cinaed

Session 105: Day 20 of Veksdan (3/10)

Audacity leaps down the slope, lighting his quarterstaff on fire before he settles into a defensive position and waits for the troll to get closer. Diana joins him, readying her shortsword as Adrin flies forward as well.

Hava’s familiar divine protection falls upon most of the group as her Spiritual Weapon appears beside the troll. The spectral trident strikes the troll in the meat of its giant thigh, though the troll doesn’t seem discouraged by the pain.

Az watches most of the group rush forward and decides to join them, casting Witchbolt on the troll and shocking it with lightning. The lighting arcs over its muscles as it howls in a rage. Medrash flies forward and circles the troll’s head,

The troll barrels forward. Diana stabs it with her shortsword as soon as it is within reach. The first blow hits, but the second strike slides off its skin as blood drips from its wounds. Now those close to it can smell its fetid, rotting scent, making them all gag.

The troll punches Diana twice, hard blows, before it slams its fists into the snow and sends a tremor through the earth that knocks Audacity and Az to the ground.

From their sprawled positions, they can see the troll’s wounds starting to heal.

Yolov sees Audacity and Az on the ground, Diana’s injuries, the troll looming over them.

Galowen can hear him mutter that they don’t have time before he sets his jaw, does some quick but careful calculations with Es, and points his staff in the troll’s direction. A small bead of fire darts from it and arcs past the troll, hovering over the nearby creek before there is an explosion of fire.

Everyone in front of the troll can feel the searing heat and smell horribly burned flesh as the troll screams, sinking to one knee and striking the ground hard enough to make it shake, bone poking out from where the burns have destroyed skin and muscle.

Hava whips around and stares at Yolov in shock, who looks just as shocked, as Galowen gives him a thumb’s up and moves forward. Galowen strikes out three times, his sword glowing with a familiar radiant light. The final blow is at a strange angle, and for a second the party accepts that Galowen is about to impale the troll through the ass. Instead Galowen’s sword pierces the troll’s lower stomach and impedes into its spine.

The troll wobbles and falls, its arm swinging out and knocking a tree down onto Az and Diana as it lands with a thud.

Galowen and Audacity start to get the tree off of them as Hava goes to talk to Yolov. When she asks him if he’s okay, he just stares at her, looking a little sick. She gives him a hug. She says really quietly, “If you don’t want to keep holding it together, you don’t have to.”

Yolov leans into her for a moment, and whispers back in a wobbly voice, “We just need to get to Maeve and Professor Dailiir as quickly as possible.”

The party continues up the mountain. They can see the trail that the frost troll carved out, but also a well-trodden path. Some of the group spot signs of travel by smugglers and thieves, marks notched into trees though no one can understand the ciphers.

Keeping an eye out, Yolov spies something metal and shining buried in the dirt, lit by sunlight. He kneels and pulls it out of the snow. It is a very familiar-looking silver arrowhead. He hasn’t seen this one in particular or its shape or craftsmanship, but it is still similar to the ones Hava uses.

He turns and offers it to Hava. She takes it and holds it in her hands as Yolov says if it’s her sister’s then that means they’re on the right track. Audacity looks but doesn’t see the rest of the arrow, just feathers and a ring of stones that suggest a potential camp recently.

Hava looks closely at the campsite, but it’s covered in a thin layer of snow.

They keep their eyes up as they keep going, watching the horizon and tree line. Between the map and everyone’s respective skills in travel and perception, they discover another path. Yolov and Hava quickly realize that there have been fallen boulders that have been moved off the path and which seem to be a persistent issue.

They don’t know which way the caravan went, further up the mountain or further down the mountain.

Hava takes a moment to cast Augury, trying to figure out if taking the path up is the right choice. She feels the chill of the beach at night settle over her shoulders as the shells in front of her shake and spell out the sign of woe.

She looks down and whispers that she knows that already. She tries to think of what choice Maeve would choose, and realizes she doesn’t know what Maeve would do, not like she would’ve when they were children. But she remembers them both staring out at the horizon and thinks that maybe her swashbuckling, troublemaking sister would go up, if only for a better vantage point.

Hava puts her face in her hands and then points up and says they’ll go that way.

Audacity crouches and waits with her as she puts away all of her shells and bones. Then they continue up the mountain, which is a difficult climb since usually people are traveling via caravan or riding mounts.

Galowen sees it first amid the snow and dirt, everything white except for a filthy smear of red splashed and splattered on the trunks of several trees. There are piles of desiccated and pulled apart wolf corpses. Hava notices next, and sees that there’s no blood on the path. These wolves seem to have been killed in the woods.

Galowen studies one of the corpses. Something humanoid-sized did this. There are no claw marks, something with hands and ragged sharp nails that was smaller than Galowen did this.

When he says that, Yolov says that rules out the troll.

Galowen says they should all be on their guard and then looks up in the forest. He spies something covered in dark fabric, like someone was trying to hide it. It’s a cart. It is covered in snow but otherwise undisturbed.

Galowen and Hava approach. They pull the fabric back and both gag at the sight of two or three corpses that have been shredded and frozen. It looks similar to the wolves. As they both rear back, covering their faces to ward off the smell of rot, they see blood-stained fur pelts and leather.

Hava realizes these people were taken apart long before the wolves. There are two almost complete bodies. From what she can tell, they’re both missing their hearts and probably weren’t killed here. She turns and tells Galowen this is wildly upsetting but also really interesting.

Audacity studies the furs and leathers, finding the mark of the Ravenheart on them. This is Loren’s missing caravan.

They know there were four people in the caravan, which means there are still two missing. The party theorizes that Maeve already found these corpses and put them in the caravan for safekeeping before going to look for the other two.

Az studies the surrounding area, his gaze snagging on a red ribbon caught up in a nearby tree. He sends Medrash up to retrieve it. Medrash can tell that the ribbon was ripped off of something but doesn’t notice anything else.

Az asks Audacity to go up and investigate as well. Audacity runs up the tree and studies the ribbon. It looks like it might be part of a scarf. As soon as he touches it, he recognizes it as very expensive Kastvarian silk. The second thing he notices is that someone had also been climbing around in this tree and realizes that person had slammed around further in the tree.

He keeps climbing. He sees that the broken branches continue up and then there are a series of broken branches in another nearby tree, seeming to cradle a shape. Curled up in the branches, it looks from a distance something almost reptilian in nature.

For a second he’s not quite sure what this greenish-blue shape is before he squints and realizes it’s a small dragonborn. He climbs back down and tells the group about the ribbon and the dragonborn.

Yolov says that one of Maeve’s crew was a dragonborn and Hava adds they need to check to see if the dragonborn is okay.

Az and Yolov send Medrash and Es with Audacity as he climbs up the tree where the dragonborn is. He sees a tiny dragonborn, about five feet tall, wearing decent armor. There’s no sign of red clothing that Audacity can see as he gets to about fifteen feet away.

He calls softly, asking if the dragonborn is okay. Audacity can see that the dragonborn’s chest is barely moving and spies a wound where fabric has been pressed to staunch it. He retrieves a healing potion from Hava.

Before he goes to give it to the dragonborn, he feels a magical chill and realizes that the blood hasn’t congealed. The dragonborn’s eyes are open but unconscious. He sends a rope down and brings Hava up, explaining what’s going on.

Hava studies the dragonborn and remembers a fishing accident where someone has been knocked out of a boat and badly injured. They were placed in essentially a medical coma. It was better for them to be unconscious during the healing and it took a lot of energy from the cleric, who had been trained on the mainland and was drained for days after this healing.

Eventually they had to wake this fisherman up via a very intensive magical process. Hava knows that the spell had a duration and that the spellcaster had to maintain the spell and redo it once a day. She can tell it’s waning and wasn’t done by an expert. It would take a very high level of Dispel Magic to do it.

Hava says he should be okay, but they need to get him down.

They jump out of the tree with the dragonborn in tow, landing safely due to Yolov’s casting of Feather Fall.

Galowen studies the wound as they lay the dragonborn on the ground but can’t tell what made it. Yolov looks down and sees that its claws are pressed against its wound, but there is a single piece of red silk also clutched in its claw.

There is the faintest crunch of snow behind them before they hear the sound of metal against leather as a blade is drawn and a ragged, exhausted voice says, “Keep away from him.”

They all turn and see, dressed in bloody, ragged leathers, is a beaten, bruised tiefling with red skin and curling horns, remnants of makeup sweated off of his face, looking scratched, bruised, and marked. He is pointing the rapier at them with a shaky hand.

He spies Hava and his blade lowers for a second before he says, “You’re back.” Then he realizes she isn’t Maeve and adds, “No, you’re not my captain. I don’t know who you are, wearing her face.”

Yolov says she’s Maeve’s sister and Hava says she’s Hava. The tiefling doesn’t believe her and orders her to step away from Kresh. He tells them that Kresh is infected, that he will die if they take the spell off of him. He will become like the bodies, which became half creature half human and consumed with bloodlust.

Audacity offers the tiefling food and Kastvarian treats, which he refuses.

The tiefling says they tried to remove the curse, but it didn’t work, and Maeve went up the mountain to try and figure out a way to save Kresh. He is clearly exhausted and has been feeding these wolves to the beasts in the forest.

Hava offers to heal him of some of his exhaustion and he looks her over and calls her Havasol. She heals him, and watches him relax a little and put his rapier away before he asks what they’re doing here. They explain that they were searching for Maeve.

The tiefling explains that the Stormriders found three of the caravan’s people, the third doing this to Kresh.

Yolov brings out the Wand of Fear that Asa gave him and says he’ll want this back later since a friend gave it to him, but it seems like it might be more useful for him for the moment. The tiefling asks why he’s giving a stranger something valuable, and Yolov says he’s part of Maeve’s crew.

The tiefling is still confused until the party says that’s just Yolov and Yolov adds that they met Cassone and she said how important her crew is to Maeve and Maeve is important to Hava.

The tiefling sighs as though them being friends with Cassone explains a lot. He invites them to rest for a moment with him and introduces himself as Travesty.

Audacity is very amused by the name and introduces himself and the others.

Travesty explains that he has been hiding Kresh in the trees since the creatures don’t seem to like to climb. They sound like werewolves but from his description Yolov thinks these are creatures that were affected by the shadowfell presence. He doesn’t know of a way to fix it. However he knows that the creatures need that connection to the shadowfell and if that is interrupted then someone who isn’t fully infected will be all right.

As Yolov explains this to the group, Audacity brews the last of his Kastvarian tea and Travesty practically inhales it, sighing over always wanting to drop in at Port Sci for good tea. They briefly discuss different ports, insulting Striogian ports to Az’s resigned agreement. The Stormriders often avoid Port Sci because Maeve can’t refuse jobs there.

When Hava asks how long it has been since Maeve left him and Kresh there, Travesty says he thinks it’s been five days. Hava says that they need to go, and Yolov agrees that they should go while there’s still daylight.

Galowen and Audacity go to put Kresh back up in his hidden spot while Yolov magically mends Travesty’s scarf and Hava apologizes for leaving Travesty and Kresh there.

Travesty understands. He is worried Maeve hasn’t come back because she can’t help Kresh, and she can’t face that after losing Aria. Hava says they need to go help Maeve and help her get Aria back.

Travesty offers Hava a coin: on one side is an engraved TLM and on the other an image of two arrows stuck down into a wave. It is the symbol of the Lost Mistake. If she holds it in her hand and squeezes very hard and says a code phrase, it will burn in Maeve’s hand. There is a range on it.

Hava thanks him for it before they head out.

They walk up and up and up, an hour melting into three before very suddenly as they step off the trail and head in the direction Maeve went to figure out how to break the curse, they all begin to feel a prickling down their spines. It’s similar to how they all felt when the dragon descended upon Radiscune.

The sun begins to set, shadows deepening. In the distance, they hear what should be a howl, but instead is a grating, echoing malformed shriek of a wounded animal.

Hava takes one more step forward and the coin clutched in her hand begins to burn.