We rode out three insane storms:
1 - molten lava/fire
2 - blizzard/ice damage
3 - necromancy/necrotic tempest
In the Tower of Galdur:
Roscoe wants to steal stuff, Blackthorne eggs him on (gotta keep that in check)
I go ask about buying some healing potions (give one of my personal stash to Blackthorne for help, also a greater from party stash; gave potions to Roscoe, too)
One of the wizards at the tower looks a lot like Cas (we didn't look into this, but that's weird)
Roscoe gets some tiny things from the tower for Myri (itsy bitsy book, a charm from Halete's adornments)
Roscoe summons Cas' crystal (via the horn) to give Seksgar a chance to see Original Roscoe; Blackthorne was stuck with the crystal for a bit, but Halete ended up taking it from him.
Area Info from Halete
We are about to enter the campus of Galdur, effectively. For miles around here there are magic schools dedicated to the different schools of magic. (Each orb marking on the map is a school.)
The Tower of Grishar, for divination, is where Cas went to school, for example.
Don't fuck with the crystals. May encounter some magical aberrations because of the byproducts of the different schools. Our course is not marked, most people don't travel this way on foot.
I recall many times that people wanted to go to this area to harvest magical components, and I turned down those jobs because of the danger. A lot of the idiots that went didn't make it back alive, from what I could tell. No thanks.
Crystal Forest Environment
The crystal forest is... beautiful. It is filled with semi-opaque purple gems that are shaped like trees, almost like a semi-precious petrified forest. The leaves are flat, glittering. There are jade and amber hedges everywhere, too. The ground has a distinct crunch to it. The weirdest part is that you can just feel the power coursing through the forest.
There are no immediate signs of wildlife, at least not that we see around, but there are sounds and there is evidence of life. We hear strange clicking from the trees as they rustle, we do hear the echoes of scrapes and other sounds made by creatures, and there are holes in the ground that indicate things living here seem to burrow.
Pretty purple bunny! (Holy shit, that thing jumps 10 feet in a single go.)
There are so "normal" trees around; they look like evergreens, but they also aren't as one would expect elsewhere.
Every animal or creature we encounter is clearly magical in some way; nothing in this forest is NOT infused with magic.
Notable Encounters during the Day
We came upon a bamboo-like forest, but of crustal, and there was a small cave carved out of it. Roscoe and Seksgar seemed to be itching to explore it, but I was hesitatant, and after Blackthorne did something weird with a spyglass he had, he claimed (very confidently) to know a way around and we just accepted this. (Are we idiots for not questioning that? Unsure.)
Around midday, we came across some ruins of what looked like it might have been a ~5-story building. Roscoe did some quick recon and we all loosely came to the conclusion that it was a prison of some kind. We didn't stay long, and continued on our way.
Toward the end of the travel day, the forest started getting a bit more dense, to an uncomfortable degree. We saw clouds roiling ahead and came to the same conclusion that a storm was brewing. It seemed to be moving from the N to SE, but there was not going to be a way for us to avoid it.
I was able to (eventually) make a force-magic dome to shelter us, and it only contributed slightly to everyone's opinion that I am certifiably insane.
During watch, we saw pixie-type creatures that seemed to have their own individual magical fields to keep water off them. The surrounding area was not totally dark, because the crystals emitted their own faint purple glow, and there was phosphorescent algae around, too. It's readily apparent that the landscape around us is 100% infused with magic, and this is the most exposed portion of the weave in the entire world.
Margin notes in Sylvan and a cypher, for Rue
Hahahahahaha. Seksgar tried to convince Blackthorne that you gave Seksgar a great deal on his hammer because--are you ready for this?--he is claiming he hooked me up with you in exchange for the hammer. Hahahahahahahahaha
We are idiots, though. Blackthorne was insulting Roscoe's height, so I lifted him to make him the same height, but then Seksgar decided he wanted to live someone, so he lifted me. And then we let Roscoe hold A METAL SPYGLASS in the air, in the middle of a brewing storm, held aloft higher than most of the surrounding structures and definitely more conductive. So we got hit by that magical lightning...
RUE. I... huh, I don't know exactly what I did, but I GRABBED some of the... I dunno, the fabric of the edge of the plane? I made shelter! With force magic! It took forever, though. When I turned around, they had made a fire and Blackthorne was figuring out who to replace me with.
Seksgar... is weirdly good to talk to about relationships? I'm still confused about it, too, don't worry.