Campaign Journal: A Three Hour Tour....

Who woke up in Queen Adra's domain?

• Frederick - No Longer Dead Thief
• Slick - More Thief
• Jax - Barbarian

The smoke is clearing. The dead are being sorted and buried, or burned (more smoke, again). The Chirath forces were allowed to stay, for the time being, as long as they helped. Benedikt agreed, as a campaigner, himself. The troops went to work helping with rebuilding.

Oh, since you're here, and in light of our battle, perhaps Chirath may be useful in the end. Send me an engineer to help us reinforce our defenses. Benedikt agreed, and he knew a guy. He tasked Gerhard with flying back to the city. So off he went:

by Nicholas Roerich

Somewhere in this, I mis-labeled the flying carpet as a flying blanket, so apparently now it's a magic quilt. 

In the meantime, the Librarian had work to do. He took a lens and locked tomes to the lakeside tower.

via Dyson

Rondel (offscreen during this session), the Library Paladins, and desert elf Goladan joined in the effort. Librarian Grancet opened the book, then took out a small lead box and a fist-sized ruby (where was that when we were collecting rubies?!?). From the box he took a ring and put it on. A tiny figure appeared in the ruby. "What is your name!?" Grancet demanded. The tiny demon (for that is what it was) cringed and said, "Raz'Gonol." With that, Grancet guided the demon in the slow process of etching the runes for the anchor lens. 

Since it would take a few days, and thieves tend to get into trouble, Adra "asked" the remaining three members of the party to cross the lake to collect her sister Salax, and her followers, who had arrived on the south shore. Adra provided longboats for the party to use, as well as crews. 

Off they went. Each out and back crossing would take a day, and it would take three days to complete the ferrying process.

Random rolls were rolled: The first crossing was made without incident, and Salax and her people found. Folks were loaded up and they headed back only to be hit by a storm. Slick's boat took damage, and nearly swamped. Fred and his boat lent aid. The boats made it back, but not without a few folks lost overboard. The second crossing was accosted by a very large, very angry sturgeon. It rammed Slick's boat (he can't catch a break) but was fended off with much missile fire. As it turned to descend back to the depths, Jax critted it. Caviar!

The party and their catch

Although two party members had some "bad fish" at the cookout that night. The third crossing was uneventful, and the naga sisters were reunited, being the only two remaining in the region.

At this point, the lens work was done. As the party prepared to leave, a wagon trundled into town. A grizzled, one-eyed fellow hopped out, hitched up his breeches and looked around. Unabashed, he walked up to Adra. "Guriant Hunkins, at your service, ma'am! Looks like we gots some work to do!" Adra let him know that her people were at his disposal for earthworks construction. Stomping back to the wagon, he thumped on it, "Snadroth! Krozzom! Wake up!" and two disheveled dwarves crawled out to join him as they took inventory of the defenses.

With that, the party and their escort headed north to Hardbrand Tower. The undead were still on guard, with more Chaos heads stuck on pikes and in trees. The dead knights were clearly enjoying their unlife and duty. They greeted the party and their companions, and recovered their hidden, intact lens. Grancet began the etching process, this being less demanding as the tower was a node point. 

Next up - Kabrel's Tower and its druids. More trees decorated with Chaos corpses. Collected by the trees, themselves, of course... The lens was activated, and suddenly, a forgotten trinket in Frederick's pack woke up. A communication device collected from some barrow long ago. The Barrier was being reestablished. The first time in centuries. Faint energies from the north were felt - incomplete or flawed lenses. 

not lost on the party...

On to Ashryn. The going was slower, as they were now off the old trade roads and tracks. As the party crossed a river, they spotted a flier. They were being tracked. They sent the Librarian on with the troops, and backtracked.

Sure enough, an invisible foe backstabbed Jax. She shook off the injury, and accompanying poison. Good clean living, you know. The party closed with the assassin-scout, and were set upon, in turn, by three chitin drakes he was commanding. Damnit.

Well, thankfully, the chitin drakes rolled a few Natural 1's. Setting fire to things that weren't Frederick, for instance. Goober, again, took some heavy damage, but Jax hewed down the assassin before anything untoward could happen to the loyal hound. 

Time to reconvene at Ashryn, and check in with the NPC party holding it...

DM Notes:

Word has it that Chirath is sending a large force to the crossroads near the town of Mithlonde to stage them for potential threats. No word from Acroria...

Just more moving the game forward, along with a small side-quest of ferry operations. The Barrier reconstruction will have a few hiccups upcoming. For those of you keeping track at home, in this world, demons are tools. Angels are weapons...

Still making plans for end-game and visualizing options. Should be fun.

Getting ready for tonight's Shadowdark session of delving into the mini-megadungeon of Moteporte, where three halfings and a human continue to find their way about and collect NPCs...