Session 7 - 21JUL2024

Attendees

• Tim ✅
• Walter ✅
• Erica ✅
• Jin ✅
  
• Nick ✅
  
• Alex ❌
  

Copy/Paste Source: ✅ ❌

Recap to Current Situation

•  We researched dragon necklaces, made friends with a single mom and kid, and ended up getting transported to a mysterious place from Erica's dreams...
  

Session Notes

• The figure in this room apologizes for the abrupt way in which we were summoned
  
• He says that we can refer to him as "The Archivist," working for the Council of the Few
• He was unaware of us until we started making inquiries into dragon artifacts
• When he learned more about us, he was relieved to find out that we were not the other group of mercenaries, members of Red Omen
• He asks if we want to do some work for him to work against the Red Omen
• Red Omen info
  • order that existed >3000 years ago
  • thought not to exist any longer
  • if it was alive, but in hiding, then it is likely most well informed about artifacts
• The Archivist is hoping that we can help go to the Grayogen Empire to ask the Empress, Lalali-puy, for cooperation against the Red Omen
• He says to ask the Empress, "Are you aware that Rajat still exists?"
• He can also help us get into the Empire
• Currently the Empire is having trouble with rural villages having their population suddenly disappear
• We hand The Archivist the amulet to examine and he says that the Cantrell family history about heroes is likely exaggerated
  • Upon inspection, he believes that the amulet belonged to Naezo, a dragon heroine that protected the weak with a fiery temper
  • Her residual magic resides in the amulet
• The Archivist thinks that the hobgoblins were being attacked because the Red Omen wishes for hobgoblin extermination (as one of their goals)
• We also ask The Archivist about "The One," previous owner of the VARDIS
  • He says that The One is an extra-dimensional being, history is full of them
  • Striking up bargains with warlocks to grant temporary power for some future cost
  • Most beings like this try to remain anonymous, so The One might be a bit different in that regard
  • In his youth, The Archivist ran across a similar being that The Archivist turned down
• Jin asks The Archivist about the Graves family
  • Investigating birth records, Mrs. Graves is 35 years old, no father of the kids on record
  • Completely unremarkable

• Quest begin: Seek audience with the Empress and collaborate to thwart the Red Omen

• Next steps:
  • Go back to Wudu, say our goodbyes, fetch our VARDIS (and Porkchop)
  • Head outside of town, somewhere unseen, teleport away to the Grayogen Empire
  • Doing this, Jin inspects Osulf, the kid, and finds traces of magic on one of his shoes
• Jin reads the scroll to use the teleportation scroll
• He does a great job and we teleport right to where we were meant to, just inside the border of the Grayogen Empire
• We are in a temperate rainforest (think Pacific NW), weather is a little windy with light mist
• Our VARDIS is now located on the side of the road
• There is some motion ahead of us on the road, with armored humans approaching us
• Nick recognizes the banners as the colors of the Grayogen Empire
• Walter and Erica are driving the VARDIS and greet the soldiers
• We are welcomed by the soldiers due to our paperwork
• They want us to help them out with some things and will offer us a payment of 100 gold
• The captain's name is Adare Havsa
• We are asked to investigate a village whose population recently disappeared
• Villages have been disappearing since 5 months ago
• New village disappears each three weeks like clockwork
• Looks like people just literally disappeared
• ~30 soldiers in the town
• Upon investigating:
  • The captain says this happened ~3 weeks ago
  • However, nature has reclaimed too much to have just happened a couple weeks back
  • The recent growth in the forest show that the tree roots are all growing in one direction toward the town
• We ask if there is a map of the empire with the town that have disappeared
  • The map shows that the towns closer to their border have been effected first, moving closer to the center of the empire
• It is clear from arcana investigation that magic is influencing the natural growth here, possibly from a spirit of some kind
• Detecting magic reveals that this is due to the effect of transmutation magic

We relay all this to the guards Bordering countries:

Acium Whisper of Revan Cormendia some other one I missed the name of Our current plan:

This happens every three week - this village was the most recent one - it happened here ~3 weeks ago Next village over is ~1 day from here We are going to head over to the next village and get that village evacuated We quickly make our way over to the next village over We approach the city with the message that the villagers are in danger due to a rampaging nature spirit

We ask for volunteers from within the populace to help fight back Erica tries to persuade the residents to help out, but fails However, Jin lies to them about being helpful and is able to gather ~10 posse members to help out and get a couple families to skip town (~20 people) That evening, the weather was remarkably average for that time of year and location... Jin sets out members of his posse on patrol After a couple patrol rounds, one of our patrol groups fails to return The missing patrol last went to the North of the village Investigating where the patrol went missing, we see drag marks heading into the forest

There is nothing unusual about the trees/roots We ask the other posse members to rouse the town and gather in the center of town since there seems to be some kind of attack The group goes deeper into the forest, looking for what caused the patrol to go missing We are assaulted by a sweet smell and survive a charisma saving throw We know enough to know that we just survived an attempt to put us to sleep As Nick asks some nearby roots about what is going on, we are assaulted by some tree people (Blights X6)

Roll Initiative

We killed the blights and Nick is almost dead, but Erica is able to reluctantly save him

Combat ends