Month: July 2022

==Roll Call==
Childe Raymonde, Githyanki Paladin (Doty)
Bell, Kenku Cleric (CJ)
Blynce, Human-hybrid Fighter (Eric)
Vaal, Eladrin Rogue (Tim)
Bumi, Goblin Sorcerer (Matt)

To the Sanctuary of Albahith, Jigow Township

Greetings to the Masters of the Pilgrims, and hail to The Luxon:

Mission Report from Childe Raymonde (Part 9)

Our group of adventurers had delivered the envoy from Urzen swamp town safely, and now we found ourselves in Jigow for the Festival of Merit!

Most of us stayed the night at the Sanctuary, but Vaal demanded more luxurious accomodations, in accordance with his self-proclaimed social status.

I did manage to have a talk with Bumi about his experience with The Luxon. I'm not sure how much I learned, but I think I understand a bit more about what it's been like for him to have memories of past lives. "When you get older, you go through 'amanesis' which helps you remember the past lives. As long as you've been through the consecution -- binding your soul to The Luxon -- and die within range of a beacon, you should come back." He also mentioned how this "life" has been harder than previous ones -- poverty and discrimination were his lot growing up.

In the morning, Bumi told of a vivid dream he had about an "angel lady." Also, the augury stones we had retrieved from the swamp were hot! "Something about saving someone, but Bumi not know who to save."

We went to collect Vaal. Bumi flabbergasted me by stating that his and my destinies were entwined -- this was in the context of enlisting my aid in his cheating in the arm-wrestling contest at the festival. I was so rattled that I agreed to do whatever he said.

The town streets were crowded, as usual during the festival. We went to the arm-wrestling. The champion, a female orc of the Aurora Watch, had just dispatched a challenger. Merrill Bronzefang, the champion, would not face Bumi until he'd defeated one of the other arm-wrestlers (there were two Drow of the Aurora Watch fulfilling this function at the moment).

Bumi turned me invisible so I could aid him in arm-wrestling. After defeating a lieutenant, we took on the champion. Bumi -- we? -- won again. The crowd surged towards Bumi to congratulate him, and I slipped away to avoid being bumped into.

The bookmaker said that one other contestant had beaten Merrill today, an ogre named Maggie Keen-eyes, and that he would have to defeat her to get the medal today.

Bumi dropped the invisibility on me and instead used an enchantment on himself. He altered his own density, increasing his strength. He won!

We went to the maze event -- Blynce spoke with a Goblin, who was friends of the same Ogre that Bumi had just defeated. This Ogre told Blynce a strategy to win the maze. With Maggie's help, Blynce succeeded! (Afterwards, Maggie's friend asked Blynce to find his friend Ayo and ask what the plan is after the final ceremony.)

We went to the riddles event. Vaal guessed correctly on the "lock box" riddle and won. Vaal guessed the second one and won! He agreed to attempt the third riddle -- Bumi guessed correctly!

We had prevailed in three of the events during the Festival of Merit!

==Roll Call==
Childe Raymonde, Githyanki Paladin (Doty)
Bell, Kenku Cleric (CJ)
Blynce, Human-hybrid Fighter (Eric)
Vaal, Eladrin Rogue (Tim)
Bumi, Goblin Sorcerer (Matt)
Morgid, Hobgoblin Envoy (NPC)

To the Sanctuary of Albahith, Jigow Township

Greetings to the Masters of the Pilgrims, and hail to The Luxon:

Mission Report from Childe Raymonde (Part 8)

On our way to Jigow town, escorting Morgid as envoy to the Kryn Dynasty government.

We awoke in the Kobold camp, and immediately noticed that they had painted fairly accurate portraits of us on the side of their grounded airship!

The Kobolds encouraged us to go retrieve the airship's control rod from the Goblins and Troll who had stolen it. I was a bit dubious about their story, and wondered if there were a way to peacefully get the rod away from them. Perhaps a trade of some sort? The other party members' reaction was not initially encouraging.

We went in the direction and distance indicated and began scouting. Blynce suddenly came upon a group of Goblins, a Troll, and two bound and gagged Kobolds. Blynce attacked instantly, severely wounding a Goblin. I tried to reach the scene of action, but could not do so immediately.

The Goblins began to press the attack against all of us, Blynce especially. We were hampered by trees blocking our view, and the fact that we were spread out in a scout pattern. Bumi was hit by a Goblin arrow, and then cruelly swiped by the Troll!

So much for parlaying. I charged the Troll and slashed it. The combat continued and we quickly dispatched most of the Goblins. The Troll, however, began to heal its wounds. The Troll wounded me terribly, but we fought on. We knocked down the Troll, and the one remaining Goblin ran away. Vaal set the Troll on fire, so that it would not regenerate. Blynce fired an arrow into the fleeing Goblin but did not take it down. Bumi finished it with a flying rock.

We released the Kobolds and retrieved the control rod (which was hidden in some shrubbery).

We returned to the Kobold camp, and there was rejoicing at the return of the captives, and of the return of the control rod.

We partied with the Kobolds and cast off in the restored airship the next morning. The Kobolds christened it "Dragonwing" but Blynce called it "Lollipop." The airship was slow, and would take at least a day to reach Jigow town. We passed herds of mastodon and at least one bemused caravan on the road.

We arrived at Jigow. I was home! The Kobolds bade us goodbye and took off again. Vickik mentioned that they were not welcome in Jigow, having been kicked out previously. I was taken aback by that.

I pointed out the inns, market, and Aurora Watch post, and left my comrades to go check in at the Pilgrimage.

In my absence, Morgid and the others went to the Aurora Watch, where they were paid 250gp each, the amount agreed upon back at Urzen swamp town. We were just in time -- the Festival of Merit starts tomorrow!

==Roll Call==
Childe Raymonde, Githyanki Paladin (Doty)
Bell, Kenku Cleric (CJ)
Blynce, Human-hybrid Fighter (Eric)
Vaal, Eladrin Rogue (Tim)
Bumi, Goblin Sorcerer (Matt)
Morgid, Hobgoblin Envoy (NPC)

To the Sanctuary of Albahith, Jigow Township

Greetings to the Masters of the Pilgrims, and hail to The Luxon:

Mission Report from Childe Raymonde (Part 7)

We were on our way to Jigow town, escorting Morgid as envoy to the Kryn Dynasty government.

Coming out of the dusty wasteland, we saw the beginnings of forest ahead of us. Something was moving towards the south -- we could see dust rising from the ground. A herd of mastodon!

I tucked Bumi under my arm as we sprinted for forest cover. Vaal helped Blync, who had stumbled. We made it without further incident, and found a forest trail.

We were attacked by kobolds! But they were no match for us, and we knocked them unconscious. Reviving them (one, unfortunately was beyond reviving), they asked us to go with them to see a mage of some sort? One "Vikick"? We took them (properly restrained) to some sort of wooden ship, but with wings instead of sails. The ship was laying on the ground, propped up with timbers -- it looked like it had crashed there, and was being used as a dwelling ever since.

Apparently, the kobolds wanted to repair the ship and fly away. We saw Dwendalian Empire markings on the ship (being obliterated by the kobolds). Apparently the Kobold attack was a misguided attempt to "find things" to repair the ship. "Vikick" was the leader of the kobolds.

Vikick told us of a control rod which had been stolen by goblins (who had a troll thug working with them). There was also some insulating fungus that was needed. Also…and Vikick soft-pedaled this…some baslisk blood. Blync picked up on the last item and made sure that's really what she was saying.

We decided to go after the baslisk first. (Why were we doing this?) Anyway, we lured it out of its cave, taking care to avoid eye contact. It actually went down fairly easily from our missile weapons and a frontal attack from Vaal.

Side note: we found statues in front of the basilisk lair. These were apparently the Imperial crew, so we felt no need to try to figure out how to reanimate them.

Moving over to the fungus patch, we were attacked by some kind of globular fungus thing with tentacles! Vaal foolishly ran forward to attack it and was grappled, pummelled, and engulfed immediately. Vaal mercifully lost consciousness.

The rest of us waded into the combat. This thing was way tougher than the basilisk! We hacked and hacked at it, and a final boulder-throw form Bumi took it out. We retrieved the unconscious Vaal in time to save him, and took the fungus back to the kobold encampment. Then we rested (setting careful watch due to not completely trusting our hosts).

==Roll Call==
Childe Raymonde, Githyanki Paladin (Doty)
Bell, Kenku Cleric (CJ)
Blynce, Human-hybrid Fighter (Eric)
Vaal, Eladrin Rogue (Tim)
Bumi, Goblin Sorcerer (Matt)
Morgid, Hobgoblin Envoy (NPC)

To the Sanctuary of Albahith, Jigow Township

Greetings to the Masters of the Pilgrims, and hail to The Luxon:

Mission Report from Childe Raymonde (Part 6)

We were asked by the leader of the swamp village Urzin, Buff-All the 2nd, to escort his aide Morgid, who was being sent to Jigow town as an envoy to the Kryn Dynasty government. Morgid was being sent to give them the information we had found about the Dwendalian Empire's activities at the edge of the Brokenveil Marsh.

We set off east-ward through the desolation that lay between the swamp and Jigow. We noticed a sandstorm heading our way, a bad one. We hurried towards some nearby hills, seeking shelter. It was evening before the sandstorm subsided, and we decided to stay where we were for the night.

There were a couple narrow, small canyons in our vicinity, and we wanted to scout around a little bit before camping down. Blynce volunteered to be levitated to the top of a pinnacle, and he notices some odd stony proturberances in some sandy areas among the canyons, reminiscent of buried shark fins. He fired a test arrow at one of the areas -- a noticable tremor resulted?

We conjectured that there were abominable beasts hidden in the sand and proceeded carefully. Skirting the edge of one of the sandy areas, the goblin sorcerer Bumi lost his footing, rolling into the center of one of the sandy areas. Ant Lion!

The beast erupted from the sand, menacing our goblin friend. It grappled Bumi, hurting him grievously. Twisting free, Bumi climbed out of the shallow cone of sand that was the Ant Lion's lair. The Ant Lion threw a glob of sand at Bumi but missed. From his high vantage, Blynce shot the Ant Lion with an arrow, causing it to stumble in its pursuit of Bumi. Morgid pierced it with a thrown spear.

Vaal slashed it expertly with his rapier and stepped back out of the fray. The Ant Lion was looking ragged. I stepped forward to the attack but stumbled! I was now behind and below the thing, and used my divine smite on it, finishing it.

The remains of a previous victim were found, and we retrieved something that looked like the hilt of a rapier. Elvish writing on the hilt said "Sandstorm." Vaal thought he might be able to activate the thing given some time.

We regained the trail, and groaned to realize we had to pass another one of those Ant Lion lairs. We tried to use a rope to climb past it and only found ourselves next to a very large lair indeed. Avoiding that one, we found a sack laying on the ground, which Blynce retrieved. The sack contained an odd cactus-headed mace? Weird.

In trying to navigate out of the canyons, Blynce stumbled into yet another Ant Lion pit. It attacked! We returned the hostility, but began to hear digging…as if another Ant Lion were attempting to enter the combat area. Our fight raged back and forth … Blynce sometimes appeared to be in two places at once? (I must remember to ask him about this later.) When it was sorely wounded, it attempted to flee, but our Kenku cleric finished it off with the cactus mace. A menace to travelers was eliminated!

We found a chest nearby and grabbed it as we made our escape (other Ant Lions were approaching). We regained the main road once we cleared the canyons. The chest contained a golden cloak, adorned with cactus ornaments, and a thing that looked like a sword hilt made of quartz, with holes on either end….