We take the satyr we captured back to the church; Timothy and Patrick are there to help and decide to question him in the middle of the temple. CornCob places himself between the satyr and the door. The clerics ungag him (the satyr, not CornCob!), and Pujol asks in Sylvan if he speaks Common. He does, so the conversation proceeds that way.
We describe to Patrick what happened at the circle. Fathom watches the satyr while the recap is being given. He perks up when he hears how he is described, almost like he thinks of this as a game. Pujol notices that the satyr doesn’t respond to the description of the spell, but looks remorseful about the tree.
The clerics think we were justified in destroying the tree under the circumstances. Pujol asks the satyr if he came up with the joke, or if it was someone more clever. The satyr says it wasn’t his idea; he was just there to carry it out. Pujol asks who came up with it, but the satyr won’t answer that question. Pujol says that as the winner, we are owed some answers. The satyr buys that, but wants his freedom in return for the name. Pujol specifies that it should be the true name of the person behind it. The satyr says that if we release him, he would go back to the fae. He also offers the name of a local druid to help with the tree.
Gooseneck asks if the satyr will agree to not cause trouble, but the satyr balks at that. Gooseneck puts some limits on it – the satyr is to not cause trouble in this area for 50 years. The satyr agrees to that. Fathom asks if a name will be enough to find the instigator. The satyr says….probably not. CornCob asks if the druid and the instigator are the same person; they are not. Patrick asks for any physical item the satyr exchanged with the instigator; he agrees.
The satyr gives Patrick a pouch and says the name of the instigator is Sustabian, and the druid that can help with the tree is Fellorian. Sustabian is a fiend.
Gooseneck unties the satyr and he leaves, disappearing into the wood paneling in the alcove. Pujol says that the rose petal exit was better.
Patrick asks us to talk to a wizard friend of his who is showing up soon. We’re to ask them about Sustabian and the Fall.
We go nap while waiting for the wizard.
The wizard arrives – she is a dragonborn who introduces herself as Leana. She asks for introductions, and chaos ensues, of course. Patrick told her about us. She asks about our meeting with the guys from the Fall. We tell her a bit about that, and then Gooseneck dives into the recent events. She asks if the satyr was still around, probably not. We explain about the podium and the tree, and that the plan was Sustabian’s. She is familiar with the name – he’s a greater demon. Yay. Gooseneck also tells her about the incubus in the church.
She suggests we sit and chat. There is a magic circle in this room; she had been standing in the middle and moved away. It seems she might have used it to teleport in.
She wants to talk about Sustabian first, then the Silver Swan. CornCob objects, wants to talk about the Fall. She says the Silver Swan is embroiled with the Fall as well.
With that, we agree to talk about Sustabian. Leana tells us she can try to divine his location. Gooseneck asks if she can tell us about him. He’s a large greater demon in control of an army of a few hundred demons. Sustabian’s goal is a chaotic one. She doesn’t know why they might be involved with the Fall, unless maybe Sustabian just wanted to caused chaos. She also thinks the Fall might have the upper hand. CornCob asks if there’s anyone who might be a bridge between the two groups. She thinks maybe the human wizard Melthias. He’s got a tower in town.
Leana thinks we might have foiled their initial plan, but they probably have fallbacks.
Abran asks if she could teleport someone into the tower. She could, just not right now.
Meloris, the captain of the Silver Swan, is a good captain, but there’s a plant from the Fall on the ship. Leana wants us to report to her of any places they might find to be of interest. She thinks the plant is either the first mate or the navigator.
Abran asks Leana what she thinks the bast path forward is for protecting the city. She thinks we should stay long enough for the oration, at least.
Abran really wants to go murder the wizard.
CornCob asks for the items she talked about giving us to help us send her information. One if a bag of junk, but she is attuned to the items. If we leave one somewhere, she will be able to find it. Fathom takes the bag of tokens.The other item is a leather-bound book. Good for someone who likes to take notes – she will get whatever is written on the pages. Anything written between a couple of runes will be transferred to another book that she has.
Abran asks to get paid to do this work for her. She offers to look for magic items for us.
We tell Patrick to change the venue and warn the keynote speaker. He agrees to change the venue to the Overlook. Gooseneck asks him about Melthias. Patrick knows him; he tells us Melthias’s tower is next to the Redwood Foundation complex in the city. Patrick thinks Melthias is eccentric. He doesn’t know if Melthias deals with the Redwood Foundation. Abran asks if Melthias would be missed, and while Melthias himself is often not seen for months, he still does business, and carts come and go regularly. He keeps to himself, but occasionally the ruling council asks him to do favors – build walls, defend from attacking creatures, etc. Gooseneck asks which walls – near the entrance and up on the cliffs. The new venue for the talk is not near any of these places.
We go back to the Mud Worm to rest and get breakfast. Then we go to Melthias’s tower. This seems like a terrible idea.
We walk by the Redwood Foundation first. The complex is surrounded by a wall. There are guard towers and a courtyard where people are exercising. We can see long barracks inside.
The tower is not enclosed within the walls, and the Redwood Foundation was built first.
As we walk by the tower, there’s a loud crack and explosion. A big chunk of stone flies out and arcs down toward the street. Odd sounds follow.
A big whirlwind of air bursts through the barred door into the tower and runs right into CornCob. He manages to hold his ground and stay standing as it passes over him. We all attack it while trying to stay out of its path. I see a shadow fly out of the tower above, and shout a warning. Fathom casts a wind spell to try to push the elemental back.
Talons grab Abran and lift him into the air. The air elemental goes after Gooseneck. Abran drops his bow, draws his sword, and stabs at the hippogriff that grabbed him. He kills it, and now is falling. This is not better.
The fight with the air elemental continues, but we hear a scream, cut off abruptly by a gurgle, from the tower. I get out the rental spyglass and look up to the top of the tower. I see a roughly humanoid figure, but it moves much more smoothly and gracefully than any human. It’s also larger than a regular human. I see it drop a body to the floor.
Fathom destroys the air elemental, and then we debate how to investigate the top of the tower. No one is keen on trying to walk up. So, with a couple of spells, they make me invisible and fly me up to the top of the tower. I look from a bit of a distance, and see a body on the floor. The tower wall was broken outwards. I move in closer, looking through the opening into a 20’ hallway with tile mosaics on the floor. I go in. While the mosaics definitely have a theme to them, my best guess is they are just decorative and not actually magic. I hear a thump from the other side of the inner wall.
I follow the hallway around until I can see into the interior room. There’s an airy, floating female being in there, ransacking the room. Still invisible, I talk to her and learn that she’s looking for a way home. I go get the rest of the group to talk to her.
On the way in, they loot the wizard’s body.
She’s looking for an item, maybe a censor, that was used to summon her and that she thinks she can use to go back home. Fathom finds it and gives it to her to destroy. She melts it, and it crumbles into powder. CornCob asks what she is – a djinn. He asks what the wizard wanted her to do, and she says he wanted her to serve a friend of his – the friend is named Jorick. She gives us her name, which translates to Sunset Breeze. She doesn’t know about Sustabian, but in the past she has been called upon by the Fall to retrieve poison or body parts. Ick.
Abran asks her if she’s like us to inform her if we come across the Fall, or if she can inform us. She offers to replace the water elemental summoning stone with a way to contact her, but CornCob says no. We look through the tower for another suitable item, and find some elemental stones. She takes the cold stone, and Fathom takes the fire stone. Touching one will cause the other to freeze/heat up, so we can use them for basic signalling.
- 1420 XP
- Ring of Animal Influence
- Ring of Obscuring
- Ring of Water Walking
- Cap that always keeps your head comfortable
- Robe of Entanglement – throw it at someone to entangle them
