Session 16: Apocalyptic Aftermath Report
General Summary
The party is standing at the edge of the great forest of vitium, looking up into the daytime sky at what just transpired. Eleanor is sobbing into her knees on the ground, and nothing feels right.
Ayame immediately notices that magic does not feel the same thanks to her connection to the Weave, however, Sebastian seems to be affected in anything but an ill way.
Lacy takes a moment to wrangle her horse in the earth shaking arrival. When she calmed it down, it only took a few moments to register the horror entrancing the group. Her eyes trace their gaze to the sky and luckily she catches the tale end of the cosmic calamity splayed out before the world. Eyes even wider than at the soul sucking seance she saw nights before, Lacy is dumbstruck by the grandoise implications. She gulps down her fear and fumbles at her bag pulling out a small case containing her spy glass. Hopefully she catches a more focused glimpse of the potential apocalypse.
Eleanor's emotional breakdown eventually ends, the incoherent rambling and sobbing settles, her tears dry and after she gathers that everyone else is also still processing whatever we just saw, she finds a place to sit and rest her back against. She's still pretty quiet, her eyes glazes over and expression that of someone emotionally worn down. She's just looking forward, trying not to look at the sky or think about it.
Naomi is using her staff as a crutch with one hand while clutching her head in agony with the other. She drops to one knee and her staff falls to the ground. Naomi starts to waver as if she is about to faint.
"W-well... uhm... we should probably get to the city." Ayame says shakily.
Lacy is relieved now that the sky has returned to its normal hue. She sighs and looks around. "Better than staying here..." Lacy says before staring at Eleanor on the ground before adding, "Can't lasso those things without more rope." she says looking expectantly at the group but then spurs her horse onwards.
Eleanor nods in agreement with Ayame, managing to only do that at the moment.
Ayame nods back to Eleanor, helping steady Naomi while the cleric starts to sweat, and hold a fever, while Sebastian picks up the Kobold and the party makes their way to the city.
As the party approaches Praerba, they find a towering city. Though not very large in width, it makes up for it in hight, with buildings towering hundreds of feet in the air. The entire city looks to be made of solid marble, and built into a hillside mound that appears nowhere else in this open space of land between the forest. Atop the marble structures, are bronze like spires, beautifully glinting in the sunlight.
It is beneath these spiraling towers that you approach the only entrence to Praerba, a gate through the first wall of the city. A line of wagons and people are ready to go through the gate, however the guardsmen there are forcing people back. "The world is not ending, go back to your homes and continue work. We can't overcrowd the city unless actual danger occurs. The king has not yet proclaimed an emergency! Go back home!" which repeats many times as the party approaches.
"Wow... It looks beautiful... considering... Uhm... should we just wait in line to get in?" Ayame says, looking to the rest of the group.
"We could spend days just to get denied..." lacy says, scanning the crowd. "Surely one of you must be a noble?" she glances at Naomi.
Naomi still looks sickly, about ready to fall over while standing in line.
After a bit of back and forth, and the recognition of quite a bit of fear even in the elven population of Praerba, a half hour goes by when the party reaches the front of the line. Upon approaching the guard of the gate, a high elf in gleaming silver armor holds out his hand, stopping the party. "We are not here to take in refugees for a non existant crisis. Do you have papers to come into the city on business?"
Ayame steps forward and hands the guard their letter from Willows Reach, her tail swishing as she does so. "We are not refugees." she says as the guard looks over the letter.
"I don't recognize the seal. Please go to the first building on hte left when you enter and we will confirm the seal is from Gwillith. if it does, you will be allowed through. If it does not, your party will be tried for forgery. Do you accept this risk?"
Ayame shrugs and nods, "Yeah sure, its real."
the guard nods, waving the party through the gate. "Good enough for me, head on in, outsiders."
The party makes their way through the gates without issue. There is a guard stationed at the building and he just waves the party past the building. Welcome to Praerba" he says as the party sees extremely well kept streets, and people in simplistic robes running around with books, chanting arcane spells and pointing at things left and right. The street is absolute chaos, but people are walking through the wide street without issue. The entire length of the street is uphill, with vast quantities of stores as far as the eye can see on the curved road at the floor. There is also a place labled "Stable" however, it is only a 20ft by 20ft gazeebo, with a cloth wall strung up at the back, being looked after by a woman making a painting in front of it, which looks exactly like the gate the party just walked through.
There also seem to be a few knickknack shops along the main sreet, as well as an outdoor tavern with a large marble tower stretching into the sky above it.
Ayame looks about the streets of this new capital city so far distant from her own with awe. "As beautiful inside as it is outside."
"I... actually don't have a complain." Lacy says looking about as well.
A few elves with books scratch their heads looking at what one could only call a wooden sofa set on a rail in the middle of the street, seems to have toppled over, and the elves are discussing the situation in Elven. In fact, everyone in the city is speaking only in elven.
"I mean, its supposed to go up and down the hill using Transmutation magic isn't it?" "No no its CONJURATION, the seal is broken, so the air elemental escaped." "You both are wrong, its Abjuration, its protecting itself from the ground." the group of bickering elves continues their lengthy arguement.
Everywhere else that people with books are, the party sees elven spellcasters trying to fix some fairly big magical issues, but most of the people here seem confused as their previous method of spellcasting seems to not be working. as a result, some old dusty tomes have been dusted off, and people are arguing about what the best way to repair a specific spell like object is.
With all the commotion, Naomi nearly falls on her face were it not for the quick thinking Lacy and some support with Ragia. A fool would have not noticed her fever.
"Ahh... yeah go find a healer." Ayame says following the rest of the party.
"Can't she just heal herself?" Lacy says.
Almost as if in cue, a cleric of Vivere rounds a corner, wearing a sign and ringing a bell, "The gods are gone!" he shouts as the sign is emblazoned with his recitation.
Ayame steps up to the crazed priest. "Don't suppose you could uhm... see to our friend here? She is ill."
The priest looks at Ayame in a panicked state. "There is nothing we can do. The gods have abandoned us." he says, pushing past her and continuing to ring the bell. "The gods have abandoned their flock! Stay safe, for gods eyes do not watch us!"
"More of a carnival barker then a priest." Ayame remarks with a sigh. Its then she noticed where the priest came from, a temple of Vivere, with its holy symbol emblazoned on a sign outside the building. An upright palm holding a leaf.
With the exception of violet, the party gets Naomi inside. Inside the party can see a line of elves waiting to be checked out. All of them looking worried as another priest, a woman, wearing a normal hunting outfit is treating them. "You arn't broken, the world is. Go home and get some sleep until we have answers." she says picking him up by his arm. "Because right now we don't have answers either."
Behind the priest are a few scholars, checking out a few books about scripture on the situation, most looking panicked, and all of them writing notes.
"I should go... board my steed. Once everything is in order we should head up to the queen." Lacy says.
One of the elves nearby looks up to Lacy at her words. "Wrong city for the queen. Thats Tallaut." He says in common.
Lacy sneers back at the man in elven. "Did I ask you?"
He replies back with a sneer himself. "Smart mouth for someone who uses a sword."
"Better to have both than neither." Lacy replies back before trotting off.
After about 15 minutes, the priestess finally gets to Naomi to help."A fever? Is she magical or something?" She says, checking Naomi out, and slapping a cool towel on her forehead.
Naomi, lifts up her staff, showing the holy symbol affixed to its tip. "Cleric of Rhamnasia at your... duty..." she mutters out.
"Oh honey, im so sorry... This was a really big deal, but thankfully, I don't have magic. All the other priests are going nuts. Poor thing, lets get you some rest." The priestess of Vivare says, taking Naomi by the arm and leading her back into a private room of the chapel.
"Rest up, and don't even think about getting up until we have an answer about the gods." she pats the wet towel on Naomi's Forehead, before laying her back in a be dwith a blanket. Afterwards, she makes her way back to the party. "Im Wye, Priestess of Vivere. Thank you for bringing her in, I haven't seen it this bad before." The elven priestess has shoulder length black hair and looks to be a mix between wood and high elf.
"Ah...yes it came on very suddenly" Ayame says with a smile "Thank you for your help"
Wye nods to Ayame. "Do you have a place to stay? Thanks to..." she motions her arms to the entire church behind her. "This... We can't offer room here... though there should be space at the Wine and splash."
"We'll settle there while we wait for Naomi to get better then." ragia says.
"Ah, we were actually sent to have an audience with the queen... and then we learned she isn't here." Ayame says with a sigh. "But yeah, the wine and splash will be good for now I guess."
"The mayor did tell us this town is just a stop in the road towards Tallaut." Ragia reminds Ayame.
Ayame pouts. "I forgot."
"Oh, uhh... im sorry, its a different name in elven, in elven its more like 'a winey heritage'" Wye says with a smile.
Ayame smiles and nods back to the priestess. "Well, thank you for the help and directions, I'll visit back in a while to check in."
"Why the different name between common and elven?" Ragia questions.
"The joke doesn't make sense in common." Wye says with a nod to the party.
"Fair enough." says Ragia as the party makes their way to the tavern.
Meanwhile, Lacy makes her way to the stable, with the elf still painting without a care in the world.
"Worried much about horses miss?" Lacy calls out to get the womans attention.
"Never worried about horses here" The elf replies. "Its a gold a day to use the stables, and we are open all day and night." she says adding some birds to the painting. She seems very calm and happy doing so.
Lacy eyes the elf, unsure of her motivations. "Think you can handle my stallion?"
"You pay for the first day, and you pay the rest on pickup. If you leave your horse for over a month without picking him up, it becomes mine as well as everything stored with it." The elf says putting down her brush and making her way over, gently brushing the stallions face. "Your stallion will barely even know you are gone." she says with a smile, looking to Lacy. Having paid for her storage, lacy makes her way back with only her essentials, to the only tavern with a vacancy.
The other three, Eleanor, Ragia and ayame make their way up the road just a few towers down to find a sign pointing into a stairwell just on the side of yet another one of the marble spires, with a clothing store on the main floor. The sign in elven saying 'A Winey Heritage' and in common above it, tacked on recklessly upon the sign, 'Wine and Splash.'
Stepping down, the party find the door and head inside. Opening the door, they feel a light bit of steam escape the rooms, and the air is partly humid, but not uncomfortably so. A human is tending some paperwork behind a counter while an elf with bandages wrapped over her eyes is carefully feeling around a towel, and stitching into it. There is a little stairwell that based on the orientation, goes underneeth the main road above, into a main sitting lounge, with a staircase at the far end, and several doors on the left and right.
"Is this a hotel and spa?" asks Ragia as the party enters. "Hot springs" says the elf in Common as the human nods, closing his book. "A bit of a strange time to have a hot spring open when it looks like the world is ending, but..." he shrugs and smiles. "At least we can provide happiness for customers."
Eleanor pokes her head around the rest of the party blocking the doorway. "Is there any drinks?" She asks bluntly.
The man slowly pulls out a bottle of wine from behind the counter. "We also can make it cool and deliver it to you if you so desire. For non elven, its 2 silver, A gold if you want it chilled. Either way it is served in a pitcher."
"Eh? You charge based on race?" Ayame says with a bit of confusion.
Eleanor's eyes almost spark back to life for a moment and holds up a gold, "Who cares?? I'll take it!"
The man chuckles. "No no, non elven WINE costs 2 silver, Elven wine costs 10 gold, 11 if you want it chilled."
Ayame giggles, "Ah of course, makes sense."
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DATE: Poviott 27/625
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Naomi wakes up with a scream the next morning before recovering. "W-what happened?" she says looking about her living quarters.
Wye comes into the room to check on her after hearing the scream and places a hand to her forehead. "Your fever broke... must have had some bad dreams." Wye says sighing before smiling to Naomi. "None of the other priests have their connection back. Do you feel yours?"
Naomi says a small prayer, but feels no innate connection to Rhamnasia. "N-no..." Naomi says with a twinge of sorrow.
Wye nods. "Thats ok. Right now we just need to stay calm. The gods always have a plan, and... I like to think they didn't expect all that to happen just as much as we did right?" she says with a heartwarming smile, almost drowned out by the obvious exhaustion beneath it.
Naomi nods, and blushes at the elf sitting astride her bed.
"If you are feeling up to it. Your friends are at 'Wine and Splash.' just down the road." Wye says taking Naomis hand and patting it. "Would you prefer to say here with others in the same situation, or to them?"
"I...I want to be with my friends, if that's okay...T-thank you for being so kind!!!" Naomi says with a bit of fluster, getting out of bed.
Wye chuckles and nods. "Well thank you for stopping by. There wasn't much I could do, but glad you are feeling better." she says patting Naomi's arm. "Take a bath while you are there. You sweat a lot and it smells like sulfer in here now... should cut back on eggs in your diet."
Naomi blushes. "Y-yeah I'll take that advice to mind..." Naomi says, trying to think of the last time she actually had eggs. Fact is it has been a long time.
At that moment, Ragia rushes in, "You're awake!" she screams before pouncing on her cleric, cuddling up with Naomi.
"W-where's the rest of the party Ragia?" Naomi says hugging the kobold back.
"I just came here first, the others are probably still sleeping." Ragia says, letting go of Naomi.
"Should we head out?" Says Naomi.
"Sure, i'll stay by your side in case you need something to hold onto while walking." the kobold offers.
"I feel fine physically, so I think I'll be fine~" Naomi says with a singsong tone. "Lets just get moving, I don't like being away from the others, especially now..."
Ragia leads Naomi back to the tavern, where the rest of the party is gathered, eating a breakfast of cheeses and wines, except for Eleanor, who has a slab of meat on top of everything for her breakfast.
After much lighthearted discussion, the party discusses their next plan. After everything, they decided that it was best to get equipt with some new gear here in the city, and head out to meet the queen as soon as possible.
Character(s) interacted with
Wye: A priestess of Vivere who doubles as a fur trader for Praerba and non magical healer.
