Dimir's Out of the Abyss

"Of course. No friend left behind." Caelynn gives Oak a small, weak smile before shutting the lid of the chest and picking it up. "Come on. Let's get somewhere safe so we can rest." If nobody objects, she'll lead the party into one of the stable-looking buildings. She'll try to choose one where their location isn't obvious to someone standing outside (eg. they can't be seen by looking in through a window). While they walk, she surveys the ground - is there any soil, or is it completely stone?

Oak nods at Caelynn “No friend left behind”, he agrees, a little sadly as he’s reminded again of Sarith. He follows her into the building she finds.

Then he remembers his terrible actions during the final fight. “Aimon...! I’m so sorry”, he says and approaches his friend not daring to get too close or to touch him for fear of hurting him again “Something was controlling me, I didn’t mean to... I mean, I would never... sigh ... I am sorry”, he looks dreadfully ashamed.

"Ah, tis merely a flesh wound," Aimon says. "Granted it took nearly half my flesh with it, but still, some good rest, maybe a poultice and a bandage and I'll manage."

He sees the genuine sorrow and concern in the big minotaur's eyes.

"Hey, I know. I saw what happened. There was some weird twisted crown locked on your head and your crazy eyes looked crazier than usual. We're good. Could have been any of us. Though in retrospect I think I would have preferred if it was Trill. Don't think she would have been nearly able to chop me in half."

He picks the chest back up and follows Caelynn into the building she chooses.

"Anyone mind if I take last watch?" he asks.

"Don't think I couldn't gut you like a fish, laddie.", Trill growls, followed by the bright chirping notes that serve as her laughter.

Caelynn, from what you see, the ground is stone. You can't find any dirt anywhere.

The group enters one of the buildings and finds a place amongst the rubble shielded from sight from the outside. While resting, Jimjar is perched on top of a rock keeping lookout. He asks a few minutes in, "What are we going to do about Sarith?"

"I don't know much about the Drow," Aimon says. "He had heard stories about leaving the bodies of the dead for giant spiders, but I don't know if that's true or now."

He pauses and thinks for a moment.

"My community place the dead in elaborate coffins with the deceased's favourite objects. A book, bow, a prized tool."

“Hmmm...” adds Oak in a quiet, low rumble, “I know nothing of the black magic here, but I would hate for Sarith to rise as something unspeakable...”.

”I think he is safe where he is for the night at least...”.

”...I didn’t grow up amongst my people. But I’ve heard that they erect great pyres of wood, and burn the dead at sun set. The ashes are then sprinkled somewhere wild so that the fallen can return to the natural cycle”.

”I’ve not seen much bare earth for burial, nor wood for a pyre... but we have lava... if we wanted to destroy the body utterly....”, he trails of conscious his words may not be sensitive enough for some cultures.

"Kenku... pyre... to fly.", Trill shares her desires of how to be disposed of if she dies.

"There are stones from the buildings around here that we could make a cairn out of, but I'm not sure I would want to leave him in this place. The mist itself seems angry and hateful."

He looks back over to the closed chest.

"Maybe we could leave him be for a day and hope that by tomorrow evening we're out of these plains."

"If we haven't traveled far enough by tomorrow, we can try to make some sort of cairn," Caelynn agrees. "We had pretty simple burials back home. No coffins. And we'd always plant a tree over the grave."

“Caelynn, that’s beautiful... maybe we should ask Stool whether there are any good funguses we could use down here for the same purpose”, Oak says thoughtfully.

"I'd like that," Caelynn responds with a sad smile. "It was also tradition when someone died in battle that the people who fought with them added a braid to their hair. It's a reminder that they're always with you in spirit." Her hand brushes through the six tiny braids adorning the left side of her hair. "I never thought I'd have this many, this early in my life."

Aimon listens to Caelynn describe the wood elf burial rituals. He had always liked their tree planting. But the high elves he grew up with went in for air tight and water tight caskets to preserve the dead and to preserve their belongings with them. He suspects that the drow would favor something completely different from either of those. But not knowing what those were beyond the stories he had heard about they're leaving the dead out for giant spiders, he figures a makeshift underdark mushroom planting made as much sense as any. But he was not going to be braiding his hair.

Stool has been resting on the ground near Caelynn. Riding around in a backpack all day gets pretty tiresome and has a tendency to give sore muscles. As the conversation begins to wind down, he shutters for a moment before spewing a cloud of orange spores that engulfs the whole party. Once the spores have dissipated, Stool says somewhat shyly, "Big mushrooms are called zhurkwood. They grows by the Darklake mostly. Sometimes other places."

“Ah, thank you good, Sir Stool,” Aimon says with a short bow. “Looks like if we continue to Darklake we will find what we need.”

He settles down in a corner, puts his head down on his pack and almost drifts off before he remembers Dawnbringer.

So, do you sleep or rest or turn off for the night or anything? And, um, thanks for getting all super bright back there. I wouldn’t have been able to do anything about Brysis without your help.

He is about to say more but falls asleep before he can voice those thoughts.

Before you dose off, Dawnbringer says, "I have no need for sleep... Thank you so much for rescuing me. I've been stuck in that chest for nearly 4 thousand years." She pauses a moment to rein in her emotions before she says, "This group you are travelling with are good people. I don't want to burst your bubble or anything, but the drow you were with has been corrupted by an Abyssal source. He would have betrayed you soon."

The party takes a short, but well-designed rest. Feel free to update your character if you haven't yet.

Jimjar rouses the party after almost an hour. "Let's get moving," he says as he stretches. He leads you out of the building and back into him the mist. After nearly 6 hours of marching through misty ruins, the mist ahead begins to thin. You come to an opening in the wall of the cavern and walk through it. You exit the mist, and if anyone bothers to look behind you, you can see a crowd of misty figures standing silently in the mists watching you leave.

This tunnel you are walking through is moist and dank. Moisture slicks the walls and floor, and a smell of mold hangs in the air. After a short five minutes, the tunnel comes to and end, and you find yourself standing on a beach of black sand. Nearly fifty feet away, water laps gently against the rough sand. Occasionally, patches of green light grow in the waters to face away a few seconds later. The beach extends 20 feet to your left and 70 feet to your right before the stone walls reach the water. Several jagged rocks, reminiscent of shark teeth, jut from the water and beach. The far end of the right side boasts went several massive, gray mushrooms that extend nearly 60 feet in the air.

Jimjar says grimly to the group, "Welcome to the Darklake."

Aimon wakes from the short rest and jumps in with the others to follow Jimjar to the edge of Darklake. He thinks about what Dawnbringer said about Sarith and decides to keep that to himself. He's dead and that knowledge won't change anything for the group. And he thinks that to a certain extent, after what they've been through, the ceremony itself might do them some good.

While he moves, he's feeling lighter on his feet, more agile, and the wound on his back definitely feels a bit better.

Once they arrive at the lake's edge, he takes in their dark and ominous surroundings.

"Well isn't this the quaint little summer hideaway you're found for us."

He scans the area to see if there's anyway off the beach, anything they could use to climb out of the cove. But he's also wondering about the size of the mushrooms. How big are the caps?

(After Short Rest Aimon uses two HD to get back: 10  and then Perception Check: 10  )

Oak lags behind the others, noticeably slower, and still very exhausted from the days events. “I’m very glad to be out of that place, but I think I’ll need to find somewhere for a proper rest soon”.

Dispute the exhaustion, he looks more rugged and durable somehow, like all the effort has been a good workout. He looks somewhat ‘beefier’. ((ASI: +2 CON))

He catches up with everyone, and his tired eyes take in the scene. He rests there for a second, bent over, with his hands on his knees, breathing hard.

((Oak rolls a hit dice and regains 13 hp ))

(Caelynn uses to hit dice to regain 12 hp)

As the party rests, Caelynn sits cross-legged with her back against the wall, eyes closed but not sleeping. At Jimjar's signal, she opens her bag for Stool to climb back in and follows the others back into the mists. While they walk, she collects whatever fungi and mosses she can, chipping off the bits of wall or floor they grow on and not detaching the plants in hopes of keeping them alive.

When they finally come to a stop, she immediately notes the soft ground beneath them. "Here might be a good place for a burial," she comments quietly to the group.

“It looks perfect”, agrees Oak, “I’ll help dig. Where do you think? Between these tall mushrooms?”.

Oak helps with burying Sarith.