Iridescence Day

I still can't decide whether I want to try and celebrate Christmas when Iridescence Day falls on the same day. It would be out of habit, celebrating Christmas. We always celebrated it at home to honor the holiday the gods of Earth brought with them. I just feel like I would rather spend the day celebrating Iri. Sharing a meal with everyone, telling stories, relaxing. Explaining a whole new holiday that happens to fall on the same day might be a bit much, especially when I'm making the preparations for Iridescence Day anyway. But anyways, lots to talk about in this entry. Not all bad, but lets just say that Iridescence Day was interrupted. So here we are, the adventures of Lance Fenleth and Jenel Dalael episode... 2? Yeah I think it's episode 2.
 
I had been looking forward to Iridescence Day for a good month now. Celebrating Iri was long overdue, especially because we haven't made any progress towards saving her. That, and Iridescence Day was going to be the first time since the Brynhildr hunt that all of us were together. We've just been so busy that we haven't taken time to relax as a group outside of the manse. Skolvar has been rebuilding the fort and focusing his efforts on turning that back into the hub that it used to be. Hem has been training Dana nonstop and ensuring that Nymph can be freed as soon as possible. Arvenna has been helping the town and really spreading her name as a local hero. I've been traveling and dealing with much of the evil that surrounds Briarcreek. We just haven't had the time to all get together and I could tell it had been eating at people. So I wanted to make Iridescence Day a night to remember. I bought a feast of Theo's finest meals and left to the site of our celebration early to clear out anything that might be wandering nearby.
 
It didn't take long to fly over to where Iri sacrificed herself to give Jenel power. Maybe about a day and a half or so since I could just fly over the terrain. It seems I wasn't the only one who wanted to clear out the area though as I ran into Skolvar early on the day prior to our celebration. We greeted each other and got to work, but thankfully there wasn't too much work to be done. No hellhounds, no undead, no threats nearby. After clearing the area, we set some decorative candles around the area. Definitely reminded me of Christmas lights, but all that mattered to me was that the area was fit for celebration. Later on in the evening Celestial Reina joined us as well as Arvenna just before we went to sleep. That floating horse of her is pretty damn cool! Makes little to no noise and definitely looks cool as fuck. We had some wild game for dinner and all went to sleep in the tiny hut. We spoke with Hem a bit in the manse to ensure he was ready to head over. With Nymph looking like she was just about freed, he didn't want to miss more days than necessary over there so he planned to set out early morning. Other than that, we all did our usual stuff for the most part. Skolvar did some strength training with Kord and Arvenna, Jenel and I performed evensong. And thus, Iridescence Day was upon us.
 
I'm not sure if it was the shoggoth lord who decided to ruin Iridescence Day or if one of the gods decided to, but whoever it was made a bad decision. Our day started with some miserable rain. We had to take shelter inside of the hut all day and it was definitely cramped with all of us in there. Eventually Hem arrived and the hut was even more cramped. But of course some bad rain wasn't going to stop us from celebrating Iridescence Day! Unfortunately it wasn't just bad rain, but we began our celebration. I brought out our feast and drinks and we all enjoyed ourselves while we could. I told some beautiful stories about Iri that I had turned into song and we definitely enjoyed being with each other, something that we hadn't done in a while. But of course, someone decided to ruin our day.
 
Turns out, this wasn't just regular rain. We were sitting around inside of the hut, enjoying our dinner, when a few undead started shambling towards the hut. At the same time, I started hearing screams come from the fort. We could sense malice from the rain and upon reaching our hands out of the hut, we were burned by the rain by a necrotic force. We discussed our options and ultimately decided to get to the fort as soon as possible. Everyone hopped inside of the well and I flew over. The rain didn't hurt that bad, but the average guard would definitely be in danger. And if they weren't in danger from the rain, they were definitely in danger from the shoggoth that made its way to the surface and was attacking the fort. I found a spot where I could open the well and shield it from the rain, but as everyone hopped out we noticed a man was standing in the rain attacking the shoggoth. It didn't seem like he cared about the necrotic forces and was attacking it. We dealt with it fairly quickly, but it did a number on the others. These shoggoths are no joke and I fear what would happen if multiple attacked at once. I don't think I'm being cocky when I say that I think I could take one on my own, but I'm a bit more robust than the others, Skolvar included. But anyways, we dealt with it and the nearby undead afterwards despite the rain which ended shortly after.
 
After I regrouped with the others, they told me that the Vistani had warned them of the man that fought with us. He had since disappeared, but they said that he had attacked them and was a danger. We searched for him and found him nearby. He is pretty good at hiding from people, but Hem was able to spot him. Here is the tldr of the conversation we had: So this man, Knight Commander Kiln, comes from a kingdom called Grifter. This kingdom fought a war against the forces of darkness which ultimately had them fighting each other. The shoggoth lord wielded a power that they came to call the Rain of Souls. This necrotic rain, the one that we dealt with, turned anyone it killed into undead. They combined forces with the nearby kingdoms of the Elves and the Dwarves and dealt with this threat. He led a group called the Chimera Squad, a group of elite warriors that were successful in sealing away the shoggoth lord, so they thought. They rerouted a nearby magma stream to encase the thing and sealed it away, but clearly the thing is back, and apparently in a new location I guess. After Kiln's group dealt with the shoggoth they were petrified and turned to statues in case the threat ever came back. He was woken up to a ruined kingdom and his team was not unpetrified with him. Upon searching the area, he encountered the mists which brought him to the Vistani, who brought him to the fort.
 
I'm not sure what we're going to do with the shoggoth lord. Kiln describes fighting one that is only a third of the size of this one and that terrifies me. They had to utilize the nearby natural forces to deal with it, or in other words, they themselves were not strong enough to deal with it directly. That's not to say they're not strong, because clearly Kiln was handling himself fine, but still. They weren't able to fight it themselves. We decided to ask Fafnir about it hoping he could give us some insight, but that brings us to the end of our day. We all went to sleep and decided to talk more about our situation at the manse because we couldn't trust Kiln just yet. All he wants is to get back home, but the fact remains that he attacked the Vistani and is an unknown. Our plan is pretty solid though if you ask me. We'll ask Fafnir about the shoggoth lord, then Thorne. Hopefully they can give us something to go off of, but I'm also thinking about reaching out to Eilistraee about it. I'll have to talk to Jenel about how I could do that, if there's anything special I need to do and whatnot.
 
That brings us to the end of this episode though. Iridescence Day wasn't ruined and I enjoyed myself. I hope the others did. I know Jenel definitely did. She is always telling me to eat more often and take time for myself and this was exactly that. I could tell she was happy afterwards but I also hope she was happy because she enjoyed it too. I'm also... well I was going to say I am nervous about the Fafnir conversation but I don't think nervous is the right word. I guess I just don't know what to expect and I don't want to piss him off. The premise is that we're meeting and he is decided if we grew enough to form a pact, but the last thing I want is a pact of power with him, or at least that's the case right now. I'm not naïve enough to think that turning my back on his power would be a good idea in the grand scheme of things, but I also don't want to take on powers outside of my own until after we deal with Arlian. I want to be the one to defeat Arlian with my own power. I hate what he has done to us, but in my mind defeating him with my own power would be the final thanks that I give him. I can't deny that at the end of the day he turned my mind into a fortress that is much more difficult for our enemy to break into. He also helped mom and dad for a long time. Proving to him that I am strong enough to defeat him with my own power is the goal. Perhaps we could put him to rest without him worrying about the fight too much anyways. He has had a pretty good run with his wielders recently. Grandfather was the first to challenge The Priest. Dad grew strong enough to banish all of the elder gods back to their own plane of existence. I wish to grow strong enough to keep them here. So yeah, I don't know what to expect of the Fafnir conversation. The best case for me would be to walk out of that conversation with knowledge of how to contact home, but I don't know what I could offer him for that information. If he hates me, why would he help me reconnect with my family?
 
Alright, alright. That's all I can write for tonight. I had time to write this after evensong but Jenel is clearly getting bored. I've been teaching her how to wield a longsword and her training has been coming along very well. Time for another lesson so that Eilistraee's favorite priestess can wield a sword like she was meant to.