18. Heading north

Before we leave the tavern, Mal says that he wants to try and bless the lance. Through the power of Mishakal, but with Ness looking on. With her assistance, he wants to invoke the aid of Paladine. We all help by offering a silent prayer to our own gods. He offers a blessing for the benefit of the chlidren of Paladine, and has a vision of a ruined temple. It is triangular, with towers at the points. A lake is around it, and one of the towers is collapsed. He said that inside, there were some very interesting violet looking trees (maybe like the smoke in the temple?), and in front of this shrine are double doors with the triangular symbol of Paladine. He says that he thinks he received a message of where we can restore the lance! Mal asks Ness where the place he saw would be, and she tells him that she has seen it from above, and that they are the ruins northwest of here, from before her time.
 
Ness remuinds us that to defeat an enemy, it is not always necessary to kill it, or even to fight it. She offers us drinks as we sit there. I agree, since sometimes, the best way to defeat enemies is to make sure that their reputation is ruined to the point where they are no longer trusted with anything important.
 
Finally, it is time for us to invite the good folk of Heart's Hollow back into the tavern. I go tell them, and they return to their drinking. I tell Clistrin that we are ready to go see the dragonelles. He says that he has all the stuff necessary to feed them, and that we are going to see about 10 of them that live there. But that is tomorrow night. For today, we will find an empty home and make camp in there. As for Dalamar, we offer him the option of coming with us, or waiting here. He doesn't seem too happy about this additional delay, but he doesn't complain.
 
The next morning, we leave at dawn, and are met by the wash. Things get flooded, and we cannot make it as quickly as we hoped, and it will take more than one day to travel. We are able to spot and avoid a dragon army patrol, though. They have at least 2 units riding their own dragonelles. We don't want to chance alerting the Red Dragon Army that we are in the area. We make camp for the night and double up for our watches. We have a peaceful night, and wake up refreshed and ready to travel. Clistin seems very excited.
 
As we approach, we can see flying the flying shapes of the creatures. He says that we need to get close, put the food down, and then we need to move about 100ft away to watch. These are bronze colored, while Ness is a copper colored one. The bronze dragons were closely associated with the seas - they could summon up a storm, and they could also control lightning. Maybe these creatures can do that to some extent.
 
I tell Waah to go ride one, and she walks over there to try. One of the dragonelles looks at her as she continues to move forward slowly. It watches and sniffs her. She drinks some of her own water, and offers some to the creature. She walks closer, and is able to get within touching distance. Again, it sniffs her, and nudges her, searching for food. She feeds it and tries to pet its head while it eats. It looks like she is making a friend, and she starts to talk to it. It appears to understand her, as if it were trying to respond. Soon, she decides to come back, and thanks a flabbergasted Clistrin for bringing us here.
 
I was hoping that Waah would figure out how we could fly one of those things, but oh well. We begin our journey back, and but it will take more than one day to return, as the wash is still going strong. We make it most of the way back, nad that night, Arinona finds the bones of a beast, along with crabs picking at the animal's remains. Otherwise, the night is quiet. The next day, we travel and make it back to Heart's Hollow. Clistrin wants to go back and meet our army, saying that he could be a good scout. I think its a great idea. We find Dalamar and head out that same day. We do our best to avoid the wash, and head northeast.
 
After a long day of trekking, we make camp for the night, and nothing important happens that night. However, the next morning, we run into a flood, caused by the wash. We noticed something in the water, flashing, making it glow up under the water. I ask Dalamar if that is what he was looking for, and he says no, but that this is VERY magical. Now I am curious.

Arinona sends her familiar to look closer, since it is under the water. The lights are arranged in a ring shape, but it is not regular. Mal says he can part these waters and create a trench so that we can go look at it. It seems to be a portal, and Dalamar says that he is not interested in exploring this, as they usually have malfunctioning golems. We've even met one. And it is also under water, which makes it harder. We decide to make a note of where it is, but keep on moving. Maybe it'll be like the other one, and help us get to Vogler faster in the future. As we move away, Dalamar explains that these have a chance of creating a difficult journey, since they were made before the cataclysm, which produced a crack between worlds. Which means that about half the time, we may end up in the correct place, and the other half, we may end up in the shadowlands, and we know what kind of nasty monsters reside there. Knowing this, I thank our lucky stars that when Thalassa tried the one that led to Vogler, nothing bad happened to her. Or us.

We finally get to the coast mid-afternoon. We search the inlets, and finally reach one that is covered in fog. Dalamar says that the fog is magical, and that we need to find out what is creating it. It is probably above water, which is nice so that we can actually reach it. However, this fog is so thick, I can barely see my hand in front of my face. This will be fun.
 
Inside the cave, there are crystals protruding from the cave walls. Waah licks the crystals and determines it is salt. I start to harvest some of that salt, because it will fetch a good price in the market. Meanwhile, Dalamar is looking at his wand, and says we should not eat this salt because it is infused with some sort of magic. Ugh. The whole cave is billowing fog, and we walk inside. I use my lantern, but I'm not quite sure it is helping.
 
I ask Dalamar what he expects to find in here, and he tells us again that we need to find what is causing the fog. So much for being prepared for salt cavern monsters. But I don't think this magic is similar to the one that was turning people into monsters, so I get a little more comfortable. We look around, and soon find an Anhkolox. It takes me inside its chest thing, which is super gross. I wake up to Waah telling me to duck next time. I'm so happy to see her that I don't even roll my eyes too much.
 
Dalamar continues to look around. He is looking at a piece of broken black glass. His wand is still glowing, and it glows more brightly. He touches the glass, and the fog stops billowing from it. In about 1 minute, the fog dissipates. He picks it up and tells us, "Thank you for your assistance." He says he isn't sure what it is, but I don't think he's being very honest. I wonder what he's hiding. After some insistence, he finally tells us that it is a piece of an artifact that he thought no longer existed. He says he is now going back to his tribe, alone and along the coast. He says that they may go home if this artifact very helpful. We all say farewell to him, and wish him luck on his journey. He has been a good ally, but very much only because of our mutually aligned interest. I hope one day his leader can be an actual ally to us.

We rest for the night, and get ready to make our way to the city of lost names the next morning. The wash remains high, and we head west. On our way, we spot a group going in a similar direction. They are 6 people, 5 of them humanoid, and one of them a sivak. We choose to avoid them, and again, want to avoid giving away our position or letting them know that we are in the area.

At the end of our second day of travel, we go to bed. In the morning, they tell me that at night they heard people walking about, but did not check who it was, and were not spotted. I think this is the best outcome - who knows if it were another sivak or something terrible that would blow our cover? This morning, the wash seems a little more aggressive. As we watch, we see far away, in the high water, 2 long necks and heads poke out of the water. There are three animals with long necks, maws full of needle-like teeth. They have humps, and are coming towards us, like drifting islets in the water. We defeat 2 of them, and the last one runs away. The coward!
 
We figure that we can make it to the City of Lost Names by tomorrow evening. And the morning brings us a less aggressive wash, so we make better progress. We see a purple worm in the distance. As we approach, we see an aged stone wall in the plateau. There are some wood palisades, and countless red tents, with innumerable dragon army troops, and red army dragonelles swarming above.