New Lead: A Rocous Journey

Expedition

Myska's Menagerie start the new year with a new lead to tracking down the Temperance Shards.  Leaning on both Crush's research and Myska's renewed memories with more shards added to the Shade Crystal, the party is headed to the Ulgoine Valley.  Chupta joins Temren Kut on alternating shifts flying the airship to speed their journey along.  Their flight does catch something's attention though...

Myska's Menagerie find themselves in flight to the Ulgoine Valley to find the ruins of Tersule. Crush's rearch over the past six months combined with Myska's newly recalled information has revealed to the party that the valley was once the center of Myskathema's influence. With the different peoples having all received Temperance Shards. The historical dreamscape that the party had traveled through when they first encountered the Shade Crystal had shown a general leading the army of the Fated Order. Egoron Birlond had already taken the Lothin Diarchy's Shards and was amid ransacking the Shade Crystal's temple before turning their attention toward the rest of the valley. He had intended to roll through Tersule before finishing with Kag Bhurim's set. He had not accounted for the fact that Tersule's shards were for Unity and helped the kingdom stand strong against the Fated Order. The army broke, members scattering and some, including Birlond, returned to their citadel in the Orods north of the Lothin Diarchy. With such a rich history of shards in the Ulgoine Valley, the party left Bactran upon Altomari's airship and flew south.   The journey had been simple with five days flying the savannahs south of Bactran followed by the Cobblestone Serpent and Nystor's Path. Temren Kut and Chupta traded off shifts piloting the ship allowing for an accelerated means of travel, never being still in the air. The mountain flight became more troublesome. The party chose a round about path to avoid the highest of the mountain peaks though this required Chupta to do some mountain flying. Luckily, problems only occurred after Temren Kut took the wheel. Fozz spied a winged form on the horizon. It was only after the creature flew behind a mountain peak in the distance that the elf realize how big the creature was.   Waking everyone, Temren wanted to cut the airship's engines to drift as along as possible without light but the party chose a different tactic. The engines would stay on with globes of darkness conjured by Astrid and Fozz obscuring as much as possible. The tactic was almost perfect accept for a few angles. Unfortunately, those few angles were taken. In the distance, the roc veered it's course to either seek to make prey of the airship or to drive off threat to it's territory. The distance to be covered did allow the awoken companions time to prepare, donning armor and readying lifelines.   The roc soared in towards the ship to be met by with a purple sand hypnosis that caused it's glide to become falling with style... until it impacted into the top of a mountain under the opposite side of the ship. The roc's return had it latching onto the side of the airship, causing the whole vessel to lurch and bob around. Despite it's immense size, no sooner did it get there with singes and arrows in it's feathers than the party transitioned from ranged to melee, waylaying into it. Before it could get a single bite into the balloon or rending talon along the hull (more than just latching on), Myska's Menageri had battered the bird enough for it to fully feel the blows. Having done enough to trigger it's own self preservation tactics, the roc decided this entity in the night wasn't worth the hassle. The bird released the airship, tossing Astrid and Fozz back upward with the lurch of the vessel. As the roc had soared into this night so too did it leave.