The gang arrives in Everlund. The city is large with wide, clean streets; steepled houses with spires and banners; large, leafy green trees all around. As autumn descends, leaves turn firey. Soldiers patrol the streets letting everyone know that everything is safe.
There is no sign of the Lords’ Alliance. The most prominent edifice in the town is the large, black spire in the middle of the city looming over everything. The late afternoon is warm.
Danivar’s House is full of eccentric and diverse characters in the various nooks. Ale is flowing, people are in a good mood and jaunty inn music plays. The adventurers make quite an entrance, coming in off the street.
They head to the bar, unsure who has the letter. Miss Moss elbows Londer, “Give him the letter”. Londer indicates to wait, then buys a round of drinks and tries to get the half-orc, Drall’s attention.
“Hello good sir, what a wonderful establishment you have here!” They chat for a while and Londer orders another round. Drall throws the ale glasses expertly down the bar.
Gunther, full of self-pity, moves down the bar to drink alone, as Londer slides the letter over the bar to Drall. Drall smirks and then catches sight of the seal. “You have powerful friends,” he remarks.
The letter was from Tamalin of the Zoa family. In Everlund, Horrick Zoa is the most senior person in the town, who is charged with granting one favour to the adventurers. Drall will contact the Zoa family when they’ve decided what they would like.
Miss Moss pulls out the Triboar badge and slides it slowly across the bar. Drall examines the badge, his one good eye twinkling. He looks shocked.
“You’ve travelled quite a distance. You must be exhausted. You are welcome here, I have what you’re after. Have this on the house.”
Drall pulls out a green, elvish bottle and lines up six shot glasses. He pours the drinks and a faint mist drifts out of the to of the glasses. They all drink, slamming their glasses down. Drall beams, slams the bottle down and the world fades away.
All the gang can see is white and they feel a strange magic force, sending them through unknown space and time. Their vision refocuses. They are in an alabaster room, with ceilings soaring to at least 75 foot, tapering slightly at the top. The room is round and breathtakingly serene.
Afternoon light filters in. White chairs and a long desk are piled with paper. A tree grows on one side of the room, soaring to the ceiling. Above there are birds flying around. The room has the feeling of an office in heaven.
There is a fluttering of wings and Rillix lets out a cry, arching his back. It’s not a bird at all, it’s a grey tressym. Rillix is anxious and responds. The two fly up together and they realise that the creatures are all Tressyms. The gang all let out a collective “Aww!”. Rillix is amongst his own.
“Beautiful creatures, aren’t they?” They turn and see a Turami woman. Her eyes are gleaming and her face has deep wrinkles. Everyone is put at ease. “Welcome to MoonGleam Tower, travellers. My name is Kowan, the senior wizard here. Your Tressym will be quite happy. Please, come with me, you must have lots of questions.”
People pass frequently, the place is busy with different armours and attire. They almost seem to recognise the adventurers. Eventually, the gang reach a spiral staircase. They ascend and find themselves in a small office. Bookshelves line the walls, filled with enormous tomes. One wall is completely open with no door – it leads to outside. It is about 400 feet up, overlooking Everlund. Black stone on the outside makes them realise where they are – the great black spire in the middle of town.
The woman giggles, waves her hand apologetically to reveal six chairs. A black tressym comes into the room and an invisible shield shimmers. “This is Farrow” she says.
“I’m sure you know about the Giants wreaking havoc. You may not know that apart from Triboar there was GoldenFields, Grinshander, Icewingdale that suffered a huge assault. Cloud giants and stone giants have been spotted.
The giants and dragons are ancient enemies, the great dragons of the north are likely paying close attention to these goings-on. Klaus the Red, Claude the Green and the white dragon of Icewingdale. There is an ancient blue dragon known to reside in the desert.
The Lords Alliance (Government, police, military, politics) and Harpers (secret network of spell casters outside of the law) Emerald Enclave (keeping balance between the civilised world and the wild) and the Gentarum (like the mob) – these well established, powerful organisations that don’t often see eye to eye.
Lia asks about Forcegrey were like a group of adventurers in Neverwinter – not associated with the organisations. And they have a giant, Harshnag.
Kowan looks excited – yes she has heard of a frost giant helping fight against the other giants.
Giants are made up of a hierarchy based on when they were created. Hill giants are ogres, much more prone to violence. Going up the chain all the way to stone giants who are sophisticated, noble. The scale is related to their nature.
The team take out the Adamantine rod from the bag of holding, takes her hand and moves it across the staff murmuring. Light comes out of her hand, and giant runes appear. As Thoradin stares at the runes, eyes squinted, it doesn’t take long to work out that he doesn’t know how to read giant runes.
Korwan laughs and congratulates Thoradin on his valiant effort. “If you were to travel to one of the great libraries in Mirabar I’m sure you would find someone who could help you read these.”
She has also heard sightings of the fire giants searching for something, stone giants ransacking farms and killing livestock – gathering consumables in massive amounts.
Lia shares the story of her sister and Kowan knows that this is a big problem.
“You have friends with the Harpers now, and if we can help you we will.”
She goes over to the book case and selects a big book – it opens and is a wooden case. Inside there is another case that is a beautiful wooden storage box. Inside that there are six compartments. Each is inlaid and designed and contains a spell scroll
- Fly
- Dispell magic weapon
- Tongues
- Water Breathing
- Sending
A male mage stands nearby. Nesful. The door magically opens by itself. The room is empty and windowless. There is an intricate sigil on the floor. Leshanna recognises it is a teleportation sigil. The Harpers will let the adventurers use the teleportation network. They can travel freely between the places in the network.
She walks them back to the room, there is hot tea on the desk and as they sit there they hear her grumbling, low sounds as she looks out the window and sees in the distance a castle on a cloud.
The adventurers plan for a while and then suddenly some giants come in and attack the tower. The woman calls out that the Harpers have everything under control.
The adventurers make their way back to the room with the tree. They are getting a bit of a name for themselves as being the adventurers with the dwarf in the cart. Rillix flies back down again to Leshanna’s shoulder.
Another potion is handed to them and they drink, arriving back at Danivar’s house.
They have some great food, there is good music.
It will take them a long time to travel. Thoradin is hunting for a ram to ride.
Miss Moss asks a final question – is there anything else we need to know for the journey up north?
Silvery moon to verlund is a very well-worn bustling track. Zymervan hall he’s not sure about it.
A large group of people are looking at the Harpers in the air, swooping and defending the towers. As the night sky is lit up with fire balls, the travelers move through the crowd.
In the morning, the pub is empty and Drall is standing there, battling with a great ram. Thoradin steps forward and puts his hand onto the ram’s face and it calms immediately down. Drall is blown away. Thoradin puts a saddle on the ram and mounts.
The travellers emerge to see Thoradin soothing the solid back. Boris looks very sad. Thoradin goes and unhooks him and organises for Drall to have Boris put in a nice place that takes care of old horses. Thoradin gives Boris a few lumps of sugar. They farewell him, and with that all the adventurers are all saddled up, ready to go heading north up Ralven road, arguing about sheep and goats.
Shep the ram joins the gang.