Springtime Exploration

Discovery, Exploration

Returning from their adventure in the Krasta Forest, the group finds themselves with some time to focus on some of their personal developments.

• On the night of the 29th, Phalar Aluve reaches into the mind and soul of Aestasea Beiris and where her soul and morality leads. She takes up the blade, and makes the choice to descend back into the abyssal void. Additionally, she took a moment to secure the loyalty of Rolf, Son of Rolf, of the Noble House of Rolf.   • Khorgar Xorlarrin learns of the presence of a demon that was slain in the wetlands of the Westhills. With Myrddin’s assistance, he packs up to return to that site and commune with the powers of the Abyss. Aestasea, curious on Khorgar’s legitimacy, tags along to assist in his adventure. Leaving on the 1st of Draco, a further day’s travel brings the pair to the site, without a suitable sacrifice to commune with. A brief stop in West Krasta finds the village beset by plague, and a priest of Illmater attempting to assist the sick. Luring him away, they kidnap him, and after another night in the wilderness find their site. And with hacking chops, Khorgar profanes the goodly cleric, a slick of black tar growing where his blood is spilled.

Rising from the pit, a four-armed glabrezu arises, a power far greater than Khorgar had any intention of summoning, and much to the surprise of the drow priestess. Khorgar accepts the temptations of the fiend, allowing for his arm with the axe attached to be lobbed off, and dunked into the tar. Further, both individuals proceed into the sludge at the behest of the glabrezu.

Awakening in a pool of blood, the pair find themselves within a pocket dimension of the Abyss itself, one with a minotaur of Baphomet trapped within. After a vicious battle, the two are able to defeat the demon of fury and a slavering horde of maw demons. And returning to the World, the two now unpack the results of their communion. It is the 3rd of Draco.     • On the 5th of Draco, Myrddin Vale along with Lillyen, Thaleia and Khorgar make their way to the grove of the Dryad Witch of the Fey. When last they met, a demon was slain in exchange for some Veilroot. Now Myrddin bears the plants he was gifted by the Jade Queen, and promised the land upon which the dryad lived would be his if he merely eliminated her. The dryad greets them, but the forest has already begun to react by shifting into the golden yellow hues of Fall in the midst of Spring.

It is with shock that she realizes the level callous betrayal, with Myrddin expressing his disdain for the Fey whom he had left. She finds no mercy in the other's eyes, with the bloodthirsty assassin, the ambivalent ranger, and the raw corruptive force in the paladin.

The dryad fought for her life, calling upon her forest friends and the power of the Twilight Dream to save her life and defeat the corrupting quartet, but to no avail. She was hacked into by the draining power of Abyssal Scourge, bringing ruinous decay to what had once been a heart of natural purity. And so, the Jade Queen had a rival removed, and a natural glade to reach into and corrupt herself.

And Myrddin now has all the space he could desire to grow whatever he wishes to in his personal garden, fertilized with the mystic blood of his kin.   • The 7th of Draco, and four days on the road brings Lillyen, Thaelia and Sid into the occupied country of Masovia. After a brief stop in Svetigrad and confirming the mission from the resident Veliuonan Elves, the road through the Vale of Twilight ended with the site of an ambushed convoy, stripped of its valuables and taken up into the mountains.

After a half day trek, the trio find a horseshoe-shaped notch carved by a waterfall. Within the mountain's walls, a double stone door is hidden behind the waterfall, with a barred drainage tunnel not too far away. Slipping inside the back route, they make their way inside, finding the refugees and resistance fighters huddled within the gloom of their hideaway. The mission was simple, slay Roger of Revuca for 1,000 gold pieces, or massacre everyone here for an additional 1,000.

After a botched attempt to sneak their way through, cutting their way through the population tucked away here became the route. And without mercy or serious resistance did the three of them carve their way through the bodies before eventually finding the leader of the operation, and rounding off the pile of bodies with his head.

With their task completed, a stop in Svetigrad lays two-thousand gold within their hands, and a march back to their homebase in the Westhills, arriving back home on the 17th of Draco.     • Onyx Brimstone would perform several crucial operations, sticking to maintaining the base. Construction projects continue, local recipes gathered, library expanded. Additionally, he researches details on the upcoming Topaz Dragon encounter they have planned. 

On one of his errands to and from Riverest, he is stopped on a moonlit night at a small bridge. There he meets his former liege lord, Ser Stromeh Stonethorne, having fallen into being a Death Knight, now known as the Knight of Thorns. He explains his crusade on destroying all elvenkind for their atrocities and invasions of Rusulkan lands, hunting them down wherever they may be found across Masovia and Istria. The two then duel, with the Knight of Thorns teaching Onyx new skills to develop as an Eldritch Knight. 
They part on good terms, with Onyx hopeful he can pull his mentor from the grip of dark powers.