Our Brief:

Travel to the festival lands and investigate the actions of the Keisioras Dynasty.

In attendance:

Ksandra

Nathan

Drieden

Jux

Kurt Polarise

Kyle OmPaq

Xernes

Maggot

Renown

Malice

Khandis Greyspider – Myself and Party Leader

Lyra – Our Guide

Earth Day

We arrived at the festival lands to find it guarded by several groups from Keisiora’s dynasty. They claimed that the land now belong to General Kang, their nation leader, and that no one would be allowed past until the time of the next festival. Our attempts to talk them down failed and we ended in combat. 

Sebastian son of Azad from the Azadan nation arrived and told us that the festival lands were not operating as they should. The boon that caused all people within the lands to be equal was not functioning. Recently Master Coin had “bought” the rights to the Festival lands. He was now extorting money from the Azadan and when they failed to pay he was revoking the ritual. Sebastian described a ritual we could perform in memory of his father that would restore the boon and correct some of what was wrong with the lands. This would also disrupt the actions of the Keisioras Dynasty as they were abusing the absence of the ritual.

To perform this ritual we would need items that used to belong to Sebastian’s father. Each representing some part of his father’s dedication.  A potion (blood), armour (sweat), a sword (tears) and a hammer (toil)

Fireday

We had an early morning encounter with a lesser mystic by the name of Master Coin. He claimed that we owed him money for our stay in the waystation. After refusing our explanation that waystations were free and that no one may charge for their use things looked to turn violent. It has now been clarified that things operate slightly differently within the festival lands and I recommend that future groups who stay in the waystation are aware that there might be charges.  Eventually after realising that if it came to a fight we did not know how to banish/dismiss a manifestation of a node I decided it was best to overpay to try to ensure that he did not return and disrupt our work.

Ksandra had performed a vision to try and track the location and nature of the items we needed so set out to begin to collect them. Over the course of the day we were able to acquire the items.

The Hammer – We took this from a group of Nomads who had warded a hut and were able to possess some members of our group with a strange mirror.  There was a tough close quarters fight and Nathans ability to pass wards was invaluable.

The Sword – We fought a group of Kysioras Dynasty who had found the sword. They suggested an honourable combat which we eschewed in favour of a touch of death in the back. This did secure us the sword in a situation where we might not otherwise have been able to but our actions were perceived as dishonourable and they later undertook to recover the sword.

The potion – We fought past a group of Dymwan and eventually found a vampire spirit possessing someone. We were unable to find anything to offer them and had to forcibly take the potion despite our currently good relationship with the Dywman.

Armour – The suit of armour was taken from the body of a Minotaur who was part of a LoX collection squad. More about this later.

There were two other events of note during the day. Firstly we encountered a group of Shadowsfall who talked about the potential union of their nation with the Keepers. The current issue was that neither side could agree on a suitable leader from among those available. They were planning to travel to the Hall of Heroes and bring back someone who all agreed would be a suitable leader. They asked us for suggestions and among other names we suggested Judge Hawson. One of the Shadowsfall had a contract mark which we had foolishly ignored and as soon as the conversation was done I was hit with the standard Shadowsfall technique of a huge simultaneous combo of items.

We also met Phileas Meno of the Labyrinth of Xenos (see my report about the coming of Ison for details.) He was traveling the land trying to see as much as possible. He talked for a while about the nature of the Labryinth of Xenos. Xenos, the original creator of the labyrinth seems to be waking up and the High Enchanters are trying to stop this. This seemed likely to come to a head at some point in the next few years. It was also revealed that the LoX power their Labyrinth and drones by converting items into crystals, the collection squads take magic or powered items for this and the items are destroyed in the process. Phileas also used me as a distraction to escape the squads sent to collect him. He briefly connected me to the hive mind, an experience I never wish to repeat. This confused a drone squad which incapacitated me and then tried to teleport away. Thankfully the rest of the group was able to stop them which is where we picked up the armour. Phileas did return later and remove the connection so that this would not occur again.

At several points we were attacked by white spirit creatures under the control of Master Coin. These were the spirits of people who had died in debt to him.

We talked to a separate group of Shadowsfall later in the night who reiterated their recent offer of taking contracts to assassinate individuals. We asked for the price to discover a way to kill Calex Wraithspawn and also a way to drive away the Master of Coin while we were performing our ritual. For the first they wanted us to kill a Keeper captain which we declined. The second will take more time but the results should be interesting.

There was also a ritualist who suggested that we might be able to perform a ritual to summon a different mystic, one aligned with our people and ask them to keep Master Coin away during the main ritual to restore the festival boon. We decided that the best Mystic to call was balance as we had two high priests of the Neutral Sphere in our group. To ensure this rituals success we would need to collect more generic ritual paraphernalia.

Steelday

We again set about collecting more ritual items. We fought a large number of Kesioras Dynasty over the course of the day as they wanted to reclaim the sword. We gathered ritual components from a reasonable number of places and were prepared for our ritual.

As soon as we had the paraphernalia we performed a ritual to summon the Mystic of Balance. Lead by Drieden and Nathan, the ritual was attacked by Master Coin’s debtor spirits. We suceeded and Nathan and Drieden talked to the mystic and he offered his help as long as they would both follow the path of balance, which they took to mean using the neutral sphere almost exclusively rather than attempting to use the good and evil sphere equally.

Fireday night we had met with a drow who told us of a group of drow who would be performing a ritual in the area either that night or the next. The ritual was intended to try and open a portal to Thranduil and it was our belief that this would be used to transport individuals who would be a threat to the Valley. We undertook to stop the ritual and when we received notice late Steelday night (before our main ritual) we went to stop it. The drow there claimed to be from the House of the Weaver, though they wore no colours and did not seem to know what drow house they were from. The ritual was underway when we arrived and seemed to have summoned a powerful Oni from the void between words. We attacked the ritual and when Nathan slayed the ritual master (again using his ability to pass wards) the Oni vanished. We collected up the parts of the ritual and returned to perform our main ritual to restore the festival land boon. 

Led by Xernes, with support from Kyle and Ksandra our main ritual was attacked by debtor spirits. This time they focused much more on the ritual and were able to temporarily disrupt it. Thankfully this did not stop the full ritual and once their guardian spirits had triggered the group were able to finish the ritual successfully. We were briefly attacked again by spirits leading to a fight with the boon in effect which was a very different experience from any fight I have been in before.

After that Sebastian returned and it obvious that our ritual was a success.

In terms of the actions of the Kesioras Dynasty we had made it clear to General Kang that he had no claim to the Festival lands. He had been rallying large numbers of peasants recently arrived from Shou Lun, many of them affected with some sort of disease. How we proceed will depend on what effect the return of the boon.

As ever if you require more information or wish clarification I can be found in Darkhome or the Grey school.

Khandis Greyspider