Stories of my brain

On their way through the city of Loutiers Adaly suddenly spots a black tiefling. She points it out to Amara but doesn’t wait with her reaction before running in the tiefling’s direction. Sadly, after a short chase the black tiefling disappeared.

“Fuck” Adaly says while everybody comes close to her position and Sam asks, “Who was that?” “I don’t know, that is what makes it interesting. I don’t know if you noticed, but my lineage is quite rare in this plane. And all are working for daddy dearest.” “All?” Livia asks while Adaly rolls her eyes “Every single one, except me of course darling. I am special” she ends with a wink. “We don’t have time for this, lets go” Sam comments and they continue to the teleportation hall and make their way to Hirall.

From Hirall they still have to walk to Podriellar the village where Otto lives. Adaly sends a message Jeremy ‘Dearest Jeremy, any news? Also, fair warning we were being followed in Loutiers by some of my siblings. Be careful, love Adaly’ she quickly receives back ‘Set out some feelers, but no news yet. Thanks for the headsup’. They walk for more and more hours until Adaly is exhausted. They make camp, but Adaly is already firm asleep before the camp is properly set up.

Early in the morning Adaly gets up and sees Livia, her unusual new friend, sitting in a tree. With a bit of effort Adaly manages to climb to a nearby branch and joins Livia “Good morning, what brings you here?” “Good morning, Adaly, I enjoy watching the sunrise. How have you slept?” Livia answers while barely looking at her. “I slept fine, thank you. Can I ask you something…? Your eyes they are beautiful, but how come they are like that?” Adaly asks and Livia smiles at her kindly before saying “That is too personal, we have not known each other long enough that I can trust you” Adaly kindly smiles back thinking that Livia should never trust her but says. “I hope you will trust me enough one day, I am very interested… for now is there anything I can do to help build trust?” Adaly asks in her sweetest voice.

Livia looks happy at her, and asks “I always wondered something. How does it feel to have sin coursing through your veins?” Adaly laughs “I am not a devil” she winks before continuing to answer “I guess my magic comes from sin, so in that sense if I describe how the magic feels. It is empowering, control, might. I am grateful for that part of my lineage, it helps me do some good in the world. But if I would have had a choice, I rather just not have had this.” She answers semi truthfully. She hates her father and all it implies, but she could not imagine her life without power, so maybe if given the choice, she would still greedily take the power.

Livia grabs her hand “I understand, we don’t get to pick the circumstances of our birth. We do get to pick what we do with it. We don’t know each other well enough yet, but looks like you are doing some good with it.” “Thank you for understanding” Adaly says while mirroring Livia’s tone of voice. Livia smiles widely at her, oh this sucker is going to be so easy to manipulate, Adaly thinks to herself when they make their way back to the others.

They travel to Podriellar and reach their destination while it is still morning. They get directions to Otto’s house, which is on top of the hill in the village.

In front of the door lays a young man, clearly intoxicated. Adaly walks forward “Hello sir, we are looking for Otto, could you help us” “why, and why interrupt me? Can’t you see I am doing important work?” The man replies while being bothered by the hiccups. “My apologies, we just want to speak to Otto, if you point us the way” “I am watching the eggs, very important. Tell him that I am doing a good job.” Adaly rolls her eyes “sure, but where is he? And who shall I say is doing a good job?” “Me, Marcus, and he is probably inside” “Thanks” Adaly says while rolling her eyes and walking in.

One of the first rooms is a study and a bit of an older gentleman is browsing through his papers. “Hey old friend” Sam says while walking in and Otto immediately jumps back and looks terrified at him “You have not changed at all”. This surprises Adaly, who has been thinking all paladins are goody too shoes. “We are coming as friends, don’t be scared. I don’t know what Sam did, but we are nice people, we will not harm you.” Adaly says while lightly approaching him.

“You should not be travelling with him, sweet girl. Whatever he offers it isn’t worth it” Otto finally says. “I hired him, so I know what I am getting into. He did bring us here because he expected you to be able to help us. I hope we are not overstepping coming here” she smiles kindly while waving to Sam that he maybe should back off for a second.

Otto smiles kindly at her. She knows her looks scare a lot of people, but she has learned over the years how to present herself soft and kind, making people more likely to help her. Her innocent girl routine seems to work on Otto. She can see in the corner of the eye that Sam is rolling his eyes, not buying the sweet girl image.

Otto continues “But of course you can always visit dear, but I must say I am concerned I will not be able to help you. See I am an old man, and whatever Sam has in mind I am not doing.” Adaly approaches him even closer, sitting down on a chair and symbols he should come sit with her, he complies. “Thank you for your hospitality…. We have come to request to borrow some of your wyverns for a mission. We will be travelling some lands, dangerous by foot, so we hoped we could get some mounts to fly.”

Otto looks at her and at the rest of the party, now noticing the threatening looking half orc Amara, which makes him flinch once more. Whatever history Sam has with this guy really traumatized him. “We could maybe make some deal… Your party seems competent, and we have been having a bit of a problem.” Adaly just nods and smiles kindly waiting for Otto to continue.

“We have wyvern eggs and some younglings here, but are bothered by local pteranodon’s who think wyvern eggs are a tasty treat. You kill them, we will give you some wyverns. Under the condition that you don’t tell anybody were you got them from, especially our enemies of Kolata should not get wind of this.” “I think those are agreeable terms, could we see them before we go kill some pteranodon?”

Otto smiles brightly, stands up and leads them out. They meet the caretaker of the wyverns and see them flying around being trained.

Adaly immediately falls in love with a smaller darkblue wyvern and with the help of the caretaker approaches the creature named Glimmer. Adaly feels tremendous joy in the few small moments spend with her soon to be mount and is motivated to kill some pteranodon.

They walk up the mountain, and with Amara’s knowledge of the surroundings and her ability to commune with Nature, they make a plan to lure pteranodon to a good trap location. Sadly only two small ones fall for their lure. They make short work of them but knowing that there are dozens left, worries Adaly. They come up with a new plan, if they all climb up to the nest invisibly, and start attacking with all four of them simultaneously, hopefully the surprise will give them enough of an edge to survive.

They climb up and see 2 dozen pteranodon sitting on top of this mountain. One giant one and two big ones, surrounded by a bunch of smaller ones, and many eggs. They go to position themselves and Adaly steps on a branch.

One of the smaller pteranodon’s comes to investigate, but with the parties invisibility in tack the creature quickly lose interest, which lets the party pick good spots for their surprise attack. Adaly hits the giant one and one of the big ones with her strongest chromatic orb, starting the fight. Amara quickly starts hacking through the small ones. Adaly manages to kill one of the big ones and keeps damaging the giant one, who now is taking a specific interest in hurting her.

Adaly hides under one of the rocks but it does keep finding her, she is feeling bloodied when Amara comes and saves her, by beheading the giant pteranodon and showering Adaly in its blood. “Thank you” she brings out before they continue also destroying the eggs. “Should we bring some proof?” Adaly asks. “I think your covered in blood person is enough proof” Sam comments, while smiling towards them. “Sure, let’s go to the village without cleaning up, that is not going to terrify the town or anything.” Adaly replies sarcastically, while Amara starts laughing. Adaly is happy with the collaboration on this mini mission, it was good first trial run how they will perform as a team.

Deciding they don’t want to walk down, they jump off the cliff, while Adaly cast feather fall to ensure they land safely. At Sam’s and Amara’s request Adaly doesn’t clean up and they arrive back at Otto’s house, who looks at her and comments “I assume this means success, do you need a bath?” “No, I am fine, thank you”.

He just nods and steps a bit away from her. “So, technically all of these wyverns are for the army, so to gift them to you I now promote you to special deputy lieutenants of the Wearish crown. Please don’t spread this too much, it is not completely by the books, and if we are discovered you will lose your wyverns. Now have you made your choice for wyvern? Then we can start the binding process.”

Adaly immediately embraces glimmer and has a successful first flight. She also tries casting invisibility on her wyvern, but Glimmer clearly doesn’t like that, so Adaly quickly drops it. Amara goes for the biggest strongest looking one and renames it Punsel. Livia and Sam also both select their respective mounts.

While Sam is in the air Otto approaches Amara. “Do not let your life be consumed by the quests that Sam drags his companions into. You and your friend are better then that”, but Amara ignores the warnings of the old man and the party leaves with their new mounts to Hirall.

During their flight Adaly contacts Jeremy ‘Have wyverns, we are fucking badass! Can you find out what items are being auctioned at Certevilla on the 32nd? Any update on other stuff?’ to which Jeremy replies ‘Acknowledged, potentially found lead for planar travel, will know more in few days. No people named Heralan staying in inns or taverns in city.’

During sunset, the party finds a location to camp for the night. Adaly takes first watch, but notices Livia is not actually sleeping “I can help you with that” Adaly comments to Livia who is pretending to be sleeping. Livia opens one eye to check if Adaly was talking to her “With what?” “I can brew you some relaxing tea to help sleep, from the mushrooms I saw on the path.” Livia smiles kindly to her “That would be nice”.

They have a nice chat, but sleep takes Livia rapidly. After which Adaly finishes her watch, waking Amara for the next one.