Session 8 - 14SEP2024

Attendees

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

Copy/Paste Source: ✅ ❌

Recap to Current Situation

•  We researcheddecide dragonto necklaces, made friendswork with The Archivist of The Council of the Few to help put a singlestop momto andthe kid,criminal andgroup endedRed upOmen. gettingTo that end, we are transported to the neighboring nation of the Grayogen Empire to help put a mysteriousstop placeto fromtheir Erica'stowns dreams...disappearing and try to get an audience with the empress.
  

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