the rally, Nevard and some of his posse stepped up on stage and began to speak. But, almost immediately, jaguar creatures infused by witch oil jumped out of portals on wagons and began going after Nevard. Other men in white masks that turned out to be disguised skeletons also attacked. We fought hard and defeated them but Nevard was mortally wounded. He whispered a vision to Vic about needing to evacuate the Nettles as Cauldron HIll was going to blow. Then, he died. Good night sweet skyguy...Gyldiel stood up and proclaimed to those left in the crowd who hadn’t fled yet what Nevard told us about the Nettles. People, even more panicked, began to run off presumably to tell friends or family in that area.</blockquote>

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