SESSION 23

Queen Mab's winter court beavers and I were able to finish construction of a ballista for the Edhellan. I've gone over the operation of it with my companions. Its been agreed that Corporal Dagger will be on loading duty, Leftenant Gleam is responsible for aiming, which leaves Captain Romanesco to fire it, not that that is surprising. Hopefully, this will help us deal with the dangers we will face on the road.
 
I've spoken with the sparrows, deer and trout in the surrounding area to see if I could determine where the mad wizard's mount had flown off too. I figure he probably had some valuables on him and it would be a shame if they were simply lost in the wilderness to become decorations for the nest of that overgrown mag pie of a wyvern. The fish weren't very helpful and the deer ended up becoming our night's dinner. That brute Terryn probably spotted it hanging around after my conversation with it. He's lucky I'm a druid of the spore or else there would of been words. I debated telling Terryn her name and letting him know she had been a useful source of information. But, honestly he's been useful and isn't deserving of the barbs of my words. It was close though, he expected me to eat the meal he had prepared. But I don't eat. I figured Sil'pheria would enjoy the experience (though being a fey she doesn't require the sustenance of mortal food) and summoned her to partake. She was surprisingly well behaved, I guess the experience was a true novelty for her.
 
After dinner, the location of the wyvern was discussed. It turns out that wizard was actually of some renown and recovering his body would be worth quite the reward. The wyvern would have to be killed, but that's not much of a loss. After all, they are basically degenerate dragons. When I wipe out the whole species it will hardly be a loss. A healthy wyvern would normally be quite dangerous. However, there's indications in the journal that this creature has been afflicted with the same mental degeneration that the wizard was. Which should make it easier to kill.
 
We also discussed the contents of the journal and the theories the wizard was working on. There's some distressing situations that we should probably follow up on. Whatever machinations the devil and demon have wrought, they are likely detrimental to my plans. So, they will need to be dealt with. I kind of hope that the dask are their pawns since we might be "forced" to destroy that group in order to resolve the problem. Though it's possible that these otherworldly forces are acting via a different group that we've not yet had much contact with. In any case, it's something to look into once we get back to Sharn.
 
It was at dinner that I realized how horribly malnourished Simon was. He had been working non-stop to create a copy of the journal, barely taking sleep and meals. It didn't occur to me until I saw him what kind of toll this was taking on his body. If he ever gets into one of these spurts again I'll be sure to provide him with goodberries and some kind of accelerated rest. There's little reason for his work to suffer over minor inconveniences like sleep and food.
 
The research is going well. While I am quite interested in what we've found, I'm in no rush to delve it's depths. I think it makes the most sense to let others do all the grunt work and then after they've gleaned as much from it as they can, to review their work in order to find whatever they missed. It's just more efficient that way.
 
There was some after dinner entertainment where Toox and Celosia decided to test out their bargain bin magic items. A bit too risky an endeavor for me, but I'm more than happy to watch as others experiment with dangerous magic items. Toox ended up with a pretty standard wand of blasting and a bag of holding of sand. I'm not sure how useful an endless supply of sand is, but I suppose if Toox decides to live out her retirement years as a glassblower such an item will be quite helpful. Celosia's ring of mending seems to derive it's power from the wearer's life force. An intriguing item to be sure. Interestingly, she had so little desire to have the thing that she gave it to me. I may have to research it later, being able to fuel spells with life force could be a very useful property to employ with more powerful magics.
 
The next day I turned into a panther and ferried my companions to the wyvern's lair. We had a slight mishap on the way but overall we made fantastic time. We came upon the wyvern which seemed to be in a state of mourning. This allowed us to pounce on it and kill it before it had a chance to react. Celosia clouded the beast's mind with deadly fears, while I caused it's body to decay and wither. Finally, Toox gave it a killing blow by stabbing her dagger into it's lung and heart.
 
Unfortunately, the beast had apparently gathered the wizard's things and wrapped its body in some kind of funerary cloth. The body already had a gentle repose spell upon it so, it may be a property of the cloth. Just to be safe I went ahead and cast gentle repose on the body. I would unwrap the wizard's body and remove whatever valuables he's wearing, if I thought I could do so without consequences. Unfortunately, those who would reward us for returning the body would probably be less generous if they thought we had defiled his body in some way. Being in the good graces with these elves could prove to be the most valuable reward of all. So, I'll make sure the body is protected and treated with respect until it can be passed along to the elves.
 
Now, we just have to figure out how best to transport everything back to the wagon.....