Session 71

The party investigates the stairs leading upwards and discover that it leads to the roof of the tower. Not finding anything useful up there, they decide to rest, and the next day, Icarus and Lavanda both use their combined Sunbeams to assault the barrier protecting the Black Shard. With the combined power of two Sunbeams, the barrier shatters, leaving the shard unprotected. The party begins attacking it, to little effect, but notices that radiant damage seems to drain the shard of color, leaving it more white in color. Dain finishes the job with a powerful Branding Smite, shattering the crystal. The feeling of unease in the tower vanishes, and the clouds begin to dissipate, as sunshine peeks through the clouds. The party then sets out to return home.

Stopping in Thenaphor, the party decides to take a well-earned rest, and as Dain is walking around town, he stumbles across Aerendyll's pregnant wife, who says that Norvin returned home recently and has been avoiding her, and asked what happened to her husband. Dain delivers the unfortunate news that Aerendyll was killed by the undead, and Summer comforts the woman as she deals with the heavy news. The next day, the party heads directly to Malacanan on their way back to Eldham, avoiding Nolaviath. Lavanda takes a moment to speak with the school teacher, asking her about the map she found in Aubron's library, and is told that the only thing of note about all the locations circled throughout Arak are that they are all small to medium sized settlements, and she is not sure what the significance of the particular choice of settlements is. The party continues on to Eldham, finally arriving home in mid Asten. Dain pays a visit to Giselle, who hands over a few Potions of Superior Healing, and then they head over to the statehouse to deliver the awful news to Eldar. They arrive to find the statehouse fairly quiet, and find Eldar scribbling some notes, looking bored. They greet him and get him up to speed on the situation, and he tells them of local happenings in Eldham since the Dawnstar left and restoration efforts began. Dain then delivers the news of the fate of Sarya and Celeval, and Eldar quickly thanks Dain for telling him, but asks him to leave. As they close the door and head down the hallway, they hear an anguished scream from Eldar's room. As the Enforcers rush to him, Dain lets them know of the situation, and they somberly leave the building.

The party heads over to the Messy Cushion for a drink, but finds that despite a number of patrons, Reginard is nowhere to be seen. Dain asks the patrons, and is told that Reginard is likely working on his "project" in the back. Dain investigates and finds Reginard in the basement working on a brewery. He claims that due to the lack of trade in the past two years, and dwindling supplies, he began brewing his own drinks, which led to some poisonings at first, but he had begun to brew basic beers. Summer offers to help him set up his brewery and teach him to brew some basic drinks. Dain heads outside to the side of the building and finds Chandira in her shop, and updates her on the situation, and asks her what she might have for sale. She shows him a few items, and after being shown the diamonds the group found in The Obelisk, directs Dain to a jeweler in Eldham that could buy them.

With no immediate objective, the party takes some downtime. Summer helps Reginard brew his first few drinks, teaching him to make a Pilsner, a Porter, and a Mead. The profits this brings Reginard are shared with Summer, earning her a nice 560 gp over the coming months. Meanwhile, Dain forges a new weapon that he calls Stormsmasher, that Grim assists with. Lavanda decides a change of name is in order, calling herself Prenna, and spends her time reconsidering her skills and learning new ones. The party has a good 6 months of downtime before they find themselves at the Harvest Festival on the 5th of Quenten.

During the Harvest Festival, followers of Quen set up large feast tables with piles of food from the first harvest of the year, and locals sell all kinds of food on the street, including Icarus, who sells several of his latest concoctions to the eager foodies. There are also quite a few carnival style games, including a strength test, which Grim comically breaks. As the party enjoys their food, they eventually realize that they haven't seen Summer in a while. They wonder if perhaps she went to visit Reginard, and begin heading towards the Messy Cushion. As they travel the main road, they find Summer standing in the middle of the road, staring up at the three moons rising in the sky, Quen's moon full. Dain taps her on the shoulder, but gets no response, and looks to find that her eyes are glowing green and she is catatonic.

Meanwhile, Summer has a vision of herself moving through a dark underwater environment of ruined buildings covered in coral and fish swimming all around her. She eventually reaches a cave where she sees a woman, who addresses her by the name "Shala" and asks her to find her in Seryndor, saying that she is trapped there and needs her help.

Summer, not knowing how to respond to this woman addressing her by her true name, asks her who she is. The woman says that she is Summer's grandmother, and tells her that she has been trapped in Seryndor for nearly 1,300 years. Summer then snaps out of it as the party is frantically trying to get her to wake up. She tells everyone about the vision and they are unnerved and decide to retire for the night at the Dead Goose Inn.

The next morning, the party heads down for breakfast and sees a familiar woman at the serving counter. The woman notices them and re-introduces herself as Ferel Shaethe, the daughter of Evaryan, whom the party encountered on their way to Nolaviath the previous year. She tells them that her father returned from his visit to Greentide recently, having spoken with the Antiquarians' Guild about his findings at the Catacombs of Blackfrost, and found something interesting in Caphanos upon his return. The city has had problems with a creature attacking and sinking ships off the coast, and some wreckage washed ashore. They initially believed it to be the remains of a trade ship sunk off the coast, but the markings were identified as possibly belonging to a trade ship from the long lost city of Seryndor, which Ferel says was a trade city on an island off the coast of Arak in the Gulf of Liborius that sank beneath the ocean roughly 1,300 years ago. She offers the party a retaining fee of 1,000 gp each if they will accompany her to Caphanos to investigate, with the promise of another 9,000 gp each upon completion of the expedition. The party eagerly accepts, with Icarus choosing to stay behind at the Dead Goose Inn. Eager to find out more about the mysterious Seryndor, the party begins preparations to leave for Caphanos immediately. Dain also decides to leave his Steel Defender behind with Icarus, figuring that a potential underwater adventure isn't a good environment for his metal companion.