Session 26

Session Date: 12th Dec 2024

Session Summary

The group stood at the edge of the crater left by Dawnhaven’s destruction, struggling to process the loss of Chenris Tallfellow, who had sacrificed himself to save them. Their grief was interrupted when Korrigan spotted something small falling from the sky. Acting quickly, he summoned his fey companion, Zephyr, to retrieve it. To their astonishment, the falling object turned out to be an elven figure named Halfbie, who landed screaming in terror. Despite the absurdity of their arrival, Halfbie’s purple eyes marked them as Fey, igniting Korrigan’s curiosity and suspicion.

As they pieced together Halfbie’s fragmented memories, including visions of crashing airships and cults, the group theorized that the magical wave from Dawnhaven may have linked Halfbie’s memories with Chenris’. Their journey led them to the remains of the airship Halfbie claimed to have been on, its shattered crystal core and faint magical residue confirming the strange circumstances of the crash. With no clear answers, the group decided to continue toward Baytown, where they could secure passage to the Itone Isles to follow Chenris’ last leads.

The party faced new challenges en route, including a harrowing encounter with the Golden Fleet and eerie undead activity on Itone. Halfbie proved their worth, showcasing magical talent while earning the group’s begrudging acceptance. Arriving on the desolate, bone-strewn island, the party found themselves in constant danger from animated skeletons. When surrounded by a horde, Halfbie cast a desperate, hastened version of Leomund's Tiny Hut, creating a safe haven where the group could rest and prepare for the trials ahead

Full Session Notes

The group stand before the crater that was left by Dawnhaven, unable to fully grapple with the fact that Chenris Tallfellow ‡ is dead and sacrificed himself to save the rest of them. As Kal The Korrigan † is about to turn away, he spots something small falling out of the sky. Almost by instinct, he summons Zephyr, his fey beast, to go up and retrieve whatever is falling. They all stand in silence as they wait for the bird to return. Korrigan breaks the silence when he admits that he's struggling to process Chenris' death. Mordecai Reverence echoed this sentiment but stated that no matter what, they have to push on and do what needs to be done. As Zephyr begins to return, the object slowly becomes clearer, and they can now make out a slender Elvin figure screaming in terror. As it gets closer, the details become clearer as they start to make out their features of green hair and fine clothing.

The Elf's screams of terror could now be heard in full force as they slowly descended to the ground. Their screams only stopped to admire Zephyr's beautiful purple and silver feathers before quickly returning to screaming. Zephyr roughly drops the elf to the ground before returning to korrigan. As Mordecai is giving them a hand up, the elf mentions that they recognise the group from somewhere, like in a dream or something similar. As they stand up, KOrrigan notices their purple eyes - a telltale sign of the Fey. Immediately curious, he asks them what a member of the fey is doing falling out of the sky over Dawnhaven. The elf has no idea what they're talking about since they don't think they're fey. Confused about what the elf is talking about since they're clearly fey from his perspective, korrigan introduces himself as 'The Korrigan'. As they reach for Korrigan's outstretched hand, the elf has a moment of realisation, and with a smile, they shake the hand and exclaim, "Nice to meet you, Kal The Korrigan". Korrigan is visibly shaken since no one else, let alone one of the fey, calls him Kal † anymore and immediately starts to grill the elf, not caring about asking invasive questions and being very rude. Mordecai tries their best to calm korrigan down as his questions quickly became shouting commands.

They suddenly stand up straight as they say, "Ah! Where are my manners," as they use Prestidigitation to clean the dirt off his clothes "My name is Halfbie!" as they use Prestidigitation to create sparkles around them as they give beaming smile to the group. Mordecai looks visibly jealous as the Halfbie s do what they like to do but with higher quality. Without a second hesitation, they do a similar thing but try to make the display of sparkles bigger and brighter. Much to the annoyance, Halfbie just thinks this is really cool. Aidan Knight introduces himself with a simple handshake. Mordecai asks what they were doing when to cause them to start falling over Dawnhaven. Halfbie thinks for a moment before eventually explaining, "Well, first I was in an airship that crashed, then when I opened my eyes, I was in a very dark room, then I was in a bright room, and then finally I was falling out of the sky".

Korrigan starts to pace around Halfbie, trying to get a better view and figure out who they are, not caring that this made halfbie a bit uncomfortable. Carrying on, Halfbie explains that they don't know how they got here but would love to tag along with the group until they can figure out what is happening. The group agrees, but not before Mordecai cattily says, "Oh, and I bet you want to go to a library to learn it as well" " referencing Chenri's usual solution to these sorts of problems. Without missing a beat, Halfbie explains either a library or a guide will do. Looking off into the distance, they can see a small plume of black smoke rising up from behind some hills in the direction of Rosehost. Korrigan says that if halfbie was on an airship that crashed, then it would make sense that the black smoke might be from that. "Unless they're lying", Mordecai added quietly.

As The Party are all getting into the carriage, korrigan asks Halfbie where they are originally from, and after a thing, they explain they are from a small island town called Paraton in Kearlin Atoll, a nation none of The Party had ever adventured to or heard of. Before the carriage starts to move, Halfbie is told in no uncertain terms that they are not to touch anything, especially any old books or notes (Referring to Chenris' notes and items). Halfbie promises they won't. It was about a half-a-day journey from what was Dawnhaven to Rosehost, and the airship was a few hours from the town. Along the way, Korrigan asks why they don't think they're part of the fey when they have the features of one.

Halfbie explains that they were never brought up as fey, and neither of their parents was from the Feywild, so they've never said they were. They also seemed unaware that their eyes were purple. Korrigan starts to get frustrated with the whole situation as Halfbie is a complete enigma to him, he snaps out of it when Aidan pipes up, telling him to "calm down Antlers". An irritated Korrigan uses magic to make the journey for Aiden more difficult while the rest laugh at the funny nickname. Mordecai begrudgingly joins Aidan in his calls for people to be nice to Halfbie, reminding korrigan that they were all nice to him when he showed up after Kal † 's death. Korrigan pipes down.

Most take the travel time to get some rest and heal up. Once Mordecai woke up, they immediately got out a piece of paper and started to write a letter but kept the details a secret from the rest of the group. Intrigued, korrigan asks what he is writing, which Mordecai says is none of their business. Turning very serious, korrigan explains that The Party needs to be able to trust each other completely. He had already explained his secrets to Lost Haven, and it feels especially important now that their friend has died. He notably struggled with his emotions as he said the word friend. Mordecai sighs before explaining that he wants to start tying up loose ends and is writing a letter to his father. Having not heard much about Mordecai's father, korrigan tentatively asks if he is on good terms with his father, but Mordecai remains tight-lipped about any details with his family.

Suddenly, korrigan begins to cry as he reminisces and mentions the gecko they had met in Ehobel called Mannnnnn †. Mordecai quickly figures out that korrigan is probably putting his grief on the gecko instead of Chenris. Korrigan then Wild Shapes into a gecko and keeps crying as Mordecai tentatively puts him on their shoulder. Halfbie is enamoured by this ability and excitedly asks what else people can do. Mordecai unenthusiastically says they can use magic, while Aidan says he is good at sneaking. Obeus Yelris says that she can also cast magic but not much else. Mordecai interjects, saying that obeus is much more than a magic caster and is the Empress of Ehobel. She blushes slightly as she confirms this to Halfbie, who thinks that's amazing and gives a polite bow that she brushes off.

An hour after Rosehost, they all reach the remaining frame of the airship, with parts still on fire and a shattered crystal found in the centre of the wreckage. On the walls that hadn't burnt down, the Strixhaven logo could be seen, immediately raising suspicions of Korrigan and Mordecai. While investigating, Aidan is able to confirm that the ship is not the same one from earlier in their adventure. Upon seeing the dead bodies, Mordecai goes incredibly quiet as he tries to hold back his panic. They all begin to edge close (Mordecai less so) to try and learn more from the wreckage. Halfbie takes this time to analyse the magic around the ship and learns that there are faint traces of strange magical energy, information Korrigan instantly links to the large wave of magic that spread out from Dawnhaven after Velthis 's work. Halfbie also realises that that crystal absolutely shouldn't have shattered since they're quite durable and important to keeping the airship in the air. Mordecai

Asked if their boss had the same Strixhaven logo on their clothing, and they confirmed that this was the case and had vague memories of the university but wasn't sure when asked if he knew who Professor Varitan Leotoris † was. They explained that they were on the airship because they were on some kind of expedition to The Dawn Empire, but they weren't sure what the expedition was for.

Looking at the airship in more detail, Halfbie starts to remember weird visions of cults and needing to save people. Once hearing this, korrigan immediately comes up with a theory that maybe the crystal chatting from the magic of magic wave could have caused Chenris' and Halfbie 's memories to somehow fuse together, explaining the weird pockets of knowledge they have. Throughout this whole process, Mordecai is notably hesitant to call Chenris by name, referring to them as 'you know' or 'the old man'. With little to garner from the wreckage, they decided to head back to Rosehost since it was getting late. Before getting back into his carriage, korrigan took one last good luck at the scene, but more importantly, he was also looking for Xekai. Korrigan had some questions for the man, and he was angry he hadn't gotten them already.

When heading back to Rosehost, The Party tried to plan what to do next, but the decision eventually broke down as neither Mordecai nor Korrigan could decide as they kept thinking about how Chenris would have loved to go to Itone Isles and if he couldn't go then what was the point? Eventually, they decided to go to Itone since that's where all clues were leading, so they felt obligated to go. Halfbie tried to cut the tension by saying, "If it helps, I would also find Itone fascinating", with a smile, it was not well received, with Mordecai even mocking them. Still feeling quite hot-headed, Mordecai snarkily asked what they could even do. Not to be deterred, Halfbie excitedly explains that they love magic, researching and tinkering with things. Upon hearing these, they begrudgingly invite halfbie to join them until they can figure out what is going on. Before halfbie could accept, they heard a voice speak in their head, telling them to join the group. They immediately start looking around to try and find the source of the voice but failed to do so, and korrigan makes a comment on how they look like they're on drugs.

They all decided that their best bet would be to go to Baytown and hire a boat to cross the waters to the island. There was briefly a discussion to go see Terence Witherfeather, who could probably just teleport them there, but it was deemed too much of a risk to make the long journey back to Blackwall to find he couldn't.

Thirty minutes into the journey, Korrigan decided to test halfbie further by speaking in Sylvan, the language of the fey, to see if they would respond to him. To his surprise, Halfbie had no idea what korrigan was saying, asking them to speak in common. Korrigan was bewildered, screaming, "HOW DOES A FEY NOT SPEAK SYLVAN?!?". He was so shocked he had to inspect Halfbie further to confirm their fey status and confirmed that Halfbie was, in fact, Eldarin - definitely a fey specifies. Korrigan starts to cycle through all of his known languages to see what Halfbie would respond to. He first tried Primordial to which Halfbie responded confused, asking why they were now speaking Primordial, noting it felt like they were excluding the rest of the group. Korrigan ignored him and carried on his test and learnt that Halfbie knew all the same languages as Chenris. Mordecai surmised that the big tell would be to get them to respond to Ancient Dwarven so they asked Obeus for something and she flatly said "something" in Ancient Dwarven. Halfbie responds in kind, still very confused but putting further credence to their theory that halfbie and chenris' memories must have merged. Mordecai sighs deeply and absent-mindedly questions "Why would she do this??"

They stopped to rest at Rosehost; everyone flashed their Adventurers Guild tattoos at the front desk to gain entry until Halfbie revealed he didn't have any such tattoo. The receptionist flatly tells them that the fee is 50 Gold - Money Halfbie did not have. Aidan and korrigan offered to pay the fee, to which halfbie thanked them deeply and offered up the three pieces of gold he owned for the payment. With the fee paid, they all get a good night's sleep. The next morning, while eating breakfast, Korrigan gathers everyone but halfbie for a huddle (halfbie doesn't notice at all), and Korrigan states that there are a lot of parallels between chenris and halfbie and they should test him by making him do the directions. They call halfbie and ask if they could navigate them to Baytown. When he asked, he suddenly remembered that he was mapping when the purple light hit and caused the ship to crash. He explained his hesitation but eventually said they'd, do it. Halfbie navigates the next leg of their journey perfectly causing most of The Party a lot of confusion.

Arriving at Baytown, they are confronted with a small fishing village comprised mostly of hearty sailors, and the stench of fresh fish clouds the air. Mordecai approaches. The person they deem to have the best vibe and strikes up a conversation. It's an incredibly gruff sailor who greets them well enough. Getting straight to the point, they ask if the sailor could take them to Itone, he says he can, but it would cost them. The sailor says that it's a long journey, plus they would need a return trip, and he would need to get supplies. All in, it would cost them 1000 Gold. Mordecai was about to haggle the price when Obeus stepped up and offered to pay the fee, handing over 100 Platinum to the sailor. She explained that she was feeling quite bad for not helping out as much, and it was the least she could do for the people who have been so good to her. They all thank her, and the sailor points to his boat, a smaller wooden ship that doesn't even have an inside or lower deck, but there was enough space for some bed rolls and to eat.

After travelling for most of the day at sea, Halfbie and korrigan see a huge ship with golden sales, most likely part of The Golden Fleet. The sailor explained that if they managed to board, then they would most likely take all their money and kidnap Obeus as a slave. Korrigan quickly casts the Gust of Wind spell into the sale to make the boat go as fast as possible. Halfbie asked korrigan if they would be able to call a whale to come and toe their boat so they could get away. Korrigan tries his best but completely messes up the call; he does so so bad that he might have even scared most of them off. The larger boat starts to close in on them and is about 1000 ft away. Korrigan spots some icebergs off in the distance that they could use to escape the fleet; he falsely assumes that their smaller boat would be quick enough to reach the icebergs in time. The large ship catches up quicker than expected and suddenly shoots a large metal claw onto the boat. It latches on through large wood splinters everywhere, damaging the boat. The large boat was about 40 feet away from them now.

Mordecai decided to burn the rope with their magic while korrigan attempted to hide obeus, it wasn't very good since there weren't many places to hide on their small boat. Halfbie uses minor illusions to hide the flames on the rope so that if any tried to slide down it, they would be burnt or fall into the ocean. Korrigan uses his bow to cast a large [[Lightning Bolt|[Lightning Bolt]] to tear through the large ship's sails, shredding the first one completely and damaging other parts of the boat. Mordecai casts Fireball, mentioning it is time for a 'cleansing flame ', and manages to destroy the middle mast/ sail. Halfbie gets excited after seeing Mordecai's Fireball and tells them that they can do the same. With that, they cast Fly on themselves and flew up over the ship and threw their own fireball at the wheel and sails near it, damaging the ship's captain and crew. In a truly mental moment, the captain continues to bark orders at their crew as the ship begins to turn to fire their canons at the boat. Korrigan quickly casts Fog Cloud on the canons to stop most of them from being able to aim properly.

Seeing their chance, they race off for the Iceberg and manage to get beyond one before it explodes due to canon fire. The sailor begins to bark orders at them, shouting if they don't help, then they are all as good as dead. Working together, the boat is controlled well, and they manage to escape the big boat. Aidan makes sure everything is good, Korrigan and Mordecai make sure all the ropes are tied down and the sales are working well, and halfbie works on watching the big ship so they aren't hit. After a while, the large boat was out of sight, and The Party was safe for now.

Sailing further, the fog began to get thicker and thicker until they weren't able to see their hand outstretched from their body. After another few minutes of travel, they finally made land at Itone Isles. Halfbie excitedly gets off the ship and exclaims that it is good to make land again. Mordecai is less than impressed and quite jealous of the fact that Halfbie was also able to cast fireball and even fly and was quite mean with the Eldarin, going as far as calling them 'Halfwit'. Halfbie helps the sailor fix his boat while Korrigan attempts to teach Mordecai how to speak whale. Warning the Tiefling that the sound for 'Hallo' is very similar to 'Fuck ya mum', and said to not mix it up. Venturing further inland, the island is covered in dense fog and a thick layer of snow. All of the plant life was long dead, and disturbingly, when walking on the snow, it wasn't always the familiar sound of snow crunching but the sounds of snapping bones. Korrigan wiped away some of the snow to find the ground was covered in thousands of Human bones. He quickly covered the bones back up before catching up with the rest.

They eventually came to the base of an incredibly steep cliff. Assuming it was getting quite late, The Party decided it was best to set up camp. Halfbie Explains they know a spell called Leomund's Tiny Hut that could keep them safe behind an impenetrable forcefield. While they began the ritual to summon this spell, the rest gathered firewood, and before long, they were safe and warm. Throughout the night, some weird moaning can be heard; it sounds like undead, and they are quite close. Some people were able to see a few skeletons, but not much could be seen due to the fog. Waking up the next day, none of the skeletons could be found, Halfbie theorised that the bones could animate during the night and create the undead skeletons. What could cause this? They had no idea. Checking the bones, halfbie found some magical residue on the bones but whatever magic was used had faded quite considerably.

They decided to push on. Korrigan immediately started to try and climb the cliff face, but halfbie suggested that there would probably be a path up the mountain if they walked around. Walking around the mountain they find a large stone archway with runes written on it and a path going up the mountain, although it was quite steep and windy. Investigating the runes carefully Mordecai discovered they were Ancient Draconic and translated them to say "The resting place of Itone Isles, may this fortress stand strong"

They carry on up the mountain. Before they can make it too far, Obeus confesses that she is not built for the extreme cold and wouldn't be much help to them and says she'll wait for them at the boat. Concerned about the Skeletons, Halfbie suggests that Mordecai uses the Message spell on obeus. The spell gives her one reply that she could use as a distress call. Mordecai begrudgingly admits that this is a good idea and does just that. They watch as Obeus disappears into the snow before carrying on up the mountain. As they progress up the mountain, they begin to really struggle with the cold. Korrigan offers them his cloak for extra warmth, which seems to really help them.

Eventually, they reached a clearing when suddenly Halfbie and korrigan began to hear the undead's moans again, but this time, there seemed to be a lot, and they were coming this way. Halfbie hurriedly explains that Leomund's Tiny Hut normally takes about 10 minutes to cast due to its complexity. But they have a way to make it take about a minute. With the sounds of skeletons coming from all sides, they have little choice but to surround Halfbie and protect them while they perform the sped-up ritual. First, korrigan casts his healing spirit centred on Halfbie and summoned the Man-Eating Horse. Mordecai then used their meta-magic to carefully cast Darkness so enemies would find it much more difficult to hit them if they got close but wouldn't affect them. Suddenly, Skeletons appeared out of the fog and began to attack them, but with the aid of the set-up and the use of Halfbie and Mordecai's Area-of-affect attack, they were easily able to defend themselves against the oncoming hoard of enemies. Then, as they said it would, after a minute, Leomund's Tiny Hut sprung into existence, and halfbie collapsed out of exhaustion from the immense amount of focus the act required. The rest of them decided to also get some rest while they were safe within the confines of the spell.

Trivia & Notes