Journal

Stranded on Direpoint

The Escape from the Midnight Sonnet

To Safety?

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The group finally landed on the shores of the Northern peninsula of the Kingdom of Prax. They rejoiced for a bit before deciding to head towards the signs of a village nearby. After a bit of walking the group stumbled into a small farm and a human male tending to the farm. Calla first initiated conversation with the man, but quickly Elseth, Guy, and Kelkairi became the main communicators as the conversation switched from common to praxtongue. After a bit of talking the group learned that the village of Denall was about 30-40 minutes from the farm and that they could possibly find some of the goods they needed their. The farmer, Tenlos, also offered the group the opportunity to stay in his barn for the night if they needed it. The group was hesitant to accept this offer at first, but did end of accepting; to the delight of Tenlos' daughter, Blink.

After concluding their conversation with Tenlos, the group made its way to the village of Denall to stock up on supplies. They first stopped at the blacksmith in town and bought some daggers, a wand, and some spell components from the dwarven blacksmith. Next, part of the group stopped into the general store to get more spell components. Finally the group stopped by the market. There they bought a variety of vegetables (potatoes, onions, carrots, and pickles) from the two wood elf merchants. Tia attempted to feed one of the carrots to her cat, which refused. After this final stop the group came up with a plan for how to spend the rest of the day: Elseth, Tia, and Montag would head to talk to Tenlos a bit more; Kelkairi, Calla, and Zoomus would go hunt for some game for a meal; and Guy, Johann, and Aratak would go get set up in the barn.

At the barn, the trio talked with the children, Blink and Wink, a bit more, and were frankly a little creepy.

The trio hunting had great success, managing to get five rabbits.

The group that went to go talk to Tenlos learned a bit more about the lay of the land in terms of getting to a bigger city and the Tranquil Nexus. Elseth was also able to infer that Tenlos did not seem to have any malintent in his offer to the group to stay in the barn, and he also accepted Tenlos' offer to cook the group a stew for dinner.

Once everyone had reconviened, Tenlos and his children eventually joined to help cook the evening meal. Tenlos made stew while Elseth made fantasy latkes. Blink asked Tenlos if she could show the group something, to which he went and unlocked a locked stable door in the barn. Behind the door was a small dairy cow, which Blink proudly introduced to the group as Spot and offered fresh milk to everyone. It was a nice, calm, and safe evening for a group that had not been able to experience those things for some time now.

After Tenlos and his daughters left the barn, the group discussed taking watches and decided it was in their best interest to set some up. The first watch consisted of Elseth, Kelkairi, and Aratak, and went smoothly with no disturbances other than the rain storm that was blowing through. Second watch also went by smoothly for Guy, Zoomus, and Tia, though the rain did pick up some more. The third watch went by smoothly for the first hour but then Johann and Montag heard a rustling coming from the nearby forest. Concerned by the sound, the trio decided to quietly go check it out to make sure everything was fine. In the forest they discovered the footprints of a humanoid, bipedal creature that was heading Northwest and dragging something with it. The trio also noted that the creature was not wearing any footwear and was not finding an easy path through the forest. With this information they headed back to the barn to finish up their watch and inform the group in the morning of the incident.

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Dad-napped

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With sunlight breaking through the treelines again the group made their way across the river again, and taking the rope they had used to cross the river back. As they went to trek up the hill where the landslide has been the group encountered a male wood elf named Philio. Philio helped the group up the hill and told them that he was a traveling trader making his way to Denall. Interested in the option to see a new variety of goods some of the group asked to browse through what he had. The trader in response turned his pack into a portable table and looked through his pack for the odd and obscure spell components desired by the group. Afterwards, and with the same destination in mind, the group and Philio decided to trek together.

After a few more hours of travel the group finally made it back to Denall. Waiting in the centre of the village, by the well, were Blink, Wink, and Bonsley. As the group entered the centre Blink noticed them and after getting winks attention sprinted towards Tenlos for a giant hug, to which Calla was adjacent by the request of Blink. Not long after enjoying the reunion the group started to have a rather weird conversation about time, with Calla and Elseth finally learning about the missing day, which ended up causing Bonsley to leave. After the conversation was kind of wrapped up, the group went to visit Doskor to return the breastplate. In return he ofer to use Artorion iron to improve one weapon for the group. It took little discussion for the group to decide that Kelkairi would benefit the most from that, and thus Doskor improved her rapier.

With that wrapped up the group headed back to the barn with the plan on staying there one last night before leaving to who knows where. As they got close they saw a half-orc leaning against the barn, and gleamed it to be one of the new guests Blink had talked about during the reunion. The half orc, Traegar, introduced themselves and their group; a bunch of fisherman who had all washed ashore recently after a storm that occurred two nights ago. Though this interested the group because of the circumstances of their union, nothing really came from the new groups story. After some more very awkward conversation the day wore on and the group with their new acquaintances and Tenlos and the family had a nice dinner of turnip stew and decided that in the morning Traeger and the group would head towards Pasalav together. While they did this the other group would begin on repairing their boat with what was left with the group's boat and what they could gather from the village and nearby land.

With decisions made about the close future, the group settled on the nightly watches with an agreement to keep watch outside so that Tenlos' house was in eyesight. This was to relieve some of the stress from Tenlos from the event of the previous night. The first watch consisted of Elseth, Calla, and Kelkairi, who sat in an awkward silence for the beginning of the shift. To break some of the tension Elseth asked an icebreaker in which they were to describe their current mood as a weather pattern. After some confusion and hesitation everyone answered the question to a degree. The conversation drew the attention of Crasslie, who came to chat with the group for a second before attempting to intimidate them regarding Trager going with them. Crasslie told them that they better take good care of Trager and not do anything to harm him, and with that Crasslie left to go continue the watch alone. The next two watches also go fine, with nothing occurring during the night. During the final watch, Trager tells Aratak and Zoomus that he would like to visit the Chancery on the way out of town and they decide to go with Trager.

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As everyone rouses from their slumber and begins to pack their belongings it is decided that it will be a group fieldtrip to the chancery before everyone sets off. At the chancery everyone putters about doing their own thing. Aratak, Kel, Dumont, and Trager spend time at the shrine to Taronos, and Trager also spends some time at the shrine of Nylance. Calla examines the chancery, a bit confused, before stopping at the shrine to Lynestra. Elseth moves around the whole chancery, giving a brief extended look to the statue of Thandaras. Guy and Johann look around curiously, Johann taking mental notes and making comparisons to the buildings he knew of.

With everyones prayers said, the group returned to the barn where Plumel and Crasslie had finished packing their groups supplies for the journeys ahead. A goodbye is said to Tenlos, as well as Blink and Wink who ran over to the group from their game of tag. Tenlos told the group that if they were to ever return to the area they were welcome to stay in the barn and have some turnip stew. Blink goes around giving hugs to everyone, even Kel who Blink has decided is bad-ass not scary (Though Kel does not understand hugs). After getting a hug from Blink, Calla says goodbye to her in Praxtongue, correctly, which made Elseth quite proud.

With all the squared away, the group finally hit the trails to their respective locations. The two groups travelled together for a good amount of time, often in silence that Dumont tried to fill by asking a variety of questions to the group. One of those questions was if the group had a leader, which no one was sure what the answer was. Elseth responded that he had been taking a lead at points, but that was mostly because he could speak praxtongue. Dumont in an attempt to continue the dying conversation told everyone that Crasslie was the leader of their little band, but at that point the conversation was fully dead.

As they all continued on the road the group ran into another familiar face, Philio the traveling merchant, to whom they gave a rather lukewarm greeting and moved on from.

After a good amount more of traveling the group finally reached the crossroads were they would split apart. Trager and Dumont said there goodbyes, during which Dumont gave Trager some coins and a warning to not spend them all in one place multiple times. While that was happening Crasslie came over to warn the group again to not let anything bad happen to Trager, which the group promised they would do their best at. Finally, the groups split off and Trager and the merry band of misfits continued on their way to Pasalav.

This time around it was Trager who attempted to generate some conversation for the often quite group by bringing back the weather icebreaker. In response Elseth came up with a new icebreaker that resulted in the group have a skipping stone competition in the nearby stream, which Tia won. After the thrills of this competition the group traversed a bit further before stopping at a premade campsite to spend the night. During this time Johann asked if Kel could hunt a snake for him, so he could harvest a snake's tongue, which she did though he was on his own for getting the tongue out. At first Johann tried to get the tongue using a crossbow bolt, but Elseth intervened and let him borrow a dagger. While this was happening more shenanigans were occurring as Tia drank a potion of levitation or flying in order to give the vial she bought from Philio to Aratak, which just resulted in more conversation and showing off of the strange magics the group was capable of.

During the watches that evening nothing much occurred. The first watch consisted mainly of Trager and Guy playing cards games and conversing about the history of the group. The second watch was a bit more conversation lively as Elseth asked another one of his ice breakers to Calla and Zoomus, and he asked about how Zoomus was doing after the nothic. It was also learned that Elseth can juggle up to nine ball bearings. The finally watch was quiet and went by easily.

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Nothing of interest occurred, just more travel

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After a bit of travel the group heard yelling in the distance, which they would discover was coming from the scene of a crash. Arguing were a tiefling who had been driving a rickshaw and a dwarf who had a horse drawn cart. Both vehicles were toppled over with their items strewn around the ground and broken. The dwarf was screaming about it being the tieflings fault and being owed compensation by the tiefling, while the tiefling insisted it was an accident caused by a sudden bump in the usually smooth road. In an attempt to calm the dwarf down the group had Trager cast mending on as much of the dwarf's supplies as he could and then the group tipped the cart back over. The resulting shaking of the ground seemed to go on for an extended amount of time, before suddenly the pinchers of an Ankheg emerged from the group attempted to grab Calla

The Beetle Battle

A few hours later the group passes into District Gasco. During this travel time Calla excitedly talks to Kelkairi in Infernal after learning that Kelkairi could speak the langauge earlier. Calla tells Kelkairi about how she used to only speak infernal at home and had taught herself common from a book. She also says that being able to speak infernal makes this all feel a bit like home, to which Kelkairi responds interesting and leaves. Finally the group takes their rest for the day. The first watch Calla takes Elseth aside to ask him about the pantheon as it was not common in her hometown. During this watch Trager also asks Elseth about his name, noting that he was going by Lestran in Denall but Elseth with the group. Elseth informs them that Elseth was his name, but he does use different names for safety when meeting new people. After this the first watch passes, and the second watch begins and more revelations about each others lives are had. Aratak revealed that his mother was frozen by an ice dragon in the North of Kyleph. Zoomus told the group about her free love cleric type parents and how she does not know if she has many siblings. A more startling revelation came from Kelkairi who revealed that she assisted her mother and twin brother in murdering her father. She also informed the group that she was in no rush to find her brother.

While these stories were being spun, a nightmare was being spun for Guy. In his dreams he was attempting to stab an unknown shape and woke up with his weapon drawn. Guy then went into third watch with Johann suffering exhaustion from a restless sleep. During this time Guy becomes convinced that Johann wants to sleep with him as Johann tries to convince Guy to go back to sleep. In an attempt to tell Guy he was not trying to sleep with him, Johann told Guy he was straight, but it did not calm Guy down.

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Another day of travel passes with more conversations between everyone occurring. During the day Calla continues to talk to Kelkairi and asks if Kelkairi trusts her, which Kelkairi does not answer and just walks away. Guy also attempts to figure out what was going on with him, which Kelkairi eventually figures out was due to her blood puppeting of him during the last battle. With this revelation, Kelkairi passes around a consent sheet to the group about being blood puppeting and most people agree its fine. Another discovery made was by Calla, who discovered she has worse anxiety than everyone when Trager casts calm emotions on her and she experiences not having anxiety for once.

Finally the night comes and one final revelation is had during the travels. Elseth takes Calla just outside of camp and informs her of their half truth by revealing their changeling form. In return for learning this secret, Calla revealed her own, which was that her true name was Calla Ombrius and she had been going by a different last name while traveling.

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Traveling

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After several weeks of traveling the group finally arrives in the district Pasalav and see that the bridge into Pasalav has a roadblock with 6-7 guards present. Always suspicious, the group decided to send Elseth in disguise and Guy to investigate the roadblock to figure out why it was happening. Quickly Elseth and Guy learn it is a checkpoint just to keep track of who is going in and out of the city due to the current war occurring, and they note nothing that would seem to show that guards are looking for their group. With this information brought back to the group they decided to go in, some in disguise some not. Everyone was able to get through mostly fine (Zoomus was rescued from a bad lie by Tia who had to pretend to be Zoomus's mother), except for Calla who was taken by the guards for further questioning. The group attempted to protest in a variety of ways including crying discrimination, but they were unsuccessful and told to go to the guard barracks next.

While on their way to the guard barracks, Guy was given a flyer to a business called Ironfoot and the group found a map of the city. During this time Calla was told at the guard barracks that there were questions about her journal and it was a randomly selected background check. The guards asked if Calla had anyone to vouch for her and she was stumped at first offering Luren though unsure where he was. After this Calla was put in a holding cell to wait until her background check could be completed.

Once the group made their way to the guard barracks they attempted to convince the desk worker to let Calla go as she was with them and they could vouch for her. Their pleas were unsuccessful and the guard told them it would take about a day until Calla could get out. On the inside of the holding cell Calla was informed by the other days it was tending to take several days rather than the several hours they were told. Once the group left the barracks they attempted to come up with better ideas to break Calla out but were stumped. Then they left to head to Wandering Oak Tavern to meet up with Trager to come up with a real plan.

A Trager Among Us

Jailbreak 2: Anxiety Boogaloo

In one of their rooms in The Nightly, the group met with Ethelian and Doreah, two members of the Pasalav Guard who had a job they needed the groups help on. Which after some debating the group agrees to be a part of. They also pass off Trager in exchange for some items.

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After agreeing to do a job for Ethelian and Doreah, the group spends most of this day prepping by going and doing some shopping. Calla, Kelkairi, and Zoomus went clothes shopping to get some more convienent and less suspicous looking outfits. Tia went to a pet store to get some treats for her cat. Johann went shopping in a tourist trap because he is a dad. Aratak went to Ironfoot to buy some metal and also ran into Philio again. Guy bought some cool glasses. Elseth went off on his own not shopping but rather just exploring in a different persona.

Operation Moonbeam Part 1

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Operation Moonbeam Part 2