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The last time we saw the hot cross buns committee they competed in the team battles at the bowl of judgment! Nerkoze and Narissa had just one their battle and now it was Gorga and Leon vs Kai Kideli and Aurelia. Gorga took a massive number of hits as Leon weaved through combat until both Kai and Aurelia were dispatched leaving Gorga and Leon as the victors! In the following round Nerkoze and Narissa fought against Majesta and Cerce who posed a significant obstacle. The battle was fierce, but Majesta danced with her blades with the help of Cerce shooting lightning bolts to bring victory! Afterwards the Bowl of Judgement went on a break until the next day and the party took a stroll around and found a small night market with games and food. They all celebrate their victories by playing a few circus games and arm wrestling each other. Circe manages to best one of the strongest looking folks at the tent as well leaving him awestruck and taking the sword he had bet for her hat. She gifts it to Raan before disappearing into the night with a little bit of madness still lingering in her eyes. The party looks up to find an owl on the roof of the First Eclipse looking down at them and they hear a voice in their heads, “It is time”. They are given a note in under their drink that tells them to meet in the cellar behind the bar. The bartender doesn’t mind at all as they enter to find a joyous girl wearing a hooded cloak, the face opening of which was completely filled with darkness.she gives them 3 quests, and they choose to take on a mission to disrupt another Consortium leader’s shipment of black market goods. The girl pushes them out to get some rest before their next Bowl of Judgement matches and the following mission!
Whatever your choice I guarantee it will be a memorable adventure! See you at the table (:
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Last we saw the HCB Committee, the party went to the bowl of judgment and competed in the Semi Finals: Majesta and Raan vs Gorga and Leon. The combat began on even terms, but Majesta and Raan began to build an advantage. As the fighting continued with victory slipping away Gorga heard her blade speaking to her, urging her to give in and let him help win the fight. As she fights in the bowl and in her mind she reaches a breaking point as she is “knocked out” of the combat. While in stasis her eyes begin to bleed and turn black as she loses the mental fight. Her party members see this, but continue the combat thinking it's strange, but not acting on it. Feeling along she gives in and she opens her eyes to darkness. On the outside the entire stadium sees her start emanating black mist and a treacherous grin spread wide across her face saying “FINALLY”. Gorga starts attacking and knocking the other fighters around, even summoning a second weapon to do so. Guards begin to rush in as people begin to realize what is happening. Leon, without missing a beat, immediately begins to strike at the tactically strike at the creepy longsword Gorga was wielding. 1…2…3 strikes the final one a critical as he manages to create a crack that propagates through it. This act garners Gorga’s rage, swinging the blade itself towards him, striking him and sending him back. Although the blade connects the massive blow against Leon’s dagger propagates the crack enough to shatter the blade in half, bringing Gorga’s mind back. She is in a state of exhaustion as the guards reach the group trying to apprehend Gorga and bring the others in for questioning to determine what happened + if foul play was involved. The party defends Gorga and agree to not cause a scene and both forfeit if they are allowed to leave. With a great persuasion check, the guards accept this trade, but say they will be keeping an eye on the party from now on. Once they get out Ayo and her party come out to check to see if they are OK. Ayo and Leon have a moment and Leon asks Ayo out on a date the next evening. Gorga is hurt that he would do this while she is in the middle of struggling and gives him the silent treatment. They go back to the Temple of the Mentor to rest. Gorga asks to be left alone and locks herself in her room. Leon attempts to go up to the door and apologize, but Wither steps in the way looking at him blankly and preventing him from entering. During this time Gorga leaves out of the window and does some soul searching until the Mission later that night. There she watches the people pass and meets another figure that sits next to her. He offers her words of comfort as the world apart from him before a blur he hands a rock and a choice. He and Orcus seem to have a feud and he offers to take her away from all of it, to only call for him if she needs him. Rocks are used as a way for people to communicate with the dead, a tradition passed on by the poor as all they had were rocks to honor their loved ones. When the party get concerned about leaving to make it to the warehouse they are to investigate in time, Gorga appears behind them focusing solely on the mission and being unusually indifferent. Once they arrive they notice a Golem carrying goods from a crate outside into the warehouse. Leon and Gorga investigate the only window as Raan sees the door open and uses that opportunity to go in, making direct eye contact with Irvan who says, “What the fuuuu”.
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Last we saw the hotcross buns they confronted Irvan and Aloysia at the Consortium warehouse. It seemed like Ruidium was being used to make weapons, but Raan was more focused on Irvan. After a deep debate on what it meant to be a hero, Raan decided that action needed to be taken. Nyx and wither had arrived on the scene to support her, but the combat was fierce as golems began doing some serious damage. In the nick of time, Circe repelled from the ceiling killing one of the casters, which triggered something because one of the golems stopped moving. The party caught on and disabled both. Just as things seemed to be turning in their favor the Moth arrived. Seeing the scene he decided that the warehouse wasn’t worth keeping and lit it all on fire as his lava golem engaged the party. The battle was fierce, but Gorga gave into the evil powers of Orcus to wield power strong enough to save the unconscious party members and stall the golem enough for the Moth to retreat with the ruidium ore and weapons. Gorga left the party to find herself as she saw herself as a danger to her friends and also felt a bit unwanted. The rest of the party take Aloysia’s corpse to the Temple of the Mentor asking a few questions to figure out her motives, although mostly unsuccessful. The session ends as they burn the corpse and prepare the next day to meet with the High Curator of the Cobalt Soul.
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Last we saw the HCBC they took on a mission by the very young High Curator, Jamil, to investigate The Gull, another presumed founder of the Consortium. The High Curator brings in another adventurer to aid them, Narissa, who has been tailing this person for a while now. THe party takes a long rest and gets breakfast before heading out, only to find two rampaging red porcelain elephants causing chaos in the Suncut Bazaar. The party attempts to befriend and calm them, but are only successful with one. Raan and Nyx focus on drawing away to the one that turned less aggressive, but the rampaging one nearly knocks Loen out with a strike. Narissa offers assistance where she can and a distraction to finally calm the second one down; however, a gnome donning a red cape shoots a charge of red lightning causing the elephant to begin rampaging again. Raan jumps in front of his second beam aimed at the other calm elephant taking the full brunt and nearly killing her. Seeing that he is being overwhelmed he breaks a teleportation tablet to get away. With the portal still open, Leon and Narissa go through to try and finish him off to find 5 red caped figures charging red energy to strike them. They fail to finish off the Gull, but manage to get back out just in time as 5 beams of red energy come streaming out of the closing portal striking most of them. The wounded party manage to rely on their bonds with the elephants to revert them into porcelain figurines. Surveying the damage they find the bartender Satzrak with a severe wound bleeding out in the First Eclipse. They discover that the COnsortium was planning to move bases because they suspected the place to be compromised. Th Gull blamed and confronted Satzrak and used this as an excuse to take out members of the Owl’s faction that he deemed “traitors to the cause”. THe party healed him and took him to an alley where he said the Owl would find him. He leaves with a warning that the Consortium is at a pivotal point where the struggle between the founders is going to come to a head at some point. With most of the Suncut Bazaar intact they go back to the Cobalt Soul where after a tenuous confrontation with Iwo, where the party gave up one of the porcelain elephants, the High Curator, pleased with their performance, offers them a final mission to initiate them into the Library of the Cobalt Soul. THeir mission? To Enter Cael Morrow and gain Insight Acuere’s trust. Then, to find the “key” to the Netherdeep
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Last we saw the Hot Cross Buns they descended into the ruins of Cael Morrow. There they met with Ayo and her party who escorted them to Insight Acurere and her two assistant Xot and Scribble at the Allegiance Allsight homebase. Ayo’s main objective is to find the double agent in the Allegiance with escorting you all as their cover mission. Hearing that the Cobalt Soul have sent you to help with the excavation, Insight gives you a mission To locate and bring back tablets that tell the story of a fallen hero. You take on this mission and begin investigating the path. First an abandoned house that lay in ruin, then a crumbling guard tower where Leon is able to fix the malfunctioning keystone. The party also goes to the sunken tavern where they met an odd sea elf named Olara that offers them boos and potions. She speaks of the city as if it were still bustling with people and her family, even though none are to be seen. She does point out the Royal Library to the south and the hot cross buns head that way. As they enter the main entrance though, they hear “Finally, I have the jewel in my hand. It had gone to waste in your Irvan and after your betrayal it is only fair I shall take it for myself. The Moth will be proud!” Raan sees Irvan on the floor and immediately rushes in, starting combat as Raan tries to save Irvan. A shield guardian towering over them rushes the entrance making it difficult for anyone to get through. A group of figures also appear off in the south as they rush into the chamber to fight the party. After a lot of back and forth, with the party severely injured Raan manages to grapple the Jewel away from the elf that stole it from Irvan as a cultist smashes the keystone, causing water to fill in the room!
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Last we saw the Hot Cross Buns Committee they were in the midst of battle with Galeokaedra, an Allegiance of Allsight Professor. Irvan informs them that she is a spy, a shapeshifter in disguise trying to get the key to the Netherdeep and urges the party to retrieve the Jewel of Three Prayers that she has stolen from Irvan as it is one of these keys. Once Raan is able to wrestle it away from the party tries to escape, but falls one after the other. Raan manages to get the crystal to Ayo who tosses it to Galsaria, but goes back to save an unconscious Leon (who charged Galeokaedra and immediately got levelled) The shield guardian holds most of them off at the entrance while the rest are stuck inside. Maggie tries to break through the shield guardian multiple times and fails, having to eventually leave as the shield guardian bashes her. The Guardian now turns to face an injured Irvan and Ayo being dragged out by Nyx and Dermot. They manage to get them into the water and drag them out while Galeokaedra fires crimson bolts after them in frustration, knocking Ayo out once more. Barely alive, half the party downed they managed to drag themselves back to Insight and the Allegiance of Allsight and warn them. They start boarding up the walls, but nothing seems to follow. The party convinces them to evacuate, which they do reluctantly. They are helped back to the Cobalt Soul where they make sure to get some rest and inform Jamil of what happened. This information concerns him as tension between the Allegiance and Consortium will only grow until it boils over. Their obsession to get into the Netherdeep will surely lead to a confrontation. He tasks them with finding another member to strengthen their numbers and head back into Cael Morrow to get any keys that exist and out of the hands of others. The party set out to the Bowl of Judgement where they find Eylar and Nerkoze waiting to decide on who to recruit based on who wins the tournament. It is a close fight, but Nerkoze is able to see through Eylar’s tricky darkness tactic and defeat him with only 3 hp remaining. Now the party must decide between going to Cael Morrow to further investigate, or go to the Treasure sight the twins at the Lyrean Linen shop told Leon about.
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Last we saw the hot cross buns committee they met a simple minded barbarian named Reiter Nev who seemed to care only about fighting and food via The Cobalt Soul who believed he would be able to help bolster their numbers for the next dangerous mission into Cael Morrow. Before going there tho, the party decided to investigate a tip of a treasure hoard deep in the desert Northward, which the Consortium had recently uncovered. Apparently their forces had been absolutely decimated by a Basilisk and had to retreat for more reinforcements. There they met a helpful Hippogriff and Griffon that happily told them of the dangers inside when given a fruit as offering. Once inside they encountered statues that came to life in addition to the Basilisk mentioned, but were able to barely escape through a secret passage Leon found and unlocked. They traversed a wind tunnel and explored the tombs, eventually encountering a Sphynx. They accepted to be tested and combat began as Lampas tested their mind and body. They battle was worsening against them, but the hot cross buns were able to answer enough riddles to complete the test and be granted treasure from the treasure room. They were told it would be what they needed, not necessarily what they wanted. They each got a sack that felt light, and exited through a mirror in the center of the treasure room. Once outside they could feel their sack increase in weight and treasure inside. Each person receiving a golden Cloak of the Manta Ray and an item close to what they desired. With that the party has received gifts that are sure to help them in Cael Morrow, a place they only narrowly escaped from only days prior. How will the party fair now? It is time to find out.
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When we last left off, the HCBC Committee succeeded in a dungeon ran by a Sphinx. After successfully passing his riddles, he bestowed them each with a special bag as a reward. Each one containing a cloak of the manta ray and something they needed. After reveling in their prizes, they called it a day and headed to the Cobalt Soul to rest for tomorrow. When they awaken, Question waits for them with some much needed help. The Committee gets introduced to Placeholder the Temporary and they agree to group up for the day ahead. Narissa declaring she’s had enough of Cael Morrow and deciding to stay back. They also decided to bring along Kai Kideli as backup to which she happily agrees. They decide to prepare a bit before heading down, Kai and Placeholder purchase some health potions while Leon sold all but 1 basilisk poison. As they head down through Cael Morrow, making attempts to reassure the guards, they meet up with Insight again. She lets them know that it has gotten even more dangerous than before and that they’re cut off from the southern library. She offers gold for finding stone tablets, dealing with whoever is in the library, or reconnecting the hallway. She show signs of severe stress but with a bit of encouragement from Leon, she seems a bit more reassured. Placeholder offers up his minions if he doesn’t make it out and Insight reluctantly agrees while Raan checks up on Scribble. He admits he’s not doing well due to constant nightmares and visions and wishes them luck as best as he can. The group puts on the hoods of their cloaks and make their way towards the main area where the hallway got disconnected.]
Raan casts locate object to try and find the locations of the tablets and reveals one pile to be in the south east and a pile to the south west. She then takes a moment to speak to Olara who is still delusional, she tells Raan about the “children playing with fireworks” and that she still hasn’t seen her family in several “hours” but they’ll be back soon. Meanwhile Leon and Xot are “playfully” going at it, Xot scolding him for making a mess as Leon makes jabs at him. When Raan returns, the team begins to construct their game plan. Leon volunteers to scout ahead and Placeholder casts invisibility on him to boost his stealth. As he dives into the water, he doesn’t make it far before realizing his enemy does not rely on sight. He gets attacked by some kind of massive shark and he retreats quickly, forcing the Committee to rethink their plan. Raan and Placeholder agree to rush towards the crystal to reconnect the hallway while the rest keep the shark off them, and with that, everyone dives into the water. (edited)
Before they can get far, the shark comes back again, it seems to be covered in some kind of red gunk, as if injected by Rudium. It heads straight for Leon, still smelling his barely healed wound. Raan books it for statue while everyone else deals blow after blow to get the corrupted looking shark off Leon but it’s hunger prevails. It continues to make bite after bite on Leon nearly killing him but he manages to swim away as Placeholder, Nercoze and Kai rush to finish it off. Xot pulls Leon out of the water, scolding him and putting him behind him as he takes a stance in case the shark gets near. Raan makes it to the statue, figuring out what the crystal needs to be rerouted before she gets ambushed by some cultists. As she takes blows, she puts power into the crystal, managing to get half the hallways back up before she hears a familiar voice shouting and an even more familiar shield guardian walk into the room. She realizes that she can’t take all of them alone and decides to rush back to the group instead of standing her ground. By the time she returns, Placeholder and Nercoze finish off the shark, severing it into 3 chunks. Everyone regroups and agrees to take a moment of rest while Raan shares what she figured out. She warns everyone that “the ***** from last time” is still there and to be wary. After their rest, they begin to swim their way towards the library. (edited)
Before they can even get around to where the statue sits, blasts are fired off from the windows of the library. Almost everyone taking hits with Kai taking a nat 20 and nearly taking her out. Everyone rushes towards the opening to clash with the cultists and ready for battle. As swords are clashing, punches are flying, minions are falling, the shield guardian makes an appearance. Nerkoze rushes to face it while Raan follows behind as back up. Galeokaerda continues to throw out more attacks and yells out commands to the shield guardian, Placeholder taking notice, decides to rush to take her down. He easily grapples her, shoving her face into the ground to prevent her from making anymore commands. Leon decides to take the opportunity, runs through taking and dodging attacks and takes out his poison. He shoves the entire vial into her mouth and shatters the glass while it’s still in her mouth. She screams in pain and shouts for her guardian to help her, but before it can even react, Nerkoze jumps in raining blows upon her until she finally stops moving. As they release her she grins up at them in her final moments and touches some kind of magic circle with her blood. The blood follows the circle around and begins to glow as some bitter laughter can be heard. A humanoid appears with multiple cultists, he looks to be made completely of ruidium and he grins at the group telling them he’s been looking forward to seeing them again. He reveals himself to be (I forgot his name) and they stand there bewildered by his reappearance, clutching their weapons for the fight ahead. Will they be able to take back the library and regain control of Cael Morrow for the Allegiance of Allsight? Or will they be forced to run again with the threat of people losing their lives? Lets continue, The Battle for Cael Morrow’s Library… cue intro music
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The last time we saw our Committee, they easily defeated Galeo but to their dismay, she had one thing left up her sleeve. She used her death and blood to finish a magic circle and summon Kaelkurr but he was different this time. His form was completely of ruidium and he grins at them, he lets out a cackle as he tells them how he’s waited to get his revenge on us and that he’s untouchable now. The group readies their weapons as he begins summoning minions upon minions into the room with him, surrounding Leon, Nerkoze and Placeholder. Raan rushing to a heavily wounded Nerkoze, uses her lay on hands to get him back into fighting shape and pulling him away from the enemies in the process. As the vines wrap around her arms to touch and heal him, some of the magic seems to get absorb onto some nearby mushrooms that are quickly growing in size on Galeo’s body. As she takes a stance to defend Nerkoze, Kai continues her fight with the occult mage. The minions begin to swarm everyone as Narissa, who found her courage, approaches the chaos. She makes herself invisible and gets close to gauge the situation, realizing they might be able to control the shield guardian. Placeholder, Raan and Nerkoze rush to quickly deal with the minions so they can focus on Kaelkur. He doles out heavy hitting attacks and slugs Leon with more exhaustion, Raan attempts to take Kael’s focus but he’s determined to kill one at a time.
During the fight, Narissa shouts information about the guardian, Leon checks the body of Galeo, finding an amulet and the mushrooms almost completely covering the body at this point. He wearily heads back in, refusing to give up the fight as the body begins to twitch and then sits up. A small girl sits there, replacing where the body once laid. They look around, highly confused until they make eye contact with Raan and then they just stare. Raan, absolutely bewildered, looks back at them confused and unsure if she should attack them or not. She decides that this battle is incredibly more important at the moment and decides to hold off dealing with the creature for now. The group takes down more minions and once they finish they set their sights on Kael who just grins back. He slams his fists down, not only bringing them back into the fight but slightly powered up. They crowd around everyone again, some being slayed immediately and some landing hits on people. Kael grabs Leon attempting to finish him off but Raan launches one of her swords into his hand to prevent it and he drops Leon in the process.
Leon makes a break for it, handing Raan the amulet and also looking at the mushroom creature with confusion. As he makes some distance he launches a dagger at him but with barely any energy left, he misses. Raan takes his place and begins laying blows on him in harmony with Placeholder. Narissa hurls damaging magic at him and keeps behind cover to avoid damage and Kai lunges her trident deep into the occult mage and finished off another nearby minion. Nerkoze directs some distanced punches at Kael but his form still sends harmful energy towards him, the small mushroom girl attempts some magic but is still quite confused about her current whereabouts. Raan hands the amulet to her, asking her to use it on the giant shield guardian nearby and she nods heading over. She tries to think hard about how to use it but can’t seem to fully remember how. She manages to get it up and running enough to have it begin to attack Kael. Meanwhile Kael seems to start getting frustrated and slams his fist down again to attack.
This time, the bodies of the cultist explode and he absorbs their essences, mending himself. Everyone takes some type of damage but pushes to finish him off, throwing everything they had at him. Narissa, Kai and Crowe fire off ranged spells at him, Nerkoze lays punch after punch on him, Raan and Placeholder slam their weapons repeatedly onto him bringing him down to his last bit of strength but not quite enough before they both go unconscious. Before Raan went down, some of the ruidium gets into her blood as she struck him and red cracks begin to form on her hand. Kael grins even though he is as exhausted as everyone else. He cackles that he’s going to at least take someone with him firing off another charge towards Leon. Leon, already majorly exhausted, was unable to move in time to avoid the blast. It sears into him, knocking him into the ground and he is unmoving.
Kai, moving as swiftly as she can, rushes to finish Kael off, slicing his ruidium infused head apart from the body. As she does so, his blood gets onto her face leaving deep red cracks across her face. She pours a healing potion into Raan’s throat, informing her that Leon isn’t moving. Thinking quickly, she rushes to Leon’s side, picking him up and running and swimming towards Insight. They pass by Xot who looks concerned but they continue to rush past him bursting through the door. Everyone looks to them, Raan blurting out asking if they have revivify. Insight scrambles around for a moment before telling them they already used everything they had on their people and that there’s a chance upstairs but there’s not enough time
Raan collapses to her knees, still holding Leon, she looks to him as tears begin to well up in her eyes. He looks back at her and she tells him that he was amazing while smiling to him as best as she can. Tears begin to pour down her face as he smiles back at her and closes his eyes. She hugs him closely as her vines wrap around him gently, healing his minor wounds and cradling him. The rest of the group take turns quietly expressing their condolences to Raan as Insight and Xol apologize for not being able to help. Raan shakes her head, thanking them for their attempts as they also give their condolences. Insight tells them about funeral options and Raan asks Xot about the traditions of goliath burials.
Xot tells Raan about the tradition and how the Goliaths from the cold northern mountains deal with their dead, telling her that often when Goliaths pass they are set on a small boat with a banner of their house covering them. They are set ablaze on the river and sent floating down stream leaving the cold northern mountains to a land with much more warmth for the warriors. Sometimes when many Goliaths pass due to war times a whole fleet set sail together a demonstration of how even in passing Goliath militia is truly a formidable force. Leon’s was surrounded by friends and loved ones during his ceremony. Ayo took Leon’s cape as she watched the sun set on Leon’s singular boat floating down the river. The fire and light of his point rivaling even that if the setting Sun.
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The last time we saw our Committee, they were attending Leon’s funeral. Some staying quiet while others gave tearful goodbyes. They made their way back to the Cobalt Soul, clearly downhearted by recent events, the little mushroom girl, who introduced herself as Crowe, following along. Once they get there they run into Question who immediately senses their despairing faces and decides to leave them some space. Everyone quietly going into their rooms for the night. Later on, Question brings out a birthday cake for Crowe, doing her best to lighten the mood. Excited, Crowe attempts to blow out the candles, Raan secretly helps her by using her cape to conjure some wind and the candles go out. Question also hands over a gift of a revivify diamond, expressing her sorrow and telling them that they all put their money together to get it. They graciously accept the gift and head to bed for the night. Crowe decides to sleep at the foot of Raan’s bed, much to Raan’s confusion.
As she lays there, letting out soft tears which feel oddly familiar. Eventually she passes out, succumbing to her exhaustion. In what seems like her dreams, she meets two spirit women. They explain they are Evandra and Kanin and tell her about a promise they made with Leon. They ask for aid in finding their sister Arlon and one of them breathes life into Leon’s soul, giving him and Raan some time to talk. She almost immediately bursts into tears and Leon does his best to comfort her. They chat for a bit and Leon asks Raan to bring a letter to his father and to let Ayo know how he felt. She promises him and they clasps their hands together in a flex one more time. When she awakens, she finds herself clutching the Jewel of Three prayers and the spot where Crowe laid, just a single mushroom. She smiles softly to herself before getting herself ready for the day, putting mini Crowe into her pocket.
She meets up with Nerkoze and Narissa in the hallway and joins Nerkoze in having some cake. They sit and plan on what to do and how to prepare, Raan bringing up that she’d like a moment to speak to Irven and ask about the corruption. They also decide to hire Eylar Saito for extra help and set off on their way to run their preparations. Nerkoze picking up a scroll of revivify and some new gear while Raan grabs potions for everyone. They meet up with Irven in front of his building and Raan asks him how he dealt with the corruption and how to get rid of it. He tells her that unfortunately it can only get worse and he cut his arm off just to get it off. Although disappointing, they enjoy their catching up and finally being able to hang out in calmer surroundings. Irven also speaks of Ayo, and how she seems intent on bringing Leon back, he asks if the group knows anything that could help and Nerkoze speaks up about the possibility of bringing him back if they have his soul. He nods and thanks him, excusing himself to grab groceries while inviting them to speak to Ayo. They have a moment of chatter with her group and when there’s a moment alone with Ayo, Raan tells Ayo of Leon’s final words but excludes the part about his spirit being in the Jewel.
After the small break, the Committee heads over to the coliseum to find Eylar who was not surprisingly there. They ask him to help in their current mission of returning to Cael Morrow and agree to pay his price, Narissa paying most of it. He lets out a cheer as he buys them all dinner and agrees to meet them there, but it has to be tomorrow. They agree and after having their fill, they return to the Cobalt Soul to relax for the rest of the evening. The next day as they head out, Raan feigns having forgotten something at the Cobalt Soul and says she’ll catch up with them as she jogs back. When she gets there she finds Question and takes her hands, declaring a confession of sorts to her as Raan feels the anxiety of returning to Cael Morrow, but not coming back out. Before Question can even respond, she hugs her tightly and sprints away back to her group.
They finally meet up with Eylar who had some gifts for them, Narissa GREATLY appreciating some headphones of silence. They make their way in, greeting the same guards as before, Nerkoze trying to pull some pranks on Narissa but her not falling for it. When they get inside, they speak with Insight, who expresses her condolences once again. She explains that they were able to retake the library and set up the crystals. She tells them of some kind of possession going on with some of the researchers, that one of the ghosts refuses to let go till they pass on a memory to someone close to Alyxan. They nod in understanding, Raan telling them about Olara and how she might be able to help with their research if they ask the right questions. They head inside to check out the situation, eventually getting to the library where the once active and dangerous shield guardian, now stands in a corner unmoving. They say their hellos to Placeholder, who's been hired to stand guard as well and then speak to Xot who gives them some more details while leading them to said researcher.
When they get there, they hear the voice of the possessed person speaking to them, explaining they can’t leave till they pass on the memory. Raan steps forward and they touch hands, a vision almost immediately taking over. As she looks around, she sees a beautiful city and a family spending time together, then suddenly being destroyed and turned to ruin. She recognizes it as Cael Morrow and sees a creature impossibly big and tall towering over and destroying things. She sees someone with a spear and shield and then darkness. The spirit begs Raan to save Alyxan, when she agrees, they thank her and finally lets go of the researcher. Xot takes the researcher to rest while Raan explains the vision to Nerkoze, stating they have to find and rescue this Alyxian person. He confidently agrees and they meet back up with Narissa and Eylar to explain. Raan activates her divine sense and feels some bad vibes from the east and lets the group know they should head that way.
After a moment of preparation, they put on the hoods of their cloaks and following the scent of the bad vibes. They eventually come across a wall but the window is blocked off by some red liquid. They follow the wall around until they reach a door also covered by the red liquid. It seems to prevent anything from passing. They look around to see some flowers growing off pillars, Raan attempts to take one but it burns her hand a bit. She warns the others, kicking the flower to the door which disintegrates. Nerkoze attempts to use his mage hand to pass a dart through but the same thing happens. With the feeling of dread creeping up on them, Raan pulls out the jewel of 3 crystals and holds it near the door. She feels a familiar voice tell her that she needs to sacrifice something to prove she has a good heart. Letting the others know, they begin to rummage through their belongings. Raan decides to give up the ruidium elephant statue they got from before, the liquid gently disintegrating it and yanking Raan inside. Nerkoze, decides to give up a belt he had received from his peers at the temple he trained, the liquid doing the same to him.
The duo decide to head in while the others decide on an item to sacrifice, they realize they’re in a temple of sorts. Ruidium seems to infect almost every corner of it and when they step into the main room, a massive ruidium crystal glows there. Raan spots a statue on the other side, seemingly untouched, and decides to head over to pay her respects. She gets a bit too close to the glowing crystal and warns Nerkoze to stay away. Once they both reach it, Raan holds the jewel and prays to give respects to the god of this temple. When Nerkoze looks over, Raan is immediately knocked out and catches her bewildered.
Raan opens her eyes, feeling herself falling and then stopping. The voice of a goddess speaks to her, asking for help but warning Raan that Alyxian cannot just be released, that we need to lead him towards the light. Alyxian screams in anger for his release, his eyes glowing red as he stares at Raan. When she snaps out of it, she finds herself in Nerkoze’s arms, she quickly exclaims that they need to guide him to the light, not release him. Nerkoze, quickly makes a light, the jewel of 3 prayers absorbs the light and Raan can feel it’s power flowing through her. She makes her sword light as well and decides to shine a spotlight directly onto the massive pulsing crystal. It almost immediately explodes, doing some damage to Nerkoze and leaving a hole in the ground. Nerkoze slowly takes some steps to peer into the hole seeing nothing but suddenly he gets a vision. Alyxian on the ground and then snap his head up, the vision comes and goes as he slowly climbs out of the hole. When the vision goes away, there’s nobody standing there, what can this possibly mean?
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Last time we saw our Committee, Nerkoze and Raan had entered a temple. With Raan shining a spotlight onto the pulsing ruidium crystal causing it to explode and a vision of a corrupted Alyxian crawling out. Nerkoze and Raan ready their weapons for a fight but instead see a huge shadow on the side of the temple. A distorted voice of Alyxian shouting in anger, “YOU COME TO SAVE ME BUT HURT ME INSTEAD?!”. Back outside the temple, Eylar and Narissa question what they should do when they suddenly hear a noise. They turn around to see a huge worm come around the corner of the temple, part of it looks corrupted with ruidium, a face, looking like Alyxian’s, is sticking out the side. 2 voices melded together shout in anger as 2 spawns follow from behind. Narissa, wanting to nope out of the situation, tries to swim away and Eylar covers her back but being a creature built for swimming, it catches up quickly. It attacks both of them, trying to dig into their minds. Narissa lets it in for a moment but quickly regrets it as it attempts to take hold of her mind. She manages to push it out making her way to find Placeholder, Eylar trying to attack it to keep it off her.
In the temple, Nerkoze sees the shadow making it’s way to Narissa’s location and rushes to the exit. As he exits, he runs into one of the Aboleth’s spawn and quickly takes it down, rushing to Narissa’s side. Raan follows behind also running into a spawn but it manages to grab her, keeping her from catching up with the others. Narissa hysterically talks and rushes back to the others to help, failing to relay everything to Placeholder. Herself, Nerkoze and Eylar attempt to lay down damage on to it, the Aboleth responding by shaming them and digging into their minds. Raan asks the Jewel of Three Prayers for help, it obliging and flashing a bright light, lossinging the creature’s grip enough for Raan to get out. The Aboleth, failing it’s attempts to possess them, grabs Eylar, dragging him away into the darkness, Nerkoze following close behind. Raan attempts to rush over after attacking the spawn, unable to finish it off, it follows close behind. Nerkoze maneuvers behind the Aboleth, who was feeding on Eylar, doing some more blows on it, as it swims into view, Raan swims closer reaching out with the JoTP, teleporting Eylar out of it’s grasp and beside the creature in a blinding radiance. She shouts for him to run as she makes a strike at it as it reels from the light. She nods at Nerkoze as she makes her way back to hold off the spawn.
Everyone blasts some more attacks at it, Nerkoze striking it with cold damage and Narissa firing off missiles at it. With it being blinded from the radiant light, it gets more irate, releasing a massive psychic attack. Everyone manages to push the forced thoughts away..or so it seems. Eylar begins to make some distance from the Aboleth to recover but is quickly confronted by Placeholder, who has become allies with the corrupted creature. He easily strikes down Eylar and makes his way closer. The Aboleth telepathically shames them again as it grabs Narissa, beginning to drain her for health, then attempting to grab Nerkoze but he easily brushes them off and continues to pummel it with ice strikes. Unfortunately, it seems Narissa is also receiving damage from his punches, forcing Nerkoze to hesitate as Placeholder approaches to attack the both of them.
Raan, ignoring the Aboleth’s spawn, makes her way over to the creature. She approaches it, both hands tightly gripping her sword, it looks at her, reaching into her mind. With both voices once again, it questions why she attacks when she’s supposed to save them, both of them. Her emerald eyes illuminate as she slowly moves into a side stance, the voice of Amkiri encouraging her. She looks at the face resembling Alyxian, then into the eyes of the corruption attached to him, “You are not the Alyxian I am here to save”. She rushes forward, leaping towards the creature, her sword glowing a bright radiant light as it begins to slice into the Abolith. She perfectly angles the sword to cut off the chunk with Alyxian’s face, flipping gracefully over it through the water, continuing to slice through it’s body. As it’s body splits apart it explodes into a dazzling white light, Raan midjump sees the damage from the creature rushing towards the tentacle currently gripping Narissa. She realigns herself, swiftly rotating to slice off the limb and land elegantly as the rest of the creature erupts into more gleaming light. She sheathes her sword as the last Aboleth Spawn drops motionless.
As she turns around, she spots the flesh that was cut off, floating aimlessly and grabs it. It feels warm in her hand and is pulsing which grosses her out a bit but she hangs on to it. Placeholder, now unclouded, apologized profusely for his aggressiveness towards them. He helps get the group standing, sincerely apologizing to Eylar as well. Raan lets them know she’ll be heading into the temple to return the ball of flesh and Nerkoze says they’ll be taking a short break in the meanwhile. As they rest, Raan reenters the temple, it seems to freely let her enter as she pleases. She offers the flesh to the goddess statue but there's no response. She then offers it to the JoTP and the sisters begin to speak. They tell her that the flesh is part of him and Alyxian is in the Neverdeep, an extremely dangerous area and one should not go without preparations. Raan decides to keep the flesh, nicknaming it The Anger of Alyxian. She joins the others and lets them know what she was told but recommends they get stronger and prepare properly first.
As they formulate their next plan, they decide to explore some more to find Insight’s tablets or treasure. They make their way past the temple and catch a glimpse of an octopus holding something that looks like a crate. They follow it for a bit before walking into a smaller area of ruins, and as they begin to look around they hear a noise and are quickly surrounded by some odd looking crabs. Nerkoze and Raan rush to break down their carapaces to slay them but as Nerkoze finishes one, he takes multiple bites and claw attacks. During the fight, Raan notices the octopus again, holding a chest with something gold sticking out. Eylar attempts to rush in to help but misses and he plays it off jumping into the fight while Narissa fires off her spells from a distance. Raan, getting worried for Nerkoze’s safety, teleports him away as she readies her weapon to fight the crabs. As she swings at one, 2 of them get the jump, one of them becoming extremely aggressive and taking a massive chunk out of Raan nearly taking her out. As Nerkoze rounds the corner, seeing Raan and Eylar getting a bit overwhelmed and decides to take a hands off approach and watch beside Narissa. Narissa, Eylar and Raan manage to barely finish off the crabs as Raan and Eylar pant in exhaustion.
Nerkoze and Eylar begin making flirty jabs at each other as Eylar offers a potion to him, Nerkoze refuses and he offers it to Raan instead who happily drinks it. He offers it again to Nerkoze who finally takes it but stores it instead and drinks one of his own. They recuperate for a moment and continue to explore the mini ruins they found and find the very tablets Insight’s team has been looking for. In the language of celestials, which thankfully Nerkoze and Raan understand, it talks about Apotheon, which is another name Alyxian went by. They carry back the tablets to Insight, who are extremely grateful to them and she tells them the location of the entrance to Neverdeep. She tells them they need a key though or else it’s even more dangerous and Raan tries to play off that she doesn't have a key. Insight immediately takes notice and offers to pay for it but Raan insists she doesn’t have one and would let her know if she did.
Once they take a moment to calm themselves, they discuss what to do next. Eylar reminds them that if they leave, his contract is over. They struggle with the urge of wanting to explore more and find some goodies for themselves while also considering the fact that they are low on supplies, health and strength. They decide to head back in once more just to quickly find some treasure and at the first sign of trouble, to run away. Narissa agrees but warns them she won’t be able to help much and Nerkoze and Raan agree, Raan letting him know she has his back. They make their way back to where they fought the crabs, looking for a trail to find the octopus. As they follow a pathway, Nerkoze begins to power himself up, Eylar taking notice, also powers himself up. They stare at each other as Nerkoze activates another of his abilities and Eylar does the same. Nerkoze powers up ANOTHER one of his abilities and glares at Eylar, nearly bulging his eyes out, as Eylar does a trick with his spear and misses a catch. Nerkoze chuckles as he leads everyone around.
As they walk around, they come across another building which seems like another temple. Nervous to enter, Nerkoze asks to borrow Eylar’s spear, although extremely hesitant, he eventually gives the spear to Nerkoze who immediately throws it towards the door of the building. Eylar and Nerkoze stare at each other blankly, Eylar reminding him he has to activate the teleport, reaching his arm out to summon back the spear. Nerkoze attempts to play it off as he heads towards the door, Raan close behind. As they walk up the stairs and get to the door, a large creature with seemingly infinitely long tentacles looks at them. The smaller fishes surrounding it also take notice as Raan and Nerkoze look at each other and for the first time think the same thought. ****
We return back to our Committee as they realize that they might be in some bad waters. Thinking quickly, Nerkoze picks up Raan carrying her quite a distance before dropping her off and running further away, Narissa following behind. Eylar attempts to run but gets grabbed and pulled closer, shouting out in panic. Raan gets ready to run in after him but sees his spear whizz by as he teleports over, looking quite hurt and disturbed. He runs past Raan and as she begins to turn around to follow, she sees the tentacles beginning to creep around the corner, reaching out for something..or someone. She follows her team as they swim away as quickly as possible, making it back to a dry area.
They rush to speak to Xot who looks at them quizzically and they calm themselves as he talks to them about the research they’ve been doing in the ruined library. He gives them information about the teleport circle and they might be able to rework it to find their base. Raan and Narissa take a look at the circle to see if they can get anything from it but are unable to find anything. As they make their way back to Insight’s area, they all decide to take a long rest to recover from their last 2 battles and take down the massive jellyfish. Eylar comes up to them and tells them, although his contract is over, he’s willing to stay for a bit longer. He makes a deal to either have the treasure from the Jellyfish or the ruidium greataxe that's buried into it’s head. The Committee agrees to let him have the greataxe for his help and begin to get comfortable.
Eylar, Narissa and Raan choose spots against the wall while Nerkoze lays his bedroll halfway under Insight’s table, his legs sticking out in the way. Insight grumbles but leaves Nerkoze to sleep, Eylar, pulling out the fanciest bedroll to exist, gets comfy as he puts on his eye mask that has his name embroidered. Narissa gets comfy in her corner with her book while Raan pulls out her tent, offering Scribble a spot next to her who happily agrees. As they awake, Raan is happy to know Scribble didn’t have nightmares, Eylar wakes up and immediately starts working out and Narissa waits for everyone, reading while still in her bedroll. Nerkoze, pretending to be asleep, continues to lay in the way until Insight becomes fed up, politely waking him up. As everyone begins to prepare to leave once again, Insight reminds them about setting up a keystone, explaining how to set it up. Raan, realizing she misunderstood how they worked, apologizes and promises to set one up on their current journey. As they talk, Kai shows up, offering some help as she had planned to go hunting for dinner anyways, they agree to travel together and head off. They unspokenly decide to race back to the temple, taking off running, Eylar leading without any competition and winning bragging rights.
As they make their way towards the lair of the jellyfish, Eylar and Nerkoze begin jabbing at each other again. They start making a bet to see who would do the most damage on their first turn and begin sneaking up to get a jump on it, Eylar taking the first attack by throwing his spear sending lightning throughout it’s body. As Nerkoze runs up to attack it he also hits and attempts to stun the massive Jellyfish. Although it doesn’t completely work, he tries again, getting it mostly paralyzed this time. In retaliation, Eylar gets grabbed by the creature, getting pulled towards it again, small swarms of mostly dead looking fish coming out from under its oral arms slashing and biting at Eylar. Narissa carefully steps in, summoning necrotic energy over the massive jellyfish, covering it a black mist that begins eating away at it’s shell and tentacles, easily beating both Eylar and Nerkoze in their own bet. She hurriedly steps back outside to safety as Raan and Kai nod to each other and begin cutting at the tentacles that have been making their way outside of the building. They slash at them and combine their spells to completely restrain the massive jellyfish in thick thorny vines, staying put to cover the doorway.
As the jellyfish bring Eylar closer to most likely consume him, he uses his fey step to escape and hopefully get some time to breathe. Unfortunately, the swarm of fish declines his request for a break and bites at him more while another swarm of fish rush out and tear at Nerkoze. Narissa rushes in again and aims the necrotic energy at the creature again, heavily damaging it seemingly flinching in reaction. Nerkoze, a bit dazed from getting slapped around by the fish, activates his ring and rushes outside near Raan to attempt to recover. The jellyfish follows with a tentacle, attempting to strike and grab him but he’s able to dodge out of the way in time, Kai rushes forward to slice 3 attacks onto it to slice off another tentacle. She urges Raan to go in and she nods, dashing in to face the massive creature. She slices at it, an explosion of light following with each hit and takes a step back to ready her next attack. The swarm of fish making their way towards her but unable to bite through her armor for the moment. After taking a moment, Nerkoze throws some more punches into the creature making sure to keep his distance as it begins to move, hovering above Raan as she stares up in horror. Using it’s last tentacle, it reaches and grabs Kai, dragging her under as well, beginning to weaken until Raan is able to snap back to reality and use the JoTP to cover her in a warmth of safety, reducing the effects of being under the creature. Narissa, reaching out for the last time, pushes more energy into her spell, covering it in dark necrotic energy once again, the splotches covering it until it becomes lifeless and slowly drifts to the ground. The swarms, realizing their home and safety are gone, swim away quickly as things grow quiet for our group.
As they take a breath of relief and begin to cheer, Narissa scold Nerkoze for constantly bickering with Eylar, he shrugs in response and everyone begins to search for treasure. Eylar prys the greataxe from the thorny shell, admiring it while everyone doesn’t find much else. Narissa, coming up with a clever idea to check inside the jellyfish, cuts it open, finding a lovely locked jewelry box. Nerkoze opens it for her and finds a few high priced items inside including a ring with ruidium inside of it. Narissa agrees to let Nerkoze take it, putting away the other items to sell later. She also begins to carve parts off the jellyfish with Raan guiding her, hoping to make some use of it for later. Raan finds a spot to set up the keystone and Eylar offers assistance in powering it, he reaches out with his spear and if anything overpowers it with spells, successfully setting up a path to the nearest keystone and filling the room with air. Nerokze and Eylar begin jabbing at each other again, “threatening” to fight each other and begin making bets on who would win, Nerkoze reminding him he easily beat him. They discuss what to do next as Narissa finishes carving off a piece of the jellyfish, Kai freezes it for her to keep it fresh and offers to lead the way, disclosing that she is a bit more familiar traveling in this environment. They agree and begin to explore more of Cael Morrow again, Kai using her experience and senses to check what creatures are around. They make their way towards a building across the way, Narissa and Eylar sticking to the back.
As Kai, Nerkoze and Raan approach the building slowly, Kai stands in the doorway, seeing lots of wraiths flitting about, a skeleton man and ghostly woman standing above them on a ledge. The skeleton man wearing thick armor, turns to see Kai, immediately shouting and reaching for his weapon. Kai attempts to diffuse as the wraiths begin to slowly close in until the ghostly woman calms the man down, appearing to be his beloved. She mentions Coralon and Raan’s ears perk up, poking her head in and asking if the Coralon they worship is of the one who spoke to her. The woman gets interested and floats closer to speak to their group, explaining that she was a priestess of Coralon and helps protect Cael Morrow with the skeleton man, explaining their names are Hadarai and Beltreath. She tells them her experience of the fall of Cael Morrow and explains she was also friends with Alyxian. Hearing this, Raan brings out the ball of flesh which surprises Hadarai. She touches it, connecting with him and confirming he’s in the Neverdeep and in deep pain. She wishes for Coralon’s blessing but when asked why she doesn’t try, she tells them she’s ashamed and afraid of corrupting their precious deity.
She asks them to help Alyxian and pulls out a beautiful amulet which contains ruidium. She explains that it is currently corrupted but asks them to purify it if they can, for it might release/cure them of their slowly building corruption and that it is a key that can let them enter the Neverdeep. Raan, getting nervous at the thought of touching a ruidium item, offers it to someone else to carry and Nerkoze volunteers. Hadarai seems anxious but the group gives her comforting words, Raan showing her the JoTP which surprises her. She tells them about it’s origins and says they’ll need it on their trip to Neverdeep. She warns them that they saw and fought with a group of red cloaks that were trying to enter the Neverdeep a few days ago, adding that they seemed to have been able to walk right past the Aboleth and gotten in. Nerkoze, Kai and Raan listen to all her details and they ponder on their next steps, meanwhile Eylar and Narissa remain in the distance. They talk about their lunch and different types of lunches that were delicious until Narissa sees a purple tentacle in the distance. Immediately freaking out, she hurriedly tries to explain to Eylar what she saw as he looks at her with confusion. What will be The Committee’s next steps?
As we return to our protagonists as they navigate Cael Morrow, Narissa begins freaking about an octopus to Eylar as Nerkoze, Kai and Raan finish up their convo with Hadarai and walk towards them. As they rejoin Narissa tells them she saw the octopus again and they wonder what to do, debating on taking a long rest outside or going after the octopus again. Narissa indicates her fears and initially wants to leave but eventually decides to face her distaste of ocean creatures. They discuss and decide on taking a short rest inside the temple and then going to look for the octopus once again to find that elusive treasure box. Raan reenters the tower to Hadarai’s confusion and asks for permission to rest in the tower. Although she wonders why they left and then came back within 5 minutes, she graciously allows them.
Although he had a very uncomfortable nap, Nerkoze moves with some pep in his step and takes the lead to find that octopus. He activates his ability to see through darkness and guides everyone towards a tower he sees in the distance. As they attempt to approach stealthily, they succeed until Raan accidentally trips causing a chain reaction with a rock ending up landing on her back as she faceplants the ground. As they look around to see if anything noticed them but they don't notice anything stirring. Raan dusts herself off and peeks into the building, not seeing any creatures inside but a symbol of Coralon on the ground. She races around with Nerkoze following behind, Eylar and Kai sticking with Narissa who decides to stay outside. As the pair enter the building, they notice how run down it looks as there's stairs that lead to nowhere and it looks as if the entire crumbled on itself. As they investigate around they make sure to do so carefully since it looks like it can crumble at any moment, Raan takes a look through the rubble. Nerkoze investigates the symbol of Corellon, finding a trap door and wedging it loose. Raan and Kai take over using their strength to lift it open and manage not to bring down the entire building in the process. Narissa, watching Nerkoze hiding outside the building as they lift the trapdoor, scolds him for being a coward. He shrugs saying he’d rather not have to dodge rocks and reenters the building to peer inside the trapdoor.
He looks around carefully and takes a step in, unfortunately not noticing a gem embedded in the wall. The trap goes off in an explosive ball of light nearly hitting everyone and they realize that if nothing noticed them before, they were definitely noticeable now. They stumble around for a moment and they regain their senses just in time to see 3 massive Bloodfins swimming up to them, 1 beginning to force itself through a hole to get Kai and the other 2 heading for Eylar and Narissa. As the first fish begins wiggling to get through the opening of the building, making it wobble unsteadily, the other two bite at Narissa and Eylar, gripping them in their mouths and smacking them with their tails. Nerkoze, moving swiftly through the water, strikes at both fish and stuns them which forces them to drop Eylar and Narissa. He pulls her through the water and she swims through a small opening on the side of the building, unfortunately a little too hasty because it caused some more rock to fall. She swims away as far as she can while Eylar attacks one of the fish and catches up with Narissa.
As the Bloodfin furiously wiggles his way through the opening of the building, shaking it more and causing rock to fall down, Kai steps back and swims down into the trapdoor room, hoping to find safety inside. As she gets in, the massive fish manages to finally push through, creating more falling debris. It lunges for Nerkoze and Raan and they manage to dodge it’s bite but catches Nerkokze off guard with it’s tail, slapping him with it. As it thrashes around, even more debris falls, nearly hurting the duo as they dodge the falling rocks. Raan steps away from the fish, slowly falling into the trapdoor room as she uses the JoTP to teleport Nerkoze at the entrance of the hole it created to give him a head start to run. As Raan enters the pitch black room, Kai feels around the room, finding Coarlon’s sigil engraved into the ground. Raan uses the JoTP to light up the room which causes the sigil to glow a bit, they try to think of what the sigil needs but are quickly interrupted by a bloodfin. Although it’s too big to get into the room, it covers the entrance with it’s mouth and flaps its tongue about, immediately grossing the two of them out.
As Narissa, Eylar and Nerkoze swim away from the ever crumbling building, they notice the 2 bloodfins following them, refusing to let their dinner escape. They swim back up to Hadarai’s temple and the fish seem to stop following and just..linger. They wonder what to do as they swim towards the entrance and the fish, while not attacking, just circle the building. They theorize that their instinct is telling them not to approach the building and Narissa asks them for help. Hadarai questions why they’re back again so soon but tells her, they protect this building and this building only. As Raan and Kai attempt to figure out how to activate the sigil, Kai gets fed up with the tongue flicking around and begins attacking it. Unfortunately as she does so, blood begins to leak out combining with the fact the bloodfin is blocking any fresh water from coming in, the duo begin to suffocate. When Kai strikes the creature with a divine light, Raan notices it’s reaction to that. She channels divine light through the JoTP and it seems to react to it as well. With hurried movement, she channels her radiant energy through her palms and pushes it into the sigil, making the room fill with light.
They blink the light away from their eyes and realize that they have teleported into Coralon’s temple. Confused but happy they escaped, and began to rush to make their way back to the group. As the trio slowly make their way towards the temple door, the bloodfins continue to circle threateningly, clearly unsure about approaching them. As the three of them begin heading inside, one of the fish gets brave and starts to get closer to the entryway to take a bite at them. As it swims inside, the sword wraiths pounce on it, slashing and stabbing it as it goes into a frenzy, biting and swishing it’s tail and Narissa repulsively puts her hands to it, burning it immensely. As it perishes, it bursts into a cloud of blood, stinging everyone and although the other fish watched it’s friend get slashed apart, it also makes it’s way inside to attack the trio. Nerkoze and Eylar rain blows onto it as it goes into a frenzy from being attacked and it lunges at one of the sword wraiths. Narissa bravely leaps in front of the sword wraith, preventing him from getting hurt but being knocked unconscious in the process. The other sword wraiths once again strike at it until it explodes once again into a cloud of bloodmist.
Things quiet down again as Narissa is stabilized by Hadarai and Beltreath approaches her. They heavily thank her for stepping in to protect one of her own and Narissa apologizes for the door being broken down. She offers gold or one of the jewelry pieces she found to fix but they refuse her offer. Instead, when she offers the jewelry box in reward for their help, the sword wraith she protected steps forward, kneeling down and pledging his service to her. Shocked but enthusiastic, she accepts and he binds himself to the jewelry box for her to call upon him if they ever need the help. After talking among themselves once more, they decide to call it a day and to head back to rest, Raan and Kai coming up like they weren’t just under a crumbling building running out of air. After returning to the surface they run into Question, who gets a bit awkward seeing Raan. Raan in return gets a bit embarrassed seeing her but gives their report on what they found down under. Question informs them of what’s been going on up top, telling them that the consortium is looking for them and do not seem happy. They thank her for the info, heading to their rooms after dinner for some much deserved rest.
In the morning, they receive a letter with an odd looking picture on it. They attempt to decipher but to no luck, Raan suggesting they ask Question but pushing Nerkoze to ask. He does so but misinforms Question that it was a love letter to Raan. She looks a bit disappointed but helps them out anyways, deciphering it easily and pointing out it looks like different animals when changing their point of view. They crowd around her as she shows them an Owl, Eagle and a Lion, pointing out that it also shows a location depending on the animal present. Raan perks up hearing Owl and informs the group what she knows about him, explaining that he might not be happy with the group considering their past. Narissa and Raan discuss their next steps while Question hands back the picture and walks back downstairs. Nerkoze catches up to her and asks her what she knows about a brass dragon but she shuts him down immediately, warning him to never ask about it again or else be prepared for consequences. He tries to be playful about it but it’s the most serious anyone has ever seen Question and she walks downstairs.
As Nerkoze makes his way back upstairs, the group has decided to do some more preparation before heading down once again. They make their way to the magic shop and Nerkoze pays off his debt. Narissa attempts to sell things while trying to get something for herself but Amkenzne remains firm with her trade agreements. Nerkoze shows a locked box that he received from a Sphinx, asking what he could get for it. Amkenzne points to Raan explaining that he could get the gold frog she’s always looking at and Nerkoze considers his options. Mentally flipping a coin in his head, he trades his lock box for the frog and Amekenze slowly slides the box behind her. Excited, Raan picks up the frog and sees it’s eyes glowing, feeling it digging for a connection to her. She willingly lets it and it speaks to her in a godly voice, telling her she is now the loyal servant of The Great Golden Frog. Ecstatically she accepts and he tells her about how he’s been looking for someone good of heart to help him. He commands the first order of business is to find his real name and memories but gets a bit hesitant as she’s TOO excited.
Back to Nerkoze and Narissa, they watch Raan as she delightfully talks to a gold frog statue, puts it up to their faces and then continues to talk to it. They look at each other, cringing in their friend’s antics. Before leaving, Nerkoze asks for a tarot reading from Amekenzne as Narissa tries to get Raan to snap out of it. She tells him of some good and some bad news but to be careful for the journey ahead. He thanks her and they head to the general store next door. Narissa sells the rest of her items as Nerkoze and Raan browse. Nerkoze finds a few mirrors and stares at a dragon head that’s mounted. He happens to find a book on brass dragons and in an attempt to get it for a low price, instead increases it. Rerosha smirks at him, keeping firm on his price until Nerkoze has to humbly ask Narissa to help pay for it. Narissa scolds him but pays for it and Rerosha takes the book from him, handing it to Narissa who then hands it to Nerkoze. He thanks her immensely and takes a step outside, beginning to flip through it as the other two continue to browse. Will he find what he’s looking for or will he have humiliated himself for nothing? Let's find out on the next episode of The Committee of Nerkoze…
Last we left the committee Nerkoze had finished reading up his book only to realize its part of a trilogy. And still had to find the other two books. He picks up a few names from the book, the one that stands out the most is J’mon Sa Ord. Possibly linked to the hands of Ord. While still in the shop a small and adorable looking kobold named Igge walks in. He introduces himself and begins to talk about the Cult of the Egg trying to persuade the group to join in. More shopping is done, Raan buying the most complicated puzzle she can find as a gift for Question. And Igge buys a necklace for his dragon's hoard. The group leaves the shop to head back to the Cobalt Sol HQ. Igge decides to dig some holes behind the Cobalt Sol building, Raan shyly gives her gift to Question. And Narrissa hangs out with Nerkoze as he tries to attune to the amulet he was given. During Nerkoze’s attunement he gets a vision, first a warm feeling to help, but then is changed to an image of the thing that annoys him the most, an image of himself. Nerkoze takes two jabs at it as it dodges it like nothing. As he woke up he realized he took a jab at Narissa and the Table. Narrissa scolds Nerkoze as she does Iwo states that Nerkoze is going to need to pay for the table. As Narissaa was about to pay, Igge pays instead forcing Nerkoze to be indebted to him. Raan also chats with Shira a bit, learning that she takes care and guards the Library here in the Cobalt Sol. After Questions meeting with Jamil, she informs the group that received an invitation to meet with Grand Maven Ghimishaga tomorrow night. Raan accepts the invitation, and the group leaves to meet with the Owl to see what he has to say. Instead they are met with Sparrow.
Sparrow tells the group that they are finally cutting them off, and that the other groups want us in their custody while others want us dead after killing off Kehlkur. As a final goodbye Sparrow informs the group that the Consortium is looking for a powerful “Artifact” and gives the group a map of where they are looking. The group heads back to Ank’Harel and head to the meeting with Grand Maven. There they meet Fabella. Grand Maven informs the group that they are looking for a weapon to take over Cael Morrow and is offering 10K the retrieve it. Nerkoze informs her that they knew about the weapon and its location due to the Consortium, and she gets suspicious. But Igge tells her about the cult of the egg. Grand Maven tells the group that Fabella will be tagging along as well fo the journey. Arriving at the location on the map the group quickly deal with the two lookouts that were surveying the entrance. Learning that they are plenty of footsteps heading down a tomb the group make their way down. Reaching the bottom steps they come across a massive library that is being rummaged through. The group then hears voices barking orders to take crates to a person named “The Wolf”. The session ends as the group comes up with a plan to deal with these runts.
As we return to our Committee, they enter a secret underground library where books are sprawled everywhere. The group almost immediately go invisible as they hear voices shouting back and forth, someone shouts that their leader already left with what he needed and to grab anything else that they could find before leaving. Raan looking around begins getting a headache from the amount of books inside, Nerkoze seems extremely disinterested and Fabella lets the rest of the group know that there are quite a few people in here. They split off to investigate, checking how many are around and looking for anything of value. Nerkoze looks for another part of the trilogy while Igge floats above, spotting a cultist collecting books about brass dragons and makes his way down to steal some of the books. Fabella finds a map with locations marked on it and some of them crossed out. As the continue to look around, one of the members calls everyone to the middle of the room to ready to leave, as the minions begin to do so, Nerkoze takes a stance beside a bookshelf, readying it to drop onto someone as Igge picks up one of satchels full of books.
As they do so, Raan, attempting to get a better vantage point, climbs up onto a stage-like area. In doing so, she knocks over a shelf which clatters over dramatically and the others shout that there’s intruders. Nerkoze drops the bookshelf onto the man, punching him through the chest and finishing him off quickly. Igge drops the heavy satchel onto the man, knocking him down as his Lord Kaida attacks and finishes him off. All of the enemies begin to shapeshift as Igge’s owls fly in, attacking 2 of the people dressed in red robes, Narissa attempts to splash some with acid and makes some distance away from them while Fabella attempts to blast one with radiant light, unfortunately missing. Raan rushes forward and teleports in a blinding light and nearly takes out the Tiger who seems to be the leader, she shouts out for protection as she rushes away from Raan. As they finish shapeshifting, one of them turns into a boar, who attacks Nerkoze hitting him hard,but hearing the shout for help, he moves towards the middle. Nerkoze, summoning his wings and ring, moves quickly to attack the boar man and attempts to stun him but the boar shrugs it off, sneering at him.
Narissa summons her necrotic power, smothering one of the cultists with it and nearly finishing him off. Igge attacks and launches one of the cultists into the air, slamming him back down as Lord Kaida finishes off the werewolf that Narissa attacked. With them focused on the left side, two of the werewolves from the right attack Fabella, infecting her with their ruidium claws. She summons her spirit guardians for protection as a different werewolf takes down one of Igge’s owls and his dragon. The three werewolves surrounding Raan attack and slash at her, in retaliation she uses the Jotp to blind all of them, moving to finish off the Tiger and pushing her sword through her stomach. She rushes back and finishes off another of the werewolves nearby. Seeing the group leader perishing, the Boar shouts for people to grab what they can and run and charges towards Nerkoze. Considering he’s as swift as the wind, he dodges easily and moves to finish off the boar, stunning him and striking with ice punches till he falls to the ground. Narissa summons her necrotic magic once again in even greater force this time, blighting two werewolves and dropping them as well.
Igge, noticing that they were making a rush to leave, he banishes one of the werewolves to the plane of his dragon as Fabella’s spirit guardians rip apart another. One of the werewolves moves to run but instead turns around and surrenders. With some hesitation, they agree and sit him down, Nerkoze beginning to question him. He tells them that their Lord Larthul found information on the dungeon location containing the weapon. Raan asks which location is where they went and he gives them an answer but seems to be misleading them. As they question him more, the werewolf comes back from banishment and Igge attempts to intimidate him into converting but the wolf remains loyal to Larthul, explaining that he raised them. Igge tries to persuade him and the wolf proposes joining together to fight the allegiance of all sight. He begs them to at least listen to Lord Larthul and Igge promises to feed orphans pancakes.
Narissa, deciding to find out more of his vibe, looks into the mind of the werewolves. She learns which was the correct location and about their struggle. She sees memories of Lord Larthul, learning he’s an alpha wolf and has been taking care of them, infecting the weak so they can be strong enough to fight to survive. He notices her reading his mind and gets upset, attempting to run away. Raan stops him as Narissa shouts for him to wait, she empathetically relates to him as Raan covers him with healing to calm him down. He seems confused by their actions but stands down as the other “cultist” get anxious asking to leave and the group agrees, deciding to stay a bit longer to look around themselves. Igge begins to go through numerous books, crossing out names that rival his Cult of the Egg, Narissa finds some information about J’mon Sa Ord. She learns that he disappeared at some point in history, some theories of what happened include; he was killed by a friend, he lives and went to hide in a secret cave, or that he lives and walks among the people, blending in. Nerkoze approaches Fabella and uses the corrupted crystal to remove her corruption. As the amulet begins to backfire, Raan notices and just in time uses her aura to assist, she thanks them and the group take a moment to rest.
They gather their belongings and make their way towards Lord Larthul’s location and come across a large open area, spotting more wolves. Narissa, Raan and Fabella stay back as Nerkoze and Igge slowly move forward to attempt peace talks. They seem extremely wary but Igge persuades them to let them talk to Lord Larthul and agree to “remove their weapons”. As they walk closer, a large Polar bear man appears on a cliff, dropping down dramatically and introduces himself as Chalice. Nerkoze begins to get cocky, irritating Chalice but Igge interrupts, asking about their plight. They sit down and He tells them of their story, constantly fighting to survive and constantly suffering, explaining that all they want is peace and justice. Igge relates to him and talks to him about The Way of the Egg. Chalice suggests merging groups and Igge shakes hands with him. Nerkoze asks him some more questions about their goal and Chalice tells him that they just want change for the better and a place in the city. Nerkoze nods in understanding and Chalice tells them it will be awhile before Lord Larthul appears. Igge hands him an Egg bible and Nerkoze challenges him to a spar since they’ll be waiting anyway and he agrees. The duo make their way back and inform the rest of the group on what they learned and they agree to settle in for the wait as they discuss what to do next. Will they be able to keep the peace? Let's find out what happens next
As we return back to our chaotic Committee, they were enjoying their mini camp session, discussing their future plans. As they do so, a sudden chill crawls upon their shoulder, Raan gets a sense of familiarity. She whips her head around to see her favorite person, Wither. Wither quietly says hello as Raan scoops her up in an embrace. After she puts her down, she introduces herself and Igge seems excited to have a new friend. As they wait for Lord Larthul to arrive, Nerkoze takes up Chalice’s offer to a spar and they both grin with excitement. Chalice opts for a regular greataxe instead of his usual weapon and Nerkoze removes his shirt, glowing extravagantly while his tattoos come to life.
The fight begins and they approach each other, Chalice manages to land some brutal blows on Nerkoze but he retaliates just as harshly. Nerkoze proves to be extremely nimble and although it’s quite difficult, he stuns Chalice multiple times and gets some of his punches to go through the polar bear’s thick skin. Chalice attempts to retaliate but Nerkoze stuns him again, pummeling him with more blows until he yields. He congratulates Nerkoze and they share a hearty laugh together. Nerkoze returns to the group with his friends cheering him on and the wolf pack changes back into their normal selves. They offer the Committee to share stew with them and the group accepts, sitting beside them and making conversation. As they enjoy their meal, Chalice finally asks the group what happened at the library and where the rest of their group was. They look at each other nervously and Raan admits that all but 2 survived the fight against them and the 2 were told to return to Ank’Harel. Things get quiet for a moment but Chalice speaks up saying they didn’t die for nothing and explaining they happily gave their lives to the cause. The group lets out a small sigh of relief as Chalice warns them that they won’t be so gracious next time.
As they begin to finish up, Lord Larthul makes an appearance and he questions who the strangers are. Chalice gets him up to speed and it seems to anger Larthul a bit but accepts to having a conversation. Igger approaches him, talking to him about the Way of the Egg and Larthul seems open to listening. Nerkoze begins whispering to Narissa about Kelkurr but Narissa manages to slap him before he says anything too compromising. Igge persuades him to be peaceful and to give them some time prompting both groups to huddle together to discuss what should be done next. They come back together and Larthul agrees to let them help find the weapon, telling them what they know so far about it and warns them not to betray. He tells them to look for Dederon and sends Chalice to follow them to make sure they’re not trying anything funny.
The Committee enters the temple with Chalice in tow, Fabella summons her magic, casting Legend Lord to see if she could learn anything else about the weapon. She learns that a creature was either trapped or made into said weapon, no one knows how but it’s extremely powerful and that the Brass Sovereign collected it as one point. Once they finish descending the stairs, Raan sees a hieroglyph of a gold frog. She shows it to GGF and they both get excited while Nerkoze examines the floor to find where the last group headed. They follow the path with sand tracks and find a small pool of red sand. Raan attempts to learn more about the sand by consuming it while Igge and Wither channel their magicks, learning that it’s a powder used for rituals and has hallucinogenic properties. They continue and search around, Wither finding a scroll of solar flare and Celestial Transactions which speaks of celestial pact being made with J’mon Sa Ord. They continue to follow the path and find a room with a pit and broken paths, everyone seems nervous to continue but with the GGF whispering encouragement, Raan rushes forward and leaps onto a ledge and helps everyone up. They enter a mysterious room with a sarcophagus in the middle and some pressure plates to the back with an altar and chest. Seeing a bowl of white sand, Raan attempts to solve the puzzle by consuming more sand but still gets nothing but a wobbly feeling and begins to hallucinate.
Unable to find a solution, they explore the area more and find a brass dragon coffin with sentimental weapons inside. Leaving it be they come across tablets that match the pressure plates and take them as they find another coffin with inscribed words. Raan summons the power of the moonlight on it and the group find a raw moonstone which Raan takes. They explore around further and find the other tablets they need but before returning, find another group of coffins. Opening the first one, Fabella contracts a curse, affecting her speech while Igge opens a second coffin, getting a curse that affects his sleep. Narissa and Raan open a third coffin and share a curse that makes their footsteps extremely loud and with little persuasion, Narissa gets Nerkoze to carry her. They return to the room with the sarcophagus and place the tablets onto the matching pressure plates and it opens into stairs. They see the writing on the sarcophagus stating that, sometimes when walking towards the future, one must look to the past. They enter a mysterious room and upon exploring for a bit, The massive statue to the center comes to life, the words “Prove Your Worth or Walk Aimlessly” glowing brightly at it’s base, and although it seems slow, looks incredibly powerful. It lifts it’s sword, slamming it down on Wither and Raan before they can move out of the way, Raan manages to lift her shield in time but Wither was unfortunately not quick enough. Fabella rushes quickly to heal Wither and takes cover while Raan attempts to stop it with her vines but it only slows it down a bit as it continues to raise it’s sword again. The group begin to trade blows with it but Igge notices Wither trying to look around and banishes the creature as it raises it’s sword again.
It disappears and everyone moves quickly to find out how to defeat it while Raan patches up her wounds. Finally, Wither finds a scroll and figures out that the sun activated it, which means the moon would deactivate it. Raan nods and everyone takes their places as it blips back into existence, unleashing an area of destruction that luckily no one was in. Once seeing it, Raan casts her moon beam upon it and it thankfully deactivates, returning to it’s position once more. They let out a sigh of relief as they look around once again to find the way to continue. What could be waiting for them next in this temple of mysteries? Let's return once more to our Chaotic Committee.
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The Bowl of Judgement!
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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The last time we saw the hot cross buns committee they competed in the team battles at the bowl of judgment! Nerkoze and Narissa had just one their battle and now it was Gorga and Leon vs Kai Kideli and Aurelia. Gorga took a massive number of hits as Leon weaved through combat until both Kai and Aurelia were dispatched leaving Gorga and Leon as the victors! In the following round Nerkoze and Narissa fought against Majesta and Cerce who posed a significant obstacle. The battle was fierce, but Majesta danced with her blades with the help of Cerce shooting lightning bolts to bring victory! Afterwards the Bowl of Judgement went on a break until the next day and the party took a stroll around and found a small night market with games and food. They all celebrate their victories by playing a few circus games and arm wrestling each other. Circe manages to best one of the strongest looking folks at the tent as well leaving him awestruck and taking the sword he had bet for her hat. She gifts it to Raan before disappearing into the night with a little bit of madness still lingering in her eyes. The party looks up to find an owl on the roof of the First Eclipse looking down at them and they hear a voice in their heads, “It is time”. They are given a note in under their drink that tells them to meet in the cellar behind the bar. The bartender doesn’t mind at all as they enter to find a joyous girl wearing a hooded cloak, the face opening of which was completely filled with darkness.she gives them 3 quests, and they choose to take on a mission to disrupt another Consortium leader’s shipment of black market goods. The girl pushes them out to get some rest before their next Bowl of Judgement matches and the following mission!
Whatever your choice I guarantee it will be a memorable adventure! See you at the table (:
Daddy Orcus is here~!
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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Last we saw the HCB Committee, the party went to the bowl of judgment and competed in the Semi Finals: Majesta and Raan vs Gorga and Leon. The combat began on even terms, but Majesta and Raan began to build an advantage. As the fighting continued with victory slipping away Gorga heard her blade speaking to her, urging her to give in and let him help win the fight. As she fights in the bowl and in her mind she reaches a breaking point as she is “knocked out” of the combat. While in stasis her eyes begin to bleed and turn black as she loses the mental fight. Her party members see this, but continue the combat thinking it's strange, but not acting on it. Feeling along she gives in and she opens her eyes to darkness. On the outside the entire stadium sees her start emanating black mist and a treacherous grin spread wide across her face saying “FINALLY”. Gorga starts attacking and knocking the other fighters around, even summoning a second weapon to do so. Guards begin to rush in as people begin to realize what is happening. Leon, without missing a beat, immediately begins to strike at the tactically strike at the creepy longsword Gorga was wielding. 1…2…3 strikes the final one a critical as he manages to create a crack that propagates through it. This act garners Gorga’s rage, swinging the blade itself towards him, striking him and sending him back. Although the blade connects the massive blow against Leon’s dagger propagates the crack enough to shatter the blade in half, bringing Gorga’s mind back. She is in a state of exhaustion as the guards reach the group trying to apprehend Gorga and bring the others in for questioning to determine what happened + if foul play was involved. The party defends Gorga and agree to not cause a scene and both forfeit if they are allowed to leave. With a great persuasion check, the guards accept this trade, but say they will be keeping an eye on the party from now on. Once they get out Ayo and her party come out to check to see if they are OK. Ayo and Leon have a moment and Leon asks Ayo out on a date the next evening. Gorga is hurt that he would do this while she is in the middle of struggling and gives him the silent treatment. They go back to the Temple of the Mentor to rest. Gorga asks to be left alone and locks herself in her room. Leon attempts to go up to the door and apologize, but Wither steps in the way looking at him blankly and preventing him from entering. During this time Gorga leaves out of the window and does some soul searching until the Mission later that night. There she watches the people pass and meets another figure that sits next to her. He offers her words of comfort as the world apart from him before a blur he hands a rock and a choice. He and Orcus seem to have a feud and he offers to take her away from all of it, to only call for him if she needs him. Rocks are used as a way for people to communicate with the dead, a tradition passed on by the poor as all they had were rocks to honor their loved ones. When the party get concerned about leaving to make it to the warehouse they are to investigate in time, Gorga appears behind them focusing solely on the mission and being unusually indifferent. Once they arrive they notice a Golem carrying goods from a crate outside into the warehouse. Leon and Gorga investigate the only window as Raan sees the door open and uses that opportunity to go in, making direct eye contact with Irvan who says, “What the fuuuu”.
Gorga's Goodbye
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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Last we saw the hotcross buns they confronted Irvan and Aloysia at the Consortium warehouse. It seemed like Ruidium was being used to make weapons, but Raan was more focused on Irvan. After a deep debate on what it meant to be a hero, Raan decided that action needed to be taken. Nyx and wither had arrived on the scene to support her, but the combat was fierce as golems began doing some serious damage. In the nick of time, Circe repelled from the ceiling killing one of the casters, which triggered something because one of the golems stopped moving. The party caught on and disabled both. Just as things seemed to be turning in their favor the Moth arrived. Seeing the scene he decided that the warehouse wasn’t worth keeping and lit it all on fire as his lava golem engaged the party. The battle was fierce, but Gorga gave into the evil powers of Orcus to wield power strong enough to save the unconscious party members and stall the golem enough for the Moth to retreat with the ruidium ore and weapons. Gorga left the party to find herself as she saw herself as a danger to her friends and also felt a bit unwanted. The rest of the party take Aloysia’s corpse to the Temple of the Mentor asking a few questions to figure out her motives, although mostly unsuccessful. The session ends as they burn the corpse and prepare the next day to meet with the High Curator of the Cobalt Soul.
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Elephant Stampede!
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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Last we saw the HCBC they took on a mission by the very young High Curator, Jamil, to investigate The Gull, another presumed founder of the Consortium. The High Curator brings in another adventurer to aid them, Narissa, who has been tailing this person for a while now. THe party takes a long rest and gets breakfast before heading out, only to find two rampaging red porcelain elephants causing chaos in the Suncut Bazaar. The party attempts to befriend and calm them, but are only successful with one. Raan and Nyx focus on drawing away to the one that turned less aggressive, but the rampaging one nearly knocks Loen out with a strike. Narissa offers assistance where she can and a distraction to finally calm the second one down; however, a gnome donning a red cape shoots a charge of red lightning causing the elephant to begin rampaging again. Raan jumps in front of his second beam aimed at the other calm elephant taking the full brunt and nearly killing her. Seeing that he is being overwhelmed he breaks a teleportation tablet to get away. With the portal still open, Leon and Narissa go through to try and finish him off to find 5 red caped figures charging red energy to strike them. They fail to finish off the Gull, but manage to get back out just in time as 5 beams of red energy come streaming out of the closing portal striking most of them. The wounded party manage to rely on their bonds with the elephants to revert them into porcelain figurines. Surveying the damage they find the bartender Satzrak with a severe wound bleeding out in the First Eclipse. They discover that the COnsortium was planning to move bases because they suspected the place to be compromised. Th Gull blamed and confronted Satzrak and used this as an excuse to take out members of the Owl’s faction that he deemed “traitors to the cause”. THe party healed him and took him to an alley where he said the Owl would find him. He leaves with a warning that the Consortium is at a pivotal point where the struggle between the founders is going to come to a head at some point. With most of the Suncut Bazaar intact they go back to the Cobalt Soul where after a tenuous confrontation with Iwo, where the party gave up one of the porcelain elephants, the High Curator, pleased with their performance, offers them a final mission to initiate them into the Library of the Cobalt Soul. THeir mission? To Enter Cael Morrow and gain Insight Acuere’s trust. Then, to find the “key” to the Netherdeep
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Entering Cael Morrow!
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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Last we saw the Hot Cross Buns they descended into the ruins of Cael Morrow. There they met with Ayo and her party who escorted them to Insight Acurere and her two assistant Xot and Scribble at the Allegiance Allsight homebase. Ayo’s main objective is to find the double agent in the Allegiance with escorting you all as their cover mission. Hearing that the Cobalt Soul have sent you to help with the excavation, Insight gives you a mission To locate and bring back tablets that tell the story of a fallen hero. You take on this mission and begin investigating the path. First an abandoned house that lay in ruin, then a crumbling guard tower where Leon is able to fix the malfunctioning keystone. The party also goes to the sunken tavern where they met an odd sea elf named Olara that offers them boos and potions. She speaks of the city as if it were still bustling with people and her family, even though none are to be seen. She does point out the Royal Library to the south and the hot cross buns head that way. As they enter the main entrance though, they hear “Finally, I have the jewel in my hand. It had gone to waste in your Irvan and after your betrayal it is only fair I shall take it for myself. The Moth will be proud!” Raan sees Irvan on the floor and immediately rushes in, starting combat as Raan tries to save Irvan. A shield guardian towering over them rushes the entrance making it difficult for anyone to get through. A group of figures also appear off in the south as they rush into the chamber to fight the party. After a lot of back and forth, with the party severely injured Raan manages to grapple the Jewel away from the elf that stole it from Irvan as a cultist smashes the keystone, causing water to fill in the room!
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Entering Cael Morrow!
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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Last we saw the Hot Cross Buns Committee they were in the midst of battle with Galeokaedra, an Allegiance of Allsight Professor. Irvan informs them that she is a spy, a shapeshifter in disguise trying to get the key to the Netherdeep and urges the party to retrieve the Jewel of Three Prayers that she has stolen from Irvan as it is one of these keys. Once Raan is able to wrestle it away from the party tries to escape, but falls one after the other. Raan manages to get the crystal to Ayo who tosses it to Galsaria, but goes back to save an unconscious Leon (who charged Galeokaedra and immediately got levelled) The shield guardian holds most of them off at the entrance while the rest are stuck inside. Maggie tries to break through the shield guardian multiple times and fails, having to eventually leave as the shield guardian bashes her. The Guardian now turns to face an injured Irvan and Ayo being dragged out by Nyx and Dermot. They manage to get them into the water and drag them out while Galeokaedra fires crimson bolts after them in frustration, knocking Ayo out once more. Barely alive, half the party downed they managed to drag themselves back to Insight and the Allegiance of Allsight and warn them. They start boarding up the walls, but nothing seems to follow. The party convinces them to evacuate, which they do reluctantly. They are helped back to the Cobalt Soul where they make sure to get some rest and inform Jamil of what happened. This information concerns him as tension between the Allegiance and Consortium will only grow until it boils over. Their obsession to get into the Netherdeep will surely lead to a confrontation. He tasks them with finding another member to strengthen their numbers and head back into Cael Morrow to get any keys that exist and out of the hands of others. The party set out to the Bowl of Judgement where they find Eylar and Nerkoze waiting to decide on who to recruit based on who wins the tournament. It is a close fight, but Nerkoze is able to see through Eylar’s tricky darkness tactic and defeat him with only 3 hp remaining. Now the party must decide between going to Cael Morrow to further investigate, or go to the Treasure sight the twins at the Lyrean Linen shop told Leon about.
The party meets a Sphinx!
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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Last we saw the hot cross buns committee they met a simple minded barbarian named Reiter Nev who seemed to care only about fighting and food via The Cobalt Soul who believed he would be able to help bolster their numbers for the next dangerous mission into Cael Morrow. Before going there tho, the party decided to investigate a tip of a treasure hoard deep in the desert Northward, which the Consortium had recently uncovered. Apparently their forces had been absolutely decimated by a Basilisk and had to retreat for more reinforcements. There they met a helpful Hippogriff and Griffon that happily told them of the dangers inside when given a fruit as offering. Once inside they encountered statues that came to life in addition to the Basilisk mentioned, but were able to barely escape through a secret passage Leon found and unlocked. They traversed a wind tunnel and explored the tombs, eventually encountering a Sphynx. They accepted to be tested and combat began as Lampas tested their mind and body. They battle was worsening against them, but the hot cross buns were able to answer enough riddles to complete the test and be granted treasure from the treasure room. They were told it would be what they needed, not necessarily what they wanted. They each got a sack that felt light, and exited through a mirror in the center of the treasure room. Once outside they could feel their sack increase in weight and treasure inside. Each person receiving a golden Cloak of the Manta Ray and an item close to what they desired. With that the party has received gifts that are sure to help them in Cael Morrow, a place they only narrowly escaped from only days prior. How will the party fair now? It is time to find out.
A Thick Revenge Plot Begins!
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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When we last left off, the HCBC Committee succeeded in a dungeon ran by a Sphinx. After successfully passing his riddles, he bestowed them each with a special bag as a reward. Each one containing a cloak of the manta ray and something they needed. After reveling in their prizes, they called it a day and headed to the Cobalt Soul to rest for tomorrow. When they awaken, Question waits for them with some much needed help. The Committee gets introduced to Placeholder the Temporary and they agree to group up for the day ahead. Narissa declaring she’s had enough of Cael Morrow and deciding to stay back. They also decided to bring along Kai Kideli as backup to which she happily agrees. They decide to prepare a bit before heading down, Kai and Placeholder purchase some health potions while Leon sold all but 1 basilisk poison. As they head down through Cael Morrow, making attempts to reassure the guards, they meet up with Insight again. She lets them know that it has gotten even more dangerous than before and that they’re cut off from the southern library. She offers gold for finding stone tablets, dealing with whoever is in the library, or reconnecting the hallway. She show signs of severe stress but with a bit of encouragement from Leon, she seems a bit more reassured. Placeholder offers up his minions if he doesn’t make it out and Insight reluctantly agrees while Raan checks up on Scribble. He admits he’s not doing well due to constant nightmares and visions and wishes them luck as best as he can. The group puts on the hoods of their cloaks and make their way towards the main area where the hallway got disconnected.]
Raan casts locate object to try and find the locations of the tablets and reveals one pile to be in the south east and a pile to the south west. She then takes a moment to speak to Olara who is still delusional, she tells Raan about the “children playing with fireworks” and that she still hasn’t seen her family in several “hours” but they’ll be back soon. Meanwhile Leon and Xot are “playfully” going at it, Xot scolding him for making a mess as Leon makes jabs at him. When Raan returns, the team begins to construct their game plan. Leon volunteers to scout ahead and Placeholder casts invisibility on him to boost his stealth. As he dives into the water, he doesn’t make it far before realizing his enemy does not rely on sight. He gets attacked by some kind of massive shark and he retreats quickly, forcing the Committee to rethink their plan. Raan and Placeholder agree to rush towards the crystal to reconnect the hallway while the rest keep the shark off them, and with that, everyone dives into the water. (edited)
Before they can get far, the shark comes back again, it seems to be covered in some kind of red gunk, as if injected by Rudium. It heads straight for Leon, still smelling his barely healed wound. Raan books it for statue while everyone else deals blow after blow to get the corrupted looking shark off Leon but it’s hunger prevails. It continues to make bite after bite on Leon nearly killing him but he manages to swim away as Placeholder, Nercoze and Kai rush to finish it off. Xot pulls Leon out of the water, scolding him and putting him behind him as he takes a stance in case the shark gets near. Raan makes it to the statue, figuring out what the crystal needs to be rerouted before she gets ambushed by some cultists. As she takes blows, she puts power into the crystal, managing to get half the hallways back up before she hears a familiar voice shouting and an even more familiar shield guardian walk into the room. She realizes that she can’t take all of them alone and decides to rush back to the group instead of standing her ground. By the time she returns, Placeholder and Nercoze finish off the shark, severing it into 3 chunks. Everyone regroups and agrees to take a moment of rest while Raan shares what she figured out. She warns everyone that “the ***** from last time” is still there and to be wary. After their rest, they begin to swim their way towards the library. (edited)
Before they can even get around to where the statue sits, blasts are fired off from the windows of the library. Almost everyone taking hits with Kai taking a nat 20 and nearly taking her out. Everyone rushes towards the opening to clash with the cultists and ready for battle. As swords are clashing, punches are flying, minions are falling, the shield guardian makes an appearance. Nerkoze rushes to face it while Raan follows behind as back up. Galeokaerda continues to throw out more attacks and yells out commands to the shield guardian, Placeholder taking notice, decides to rush to take her down. He easily grapples her, shoving her face into the ground to prevent her from making anymore commands. Leon decides to take the opportunity, runs through taking and dodging attacks and takes out his poison. He shoves the entire vial into her mouth and shatters the glass while it’s still in her mouth. She screams in pain and shouts for her guardian to help her, but before it can even react, Nerkoze jumps in raining blows upon her until she finally stops moving. As they release her she grins up at them in her final moments and touches some kind of magic circle with her blood. The blood follows the circle around and begins to glow as some bitter laughter can be heard. A humanoid appears with multiple cultists, he looks to be made completely of ruidium and he grins at the group telling them he’s been looking forward to seeing them again. He reveals himself to be (I forgot his name) and they stand there bewildered by his reappearance, clutching their weapons for the fight ahead. Will they be able to take back the library and regain control of Cael Morrow for the Allegiance of Allsight? Or will they be forced to run again with the threat of people losing their lives? Lets continue, The Battle for Cael Morrow’s Library… cue intro music
The GULL's return... Corruptionnnnn!
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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The last time we saw our Committee, they easily defeated Galeo but to their dismay, she had one thing left up her sleeve. She used her death and blood to finish a magic circle and summon Kaelkurr but he was different this time. His form was completely of ruidium and he grins at them, he lets out a cackle as he tells them how he’s waited to get his revenge on us and that he’s untouchable now. The group readies their weapons as he begins summoning minions upon minions into the room with him, surrounding Leon, Nerkoze and Placeholder. Raan rushing to a heavily wounded Nerkoze, uses her lay on hands to get him back into fighting shape and pulling him away from the enemies in the process. As the vines wrap around her arms to touch and heal him, some of the magic seems to get absorb onto some nearby mushrooms that are quickly growing in size on Galeo’s body. As she takes a stance to defend Nerkoze, Kai continues her fight with the occult mage. The minions begin to swarm everyone as Narissa, who found her courage, approaches the chaos. She makes herself invisible and gets close to gauge the situation, realizing they might be able to control the shield guardian. Placeholder, Raan and Nerkoze rush to quickly deal with the minions so they can focus on Kaelkur. He doles out heavy hitting attacks and slugs Leon with more exhaustion, Raan attempts to take Kael’s focus but he’s determined to kill one at a time.
During the fight, Narissa shouts information about the guardian, Leon checks the body of Galeo, finding an amulet and the mushrooms almost completely covering the body at this point. He wearily heads back in, refusing to give up the fight as the body begins to twitch and then sits up. A small girl sits there, replacing where the body once laid. They look around, highly confused until they make eye contact with Raan and then they just stare. Raan, absolutely bewildered, looks back at them confused and unsure if she should attack them or not. She decides that this battle is incredibly more important at the moment and decides to hold off dealing with the creature for now. The group takes down more minions and once they finish they set their sights on Kael who just grins back. He slams his fists down, not only bringing them back into the fight but slightly powered up. They crowd around everyone again, some being slayed immediately and some landing hits on people. Kael grabs Leon attempting to finish him off but Raan launches one of her swords into his hand to prevent it and he drops Leon in the process.
Leon makes a break for it, handing Raan the amulet and also looking at the mushroom creature with confusion. As he makes some distance he launches a dagger at him but with barely any energy left, he misses. Raan takes his place and begins laying blows on him in harmony with Placeholder. Narissa hurls damaging magic at him and keeps behind cover to avoid damage and Kai lunges her trident deep into the occult mage and finished off another nearby minion. Nerkoze directs some distanced punches at Kael but his form still sends harmful energy towards him, the small mushroom girl attempts some magic but is still quite confused about her current whereabouts. Raan hands the amulet to her, asking her to use it on the giant shield guardian nearby and she nods heading over. She tries to think hard about how to use it but can’t seem to fully remember how. She manages to get it up and running enough to have it begin to attack Kael. Meanwhile Kael seems to start getting frustrated and slams his fist down again to attack.
This time, the bodies of the cultist explode and he absorbs their essences, mending himself. Everyone takes some type of damage but pushes to finish him off, throwing everything they had at him. Narissa, Kai and Crowe fire off ranged spells at him, Nerkoze lays punch after punch on him, Raan and Placeholder slam their weapons repeatedly onto him bringing him down to his last bit of strength but not quite enough before they both go unconscious. Before Raan went down, some of the ruidium gets into her blood as she struck him and red cracks begin to form on her hand. Kael grins even though he is as exhausted as everyone else. He cackles that he’s going to at least take someone with him firing off another charge towards Leon. Leon, already majorly exhausted, was unable to move in time to avoid the blast. It sears into him, knocking him into the ground and he is unmoving.
Kai, moving as swiftly as she can, rushes to finish Kael off, slicing his ruidium infused head apart from the body. As she does so, his blood gets onto her face leaving deep red cracks across her face. She pours a healing potion into Raan’s throat, informing her that Leon isn’t moving. Thinking quickly, she rushes to Leon’s side, picking him up and running and swimming towards Insight. They pass by Xot who looks concerned but they continue to rush past him bursting through the door. Everyone looks to them, Raan blurting out asking if they have revivify. Insight scrambles around for a moment before telling them they already used everything they had on their people and that there’s a chance upstairs but there’s not enough time
Raan collapses to her knees, still holding Leon, she looks to him as tears begin to well up in her eyes. He looks back at her and she tells him that he was amazing while smiling to him as best as she can. Tears begin to pour down her face as he smiles back at her and closes his eyes. She hugs him closely as her vines wrap around him gently, healing his minor wounds and cradling him. The rest of the group take turns quietly expressing their condolences to Raan as Insight and Xol apologize for not being able to help. Raan shakes her head, thanking them for their attempts as they also give their condolences. Insight tells them about funeral options and Raan asks Xot about the traditions of goliath burials.
Xot tells Raan about the tradition and how the Goliaths from the cold northern mountains deal with their dead, telling her that often when Goliaths pass they are set on a small boat with a banner of their house covering them. They are set ablaze on the river and sent floating down stream leaving the cold northern mountains to a land with much more warmth for the warriors. Sometimes when many Goliaths pass due to war times a whole fleet set sail together a demonstration of how even in passing Goliath militia is truly a formidable force. Leon’s was surrounded by friends and loved ones during his ceremony. Ayo took Leon’s cape as she watched the sun set on Leon’s singular boat floating down the river. The fire and light of his point rivaling even that if the setting Sun.
Leon's Funeral...
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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The last time we saw our Committee, they were attending Leon’s funeral. Some staying quiet while others gave tearful goodbyes. They made their way back to the Cobalt Soul, clearly downhearted by recent events, the little mushroom girl, who introduced herself as Crowe, following along. Once they get there they run into Question who immediately senses their despairing faces and decides to leave them some space. Everyone quietly going into their rooms for the night. Later on, Question brings out a birthday cake for Crowe, doing her best to lighten the mood. Excited, Crowe attempts to blow out the candles, Raan secretly helps her by using her cape to conjure some wind and the candles go out. Question also hands over a gift of a revivify diamond, expressing her sorrow and telling them that they all put their money together to get it. They graciously accept the gift and head to bed for the night. Crowe decides to sleep at the foot of Raan’s bed, much to Raan’s confusion.
As she lays there, letting out soft tears which feel oddly familiar. Eventually she passes out, succumbing to her exhaustion. In what seems like her dreams, she meets two spirit women. They explain they are Evandra and Kanin and tell her about a promise they made with Leon. They ask for aid in finding their sister Arlon and one of them breathes life into Leon’s soul, giving him and Raan some time to talk. She almost immediately bursts into tears and Leon does his best to comfort her. They chat for a bit and Leon asks Raan to bring a letter to his father and to let Ayo know how he felt. She promises him and they clasps their hands together in a flex one more time. When she awakens, she finds herself clutching the Jewel of Three prayers and the spot where Crowe laid, just a single mushroom. She smiles softly to herself before getting herself ready for the day, putting mini Crowe into her pocket.
She meets up with Nerkoze and Narissa in the hallway and joins Nerkoze in having some cake. They sit and plan on what to do and how to prepare, Raan bringing up that she’d like a moment to speak to Irven and ask about the corruption. They also decide to hire Eylar Saito for extra help and set off on their way to run their preparations. Nerkoze picking up a scroll of revivify and some new gear while Raan grabs potions for everyone. They meet up with Irven in front of his building and Raan asks him how he dealt with the corruption and how to get rid of it. He tells her that unfortunately it can only get worse and he cut his arm off just to get it off. Although disappointing, they enjoy their catching up and finally being able to hang out in calmer surroundings. Irven also speaks of Ayo, and how she seems intent on bringing Leon back, he asks if the group knows anything that could help and Nerkoze speaks up about the possibility of bringing him back if they have his soul. He nods and thanks him, excusing himself to grab groceries while inviting them to speak to Ayo. They have a moment of chatter with her group and when there’s a moment alone with Ayo, Raan tells Ayo of Leon’s final words but excludes the part about his spirit being in the Jewel.
After the small break, the Committee heads over to the coliseum to find Eylar who was not surprisingly there. They ask him to help in their current mission of returning to Cael Morrow and agree to pay his price, Narissa paying most of it. He lets out a cheer as he buys them all dinner and agrees to meet them there, but it has to be tomorrow. They agree and after having their fill, they return to the Cobalt Soul to relax for the rest of the evening. The next day as they head out, Raan feigns having forgotten something at the Cobalt Soul and says she’ll catch up with them as she jogs back. When she gets there she finds Question and takes her hands, declaring a confession of sorts to her as Raan feels the anxiety of returning to Cael Morrow, but not coming back out. Before Question can even respond, she hugs her tightly and sprints away back to her group.
They finally meet up with Eylar who had some gifts for them, Narissa GREATLY appreciating some headphones of silence. They make their way in, greeting the same guards as before, Nerkoze trying to pull some pranks on Narissa but her not falling for it. When they get inside, they speak with Insight, who expresses her condolences once again. She explains that they were able to retake the library and set up the crystals. She tells them of some kind of possession going on with some of the researchers, that one of the ghosts refuses to let go till they pass on a memory to someone close to Alyxan. They nod in understanding, Raan telling them about Olara and how she might be able to help with their research if they ask the right questions. They head inside to check out the situation, eventually getting to the library where the once active and dangerous shield guardian, now stands in a corner unmoving. They say their hellos to Placeholder, who's been hired to stand guard as well and then speak to Xot who gives them some more details while leading them to said researcher.
When they get there, they hear the voice of the possessed person speaking to them, explaining they can’t leave till they pass on the memory. Raan steps forward and they touch hands, a vision almost immediately taking over. As she looks around, she sees a beautiful city and a family spending time together, then suddenly being destroyed and turned to ruin. She recognizes it as Cael Morrow and sees a creature impossibly big and tall towering over and destroying things. She sees someone with a spear and shield and then darkness. The spirit begs Raan to save Alyxan, when she agrees, they thank her and finally lets go of the researcher. Xot takes the researcher to rest while Raan explains the vision to Nerkoze, stating they have to find and rescue this Alyxian person. He confidently agrees and they meet back up with Narissa and Eylar to explain. Raan activates her divine sense and feels some bad vibes from the east and lets the group know they should head that way.
After a moment of preparation, they put on the hoods of their cloaks and following the scent of the bad vibes. They eventually come across a wall but the window is blocked off by some red liquid. They follow the wall around until they reach a door also covered by the red liquid. It seems to prevent anything from passing. They look around to see some flowers growing off pillars, Raan attempts to take one but it burns her hand a bit. She warns the others, kicking the flower to the door which disintegrates. Nerkoze attempts to use his mage hand to pass a dart through but the same thing happens. With the feeling of dread creeping up on them, Raan pulls out the jewel of 3 crystals and holds it near the door. She feels a familiar voice tell her that she needs to sacrifice something to prove she has a good heart. Letting the others know, they begin to rummage through their belongings. Raan decides to give up the ruidium elephant statue they got from before, the liquid gently disintegrating it and yanking Raan inside. Nerkoze, decides to give up a belt he had received from his peers at the temple he trained, the liquid doing the same to him.
The duo decide to head in while the others decide on an item to sacrifice, they realize they’re in a temple of sorts. Ruidium seems to infect almost every corner of it and when they step into the main room, a massive ruidium crystal glows there. Raan spots a statue on the other side, seemingly untouched, and decides to head over to pay her respects. She gets a bit too close to the glowing crystal and warns Nerkoze to stay away. Once they both reach it, Raan holds the jewel and prays to give respects to the god of this temple. When Nerkoze looks over, Raan is immediately knocked out and catches her bewildered.
Raan opens her eyes, feeling herself falling and then stopping. The voice of a goddess speaks to her, asking for help but warning Raan that Alyxian cannot just be released, that we need to lead him towards the light. Alyxian screams in anger for his release, his eyes glowing red as he stares at Raan. When she snaps out of it, she finds herself in Nerkoze’s arms, she quickly exclaims that they need to guide him to the light, not release him. Nerkoze, quickly makes a light, the jewel of 3 prayers absorbs the light and Raan can feel it’s power flowing through her. She makes her sword light as well and decides to shine a spotlight directly onto the massive pulsing crystal. It almost immediately explodes, doing some damage to Nerkoze and leaving a hole in the ground. Nerkoze slowly takes some steps to peer into the hole seeing nothing but suddenly he gets a vision. Alyxian on the ground and then snap his head up, the vision comes and goes as he slowly climbs out of the hole. When the vision goes away, there’s nobody standing there, what can this possibly mean?
The Temple of Correlon and... the Alyxian?
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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Last time we saw our Committee, Nerkoze and Raan had entered a temple. With Raan shining a spotlight onto the pulsing ruidium crystal causing it to explode and a vision of a corrupted Alyxian crawling out. Nerkoze and Raan ready their weapons for a fight but instead see a huge shadow on the side of the temple. A distorted voice of Alyxian shouting in anger, “YOU COME TO SAVE ME BUT HURT ME INSTEAD?!”. Back outside the temple, Eylar and Narissa question what they should do when they suddenly hear a noise. They turn around to see a huge worm come around the corner of the temple, part of it looks corrupted with ruidium, a face, looking like Alyxian’s, is sticking out the side. 2 voices melded together shout in anger as 2 spawns follow from behind. Narissa, wanting to nope out of the situation, tries to swim away and Eylar covers her back but being a creature built for swimming, it catches up quickly. It attacks both of them, trying to dig into their minds. Narissa lets it in for a moment but quickly regrets it as it attempts to take hold of her mind. She manages to push it out making her way to find Placeholder, Eylar trying to attack it to keep it off her.
In the temple, Nerkoze sees the shadow making it’s way to Narissa’s location and rushes to the exit. As he exits, he runs into one of the Aboleth’s spawn and quickly takes it down, rushing to Narissa’s side. Raan follows behind also running into a spawn but it manages to grab her, keeping her from catching up with the others. Narissa hysterically talks and rushes back to the others to help, failing to relay everything to Placeholder. Herself, Nerkoze and Eylar attempt to lay down damage on to it, the Aboleth responding by shaming them and digging into their minds. Raan asks the Jewel of Three Prayers for help, it obliging and flashing a bright light, lossinging the creature’s grip enough for Raan to get out. The Aboleth, failing it’s attempts to possess them, grabs Eylar, dragging him away into the darkness, Nerkoze following close behind. Raan attempts to rush over after attacking the spawn, unable to finish it off, it follows close behind. Nerkoze maneuvers behind the Aboleth, who was feeding on Eylar, doing some more blows on it, as it swims into view, Raan swims closer reaching out with the JoTP, teleporting Eylar out of it’s grasp and beside the creature in a blinding radiance. She shouts for him to run as she makes a strike at it as it reels from the light. She nods at Nerkoze as she makes her way back to hold off the spawn.
Everyone blasts some more attacks at it, Nerkoze striking it with cold damage and Narissa firing off missiles at it. With it being blinded from the radiant light, it gets more irate, releasing a massive psychic attack. Everyone manages to push the forced thoughts away..or so it seems. Eylar begins to make some distance from the Aboleth to recover but is quickly confronted by Placeholder, who has become allies with the corrupted creature. He easily strikes down Eylar and makes his way closer. The Aboleth telepathically shames them again as it grabs Narissa, beginning to drain her for health, then attempting to grab Nerkoze but he easily brushes them off and continues to pummel it with ice strikes. Unfortunately, it seems Narissa is also receiving damage from his punches, forcing Nerkoze to hesitate as Placeholder approaches to attack the both of them.
Raan, ignoring the Aboleth’s spawn, makes her way over to the creature. She approaches it, both hands tightly gripping her sword, it looks at her, reaching into her mind. With both voices once again, it questions why she attacks when she’s supposed to save them, both of them. Her emerald eyes illuminate as she slowly moves into a side stance, the voice of Amkiri encouraging her. She looks at the face resembling Alyxian, then into the eyes of the corruption attached to him, “You are not the Alyxian I am here to save”. She rushes forward, leaping towards the creature, her sword glowing a bright radiant light as it begins to slice into the Abolith. She perfectly angles the sword to cut off the chunk with Alyxian’s face, flipping gracefully over it through the water, continuing to slice through it’s body. As it’s body splits apart it explodes into a dazzling white light, Raan midjump sees the damage from the creature rushing towards the tentacle currently gripping Narissa. She realigns herself, swiftly rotating to slice off the limb and land elegantly as the rest of the creature erupts into more gleaming light. She sheathes her sword as the last Aboleth Spawn drops motionless.
As she turns around, she spots the flesh that was cut off, floating aimlessly and grabs it. It feels warm in her hand and is pulsing which grosses her out a bit but she hangs on to it. Placeholder, now unclouded, apologized profusely for his aggressiveness towards them. He helps get the group standing, sincerely apologizing to Eylar as well. Raan lets them know she’ll be heading into the temple to return the ball of flesh and Nerkoze says they’ll be taking a short break in the meanwhile. As they rest, Raan reenters the temple, it seems to freely let her enter as she pleases. She offers the flesh to the goddess statue but there's no response. She then offers it to the JoTP and the sisters begin to speak. They tell her that the flesh is part of him and Alyxian is in the Neverdeep, an extremely dangerous area and one should not go without preparations. Raan decides to keep the flesh, nicknaming it The Anger of Alyxian. She joins the others and lets them know what she was told but recommends they get stronger and prepare properly first.
As they formulate their next plan, they decide to explore some more to find Insight’s tablets or treasure. They make their way past the temple and catch a glimpse of an octopus holding something that looks like a crate. They follow it for a bit before walking into a smaller area of ruins, and as they begin to look around they hear a noise and are quickly surrounded by some odd looking crabs. Nerkoze and Raan rush to break down their carapaces to slay them but as Nerkoze finishes one, he takes multiple bites and claw attacks. During the fight, Raan notices the octopus again, holding a chest with something gold sticking out. Eylar attempts to rush in to help but misses and he plays it off jumping into the fight while Narissa fires off her spells from a distance. Raan, getting worried for Nerkoze’s safety, teleports him away as she readies her weapon to fight the crabs. As she swings at one, 2 of them get the jump, one of them becoming extremely aggressive and taking a massive chunk out of Raan nearly taking her out. As Nerkoze rounds the corner, seeing Raan and Eylar getting a bit overwhelmed and decides to take a hands off approach and watch beside Narissa. Narissa, Eylar and Raan manage to barely finish off the crabs as Raan and Eylar pant in exhaustion.
Nerkoze and Eylar begin making flirty jabs at each other as Eylar offers a potion to him, Nerkoze refuses and he offers it to Raan instead who happily drinks it. He offers it again to Nerkoze who finally takes it but stores it instead and drinks one of his own. They recuperate for a moment and continue to explore the mini ruins they found and find the very tablets Insight’s team has been looking for. In the language of celestials, which thankfully Nerkoze and Raan understand, it talks about Apotheon, which is another name Alyxian went by. They carry back the tablets to Insight, who are extremely grateful to them and she tells them the location of the entrance to Neverdeep. She tells them they need a key though or else it’s even more dangerous and Raan tries to play off that she doesn't have a key. Insight immediately takes notice and offers to pay for it but Raan insists she doesn’t have one and would let her know if she did.
Once they take a moment to calm themselves, they discuss what to do next. Eylar reminds them that if they leave, his contract is over. They struggle with the urge of wanting to explore more and find some goodies for themselves while also considering the fact that they are low on supplies, health and strength. They decide to head back in once more just to quickly find some treasure and at the first sign of trouble, to run away. Narissa agrees but warns them she won’t be able to help much and Nerkoze and Raan agree, Raan letting him know she has his back. They make their way back to where they fought the crabs, looking for a trail to find the octopus. As they follow a pathway, Nerkoze begins to power himself up, Eylar taking notice, also powers himself up. They stare at each other as Nerkoze activates another of his abilities and Eylar does the same. Nerkoze powers up ANOTHER one of his abilities and glares at Eylar, nearly bulging his eyes out, as Eylar does a trick with his spear and misses a catch. Nerkoze chuckles as he leads everyone around.
As they walk around, they come across another building which seems like another temple. Nervous to enter, Nerkoze asks to borrow Eylar’s spear, although extremely hesitant, he eventually gives the spear to Nerkoze who immediately throws it towards the door of the building. Eylar and Nerkoze stare at each other blankly, Eylar reminding him he has to activate the teleport, reaching his arm out to summon back the spear. Nerkoze attempts to play it off as he heads towards the door, Raan close behind. As they walk up the stairs and get to the door, a large creature with seemingly infinitely long tentacles looks at them. The smaller fishes surrounding it also take notice as Raan and Nerkoze look at each other and for the first time think the same thought. ****
The Lost Followers of Correlon
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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We return back to our Committee as they realize that they might be in some bad waters. Thinking quickly, Nerkoze picks up Raan carrying her quite a distance before dropping her off and running further away, Narissa following behind. Eylar attempts to run but gets grabbed and pulled closer, shouting out in panic. Raan gets ready to run in after him but sees his spear whizz by as he teleports over, looking quite hurt and disturbed. He runs past Raan and as she begins to turn around to follow, she sees the tentacles beginning to creep around the corner, reaching out for something..or someone. She follows her team as they swim away as quickly as possible, making it back to a dry area.
They rush to speak to Xot who looks at them quizzically and they calm themselves as he talks to them about the research they’ve been doing in the ruined library. He gives them information about the teleport circle and they might be able to rework it to find their base. Raan and Narissa take a look at the circle to see if they can get anything from it but are unable to find anything. As they make their way back to Insight’s area, they all decide to take a long rest to recover from their last 2 battles and take down the massive jellyfish. Eylar comes up to them and tells them, although his contract is over, he’s willing to stay for a bit longer. He makes a deal to either have the treasure from the Jellyfish or the ruidium greataxe that's buried into it’s head. The Committee agrees to let him have the greataxe for his help and begin to get comfortable.
Eylar, Narissa and Raan choose spots against the wall while Nerkoze lays his bedroll halfway under Insight’s table, his legs sticking out in the way. Insight grumbles but leaves Nerkoze to sleep, Eylar, pulling out the fanciest bedroll to exist, gets comfy as he puts on his eye mask that has his name embroidered. Narissa gets comfy in her corner with her book while Raan pulls out her tent, offering Scribble a spot next to her who happily agrees. As they awake, Raan is happy to know Scribble didn’t have nightmares, Eylar wakes up and immediately starts working out and Narissa waits for everyone, reading while still in her bedroll. Nerkoze, pretending to be asleep, continues to lay in the way until Insight becomes fed up, politely waking him up. As everyone begins to prepare to leave once again, Insight reminds them about setting up a keystone, explaining how to set it up. Raan, realizing she misunderstood how they worked, apologizes and promises to set one up on their current journey. As they talk, Kai shows up, offering some help as she had planned to go hunting for dinner anyways, they agree to travel together and head off. They unspokenly decide to race back to the temple, taking off running, Eylar leading without any competition and winning bragging rights.
As they make their way towards the lair of the jellyfish, Eylar and Nerkoze begin jabbing at each other again. They start making a bet to see who would do the most damage on their first turn and begin sneaking up to get a jump on it, Eylar taking the first attack by throwing his spear sending lightning throughout it’s body. As Nerkoze runs up to attack it he also hits and attempts to stun the massive Jellyfish. Although it doesn’t completely work, he tries again, getting it mostly paralyzed this time. In retaliation, Eylar gets grabbed by the creature, getting pulled towards it again, small swarms of mostly dead looking fish coming out from under its oral arms slashing and biting at Eylar. Narissa carefully steps in, summoning necrotic energy over the massive jellyfish, covering it a black mist that begins eating away at it’s shell and tentacles, easily beating both Eylar and Nerkoze in their own bet. She hurriedly steps back outside to safety as Raan and Kai nod to each other and begin cutting at the tentacles that have been making their way outside of the building. They slash at them and combine their spells to completely restrain the massive jellyfish in thick thorny vines, staying put to cover the doorway.
As the jellyfish bring Eylar closer to most likely consume him, he uses his fey step to escape and hopefully get some time to breathe. Unfortunately, the swarm of fish declines his request for a break and bites at him more while another swarm of fish rush out and tear at Nerkoze. Narissa rushes in again and aims the necrotic energy at the creature again, heavily damaging it seemingly flinching in reaction. Nerkoze, a bit dazed from getting slapped around by the fish, activates his ring and rushes outside near Raan to attempt to recover. The jellyfish follows with a tentacle, attempting to strike and grab him but he’s able to dodge out of the way in time, Kai rushes forward to slice 3 attacks onto it to slice off another tentacle. She urges Raan to go in and she nods, dashing in to face the massive creature. She slices at it, an explosion of light following with each hit and takes a step back to ready her next attack. The swarm of fish making their way towards her but unable to bite through her armor for the moment. After taking a moment, Nerkoze throws some more punches into the creature making sure to keep his distance as it begins to move, hovering above Raan as she stares up in horror. Using it’s last tentacle, it reaches and grabs Kai, dragging her under as well, beginning to weaken until Raan is able to snap back to reality and use the JoTP to cover her in a warmth of safety, reducing the effects of being under the creature. Narissa, reaching out for the last time, pushes more energy into her spell, covering it in dark necrotic energy once again, the splotches covering it until it becomes lifeless and slowly drifts to the ground. The swarms, realizing their home and safety are gone, swim away quickly as things grow quiet for our group.
As they take a breath of relief and begin to cheer, Narissa scold Nerkoze for constantly bickering with Eylar, he shrugs in response and everyone begins to search for treasure. Eylar prys the greataxe from the thorny shell, admiring it while everyone doesn’t find much else. Narissa, coming up with a clever idea to check inside the jellyfish, cuts it open, finding a lovely locked jewelry box. Nerkoze opens it for her and finds a few high priced items inside including a ring with ruidium inside of it. Narissa agrees to let Nerkoze take it, putting away the other items to sell later. She also begins to carve parts off the jellyfish with Raan guiding her, hoping to make some use of it for later. Raan finds a spot to set up the keystone and Eylar offers assistance in powering it, he reaches out with his spear and if anything overpowers it with spells, successfully setting up a path to the nearest keystone and filling the room with air. Nerokze and Eylar begin jabbing at each other again, “threatening” to fight each other and begin making bets on who would win, Nerkoze reminding him he easily beat him. They discuss what to do next as Narissa finishes carving off a piece of the jellyfish, Kai freezes it for her to keep it fresh and offers to lead the way, disclosing that she is a bit more familiar traveling in this environment. They agree and begin to explore more of Cael Morrow again, Kai using her experience and senses to check what creatures are around. They make their way towards a building across the way, Narissa and Eylar sticking to the back.
As Kai, Nerkoze and Raan approach the building slowly, Kai stands in the doorway, seeing lots of wraiths flitting about, a skeleton man and ghostly woman standing above them on a ledge. The skeleton man wearing thick armor, turns to see Kai, immediately shouting and reaching for his weapon. Kai attempts to diffuse as the wraiths begin to slowly close in until the ghostly woman calms the man down, appearing to be his beloved. She mentions Coralon and Raan’s ears perk up, poking her head in and asking if the Coralon they worship is of the one who spoke to her. The woman gets interested and floats closer to speak to their group, explaining that she was a priestess of Coralon and helps protect Cael Morrow with the skeleton man, explaining their names are Hadarai and Beltreath. She tells them her experience of the fall of Cael Morrow and explains she was also friends with Alyxian. Hearing this, Raan brings out the ball of flesh which surprises Hadarai. She touches it, connecting with him and confirming he’s in the Neverdeep and in deep pain. She wishes for Coralon’s blessing but when asked why she doesn’t try, she tells them she’s ashamed and afraid of corrupting their precious deity.
She asks them to help Alyxian and pulls out a beautiful amulet which contains ruidium. She explains that it is currently corrupted but asks them to purify it if they can, for it might release/cure them of their slowly building corruption and that it is a key that can let them enter the Neverdeep. Raan, getting nervous at the thought of touching a ruidium item, offers it to someone else to carry and Nerkoze volunteers. Hadarai seems anxious but the group gives her comforting words, Raan showing her the JoTP which surprises her. She tells them about it’s origins and says they’ll need it on their trip to Neverdeep. She warns them that they saw and fought with a group of red cloaks that were trying to enter the Neverdeep a few days ago, adding that they seemed to have been able to walk right past the Aboleth and gotten in. Nerkoze, Kai and Raan listen to all her details and they ponder on their next steps, meanwhile Eylar and Narissa remain in the distance. They talk about their lunch and different types of lunches that were delicious until Narissa sees a purple tentacle in the distance. Immediately freaking out, she hurriedly tries to explain to Eylar what she saw as he looks at her with confusion. What will be The Committee’s next steps?
1 Fin, 2 Fin, 3 Fin... BLOODFIN!
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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As we return to our protagonists as they navigate Cael Morrow, Narissa begins freaking about an octopus to Eylar as Nerkoze, Kai and Raan finish up their convo with Hadarai and walk towards them. As they rejoin Narissa tells them she saw the octopus again and they wonder what to do, debating on taking a long rest outside or going after the octopus again. Narissa indicates her fears and initially wants to leave but eventually decides to face her distaste of ocean creatures. They discuss and decide on taking a short rest inside the temple and then going to look for the octopus once again to find that elusive treasure box. Raan reenters the tower to Hadarai’s confusion and asks for permission to rest in the tower. Although she wonders why they left and then came back within 5 minutes, she graciously allows them.
Although he had a very uncomfortable nap, Nerkoze moves with some pep in his step and takes the lead to find that octopus. He activates his ability to see through darkness and guides everyone towards a tower he sees in the distance. As they attempt to approach stealthily, they succeed until Raan accidentally trips causing a chain reaction with a rock ending up landing on her back as she faceplants the ground. As they look around to see if anything noticed them but they don't notice anything stirring. Raan dusts herself off and peeks into the building, not seeing any creatures inside but a symbol of Coralon on the ground. She races around with Nerkoze following behind, Eylar and Kai sticking with Narissa who decides to stay outside. As the pair enter the building, they notice how run down it looks as there's stairs that lead to nowhere and it looks as if the entire crumbled on itself. As they investigate around they make sure to do so carefully since it looks like it can crumble at any moment, Raan takes a look through the rubble. Nerkoze investigates the symbol of Corellon, finding a trap door and wedging it loose. Raan and Kai take over using their strength to lift it open and manage not to bring down the entire building in the process. Narissa, watching Nerkoze hiding outside the building as they lift the trapdoor, scolds him for being a coward. He shrugs saying he’d rather not have to dodge rocks and reenters the building to peer inside the trapdoor.
He looks around carefully and takes a step in, unfortunately not noticing a gem embedded in the wall. The trap goes off in an explosive ball of light nearly hitting everyone and they realize that if nothing noticed them before, they were definitely noticeable now. They stumble around for a moment and they regain their senses just in time to see 3 massive Bloodfins swimming up to them, 1 beginning to force itself through a hole to get Kai and the other 2 heading for Eylar and Narissa. As the first fish begins wiggling to get through the opening of the building, making it wobble unsteadily, the other two bite at Narissa and Eylar, gripping them in their mouths and smacking them with their tails. Nerkoze, moving swiftly through the water, strikes at both fish and stuns them which forces them to drop Eylar and Narissa. He pulls her through the water and she swims through a small opening on the side of the building, unfortunately a little too hasty because it caused some more rock to fall. She swims away as far as she can while Eylar attacks one of the fish and catches up with Narissa.
As the Bloodfin furiously wiggles his way through the opening of the building, shaking it more and causing rock to fall down, Kai steps back and swims down into the trapdoor room, hoping to find safety inside. As she gets in, the massive fish manages to finally push through, creating more falling debris. It lunges for Nerkoze and Raan and they manage to dodge it’s bite but catches Nerkokze off guard with it’s tail, slapping him with it. As it thrashes around, even more debris falls, nearly hurting the duo as they dodge the falling rocks. Raan steps away from the fish, slowly falling into the trapdoor room as she uses the JoTP to teleport Nerkoze at the entrance of the hole it created to give him a head start to run. As Raan enters the pitch black room, Kai feels around the room, finding Coarlon’s sigil engraved into the ground. Raan uses the JoTP to light up the room which causes the sigil to glow a bit, they try to think of what the sigil needs but are quickly interrupted by a bloodfin. Although it’s too big to get into the room, it covers the entrance with it’s mouth and flaps its tongue about, immediately grossing the two of them out.
As Narissa, Eylar and Nerkoze swim away from the ever crumbling building, they notice the 2 bloodfins following them, refusing to let their dinner escape. They swim back up to Hadarai’s temple and the fish seem to stop following and just..linger. They wonder what to do as they swim towards the entrance and the fish, while not attacking, just circle the building. They theorize that their instinct is telling them not to approach the building and Narissa asks them for help. Hadarai questions why they’re back again so soon but tells her, they protect this building and this building only. As Raan and Kai attempt to figure out how to activate the sigil, Kai gets fed up with the tongue flicking around and begins attacking it. Unfortunately as she does so, blood begins to leak out combining with the fact the bloodfin is blocking any fresh water from coming in, the duo begin to suffocate. When Kai strikes the creature with a divine light, Raan notices it’s reaction to that. She channels divine light through the JoTP and it seems to react to it as well. With hurried movement, she channels her radiant energy through her palms and pushes it into the sigil, making the room fill with light.
They blink the light away from their eyes and realize that they have teleported into Coralon’s temple. Confused but happy they escaped, and began to rush to make their way back to the group. As the trio slowly make their way towards the temple door, the bloodfins continue to circle threateningly, clearly unsure about approaching them. As the three of them begin heading inside, one of the fish gets brave and starts to get closer to the entryway to take a bite at them. As it swims inside, the sword wraiths pounce on it, slashing and stabbing it as it goes into a frenzy, biting and swishing it’s tail and Narissa repulsively puts her hands to it, burning it immensely. As it perishes, it bursts into a cloud of blood, stinging everyone and although the other fish watched it’s friend get slashed apart, it also makes it’s way inside to attack the trio. Nerkoze and Eylar rain blows onto it as it goes into a frenzy from being attacked and it lunges at one of the sword wraiths. Narissa bravely leaps in front of the sword wraith, preventing him from getting hurt but being knocked unconscious in the process. The other sword wraiths once again strike at it until it explodes once again into a cloud of bloodmist.
Things quiet down again as Narissa is stabilized by Hadarai and Beltreath approaches her. They heavily thank her for stepping in to protect one of her own and Narissa apologizes for the door being broken down. She offers gold or one of the jewelry pieces she found to fix but they refuse her offer. Instead, when she offers the jewelry box in reward for their help, the sword wraith she protected steps forward, kneeling down and pledging his service to her. Shocked but enthusiastic, she accepts and he binds himself to the jewelry box for her to call upon him if they ever need the help. After talking among themselves once more, they decide to call it a day and to head back to rest, Raan and Kai coming up like they weren’t just under a crumbling building running out of air. After returning to the surface they run into Question, who gets a bit awkward seeing Raan. Raan in return gets a bit embarrassed seeing her but gives their report on what they found down under. Question informs them of what’s been going on up top, telling them that the consortium is looking for them and do not seem happy. They thank her for the info, heading to their rooms after dinner for some much deserved rest.
In the morning, they receive a letter with an odd looking picture on it. They attempt to decipher but to no luck, Raan suggesting they ask Question but pushing Nerkoze to ask. He does so but misinforms Question that it was a love letter to Raan. She looks a bit disappointed but helps them out anyways, deciphering it easily and pointing out it looks like different animals when changing their point of view. They crowd around her as she shows them an Owl, Eagle and a Lion, pointing out that it also shows a location depending on the animal present. Raan perks up hearing Owl and informs the group what she knows about him, explaining that he might not be happy with the group considering their past. Narissa and Raan discuss their next steps while Question hands back the picture and walks back downstairs. Nerkoze catches up to her and asks her what she knows about a brass dragon but she shuts him down immediately, warning him to never ask about it again or else be prepared for consequences. He tries to be playful about it but it’s the most serious anyone has ever seen Question and she walks downstairs.
As Nerkoze makes his way back upstairs, the group has decided to do some more preparation before heading down once again. They make their way to the magic shop and Nerkoze pays off his debt. Narissa attempts to sell things while trying to get something for herself but Amkenzne remains firm with her trade agreements. Nerkoze shows a locked box that he received from a Sphinx, asking what he could get for it. Amkenzne points to Raan explaining that he could get the gold frog she’s always looking at and Nerkoze considers his options. Mentally flipping a coin in his head, he trades his lock box for the frog and Amekenze slowly slides the box behind her. Excited, Raan picks up the frog and sees it’s eyes glowing, feeling it digging for a connection to her. She willingly lets it and it speaks to her in a godly voice, telling her she is now the loyal servant of The Great Golden Frog. Ecstatically she accepts and he tells her about how he’s been looking for someone good of heart to help him. He commands the first order of business is to find his real name and memories but gets a bit hesitant as she’s TOO excited.
Back to Nerkoze and Narissa, they watch Raan as she delightfully talks to a gold frog statue, puts it up to their faces and then continues to talk to it. They look at each other, cringing in their friend’s antics. Before leaving, Nerkoze asks for a tarot reading from Amekenzne as Narissa tries to get Raan to snap out of it. She tells him of some good and some bad news but to be careful for the journey ahead. He thanks her and they head to the general store next door. Narissa sells the rest of her items as Nerkoze and Raan browse. Nerkoze finds a few mirrors and stares at a dragon head that’s mounted. He happens to find a book on brass dragons and in an attempt to get it for a low price, instead increases it. Rerosha smirks at him, keeping firm on his price until Nerkoze has to humbly ask Narissa to help pay for it. Narissa scolds him but pays for it and Rerosha takes the book from him, handing it to Narissa who then hands it to Nerkoze. He thanks her immensely and takes a step outside, beginning to flip through it as the other two continue to browse. Will he find what he’s looking for or will he have humiliated himself for nothing? Let's find out on the next episode of The Committee of Nerkoze…
The Bronze Soveriegn Mystery!
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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Last we left the committee Nerkoze had finished reading up his book only to realize its part of a trilogy. And still had to find the other two books. He picks up a few names from the book, the one that stands out the most is J’mon Sa Ord. Possibly linked to the hands of Ord. While still in the shop a small and adorable looking kobold named Igge walks in. He introduces himself and begins to talk about the Cult of the Egg trying to persuade the group to join in. More shopping is done, Raan buying the most complicated puzzle she can find as a gift for Question. And Igge buys a necklace for his dragon's hoard. The group leaves the shop to head back to the Cobalt Sol HQ. Igge decides to dig some holes behind the Cobalt Sol building, Raan shyly gives her gift to Question. And Narrissa hangs out with Nerkoze as he tries to attune to the amulet he was given. During Nerkoze’s attunement he gets a vision, first a warm feeling to help, but then is changed to an image of the thing that annoys him the most, an image of himself. Nerkoze takes two jabs at it as it dodges it like nothing. As he woke up he realized he took a jab at Narissa and the Table. Narrissa scolds Nerkoze as she does Iwo states that Nerkoze is going to need to pay for the table. As Narissaa was about to pay, Igge pays instead forcing Nerkoze to be indebted to him. Raan also chats with Shira a bit, learning that she takes care and guards the Library here in the Cobalt Sol. After Questions meeting with Jamil, she informs the group that received an invitation to meet with Grand Maven Ghimishaga tomorrow night. Raan accepts the invitation, and the group leaves to meet with the Owl to see what he has to say. Instead they are met with Sparrow.
Sparrow tells the group that they are finally cutting them off, and that the other groups want us in their custody while others want us dead after killing off Kehlkur. As a final goodbye Sparrow informs the group that the Consortium is looking for a powerful “Artifact” and gives the group a map of where they are looking. The group heads back to Ank’Harel and head to the meeting with Grand Maven. There they meet Fabella. Grand Maven informs the group that they are looking for a weapon to take over Cael Morrow and is offering 10K the retrieve it. Nerkoze informs her that they knew about the weapon and its location due to the Consortium, and she gets suspicious. But Igge tells her about the cult of the egg. Grand Maven tells the group that Fabella will be tagging along as well fo the journey. Arriving at the location on the map the group quickly deal with the two lookouts that were surveying the entrance. Learning that they are plenty of footsteps heading down a tomb the group make their way down. Reaching the bottom steps they come across a massive library that is being rummaged through. The group then hears voices barking orders to take crates to a person named “The Wolf”. The session ends as the group comes up with a plan to deal with these runts.
The Lost Library!
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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As we return to our Committee, they enter a secret underground library where books are sprawled everywhere. The group almost immediately go invisible as they hear voices shouting back and forth, someone shouts that their leader already left with what he needed and to grab anything else that they could find before leaving. Raan looking around begins getting a headache from the amount of books inside, Nerkoze seems extremely disinterested and Fabella lets the rest of the group know that there are quite a few people in here. They split off to investigate, checking how many are around and looking for anything of value. Nerkoze looks for another part of the trilogy while Igge floats above, spotting a cultist collecting books about brass dragons and makes his way down to steal some of the books. Fabella finds a map with locations marked on it and some of them crossed out. As the continue to look around, one of the members calls everyone to the middle of the room to ready to leave, as the minions begin to do so, Nerkoze takes a stance beside a bookshelf, readying it to drop onto someone as Igge picks up one of satchels full of books.
As they do so, Raan, attempting to get a better vantage point, climbs up onto a stage-like area. In doing so, she knocks over a shelf which clatters over dramatically and the others shout that there’s intruders. Nerkoze drops the bookshelf onto the man, punching him through the chest and finishing him off quickly. Igge drops the heavy satchel onto the man, knocking him down as his Lord Kaida attacks and finishes him off. All of the enemies begin to shapeshift as Igge’s owls fly in, attacking 2 of the people dressed in red robes, Narissa attempts to splash some with acid and makes some distance away from them while Fabella attempts to blast one with radiant light, unfortunately missing. Raan rushes forward and teleports in a blinding light and nearly takes out the Tiger who seems to be the leader, she shouts out for protection as she rushes away from Raan. As they finish shapeshifting, one of them turns into a boar, who attacks Nerkoze hitting him hard,but hearing the shout for help, he moves towards the middle. Nerkoze, summoning his wings and ring, moves quickly to attack the boar man and attempts to stun him but the boar shrugs it off, sneering at him.
Narissa summons her necrotic power, smothering one of the cultists with it and nearly finishing him off. Igge attacks and launches one of the cultists into the air, slamming him back down as Lord Kaida finishes off the werewolf that Narissa attacked. With them focused on the left side, two of the werewolves from the right attack Fabella, infecting her with their ruidium claws. She summons her spirit guardians for protection as a different werewolf takes down one of Igge’s owls and his dragon. The three werewolves surrounding Raan attack and slash at her, in retaliation she uses the Jotp to blind all of them, moving to finish off the Tiger and pushing her sword through her stomach. She rushes back and finishes off another of the werewolves nearby. Seeing the group leader perishing, the Boar shouts for people to grab what they can and run and charges towards Nerkoze. Considering he’s as swift as the wind, he dodges easily and moves to finish off the boar, stunning him and striking with ice punches till he falls to the ground. Narissa summons her necrotic magic once again in even greater force this time, blighting two werewolves and dropping them as well.
Igge, noticing that they were making a rush to leave, he banishes one of the werewolves to the plane of his dragon as Fabella’s spirit guardians rip apart another. One of the werewolves moves to run but instead turns around and surrenders. With some hesitation, they agree and sit him down, Nerkoze beginning to question him. He tells them that their Lord Larthul found information on the dungeon location containing the weapon. Raan asks which location is where they went and he gives them an answer but seems to be misleading them. As they question him more, the werewolf comes back from banishment and Igge attempts to intimidate him into converting but the wolf remains loyal to Larthul, explaining that he raised them. Igge tries to persuade him and the wolf proposes joining together to fight the allegiance of all sight. He begs them to at least listen to Lord Larthul and Igge promises to feed orphans pancakes.
Narissa, deciding to find out more of his vibe, looks into the mind of the werewolves. She learns which was the correct location and about their struggle. She sees memories of Lord Larthul, learning he’s an alpha wolf and has been taking care of them, infecting the weak so they can be strong enough to fight to survive. He notices her reading his mind and gets upset, attempting to run away. Raan stops him as Narissa shouts for him to wait, she empathetically relates to him as Raan covers him with healing to calm him down. He seems confused by their actions but stands down as the other “cultist” get anxious asking to leave and the group agrees, deciding to stay a bit longer to look around themselves. Igge begins to go through numerous books, crossing out names that rival his Cult of the Egg, Narissa finds some information about J’mon Sa Ord. She learns that he disappeared at some point in history, some theories of what happened include; he was killed by a friend, he lives and went to hide in a secret cave, or that he lives and walks among the people, blending in. Nerkoze approaches Fabella and uses the corrupted crystal to remove her corruption. As the amulet begins to backfire, Raan notices and just in time uses her aura to assist, she thanks them and the group take a moment to rest.
They gather their belongings and make their way towards Lord Larthul’s location and come across a large open area, spotting more wolves. Narissa, Raan and Fabella stay back as Nerkoze and Igge slowly move forward to attempt peace talks. They seem extremely wary but Igge persuades them to let them talk to Lord Larthul and agree to “remove their weapons”. As they walk closer, a large Polar bear man appears on a cliff, dropping down dramatically and introduces himself as Chalice. Nerkoze begins to get cocky, irritating Chalice but Igge interrupts, asking about their plight. They sit down and He tells them of their story, constantly fighting to survive and constantly suffering, explaining that all they want is peace and justice. Igge relates to him and talks to him about The Way of the Egg. Chalice suggests merging groups and Igge shakes hands with him. Nerkoze asks him some more questions about their goal and Chalice tells him that they just want change for the better and a place in the city. Nerkoze nods in understanding and Chalice tells them it will be awhile before Lord Larthul appears. Igge hands him an Egg bible and Nerkoze challenges him to a spar since they’ll be waiting anyway and he agrees. The duo make their way back and inform the rest of the group on what they learned and they agree to settle in for the wait as they discuss what to do next. Will they be able to keep the peace? Let's find out what happens next
The Bronze Sovereign Lair!
Time: Wednesday 6PM PST
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As we return back to our chaotic Committee, they were enjoying their mini camp session, discussing their future plans. As they do so, a sudden chill crawls upon their shoulder, Raan gets a sense of familiarity. She whips her head around to see her favorite person, Wither. Wither quietly says hello as Raan scoops her up in an embrace. After she puts her down, she introduces herself and Igge seems excited to have a new friend. As they wait for Lord Larthul to arrive, Nerkoze takes up Chalice’s offer to a spar and they both grin with excitement. Chalice opts for a regular greataxe instead of his usual weapon and Nerkoze removes his shirt, glowing extravagantly while his tattoos come to life.
The fight begins and they approach each other, Chalice manages to land some brutal blows on Nerkoze but he retaliates just as harshly. Nerkoze proves to be extremely nimble and although it’s quite difficult, he stuns Chalice multiple times and gets some of his punches to go through the polar bear’s thick skin. Chalice attempts to retaliate but Nerkoze stuns him again, pummeling him with more blows until he yields. He congratulates Nerkoze and they share a hearty laugh together. Nerkoze returns to the group with his friends cheering him on and the wolf pack changes back into their normal selves. They offer the Committee to share stew with them and the group accepts, sitting beside them and making conversation. As they enjoy their meal, Chalice finally asks the group what happened at the library and where the rest of their group was. They look at each other nervously and Raan admits that all but 2 survived the fight against them and the 2 were told to return to Ank’Harel. Things get quiet for a moment but Chalice speaks up saying they didn’t die for nothing and explaining they happily gave their lives to the cause. The group lets out a small sigh of relief as Chalice warns them that they won’t be so gracious next time.
As they begin to finish up, Lord Larthul makes an appearance and he questions who the strangers are. Chalice gets him up to speed and it seems to anger Larthul a bit but accepts to having a conversation. Igger approaches him, talking to him about the Way of the Egg and Larthul seems open to listening. Nerkoze begins whispering to Narissa about Kelkurr but Narissa manages to slap him before he says anything too compromising. Igge persuades him to be peaceful and to give them some time prompting both groups to huddle together to discuss what should be done next. They come back together and Larthul agrees to let them help find the weapon, telling them what they know so far about it and warns them not to betray. He tells them to look for Dederon and sends Chalice to follow them to make sure they’re not trying anything funny.
The Committee enters the temple with Chalice in tow, Fabella summons her magic, casting Legend Lord to see if she could learn anything else about the weapon. She learns that a creature was either trapped or made into said weapon, no one knows how but it’s extremely powerful and that the Brass Sovereign collected it as one point. Once they finish descending the stairs, Raan sees a hieroglyph of a gold frog. She shows it to GGF and they both get excited while Nerkoze examines the floor to find where the last group headed. They follow the path with sand tracks and find a small pool of red sand. Raan attempts to learn more about the sand by consuming it while Igge and Wither channel their magicks, learning that it’s a powder used for rituals and has hallucinogenic properties. They continue and search around, Wither finding a scroll of solar flare and Celestial Transactions which speaks of celestial pact being made with J’mon Sa Ord. They continue to follow the path and find a room with a pit and broken paths, everyone seems nervous to continue but with the GGF whispering encouragement, Raan rushes forward and leaps onto a ledge and helps everyone up. They enter a mysterious room with a sarcophagus in the middle and some pressure plates to the back with an altar and chest. Seeing a bowl of white sand, Raan attempts to solve the puzzle by consuming more sand but still gets nothing but a wobbly feeling and begins to hallucinate.
Unable to find a solution, they explore the area more and find a brass dragon coffin with sentimental weapons inside. Leaving it be they come across tablets that match the pressure plates and take them as they find another coffin with inscribed words. Raan summons the power of the moonlight on it and the group find a raw moonstone which Raan takes. They explore around further and find the other tablets they need but before returning, find another group of coffins. Opening the first one, Fabella contracts a curse, affecting her speech while Igge opens a second coffin, getting a curse that affects his sleep. Narissa and Raan open a third coffin and share a curse that makes their footsteps extremely loud and with little persuasion, Narissa gets Nerkoze to carry her. They return to the room with the sarcophagus and place the tablets onto the matching pressure plates and it opens into stairs. They see the writing on the sarcophagus stating that, sometimes when walking towards the future, one must look to the past. They enter a mysterious room and upon exploring for a bit, The massive statue to the center comes to life, the words “Prove Your Worth or Walk Aimlessly” glowing brightly at it’s base, and although it seems slow, looks incredibly powerful. It lifts it’s sword, slamming it down on Wither and Raan before they can move out of the way, Raan manages to lift her shield in time but Wither was unfortunately not quick enough. Fabella rushes quickly to heal Wither and takes cover while Raan attempts to stop it with her vines but it only slows it down a bit as it continues to raise it’s sword again. The group begin to trade blows with it but Igge notices Wither trying to look around and banishes the creature as it raises it’s sword again.
It disappears and everyone moves quickly to find out how to defeat it while Raan patches up her wounds. Finally, Wither finds a scroll and figures out that the sun activated it, which means the moon would deactivate it. Raan nods and everyone takes their places as it blips back into existence, unleashing an area of destruction that luckily no one was in. Once seeing it, Raan casts her moon beam upon it and it thankfully deactivates, returning to it’s position once more. They let out a sigh of relief as they look around once again to find the way to continue. What could be waiting for them next in this temple of mysteries? Let's return once more to our Chaotic Committee.