04.01 - "Lothar's Lightning"

The party arrives at the keep and brings in the eggs, explaining their report from the hatchery. One of the guards attacks an egg and destroys it, eliciting a cheer from Leofinas, who then pulls a crossbow and fires at the second egg. A scuffle ensues, in which Bismark has to heal one of the guards, lest he die. When things calm down, Leofinas is escorted out and the groups discusses what is next and where the cultists have set off for.

Reports have come in that they are heading toward Berdusk, and Frulan explains that they are heading to Baldur’s Gate and eventually to Waterdeep to summon Tiamat. Leosin chimes in asking why they are concerning themselves with living dragons now instead of dead ones..

The party considers heading to Eltrural in order to cut off the cultists. Leosin also has contacts there. When asked about kobold patrols in the area, Frulan explains that she doesn’t know much about that, that was more of Cyanworth’s (sp?) forte.

After deciding their plan of action, the party splits up to different activities for the evening.

Able and A’postrofae spent their evening tortured Frulan, burning off her feet.

Gamble heads to the General Store, and after some conversation with Jim Shopkeep, buys a pillow. As he is shopping, Bismark walks in and Gamble asks Bismark if he thinks that pillow would be able to smother someone.  Bismark tries to buy 5 wooden swords, but Jim gives them to him when he tells him that he is going to try and teach the orphans a bit of self defense. Bismark leaves him a gold regardless.

After shopping, Bismark went to the sanctuary, and spent the remainder of the evening with the orphans, giving the older ones the wooden swords, and then showing them a few simple exercises that he had learned long ago, and tells them to practice while he is gone. He specifically tells them not to beat on each other with them, and asks them to watch over Holly, the youngest. Before he leaves, Bismark looks for 5 holy symbols in the sanctuary

Gamble then headed to the bakery where Brynne was busy working on making some meat pies.  Gamble bought 30 gold worth of charcoal there, and then helped Brynne make the pies.

Blak picked up Apostrofae’s custom made leather coat and gave it to her.

In the morning, the group prepares to leave. Bismark makes a quick stop at the sanctuary, gathering the orphans together and explaining to them that he has to go away for a while, to keep practicing their sword exercise, and prays over each of them, asking Helm to protect them while he is gone, and then giving each the holy symbols on leather strips that he puts on them like a necklace.

Returning to the group, they head off to the north, heading towards Elturel. Brynne handed out the meat pies she had made the day before. As they ride, they noticed Apotrofae drifting away from the group “i do not know how to ride a horse…. How do you do this?” Blak grabbed the reins of her horse and held them as a guide to make sure they didn’t lose her.

As they rode along, Brynne (and others, really) noticed that Leofinas was looking back to his left shoulder and talking to it. Brynne commented to Bismark about it, and Bismark cast a spell, discovering that there was a fiend on leofinas’ shoulder. Bismark rides ahead and questioned Leofinas about it. Leofinas was short, explaining that its name was Lothar and that he helped him, before cutting short the conversation and riding ahead.

As they ride, Brynne sees something small moving in the distance. It turned out, it was Gamble’s pet weasel. Bismark sees that it is actually a fey creature in the form of a weasel. His name is Slinky.

The party camps overnight, then gets up. Able and Bismark both noticed slinky the weasel getting into their bags, which lead to some antics with gamble, A'postrofae, Able, and Leofinas.

In the morning, Leofinas arises early and loads up his horse, leaving early from camp on his own. A lightning bolt shoots down from the sky leaving a charred horse corpse, no Leofinas body, and a rainbow going straight into the sky. As the party catches up and in shock looks at the scene, Lothar the mephit appears, and tells them that his master needed Leofinas, and then the Mephit left them.

When the party comes over a hill that next day, they see the city ahead of them in constant daylight, that Leosin explains is because of some blessing from long ago. He is going to meet up with his contact Onthar Frume at the Black Antlers Tavern.