Political Expedition

The Adventure:

The dangers of Ontar and his minions has only been growing, and Falonde is beginning to weaken from the strain. Due to the paranoia of not knowing who can be trusted, the nation has been struggling to pull together. While outside help isn't necessary quite yet, it may be prudent to try and make positive relationships with the neighbouring nation of Buggiklif now, instead of waiting until it is too late. Falonde and Buggiklif used to be allies many years ago, but the relationship has declined since then. It would be helpful to have a group travel to Buggiklif and try to resume this alliance.

Naivara:

Clary, Milo, Thoradin, I  travel to the neighboring Buggiklif Nation from Falonde through the mountain pass on the edge of winter. We had a positive relationship with them in the past and we hope to develop this relationship further as the threat of Ontar increases.

We decided to take the mountain path as it's quicker, about 10 days. We can only carry 14 days worth of rations anyway so this seems perfect.

--- Travel Notes ---

Day 1: I lead and find a perfect path through the mountains and forests. I have a restful sleep that night but apparently no one else does...I suspect Ontar is again behind uneasy sleep.

Day 2: It seems to be much colder than yesterday but I manage to find a good path for us to take. We have to spend more time to warm up but manage to hike through.

Day 3: I follow the map and believe we are following on the correct path. Everything seems similar, like we are walking in circles. This night is uneventful. I find some creatures trying to eat our rations. I scare them off with my mace, carry out the rations and head back to my watch.

Day 4: Woke up refreshed. West wind. Still freezing. When we find a place to rest, a stomping noise comes from behind us which appears to be a bear but seems to be an illusion?? Bear mumbling but can't make out what the bear is saying. Somehow it's been tracking us and I hadn't noticed...time to fight it with divine energy. The bear hits hard but we fought it with no problem. It clearly wasn't a bear but more of an insect. We find a new place to rest. As I wake up from my trance, I find Thoradin has fallen asleep on watch. Feeling perturbed I take the last watch.

Day 5: Once again I wake up rested. Thoradin seems worse and worse which is concerning. Even so Thoradin spots a rune which he studies for half an hour. Nothing useful comes of his study. Onwards through the mountains back south. Quiet walk and quiet night.

Day 6: We wake up with increased vitality. Clary and Thoradin seem well rested while Milo is still tired. Thoradin cooks us breakfast but a few hours later we are all sick for the rest if the day and have to rest. This presents a significant setback but looking forward to a better day tomorrow.

Day 7: Hiking as normal today. We made decent time but still haven't caught up. Not yet worried about our rations. Hear rustling after we set up camp for the night. Milo (?) goes to out to "see" what it is. A few human figures came towards us. We meet fellow travelers Cassius, Gamin, Zane, Ilmindel and Gilmirie. Apparently came from Buggiklif going to Falonde. Gave them our shortcut so they can reach Falonde safely and they give us theirs as well. They stay the night at our camp. We only spare 1 ration. Thoradin makes a tiny hut for protection.

Day 8: We wake up rested again and share our breakfast ration with the other group. They take off after we update their map of Falonde which was outdated. We make excellent time today. Day was uneventful and regular. Night was normal as well.

Day 9: Thoradin and Milo are exhausted and we have to travel half as slow. Not a good day. Cold and weary travels.

Day 10: Milo feels awful this morning and is incredibly lethargic. We reach the end of the mountain pass and see clear plains. We hike all day to reach the city of Buggiklif town centre. Lots of guards here. Guard at the gate asks for our visas. Of course we do not have these so I cast suggestion and convince him to let us through. We find an Inn for the evening called the The Crossed Wands. It's pretty empty here. I ask the inn keeper for two rooms and she asks us for 20 gold for two rooms! Since we are not really supposed to be here we agree to pay this insane price. 1 gold for our meal as well for an awful quality food but we eat it anyway. Thoradin is grumpy and uptight (as usual) but we decide to figure things out in the morning. As Thoradin gets up to go to bed, a disshelved  man approaches our table. He offered to make us fake visas for a specific favour.

We finally sleep peacefully tonight and look forward to meeting our disheveled visa man in the morning.

Naivara:

We woke up from our sleep and felt well rested but Milo is still slightly exhausted. The mysterious visa man was true to his word and returned with a good breakfast and fake visas. My fake name is Ellaloth.

We followed the mysterious man to his place of business to fulfill his bosses request. We met his boss, who's name is Brom, and his armed guards who demand we give them our weapons. We reluctantly hand them over but thankfully they don't know we are also spellcasters.

Brom brings out a small stone statue and demands we tell him all that we know about it. Having just arrived in this town, naturally we know nothing. He called us “Falondian scum” (for some reason he is super racist??) and we almost broke out into a fight because of this. However, we don't know anything about this mysterious statue. Clary managed to convince him that we truly aren't lying and we avoided a fight. He reluctantly revealed to us that his son, Fandrul, was taken and all that was left was the stone statue on his bed. There were at least 36 other kids and 36 similar stone statues. We vowed to find his son and hopefully by doing this we will be in his good books. Ytrix, please watch over these children...

We are led into the forest and follow tracks until they lead to body of water. We discovered signs that a boat was here recently but cannot see where it could have gone. Clary and Thoradin investigated the edge of the lake and find a small shoe but nothing else. We decided to ask a guard for a boat as we saw no other way to continue our search.

While waiting, I decided to send my arcane eye out to see what was in the lake. Eye found an island less than a km away with an entrance to a cave. The eye cuts out after this point but thankfully the guards arrived with a raft after an hour.

We take the raft and reach the island shortly. The entrance to the cave was ominous and foreboding. I said a quick prayer to Ytrix for guidance before entering. As we walked in, we are greeted by a great chasm with rocks separated by mud. We decided to jump across and I used my striding boots for easy jumping. We mostly make it across but Milo missed one jump and landed in the mud. I managed to throw a rope out to him. He climbed back onto the rock and said there is something swimming in the mud. Thoridin did some magic and managed to move Milo to the other shore. Unfortunately, the creature emerged from the mud and grappled me and I took some damage. I managed to escape it's grasp at the last second and strided closer to the shore. I felt a strange sensation and I am now on the shore (thanks Thoridin).

We left the mud monster in the dust and travelled into the cavern further. We were met with a fork in the road and took the right path. Along the path we ran into a room that contained 3 mummies. I presented my holy book and spoke a prayer. Two mummies ran away as Ytrix’s power was too strong for them. However the third one paralyzed me for the entire fight. My comrades fought valiantly around me.

At the end if the battle we heard voices coming from the end if the tunnel...

Milo:

Never again am I ever going to fucking camp out in the goddamn cold. I am so tired I can’t even see straight! HA!

Shady visa man met with us this morning and took us for what felt like the longest walk ever. I tried to keep track as best I could but with me being so exhausted I became turned around really quick. In my typical untrusting fashion I played up how weak I was using my staff to feel my way forward; good thing too because when they asked us to give us their weapons they didn’t take it from me. Sometimes this my disability comes in handy. Some ass face was blaming us for taking his kid and 35 others just because we were in his words “Falonde scum” and basically said we all look the same what a doooouuucchhheee! But what can I say I have a soft spot for tiny humans. I let my companions and Ass faces “guards” take us to swamp where apparently the footsteps of the 36 kids that are missing disappeared. Nivara has this kick ass Eye spell thingy which had her able to figure out where we needed to go lickety-split.

We got ourselves a boat and found ourselves in a cave with a giant mud pit. The only way to get across was to jump on rocks along the way my legs were so freaking shaky and spent I used so much ki to get across. With no other option, I had to give Nivara my necklace so that I could kind of see where she was jumping to try and find my way. I didn’t really explain that I could somehow see it glowing hopefully she doesn’t focus on that too much. I hoped that would be enough but sure enough I kept landing my ass in the mud luckily the first time I was close enough to a rock to pull myself up however on the second big jump I landed right in the middle.

It didn’t take long before I felt a presence in the mud. It was large and it was heading towards me. I tried to swim through the mud while Nivara threw me a rope and helped pull me up to safety. Next thing I know I’m suddenly next to Clary on the safety of the other side. How? I have no fucking idea, but I wanna yack. I hear commotion and I’m pretty sure the creature took a chunk out of Nivara but she managed to get to safety too.

Continuing forward we unfortunately weren’t the sneakiest of adventurers because we got attacked by some type of undead creatures. Two were complete chicken shits and booked it, but one stuck around and scared the crap out of Nivara. It didn’t take much though, I managed to kick it’s ass but whether it was the commotion or the two that ran off it sounds like they’re bringing back a posse.

Game on.

Thoradin:

Excerpt from Thoradin’s Journal

Since we arrived in Buggikif, we have seen nothing but trouble. When last I wrote, we had arrived in the city, hoping to seek aid for Falonde. Unfortunately, we quickly became embroiled in local trouble. Since we didn’t have Visas, we only entered the city thanks to Naivara’s magical prowess. Staying at an out of the way inn, we met a stranger who claimed he could get us visas if we did a favor for his boss.

After some breakfast this morning provided by the stranger, he handed us visas and lead us to his boss. Obviously distraught, his boss (who we later learned is named Brom) tried very hard to intimidate us. He asked us to tell him everything he knew about a small statue he showed us. It took some convincing, but he eventually accepted that we knew nothing about it. Dejected, he told us that his son went missing last night, and the statue was left in their place. In fact, many children had went missing. We offered to help find the missing children, of course.

We were taken to a nearby swamp, where a trail of child sized footprints lead. Following the trail, we came upon a lake. We acquired a boat, and found an island in the middle of the lake. On this island was a beached boat, and the entrance to the cave. We were certain this is where the children were taken.

Once inside, we found a large room full of muddy water, with small islands poking out. Naivara and Milo intended to jump from island to island to get across. Neither Clary nor I have any skill in jumping, so I teleported us across in one go. Unfortunately, halfway across, Milo missed a jump and fell into the water. This alerted some kind of monster. Before it had a chance to take too many bites out of my comrades, I used a complex combination of teleportation and transposition to bring Milo and Naivara to the other end of the chamber. We ran, leaving the monster in the water, unable to follow. Heading down the passage, we encountered three mummified looking humanoids. These things were especially dangerous, as they could paralyze us with a glance. Naivara managed to scare two away with her holy symbol, and we dispatched the third without too much effort. Waiting for the other two to regain their senses and rejoin the combat, we heard human voices coming down the hallway in front of us, and saw torchlight. Some political expedition this turned out to be.

Clary:

I had the best sleep! So refreshing after those awful mountains. Still offended that the man offering to take us to his master for visa papers didn't give us his name I eagerly get ready to go downstairs to see if he's there.

Apparently Milo did not recover as well as we could hope but he's also a whiner so I'm sure he's fine. The man did as promised provide us with a decent breakfast, much better than that over priced meal we had the night before. We don't waste much time before allowing him to lead us to his master.

He leads us to this dark looking cavern, but I figure after everything I've been through how bad could it be. I walk right in. It's super dark, thankfully none of my human companions are on this journey so I don't have to worry about anyone. Coming out into an opening a voice starts commanding his guards to take our weapons. Little do they know our physical weapons don't matter much to us so we give them freely. Milo keeps his staff, pretending like he needs it to guide him, HA!

After we get our proper papers and some fake names the man starts demanding his guards to show us this statue because apparently we should know exactly what it is. Thoridan seems to see something in it, it looks like a rock to me. He explains that it is make of a dwarvish stone but the sculpting is of no significance. The leader does not like this answer, he seems to think Thoridan is withholding information and gets one of his guards to hit him. It looked like a powerful blow but didn't seem to phase Thoridan much. Naivara however takes great offence to this, she kind of frightened me in her powerful demeanor to be honest. She yelled at him and tried to leave but was stopped at the door. I simply ask, is that really necessary? Like Naivara said, if we knew anything we would tell him but if we continue to be treated this way why would we want to help him. I try desperately to calm the situation with my angry companions just making it worse. After some coaxing between Thoridan and I he shares some more details on where this statue came from.

Apparently the statue was left in his home in place of something else that is now missing. We offer to help him find this missing object, I mean he did give us visas we can at least do something for him. Reluctantly he goes on to tell us that is was in his child's bed. At this point all of us calm down and say yes we will find his child, give us all the information you have. His son was not the only child taken last night, his guards bring out the other statues which are all similar but not the same. His people are trying to track the children but their presence seems to be disappearing, one per hour. At this point we just need to go, time is obviously a factor here. He returns our weapons and tells us where they were able to track to, obviously their warriors are not very skilled judging on the “attack” towards Thoridan.

The guards lead us to a swamp where there are many muddy footprints, they leave us quite quickly which Milo scoffs at. Following the path we find that the prints end at the water edge obviously getting onto a boat of some sort. We survey the area not finding much else in the vicinity. I suggest we go back to guards and request a boat, Thoridan wants to explore the area more extensively. Well my plan lost so we walk around the water for about an hour. Thoridan sends out his Owl to get a better view but still not coming up with much. After all this they finally agree with me to go get a floating device (ha).

Coming out of the woods the guards are surprised to see us, worried that we failed. When we asked them for the raft theys said it would take some time but yes they could help us. One of the guards left to go find it while the other stayed behind. Thoridan and I decide to go back to the loading place while Milo and Naivara stay behind with the guard. Investigating the area a bit further I find a small slipper. My heart breaks… and I stuff it into my pouch. We don't find much else though so we pretty much just wait for our friends.

Upon their arrival Naivara tells us that she was able to send a magical eye into the swamp and found an island where there was a raft and a cave. We all bow to her greatness and quickly head out onto the water to find this island. Coming up to it, it's a very strange place.. but we know that the children are here so we run in, kind of quietly.

Inside the entrance there was a mudpit with stone platforms strewn about. Now I'm strong, but my armor is also really heavy so this scared me a little bit. Naivara had these awesome shoes that have her crazy jumping abilities. Milo pulls out this amulet that apparently he can see?!?! I don't get it but he was fairly confident he could make these jumps if Naivara lead the way wearing this amulet. Thoridan said he had some that could help me out so I trusted him to take me across. With a minor slip up by Milo we pretty much made it halfway without problem. Thoridan made a very loud noise and suddenly I was on the other side. Then there was the big jump.. Naivara made it no problem but Milo.. it was a far jump! All I saw was him falling halfway between the platforms. I panic and cast a spiritual weapon above him so he knows I'm there without being there. Naivara throws him a rope and they manage to pull him over. Suddenly he's yelling that there's something in the mud! Thoridan switches spots with Milo to get him to safety then brings himself back over as well. Suddenly a giant snake-like creature emerges from the mud and snaps at Naivara. It looks like he got her pretty good too! She wasn't jumping so we figured she was stuck so Thoridan brought himself back over to her to get her out. Easily enough they managed to get out of its range and we got the fuck out!

Immediately we find 3 different paths to choose from. Rather than walking uphill we take the level route and quietly walk along. After a bit of a walk we see an opening and Milo senses that there are creatures inside of it. I tried to shift back a bit and heard a clang resound in the area… well so much for quiet, I cast light onto my mace. We see these crusty humanoid creatures that perhaps could be mummified? Creepy and gross, so Naivara jumps on it and tries her divine ability to kill undead creatures. It almost worked, it made two of them run away! After Thoridan hits the remaining one we realize these guys are tough! When I finally get up in there I notice a pull on my conscience, luckily I have a strong enough will to avoid it but that annoyed me so I threw a guiding bolt at it! Take that!!! We all got our hits on it but it took a long time! Poor Naivara kept getting beat on so I did what I could for her. Unfortunately the creatures powers were too strong for her weakened state so she became paralyzed a couple times. But we got it! Good riddance… and then we hear more voices coming from the direction the other creatures ran. I diminish my light and prepare for the next battle.

Milo:

So this trip has been a treat so far. Got knocked the fuck out because I was grappled by a possessed child while a bunch of cultists beat the shit out of me, then I was healed and conscious, then as described by my companions a demon armour thing that crawled out of a Cultists lifeless sacrificial body knocked me the fuck out again!

Being exhausted is bull shit. We managed to knock the kid unconscious and Nivara did some kind of exorcism on him and it turns out his name is Brad. Adventuring with a kid is annoying but we managed to convince him that we were leaving right away as we kept moving on looking for more kids.

We found another group who had another possessed child and these guys were WEEEAAAAK in comparison. We knocked this kid unconscious too, Nivara unfortunately all out of holy water or some shit, so now I’m carrying this kid while we keep going forward. We’re tired, we’re hurt, this party of spell casters have very little juju left... well shit...

Milo:

Well, we tied up the second ankle biter we found and I threw him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Fingers crossed that he doesn’t wake up possessed. I let the group decide the way and we found ourselves in a huge echoing room. Based on my companions they seemed impressed with how it looked, no magic sensed but apparently the dwarf has never seen whatever this room is made up of.

We went around this huge stone and they said there was some stone statue of an old dude with a text on a stone scroll. Something about it being inside your beating heart. I thought blood was the answer so had Clary slice my arm and I bled on it, nothing happened. Ouch.

We gave up and continued further and I was told we found all the kids. They were oddly quiet. They decided to smother us to death we tried to knock them out and succeeded in some and then they started to hit us. Brad came out and yelled at them to stop and holy shit they fucking did! That’s some Simon says shit right there!

Thoredin went back to the fancy rock room and found thy you had to bleed on top of the stone and it opened a portal. We didn’t have enough time to get them all up and through the portal, so Nivara and Thoredin went through and left Clary and I behind with the army of kids.

Apparently an owl flew out of the portal spazzing to get our attention. We heard “you are not permitted to disrupt the ritual” Clary boosted me up and we told Brad to be strong and stay with the kids.

We fought this big fucker, with Clary and Nivara down, I don’t know what got into me but my rage landed a bunch of solid blows, with Thoredin’s help we got him weak and with one final swing I punched him so hard I crushed his trachea.

Thoredin helped lift us through the portal with his hand and we needed to rest and heal up before we head out. As we headed out we ran into a Group of guards  who helped us out of the cave.

The guards insisted that we go to questioning which, hey I get it. But as we were heading to some council we seemed to have been pushed into a lovers quarrel between the guards and the council v.s. the guards and the magistrate. The other group gave up and let us pass.

We got to a room with 7 others, some chick named Katrina. We talked in circles and found that Ontar has been a problem here for a long time. It caused a lot of prejudice but we managed to sway her, and in talking we found that the magistrate is most likely working for Ontar.

As we thanked them I felt a stabbing pain in my brain and I saw bright whiteness. All of us did, but Clary dropped and passed out. Nothing was wrong with her. Guards rushed in and said all the Falonde prisoners had the same pain.

Nivarra checked for her god to see if she still had a connection which she did, but she said it felt different, suddenly her God was on the room telling Nivarra wasn’t safe as Soella has perished. Ytrex sent us back to Newood. Clary woke up and told us that Ontar spoke to her and told her “I told you I would hurt you” for lying to him about not having the amulet that she gave to Azimis.

The closest thing I had to a God is Dead. What the hell are we gonna do?

Clary:

Continuing along this tight cavern we come into this room with a beautiful smooth marble stone. It's huge! I've never seen anything like it and can't sense any magic coming from it. On the far side we find a statue of a wizard holding a stone parchment. We're fairly certain this was once a man petrified into stone. Naivara is able to decipher enough of it for us to uncover a riddle, “While you live we can not part, I must live lifelong inside of you, locked within your beating heart” we quickly figure it's blood and Milo offers his arm to me asking me to cut it. I reluctantly do so and he smears his blood along the stone without effect. Not knowing what else to do we continue on.

Further along we come to this terrible stench of feces and urine and down this set of stairs we see a pile of children just sitting. I quickly kill a creature guarding the children with my sacred flame. Running down the stairs I see that the children have the same dead look in their eyes that Brad did when we first found him. Milo joins me, and Thoridan kills the other guard who is cowering behind the horde of children. The children start mobbing Milo and I, restraining us. With heavy hearts we start knocking them unconscious to try to give ourselves a way out. Thoridan summons some elemental creatures to help but there's over 20 of them! Then the children start to hurt us, we just take it not being able to bring ourselves to defend. Suddenly we hear Brad's voice “stop hurting my friends” and the horde stop and let us go. We ask Brad to tell the kids to back off, and they do! I just want to kiss the boy at this point, just so elated that I don't have to hurt these poor children.

Regrouping we wait for the unconscious children to wake up. Thoridan mentions that he wants to investigate this stone monument a bit further so I follow him leaving Milo and Naivara with the children. He finds on the top of the monument the same inscription that we found on the stone parchment. Knowing that it requires a blood sacrifice he starts cutting himself until enough blood is given. With this a portal opens before him. Not wanting him to go in alone I go grab the others and we decide to bring the children with us. Thoridan informs us that the portal may only last another 20 minutes so Naivara goes with him into the portal leaving Milo and I waiting outside with the children. After a few minutes Thoridan’s owl comes out waving frantically to us. Milo and I find a way to get on top of the stone leaving the children behind and we jump into the portal.

Jumping in I see Naivara unconscious and this giant humanoid creature hovering over her and Milo. I quickly send a healing word over everyone stealing myself for what's to come. This creature has a grappling weapon that really stings! Our hits are hitting him but it's not quick enough and I'm so tired.. he gets a hold on me, I reach out to the again unconscious Naivara and stabilize her before it all goes black.

I wake up on the top of the monument again, Thoridan tells us of the sacrificial spiral inside that chamber that this creature was protecting. He was able to destroy it with the help of his Bigsby Hand. Looking down at the children we see that they are regained to their normal selves. With great relief we start the trek back to the entrance with 30 of the 36 stolen children. As we reach the mud chamber where the giant worm creature almost got Milo, we hear voices. Coming into the light we see that planks have been laid down across the stone pillars and there's a handful of guards hailing us. Stopping us asking who we are they see the kids and ease off us a bit. They let the kids get out of the cavern then ask us some more questions. They are satisfied with our story but ask us to come with them to see the Council.

This is the whole point of this journey, try to regain our alliance with this community. We have no reason to resist going with them. Half way through the town a separate guard intercepts our escorts and demands that we're taken to the magistrate. They argue quite fiercely over us, I just want to cooperate with everyone but it appears this is not our fight. The council guards seem to have won and we're led the rest of the way to the council with the magistrate guard trailing behind.

Upon entering the building we're told to stay quiet until asked to speak, again we stay quite obedient. The stair doors open and the council walks in. The leader introduces herself as Catrina and asks us of our purpose of being here. Thoridan tells them of our trial with Ontar and our plea to regain their alliance. Catrina tells us that this has come far too late, they've been dealing with Ontar for the past 3 years and have asked for Falondes’s aid countless times with the worst outcomes. I listen to this horrified.. we only heard of Ontar about a year and half ago, why weren't we told of this plea for our help?! I beg her to not think of us as Falonde and their I'll doings but of a separate community actually wanting to help. She seems to want to trust us but in there times no one knows who to trust. But we all agree that it's better to try than to have no one to go to. I plead to her to only ask for help in Neewood in the future and nowhere else in Falonde. She seems to appreciate that too.

After some more information has been passed she informs us that she's fairly certain the magistrate is lead by Ontar followers and that she needs to find us a safe way out of town. As I start to thank her for this generosity I feel like blinding pain in my head going straight to my heart. My vision is blanked out in this white light and I feel myself hit the ground. I'm not dead or dying I know this, but the absolute searing pain I feel is unnatural. I can sense my surroundings in a fog. I see my friends come back to themselves after suffering a similar pain and then they are fussing over me. I hearing the council calling for healing, I hear Naivara checking over me, but mostly I feel the pain in my heart. I feel a powerful presence enter the room and “see” the entity of Ytrix. I hear him tell Naivara that the first strike has fallen and we need to leave now.

I slowly wake up and we're outside of Neewood. My friends are surrounded around me looking confused and worried and I hear him.. Ontar says “I told you I would hurt you” my heart breaks.. at this point I know.. my God.. the Goddess of Charity is gone. Soella has perished. I try to relay this to my peers but the absolute heartbreak is too much to bear. I hope no one else ever experiences this loss and I intend to do everything in my power to continue Soella’s great work and protect the ones who need it in Her name. I will go on. We will prevail.