Hunt for the Thessalhydra

Ramious motions, "Lead forth brave knight..."  His tone is sarcastic. 

"Nicely done." Leon tells the group as he gets up from his chair.  "I do not believe I had heard that song before, so would not have been able to solve that riddle myself." He nods to the knight, ready to follow.

There was no need to go anywhere specifically - the Knight simply touched the wall - and a short tunnel opened up, glowing light and some mist obscuring the vision of the other side.

Before he did it, though, he gave one last warning: "I only heard of that place, but what I learned .... You might want to rest here before you go. There might be no place to take a break there, you could rely only on your magic to heal your wounds."

(Short break - or even long, if you wish - is advisable)

Leon would be ok with a long rest.

Cinder will take a long rest with the others.

Long rest time!  

"Thank you." Alyssa would nod, agreeing to allow the others to take a long rest. As an elf, she meditated while the others slept, leaving plenty of time for her to study and review her spellbook before the others woke for the next step in their adventure.

Portent: 5 | 1

It was not the most comfortable place to rest, and even the Knight could not make the Labyrinth to produce food or water, but the room you were in was safe - that the Knight could do. He was happily standing in the corner as a decorative set of armour, probably simply enjoying company of leaving, even if those living one were just sleeping. But when you were ready, he opened The Door.

Step through the mist and dim light for all you - magical creatures - felt unpleasant (dimensional shifts can be disorienting) but once you could see clear, that feeling has pass. And the new came - "dismalness" would be the closest one, though it failed to describe the dreary gloom and depression the place invoked. It looked like a forest? At least dead and sick looking trunks around resembled trees. The ground was covered by something closer to mold than grass (smell no better either). It is dark, cold, with a constant wind caring strange howling noises in it.

"Nice place."  Leon remarks with a glance around.  "Let's get done what we came to do, then get out of here."

Before stepping through the door, Alyssa would pause and turn to face the night. She would bow her head, "Thank you for the guidance and safety. My name is Alyssa. I feel rude for not introducing myself, nor taking a moment to ask if you have a name." The elf would then tilt her head in curiosity. "Will you be joining us beyond this point?"

(The Knight shook his head in a sad slow motion and just silently deeply bowed to Alyssa before disappearing with the Cursed Labyrinth. The last thing Alyssa heard was "I will remember")

Ramious hunkered down in the corner, watching the knight suspiciously. He slept lightly and the bare stone, his chain shirt pulled off, and his cloak bundled under his head for a pillow.  He woke frequently as people stirred. It was not the most restful time, but he was used to worse. He wasn't sleeping in a water filled ditch in a battlefield, or in an alley behind a stinking stable with water dripping on his head. Not bad, not bad at all.  Standing gruffly and stretching his body, he opened his pack and took a third of his daily ration out, taking time to savour the bites.  Who knew how long until he'd get more food.  Likewise, he took a mouthful of water to rinse it down, swirling in his mouth before swallowing. 

Done, he pulled his chain shirt over the leather jerkin undershirt, taking a few moments to adjust it, making sure the leather kept between the chain and his skin.  He then sat cross legged and took out his blade, examining it for notches where the tough bones of the skeletons may have hit.  He took out his stone and began sharpening the notches out. Finally he stood, once the rest of the party was ready, sheathing the sharp blade inside its ratty sheath. It's rusted and low quality hilt dented, but usable.  

He looked at the knight as he passed him, "Thanks. Best of luck with your situation pal."  He seemed genuine.  He then stepped forth into the new place.

Examining the blighted land, Ramious jammed at the rot on the ground with the toe of his worn leather boot, it steel inset toe digging through into the black earth. He looked about, sniffing.  He pulled his cloak out of his bag and put it on, wrapping it close to keep the cold wind off. 

"Well, now we're into it."  Glancing in each direction, he took a look at the ground and examined it for tracks of some sort. "Leon, give me a hand looking for tracks for a sec..."  Survival : 14

Leon nods and moves over to help.

„Thanks for looking out for us,“ Cinder says to the knight.   „And don‘t look so down... you‘ve done a good job so far by my count.  Keep it up, and maybe our paths will cross again one day.  You never know,“ she says with a wink, before stepping through.

„Ugh,“ she says once on the other side.  „This is a place for earth genasi, not me.“ She produces flames in her hands to warm the group a bit and provide light.  As Leon and Ramious try to track the hydra, Cinder keeps a half eye out for more immediate danger.

Perception 12

The light was handy, the warmth, though, was barely felt - as if the place was sucking it up from Cinder.

Ramious  found some tracks and pointed them out to the others. Strange track - not a single one of them could be tied to any animal or monster you have seen before. You constantly  feel like something is stalking you, lurking just out of sight in the darkness, never to be caught.

After some walking around you found something familiar - tracks made by the thessalhydra. A lot of them, in fact. Interestingly enough, not all of them looked fresh, as if that place was a common ground for the monster. The tracks are impossible to follow, they come and go. Sometimes they loop back on themselves. None of it makes any sense.

At some point the tracks brought you to the place, that looked somehow familiar - the "tree-trunks" around change to resemble crabapple trees, the mold looked a bit more as grass, the shadows, lurking around, begun to look as humans (from the glimpses you could catch). It looked as very distorted colourless haunted version of Crabapple Valley.

Ramious, "This appears to be some sort of mirror of our world.  We're at the branch in the road where the men were cleaning up the mess from the attack.  Do you think the creature is up in the caves, or back at the castle from here?"

Alyssa would have been pacing in silence, patting her nose as she thought and listened to the other's observations. As soon as Ramious mentioned that it appears to be a 'mirror of our world' she would put her finger up as if she's just plucked a thought out of the air. She remembered what the Lost Knight had said to them, "The Hydra has found a way to push through it to a place called the Upside Down. This must be that place."Pausing for a bit, the elf would try to dig into the memory of her studies to see if she could remember anything interested or important about the Upside Down.

The elf would look to Ramious, "The village is inbetween? Perhaps there could be more clues there to tell us which direction it may have gone from there, similar to before?"

Leon sends Striker up to scout the area around them.

Owl perception: 20

"I say we check out the village first, then move on to other locations as needed."  Leon says with a shrug.  "We need to find a way back home from here, so I don't believe checking into other places is a waste of time."

The owl, not bothered by the darkness, did not needed much perception to notice, that the spot, resembling the Valley is not that big, and wherever he flies, the crabapple get replaces by the "normal" sick twisted tree-trunks of that disgusting place. Hydra's tracks do lead inside that local version of the valley, but more recent one lead out of it.

Some distance ahead owl reported a spark of light - too far to tell what can it be.

Leon reports what the owl sees to the others.

"There is some strange spark of light, but too far off for him to be able to tell what it is."