Sessions: July 10+17, 2023

I had thought the night was going to be a quiet one after I'd finished practicing with Mortalis, but sometimes you're proven wrong in the most outrageous of ways. We were attacked last night. I had seen someone sneaking down into the hallway where we all slept, and I thought they were putting notes on our doors. I assumed they were associated with Dan'or'avil, so I confronted the lone assassin. One single person? I could handle that and not even have to wake anyone up. And that would have been the case, if two more humans and four wyverns hadn't also shown up. Then it just became a mess.
 
We overheard them saying they wanted "the woman" and for a second, my heart stopped, because I thought they were after me. It was the second last night before the execution, after all. But no, they had knocked Ny'ell and Cor'nan unconscious, and it became clear once they tried to blow everyone else up that Ny'ell was actually their goal. I spent most of the fight running all over the ship. I had to bring Saanes back from the brink of death with a healing potion, drag Zun away from the assassins and wyverns on deck as he lay dying, and then finish off a couple wyverns myself. All this while Mortalis took a rest, because our practice had tired him out so much. I was not pleased, to say the least.
 
Elegant managed to help keep the assassins (or kidnappers, I suppose) from taking Ny'ell, though at a cost to himself (and while completely nude, I might add), which then required Corin to keep him from dying. When the assassins could see they were no longer winning, one of them stuck an anti-magic field to the bottom of the ship, which then rendered most of us useless and began plummeting the ship towards ground. Thankfully Agrino was up, and could get Mud and Zun set from on deck to get the anti-magic field. My entire job became trying to wake Ny'ell and Cor'nan up, though I'll be honest, I got a bit more joy out of waking Cor'nan up than I probably should have. That punch to his face was wildly satisfying.
 
Once we were no longer heading for our death, we tried to get answers in the after-math. The attackers had been human, no relation to the Cult whatsoever. Unfortunately Ny'ell didn't recognize the dead one in the hallway, nor did she have any idea why someone would want to kidnap her. Everyone was exhausted, and after disarming the bomb still on my door (since I don't need to sleep in my bedroom and therefore hadn't been inside when the device was placed), it was decided that sleep was probably the best course of action.
 
I opted to stay up on deck, to keep an extra eye, and to have a little chat with Mortalis. He explained that what we had done had taken more out of him than he'd ever experienced before, something that did not instill me with confidence for our upcoming battles. I'd been wracking my brain to figure out what could help the recovery process, and I'd landed on the fact that perhaps blood would be the answer. I was originally thinking my own blood, but Mortalis pointed out there could be assassin bodies on board, so we briefly went below decks so he could suck the assassin dry. Mortalis left him just a mummified husk, which I'll admit was both fascinating and a little repulsive. But, it seemed to do the trick!
 
Mortalis even commented that blood was probably a good strategy going forward. I'm thinking tomorrow night when we practice projecting Mortalis again, I might offer up some of my blood. He seems to work best when there's some kind of synergy happening between patron and follower, and having him syphon off some of my blood is a better way to do that than me merging consciousnesses with him, I think. For now, anyway. It also means the next time we inevitably have to kill someone, even if I didn't kill them myself, Mortalis can still take their blood and get stronger. Perhaps making Mortalis stronger is the best way to reach his unlocked powers. I can't help but feel the ticking of the clock, counting down until we face off with my mother. I need him to be at his strongest for that.
 
I'm just grateful that the body seemed to have gotten removed before the rest of my party saw it. Not a single person made a comment about the shrivelled corpse lying in the hallway, though Saanes did give me some weird side eye over breakfast. I think I'm in the clear. I don't want to have to answer to Zun over this.