Session 17: Mad Mage's Malcontent

Made their way to the showdown with Declan in the Vault of Tiberius. A viscious battle ensued, and barely Snugly Duckling was able to literally flatten Declan with his maul. During the battle, Clawdia decided to retire from adventuring after feeling that her prowess had encountered uncannily terrible luck.   Right after, the party explored the room and received a ton of gold, and a handful of items. They reacquired the Wand of Tiberius, and picked up the Riftbinder Scepter off of the corpse of Declan. A long rest was taken in the room, undisturbed by the mercenaries outside.   Root and Snugly both investigated the room further, and found a series of correspondance letters with the Cackled End (next session someone can make a History check to learn more about the Cackled End). Within these letters, the party learned a few pieces of information:

• Declan was working for the Cackled End, Groot was sent to keep him in line.
• Declan's purpose was to retreive the Riftbinder Scepter, for the progression of the "Grand Plan".
• There was an item found in the Gap, an "orb", that was supposed to be delivered to Dianmallo but was lost somewhere right out of the City of Thalmor. Declan is charged with finding this orb. It is his primary objective. "Agents in Thalmor will be able to assist you in your task. Once found, deliver to Marc Andros of the Orthomancers, and he will ensure it gets to the proper place."
• A note that the Cackled End was going to be making his journey to Thalmor soon, and that he would expect to see progress in everything. By the sound of it, the Cackled End had planned to be in the city of Thalmor on the 1st Nienos (8th) of Palesun.

Additionally, they would have noticed in going through Declan's personal notes attempts to piece some information together. It would appear that Declan was slowly working towards putting a puzzle together. At the top of these notes, "The Four Blades?" is scrawled on the top, along with a strange symbol next to it. Notes jotted down include the following:

• "Cackled End" - leader or founder?
• Dianmallo - member/founder? "Unquestioned"...
• Member/founder in Thalmor?
• "Where is the 4th blade?" with possible nations scribbed around the question.
• Purpose?? "Chaos?"

Lastly, there would have been some notes about a vault hidden within the Island of St. Leo, which has information concealed away. The party recognized the island from Wu's dream and made a mental note to head there next, going through Thalmor.   When the long rest was concluded, the party discovered that the mercenaries had cleared out of the Aberrant Monument upon word of Declan's demise. They waited at the monument for a few days, anticipating the return of Groot Treething and his band of mercenaries. During that time, they reconnected with Goblin Ramsey, Lee Aflawn, Laws Cordial, and Clawdia's husband. At the reunion of her spouse, Clawdia made her return back to Thalmor, retiring from adventuring. In the days that remained between waiting for Groot's anticipated arrival, there would have been a few discussions between Lee and Wu, along with Laws informing the party of his desire and quest to find and retreive the Sword of Order, which is a solomn duty of his people, the Aarakocra. These discussions will be unpacked during a later session.   When Groot did not arrive, the party began to get anxious until Root received a message from Finnic, the bounty hunter. Groot was captured and was en route to the City of Thalmor to face charges and pay for his crimes. The story was open on whether or not Root would go to see him.   So the party returned to Bastion, spending a fair amount of gold on their stay at the Treasure Trove. There they learned that Bing's Orthomancer Camp was completely obliterated by a formidable mercenary company lead by an Earth Genasi, then the company was met soon after by a group and their leader was captured.   From there, the party made the long trek back to Thalmor. About 14 days had passed since their fight with Declan. As they were crossing the massive expanse of Thalmoris Bridge, Wu looked up in the sky and saw above them a massive bird, with a wingspan of about 200ft. wide. It swooped down at the party, making its way towards Goblin Ramsey, and the session ended there.   Session ended on the 3rd Aulëa (27th) of Rainmoot, around 12:30pm.