69. Nephele and Phigalia

* Stepping through Aerendyl's *transport via plants* spell took the party from the edge of the Grandmother Tree's forest back to Anemone's island in an instant, but still they were well over half a day later returning than their original plan had accounted for. They didn't know if their crew lived or not, and Wilfred dare not spend the power it would take to message them. They'd all need everything they had for the fight to come, when they faced three witches together, all benefiting from their coven link, and with their earlier promises to Anemone meaning they could not harm her in any way lest they face the force of a broken Sylvan oath.
* As soon as they arrived on the island, stepped out of a tree near Anemone's lakeside hut, two nearby trolls that had been waiting caught their scent. One of the giant-kin was nearly twice as large as any troll the group had dealt with before, and had various limbs and even a few lolling heads from other trolls it had bested in combat: a dire troll.
	+ The pair made to sound large horns hanging around their necks but Pyt stopped them, cutting the smaller troll's horn free and then using a *catapult* spell to smash it into the other troll's horn, shattering both instantly.
	+ After that, the fight seemed like it would be a fairly routine one for the group. Wilfred *banished* the dire troll, they focused their flame-based attacks on the regular one and slew it in quick fashion, then arranged themselves so that they might overwhelm the dire troll at once when Wilfred brought it back.
	+ Except the thing proved hardier than they could have possibly imagined. Even their fire spells bared slowed its regeneration, not fully stopping it as had always been the case with trolls before. The dire troll was also lethal with its many claws. In every way, the thing refused to go down without one hell of a fight.
	+ Ultimately, they piled on enough damage to drop the creature, but their flames still weren't enough to keep it down. Clwyd ended up putting her whole burning hand inside the thing's mouth, taking a nasty bite for her trouble, but in doing so she was able to burn the thing enough to still it.
* In the wake of the fight by the lake hut, Poop the brownie came out of his perfect hiding place. He was wearing his acorn helmet and holding his bronze key at the ready as if it were a mighty sword. The brownie rushed up to the group, saluted, and said he was ready to report. In a flurry of Poopisms, he explained everything that had been going on about the island as he'd observed it.
	+ With the party failing to return as planned, Anemone had told their crew to flee on their own. She could sense the two witches moving quickly and heading straight for the island - no doubt with Nephele's *windwalk* spell. And if Anemone helped the crew, if she even knew where they'd gone to hide, the other witches would have it out of her immediately and it would all be for nothing.
	+ After that, the crew headed into the island's forests.
	+ Next, Nephele, Phigalia, 7 trolls, and 2 dire trolls arrived, shifting from mist into their true forms.
	+ The trolls waited outside while the three witches all went into Anemone's hut to discuss things.
	+ Much to the party's shock, Poop says he snuck into the hut and listened to the witches, remaining out of sight the whole time.
	+ The witches confirmed that Tiphorea and Orphne were dead, and have Anemone tell them everything that she knows about the happenings. Poop saw that the island witch was compelled to do as they said, suggesting they have some significant hold over her - possibly even her name. The thought sickens Poop, but he soldiers on with his report.
	+ After that, Anemone told them about the party in detail, explaining their abilities and likely combat strategies.
	+ When Anemone told the others about the party's crew, Phigalia sent most of her trolls off to search for them.
	+ The conversation then shifted to the witches' so-called 'duties.' Nephele said they needed to go and do what they could to sure up their seal, but that ultimately, they couldn't hope to maintain it for long with their own coven weakened and one of the positions in the Coven of Covens unfilled. They might be forced to agree to the terms of the Siblings of Agnor, Nephele said with scorn.
	+ After that, the witches went to the highest point on the island, leaving those two trolls to watch the tree Aerendyl was going to travel to so they could sound the alarm and potentially stop the party.
	+ Poop followed the witches up to the top of the mountain crag. Up there, they began a ritual around a flat, oval, stone alter. He mostly saw it as a bunch of chanting while they stood in a triangle.
	+ Then he came back down and went into the forests of the island to look at what the crew and the other trolls were doing. What he describes sounds to the group like their crew, led by Taylor, using guerrilla tactics to keep the minions of the witches busy - easing the load their senior officers had to carry as much as they could.
* With that, the group ready themselves for their final fight, to take place at the highest point on the island. They took a short rest; Clwyd changed her fiendish resilience to lightning; Wilfred put up his *telepathic bond*; Pyt did another magical speech and inspired Aerendyl, Clwyd, and Wilfred, and then put a *death ward* on himself and on Clwyd; Aerendyl cast *freedom of movement* on Pyt, Clwyd, and Wilfred; and there was still 15 minutes left on the *heroes feast* Aerendyl had cast the day before. They were ready as they'd ever be.
	+ At the base of the near-vertical crag, Alric implores the group to let him help them here. He knows that he is no real match of a single witch, let alone three at once. And he wouldn't even be able to take his bear form during this fight. But what he can do is allow them to preserve their strengths here, saving them from wasting any of their magic on the climb by carrying them on his back and climbing for them. Reluctantly, the group agree. And so, in the space of 5 minutes, Alric first carries Aerendyl and Pyt up the 400 foot cliff face, depositing them in a safe spot near the summit, then returns to the ground, and then climbs again, now carrying Clwyd and Wilfred. By the end of his exertions, he all but collapsed at the summit. But he got them all up there and in good time for all their magical preparations to still be in effect.
	+ Alric wishes them luck from here, saying he will catch his breath and then look to help their crew in the forest as best he can. He hopes that whether it be this life or the next, perhaps they'd meet again when this was all over. Wilfred smiles and tells him to clean his shield, and the berserker departs.
* The island's summit had a steep, narrow path that wound upwards from where they stood - Poop having told them a safe place for them to climb to. From here, they advanced.
	+ Against his deep desires to leave all the Hell stuff behind him, Pyt summoned Jolene for the first time since travelling to the Frostflows. She said 'hiya' and he told her to be silent and wait until he told her what to do.
	+ Aerendyl summoned his three quicklings - the sibling trio of Mauve, Aqua, and Teal they'd captured from the last coven of witches they'd fought - manifesting their forms out of water.
	+ Aerendyl, Pyt, and Wilfred each used one of the three Protection Against Fey scrolls they'd found in Mackerel's home - the one thing in their arsenal that Anemone wouldn't have known about, which would prevent the witches from coming close to them or affecting them too directly with their magics.
	+ The party climbed the path.
* A sizable summit plateau stretched out before them. At standing over on a rise in a triangle formation, each wearing a face of deep concentration, were Phigalia, Mother of Trolls, and Nephele of Clouds, the original cloud nymph, as well as their ally that would now try to kill them, Anemone, the island's witch. Phigalia's tremorsense soon picked up the group's steps on the ground and the witches grew silent. 'They come,' Phigalia rasped, loud enough for the party of four to hear. Phigalia sunk into the ground as if it were water, Nephele rose higher into the air, and Anemone turned to look at them, her face concerned. Then the fight began.
	+ And it turned into perhaps the longest, most frenetic, most painful fights they'd been in.
	+ Nephele kicked it off by releasing a storm she had bottled up and kept in her belt. Then through the coven link, she cast a high-level *call lightning* spell, vaporising Aqua the quickling's manifested form instantly and rocking Wilfred. Wilfred responded with a masterful piece of abjuration, clearing the skies and cancelling the spell.
	+ The witches made extensive use of the *spike growth* spell. They bottled the party in at the entrance to the summit plateau and then planned on forcing them over the painful spikes repeatedly through the use of Nephele's wind and Anemone having cast *grasping vine*. The Protection Against Fey scrolls hindered much of their plan, but also meant that it focused heavily on Clwyd - the only one without the protection.
	+ Again and again, Wilfred and Aerendyl dispelled the spike growth spell.
	+ Wilfred tried to keep up with *counterspelling*, but the three witches had access to it as well so long as they were close enough to each other, and more often than not they countered his counter. It forced him to retreat out of range.
	+ Phigalia rose up from the ground to wrap Clwyd in a vicious, crushing hug, then dragged her into a line with two of the others so Nephele could hit them all with a high-level *lightning bolt*.
	+ Anemone stood front and centre, interposing herself between the party and the other witches, knowing they wouldn't strike her. From there, she threw blinding acid at any that came close.
	+ As the fight dragged on, Wilfred continued to focus on his abjurations, restoring his arcane ward bit by bit as he did. Aerendyl had separated himself from the rest of the group and was throwing out healing magics as best he could. Pyt re-uped a couple people with the last of his bardic inspiration, and Clwyd focused on dealing as much damage as she could while also suffering the brunt of the witches' attacks in turn.
	+ The fight turned when Wilfred successfully *banished* Phigalia. A rain of attacks fell on Nephele after that, and she made to beat a retreat, shooting high up into the sky and well out of the range of any of their significant attacks.
	+ Having failed once already, Aerendyl again tried casting *earthbind* on Nephele, knowing that she'd get away if it didn't land right here and now. And somehow it worked. The former cloud nymph was halted in her flight and slowly began descending.
	+ Anemone was focusing her efforts on breaking Wilfred's concentration to get Phigalia back, but having to break through the protection scroll's effect had slowed down her efforts.
	+ Clwyd was poised underneath the sinking witch's position, ready to slay Nephele. But she refused to take the shot until she'd fallen closer, so that Clwyd could seal some of the witch's magic for her own use - what she'd been working on preparing for with Anemone. In the space of a heartbeat, a frantic argument broke out over the *telepathic bond*. All of them were begging Clwyd to cast the spell and kill the witch. But she wouldn't. Her lust for power was endangering them all. Aerendyl told her that he'd never forgive her if she didn't make the attack and it didn't budge her convictions. She waited.
	+ Anemone kept attacking Wilfred, and at one point his concentration on Phigalia's *banishment* nearly shattered.
	+ Wilfred told Clwyd that if she didn't make the kill now, it didn't matter how much power she grabbed hold of. The River King would take it from her. They needed to win here. She needed to win.
	+ Clwyd took the shot, and three beams of *eldritch blast* tore through Nephele of Clouds. She drifted to the ground like a falling leaf, then lay still.
	+ But with Anemone's relentless assaults, the group didn't have time to arrange themselves as they'd have preferred before Wilfred's *banishment* ended. Soon enough, Phigalia was back. The former oread gave a mad shriek as she returned to find Nephele slain. She shouted that the group have no idea what they're doing!
	+ Then the fight entered its final stage. With their coven magics cut off, the two witches were missing a lot of their offence and they couldn't *counterspell* any more. But they were still powerful Weird Magic users in their own right, and each of them posed a real threat. Further, Phigalia was mostly unscathed from the fighting so far.
	+ They turned their full attentions to Phigalia, pummelling her with attacks and spells.
	+ At one point, Pyt successfully *polymorphed* her into a bird. They all waited for her to fly into the air, so that they might trap her inside Wilfred's *wall of force* with Clwyd's *sickening radiance* spell in effect, but the oread had spent a life longer than many lifetimes being a creature of the earth and ground. All her instincts kept her rooted to the floor. And soon enough Anemone appeared and broke the *polymorph* by attacking the bird form, returning Phigalia to herself.
	+ Aerendyl tried to lock down Anemone in the *rope of entanglement* the group had taken from Alekto, but again and again the former naiad flowed through it just like water.
	+ Pyt eventually landed a *polymorph* on Anemone, turning her into a spider. Then he had Jolene catch her and carry her into the air and out the way.
	+ Wilfred wrapped Phigalia up in his *pliable summons* and lifted her into the air. Again and again, the group wailed on her with their best attacks - with Clwyd even managing to put a *sickening radiance* on top of the witch after all. And again and again, Phigalia cast *erupting earth* on top of Wilfred. He resisted it twice, but then lost his concentration the third time, and Phigalia fell to the floor once more, right next to Clwyd.
	+ Phigalia's claws fell on the goblin like boulders. The first strike would have killed Clwyd had she not claimed strength from the slaying of Nephele earlier. And the second strike should have killed her, but instead a corpse of Pyt flew out of her body with the blow and Clwyd remained standing, an inch from death.
	+ The party rushed in for a final salvo of attacks. Wilfred landed a massive blow with one of his *flame arrows*, but then Aerendyl and Pyt both missed. They could see that the witch was going to flee. She'd sink into the rock and they'd be unable to follow.
	+ But thanks to sheer luck and Pyt's *death ward* both, Clwyd was still standing. She unleashed her *eldritch blasts* and they tore through the mountain witch's massive body.
	+ Clwyd shook off the shield she was holding and took the fox skull she's made with Anemone in hand. Phigalia had been far from her first choice for this, but Clwyd decided she'd do. As the last beam of her spell took Phigalia's life, Clwyd cast another spell and sealed the witch's essence inside the carved animal skull. The rest of the party watched on as a screaming soul-like thing was pulled out of Phigalia's body and found home in the skull-cage.
	+ And in an instant, the summit fell quiet.
	+ They'd won.
* After that, the party rescued their crew in the forests. Poppy had picked up a few more bad scars, and they found her brother stood over her prone form, fending off a pair of trolls. Alric had found his way to Garret and together they'd taken down a few trolls - Alric said it was a team effort when asked if he did most of the work. The berserker had kept hacking at at the trolls after they'd felled them, continually severing limb from limb and making the trolls' regeneration count for little. And Taylor had spent his whole night playing the mouse for the dire troll, leading it away from its allies and his own. He'd stood no chance against the hulking thing, and only his wits and duelling senses kept him alive. But the party got to them all in time, and any injuries the crew of the Drunken Dragon had suffered here would heal with time.
* They spent the day waiting for the night. Anemone walked her island for the last time - though it had been a prison to her for so long, it was still her home, and a part of her was sad to see the end of it. When night came and the phasing moon waxed full, its reflection appeared on the shore of the lake, ready for them. The three corpses went in, followed by the iron flask containing Orphne, and lastly Anemone, walking in of her own will. The days passed quickly after that. The party and their crew rested, some of them spending the entire time in bed. None of them were even in the mood to start talking about the next task they should take on just yet.
* On the first night of the full moon, Aerendyl's faerie water glowed like moonlight.
	+ He waited out on the lake's pier with the others, but even hours after the moon appeared in the sky, the River King didn't show up and talk to him. The others went inside.
	+ And soon after he was left alone, Aerendyl spotted a pale hand beckoning him from the treeline. The elf walked over and saw the River King fully manifested on Terca Mahres for the first time.
	+ The River King said that with its nymph-turned-witch gone, this island was dying. It would soon freeze over and be reclaimed by the tundra around it. Before that happened, the River King intended to walk the island and see if any of its nymphs would rather come live in his newly forming court than stay here and die. He asked if Aerendyl would walk with him, and so the two went together.
	+ The naiads, the island's water nymphs, seem receptive to the offer. The dryads of the trees were split on their decisions - some wanting to stay and die with their trees and some planning to go. But the oreads of the rocks and mountains stood firm and refused the River King outright.
	+ The three oreads, Onyx, Lapis, and Alabaster, stood like statues at the entrance of their grotto and told the River King that he risked worlds with what he'd done. That he was a madman for it. This was his response: "*I am not mad! I'm furious! My rage is a river fit to burst its banks. They took everything from me, those vile and lovely queens. And I shall have my revenge, no matter the price. I will make Titania tear down her barrier. I will make Mab send her best. I am happy as I hurl this world again towards the Times of Madness. I will relish it. I'll drink greedily from that chalice. And after the torrent, when the rain has finished falling, I will have new rivers. Red rivers. Formed of the Dawn and Dusk and Wyld besides! My pride will lead me to yet greater heights. While yours, nymph, shall have you fade away here, doomed to be forgotten. May some bumbling mortal take pick to the stones you become and spend you in pieces for bread and fish.*"
	+ The River King and Aerendyl left, walking back towards the lakeside hut. The River King stopped partway, handed Aerendyl back the iron flask that had not been part of the party's arrangement with him, and asked if the elf truly didn't remember the Times of Madness. When Aerendyl said he didn't, the River King sighed a little, then smiled softly. 'You were a breaker then, but you take the name watcher now. I look forward to seeing how it all unfolds.'
	+ The River King then placed his hand firmed at the back of Aerendyl's head and pulled him in to a kiss. Before they broke apart, the River King had dispersed into mist and raindrops that splattered to the ground.
	+ Aerendyl returned to the hut, confused, full of questions. And he told the party none of what had happened on his nighttime stroll.
* It took three months in all for the island to die and be reclaimed by the ice. The party happily spent their time there, hunting animals for Alric's people, gathering herbs for Aerendyl or Clwyd to use in their spell work, harvesting gems from the caves the oreads had inhabited - including the eerily humanoid-shaped deposits of onyx, lapis lazuli, and alabaster, and training in various ways. Eventually, they talked about their to-do list, concluding that Pirate Lord Ibn Qahbe was probably the next thing on their agenda. The only way they knew to get to Spice Town, apparently located between the Rumidian Southern Margraviate and the Six Sultanates, was to travel back to the Pirate Republic, head from there to the Western Margraviate, and then go from there to the Southern Margraviate.
* The group made a quick trip back to the Black Salt Springs - easily done by Aerendyl *transporting* to one of the trees in the boreal forest near the hold. They gave the locals much of the food they'd been catching and preparing on the island. Then Alric surprised them: he said that he was the last of his generation's berserkers, and that the Black Salt Springs has no real need for him any more. It would rise again in time to come, under a new generation of warriors, all under the guidance of the volva and the chief. As such, if the party would still have him, he believed he could still try to make good on his obligations to them. Aerendyl replied that he was already part of the crew and there was no need for such grandiose speeches all the time.
* From the Black Salt Springs, Aerendyl *transported* them to Many Apples, their friend Rascal au Rio's island in the Pirate Republic. Rascal greeted them at the gates of his fort, saying, 'friends! Capital to see you! Come in, come in. You're just in time for the Midsummer revels! And you do have to let me tell you about the Council of Five!'

The party got hold of a lot of loot after defeating their second coven of witches.

* From Tiphorea's body, they found a gourd containing **a Potion of Mind Blank**, made from the bark, roots, and leaves of the loftus tree. This had served the witch as a protective measure against Orphne.
* From Phigalia's corpse, they got **a Ring of Lightning Resistance** - a protective measure against Nephele.
* From Nephele's body, they took **a Bottled Storm**, much like the one she'd used in their fight.
* Around the island and in Anemone's hut, they found **herbs enough for two castings of Aerendyl's *reincarnate* spell or Clwyd's *hallow* spell**.
* Aerendyl and Wilfred spent much of their three months on the island after slaying the witches working with the panacea plants there. Together, they made **12 potions of superior healing**.
* From the oreads' caves, they harvested **5000gp of uncut rubies, 5000gp of uncut sapphires, 5000gp of uncut emeralds, and 1000gp of uncut diamonds**. Getting these gems cut would double their value. Additionally, they got **1000gp of onyx, 1000gp of alabaster, and 1000gp of lapis lazuli**.