Location: Cembiten’s lair, Ravinia
Date: 25 Thunsheer 840 PD (calendar of Exandria)
Occasion: The party are still looking for a way out of this weird temporally-anomalous world-outside-their-world.
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
When last we left off: Stubby’s Aunt Keyleth: “Can we just say [Tāmarai]’sfrom Xhorhas now?”
Plans And Fruition
To some of the party, Tāmarai’s origin was a big deal; to others, it was a non-issue. It wasn’t a secret, but with Xhorhas being at war with the Dwendalian Empire and on uneasy alliances at best with most other nations, both Tāmarai’s House and the Houses of Whitestone thought it would be better for people to get to know Tāmarai and Bez as people rather than looking at them as representatives of an entire people and nation.
Keyleth and Vex both promised before the Communication Stone went quiet that they would continue to scry or message the party daily until they heard from them again, and that someone would be posted at all times near its fellow stone in Emon. Someone who would immediately fetch one or both of them when the group of “lost children” made contact again.
The group then engaged in some planning, offering their skills: Bob changed himself into a copy of Cembiten, and his couch-familiar changed into a copy of the threshold crest they found in Vorugal’s lair. Stubby created several vials of acid and distributed them amongst the group, then embroidered the four corners of Tāmarai’s obi with silver thread and imbued it with a little extra protective capability. Jeremiah could not bring himself to plan violence, but gave his word that he would participate in the plan that the others made (which he did do — extremely well, it will be noted). Tāmarai practiced some of the spells she thought would be most useful the following day, including consulting her music books and rehearsing for one she had not yet fully learned. Tunk did kata and situps, impressing everyone with his core strength; then he and Stubby hung up her net once again over the two trees nearest the bridge. Cembiten spent part of the evening talking with his ancestral guides.
When the time came, Bob’s familiar plopped itself down on the side of the bridge nearest to Cembiten’s lair, with Bob (as Cembiten) standing by. Everyone else arrayed themselves behind various trees and shrubs. Then Tāmarai used her polished steel mirror to signal Emror, using a semi-well-known code of dots and dashes (long and short flashes of light): “WE FOUND IT! COME TO THE BRIDGE NEAR HIS LAIR!”
Emror arrived, preceded by a squad of skeletal and zombified dragonborn and a few gnoll witherlings, and three ghasts — thus proving that he had never intended this meeting to go peacefully. A handful of his undead servants got caught in Stubby’s net. They and the rest were dispatched, mostly by party members with ranged weapons and spells. Emror took several hits and appeared to go unconscious, but the Stone of Flynn flashed and Emror became mobile again, presenting a continuing threat. He and the three ghasts were the most difficult to fight, and Tunk went down when one of the ghasts took a particularly nasty strike at him. But Emror went down soon after, thanks to Jeremiah’s incredibly effective use of Inflict Wounds, which he followed up by healing Tunk. Realizing that if the Flynn Stone did its thing again they would have to keep fighting Emror, Tāmarai ran as fast as her little legs could carry her to pick up the staff again and yank it from his hand. Even as she did so, the hand changed from firm flesh to papery, parchmenty flakes. Emror was no more.
The discussion after the fight was fairly short. Tāmarai didn’t bring up how much she wanted to go back to Emror’s home and take the rest of his library and map room contents. There was some mention of getting a night’s sleep before leaving, since they weren’t sure where or when they would wind up, but in the end, everyone’s eagerness to return home was stronger than their sense of caution. Cembiten suggested holding Emror’s staff and the Flynn Stone in between the two threshold crests. Stubby kept time (admirably steadily) and Tāmarai played her ocarina for the two threshold crests, singing at the same time so as to produce the cord that both crests would recognize.
The world spun harder and stopped, at the same time. Lights swirled. Everyone beheld themselves in many different iterations, as if staring into infinite mirrors, feeling both drawn in and repelled at once by the dizzying sensation of being everywhere and everywhen and also not existing at all. With a feeling of having fallen a thousand feet, yet taking no damage, six sets of feet landed as one, and the group looked around themselves.
A couple of voices spoke at almost the same time: “I think this is Issylra. Vasselheim.” “I’ve seen this mountain range in books, this is Vasselheim.” “Why is it smoking?”
Indeed, it was. Vasselheim, the Cradle of Civilization, the birthplace of post-Calamity culture, was a smoking pit of nothing. Then a voice bursting with authority and importance demanded from behind them, “All right, people! Who the hell are you!”
(It has been 5 years from the day of the group’s disappearance in Whitestone. It is now 20 Brussendar 845 PD. We will find this out during our next session.)
Take your meds.
Hydrate.
Don’t forget to love each other.
Is it Game Day yet?
Loot:
The Flynn Stone (and staff)