I've seen off Kelmar, Wyndelly, and Nezeri off on their mission to investigate the situations on Sharron leaving myself to look into the matters on Endurance with the newcomers to our little circle. Varis and Andraste are both far more competent with a blade than I am and have worked hard to interweave their magical arts with their martial abilities but this will be my chance to see how they stand up to the rigors of a mission.
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| Ketserra |
As another issue, I currently have scales. We've taken on contractors for this mission as we had before and one of those is a young lizardfolk by the name of Ketserra. She hails from the same world as Kelmar and in consideration of the war between mammals and reptiles there, I have decided to take on a mask as a yuan-ti. This was not a well-thought out attempt at consideration as I am now stuck like this if I don't want to reveal my nature to her or our other hireling. It's only a matter of time before I am called out for being a fake. I suppose a new persona could develop, but in all likelihood they'd be just as annoyed by having to go by Kanti as I am by the itchy scales. Regardless, I'm not sure Ketserra is aware of how a yuan-ti is supposed to act so she hasn't caught me out having emotions yet. We'll see about Jekk, however.
Jekk is our second contractor for this mission. He is the guide that will take use through the underdark to the location of one of Istryx's temples, known as Truc in this world. We engaged his services at a refugee camp within a great pyramid. The other side of the that deal appeared to be trying to cut an unfair deal. I was also a bit impressed that one of his concerns for working with us was that the refugees needed stuff that he knew where to find, but we were able to appease some of his concerns.
I left him to the details of our upcoming journey and working with Ketserra as the siblings and I tracked down Rhea, present on site to create some sort of stability for the refugees. There were a handful of other deva around as well, but we managed to get her alone and bring her up to date on the matter of the cult and the encounter with the warlock we had. She agreed with my own concerns about trusting this...triton agent. Whether she's well-meaning or trying to actively work against us is still up in the air. Unfortunately, she didn't have much to add about where her goddess might have something. She made a suggestion that both her goddess and mine would value knowledge be likely to hide something in the presence of obscure or hidden knowledge.
Our conversation was initially cut off by an assault on the refugee camp by a group of goblins. The defenders of the camp were a mix of orcs, dwarves, and humans and the assault was coming through two entrances to the area. The siblings and I moved to support the east flank as Ketserra, Jekk and Rhea moved to the west. Ketserra was a bit, shall we see, enthusiastic, probably trying to impress us, but at least she stayed behind the barriers for the most part. Jekk and even Rhea both vaulted the barriers and took the fight directly to the ettins and goblins.
Andraste and Varis both applied some impressive magical abilities, including summoning shadows to bolster our ranks. This does concern me a bit as shadows are known to propagate quite quickly, but perhaps these shadows are not true undead and not likely to have that issue. Ketserra's devotion to the light gives her some powerful offensive abilities. I'm not sure what sort of light, I'm not familiar with the nature of her religion. Kelmar has indicated that the people of his world venerate concepts rather than giving those concepts individual personality. She unleashed a fireball on the enemies to support Rhea and Jekk cutting into the enemies. For my part, I did my normal matter of turning enemies against each other. The attack was quelled quickly enough and we took the chance to rest up before moving out, fresh, into the underdark.
With Jekk's guidance we've been making what feels like good time though not without some encounters. The first was nearly a dangerous thing. We stumbled into collection of three earth elementals which attacked us. I moved a bit too slowly and ended up alone and cut off from the others after Andraste shifted forward to attack the one elemental that had moved to engage already. I used my pistol to conjure a barrage to try to chip at them and used what mental tricks I could, but the mind of elementals is a bit different from what I'm used to. I was taken out of action quite quickly only to awaken a few moments later due to healing from Ketserra. We then finished off the elementals, Andraste making frequent use of a spell that produces a massive sound that hit creatures like these elementals quite hard.
Camping later that night was interrupted by another assault of goblins, this time supported by ogres. Most of my offering to the task was in tossing a lighted coin out to reveal our attackers while Ketserra and Andraste unleashed fireballs. Varis and Jekk engaged the enemies more directly, but while there was initially concern, in the end the threat was minimal. It was the next day when things got a bit more interesting.
We were crossing a stone bridge over a chasm when the earth started to shake and bits of the bridge began to collapse underneath us. Jekk's preferred route was quickly made impossible but he did not hesitate long to direct us down one of the other two. Unfortunately, the route we're now taking goes past a settlement that he apparently has bad history with.
Though that is for later, for now it is more important to note that the collapse was caused by a dragon trying to get in at us. It managed a brief breath of fire upon us as we passed beneath and called out for us to "Come back, I will eat you like all minions of the Whispered oathbreaker!" I begin to suspect that our client has something to do with the reason why dragons set about to turn this world to ash, at least periphereally. Needless to say, we had no desire to remain in the area even though it was apparent that the dragon was failing to dig the rest of the way through the rock.
This encounter occurred toward the end of a long march, but we weren't done quite yet. We had no wish to camp near the chasm in case the dragon came through, but we also found ourselves facing another spot of danger in the form of a curious warning sign placed over the stitched up corpse of a duergar under some words in an unfamiliar language. We took some time for me to perform a ritual to comprehend the languages of the writing and what I found was a statement stating: "This be the land of Uthei. Intruders welcome to be my next dolls." What I know about the fomorians is a bit mixed, but aside from the fomorians of ancient Earth, the talk of fomorians I've heard since going out into the multiverse indicates that they are giants who were long ago cursed with horrible visages to represent the evil of their souls.
This particular fomorian had a group of goblins supporting him as Jekk informed us after I used the magical instrument I had purchased to grant him invisibility. The song to do so was a bit...weak, I'm still not well trained on this particular instrument, but it's close enough to guitar to make the magic work.
Once Jekk had returned with the information, he set about "setting up". Setting up apparently involved quietly killing the two guard posts of goblins before we all approached the fomorian's room specifically. There was one point of danger in the situation when the first guard station was killed a bit noisily between Jekk and Ketserra. One of the other goblins started to come to investigate and while Jekk had magic to make him appear as a goblin, he didn't actually speak their language. Luckily, my spell for understanding languages was still active and I was able to relay what the goblin was asking via a Message spell, and Jekk managed to do some pantomime to disarm the situation. After that, we just tore things apart quite easily. Though Jekk managed to intimidate the goblin shaman and boss to work with us in the end and let them leave alive.
With the fomorian dead and the camp clear, while we were getting ready to clear the site, I took the chance to cast my mind and senses above us and caught sight of a young red dragon arguing with a young blue dragon. The blue went off into a random direction, joining the many other dragons in the sky scanning the ground around, but the red was focused. More interesting, there were humanoids standing around with the dragon. I recast the spell to take a closer look and found that they were some sort of reptilian but I could not identify the exact kind, and they started to march off in the direction we were heading, passing over us. They had bright red scales similar to the dragon, perhaps they were connected somehow. I think it quite likely that we'll see them again.
On that matter, it has occurred to me just where one might go to find obscure and forgotten knowledge. It is not a particularly pleasant thought. Especially given the attempt by the Opali doppleganger to escape.
I do believe that there is a Library in the Lost.
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