Stories of my brain

When the tension is a bit lower, Amara uses this time to practice their aerial acrobatics with her wyvern. After about 3 hours they need a rest and land in the cursed land. They find a location which seems safe and take a second to feed the wyvern when suddenly five large cats appear.

The party starts fighting them, but the cats keep teleporting around, making it hard to stay within their range. The wyverns are clearly upset with the danger, but the party makes quick work and continue their rest.

Adaly looks at the pearl and starts investigating it. She feels the protective magic coming from it, it could save them from certain death, but at a cost. Adaly doesn’t think that any contract with a devil is worth that. Sam comes to sit next to her

“So what is this and who gave it to you?” Livia and Amara look interested in their conversation but are occupied by Heskeni who is excitedly making notes and explaining all about the necrotic explosion that happened hundreds of years ago.

“It is a ‘gift’ from my aunt… sorry I call Ilhoketh’s generals aunts and uncles, so this was Es-Ihiroketh. Not completely sure what it does, but it doesn’t matter, I don’t use items given by devils” Adaly says while pocketing the pearl.

Livia gives her a look of concern but doesn’t comment further on it. They get back on their wyverns and continue their flight. The ground under them stops being just dirt and grass but starts filling with the whites of bones. Heskeni who is with Adaly on the wyvern starts explaining “Oe, the boneyard, can we land here? It is very cool and filled with all kinds of magic” Adaly considers “Dangerous magics?”

Heskeni starts laughing “Of course, but Amara will protect us. The bones you see under us are not just bones, but synthetic bones. Loads of people in Grishbalan were necromancers, so to make sure that there was a steady supply of materials a few wizards punched holes in this area to the shadowfell, providing all the bones you see.”

Adaly shares this information with the rest of the party through the message spell. She looks around, a bit in shock, the massive landmass, no end in sight of bones. Of course, Grishbalan is no longer, so this has probably been stacking up, but still, it is concerning.

At some point the wyverns do need rest and they land. Adaly does instruct Heskeni to be quiet, but she is too excited. Quickly after they land a massive undead construct starts attacking them “Oe, a bonehulk” Heskeni says excitedly while going to sit in her saddle again and making notes.

Amara destroys the bonehulk, but the noise attracting more and more skeletal beings, until the party decides to retreat. Glimmer is too tired to fly though, so Adaly sends Amara a message to continue, and turns herself, Heskeni and glimmer invisible. “Heskeni, please be quiet… Glimmer needs one hour, and we cannot fight all those skeletons” Heskeni seems to understand, because she keeps quiet.

They land, the noise causing some skeletal beings to come and check, but when they don’t see anything, they walk away. Adaly is not comfortable, but Glimmer needs this, needs to stay put. Adaly keeps petting her wyvern, trying to comfort her, while trying to keep Heskeni quiet.

After about an hour Glimmer feels stronger in her mental connection, and they take off again. Mere seconds later they turn visible again “That was so cool, we saw a bonehulk up close and all those skeletons, still so much life there” Heskeni starts ranting, the hour of keeping quiet clearly taxing on her.

Adaly just keeps quiet, happy to be in the air again when she receives a message from Amara explaining where they found a place to stay for the night and Adaly flies in that direction.

Meanwhile Adaly gets a message from Jeremy ‘Woke up in Ingry, don’t remember past half a day. Was holding physical message. Request to use funds to come to you in person. Time? Location?’ This stresses an already overwhelmed Adaly out, but she replies ‘We are in danger zone, probably will return to Vasovik in 5 days. What can you tell me so far in the morning. Love Adaly.’

Adaly sees the barn that Amara described and flies to it, landing. She is exhausted and asks Sam to cast sleep on Heskeni.

Sam chuckles but complies, after a second of quietness Adaly starts briefing the rest of the party “Urgh finally quiet, she managed to stay still when we were on the ground, but that seem to have unlocked a next level of excited gibberish in the next hour flying here. Now, some bad news, I got a message from Jeremy… He doesn’t remember what happened and request to meet us” Amara chuckles “That will be a bit hard, seeing where we are”

“Was he okay?” Sam asks concerned. Adaly rubs her head “I don’t know… he might be compromised. He didn’t sound hurt.” Livia comes to sit next to her while Sam starts nervously pacing “What did he exactly say?” Livia asks. “That he doesn’t remember the past half day, he had a physical message though, and he is requesting to use the funds to come to us, we just have to mention a time and location. I told him for now that maybe we can meet in 5 days in Vasovik but otherwise, I don’t know… This smells trap.”

Livia nods, and Amara also seems to agree. Adaly grabs her bedroll “I am exhausted though, so if you guys don’t mind, I am going to sleep” The party agrees and the other 3 make a schedule for a watch rotation.

Adaly wakes up while a spider crawls on her body and she immediately shoos them. That spider and 2 others immediately scatter while Adaly notices multiple heartbeats coming in their direction. She looks at Amara and she also notices. They wake the paladins and go into a fighting position while 5 large spiders enter. The party has plenty of experience dealing with these kinds of minor threats, so dispatch the danger with relative ease, not even waking Heskeni up.

The next morning, they leave once more but quickly see a skull shaped sandstorm appearing and moving towards them “Oe, the skull storm… That has a hallucinogenic toxin, very bad to breath in” Adaly messages Amara ‘you see that thing, Heskeni even admits it is bad, lets land’ ‘Damn okay let’s do that’ Adaly messages the others and they land on the sand below.

Quickly they start making mouth masks, from leftover fabric and old clothing, Adaly also quickly starts making mouth masks for the wyverns. They huddle up when the sandstorm hits, staying within a circle of the wyverns who protect them from the worst.

Originally the wyverns were objecting when Adaly placed the mask on their face, but on the bound she can now feel Glimmers appreciation.

A few minutes pass, when Adaly and Amara both notice heartbeats coming from within the sand. They look at each other “We need to leave” Adaly screams, “Agreed” Amara says “Shoot straight up with the wyverns” Adaly starts giving instructions while saddling Glimmer and placing Heskeni back on her. Sam and Livia look like they want to object but understand that they should trust Amara and Adaly, so quickly follow.

The wind is strong, and it is hard to keep Glimmer stable, but Adaly reaches the top of the storm. A few seconds later Livia also comes about the sandstorm, but no Amara or Sam “fuck” Adaly says, she starts casting the message spell in random directions hoping it might catch Amara. Heskeni starts speaking again, but Adaly fully tunes her out. Adaly knows better than to go back into the storm, but she cannot leave her friend behind.

Half an hour passes, and Adaly can see the end of the storm. She quickly goes down after the sandstorm passes. Flying low searching for Amara. Adaly spots Amara waving at them, lands and jumps from Glimmer to hug her friend. Amara her wyvern is closeby but it seems aggressive, attacking a collapsed building “It inhaled to much of the toxin” Heskeni says while they walk closer “I can help, if I can get close enough” Livia says

Amara walks up to her wyvern, and Punsel attacks her. Undaunted by that Amara also attacks the wyvern, grabbing it by the neck, pushing it down “Now Livia” Livia quickly runs closer and heals the wyvern, who immediately calms down.

Adaly sighs, happy to have her friend and her wyvern back, but they are still missing a party member. They take off and see Sam flying a bit away. Adaly send him a message ‘Good to see you again’ ‘Likewise’ she gets back and smiles.

Heskeni helps guide them back on the correct path, when Adaly receives another message from Jeremy ‘Mansion is Avario Family’s. Remember walking up to gate, then waking wounded in hay pile. Note suggests they know of mission, suspect I talked. Sorry.’ Fuck Adaly thinks, Jeremy spilling the beans would be problematic. But Adaly replies ‘Hey Jeremy, that sucks, what does the note say? We are maybe delayed, any other updates? For example, the items of Certevilla. Good luck.’ They fly over a bit of a rock wall and find a nice crevice for a short rest.

Adaly immediately starts spying on the people whose blood vials she has. Only her sister fails her save, so Adaly sees the tiefling being in Heskeni’s room in the archeologist guild. She is rummaging through some notes that were hidden in a section of the bookshelf. The dwarf who they had met at the reception is also there “I need a bit more time” Yigadel says, and the dwarf nods in agreement and walks out.

When she gets back, she looks around the camp “Jeremy messaged me in the air, he is wounded, but okay, he expects he talked. So, that is a problem. Next to that, Heskeni, my sister is rummaging through your study in Vasovik. Is there anything there pointing to something infernal?” Heskeni angrily jumps up “They are going through my stuff? Why would they do that? And infernal no, infernal is boring, most of my notes are about Grishbalan” “Okay, so the dwarf is working with them, which means we have to be careful when we go back.” Adaly answers and then looks toward the paladins.

Sam looks very concerned, and Livia lays a hand on his shoulder “Jeremy wouldn’t easily talk, one of us wouldn’t easily break under torture” Sam says after a while. “The tiefling who contacted you, Sam, already seemed to know something, so them knowing about our mission is not necessarily a sign he talked” Amara observes and all of them nod in agreement.

After their last flight they reach the city, a massive crater surrounded by collapsed buildings 9 spires on different edges of the city are for the most part still standing and the party decides to land on the most stable looking one of those. They have to really contain Heskeni this time to not go explore, but they take a short rest looking towards the broken city. Adaly had heard about myths surrounding this place but seeing the rumble up close is really something else.

“Do we still want to try to reach the library?” Livia asks, “This feels relatively safe, so I like to stay here” Adaly says, while Amara reacts “Maybe we can fly an hour out of here, see if there is any safer location, and if not come back to here” and they all nod in agreement.