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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eridanis" data-source="post: 615732" data-attributes="member: 275">Session 34 - Clues Divined and PursuedThis session is the premiere of Baron Von Starblade’s character, Garrett Blackrock - a halfling rogue/lasher with a slightly bloodthirsty attitude. Painfully’s new character, Drake Whiteraven, an elven enchanter, also joined the group this session. (I also updated the previous session with a journal from Jorie I just found.) From the Collected Letters of Sir Kellan Evershar:After the assault on the giant outpost, we returned to the ranch to rest. My faithful fellow warrior, Jaag, has perished again, and there is no hope for recovering his soul. His loss saddens me. While he tended to be quiet and keep to himself, his skill with the axe and his courageous, stalwart self were a comfort to me and an asset to our group. Rodrigo teleported his body back to Mirromere for his mentor to bury, and he said he made sure to speak a few words before he left. Hopefully, the spirit of the moment moderated his usual flippancy, and his words will be a comfort to the people of the village. Rayzik also perished in the battle; it turns out he was an ogre, not a giant, but his aid was invaluable to us, and he, too, will be missed.Joining our group are two local heroes: Drake Whiteraven, an elven wizard who specializes in the non-violent uses of magic, and Garrett Blackrock, a stout-hearted halfling with a mastery of the bullwhip. Hopefully, Garrett's skills both in searching and battle will prove useful to us.The morning of the sixteenth day of the present crisis, we returned to the giant's outpost to look for clues. Other than the abscence of several barrels of alcohol, and a dead yuan-ti stuffed into another barrel, there seemed to be nothing to guide our next move. Drake immediately contributed by offering to scry for the druidess to ascertain if she was still alive; this proved to be the case. With this knowledge, it was decided that with the knowledge of the cell, Garrett and Nik could safely teleport in, retrieve the druidness, and immediately teleport out. This was done; she was in very bad shape, but Nikolai's and my healing miracles quickly brought her around to the point that she could fill us in on what she knew.The motivation for the giants is simple: war and domination. The mastermind of the whole recent uprising is a mind flayer, who has taken control of the maurauding forces with a  brew of highly addictive mead that enables the illithid to control those who consume it. The bees that produce the honey to make this mead are of a very strange type, and their queen bee is completely under the control of the illithid.While we are of course suspicious of the yuan-ti presence here, we have decided to deal with them after dealing with the giants, as we will receive no support from the locals when it comes time to come to grips with the "friendly" abominations. We decided to try to teleport directly into the giant stronghold and kill the queen bee and/or the illithid. By cutting off the head of the organization, we hope to confuse the rest to the point that they can be stopped from maurauding the valley. Failing that, the lack of leadership will presumably make it easier to destroy them in detail.On Day 17, we teleported into the druidess' former cell, all in bird form, thanks to Jorie's spell. We made our way down the hall, and were confronted by several trolls and a giant. Garrett’s Journal:Drake and I had only been in the druid camp for a few hours when Nicolai arrived. He stepped out of thin air with the unconscious body of the half-ogre Razik on his side. Nicolai tried to revive the half-ogre however his attempt came moments late. We assisted Nicolai with the burial and I was slightly concerned that my first encounter with my future travelling companions resulted in the burial of a fallen comrade, and a fellow rogue at that. The rest of the party arrived well into the night carrying the remains of the slain dwarf Jaag. After a short amount of time bickering over the dwarves boots, it was determined that the party would travel to their hometown and return theremains of Jaag for a formal Dwarven burial. The rest of the evening was uneventful.The next morning, Drake used his extensive magical abilities to scry the location of the captured druidess whom I am tasked to rescue. Drake, Nicolai, and myself all used magic to teleport, quite an interesting feeling I might add, into her cell and rescue her. I offered to scout outside however Nicolai and Drake seemed to think it was not wise. After a brief conversation we found out that there were other prisoners whom we were unable to rescue at the time since Nicolai was afraid we would exceed out teleport weight limit, so much for the all mighty powers of magic!After speaking with the druidess we found out that a mindflayer had taken over the area.  It appears that honey from an extra-planar bee makes victims more susceptible to his mind influencing powers. The mindflayer harvests the honey to make mead that is distributed to the various giant and monster factions. Rodrigo seemed to have much hatred for mindflayers and it was decided that we would search out thismindflayer and destroy him.We prepared out plan for sneaking into the Fire Giant's fortress for the rest of the day and we decided to execute our plan first thing the next morning. Jorie transformed the entire party into birds, another new experience for me, and Drake teleported us all into the cell of the druidess. I found this specifically enjoyable as he used his magic as a sparrow! Unfortunately a pair of Gnoll sentries alerted the giants of our arrival. Nikolai quickly dispatched them and then used his divined the location of the queen bee.The party seemed to be unaccustomed to having someone with my talents as they took off through the main door of the prison with out even checking it. I find it surprising that the party has survived as long as they have. Upon opening the door, the party was beset upon by a large force of Fire giants and trolls.Rodridgo quickly cast invisibility upon me so I might best utilize my roguish abilities and Kellan and I stepped up to contend on the main force, however an invisible wizard caught the party by surprise. The wizard assaulted the party with brilliant bolts of lightning. Kellan seemed to be a magnet as he almost succumbed to the second lightning bolt, I, however, managed to avoid any damage from the lightning'sshocking fingers. Jorie the badger utilized his druidic magic and summoned a shimmering fire around the invisible wizard. This allowed his larger replica and myself to quickly defeat the attacking wizard. Just as the hostile wizard collapsed, Drake summoned forth a giant shimmering wall to separate the masses of fire giants and trolls from us. Drake’s Journal:You know you're in for an interesting day when a dead ogre and a dead dwarven warrior arrive in your yard and they're accompanied by a human priest!  Apparently the two dead ones hadn't prayed well enough to their gods, for they certainly looked tougher than the lone human.  Or perhaps the human was just the more intelligent of the three.  Thus, I met Nikolai, and the now resting Ravik and Jaag Hammerklang. As our allies gathered together, I scried the location of the druidess.  I could clearly envision her in her cell, but little more.  We rested the night, and the next day we made our move.  The halfling rogue and I teleported in to the druidess' cell and quietly tried to revive her. She was beaten, and spoke only with some effort.  She said there was another prisoner that the giants argued with from time to time, a dwarf by the sounds of it.  But without the aid of all our allies, our mission was clear--get the druidess and get home.  So we magically returned to my home for now, unwilling to risk a search for the dwarven prisoner the druidess had briefly mentioned. Once rested and cared for, the druidess revealed a great deal more information.  A mind flayer had discovered a way to create control over his prey by using a honey mead made from a particular breed of bee. This explains the centaurs and humans working for the giants at the lower encampment! The group of foreigners welcomed me as an ally, and after having learned more of what troubles they have gone through thus far, I decided they could be trusted.  There are few who are able to stand up against the giants, but these fellows were proving that they had the courage and tenacity to overcome any obstacle. In fact, Rodrigo was just saying how he had scared a dragon to death--quite impressive by any standards, but only if it's true!  Still, I sense Rodrigo is one that hasn't the patience for lies.  He is quick-tongued, but young and hardly looks as intelligent as their talking badger, Jorie. We rested another day, and made our plan to reenter the giant stronghold.  Jorie, twitching his nose and waving his little paws, changed us all into bird forms--I think my pet raven is quite jealous of him.  We all teleported into the druidess' cell and from there began to pursue the path to the queen bee's hive.  It wasn't long until the alarm went up and we were greeted by trolls and other unlucky things. I quickly brought up force wall, keeping the trolls at bay, but an enemy spellcaster had snuck past my wall invisibly while using several lightning bolts to wreak havoc upon our warriors.  Without his allies, we killed him quickly.  Rodrigo quickly looted the dead wizard, while the trolls looked at us through my force wall with furious anger.  Our peace won't last much longer.Best Quote:"Objects in scry may be larger than they appear." – Rodrigo</blockquote>

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