Session 126

As Dain lay on the ground bleeding out, a voice called out from the other end of the bridge from an unexpected source -- Quinn, Evaryan's apprentice. He called out to Summer, saying that if she was skulking about somewhere, she should get back to the bridge, and the rest should retreat. He then pointed at the ceiling and let loose a spell which seemed to shatter the rocks, causing the cavern ceiling to begin to cave in. Startled by this, the group took Andozar's surprise as an opportunity to retreat, with Nashar flying over and grabbing Dain's unconscious body and retreating behind Anael's line of undead warriors. As Andozar backed off, fleeing the falling rocks, Sindri used his magic to banish one of the groups of spirits of Thalassarion. Summer used her Shadowstep Anklet to teleport back to the ledge overlooking the bridge and hopped down, ending up next to Quinn. Nashar used an unknown wind spell to gather the party members around the bridge into a small group, expecting Dain, who had been revived by Merrick, to teleport them away. However, Quinn beat him to it, using a teleportation spell to quickly ferry the party away. After feeling the familiar pulling sensation and snapping back to the Material world, the party took in their surroundings, seeing the Great Divide to the east and the Bast Wilds to the south. Looking north, they saw Mythwell. They quickly took in their surroundings and noticed that everyone was present, except for Sindri, Vargas, Mahani, and Evaryan. Summer also quickly realized she had left Nuggie behind with Sabine. As the party came to grips with this and turned to Quinn, stunned, wondering how an archaeologist's apprentice was capable of such magic; they got their answer, as he chastised the party for their bullish tactics, commenting that they had learned nothing in the last few years, and lamenting that had he known they had not done the proper research about Andozar beforehand, he never would have accompanied them. He then shed his disguise, dispelling the illusion hiding his true form, revealing Adamar.

Tyllaetha was the first to speak, seeming to recognize him and asking why he was here and where he had been, mentioning she had last seen him when he left the Ars Aurum Academy hundreds of years ago. Adamar seemed to not care to elaborate much beyond saying that he would keep it brief, knowing the party was likely to attack him, saying that they needed to use their damned heads for once and know their enemy, unless they wanted to end up dead next time, before he vanished. The three Cabalites relaxed, lamenting over their stupidity for letting their emotions get the better of them over Kyran's death and charging in their without waiting for information first. After decompressing, Merrick decided to Commune with Orick, and asked about the encounter, and how to destroy Andozar. Orick said that like himself, Andozar was bound to a Soulstone, which preserved his spirit and tied it to his physical body, and that so long as the Soulstone remained, it wouldn't matter if they destroyed him because he would simply return. He said they would need to find a way to destroy it first, and said that only a Soulbinder with knowledge of Andozar's particular brand of Soulbinding could tell them how to do that. He said that the Ettinor of Arak had lost much in their migration from Gothir following the Spellscar anomaly, and if they wanted to find a Soulbinder with this knowledge, their best bet was to head to Gothir. Skinner briefly wondered if perhaps some extended members of his family may still live in Gothir and he could contact them for assistance. After Orick departed, Merrick and Dain spoke about potentially creating items that could protect them from Andozar's scrying, so that he could not plot against them further, and Tyllaetha said that she could potentially help with that. She then said that she would head back to the city and get in touch with Medril to see if he had yet learned anything of Andozar and Nashar and Anael could search for additional help in the fight against Andozar, and suggested the party could get started on their journey to Gothir, but also suggested they should first get some rest. They agreed and set up camp to take a much needed rest on the outskirts of the city. In the morning, as they were packing up their things to go, they suddenly saw a bright light to the north near the city. Initially thinking it was the rising sun, but remembering the sun does not rise in the north, they looked and saw a blinding light looming just outside the city. They felt all of the Flow suddenly rush away from them towards the north. There was a sudden flash, and after regaining their sight, they saw a distant figure that Summer recognized as none other than Andozar. He stood up, seeming strained, before casting a spell and teleporting away. The group noticed the skies had darkened severely and looked ominous, and after a few moments processing what just happened, they saw the clouds above part as a massive rock the size of a small mountain emerged, burning red-hot and plummeting at high speed toward the city. Before they had time to process this, the meteor struck the city, causing a flash and an enormous explosion that engulfed the city, sending out a shockwave that blasted the party off their feet and sent them flying back violently.

The heat and high winds coming from the blast buffeted them, and a massive dust cloud overtook them. Choking on the dust, they stumbled around in the dust until it cleared, after which they looked up Mythwell, or what once was Mythwell, as the city had been completely annihilated. Standing frozen in abject horror, the group took in the sight and thought of all who had been in the city, but especially those they knew... Tyllaetha, Nashar, Anael, and even Tabitha. Horror, rage, and sadness filled them as they mourned the losses. However, they did not have much time to process this until a rumbling began to shake the ground beneath their feet. They looked south, already knowing what they would see, and witnessed Lys' Wellspring erupting. Feeling a sudden change in the atmosphere around them, they looked toward where Mythwell once stood and witnessed a strange black-blue energy settling over the city's remains. Immediately afterward, they saw the grass around the ruins of the city began to brown and then blacken as all plant life began to die, and the group felt something pulling at their animate Flow, weighing heavy on their very life force. Sensing that they were in immediate danger, Dain pulled out the Ring of Teleportation and teleported the group to the Dead Goose in Eldham.

Arriving outside the inn, the party gathered their bearings, shaken by the events of the past few minutes. After composing themselves, Dain decided to contact Chandira to tell her the news, and got her to agree to meet in Eldham shortly. Dain then went to Eldham's Excellent Elixirs and told Giselle of the morning's events, which brought Giselle to tears, as she revealed she had family in Mythwell. Giselle closed the shop for the day afterwards. After, they went into the Dead Goose, hoping to tell Icarus the news. However, inside they found a handful of customers waiting around for Icarus to serve them, with no sign of Icarus. They didn't need to wait long for their answer, as a voice called to them from one of the tables, where they saw Adamar smirking at them. They demanded to know what happened to Icarus, assuming the worst, and he said that Icarus was safe, for now, but that he isn't their concern at the moment. He angrily lashed out at them for "poking the bear" and provoking Andozar, and now he had wasted all of the precious Flow inside Lod'exenter and that he would have to wait another 500 years to be able to use it. He revealed that he went with the party hoping to use them as cannon fodder while he robbed Andozar of Lod'exenter, as Archmage Kyran had done centuries prior, but that Andozar couldn't just make things easy and keep Lod'exenter in an obvious place, like his quarters, and that the trip had been wasted. He revealed that he had critical information that could help them to finish him off for good, but in return, he wanted the party to help him obtain Lod'exenter. The party demanded to know why he wanted it, but he refused to go into detail, even with Skinner's prodding. Summer attempted to appeal to his familial duties, mentioning their shared heritage, but Adamar said that Calantha was nothing more than a fling that meant nothing to him and that the only family he had known was dead. Summer tried again, suggested family was more than blood, but Adamar said that she was blood and meant nothing to him. Summer spat and cursed at him, which only made him smile more deviously. The party refused to help Adamar and asked why he came to them, as he must have known they would not help him. He said that perhaps he just wanted to waste their time, as he would get what he was looking for one way or the other, and alluded to the fact that Lod'exenter was not the only "super weapon" in play, suggesting he had perhaps come into possession of another powerful artifact. The group was getting heated and were about ready to assault him when he decided to make a grand departure and cast an unknown illusion spell that trapped the party in darkness, surrounded by mirrors. Dain decided to try to smash one of the mirrors, but the shards hung in the air, then turned toward him and skewered him. Adamar's voice taunted him from the darkness, suggesting that he never learns, always smashing, such a BRUTE. Summer and Skinner tried feeling around to see if there were any false mirrors, following the twisting and confusing passages around corners, but after following these passages in what seemed to be a circle, they found that they were not back at the beginning with the rest of the party, and were lost. Merrick used Divination to ask Estrea for guidance, and she provided a cryptic riddle which Merrick took to mean that one of the mirrors would show something other than their true reflection, and that they should pass through it. Relaying this information to the rest of the party using Sending, the group began to look for this mirror, with Skinner being the first to locate a mirror which oddly showed a depiction of him as very short, like a Vesperkin. This seemed to anger him and he charged forward through the mirror, after which he felt himself passing through what felt like water before charging face first into a wall and falling onto the floor of the Dead Goose. Summer was next, finding a mirror showing her with exaggerated wide proportions, charging forward and jumping through, after which she found herself falling from the roof of the Dead Goose and landing with a thud, drawing Skinner's attention. The two began to look for signs of Dain and Merrick, but Dain would not turn up for another hour, when they would find him having fallen into the muck pile behind the stables nearby cleaning himself off with Prestidigitation. It would be another four hours before Merrick found his way out, where he turned up in the cook fire of the Dead Goose. The party began to search for Icarus, but could find no trace of him. Merrick tried to use Scrying to locate Icarus, but all he could see was darkness, suggesting that he was still alive, but held somewhere.

Dain decided to go rendezvous with Chandira, as surely it had been long enough now. They made their way to the Messy Cushion and found Chandira's Hole-in-the-Wall on the side. She immediately wanted to know all the details of what happened and was depressed to learn of what happened and very overwhelmed. Dain also told Chandira about Adamar's duplicity and trapping them in the mirror illusion. Chandira revealed that she and Medril had unfortunately not turned up much of use, but that their best bet would be to go to Gothir, mentioning the Ruins of Keogan and Soulbinding's role in the creation of the Chronicle of the Dead. This gave Dain an idea, and he suggested perhaps they could seek the Ashenfolk in the Ashlands off the coast of Reshyk, as he had previously wished to seek their council in regards to Merrick's abusive patron, as the Ashenfolk were descended from the very Dwarves who had collaborated with the Soulbinders of Keogan. Dain also mentioned needing protection against Scrying, and Chandira gave a few of the party members amulets to protect them from scrying, as well as a lantern that would reveal anything invisible, which would allow them to see if a scrying sensor was nearby. Merrick also got her to sign his Book of Shadows, reluctantly, so that they could keep in touch. Afterwards, Chandira seemed alarmingly to want to get very drunk, to which Skinner offered his keg of Frostfire Mead. The group paid a final visit to Giselle to check in on her before going to the Messy Cushion to have a drink before the arduous events ahead. After telling Reginard of all that had happened, horrifying him, Dain suddenly got a mental ping from someone trying to contact him -- from none other than Tyllaetha, who was informing him that she had settled in at Artus and that unfortunately, Medril hadn't known anything, and that she would continue to research the problem, and asked what they had been up to. After Dain told her of Mythwell's destruction and the subsequent Wellspring eruption, which she seemed to have no knowledge of, she simply replied... "WHAT?!?!?"