We are with the other party, Irvan, Dermot, Galsariad, and Ayo. We find ourselves in a small tavern. Ayo says, "You guys beat us at the race, why don't we head back now?" We find Maggie by the shark. She is too big to come through the hole that opened up. Maggie is holding the spear in her hand. "What did you find up there?"
Jazco starts singing "We are the champions". Maggie says "No need to rub it in, we know!" Rangu takes the spear from Maggie. We find the body of a slain giant octopus. Woolf wants to extract some ink, but ends up exploding the ink sac and there is a cloud of black ink in the water.
Rangu finds another healing potion on a ledge. We make our way through the caverns and tunnels, and when we emerge, we find the two elders chatting amongst themselves. They do not expect to see both the teams come out together. Ayo walks up in front and she takes Jazco's hand, picks it up, and says, "They got it first" At this point the Elders congratulates us, with Khulbu going around congratulating us.
Once everyone can see us, Ushru announces, "We have the champions - the Krakenwagen have proven themselves as the champions of merit, and shall be the champions for one full year. Let the festivities comme... continue!!" After seeing people bbqing, campfires all around and people drinking. Elder Ushru comes up to us and says "The Krakenwagen, for winning the competition, I would like to present you with this prize", and hands us the sack. "Can you give us the amulet". We hand over the amulet.
Inside the bag is a 100 gold coins. Ushru says, "As the champions, you also get to stay at the Unbroken Tusk Inn for the night, for free. You are welcome to take part in the festivities, and I will see you in the morning."
Casts identify magic, and understands that the amulet has charges, it provides invisibility, and that the charges regenerate at morning. We sit around chatting, looking at the spear, which is just a steel spear. It's a good spear, and has not rusted at all despite spending a lot of time underwater. We are the talk of the town, people keep giving us food and drinks, and after a night of partying, we find ourselves in the bed at the Tavern.
We wake up to the sound of loud knocking. "Krakenwagen!" the sound of elder Ushru comes through, "are you awake?" We open the door. "I have something to tell you of great importance, will you have breakfast with me? You all ready yourselves, while I go down and get our food ready. I will see you downstairs then."
Woolf wakes everyone up. We go down, and there is food on the table already. A couple of servers are continuously bringing food. Ushru beckons us and says "A vision came to me last night. A golden amulet rose from a pool of blood, and a thousand hands rose from the blood to grab it. And only one hand got the amulet, and the one who got it was a handsome man with curly hail and a somber expression. That man turned to me and said, they must find me, the ones from the grotto. Tell me."
Elder Ushru seems to be genuinely concerned. We recall that the look on his face showed concern, although he was cordial. He seems to pretty spooked by the vision. From what we can tell, he seems to be honest.
Woolf looks around at all of us, and then tells Ushru "We think the person you saw in your dream was a man named Alyxian. He is a human man, dropped in darkness. He mentioned the changebringer also. He was handsome."
Ushru says, "Yes, he was very good looking. Did you find anything down there?" Yazhi says, "Yes, we found an amulet down there." "Can I see it?". Woolf casts detect thoughts while handing over the amulet to Ushru. Woolf can detect concern, the name Alyxian, he is thinking about the calamity, the gods, and trying to put things together. Then he says, "I don't know Alyxian is, and I don't really know what this amulet you found is, but what I do know is that this thing looks old... very old, from the time of the Calamity. I would suggest that you travel to Bazzoxan. People do not stumble across vestiges without a reason. You were chosen for this. There is no place in Xhorhas. It is a grim town under the protection of the Aurora Watch. Do not let other people know about this. Vestiges are rare, and very powerful magics. If people come to know that you have one, you will be hunted down."
Ushru tells us that Ayo is a good girl, and that he will speak to her, and ask the team to not speak about what happened in the grotto. He then says "I suggest you head out as soon as possible. Be careful though, once you start on this quest, it is definitely something that will change your life forever. Good day to you all, have a good breakfast. If you need anything, you can always come to me." He then gets up, nods to everyone and walks away.
As we are eating breakfast, Ayo, Irvan, Dermot and Galsariad walk in, while Maggie waits outside chomping on a big piece of ham.
"Listen, we don't know what you found in the grotto, but whatever it is, we want in"
Jazco says, "It is nout our fault that you were not chosen. Ushru told us to do some research."
"If you guys are going on an adventure, or a quest of some sort, it is better if we all go together. There is safety in numbers. We took time to reach you, but we can hold our own. We have a Cleric." Dermont waves at this point.
Yazhi says "six is a big party, ten is an army."
"If you change your minds, we are around. We have been trying to find a place of our own in the world."
Galsariad says "we all know that you all had some sort of a vision, and you picked up an amulet, that triggered the vision." The group is suspicious with their intentions. Dermot comes up and is really inquisitive about the vision.
Yazhi says, "give us a moment." Ayo says, "That is fine, we will be over there, pointing to a table outside the tavern."
We have a discussion, and decide to go with the group. Jazco says, "We had a discussion, and we had a consensus, and we are good to go with you."
Ayo is excited, "That is great, when do we leave? You had a vision? What was it about? We will get ready ourselves, and when do we visit you?"
We decide to head out in the afternoon, after preparing for the journey. We come across Momota's super shoppe, trying to buy healing potions. She has only one. We haggle over the price.
We head back to the inn, where we meet Ayo. The rest of the party is grumbling, but Ayo calms them down. At least Ayo is very happy at the prospect of heading out. We leave the town of Jigow behind on a warm, sunless afternoon, and make our way down to the wastes and head to the emerald path. We see a desolate landscapes, with mastodons and moorbounders are roaming, which are giant cats that hunt in packs.
We come across a tiefling on top of a moorbounder, bucking about and jumping from rock to rock. We see the tiefling surrounded by four moorbounders. I cast magic missile and hit all four of them. Woolf casts farie fire, scaring one of them off. Maggie lobs a hammer at them and roars, but the moorbounders are unfazed. Ayo goes up and casts animal friendship, subduing one of them. Rangu goes up, does a survival check to see what the moorbounders are scared of, finds out that it is gloomstalkers, and casts an illusion of one. Yazhi casta a firebolt that passes by. I cast twinned chaos bolt on two of the moorbounders, fire on one ice on the other, sending them packing. Ayo also manages to scare off another moorbounder.
The tiefling rides up to us, thanks us for saving their life, and says their name is Justice. The tiefling tells us that if we reach the caravan, they would make it worth our while. The name of the moorbounder is Rice Pudding.
After walking for the rest of the day, we set up camp. Dermot is talking to his friends, usually Ayo. Galsariad brings out a game of dragonchess. Irvan is roaming around, keeping watch, and is more quiet than the others. Ayo spends a lot of time talking her wish to be on an adventure, and trying to get as much information about the vision. Jazco, Rangu and Woolf play cards with his familiar, El Cato. Jazco is working on something.
The next day dawns, and we start making our way down south. We hear a shriek, and some trumpeting. Up high in the hair, we see two gloomstalkers, 800 feet away. They look somewhat of a wyvern, but composed of twisting shadows. They are surrounded by wisps of smoke. They are creatures from the shadowfell. We see two of them chasing after three mammoths.
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