Abyss Modified Session 28: Witches and Airships

Dinak the drow gloomstalker ranger, Buttercup the tiefling swashbuckler bard, Orion the tiefling way of the long death monk, Xanaphia the human wild mage, Godric the half elf hexblade bard, and Drifting Cloud the tabaxi grave cleric of Anubis talked with the gnomes for a bit and found out their leader, Nanfoodle, was an artificer of great skill and the gnomes were thankful for their lives. The worked on the broken balloon and old the party about the orcs that had captured them. The orc tribe worshiped Orcus and were looking for sacrifices for their dark lord and the orcs left behind a few holy symbols of Orcus. The gnomes were traveling between Baldur’s Gate and Daggerford and were attacked by the Misty Wood. The party rested and awoke to the gnomes having expanded the balloon for the craft and attaching a small boat to the bottom of it. the party was excited to have a much better mode of transportation, now knowing their quest would be taking them far across Toril. They thanked the gnomes and headed off towards the Spine of the World to meet with the devil friend hags.

During their travels they saw large swaths of the land were diseased and corrupted by something, wolves with multiple heads and two beaked crows passed by under their airship. They eventually hit the mountains and noticed that the ice coated peaks were melting, another sign of the corruption. They found a clearing with a large gingerbread house and figured they were in the right place. They left a few friends in the ship and climbed down the ropes to investigate further. The walls looked to be gingerbread, the stairs and porch licorice, the windows made of a thin sheet of sugar and the door a large gum drop. Godric played CSI: Forgotten Realms and found large almost two-foot-long foot prints in the snow. The party discussed the joy that could be gained by eating the ginger bread house and heard someone shout from inside the house asking if sister was back with the food yet. The party said no, and a long pointed blue nose stuck out the creaking open front door.

           The hag looked ancient, her frame bent and hobbled. The party mentioned they were there to bargain with her for information so she invited them in. Drifting Cloud offered her some venison jerky as well, making a fast friend. On a taffy couch they saw another hag, bundled up in a ridiculous number of white pelts with just her nose sticking out. The group told the main witch that they were sent to look for the lost temples of Mystra and she excitedly told them she could help, but would just need a favor from them as well as a trade. They gave her four drow dresses Dinak had been holding on to, setting them on a large double cookie with frosting in the middle table. Godric showed her the Slaad soul gem he had but did not hand it over. She asked the party to help deal with a minor problem, she and her sisters had captured a dumb pig demon many years back within a lesser shrine to Mystra and needed that cleared out before she could really help them.

Loud booming footsteps shook the house as they were informed the youngest sister was returning. They looked out the sugar glass windows and could see a gigantic hag with multiple dead yetis over her shoulder running towards the gingerbread house. The main witch sent them with her giant sister to a cave in the mountains, the site of the shrine with the pig demon. The ice around it was melting but after a few feet of traveling into the tunnel they realized the water was running back up to the surface against gravity. They saw a green light ahead of them and noticed a strange band of runes across the threshold Gordic, Orion, and Xanaphia went into the main chamber, which had a green glowing altar on the far side. Godric had turned invisible and gave a quick look around the area. At that point they heard a booming laughter fill the room and echoing down the hallway. Orion and Xanaphia had approached into the room as well, the three of them saw a horrible pig faced with a bear body and winged demon clutched to the ceiling. Its greasy fear aura hit them and Godric and Xanaphia were instantly terrified of this creature and wanted nothing more than to run away. Orion resisted but got caught in the effect the next round. The beast hopped to the ground, walked up to the trio and almost bit Godric in half, his invisibility did nothing, and clawed both Xanaphia and Orion. The group outside the room rushed to the edge of the magic barrier and looked in to see blood flying out of their friends and the demon.

Dinak launched arrows at the monster, hitting with only one and expending his elemental bow string to make it fire, seeing a lesser effect than he had hoped for. Buttercup flew in and stabbed the demon and retreated out of the room again by disengaging. Drifting Cloud dropped his guardian of the faith, a spectral Anubis wielding a khopesh, dead center in the room. The guardian lashed out at the demon, forcing it to rethink its options, not having any way of avoiding it. Orion broke demon fear and launched into multiple strikes against it, Drifing Cloud gave Dinak the holy weapon spells, adding radiant damage to every arrow he shot, Dinak also summoned a healing spirit to try to help out Godric, Xanaphia, and Orion. Godric misty stepped away from the demon but it followed him moments later. The demon bit Godric again and lashed out at anyone else close enough for its claws. It was finally brought down by Orion, causing it to melt into grimy soot. The group watched as the green corrupted light on the altar gave way to a more healtyh looking blue light. In the walls of the chamber they could now see faint magically webbing, representing the weave of magic. They collected the tusks from this demon and put some if its sludgy ashes into a few jars.

They started heading back to the gingerbread house and the youngest but largest sister picked up the badly wounded Godric and carried him back, he was covered in blood. They talked with the quest giving hag, whose name was Thessrel, and traded their items for her information. She was happy they killed the demon. The temples were not close together, one was in the Anauroch desert, another was in a cloud giant ruin, one was in Chult, another was within the Sunset Mountains, one was on the Moonshae isles, and the last was in Thay. The witches showed them on their maps where the locations were as well as the path the cloud giant ruins usually took, since it seems to travel. The witches gave them a strange chest that was cold on the inside and was full of yeti meat. Drifting Cloud received a gingerbread catfolk cookie.

The group got into their flying ship and wanted to grab some more supplies for the trip, checking their map for any nearby bigger cities. They settled on Longsaddle, knowing it had some magical folk living there and possible could get some more solid information on Mystra as well. as they flew to the south west they watched over the sides and saw more of the corrupted landscape and by chance happened to see a few cloaked figures heading to a small mound as the sun was setting. They headed down to the mound and found four skeletal mages incanting prayers to Orcus and seeking his blessings. The party did not like the sound of that and could see there was something stirring magically between the undead. The party snuck up and killed all the skeletons before they could react. They tracked the skeletons from where they came from and after again a chance clue, found a rift in the ground with four mostly unembellished stone sarcophagi that had a sigil to Orcus on each. As a worshiper of Anubis, Drifting Cloud remembered Orcus and his army of undead would have goals that go against the will of Anubis. Having a secondary goal in might the party made their way back to their ship and from there Longsaddle.