- Gareth is a goblin looking human who is afraid of the dark - He carries a stick - He’s just there playing the flute ominously (like Andre 3K (the rapper)) - Dan is a red Dragonborn - He uses a spear - He is afraid of dying alone - and seeks a wife - He is the equivalent of 30 - He has been working on a music career - He partakes in flyting - Cedric announces a genocide of his own - focused on bubble-blowing-babies - Ellette questions Quintin about allowing the Knights in the bar. He claims they mentioned business with Sordia Vignti - Graxen attempts to deescalate the situation but the Knights are unimpressed - Steve then attempts to intimidate the group with her hammer, this does seem to catch their attention - Steve places the blue Dragonborn in charge of the Knights, refusing to deal with Des - the group’s actual second-in-command - The Knights agree to head to their room for the day - with the plan being to depart a sunrise the following morning - Ellette feeds Rasp while Graxen visits Nissa and Vastian - Cedric sets up at the bar to drink while Astryx meditates in the forest - Cedric attempts to haggle with Quintin regarding the balance remaining on his bar tab. He currently owes 100GP - Fizzle spikes Cedric’s drink with a potion that causes his body to secrete a copper-like substance. Cedric’s body solidifies into a statue. - This effect wears off the following morning - The blue Dragonborn approaches us the following morning, the Knights of the Wrym waiting outside the Lucky Gryphon - He speaks of the quickest route to the desert cutting through the Spine of the World. This is 650 miles. It will take 30 days of travel - The longer route is roughly 1500 miles. This will take 50 days of travel - We elect to travel via the dangerous route through the Spine of the World - As we move along a thin mountain pass, large boulders begin to rain down upon us. Half of the Knight of the Wyrm are killed. A cart is destroyed - We see huge Storm Giants above us - We continue through this pass, despite the losses - Astryx and Cedric both suffer from pneumonia - Graxen finds a number of weeds that may help - Steve brews these into a salve that she treats both Cedric and Astryx with - As we continue on our trek, we arrive at a split in the path. One moves to the left while another moves to the right. A number of Storm Giants follow from behind - We travel along the right path - A cart breaks, careening down the mountainside. A handful of Knights of the Wyrm survive. - The Sending Stone in Ellette and Graxen’s pockets both vibrate - Ellette receives a message from Elminster, speaking of sightings of metallic zombies outside the boundaries of Luskan - Graxen’s message is from Valethar - to the same effect. - Graxen and Ellette respond, urging the Pirate Kings to deal with the infected as best they can and asking Elminster to help - That night, the thundering footsteps of the Storm Giants disrupt the sleep of Graxen and Cedric - The following morning, we arrive at a large sheet of ice across a frozen lake - With a rope around her waist, Steve steps out onto the ice - Steve slips and falls backwards, causing the ice to crack a tiny amount - She feels something hitting the ice repeatedly from below, using her Tremor Sense - Whatever this is, she senses it to be coming from the centre of the lake. It moves very quickly, and continuously pinging at the surface - Cedric begins to bang at the ice at the edge of the lake, in an attempt to lure whatever this may be away from Steve - Ellette creates a Room - ushering everyone, the horses and the two remaining carts - now disassembled - inside. - Ellette uses her Dragon Wings to fly 30 feet into the air, soaring over the frozen lake from above - On the other side, she opens the Door - everyone stepping out. She uses Mending to repair the carts - We arrive at the edge of the Anorak Desert - Using his binoculars, Cedric surveys the horizon - a metallic glint catches his eye - Graxen uses the binoculars, pinpointing the glint to be south east of our position - Ellette messages Berethor to ask if he arrived in the desert, but does not get a response - We travel towards the glint - The ground rumbles beneath the sand - Steve perceiving this the most through her Tremor Sense - We emerge in a valley surrounded by a number of tall dunes - We have the feeling we are being watched - We advance through a narrow passage between dunes - finding a human corpse. Steve approaches the body, kicking it in the shoulder - This leads to a crunch and a release of gas - The body looks dried out, as if it has been drained - Cedric finds a pouch on the man’s waist. Inside, he finds 15CP - There is also a dull gem inside the pouch - Blue is Cedric’s favourite colour - Steve finds the corpse to still be in possession of all of their extremities, including hair and fingernails, but there is an odd bald spot on the crown of its head - His robes appear to be aged, not from our current time - Ellette uses Arcane Eye, catching sight of a number of presences but the Eye is immediately consumed - Cedric shoots an arrow straight upwards into the sky - There is a sudden outburst of shuffling noises, followed by hissing - The arrow is also consumed. Cedric realises that this is likely because it is also magic - Travelling onwards, we continue to hear the sound of hissing and chattering - coming from above us - We coming to an opening that leads through to a large, open dried out oasis. - There is a colossal metal man lying prone in the oasis. The mechanical man seems to be made from very old tech - which none of us are familiar with - Astryx finds ancient carvings on the head of the colossus. While she cannot read their meaning, she does link them to the Netherese Empire - As she examines these, Graxen notices a flitter of movement inside the head - Steve walks inside the head - She also sees the movement, which disappears deeper inside the colossus - Graxen ventures inside, after Steve. Astryx joins the two. Cedric approaches the head but does not enter - Steve sees some kind of strange creature inside the skull, she struggles to describe it - claiming it looked like a wet sunflower with tentacles and teeth. She grabs Graxen and Astyx and bolts from the colossus’s skull - The strange creature, resembling Steve’s description, scurries from the head behind us - Ellette believes this may be one of the Phaerimm - the magic devouring creatures that were involved in the aftermath of the fall of the Netherese Empire - We all hear voices within our heads - The party attempts to flee from the Phaerimm - but it teleports in front, cutting off our exit - In a deep voice, it hisses within our heads - simply saying “consume”