Mr. Rimashin
Mr. Rimashin (a.k.a. The Ride)
Mr. Rimashin knows neither his true past nor future but is determined to live according to his own code despite being built to serve for war and destruction.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Tall and muscular
Body Features
Most prominent feature: Arms and hands, while large and powerful, hide smaller dexterous extensions for more detailed work with many things from medicine to mechanics. Gears rotate at high speed to generate heat which is then channeled to weapon or beam. Also holds gyroscopic containers for inventory. Detachable for maintenance and modifications. Legs and feet also built for traction, strength, and speed.
Facial Features
Adorned with flaming mohawk by my friend. Connected oval eye lenses and vent slits just below on cheek. Jaw frame features chin and teeth but rarely moves as voice projects independently. Mainly only opens for food intake and maintenance.
Identifying Characteristics
'Rimashin' is engraved on both wrists.
Physical quirks
Surprisingly lightfooted normally, result of living with monks and their insistence for silence
Apparel & Accessories
Single loin cloth from the Silver Flames. Favors shield and war hammer. Keeps his friend's tools as a memento, incorporated into hand extensions.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Shortly after the war, a group of Silver Flame monks found an unconscious warforged near their monastery. They normally would have left me for scrap but one young monk eager to progress his faith with the aid of technology eventually convinced the others to help salvage my remains and transport me home where he could further tinker. He hoped to repurpose me to help around the monastery and upon successfully reviving me, he quickly discovered I was already fitted with healing capabilities. That and the name 'Rimashin' engraved on my wrists were the only ties I had to my previous life. My rescuer convinced the rest of his cloister to let me stay based on my skills and lack of memories so they taught me of their ways and let me assist mostly in the healing ward. I quickly realized just how feared my kind were after treating only a few patients who were a little uneasy that a warforged was attending to them. The young monk defended me from each prejudice and soon took it upon himself to help me dig into my past further. We scoured the monastery's vast library but to no avail. Eventually, he imparted this bit of wisdom: I, like any autonomous being, should forge my own destiny, regardless of my origins. When I asked why he would do any of the things he did for me thus far, he simply replied 'because we're friends' We continued spending our free time together and I helped him with various inventions and gadgets he'd designed to improve the lives of his cloister. Some were more successful than others and if anything exploded or got destroyed it was usually the result of my uncanny power but our brothers appreciated our teamwork and his spirit in the end. Unfortunately, I was to learn my true destructive potential at the cost of my friend's life. The brothers welcomed any and all travelers in need but some would take advantage of such hospitality. I had only heard a few tales of bandits pillaging our stores before I joined but on one fateful night, a group of particularly devious men killed my friend in the process. Something broke inside me upon discovering them over his body and the next thing I remember I stood in the wake of an obliterated half of the monastery and the bandits' corpses littered the ground around my friend. I knew I could not stay after this but I still felt the need to atone or at the very least repay the monks. Then I remembered something the bandits mentioned as they broke bread with us just earlier that night. They were heading to a region called Q'Barra to find fortune in the latest gold rush. I took up their mission in hopes of sending the funds back home to help the brothers rebuild. They bid me farewell with mixed feelings.
Gender Identity
Genderless but does not mind masculine pronouns that match his physique
Sexuality
Asexual as of now
Education
Silver Flame ordained
Well versed in medicinal arts
Employment
Currently contracted by Leo but through Mystery Inc
Accomplishments & Achievements
Being one of the only revived warforged in existence
Failures & Embarrassments
Destroyed half of home monastery in blind rage
Mental Trauma
Struggling with existentialism, questioning the legitimacy of their soul, whether it truly belongs to this body
Intellectual Characteristics
Well-read and articulate, loves learning new things about the world and pursues knowledge that will help care for those closest
Morality & Philosophy
Honest sometimes to a fault and believes in free will but constantly questioning why some have more than others or what motivations drive people. Would rather do more good than harm.
Taboos
(Needless) violence
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Finding purpose through helping others and self reflection.
Savvies & Ineptitudes
Has trouble understanding sarcasm.
Likes & Dislikes
Likes:
Helping, healing, or providing general care for others
Building/repairing/dismantling
Dislikes:
Harming others, even in self defense but especially if unprovoked
Seeing harm done to others
Virtues & Personality perks
Always seeks a peaceful resolution if possible
Vices & Personality flaws
Can blackout into uncontrollable destructive rage if triggered
Personality Quirks
The subconscious rage
Vents steam from cheek when flattered
Hygiene
Regularly self cleans but does not mind inevitable filth
Social
Contacts & Relations
Jeanette
Arthur
Justine
Jeeng
Darren
Penelope
Family Ties
AoA monks
Religious Views
Follows Silver Flame
Social Aptitude
Polite and honest, fairly trusting so somewhat gullible. Addresses most with honorifics Miss/Master
Mannerisms
Usually quite and speaks when spoken to. Otherwise, very eager to lend a hand especially in studied fields of expertise or to those in visible need.
Hobbies & Pets
Hobbies include self maintenance or modification, meditation on inventions and purposes in life, brewing medicine, organizing/cleaning
Speech
Fairly monotone and moderate.
Wealth & Financial state
115 GP
50GP towards reconstruction
Somewhat oblivious, gentle giant, or at least he tries to be. Unaware of full strength and fears the destructiveness of his powers but recognizes its importance in protecting self and allies.
View Character Profile
Alignment
Neutral
Age
Unknown
Date of Birth
Unknown
Birthplace
Technically place of revival - Altar of Attar (Silver Flames monastery)
Children
Current Residence
Mystery Inc, Hearth
Gender
Genderless
Eyes
Ember's glow
Hair
hairless
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
darken leather
Height
6'3"
Weight
290lb
Quotes & Catchphrases
Live and let live. Treat others the way you'd like to be treated. On a scale of 1-10, rate your pain
[WIP] Paralogue: Justine's Journey
While Mystery Inc recovered from their latest venture into the Feywilde, Justine led a group of mercs on a secret mission to X. This rag tag band consisted of Emeric, the fisherman from Hammer Isle, Garret Shieldingway, a paladin from the Eldeen Reaches, and Wren Javron, a city watchman from Bralin. When we last saw Justine, she was preparing to steal some contraband from the upcoming Cannith exposition fair, specifically the bomb that would power their King Joe power suits. Additionally to expose Cannith's war crimes, we attempted to capture and reveal Legion, the demonically enhanced Sahagin experiment to the public though how we were to accomplish these goals remained up for debate. But before we could follow any of these headings, Lady Justine needed to convince the people at home to support her bid for town mayor. As I passed out promotional material for her campaign, I ran into the familiar fisherman from the Hammer, Emeric. We were in the midst of catching up when 2 strange warriors jumped on stage shouting warnings of assassins who soon appeared flanking the lady. I urged Emeric to help defend her and jumped onstage putting myself between Justine and one of the assassins but they soon called their own reinforcements dropping a massive explosion from above as another invisible threat revealed himself. On the other side of the stage the mysterious warriors fought off the other assassin, another strange warforged but the bunny noticed my target used the distracting explosion to launch a surprise attack and threw himself in front of Justine. I thank this Shieldingway as he called himself and healed him in return. He then leapt up to skewer the 3rd fiend who after being attacked, decided to vanish again but that was no problem for the other warrior, the arcane Mr Wren whose magic arrow sought the slippery scoundrel out. Emeric then took the opportunity to double down the damage wounding him severely. Mr Shieldingway finished him off with an acute moonbeam. With a little more effort, we tracked down the last rogue as he attempted escape Emeric homed in on his location and Justine roasted him alive. Wren recognized a symbol on one of the assailants as the symbol of the Hut cartel. Although they each had different reasons for coming to Hearth, they agreed that helping Justine would serve their goals as well. I assisted Shieldingway by introducing him and the others to Jeanette who I asked to cast the spell since the corpses would be hostile to me. After questioning, we learned that the Hutt cartel do have a base at Last Stop with 2 more accomplices Jango and Boba, hired by the Sahagin leader Dagna, at a bounty of 10k. After Justine returned from her investigation, she wanted to check on the contraband in Patrice's possession. Luckily, I recently furnished my chambers with a scrying font and was able to spy on the little mouse Darren snuck into the bomb crate before Patrice hauled it away. From what I saw, the Sahagin hosted a makeshift laboratory for Cannith's scientists to apparently siphon the elemental energy from the bomb to fuel another King Joe model. In their company was a burned looking bunny who must've been the Flamingway, assisting or maybe even directing the experiments in comfort and contentment. This revelation shifted our priorities to finding Flamingway posthaste and sabotaging the development of this new weapon system. In preparation we bought loads of dynamite and shark bait then carefully made our way to the River Clan's cave. Justine lured a horde of guards away as the rest of us snuck past the remaining 2 and dealt with them deftly once inside. We awaited Justine's return, then sealed the entrance behind us, buying some time to reach the lab. The next pair of guards looked a bit meaner, one of them donning the same weapon system I saw in the scry. Somehow with a little luck and diversion we ducked past them too only to find ourselves in an unconventional shark tank. My initial instinct was to use the actual shark bait we procured for this mission, so I had Lady Justine shoot a bolt with some across the tank to draw their attention but even with invisibility the sharks could sense us. Only the furthest one was momentarily distracted by the bait that shot pass it as the others honed in on our location. I urge the party to swim as quickly as they could toward the exit as I pondered a quicker way to bait them away. I remembered I could animate the little lumps of flesh and did so at the cost of my invisibility giving half of us a chance to reach the exit relatively unscathed. Unfortunately Shieldingway and Wren suffered a few bites so I healed Shieldingway when we resurfaced in another tunnel. This one had a lovely whale carcass as the centerpiece. As Justine and I advanced passed it, Wren sensed a writhing from within and we glimpse what appeared to be hands protruding against the skin. Emeric recognized this particular phenomenon as a characteristic of a certain leechman species known to inhabit such carcasses and lo, that's exactly what popped out, 3 of them to be precise. Shieldingway thwarted the first attack aimed at me and soon broke invisibility to attack the rest. Luckily they were weak to radiant blows so we made quick work of them especially as Shieldingway expelled the last of them, including the tiny spawn that burrowed into him and Wren. The last leech that attempted to flee ran into the next steaming chamber and promptly ran back out a shriveled husk, foreshadowing what awaited us. Justine pushed aside the steam to reveal a huge elemental ringed with arcanic runes, the source of the steam probably a result of the device bound to it. I disabled the binding ring, hoping to win it's trust with this act of liberation. Unfortunately it still displayed aggression toward anyone trying to pass it to the other side. After some strange communication attempts involving Justine and Shieldingway shifting into lopporit form, the elemental calmed and shrank to a more stable size mirroring the bunny forms. It then extended a hand in friendship which signaled that it now accepted us and would follow us. Given the last ambush of leeches, we sent the stealthy Emeric ahead this time to scope things out. He reported seeing Burningway in the company of the scientist, as previously scried, and one other exit which needed blocking so we sent him back to plant the dynamite and get Burningway's attention as we swam toward the final cavern and waited for the cue of the explosion. With that, the final battle began as we burst from the water catching the enemy off guard. We instructed the steam elemental to guard our rear and prevent any reinforcements trying to follow as we dispatched the guards. They retaliated with some fierce potions of fire but I put an end to that by blowing up their supplies with a well placed fire wall. But before I knew it, my mind went blank and I felt something take over, telling me to 'slay the intruders' and after that, an eerily familiar darkness overtook everything. This feeling consumed me but once in my past, resulting in the destruction of my home monastery by the time I woke to the light. This time however my faith in the silver flame empowered me to slowly retake control as I pulled myself toward the light of my friends' voices. When I came to, the fighting had ceased though the wizard also made his escape with the mechanical weaponry. On the other hand, Shieldingway and Justine managed to convince Burningway of Cannith's dubious nature so he agreed to come home with us. Jeanette greeted us in the Silver Flame temple and graciously healed our wounds. I consulted her on my fugue state and how that wizard seemed to trigger it. She hypothesized a potential counter by modifying the existing spell that repels influence from other beings after witnessing the transformation through Wren's memories. It then occurred to me that I should ask Fran Kee to scan this hidden power in my core. He couldn't detect it before but after the recent activation, he couldn't miss it. Apparently some warforged models were equipped with this arcane engine and the now illegal control mechanism the wizard used to activate it before the treaties were signed to grant my kind autonomy. Though I could now theoretically access this new power with some practice, removing the controlling trigger would require tracking down this wizard to deactivate it permanently.
With one night before the Cannith Expo, we planned to gather as many allies and resources as possible. Wren & Justine went to treat with Fisk of Tharask, Emeric would see about Lady Maria & Red, while Shieldingway and myself recruited Mazery and Legion. Mazery was easily plied with vague promises of looting the Cannith tech. I heard Shieldingway might've had a bit more trouble convincing Legion but with Mazery's confidence, we secured their support. Next, Shieldingway and I paid the Zilargo Gnomes a visit. We shopped for a device to hold our friend Legion at the expo in case his bloodlust consumes him. We also spread the word about Cannith's dubious dealings and doomsday devices, asking their reporters to document the proof themselves tomorrow. With our missions accomplished, we regrouped at the mystery mansion. Emeric convinced Red to lead a force provided by Lady Maria to divide Cannith's attention while we presented Legion to the arriving crowds at the main gate. We arrived ahead of the expo's opening to lay our traps and scout the camp. Justine caught an eagle eye's view, relaying the details to the group. No turrets to deal with this time, however Cannith was in no short supply of sentries. The super weapons we briefly encountered in sahagin caves were on display as was the Wizard in charge of that operation. I wouldn't be a reliable ally as long as he was in play so I elected to stay hidden in Justine's portable hole in the meantime. I don't know how much time passed in there but when I emerged, Justine confirmed that we had dispatched the wizard allowing me to assist unhindered. With Maria's corpse army, we sandwiched the remaining forces into submission before chasing Justine & Patrice up the keep. By the time we reach them, Justine was burning the evidence of her dubious plot to remove Patrice permanently, allegedly. To be fair, it was a long time coming. Refiling through Patrice's office, which Wren sniffed out, we found, among other things, a document containing the code to activate my heavy artillery. Lady Justine used this to free me at last, but it did make me wonder how many of my kind Cannith had enslaved with a similar mechanism...
[WIP] FINAL? interlude
And just like that, we returned to the normal woods at the spot where we entered the wilds. With Darren exhausted and me still a snake, our first stop back in town was the Silver Flame temple so Jeanette could restore us. After taking the day to recoup, we headed to Lyrandar to deliver the promised Fruit of Everlasting Life. Lynra happily accepted our bounty especially after hearing what we had to go through to get it. She again offered a helping hand in return which we gladly accepted on behalf of Darren as he would need extra training to recover his prowess. Meanwhile Darren visited the twins in search of his master for the very same purpose. Though we'd left the Feywilde behind I could still feel a lingering fey magic from my serpentine transformation. Thus I sought the wisdom of Danaya, Hearth's herbalist who confirmed the presence of residual Feyness but she didn't know how to treat my kind so suggested I seek out an expert - Jimmy. Now why hadn't I thought of that, he did just help us through the wilds rather expertly. I invited Jeeng along for this visit to the godling and we reminisced over our fondest moments from the wilds before I confessed I rather enjoyed inhabiting an organic body. He said he might know a way for me to harness that lingering energy through harrowing and lethal trials, as if my time with Mystery Inc hadn't steeled my already steely body and mind. I gladly accepted his challenge which he would present in some days time. That day came sooner than expected, and Jimmy asked me once more if I was truly ready for the training he had in mind. Of course I trusted him as he'd been a faithful ally thus far so I readily accepted his offer. His first task had me communing with snakes to realign myself with the serpentine form I'd taken under the fey curse. From there I was to find my own way in a pool of my fellow serpents. I retained enough of that experience to slither my way toward the largest snake in the center of the chamber and politely greeted it asking it to teach me. In response, it told me of how it's kin had been conscripted to the Mist Serpent's army even from beyond this dimension and I could see several of them withering away. My experience with this foul demon told me I needed to remove its curse before it could claim any more souls. The snakes seemed to notice and expressed their gratitude for my aid and Jimmy gave an approving thumbs up. Jimmy's next task would instill the most integral Fey principles, that is subterfuge and trickery. After swallowing a potion to alter my appearance, we crashed the fight that Jeeng had arranged for his own training against a formidable mace handed warforged named Mace. I asked Jimmy to cause a scene to draw the crowd's attention while I cast some distractions to mitigate Mace's blows. In the end, Jeeng didn't seem like he needed my help to win this fight, taking hits and dishing em out like the champ he is but it was fun to mess with his opponent and Jimmy approved of my shenanigans.
Into the Feywild
Ominous blood smears greeted us upon our entering the Feywild. We did our best to analyze this clue but the blood did not appear to belong to any living creature I had treated before, though closely resembled something humanoid. This trail led us to the sounds of a battle, peeking through the brush, we found a faintly familiar scene. Slaughtered lizardfolk and aberrations reminded us of one of our own adventures not long ago. Naturally I rushed to the aid of the lizfolk with Darren but upon treating the injured soul, I found his blood matched that of the unrecognizable trail leading us to this grim scene. The ailing lizfolk only mumbled something about us missing our mark and pointing us south. Following his lead, we found ourselves in a clearing. By that I meant we found copies of ourselves in a clearing fighting a familiar symbiote throwing not too familiar attacks and obliterating a distracted (not)Justine as Darren tried, unconvincingly, to pass us off as a troupe of 'stunt' doubles, however the damage they sustained over the next few attacks successfully persuaded them to let us intervene. Joz, Jeeng and Darren did most of the work to take down the beast and upon the scene's finale, a tiny figure, calling themselves Sammy, approached to appraise us. They were impressed by our combat abilities and flawless 'costumes' after a thorough inspection and hired us on the spot as the Dark Lord's official stunt doubles. I quickly inquired about the fabled fruit of immortality and sought payment for our services in the form of this, to which Sammy simply replied it would be quite the feat to impress the Dark Lord so completely that he might grant this boon. With that, Sammy whisked us away to our next scene, a gothic horror Penelope remembered as the Slaughter of Ashenvale - our objective, rescue the villagers from demons, enact a repelling ritual and await reinforcements at the cathedral. Since we adopted the role of templar knights, I felt right at home channeling the Silver Flame to fuel more impressive divine smiting than usual (for the benefit of the show) although my athletic performance was not quite up to par and I fell prone to Zariel's general who took full advantage to beat me near bloody. I was able to return the favor with another powerful divine smite before retreating to the cathedral to activate the wards. I had one last task to survey the dark angel to confirm the strange markings Jeeng's buddy Jimmy alluded to and found that someone going by the alias of L had made a contract with this simulation. Sammy congratulated us on a spectacular performance, highlighting how Jeeng and I gave powerful divine energy. Our 3rd scene saw us at the aristocratic event known as the Crimson Wedding where Lady Beatrice was to marry lord Batler. Beatrice's twin sister, the Crimson Countess Lamba sought to sabotage the happy union by planting various traps and infiltrators sent to sew dissent. I investigated the room's decor for traps, finding the statues and entrance rug could transform into potentially hostile guards. Additionally with my medical expertise, I identified a deadly toxin flowed in the central fountain, but only lethal if inhaled. I then whispered my findings to the group to check that we could neutralize these traps, while Darren conferred with Batler to help identify the culprit. Shortly after Penelope and Joz investigated the kitchen, Joz came bounding back to the ballroom with a tapestry on fire in his mouth as a distraction. Gouda, Batler's head chef insisted that we quarantine Joz so I accompany them to the servant's quarters. There I made sure to leave the door unlocked for Joz to move about that wing of the house and accompanied Gouda back into the main hall. I then chatted with Batler to gain further insight into Beatrice's house, including her grandfather, the lord of the estate whom apparently dabbled in bargaining with any magical beings to gain power. After that I asked his permission to inspect the stage at the back of the hall. A winged creature lurked underneath but moved too quickly to see the shape of it. Penny joined me for the on-stage investigation and found a silver symbol, no doubt a component for some demonic ritual. After Jeeng drew the crowd outside for a distraction of epic ground-pounding proportion, Penny, Darren and I lingered behind in hopes of disarming the various traps. However, the majordomo also remained to keep an eye on the house. Thus Darren and Penny invented another ruse to draw him away from the hall down the west wing. With him out of sight Penny and I finally were able to disperse the contaminated water amongst the planters and remove the silver symbol entirely. I then tried to show Penny the creature I'd caught a glimpse of earlier under the stage however all traces of it simply did not exist, leading us to believe it to be summoned. Just as I re-emerged from underneath, the majordomo returned. He stared completely aghast at the missing water from the fountain, immediately suspecting us but we played it cool as they say and he could not find any fault in our alibis. Shortly after, the crowd returned from outside as well and the lord of the manor also paused at the empty fountain. His servant whispered his suspicions in the lord's ear which prompted him to gather Penny, Batler, and I for a private meeting (accusation) in the library. Upon entering, the room appeared to have had a tornado sweep through as everything lay in disarray and only the little lady Lamda, Beatrice's twin, stood coyly in the middle of it all. Suddenly, Darren materialized near the library's entrance apparently having suffered a burn from some kind of doll? In response, Lamda summoned a gaggle of demon girls wielding stakes aimed at Darren who raced toward us to give us the doll with his discovery. He realized damaging the collar on the doll reflected to Lamda herself so he urged us to remove the collar. Penny was able to enlarge and shake off the collar which Battler then also burned himself when trying to pick it up. In that instance, Lamda fell unconscious which triggered Kinzo's ire and fear as he realized things might not go his way and ran to block our escape as he ordered the stake wielders to accost Jeeng. As Darren kept half the demons occupied, Jeeng managed to slip free of the others even as Kinzo continued to throw various poisons and grease his way. Once he managed to escape with Lamda safely (relatively, with Kinzo spryfooted at his heels but posing no actual threat) , I took the opportunity to investigate the collar and removed whatever curse was afflicting Lamda hopefully. Darren and Penny did their best to hold off the demons up til then with a little pick me up from yours truly but took that as a sign to chase after the others. I rushed after the group, hoping that Joz would follow suit. As we all raced down the hall to the grand ballroom, only Battler was able to beat Kinzo to the crowd before he could smear our good name. That gave us enough time for Darren to put together our evidence and state our case, so strongly infact that the Fey watching and directing this scene had to correct the scene to show how things actually played out in the past. And with that we were transported back to the Feywilds where a familiar butler from the previous scene awaited to extend an invitation to a private audience with his master. Renov gave us the rest of the day to refresh ourselves before the ultimate finale. Sammy congratulated us for the recently bestowed honor and invited us to rest at her place which was quite tiny even for Darren and Penny's size so we shrank down to enjoy the hospitalities. After some analysis on the doll, Frankee discovered that Archfey and Demonic magic combined to create the binding magics. This followed the trend we'd seen in the other scenarios up until now. After a peaceful night, Renov came back to lead us to our meeting with the Dark Prince. As we made our way, we passed a troll guarding a garden with trees baring the mythical fruit of eternal life though we could not detour from our destination. Past that, Renov lead us to a cabin, through which we entered one by one into a thick darkness which did not last for as we emerged beyond we found ourselves back in Hearth though not quite as we remembered it. This version of our home had succumbed to the Cave Tribe's destructive ambitions when they loosed the giant upon the realm. The foes also seemed a bit stronger than before, and maybe also a bit more charming and more numerous as more reinforcements showed up throughout the fight. Just as we started turning the tide, Valerie let out a piercing cry down one of the larger holes, as if calling forth more reinforcements. Instead, Jimmy popped up from a smaller hole on the other side of town beckoning us toward him. That would prove rather difficult as the ground beneath us continued shaking and dropping out from under. We barely made it to Jimmy before the king of worms burst from the crater, signaling the end of that encounter as Jimmy transported us to our next. A familiar T-rex greeted us on a battlefield riddled with the corpses of our friends. For a second, I thought Joz hadn't made it when I saw him lying dead with the others but the real one was right behind me all along. Fearing our friends' corpses might be desecrated (used against us) I attempted to prevent this with a solemn prayer. This was not as effective as I'd hope as the rex proceeded to consume and absorb them all the same, healing itself and adding their attacks to its arsenal. It continued to hit hard but so did we and we eventually beat down the beast as we did before. Unlike our previous exit, we could take a breather before delving deeper into the next memory and thankfully so for that rex took a huge bite out of us. Further down the rabbit hole as it were, we landed in a small hall with doors on all sides. Jeeng opened the nearest one and he and Darren inhaled a strange red fog causing them to temporarily rage out. I set out an purifying aura to negate the effect long enough for them to close the door and return to their senses. As Penny began a ritual to decipher the doors' labels, I investigated a door of my own. Inside this tiny room, a similar setting to what Jeeng gleamed before closing the room across the way, I tried to snuff the brazier producing the fog. Blasting it once only thickened the fog so I shifted my focus to the demonic statue. To prevent the fog from potentially spilling out into the hall, I closed the door behind me, and after 2 more blasts of radiant energy, it exploded leaving in its wake a small jewel and a mist serpent of a sort. I danced around the guardian as I went for the jewel but before I could deal the finishing blow, its curse transformed me into a snake as well and was forced to accost my friends. Luckily Darren barely recognized me and killed the misty serpent instead, ending its thrall over me. It took a bit but I was able to convince them that I was myself by spelling it out quite literally with my body language as I was still trapped in my serpentine form. But with this knowledge passed to the group, they were able to retrieve 2 more jewels with little trouble. The forth room presented a bit of unavoidable acidic damage but Jeeng took that for the team to retrieve the final jewel which opened the final door. Owta or a shadow of his awaited in the next chamber with two gorilla guards tethered to more braziers spewing more noxious gas. Needless to say this was another uphill battle. I was still able to provide combat support in my giant snake form tho and Jeeng went directly for Owta so that left the gorillas to us. Luckily as I approached a bloody unconsciousness I remembered I had a hefty healing potion to chug, giving me just enough stamina to grapple the gorillas, allowing the group to swiftly dispatch them after Owta fell. The circle that Owta utilized for is ritual opened into another portal as gas from the previous rooms crept down the hall threatening to consume us so another quick exit was prudent. This led us to the very same cabin we entered upon our arrival in the feywild. Here, Renov ushered us to an audience with the dark prince at last. Surprisingly, a girl resembling Lamda awaited in his company as well, and was kind enough to restore my speech, but unfortunately my transformation amused her too much to be undone. Through conversing with this pair of master manipulators, Darren attempted to change the rules and fundamental nature of their game. He proposed a wager to write the ending of his own story, without direct intervention from the megalomaniacs. As a result, the prince stripped him of his darkness and sent us on our way and if we lost this final battle, we would lose the rest of Darren as well, and to Lamda no worse...
Interlude: Where there's a wild
In preparation of entering the feywilds, Darren and I paid a visit to Ali and Alphi. He wanted to at least inform his friends of our intentions because the fate of this mission was intrinsically entwined with that of the Scion's. The twins also happened to be fluent in the native fey tongue of Sylvan and thus I sought to upgrade FranKee's language database to aid us in communications there. They pointed us toward the League of Explorers for further guidance, advice we took to heart. Apparently Jimmy was well renown with the League, I learned something new everyday. Sir Finley suggested we take along a nature spirit to aid in relations with the Fey who revere nature above all else. Luckily, the little sprite who tethered itself to Jeeng would suffice. He also advised a dark entity accompany us to more safely navigate the darker parts of the realm where we might find ourselves in reality bending recreations of their favorite dramas. In response, Darren requested Finley loan us his copy of the Fey histories to study up on the scenarios we might find ourselves reenacting. Finley noted that the fey coveted artifacts not of tangible but rather sentimental? or historic value. As everyone shopped for supplies for the long journey into night, I sought the wisdom from the largest Silver Flame congregation while we sojourned in New Throne. They donated a superior potion and granted a special blessing reserved for their most devout followers as well as referred me to a shop that provided a equitable price for a Handy Haversack. Jeeng also brokered a deal with Lynra; in exchange for bring back the secrets of Fey immortality, she gifted our party with True Iron ingots to help us dispel their illusions during our journey, which I then forged into 4 more nails for the rest of us to wear discreetly. When all felt ready we met Jimmy on the outskirts of Harth who led us through a tree hole, which seemed to lead to a hall of trees that slowly shifted every so slightly as we made our way along...
Jimmy & the Giant's Feet
With Lady Justine stealing away on mysterious business, we proceeded to help Jeeng subdue Jimmy's Giant. Jimmy had one more lead that would prove useful in the task, the knowledge of an ancient temple originally used to seal demons. We recruited Darren's sidekick Jack and Ricken to fill out the group in Justine's absence and headed to the temple where upon Penelope deciphered the runes within to summon a celestial Kieran to aid us as well. Darren had to properly introduce us to convince this spirit but did so effortlessly. This guardian imparted wisdom, instructing us to use the altars in the chamber to further hinder our Giant's movements. Meanwhile I laid down a circle of protection in case we needed a safe space to catch our breath. Finally, after hours of preparation we heard the ominous earth trembles, indicating Jimmy & the Giant had arrived. Immediately, Darren clouded the brute's vision in darkness , enraging him and incurring random wrathful swings. He let out a deafening thunderous bellow blasting most of us back. So shaking was his roar that Darren could not sustain the cloud of darkness blinding him but quickly recomposed himself and reapplied it when he could. Next the Giant summoned a blizzard to cover the chamber in freezing ice, making things even more tedious, particularly for someone of my frame who had difficulty standing stable. As we applied more pressure, he released storm elementals in desperation but he could no longer resist the binding magics of the altars and Jeeng's own holding spell. This combination allowed Jeeng and Darren to deal the subduing blow. Afterwards, we prepared some floating discs to move him outside where our airship would transport him to Lady Maria's where the magic transfusion could take place. Meanwhile, Darren made a deal with Jimmy to let us into the Feywilds at a later date to pursue his dark puppeteers.
Interlude: Jeeng's Hope, Justine's despair
Just as we ported back home, we noticed a group wearing unusual goggles noticing us. Jeeng and Justine made a break for the airship with the rest of us in tow. It was clear now that Justine was a wanted person and those goggles would see through any magical disguises so she adopted a more traditional concealment once aboard. Lyse demanded an explanation for our expedited escape to which Darren divulged all we just learned from our encounter with the recently released Legion. Justine also contributed her tragic past to compound the need to stem the corruption visited upon the region by the high houses, especially Canith. Darren then sought Lyse's counsel on the matter of his order of Scions and their removal from everyone's memories. We sailed back to pick up our loot from the docks and got briefly (re)acquainted with Mazari's new friend Legion before heading toward Alphi and Ali who dutifully reminded us that not only Justine but all of Mystery Inc was now hunted by Canith. Thankfully they agreed to take the Joe jr. parts off our hands as Darren explained the nuanced of the threats we faced and dropped a bombshell of his own, finally revealing the fate of Lia in hopes of catching Alphi off guard. With his friend flustered, Darren raised the burning question about the nature of his unusual powers. In response, Alphi bestowed a magic amulet which he advised would be required to seek the answers from a mysterious author, Thinly Mergleton. Alphi also warned that ignorance might be preferable to the truth. With that settled we left the twins with the mecha parts and departed for Lady Maria's domain. Along the way, I read Darren a rather dark bedtime story to help illuminate the mysteries of his past and its ties to the red scarves. In almost every account, the shadow warriors of lore defeated their crimson foes but for one. On our way we dropped off Darren and Penny at the League of Explorers to learn about his lore. The rest of us continued onward to Maria's, entrusting the Vitaray to her capable care before returning to Harth for a quick and quiet homecoming. L. Justine sought the counsel of Thalia and the Mayor in her efforts to expose the atrocities of Cannith and the other houses and turn public opinion against them. During the meeting, we learned of a technological exposition the Dragon Mark houses were planning to celebrate the recent peace we'd won for the realm. They pointed us to Last Stop to where they suggested we acquire evidence in the form of the entity Legion by any means. Not long after our meeting, Darren and Penny regrouped with us and recounted the shocking existential truths they learned regarding his origins. Apparently the archfey have been playing an arduous and ancient game with Darren and his crimson counterparts, something the sprite that followed Jeeng from the ship raid enlightened us on, even offering to take us to the fey realms to investigate further. Before we went down that path, Jeeng got word back from Lady Maria about discoveries she'd made from studying the VitaChamber. Thus Jeeng and I popped back over for a quick visit to learn her new theories on how the chamber could be repurposed to cure Jeeng's terminal life draining curse. She elaborated by giving 3 potential candidates, whose magical essence could be transferred and infused into Jeeng to reverse the necrotic effects, 1 being the elemental core of the illegal firebomb in Patrice's custody, the other being the formerly rampaging giant from the cloud tribe. While we contemplated the dubious choice, we made our way to confer with Lynra Lyrandar about siding with Team Justine against Cannith. She offered a little leverage against Fisk and Tharask in exchange for a little piece of my memory of the evidence that we've gathered to decry Cannith. To seal the deal, we forecasted the expose Justine would release to the public in a few days time. Jeeng decided to follow up with Lady Maria's tip and contacted Jimmy for the first time in a while. That conversation seemed promising too as Jimmy hinted that he might have a means to pacify his raging giant friend.
The Mazaraid
With the necrobard defeated, we could return to more pressing matters, like dethroning Lady Justine's rival Patrice. In order to do so, we would have to further discredit her, causing such a debacle that she could never recover from. Justine knew of an arms deal that would implicate Patrice because it involved completely illegal and immoral weapons of mass destruction in exchange for some of her proprietary designs. Our mission; steal these projects after the trade off. Who better to assist us than the infamous pirate Mazery who vowed to help us take down the Tide. The spoils of this heist would certainly aid in that conflict so we 'recommended' a group of dissenting Tharashk mercs (that we would pose as) to help him with the job. Successfully intimidating his guards to gain an audience, Jeeng convinced Mazery of our qualifications with his nautical expertise. After returning to base, we spoke with the dead bard to gain further intel for disrupting their endgame plan to raise Carmen to god stature. We then returned to preparations for the raid with Mazery and trusted a stealth recon mission to Penny and Darren who would find out just what kind of cargo Patrice was after. They also discovered Patrice's trading partner, Lady Maury, head of Canith operations in the region, handing documents to Patrice, implying her intentions to burn Justine for good. Aside from the anticipated Scorcher bomb, they also found a vitaray chamber of some sort, dragon shard-enhanced warforged, a giant dragon shard, and the ship armaments. Darren left Penny's familiar rat formed in the crate with the warforged to scout and track Maury's ship. Under cover of night we prepared to raid, but despite our best efforts, the enemy crew would not be taken by surprise. Their cannons threatened heavy damage upon Mazery's vessel & our own team while their mages proved mighty as well. Jeeng held back their biggest brawler while I took the opportunity to fire my own cannon along with Darren, Justine & Penelope's efforts to neutralize the big guns. All that while, the rest of their crew prepared more defenses below deck. After finishing off the remaining guards above, we caught a breath before heading downstairs to encounter a few unopened loot and a warded door to the rest of the ship. Justine wanted to convince the captive captain to unlock the door for us by pretending to be one of the crew, but when threatening the false barbarian did not loose his tongue, we switched tactics to target his ego. And to further sell the bate, Justine assumed the guise of one Prismatic Fang raiding Mazery's raid to further convince the capt to give us the 'key' to the door. With the rest of us taking cover, Jeeng opened the door only to be greeted by a blast of strange green light emanating from an orb at the center of the room. The crated warforged Darren & Penelope scouted at the docks were also active and aggressively pursuing any who tried to cross the threshold. Darren tried to obscure the enemy and strange pulsing orb in darkness but to little affect as they already set a beeline toward us. We decided to play this safely, at least most of us, and bottleneck the enemies at the door. Meanwhile Darren rushed toward the back of the room as he was the only one who could see through his own darkness. We quickly learned the pulsing orb's reach as it blasted us through walls and doors, its nature changing with each pulse. Given the confinements, Justine's well placed fireball helped turn the tide and reduced the orb's effective radius. Just then, from inside the darkness we heard Darren shouting "spare the orb!" which we did as we cleaned up the rest of the guards. Jeeng persuaded the wisp powering the orb to calm down, sparing us from its wrath, which it was keen to unleash upon its captors without discrimination. Within the vault, an ominous letter attached to the goods warned Mazari & his conspirators (us) that we would soon regret our decision to raid this vessel. Looming threat aside, we now had to negotiate the treasure divisions with Mazari. Justine and Jeeng successfully convince him to release both the mecha parts and the Vitaray chamber to us under the condition that Mystery Inc would replicate and deliver weapons from the schematics at a later date (and 10000 in platinum). A docket in the office confirmed the items this crew traded Patrice which included true sight goggles, mechs, and the redacted files on a certain orphan. Suspiciously enough, the bomb was omitted. Back ashore, we gave Mazari the honor of opening the chamber containing the sleeping Sahagin as we watched from a safe distance of 80ft. To no one's surprised, the captive lashed out at Mazari's greeting however soon they came to an understanding in a language most abyssal to hear (we later learned was Infernal) Darren attempted to eavesdrop but Mazari didn't let him hide for long and brought him into the light to meet this new 'Legion'. Darren deduced multiple presences within this vessel, one of which he could speak to in to common tongue of the Lizardfolk and told them the crimes of the high houses upon their people. This 'Legion' did not take that history kindly, proceeding to rage indiscriminately and inconsolably, so fiercely that even Mazari shied away from trying to quell this storm. Eventually the rage subsided and we parted with Mazari and Legion for now while we had to figure out how and where to store this contraband booty.
Soul Engine - Elegy for a Bard
Our heist commenced as planned. Darren and Justine infiltrated the deepest vault and successfully incapacitated Patrice, impersonated her and allowed us to call the bard's forces in for the main distraction. After giving that signal, Penelope and Jeeng proceeded to take out one of the sentry cannons. Once they secured that tower, I unleashed a major image of our friendly ghost dino to draw the other cannon's attention as Darren threw wide the gates, creating mass panic across the camp in tandem. Penelope got off a few good cannon blasts, destroying the other tower and it's cannon. Unfortunately the dino could not run distractions against the aggressive sahagin reinforcements for long. Once they saw through the illusion they raged against Darren and Red while more intimidating creatures made up the cavalry. One flying mechamanticore eventually ripped poor Penny from the tower and dropped her from the sky while the rest of our group struggled to hold back the remaining guards. Just then, a familiar fireball scorched the majority of enemies as well as the arms/supplies building nearby. We took this as Justine's signal to hurry to the engine. Unfortunately Red and I were pinned against the south wall. When Penny recovered from her fall, she came to our aid and trapped the bigger baddies to give us a chance. This also came in handy as the armory exploded in a big ball of fire roasting the remaining roaming guards (minus the hell hounds) As she made her escape, I signaled Red to follow suite. In fact I couldn't have cleared the path without his extra push. To slow the remaining pursuers, Justine flung an ice storm to cover our retreat toward the HQ. Slowly but surely we made our way to the main entrance and planned to finish the trailing enemies in a bottleneck. Dispatching the remaining guards in the vault, we escaped with the engine.
We stopped by Lady Maria's dominion for her aid in disarming some souls from the engine, a task which proceeded late into the night with some close calls but by extracting them at a steady pace we were able to leave just a reserve of evil souls trapped within. Knowing the bard would not accept a tampered engine, we asked the lady for additional means to help us subdue him in the inevitable struggle. She provided a single dose of anti necropotency which we planned to inject in him during the exchange. Meanwhile Justine maintained her guise as Canith's Patrice for the meeting and during the conflict but the devious bard had a ruse of his own. We failed to notice a seeming disguising Jeeng's father who switched places with the Bard during the trade and thus did Darren stick the wrong foe with the serum. We stumbled from that rough start as the bard overwhelmed us with a horde of corpses and wil-o-wisps which exploded in our face and healed his zombie dinos. I noticed the wisps trigger and worked with Justine & Darren to destroy it, then repelled the remaining zombies while Jeeng and Penelope handled the puppet master and his colossus. Finally, with the bard on the ropes, I ended him with a holy beam after Penny prevented his escape & Darren prevented him healing again. We made a swift retreat to town to treat the survivors including Jeeng's father and a long lost Connor. After they rested a bit, we gleaned more information about the Bard's most recent dealings, learning that Lea was long dead and replaced by the Scarf leader...
Interlude: druid dropoff & dirty deals
On board, we began interrogating the Scarves puppet. She revealed that the contents imbedded in her stomach would 'end her suffering' and the spirits possessing her prevented her from telling us much, hinting that the bard had created her. When I attempted to remove this curse, it triggered the fail safe objects inside and exploded, scorching the ship a bit. With that lead burned our next step led us to Maria's domain once again to drop off the druids for safe keeping. M. Justine and Darren gave the Lady one of the dragonshards we recovered from the camp to see if she could study the magic imbued within. In exchange, she offered to help Justine develop a device to charm spirits in a similar fashion to her and the Bard's abilities. We then spent a day shopping in prep for the coming engine heist, during which time, M. Justine helped negotiate some 'good' deals for us. For my part, I traded in one shield for 2, one of which I gave to Jeeng. I also procured some gaseous potion in case we needed to slip through any cracks but ideally I would walk between planes to secure the engine if needed.
The Vine's (almost) Revenge
M. Justine took an initial survey of the camp and the source of the smoldering smell permeating the air as we neared the camp. Several tent scorched tent remains surrounded the demonic altar along with a few intact which held a few hostage lizardfolk , a horde of red dragon shards, and the scarves' leader. The rest of the group managed to free the hostages without drawing attention as M. Justine searched under the altar for more survivors. Meanwhile Darren and Jeeng managed to detect and dismantle most of the traps around the camp. Jeeng then stunned two henchmen guarding the vessel atop the altar in an attempt to disrupt the ritual but another scout noticed his antics shortly thereafter and the battle commenced in full. At first only a few guards charged the group, nothing Penelope's dragon couldn't handle with a flick of its tail and claws. However, following M. Justine's emergence from the underground another danger dino threatened to tear us all apart. Twas the work of a druid's persistent polymorphing one of his lackeys but I would not let the rex get the last roar and countered each transformation as the group dealt with the rest of the cult. M. Justine, bless her pyromaniac heart, couldn't resist the opportunity to burn the batch of them as they grouped together near the altar. Little did she know, her flames would fuel another entity possibly more terrifying than the thrice summoned t-rex. As the tent with the dragon shards burst into flames, the glow grew ominously darker with each second. Penelope did her best to cool the fire and for a moment, it seemed she'd put it out, but a second later another shocking combustion engulfed the tent and nearby druid leaving in its wake a spectre the likes of which we'd never seen. Ironically, this collection of souls took the form of another Rex, as if the dino refused to die. It immediately set its sights on the party, blasting us with necrotic roars. I managed to shield the first and deadliest of these attacks and with each one, the spectral rex seemed to deflate a bit until it all but withered away with a passing blow. Meanwhile we still had to deal with Teerik and his minions who tried to salvage the cauldron for their ritual. Darren and Lia stopped their escape while Jeeng, Justine, and I wore down Teerik with Jeeng eventually landing the finishing blow. We managed to catch our breath in the absence of another enemy wave and destroyed the ritual cauldron but the mission continued under the altar. Darren and Justine took a quick look before giving the rest of the party the clear to enter. The dark chamber held lizardfolk remains and another altar as well as a locked door. After fumbling around in the dark trying to figure out the passage's mechanism, Alison determined that a simple lock pick would suffice and set Justine to work. Wisdom of dungeons past told the rest of us to hide a safe distance away as the door opened. Unfortunately for Alison, Darren, and Justine, they caught a glimpse of something enthralling on the other side. To prevent the rest of the party from falling victim to this fate, I blessed Jeeng and Penny (and Fray although he disappeared shortly after Darren lost control) Jeeng was able to grab M. Justine before she waded into the water but Darren and Ali could not resist the statue's lure. To make matter's worse, as soon as we tried to disrupt the statue's effects by striking it, the boulders in the water revealed themselves to be hungry turtles possibly acting as its guardians. They surrounded Darren and Ali while the rest of us had to attack from a safe distance from the statue's influence. We barely dispatched the shellish fiends as Ali lay bleeding by the statue's foot. To give our sunken allies a chance to recover, Penelope obscured the statue in opaque water but this still did not prevent the effects from trying to ensnare my mind as I crept within range to smite it once and for all. M Justine, the scavenger that she is, attempted to salvage the potentially valuable remains with Penelope's and Darren's help. Meanwhile Jeeng and I investigated how to proceed beyond the next door. Try as I might, I could not figure out the door and left that up to the experts, Penny and Justine. I did however have the good sense to duck for cover as they opened it to be greeted by a barrage of arrows. Thus the final encounter began. Darren, Jeeng, and Joz came in swinging while the rest of us supported from the rear. We managed to wipe most of the remaining guards rather quickly but still had bigger fish to fry: Lanro and the Scarves leader too lunged a fierce counter. Penelope managed to disrupt Owta's sacrificial ceremony by shifting the earth beneath the circle, incurring his wrath. Nevertheless we whittled down his forces, starting with his druids while Darren and Joz pinned down the Scarves leader. With most his forces down, Owta desperately tried to bury us all underground with an earthquake but I reacted as the pillars crumbled to counter his spell and bought us a little extra time to rescue the captives. Still he persisted by trying to trap Darren and Penelope as they tried to free the lizardfolk. Darren tore through the thorny cage to show him what for with a stellar strike to the face letting Penelope teleport out with the majority of captives. After another fury of fists had him on the ropes Darren dealt the killing blow letting us all escape the collapsing chamber. On the surface, our spider guide greeted us with grim news of the cauldron's disappearance. We also scanned the Scarves leader and discovered her body to be a simulacrum, similar to Lia's. At that moment, Lia arrived with our airship and reinforcements.
Between peace and poison
Convinced that House Canith would continue sabotaging any peace talks in order to retain its control over the region, Mystery Inc began planning our own ways to sabotage Patrice. Jeeng would campaign for Lady Justine in the Clouds while Darren, Penelope and I visited the Sahagin. Upon arrival I noticed the traces of necrotic-infused dragon shards, possibly cases of it recently removed from the audience chamber. After Darren pleaded our case, the Sahagin countered our proposal with their own in the form of a combat trial against their recently acquired dragon shard powered armor. After buffing Darren, Penelope and I could only watch and advise from outside the ring while he dueled this suped up Sahagin. Darren barely passed the combat trial but played it off well, and we could more or less confirm where they got this prototype armor. His victory convinced them to reconsider investing in Justine's weaponry expertise, however they still scoffed at our push for peace talks. With nothing further to gain, we regrouped at home and shared out findings.
Eventually we had to split up again to tackle several fronts. Jeeng would speak with the bard to arrange cover for us to steal the Soul Engine; Darren would scout the lizard tribes who were still reluctant to the Silver Flame's cleansing as part of the peace conditions set forth by the settler's council; Justine, Penelope and I would prepare the rest of the materials needed to gain access to the Engine, specifically Patrice's password and key card. The ladies and I were successful in retrieving Patrice's password and I forged a near perfect replica of her card. Penelope thought it might be a good idea to have a few decoy engines as well just incase. Darren reported that the Herb tribe was planning to sacrifice their own kind on a summoning gate to return the Mist Serpent to this world. In a maybe-not-so-surprising twist, Lea, who joined Darren on his recon, discovered evidence that the bard might also have his hand the summoning circle. Regardless, Jeeng's conversation with the bard provided disguises for our heist.
The most pressing matter now was to rescue the lizardfolk being held hostage for sacrifice. In order to tackle this mission we spread ourselves again to recruit help. Jeeng would see if Asta and her dwarves would be an asset or hindrance; Lady Justine would try to mend the fences with Lady Maria; Darren once again called upon his friends the scions whatever that meant; Meanwhile I enlisted the Silver Flame with Jeanette's assistance. Jeanette assured me the Flame would help but would probably want to purge the sickness that consumed the cultist by any means necessary. I only asked that they minimized the trauma for the innocent hostages. Jeeng, Justine, and I made one more attempt to negotiate non interference with the Bard but he countered with the demand for another hostage in exchange to completely nullify the Mist Serpent. We couldn't in good conscience oblige so we had to take our chances at the Herb Tribe. On the way, we made preparations with Penelope's natural gift of gab and recruited the help of a spider friend to locate the Shamans, whom we suspected were held underground. As we neared the Tribe camp, I was able to guide everyone in their stealth but sadly failed in my own attempts. Thankfully the rest of the party was able to cover my clunky stumbles. Thus began our second attempt to thwart this cult.
Interlude: Pursuing Peace Prizes
Upon landing, a host of Lizardfolk accosted us, led by the mistrusting Aota. He would believe in Mystery Inc's pursuit of peace, accusing us of antagonizing the tribes with our war machines, trying to persuade the rest of the Herb that we slaughtered most of their kin. When tensions were at their height, Toma, representing the Herb, stepped forth and vouched for us and asked us to coordinate a summit of all the region's leaders for further negotiations in spirit of the agreement between the tribes and settlers of old. With that, we returned home to prepare for the memorial service, but first we made a quick stop at Maria's, the resemblance between the necrobard and her still weighing on our minds. She claimed to have no relations either in her living years nor afterlife. That night, I helped Jeeng remove the cursed sword from his mother so they could find out what's been happening with her. The next day we paid Lady Maria a visit to further inquire her relation to the necro bard. Darren demonstrated one of the musical rituals we witnessed in the jungle and this drew the attention of Maria's servants for moment. She quickly dispelled the effect and said she might know of such rituals to charm the dead, a possible result of the experiments done to her and a group of orphans in her past. This, Justine gleaned after convincing her to trade personal knowledge via the brain switching device Darren recently tried. L. Maria was not pleased to say the least but agreed to assist us in the matter should anymore knowledge from her past prove useful to our cause. Next day, we took our airship to the post war celebrations. There, the various leaders and representatives of the region we just saved, presented us with presents, among them, a staff of healing for myself from the Silver Flame. To conclude the ceremonies, L. Justine gave a rousing speech. We noticed Jeeng had to slip away discreetly and Darren informed us later that he was chasing a lead on his missing father. Apparently the necro-bard wanted to give us one last ultimatum: bring him the soul engine or suffer more personal loss at his hand. He also offered the heads of the Mist Tribe leaders to sweeten the deal as it were. We weighed our options carefully with the counsel of the council. Surprisingly, Patrice pushes for more time to build up arms to bolster the settlers' bargaining power during the 'peace' talks. More shocking, or perhaps not at all, M. Justine agreed, fear mongering the potential retaliation the lizafolk might seek against us. Nevertheless I saw her true intentions with this play. She hoped to gain Patrice's trust and thus get us closer to the soul engine. After returning home we contacted the bard to accept his proposal and give him the same time frame the council gave us. We also divided our efforts to prepare for acquiring the engine. For my part, I would try to convince Red to lend his aid, in addition to researching various other methods of safely extracting souls from the engine.
Interlude: lifting the mist
On board the (name) Darren asked Penny to assess the soul engine to make sure it suffered no damage as the rest of KJ had. Meanwhile M. Justine was inconsolable and no one had any words to ease her loss. I tended to the wounded with Jeanette, who also did not have the knowledge and power to heal Felix though she said she would consult others about it. Then for some reason, all of Mystery Inc fell into a deep sleep, including myself, which was highly unusual. Alphy and Ali woke us in Norlahold with some unsettling news of an undead ambush in back at Hearth, targeting Jeeng's family. His mother barely escaped with grave injuries while his father died bravely in battle. We had no choice but to ask the Griffin's corpse for answers to the Tide's intentions using our Speak with Dead Zone of Truth combo. Unfortunately this still didn't tell us much more than we already knew but we did learn that if we kept the Griffin mask from them, The Tide would have to make a new puppet warrior from square one. Upon returning to Hearth, Jeeng's friend escorted us immediately to his parent's home where we found Jeeng's mother resting and surprisingly that Red the warforged had remained in town, awaiting the Tide's return to exact his revenge. Mean while we debated the fate of the jungle only to conclude that further analysis of the aftermath was needed before any outcome can be selected. I personally hope we can convince the remaining lizafolk to cease aggression in the absence of the Serpent's influence. While the rest of the party split to chase leads, I stayed home with Thalia and just as Jeeng returned from his parent's, Penny and Justine burst in with breaking news that Darren has been spirited away by a RT operative! Without a moment to waste, Penny summoned her dragon to give chase as I attempted to locate Darren while Justine followed on her broom. We caught up to Darren and the RT but I failed to capture him and the operative took that moment to mortally wound Penny. She warned us not to follow but also claimed to return Darren once she'd finished with him. Justine and I saw that she meant what she said, both threat and promise so we tended to Penny and raced home to decide our next move with Jeeng. Eventually the party was convinced to wait upon Darren's return.... which he did in the promised time. He knocked on our door in the middle of the night and I woke the others to here what news he'd bring. Firstly he warned us not to attempt any detection of what magics might work in him presently. Next, news of the remaining fighting lizardfolk aim to capture the last independent Herb tribe. After he'd relayed all he could, Penny and Justine filled him in on how he acted when he fled with the RS. We then made preparations to survey the Herb Tribe for possible paths to a peaceful resolution. Darren and I convinced Joz and Red to join the Airship crew for this one.
Tangled in Vines
With plans in motion we made our way into the Vine tribe under guise of Mountain tribesmen, well at least most of us, while Darren, Flynn and Ashley scouted invisibly. Inside, Lan'ro greeted us with a bit of a surprise, the Red Scarves along with the Griffin apparently also solicited the Vine's aid. Furthermore, he summoned the Mist Serpent after this reveal to 'judge' our resolve and commitment to their cause. The Scarves leader passed the test, then we waited anxiously for Justine's turn. At that moment, Darren made a hasty decision to set off his flare as a diversion. This only raised further suspicion from Lan'Ro so Justine offered to send one of us to 'investigate' the flare. Still weary, Lan'Ro allowed this only with the escort of one of his seeker apes and some lizard guards. Justine chose Jeeng for this task to help him recover from a slightly embarrassing display of feigned shock. Meanwhile I kept a look out for the airship and readied to set off the flares marking the bombing targets but instead I noticed something peculiar about the ground under our feet. It seemed we were standing on a thin layer of dirt and sticks covering one of the abomination pits somehow magically generated. I let the group know in a whisper and prepared to use my hammer as a strong hold should the ground give way. Darren's flare set fire to the first tent, then the second exploded shortly after, probably his doing as well. The ape was onto one of them after that as Justine stepped onto the altar to be tested. Eventually I heard the approaching engines of the Scrappy and prepared to set off my own flares in the outer pits. To further shift suspicion Darren broke invisibility to attack one of the lizardfolk and Jeeng managed to convince them it was the Scarves soldier nearby, while still trying to put out the tent on fire to show good faith. Finally the Scrappy arrived to herald the start of combat. Upon sight of it, the final tent exploded in an violet inferno, blasting back a few lizard guards, Flynn also revealed herself by stabbing Lan'Ro just as he was about to behead Justine. The ground underneath us opened up to reveal the pit holding a 6 armed abomination who unfortunately devoured one of our Silverflame allies while Riken and Penny misty stepped to safety and the Griffin dimension doored away with the other Scarf, to the surprise of their leader. I held Jeanette and myself suspended above the pit with my hammer and let her off just to the edge and swung myself over after. The creature pursued us climbing the walls of the pit so I made a break for it, shouting for Jeanette and the other flame to follow post haste. Justine recovered from her trial and pretended to take on Flynn in a fight, maintaining our ruse a little longer, however after the last Scarf also vanished, we were left with little choice but to go on the offensive. Since our seeming disguised remained, we decided to play our part as Cliff Tribe members to the end. The Mist Serpent decided to try and smother us in poisonous cloud which it dropped all over the camp. I dodged the first one only to be surrounded by several guards and a hard hitting hound who bloodied me. Meanwhile Jeeng managed to hold Lan'Ro still for Flynn and everyone else to land a few hits before I tried out my new radiant cannon which softened him up for Darren to land the finishing blows. As the second cloud dropped, Jeeng made his way to Jeanette who seemed pinned by the burning tent and the maw creature. Luckily Flynn made her way to help but the summoners continued to pull more monsters out of the pits. On top of that, the airship bombardment couldn't land many direct hits due to the Mist Serpent obscuring the skies. As we scattered to evade the overwhelming forces, that left me the focus of many of the remaining attacks so I could do little to aid in the fight. Eventually Penny summoned her trusty dragon to help turn the tide. It took a lot of hits but eventually fell to the onslaught but distracted the hordes long enough for several of Justine's fireballs to wipe a handful of the lizardfolk from the board. Our invading forces headed with the super weapon King Joe raged toward the south, and had been drawing monsters summoned from the pits throughout this battle. After some large bursts of necrotic energy, the Mist Serpent was also drawn away from the camp. After this, our air support rained down in full force helping us clear the remaining mobs at the camp. Just then, Alli appeared from the west, bloodied and missing an arm but supported by Lia. She brought news, confirming the Red Tide's interest in the Weapon King Joe, or at the very least his necrotic core. Knowing this we still had a choice to make. The airship could only take us so far because another huge mist veil covered the area and seemed to be centered on the main battle between Joe and the Serpent. Jeeng could sense the necrotic energy from this new fog of war leading us to believe this RT bard might be the conjurer. Other than obscuring our vision, we couldn't discern any other immediate dangers from the mist so we decided to venture into the jungle with Alphy, Lea, and Jeeng's captain to find any surviving allies and take out some enemy forces that escaped the camp. The trees were thick but we found and followed a cleared path littered with foreboding corpses. Because we knew the Red Tide's m.o. we took caution and tried to burn as many bodies along the way as possible. Even still, their haunting forces managed to animate some of the poor souls to impede us. I called upon the holy powers to push back the first wave, giving us an opening to proceed but more lay waiting ahead. Before reaching the clash of the titans, Darren noticed the ghostly possession start to take hold of Lia, but how to convince her she was vulnerable and needed protection when she wasn't aware of her resurrection? Before we could ponder that dilemma, the Griffin reappeared for an ambush with some henchmen. They wanted to disrupt our disruption of some kind of necrotic ritual which Jeeng and Justine almost succeeded in doing by destroying 2 altars along the way. However, as the tide turned on the Griffin's forces, one of the cronies sacrificed himself to complete the blood ritual. Penelope managed to hold back some of the magic by displacing the earth where the blood circle was drawn but we could still feel it pulsing beneath our feet. Instead of trying to destroy the circle, we switched tactics and went after the mob ahead who might be fueling the ritual. Penny's dragon informed us this group would be large and was holding Penny's really good lady friend. Lia seemed to wander mindlessly into the crowd, drawn by the necromancer's spell. Beyond the mob, the Scarves leader convened with the Necrobard who remained hidden a while longer. His minions didn't seem to react to our presence and he even addressed us with an illusory projection of a pale figure resembling Lady Maria. He gave no name but identified himself as part of the Tide's crew. He also explained how the Scarves and Tide realigned themselves against the Serpent, and that the blood ritual circle we'd tried to sabotage was part of their plan to contain the Serpent and K.Joe's energy to a breaking point that would annihilate them both. He gave us a chance to leave them to their business in peace but we couldn't let them sacrifice our friends for this plan, so in that moment, Jeeng shot a signal flare to summon Jimmy and the rampaging giant. With the cavalry, the tide started turning, even so, the collateral damage knocked Darren into a coma cocoon for a bit. Meanwhile I turned some more undead but not enough to prevent Zindel from spilling her own blood under possession. Darren emerged a moment later in a burst of light which rejuvenated and elevated us to a new level. He then summoned a shadow hound and a dark duplicate out of his shadow to aid us further. Just when victory was in our grasp, an explosive force from the titan's arena blew all the mist away. Our mysterious necro bard used this distraction to disappear and left his undead puppets for us to finish off. With the last of those dispatched, we left the incapacitated and bound Zindel in Haliford's care while we pursued our ultimate foe, the Serpent. Upon reaching the battlefield, we found K.J. holding off a number of mist monsters though at a heavy cost in the form of thick ice freezing most of it limbs. The Serpent immediately noticed our entrance and set a deadly acid spray. Half of us took the brunt of that attack including myself and we quickly scattered to avoid a repeat. With my energy revitalized by Darren's transformation, I was able to fire off another radiant beam to damage a few of those misties as Jimmy and his giant took on the Serpent with Penny's dragon at the flank. Next I drew a wall of fire through some of the larger mist masses and the serpent and M. Justine finished it off by creating a dimensional rift by cleverly manipulating some bags-of-holding. Unfortunately the giant continued to aimlessly rampage in absence of its target and we had to blind it while we made an escape on our airship.
Interlude: lore master roundup
The petrified monk we pulled out of the melty room was identified as Lia, the missing member of the justice squad from Gideon's time. In her pocket was a note from the tinkerer instructing us to handle the truth of her passing delicately after reviving her soul in this near perfect replica. Other than that we informed her of the current state of the world including the Mazverik dilemma. She seemed willing to help us with our next step infiltrating the Vine village. Flyn and Justine prepared their disguises as the rest of the group hid close by. Justine, as Valerie, presented a corpse fashioned after her personal likeness to offer as a token of good faith to their leader Lan'ro. However this did not satisfy him and he required veritable proof of her loyalty and demanded she take the lives of some captive dwarfs before the tribe. Also unbeknownst to us, Lia disappeared as the ultimatum was dropped, giving us another variable in our planning equations. Eventually we decided to send an invisible Darren to the dwarfs to brief them on the escape plan. Next Justine would veil them with a wall of fire while Darren took one with him on a thunder step and Penny took the other through a dimension door while the last would be given invisibility to try escaping on his own. Jeeng and I had to remain behind to give Penny and Darren the best chance at a stealthy approach while also keeping a watch for the missing Lia. We waited in anticipation. After a little while, Penny and Darren burst through the jungle with their respectively rescued dwarfs. Not long after, Justine also returned and we could finally conclude the mission as a success however bittersweet. We learned from Lia, who invisibly scouted the village during that time, that most of the lizardfolk in that village had already been sacrificed to fuel the animal abominations in Mazverick's army. Thus did we agree with the war council to take action against the village of remaining enthralled cultists on two fronts. The main forces with most of the artillery would rain down destruction but not before Mystery Inc could attempt to smuggle out the lore masters under disguise. The next order of business was claiming our now finished airship which we dubbed "The Scrappy" piloted by Renna Lyrendar, Ray, and Charles. Contrary to what the title might suggest, our moderately sized mobile had enough amenities for our team's needs. While in Last Stop, we checked up on Darren's companion Lyse who seemed to have mostly recovered but still seems like she needs more rest before she's able to help us in the field again. Darren also informed her of our finding the petrified Lia and she warned us that though the Red Tide and Scarves seem quiet for now, they are still most likely making cautious moves in the shadows. Jeeng visited his old captain to follow up in hopes of learning more of the RT movements who confirmed the rumors of similar hauntings that plagued Lyse in various towns in the region. Afterwards we took Scrappy out for her first voyage, with Ray and Charles giving us a rundown of ship management, sailing over the Serpent's Scar (the region still devastated by the powerful miasma) back to Hearth. Hear we gathered our resources to outfit the ship and sold our most recent loot with Reno's help for some extra coin. With some spending money in hand we also paid Herman's Arcanum a visit and the team got some nifty trinkets while I traded in one shield for another. Darren's accomplice Jaws confirmed the haunting rumors with further details of a manifest zone near the Herb tribe which we hoped to address after our impending operation at the Vine. On that note we hopped back to Norlahold to regroup with the war council headed by House Canith and coordinated our efforts. We recruited Alli, Riken, Jeanette, and 2 more Silver flamers to join the infiltration squad while Alphy commanded the airship with Jeeng's old crew. They would commence the bombing run on specific targets we would designate on the ground with smoke signals.
Gideon's Crucible
The antechamber presented us with 3 doors, 1 huge in the middle, immediately inoperable, and 2 smaller flanking it on either side. The first of which Darren opened, sent a swift back-draft nearly catching Reno and myself off guard, and led to a rotating lever which one or more of us would have to turn, possibly to reduce the temp to an agreeable level in the next room. The other door I opened cautiously while taking cover to one side, held 2 turrets shooting quick drying goo, pinning anything hit to the ground. They appeared to trace movement, explaining Reno's sudden self paralysis. We split our efforts here with Jeeng, Penelope, and Darren trying to pull the lever in the heated room with a make-shift bear trap rope hook while I ventured cautiously past the turrets. I managed to make it to one but was hit with acidic goo by the other. Justine's canon managed to destroy one just as I figured out how to dispel the sensors on the other, giving her safe passage to the lever mirroring the other room's. As the acid ate away me, I tried to figure out how to dissolve it as Justine tried in vain to turn the lever. Eventually I was able to pull myself free of the floor then she decided to try mayo, produced from her alchemic jars, which prevented me from re-sticking to anything but still did not dissolve the acidic glue. Eventually the others turned their lever in the oven room by using bear traps and rope and came to check on us. Penny investigated the glue further to find, as befitting the theme of this temple, the glue could be melted by extreme heat, thus I found the conviction to heat my metal self, while Penny and Justine carefully scrapped the glue off. Penny also enlarged me to help us turn the wheel. After that we all regrouped and pressed on to a large central chamber filled with more boiling liquid and covered in a mysterious metal alloy. Some precarious platforms formed a narrow bridge to the center where another larger wheel lever which remained immovable at least until we could turn more small levers in the halls flanking this central room. The room to the left presented mechanical arms which tried to pull us into burning pools, however luckily Penny's water walk prevented them from pulling us completely under. Darren was the first to cross the hall and turned the lever with Penny's aid while the rest of us disarmed the arms. We then ventured toward the right hall which held exploding frogs also housed in a boiling pool which concealed them. Reno took the brunt of the first of these explosions but managed to artfully dodge most of its damage. We also learned not long into the fight that when charged with heat from the pools, they took less cold damage which we thought might be their weakness, but their explosion attack left them normally vulnerable. Darren tried blinding them with his dark veil but they still managed to block him from turning the wheel. As we had the frogs on the ropes, they took one last swim and I took that opportunity to dash over to the wheel. They leapt out for one final explosive barrage which did burn a bit but the others pulverized them afterwards as I turned the lever. We returned to find this unlocked the middle upper door from the central chamber and proceeded to find a blinding light. a glowing projection of Gideon, master architect of this temple who, mocked us before collapsing the other bridges from the central platform forcing us to run forward to face his ultimate creation, designed and programmed according to the data this place had collected from us thus far. The automaton ambushed us with its thousand arms slap to commence the battle. Throughout the fight some of those arms fired off becoming boombots which in turn pursued and detonated toward the end of the fight. The big boss also threatened to explode in our faces but Penny's summoned dragon dealt the final blow before it could. After we felled our foe, Reno led us into Gideon's private lab where we found lots of boobytrapped loot. Justine and Jeeng managed to dodge one room's mechanism but Darren triggered a radiant canon across the way which shot a beam straight through all 3 of them. I only managed to heal Darren before we proceeded to the last chamber which Reno warned would self destruct as soon as we opened the door so we all prepared to grab what we could. Based on the other loot being in chests, I thought to animate any others found within and successfully commanded 4 to fly out before the acid could dissolve them. Penelope grabbed a shelf full of books and Jeeng stuffed a petrified elf monk into the portable hole before grabbing a necrotic gem as well. Penny thought she could salvage the other melted bookcase and so sent her dragon in once more only to have it suffer the acid damage for a puddle of goo, but thanks to Justine, it escaped barely alive. Darren took one last look before Reno shut the door on the now melted room.
Burning the candle at both ends
Back home, we check in on Lyse, found she was haunted by a spirit as well as a RedTide blood shanty signalling the presence of a RT member in Hearth. We did manage to help her finally get some rest after this revelation. Our next focus, because we wanted to conserve our porting charges, was to seek the final component for our airship. In preparation for elemental hunting, I made Jeeng some fire resist armor and helped Darren acquire a frost breath potion. With no time to lose, we hopped a barge with the Zilargan gnomes to find our fire elemental. They explained a little of what to expect but the actual encounter saw us facing a much larger foe than normal. I stayed by the casting gnomes to ensure they survive the ceremony while the others scattered to the lures holding the elemental at bay just in time for the spell to complete. We walked away bruised and battered but also with one more piece of our airship secured. This left us just enough time to hurry to the congregation where our allies would discuss the fate of Q'Barra. Nathaniel represented the Silver Flame at this meeting, so I approached him, through Jeanette's introduction, to ask him to persuade the other parties to delay their military response by 5 days. We would use the time to investigate Jeeng's lead, a Scion Temple with potential resources to counter Mazverick's demonic power, though in what capacity we knew not. Our other related mission would have us expose the influence of Mazverick hopefully through the Mist members assigned to guard the tribes' loremasters. At the actual meeting, House Canith unveiled a super Warforged titan which admittedly put me off again, seeing one of my kind contorted into something so nefarious, a mere tool, a weapon to be used at the push of a button. Not to mention, it was powered by the souls of countless Lizardfolk. Despite any of our own moral reservations on using this weapon, its existence signaled the council's intentions to mobilize sooner than later, giving us only 3 days. With this new time frame we re-strategized to visit the League of Explorers first for more insight on how to travel to the goblin temple the Champions of Justice mentioned. There, we met one Reno Jackson, a professional dungeoneer who offered his services for our next temple run. Reno told us the goblin explorer, Gideon, harnessed energy from the Sea of Flames, Furnia to fuel his traps at this temple, to which we responded by regaling our most recent venture in capturing a fire elemental. With preparations in hand, we ported to the temple via a magical jar of dirt from the site. Upon arrival, Reno revealed a strange key to unlock a sweltering stairwell to the temple depths.
Mosquitos in the Mist
The aptly named mist temple entrance found us in a dense mist with ominous corpses decorating the landscape with mysterious holes drilled into their skulls. One bloody arrow directed us toward the entrance. Penelope volunteered to mislead project herself to scout where the arrow led. Upon her return we proceeded with caution, however some traps were triggered. I got Darren and myself stuck in some quick drying cement. Jeeng was swarmed by killer wasps. Despite the dangers, we eventually discovered a secret hole into which a mysterious figure darted after sensing our presence and thus we decided to investigate. The tunnel wasn't exactly a shear drop but did look like it turned into a slide after 10 ft. at which point Darren found another moss covered secret tunnel that Penelope then sent her familiar puffin to investigate while we delved deeper into the main vein. In fact, this main tunnel was perforated with more of these smaller tubes, the origins of which puzzled Justine and Darren who continued to investigate as they descended ahead. Before Penelope and I reached the bottom, we heard a small explosion, which we soon found out was a trap triggered by the ever curious Justine and Darren. Meanwhile I followed Jeeng toward the strange lights illuminating from a chamber further in that gave off a stifling demonic aura. Eventually everyone regrouped as we approached to take a closer look. Darren noticed a small amount of dust falling from the ceiling and after reading the draconic/demonic inscriptions, determined that this altar was supposed to ward off evil before its defilement. The only way we could purify it was to call upon the Silver Flame to perform a cleansing ritual but first we would have to clear the site. Upon uttering that sentiment aloud, the ceiling exploded and a host of House Canith canines, a titan forge, and demonic mosquitos ambushed us. I was surprised by the debris but regained my wits in time to block the titan's flame breath, a feature uncommon to my kind, but even as I did so, the mechanines surrounded me. The mosquito men apparently directed them to target me specifically although I couldn't understand their exact reasoning in demonic. I would wager a guess that they sought to salvage my warforged mechanisms to create another titan similar to the foe we currently faced. The odds looked dire, but luckily Justine was able to swipe the controller they used and turned one of the mechanines against them, while Darren blinded the titan in darkness, giving us a chance to reposition ourselves. With persistence the titan fell at last with one last blow from Darren. I honestly didn't know how to feel about destroying such an opponent comprised of a former fellow Warforged so I said last rights to our fallen foe. As I did so, his remains rebuffed with a blast of demonic aura that I just managed to dodge. Nonetheless I highly recommended Justine ask the Silver Flame to cleanse the remains before tinkering further. In turn, she patched up some of my dents while Penelope scryed the whereabouts of the one mosquito that got away. We then regrouped with Alphy to take a short rest...
New Throne New Tribe
Before we made our next move, we took the opportunity after resting to interrogate the captured lizardfolk. When asked who led the folk, names unrecognized to me but that Mystery Inc fought before came up. When asked why they tried to release Mazerik's general demon, they at first denied their intentions to do so, claiming ignorance of the magically corrosive effects of the purple cloud. When asked how they learned to conjure such mists, they confirmed that the Serpent itself taught them. When asked who and where their lore masters were, they confirmed that they never left their villages, the locations of which we could ascertain through Darren's connections. When asked if other lizard factions were planning to cast a similar mist ritual anywhere, they only threatened that all the forces of the jungle would hunt and purge us from their lands as retaliation for siccing the giant on them, which we obviously did not intentionally but I could see how they would interpret the consequences of our actions on the mountain that way. After the Q&A we let the shifters have the prisoners while we ported to our next destination New Throne. There we met with Mr. Ainesly Costa, the once renowned hero of the [Justice society] who then confirmed Darren's suspicions that our Mist Serpent was not the same that this Ainesly slayed in his prime in an explosive trap. He also pointed us to the lizardfolk of this swamp region for further information about the real Mist Serpent. Darren, being our resident lizardfolk ambassador, made first contact only to learn that these folk had abandoned their former tribe to become citizens of New Throne, and therefore lacked a Loremaster. Nevertheless their appointed leader Qin Mot, agreed to answer all his/our questions to the best of their abilities. Originally the tribe was split between how to interact with the settlers, with a dissonant sect continually antagonizing the settlers until one day the tribe was forcibly moved to its current location. The discontented faction continued to seek aid in reclaiming their land and that's when they called upon the original Mist Serpent. They then affirmed Ainesly's recollection that the serpent of history did not share the fantastical powers the current one claims. Afterwards Justine and Darren traveled onto find the Mist Temple to map out a teleportation landing while the rest of us spent the day on our own paths. I visited the local Flame Church to seek aid. They greeted me and offered a variety of items, of which I picked out some supreme healing potions. They also showed me an ancient encyclopedia of Overlord Lore, which I spent the day absorbing, learning how Mazerik turned his former enemies into servants by tempting them with their deepest desires. We regrouped as Justine and Darren reached the temple and teleported the next day into a thick mist...
Why'd it have to be a snake pit gas chamber?
Unbeknownst to us, we teleported into what seemed to be a snake den. I had just enough time to create an aberration's roar to distract the guards, giving us enough time to find cover, though all the good it did me with my clunky clumsy footfalls. The battle commences with Darren summoning his own aberration servant to perpetuate the ruse but soon the horde of snakes of varying sizes set upon us while the stealthier members proceeded to rescue the feline shifter hostage and sabotage the altar at which the serpents were preparing a ritual, which Darren successfully disrupted by altering their altar. Eventually we subdued the snakes and our rescued hostage directed us down a side entrance into the temple. My knowledge of the ancient celestial language translated an ominous warning to those seeking to disturb the temple. Nevertheless we had to proceed, and indeed the promised peril we found in the form of mysterious vapors in the following chambers. Darren, Jeeng and myself were among the first to test the different colored gases. The red mist seemed to induce a confusion in Jeeng and anyone who might inhale it. The first shifter we rescued told us the blue vapor affected the skin upon contact but neither seemed to effect me so I ventured further ahead to where Darren spotted a green gas near another demonic statue. Behind this I read more celestial carvings describing the demon represented in stone as a shape shifting one indicated by the corresponding statues we saw at the entrance which resembled one another yet with slightly different features. This was confirmed by the next shifter we encountered near one of the green clouds which reacted to any disturbance and movement. While the rest of the party focused down the first of these gas clouds now given form, Justine and I went to aid some more shifters in the middle of the chamber. With 3 more shifters safely guided to the entrance, we proceeded to engage the other green gas demons and as we advanced the remaining red and blue gas converged behind us. After Justine and Darren tried clearing a path with their usual magical devices that up til now had worked on the separate red and blue gases, I also tried casting Identify to figure out this new purple cloud but Fran-kee immediately noticed that all magical properties dissipated upon contact. Thus Jeeng had to blow away a path with the giant fan Penelope conjure, but because the wind he was generating was not itself magical, we were able to clear it and move forward to find a thick mud and stone wall sealing off a chamber of shifters from the purple cloud which seemed to magnetize itself to this wall. Penelope eventually thought of teleporting into the chamber and evacuating everyone through the portable hole so we followed, everyone except Darren who ushered the shifters we'd already rescued topside. In the chamber, I met Elise for the first time who enlightened me to the the main statue of Ronka and the altars of mass sacrifice used to seal even just one of Mazerik's generals which no doubt was the target of the purple cloud. I also caught Justine trying to disturb one of these altars, risking the general's release and gave her a stern gaze while holding her hand to make an arcana check (which still failed to tell more than Elise already knew and elucidated). Thus with nothing further to do, we used both portable holes to evacuate everyone and regrouped with Darren. On the surface Jeeng conversed with Moonlight further upon the strange behaviors of the Lizardfolk who might only be at the end of a string of mechanisms pulled by anyone's guess at this point (Jeeng's money still on the Red Tide) We also had to decide who we would contact to help handle the purple cloud while we ventured to pay a visit to the Bestest Justice Friends
Interlude - The Overlord Lore
With the help of an artifact gifted to us, we teleported home and proceeded to revive Lyse. She woke briefly, letting us know the spell worked but passed out again after acknowledging her resurrected state so we asked Alphy to keep an eye on her since he would be recovering in tandem. I asked Jeanette of the Silver Flame to also check in on them after a few days for good measure. So far, Valerie the succubus leading the Cliff remained true to her word to spare Hearth but apparently she held off from attacking the other towns too, despite sightings of Cliff forces appearing near Norlahold and such. As we scouted the town for more information, we suddenly spotted a large plume of green smoke rising from the jungle, coiling like a serpent before descending upon mountains in the direction of Norlahold and the Cloud tribe we just left. Putting the pieces together, M. Penelope immediately scryed the rampaging Giant on the loose correctly guessing that he was the target of the Mist Serpent, which corroded everything in its path trying to kill this giant, nearly missing Norlahold but essentially destroying the paths between settlements in the region. Needless to say this caused the town more than a little panic so I volunteered my services to Gunthar again to help arm the townsfolk for the rest of the day. At about 2 in the morning, we were all awoken by an ominous voice issuing a final warning to vacate the region, which we could only assume came from the Lizardfolk devoted to the Mist Serpent. We started the next day by interrogating the Red Scarves captive... We discovered Valerie was an agent of chaos used by the Scarves but more importantly, the Scarves' plans involved something even more dangerous than the Mist Serpent, some beings called Overlords who ruled the world in ages past. Following this interrogation, we spoke with the Griffin corpse for more information, with L. Justine disguised as Red Tide member to more easily coax answers from it. He was not as clear as we'd hoped but he did allude to a familiarity between the Griffin and the Tide, possibly in how they choose their leaders. Before we all headed off with our separate missions, I had to consult L Jeanette of the Flame to see if I could learn more about the Overlords. Her tone darkened as she mentioned how the dragons of old created quetzali in order to seal the Overlords but how we might have to take more preemptive and drastic measures to prevent their awakening now with the quetzali extinct. She reassured me that she would spread the word to the other towns as we finished. With that we split up to investigate different leads with M. Darren and myself visiting Lady Maria. We arrived without much trouble despite the regions devastation after the Mist Serpent's rampage. M. Justine also gave us some corpses to trade for a a special order so that was the first order of business. We then gave Aurion a call on the Lady's mirror to check in and ask what both of them knew about the overlords and how to handle them but didn't glean much more than we already knew; their advice echoed the same leads, the lizardfolk lorekeepers, historians guild and ancient religious orders. She did impart a bit of wisdom pertaining to the Griffin, implying the mask and sword were used to store souls and their abilities to make each successive Griffin all the more formidable. Once we finished we returned to Hearth to regroup. M. Justine brought back many gifts from House Canith to assist us on a special mission to rescue M. Penelope's lost lover. We made haste with our preparations and teleported to the designated site...
The Griffin, the Lyse and the Warring Tribes
Meeting with Lyse Dain, we relayed all we've learned of the neighboring regions. She suggests the Griffin might've been involved with the coup in the mountain tribes. From White Cliff, We returned to Maria with Lyse now in tow. Maria fed us charred meat and gave us some more intel on our next heading. The cliff tribe camp we must infiltrate has tremor sentinels which will detect any footsteps, air patrol and led by a particular succubus. Our plan starts with Penelope and Justine going in for recon, Penelope will project a shadow of herself while Justine will play the part of a wayward traveler seeking refuge. They were able to scout some of the camp's inhabitants but the Griffin was not among them to Lyse's chagrin. They also learned that the Cliff Tribe is working with the Red Scarves and they are planning something that targets various towns including our own Harth. M. Justine also managed to smuggle out a booby-trapped book which I helped dispel but we opened it to find the contents were inscribed in demonic languages which none of us could read. Thankfully M Penelope knew a spell to translate and we gleaned a bit more background into how and when this succubus pulling the strings got into bed with the Griffin. M Justine and M Darren went on another scouting/sabotage mission; I provided them with some explosives which they set off after recording more conversations between the cliff tribes leaders but after they regrouped with us, we discovered that the succubus' spider minions are keen on the rose scent that covered her diary and so we made for home while trying to scatter the scent all over the mountain as well as covering our physical trail in hopes of evading detection. I asked the heavens and it seems like the Scarves will make their move soon so hopefully we will be ready. On our way back to town, we flew over a ravine with a precarious rope bridge but it seemed our pursuers were still hot on our tail closing in everyday. Eventually we decided to hurry to the nearest river in hopes of erasing our scent which they no doubt had been tracking. We tried to sleep at the bottom of said river when we encountered another Sahagin tribe, seemingly much more advance than their counterparts whom Darren were more familiar. He was able to bargain our safe passage if we agreed to meet with their leader, Degna, who asked us about our travels and present predicament pertaining to the strange tribes rumors and their likely connection to this Griffin. With the Sahagin's escort through their underwater routes we made it back to Hearth unscathed. We had just enough time to strategize and decided to take a diplomatic approach with Valerie of the Cliff so we procured some luxurious perfumes and I fashioned a fancy box to gift to her. This only curried us so much favor as she agreed to spare only Hearth if we could produce the Griffin. Having no other choice, we headed to where we suspected he might be, after scrying on his flunkies and discovering they would meet him within a week somewhere high up in the snowy peaks. There were few locations at such an elevation and it could not have been mere coincidence that we deduced this to be the path towards the Cloud tribe giants. The journey up the mountain was fraught with peril from the start. We crossed a ravine of Rocs and proceeded to climb a shear cliff. On the way up, Darren detected a strange pulse that seemed to draw us in. We were able to skirt around it but even as we reached flatter ground we sense more similar pulses on the path toward the Cloud. Not wanting to trigger any traps we left them alone but soon we came upon some Scarves near the tribe entrance who seemed to be casting these pulses. At that point we realized we had to hurry to aid the tribe but some of us had to stay behind to deal with the casters and whatever they were setting up. Darren, Pen, Ash, Lyse and I decided to stay outside while Jeeng, Justine, and Alphy went in. Halfway through our battle, Ash noticed something wrong with Alphy bc of their twin thing. Before we could proceed to his aid, Jeeng notified us of the Griffin's approach. It seemed destroying the beacon glyph might've disrupted his plans to lead a rampaging giant down the mountain toward Norlahold. We had just enough time to quickly strategize and decide to loose the poison bomb Lyse was holding onto. As soon as the Griffin and entourage arrived, Lyse dropped the bomb shrouded in Darren's darkness but just after it detonated, the scoundrels dimension doored into the clear and right through my ring of fire. Some of them went back into the poison cloud to try repairing the beacon but did not make it out. Meanwhile, an enraged Lyse relentlessly pursued Griffin to the brink of death allowing us to finish him off but his lieutenant and the Scarves leader continued to fight and nearly killed Penelope forcing a ceasefire, letting them retreat as we did the same. Upon returning to the Cloud village, we regrouped with Alphy in front of the now smashed gate, apparently the work of a terrible giant the griffin released. He was dashed to hear how Lyse died but we reassured him that I could resurrect her with the loot we got from our battle in the morning. That evening we talked to Aureon, the tribe leader to learn what we could do to recover his brother, the rampaging giant headed toward the jungles near Harth...
Interlude - Dubious Deals
On the journey back, we decided to purchase a replacement for the Golden Hein, stopping by to visit Lynra of House Lyrandar to see what kind of deal we could get. She gave us a deal in exchange for a job taking down another pirate haunting the local seas, Mazery. According to her, Mazery has been wreaking havok upon the seas as a thrill seeking adventurer raiding all merchant ships indiscriminately and she would see him removed in any manner we can manage. During this hiatus, we went shopping again, M. Justine helped me haggle down a Karnathi Bone Shield from Herman and we visited Mama Mae's Tattoo parlor, where M. Darren got a magical tat and we all got matching Mystery Inc symbols. We also got started on building the airship, to which I could only contribute a meager 500gp bc I spent the rest of that time perfecting my hammer technique.
Between training sessions, I took some time to see if I could make any headway with the otherwise despondent Red. With Jeanette's permission and an escort, I took him for a grand tour of our town, after which he finally spoke. He asked why I let people use me, particularly M. Justine due to her noble background with the high houses that have historically treated our kind as mere weapons, tools, and servants. While it's true M. Justine might've seen me as such when we first met, we've spent considerable time adventuring since then. Through the many trials I've come to discover and be more my own person and I'm confident M. Justine has at least begun to realize the same. By the time we returned Red to his chambers, I came to the conclusion that we must give ourselves a chance to discover who we are without owners and masters and give others the chance, who want it, to get to know that person if we wish to be seen as more than tools or servants. M. Jeeng also asked me for tips on approaching Red, I could only recommend treating him as we would any other person. Although we hope that he will help us when he regains his will to live, it is ultimately his decision as to how to lead his life from here.
Went to visit the zombie queen Maria for additional advice in dealing with RT undead army. She told us a little more about the Children of Vol and after looking over our notes, she offered to equip us with a sort of counter which could possibly completely negate the devices RT uses to channel darkness from Mabar by channeling opposing radiant energy from another realm. In order to do so, we must first locate a manifest zone at the correct time of day. She also offered advice for M. Jeeng to help bolster his life force to counter the draining. She then gave us a bell to summon 3 ghost servants to aid us in putting together our airship in progress but warned us against approaching the other regional tribes. She also told of Arien, leader of the Cloud Tribe giants returned recently from an expedition to his homeland and not long after, a piercing scream echoed through the mountains. Subsequently no one has been able to contact them. The Cliff Tribe's cyclops leader, Clay, was also overthrown in a violent coup by Trolls led by Turk and have also closed communications with others.
Together we managed to get a midtier ship which floats on water and in the air eventually when we tame a fire elemental. We contacted Mazery and arranged a meeting at New Vegas and discussed what it would take for him to complete the mission of finding and apprehending Carmen, while Lynra listened in. He explained he would need to collect some heavy ammunition to help us take down the RT and of course he would implement his favorite tactics of pirating. Needless to say Lynra was not pleased to hear this and thus we needed to reconvene to convince her. Eventually we settled on a plan to chaperone Mazery on his piracy and guide him towards other shady targets that Lynra would help provide. She also swore us to secrecy after agreeing to this plan. In order to convince Mazery to pursue the targets provided, we invented an alias and rumors to feed the information in a believable manner. Our next course will take us to M. Darren's acquaintance Lyse Dain.
Stop, Hammertime
Day 43
The Trip to Hammer was smooth enough. Upon arrival we entered what seemed to be a sanctuary for the children of Vol, a church enclosed within some fortified walls. We met a matron figure who was rather withholding upon our mentioning the Red Tide. Thus did we proceed with a plan for stealth reconnaissance but a few minutes into the mission we reconsidered our approach and took the front door. After subjecting ourselves to the matrons (Sam) interrogation, she permitted us to speak with a child of Vol, who turned out to be much older than the other 'children' of the orphanage. Speaking of which, while waiting for our audience with Geoframh, Jeeng wanted to entertain one of the orphans by summoning a mysterious steed, smelling of flowers and sweets, which Sam promptly asked him to dismiss. Geoframh delivered some grave news for Jeeng, his sorcery, which once saved him, is actually draining his life force and will kill him in less than a decade.
Next day, we proceed to aid Ms Penelope train her telekinetic abilities. In the process, M. Penelope also made contact with her friend of the deep. However as we destroyed the last of the trial beasts, we realized all too late that the Red Tide had tricked us. A small girl rose up from the sea upon an undead whale and summoned more undead creatures in ambush. We barely got away before their forces overwhelmed us but this girl (Fael) who seemed to be hunting M. Penelope, shifted her attack to the only town on the island. With all the undead spies around us, we decided to "leak" misinformation in an attempt to divert attention away from Penelope until she could escape with her Leviathan. Jeeng and I returned to the church for another audience with Geoframh after informing lady Sam of the impending assault. Apparently they already had wards which kept the undead rats at bay so we were hoping Geoframh might have something more potent to deal with the larger beasts. Meanwhile M. Justine and M. Darren went to recruit the town guard. Geoframh gave us some more insight into the Redtide's workings as well as some necrotic fighting equipment but cautiously warned that not all the Redtide's forces will be of the undead variety. We did agree that part of the defensive strategy would make use of the church as a bunker for the civilians. M Justine and M Darren found a local fishing legend, Emmeric whom we wined and dined into joining the fight. As before, Fael seemed to be one step ahead of us and outed us to the whole town, giving them the ultimatum between us or them. M Jeeng was able to quell the crowd enough for us to lead the undead horde away from town.
Halfway to our fake destination we were set upon by a small group of undead bears. They didn't take too for us to dispatch, and we took one of their heads to help us study the Redtide's mysterious necromancy, much to Fael's chagrin. Reaching the north side beach, we quickly enacted a plan to hopefully complete the ruse but apparently Fael knew Ms. Penelope too well and had anticipated such deception. Therefore we made haste towards Hammer, hoping to prevent anymore casualties. Upon arrival, we found the town deserted save for the undead flocks overhead and burning building and corpses of the fallen. We made our way to the church, which was thankfully still standing behind the wards, which apparently Faele could not penetrate. Master Geoframh determined that her power to control the undead came from an object channeling energy from the realm of Endless Night, Mabar, and had its limits. After following our next lead to an abandoned lighthouse, we managed to diminish Fael's zombie forces further by destroying and capturing her magic holes, which was how she was transporting her corpses.
Regrouped at Geofrahm's base, when we noticed Fael going to meet with 2 figures who just arrived in town. Emeric spied on them as long as he could until one of them, a Dulahan spotted him with his senses. Emeric barely got back to us with news of these developments when the second figure made herself known as Fael's superior Scarlet with a ultimatum demanding Geofrahm turn himself over to her for execution in exchange for the rest of the town's safety. We didn't trust this but Geofrahm assured us Scarlet would keep her word in a way. Thus we resolved to meet her as we accompanied Geofrahm to his execution. She actually was still considering firing Fael for all her failures thus far and so agreed to let us fight her one final time in a gamble for our freedom as well. The battle would play out at the docks, this time, boasting a zombie t-rex and the Dulahan on her side. We fought fiercely as Fael played hit and run while the Dulahan threw some shrunken heads at us. Some buildings might've caught fire and Darren was on the brink of death but eventually I was able to locate Fael in time for the others to finish her off. We then cornered the Dulahan and Carmen in the inn, and managed to put enough pressure on them that they fled at the sight of our reenforcements who arrived in an airship. A handful of our allies were on board and helped aid and rebuild the Hammer town before we left. We also spoke with the late Geofrahm one last time for guidance and more details of Carmen Twinzel, who apparently relies too heavily on her connection to Mabar to perform necromancy. Fael's interrogation went thusly Geralf, Giza, Nathan are the remaining generals and the port where they can refuel their darkness.
Covert Camping
day 38
WIP outline
The Varrak Venture
Day 30
Mystery Inc set out to uncover some unsavory details on the admiral of the Seadragons, Varrak Musar. Our plan to sneak aboard his ship unfolded in a few phases. Initially, master Darren and I managed to charm an introduction to Varrak himself through a local trader who had been dealing with the man. This visit served as recon for the next phase, in which we detained, questioned, and donned disguises from a few sailors stationed aboard. In hindsight we probably should have taken more care during that step as we overlooked the most basic information which would have held Justine and Darren's facades together against the slightest scrutiny. It didn't take long for Varrak to see through our ruse but before you could say hot water, the flames of chaos we'd kindled threatened to engulf the entire vessel. What started as a simple ploy to poison their food supply soon erupted into a wild grease fire, which as dangerous as it is, manged to cover our escape which was also aided by the enigmatic and highly capable prisoner we managed to release. TBC...
Roasted T-Rex
Day 22
We eventually retired from the festival to help welcome a special guest for dinner at Penelope's request. Since I have no real taste or experience for preparing fine cuisine, I volunteered to clean up instead. In any case, Penelope seems to have accomplished her mission to 'woo' our guest and start a new relationship. We decided that tying up loose ends would be first on the agenda so the next day we set out to hunt our missing abberex. I thought master Darren/Fray had a better sense of direction but we ended up getting lost a few times, eventually stumbling upon an enchanted illusory spring. Of course at the time we had no notion of the trap Penelope and Justine were being drawn towards and eventually fell into. The rest of us also felt the allure of the illusion but managed to shake it off long enough to rescue them from the hole. Strangely enough, this trap had ensnared our elusive Rex along with a couple dozen woodland creatures and some lizard folk. After Jeeng determined that the paralyzing poisonous fumes would not affect me as they had every other living creature that had fallen in, I volunteered to jump in and rescue all but the slumbering Rex. But first, by some miracle I was able to dispel the advance enchantment drawing victims into the pit so we had one less problem. Rescue 2.0. also went much more smoothly with the aid of Darren's dark familiar Beholder so all the was left was to incinerate the T-Rex, which Justine handled with a flare. Our next destination, returning the lizard folk to their tribe... Or so we thought...
Festive Flights of Fancy
Day 20
The festival was quite an experience, brand new to me. There were booths for quick carnival games as they're known, food from all sorts of origin, and large amusement contraptions which people "ride" for enjoyment and thrills. I was introduced to one of these 'rides' by some children whom I originally offered to tend after seeing how ill they were upon disembarking. Apparently people willingly anticipate the medical side-effects as part of the enjoyment. My warforged anatomy allowed me to ride the teacups more than a dozen times without any nausea but I'm afraid I still do not fully understand the enjoyment of such rides on a personal level. Perhaps at the next festival I can volunteer to tend to all such affected guests officially and possibly set up a medical tent. If not, I could always volunteer at the Mystery Inc. dunk tank again in place of anyone who would rather avoid getting soaked. A Dragon shard to bind an air elemental is required to convince a certain noble house to sponsor our airship endeavor as we found out so that shall be our first step, at some point.
Breaking Balls
Day 15
This week, Mystery Inc continued to enjoy the peace after the aberration operation and each prepared for the upcoming festivities. I continued to tend to the wounded and lay to rest the dead all giving me valuable medical training and experience. The paladins of the Flame, who have since moved on to their next destination, recognized me as an official medic of the Flame. I believe what I felt was a great honor as they conferred this recognition. So it seems I do possess the potential for both destruction and healing and yet, I still feel the need to improve upon my mastery of both. In other news, I also convinced the company to expand our base to include, among other extensions, a brand new hangar. It seems master Jeeng has long since wanted to fly aboard an airship as I have longed to build one, as was my friend's dream. We have a long way to go before we take to the skies but in the meanwhile, I've also plans for practical land transport vehicles, which I hope miss Justine will help with. Speaking of whom, miss Justine and I participated in a training exercise for master Darren/Fray's protege, during which miss Justine took the form of a slightly taller male resembling master Darren. The results were a bit violent for my taste, especially with the near fatal blow to miss Justine's genetalia, a gesture she promptly returned to master Darren/Fray after the fact. Apparently, this is what chums do though, exchange blows, breaking each others balls as it goes. It does seem painful and thus another reason I'm glad I'm lacking that most delicate of equipment.
The Rex that got away
Day 8
Our mission: Capture the prime aberration and destroy as many others as we can. We succeeded technically but one Tyrannosaur got away at the last second. Master Darren and Miss Penelope made a valiant effort to pursue it but in the end were not able to keep up, possibly due to the fatigue we all must have felt by the end of battle. I must admit I was not the best at combat, I still don't like violence but I was able to be of some use while restraining the prime, protecting Leoman as he conducted his ritual to secure it. After the battle, we were able to pull some survivors from the mountain of corpses thank the Flame but the casualties were still much more than anyone anticipated. I cannot help but feel partially we were partially to blame as we helped organize the operation and tactics. Still, Leoman delivered a suitable sum in reward for our efforts. I sent half my earnings back home and now have a new scarab friend who helps my regenerate spells, quite useful for healing. The members of Mystery Inc all had various reactions to this bit of new but it's significance still eludes me: it appears Miss Justine is a changeling. Does that hold the same weight as my own existence as a warforged? She seems sensitive about the topic and has forbade us from speaking of it to anyone else, so I'm inclined to not press her. In any regard, it seems I will have much to learn from life with Mystery Inc.
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