Session 43

Pippy and Thydrom begin to read about The Artifacts. Gum Gum looks over and sees something off in the distance staring at him. He's not sure who or what they are but can tell they are a humanoid and about 80-100 yards away.
Thydrom is reading the papers and see's that it says it's the Legend of the Artifact of Mynithrul. Thousands of years ago there were these great individuals that banded together to stop the big war that would have taken over the entire realm. What they had to do was tear away this magic from a creature who was trying to use the legendary 12th spell that ascends them to god level. The issue with this is that you usurp a god to take their place and if you are not mentally/physically able to hold that power it fails but the magic ceases entirely. This entity wanted to become the god of magic. Since they messed with the weave of magic, it wasn't able to be performed for sometime. When this creature tried to become a god they were sealed away with his power by using the 12 artifacts. it took courage, lives, and trust. The issue though is that this creature lived and he is trying to bring all of those powers back to one and he will stop at nothing until he ascends to that god hood. Each of the artifacts have a special power, such as flame being the breath of life. The books starts to name 12 of the artifacts but the only one that shows up is the fire artifact and lists it's name and who was in charge of it and calls it the flame of life. and then the text stops on the first page after it says "Red Mane of..." and it blanks out.
Thydrom taps to his head and Pippy catches on and whispers into his mind to see what is up. He tells her everything he read. Thydrom asks for the next page and Baoth speaks to Pippy and asks her to stop and have Snow read it. Pippy calls over Snow and convinces him as head scratches and as he comes over he sticks his tongue out at Vaan cause Pippy said he deserved them for leading us today. She scratches his head and then Baoth commands her to get Snow to read the page, specifically line #5 about the artifacts. Snow reads "The red mane Jade rumbling river". He recalls it's familiar and thinks its something from home. It's a Tabaxi he thinks, a female. Snow explains that Tabaxis all have a nickname and a real name. He explains his real name is Snow Mountain. Snow asks if there is anything else and asks if he can read the next page. She goes to offer it and Baoth speaks to her again and reminds her that she isn't supposed to read that page yet. So she plays it off as wanting to savor this information and save it for another day. Thydrom catches on to her lie and asks her in her mind if someone is telling her not to read any further and she is too scared to answer and instead nods her head twice. She then thanks Snow and promises that he can help her read it next. Meanwhile Gum Gum notices the creature he saw had walked away.
We all go to sleep and morning comes. Xaemarra is at the camp site and is stirring something in a pot. She's excited to travel and is waking everyone up. Lehroth mentioned that he saw her making it as he wasn't able to sleep again. She talks with him about his dreams and nightmares and the party listens as he explains he hasn't slept in three days. She explains that he is cursed and that there is a spell that needs to be casted to remove it. She's trying to remember what it's called and remembers it's called "Remove Curse" and it takes a full day to work. Thydrom speaks up that he knows the spell. Lehroth says he'd rather die and Xaemerra inquires why and Lehroth explains that he thinks Thydrom killed his lover as he doesn't know that Thydrom is innocent. Xaemerra challenges this line of thinking and asks why he can't believe in Thydrom. She is trying to convince him to let Thydrom help him and to trust him and to let go of his preconceived notions. Xerrik interrupts and asks what about that breakfast? And the conversation changes to food. Wi Po pulls out his picnic basket and helps serve up the food. Once we've eaten she moves her pot into her bag and we can see she has packed a bit heavy. She asks if we're good to go and Thydrom explains we have to go see Sheo. She pulls out her frog and it grows big and takes her items and stores them inside of it.
Lehroth approaches Thydrom and asks for an arm wrestle and exchange for removing the curse from him. This peaks Snow interest and gets really close. They are evenly matched but ultimately Thydrom wins due to Snow's interference. Thydrom then places his hand on Lehroth's chest and casts away the curse. Xaemerra then warns Lehroth not to die in the next 24 hours or he can become like the cursed tree. Xaemerra then asks what is up with "those two" and points at Lehroth and Pippy. Pippy turns beat red over this and they both explain they keep each other safe and in good company.
We go to Sheo's home and notice that it's all gone. The webs and everything is gone. The only thing there is a log with a note and a knife stuck through it. Lehroth, Zandro, and Xerrik reach for the note together and read it at the same time. It says "I have the gifts for you, I gave them to a friend and I will see you in Grandia." Lehroth asks what Grandia is and Xerrik explains its the town that they all started in. Then they realize their cheeks were touching and they banter back and forth about backing off. Meanwhile Thydrom notices a print on a root, a white hand print and it's identical to the one on Lehroth's face. It's Astral's handprint. As Thydrom tells us this Lehroth and him agree that Astral needs to die. A figure then drops from the sky in front of us, landing on the table, it's another hooded figure. They look at all of us and it's hard to see their eyes but we can tell this is the same person we interacted with before.
They speak "It seems Sheo knew I'd show up here" Thydrom calls him out, it's Astral. Astral asks who our new member is and Lehroth and Thydrom tell him that they don't trust him. He then congratulates Pippy on acquiring the missing pages from the book and asks if she is a follower. She plays off that she isn't but Baoth then speaks to her and says to never forsake him when faced with moments of fear. She then says that she is a follower of Baoth and Astral tries to talk down about the god but Pippy won't listen to it and talks back. Astral comes closer and the group starts to step in between him and Pippy. After a bit of back and forth he declares that he will teach both her and Zandro a lesson since they seem to have no fear of him. He is undecided on if that lesson will be now or later in the future to build the fear of him. He then asks to speak to one of us. Xerrik steps up and goes off with Astral to talk and Thydrom casts scrying on Xerrik before they leave to talk.
Xerrik comes back through the portal and rejoins us. Snow asks "What the fuck" and Xerrik explains that Astral wants us to go to Grandia and to let him get the artifact from the Tritons. The party discusses about how this is a bad idea. They then start discussing about who all has the artifacts and Raui is brought up. Lehroth inquires about this and we explain how Raui used to be with our party and then joined with Yatish. Thyrdom discusses about how Yatish has changed over the years. Xerrik also says that someone is hunting us back in the material plane. Snow summarizes - Astral wants us to go to Grandia and our items are at Grandia and Astral wants the artifact from the Tritons. We discuss what our plan is and Xerrik mentions that we have 3 days if we want to go to the Tritons. We decide to head out of the feywild and to Grandia after we deal with wherever we appear in the material plane at. Xaemerra explains that there are two exits we can take out of the Feywild, we have the guaranteed place of Xerrik's homeland or we have a gamble which is a tunnel system.
Zandro asks Xaemerra if she can make her frog small with all the stuff inside and she doesn't know and shrinks the frog down which sends Thydrom flying cause he was on top of it. She then directs us to where we need to go. We go deeper inside what was Sheo's place. As we walk we discuss what happened to the other friends we traveled with and Xaemerra realizes that she is forgetting about a friend of hers, Coda, and she cast a spell to discuss something with them and encourages us to continue on as she'll talk with them while we walk. We see tunnels and green vines and it's a bit of a maze. It opens up into a valley like area and everything around us is black except the path which is light up. There are some flowers near the path and on the vines is a keyhole. Vaan steps up to unlock the portal with the key she took off the Pumpkin Key.
Lehroth walks through the portal first, he takes a step and sees a library and takes another step and falls and looks back and sees he is on a table. This is Soj's place but Lehroth doesn't know this. As Lehroth falls he makes a large clatter in his armor. He warns us as we all walk through. This is another one of Soj's areas but a little different than the area we were first in. Zandro takes a moment to mark the pathway we came from so he can tell where the Feywild is.
Xerrik looks for an armory, Zandro looks for poisons and plants. They look around and don't really see much but notice tunnels. Xerrik and Gum Gum pick a tunnel and go down it together to see where it leads. They pick the 3rd tunnel and it's dark. They come to an area that looks like jail cells and they see a dead body in one of them with weird markings on them - like scratches - and they look like they dies from whatever attacked them. There are two chests in between the three jail cells. They decide to look over the body and Gum Gum goes to pick a lock and open up the jail cell. They look at the body and it is the body of an Orc. It's weird because their skin is more human and not green like you'd expect. They look fairly human otherwise. It's strange. Gum Gum says "not every day you get to eye up an orc dick" as they realize the guy is butt naked. Xerrik pokes one of the chests with his axe and the chest explodes creating a loud boom noise. Xerrik realizes the chest was trapped. Gum Gum yells at him for not letting him use his tools.
The party hears this and Thydrom heads towards the sound. Zandro is still doing his own thing and Pippy and Lehroth are in the main room as she hunts for information. Lehroth is looking around and notices that one of the doors he thought was closed is now open. This door that is open was the one that leads upstairs. Lehroth notices this door and sees lightning starting to form and is hit with electricity. Fake Soj appears and he tosses a bottle, it was the beverage that made him invisible. Pippy sees Lehroth is down and casts false life on herself and heals him enough to bring him back to standing. She mouths off to fake Soj and and he prepares a fireball and casts it at Pippy, she tries to dodge it but bumps into a bookcase as the fire is coming at her. She is viewing her past and everything that happened in the past and her friends and her comrades. Her life is flashing before her eyes as this fireball inches closer. Pippy smiles as she recognizes these friends as her new family and she thinks about everything that she has yet to accomplish and realizes this will kill her. But she smiles remembering the good times and begins to accept her fate. But in that moment Lehroth jumps in front of her as he takes the hit for her, facing her and hugging her. Pippy's smile turns to horror as Lehroth takes the entire brunt force of this spell, the armor melts off of him and only some of his armor remains, he falls to his knees. He hugs her tight and whispers "Keep the rest of them safe will you?" Pippy cries and looks into his eyes, hugging him tight and says "I will but why did you have to do this?" and Lehroth says "It was worth every moment" and dies in her arms as she kisses him goodbye. She immediately turns to Fake Soj, tears streaming down her cheeks and casts blight on him damaging him really bad. Snow is running at him full force, not thinking his attack through. Soj grabs Snow and tosses him. As well as the rest of the group comes into the area to see what the noise was. They see Pippy on top of Lehroth crying and his body lying there lifeless. Fake Soj asks if he really has to kill us all one by one now.
Thydrom says he's going to kill him, Zandro asks who fake Soj works for and explains we've recently met Astral and fake Soj says that he should kill us all one by one. His hands catch on fire again but a giant narrow fire blast comes from one of the tunnels and hits the fake Soj in his chest causing him to fly back a bit. A voice calls out "hurry up and come this way, I've got you an opening." On this person skin is red marks that are glowing. Pippy is still clinging to Lehroth's body, refusing to leave him behind. Xerrik tries to grab her but she's clinging tightly. Thydrom tries to pick up Lehroth but is having trouble so she shrinks his body down to make it easier to carry. As Thydrom leaves he tries to cast a spell at Fake Soj but he smacks it away. We rush out of the tunnel as Fake Soj destroys the tunnel to the feywild. We exit and we are back in Grandia and the exit closes. Pippy drops the spell so Lehroth's body returns to normal size and she demands Thydrom "fixes" Lehroth. He casts revivify but it doesn't work and we hear a scream behind us. We turn around and Yatish and Raui are there and Raui is on the ground screaming in pain, her hand is red from the artifact. Yatish asks why we were in Fake Soj's and we explain that we came from the Feywild. Yatish asks how he's doing and Thydrom checks him over and declares him dead. Pippy is over his body, distraught at this news and is inconsolable. Yatish explains that death is permanent and because Raui can't control the artifact she feels it every time someone tries to bend the outcome of a death. Yatish asks Raui to try controlling the artifact and Raui closes her eyes and a third eye opens up in her forehead. Zandro tries to coach Raui on how to speak to the artifact.
Yatish asks why we were in the Feywild and explains we've been gone for a month and a half. She explains some things are going down in Grandia. She explains she heard from a reliable source where we were and reveals it was Nioza that contacted her. We explain we were told to come to Grandia and that Astral told us to come here and not to follow and intervene as he aquired the artifact from the Tritons. Yatish is a little panicked by this information. Yatish says she has to go and talk with Raui and that she'll see us again. Before they leave Thydrom casts scrying on Raiu but yatish counter spells it. Thydrom casts it again and she does as well and glares at him for trying. Thydrom explains that they've know each other for many years and to let him help. She says that she needs to leave and will see us in a bit.
Thydrom offers to help have a funeral for Lehroth and they chop down some trees to build a funeral pyre for him, knowing that is how he would want his remains taken care of. We take his sword Azrel off of him and place it in the bag of holding. We place his body on the pyre. Thydrom asks if anyone has any words to say. Snow starts "you were an odd one but your heart was usually in the right place." Thydrom steps up next "I respect you for stepping in front of that fire and saving Pippy, I don't think I would have had the courage. I wish we would have worked things out and had more of an understanding about one of another and hopefully we'll see you in the next life after this one." Xerrik stands in silence. Zandro doesn't want to speak as he doesn't want to come across as a smart ass. Gum Gum stands in silence as well. Thydrom pats Pippy on the back and she says "You were the first one to see me for me and not for what I was. You were the first one to really trust me. You always looked out for me and protected me and took risks for me and I will miss you terribly Lehroth. Your memory will forever be imprinted on my heart." Thydrom continues to pat Pippy on her back trying to console her and he asks Xerrik to do the honors. Xerrik lights the pyre.
A portal opens up and Raui steps through with Yatish and she says that they're back. They realize they just stepped in the middle of a funeral and get quiet. Raui is a lot calmer than when we last saw her. Snow says "I feel like we forgot something, we forgot someone. Where is Xaemerra?" Thydrom casts sending to try to locate her. We hear thunder clouds appear and look over to Grandia and these thunder clouds are red. We see a lightening bolt hit and shake and it's a lot more real than the last one we saw. The party stays there until the fire dies and everyone collects a vial of Lehroth's ashes.
Note: we are 3 1/2 months in out of the 12 we were given.