Pardus Journal The Hunted || Pardus

End April 2019 I returned to the group outside of the new Graniteheart forge underneath Fallen Peaks. Sahlrek is being called by Synn to journey north. The 3 Onyx Knights with him are definitely anxious to go. This is not helping the schism within the group. Regardless we go see how well the new forge is operating and how the dwarves are doing. I’d like to bring the other portion of Clan Graniteheart here to be reunited with these dwarves. Upon our arrival, King Hester shows us to our new airship and discuss the plans for the retrofit of the existing airship. With both of these airships, we will be able to travel quickly anywhere across Evermore and bring quite a bit of firepower to bear when we do. There is still some concern about bringing the Hellblaster cannons and black powder in general out into the world. We also see the dwarves alchemists and their alchemist’s fire production. Even if we don’t make use of the black powder weapons, being able to drop lots of alchemist’s fire from the airship will be a potent tool. After touring the facilities, Hester mentions that the dwarves are concerned about something below the new forge so we set out to check it out. Downstairs we found a couple of statues of large Yesharians similar to the Onyx Knights that are following Sahlrek around. Both statues had collars on them that were similar to the Onyx collar that I found in the Catacombs. Puma had warned me that putting on the collar would give me power but also make me a thrall to one of the Yesharian cities. I had decided that I wouldn’t put the collar on unless the circumstances were incredibly dire. Instead I decided to put the collar onto one of the statues. It came to life and I instructed it to go protect it’s new master. Off it went. I wonder what will happen to it as it wears both collars. The other statue came to life as well and after a decent battle, we were able to subdue it. Past the statues we found an old chapel to some of the Yesharian gods but the imagery is beyond our ability to comprehend at the moment. More knowledge and history is necessary. Perhaps we’ll revisit it later. We continued exploring the level and found an entrance to the Serpentine Road and a map that would allow us to use the Road. At that moment, the Road was set to take us or anyone else to the Capital. While we definitely have things to do here at the Forge with the Granitehearts, a way yo sneak past enemy lines and straight into Draxus’s palace was too much to resist. We went through. The Capital is unguarded and in rebellion against Draxus. We found a dwarf in the sacrificial chamber and talked with him. He is a member of the Dustmaker Clan, a long lost portion of Clan Graniteheart. They’ve been forced to serve Draxus for centuries but would escape if they could. We promised to gather as many of the them as we can and take them with us when we leave. We also found a guarded treasure chamber of Draxus’s. His guards were not particularly interested in actually guarding it so we walked right in. We found several expensive tapestries and two priceless ones that showed Draxus, Rhexus, Asher, Velkyn, and some others. There were also three blue bladed weapons on the walls. One was a great sword that looked like the one Asher had in the tapestry. One was a short sword that matched Velkyn’s. The last was a scimitar that didn’t appear in the tapestries. All 3 of the swords and the tapestries ended up in our box of holding for “safe keeping.” From here we found a place to rest to prepare for leaving the palace and exploring the city with all of the madness occurring out there. Upon waking, we found Sahlrek and Mavia gone. Mavia had mentioned that she needed to help with the rebellion and find her family. Sahlrek had to finally answer Synn’s call. Unfortunately he also took the map to the Serpentine Road. That was supposed to be our way out. Yet another betrayal from him. Even without a guaranteed way out, we had a promise to the Dustmakers to keep to we set off into the city to gather them. On our way out, we found a human named Dave who was held prisoner in a magic coffin. We told Dave that if he follows us, we’ll get him out as well. He is an odd character but wants a bow and is willing to help if he can. We encountered occasional resistance from looters or deserters in the city but nothing that we couldn’t handle easily. We found some of the Dustmakers. They told us that most of the clan had been taken to the parade grounds and couldn’t leave. We sent the ones we found back to the entrance to the palace and set off to rescue the others if we could. At the parade grounds, we found a lot of Yesharian assassins arranging the bodies of the dwarves. Leading the Yesharians was Kazraa. He allowed us to approach and warned us that we couldn’t stand
against what’s coming. We told Kazraa that we were taking the dwarves bodies down and stopping this ritual. After a brief struggle between us and the assassins, they fled and the bodies fell to the ground. Something was definitely coming. We found no survivors so we turned to head back to the palace and get out with the remainder of the Dustmakers. We found our way blocked by the Herald. We might have been able to slip by him. We definitely should’ve tried. We didn’t. We attacked. The fight went poorly. Our new companion, Dave, ended up on the wrong end of the Herald’s hammer and was killed. I tried to us the Wish spell to take out the Herald but I used the Wish poorly. In hindsight, trying to launch him high into the sky and dropping him may not have been the best move. Something simpler or even just trapping him may have been better. Regardless, our days appeared numbered until first two dragons and then an airship appeared overhead. The larger dragon was the amethyst dragon we had freed from the Catacombs and the smaller was a blue one we hadn’t seen before. The airship was also very familiar. In fact it was the new one that was supposed to still be underneath Falone Peaks and it had Salhrek and Mavia and Hester on it. Well it looked like Mavia but certainly didn’t smell like her. Even from a distance, her smell was extremely wrong. End of June 2019 So given that I still writing this journal, we survived. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. But I’m still wondering at the cost of such luck. So first the blue dragon landed with two people on it and offered to help. Then the airship appeared overhead with our missing companions on board. They pointed at the Herald and unleashed the full power of the Hellblaster Cannons on him. Only a sticky mess was left behind. The Herald was dead and we were not. And then things got even more confused and the cost began to mount. The amethyst dragon attacked the airship and both came crashing to the ground in the distance. We took advantage of the chaos by gathering as much of the Herald’s stuff as was still in one piece. The Captain then used his Life stone to resurrect Dave who, while dead, looked like a drow. Turns out his name is Vel’Dan. But while in the city, he resumed his human disguise to continue on with us. We also met the two dragon riders, Kellen and Vex. She’s a cleric and I’m not sure what he is besides smitten with her. Anyway, they offered us a way out of the city. The blue dragon can fly all of us and the Dustmakers out. So we all set off through the city to retrieve the Dustmakers and skedaddle. On the way, we found a hidden treasure chamber that had been exposed by the destruction of the dragon and airship crashing. Inside the treasure chamber were several Yesharian children and 2 paladin guards. The kids were strange even for Yeshairians and referred to Draxus as Father. We couldn’t leave them in the Capital. It was too dangerous for them and having them could be useful if we have to deal with Draxus in the future. So we got them out of where they were trapped and added them to our growing gaggle of folks to take elsewhere. We also found a fragment of the red heart stone. When Fump took the fragment, we both saw a vision. We saw Draxus negotiating with and resisting the Great Devourer. I recognized the GD from some of Puma’s old stories during my training. It is reminiscent of a massive illithid. For the first time, I understood why Draxus made the choices that he made. Fear is a powerful motivator and so is the desire to protect. He was willing to commit the atrocities that he did as a sacrifice of some of Evermore to protect the rest of it. He was foolish and wrong. Such atrocities would only bring about the thing that Draxus feared. After gathering the rest of the treasures in the vault, we returned to the rest of the group and continued our journey back to Draxus’s tower to retrieve the Dustmakers. Upon our arrival at the tower, we found the results of the airship and dragon crash. The tower was partially destroyed and on fire. The remaining Dustmakers were trapped inside. As we started rescuing them, we saw Sahlrek in the distance along with Althea and some others. Sahlrek and the now invisible Althea soon joined us for a discussion. Everyone was on edge and expecting the other to attack. After some back and forth, we learned that the rumors were true. Sahlrek’s new companions, Thelise in particular, were responsible for summoning the avatar of the Great Devourer in the form of a resurrected Rhexus. Draxus’s worst nightmare had come true in the GD’s summoning and everything we had tried to prevent when we killed Rhexus and stopped his ritual have been undone. This revelation seemed to take some of the wind out of our sails and made us want to focus on getting the Dustmakers out and leaving as soon as possible. We finished our rescue while Sahlrek’s other companions finished their political power play for the
city. It looks like it belongs to them now. So we loaded the children and the Dustmakers and ourselves onto the blue dragon and left for Agnfall. At least that resulted in some good. It was fantastic to see the Dustmakers reunited with a decent chunk of the Granitehearts. It was a reunion that was generations in coming. And it was also kind of nice to see the regard that the Granitehearts hold us in. I was afraid that they would hate and fear us after we had attacked them. But they were instead still grateful for their rescue from being petrified in the Catacombs and now grateful for the return of the Dustmakers. It was more than enough to wash the sour taste in my mouth from the defeats in the Capital. And if I’m willing to focus on the positive, meeting Kellen and Vex holds some promise for new companions to help our efforts. And lastly, I have another new friend. He’s a mechanical owl named Bubo and he holds some wonderful possibilities both with communicating more with Puma and Vago and with helping me in our future fights.