Location: Cembiten’s Lair, Ravinia
Date: Folsen, 24 Thunsheer 840 PD (calendar of Exandria)
Party Members:
- Bob the Therapist – changeling warlock with a couch for a familiar
- Jeremiah Callows – human cleric
- Stubby – half-elf artificer
- Tāmerai – gnome bard
- Tunk – bugbear monk
[Pre-game thoughts: Right now the two threshold crests’ vibrations are dissonant, but Tāmerai and Stubby think they can be tuned (using Emror’s green gem) to be consonant rather than dissonant, and posit that the crests will act somewhat like the tuning forks used for Plane Shift. Wistfully, Tamerai expresses a desire to get all three crests still residing in Ravinia, and create a nice chord with them. And if we also get the gem, that’s gonna be an Em7 and it will be juicy-sweet. Arcane-aural umami.]
The group reconvene after their hours of separation and discuss what they’ve learned, seen, et cetera. Before they can get too far into that discussion, however, the majority of the group begins to feel sick, similar to when they were teleported to Ravinia in the first place. A flurry of animals scatter away from the group, like they’re the epicenter of… something. Not far away, the party spies three skeletal creatures carrying large, pointy sticks and also bows and arrows. Diseased skeletons. Diseased skeletal gnolls. Gnoll Witherlings. Yechhh.
The gnolls shoot at the party, but the party are just too good at all of this. Things learned from this fight:
- Jeremiah can bardically inspire.Stubby can create a self-duplicate with that one fidget-gadget! How cool.
- Jeremiah can deliver a Dad-No.
- Cembiten isn’t much for distance.
- Undead gnolls are really, really stupid.
- No, but like. Really stupid.
- Stubby also sets a great, impromptu net-trap.
- Apparently these folks have never seen a gnome with Primal Savagery.
Emror has many, many zombies. Over 5K dragonborn once lived here, according to Cembiten, and he hasn’t used them all up yet. We should go after Emror with everything at our disposal. Cembiten is willing to hold off his zombies, perhaps with kobolds’ help, if the group can handle Emror. Jeremiah is uncomfortable with the idea of strategizing to harm anyone. Truth be told, almost no one is actually comfortable with this, but it’s going to be necessary to kill Emror or at least incapacitate him for a while so that he can’t kill the party.
Dinner is made, eaten, and cleaned away. Then the group sit and talk about their options. They take out the threshold crest and Bob pets it for a while. Both Stubby and Tāmarai notice that it’s making a noise. It reminds them of purring, a little, but they may just be projecting. Tāmarai plays a note on her little ocarina necklace while humming slightly, and Stubby also plays on Tāmarai’s drum and hums a bit. Eventually they both get the sensation — Stubby a little more strongly than Tāmarai — that the crest “likes” them enough to take them home, if they can get the other crest and also the Flynn stone away from Emror to power the whole operation.
Cembiten takes an opportunity to try out the communication stone, and finds that it works. Archivist Hinds of the Tal’Dorei Council answers and calls Vex’ahlia back inside (she’d been gone for only 5 minutes, to them, though it was ten-ish hours later for the party). Vex brings Keyleth with her. All the conversations go long, and Tāmarai falls asleep with her head in someone’s lap, probably Cembiten’s. As she sleeps, everyone discusses theories and magical strategies for making the threshold crests work together. At some point, Keyleth bursts out, “When your little gnomish friend wakes up, you should ask her about that magic she must know about, from Xhorhas.” Off of everyone’s astonished looks, she adds, “What? It’s been eighty years, surely we can talk about it now!”
Take your meds.
Hydrate.
Don’t forget to love each other.
Is it Game Day yet?