After nearly a month pining away for the rolling hills of Abhaile, we're finally back!
Here's last time.
Having finally defeated the night hag Granny Snowmelt and fulfilled their obligation to the Fey, our heroes start heading southwest. They want to get back Zook's hidey-hole (which, you'll recall, or actually probably won't because it was nearly
two years ago, they'd found and used to stash a couple of things) so that Aisling can retrieve her harp-lute before they go on to whatever next awaits them.
They travel for a couple of days, and, as happens as you travel southwest from the eastern marshes of Abhaile, the forest starts to get thicker. As they're walking along, they hear a CRACK from up ahead and see a plume of smoke. Zook takes off on Maeve to see what's going on, and Dara follows close behind, but she kicks something and trips. Brébhin helps her up, and she sees she's tripped over a rectangular block of stone, clearly man made, apparently some kind of building material. But it's covered in years of dirt and plant matter.
Meanwhile, Zook and the others have found a tree with a scorch mark at the base. The bark has been blown off, and a trail of singed plants leads a few yards away. It looks like a lightning blast, but very low to the ground. Dara notes that she can cast lightning bolt and that's more or less what it looks like. Is there a creature that can spit lightning?
As the adventurers are contemplating this, they push through the brush and find the ruins of a city! (Aisling: "There's ruins back here!" Zook: "Magic runes?" Aisling: "No, I don't think so, just old." Zook: "What do they say?" Fearg: "ROO-INS. Not runes." smooches Aisling on the nose "I love your adorable north Abhaile accent.")
The characters push their way past the vines and the dirt and marvel at it. It is indeed a city, covered in decades of overgrowth. Aisling walks in and finds herself on what seems to be a street. This place looks about the size of Fiadh, so not as large as the capital city of Cian, but pretty respectable. But none of them have ever heard stories of a wrecked city in this part of Abhaile, and although this looks like at least a few decades of overgrowth, that's still living memory for, say, elves.
It's getting on towards twilight, so they find a building with a hole in the roof and building a fire. They realize that most of the buildings' roofs have collapsed, and a quick dig into the brush reveals explosion or fire damage. Aisling points this out to Zook, since it kind of looks like what happens when a fireball goes off in close quarters, and Zook muses that a fireball spell wouldn't be enough to cause devastation like this. Something bigger...he's heard of a meteor swarm spell, but that's well above his capabilities.
Dara casts speak with plants and talks with the ivy covering the place. The ivy, of course, can only relay information that's about a day old, and they've seen deer and rabbits and so on, but nothing two-legged. She thinks about creatures that can spit lighting, and remembers hearing stories about something called a "behir," a kind of reptilian thing with multiple legs like a centipede. Supposedly it usually lives underground, but maybe...?
As the adventurers are exploring, they hear a scream - Brébhin, who was tending the fire! Dara rushes into the building and sees Brébhin wrapped up in the coils of a huge, blue lizard-like creature!
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| RAR |
The creature is coiled around Brébhin and squeezing her to the point that her eyes are bugging out. Dara casts her shillelagh spell and whacks it on the head, and it hisses but does not let go. Zook enters the room and hits it with magic missiles, and Clara just scampers right up and punches it! Aisling follows Zook's lead, and Keenan, not having a clear shot with a spell, hits with a crossbow bolt. Fearg pushes his way into the room and rages, but can't quite get a swing off before the monster opens its mouth...
...and spits lightning! The bolt scorches Clara, Aisling, and Zook, but hits poor Keenan dead on and drops him. He falls, smoke pouring out of his mouth, and Zook runs back to pull him out of the way (throwing a haste spell at Clara as he goes). Clara obligingly punches the behir several times, while Aisling casts a healing spell to wake Keenan up ("ow"). Fearg swings on it, Brébhin thrashes, trying ineffectively to escape. Dara turns into a bear and lashes out at the monster, biting and clawing, but its hide is tough and she can't gain enough purchase to free Brébhin.
The behir, which honestly was just trying to have dinner, for fuck's sake, rears back and spits another lightning bolt. It drops Zook and Clara. Dara continues her bear-sault, and Fearg wails on it with his war hammer, while Aisling throws magic missiles. Keenan, awake but not doing particularly well, grabs Zook and drags him to safety. The behir turns and belches forth another lightning blast, dropping Dara and Fearg (seriously, my recharge rolls were just nothin' but 6s). With comparatively little resistance now - only Aisling and Keenan left in the fight, the behir opens its mouth and swallows Brébhin whole.
Keenan rushes in and throws fire at the thing. It turns and bites him in the shoulder, flinging him against a wall and dropping him. Aisling busily casts healing spells, bringing Zook and Clara back, and Zook hurls a stream of magic missiles, peppering its back and finally killing it. It flops over and writhes, and Clara, knowing time is of the essence, runs up and cuts the thing open with a dagger. Brébhin spills out, not breathing, and Clara pours a healing potion into her mouth (Zook does the same for Dara).
Brébhin wakes up and promptly vomits, more than once. "I think," she says between heaves, "that adventuring may not be for me."
"Yeah," says Clara. "Being swallowed isn't something you forget."
Brébhin politely asks for someone to clean her, and Aisling casts Prestidigitation a couple of times. The leave this room and Zook puts up the magic hut, and everyone gets some sleep to recharge, hoping these things don't run in packs.
The next morning, they awaken to the smell of cooking meat - Fearg has caught a couple of rabbits for breakfast. Zook smooches Keenan on the forehead and casts mage armor on him, telling him to please be more careful. After they eat, the heroes explore the place a little more, and track the behir (it's hard, the thing is pretty light on its feet and its tail erases its tracks). They eventually find a cave laden with excrement ("ugh"), but poke through it a bit, and find man-made objects - knives, camping accoutrement, that kind of thing. Aisling also finds three large topaz, and uses her magic to clean them off before pocketing them.
Looking at the stuff, Zook guesses that the behir has been here made 20 years, but Dara's guess on how long the city has been abandoned is closely to a century. That gets the behir off the hook for the devastation (as painful as its lightning breath was, it couldn't have done all this anyway), so probably it just moved in and used the place as a lair, eating who or whatever wandered through.
As they're pawing through crap, the characters also find three silver chalices, obviously part of a set. Some cleansing magic later, they find that each has a moonstone set in it, and Clara recognizes them as dwarven made. Zook figures there really should be four of them (they're a set), but they don't find a fourth - maybe whoever had that one got away. They also find writing on the underside. It's small and hard to read, but Zook eventually manages to read the first one:
I am Mealla of Anaithnid, found by Orcan, raised by Fachtna and Luíseach
The characters know someone named Orcan, of course. He was the elf who brought the worship of
Ghrian Trí Duillegoa to the Enclave of Thorns and then apparently threw in with demons and got himself
killed. Same guy or just same name? They aren't sure. Aisling does note, however, that "of Anaithnid" is an expression that means "of unknown origin," often used by orphans or foundlings.
There's different writings on the other chalices, but the writing is so small it's hard to read. Zook asks if anyone has a magnifying glass, and Keenan smacks himself in the forehead. "No, but!" He casts enlarge on the other chalices, and one reads:
Find me in the north and I will explain
That's not terribly helpful as directions go. "The north" is a big place. The last one reads:
Pull up the ladder when the flood comes
Maybe the fourth one contextualizes this a bit. In any case, the heroes clean themselves up and continue their trek to the hidey-hole, where they retrieve Aisling's harp-lute. They also find a set of leather armor that Dara left there, which she gives to Brébhin. Brébhin, for her part, takes her leave of the party. She's decided that adventuring just isn't what she wants to do - it's dangerous and unpleasant, and she's been out of the world long enough and would like a rest. She thanks the characters again for freeing her from the
curse, and strikes off south, heading for the Enclave of Thorns.
The characters, meanwhile, head north towards Cian, hoping to learn a little more about this "Mealla of Aithainid" before venturing up into the mountains!
