SE04 : EP31 -Sins of the Forefathers Pt. 3

Haver assessing the situation, the party fresh from slaying the Belor, decides to rest.   Cass shakes her head from the experience of dying. Reaching out to Hone hopes to see what the signal saw. She is disappointed by the warforged telling of just losing the signal.   Cornelius busies him repairing Helper, his artificial assistant. He despondent and nervously trying to focus himself. As other reach out to help he rebukes them. He needs to fix helper, he needs to do it.   The party clears out an area to make camp. Taking watches they try to sleep off their injuries. Rest is hard earned, as dark imagery floods their dreams.   The next morning they wearily continue on.   At the gate of the great fortress. To one side is a guardhouse of giant proportions. A dawrven woman holding a spear leads an exhausted vanguard. As the are greeted by the party the relax a small bit.   Uncoupling the horses for the cart they pass them supplies through the doors. A small collection of tired townsfolk can be seen beyond. The transfer is mostly quiet. There is tense energy hangs in the air.   The only conversation is about if the party had seen any giants. Expressing that they had seen one. They are relived to hear that, with a comment "At least Sven still lives." After taking their leave the party begin their journey back to portal.   After a seven hour horse ride, they find there way back. From there they transport back to Horizon ( Demiplane]). @[The Oculus chamber is baren, cleared of all personnel. Only some church clerics and Councilman Stratos are present. Cleansing the adventurers equipment and bodies with holy magic.   They are quarantined to the meeting room of Meridian's Gate. After a long time a high elf city official called Randala enters with Stratos enter.   They are informed they there journey took about 29 days of local time. There a number of major news that happened in their absence. From there Randala asks them to recount their experiences. There is an odd push and pull as Randala politely questions them the mystery of the mission's origins becomes more obscured.   They finish their debrief Stratos storms off to the council chambers. He takes the information from Randala and summons a quorum of the councilors. Morina Sluess, Hyrim Mason, and Uria Wellmar join him after a time. They goes rounds with Stratos wanting to get to the bottom how this all. The details still remain vague as they came before any of their tenures. But it was some type of experiments that effected a number of planes. The one the party had just returned from was exposed to open to a plane of the fungal queen. Furious at all this couching and politics. Sluess especially gives sympathy but stands with her fellow councilors. Its is an imperfect situation but necessary for the saftey and security of Horizon. Stratos accepts their position but vows to change things in his tenure.They sympathize and express Bandix Kor once though as he did but something are beyond even the council's power. For the good of the city.