Mini 21: One Antidote Down Report

General Summary

17th of Keltier 1524 Continued

At 5pm they had finally found what they suspect to be the antidote. The group discussion their exhaustion from blood illness and their need to get the antidote back as soon as they can. Regardless they all agree they need to get out of the shadow world. They quickly and carefully head back to the castle. They head back down to the basement where they come face to face with the ugliest giant they have ever seen that contorts itself in the space, blocking their entry point back into the light world.

They quickly realise this could be a deadly situation since they are hurt from exploring the lab and Balthazar needs to keep his distance from the fight to ensure the safety of the vials. Nobu keeps the group safe for the majority of the fight by stunning the creature. However, eventually it resists and ends up destroying Kaida and knocking Nobu unconscious. They kill it and quickly flee back into the light world.

Once through Balthazar complains about having to keep moving but does so. They make their way back to the horses. They seem to be in one piece. They send a message to the priest in Dharilton that gave them guidance. They request a rider to meet them. He gives a code to Balthazar who does the sending to ensure the antidote is given to the correct person and they are receiving the correct thing.

At 7:30pm, the group settles down for rest with Balthazar's tiny hut up and Nobu on watch with Brienda. Nobu is taking Brienda through watch protocol and showing her how to check places they would have a disadvantage to notice trouble from while on watch. As they do so, going over to a frozen spring, they find a rock with two numbers and arrows on it. One they are sure leads to a nearby village, but the other can't possibly be anything on their map. The lack of units makes it difficult to consider.

Nobu and Brienda plot about using it to rile Balthazar up and how to ensure he can't corner them in the city for boring discussions. They tell Isabelle about the rock when they get her up for her watch. Near the end of Isabelle's watch, the sound of horses are approaching. She greets the rider with the correct phrase. Half stay to help protect the party with the remaining supply and half leave to get the antidote to the paladin.

Galanith awakens refreshed to take the remaining watches.

18th of Keltier 1524

At 6:30am all the party is up. Balthazar is shown the rock. He gets very involved in his theories about the rock and is eventually dragged away to start heading back to Dharilton. They arrive at 10am. The guards show them to the Indigo Flask, a inn that best suits their needs. The inn keeper blames the giants for everything. They ask the innkeeper about shopping before heading to the temple.

The party notices a higher spirit at the temple when they arrive. They go and talk to the head priest of the temple. They are happy to hear the Champion is recovering. She is now conscious, able to eat and drink herself. Though she clearly has a long recovery ahead of her. They tell the priest about the scientist, journals and such. They are given permission to look them over first before handing all of them over for a full investigation. They left the antidotes and poisons at the inn, but the priest will send someone to retrieve them with the party.

They are each given 250 gold plus a potion of their choosing or a magical item of which there is only 1. These rewards were released by Father James from the capital after hearing of their success and the starting recovery of the Champion.

Sunburst Signet (Wondrous Item, uncommon)

This gold ring bears the symbol of Haelyn. While wearing it, once per long rest, you can cast Guiding Bolt (1st level).

Galanith takes the signet while Balthaar and Brienda take the greater healing potions, and Isabelle and Nobu take the heroism potions. They are encouraged to rest and come back in a few days to see the Champion. Isabelle informs the priest that she wants to help the druids at the grove after they have recovered.

They discuss shopping, resting and the vials on the way out of the temple. They will keep five antidotes and four poison vials. Nobu has the poison. He and Brienda are going shopping and will take the items they found that need selling. Afterwards Nobu looks at different places he can do some sketching and painting of the city. Galanith wants to read the journals about how the scientist became undead and see the downfall of good intensions while Balthazar wants to see the journals about the making of the poison. They will give the first five journals to the temple and drop off the others as they finish them with Galanith looking at the second half of the plague ones and Balthazar looking at the poison ones. Isabelle will organise the split of coins once the sales have been made but otherwise is just going to rest.

Balthazar quickly identifies the items before the party splits:

• Potion of invulnerability
• Potion of diminution
• Potion of mind reading

All in all they have a good day without any drama. Balthazar has a conversation with Brienda about the Umbraconti Cards. He offers to help teach her more magic as he asks her about what her Uncle tried to teach her.

Coins given out:

• Each Party member: 132 gold, 204 silver, 20 copper, 1 platinum
• Brienda: 131 gold, 215 silver, 20 copper, 1 platinum

19th of Keltier 1524

Upon waking up the 19th, in the warm inn rooms, Nobu notices Balthazar is freezing! Quickly he gets him downstairs, yelling for help as he tries to warm up the old wizard. His veins are visible and blue, and feels icy to the touch. All the party runs downstairs to see if they can help.

Isabelle and Galanith look him over. They believe it is the same as the poison but a diluted version, likely from when he was tasting random reagents in the lab. Isabelle rolls her eyes, realising he's suffering from his own actions and heads back to bed while Galanith gets him an antidote. Using it, he is instantly better.

Afterwards Brienda and Nobu play dragonchess, and they draw. Brienda is excited. She settles in for a relaxing day. Isabelle will practice code of Morse with the Allag.

20th of Keltier 1524

By the end of the third day, Nobu has finished his painting of the city. It isn't his finest works, but he learned a lot. Isabelle has some very basic understandings of code of Morse.

Galanith gets an impartial and scientific view of the plague and the institution slowly dying from this plague. The shortening of sentences, the handwriting and the more poignant languages indicate to her that he was getting angrier and angrier at every death. There is a sharp turn towards necromancy to try and save himself, disappointed he didn't think of it sooner to try and save his assistance.

Balthazar's journals start still focusing on the guard, but he grew frustrated as there were live subjects to test any longer, making progression hard. Equally frustrating was the lack of news from the wider community since no one would bring news to a dead city. Did they still need his research? Was the whole world dead? Was the plague still around? Did it die out or did someone else solve the problem? Over time a frost, stone figure came to visit as an apparition. Never staying long, but always had a conversation with him. Slowly the figure planted seeds of doubt within the scientist about how no one, especially the gods, cared enough for his cause. The stone figure offered the scientist test subjects to let him continue his work, or to go onto a new path. To make the gods pay for sending this plague and then not even caring enough about his efforts to save lives. The idea is suggested to make the champions of the gods suffer, as the unchosen of the world do since they're not the favourites of the gods. Maybe by hurting enough champions, this could hurt or even kill the gods. The figure heavily leaned on the idea that the gods are the reason the plague was here. This led to the creation of the Frozen Woe. He documented making an antidote as it is good procedure and just in case it hurt members of their cause by mistake. This new group helping him showed him more care then the government that employed him. This causes the scientist to wonder what would happen if the Baroness herself were to get sick from this poison. Perhaps someone could send her a present.

Balthazar goes to see the high priest. He takes the journals and the letter with him. Given the journal entry that gives him fear for the Baroness' life was written a month ago, he requests she be sent an antidote. The priest will communicate with Father James via sending so they can be more vigilant for danger with packages to the Baroness.

He also arranges for a meeting with the Champion at 9am tomorrow.

Meanwhile Isabelle tries to find out information about where Allag might be from but doesn't get far. Nobu and Galanith have a discussion about Isabelle and Allag. He's sceptical about the horse but after the discussion seems willing to go along with it.