Beat Feet in the Heat

We set out on the two day trek access the Svendio desert to The Titan's Heel. The group being as it is chatted about all the hypothetics. I told them of the true delicacy of magics. At least of the point that a single mis-done part could spell disaster. Hence the typical redundancy that is associated with rituals. Extras to act as verifiers, security, and such for the event. Eventually the conversation turned to recent near-death encounters and such. turns out that Skrel has no soul. He made a foolish decision in his youth and now his master is displeased... Turning back to the current ritual, I suggest subterfuge rather than straight battle. At least try to catch them before they form some united front.
They also speculated as to what the heel was being used for., likely involved in some way to the Azure Spider Silk. Of which I found out an 8oz. puck they confiscated from Brisk the halfling was worth something like 2k gp. Now I MUST keep the bag I acquired for my research into the propertied of the Frestine crystal dust. It also confirms the criminal Lily was with more info about her past dealings... This lead to the talk of monetary matters. I reminded her that should I perish that Maki would certainly send Clan Dire to recover the owed debt from her. The held balance I have wouldn't make it to him otherwise. A little incentive for them to protect me. Kniana even made mention that I must be kept safe as I had the same situation with her.
The talk then turned to the weather and how it interacts with Maki's tent. They thought it was immune to environmental factors and they could use it to beat the heat during midday. Like no, the effects are still there, they interact strangely, but they are there. It was actually a little worse due to the lack of windows for a breeze. Not to mention that several members of the group are frankly too sketchy to be allowed in guild property. Eval seemed to think that I myself would be good in the desert due to my scales for some reason or another. More talk of the hours to travel, us to avoid the midday heat and everything. Especially since Tamebrass's armor is welded to his skin and I'd prefer not to smell cooked gnoll. Overall the talk and indecision is taking it's toll on me as much as the desert itself. The worst of it now is I cannot even escape to my cart...
I wasn't the only one that was miffed. Kniana is still in the dark and unhappy of the non-sight. Nor did she want to light a torch to avoid drawing anything to us in the dark. It was also noted between us that our casting crystals are reacting strangely to the winds in the area. The winds seem week and the crystals can't seem to hold a charge. The other strange thing was the almost goblinoid creatures watching us from the rocky crag we passed through at one point. Kniana tried to listen in on their conversation and only managed to catch pieces. Something about us being commoners, that we were too skinny, and that the imps would be pleased. I disagree with the commoner comment, but I'd rather be left alone in this environment.
Eventually we came to a fork in the road and rather than leave it to Phrasma's fate, I offered to Dimension Door to the top to have a look. I convinced Eval to come with as a natural parachute for the way down. Better than spending an additional chare of my trinket especially with the winds being unstable. Cat Lily ended up tagging along for what I'm guessing her inability to be left out... Luckily I was right about the magic, and bringing Eval.
At the top of the crag cliff valley thing was a village of sorts for the 30ish strange folk in the area. Well, not so much a village as sparse huts of sorts. The path, on the other hand, came back together after a bit with the right side being a bit longer of a walk. Then came the humor of getting down.
Lily didn't even pause before jumping off the edge. Her plan was to use Feather Falling I suppose, but what happened was way more entertaining. Instead of floating gently to the ground, she started floating upward. The Magical mishap happened to turn out in an amusing way. I knew she'd have her immovable grapple and I was none too worried. Eval acted pretty fast though and grabbed her foot before she floated away. I pulled out a Scroll of Featherfall just in case and he held Lily. Together we floated down thanks to the Lily balloon's floatation. We continued on our way down the shorter path and about an hour later Lily touched down again. We continued out of the rocky crag and further into the desert.
 
The sun was just starting to crest behind us and we were faces to choose an option before the heat rose for the day. I voiced my logic of hunkering down near the closer hole filled spires of rock. It was better in my mind to still be "fresh" if we had to fight anything for or around the shade. If we traveled further to the next crag area, we'd be out in the sun more before we encountered anything. My logic resonated and we stopped a bit early and set up in the shade with the guidance of Tamebrass. We weren't the only ones getting into the shade at the time too. Some large flying bat things collected in the holes higher on the spire. Some medium horned lizard things hung out on the shady side. Finally some time to relax and get back to my catharsis of craft.
Skrel made mention that he wanted the earing before we had to deal with whatever at the Heel. Well as we had a little free time, I asked Kniana if she'd like to talk to the spirit of the sword I had picked up. I was going to examine it closer and She agreed to join me. I put my arms together and pulled the sword outta whichever storage it resided in. I forgot how large it truly was as a greatsword for a medium creature. Strangely enough I could still pick it up as a small creature myself even if I couldn't wield it for fighting. For sake of manipulation I split it into it's dual longswords so that I could look over one and let Kniana interact with the other. She made mention that the spirit is one of a dragonborn. A dragonborn! A kobold ascended into godhood back on this plane in their human form! Either way, I offered her the blade to look at and touch it some. She was at awe with it's quality after a few practice swings. I think the spirit was influencing me as I asked her to try to channel some of her positive energy into the blade. Kniana focused some of the energy into it and the blade burst into gray flame just as RRRoshin's did in the library! "His sister didn't mention that," apparently Hellena was a sister to the blade's spirit. Must've been one of those spiritual sister things going on as I don't think she was of our dragon kin. Kniana then encouraged me to learn to fight with these blades as we kept ending up in low magical wind areas. I had taken Naan's wind stability for granted I suppose... She meditated on one half the blade and I went about inspecting the other.
Now that I had the light and a proper tool setup I was able to see just how immaculate this blade truly was. It had absolutely zero hammer marks, zero imperfections in the crystal, and zero nicks in the blade's edge! The whole blade sloped to the edge which to me implies that it was never meant to be sharpened. I'm not sure it would even need it... To me this blade was literally perfect, sharp enough that it is likely keened, and hard enough to be adamantine. The only way I think it could be made is either a whish spell, miracle spell, or a gift directly from the gods themselves! There was a symbol in the hilt that activated the gray flame when positive energy was channeled. At that I turned to see what Kniana had discovered.
I noticed that she faintly glowed while focusing on the blade. On inspection a symbol of Iomedae had appeared on her back. I guess she was communicating with the spirit, as it popped into my mind saying that I "travel in good company vengeful one, this one is interesting". It continued with, "Sorry Tink, you travel in good company", and apologized for "old habits". I have a feeling religiously we don't exactly see eye to eye. I layed out a sup of tea for Kniana when she was finished.
After a few moments she gave me back the other sword. Apparently the spirit wasn't talking to her but rather observing. She did ask to borrow the tub from yesterday as to get water to the others. She had to clean it out first as Mr. Arrow was the last to use it to scrub himself. The rest of the party drank from Kniana's Create Water as I sipped from my Tengu Jug. It was fairly entertaining to see a few of the medium sized desert geckos climb down from their perch to drain the extra water. With all that taken care of I was able to work on my crafts while it got stupidly hot outside. If it gets too bad out here I still have the Endure Elements potion from the plant that tried to eat me. I went to work on Skrel's earing of Enlarge person and was able to put it together pretty quickly.[Critical success with a 43 total.] Surprisingly so really, I found that the life alchemy in those necklaces from the dead Watchers of the Abyss seemed to serve as competent base with only really needing minor alterations. I managed to finish that in a mere five hours. I spent the remaining time getting some rest and reading more of the Wears of Dragons I had picked up. I was even up and saw a giant scorpion head into the crag we were thinking about going to. Next some fellow kobolds riding other giant scorpions followed. It was hard to see but they looked of darker completion. My guess was either black, black and red, or purple scales. Respectively followers of Zon-Kuthon, Lamashtu or Rovagug, Nethys or Desna. At least if they follow their deities... Well here's to another cool night into a hot day of travel