Fivesday 4th Hand of Reaping, AN 263 (continued)
Afterwards, Vissia passed
out, and we laid her down. The gnoll continued to stare at the roof
of the cave, completely devoid of any signs of life save for his
rhythmic breathing. Alwin, the Earl's fighter who accompanied us and
Siegfried left to pursue the “king of the goblins”. Siegfried
made me promise not to open the mysterious door in the ruins without
him present, but my brother persuaded me to let him attempt to open
it. Together we deciphered some ancient Trantoran script which was
the key to open the door. After it was unlocked, I opened it, which
revealed what appeared to be the tomb of a mage. We found out later
it was the tomb of one of the founder's of the Arcanyx. Grave robbing
his tomb didn't sit right with me, but Callisto and I agreed to come
back to it some day. Thankfully the magic seal upon the door remained
intact after we used it. We decided to tell Siegfried that there was
no need to continue investigating the ruins, which there wasn't, and
to simply not mention the door. As long as we told the truth and
avoiding telling any lies without revealing what we had done, we
didn't have to worry about any lashback from Siegfried.
Before we opened the door
however, Siegfried and Alwin came back and told us they were going to
the village to try and procure some hunting dogs to find the goblin,
And after we were done with the door, Vissia awakened. She killed the
gnoll and told us she would be heading north, and that she was done
with our party. It was fair, seeing as how Siegfried's methods were,
dubious. I never really understood the stigma against Adjudicators
until now. I did agree that Siegfried made it hard to have an opinion
of my own, I seemed to be just along for the ride with him. I needed
to stand up for myself more!
Callisto and I decided to
head into town since we had not heard anything from Siegfriend and
Alwin and found them drinking it up in town. Joining them we let them
know our next destination. Settling on heading north, we enjoyed our
meal until some soldiers from the nearby fort came into the inn and
started making a ruckus, which ended with one of them killing a slave
girl because he was unhappy with the quality of his food. It was
ridiculous, a waste of good coin. It was like watching someone use a
perfectly good horse for target practice. Plus, even if she was a
slave, it was unsettling. Reminded me why I never went to the slave
auctions in the city or the slave tents. Callisto decided to recruit
some more people for our merry band and found a fighter named Onofrio
and his sister Salinia.
Onofrio and Callisto decided to duel to test
each others mettle, but Callisto accidentally stabbed him in the gut
right as the duel started, leaving a very bad, lasting wound. This
ruined his chances with Onofrio's sister. The idiot must have been
thinking of how to bed her instead of paying attention to the fight.
Sometimes he thinks with his codpiece instead of his head, its
disappointing, really. So we decided to keep Onofrio and Salinia on
until Onofrio could heal. Our meal ruined with the dead slave, and
the duel incident, we turned in for the night. The next day we
planned to bid Alwin goodbye, but he decided to stay with us for a
bit longer, as the capital was in the same direction we were going.
Onesday, 5th Hand of Reaping, AN263
That morning we headed out,
and it was a mostly pleasant ride to the next town, except that we
witnessed something both horrifying and fascinating on the way there.
It was a real bone-fide wild magic surge! It sundered the forest for
miles behind us as we pushed our horses as much as possible to get
away from it. It was truly a sight to behold, as well as the stampede
of animals trying to get away as badly as we were. I hope the fires
go out in the thick forest and we don't have a large forest fire on
our hands. That could be bad for everyone. Callisto had picked up a
couple of leads on possible things to do in Portigliari once we
reached the town. The most interesting was an ad to deal with some
spiders, but once we reached the town, we found none other then Vissia
looking to recruit some people to do the same job. It seems we would
be staying together, for one last adventure.
I tried to get some
information such as the terrain of where we were heading and the kind
of spiders we would be fighting so I knew what kind of spells to
prepare, but Vissia wouldn't talk of the details, not wanting to have
the job taken out from under her. Understanding, I decided to just
head to our room for the night, which Alwin had graciously paid for
on the Earl's dime. At this point I learned that Onofrio's sister,
Salinia was also a mage! She was also Arcanyx trained even! It was
fascinating!
I couldn't decipher the way she was casting spells
however. She told me she was a Conjuration caster though, So I
figured it must simply be that Conjuration users performed their
spells differently. Something at the back of my mind was nagging me,
it still is even, but still, another caster in the party is
wonderful! Maybe at some point we can share philosophies! Perhaps
she'll even have some opinions on Zysohr's doctrine. Not many in the
Arcanyx liked to talk philosophy with me for some reason, but maybe
she would! I didn't want to come on too strong however, I'm sure
since Callisto injured her brother her attitude to me will be very
cold anyway. I'll have to be careful about it. I set some spells for
the morning and turned in early. But before I turned in I learned
from Callisto that the wardkeeper had summoned us to show up to the
sky tower to the west of Vellara in the Sassenenvento Mountains in two hands.
Twosday, 5th Hand of Reaping, AN263
In the morning we had a
good meal on the Earl's dime and Alwin left us. Then, Vissia led us
into the woods. We rode for quite awhile before we came upon a
strange metal door in the side of a hill. It didn't seem like there
was space for spiders to be inside, but we decided to check it out
anyway. Callisto opened the door after Salinia greased them up with
the grease spell and snuck inside. He told us he found a room which
just seemed like a normal room, so we all entered it and started to
explore. Moving into the next room, we found a body, it looked like
it had been there awhile. Then, before we knew it, spiders descended
from the ceiling onto us! We forgot to look up like idiots! A rough
battle ensured where we took out five of these spiders. Afterwards, I
took the bodies outside to take back for payment, when I heard a
large “boom” noise inside. Running back inside, I found my
brother near death looking like a charred mess and Visia, who was
well and truly a fried corpse. It was agonizing. Siegfried managed to
save Callisto, and he explained he had found a book and set off a
warding spell.
The discussion started to
devolve as Siegfriend vehemently wanted to get Visia to a priest of
Axsyn to have a proper burial and the like. Callisto even went so far
as to tell Onofrio and Salinia they were free to go and giving them a
silver as compensation for his wound. He was extremely distraught
over the situation. Onofrio then offered his services to Siegfried
who agreed, so they stayed with the party. We decided in the end to
finish what we started for Visia. In the back room we found many
corpses, it was a sickening sight really. We also found missing
parts. It seems that perhaps the person we found dead was a
necromancer, and that his creation was still loose. We decided to
stay the night and hope we would run into the monster, and allow me
the time to prepare the proper spells to hopefully deal with magical
book that killed Visia and almost killed Callisto.
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