Chapter 1 - Session 9
Our group, now 3 stronger, begins to head back to the Sage Falls to see Mewer and check on his experiment. They trace the path back to the meadow where last we saw Druidic Orc Prug.
In the meadow the influence of Archon Putriss lingers. A patrol of skeletal warriors pace through the grass. Fyrn and Benjamin's clerical instincts fire up to banish the undead.
Blasting holy energy straight into the fray they engage the wicked foes. Fyrn finds a circle in the ground with glowing runes, an open portal to an empty blackness and an awful stench of the dead. Nite dances around the foes, Vlaliskia snipes them down bone by bone, and Yowtrude circles them in until they return back to their inanimate state. Benjamin comes to inspect the circle of blackness and purges the curse clearing the Archon’s presence.
What has been left in the spot where they last saw Prug is a perfectly carved depiction of the orc druid on a tree stump. A strange magic does faintly emanate from the figure but we are unsure about the spells enacted. Back on the trek Benjamin questions Fyrn about their connection with the Orc until they arrive at the mountainside shack of Mewer’s Lair.
For the first time in a while Nite sees her sister alive and well. A tear is brought to Lilly's eye once they see each other and embrace in their sisterly bond. This reunion is a bit sour, Lilly is hesitant to reveal why without Mewer. In a strange tandem Mewer and Lilly detail the experiment performed. Mewer's hybrid mushrooms are now within Lilly's system and have fought off the Rubyagaric within her. Lilly's and Mewer's consciousness have melded, they speak for each other and think with one another. Lilly and Mewer do explain that each of them are still of their own free-will. A compromise of expectations, and this is not the end.
To grow the hybrid, a donor body was used. The body of a previously deceased Orc is also tied consciously with Lilly. A green body treads in, escorted by Mewer. The last step of the experiment was here. Slay the orc once more, if Lilly had true freedom of her self she will live. If the experimental bond was too strong she would die along with it. Nite steps up proclaiming if anyone was to take her sister's life in their hands, it has to be hers.
Placing a knife along the orc's throat she drives through. Lilly huffs, staggers... and sneezes. Standing there ready for Nite to get it over with, not realizing it has been done. A shred of good news for our adventurers, the first in a while. Lilly and Nite are now properly reunited and spend the night with each other catching up.
Evening comes, everybody fulfills their nightly rituals. Vlaskia catches Benjamin whispering into a sending stone, reporting to the Sentinels. Her bouts of eavesdropping turns into tomfoolery swiping a swig from a random bottle of cider from Mewer's window sill.
Before the flickering flames of the camp fire extinguish for the night Fyrn grabs the last ember to commune with her god Moradin. Fyrn's consciousness is transported to an infinite plane of black and a ring of fire that dances in beat with striking of metal from the dwarf god of the forge. He tasks Fyrn with the retrieval of 2 medallions.
Returning to the camp Fyrn asks one last time for a clue about the Everburn Bracers. An artifact forged by Moradin that will turn the tide of the war. The ember in her hand finally cools and a whiff of smoke floats up following the wind south towards Trisfal.