How's Briya? Oh, she's on fire.
We close up the cave as best we can, and are met with another local hero who has finished off the kobold gang. She escorts us to a save camp, after assisting with a river bandit and his tricky magical ways.
Session 10
Briya chats with Maltheo while the latter is practicing punching the wall. Kra'naelen practices magic to try and tap into ley lines again, and while Mint heals, she has dreams about time going backwards. It’s involving some sort of two drow women who have attacked a creature with bow and arrow. They move further and further away. And then she wakes up.
Prophet uses identify on the blue and red drugs. The blue drugon is a major power-up; but it comes at a cost. Luckily, the red version can counteract that cost, but is much more rare. We keep the drugs for later just in case.
Briya finds a box on the ceiling that has one bat inside it and has a chat with it to discover it has a lisp. Mint wakes up! She was very relieved that the fight went well, but rather sad that she didn’t make it to the end. She then does some story time with Maltheo and Briya about what she saw during combat. The story of the ghost-appearance turns out that it’s Tea, Mint’s deceased lover. Murdered by a band of nomads, one of whom had tattoos on their face. She was a half-orc woman with a spiderweb sleeve tattoo. She was either the leader, or at least the spiritual figure. Seems to have gone after Tea simply due to her presenting as a “threat”.
We head back to inspect the cave entrance. We’re wondering if we should try and somehow close off or collapse the entire cavern system. We checked around for more of the explosive liquid that was inside the body-traps of the kobolds that had been disarmed. Maltheo finds the body of a Dwendalian soldier; he had half-plate that was entirely destroyed, but also had 32 gold pieces and a charlatan’s die. In the living-area, the space around the large fire, there was a healer’s kit in some storage containers along the wall. Finally, a large jug filled with homebrewed moonshine.
Briya and Maltheo search for weaknesses in the stone face of the tunnel for a good section to put the explosives. The explosion goes off without a hitch, but leaves bits of it split-open for exposure. It's not clean enough of a collapse to keep everyone out.
In the distance, a woman is arriving on the back of a moribounder, with another empty one. Also with them is Little Pig Boy. She's a half-elf medium-sized person wearing half-plate leather armor that has a somewhat Dwendalian fashion thing going on. Armed with two daggers on either side of her belt. One in silver, and the other is completely pure gold. “I was in the woods, and found the beasts battling some kobolds.” She reveals that she killed the kobold shaman! Teldras is dead! She reveals her name to be Cayd, and is in fact not affiliated with the army. (Also not Kryn or Xhorhasian) Not from Drow descent, but still something Dwendalian about her.
She tells about how she was traveling from the border and wants us to help out with some gnolls? We offer to assist, and she helps us remove the palisades from the opening of the cave area. After our hard work, it's time for dinner and a long rest. We learn that Cayd is from Zadash. She’s a monster hunter that’s part of an order of monster hunters called the Claret Order. (Also known as blood hunters.)
During the long rest, Briya and Cayd hear something in the far distance. Some sort of "hee-yah!" sound. She goes off into the woods and Briya sits and waits. An hour passes, and Cayd has not yet returned. The long rest finishes, and she still hasn’t returned.
We take the moribunders and go after her; finding a carriage crashed into a river, we look for signs of her. We don’t find her, but there is a gnome in the river, who shouts: “She might come back; hide. Hide yourselves!”
But... it's a trap. The river gnome is tricking us and attacks. During combat, we're able to free Cayd, who was chained to a giant tree trunk that had fallen. She transformed into a werewolf and helped us kill the gnome, as well as a dark bride who was trapped; ensorcelled to the river. He had a blue metal ring on his hand that turns out to be a Ring of water-walking. Maltheo takes it. We discover the bodies of a Kryn noble and a merchant in the carriage. Apparently he was using the dark bride to catch travelers and kill/rob them. There's a holy symbol made of white gold in a geometric shape with infinity that's worth 75gp on the noble. Between two cushions we also find a sort of leather bag, orange with a green flap. It turns out to be a Gourdgeous Bag of Holding that is circular in shape; almost like a pumpkin. It has 5 mysterious candies inside and gets 5 more each day at dusk each with cute little magical effects. It also contains:
187 gold, minted in the Kryn format; 2 bottles of wine from a region of the Dwendalian Empire called Kamordah; a dark red 85gp and a green 65gp; the ghost lady's Locket of the Stolen Heart: a cursed item that makes you immune to charm, but can have dire consequences if your true love dies.
Finally, Cayd decides to depart, and before leaving us let's us know that she's able to be found at the estate outside of Zadash. If we need to contact her for future information or support, it’s called Brightmoon Hollow. The group has completed a lot, and feels stronger and more powerful for their efforts.