Split Decisions

The camp had concern and panic after the scout’s message. Many murmurs about who’s going to help us, how are we going to complete this ritual, will the forest fall to these creatures, are the gods punishing them for being lazy, are these necklaces really needed or is the council strong enough to withstand? In my mind I heard a deeper voice in draconic mentality, ” You stand alone away from all your kin yet you seem unafraid, you show more courage than some of those sworn to protect this woods, Gozreh would be pleased.” A complement from Zaltarian, quite nice. To be honest, I had similar doubts but to panic would do me nothing at the moment. I also had faith in my dragon kin to protect this group for the time. I decided to explore my options.
I talked to the muldnal about just getting back to Naan with my cart. He quoted me the full 750gp for everything. Disappointing but understandable for the size. Business after all. I would have liked to leave this whole life and death chosen few thing, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend the money. I had to pray to Calistria for guidance on what I should do. The Great Coppertail Mother had answered my prayer. Calistria's advise to me, "You are wise, capable, and successfully getting this necklace would give you something to hold over Eval. Your success isn't guaranteed but it would avenge his misjudgment of your wisdom and prove you to be reliable, furthering his respect for you and for your coercion of him in the future."
I shall take her heed and carefully plot my actions by biding my time and waiting for a more clear opportunity to acquire the last necklace. As it stands, I believe that all the necklaces will need to be gathered at the ritual grounds regardless of who's side RRRoshin is on. I shall reinforce this greater group with my skills to further myself toward this goal.
I asked to be taken to the armory to start working. A forest elf led our little group to a minotaur at the forge. On the way, Kniana said that she would take the necklace if I was unwilling to help. I don’t want to part with it for the sake of RRRoshin’s request. If this ritual is of all this importance I suppose I could pick it up again after the event. Apparently the Lady of the Nine could be a replacement of sorts for the last necklace but would likely die. I’ve been told that if she were to die before some soul transfer ritual, her spirit and knowledge would be lost. As it stood, we still needed the stone. I guess that the ritual could still be done, but it would be like a vial of mending paste to a Dire member’s greatsword. [temporary and fragile] If we could get back the stone the seal could be refreshed for ten more years. Eval questions how we would even get the stone back and how big it even was. We were told it was eight inches in diameter… We all thought it was like eight feet… It’s one of many for the barrier. The abduction of such opened a crack in the barrier and things are slipping through that crack. When talking about returning they would need a planar change spell, but there’s some catch about dimensional travel… The elf pulled out a scroll when we arrived at the minotaur’s anvil and shoved everything to the side to the smith’s annoyance. I wouldn’t have shushed the minotaur’s huff, but the elf didn’t care I guess… The map the elf spread was roughly drawn it showed the bridge gate, the enemy encampment, patrols, and a castle looking bit. The stone was likely in a tower of the supposedly empty castle. The scouts tripped some alarm that activated shadow constructs or gargoyles or something. Getting my hand on one of those would be neat to pick apart to see how it works. The rest of this little party went off to do something else while I stayed.
My plan was to lend assistance to the forge and help make this army more likely to succeed. Motivated by Calistria and my spite tward Eval I was going to make this army successful with better arms and armor. The minotaur was a good craftsman, all the wears I saw were of at least masterwork. Very well done for a mass production type thing. I could tell that he had been working a long while as the quality was slowly falling. I told him I was here to help. He handed me a business card with a minotaur on a coin in a majestic pose.[Captain Morgan pose] The card had his name, Maestro Barrelchest and the fact he had a card told me that he was a good craftsman. He is defiantly a mute; he had said no words to me and only have huffed during my interactions. He let me attempt to use some tools he had out and I embarrassingly fumbled around due to my unfamiliarity with these tool in particular. He watched a bit before opening a bag of holding to pull out a very large anvil and a bunch of masterwork tools. He went back to work as I restarted with casting my crafting spells working full tilt for the first time in a few months. At one point Skrel put in a request for a heavy spiked steel shield with a quick release like that of a throwing shield. Eval came by a few hours later.
 
Eval wanted to get the healing ale out of my cart, so I took a break to assist him. He complained a bit about having to carry ammunitions and the ridiculous number of quivers he has. I made mentions of various spells and augments that I know of. His eyes went wide as he started to consider options. In the meantime I cast Floating Disk to move the barrel for him. He was looking to distribute the drink to try to ease tensions. At one point what I assumed to be a dryad screamed “My sisters, my trees, they are burning my grove!” before dying. A group left through the wall assisted by the elementals to investigate. Eval seemed particularly distressed by the dryad. Turns out he considers any and all elemental types as family. While serving the ale, a few unicorns came into camp with four tree ents covered in glowing runes. These must be the remaining Forest Fathers. They walked over to the war tent to talk to the group. After they were done they walked over to the stone wall that the elementals temporarily opened again. They commanded a tree to uproot, walk into the area, and replant before touching it and blipping away. Musta been Treestride… After that I went back to work at the forge.
 
I worked through some of the night, I did take the time to make my magic Mending marker again. I looked at working on the book that Eval handed off to me. I managed to repair the book itself through magic. The writing was tricky, but I took my time to retrace it, and managed to salvage about half of the text. Seemed to be a journal from a conman, a verbal cutpurse if you would. He had some deals with a few high rank Ruby members, even Lord Latharius. I now have no plans to return the potions we pulled from that accursed weed.
I presented the book to Eval the next morning with him questioning how it was fixed. He also questioned about how I could see magical auras and what not so I ended up showing him my cart with my goggles while casting Detect Magic. I laughed internally as he stared directly into the sun with the amount of magic on my cart. We were given food before a long day. I only took a bite and found it rather bland so I tossed it to Bessy. Eval questioned why I never seemed to eat. I told him I mostly just taste test things, but I don’t need to eat due to my Ring of Sustenance. Eval being Eval, I explained the ring and how I mostly use it for more time in a day. At that Lt.Tamebrass came by. He didn’t have any of the heal ale and Eval questioned it. The Lt. is one of the “body of a temple” and “I am a beautiful creature” types. He was shirtless with ripped pants looking at Kniana’s direction. She came out of her cart looking ready to fight. Quite the difference from the silks and impress nobles type clothing I was used to seeing her in. She ended up walking over to Tamebrass wished him good morning and nuzzled him. His composure shattered after that. Turns out he likes Kniana, would explain some things I’ve seen. The others were like “duh,” but I didn’t know, I’m a kobold.
Two unicorns in came to the area. We were supposed to go visit the druid Devarre. The one who’s responsible for shielding the warding obelisk according to Tamebrass. His family’s responsibility to guard the stones. Tamebrass contuned with saying that we couldn’t take our carts for this jaunt into the forest but they would be safe here with Zaltarian. Yeah….no I say I have to stay behind. The others get ready I had off the Ruby necklace to Skrel while he gives me his bag of holding for safe keeping. I guess it does make a nice collateral should something happen. I also taught and gave him the experimental Tink Coppertail Contact Scroll™ of Fireball to help him. After that walk through the fire I would expect that if it went wild with him he would be unscathed. He said that I should make one of detonate which is very concerning to me, but it would make a good test. He also wanted gloves instead of scroll paper. I would LOVE to do that, but I have no idea how. Supposedly the dwarves know how, but I know no dwarves… I mentioned that I could try a tattoo maybe after some experimenting. The two unicorns approached mentally saying their names were Dalphyis and Pollembeer. They told those who were going to touch their fur so they could take them to the circle. As soon as they touched them they were gone. As for me, back to work.
 
Not even 15 minutes later a group of 15 Deep Lords appeared in camp. They came to the forge where I was continuing to work. Several of them collected some arms and armor from the minotaur. One of the lords looked eerily familiar. He was a bramblemancer that looked like the one that attacked us in camp on the way to Brentwood… I couldn’t be sure, it LOOKED like him, but the staff he had was different… I will have to talk to the Lady of Nine about such things…