Day 21 - Ichidi (First Day of the Third Tenday of Haya-Akirune)
After a hearty breakfast and short shopping trip the valiant party leave Fisher's Rest by boat, ably rowed by Thradal and Lanvor, with Oskar up front and Talisin near the back, manning the rudder is a somewhat overhung and not particularly keen Rainer Alder, but a promise is a promise.
Rowing away from Fisher's Rest the group again noticed how glassy and mirror-like that lake was and how silent, Rainier explained Mizkagi means, in the old language, Mirror Lake and it has always been as such.
There was disquieting moment when the party noticed that as they rowed away from shore the visible distance started to look odd, as thought the shoreline could not decide just how far away it was. They decided to continue into the fog, which as they were closer now they could all observe the purple-yellow pulsing that emanated from within; although they could all feel it mor that actually see it.
One into wall of fog they noticed that it did not feel or act like normal fog, it was not chilled nor did it leave a dampness on skin or clothing. The feeling of passing through into somewhere different was apparent in all of the members of the group.
Upon feeling bumping on the bottom of the boat a very nervous Rainer started babbling about some of the fish in the lake were called 'Stupid Fish' as they would constant bump themselves upon the bottom of the fishing boats, and how much he, his father, and his father's father, would fish on the lake many many years ago.
The group tried fishing to pass the time as they were travelling though the fog and almost caught a fish but it manged to break free.
They suddenly heard some noises in the fog , which sounded like a ship and then broke though into a eye of clarity in the fog, not unlike the eye of a storm. They were all flabbergasted to see a huge sailing ship half-destroyed, around 75 feet front of them. It had been torn asunder by multiple different forces; so much so that it appeared to only be afloat by some miracle. Figures could be seen on board, tall humanoid, but somehow...different.
Communication as eventually established, first by one of the crew imitating what was said to him and then quickly being able to speak clearly in the common togue.
He introduced himself as Veyr-of-the-Last-Rope, captain of The Ninth Wake.
The ship’s crew (only 4 left out of a complement of 95 souls) are Coral-Boned Mariners from somewhere beyond Errae.
They are not undead. They are not human.
The party are near The Ninth Wake, speaking with Veyr and the Coral-Boned Mariners, when the fog above begins to move.
Not wind.
Wings.
The attackers are:
Mourning Skreels
They are four-winged black-grey bat-like predators from the Coral-Boned Mariners’ realm.
They have:
four leathery wings
sharp teeth
claws at the tips of their wings
hooked talons
black-grey wet hide
skeletal ridges
shrieking voices
At first you think the rigging is creaking. Then the sound multiplies. A dry, rapid clicking from somewhere above the torn sails.
One of the coral-boned mariners looks up sharply. Another reaches for a hooked blade.
Veyr hisses through blue-lit teeth: “Down. Down now.”
Something drops out of the fog.
It is bat-like, but wrong — all wet membrane, hooked limbs, coral-white bone ridges and a long skull split by a mouth full of needle teeth. Four wings shudder from its body, each ending in a curved black claw.
Then another shape falls beside it. And another.
The mist above the Ninth Wake is full of them.
Battle ensues and the Skreels are defeated although one member on The Ninth Wake crew is killed. Fighting on the rowboat is tough and Lanvor ends up on the water, but is still able to cast a magic Missile spell while clinging to the boat.
It is noticed that when a spell hits one of these creatures there is a chance that the differing realm energies coalesces and cause more damage to the creature.
As they party and the crew of The Ninth Wake draw breath after the battle a much larger movement can both seen, heard, and felt in the mist. Approaching on a glide path to the ship and the rowboat is a much larger Alpha Skreel, some 5 or 6 times the size of the other bat like creatures...
It was a long battle but very successful as the Huge Alpha Skreel disappears in an eldritch blue glow when Oskar's axe finds it's true home. Unfortunately, as told by Captain Veyr when the party clamours aboard the Ninth Wake, the creature is not dead and will return. Only a devastating blow can destroy the creature utterly; at least in their home realm, here, he says, who knows?
The team discuss the island with Veyr and find that it does not belon g to the world of Errae or the corral bound seaman's world either, but it is someplace else entirely, so the party must be careful. Veyr further explains that his crew has been so reduced that he now has no way to complete his mission to close the rift and asks if the group would undertake this onerous task, they have an item, which must be used by a magic user, that will help in the rift's closing and he is will to pass it on. He warns, though, that the item is dangerous, possibly the work of experimental magic users from his realm, and this coupled with the differences in magical frequencies between the two realms may cause unexpected results when used.
The group agree and Lanvor volunteers to take and attune to the item.
The Lantern of Closure.
A rare and Wonderous item, given to the party by the remaining Coral-Boned Mariners who crew the Asseelia battle ship 'The Ninth Wake'
Lantern of Closure Rare wondrous item, requires attunement
Senses rifts/soft places within 300 ft once per dawn.
Grants advantage to allies within 15 ft against magical mist, disorientation, or planar misdirection.
Has up to 3 charges / day
Spend 1 charge to attempt to close a rift within 60 ft.
Rifts require a DC 15 Wisdom ability check (CHARISMA)
Failed closure deals 2d6 force damage.
Regains 1d3 charges at dawn.
Emergency use: spend all charges to physically seal a passage behind the party.
Healing: Can heal up to 6 characters, 4d6 HP per day . The character must stare into the inner glow of the lantern for 1 minute. DC10 Wisdom check to succeed but on a 2, 3, or 4 the lantern causes 2d6 psychic damage. On a critical fail (1) the character permanently loses 1 point of Strength or Constitution or Dexterity (1d3 to decide which)
Words of Command (Any Language)
Retract - To close a rift
Heal - To Use the healing Power
Seal - To seal passage (must have floor, ceiling, and two walls)
Oskar offers the sailors a bottle of his whisky, which the take and try and enjoy. It is as happy parting and when the group are back on their boat the Ninth Wake sails of disapearing in a blue glow.
Soon they are on the approach to an island that is far far bigger than any island should be that belongs in Lake Miskagi, the group are in no doubt now that they are somewhere else entirely.
Rainer Alder beaches the boat on the nearest beach and promises to return on Godi the 25th day of the month, wishes the group well and hurredly rows back to Fishers Rest.
Lanvor and Thradal head in land to find a camping spot while Talisin decided to try to fish for the groups dinner, Oskar stays to watch. As luck would have it Talisin catches a large fish and they walk to join the others.
While walking to camp Lanvor and Thradal notice a heavy thumping sound coming from the east but as it is not close they continue on a find a good camping spot. Oskar, Talisin, an fat big fish john them soon after, and also hear the unusual notice.
After a nice dinner of fish they settle down to sleep and are left undisturbed.
Day 22 - Nidi
Day 1 on the island
During Thradal's watch he hears the thumping and cracking noises again, somewhat closer and he goes to investigate.
About a mile away from the camp on the other side of a large group of trees he sees two large creatures moving to the North, to Thradal's eyes they look like gigantic, and dangerous, lizards and move with a ponderous gait - he watches as they move further from his position.
Allosaurus, and there are two of them...
Deciding that the party are safe for now he returns and tells them what he has saw...
The party decides to stay at camp for the remained of their rest time and then have breakfast before moving out.
Following Thradal's directions they find their way though the trees and eventually spot the Allosauruses about 2 miles East of their position. While deciding what to do they Dinosaurs' decide for them and start charging the groups position.
The three of then climb trees, eventually, and when the creatures are in range they blast them with magic spells and crossbow bolts, killing one outright - Thradal getting a critical hit. The other creature flees and manages to escape but the party follow, quickly engage with it and kill it outright.
After the battel Lanvor communicated with his lantern to try to find in which direction they should travel to the portal. He feels drawn to the mountainous North of the island.
They find a large thoroughfare, possibly an old road or wide track, heading north through the middle of the trees and follow it to a lone hill, with the plan to climb the hill to get a better vantage point of the island. The track disappears into the trees near the foot of the lone hill and the party can hear loud buzzing sounds from behind the curtain of branches.
Oskar investigates and unfortunately trips over and bashed up against a tree which has, in its higher branches, a large wasps nest.
The wasps attack and Oskar retreats to where the rest of the team are, and they all attack.
It is a fight against a swarm so is both frustrating an confusing for the group, they defeat the swarm but not without a blue-on-blue hit from Oskar's axe to Lanvor, and then a fireball from Lanvor to Oskar, luckily that damage was minimal although the wasps were able to cause some damage to the party.
They were then attacked by a giant wasp which was defeated with no real issues.
They decided then to fireball the wasp's nest and, when burning, it disgorged its contents on the forest floor. Most of the items were a charred mess, including the body of a cocooned 3 1/2 foot tall humanoid, burned beyond all recognition and looting. Thradal did find a slightly charred wand of unknown use and provenance.
At this point they decide to sit down, rest, and have some lunch.
Deciding to continue their trek to the top of the nearest hill and get a decent view of the island, the party left soon after lunch and were soon following a well-defined path to the top.
On the path they soon started to see evidence of recent passage by others, and also started to find evidence of machinery, in the shape of small broken cogs and other mechanical detritus.
More footprints and drag marks were found as the climb progressed.
From the summit they party found they could see a great deal of the island, including a wiry bat-like creature flying in figure-of-eight patterns around 2 - 3 miles to the North
Their attention at the summit, though, was quickly drawn to a device of strange construction. They soon discovered it was a make-it-look-closer device that had been built (or stolen) by goblins who were now nowhere to be seen, the device required rebuilding and instructions for doing so were soon found.
After a fair bit of 'Engineering' the party soon managed to get the device working, although they found that it rapidly heated up, started smelling like burnt oil, and made an increasingly alarming ticking noise from it's internals.
However they could use the device to make things look closer and they were able to see:
The location of a great power funnel in the mountains to the North. The location of frog-like humanoid creatures to the East.
The machine started to act like it was about to blow up, but a couple of hard smacks by Thradal seems to clam it down a little.
It then also revealed:
The location of a sea-cave mouth and giant headless statue on the coast to the South East. The location of some dog-like humanoids to the North West.
The machine then started to rattle and smoke uncontrollably and Thradal decided at this point to pull the big red lever marked as "DO NOT PULL".
Several things then happened:
The machine went suddenly quite, Every bell and whistle on the machine started blaring, The machine fired off a massive Green Flare A voice from the machine shouted, in a really really loud voice, "SURVEY COMPLETE! BIG CLEVER GOBLINS HERE!" The machine folded up and collapsed, giving off a terrible burning smell and a lot of smoke and heat.
They party could see the noise had attracted the bat-like creature, which turned out to the the Alpha Skreel, and there were howling noises from the trees below the hill, where they ran for cover.
In a small clearing the party are attacked by the Alpha Skreel and some wolf-like creatures, they dispatched the almost-wolves and then fought a valiant fight with the Alpha Skreel from under the protection of the trees.
The Skreel was again vanquished and disappeared in a flash of purple light.
The party then trudged back up the hill past the make-it-closer-device which was nothing more now that a heap of molten metal in the grass. They continued down the other side and discovered some dead, very dead, goblins.
They moved North through the trees to find a camping spot away from the dead bodies, did so and made camp for the night.
During Lanvor's watch there were some spectacular, but silent, lightning flashed and on drawing out the lantern, he was made to feel that there was a connection between the power of the lighting and the power of the lantern. Eventually there was a huge burst of forked lightning which hit the ground behind a hill some miles to the North, then the lightning ceased.
Day 23 - Sandi
In the morning they discovered that where the lightning hit the ground, now stood a tower surrounded by magical lights. The bright tower stands out massively from the mundane surrounds of hills and trees.
Working North and West the party notice that there appear to be subtle changes in the island; nothing obvious, but the trees and hill look slightly...different. Soon they come upon a small camp, with one extinguished campfire and a tent.
From the tent they could hear annoyed mutterings that did not make a lot of sense "This is not right, 10 miles? 30 miles? but it was different yesterday..."
They shouted an introduction to the inhabitant how turned out to be a Dragonborn mapmaker called Kava Stormscale.
Kava turns out to be quite the upper class academic from a land called Umska. Whilst on a cartographic expedition she, her tent, and her campfire were all transported to the island two nights ago and she has no idea how she is going to get back to her expedition, her students, her bottle of brandy, and eventually home.
She elects to join the party as she is alone and quite frightened (although she would never admit to being so) and hungry; although she cannot fight she does have the skill of healing hands and she is adept at healing disease and poison effects as well.
The party agree to protect her until they can find her a way of getting home. She also admits that she frightened away a small Kobold and is concerned that others may be on the way.
Moving further North the party eventually see a small party of humanoid figures making there way Westward along the ridge of the hills to the North West, they elect to head North East to avoid confrontation.
Close to dusk they eventually hear a noise coming from the trees in front, the noise is of bashing and crashing and bad tempered low mutterings and growls. Lanvor immediately recognises this as the sounds of an Ogre.
The continue carefully making there way North West and see the Huge Ogre climbing the hill to a cave mouth and entering it as darkness falls.
Oskar and Kava elect to make camp while Lanvor (who has cast his night vision spell on himself) and Thradal track the Ogre to it's refuse-strewn cave mouth.
