Midwinter: Can't remember...
29th of Hammer: Dirk's 20th Birthday!
19th of Ches: Spring Equinox.
Greengrass: Dirk & Gwendolyn's marriage.
20th of Kythorn: Summer Solstice.
30th of Kythorn: The battle has taken it's toll. Earlier that day Dirk had died and been ressurected. Ayaname has been brought back as well. Now three lie dead on the battel field. Sean, Gwen, and Ash. The Battle seems to be a victory though nobody is smiling.
1st of Flamerule: Today the group has traveled through Skull Port to find a Haven within the walls of the Temple of Eilastrae. 3 have been resurrected and the group has finally had their wounds, at least the physical ones, healed.
2nd of Flamerule: Although taken by complete suprise, our friends are thrown an amazing party in their honor at the Palace in Waterdeep.
3rd of Flamerule: Hundreds gather outside of an old barracks to see the Hero's of Waterdeep accept a very fitting award. These old barracks will serve as a home and base of operations to one of the Sword Coast's most talked about adventurers!
Midsummer: This Midsummer found the group seperated. While enjoying a much needed vacation the greatly anticipated Midsummer holiday came to pass. It is said that the gods actually watch over the world on this day to ensure a happy holiday by answering blessings as well as creating good weather. Many feel that the unusually bad weather experienced all over Toril was a dark omen of things to come. Horrible Windstorms and Cold fronts damaged crops and ended most celebrations held outdoors.
13th of Eleasis: Neverwinter is attacked by Unknown forces. The Walls are breached, over a thousand die. Drizzt Do'Urden and his friends save Neverwinter from certain doom. Holdren, a Archmage at the Temple of Azuth, seems to go mad. He slaughters friend and foe alike as he flees to the North.
23rd of Eleasis: Vacation is over and everyone has returned to Waterdeep. What will our intrepid adventurers do next!!!
1st of Elient: Session (8/28) ends just after Sariah noticed the group had gotten off the trade road by mistake and had doubled back to see where they should have gone. The group with the Carriage hears an explosion and sees fire up ahead.
21st of Elient: Autumn Equinox, and the Morning that our session (9/25) ended. The group is in Never Winter and saved the blessed child of Tyr. They are gathered at a Temple to Tyr in a private room.
12th of Marpenoth: It is an hour before Dawn and Dirk sits quietly alone in the ruins of the great city. Many are barracaded in the Tower while Lia and Gwyen have left the group. Their whereabouts, like Dirks, unknown to the rest of the party. The majority of our heros nursing wounds after a harrowing escape from the clutches of massive spider like creatures.
13th of Marpenoth: The evening before, the group had decided to return to the depths of the ruined city. After spending a rather harrowing "night" in a beautiful but suffocating trap Tage finds a hidden door and with the assistance of Sean the now rather diminutive group continues deeper into the mysterious ruins through small but blissfully trap-free servant corridors that (some how) run above the snake corridor. Emerging from the ancient tunnels they find an enormous spider that is chained below the ruins and serving as structural support. The room with the spider is vast and filled with webs and strange gnomish treasure chests. In the middle of the room is a large sarcophagus covered in the same lost language that was used in the trap. The group debates fighting the spider - with Dirk in a depressed, self-destructive mood, coming down solidly on the side of insanity and egging Tage on. After some tentative exploration of the strength and power of both the webs and the spider, rationality wins out and they backtrack. Unfortunately (or so it appears at the time) all roads seem to lead to the massive, scary spider. Once again facing the decision to fight or retreat the group is almost spared the need to decide when Caid pops out of the ceiling and nearly gives everyone a heart attack.
Then something very strange happened. Sean spoke to the spider and it spoke back! Quickly Sean cast a spell that allowed Dirk to understand what the spider was saying and Dirk entered into tense and cryptic negotiations with it. Some sort of deal was being struck to feed it magic in exchange for information about the orb. Not knowing what exactly it was (the question, "Are you a god?" was raised at one point by Dirk), if it was evil ("I am just going to be direct - part of the problem is, we don't know if you are evil or what your intents are.") and what effect feeding it would have a quick debate ensued about the correct, safest and best decision. Finally all decided to trust Dirk's instincts and back he decision. If it really did have information about the orb it would be the cleanest lead we had in a long time and contending with a massive, potentially evil, ancient spider still sounded better to some in the group at the moment that having their hand forced by Lia.
A deal was struck and information was exchanged. A good deal of information from the sounds of things. Then, as the spider fed, it began to free itself from it's chains and the whole place began to come down. The group fled to the relative safety of the tower's spiral tonal staircase and watched as the spider emerged and systematically hunted down the smaller spiders that were living beneath the city. The ruins crumbled until only the tower and the most ancient structures were left, revealing an impressive ampatheater that incorporated the mostly complete snake tunnel structure. As the city crumbled around them, Dirk gave the group a summary of what he had discovered.
More discussion with the spider ensued, which almost everyone in the party could now understand, and it became apparent that she was not actually a spider but a half-breed human and Djinn woman who had been transformed into a spider and was in captivity for, well perhaps thousands of years. While she was not a slave in her own culture she was of a lower caste due to her birth. She had studied magic and was a fairly accomplished practitioner of an advanced art that only vaguely resembles what magic is today. She desired to return to her natural form and knew she could do it with a Wish or a Miracle. Fortunately, Sean had a Wish spell that he was willing to copy for her and allow her to study and use.
Ayanami, seeing much of her own trauma reflected in the woman's situation, quickly befriended her and offered her comfort, staying with her throughout the night.
14th of Marpenoth: In the morning, the spider transformed back into a lovely young women of a race known in modern times as air genisai. The group broke their fast with their new companion, Mira, and decided what to do from there. Although Dirk knew there were vampires beneath the city the group once again decided to leave vampires to vampire hunters and, energized by their new information and sudden group cohesiveness, travel onward in their quest. Mira instructed the group on how to leave the city buried in the sand as it had been not too long before and then traveled with them to Calimport.
Calimport provided new clothes, small supplies, enjoyable climate, decent food and some new revelations (for some) about Lia. While in Calimport Sean was once again contacted by Lia and he returned her sending spell, passing on the message the group had decided on, to make her think that they were shattered, demoralized, frustrated and giving up the quest in favor of more attainable goals as well as assisting Ayanami in rescuing her people. The group rested at Sean's villa and then traveled on to Waterdeep.
Returning "home" Dirk and Sariah tapped a keg of ale from the temple of Mordon while others went about more practical but likely less enjoyable business. Most spent a quiet night (minus Dirk and Tage's screaming fans) at the "keep" while Dirk went out to greet his fans and then to sojourn at the temple of Chantea. With Mira's assistance they discovered that Ayanami's people were actually being held as slaves somewhere in a drow city beneath the salt planes (is this right?). Given the information Dirk had gathered from Mira about the orb, the location of the drow city was relatively close to where the group needed to be and the side-trip was over-due, morally correct and good for cover - a rare but pleasant convergance of principles and convince.
15th of Marpenoth: In the morning the ladies in the group (do we have any of those? Ayanami I suppose.), enjoyed a pleasant breakfast and chatted. Earlier, Tage had wished she could contact Reg to assist with Ayanami's rescue and Sariah surreptitiously raised the idea again. Mira offered to send him a message and it turned out he was amicable to meeting with the group as soon as he could make it to a town, which would be at the end of the ride. Through Mira, Tage and Reg arranged a place and time to meet. Sariah decided she should clean up a bit while in town before hitting the road again, Tage pulled together some supplies for the trip and then spent the afternoon in a forest somewhere filling a strong spiritual need and Ayanami took Mira on a tour. In the evening, Sean arrived from Calimport, Dirk returned from the temple and the other party members filtered in.
Everyone got caught up with the latest news and the proposal that the group offer to meet Reg now rather than wait until the end of the ride was put forth and accepted. Again Mira made the arrangements, okaying the idea with Reg and then scrying on his location. The previous night and that morning the effects of Mira's trauma had manifested themselves despite her pleasant demeanor, curiosity, and generally admirable attempt at fitting in to an entirely new culture. The group suggested that she may not yet be ready to travel to the under-dark and she agreed. Fortunately she was able to transport the group without having to travel there herself.
So...here we are. A gnome, a dwarf, a halfling, two elves, two humans and a half-orc standing in a temperate 72 degree globe of ambient light, which is illuminating: a portable torture device covered in fresh blood; the remains of a small camp; a moist, moss-strewn, dank cavern ending in a vast crevasse; and a massive, bestial man bristling with weapons, bleeding profusely from a serious wound cut across his back from shoulder to hip and wearing only pants, boots, mismatched, scarred skin and a half-cocked smile.
20th of Marpenoth: It is late in the evening when half the group teleports to Waterdeep with the freed Slaves. The res of the Group waits in a Tavern on the edge of a pitch black lake. Surounded by the denizens of the underdark. In Calimport a battle is waged and Gwendolyn begins packing to leave for the surface.
20th of Nightal: Winter Solstice.
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