Session 87- The Western Lands of Rhanil

General Summary

Intoxicating Experience

I am still trying to understand what happened on the evening of the 29^th in Ernius. Those intoxicating fumes completely clouded my mind, what a fun time it was. And that beautiful Succubus... Helena, Helena, Helena, Helena... Focus. I am sure she (Helena) doesn’t really expect me to be a monk on these journeys, but I truly love her, I will have to start taking better care of myself.
  But how did I get to this? Ah, the Succubus. Well, after she escaped us, we returned to her cave, and although I was more or less clear in my mind (less, less...), I still thought it was a mistake and that we could have created a strong ally here for the future. I decided to leave her a note in case she returned. After all, she already knows a lot about our purpose here and where we are heading. So I wrote to her that I meant it when I said I would be happy to cooperate if circumstances brought us together again or if she needed help. And we had the problem of the band of fans that started running around these mines looking for her.
  So it came to my mind to simply tell them that I know where she is and that they shouldn’t dare follow because she is only mine, and it worked (well, I'm pretty genius, aren't I?). Most of them began to follow me out, except for three who seemed to have delved deeper into the mines. Rameus and Henry hurried inside to locate them. Pretty quickly they came out with two of them and went back to look for the third. After a few minutes, a huge swarm of bats emerged from the tunnel. I was initially surprised, but then it suddenly clicked that it might be Rameus's doing. He has some sort of fixation with bats (he is really convinced that Serena – the mouse with wings – is part of the group). Shortly after that, they came out with the third soldier. It turns out he was attacked by several kobolds and they managed to stabilize him after they killed the kobolds. Rameus was a bit mysterious about how they killed the kobolds, and it seemed to me there was a connection to the bat swarm that came out of the cave.
  When we arrived in the village, I looked for Friedrich, Avaras, and Max to think about what to do with this pathetic bunch until they sobered up. I found out that they went to a hut in the village belonging to a wizard/healer/whatever. I approached the hut, and Avaras came out and asked me what was happening. I explained it to him, and he asked me to come in, and that’s how I met Aileen. She is also beautiful (Helena... Helena... Helena...), and after I explained the situation, she agreed to help and, according to my description, created an illusion of the Succubus in a room. We invited the band of fans to enter there and then locked the door. Tomorrow the effect of the drugs will wear off, and we will be able to release them.
 

A possible Alliance with Aileen, the Priestess of Ella'li

Meanwhile, Friedrich , Avaras , and Max told me what happened to them. It turns out Aileen is a priestess of Ella'li, the goddess of poison from the Neomen Pantheon (how many gods are there... Oops, sorry if I offended anyone...). It turns out this hut is blessed by the gods, that Friedrich managed to release a spirit that was residing in the place and cleanse the house. And it also turns out Max doesn’t remember his childhood... Neither do I really. Ever since I arrived in this plane, I hardly remember anything from the previous plane, everything just seems to fade away slowly.   In the morning, we decided to continue our journey northward. Remus pulled out three dead bats and went to bury them, and I noticed Aileen watching him with a curious look. In short, it was agreed that Aileen would join us, at least for part of the journey, but later, after the effect of the drug passes and the people are released.  

The 30^th of Ernius

The 30^th of the month turned from a boring travel day into an exciting rescue mission at the end... but I am getting ahead of myself. So the story goes: We arrived at one village and then another, and finally arrived at Bractow. A fairly large village, I would say about 4,000-6,000 residents. We entered a shop to buy some clothes for comparison purposes. Max didn’t exactly manage to enter (he's quite big, that guy, maybe even a giant, I would say, and yet there is something graceful about him, and even in his walk, there is something light that doesn’t quite match his size). Anyway, he stayed outside, and I was in the shop, riveted to the subject of shopping (haha... not really). And I heard beautiful music from outside. I went out to see and found it was Max playing a horn. Another question mark about him, who is he? What is he?
  Anyway, there was a commotion and hustle in the street, people were hurrying towards the center of the village. When we asked what was happening, we were told there was an execution of a demon that was caught. A demon caught... I hadn’t seen anyone in this place who could catch something stronger than a farmer who had a tantrum on his cow, so a demon? This doesn't smell good. We gathered the group and made our way to the center of the village. On the way, we understood that the demon was probably a tiefling who confessed to several murders. It started to smell more like a witch hunt. For a moment, I still thought maybe it would be better if we left, but then I saw him, the Tiefling, a boy. I asked Friedrich if he thought we should save him. He concentrated for a second, as he likes to do, and answered yes. Besides, this is an action against the Dominion, and we want to strengthen the resistance, spread the word about the Tidebreakers' group.

An Elaborate Plan

The plan was as follows: I would sabotage the door mechanism of the facility, Serena would take one of Rameus’s dark stones, and Max would hold Frederick with one hand. Then, when they try to perform the execution and the door doesn’t open, Serena would drop the stone on the platform, Max would sneeze loudly, throw Frederick onto the platform with one hand, and hit Henry with the other hand. They would start a loud fight, I would run to the guards and add to the hysteria, and Frederick would teleport with the tiefling back to Aileen’s hut.
  And that’s exactly what we did, until the commotion subsided and they realized the tiefling had disappeared. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough. Ah, yes, I remembered, Avaras helped us with a second dark stone. Lately, it feels like he is not really here, like he is here, but not. Kind of an absentee presence. It's hard for me to explain it.