Session 64: Power by Blood

General Summary

13th - 24th Tormale   The party left the cavern through the downstream tunnel, having been unable to unlock the return teleportation runes. They brought with them a bound Lord Pride and the remnant corpse of the 'synthetic'. The tunnel brought them out in the farmlands south of the city, upon which Ekke imediately raced back to find what had happened to Rhain, who Pride and the others must have broken past to get to them in the cavern. The others waited outside the city gates, with Ekke promising to send help to get them back in undetected.   That help came in a most unexpected form — none other than Carvalle. After an initial raised-hackled stand-off, he quickly heard the party's story and embraced it as the truth, managing not to repeat the outcome of their stand-off on the night of the ball. He ferried them through the Lower City to what seemed to be an abandoned townhouse, dust filled but structurally sound. In the basement he brought them to a lone sconce on the wall, which upon them grasping it ripped them from where they stood and into the Cabalhouse of the Raven's Eye.   The next few days saw the party laying low with the Raven's Eye while Ekke and Carvalle, now elected to replace Pride as the Raven's Eye's archmage, navigated the politics of bringing Pride before justice and the Earl's court. After long contemplation, Marcher Lord took his cousin's head with his own hand, flinging the bloody sword at Ekke's feet with the words "Your task here is done. Take that back to your fucking prince". The party and both Cabals searched for Lady Eleanore, but it seemed she had fled the city on the same morning that they had fought Pride.   With the mystery solved and no more foes in the city, the party decided to head up into the mountains to find the source of the infection. The Golden-Wing remained behind, needing to keep an eye out for any fallout of the previous fortnight's events, and the two groups said their farewells.   The party head up into the mountains and make contact with their scouts, who had discovered the desecated husk of a riftbeast that had been infected, and had died trying to reach high ground to release the parasites seeds. The party reckoned that the riftbeast must have originated from the same place as the parasite, meaning that the parasite must have come from a different plane and entered into this one through a rift. They were informed that Aitken, Odhran and the rest of the scouts had continued ahead, following the tracks left by this beast. The party followed to catch up with them, reaching their camp at the mountain's crest.   Beyond lay a sprawling valley, teaming with flora of immense size. Trees broke out from the ground that would have towered over the Palace on the Mount in Saine. The flora had ripped the ground of valley apart, splitting its lakes and cracking giant stones that lay cragged on the ground. All of this was interspersed by patches of metallic grey; clumps of infected plants covered the valley floor. As the party took this in a rush whipped past them overhead, as a giant golden dragon soared down into the valley. As it flew across to a gargantuan tree in the center of the valley, the party could make out dark metallic growths across its chest and across its shoulders — the dragon had been infected.