Session 53.5 - Interlude

11 Felmont 1010 - 16 Fyrmont 1010

General Summary

Their part in the conflict over, the party and The Everlasting Light were still under the escort of the Hin fleet. As news came in of the capture of Ludwig von Hendriks and the opening of Halag's gates, the party was treated to a feast and rewarded with magical items for their service.
Well deserving of a rest, the party spent the next few weeks living "normal" lives, training, and generally just enjoying some downtime. What follows are some of the events of this time.

Seraphina

As she drifted in-and-out of consciousness, the battle continued to rage around her... and inside her. She felt a surge in her heart. Her chest and shoulders began to warm, her arms felt like they were on fire, and her fingertips began to tingle. She felt a connection with a charged energy all around her, as if she was pulling it out of the very air. Seraphina’s thoughts were muddled - is this the effect of the Wyvern’s poison? The last thing she remembered was the winged beast swooping in on her, its stinger impaling her through the metal of her breast plate. This wasn’t like any poison she had experienced before, but instead it felt like something had been awakened within her. Something that had always been there, but that she was too afraid to turn loose - Magic. Pure, intuitive magic, and a new command over the elements. On the trip back to Saltmarsh she continued to experiment with this new-found ability in private.
When presented with the offer of magical items from the Hin, Seraphina was immediately attracted to a humble looking robe. Covered in colorful patches, it spoke to the warmth and comfort of being at home with her mother. She envisioned herself by a fire, wrapped in a quilt, and talking casually about herbal remedies and healing magic. Looking at it her heart felt full. There was no better choice for her than this garment.

Stavos

There doesn't seem to be an outwardly visible change for Stavos, but perhaps he is a little more focused and aware. On the trip back to Saltmarsh, Elincia taunted poor Totoro by convincing Leo to create illusions of dancing lights dashing around the deck of the ship. Totoro in one of these "Hot Pursuits" knocked a winch off of the foredeck, and it looked certain to fall right on Stavos' head as he sat reading a book. However, his level of alertness seems almost impossible to grasp, as he calmly reaches up and catches the falling bronze winch, without even lifting his eyes from the page. There were other subtle signs of heightened awareness, but this seemed to be the most noteworthy.
For his reward, Stavos chose a seemingly simple rod. However, with the push of a button the rod remains frozen in place, suspended and anchored by magic.

Leo

Seeing the options arrayed before him by the Hin as rewards, Leo was paralyzed with indecision. He sat down with the Hin artificer and quartermaster, Rufus, and discussed the detailed abilities of all the items, slowly eliminating one after another. Within an hour or so, it became clear that Rufus was growing weary of this process, and asked Leo what he was looking for, functionally. Leo described his woes maintaining Hex throughout the day, between getting hit and losing his focus and the need to concentrate when casting ritual spells.
Rufus lit up after this, and said "Have I got a solution for you!", and went into the back room. "This item is a special item, which I have had for many years, that most adventurers do not find interesting at all. It is a special dagger. To use its power, you must slice yourself open, so that it can drink your blood. This will weaken you for the rest of the day, unfortunately, but it allows the user to cast a ritual spell with the blood rite rather than the standard ways of ritual casting. The advantage of this, of course, is that you can greatly accelerate the ritual casting process. That little bit about weakening you for the rest of the day is why nobody has taken up this item, but it may fit your needs!" Leo thought on this, and came to the conclusion that being weakened has not really been a problem most times, so it might just be worth it.
He immediately began the attunement process, and then tested it right outside of the room of magic items. He sliced his palm open, and tried casting Comprehend Languages. Instead of the normal 10 minutes of focused attention, he was able to cast it almost instantly. He definitely felt a bit woozy, but that is just a matter of getting used to, he supposed. He asked Rufus to speak Hin to him as a test. Rufus smiled, and spoke a quick limerick mocking foolish Gnomes. Leo laughed, and said he loved the dagger, and thank you very much for your time and assistance in the process. He merrily headed back out to rejoin the rest of the party, who waited with varying degrees of impatience for him to select his treasure.
Once they returned to town, Leo had ideas on how to further his training. Tired of losing concentration on Hex in the middle of combat, he recruited Tork to go into the boxing ring with him with boxing gloves (no need to scar Leo's pretty face!), while Leo tries to concentrate on spells; asking Tork to be as distracting as possible, and land solid punches while doing so. Leo tries to be evasive, and dodge the blows, all while managing his concentration. After many days and sessions of working on this, he feels like he's tucked away his focus on Hex almost fully into the subconscious.

Tork

The half-orc felt a great sense of personal growth from the battle against the slavers - in particular, his duel with Langdedrosa and letting go of his rage in the moment and not slaying the half-dragon. He reflected on his contribution to the overthrow of the evil Barony and came to the realization that he had reached a major milestone in his spiritual growth. He found it might be possible to reconcile rage and his quest for mental clarity.
When the Hin asked what his reward would be, Tork wanted to commemorate this achievement by marking his body in the manner of his tribe. Normally, his people would do ritual scarring - Langdedrosa certainly added a few new ones, but nothing dramatic enough for the purpose. However, the Hin aren't really into that. Instead they suggested bringing in a renowned tattoo master to paint him a permanent design worthy of his service; Tork loved this idea. Better still, the artist (who came from a less than reputable looking Hin ship, bearing no official naval markings, and wearing clothes nothing like a uniform) told him that this tattoo would be imbued with mystical power that would make him even more formidable in battle. Tork was a little skeptical about that, but still allowed the tattoo master to cover his lower left arm (from above the elbow to the back of his hand) with an intricate, beautiful, and mystical design. He chose that location so that he can meditate on it as he tries to further deepen his understanding.
While sparring with Leo, it wasn't clear what the tattoo might be doing, if anything. Maybe the reason he seemed to connect harder and more easily was that his prowess was just improving from all the practice. However, as they were getting into it and Tork was focusing on channeling his Ki, there was one moment where Tork had the urge to strike at an opening he would not normally take - not only did he hit Leo much harder than he intended, but he did so from almost 15 feet away! This was startling and Tork certainly didn't want to seriously hurt Leo. So he pulled back right away and later went to explore this new focusing of his abilities on his own.

Elincia

The druid spent many hours in her down time after returning to town soaring the skies north of Saltmarsh in the form of an eagle. The still-new freedom of soaring through the sky was very relaxing after the constant strain of serial combat. Besides the freedom, she also was amazed at how clearly she could see as such a beast. Even soaring hundreds of feet from the ground she could see the disturbance of the grass from a chipmunk foraging for food. The ease with which she could take in the full scene, and focus in on small details, was addictive. After many hours of doing this in eagle form, she found herself able to adjust her focus as her normal self in a similar way. This, it turned out, is extremely beneficial to her aim with the longbow. If she applied the focus shift she learned as an Eagle to her aiming process, she was consistently able to hit targets more precisely, undistracted by the wider view.

She found this to work extremely well with the bracers provided to her by Rufus, who swore they would would prove themselves invaluable when worn by an archer.

A Special Delivery

On Fyrmont 1, Clara Bellová delivers a letter and a small pouch to the party, from Waldhexe. The pouch contains 11 gold coins, while the letter thanks the party for "completion of our arrangement" and asks if they would like to repeat the same with 10 more coins - the 11th to keep for themselves as a token of favor. The letter ends with "Destroy this token if you should ever wish to call on me." After much debate, the party decides to keep the coins and possibly use them later as with the silver coins before.

Report Date

17 Sep 2021

Primary Location

Saltmarsh