Session 4
Stone, Flesh, Dead
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Forward
The party returned to the great city of Lockseed, shark and statue of Tyralle in tow. Thoradin suspected being seen lugging around a single life-size statue may raise some eyebrows, so the team decide to act as stonemasons as to not arouse suspicion. Upon renting a carriage from Enterprise Carriage Corporation for a small weekly price, the party set off for the Salt and Spices Shop (affectionately called Triple S by the community). They stocked their wagon full of salt and other spices at a greatly reduced price with their VIP Membership cards. Despite Enterprise Carriage Corporation's strict forbiddance of operating a business from a rented carriage, the group planned to sell their spices on the way to Odem. No other errands to take care of, the set off.
Each day the party passed a few people on the road to Odem, and each time they did they delivered as best a sales pitch for salt as they could. One man, a barbarian, wanted to buy some salt despite the fact that he had little more than five copper to his name. Frustrated that he couldn't buy a single grain, the man attacked. He was easily taken care of, and, feeling bad, Roberto magically restored him to health. The man apologized, explaining he had had a rough go of it lately, before leaving. After travelling by day, the party relaxed thinking of the beautiful times they'd shared. Thoradin set about expertly carving a block of salt into a grand statue of King Garlant. Rolen wished he could look for some more mushrooms.
Making it to Odem, the party hatched their plan. They would rent a room in a hotel, sleep for a night, and in the morning use their amulet to pop into Phatax Alpha. That was precisely what they did, and to their surprise, the room on the other dimension was occupied. Thoradin, from his calf down, had melded into a little girl on the floor. She began to scream. Her mother on the bed across the room began to scream. Thoradin began to scream.
The mother of the girl had passed out. Roberto, feeling nauseous, grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder. The party plus two in tow went back to Phatax Beta, leaving the statue behind. When Thoradin had melded with this girl, it was as if an entire lifetime of memories had been instantly added to his brain. The girl's name was Tina. Her mother had been left single after the murder of her father. Thoradin's- no, Tina's- favorite color was a tannish orange. The memories of Tina and those of Thoradin began mixing, becoming more and more indistinguishable.
Tina looked up to Thoradin, telling him, "we have to hurry, we have to get Tyralle to Vastille!" Thoradin was concerned Tina knew so much about their mission, but it made sense to him, it felt as if he'd known this girl her whole life.
Roberto rubbed his hands together, yelled, "clear!" and cast two instances of a healing spell one on Thoradin, one on the girl. The two were thrown away from each other in a small explosion. As happy as Thoradin was to be free of this predicament, so too did he feel melancholy. He'd lost his other half. The party went back to Phatax Alpha, putting the girl and her mother in their bed. They left the hotel room, to see Vastille.
At the castle, they were answered not by Vastille, but by an unknown servant. Sitting on the throne across the room was a man they hadn't seen before. "What is your business?" He asked sternly, before seeing the statue of Tyralle. "Oh," he said, not particularly enthused, "well, I'll call Vastille." He gestured to a guard, who ran off to another room.
"Who the heck are you?" The party asked in unison.
"I'm Harwell Hallet, of House Hallet. In Queen Tyralle's absence, I've been overseeing Odem."
"Isn't that Vastille's job?" One of the party asked.
"Vastille? Hah! Leave ruling to the nobility." He smiled with a nod of his head. Vastille cleared his throat standing at the opening of the doorway the servant had went through seconds before. He gestured for the group to come to him.
"You found her! Still stone though," Vastille said to the group when they met with him. He lead the group to a table, sitting down and gesturing for the group to do the same. "The sooner we get Harwell of the throne, the better. He's been doing what he can to undo all the progress Tyralle has made!" He seemed frustrated.
"I suppose payment is in order for this first part of the job?" He nodded to himself, pushing forward three silk bags. "A considerable sum each. And Roberto," he said, addressing the cleric, "I believe you wanted to be paid in magical items as well? This oddity was found in the treasury, the castle mages believe it to definitely be magical."
He passed to Roberto a thin booklet. On the cover, in a plain font, read "Sticker Book." Roberto flipped through the pages, seeing sticker depicting a battering ram, barking dogs, handcuffs, and other things.
Vastille cleared his throat, and told the group of a wizard by the name of Michalt. "He's a real recluse, no one has seen him in a very long time. I'm not quite sure he even exists. But he'd be able to turn Tyralle from stone, I'm quite certain of that.
"Most say he lives on the southern edge of the Burhed forest, north of Lockseed. Somehow one can find him through this riddle, though no one is sure of how." Vastille handed the group an ancient slip of parchment, scorched on the edges.
Poureth the drink of bone
Onto the dragon stone
Let loose the dragon's moan
And entereth the zone
At this point Vastille bid the group farewell, and they returned to the central throneroom of the castle. As Roberto distracted Harwell by trying to convince him to become an atheist, Rolen and Thoradin rubbed essence of poison ivy all over his stuff. Surprisingly, despite the rude attitude the group had taken towards Harwell, Roberto managed to convince him to convert, as well as the rest of his political house. All told, the conversation netted Roberto thirty-four conversions.
The party returned on the road to Lockseed from whence they came. On the way back, they continued to peddle as much salt as they could. A lovely woman purchased the statue of King Garlant for a hefty price.
On the second day of travel, they encountered a man riding deftly on the back of a stunningly white polar bear. "Well, hello there!" the man said jovially, "mind giving us a lift?"
Thoradin desperately desired to ride the bear himself, and despite the man's warning, Thoradin proceeded to anyway. To everyone's surprise, the bear didn't bite Thoradin's face off! In fact, the bear seemed to quite like his new dwarf friend.
The man introduced himself as Reft, and the bear as Fluffy. The party, which was normally quite hostile to strangers, was friendly to the man and his bear.
That night, as the party slept, they were accosted by a pair of unfamiliar creatures. They were each pitch-black, and wide as a bear. A single giant eye took up the majority of their face. Beneath their eye was a set of sharp teeth, gums revealed. The creatures had no nose.
Luckily, one of the party was on watch duty, and before long everyone was up and ready to go. One of the creatures glanced at the party, and then the bear. "S'travelastra. Enough running, come with us." Fluffy attacked, followed shortly by the rest of the group. At the commotion, Reft screamed and ran to the covered wagon.
With the edge given to the party by Fluffy, the one-eyed monsters seemed to be dealt more damage than they themselves dealt. Before long, the creatures were staggered, and again they called to Fluffy, "S'travelastra, you must be brought in. Don't make us kill you."
At this point, Roberto was thoroughly suspicious of the bear. "Fluffy" clearly wasn't his real name. Roberto marched to the wagon and confronted Reft. As far as Roberto could tell, however, Reft seemed to have no clue about Fluffy's double life. He gave up with the man and ran back to the battle.
While Roberto was gone, Rolen and Thoradin carried on in the battle. After a few arrows from Rolen and a few swings of the hammer from Thoradin, they felled one of the creatures. The other creature seemed shocked and saddened by this, and weakly called one last time to the bear. "S'travelastra, this violence needn't continue… Please." S'travelastra roared and continued to battle.
Fluffy -S'travelastra- was too concerned with the creatures to notice Roberto run up behind him and attempt to tackle him to the ground. He managed to get his arms around the beast, but couldn't bring him down to the ground. With a roar, and to everyone's astonishment, Fluffy jumped hundreds of feet into the air, Roberto in tow.
The creature followed the two into the air, leaving behind Rolen and Thoradin. "Well, shit," they both thought. Rolen continued to fire arrows at the creature, but the distance between them made that much harder.
S'travelastra fought to get Roberto off of him. The half-orc maintained his grip for several seconds of thrashing, but was soon thrown off by the bear. It was clear that S'travelastra had thrown Roberto to the lake they now fought by as an act of mercy. Despite this, Roberto was brought close to being knocked out cold upon his landing. Still, he had to admit, it was better than being dead.
Roberto didn't much care about the bear's mercy, however. With a few moments to ready his aim, he threw a lightning bolt at the beast. It made impact, and sent the bear crashing to the ground.
Rolen, taking Roberto's lead and much to the chagrin of Thoradin, finished off the already knocked out creature. S'travelastra was dead.
Thoradin took a moment to mourn Fluffy, before beginning to skin him. He's dead anyway, might as well use the fur. Thoradin is able to make a pretty good makeshift cloak, and after putting it on, he feels a strange alien energy. It was as if S'travelastra was somehow with him.
When the party made it back to Lockseed, they said goodbye to Reft and made their own way to the spice shop. They got a refill on all the spices they would need. Thoradin took for himself another large block of salt, this time planning to make a tribute for Fluffy.
After another day of journey with little respite, the party made it to the edge of Burhed forest, ready to search for Michalt. After stumbling around for a fews hours, the party comes across a giant (presumably life-size) statue of a dragon. Could this be the dragon stone the riddle spoke of? The party thought so.
The riddle said something about a "drink of bone," which the group took to mean "bone marrow."The party took some bones they had previously collected for some reason, and snapped them over the ground beneath the dragon statue. As the marrow dropped to the ground it quickly hissed and evaporated.
Well, two of three steps completed. At this point the group had little to no idea of what to do. They made a few moaning noises themselves, to no avail. After several minutes of this, the stone statue looked to the group and though it's mouth made no movement, they head a powerful voice inside of their head.
For a moan of dragon breath
Get the Horn of Agaleth
"The Horn of Agaleth." That sounded familiar to Rolen. He seemed to recall the Horn of Agaleth was a priceless artifact used in the rituals of the Burhed elves. Hesitant as the party was to venture into the forest beyond, they knew it would be necessary.
In the forest they encountered a few elves on a hunting trip. After an explanation of their quest, and thanks to Rolen knowing all the hip and happening elvish slang, the elves agreed to lead them to the Burhed leader: Refel Un.
Upon making it to a modest encampment of tents and campfires, they are introduced to Refel Un. At first he is hesitant to share with the group the tribe's most precious artifact. Through nimble wit, Roberto manages to convince Refel Un that he is in fact the son of Michalt the Wizard.
"Michalt the Younger!" he gasped, with a tone of reverence that was not previously there. "Of course we can lend you the Horn of Agaleth!"
With Refel Un carrying the horn, and a few elf bodyguards in tow, the party walks southward back to the massive dragon statue. Refel Un draws a deep breath, before raising the horn to his mouth.
WAH, WAH, wah wah wah wah, WAH
Refel Un lowered the horn and nodded respectfully to the dragon. It nodded back, and a trap-door in between the dragon's legs slid open with the noise of stone grinding on stone. The party says goodbye to Refel Un and his train, departing down the trap-door.
At the bottom of the stairs was a small dimly lit room. In the center of the room was a dais, with four half-spherical holes. In the left-most hole sat a shining metal ball about the size of one's palm. The room had four doors, the very left of which was open.
Rolen took the metal ball out of its hole, and the door on the left slammed shut. Connecting dots, he put the ball down in the hole on the right. At this, the door on the right whirred open. Through this door the party walked first.
Almost immediately after going through the door they were faced with a choice of left or right. They picked right. Another T-intersection hallway. Confused, the party looked back. Through the doorway was the room with the dias. It was as if they made no progress going through the intersection. This time they went left. Looking back, the dias room was not in sight.
After some trial and error, the party manages to work their way through the maze, having to start over every time they make a wrong turn. In the last room, on a marble pillar, sat a purple embroidered pillow. On top of the pillow is another metal ball, just like the one before.
They return to the dias room, placing the metal ball in the left-most hole. The corresponding door shot open. In each of the doors was a small puzzle not unlike the first one. After the puzzle was completed, a chest with a metal ball inside was revealed. After obtaining three more metal balls, with all of the doors open, another trap door in front of the dias opened slowly. More stairs, and, at the bottom, a wooden door.
Without much hesitation, the group burst through the door, finding the uninteresting home of Michalt. He stood in the kitchen, happily making a stew. After some prompting, he agrees to turn Tyralle from stone. He mixed a concoction of strange ingredients into the stew (like hairs from each member of the party's head) and divied out a bowl for each of them. When they sipped their stew, they found themselves back at the castle where they had left Tyralle.
He whipped out a pot and ladle from his backpack and started to work on another stew. Before long, it was ready. With a gusto as if he was performing on-stage, Michalt threw the contents of the pot onto Tyralle's stone body.
In an instant she was awake. Michalt nodded to the group before taking a sip from his pot and teleporting away. After a moment to regain her composure, Tyralle faced the group and thanked them. Vastille doled out the appropriate amount of money to the group, and for the first time since they had met the man he seemed happy, at ease. His queen had returned. With no sort of parade or celebration, the group was escorted out of the castle.
The party was chagrined by the lack of great celebration. Barring Vastille, nobody seemed to be very thankful at all! This was the final straw. They popped over to Phatax Beta with their amulet, and went to meet Garlant
.After meeting with Garlant, they told him everything. The location of the Resistance base, turning Tyralle back from stone. Garlant, surprised by this development, was happy to find all the information they told him was true. Garlant left the room in a puff of smoke, and a moment later he returned, holding Thedoba by the scruff of the neck. When Theo's eyes met the group's his primal fear turned to confusion. Thoradin suggested they teleported to the roof, where he teed Theo's head off of his neck as if it was a golf ball.
Returning to the throne room, they decided to take care of Tyralle as well. Garlant picked up Thoradin, and jumped to Phatax Alpha. Rolen and Roberto followed closely behind. There, Thoradin removed Tyralle's head from her shoulders in much the same way.
In anger and fear Harwell revealed himself to the group to be the same species of creature they had met that night with Fluffy the bear.
"A goddam galacks!" Garlant hissed under his breath.
The group fought a managerie of guards as well as Harwell, whose real name was Ha'arl Walhalat as it turned out. Ha'arl alone managed to escape. When the group left the bloodstained throne room on Phatax Alpha behind, Vastille lay on the ground crying softly.