Well, that could have gone better…

The surviving party members burned their dead and retreated to their keep. They sent urgent messages to their allies, fearing the worst.

The goddess Nouliss-Hakkari turned out to be too much for Drumarch to handle, even in her weakened state. He fled to Kimenta, where the gods fought in the streets. Their combined effort chased her off, but the town has seen better days. Still recovering from events of last year (the necromancer’s flying fortress, sessions 44-49), Kimenta is practically a ghost town.

The surviving members of the Windless Ring set out to recruit new members, to varying degrees of success, while they seek out rumors of the vampire goddess. Seth-Durrash may have found a ranger in the Steppes, Oervind seems to have found a talented bard, and Indigo Promise appears happy to stick around for a while, but the company is sorely depleted and in urgent need of reinforcements.

Goddess afoot

Apparently, Nouliss-Hakkari kidnapped a priest before she fled, and she trudged along the coast to Shalay before she and her newly-created vampire minions disappeared. They have not yet resurfaced, but that is scant comfort.

Thessta (Durju godess of pears) sent a messenger to the Keep to inform them of the situation in Kimenta, and what happened as the goddess fled. The Durju gods will take care of Kimenta and mend their lands as best they can, but they are not prepared for another onslaught. The elder goddess must be defeated before she can regain more power.

Testing, testing!

Oervind recruited Penluthien, and they traveled to Alacrity Keep for introductions, and then to Feery’s Leap for a briefing with the Three.

While in Feery’s Leap, they learned that a Communist monastery in the Elphand Lands was in dire need of a visit from seasoned adventurers. Some planar brigands had slipped in, and were harassing the commune. Edane decided that would be a fine side project, and set off to help the Communists (and make some coin). Edane, Oervind, and Penluthien teleported to Valon, and set sail for Elephas.

It took a while to sail the unfamiliar waters, and they fought some sea harpies along the way, but they made it to the Elephas, and conjured an elemental to power-boat up the Greatflood River to Damkina. They visited the market in Damkina, bought a large flying carpet, and received directions to the commune. Though the trip to the Communist redoubt would be arduous by land, it was a short flight from Damkina.

Consulting with Brikka the dwarven Communist, they learned that the interlopers were githkind, presumably githyanki. They had no interest in parley with the Communists, and just insisted on taking what they wanted and lashing out at anything in their way. The company decided to find their encampment and attempt parley from a different angle.

They found the encampment almost by luck. Instead of approaching normally, they made a show of it: casting black tentacles on the underside of their carpet for a dramatic appearance, and flying over the gith in multiple passes to exchange insults (using tongues to communicate). For a dazzling finish, Oervind did some quick calculations, they climbed to a suitable height, and Edane lept off the carpet, calling fort the Eyetalon as she did so. The boat plummeted toward the gith encampment with a shrieking roar. At the last moment, she uttered the command to return the boat to its tiny form, and hovered over the gith with arms crossed. “Ready to talk?” she asked, as they broke out in applause.

Impressed by their panache, the gith agreed to talk. Penluthien took lead in the actual parley, Edane supported, and Oervind mostly stayed wisely silent. They realized that the gith were there by circumstance, not design, and they were not at liberty to plane shift away – possibly because of pregnancy. Oervind arranged for one of his teachers to come from Tula, to take them to Skandik town of Sea Rune (the party visited in sessions 75-76). Edane arranged for her old captain Mendoril Thurant to stop in Sea Rune to see if they would make good mariners. The githyanki agreed to this arrangement, as more interesting and potentially more fruitful than lurking in a remote forest.

The Communists were grateful for the assistance, and paid the party in cash (5,000 gp) and in kind (~10k gp worth of Communist services).The party took a moment to draw up a series of topics to research, and set off on their way.

All their questions should have responses in a week or so, and they can retrieve the Communists’ findings from their contact in Feery’s Leap (Endzela Thiessen).