Party 3

“False is not the word I would personally choose.” Azgard laughs off the explicit attack on his life’s work. “But that is besides the point of our visit. It seems like you did a very courageous and selfless task for those mourning parents... you wouldn’t have done such a thing for a personal gain, would you have?”
 
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Naivara has spoken with plenty of religious folk in her travels to recognize the rising tension and not at all subtle jabs between the abbot and Azgard.
“Whoa. Please, my friends. There is life in faith, and none in violence. Let us speak of more simple things lest we arouse all anger and none be pleased. We can speak of gods another day. Fellows, we have come in great interest of your abilities and the artifacts which are housed here. May we speak of those?”
Naivara looks desperately to Thia to see if what she said has helped, or only made things worse.
 
Thia looked down at the ground awkwardly during the whole altercation. Why must everyone get into a fight with the people we meet? This aggressive behavior solves nothing, and only serves to hinder our progress..... Thia thought to herself, as she clenched her fists and dug her nails into her own hand. She never liked to say these things like this to her friends, as she was afraid of confrontation. A large part of her wished the whole situation could have been solved through magic, instead of yelling.

Once things calmed down enough for an actual conversation, Thia looked up and made eye contact with the abbot, and he would be able to see that Thia's eyes were a little misty. "Please e-excuse h-him, w-we will l-listen to anything y-you have to say. We only w-wish to h-help anyone in need in t-this dark r-realm." Thia briefly flicks her eyes over everyone in her party, Azgard in particular, and you can see a hint of anger in her watery eyes. "And a-all of y-you will p-put your issues to t-the side for o-once. Although I w-would greatly a-appreciate i-it if y-you put t-them a-away for g-good...." She speaks in her usual tone, but now it sounds like it's barely containing something even greater inside her.
 
“I honestly doesnt want to fight Strahd or anyone. I just want to get out of here. I am but a humble servant of the sea goddess and there is not even any saltwater here.”,
Fargrim sighs.
“I think all of us just want to go back home. A powerful being like you might know the way?”
 
Azgard lied on the floor motionless until Fargrim was done pleading.
“I may be bound to a force of trickery and hate, but beyond this body I am a weapon of equilibrium. Believer? No. I am no true believer.” Azgard rose slowly, “My belief is that I was chosen deliberately for Kossuth’s work, but was cheated from the chance at greatness. I still limp along, trying to bring balance to these forsaken lands, and something tells me your previous actions did not reflect that. Why not bring every so-called ‘good person’ back from the dead here? I ask of you an explanation because prophecy has brought us to your symbol, and of course, my previously stated intuition.”
 
Naivara listens with interest as her new friends share their innermost thoughts and motivations: Thia wants to help people and make this a better place. Azgard wants to use power to bring balance- at the moment that means helping the oppressed, but in the future it may mean helping Strahd? Fascinating. Fargrim is just looking to escape and go home. Poor guy. What keeps these three together? She will think on that later.

Naivara herself feels a similar pull to tell the powerful wing-man of her personal quest for knowledge and to find Selune’s artifacts, but she says something else instead.
“Please tell us more of these lands, the curse, of Strahd and your amulet, and the werewolves and the fiend we followed.”
 
The angel was sharing a lot of information, and if Thia was in a good mood she would have been writing it down. She instead tried to internalize as much as she could while she listened to his tale. When he gave the proposition, Thia responded. "Vallaki h-has become a p-potential danger to r-return to. But if y-you require a d-dress from there s-specifically, then w-we will journey to t-there as soon as p-possible. Thank you f-for meeting w-with us, despite how s-some of us m-may have a-acted." Thia glances at Vasilka, then to Zygrek and Otto, with a hint of curiosity. I wonder if any of them are truly happy.... She turned towards the way out as she thought this. "We w-will try to r-return as q-quickly as we c-can. Come on e-everyone..." I'll need to talk to Azgard at some point, let us hope that he means well....
 
Naivara nods a respectful goodbye to the abbot, gives a little wave to the two gate guards, and turns to follow Thia.

She waits to speak until they are outside the abbey, more than halfway back down the switchback road; then she blurts out her thoughts in a cascade of words:
“We shouldn’t fully trust him, you know. He didn’t ask Asgard’s permission to do that! And personally I found his lab experiments to be more than a little odd, and the offer of raising our dead as a reward to be quite distasteful.
“But aside from that, remember his story. Seeing as he was fooled by Strahd in the past, he may very well be mistaken about his current plan also. Do we know this will end the curse and allow Strahd to die, or only give him more power? Perhaps he has been hoodwinked again. Perhaps we are all of us wrong about escape. Maybe the only way to escape these lands is— ...death.” She ends in barely a whisper, surprised at this new thought, at how quickly she has been influenced by the shadow in this land.
 
Fargrim felt a sense of despair, not knowing what allies and enemy anymore. He remembers the day that his brother abandons him to death in the pirate ship. He then remember the queen of the depth who spare him. He clutch his holy symbol and pray for guidance, for commands, for anything.
 
Fargrim’s sees the proceeding chaos, and he clutch his holy symbol and pray for guidance. He closes his eyes and suddenly the noise of the streets of vallaki gone. And what came is the sound of a thousand waves crashing on shores and a guidance from his goddess.
“We must take the Wachter I'm uncultured down!If she’s humiliated her lackeys wouldn’t dare to act!”, He says to his friends and began shouting with the help of thaumaturgy to raise his voice.
“She tricked us people of vallaki! The young lady over there is right! The Wachter I'm uncultured is no burgomaster! She’s just a Strahd’s whore!”
 
When things start to quickly turn threatening, Naivara casts the Mirror Image spell to help protect her from future attacks, and she takes off running to the left seeking some cover behind the corner of a building.

At her first chance she ducks back out into the street planning to cast her never-before-used-in-real-battle Ray of Sickness on Lady Wachter... but she’s so far away and doesn’t seem to be moving anyhow. Naivara casts the one never-fail attack spell she knows by heart. Three magic missiles fly toward two guards, slamming into them with near perfect force, seriously injuring one of them. But Naivara doesn’t wait to see- she’s already scrambled back behind the corner.

When next she looks out, the remaining guards are running, and Thia seems to be raging with anger over the paralyzed form of Lady Wachter. Naivara decides it is safe to come out, and she begins to walk toward Thia, still with her three other mirror forms about her, mimicking her every move.
 
The chaos ensues after the following humiliation of Lady Wachter. Guards attempted to flank Fargrim and his friends one of them even successfully stab him in the leg. But soon lightning jumps out from his wound through the blade and zap his attacker back. And then seeing his friends flanked by four guards, Fargrim let loose a power he never felt before. “The Bitch Queen sends Her regards!”. He shattered those guards to pieces with a thunderous force. The deafening silence of their scream take him back to the day he was drowning amidst dead pirates.
His thought was cut short by the sudden appearance of an imp that attacked him with its sting. But Fargrim managed to electrocute the devil, bloodied it.
 
Azgard is surrounded by guards of Lady Wachter. As soon as he could react he saw lightning flare before his eyes and disintegrate the guards that surrounded him. Azgard saw the source of the lightning to be Fargrim, who was surrounded, also.

As quickly as he saw the lightning surge, Azgard flew towards the guards attacking Fargrim and he casted a flaming spell from his bare hands. A fire engulfed the guards and killed one of them. The fight was finished as fast as it started when the remaining guards saw their friends be mutilated before their eyes. Azgard saw the opportunity to kill the fleeing guards but decided not to.

“Lady Wachter, you are our prime interest as of now.” He yelled across to her. She struggled to get free from Thia’s spell. Azgard moved towards her...
 
Being in the presence of the woman who manipulated her and her friends came as a shock to Thia. She didn't expect to come back to Vallaki after the incident, too much embarrassment and feelings of failure were still swimming through Thia's mind. When she saw Lady Wachter though, everything else seemed to fade away. This is my chance to make it right, and to punish Wachter for what she did. She has hurt more people than just us. She will pay..... Thia thought to herself as she slowly started walking towards Lady Wachter, all the while giving her a death stare. When Thia saw that she was trying to back away from the fight, she outstretched her hand and forced Wachter to stay in her place. As Thia walked towards her prisoner, she grabbed the rope she had in her bag and pulled it tight between her two hands. Azgard's yelling distracted Thia enough for her to see that the battle was over, and the remaining guards were running away. It gave her a sense of relief, that her friends dealt with the situation while she was so distracted. Thia flicked her eyes back to Lady Wachter, who was starting to break free from the magic that paralyzed her. She held the rope even tighter in her hands, and she continued to stalk angrily towards her prey.
 
After Lady Wachter break free of the spell, and sending the vallaki militia to fight the party , Fargrim shouts with the booming voice of thaumaturgy. “Strahd’s whore! We’ve enough of your lies! Your life ends now!”
Fargrim then shoots a guiding bolt at her followed by all his friends attacking her with all their might at the same time. The burgomaster’s body was evicerated, burned, and blasted to pieces, leaving only a pool of blood and mutilated body parts.

Fargrim lets a sigh after seeing that the burgomaster is now dead. He look at the party.
“We need to go! Where’s Ismark? We need to go right now!”
 
Azgard quickly looked at the body of Lady Wachter. It’s a pity she chose to be on the wrong side of equilibrium, he thinks to himself as he eyes her bag that lied next to her essentially disintegrated corpse.

He scooped up the bag and used it to wipe burnt blood spatter from his cheek and looked over at Naivara.

“We’re right behind you Fargrim, let’s get out of here!”

Before he could finish his sentence, Thia had disappeared and Fargrim was 10 steps into a dead sprint. Azgard followed and made sure he kept pace with Naivara.

A mob of militia begins closing in. Azgard knew grabbing Wachter’s bag would cost him a few seconds of lead time, and it’s catching up to them. Azgard casted an illusion spell of a demon behind him, towards the mob. Although it startled them, it only slowed them by a second or two until one brave woman charged through the illusion. Azgard hoped this to be enough for them to outrun them...
 
Naivara has three options: Misty Step and leave Azgard, or cast Grease and hope the chase turned into a slip-n-slide... or get caught.
She chooses the grease option.
It works! Enough people slip that it slows down everyone, and she and Azgard run farther and farther away... until they are out of sight and safe. Catching her breath, Naivara asks “What... about... the others? (huff puff) How will we... find them?”
 
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When Fargrim confirms the death of Lady Wachter, he heard the rumble of militia men running to get them. He then sees Thia just disappeared, so he and Azgard along with Naivara ran for their lives. The two mages cannot catch up to him though, so he tried to raise fog around the area to help cover his trace and his friends. In his mind he glad that he heard the wavemother again and found a new resolve.
 
Thia shoots a fire bolt into Lady Wachter and then disappears completely. Fly Estela. Make sure they can't see you, then return to me once it's safe. Thia spoke telepathically to her familiar, as it flies off into the sky far above. Thia runs away from the oncoming mob, but since they can't see her she's lucky that she isn't hounded down as much as her friends were. Once she feels safe enough, she meets back up with her friends, but continues to stay invisible. "We g-go b-back to the t-tower first. Then we c-can make our w-way to the dragon f-fortress and a-attempt to locate the a-artifact. Let's h-hope we won't f-find further sorrow and b-betrayal there...." Thia's voice comes softly from the empty looking space next to everyone, and you can faintly here her footsteps as she starts to walk off without further discussion.
 
Thia scanned all the different wolves that were wandering near the tower. She recognized one of them suddenly, something she hasn't thought about for a while. One of the wolves had the same markings Lady Morwen told her about. Thinking back on her original mission brings back some memories of people she wished she didn't have to remember. She turned away from the wolves and sighed quietly to herself. "Let's go t-to the d-dragon f-fortress, these w-wolves have a h-high probability of b-being w-werewolves. We s-shouldn't m-mess with them...." Thia took her map out and quickly charted out a course to the dragon fortress. "Come on g-guys, after this w-we can check b-back here to s-see if they've l-left."
 
Thia identified the dragon statue as a silver dragon, which brought a little bit of relief. The card reading did say that the sword they were looking for was going to be held by corrupted hands however, so she was still on guard for a fight. She knocked on the door, at which point the dragon exhaled harmless cold air. Thia shrugged it off as she opened the door herself, since no one came to answer it. She looked around the main area, before going to the first room on the left. When she stepped inside, the fireplace lit up into the form of a dragon. Thia panic shot a skeleton hand to grab the fire, but it missed the dragon. She backed out of the room, but to her surprise, the dragon spoke to her instead of following after. It asked for help in saving the knights of this fortress, to show them the light. It disappeared after that, and Thia dreaded how difficult this task sounded.

She went back into the room and inspected the sarcophagus, which turned out to just be a wine cabinet. Having no interest in alcohol, she walked back out of the room and went to the next set of doors on the same wall. When she opened the doors she found a room full of barrels, and a wounded elf with brown skin. Thia hid her left hand behind her back as she lit a bolt of fire in it. She took a couple more steps into the room before calling out to the elf. "State y-your name and b-business here, and t-the reason y-you're wounded. We h-have c-come to help t-the knights of this f-fortress, to h-have them see the l-light again."
 
Naivara has barely collected her thoughts when she realizes that Thia has already opened the front door and walked in. Chasing her in, looking wildly around, and seeing she has sauntered in to the first room on the left, there isn’t even time to remember a simple cantrip before Thia is already casting her own spell against a fiery dragon!!
When the dragon just speaks and disappears, Naivara laughs and laughs. First, because she too was frightened. Second, because she is angry at Thia for not communicating. And third, because the whole thing was a wonderful surprise that turned out to be much better than a fight. She can’t stop laughing... until the empty wine cabinet and broken decanters disappoint.

She keeps veerry close to Thia now as she opens the next set of doors. She, too, sees the elf and the preparation Thia is making in case it isn’t friendly. Good idea.
 
Azgard entered the room behind Thia and Naivara. He noticed that they both were ready to put up a fight against the wounded elf. Using minor illusion, he played soft music that he thought the elf might like.
A mixed response.

Oh well, at least he tried to ease the tension.

“Oh, Arabell! We did end up finding that little girl. Very nice. Well mannered. She’s back with the Vistani.” He pauses, “Fargrim, can you heal our new friend?”
 
Fargrim slaps Azgard to stop him from playing music, “Tis not the time!!”
He then rushes to the aid of the gentleman and heal him with prayer from the sea herself. “Praise Umberlee my friend! For that she has spared you from the dark fate!”
 
Although not entirely sure the fellow elf is a friend who will really help them, Naivara can sense that he’s telling the truth about why he is here, why he is hurt. She puts her hand on Thia’s shoulder to stand down, put away your weapon. “Difficult to tell friend from foe these days. Tell us more about this place, please.”

The sourceless music is quite odd, and distracting. Naivara looks at her companions to see who is creating it, and says with dry humor: “Enough! Turn off that sound. Are we in a stage drama, that we need mood music?”
 
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