Session 66

Having defeated the Bone Roc, the party takes a brief rest before proceeding up the path leading to the peak of Mt. Ardreth. As they approach, they can hear the howl of the wind from a raging storm above, and upon reaching the summit, they can see the maelstrom of the Wellspring, a swirling vortex of prismatic energy raging on, with a field of high winds circling the caldera kicking up debris, making it difficult to see the edge of the caldera. After a final tantrum from Icarus who seems desperate to be reunited with the Chronicle of the Dead, the party decides to leave him behind with Grim, who grunts and stays while the rest of the party proceeds forward towards the caldera.

As the party enters the area known as "the fringe", they are taken off guard when gravity suddenly goes haywire, causing everyone to rise up into the air as though up was now down, and it just as quickly reverts back, sending them careening towards the ground. Dain tries to cast Feather Fall to prevent the painful landing for everyone, but for some reason, his spell goes out of control and an anti-magic shell forms around him, cancelling the effect of his spell, and he goes crashing to the ground. Merrick then attempts to cast Light so they can see where they're going and his spell also causes a surge of chaotic energy which manifests a strange looking orb-ish creature with swirling prismatic energy inside it. The party attempts to communicate with it, but Dain is the only one who can understand it due to his knowledge of the Aurum language. He learns from the creature that casting spells in this area is hazardous and they should just proceed straight forward to the Wellspring. Pushing forward, the group is confused when despite travelling for an hour, the Wellspring never seemed to be getting any closer, until they realized every time they got close, they were reappearing back where they started. Dain noticed that the party's conversations were playing out on repeat as well, indicating they were stuck in a time loop. However, after an hour, the effect ended.

Several other hazards presented themselves, but at some point, three strange creatures made up of many different elements, such as fire, ice, lightning, and smoke, manifested ahead.

Dain cautiously approached the creatures when one of them suddenly fired a blast of prismatic energy at him, burning him. A battle ensued where the chaotic effects of the fringe continued to batter the party as they fought these creatures, attempting to avoid using magic due to its unpredictable side effects, and ultimately throwing caution to the wind and using it anyway. Every member of the party except for Merrick went down at least once, some 2 or 3 times, and at one point they were caught in another temporal loop causing them to relive the same 6 seconds repeatedly for an hour, but eventually the party emerged victorious.

The party rushed forward to the Maelstrom and sensing the overwhelming pressure and power from the Wellspring and the inherent danger, Dain immediately cast the Chronicle of the Dead into the Maelstrom without a second thought and turned to run. The party heard a blast behind them and turned to see the book being torn apart, its pages disintegrating in the chaotic energy before the binding of the book slowly turned to dust, emitting another blast so powerful it knocked them all to the ground. They saw an inky smoke pouring out from the book reminiscent of the smoke that would leak from the Voidspawn or the Pale Rider. This smoke flowed around the vortex of the Wellspring. At this point, the party all heard a cackling voice in their heads laughing before simply calling them "Fools…" The winds of the fringe died down, causing an eerie silence. Unnerved by this, but resolute, Dain proceeded to also throw the Darkblade into the Maelstrom, causing it to slowly be shredded down to dust. Everyone then turned and began their trek back to the mountain path, the winds beginning to pick back up and battering them. They were caught in several other temporal anomalies along the way back, and upon reuniting with Grim, he questioned Dain about what took so long and let them know that they had been gone for days, not hours.

The party proceeded back down the mountain to where they killed the Bone Roc and rest for the night and Merrick took the opportunity to commune with Orick, telling him of the events of the past few days and asking if the Chronicle potentially corrupted the Wellspring, to which Orick responded saying that he did not know, and when asked what they should do, Orick said that it seemed it was time to confront Aubron and they would need to locate him quickly, and suggested that it had been a long time since the party had visited Fort Elden. Telling the party of this, they set out the next morning, eventually reaching Fort Elden a couple weeks later.

The party greeted Ronan at the gates of Fort Elden, who told them of some updates, letting them know that Tamas was off hunting goblins, who had apparently not been dealt with entirely and were emerging from the Bast Wilds, and that Sabine and Samira had traveled south into the Sudwin Valley looking to visit Quen's Wellspring, and she had not been there in months. They then went to speak with Talindra, who said that Merith had gone to Mythwell to do some shopping and Kendel had returned to Valensir. They caught up after which Dain inquired about Mara, whom had previously gleaned information for them using divination magic. They sought her out in the camps, noting all the work the Human community had done to build up a nice little village here, and spoke with her briefly before she performed a scrying spell attempting to locate Aubron. She was unsuccessful in locating him due to wards he had put in place, but was able to give the party a rough area they should look for him, describing an area of the Sudwin Valley in between the towns of Nolaviath and Esharreth. The party then left to return to Eldham. Upon arriving, Icarus was overjoyed to see the Dead Goose again, despite it being in a bit of a sorry state, and began cooking in no time.

The next day, Dain went to visit Reginard at the Messy Cushion and Giselle at Eldham's Excellent Elixirs, giving her 200 GP to help her rebuild her dilapidated shop, before returning to the party, where they decided to set out for Nolaviath in search of information that would lead them to Aubron.