Storming the Sky
| Storming the Sky | |
|---|---|
| Date | 07/19/2024 |
| Storyteller | Slayzo |
| Tier | Master/Legendary |
| Player Characters | Grist, Serene, Shadefrost, Victoria, Dar, Kali |
| Rewards | 280 XP, one unique magic item obtained by each Associate, treasure worth 100 GP (taken by Dar) |
| Result | Success |
| Author | Aleth |
| Downtime | 4 days |
We travelled to the site beneath the temple, and as agreed, Amin called on his servants to ensnare it and bring it within our reach. We ascended by various means, cleared a path through a storm giant and air elementals without difficulty - though one of us was swept from the walkway and nearly fell - and proceeded along the path through the stormwinds until we reached an area dominated by a nightmarish lightning bird, a pair of living tornadoes, and a dragon like that we faced at the temple previously. One of us fell, but we recovered them. The dragon wasn't a part of the encounter, and only appeared to be helping wyrmlings and juveniles escape from our approach, but we later learned they were all working together. We were able to negotiate with the dragon, reach the inner sanctum, and despite abominable diplomatic efforts on our part and recriminations regarding the storm hags and their role in motivating the temple, reached the consensus that were all being manipulated by Amin, our employer, for nefarious purposes to the detriment of all of us.
We weren't wrong, but we were slow to discover how right were. Amin went up to the temple while we went down in search of him and defeated his minions. By the time we returned, it was to discover there'd been another encounter in our absence, where the temple defenders and Amin alike had been defeated, and the Shard of Divinity that kept the temple aloft stolen. Serene witnessed some sort of 'bone ship' - which was invisible, though we were prepared to see such things - retreating, and teleporting away. Amin explained it belonged to a pirate named Rotbeard, who he agreed to help steal the Shard in exchange for the release of a relative whose soul was imprisoned as a sort of galley slave-analogue in the 'bone ship'. The pirate reneged and shot Amin. Fortunately we extracted him safely, and his betrayal by Rotbeard left him without motivation to keep silent about this blackguard who blackmailed him. The temple defenders understandably still won't trust us, but seem willing to give us the space to right our wrongs by defeating Rotbeard and retrieving the Shard of Divinity, for whatever purpose our council deems fit.
Some of us were outraged by Amin's foolish attempt to make a deal with the pirate and demanded he pay additional penance. I intervened to offer to keep him at the inn in Jeremiah's Rest while he helps us catch and defeat Rotbeard. As his agreement with Amin was on the basis of seeking an item of value and wanting his help to acquire it, I proposed we lure Rotbeard in with another item of value, and this time, ambush the ambusher, either to incapacitate Rotbeard and work with his successor to secure the release of the soul of Amin's relation, or to completely defeat the whole pirate crew and their ship to release all its prisoners, dependant of course on our collective ambition and vehemence.
Incidentally, my missing brother, relevant to his obsession with flying machines, is a follower of the same god to which the temple defenders and the relevant Shard of Divinity are associated. On the off-chance he's involved, I reiterate; he disappeared with his possessions, including his glider, the day that Colton fell, all without any trace, though he should have been unable to leave the valley with it.
Also incidentally, the dragon we slew last time was the son of two dragons we encountered this time. There's another dragon of a different type. These dragons were aware that the storm hags were storm hags, despite complaints about their alleged infirmity; apparently their veneration was not simply by default, but they were needed to perform the ritual that summons the storm in order for the temple to move through the sky with alacrity. Whether this is as benign as they make it sound or causes as much collateral damage as Amin suggested has not been analyzed; so while we can easily identify Rotbeard as the one most in the wrong as of this expedition, it seems necessary to reserve judgement about that last one, particularly given the grudge that the dragons hold over our actions then.
We received a very interesting selection of items pointed out by Amin which apparently fell out of the back of the 'bone ship'. Amin did not use these exact words, but one might question why a collection of magic items could fall from the sky in one place unless Rotbeard either saw this as payment for Amin or meant to come back for them later and didn't know they'd be revealed to us. In any case, the crossbow in the set viciously bit my hand when I picked it up, so it could be Rotbeard is letting us know we're already engaged in a game with him. Perhaps we'll learn more if and when we attempt to beat him at his own game, as outlined above.
While we technically succeeded in our task, were well-compensated, and overcame the difficult physical environment and our combat encounters with relative ease, improvements in protocol could be in order to help us avoid being fooled into missing the most important encounter during an expedition, and reduce the number of casualties we inflict on those who believe, perhaps mistakenly, that the main purpose of our expeditions is to exterminate all living creatures in the sites we're sent to.