Episode 45

Everyone eventually wakes up, deciding to do their own things for the first third of the day. Gathered back in the common room around 10-11:00, the party goes over their job options and discusses the Burning Swords and possibly challenging them to the god war arena. Things get heated with Marisol, but despite the arguing they ultimately decide to take the Archmage’s Tatlo job before fighting the other adventuring group. Ingred is given a soulfire necklace from Seipora, who mentions that it is traditional to give a new party member the signature jewelry after their first battle. After gathering their things, the party is called up into Press’s office. They wait for a while before he walks in, sits down, and welcomes everyone in his usual tired manner.

The group lets him know their decision. He gives them the information for the tatlo job. The serpent can be found in the Pembersihan Woods. Lily had split off from the group before the meeting to run some group errands, and hands everyone a vial of antipoison that she had collected earlier. As the party leaves Basalt on horseback and rides through town they get a bit of fanfare from the locals. Many of them address soulfire as the “cleric killers”, but not with ill intentions.

They journey for the rest of the day, reaching the edge of the woods by the first quarter of their ride. The forest is beautiful and filled with many animals and creatures. They eventually pass by a group of fishing orcs who are apprehensive of them, but relax as they pass by without an issue. It is an easy day of travel.They find a dry area upon a hill to settle down for the night, the watch order being: Ingred, Lily, K, and then Marisol. The night goes by smoothly, however the party is woken up, loudly and two hours early, by Marisol. The party packs up and continues their journey, led by Ingred who keeps her eyes on the high treetops and forest floor. Following the marching order are K, Lily, Seipora, Marisol, and Anthos. Ingred eventually points out some damage located ¼ way down from the canopy of the trees; scraped off bark and claw marks, separated out 30-60 feet between trees. It appears to be the signs of some jumping creature, 4 days old and heading towards the mountain range. As they snake through a weird valley between the mountains the party eventually comes across scale marks and a large, reptilian set of footprints. The prints suggest that this creature is about 20 feet long.

They continue through, but out of nowhere are suddenly surprised by the tatlo! This creature, with its three heads and spiny back, suddenly spreads its membranous wings and leaps down on top of the group, killing Lily’s and Seipora’s horses in its wake. Anthos is quick to react and begins to deal damage with his shield and ion fire. Lily and Seipora scramble out from under the beast; Lily slashes at it with her greatsword on the way out, Seipora casts poison ivy and stabs up into its chest. All three heads rear up to attack. One bites at Lily and secures her harshly in its mouth, another lashes at Seipora, but is partially blocked by a shield that emerges from her pewter cuff. The head that turned towards anthos after being hit by his ion fire spits poison at the man, hitting him directly in the chest and face.

The serpent decides to leap out of harm's way and separates from its attackers, carrying Lily with it into the trees above. As anthos shoots more ion fire at it, K wrestles the head grappling Lily and pries its mouth open. Lily is able to slip free of the venomous jaws, and bloodies it after hitting the beast with two eldritch blasts. Ingred rushes up into the trees and slashes twice at the creatures with her sabres, Marisol slides behind a bush for cover and shoots into it with her longbow. Kova also decides to join the action, and swipes at the tatlo with her tentacles. It leaps away once again after dodging Seipora’s blade waltz, and huffs a noxious poison gas in everyone’s direction. Some are more affected by the poison than others. The party works to get back into melee range; Anthos shoots more ion fires and K gets on top to rake at its back with his sword. Kova rushes to K’s aid, continuing to swipe at it with its tentacles. Ingred follows Kova, but not before giving some first aid to the party’s leader. Once the bandage is set she rushes up next to Kova, slashing deeply into the beast. Lily will step up to give a weary, but killing blow to the tatlo.

The battle over with, everyone uses a moment to assess wounds and take a breather.

With mostly everyone patched up, Ingred, Marisol, and K works to butcher the corpse. In total they collect six eyes, a heart, 20 claws, four fangs (two had been broken during the encounter), a hide for K, and three poison vials. Marisol looks like a murder victim at the end of it, but is cleaned up with the others with help from Lily. Anthos wrangles up the horses and they all ride back to Gaoli after a successful mission. Nothing approaches during the journey thanks to the stench of the beast’s hide.

As they arrive back to town a horn is sounded off to acknowledge their return. The party is greeted with more fanfare, but Anthos appears to be angered by the use of the “cleric killers” phrase and decides to put an end to the rumors. Grabbing a kid by the shirt collar he gets the attention of the crowd and makes a short (but heroic) speech about the clerics they’ve had and the truth behind the cleric-killer hoax. As Ingred ushers the kid back to the ground Lily chimes in, saying “better a hero, than a thief like the Burning Swords”. The party leaves, the crowd behind them murmuring about the speech and Lily’s statement.

Dimitri welcomes the party back as they arrive. Marisol and K split off from the others, who head up to Press’s office to receive their payment. Press acknowledges their return happily and the party sells off the supplies they had harvested, minus one claw for K and a vial of venom for Ingred to keep. The archmage apparates into the room with a rush of wind. He nods to them all and talks to Press before checking that his supplies are indeed there. He tells Press that it is a job well done, and he is satisfied with the results. He hands Lily a large bag of gold to divy up between the party members and gives her a handshake to seal the deal. He is glad that someone finally took the job. Lily asks the archmage what he needs the organs for, who responds that he wishes to create a poison elemental.

Lily and Seipora let the archmage know that they appreciate what he has done for them so far, and that they took the job as a “thank you” for his kindness. He says that they are now even. Lily steps forward and asks him if he knows about the heart of the sea? He says yes, that it is found in the water plane, and looks incredibly perplexed as Lily says that one of those is inside her; a piece from the great chandelier in Promhull. She takes her chestplate off and tries to manifest the gem. It slowly emerges from her chest, melting out and solidifying into a small diamond-esc gem, suspended between her hand and held aloft by magic. The archmage gets down on one knee and observes the gem. His eyes glow amber as he holds out a hand and, with sigiled fingertips, reaches towards it. The gem inches away from his hand each time he tries to manipulate it. The archmage is rather confused and intrigued by the gem. Lily says it was being used by the necromancer in charge of the invasion of lower port. He rolls up his sleeves and after asking permission, grabs at it aggressively. It submerges into her body quickly. Divination magic is not his strong suit, the man admits, but he is not concerned by the gem.

The archmage tells Seipora that she should have no more problems with the liceum. He asks if Press has told the party about “that”, who looks surprised and embarrassed by the reminder. The archmage says his goodbyes and leaves.

Press sighs and tells the group that they have to buy a sigil in order to teleport to the liceum. He says it’s a one-time fee, but doesn’t mention how much it costs. As gold is distributed, the party lets Press know that they will be taking the Burning Swords to the god war arena. Press describes the process and location of the god war arena.

They depart from Press’s office, some to drink, others to settle down for the night. Seipora gives Lily a necklace before she leaves to deliver Marisol’s paycheck. They now have one day until soulfire must meet in Victory City to put the Burning Swords in their place.