2025/08/15: Animus Hunt in Northern Alvidar Part 6

Buzz, Kelsey, Knight, Malakai, Nimbus, Everett, Othar, Union   Apparently the Dread is protected against divination. It was suggested that storing the kids there as a stopgap measure would protect them until the party could find something long-term (and possibly conduct psychic roto-rootering to get rid of any memory manipulation).   For the moment, Sha had been left at the temple of Everett's god.   The party considered whether to chase the big villain, but after the mass combat, they were entirely out of spells and nearly out of healing. They decided to kill two birds with one stone: Malakai had to debrief with his boss (Ion Rathe), and Ion Rathe and other allies might be able to strike the villain in their place.   Ion Rathe got a short summary of the situation and responded that he was coming to Malakai. Malakai advised him he may want to land outside the town because of the lingering antimagic issue. Ion Rathe laughed and said he wasn't worried about that.   About 30 seconds later, Ion Rathe arrived with an army of paladins, dragons, and more. Some 12 red-armored warriors were around him as an honor guard. The two Alvidarian armies eyed each other. Altruenth ran up to Michael Alvidar and introduced himself. The two armies rapidly became one giant army.   Looking at the increasing concentration of vital troops, Knight leaned over to a party member and asked if they'd told the army about the bomb at the first base. Discovered he was one of the only party members who'd been there for that.   Ion Rathe came over to the party just as Knight started heading for him to warn him. Some greetings were exchanged, then Knight interjected and told Ion Rathe. The latter turned away and summoned a lot of spirits, which spread across the area. He waited for them to finish whatever they were doing. He turned back, looking tired.   There was, in fact, a bomb. Keyword "was". The warning had been a wise idea.   While Knight worked on finishing their map of the complex, Malakai and Othar gave a debrief. Found out Ion Rathe didn't know about the kid-powered defences. He was not happy about this. He had just sent the party after these bases because the allies were trying to eject the Society from the continent.   Buzz explained what happened with the kids. After some discussion and a review of resources, the allies generally agreed to leave the boss alone at the moment and hunt him down later. For the moment, the priority was cleanup.   Ion Rathe experienced the illusion block, then was able to remove the multilayered illusion that was blocking the line of sight to the Ragnarok. The first Alvidarian army, the one that had strangely not shown up yet, became visible outside the town. Ion Rathe sent some of his bodyguards to go get them, then vanished back to the Isle of Necromancy. Knight walked off to find someone with authority to give their updated dungeon map to, eventually finding a knight-commander who relayed it.   In the background, the army was being very annoyed by the need to teleport all the forces in. Priests of Erhalace had set up a teleport ritual pad in the casino to streamline things.   The party returned to the Ragnarok to rest for the night. Malakai shared spells with Everett.   The party decided to give the giant sacrifice bull to John. It would get to live a happy life prancing about near his temple.   The Ragnarok crew explained what they'd been doing in the meantime. They'd been flying around and keeping an eye out. Anytime undead showed up and were heading for the town, they blasted them. They'd tried to send warnings to the party, but none had gone through.   Buzz set up a Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion inside the Ragnarok, setting everyone up with their own personal room with a bed and a desk. A Heroes' Feast set everyone up with food for the night and buffs for the next day. Everett was able to restore his lost levels with Mr. Tellarch's help.   By the time the party finished rememorizing and training the next morning, good progress was being made by the army inside the dungeon. No useful new clues had been gained regarding the location of the villain. He was somewhere to the north, but that didn't narrow it down much.   Othar divined on the villain with his Saveon the Blade of Villains. The Target was in a large city with very wide buildings, very colorful but something was interfering and it could only be seen in greyscale. He used a spell to turn a shadowy wall into a flatscreen TV, scrying on his own mental image of where the man was. The target appeared to be next to some large, slope-roofed building some 30 stories tall. It appeared to have a marquee on it.   It didn't appear to be the Greylands. No architecture in Thesk looked like this. Buzz started to worry that this was Concordia. Buzz was a prince there, banished for performing forbidden magic. (Buzz has been banished from Concordia, the Halfling Lands, and the Isle of Necromancy. In the second, it was by the Crystal Cup (or Cut?), who had robbed Buzz.) Concordia is the lands toward the center of the disk. The kingdoms there tend to be old, and magic is stronger there.   The party started increasingly piling their own divination aids into the work. Everett called his god, and after a few calling spells, he got a name: The Grand City of Rael-Aestra.     Kelsey's swords didn't recognize it. Further questions told Everett that the city is in the center of the Aestra-Archipelago, is not safe to teleport into, and is 7500 miles away from Everett's current location, to the north. Additional answers:

Prepare for intrigue.

It's on the same side of Renedge as the party is.

There is a safe place to teleport to nearby (but where that place is wasn't said).

Buzz calculated that it would take a week to travel there on the Ragnarok.   Side chatter: Buzz is selling a crystal skull he got from Doyle. Union took a look at it: It seems to be entirely nonmagical and has no weird psionic stuff. It wasn't created, as far as anyone can tell. It's likely that these are the remains of someone who was hit by incredibly powerful magic.   Malakai contacted Ion Rathe. Apparently there were several other things going on to try to learn more about this guy. Catalus was being unhelpful; he was giving very limited information, wanting to use the rest of the allies as a stalking horse, blundering around until they make an opening.   The party discussed the possibility that Grey was a powerful individual in the city. A senator, a marshal, something with power. Buzz suggested that this may be his home base. By the perspective of people closer to the center of Renedge, Meridan is hicksville, where exiles rebuild their powerbases and people go to do illegal magical experiments. The party needed to be prepared for Grey to be protected by the positive opinion of the populace, and possibly by his own authority there.   Buzz needed supplies and Nimbus needed more darts, so the party went on a supply run on the way. Nimbus went looking for basic supplies and rations.   Buzz handed Nimbus a box full of a horrible array of poisons, potions, and other liquid horrors. It was acquired from Zen Hwan's stash in a previous adventure. She can use that with her dart launchers.   Malakai and Buzz worked on upgrading the Ragnarok's armament on the way. Six medium auto-ballistas.   Most of the party went shopping for magic items at Herb's. In the meantime, Knight called Doyle. The good news was that the spell worked. The bad news was that he seemed to be talking in code. Through song and drunken rhyming, he indicated that he was imprisoned by pirates (or possibly was pretending to be a pirate, or both) and would very much like a rescue. Knight scried on the location with their mirror and discovered that he was in some sort of (semi-?)undersea castle near some random sandbars. Othar, for his part, went home to do... something. He came back when called, after the rest of the party returned.   Buzz bought a bunch of iron rations for the crew, trading, and other uses.   Knight checked in at home to see what was going on with the Compass of Dream's pointing at it. Nothing particularly new and wrong, but Sentry Commander Igleth reported that spider-puppet things had been spotted in the area the clockwork golems had been searching. Knight asked Et-Kehri to gather a group to check on that (or at the very least delay whatever they were doing while Knight was gone), then called Terana to warn her and ask her to keep an eye on the situation. They bid each other stay safe. (Knight also picked up their bottle of Statesman's Wine from New Hallownest in preparation for the upcoming intrigue.)   The party double-checked the locations of the kids. The necromancer kid was with the great green dragon, Sha was still at the temple where she was left, and Egwin and Yiea were still with Terana. Buzz sent a message to Rapsity to inform him about Sha.   The party teleported to the sandbar they'd scried on. About half a mile away was a tall, thin, dark blue castle some 20 stories tall. Lots of interconnected towers, with a sort of skeletal look overall. There was no land around the castle; the front gate was sized for ships, not people. Some flags visible: One dark blue and green flag, another with a red eye symbol on it.   From the noise he could hear with his draconic senses, Othar suspected this was the size of a small town, some several hundred people. There was the sound of machinery moving. Lots of metal-on-metal chains, perhaps elevators. From above, with Knight's sky gem, the place was solid, completely covered by a continuous roof.   Everett cast air walk. Killgleam cast invisibility on principle.   Closer up, the party could see that the entire castle was covered with or made of metal. There were signs of wear and tear, rust and tarnish. It was like someone had used the exterior material of the Statue of Liberty as armor. It had seen plenty of damage and repairs. The walls and armor plating were mostly copper and bronze, layered, while the internal structure was iron and steel.   By Buzz's reckoning, this place had seen significant engineering. It showed all the signs of an efficient military installation. But one that is old, worn down, and beaten up.   Othar could see humanoids on the walls, all armed with all-metal halberds.   Circling the base, the party could see that there were multiple entrances. The main entrance was a huge gate, some 500 feet wide, with a drop-bridge covering it. There were several other entrances higher up, likely leading into weapons bays. On one side of the castle, there was a giant hole in the castle, with some 200 people trying to repair it. There were signs that there were boats in the process of prepping to leave. The boat leading the way was frightening: It was made of bone and some sort of stone-like material, carved to be intimidating.   The party waited for the ship to leave. As it became more visible, more details became apparent: It was a huge ship, the deck some 60 feet off the water. It was clearly an advanced warship. The sails were strange, metallic blue and slightly flickery. As the ship rapidly picked up speed, the party could see that it was powered by giant, writhing serpentine tendrils.   The party slipped inside through the out gate using the wash as cover.   Three ships inside. One wooden, one metal and military, one a Gigeresque nightmare. The latter was a mess of black skin, teeth, and other organic parts, all woven together.   The "humans" inside were strange. They had ruby eyes. Cyber-zombies? The invisibility clearly didn't work.   Kelsey stepped forward to try to be diplomatic. Looking at the zombies, most of their armaments seemed to be piratical melee weapons. Some, though, had strange half-crossbows. Some even had them built into their arms.   Several notable people stepped forward amidst the growing crowd. One was a black fog person. A darkness genasi, perhaps?   Othar detected that as far as motivations go, these people were at work. He informed Kelsey that to these people, this was going to be a business transaction.