Journal Page
Festival of Merit
The elders of Jigow passed out the water-breathing potions and then the race was on. The Rivals practically slammed their potions as Ayo took off ahead of the group. The Second Round were just a little slower, rushing into the water of the submerged cavern behind their opposition. Pushing through the waters, they came to a fork where Maggie Keeneyes encouraged them to take the path to the East. Realizing that hanging back to try to fight their way past Maggie would eat up time, the Second Round moved the way she suggested.
They were then presented with a series of caverns presenting dangers such as swarms of carnivorous fish, necrotic sea-grasses and landslides. In each case the problem was handled by the crew quickly and with the expenditure of a few magical resources. They even found a healing potion and soggy scroll along the way. They sped through their challenges coming to the end of the line and the sight of huge shark swimming around within the cavern. Around its body was tied an amulet the twin to the one shown by Elder Ushru at the start of the contest and in its side was stuck a spear. The creature glowed with a silvery pale light as it eyed the creatures that entered its small lair.
Esoh tried to freeze the creature in its tracks with crystalline lightning, but the beast shook free of the effect. Elara rushed out adding the light of her own goddess to the mix, lighting the creature up more and drawing its ire. The beast savaged her cruelly driving her unconscious. Behind, Snype prepped her musket and fired thanks to an alchemical concoction she'd picked up from Anaalch earlier. With Quoth whispering secrets of positioning into Snype's ear, her bullets struck true a moment before Imvenda's curse settled on the beast and she blasted it with her own eldritch power.
The scriptorium wizard swum forward adapting one of her spells to coat the beast in an electrified sludge before retreating back into a place it would need to work to reach. As the beast swum after her enraged, Elara stirred as she half-heard the whisper of a shimmering child and waking up to see the shark looming over her. Following a hunch, she reached out tore the spear out of its side and swam around out of its line of sight coming beside Esoh just before the beast slammed into her friend, pushing the wizard back against the cavern wall.
With the shark out of line of sight, Imvenda summoned an illusion of many images and maneuvered to get a better view. Unfortunately, the rush of water in the shark's wake displaced the water-safe blasting jel she'd received from their alchemist friend and she had to spend a round applying a new daub. Esoh reached out with her mind to stab a blast of psychic energy into the shark's mind and burst into an immaterial mist away from the creature. Elara reached out to the Moon Weaver summoning a column of silvery fire that hedged the shark into the lower part of the cavern.
Driven mad with pain the shark scraped along the walls of the cavern to clean off the arcane electric as Snype's sharpshooting continued to pepper the monster from behind the cover of the moonbeam. Though Imvenda's bolts lashed out off target. Esoh sprayed the monster again with a new round of electrifying goo while Elara's prayers drew a sliver of the silver light of her moon beam to strike out at the shark, only for it's thrashing to push it out of the way as it once again sought to escape the spell burning it's skin away. But that left it open to a final barrage of magic and steel from the heroes.
In the beast's final moments it smashed open the wall to the south, unleashing a flood of golden light into the waters as the Rivals appeared, themselves looking the worse for the wear. Upon a pre-Calamity altar there among trees and out of the water was a golden amulet and the moment Elara reached in to pick it up, a vision gripped the party in which a ragged man bound by abhorrent ropes of a fleshy crimson substance spoke out to them, pleading for rescue as he spoke of praying to the Change Bringer for aid. A moment later, they woke up to see the Rivals acting to try and rouse them and a small conversation was had before it was decided that everybody should head back to the surface before their water-breathing potions wore out.
Later the adventurers shared a few rounds with their rivals in the Unbroken Tusk discussing matters of faith, tactics, arcane secrets, and though they were clearly curious, Ayo and the others danced around the topic of the jewel... at least until the next day after Elder Ushru spoke to the Second Round about his own vision he named the relic they had found as the Jewel of Three Prayers. Further discussion on the matters of the Calamity and temples of evil, he suggested that they make their way to the city of Bazzoxan, a former mining outpost that is under siege by demons and their ilk.
Catching sight of the tail end of this discussion, Ayo stepped forward insisting that she wanted to be a part of whatever it is the party had stepped into. Coming to an agreement, the group convinced Anaalch Gramemist to bring them on as guards as they headed south to the caravan stop and then East for the demon-cursed city of Bazzoxan.... After they managed to get Ana past the guards and her own poor memory for what tasks she has and has not completed.
No comments:
Post a Comment