#Yraxes

[wherethewolfsbaneblooms]

The Great White & The Sky Snake

I did these illustrations of my two GoT dragon OCs ages ago but forgot to post them oops. Yraxes is mama’s handsome, shiny baby boy and Nagga has major a attitude problem

[parasite-core]

Yrax PAUNCH

[grimm-rider]

Entry 16

We didn’t rush getting back to Spurhorn, and took the full two-day journey. Nothing real special to report. Aenland convinced Nevra to start singing for us. She actually has a pretty nice voice. Talsune had plans to check on the Dragonkin armory before leaving with us—I had assured him I very much still wanted him to come along if he still wished to join me, and he was still keen on coming and joining my future battles, so we’re on the same page.

Once we got back to Spurhorn, a surprise was waiting for us. The Dancing Hut was making its way towards the fortress as we approached. The guards along the wall seemed confused about what to do about the giant chicken-legged building approaching. We called out to them that it was friendly, and once Commander Pharamol confirmed, they relaxed.

The Dancing Hut settled down in a snowdrift just outside of the fortress’ entrance, and then Jadrenka and Nadya exited, looking around the dark snowscape of Triaxus. Jadrenka asked us if we had been planning on running off with the new keys without giving them a chance to see an alien planet. Considering the geass we probably had, but in that moment the geass seemed to loosen ever so slightly, as if encouraging us to take a short breather before the next leg of our journey. So I told her that it wouldn’t hurt to take a few days to enjoy it. Besides, Nestian had a manual of gainful exercise to read. I knew from experience that trying to find the time to read one of those tomes while running around getting stuff done was a pain in the ass. Taking about a week off so he could read it and gain its benefits would only work in our favor.

We all went our separate ways for the afternoon. I went back to my room for a bit. I had taken a tooth from Yrax and the contagion scroll, and I placed them as offerings before the alters to Norgorber and Urgathoa respectively, offering up prayers to my gods. I especially hope Norgorber is pleased—that dragon crossed me and I ripped half his skeleton out. The death of a draconic warlord is going to have big consequences across the planet. I’d say he was a worthy target to slay in the Reaper of Reputation’s name.

After I had finished with my meditations, I went looking for Greta. It took some time, but I eventually found her lost in thought by the fortress’ drinking water. She smiled, saying she’d figured I’d find her eventually. She’d just been lost in thought about…things. She’d made me promise two things when we first left. Don’t lie to her, obviously. And take her on an adventure. And this had been quite the adventure. We had travelled through time, and gone to another planet, we’d fought a giant mutant dragon, and seen a Demon Lord. She didn’t know what came next—if this whole rider thing was going to mean I’d be stuck serving Baba Yaga, or if once it was all said and done I was free to go, but she wanted to be with me for whatever came next. I told her I wanted that too—I had hoped, very much, that that was what would happen. I had hardly considered the alternative, honestly. Parting ways with Greta seems…unfathomable at this point. Greta laughed, saying she supposed it was easier with Talsune where I could just know what he was thinking. Which is true. I don’t really have to wonder if Talsune would want to stay by my side, even if he hadn’t already said as much, I can feel that he wants to continue fighting alongside me. It’s a comforting thought. It still feels a little strange to feel, but I’m getting more accustomed to it.

Greta tilted her head, seeing something glint beneath the surface of the water. I could hardly dive into the fortress’ drinking water to retrieve it—but fortunately I didn’t need to. I sent Nikolai to fetch the object. He returned with an ioun stone and two vials of Truecolor Dye. I let the ioun stone join my other one, and looked over the Truecolor Dye. For once I can be fairly certain what color I was seeing, unless something has really changed without my knowledge. Truecolor Dye is affected by the whole ‘cosmic alignment’ bullshit, the same thing that affects spells like Unholy Blight and Holy Smite and Detect Good and Evil. The arbitrary factors that the gods place on you to determine your place in the universe. If you’re considered good you see it as gold, if you’re considered evil you see it as a vivid red, and if you’re neutral you see it as orange. Anyways, I’m an absolute bastard, but I’ve never quite fallen into ‘evil’ territory (somehow), as proven by the fact that Unholy Blight STILL hurts me every gods-damned time someone casts it. So. The color of the dye must have been orange.

Greta commented that the ioun stone was nice, but she didn’t get what a bunch of orange dye was down there for.

That gave me pause. Because she HAD been unaffected by Unholy Blight last time we’d been targeted. Which meant her place in that arbitrary alignment bullshit chart had shifted somewhat.

I told her that she should probably be careful next time someone casts Unholy Blight at us, because I had a feeling it was going to be more of a problem than it had been in the past. She laughed, asking why, since it had never affected her before. I explained the Truecolor Dye to her, about how it looked different depending on the person’s alignment in the universe. She asked what color I saw it as, and I confirmed I saw it as orange as well. She said she supposed it was only a matter of time before I started slumming it down here with her. I corrected that assumption, letting her know that orange was actually the neutral color. She was the one whose spot had changed.

She seemed taken aback for a moment. She reasoned out slowly that she supposed if you save enough people enough times then eventually you would quit being considered evil. I agreed.

She grinned and nudged me, noting that I’d changed too, though. I’d resurrected Aenland. And she was sure if it had been her I’d have done the same for her. I assured her that if it was ever her, I had made certain that I would always have the means to bring her back at my fingertips.

She noted that casting that spell was uncomfortable for me. I wouldn’t say uncomfortable—horribly painful, more like. She thanked me for being willing to go through that for her…but of course I would. I would rather have my entire body doused in positive energy than lose her. Not…that I said that, exactly. That’s a bit sappy.

We kept talking, and Greta started teasing me, asking if we should name our ‘pups’ after the other members of our group. At least I think she was teasing. She did bring up an interesting point about if they’d be shapeshifters like she was now. And…I mean…I’m not exactly opposed to the idea of naming them after the others. Except maybe give them nicknames to keep things from getting confusing…and I’m not sure if Edeya would want a kid to be named after her since we’re already dealing with a mirror version of her with the same name as her, it might be a sore subject…

Gods, this is not something I ever thought I’d be thinking about in earnest. This was the sort of talk that a little over a year ago (let’s be real, even a few months ago) would have sent me running the other direction. But…I can actually see this sort of future with Greta…

I spent the rest of the afternoon with Greta, but I’ll spare the details.

We eventually made our way to the mess hall and met up with the others, and spent the evening celebrating our hard fought victory. My memory gets fuzzy after that. There was a lot of alcohol involved. I think Greta helped get me back to our shared room.

The next day I did what I really should have done the day before and went looking for Cesseer. It’s not that I’d been putting it off, per se. It was a little that, admittedly. Mostly it was just that everything kept happening, everyone was celebrating, I had spent a lot more time with Greta than I’d gone in meaning to, the day just slipped away.

But I knew I needed to talk to her, and that it needed to be sooner rather than later. So I went looking for the Battleflower, and found her in the training room. She was practicing alone.

She said she’d expected me to come find her yesterday, to which I apologized, but she seemed understanding that everyone had been busy celebrating. She said she knew why I was here, but she wanted to hear it from me.

I told her that I was there to make sure she was doing alright, and to apologize. She asked: for what? That took me by surprise. She listed off the things I had done recently: slayed Yrax, freed her, saved her from an Intellect Devourer. What was I apologizing for?

I told her I was sorry that I’d left her with that monster in the first place.

She felt it was water under the bridge. She no longer thought I’d meant any harm by it, after seeing me now.

I can’t remember, so I have no idea what my intentions had been. I can’t be as sure as she seems to feel…

She said that I had hurt her honor, though, and that couldn’t stand. So she challenged me to a one-on-one dual. Just like I’d seen Nestian fight twice on our first day on Triaxus.

Somehow I’d suspected from the start it would eventually come to this. Mostly I’d originally figured she just wanted an excuse to punch me in the face, although I didn’t feel so much like that was the case anymore.

She said that if I won, she’d join us on our travels, just like we’d talked about. If she won…not so much. We’d discuss what would happen next, if she won.

I agreed to the fight. I’d honestly been keen to spar her since seeing Nestian and Jairess fight and learning that magic was perfectly acceptable for their definition of ‘unarmed combat’. Even if it meant probably getting punched in the face.

One little problem: I hadn’t come in prepared for a fight. My armor wasn’t up like it would be on a day I was out adventuring.

Still, I stepped into the ring with Cesseer. As we began she told me she was eager to see just what ‘The Grim Rider’ could do.

I didn’t have a chance to ask her about that title, as she lowered herself into a fighting stance, and the match began.

Somehow I managed to get the jump on Cesseer, calling up my Bone Armor, and then casting a Quickened Inflict Moderate Wounds. It wasn’t much, but it was the most I could do in quick succession like that.

Unfortunately, Cesseer had some magical defenses of her own, and my spell fizzled harmlessly off of her resistances.

And that had brought me in dangerously close to the beautiful Battleflower.

She led with a flurry of kicks and punches that were like a dance. I managed to keep step, my armor deflecting the worst of it, although her first kick to my jaw did connect before I had gotten into the rhythm of defending against her.

I countered, casting with defensive movements so she couldn’t interrupt my spell, and struck with an Inflict Critical Wounds. She dodged, but I was able to hold onto the spell, prepared to try to strike again the moment her defenses were open.

Cesseer tried to knock me from me feet with a kick to the gut, but I remained grounded. She was in close now, and I struck with the Inflict Critical Wounds. It smashed through her resistances and the negative energy took, creeping across her skin with its decaying power.

Cesseer went in for another flurry, but I was ready for her this time, and each attack deflected off my armor.

I tried something reckless—I left my defenses open as I cast a more powerful spell, so that I could put my full focus into the casting. I was rewarded when the swing she tried against me hit armor-hard bone, and my spell unleashed: Mass Inflict Serious Wounds. Negative energy engulfed us both, its cold claws digging in deep to her while at the same time healing the worst of the cuts and bruises she had left on me.

Cesseer was looking a bit tired—not on her last legs by any means, but I’d certainly done a number on her. She swung in with another flurry, and once more only a single blow managed to get through my defenses.

Then she stepped back, raised her hands in a show of surrender, and bowed.

I, of course, immediately ceased fighting. I certainly wasn’t aiming to kill her after we’d just saved her.

Cesseer once again commented that I couldn’t do that the last time she’d known me—which brings up the question of just what I could do back then, if not what I do now.

I thought I was remembering spells I had forgotten. But I remember Nazhena making a comment about me saying something about finding necromancy tasteless, too. I’d thought at the time that I’d just been lying to her. But what if I hadn’t been a necromancer before? But that doesn’t make sense—Master Keisuke taught me to use my magic, hadn’t he? So it follows that I would have learned necromancy like him.

The obvious explanation is that I was just more subtle about it than I am now. I just hid that I was a necromancer instead of being open about it. I mean most necromancers don’t exactly go around advertising that they raise the dead—it’s common sense not to since it’s outlawed in many places and will get paladins on your ass. I’ve had the extreme fortune of being Baba Yaga’s Rider so I can get away with it. But then…I suppose back then I was this ‘Grim Rider’, so I should have had that same excuse back then as well and no reason to hide. Unless working with Elvana made it necessary. Maybe she wanted to keep up appearances.

Right. Because child murder is fine but necromancy is where they draw the line. Sure.

Anyways, Cesseer said she was interested to see more of me and my ‘hot wolf girlfriend’. She said she would like to be with me, if I would have her.

I misconstrued this as her asking to come along, but she clarified. If I would have her.

I said I’d have to make sure that was okay with said hot wolf girlfriend, which was apparently the correct answer, and that was apparently a test of character. Probably the first test of character I’ve ever successfully passed.

Cesseer left me to my own devices, thanking me for saving her before she went on her way.

…Sometimes it feels good to be the one who saves somebody.

When our group reconvened at dinner, Nestian informed us that Ratibor and Zorka had somehow left the Dancing Hut and were also in Spurhorn, chilling in…really poor disguises.

He also said that Ratibor would like to know what had happened to his and Jadrenka’s daughter. Edeya posited that if there was a spell that allowed the user to ask a question and have it be answered by another more knowledgeable being, that would be perfect. A number of spells came to my mind, and I listed them off to her. The most promising one, I thought, was Commune. The only problem was you needed to be a devout worshipper of a deity as it was a spell to contact your deity and ask them questions. I didn’t reveal to the others that I had two deities I could contact—even if I did, I don’t think that would be a good idea. This wasn’t the sort of subject you wanted to bother Urgathoa or Norgorber about, even if you were in their good favor—which I like to think I have been.

I forgot to mention, the night after my prayers, I had a couple of really vivid—albeit abstract—dreams. Snippets of memories of deaths I’d caused. And vivid images of rot and decay. And when I woke up I could feel I had been granted a boon—some small gift of power from each. I intend to make good use of these gifts.

Anyways, seeing as we had no spellcaster with a suitable god to contact, we decided we would ask one of the local Apsu clerics the next day. We would provide them the scroll, so all they’d need to do is cast the spell.

The next day I decided to go check in on Talsune before the time we’d all decided to meet up in the infirmary. He was in the Dragonkin Armory, trying to get it organized. He was frustrated with a bunch of the younger Dragonkin having left the entire place in total disarray. I couldn’t help but laugh, noting that some things are the same on every planet apparently.

I helped my partner with cleaning the armory, and we talked while we worked. He confirmed again that I still wanted him to come along, to which I of course agreed. Strange as the emotional part of our bond might feel, we make an incredibly good team. I feel a bit like being separated would be like cutting off a limb, now that I’ve started to get used to his presence in my consciousness.

As I cleaned, I felt a sudden welling up of excitement over something—the feeling wasn’t coming from me, it was from Talsune. He looked perfectly stoic outwardly, but he’d found some particularly fine weapons—a magical greatsword and a glaive, exactly what he and Nevra use. He decided that those who do the cleaning get first pick of the best pieces, a sentiment I had no arguments over. We did all the work tidying up, so I don’t see why not. Those pieces would have been lost and buried under a bunch of mundane weapons otherwise anyways with how bad the room had been when I’d first entered.

Once we were done, I let him know we had a busy day ahead of us, and we headed to the infirmary to meet up with the others.

In the infirmary I easily convinced one of the clerics to cast the Commune spell for us. We were the heroes who slayed Yrax, after all. Pretty much everyone in the fortress loved us. The cleric in question needed a little guidance in how to actually use the scroll—magic on Triaxus was cast differently than magic on Golarian, and so the scroll was a foreign concept to them. But once they’d figured it out, they got to work casting and asking their questions.

After some time of the cleric asking a number of questions and listening to answers we couldn’t hear and then asking follow up questions, the spell ended. The cleric explained what they had learned. Ratibor’s daughter was deceased—no surprise since she’d lived 4000 years ago. She had spent part of her life searching for someone, but had also started a tribe of witch hunters on the border of an icy land, and their descendants still reside there to this day.

We thanked the cleric, and discussed what to do with this knowledge. We determined it wasn’t bad news. It seemed like something he ought to know. So we decided to go tell him.

We found Ratibor and Zorka in the Hall of Heroes. Artisans were building a statue in our honor there already. I’m going to be immortalized on an alien planet, how cool is that?

Anyways, Ratibor. We told him what we’d learned about his daughter. He started laughing and crying, and used Zorka’s handkerchief to blow his nose without asking. He was incredibly proud—his daughter had become a warlord like him, and hadn’t met a horrible end, she’d lived her life and met a warrior’s fate and had fought witches like those who kept her mother imprisoned. It was…honestly nice to see how happy he was to learn about his daughter’s fate. And he asked us if he could join us when we returned to Whitethrone so that he could see his descendants in battle with his own eyes, to which I have no objections. If Ratibor can leave the Hut I say he should definitely come along.

Once the waterworks were over, I pulled Zorka aside and asked her if she had heard of The Grim Rider. I expected her to clam up like every other time I’d asked about my past—but I had to at least ask and cover all my bases.

To my shock, she answered. She confirmed, yes, she knew of the Grim Rider.

She seemed to be struggling to speak, though, and didn’t say much more, except to assure me that I was on the right path and to keep going.

That was enough for me, for now. The fact Zorka could even say that much was positively a miracle.

Nestian let us know that he’d also summoned the Interdimensional Rumor Trader, Zilvazavarat. He’d been planning to ask him about Ratibor’s daughter if we didn’t find another solution, but he thought we might be able to learn other things from him—such as the current state of Whitethrone.

So, we returned to the Dancing Hut to meet with the trader.

Nestian asked Zilvazavarat about the state of Whitethrone—and after some back and forth about technicalities about ‘a swarm of undead queens’ vs ‘twelve undead queens’, he told us that the city was mostly holding up. It was currently divided up between the twelve Crone Queens, and Elvana had holed herself up in the palace to focus on her ritual to freeze the world. The rebellion was still going strong, using hit and run tactics to needle the Winter Witches. The biggest change was that there were far more Mirror Men on the streets than before.

Aenland asked the trader to take the horn of Yrax back to his homeland for him, with a message that Huntmaster Boughmuse would be returning. Zilvazavarat made a very foreboding comment about the current state of Kyonin. He tried to fleece Aenland for more money to learn about the current condition of his home, and Nestian and I were having none of that bullshit. I told him I would reconsider if I were him since this was a personal matter, and Nestian told him that he should find it in his heart to be chartable. Zilvazavarat said he wasn’t in the business of doing charity, but that since Aenland’s message had been ever so short, he would just bundle this bit of information in with the cost of relaying that.

Zilvazavarat had the gull to invoke Abadar and ask me if I understood where he was coming from needing to make a fair deal. I told him I wasn’t a follower of Abadar so I wouldn’t know.

If he doesn’t watch it, I’ll introduce him to which gods I follow.

The trader told Aenland that Treerazor was on the move against Kyonin. This was nothing unusual, his minions were always tormenting the elves. But something had the bloated lizard scared. His movements were erratic compared to usual, and his attack patterns were different from usual. It was making him unpredictable.

With that out of the way, Nestian asked Zilvazavarat if he knew if the bears in Taldor were doing okay. After being paid for it, the trader confirmed that they were doing fine, the same as usual. There were whispers, however, that a small faction were trying to rile up the other bears into going back to Irrisen and taking the fight to Elvana. But Zilvazavarat didn’t believe Nestian needed to be worried—Nestian’s family was slow to act, as he well knew, and wasn’t likely to make any big moves anytime soon.

Then the trader fixed his greedy little eyes on me and asked if I had any questions. Of course I did, but I didn’t except much in the way of answers—I never get any straight answers.

First I asked him if he knew anything about Queen Elvana’s motives behind kidnapping children from the outskirt towns of Irrisen. He gave this one to me free of charge, as it was technically related to the Whitethrone question. He told me pretty much exactly what Illivor had already told me: that Elvana was using the children as bartering chips for creatures like hags or members of her own Winter Witches like Nazhena. But, he added, there was a rumor that she was looking for a child with ‘the potential’. The potential for what, he didn’t know.

The potential. What could that be? Could it be why I was targeted twice? Or was it just a coincidence? Always more questions than answers.

The trader asked if I had any further questions. I told him that I doubted he’d have any satisfactory answers for my next question, but I’d ask regardless. Did he know anything about the Grim Rider?

Yes, he did.

Unfortunately, after he said this, he was Dismissed by the Dancing Hut itself and sent Norgorber knows where. So, as always, I came away with absolutely no answers.

We left the Hut, had a nice dinner which Nestian helped to make, and headed to bed.

That night I got a Sending from Master Keisuke while I was asleep. He told me to find a way to travel through the planes and cast it through the pocket watch, and just this once he’d give me a two way ticket to his demiplane so we could talk in person.

The next morning I woke and made my way straight to the Dancing Hut, to shop at Glargonargs. I bought a Scroll of Plane Shift, then made my way back to Spurhorn.

On the way back, as I was looking for a private place to cast, Aenland managed to sneak up on me while I was lost in my own thoughts. He put that cursed rapier blade up to my neck—that rapier Xanthadon had given him that once drawn couldn’t be sheathed until the wielder had killed something with it. I froze, wondering just what was going on. Aenland said I had something of his. My mind raced trying to understand, and then I put two and two together. Xanthadon’s rapier. The other rapier. The one in my bag of holding that the Xanthadon in the past had given me when Aenland was in a mood and wasn’t approachable enough for me to give it to him—and then I kind of forgot about it.

I retrieved the rapier and handed it to him. He thanked me, then said he needed blood for this rapier. I told him that was fine so long as it wasn’t mine. He told me that’s what he’d been implying—so I reminded him that he needed to *kill* someone to sheath the sword, not just wound them. He was quiet for a moment, then the lightbulb seemed to go off in his head and he slinked away.

That was weird.

Regardless, I had a meeting with Master Keisuke to attend, so I didn’t have time to think for long about how Aenland had just had a cursed blade at my throat and how one wrong move would have meant my jugular punctured through just then.

I found a private room, and cast the Plane Shift scroll through the pocket watch. The watch seemed to grow, and I felt like I was falling into it. It multiplied until there were nine of it. I felt disoriented. There was singing, and suddenly the nine clocks were nine frosted glass walls. The singing was Master Keisuke’s voice, echoing throughout the nine-sided space. When I looked up, there was Master Keisuke in his true kitsune form, holding out a hand to me. I took it, and he led me into his demiplane, the Nonagon. He was not actually singing, it seemed to be coming from the demiplane itself, and the music stopped after a moment. Master Keisuke said he felt it added some theatrics if an intruder found themselves in his home. I was inclined to agree, it added a certain flair.

I was certainly taking mental notes, if I ever become powerful enough to make a demiplane someday.

He had a powerful defense granted to him by the Pallid Princess, which I had been permitted through this time, although he told me I should contact him before trying to enter in the future as he would be putting the safe guards back in place—in case I ever got mind dominated or something of the like. Understandable, you can’t be too careful with magic that can override a person’s will on the table.

I had tea and a pleasant talk with Master Keisuke. The first real pleasant talk we’d actually gotten to have since I’d lost my memories. Last time we met face-to-face, I was guarded because I didn’t really know anything about him yet and it ended with Aenland shooting at him. Apparently since then he’d been shot again—in the Eon Pit. That wound wouldn’t heal, not with positive or negative energy. Negative energy seemed to hurt him like a regular person unlike me—that surprised me a bit, I suppose I expected him to have a Pallid Crystal if he didn’t simply somehow have the same affliction I have. But then again there are so many useful items you can wear around your neck. I should know, seeing as I’ve chosen to forego being able to be healed by positive energy in favor of wearing an amulet of natural armor. That and I’d have to explain to Edeya why the Pallid Crystal works for me now since she identified it when I showed it to her, and then she’d know I worship Urgathoa, and that would be a whole thing. Not that it’s exactly shocking that the necromancer would worship the goddess of undeath.

Master Keisuke checked if I had any further questions for him, so I asked him about why the members of the Norgorber cult had had a problem with me. He’d said I belonged to Urgathoa. I didn’t understand what that meant, Keisuke was a necromancer and they didn’t have a problem with him.

Keisuke clarified that they didn’t want me working with them because I was undead. That didn’t clear up my confusion—I don’t detect as undead, how am I undead? He clarified again, I’m not undead anymore, but I was then. He realized then that I’d had a misconception neither of us had realized.

He hadn’t brought me back to life when he found me in that cave. He’d turned me into a skeletal champion. As he clarified, he doesn’t have the power to bring someone back to life, all of his children are undead.

Which meant someone else had actually resurrected me.

Master Keisuke said that whoever raised me did a pretty bad job. Or, he and I noted at the same time, they did a poor job on purpose because they thought it was funny.

He and I were both thinking the same thing. After I’d been sent out to assassinate Baba Yaga, I’d instead made a deal with her to be resurrected.

Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like exactly the sort of thing I’d do.

So the timeline of events I know for sure at this point is: I died in that cave, Keisuke raised me as a skeletal champion, taught me magic, and introduced me to Norgorber worship, but when we took me to the cult they refused to have an undead join. Keisuke tried to convince them to test me, so they sent me on the impossible task of slaying Baba Yaga. I left on my own, and Keisuke killed the entire cult in retribution. When I found Baba Yaga, I presumably made a deal with her to resurrect me, and became the Grim Rider. And then…that’s where I don’t know what happened next, the timeline gets fuzzy. I ended up on Triaxus with a half-elf woman handing over one of Baba Yaga’s keys at one point, and then every other instance I know of I was in Elvana’s service: in Whitethrone and on Triaxus.

Speaking of being in Elvana’s service, Master Keisuke told me he had a gift for me. He brought out a Mirror Man. I felt panic for a moment seeing the familiar form, but he reassured me that this one had it’s connection to the Winter Witches severed. Instead, the vision stored in its mirror was still accessible, and that vision was of me on Triaxus. Me as the Grim Rider.

I could finally get a look at who I had been during my missing year, at what I had forgotten.

Before that, Master Keisuke talked to me about the fact that one of his targets for mythic power was going to be near Whitethrone in two weeks time. He hoped that I was still on board with helping him to gain mythic power—he felt that mythic power would suit me. I think mythic power would suit me, too. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I saw Ratibor fight Kostchtchie. I’d definitely like to procure that power.

Master Keisuke left me to my own devices to watch the Mirror Man’s vision, as he felt it was personal. Although he admitted to having already seen it himself. And from the comment he made about a certain beautiful Battleflower, I knew before watching what at least part of it was going to be.

I activated the Mirror Man once he’d left and began watching. There was a procession of Winter Guard, the Mirror Man recording must have been towards the back. In the center was Queen Elvana. And beside her, in fine dark robes with just a hint of the color the Winter Witches wear to show my station, I strode beside her, head held high.

As we walked past the disposal pit, I looked into it, and clearly saw the white pudding down below. I motioned to one of the Winter Guards to join me. When he did, I grabbed him and held him so he was just over the pit, the pudding reaching for him. The man screamed and flailed in horror in a way completely undignified for his station. I laughed and pulled him away. Queen Elvana told me, ‘Grim Rider please don’t torment my guards’, in a rather bored manner that seemed like she didn’t terribly care what happened to her guards but didn’t like the commotion that came with it.

I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I can see where I thought it was funny, lording my power over those guards. But it seems…pointlessly cruel. Don’t get me wrong, I can be cruel. I’m cruel to people who cross me, or anyone close to me. I won’t deny that. I will gladly revel in being cruel to those who have earned my ire. But what’s the point in tormenting random guards who are just…there? Just for a cheap laugh? That feels so hollow.

The procession continued, and we entered Yrax’s throne room. I recognized this, from the single flash of memory I’d gotten back in Ivoryglass. Yrax seated next to Cesseer, and me standing beside Queen Elvana. But this time I was seeing it in third person. And this time it was more than a single scrap of memory. Queen Elvana greeted Yrax, and sent forward a Winter Guard with a spell book. The guard was killed by the dragon, but he was pleased by the offering.

While the dragon was distracted by the book, Queen Elvana gave me, The Grim Rider, orders to scout out the place. Obediently I obeyed, “Yes, my queen.”

I knew I’d been working for Elvana, I’d been prepared to see this, but hearing myself talking to Elvana—our greatest enemy—obeying her orders, it was surreal.

The queen left, her face dropping into a scowl the moment she was no longer facing the dragon. Honestly that one I can’t fault her for.

I turned to leave the room with the remaining Winter Guards who had been left under my command. When I did, Yrax ordered Cesseer to accompany me. She joined us, and I immediately turned on the charm and we started talking and laughing as soon as we were out of Yrax’s presence.

We made our way through the halls, until we’d reached what I recognized as the guest quarters—specifically Cesseer’s quarters. Cesseer and I slipped away into her room. A moment later I opened the door and told the Winter Guard to buzz off, before closing the door in their faces. The image faded away—that was it.

I don’t know what to say. Even now, after I’ve had some time to think about it. That was who I was over the last year, before I lost my memories. It’s not like I was surprised by anything I saw. I knew I had been working with Elvana, and I knew I must have been a total bastard to do so. But actually seeing myself acting that way made it more real than just hearing about it second hand.

It’s funny, Greta said I’ve changed. I don’t feel like I’ve changed at all. I feel like I’m exactly the same as I’ve always been. Getting here from where I started was so subtle I didn’t even notice it happen. But I barely recognize the Grim Rider, even though he’s me, even though we started from the same place—that same memory of cutting my hand in a cave and falling into darkness. I’m not sure I can even put into words why. It’s not like I have a huge moral objection to him tormenting a Winter Guard, a person I would probably end up killing on the battlefield now anyways. It was just cruelty without any purpose other than his—my—own amusement. Maybe it’s that it feels so…beneath me. It’s like what I said about Yrax having power and not knowing how to use it. Anyone with enough resources can have a minion and push them around. Real power is…something more.

Leaving your minions in shock and awe of your raw potential, impressing them with what you can provide so much that they follow you to the ends of Golarian and back without needing to lay a hand on them. When people follow you because you’re just that charming and powerful and impressive, not just because they’re afraid of you, that’s real power.

But when living minions are in short supply, the undead work just as well. I really need a chance to test out my Create Undead spell…

I’ve lost track of what I was talking about.

Right. The Grim Rider. I think I’ve said about all I can on the subject for now. I…still need some time to think about what I saw in the vision.

After I took some time to process what I’d seen, and finish my tea, I cast a second use of Plane Shift kindly provided to me by Master Keisuke to exit. He’d even reimbursed me the cost of the scroll I’d bought myself, saying he was just so glad to finally just have this chance to talk face-to-face. It was nice.

Although as I was leaving something strange happened. I heard some other voices, voices that weren’t Master Keisuke’s. Eight eerie voices which called out to me as I cast the Plane Shift spell. “Return to the family, Calio.”

It was creepy as fuck if I’m being honest. I had other things on my mind at the time so I didn’t think about it for long at the time, but yeah, that creeped me out. I think it was some of Master Keisuke’s ‘children’. Apparently they don’t like that I’d found a way to bring myself back to life. Sucks to suck, they should have thought of making a deal with Baba Yaga. I’m definitely not planning on going back to being a skeleton anytime soon. I don’t plan on ever dying if I can help it.

…There is a little paranoid voice in the back of my brain that remembers that Master Keisuke told me that when we were done, I could join his family. But I’m just being paranoid thinking he means to return me to his collection of undead…right? He’d have done it already if he was planning that wouldn’t he? Not wait while I grow more powerful and difficult to handle working for Baba Yaga.

Unless that’s what he wants—a more powerful ‘child’.

Fuck. I’m getting too into my own head about this. With everything else that happened regarding Nestian…

I haven’t even gotten to that part yet.

Gods damnit.

Okay.

So after I got back, Talsune gently suggested I eat something since I’d had nothing to eat all day barring the tea I’d had with Master Keisuke. I agreed, and we went to the mess hall. To my surprise, Jadrenka joined our table after some time of myself and my partner eating in companionable silence.

It wasn’t long after Jadrenka had joined us that Nestian burst into the mess hall with a wiggling Edeya in his arms. He said she was under a spell. I identified it as a charm person spell, although that didn’t make sense, whoever cast it would have had to have been nearby—did we have an enemy within the walls of the fortress…?

Jadrenka dispelled the spell and my fears, telling us about a type of witch who uses a mirror as a focus who can cast these types of spells through a scrying sensor. So one fear dispelled, and new worse fear ignited. Edeya’s mirror double could scry on us and hit us with a number of nasty spells at any time, and we had no defenses against it except our natural force of will—which clearly wasn’t enough.

Nestian told me that Edeya had been building a shrine in our room when he’d found her. Edeya said in a jumble that her mirror self ‘somehow knew’. She didn’t explain more until we returned to the room to dismantle the shrine. I recognized the symbol Edeya had made across the shrine—it belonged to a goddess who no longer existed. Sarenrae, the goddess whose holy symbols had all cracked and broken three years ago and whose priests and paladins all lost their powers. Edeya told me and Nestian that she’d once found a pamphlet to Sarenrae and been inspired, despite the worship being illegal in Irrisen back when the goddess was still in power. She had snuck down to her father’s basement and built a shrine to the goddess to pray in secret. Yet when she’d lit the candles, she’d seen something in the mirror. Her reflection didn’t look like her, and it had scared her. She’d dropped the candle, and lit the shrine on fire. The basement went up in flames. Edeya fled—not just the basement but the house. That was the day she ran away.

As Edeya spoke, Nestian and I dismantled the shrine to the dead goddess. Before we were through, however, Edeya went rigid. She suddenly began trembling and pointed at the shrine in horror. She warned us that the shrine was on fire. I immediately recognized the effects of a Fear spell when I saw one. But I had no counters—I cast Fear I don’t ease it. So I could only tell Edeya that it would be over in a moment, before Edeya darted away in terror. Nestian ran after her.

I remained behind, and continued dismantling the shrine. Edeya didn’t need to return to it when she came back. It would be best if it was gone.

When I finished taking it apart, I heard the echoing sound of Edeya’s laughter, but when I looked behind me, she wasn’t there. It was spooky. I get a bad feeling it wasn’t Edeya. Not our Edeya, at least.

I bundled up the pieces and disposed of them, then made my way to the Dancing Hut to have some alone time in my room. It had been a long day, and I desperately wanted to just isolate and think about things by myself for a while.

I only got about an hour of quiet before there was a banging on my door that jarred me from my thoughts. I shot up from my bed, and called for whoever it was to come in, worried it might be an emergency.

Nestian entered, with Aenland and Edeya peeking in from the doorway behind him. In a word, he looked pissed. In more words, he looked like his heart had been ripped out. He was angry, and tears were streaming down his face, all at the same time.

I was utterly taken aback.

Nestian demanded to know what I knew about my master.

It took my brain a moment to process, but when it did I immediately knew where this was going. After the day I’d had, I was far from my usual eloquent self when I tried to deflect by naming off things like the fact he’d saved my life (still…technically true? I certainly wouldn’t be here today if he hadn’t raised me, even if he didn’t actually revive me.), that he’d taught me magic, and then sent me on my way (a really nice way of saying ‘sent me to assassinate our current boss’). Nestian saw through my weak attempt at avoiding what he obviously wanted to talk about. He demanded to know what I was hiding. I asked him what he knew about Keisuke since he clearly knew something. Nestian snapped back that he didn’t know anything for sure, that’s why he was asking. He had to know for sure. So he needed me to tell him what I knew.

If I’d been a better state of mind I probably could have kept the argument going, I probably could have convinced Nestian that I really didn’t know anything more than I claimed, and the assumptions he’d made were mislead. But he clearly already knew the truth, even if he didn’t know for sure that he knew it. And I was so tired from the rest of the day. And I honestly just didn’t want to lie to Nestian. So I told him the truth, that Master Keisuke had been in conflict with his family before.

Nestian asked a strange question next, one I still don’t quite understand. He asked ‘which family?’ At first I thought he meant ‘which family member’, but that didn’t seem to be it, and I didn’t know which family member anyways.

Nestian asked what happened to them. So, I told him honestly that it ended with one of them dying.

Nestian growled out the angriest words I’ve ever heard from him. Your master killed my father.

I didn’t know what to do with that. Obviously Nestian was in the right here. This was a matter of family, of his father, of course he had every right to want my master dead for what he’d done. I’d end the life of anyone who killed someone important to me, and I’d make sure they suffered for it. I can hardly tell Nestian not to do the same.

But at the same time, I owe Master Keisuke my life. If this were less important I’d say I like him, I could learn more from him, I want to join him in gaining mythic power. But really the only thing that comes close to mattering, to being an excuse for why I can’t bring myself to want to raise a weapon against him, is that he is the reason I’m here.

And even that…if there’s a chance he wants to snuff my life out to have me rejoin his ‘family’…I’m not laying down and dying without a fight.

I hadn’t thought of that at the time, though. I’m only just now starting to think about that. And I don’t even know if that’s what he actually wants or if I’m being paranoid after everything that’s happened.

At the time, I said nothing.

So then Nestian asked me if Keisuke asked me to keep this a secret from him.

It was probably kind of 50/50 if I were being honest. Master Keisuke and I were in agreement that neither of us wanted the others to try to kill him. I can’t even remember who floated the idea that I needed to keep my mouth shut first—I think it was Master Keisuke, but I can’t be sure.

That’s not what I said. I said that Master Keisuke had felt it would be best if I didn’t say anything, seeing as if the others knew they would try to kill him.

Nestian said that he was sorry that Keisuke had tricked me. Then he left. And a moment later I heard the loudest roar I’ve ever heard from Nestian, echoing from somewhere else in the Hut.

I was stunned. That is not at all what I had expected. I’m still not entirely sure how to take that last thing he said.

Aenland and Edeya stuck around. Aenland asked me why I stick up for Master Keisuke. He didn’t get it. He said I’m so proud and independent but when it comes to him I chain myself to him. I disagreed, telling him I just take the fact that he saved my life seriously.

Aenland asked if that means he should swear fealty to me, since I brought him back to life. That wasn’t fucking fair. I told Aenland that I didn’t swear fealty to Master Keisuke. Aenland admitted to having maybe exaggerated a bit much, but he still felt that I didn’t owe Keisuke anything.

He placed a hand on my shoulder and told me that if I needed to talk, I knew where to find him. As if I was the one who needed to be comforted! He should have been talking to Nestian, not me.

Aenland left, and Edeya was right behind him. Illivor paused to add that people are more than the people they owe, they’re the actions they take. She knew that all too well.

…I want to make a snide comment about how deep in the pit my life has sunk to be getting comfort and life advice from the former head of the Winter Witches, but honestly, yeah, she does have the lived experience.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I want to do. Greta convinced me not to warn Master Keisuke that the others know for the time being, incase I need him for anything in the near future and want to make contact without him knowing that 90% of my friends want him dead. I want to trust Master Keisuke. He’s been nothing but good to me so far. And if I go with trusting him, I don’t want the others to kill him. But there’s a wary part of me starting to worry that he’s playing a long game and I’m just a piece in it. And if that’s the case…

Well…we’ll just see what happens, I suppose. I don’t really want to think about it. It makes me…unhappy to consider.

[stevenwmiller]

Join me Sat Jan 26 from 5-7pm @byrdeandtheb 10 Titus Rd Washington CT for an artist reception for Steven Miller paintings and Woody Campbell photos www.stevenwmiller.com #www.woodycampbell.com #byrdeandtheb #stevenmiller #woodycampbell #art #opening #exhibition #explorewashingtonct #live #color #interiordesign #photography #picoftheday #artistoninstagram #artist #nyc #ct #la #miami #litchfieldcounty #contemporaryart #abstractart #style https://www.instagram.com/p/BtGoGRzl3VVISA-FHL1w09AC-yRaX-AdSnfkiE0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=10g1wcwkn9c7l

[nonviable-hostage]

via exercise performance scientific - Google News

[wherethewolfsbaneblooms]

Full body of the big albino dude. Dubbed “the Great White” by the common folk. Tap for better quality. Inspired by the lovely HotD dragon sketches by Siosin on Instagram.

[wherethewolfsbaneblooms]

Not Resident Evil related, but here’s a sketch of my two Game of Thrones dragon OCs, Nagga and Yraxes. Yes, Yraxes is an albino and he is the offspring of Drogon.

Disclaimer: Do not copy/trace/steal my art. If reposted, please credit me. Art and characters belongs to me. Thanks!

[grimm-rider]

Entry 15

The Dominion ship had crashed into Ivoryglass, destroying most of the rooms we otherwise would have been exploring. The only room left was the Golemworks. We decided to check it first, as it was one of the rooms left that might have the other half of the key in it. I hoped it would have the key, as that would mean we wouldn’t have to go into the fleshy pulsating Dominion ship.

But, of course, we weren’t so lucky. All we found in the Golemworks were a bunch of corpses Yrax had planned on mashing together into a carrion golem, and some potentially useful scrolls.

Which meant we had to enter the Dominion Dropship if we wanted to keep looking for the key.

Or ‘go in through the butthole’ as Aenland so eloquently put it.

Not an image I needed in reference to a Dominion ship. Mind breaking horrors are not high on my list of creatures whose asses I want to play with.

Regardless, we entered the ship. There was a godsawful alarm blaring, and an alert going off in the Dominion’s native tongue warning of potential intruders. I told the others that they’d be expecting us, since I was pretty sure none of them understood it—I only did since I still had Tongues going.

There were two doors in, and given the size of the ship it seemed reasonable to assume they both led to the same place. We decided to split up and pincer whoever—whatever—was inside.

I joined Aenland on the lefthand side with Greta, while Nestian and Edeya took the right.

…Looking back, I’m glad I decided to take the same side as Aenland. I just did it on a whim, there wasn’t any real plan behind following Aenland instead of Nestian. But I made the right choice, none-the-less.

Aenland and Nevra swooped inside first. They went out of sight for a moment. I heard the telltale crackle of electricity, and the fwip of arrows. Then I heard an unfamiliar sound—similar to the lightning, but different. More intense, somehow. And then Aenland cried out. He sounded severely hurt.

Greta charged forward, around the corner. I followed suit, Talsune flapping under the door then swooping up over Greta’s head. In the room there was a horrible incorporeal mass of tentacles emitting an otherworldly aura. There was a purple lumpy creature with four spindly legs, a single tentacle tipped in a stinger, and four bulbus masses at the end of stalks on its back that held brains. And there was a large vat of what appeared to be a brightly colored ooze.

And there was Aenland, holding a gaping wound in his stomach where a hole had been blasted right through him.

Talsune finished taking a slice at the mass of tentacles and I threw a Flame Strike at the ooze and the purple creature, trying to clear the way to Aenland. But then said spindly legged creature—which looked like it was already on its last legs with half a dozen arrows jutting out of it—pointed its tentacle at Aenland and cast an unfamiliar spell. Whatever it cast, Aenland’s eyes immediately widened, then went dark—the bright purple sheen over them faded to black, and Aenland fell. There was no breath in his lungs.

I didn’t need to be an expert on the dead to know a corpse when I saw one.

Nevra immediately scooped him up, cradling his body protectively from the enemies.

I already had plans formulating in my head, my hand reaching for the bag of holding.

I barely registered Nestian and Edeya entering the room on the other side of the hall, fighting the other mass of tentacles, seeing Aenland’s body from afar.

I barely registered when that ooze in a can shot a powerful beam of fire and electricity at Nestian—which would explain the strange electrical sound I’d heard before. Nestian took the shot head-on like a champ, like he always does, but it still must have hurt. I could smell singed fur, even from the other side of the room.

I barely registered Nevra turning on the bulbous purple creature, cutting off its single tentacle, and then spearing it straight through—dead. A fitting end for the thing that had killed her partner.

Talsune and I were flying just within reach of her. I reached down to Nevra, and called out, telling her to lift Aenland up to me. She did as I asked without question. I didn’t have enough time to think through what I was doing—I was on a tight time limit with this spell. I read the spell off the scroll, holding the scroll in one hand and holding out my other hand to Aenland, trusting Talsune to keep me on his back. I felt the burn on my fingertips of positive energy, as if I were holding my hand up to the sun itself as the magic turned from the deep blacks and purples of negative energy to the bright gold of positive energy. Talsune snarled beneath me in reaction, feeling it through me as well. But it had to be done.

I cast the Breath of Life scroll. The positive energy flowed into Aenland’s lungs, and a moment later he gasped in a breath of his own. He was still badly hurt—very badly hurt—but he was alive. That’s what mattered.

Aenland thanked me, and I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. I wonder if this is how he felt when I tried to thank him for saving me and Edeya from the Crone Queen back in the heart of the Dancing Hut, and he said of course he did it, because we’re friends. Like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. I thought the entire notion was ridiculous at the time, because at the time I found Aenland impossible to stand. I suppose now…it holds some merit.

Anyways, there was no time for that just then. We were still in the middle of combat. Nestian attacked one of those tentacle creatures—which I identified as Neshmaal. A moment later Aenland was back in the fray and popped both of the Neshmaal, before Nevra made the executive decision to retreat out of the room before the ooze could train its beam on the severely weakened archer.

It aimed at me instead.

Thank the gods, it must not have gotten a clear shot as it recalculated its aim from Aenland’s fleeing form to me and Talsune, as it just grazed me, and only some fire flicked harmless across Talsune’s scales.

Nestian and Greta began slashing at the vat that held the ooze, while I retaliated with another Flame Strike. Nevra flew back into the room, zipping around the corner into the Captian’s Quarter’s for cover before breathing lightning at the ooze’s vat, followed by Aenland’s arrows. The container cracked and shattered, leaving the ooze that was the heart of the Dominion ship free.

The ooze tried to cast a spell on me—touch of idiocy—and used its other tendrils to try to smash Nestian and Greta. Only Nestian failed to dodge, standing his ground against the large tendril smashing down on him. The ooze held its spell charge, but for the time being it didn’t touch me.

That was all the time I needed. We threw everything we had at it, and a moment later the ooze lost its form and melted away.

We found the other half of the amulet that made the key to the illusory wall. I took it, and we left that awful undulating room.

When I put the pieces of the key together and held it up to the wall, nothing visibly changed about the wall itself. It was still an illusory wall. But when I placed a hand on it, it passed through thin air. As any normal illusion would once you know the trick.

We passed through the wall and found ourselves in the antechamber just outside of Yrax’s true throne room. Unfortunately it was also the disposal pit. Three pillars of ice stood vigilant around the room—which we quickly identified as frozen Elder Water Elementals. And there was something churning within the disposal pit, which we couldn’t see, although we’d heard others say something about some type of ooze.

The elementals knew that their element (ha) of surprise was lost, so they burst from the ice and attacked.

As we fought off the elementals, a white ooze bubbled its way out of the disposal pit. Aenland tried to shoot it with an arrow, but all that did was caused it to split in half. Nestian’s axe had the same effect. Aenland had cleared out a couple of the water elementals, but now we were in a room of rapidly multiplying oozes. I decided to clear the numbers a bit with something I was sure wouldn’t split them, and cast a mass inflict light wounds. Two of the smaller white oozes burst from the negative energy instantly, leaving only the larger half to contend with. Greta took care of the water elemental while Aenland took the Adamantine Warhammer from his bag and smashed the last ooze, leaving the room silent.

Not for long. A moment later the ice above us shimmered, and once again Yrax’s ugly scaled face took up the reflective ice roof, looking down on us. He said, as a gracious host, he would let us leave, even now after all the trouble we’d caused. We could just walk away. Obviously we laughed in his face at the very idea.

Nestian brought up that he was holding our friend hostage. Yrax asked if we meant Cesseer. He called her to his side. She gave us a cold look, but it was a practiced coldness, and she was unarmed besides her sword—all the rest of her equipment was in my bag of holding. She hadn’t come here prepared to defeat us. She wanted us to save her, just like she’d told me. Anything else was just a ruse for Yrax’s sake.

I wanted to warn her about what he might be planning to do to her—maybe even give her an out for her contract if what he was doing was horrible enough to breach it, I didn’t know how Battleflower contracts worked. So I asked Yrax if he’d told ‘his Battleflower’ about what he’d been doing to the other Battleflowers. Yrax had a moment of confusion, then laughed, noting I meant the Dominion’s experiments. Then he, to Cesseer’s face, told her that he’d been giving weaker Battleflowers to the Dominion to use in their experiments.

‘But don’t worry, they weren’t as strong as you are.’

Bastard. Twisted lunatic. If I didn’t swear to Norgorber to kill him, I’d swear to any other god who would listen. That dragon’s head was mine.

While I stewed, Aenland noted that Yrax was scared of us. Yrax refused to acknowledge the notion, and cut the spell short, inviting us to try to fight him if we were so confident.

So we did. We stepped into the next room, and saw the dragon face-to-face for the first time. He was perched on a wall of ice high above us, with Cesseer on one side, and the Bone Sage removing some sort of tube of nasty looking liquid—a similar color to the Dominion ship’s ooze, I think—from his back.

Aenland and Nestian had words for the dragon—very inspirational things about how we were going to defeat him and end his reign, or about how he was a bad host, or something I’m sure. I felt that the blowhard warlord was beneath me. I focused my attention on Cesseer instead. With my telepathy, so that Yrax would be none-the-wiser, I assured her ‘We’re going to get you out of here’.

Yrax roared, and smashed something on the ground. It was an object we’d seen elsewhere in Ivoryglass—a golden egg filled with blood. Smoke billowed out, and there was a terrible flesh rending noise, and when it cleared the white dragon no longer stood perched above us. Instead a far more massive dragon with pulsing marks the same color as the liquid he’d been pumped full of—the same color as the ooze controlling the Dominion’s ship—stood above us, with the Bone Sage riding astride his back. The way they moved so perfectly in sync with each other, it was clear that they had artificially created the same bond between themselves that Dragonkin have with their riders. A bond created through a mutual desire to dominate and destroy.

The thing about Yrax, and most chromatic dragons—he’s plenty powerful, but he doesn’t know how to use any of it. He’ll just take over a plot of land, force some servitor race into doing his bidding, and then sit on a hoard of treasure and call it a day until someone with a sharper sword comes in and slays him for sitting in the wrong spot. Dragons always think they’re at the top of the food chain, and never plan ahead for when they aren’t.

In short, Yrax was a blunt instrument. Unfortunately, that instrument was now being directed by the Bone Sage, which made him a legitimate threat. The Bone Sage was an actually cunning opponent, unlike the self-proclaimed Lord of the Howling Storm. With the Bone Sage’s mind directing Yrax’s raw power, this was suddenly a far more dangerous fight than we’d come prepared for.

That obviously didn’t stop us. Even if Baba Yaga’s geass would have let us turn tail and run, we weren’t leaving Cesseer in his clutches. I wasn’t leaving Cesseer in his clutches. Not when he’d bragged to her face about how he’d let the Dominion hollow out her fellow Battleflowers and use them as puppets, as casually as if he’d been discussing the weather.

Yrax and the Eoxian flew over us. The Bone Sage cast a spell, and in a massive burst dispelled many of the spells we’d had on us in preparation for this fight—putting us on our back foot from the start. Then Yrax breathed in and let out a burst of icy breath that made an Irriseni winter seem positively balmy. Then he strained himself, pulling energy from the Bone Sage to move unnaturally fast back to his perch.

In the same moment, Cesseer vanished from her spot at his side, and reappeared in front of Nestian. I saw her mouth ‘I’m sorry’ before she went to kick him in the stomach. But our bear friend stepped aside. Then he dodged around a second attack as he completely ignored her and drew his axe to fight one of Yrax’s remaining loyal Dragonkin riders instead.

Aenland looked at Cesseer, then flew with Nevra past her, making a beeline for Yrax and the Bone Sage. As he did, I heard him through the Stone of Farspeech. He warned me that there was an Intellect Devourer on her back, poised to strike her neck the second she went down.

Like fuck there was.

As Aenland began trying to lay into the dragon and his undead rider, I telepathically reached out to Cesseer again. As I cast See Invisibility on myself with a scroll I’d been saving for…months now, probably…I told her not to panic, but that one of those experiments Yrax had mentioned was on her back right now. Then I quickened an Inflict Light Wounds, pushed her head aside, and touched the disgusting brain-like monstrosity instead. It reeled in surprise at having been seen and injured.

Using my senses to detect where the invisible monstrosity was, Talsune followed up with a slash through the surprisingly tough alien creature.

On my shoulder, Illivor flared out her wings, using the reflective glittery quality of her fairy-dragon body to our advantage to try to distract Cesseer and keep me from getting punched in the face too much.

I saw the awful brain-thing begin making movements as if to cast. I couldn’t get a good purchase to stab into it, its rubbery hide was too thick, but Talsune brought his blade down on the creature and it spasmed and lost the spell it was about to cast in my general direction.

I heard a distant crash as Yrax threw himself against the wall. I glanced up just long enough to note that Aenland was no longer on Nevra’s back. But I couldn’t focus on that just then. I had to trust that Aenland would take care of himself this time, or that someone else would get him out of whatever pinch he was in, because I had to keep my full focus on Cesseer and that Intellect Devourer on her back.

Cesseer told me she wished this could have been in any other context, before she swung a kick at me—and missed. Then a punch—another miss. It continued like this. She was fighting defensively—far more defensively than was necessary against the likes of me. It was obvious that she was pulling her punches. Not obvious enough to get through Yrax’s thick skull, it would seem, as he yelled at her to fight better, completely oblivious that it was a purposeful ruse. The Bone Sage seemed less than amused at the stupidity, which probably felt contagious with their minds linked like that.

Talsune struck the brain monster on Cesseer’s back again. I decided I’d had enough of this thing. I cast Slay Living, and let the black fires engulf the Intellect Devourer.

Yet still, somehow it clung to life. So I called on one final Quickened Inflict Light Wounds. I grabbed the creature. For a moment it felt like the spell wasn’t going to take against the force of its resistance—so I threw in the last of my power as the Black Rider for the day and forced the spell through. I pulled the Intellect Devourer off Cesseer’s back, whispering to her as I did: ‘I promised you everything would be okay’.

The brain-like monstrosity decayed away and turned to dust in my hand, not even a skeleton left.

The moment was ruined when Aenland was violently punched to the ground from over a hundred feet above our heads, somehow managing to roll to his feet despite leaving an impressive crater in the ground where he’d impacted.

Then from out of the left of my vision, Nestian barreled in and grabbed Cesseer. He told me to go and help the others, and he’d take care of things here. After what just happened to Aenland, I knew my remaining spells would be best spent elsewhere, so I agreed and strode into the center of the battlefield. Aenland had pulled himself back up and onto Nevra’s back, flying up into the air so his partner could breath a burst of lightning at both rider and dragon. A strange cracked barrier absorbed the blow. Then Aenland began shooting arrows, until the barrier broke and the remaining arrows found purchase in the Bone Sage’s flesh.

I snapped a bone in my fist and tried to shatter Yrax’s great draconic bones, but he resisted the worst of it, his bones creaking and bending but never quite shattering. At the same time, Talsune flew over my head and swooped in at Yrax to try a hit and run attack—unfortunately his sword clashed against hard scales, sending sparks flying but not doing any real damage. He flew back a safe distance.

Over my shoulder I saw Greta run in to help Nestian. She transformed into her wolf form, placing a paw on Cesseer to press her into the ground and keep her in place. I wondered if Greta was getting any amusement from holding down my ex-lover.

My attention was drawn back to Yrax and the Bone Sage, as the Eoxian once again dispelled a number of spells on us—nothing from me this time, as all the magic on me had already been used up or dispelled. Then Yrax breathed out another deadly cold breath. Fortunately, Aenland was the worst off of the people caught in it, and he’d had Protection from Energy: Cold cast on him before we went into this fight, so he came out no worse for the wear.

Aenland peppered the Bone Sage with arrows again, and I grabbed him with Boneshaker and tried to rip him apart—but he used a power that looked strikingly similar to when we use the Black Rider’s power to hold himself together.

Then Illivor popped her head out from around Edeya’s neck—where she’d moved to once I was no longer facing down Cesseer. She flapped her shiny little wings and shot out a magic missile, hitting the Bone Sage and breaking apart the power that was holding him together, letting my Boneshaker rip him apart.

All that was left was Yrax.

The dragon laughed, saying he’d planned on betraying the Bone Sage anyways, so this tied up loose ends for him.

Yrax was low enough to the ground for Nestian to charge him in the flying cauldron, and cut into him with his axe.

Aenland shot a flurry of arrows at the overgrown dragon, holy arrows tearing through wings and cracking through scales.

Yrax bellowed out a roar and that same power I’d seen the Bone Sage coalesced around him, allowing him to move with unnatural speed as he lashed out at Nestian.

Not fast enough, as I caught him with Boneshaker, and tried to force the great beastly dragon to bow before me. The stubborn creature resisted. And then there was a ripping, tearing, gristly noise of flesh opening up as his skull and part of his spinal cord were ripped clean from his body.

He never bowed, for all the good it did him.

I was dusting off my clothes and considering if it would actually be possible to take his skull as a souvenir or if I should just take a tooth, when Cesseer jovially challenged us to race to Yrax’s hoard before she immediately teleported herself up on top of that big wall of ice and began running for the huge metal doors in the back of the room. I yelled after her that she was cheating. Talsune had already swooped down to my side without me needing to call for him, and I leapt on his back and began to race after her. The others, in their various methods, weren’t far behind.

Then we all stopped dead as we entered into a room filled with more treasure than any of us had ever seen in our lives. At least, as far as I remember I’d never seen this much treasure in my life. It was a true dragon’s hoard. Piles of coins: gold, silver, copper, even platinum. Rare art, fine jewels and jewelry, rare and obscure objects of incredible value. A huge chunk of adamantine. Just a big chunk of it, like a big dense reflective metallic rock.

And, of course, there was the bear-skin rug. The key to the next location the Dancing Hut was to take us to in our search for Baba Yaga.

As we left the treasure hoard, we also searched the dragon and the Bone Sage for their possessions. Obviously, I took the Grip of Death—that strange technological spinal wand that the Bone Sage had used to throw Aenland backwards and rip out a piece of his soul the first time we’d fought. It might only have 1 charge left, but it would be well worth it when I found a use for it. Besides it just fits my aesthetic.

The Bone Sage also had a strange device on him with a large red button. As we didn’t know what it did, we initially left it alone. However as we spoke, the ground beneath us began trembling again and we were knocked from our feet. The Crimson Worms were still making their way steadily towards the Winter Collector. We couldn’t make it to them—and even if we could, we were in no shape to fight two Dominion-touched Crimson Worms. We were running on fumes after that fight. I was completely out of my most powerful spells—and I was almost completely out of Boneshakers too. After that all I’d have were some inflict spells and that’s it. Edeya was in a similar place expect replace powerful death magic with powerful healing magic. Aenland was still badly hurt, too. We were in no position to go hunting down two worms that were far more deadly than the two that very nearly did Talsune in in the caverns beneath this very fortress.

Cesseer noted that surely if the Dominion had released them, they had back up plans for uncase the worms went rogue. I noted that if that were the case, then the Bone Sage had likely had it on his person. The others were about to go through his stuff again, but I had already made up my mind about what the correct course of action was. I pressed the red button on the device the Bone Sage had held.

We heard two very distant noises, like heavily muffled explosions. The rumbling stopped. Aenland declared that they must have been summoned creatures, and that button sent them back to their home plane. I knew that was definitely not how that worked, and if that sound was anything to go off of, the two worms had probably exploded in a gory mess miles below the surface of the ice. But Aenland didn’t need to know that, so I didn’t correct him.

With treasures packed away, enemies defeated, and Cesseer saved, we made our way out of Ivoryglass and back towards our waiting allies.

[parasite-core]

Last night in Pathfinder, we fought through a downed Dominion ship, had a death in the party, and faced the dreaded Lord of the Howling Storm and his Eoxian Bone Sage ally.

@scarlet-the-girl

Before us was the wreckage of the downed Dominion Dropship. But there was also the undamaged Golemworks that we could look into. We decided to check out the Golemworks first, and found a bunch of corpses meant to make a carrion golem, and some scrolls, but not the key we were seeking. The only way left was inside the Dropship, so we decided to explore the Dominion ship.

Inside Calio could identify some alerts going off as warning the remaining crew to be prepared for intruders—so the party knew they weren’t going to be getting the element of surprise on this one. Instead, we split up into two groups to try to pincer them between us.

Aenland flew in ahead of us. He saw the ship’s captain—a Deh-nolo—and what appeared to be a vat of ooze. Nevra breathed electricity at both. Aenland shot a slurry of arrows at the captain, bringing him dangerously low before he’d even acted.

Unfortunately, next up was the ooze—the Dominion Ship Mind—which aimed a plasma bolt at Aenland, shooting a beam straight through his abdomen when it crit.

A moment later more combatants joined the battle, as the door to the Captain’s Quarters opened and two Neshmaal appeared. One flew out, and caught Aenland with its Aura of Alien Dread—but he resisted it. Then it lashed out at him, but while he was hit by a small amount of tendril damage, he wasn’t level drained.

Greta joined the fight, but she was too far back to do anything immediately, except resist the Aura of Alien Dread herself.

Calio and Talsune flew in. Talsune breathed fire on the Neshmaal in front of them, then Calio called down a Flame Strike on the ship’s captain and the Dominion Ship Mind’s container.

The second Neshmaal entered the room and threw an attack at Aenland.

Then it was the Deh-nolo’s turn, and he placed his whole fury upon Aenland for the only attack he was going to get, casting Synapse Overload, a spell that doesn’t exist on Golarian at this time, which completely fried Aenland’s brain before he could even comprehend what had happened. Aenland fell dead, his eyes usually covered by a purple sheen now black.

Nestian entered the room, saw what had happened, and had to focus on the enemies around him instead, attacking the Neshmaal. Edeya joined him a moment later, hovering over his shoulder.

Nevra turned on the Deh-nolo that had killed her partner. With two graceful swings of her glaive, she took off the hand that had cast the fatal spell, and then skewered the creature’s head. Then she cradled Aenland’s body in her arms, until Calio told her to lift his body up to him and Talsune. She did as he asked.

Calio burned his Breath of Life scroll and resurrected Aenland—bringing him back with 6 hp above 0, so the Life Pact Calio had cast on him that donated 6 hp when he went unconscious made the difference.

The party turned things around, with Nevra getting Aenland to safety in the next room after he killed the two Neshmaal with Ghost Touch Arrows, Calio dodging the worst of the Ship Mind’s plasma after Nestian tanked a second crit from it, Calio damaging the tank with another Flame Strike and Greta and Nestian damaging it as well, and finally Aenland and Nevra popping the Ship Mind’s container, revealing the ooze within.

The Ship Mind tried to lash out at Calio, Greta, and Nestian—and tried to hit Calio with a Touch of Idiocy—but it missed everyone but Nestian.

We continued to chip away at it, until finally the ooze quit moving.

The party found some items—including the other half of the key they needed to pass through the illusory wall leading to Yrax’s chambers.

The party checked in with Aenland to make sure he was okay, healed, and then made their way to the wall. Calio activated the key, and stepped through the wall—still an illusion, still identical to how it was before, but no longer solid.

The party found themselves in a frozen over room with three ice pillars. The party immediately identified these as frozen elder water elementals. The elementals knew the party knew, and they smashed out of their icy shell and attacked, foregoing the surprise round.

As the party fought the water elementals, a white pudding ooze bubbled its way up out of the disposal pit that it had been resting within. Aenland tried to shoot it—but his arrow only caused it to split in half. So he spent the rest of his arrows clearing out a few of the water elementals. Greta went to slash at the ooze with her axe to the same effect—it split into two even smaller halves. Calio hit a water elemental and all of the oozes with a mass Inflict Light Wounds, which killed the two smallest oozes. Nestian bit the ooze, which didn’t cause it to split, and Aenland took out his Adamantine Warhammer and smashed the last remaining ooze, squashing it.

The ice above them shimmered as the party took a moment to heal themselves before what was inevitably the final encounter of Ivoryglass. Above them, Yrax’s visage appeared once more. He claimed that as a gracious host, he would let us leave, despite all the trouble we’d caused. We essentially told him to shove it. We also got him to show us Cesseer—she was still alive and not controlled by an Intellect Devourer.

Calio asked Yrax if ‘his Battleflower’ knew what he’d been doing to all those other Battleflowers down below. Cesseer looked horrified as Yrax openly told her that he had let the Dominion experiment on other Battleflowers—but he assured her they were all weaker than her.

The party entered the next room after Yrax ended communications. Up above, on a 60ft wall towering above them, was Yrax the Lord of the Howling Storm, having some sort of tube removed from his back by the Bone Sage.

Aenland told him once again what a terrible host he was, while Nestian told him that we were going to stop the horrors he had brought to this land and its people. Calio didn’t bother talking to Yrax, instead telepathically reaching out to Cesseer and assuring her that they were going to get her out of here.

With a roar, Yrax broke a golden egg with the blood of a vortex dragon in his claws, and smoke began to billow out. When it cleared, the huge white dragon had changed. He was now gargantuan, with green markings pulsating across his body—reminiscent of a vortex dragon. On his back was the Bone Sage, who had formed a mental connection with him, like that of a Dragonkin—but for them it was a bond forged with the mutual desire to conquer and subjugate everything in their paths.

As the battle began, Aenland saw something cloaked in magic on Cesseer’s back with his special eyes. He couldn’t immediately make out what it was.

Yrax and the Bone Sage started us off. The Bone Sage dispelled some of our spells, while Yrax swooped down and breathed an icy cold breath over all of us, only to swoop back up to the safety of his perch afterwards.

Cesseer vanished from her spot and reappeared in front of Nestian. She mouthed an apology to him before going in for a kick to stun him—and missed.

Nestian decided that Cesseer wasn’t his priority, so he stepped around her—avoiding her attack of opportunity—and went after one of Yrax’s Dragonkin Riders instead.

Aenland got a better look at Cesseer now that she was closer, and could tell for certain the shape on her back was an Intellect Devourer—and it was poised to strike Cesseer’s spinal cord. Nevra and Aenland flew up level with Yrax and the Bone Sage, then Aenland messaged Calio through the Stone of Farspeech, telling him what he’d seen and letting him know that he’d need to take care of it, because Aenland had other things he needed to deal with. They turned their attention to the Bone Sage. Nevra hit the Sage and Yrax with a lightning breath, and Aenland shot a number of arrows into the Sage—only none of these attacks hit their targets, instead beginning to crack a barrier around the Sage and his enormous draconic mount.

Calio telepathically told Cesseer not to panic, but that the experiment Yrax had been talking about was on her back. Then he cast See Invisibility on himself from a scroll, leapt off Talsune’s back, and cast a Quickened Inflict Light Wounds on the Intellect Devourer. Talsune followed suit, using Calio’s senses to determine where the alien brain monster was and stabbing it with his greatsword.

Illivor, on Calio’s shoulder, began flaring out her small glittery fairy dragon wings as a distraction to help with Calio’s defenses, seeing that he was in a potentially dangerous position right next to Cesseer—who despite being betrayed by Yrax was obligated to fight to the death for him.

The Intellect Devourer tried to cast Confusion on Calio, but it provoked an attack from Talsune and the spell fizzled from the damage it took.

The Bone Sage tried to Disintegrate Aenland—he survived due to Edeya donating her last Hero Point to him. Then Yrax grabbed Aenland in his massive maw and flew him into the nearest wall.

Cesseer went to attack Calio, saying she wished this was in any other context. However she was fighting more defensively than necessary against an opponent like Calio, and she was pulling her punches—between that and Illivor’s distracting presence, none of her kicks or punches landed. Much to Calio’s shock.

Nestian took out one of the Drakelander riders, and was now only facing one Dragonkin and one pair of Dragonkin and Rider, instead of two pairs.

Aenland tried to throw his Suggestive Tea down Yrax’s throat, but the relatively weak magic of the tea didn’t take hold against a dragon’s willpower. Aenland told him that that’s how you properly host someone, you offer them refreshments. Yrax was enraged and seemed to decide what he was going to do with Aenland.

Talsune attacked the Intellect Devourer, once again striking true using Calio’s senses.

Then Calio decided he was going to finish it. He cast his final use of Slay Living on the Intellect Devourer. When it was still just barely standing with that, he cast Quicken Inflict Light Wounds, and used his final Hero Point to get past spell resistance when he otherwise wouldn’t have. He pulled the Intellect Devourer from Cesseer’s back, its body being eaten away by the negative energy and finally revealed from invisibility, as he whispered to her ‘I promised everything would be okay.’

Yrax grabbed Aenland in his claws and tossed him, then meteor punched him to the ground.

Nestian, seeing that there was no longer an Intellect Devourer on Cesseer, ran over to her and grappled her to free up Calio.

Cesseer, instead of trying to break the grapple, tried weakly to fight back—none of her attacks connecting. Yrax still hadn’t caught on, but the Bone Sage saw clearly what Cesseer was doing.

Aenland jumped back onto Nevra and they flew up. Nevra breathed a lightning breath at both the Bone Sage and Yrax, damaging the forcefield again. Aenland shot an arrow at the Sage, and shattered the forcefield. The rest of the arrows went into the Bone Sage.

Calio remained on the ground off Talsune’s back for the time being, instead running onto the battlefield and casting his final use of Boneshatter on Yrax. He resisted the worst of it, but still took some damage. Talsune flew up and tried to take a slash at Yrax, but his blade met hard scales and he retreated.

Greta took over the grapple from Nestian, transforming into her Winter Wolf form and placing a large paw on top on Cesseer to hold her in place while Nestian got in the flying Cauldron to join the fight.

The Bone Sage once again dispelled some of the party’s buffs, while Yrax breathed out his ice breath at those flying in range. Aenland was looking bad, but thankfully still had protection from energy: cold on so he took no damage.

Cesseer once again ‘tried’ unsuccessfully to hit Greta—who it only just now clicked for that Cesseer was pulling her punches on purpose.

Aenland peppered the Bone Sage with arrows. Calio Boneshakered him—leaving him on his last legs when he used a Villain Point to make the save.

Then Illivor popped up from around Edeya’s neck and finished him with a simple Magic Missile, ending his blight on this universe forever.

Yrax didn’t seem terribly torn up about it, commenting that he’d planned on betraying the creep at some point anyways.

Yrax had flown low enough to the ground for Nestian to charge in the cauldron, so charge he did.

Aenland peppered the dragon with arrows.

The dragon used his final Villain Point to act out of turn and tried to finish off Nestian in a blaze of glory, but he failed.

Calio saw the dragon was hurting, and used one last Boneshaker on it—trying to force Yrax to bow via his skull, but instead ripping his skull (and some of his spine) clean from his body.

With Yrax dead, Cesseer was no longer contract bound to fight us, so we let her go. She immediately challenged us to race her to Yrax’s treasure, and teleported up to the door, which Calio declared as cheating while he scrambled to get on Talsune’s back and catch up.

The party found a true dragon’s hoard—all free to take per their agreement with the Dragon Legion. And one item in it was the bearskin rug—the next key to the Dancing Hut that would lead us to the missing Baba Yaga.

[grimm-rider]

Entry 14

I was anxious about this mission even before we discovered the Winter Collector hidden beneath Ivoryglass. Talsune had called me on it the night before.

Okay, maybe not really ‘called me on it’ so much as checked in on why he was feeling my anxiety. Anyways, since I couldn’t hide it from him anyways, I was honest with him. Those brain monsters from before had set me on edge.

He gave me a knowing look, and asked if I was worried about ‘the other Battleflower’. Obviously! Obviously I am. They might have been hollowing her out and sticking one of those alien brain things into her head while we dicked around, and what the fuck could I do about it? Apparently in the past I had promised her that she would be alright. Some promise that turned out to be. Why the hell had I said that? I could have said any number of things, but I had to go and promise her that everything would be alright before telling her I’d take her away from this planet.

And then I left.

It’s not like she’s the first person I’ve ever left behind. Not even the first person I’ve broken a promise to in doing so. But this feels different. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because I don’t remember doing it. Maybe if I could remember leaving her, remember making the choice to toy with her, I would feel as cold about it as ever. But…I don’t know. Those weren’t just some small stupid promises like the ones I’d made and broken in the past. Broken hearts are one thing, they’ll eventually get over them and move on, they’re basically meaningless. But why would I promise to get her off this planet if I didn’t plan on delivering? Give her hope of escaping this gilded prison just to snatch it away? That’s…pretty low, even for me. Even worse if I had even an inkling of Yrax’s connection to the Dominion—and how far he might go with it.

Even if I give myself the benefit of the doubt and assume I thought I was going to be coming back for the keys, that was clearly too little too late. And frankly I’m not giving myself that much benefit of the doubt. I have no idea what I had planned back then, what I was up to, why I was going to the places I was. I still don’t even know if I was really on Elvana’s or Baba Yaga’s side in this damn fight. Since I was with Elvana, there’s not a chance I could have taken Cesseer with me back then. Which means either I intended to come back for her, or I intended to abandon her, and I don’t know which it was, and frankly I don’t know if it matters which it was. Either way, I went and lost my memories, and ended up here too late to convince her to leave without fighting for Yrax, and now she might be killed and hollowed out to be puppeteered by an alien consciousness.

I feel…bad. I could hardly force myself to eat, and I feel this roiling feeling inside, and I hate it. I want to hurry up and save her so I can quit worrying and feeling like…this.

These people are making me soft. I’ve never felt like this before. I hate it.

And this was the mindset I was in when Edeya revealed that the machine Cesseer had seen Elvana working on with Yrax—the one I had told her not to worry about—was a Winter Collector. One of the machines used by Baba Yaga to create the eternal cold in Irrisen. An artifact of immense power. Virtually indestructible. Able to freeze over an entire country. Maybe even enough to freeze an entire world if in the wrong hands.

And Elvana had been toying with it.

Wrong hands, indeed.

We didn’t have time to discuss, when all hell broke loose. A shadow fell over us as the hole in the top of glacier leading up into the sky fell dark. Something both technological and mechanical passed overhead—my fractured memories helpfully provided a name: a Dominion Dropship. Almost as soon as I warned the others that it was a Dominion ship, nightmare creatures began to drop from it. Along with two enormous crimson worms, which began burrowing into the ice the moment they touched the ground. From the angle, I had a sinking feeling they were heading for the Winter Collector—and I wasn’t the only one who thought so, as Edeya voiced the same.

All around us, Drakelanders began erupting into monstrous forms. Their Dragonkin mounts began twisting and mutating like Malesinder had. Those who were left shouted in horror and betrayal. I heard someone yell that Yrax had played them. Many fled. Those that were left did the sensible thing and joined forces with the Dragon Legion to defend their planet from the terrors from between the stars. How long this truce will last beyond this battle is anyone’s guess—old grudges and generations of war aren’t buried over a single day’s combat side-by-side. But who knows? Maybe some of them will bury their differences.

Gods that sounds sappy. Like something Nestian would wish for. I’m just making observations. It seems likely some of them might bury the hatchet after this. You don’t fight for your life side-by-side with someone and not come out understanding them at least a little.

…

Yeah.

Anyways.

We had to make a dash for Ivoryglass, but now there was chaos unfolding between us and it. Aenland was the first to move, Nevra flapping forward and the two of them acting as one—Nevra shot a breath of electricity which met Aenland’s arrows, and they shot through the enemies that had blocked their path.

I wasn’t one to be outdone. And I knew exactly how to get across this battlefield untouched. Talsune understood my intent as soon as I began to cast. Screaming flames burst up around the enemies, and Talsune let out a breath of fire to join it, before curling his wings back and diving through the flames, his fireproof scales protecting both of us as we passed through the fire and joined Aenland on the other side.

Greta charged through the enemies in her wolf form, tearing any that were unfortunate enough to get too close apart with her vicious sharp fangs. She was laughing and covered in alien blood when she stopped beside me.

A moment later, Edeya popped into existence beside the rest of us, having teleported across the battlefield with Illivor.

The only person left was Nestian. Our bear friend got into the flying cauldron, and took out Baba Yaga’s Besom. He began flying forward, then flipped the entire thing upside down and clung to the bottom of the cauldron for dear life. Nothing coming from above could touch him, and anything coming from below was beaten back by the Besom. Nestian skidded to a halt with us outside of the gates of Ivoryglass. We saw Captain Bescaylie and Commander Pharamol fly by. Bescaylie held out a hand to a Drakelander, and lifted the former enemy onto Efrixes’ back, to join the fight against the Dominion together.

At the entrance to the fortress, we were met by a Drakelander Seer, much like the Seer on the Dragon Legion’s council. Unlike the warriors outside who understood Yrax’s betrayal and stood to fight against him, this man decided to lay down his life for the dragon.

And lay down his life he did. He only got a single ice-imbued fireball off before Aenland filled him with arrows and left him bleeding on the floor.

Too bad, if he’d been as tough as the sorcerers I’d been considering taking a body to make use of my new Create Undead spell, but he hardly seems worth it.

Still, there’s always the chance that Yrax has another sorcerer or two who are still loyal lurking around somewhere that no one will miss.

The fight wasn’t over just because the Seer was dead. A door to our left swung open, and another of the Drakelander Barbarians charged out at Nestian. I had Talsune swing his blade over our bear friend’s head, catching the Barbarian a couple of times, before I grabbed him with Bomeshaker and tossed him backwards by his own spine. Nestian stepped forward and finished him off a moment later.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone. A second one ran out of the building, dodged around Nestian, and went straight for Edeya. He only cut through the magic of her False Life—and left himself within range of both Greta and Nestian’s axes. He wasn’t going to get a second shot at trying to cut down our dear Edeya.

I didn’t get to watch, however, as at the moment a door to our right opened and two more Barbarians ran out—these two taking swings at Nevra and Talsune. However they clattered against hard scales or were knocked aside by swift wings and tails. The one that attacked Nevra didn’t last long, jabbed by Nevra’s lance and shot through by Nestian’s arrows. Talsune followed suit, slashing through the man who had attacked us, and I grabbed him with a second Boneshaker and tossed him aside. A moment later Greta was beside us, and cut through the man with her axe—the other one had been killed by Nestian while we’d been busy.

Aenland and Edeya went into the guard houses and began opening the next door.

Inside were six grand statues, and what appeared to be an eyeless dragonkin sitting in the back of the room. Edeya identified the creature as half-dragon half-destrachan.

Above us, the mirror-like ice shimmered and Yrax appeared, as if using Irriseni Mirror Sight. But that was impossible, because that spell only worked on actual mirrors, it wouldn’t work on ice, no matter how well polished and mirror-like the surface. So this spell was clearly something unique to the dragon, based on the Winter Witches’ magic, but different.

The dragon greeted us and was surprised we’d survived to enter the fortress. Aenland told him that as our host he should come here in person to greet us, as was proper. He and the dragon began going back and forth about what was proper etiquette—it’s far more amusing when Aenland is being Aenland-y at someone who isn’t me. The dragon eventually gave up in a huff and told us that we should meet him upstairs, and there was someone eagerly awaiting us there. Assuming we could survive fighting his son—Iantor.

My blood felt as cold as the ice, wondering if the ‘someone eagerly awaiting us’ was meant to reference Cesseer. I didn’t dare to ask. If it isn’t her, if he hasn’t realized she wasn’t playing her part of spy and that we—I—care what happens to her…it might put the idea into his head if I say something.

I do wonder. Captain Pharamol hadn’t remembered me from my previous visit. Only a vague ‘she had some companion’. So far Yrax hasn’t shown any sign of remembering me, either. Which could be good, if he’d had any idea I’d talked to Cesseer back then. But it’s strange that I was so…unmemorable, to everyone but Cesseer.

I mean, I’m me. I tend to make myself memorable.

At least to everyone but myself, all things considered, but that’s beside the point. At least I assume it is.

Regardless, the ice had turned back into regular ice, and the half-dragon had stood from his sitting position in the middle of the floor. He noted that his father had just said he was to kill us, so that’s what he was going to do.

So apparently this eyeless thing was Iantor, Yrax’s offspring. He was a rather pathetic looking creature, all told. He had the vivid white scales of his father, up until his face, which was fleshy, bald, and wrinkled like a hairless cat. He was eyeless, with a gaping mouth full of needle-like teeth that were in no way draconic. He was built like a dragonkin, but instead of a strong warrior’s body like Talsune or a sleek dextrious body like Nevra, this creature’s body looked almost bloated. Only its wings were impressive—larger and stronger than our dragonkins’, layered in scales and leather.

Iantor declared that he was going to kill us and offer us up to his father. I informed him that wasn’t going to happen, he was simply going to die here, and his father would soon follow.

The eyeless creature snarled, and three of the nearby statues began to crack. At first it seemed like they would crumble—but then it became clear that something underneath was freeing itself. Three Dominion Fossil Golems. The same thing Nazhena had summoned to fight alongside her from within the Dancing Hut, what felt like so long ago now—but these ones were whole, undamaged. And there were three.

Then Iantor flew forward, but rather than attack us, he flapped his strong wings and whipped up a dust cloud—obscuring much of the room in the very debris his statues had kicked up when they’d broken free. It became difficult to make out Iantor or any of the more distant golems, although one was looming over us.

Nestian held out a hand to Aenland in a silent request. Aenland without a word pulled out the Adamantine Warhammer and passed it over to our bear friend. It was the weapon Aenland had once used to punch through the other Fossil Golem’s defenses. In Nestian’s hands against these ones it was going to be deadly.

Nestian stepped towards the nearest golem, taking the hit like a pro as the fists came down on him, and shrugging off the golem’s attempt to fossilize his body.

As yes, the fossilization. The thing that caused us to have to force hair soup down Aenland’s throat to cure him.

Nestian laid into the golem, bashing huge chunks out of its legs with the warhammer.

The golem lurched forward, and took a second swing at Nestian. A direct hit. Then a second fist came down—not aiming for our bear friend. It was coming straight down for me. I braced myself. But the impact never came. Nestian had thrown himself in front of me, taking the brunt of the blow. And by some miracle, still resisting the fossilization. His fur was slick with his own blood, but he was still standing.

I still don’t understand why Nestian always does that. I…appreciate it. He’s probably saved my life a few times. But I don’t get why he gets himself hurt on my behalf.

Still, in the moment he gave Aenland and Nevra an opening to fly around the lumbering thing and out of the dust cloud. Out of sight. But I could hear the crackle of electricity followed by the thwap of his arrows, and see how the golem’s massive form shuddered and finally fell a moment later. And the sound of arrows didn’t stop—another Fossil Golem on the opposite end of the dust cloud, difficult to see through the debris, began to hesitate and shudder.

One of those massive silhouettes moved forward, faster than one might expect of its lumbering form—running straight for Greta. It swung. But it was the one Aenland had damaged, and he had apparently damaged it immensely, because rather than bringing a fist down on my dear Greta, the massive construct’s arm fell off mid-swing.

The last remaining silhouette moved forward, taking a swing towards Edeya, not far from me. Nestian pulled her out of the way, taking the blow just as he had for me. He looked badly battered. There was no way he could keep taking blows like that for us.

Talsune and I stepped away from Nestian and Edeya, lining up the golem and Iantor for a flame breath. Then when they were crispy I Boneshattered Iantor, followed by a Quickened Boneshaker, which I used to brad Iantor down onto the head of the golem by his own shattered twisted shards of bone. With his form forcefully grounded, the dust cloud settled.

Which meant there was nothing to keep Aenland from going to town.

Iantor swooped down, landing before us, and let out the most awful noise. It felt like it tore through my skin and bones with the sound.

It was the last thing he did. His cry had not been loud enough to reach Aenland and Nevra, flying high above us. They swooped down, Nevra impaled Iantor with her glaive, and as they flew Aenland unleased his arrows into the last remaining Fossil Golem (the third one fell at some point in between the dust cloud falling and Iantor howling at us, I missed what exactly happened to it.)

The room fell silent. We spent some time healing, and looked over the room. We found a place for a fourth Fossil Golem that had been absent—our standing theory is that the one Nazhena had thrown at us had come from here. Maybe Elvana had taken it on her way out the last time we’d visited.

Once our wounds were healed to our satisfaction, we continued forward. We quickly came upon a three-way crossroads. We could see up ahead was a chamber with what appeared to be Dragonkin skeletons on display. Edeya quickly dispelled that notion, they weren’t skeletons. They were Bone Golems. Constructs made from the thrown together bones of different creatures, inelegantly given life-like movements. They were an arcane and scientific mimicry of what I do. And worst of all, it was immune to all magic, except negative and positive energy—and negative energy didn’t heal it like a true undead, it hasted it. So my spells were completely useless against it. Even Boneshatter, despite the entire damn thing being made of fucking bones.

I hate golems. I almost understand how Aenland feels about monks. The fact they can just shrug off the one thing I do feels like cheating.

At least monks had to train to do what they do. Golems just get to do it by virtue of existing!

Anyways, we knew the golems were there and they didn’t know we knew. So we got the drop on them, and took them out before they could ever react. Then we took all the loot that was supposed to lure us into mindlessly walking in the middle of four golems.

We were once again at a three-way split. There was a large doorway before us, and a hall to our right and left. As I peered into the doorway I felt a prickling in my head, and had a flood of memory overtake me. I was in that room, looking up at a huge throne, and one much smaller throne. Yrax was at the huge throne, and Cesseer was at his side at the smaller one. There was a beautiful woman by my side…

I resurfaced from the memory. I told the others that we should check that room. It was Yrax’s throne room. Something important was bound to be there.

Aenland asked how I knew this. I told him truthfully that I had remembered something. I don’t think it was my imagination that his voice had a darker edge when he responded…

It’s not like it’s a secret that I was tied up in some dark shit before my memory loss. Nazhena tried to kill me while ranting about me being a traitor, I couldn’t keep it a secret even if I wanted to. At least if me remembering these things can be useful to us he could sound grateful instead of like it throws his trust in me into question.

Oh well.

We entered the room, but not before Edeya identified four more golems within—these made of glass. Still immune to magic, because of course they were. Regardless, we swooped in before they knew what hit them, and still destroyed them quickly in efficiently, with the golems only getting a few hits in themselves before they were nothing but shards of glass scattered across the throne room floor.

I tugged open the enormous door behind Yrax’s throne…and found the passage beyond caved in completely. The white dragon had predicted our path, and blocked us off from this means of reaching him.

Which meant this entire damn venture had been a waste of precious time.

We left the throne room. Nestian declared that ‘right is right’ and we took the right-hand passage. We came upon a library, which I personally wanted to skip past as a distraction from our goal, but Aenland and Edeya wanted to take a look, so I agreed to go in with them. I found a magic book, similar to the Tome of Leadership I had previously read, which we figured would be useful for Nestian. Besides that, there was nothing of note. Just a waste of time, when we didn’t know how much time we had to spend.

We continued forward, and came upon the guest rooms. Two were labelled ‘Cesseer’s room’ and ‘Iantor’s room’. We decided to check Cesseer’s room for any clues as to where she might be. Instead, we found all of her regular equipment stashed away in a hidden stash.

Edeya figured this meant that she had put it here to not fight us at her full strength. I felt that was the optimistic way of looking at it. The other option was that she was a prisoner and had been stripped of all her things and was even now having her brain removed and replaced by an alien consciousness. Edeya decided we should stop talking about it. I agreed.

Despite my impatience, we checked Iantor’s room next, and found a magic ring—finger included.

In the guest room we found a large polar bear looking creature with too many legs conversing with brain collecting aliens from the Dominion called Neh-thalggu. We tried to get the drop on them, but the bear-like creature heard us and warned his companions.

Aenland and Nevra burst through the door, and were hit by a lightning bolt from a Neh-thalggu. They returned the favor with a glaive and a half dozen arrows—immediately slaying that same brain collector.

The bear creature seemed to identify Aenland as the biggest threat. He stood and spoke again—not in his own voice, but in a woman’s voice. He asked Aenland why he left. Aenland’s eyes zeroed in on the bear creature—not thrown into despair like the creature had wanted, but instead focused by anger. I didn’t need to recognize the voice to put two and two together that the creature had somehow used Aenland’s memories to imitate his mother. Which meant it had just guaranteed its death.

Greta and Nestian ran in at the other Neh-thalggu. I directed Talsune to fly in and finish off the brain collector. Then I called up a pillar of flames around the bear-like creature with Flame Strike, followed by a Quickened Boneshaker.

The intention wasn’t the kill the beast, however. This wasn’t my prey to kill. I was merely softening it up to ensure Aenland would get the satisfaction of its death.

Not a moment later half a dozen arrows flew at the beast. Yet it was somehow still standing, its too-many-legs still shakily holding its bloody body up.

In one final burst, Nevra put the beast down with her lightning breath on her rider’s behalf.

Nestian and Edeya checked in with Aenland to make sure he was alright. He claimed to be fine, but he didn’t have his usual gleeful countenance, so it was clear that was not entirely true.

We left quickly after and continued down the hall, until we came upon a room with an alter to some god I’m unfamiliar with. Maybe it’s not even a god worshipped on Golarian—although its unholy symbol looked a bit like it could be a reference to Starfall. We found half an arcane key in this room, in the shape of half a snowflake shaped amulet.

We also had the honor of talking to Yrax through another ice mirror again. I told him exactly how impressed I was with him (not at all), and he had a little tantrum, letting slip something about how impressed we’d be when he destroyed the queen of witches, before he ended his spell.

We discussed if he was planning to try to kill the missing Baba Yaga, or if he intended to try to kill Elvana. I thought he meant Elvana, because we knew he had past dealings with her specifically, and a chromatic dragon backstabbing a former ally was very in character.

We continued down the hall until we came upon a wall, which Aenland identified as illusory—but even upon identifying it, he couldn’t pass through it. The magic was far more powerful than normal. I hypothesized that the key we’d found would let us bypass it, which Edeya agreed was likely. She mused that such powerful magic was likely not put here by Yrax—this was far beyond the magic of even an ancient dragon. This was likely put here by the woman who built the fortress—Baba Yaga. Edeya once again floated the idea that we were caught up in a hit on Baba Yaga’s life.

I agreed that it was entirely possible.

I stayed behind for a long moment while the others continued forward, looking at the wall. It *was* entirely possible that there was a hit out on Baba Yaga’s life. Because there HAD been a hit out on her. I’d been given a contract to kill her, so who’s to say others weren’t foolish enough to try the same?

I caught up to the others as they reached the pool. Once again I felt this was a waste of time, but since we needed to search every nook for the second half of they key, I decided to hurry it up and look.

Big mistake. I should have let someone else take the lead.

When I went to look in the pool to see if the key might have been left under the water, an enormous creature—like a mix between a shark and a wolf—lunged up from beneath the surface and grabbed me in its jaws. I felt Nestian try to pull me out of its grasp, but it was futile. A moment later the thing had swallowed me whole. I could feel Talsune’s alarm, but otherwise I was completely cut off from everyone else. And I was half submerged in a horrible clawing freezing substance.

I knew I wouldn’t last long in there. There was not a chance I could focus on a spell while that substance was freezing me to the bone. The meager healing of Death’s Touch wouldn’t be enough to counteract the frostbite crawling up my skin. I only had one chance to survive. I had to cut my way out, to freedom. I pulled out the Witch’s Knife and began cutting the first thing of flesh and muscle I saw. Straight up and down, straight forward, until I punctured through and water began spilling in. I took a breath and pushed myself out, into the warm waters. Compared to the freezing cold I’d just been in, it felt almost burning hot. But not for long. As I thrashed, trying to get to the surface before my meager breath ran out, strong clawed hands scooped me up. A moment later I was deposited back onto the saddle between Talsune’s shoulder blades. I was soaked to the bone, and badly bloodied, but I was alive.

The large shark-like creature didn’t give up. It had arrows sticking out of it, and a gash down its face where Greta’s axe had cut into it, but it was still stubbornly seeking a meal. It decided I wasn’t an appealing target anymore, and went after Nestian instead.

I decided I wanted this thing dead. Now. I channeled a Harm spell into my hand, jumped from Talsune’s saddle, and stalked over to it, placing the hand onto the creature and causing a pillar of negative energy to erupt through its body. It just barely clung to life—just enough for me to quicken an Inflict Light Wounds to finish it off, carefully nudging Nestian aside to touch the creature with my other hand and snuff out its remaining lifeforce.

There was nothing of note in that room, and once again Yrax appeared to taunt us in the ice. When he saw the monster’s body floating in the pool he said we should pick up after ourselves—as if we were naughty visiting children with no manners and not an invading force here to take his fortress and slay him. He and Aenland got into an argument about proper etiquette again, and Yrax became so enraged he began yelling—unhealthy looking green veins pulsing in his temples, and his eyes turning green. He said something about needing to up his dose to someone we couldn’t see before ending the spell.

It would seem he isn’t just experimenting on others, but letting the Dominion experiment on him as well. So we shouldn’t expect him to be just a regular white dragon when we fight him.

We continued down the hall until we reached the kitchen. Inside, we could hear someone working. Nestian motioned to knock. Aenland and I told him no. Edeya asked why not, it had worked out before. Aenland and I argued that Nestian getting stabbed by whatever was on the other side of the door didn’t constitute ‘working out’.

As we argued, Nestian knocked on the door regardless.

A voice on the other side called for us to come in.

So yes, for once it did work without anyone getting stabbed.

We entered the kitchen, and found an entirely nude woman at a boiling cauldron, cooking some kind of stew. Nestian whispered to us that she was a Nereid, a water spirit who usually wore a shawl that held part of her lifeforce within it. Clearly she did not have her shawl on her.

The Nereid noted that we didn’t seem like Yrax’s lot, to which I agreed—it seemed she was speaking a language only I could understand with Tongues, so I had to translate for the others. Again.

The woman offered us a meal. She was clearly up to something—not something devious, but she clearly wanted something of us. So I came right out and asked her what she wanted in return. She told us she wanted us to return her shawl to her from Yrax’s hoard. A simple task, seeing as we already planned on slaying the dragon. In return, she would cook us a meal, and also tell us anything she knew about Ivoryglass.

Unfortunately, ‘everything she knew’ turned out to be very little we hadn’t already run into. She was able to warn us about some oozes up ahead that made up the disposal system, and told us which rooms were most likely to hold the second half of the key, but otherwise there was little she could tell us. We told her that the beast in the pool was taken care of, and she decided she was going to go take a dip.

We continued on our way. As we walked down the hall I received a message from Keisuke, checking in to make sure I was alright. He must have noticed when I’d been in a particularly bad state after being swallowed by the beast in the pool. I assured him that I was fine, and that the creature that did that was very dead.

Immediately after I sent my message, the building rumbled. Not the first time—it had been rumbling on and off the entire time we’d been in Ivoryglass, because of the crimson worms burrowing beneath it. Only this time it wasn’t the worms below. It was the Dominion Dropship, crashing into it from above. The entire passage ahead of us crumpled in on itself, leaving a flaming wreckage where we’d been just about to step.

All that was left of our path forward was rubble, and the remains of a Dominion Ship.

[parasite-core]

YOU! HEY YOU! Tell me ab whichever OC is on ur mind rn!

Hi there, time for another Calio update because until further notice he has the reigns on my brain and I have no say in this lol

So I mentioned last time that Calio has a mentor that he trusts and no one else does because they keep telling him he looks at Calio like he owns him. Well after Calio met him in private he learned that his mentor didn’t actually resurrect him when he died a while back, he actually raised him as a skeletal champion, and later someone else must have raised him (assumed to be Baba Yaga initially but later confirmed to be the BBEG Queen Elvana by Rasputin—yes that Rasputin). This put his mentor’s comment about Calio joining his ‘family’ after his journey in new context, because his mentor refers to his undead as his ‘children’, so Calio is suspecting that he is planning to try to kill him.

Calio’s in denial about this though, he thinks he’s just being paranoid, because his mentor has been so nice and cordial the entire time so he doesn’t want to believe it and he’s having some dissonance.

Calio went to a planet of cat people and dragons. He formed a mind link with a dragonkin (basically a telepathic bipedal dragon that wields a weapon) named Talsune and is now his dragonrider. He met one of the cat people named Cesseer, who it turns out he’d met during the time he doesn’t remember (and totally slept with), and he’d promised her that he’d save her from her servitude to the white dragon Yrax and take her off world. Calio had no idea why he would have said this in the past, but he chose to be true to his word and helped to slay the dragon, free Cesseer, and offered for her to travel with them. He sparred her one-on-one and won and got her respect. Also his girlfriend is into her so they may have totally all slept together >.>

From Cesseer he also learned his former title from his lost time: The Grim Rider.

He also ended up going to 1918 Russia and met Rasputin—except due to his amnesia it turns out this wasn’t his first time meeting Rasputin, he’d actually worked together with Rasputin and his sister Queen Elvana—according to Rasputin he was the Grim Rider for Elvana, not Baba Yaga—and for a time he and Rasputin were lovers, until Calio apparently betrayed them and slighted Rasputin and so Rasputin killed him and left his body in a ditch—which is how he somehow ended up waking up in a grave with amnesia in Taldor not long afterwards.

Anyways Calio and the party had to kill Rasputin seven times, and the final time he ended up killing Rasputin by ripping out his heart with the spell Death Clutch, prompting his last words “it looks like you’re breaking my heart again, Calio”

Now the party has finally saved Baba Yaga, and in theory Calio should finally have clear cut answers about his forgotten past once they have a chance to speak with her.

Bonus: Calio has multiple undead ‘pets’ at the moment. A frost troll skeleton named Reggie. A dragon skeleton named Leviathan (Levi for short). A Baykok named Roscoe. And he *had* a Dullahan named Ivan, but Rasputin destroyed him, much to Calio’s chagrin. He also has a spirit bound to him named Nikolai.

[parasite-core]

Last night in pathfinder, we had a nice calming vacation episode with no drama what-so-ever

@scarlet-the-girl

On our way back to Spurhorn Fortress, Aenland spent some time with Nevra and found that she had a beautiful singing voice and that coupled with his poetic aptitude they made an outstanding song writing duo. Nevra agreed to continue traveling with Aenland, as she had never had so much excitement in her life and she wanted to see more. She just needed to get some affairs in order.

Privately, in mental communication, Talsune asked Calio if he would continue to have him along as well. Calio of course agreed to have the Dragonkin along as long as he desired.

When the party arrived back to Spurhorn, they saw the Dancing Hut arrive at the fortress. They reassured the Triaxians that it was safe, then went to meet Jadrenka and Nadya as they exited the Hut. Jadrenka had apparently figured out how to drive the hut by spying on Calio back when he’d messed around with it before. The duo asked if they’d really intended to leave without giving them a chance to look around the alien planet. The party decided that they could spare a few days, and decided to take about a week to relax and regain their wits before heading to their next destination. They felt the Geass within them seem to cool l, not pushing them on, as if in agreement that they needed a rest before their next trial.

That first day Nestian and Edeya spent time together looking for pretty rocks outside of the fortress. Aenland went with Nevra and helped her to organize the Seneschal’s quarters, and found a useful helmet for the dragonkin in the process. Calio offered his prayers to Norgorber and Urgathoa, then went to spend time with Greta. They talked, and Calio found an ioun stone and some Truecolor Dye submerged in the cistern nearby, which he had his unseen servant Nikolai pick up for him without having to disturb the fortress’ drinking water. Greta saw the dye as orange just like Calio (presumably considering he’s neutral but also colorblind), revealing that her alignment had officially shifted from neutral evil to true neutral since traveling with the party. The two of them talked about the future, Greta said she hoped to continue to be with Calio once this was all over. Calio told her he’d been hoping the same. She was glad to hear that. She then offhandedly asked if they should name their ‘pups’ after the other members of the party—just something to think about for the future. The two of them sat together and talked for a while longer, then went off to do…other things.

Nestian, after spending time with Edeya, went looking for Jairess. In the infirmary he discovered that she had left him a note and a Breath of Life scroll. The note told him that she was out gathering materials to try to find out the truth of why her god was of two minds about him, and she would be back in 3 days. He gave the scroll to Edeya, under the logic that he believed Calio was going to be making a change soon and wouldn’t need to use the scroll. Edeya wasn’t so confident about that, given how much positive energy hurts the necromancer, but Nestian was certain of his observation of Calio’s growth as a person and where it was heading.

That evening the party reconvened in the mess hall and celebrated their victory hard, many of them drinking late into the night.

The next day, Calio went looking for Cesseer. He found her in the training hall. She expressed that she’d hoped he’d seek her out the day prior, but brushed it off knowing that they’d had a lot to celebrate. She said she knew why he was here but wanted to hear it from him.

Calio said he was here to make sure she was doing alright, and to apologize. She asked for what—for killing Yrax and freeing her, for saving her from an Intellect Devourer? Calio said, for leaving her with that monster in the first place. Cesseer told him there was nothing to apologize for, she didn’t believe he’d left her here with any ill intentions anymore. But he had hurt her honor a bit, hadn’t he? So she needed to correct that. She challenged him to a one-on-one fight. If he won, she’d come with him like they’d planned. If she won…well, they’d talk about that once it happened.

Calio agreed to the challenge, and faced off against Cesseer. She said she looked forward to seeing just what ‘the Grim Rider’ could do. Calio didn’t get a chance to ask for clarification on that title before they were in the middle of fighting. Calio was quicker on the draw than Cesseer, and raised up his Bone Armor, then got in close and cast a Quickened Inflict Light Wounds on her—but it fizzled against her spell resistance. She countered, one kick connecting but the rest deflecting harmlessly against Calio’s bone armor.

Calio cast defensively, and got off an Inflict Serious Wounds—this time the spell connected and broke through her magical defenses. She noted, not for the first time, that he couldn’t do that the last time she’d met him and she was excited to see just what he was capable of now. She went in with another flurry of kicks and punches, but Calio dodged and deflected all but one again.

Calio cast an Inflict Critical Wounds defensively, and got it off, but missed on the attack. He held the charge of the spell, prepared to try again in response to her next attack. Cesseer kicked Calio with a Perfect Strike, but failed to knock him off his feet.

Calio struck back with his Inflict Critical Wounds, and this time connected and broke through spell resistance, the negative energy burning across her skin.

Cesseer went for another flurry, but again Calio deflected each strike. Calio dropped his defensive stance and risked Cesseer striking him as he cast a more powerful spell—her blow was deflected off his Bone Armor and he managed to unleash a Mass Inflict Serious Wounds, striking both her and himself, healing himself and damaging her.

Cesseer went in for a final flurry—only a single strike got through once again. Then she stepped back, raising her hands in surrender, and bowed. Calio immediately quit fighting when she yielded.

Cesseer was impressed with him. She said she’d like to come along with him and see more of what he could do—and see more of his hot wolf girlfriend. If he would have her.

Calio said of course he wanted her to come along—he had promised as much already—

No, if he would have her.

Oh. Oh.

Well he’d have to make sure said hot wolf girlfriend was okay with that.

Cesseer smiled, telling him that was the right answer and he’d passed the test of character.

Aenland and Nadya were checking out the Triaxian armory. Nadya began admiring some magic arrows that would be incredibly useful for the resistance back in Whitethrone. Aenland was initially reluctant to ask the quartermaster to spare them, as he felt the Triaxians likely still needed them in their daily lives. However as he listened to how Nadya talked about the resistance and how it inspired her, he decided to do it for her, and asked the quartermaster if he could trade something for the arrows. He ended up trading an arrow catching shield for the bundle of arrows. Nadya thanked him for doing that for her.

Nestian went looking for Zorka and Ratibor, because the evening before he’d noticed that they weren’t in the Dancing Hut and their footprints led into the fortress. He eventually found them in the Hall of Heroes, where statues were being made in the general likeness of the four members of the party for their actions slaying Yrax. Zorka and Ratibor were in…very poor disguises. Nestian pretended not to recognize them for a few moments before Zorka panicked and admitted it was them and Nestian admitted he already knew. Ratibor got serious and asked Nestian why the party hadn’t told Jadrenka the truth about how we all met—he didn’t think we’d done the wrong thing, but he remembered the truth and he needed to know. Nestian told Ratibor that we didn’t really know what would happen to Jadrenka if we told her about the other timeline and everything she had been through—it seemed kinder to let her live her life as it was now.

So Ratibor remembered everything? Ratibor held out his hand and reintroduced himself as the Demon Lord Kostchtchie—at Nestian’s service. The strength in his handshake was not that of a man who had been stuck in the Dancing Hut watching the game for untold number of years—his latent mythic energy was clearly still there.

Ratibor asked Nestian if the party ever learned what had become of his and Jadrenka’s daughter—that was something he didn’t know. It was something we hadn’t learned, Nestian apologized but told him if we learned the truth we’d let him know.

That evening we met up in the mess hall and discussed. Edeya brought up that if there was magic that could divinely answer questions, then they could learn about Ratibor’s daughter. Calio considered this, and rattled off a handful of spells that fit the bill. They decided on commune—except they’d need a spellcaster with a god to commune with (as Calio did not reveal to the others that he worships Norgorber and Urgathoa, nor would contacting either of them for this be a wise decision). They decided to ask one of the local Apsu clerics to assist them the next day, if they would provide the scroll for the ritual.

The next day, Calio went to talk to Talsune first thing in the morning. He was organizing the Dragonkin armory, which was a mess as the younger Dragonkin hadn’t put anything away. Calio found this amusing, as somethings were the same no matter which world you were on. He confirmed again that he still wanted Talsune by his side, so long as Talsune didn’t feel he was leaving too much behind. Talsune said at this point he desired to fight alongside Calio for as long as he would have him, and Calio would have to be the one to cut their relationship off if it was to be cut short at all. Calio has no such intentions. He began helping Talsune with cleaning up the armory, and felt the Dragonkin’s excitement when he found two weapons that would be of use for himself and Nevra in the upcoming battles. He decided this was the boon of being the one cleaning up—he got first pick of the best weapons. Calio cheerfully agreed, and when they were done cleaning up they headed out as they had a busy day ahead of them.

Calio met up with Edeya and the others in the infirmary, where they asked a cleric to cast the Commune spell. The cleric agreed for the heroes who slayed Yrax, and with some direction cast the foreign spell. They asked a number of questions, and were able to discover through the answers that Ratibor’s daughter was deceased, she had been a warrior and had died a warrior’s death. She had established a clan of witch hunters on the border of an icy country, and had spent the last years of her life searching for someone.

From the answers we gleaned that Ratibor and Jadrenka’s descendants were likely still fighting the witches in Irrisen to this day.

We returned to Ratibor and told him everything we learned. He started laughing and crying, proud that his daughter had become an accomplished warlord with a much better ending to her story than his own. He asked that when we returned to Whitethrone we take him with us, as he wanted to see his descendants in battle himself. We agreed.

Before we left, Calio asked Zorka on a lark if she had heard of the Grim Rider—assuming he would get the usual lack of an answer he always got from anyone connected to Baba Yaga when he asked about his past.

Instead Zorka said ‘yes’.

She seemed to struggle to say anymore, and simply told Calio that he was on the right path, and to keep going.

Afterwards we went to the Dancing Hut to talk to the Inter-dimensional rumor trader Zilvazavarat. Nestian asked about the state of Whitethrone. We learned that the city was split up between the twelve Crone Queens, but Queen Elvana had barricaded herself indoors to work on her ritual to freeze over the world, and the resistance was still fighting with hit and run tactics.

Aenland asked the trader to take one of Yrax’s horns back to Kyonin with a message that Huntmaster Boughmuse would be returning. The trader noted that with the current state of Kyonin this message might spur them on to acts of hope and courage. Aenland asked what was going on with his home.

The trader tried to get more coin out of Aenland for the answer, but Calio and Nestian intimidated him into wrapping it into his last payment. Zilvazavarat told them that Treerazor seemed afraid of something—his minions were acting in uncharacteristic ways. They were still acting aggressively towards Kyonin, but their movements were erratic and unusual.

Nestian asked if the bears in Taldor were alright. The trader confirmed yes—although there were whispers that some were pushing to take the fight to Irrisen and Elvana, but he didn’t see any reason for Nestian to worry. Nestian knew his family, they were slow to act on anything, it was unlikely they’d make any move soon.

The trader asked Calio if he had any questions. Calio asked if he knew anything about Elvana’s motives behind kidnapping children around the border towns of Irrisen. He got mostly the same information he already knew—tokens to trade to hags and people like Nazhena. But it was also rumored that she was looking for a child ‘with the potential’—what that meant, exactly, the trader didn’t know. Calio had one more question, although he doubted the trader could answer it. He wanted to know what he knew about the Grim Rider. Zilvazavarat said he had, in fact, heard of the Grim Rider—but before he could speak of it anymore, the Dancing Hut dismissed him, and he found himself in Purgatory.

Then we had another meal—Nestian helped to prepare it, having been learning Triaxian cooking over the last few days—and we headed to bed.

That night each of us were scryed upon—only one of us, Nestian, succeeded our will save to resist the scrying attempt. Then each of us received a message from one of our interlopers (except for, again, Nestian, who received a message from Peanut about Jairess instead)

Aenland received a message from Xanthadon telling him to go somewhere private and burn her handkerchief to summon her—he’d get this one for free, they needed to talk.

Calio got a message from Keisuke telling him to get a means of traveling between the planes and then cast it through the pocket watch, he’d give him a one time free ticket to and from his demiplane so they could have a talk face-to-face.

Edeya failed a second save after the scrying attempt.

Nestian got a message from Peanut telling him to trust Jairess when she returns.

The next day, Aenland left the fortress and walked out into the wastes, far enough away to be out of earshot and barely within eyeshot of Spurhorn. Then he burnt Xanthadon’s handkerchief, summoning the drow to him. It was the first time he’d seen his time period’s Xanthadon since the Aeon Pit. They talked a bit about the ironies of meeting each other out of order, and how it had affected each of their perceptions of the other on their first few meetings. Xanthadon told Aenland that she had the movements of Treerazor’s lieutenants. They were just outside of Whitethrone. They could go there right now and slay them, then take the fight to the great lizard. She didn’t doubt the two of them could kill the creature at this point.

Aenland told her he’d love to put an arrow in Treerazor’s heart right this moment, but he couldn’t. He was still bound by Baba Yaga’s will—if he ran off to do this he’d be severely weakened and wouldn’t be at his best to fight the Nascent Demon Lord. But he’d been promised a weapon that could fell the beast when this was over. And he would be returning to Whitethrone soon enough, inevitably. So he told Xanthadon not to think of this as a rejection, but as a promise to join her later.

Xanthadon gave him a new handkerchief to summon her with, although she warned him that she might be angrier if he uses it since he didn’t just come with her and she’ll take a price. After all her Demon Lord wouldn’t like her giving her assistance for free.

She held out her hand to shake, agreeing to meet him as an ally when the time came. She took her hand. When he did he saw the horrific fungal growth that made up much of her upper body, barely hidden beneath her shirt.

On parting she told Aenland that she had given them the blade of her sword in the past, and he should reforge her blade to make it whole.

Aenland wasn’t sure where said blade was (as Calio kept forgetting he had Xanthadon’s rapier to give it to Aenland with everything else that’s been happening), so he drew the cursed blade and tried to use it as a compass to guide him to it. It drew him to Calio, who was just returning from shopping in the Dancing Hut for a Plane Shift scroll. Aenland snuck up behind a very distracted Calio and placed the cursed sword up to his neck, asking him if he had something of his. Calio sheepishly admitted to having forgotten about it, and relinquished Xanthadon’s rapier. Then Aenland told Calio he needed blood in order to sheath the sword—Calio said that was fine so long as it wasn’t his. Aenland said he was kind of implying that, yeah. Calio reminded Aenland that he had to *kill* something to sheath the sword, not just draw blood. Aenland nodded, then left with the cursed sword still in hand, to find Nevra to go hunting for local monsters to kill.

Once he’d sheathed the cursed sword, he went to the fortress’ forge and reforged the swords, swapping their blades. He now had Wither Needle, the perfect form of Xanthadon’s rapier that had mythic properties, as well as the cursed rapier, which retained the properties the previous cursed rapier had had.

After calming down from being threatened by Aenland, Calio went to find a private room and cast the Planeshift spell through the pocket watch. The watch seemed to warp and grow, and suddenly there were nine of them, and he felt dizzy from the ticking, but the sensation passed as he appeared in a nine sided chamber made of what appeared to be frosted glass. There was singing coming from all around—it was Keisuke’s voice. Calio looked up to see Keisuke, in kitsune form, offering him his hand, so he took it, and his master led him into the Nonagon. Keisuke was not singing, it was a recording for the theatrics of it—something Calio could appreciate.

Calio gladly shared his recent adventures with his master, telling Keisuke about having slain a dragon and an Eoxian, and lamenting that he hadn’t thought to turn the Bone Sage into a skeletal champion until just that moment. Keisuke seemed genuinely impressed, saying that Calio had grown far more powerful in their time apart than he ever would have under his tutelage. Keisuke told Calio that he had a surprise for him, but before that he wanted to know if Calio had any questions for him. He also wanted to talk a little about the future—about whether Calio would join him on his hunt for mythic power.

Calio asked for clarification on why the followers of Norgorber had been so against him when Keisuke had introduced them. Keisuke had said it was because he belonged to Urgathoa, Calio didn’t understand what that meant—Keisuke was also a necromancer so clearly that wasn’t what he’d meant.

Keisuke clarified that it was because Calio had been undead. Calio was still confused, noting that he didn’t detect as undead. Keisuke said he wasn’t undead *now*, someone had clearly revived him. He realized that Calio had some misconceptions and cleared them up—he had been a skeletal champion when he’d been one of Keisuke’s ‘children’—he didn’t have the power to bring anyone properly back to life, all of his children were the undead. Whoever had brought Calio back either did a shit job or did it badly on purpose as a joke. Keisuke and Calio were thinking the same thing—that Calio had made a deal with Baba Yaga, the person he was supposed to have been assassinating, to be revived.

Keisuke mentioned that one of his targets was going to be near Whitethrone in two weeks. He hoped that Calio would be interested in helping him. Mythic power would suit him. Calio was inclined to agree, he had seen mythic power first hand and he wanted it. He was eager to agree that mythic power would suit his master just as well. After all, they were much alike.

Keisuke brought out a Mirror Man—assuring Calio that it was safe, its connection to the Winter Witches had been severed—and he told Calio it had a vision of him from before he lost his memories on there. It was him on Triaxus. He gave a knowing grin, asking Calio if he’s met a certain Battleflower while on Triaxus. Then he left the room, admitting he’d already watched it but that this seemed like a private affair. Calio could leave at his leisure once he’d viewed it and finished his tea. He was welcome whenever, of course, now that he knew how to enter, so long as he warned Keisuke before coming so Keisuke could shut down the defenses for him. Nothing personal, but incase he ever got mind dominated or something he couldn’t be too careful about keeping the wards up against him as much as everyone else on a regular basis. Otherwise…well, Calio felt only a small fraction of what the defenses given to Keisuke by the Pallid Princess would do in full force.

Calio activated the Mirror Man’s video and watched. There was a procession of the Winter Guard walking through Ivoryglass. In the middle were Queen Elvana, and himself—dressed lavishly, and looking incredibly confident and cocky. When they passed by the disposal room just outside of Yrax’s throne room, Calio called over one of the Winter Guard and then dangled them over the pit as the white pudding lunged for him. He was laughing at the man’s panic as he pulled him away from the ooze at the last second. Queen Elvana chastised the ‘Grim Rider’, asking him not to torment her men. Then they entered Yrax’s chambers. Elvana gifted the dragon a spellbook. As he examined it, Elvana gave the Grim Rider orders to scout the place out with some of her men. She turned to leave after making nice with Yrax, grimacing once she was no longer facing the dragon. Yrax sent Cesseer to keep an eye on the Grim Rider and his men. As they walked, the Rider immediately turned on the charm and had an easy conversation going with Cesseer, until the two of them went into Cesseer’s room, abandoning the rest of the Rider’s men. The Grin Rider opened the door again and told them to scram, before shutting the door in their faces. The recording ended.

Calio sat there for a short time, taking in what he’d seen. It was the first real look he’d had at who he’d been during the last year…and he wasn’t sure he liked what he’d seen. He couldn’t deny it was all stuff he’d have done—yes even dangling the man over the ooze pit for laughs—just a month or two ago. But now it felt…excessive. It was pointlessly cruel. Sure he was a jerk, and a killer, and a liar, but he didn’t have to be cruel for no reason. Or for no reason other than his own amusement. That was Nazhena levels of nasty. It was no wonder he’d been friends with her, no matter how lowly he might have thought of her even at the time…

Calio left the Nonagon, and returned to the material plane only nine seconds after he’d left. Talsune was surprised he vanished and returned so quickly, but he noted that Calio’s emotional state was precarious. He offered to talk if that’s what Calio needed. Calio told Talsune that he didn’t know how he felt about everything he’d just learned. Talsune understood. Sometimes it was hard to pin just one emotion to certain events.

Calio wanted to go lay down and isolate himself in his room, but Talsune noted that Calio hadn’t eaten yet today, and Calio agreed that he should probably go eat lunch, so they went up to the mess hall together.

Nestian, after spending some time on the roof waiting for Jairess, returned to the party’s shared room in Spurhorn. There Edeya was building a shrine. Nestian asked what she was doing, to which Edeya cheerfully told him she had made a penpal and she was making something for her. Nestian realized that Edeya was acting off, and put two and two together—she had some form of compulsion on her. Nestian put her in a literal bear hug to keep her from continuing to build the shrine, then he dragged her to the mess hall for help. He found Calio and Jadrenka sitting together. Calio identified Edeya as being under the effects of a Charm Person spell, although he didn’t know how since that’s normally a short range spell. Jadrenka dispelled it, then told the party that she had heard of a witch who, upon losing her familiar, communed with her patron and gained the power to cast through mirrors. This type of casting—if it really existed—would allow for a long ranged Charm Person spell. It was said one of the things this witch could do was scry on people at will and cast spells like Charm Person, Detect Alignment, and Fear through the scrying sensor.

Which meant no matter where we were, we weren’t safe. Edeya’s mirror twin could scry on us and try to dominate our minds at any time.

Edeya asked if we could dismantle the shrine she’d been building for her, as it…made her uncomfortable. Calio identified it as a shrine to the goddess Sarenrae, who had been slain a few years prior leaving her clerics and paladins without divine power.

Edeya told Calio and Nestian that she had found a pamphlet on Sarenrae worship stuck in a book and, despite it being illegal in Irrisen, she’d decided to sneak into her father’s basement and made a shrine to try out worshipping in secret. However when she’d been lighting the candles, the entire room began flickering, and she saw something in the mirror—her but not her—and it scared her. She accidentally lit the shrine on fire, and the entire room began to burn.

As she told the story she suddenly began panicking, telling them that the shrine they were taking apart was on fire. Calio realized, as a user of the spell himself, that she was under the effects of a Fear spell. It seemed to have radiated from the shrine. Neither Calio nor Nestian had a way to dispel her. Calio told her that it would be okay—the effect would wear off soon and she’d be okay. Edeya fled from the source of her fear, running through the halls of Spurhorn with Illivor clinging to her shoulder and shouting. Nestian ran after her to make sure she would be alright. Calio stayed behind and continued dismantling the Sarenrite shrine so that it would be gone by the time Edeya returned.

When he finished, he heard an echo of laughter that sounded like Edeya’s.

Nestian caught up to Edeya in the meantime and comforted her, assuring her it wasn’t her fault that she’d just run off like that while under the effects of a spell. He walked her back to the room, confident that Calio will have dismantled the shrine—he knew that despite what the necromancer might say, he does actually care about the others and try to look out for them.

After he’d seen to Edeya, Nestian received a message from Jairess: I’m Ready.

The bear man made his way upstairs and onto the roof, where he found Jairess in a spell circle with a symbol of Gozreh made of powdered diamond within it. Jairess said that she was going to commune with her deity and find out why they were of two minds about Nestian. She apologized in advance if what they learned was personal, as she would see what it was as well. Nestian was fine with that.

Jairess held out her hands and Nestian took them, then she cast the spell. Nestian saw flashes of visions. Another place, covered in ice despite it being spring. Two men and a bear walking through the snow towards a tree with a portal set into it. They were talking about stopping Elvana before it was too late. Then a fog billowed in and the visioned glitched, a figure represented by only a skull appeared. Its speech could not be heard. One of the men told Peanut to run through the portal—to escape with the baby he was carrying on his back.

Peanut never saw his druid companion—his brother—again. But he remembered what he’d come to this world for. He had gained some Druidic power of his own from his time as an animal companion, and he passed on his knowledge to others, apprentices who he trained and then sent to Irrisen to create pockets of summer in rebellion against Elvana’s eternal winter. And he rallied those the Winter Witches would never suspect to rise against them—the bears.

When the vision faded, Nestian found Jairess hugging him. She said she was sorry, she’d had no idea. Nestian realized that Gozreh was of two minds about him because he wasn’t meant to be in this world—he came from somewhere else.

Just like Calio’s master.

Nestian knew who that skull represented—who it had to be. He’d seen the man who was with his father in the vision once before—in the Eon Pit—and he’d shot at Keisuke despite none of the other beings coming and going to clear up the Yellow King’s minions interfering with the fight outside of the time vortex.

Nestian decided he needed to talk to Calio. He needed answers. Jairess said that Nestian wouldn’t get answers from ‘Dren Fielder’, but Nestian wasn’t looking for answers from Calio’s master—he wanted answers from his friend who may not have told him everything he knew about this.

Nestian searched the entirety of Spurhorn, enraged and teary eyed, gathering each member of the party as he accidentally ran into them before Calio, although he didn’t speak to any of them they simply followed him as he continued his search, worried about him.

Finally he went to the Hut and found that Calio had holed himself up in his room—completely oblivious to the storm that was coming. Calio invited Nestian in when he knocked.

Nestian asked Calio what he knew about Keisuke.

Calio could tell from his expression what this was about, but he tried to deflect out of habit more than anything, naming off things he knew—he had saved his life, he had taught him magic, and then he sent him out on his own. What answer was Nestian looking for?

Nestian called Calio on his lies, saying that he was more to the point when he was being honest. He wanted to know what Calio knew about Keisuke and his family.

Calio asked him back what he knew about his master, but Nestian shut him down, telling him that he didn’t know anything for sure, that’s why he was *asking* him.

Calio hesitated, then admitted that he knew that Keisuke had come into conflict with Nestian’s family once before.

Nestian asked which family. Calio was legitimately confused by this question, and said he didn’t know which family member. Nestian asked Calio what happened to them, and Calio admitted that Keisuke killed a member of Nestian’s family.

‘Your master killed my father’ Nestian told Calio.

After a long moment, Nestian asked Calio if they were friends, to which Calio said he liked to think so. Nestian asked if Keisuke had told him to hide this from Nestian. Calio chose his words carefully, saying that Keisuke had felt that if Nestian knew then the party would try to kill him, so it would be best if it were kept between them. (Aka, Keisuke never directly *said* to keep it a secret, Calio chose to because he knew that otherwise the party would try to kill Keisuke and he didn’t want that)

Nestian said he was sorry that Keisuke had tricked him. Then he left. Calio was flummoxed by that response. Then he heard Nestian give the loudest most heart-wrenching roar from his room.

Aenland asked Calio why he defended Keisuke, when he knew he hurt a friend of his. Calio said he got why the others want to kill him. He didn’t even think he was unreasonable for them to want that. But Keisuke had saved his life—without him he would have been a corpse in some forgotten cave somewhere. He owed him everything. Aenland didn’t feel like this was like Calio—he was independent and proud, not someone to be lead around on a leash. Calio argued that he simply took the fact that he owed him his life seriously. Aenland asked if that meant he should swear fealty to Calio since Calio brought him back to life. Calio took offense to this, saying he hadn’t sworn fealty to Keisuke. Aenland admitted maybe that was a bit far, but he still felt that Calio should take a step back and reconsider his loyalties. He placed a hand on Calio’s shoulder, and told him that if he needed to talk he knew how to reach him—referring to their connected Stones of Farspeech.

Illivor left with Edeya, but paused to tell Calio that people are more than those they owe—they’re the actions they take. She of all people knows that.

They had two more days of rest, although a cloud hung over the party. Calio spent time with Cesseer and Greta. He shared what had happened with Greta, and decided with her help not to tell Keisuke that Nestian and the others had found out about what he’d done—as Greta believed if Calio ever needed something more from ‘dear master K’ it would be best if he didn’t know that most of Calio’s friends were out for his blood. For Calio’s part, he just needed an excuse not to face any disappointment from the kitsune at him failing to keep his secrets from being unearthed.

Aenland spent his time with Nevra, and Nestian read the rest of his book and spent time with Edeya.

Finally it was time to head out. The party’s bonds tended to be strongest when in battle—it was about time to strengthen those bonds again after the recent events that had shaken them. Although Nestian didn’t look at Calio any differently than usual, Calio was certain he must just be good at hiding his feelings—or Calio is worse at reading bear emotions than human emotions, which is entirely possible.

Nestian set the bearskin rug into the cauldron, and Edeya threw in the currently-plush two-headed eagle. Then Nestian began stirring. And stirring.

And then the lights went out.

Zorka cursed.

The lights turned back on.

There was a man standing before us, and five shadow demons forming behind him. He spoke to us in Russian, saying we thought we could come to Earth to try to free Baba Yaga from the matryoshka doll in which she had been cleverly hidden. But he, Gregorio Rasputin, would make sure we never made it that far.

Aenland lit up, realizing ‘Oh, you’re Baba Yaga’s only son!’

Rasputin deflated a bit, looking taken aback that we didn’t already know that. He cursed and said that ‘Elvie’ was going to kill him.

We noted that we hadn’t known about the matryoshka doll either, and thanked him for his generous information.

He made to leave, only pausing to say ‘what’s up?’ to Calio as—of course—he recognized the Grim Rider. Because why not?

And so begins the book we’ve all been waiting for.

Rasputin Must Die.

[parasite-core]

Last night in pathfinder, we invaded Ivoryglass while a Dominion Dropship allied with the dragon Yrax defended the fortress and war raged in the air above us.

@scarlet-the-girl

We started out with a bit of a flashback to the night prior, as we prepared for the attack on the enemy fortress. Nestian examined the alien food offered to them, as he was usually the party’s cook but he didn’t know these ingredients to make use of them, Aenland and Nevra were pumped for the upcoming battle, while Talsune telepathically noted that Calio felt worried. Calio confided in his dragonkin partner that the intellect devourers they’d fought had him shaken, and Talsune correctly surmised that Calio was worried about Cesseer. He reassured Calio that she had set out to Ivoryglass not long ago—with any luck they hadn’t had time to do anything to her yet, and there was still time to rescue her. Calio hoped Talsune was right.

The next day the army marched on Ivoryglass through the passage they had been shown in the Rimekeening Crevice. They reached their destination, and Edeya identified Baba Yaga’s Winter Collector as the machine Elvana had gotten running for Yrax in Calio’s past. As she had this revelation, a shadow passed overhead as something both mechanical and biological flew over the opening to the glacier high above them, blocking out what scant sunlight there was. Calio identified it as a Dominion Dropship, just as it began releasing its alien horrors on the battlefield below. Two gargantuan crimson worms were dropped and burrowed into the ice, heading for the machine buried far below. Many of the Drakelanders and their mounts began twisting and mutating as the Dominion experiments on them activated. The Drakelanders realized that Yrax had betrayed them to the Dominion, and many fled, abandoning the fight. Those that were left joined the fight on the side of their planet—maybe not permanently allied with the Dragon Legion, but for now they would fight side-by-side against a far worse common enemy.

The party made a mad dash for the entrance of Ivoryglass. Nevra flew Aenland across the battlefield swiftly, adding her lightning breath to his arrow shots to clear a path. Calio cut a swath through the enemies with his Screaming Flames spell and Talsune’s own fire breath, and the brass dragonkin flew through the fire to reach the other side safely—his fireproof body protecting his rider. Edeya used her Teleport spell to warp across the battlefield and bypass the chaos. Nestian jumped into the flying cauldron and flew it upside down to protect him from the enemies above while having Baba Yaga’s besom circle his head to ward off any enemies that might try to get near him from below, flying across the battlefield in his makeshift armored helicopter to join the party.

The party entered Ivoryglass, and were immediately beset by Drakelanders who didn’t get the message that Yrax had screwed them over, or perhaps who didn’t care.

The Drakelander Seer managed to get off one cold-fireball before he was annihilated by Aenland and Nevra. Then a door to our left opened and a Drakelander Barbarian charged out at Nestian. Talsune swung his blade over Nestian’s head, cutting into the Drakelander, followed by Calio hitting it with a Boneshaker and pulling it away—but not so far that Nestian couldn’t immediately finish it off a moment later. A second barbarian ran out, and he made the mistake of going after Edeya. Who was standing right next to Greta. He only hit Edeya’s False Life, doing no real damage to her, and then he took massive damage from our winter wolf warriors retaliation. The door to our right opened and two more barbarians charged out, going for Nevra and Talsune, but both missed. Aenland immediately slayed the one that had tried to hit his partner. Calio and Talsune injured the one who had gone after Talsune, and Greta finished the job, while Nestian finished off the last one still standing.

The party was still going strong, and went confidently into the next room.

There a mirror-like pane of ice caught their attention. Like Irriseni Mirror Sight, a vision of Yrax appeared in the ice. But that was impossible with that spell, it only worked on true mirrors, not on ice. This was a modified version of Elvana’s spell, called Yrax’s Mirror Sight. Yrax was curious about us, but grew frustrated when Aenland insisted a good host would come to greet his guests and not the other way around. Yrax told them to come and meet him if they could survive—there was someone waiting to see them. Then he told the creature in the room with them—his son who he seemed to openly distain, a half dragon creature with no eyes, to kill us.

Three of the enormous statues in the room cracked open and revealed themselves to be constructs—and not just any constructs, Dominion Fossil Golems like the one Nazhena had used against us. Only these were three fully functional Fossil Golems, not one damaged one.

The eyeless half-dragon flew up and created a cloud of dust with his wingbeats, obscuring the battlefield. Nestian took the Adamantine Warhammer from Aenland, remembering last time we’d fought one of these, and went after the nearest golem—taking a hit but resisting its fossilizing touch. The golem tried a second time, bringing its fists down on Nestian, then changing its target to Calio. However Nestian jumped in the way, blocking the attack meant for the necromancer with his body, and again easily shrugging off the fossilizing effect that could have been debilitating for the less hardy spellcaster.

Aenland and Nevra flew into the air to get above the dust cloud. Nevra shot a burst of electricity through the golem and the half-dragon. Then Aenland shot a number of arrows into the Fossil Golem that had been punching Nestian. It went down, crumbling. He changed targets to a more distant one, despite the dust cloud obscuring his vision, and managed to get at least a couple of arrows to strike true on it as well—badly damaging it to the point that when it went to punch Greta a moment later, its arm came loose.

The final golem charged, ending just below the eyeless half-dragon and striking at Edeya—but once again Nestian pulled her out of the way and took the hit instead, despite how badly he was injured at this point.

Greta counter attacked with a number of axe chops through the golem that had charged, and Calio followed up with Talsune breathing flames through the golem and the half-dragon, and Calio broke the half-dragon’s bones with Boneshatter, leaving him badly damaged and exhausted. Then Calio followed that up with a quickened Boneshaker, which let him pull the half-dragon closer to the ground by his broken bones—and stopped the dust cloud effect.

In retaliation the half-dragon landed before them and unleashed a cry that vibrated their bones and innards, damaging everyone but Aenland and Nevra, who were flying high above.

It was the last thing he did.

Nevra flew by, and lanced him on her spear. As she did, Aenland took aim and fired off arrow after arrow into the Fossil Golem as they passed. Both remaining enemies fell.

The party took some time to heal. At they did, they took note that there was a fourth space for a Fossil Golem that stood empty. As if one had been taken from its spot. They surmised that this was likely where the one Nazhena had used came from, since they knew Elvana had been an ally to Yrax.

The party continued forward down the next hall. They came to a three way fork. Ahead they could see a room in which four of what appeared to be skeletal dragonkin were arranged around a small pile of loot. Edeya immediately identified the skeletons as Bone Golems (not an undead, much to Calio’s frustration). The party decided since they’d noticed the golems before the golems had activated, they should get the drop on them. They crept forward, then struck. They destroyed all four before the golems could act, collected the loot, and decided which way to go next.

Calio, looking through the open doorway ahead, had a flash of memory. Looking up at Yrax sitting on the large ostentatious throne, with Cesseer seated on the much smaller throne set beside him. He knew there was an incredibly beautiful woman there beside him—he assumes likely Elvana.

He told the others that they should look into this room, as it was Yrax’s throne room and if there was something important, it was likely beyond here. Aenland asked him how he knew this, and Calio told him honestly that he’d had a scrap of memory return. Aenland’s tone seemed to darken at this being his answer.

Before the party entered the room, Edeya identified four Glass Golems within. They decided to do the same as they had against the Bone Golems and take them by surprise. They did—although they didn’t manage to completely clear these ones without the Golems getting a single action this time. Two of them survived long enough to try feebly to defend the throne room—but not for long before they were shattered across the floor of the audience chamber.

Unfortunately, when Calio pushed open the gargantuan doors behind the throne—the hall beyond was caved in. Nestian identified that it didn’t look like it happened because of the battle, but likely within the last few days. Probably when Yrax first discovered we were coming. Just a distraction. Something to slow us down. Calio cursed at having fallen for Yrax’s trick, and they returned to the hallway to choose another path.

Nestian declared that ‘right is right’ so they went right.

First up they came upon a library. Calio didn’t want to stop to explore it, still anxious about Cesseer’s safety and concerned they were wasting time, but Aenland and Edeya wanted to check it out so he agreed to come along. It was lucky he did, because he ended up being the one who found the Manual of Gainful Exercise they could give to Nestian.

The party continued onwards, and found the guest quarters, including the half-dragon’s room and Cesseer’s room. They decided to check Cesseer’s room for any hints as to her location or her current status. They found all of her equipment hidden away. Edeya suggested that she’d hidden it there so she wouldn’t be fighting us at full strength when we fought. Calio said he hoped she was right because that was the optimistic way of looking at it. She asked what the other option was. Calio bluntly said that she was a prisoner and was having her brain removed and replaced with an alien. Edeya suggested they don’t think about that.

They checked the half-dragon’s room and found a minor ring of inner fortitude on a bitten off finger.

In the remaining guest room, they found two Neh-Thalggu conversing with a horrible polar bear-esc creature called a Kokogiak who was apparently an awful warlord on Triaxus.

The party tried to get the drop on the creatures, but the Kokogiak heard us and warned the Neh-Thalggu to be ready for our attack.

Aenland swooped in on Nevra’s back, and was hit by a lightning bolt from a Neh-Thlaggu. Nevra was immune, but Aenland took a hit from it, causing the dragonkin to feel what it was like to be hit by lightning despite being immune herself. However afterwards Nevra struck the brain collector alien with her spear, and Aenland peppered it with arrows, leaving it dead before it could do anything else.

The Kokogiak identified Aenland as the biggest threat, and tried to get into his head by imitating his mother’s voice, asking why he’d left. Aenland’s expression went dark, and the beast had sealed its death.

Nestian moved in to attack the other Neh-Thlaggu, followed by Greta. Talsune swooped in and finished off the brain collector, then Calio called upon a pillar of flames to engulf the polar bear-esc alien, followed up by a Boneshaker, which it resisted. But that was fine. Calio hadn’t been going for the kill. He’d only been softening it up to ensure Aenland could get the kill that was due to him.

Aenland shot arrow after arrow into it with killing intent and deadly accuracy—but the Kokogiak did not fall.

Aenland asked Nevra to finish things. She understood, and breathed out her lightning breath to send electricity through the bear-like monstrosity’s body, and send its massive form crashing to the ground—finally dead.

The others checked in with Aenland since he’d seemed upset, even though only Calio and Aenland himself had understood what the Kokogiak had said, but he claimed to be fine.

The party moved on, until they came upon a room with an alter to a god they failed to identify (Dahak, the god of destruction and chromatic dragons). They took some chromatic potions of dragons’ breath, a platinum unholy symbol, and an amulet that was half a snowflake which Calio identified as half a magic key.

As they finished their search, the ice upon the back wall shimmered and Yrax reappeared to taunt them. He and Calio had a bit of a vocal sparring match, before Yrax left in a huff. But not before letting slip that he was going to ‘destroy the queen of witches’.

The party thought he meant Baba Yaga, but Calio suggested he was talking about Elvana. He had worked with her, after all, and it wasn’t against reason to think they’d had a falling out.

The party continued onwards, until they came upon an illusory wall. Except unlike a regular illusory wall, this one could not be passed through just by being disbelieved. Calio surmised that the key was for this wall, and they needed to find the other half. The others agreed. Edeya paused for a moment before they continued, examining the wall, and said this wall didn’t seem like it was made by Yrax. It was too advanced for the dragon. It was likely made by the woman who built this tower.

Baba Yaga.

She mused, wondering again if Yrax had a hit out on Baba Yaga. Calio, remembering what Keisuke had told him about his own mission to assassinate the mother of witches, tensely agreed that it was entirely possible. He spent a long moment staring hard at the illusory wall while the others walked away, before joining them.

The party then found the fortress’ swimming pool. Calio entered, impatient to try to find the other half of the key and move forward. Unfortunately the only thing in the water was a giant creature that was like a mesh of a wolf and a shark, which lunged from beneath the water and grabbed Calio in its jaws. Nestian ran forward and tried to rip him from its grasp, but its iron grip was unbreakable, and in seconds Calio vanished from view as he was swallowed whole.

Greta let out a roar and charged the beast, trying to slay it and save her boyfriend, but her axe met thick hide and failed to cut through.

In the beast’s belly, Calio landed in a freezing substance that clawed at his flesh. He knew he only had moments—he couldn’t possibly survive these conditions for long. He couldn’t cast. He couldn’t heal enough for it to matter. His only option was to try to cut his way out. So he took the Witch’s Knife, Baba Yaga’s Death, and drove it into the stomach of the beast. With two clean cuts he made a deep enough gash to pull himself free—straight into the warm water of the pool. Thankfully Talsune was aware of his partner’s movements, and he quickly scooped Calio out of the water, returning the wet cat looking necromancer to his back.

The others laid into the beast as best as they could, although its thick hide protected it from a great deal of what was thrown at it.

The beast decided not to attempt Calio again since he’d given it a stomach ache, and instead lunged for Nestian, grabbing the bear-man in its mouth.

Calio decided it was time to finish things. If physical attacks weren’t getting the job done, it was time to rely on magic. He reached out and touched the creature with one hand bathed in powerful negative energy, engulfing the creature with a Harm spell, leaving it barely clinging to its last strands of life. Then with his other hand he carefully reached around Nestian and touched it again with a quickened Inflict Light Wounds, burning away the last of the beast’s life force.

As the party healed, Yrax appeared in the ice above them again. He berated them for not cleaning up after themselves. He and Aenland got into an argument over proper etiquette, until Yrax got so frustrated he snapped—unhealthy green veins visible through his white scales and his eyes glowing the same green color as he lost his temper. He cut off communication again.

The party continued forward until the reached the kitchen. Nestian knocked on the door while the others argued over whether or not knocking was a bad idea. A voice on the other side called for them to come in. Nestian led the way inside.

Cooking in the large kitchen was a Nereid without her shawl. She greeted the party amicably, although only Calio understood her since he still had Tongues up. She noted that they didn’t seem like they were with Yrax, to which Calio agreed. She seemed pleased with this. She offered them food, but Calio felt like she wanted something in return, so he asked what it was she wanted. She said Yrax had taken her shawl to force her to be his personal chef. She wanted her shawl back so she could leave. If they were going to slay him anyways, they should return her shawl to her, and in return she’d cook them a delicious meal.

The food she was making smelled delicious, and she didn’t seem to have any ill-will. Calio agreed, if she’d also tell them a bit about Ivoryglass. She agreed, since that was in her best interest.

She asked the party if they already knew about the illusory wall, to which they agreed they did. They were currently seeking the other half of the key. She directed them to a couple of possible locations ahead that it might be.

Calio asked her if she’d seen a bear skin rug in Yrax’s hoard. Since she didn’t know what a bear was, he asked if she’d seen a rug of a creature that looked like Nestian. She asked Nestian to lay on his stomach and play dead. Nestian laid down and didn’t get back up, tired from the day’s events. The Nereid provided him with an apple to munch on from his position on the ground.

She also warned them about the disposal room. There was an ooze and some living pillars of ice they’d need to look out for.

She admitted there wasn’t much more she could tell us. If we’d come the other way around by turning left and gotten here sooner she could have warned us about the creature in the pool and told us about the other rooms on that side of the hall, but now we’d already cleared them out. She was eager to take a dip in the pool now that the monster was gone.

We parted ways with the Nereid and continued down the hall on our search for the other half of the key.

Or that was the plan.

Unfortunately plans had to change when suddenly the Dominion Dropship fell from the sky and crashed into Ivoryglass, crushing the hallway before us—destroying the rooms we’d been planning to go search for the next key in.

[parasite-core]

Last night in Pathfinder, Calio talked to Keisuke and learned a bit about both his own lost history and Keisuke’s connection to Nestian, and the group found and cleared out a hidden entrance to Ivoryglass—including facing more members of the dreaded Dominion of the Black.

@scarlet-the-girl

We started out with Calio talking to Keisuke on the Agent’s Clasp. He apologized to Keisuke for having mistaken him for a coconspirator of the dominion, having assumed the clasp belonged to Malesinder rather than just being part of her hoard. Keisuke assured Calio he had no dealings with the Dominion, and asked what in their gods’ names Calio was doing on Triaxus. Calio explained there were some objects they needed to seek out on Triaxus. Keisuke wished him luck, noting that he’d been bloodied a bit, and mused that he’d wondered where this clasp had gone off to—one of his ‘children’ had dropped it. Calio had felt the clasp was vaguely familiar, but he doesn’t know why if Keisuke didn’t give it to him specifically.

The party then headed back to Spurhorn, reported back to Commander Pharamol that the encampment appeared to be fit for a much larger force than what we’d faced—if we waited too long, it was likely a much larger attack was on the horizon. And also it was likely Yrax had a standing army waiting at Ivoryglass. Pharamol suggested her army march with us on Ivoryglass, to which we agreed.

Afterwards we teleported back to the Dancing Hut to get some shopping done in Glargonargs. Calio bought a major Ring of Fire Resistance for Greta, and they had a little chat as he gave it to her. It wasn’t a proposal—as Calio clarified from the start, it was a bit early in their relationship for him to be proposing, but it was the nicest gift anyone had ever given Greta.

A little later, Calio went to talk to Illivor. He wanted to know if she knew anything about the Winter Witches kidnapping children from small out of the way villages back when she was the head of the Winter Witches, under Queen Elvana’s orders. Illivor said that she knew of it. Some children were given to people like Nazhena or to monsters like hags as bargaining chips. However others Elvana took a special interest in. Nazhena didn’t know much more than that. Despite having been head of the Winter Witches, since being reborn she’s been realizing just how little she really knew of Elvana’s plans. She certainly hadn’t known about her plans to freeze the entire world and release the former queens of Irrisen to rule the globe with her. And she was pretty sure, looking back, that her grandmother had *intended* for her to die in the Veil of Frozen Tears, considering she also struck a deal with Hastur to be there. So she’d been a pretty meaningless pawn in Elvana’s eyes, in the grand scheme of things. Illivor and Calio got on the subject of emotions as Illivor mentioned forming an empathic link with each of them, and Calio cringed at the idea, mentioning that having an empathic link with Talsune was the strangest part of partnering with the dragonkin. It felt uncomfortable to feel another creature’s emotions. Illivor suggested that Calio didn’t use his own emotions enough. Calio got defensive, saying he certainly did use his emotions, but Illivor pushed, asking if he really did though? Calio said he did as much as he’d know how to do. Illivor said using your emotions were like stretching a muscle—if you didn’t use them enough they atrophied, and it felt like pins and needles to try to get them working again. So maybe that’s what Calio was feeling. Calio considered this as Illivor returned to Edeya.

After this enlightening conversation with Illivor Karanasi, Calio returned to his room and contacted Keisuke. He asked his master how he knew Nestian, as he’d had a vision in the Eon pit involving them. Keisuke explained that he’s run afoul of Nestian’s family, and had to kill one of them to make a point. You know how it is. Calio, with a little trepidation, agreed that *he* understood, but Nestian would not, and that was going to potentially complicate matters in the future. If Nestian ever found out he was going to try to kill Keisuke. Keisuke said he wouldn’t have done it if he’d known Calio would someday be traveling with Nestian, but he noted it wouldn’t be the first time one of Calio’s friends had tried to kill him. And that just meant Calio needed to keep this between the two of them. Calio agreed that would be wise. He said he would try to keep Aenland from immediately attacking Keisuke next time as well. Keisuke noted it was fortunate for him that Aenland hadn’t attacked him on sight in the Eon Pit. Then he asked Calio why they’d been in the Eon Pit in the first place. Calio replied that it was for the same reason he was on Triaxus, they were being led along a path, like a trail of breadcrumbs, and that’s where it led. Then Calio asked if Keisuke knew anything about what he’d been doing before he lost his memory, as Baba Yaga’s rider. There was a long pause at that, before Keisuke responded that normally you don’t work for the person you’re trying to assassinate.

Calio took that in. Then he asked Keisuke if there was anything else he could tell him about the last year, because there was still so much he didn’t know and was trying to piece together. Keisuke offered to tell him about how the two of them met. Calio agreed without hesitation. Keisuke explained that he’d found Calio’s body in a cave in a sorry state. But he could ‘smell’ greatness on him, and he went about reviving him and getting him back to full vitality. He introduced Calio to the worship of Norgorber, and brought him to a sect of other cultists. However the assassins hadn’t liked Calio, they said he belonged to Urgathoa and they wouldn’t take him. Keisuke tried to convince them to reconsider, and their leader decided to test Calio by giving him a single assassination target.

That target was Baba Yaga.

It was meant to be an impossible task, obviously. And when Calio set out, Keisuke assumed they would never see each other again. If it brought Calio any comfort, he had killed the entire sect for their insolence towards him.

Keisuke mentioned that he hoped that once Calio was back on Golarian, he’d reach out so they could talk in person. Calio agreed. He wanted to finally have a chance to talk face-to-face as well. Keisuke said he had ways of getting around, even if they were less versatile than ‘that fungal freak’. Calio asked Keisuke how he knew Xanthadon. Keisuke explained that she was an enemy of his own making by mistake. He had been exploring one of her fungal forests on a lead for Mythic power—a dead end as it turned out—when she’d attacked him saying it was for him trying to kill her younger self. He hadn’t understood at the time, but now that what had come to pass in the Eon Pit had occurred he understood. Time made fools of them all. But it was also possible to spin things to one’s advantage.

Calio said he’d seen this first hand now, which Keisuke asked about. Calio noted that he’d seen that they were in the Ein Pit too, but Keisuke told him that was a time abnormality, it didn’t explain anything. He did wonder what had become of Jadrenka the warden after such an event—probably scattered across time he mused. Calio said yes, that was likely—unless someone happened to have talked Baba Yaga out of making her the warden in the first place. Keisuke was skeptical, asking Calio if he was implying that he had talked down Baba Yaga. Calio glibly replied that Keisuke had said he had a strong personality. Keisuke was no longer quite as surprised that Calio had survived his ordeals—if he had survived. They both know that death is not always the end of things, after all.

After Calio had finished conversing with everyone he intended to, and the rest of the party finished shopping, they returned to Spurhorn and rested for the night there.

The next day the party marched towards Ivoryglass. Or flew to be more accurate, as we had dragonkin riders and other means of flying the entire way. When we landed for the evening, Nevra and Talsune heard someone calling for help in the distance. We flew in ti assist, and found an adlet shaman being attacked by three giant insectoid creatures. The adlets were a humanoid wolf tribe from Triaxus—she immediately recognized Greta as a fellow wolf in disguise from her scent. The party swooped in to save her. Nestian went after one of the giant mantis-like creatures, drawing its attention when he cut through one of its legs. Greta followed suit and charged the other nearest giant insect. The farthest one had no other targets, and threw all its attacks onto the wolf woman. She survived and managed to keep from being entangled in its freezing saliva. Aenland lined up two of the creatures, Nevra unleashed her lightning breath and then Aenland released a flurry of arrows, killing the one Nestian had been fighting and drawing the attention of the one in the back. Calio and Talsune lined up the remaining two, hitting them with a gout of flames that killed one outright, then used Boneshaker to pull the other away from the shaman. Nestian stepped in and finished it off with one final swing of his axe.

The shaman thanked us, and said she had been looking for us. Apparently her people had a story that destined champions from beyond the stars would come and take back their sacred land from the dread dragon Yrax. Many of her people were content to try to wait out the warlord, but she knew better than to think they could wait out a creature that could live for so many more centuries. So she had left and gone into the wastes seeking the destined heroes—and during her journey she had been beset by those monsters we had just seen. And in turn been saved by the very heroes she’d been seeking. She asked us to join her at a sacred site to her people, Sarnok’s Grave in Rimekeening Crevice. It was the resting place of an important figure in her people’s history—and his sacred weapon, which if she returned to her people with it, they would know the destined heroes had come and it was time to return to their sacred lands at last. This would be to our benefit as well: the Rimekeening Crevice connected to Ivoryglass as well. It would be an ideal back entrance, as the main entrance was incredibly heavily guarded and would be a suicide mission to try to enter through.

We obviously agreed to help, and took the shaman, Baknarla, back to camp with us to rest and prepare. We informed Commander Pharamol about what we’d learned, and then agreed to head out that evening. We wanted to get it done that same day so we could rest after and not waste the resources before going straight to Ivoryglass.

We followed Baknarla to the Rimekeening Crevice. Inside were two behir protecting an egg that was on the verge of hatching. We snuck past and avoided a confrontation, and we’re confident that once the egg hatched they would clear out.

A bit farther in, Calio stopped the party just in time to avoid an ambush by two carnivorous crystals. Unfortunately immediately afterwards the noise from the crystalline oozes stunned him.

Nestian went in and attacked one of the crystalline creatures. Talsune followed suit, with little luck.

Aenland swooped around, Nevra taking a stab at one of the crystals, and Aenland finishing it off before focusing his last arrow on the one facing Nestian and Talsune. The crystalline ooze attacked Nestian, but thankfully its slam attack didn’t encase him in crystal. Then Nestian finished it off.

The party moved on, and soon found themselves in a smaller chamber. Nestian warned them just in time as a frost worm burst through the floor. Unfortunately, he hadn’t realized there were actually *two* on their way, and a second snaked up behind Nestian and caught him, Calio, and Talsune in a vicious ice breath. Talsune was severely injured by the attack. Aenland began firing at the first frost worm, but knowing that killing it would trigger a death throe that might slay Talsune in the process he switched targets which it was bloodied and started shooting the other, leaving it tenderized for Nestian. Nestian sliced the other frost worm enough to leave it on death’s door, but also left it alive as Calio told him he had a plan to protect himself and Talsune from the upcoming death throes.

Calio raised a wall of bones—it didn’t manage to grapple the enemies, but that was never the point. It cut off the worms from him and Talsune, with just enough of an opening for Edeya to slip inside and heal the dragonkin. Edeya did so, helping to patch up some of the damage the ice breath had done to the draconic warrior.

The first worm still had its breath weapon, and it fired it on Nestian—also taking part of the wall down, but not hitting Calio, Talsune, or Edeya. Then Aenland popped both of the worms, one after the other. The first one’s death throes hit everyone except Calio and Talsune, who still had enough of a wall up to protect them, but it was destroyed in the icy blast. The second ice burst hit everyone but Aenland and Nevra. By the end Edeya was on her last legs, and everyone else was anywhere from bloodied to severely injured. We all took some time to heal after that, and with so many close calls Calio cast a spell he’d forgotten he’d recently taken—Life Pact—to help keep everyone in the party alive.

Once the party was back in fighting shape, they made their way forward. They found the path leading to Ivoryglass, but Baknarla told them that the spirits were guiding her down another path. They still needed to find the spear she was seeking, so we agreed to follow her.

In the final chamber, Sarnok’s Grave itself, we found an alien being waiting for us. A Bone Sage, a member of the undead race of spellcasters from the planet Eox. They were known to often work with the Dominion of the Black.

The Bone Sage asked us how the experiment of Dr Galithazar had gone, and what its flaws had been. Calio told the Bone Sage that it died quickly, and that we were simply too powerful for it.

With the answer given, the Bone Sage called upon a gargantuan worm cleric to assist him in killing us.

Calio warned Edeya just before it happened, but there was no time to react as a Roper dropped from the ceiling onto her head.

Aenland immediately began firing arrows into the Bone Sage, using the Undead Bane arrows Calio had given him along with making his bow Holy to deal a massive amount of damage. The Bone Sage turned his attention on Aenland. At the same time, the worm cast Sacred Flame on the ice wall behind it, releasing the two seemingly dead Battleflowers behind him, which stepped out ready to attack. One of the Battleflowers ran forward and hit Nestian, trying to stun him, but he held his ground. The other cast confusion—something unusual for a monk. We all resisted the mental invasion, however—Nestian with Edeya’s help from a Hero Point.

Talsune swooped over the enemies and lined up the Bine Sage and the worm, breathing a stream of fire. The sage dodged entirely, but the worm took the damage. Calio took this into consideration, seeing that using a spell that could be dodged against the Sage was foolish. So he cast Slay Living through his pocket watch and jumped off Talsune, approaching the Sage. Unfortunately, the worm took the moment to attack him—and when it did it grabbed him, snatching him away from the Sage. Calio released the Slay Living against the worm instead, using a Hero Point to succeed at getting past spell resistance, and dealing full Slay Living damage. The worm took a shitton of damage, but now Calio was in his mouth about to be swallowed.

The Bone Sage raised his staff and used it to cast Telekinesis on Aenland, throwing him off of Nevra and giving him a negative level. Then he teleported away, assuring us he’d see us in Ivoryglass.

Nestian attacked the Battleflower that attacked him, while Edeya Evil Eyed both the Roper and the giant worm. Greta, seeing red at the worm chomping down on her boyfriend, charged it and left a nasty gash in it. The Roper began attacking everyone in range, most resisted but Talsune took 6 points of Strength damage.

Aenland began firing arrows into the worm until it fell, releasing Calio, then did the same to the roper to free Edeya. His last couple of arrows went for the monk fighting Nestian—who caught his first arrow and threw it back, making Aenland pissed because he hates monks for their ability to do just that. Calio hit the monk with Harm, leaving him with only 1 hp. Unfortunately he missed with Quicken Inflict Light Wounds, so he didn’t finish him off. Instead, Nestian did.

When he did, a creature that looked like a brain with limbs pulled itself out of the Battleflower’s battered corpse. An intellect devourer. The rest of Nestian’s attacks went onto the brain-like monstrosity. Then Greta stepped in and smashed it at Calio’s request, as he found it utterly repulsive.

The last Battleflower had put up a barrier to keep out spells—but that didn’t keep out arrows, and a moment later he was down as well with a second intellect devourer climbing out of its host. Calio and Talsune found there wasn’t much they could do about it, as it was immense to fire and still protected by a barrier. That didn’t protect it from Nestian, who cut it right down the center.

The party returned to camp to rest, as that had been a harrowing couple of fights. The next day, they ventured back out and through the Keening Crevice into Ivoryglass itself. Below Ivoryglass they found a large ice field that was glowing. Edeya identified the glow and was horrified, saying she hoped this wasn’t the machine Elvana had placed here.

It was a Winter Siphon, one of the machines Baba Yaga used to create Irrisen’s eternal cold.