Nim knows too much and someone is out for her blood
Fought Lapis and Lazuli, part of the Thalum Mercenaries, who were hired to kill the abomination that is plaguing Celestial Peak, specifically before the VAC does it
Bloo is Roland Vasara’s secret older brother, and technically the VAC is Bloo’s
Bloo/Sorean is Roland Vasara (founder of VAC’s) older brother
The monster (despite many contradictory reports) is described as an ethereal horse-like being with an unkempt mane, any report of people who barely survived mentioned feeling power draining ray from its head, only one person saw its face, or the hole that should be there, looking like the astral sea itself, also heard chains, may be patrolling something
Plan is to sail to half moon peak, then go to celestial peak where horrendous aberrations have been appearing
Yul wants to eat sand (we are somewhat close to the coast)
We all say no
As we walk towards Vasara, Yul complains about sand
Yul is pointing at the dirt, and then sees something glint, it looks like gold
It’s a ring, it’s magical, we all feel happy looking at it
Transmutation and evocation (things go kaboom) magic from the ring, the ring feels healing
Ring changes size to fit the person’s finger, the diameter changes
Put the ring onto Jeice’s middle finger, nothing happens
Sarah puts on the ring on the left hand fourth finger, feel overwhelming empathy, feel attuned to those around you, feel as though you can gain happiness from the happiness of others
Ring of Unyielding Empathy: While wearing the ring, you have advantage on Insight and Persuasion checks. Furthermore, if a creature other than yourself within 60 feet of you gets healed that you can see, you get healed for 50% of the amount they got healed.
Sense that there is more to the ring, you can attune to the ring
See a mysterious figure, a shadow in the distance
Sarah: “WHO TF ARE YOU?”
Look again, no one there, but a parchment floating down
Nim picks it up and looks at it, hears a voice, “Nim, you know too much”, on the parchment is a highly accurate sketch of Nim, with detailed background, very realistic, see the temple entrance in the background
Yul tries to scribble on it, but any ink is suspended in front of it, dripping down, a barrier around the paper
Sarah: “if you eat a piece of that paper I will cut out your tongue” at Yul >:|
This parchment is really really old, a few months old, faded from being in the sun, so old that how could the ink have been written on it, it had to have been drawn recently, unless this is a premonition
Flip the parchment over, can dust off the back, it says, “WANTED”, “10,000 GOLD”
Drawing recent, parchment old
All notice different things about the bounty, but nothing specifies who wants Nim
Nim notices it’s “DEAD, NOT ALIVE” and not just “DEAD OR ALIVE”
backside, normally where the person’s picture is, is blank
Sarah noticed no emotions from the shadow monster
Can’t draw on the back either
Yul casts Dispel Magic on it, as a circle of light is emitted from Yul over the paper, see slowly but surely, the drawing of Nim fades, on the back where it previously looked weathered and was blank, is now a drawing of Count Canonbury, the text is now “DEAD OR ALIVE” and the bounty is now “100 GOLD”
The paper still looks a few months old
Head towards Vasara, the sun is setting, heard towards the gate
First thing you notice is the massive temple to the god of nature, also see the Vasara Adventuring Company headquarters
Big sign that says “free food”
Bloo walks towards the mess hall, serving chicken stew and mashed potatoes, see the person serving, “welcome travelers”
Bloo: “Hungy”
Sarah: “I’m doing well how are you?”
The people the VAC have been letting in recently aren’t super nice, but they get stuff done
We sit down and eat
Hear rowdy people, see two twins, heckling the server, based on the conversation:
Twins: “Hey what do you mean we don’t get free food!!”
Server: “sorry sir, but it’s only for guild members, and you’re not part of the VAC”
Twins has no identification, ID seems like they’re from a diff. adventuring group
Sarah gets up, “excuse me good citizens, what seems to be the issue here?”
Twins: “this jackass here…”
Sarah: “what does jackass mean, I’m an upstanding citizen and I’ve never heard it”
The other twin looks over at the twin, says, “that lady is not worth our time, but looks like that armor doesn’t suit her very well”
Twins: “You brainless people…”
Yul: “You’re right! I don’t have a brain!”
Twins, are on their way to the celestial peak, hired by residents, won’t say who residents, idk why the gov. wanted to hire people from Vasara, didn’t want to outsource to the strongest mercenary, Silver Selevir (Cassandra, head of Thalum Mercenary Company), brother has a nap sack, both twins are looking at Yul and Sarah
Nim pickpockets the male twin, gets some papers and coin pouch, and a card, slips away without getting caught, don’t see what anyone else is
A card is a piece of identification, it says, “Lapis”, describes his physical descriptors, human male, height and male, has Dagdran citizenship, he’s 40, sister is named “Lazuli”, he’s a grizzled adventurer
The other papers are a stack of signed documents, one of which is a contract saying that he gets 30 gold for every 10 aberrations killed, signed with Thalum Mercenary Company, others are supporting documents
He and his sister are slated to kill the abomination that is plaguing Celestial Peak, specifically to do it before Vasara Adventuring Company, calling Fusilla lazy, unmotivated, and glory-hogging
250 GP in pouch
Sarah offers to fight him
Lazuli whispers to lapis saying “you’re not going to do that now, are you”
She puts his arm on his shoulder, and asks “do you want me to handle this, or will I?”
Lapis starts laying down ground rules, will fight Lapis, don’t care for death match, wants Spellcleaver, the sword (doesn’t know Sarah has more), whoever is knocked unconscious is the loser, winner can take whatever they want
Rules is that whoever wins can pick one thing from anyone among the loser, teams being Sarah and Nim, Lapis and Lazuli
Nim gives 30gp to the server for dealing with the shitheads
lapis wearing heavy armor, has a great axe
lazuli is wearing light armor
Beating up the Twins
lapis calls the horse irritating
Sarah rides in on her horse
Sarah backs up 5 feet, goes forward 20 feet, the horse makes a hoof attack, hits, succeeds strength saving throw, Sarah silvery barbs, still high
Sarah casts Thunderous Smite, and attacking, on her horse, using spell cleaver unsheathed, hits twice, crits second attack
Magical Slashing, radiant, thunder, for 80 damage
Sarah rolls charisma saving throw, sarah feels the ring you are wearing squeeze your hand, feel a chill down your spine, as you slash him, feel a strong sense of sorrow, feel strong pain, takes a quarter of damage you dealt as necrotic, your hand is now aching, left ring finger is pulsing, the ring tightened around you
See in the aftermath, sarah has sliced his armor off, hear the metal hitting the stone, see a red aura glowing around him, his muscles are bulging, all of his heavy plate armor has shattered off
Lapis makes a slash with the axe, and hits, then goes for another overhand swing, and misses, he is cocky
Horse stomps him
We all notice that Lazuli’s hands are in her pocket, and they’re subtly moving around, she looks focus
Yul casts Hold Person on Lazuli, see her slowly get paralyzed, see the red aura around Lapis slowly swirls away as her concentration is broken, he looks over and says “shit”
Sarah does her two attacks, hits and then crits again, Thunderous Smite, 74 dmg, Lapis’s red swirl has faded, and his armor on the ground has started to lose its color, his armor goes pale, looks at Sarah, as you smite him, the blade burns and scars him, he is knocked unconscious, his sister Lazuli remains paralyzed
Sarah loots everything he owns, including his armor and clothes
The guard says they’ll turn a blind eye, we are going to take him and heal him
Main things on his body is Great Axe, some extra gold, 117 GP for spending, had a map, opens it, a key falls out, map to place near Dagdran capital
Nim releases the smoke first under Lazuli’s nose, see it wafting around Lazuli, only gives it a lil, life draining from her, smell a reek of death
Guards: “good work defending the name of the guild”
Back to Vasara
Alchemy lab and tavern are closed
Training yard, some test dummies
Free barracks, Seliph’s personal recommendation
On the way there, we see a statue of the founder of Vasara, Roland Vasara
Bloo looks at it, see something odd, feel your blobby brain surging, feel memories returning
Sense a connection to him, in my past life I might’ve known him, see a warm smile from him, he wishes you good luck for something, but the memory fades away
I might’ve been a lil close to him
He trusted me deeply, wasn’t just anyone
Your blobby self reacts
See his face, the warmth of his hand as he sends you off, the last time I saw him I was gonna go fight Duessel, feel this connection, feel his confidence in you, he is my brother
Remember records of Roland having an older brother, surmise that you wouldn’t be that much older
Bloo is, current-day, between 150-160 years old, approx 156 years old +- 5
Bloo leaves a yogurt jar at his statue with a flower
Yul is about 130 years ish, at least, could be older
Make it to the barracks, see another person, haven’t met, but heard of
She looks at us, “oh hello, Seliph has told me about you”, “I’m the quest master, Lily Hovelmire”, she’s a wood-elf, young for elf
She’s filling out paperwork
Unconfirmed, the bodies have been disappearing, according to reports, people going to the temple, or going towards celestial peak, hear the sound of chains and bloodcurdling screams, people hear it like space is getting distorted itself, lots of death behind it
Even some of the mercenaries from Thalum are getting wiped, Cassandra herself hasn’t decided to come, idk why she wouldn’t
All of the guilds have been requested to help
Anyone who survived mostly just ran away
Described as an ethereal horse-like being, hard to describe, lots of contradictory reports, unkempt mane, others say it’s transluscent, one thing in common, any report of people who barely survived mentioned feeling power draining ray from its head, only one person saw its face, or the hole that should be there, looking like the astral sea itself
Anyone else who survived heard chains and ran
It’s like it’s patrolling something
I heard a report of slaying a beast made of melded together mouths, gibbering a lot
Ghastly beings, mistaken for being undead, holy symbols weren’t working on them
Tells lots of scary things happening, get some sleep, will send some tea up
Sarah takes off her left glove, see that the ring has changed color, it is now deep purple, and so is the rest of your ring finger that it is on, the ring is cursed!
Anytime you tug on the ring, it compresses your finger, refusing to get slipped off
Poke the finger and feel a sharp snap of necrotic energy
Sarah feels a name become familiar, hear the name “Luke Valenbar”, feel a connection towards a person and yet, feel like you can say something to him, say “who the fuck are you”, and the response is “who the hell are you”
Yul is looking very intently at Theodore’s head, press her hand on the markings on his face, they feel familiar to you, know its purpose, see an image flash into your head for a brief second, and then your head starts to hurt a little, weird flash sensation that you can see in your mind, focus really hard and can only make out the general shape of a curve, Yul does not rember
04.20.0347 Morning | Vasara
Wake up, Yul is frustrated, uses Remove Curse on the ring
Sarah takes it off
The treasurer of the guild is close to the Fusilla bank
Eat some oatmeal, tastes good and hearty
Get some strawgurt!!
Go to archive, see lots of dust, it’s an underground hatch, dusty stairwell, see a bunch of folders, books, leather-bound, mostly journals, some are haphazardly bound together, relative disarray, but somewhat chronological, the earliest year you can see is year 222, year of formed, secretary’s job to keep records of everything
one file, scripture, framed in glass case like the constitution, it says, “to my dear elder brother, hero of the realm, you are not ever to be forgotten, brother, I wanted to leave this in your memory, I know it’ll be lost to the history of many, but I owe much of this to you, to you, Sorean, a hero to my heart, and one who’s secret I will take with me to the grave, may this adventuring company be in your memory”
The secret he refers to is the fact that, he, Sorean, is the one that he dealt the finishing blow to Duessel
Has an inkling that Astrid has something to do with it, if anyone knows who Astrid is, why does no one know she was the one who helped slay Duessel, all the records seem to indicate that the three heroes don’t exist and the three heroes vanished, only leaving Duessel’s body
It was Sorean’s dream to found VAC
Seliph doesn’t know this, but technically it implies that the VAC is the “birthright” of Sorean
Bloo sees a switch at the base of the pedestal, Bloo flicks it, a hidden door slides open, inside it, you see a chest, no lock on it, it has a sigil on it, it is the sigil of the god of nature, Forsythe?
Bloo places hand on chest, and the chest recognizes you, it opens, inside is a journal, it is a journal who is attributed to Roland Vasara
It is dated year 215 CE, it reads
“Yesterday was the day that it is official, the revolution is over, and we now have a neighboring country to our east, Dagdra, I hope all remains peaceful, it was the least that could be offered, the emperor himself seems like a benevolent man, certainly no Duessel, I heard about your disappearance brother but I know you are still out there brother, I can feel it, if there is any sign, I pray to forsythe that I can see it, I know you’re still out there, they’ve pronounced you dead, I’ll search for you as long as I live, and y’know, with all of the connections you’ve made, many ppl know of me, and I intend to see your dream come true, I give myself 10 years time, and I will establish the most magnificent adventuring guild, in your name, in our name, and none will know your secret, Astrid had me swear to keep it, I understand, but I wish you got more recognition, my final gift to you is the guild, I swear to you”
Dated towards the end of 215
He grows a bit more disillusioned, giving up hope, then you see it, a page that’s torn out, the tear matches the exact tear that is framed, that is the last entry
It’s about 7 years searching for Sorean, ambitions to set up VAC