Dreaming In Jaskir

**Story Arcs**

###### **AN ABSENT MEMBER**

Heading outside the group notice that Leopold is missing, he probably got sick of waiting around and wandered back towards Jaskir. The group do the same and start trailing back the way they came, then they begin to follow the coast like Smitty told them to.

Following the coast they come across what looks like an ancient looking shipwreck. Ashes decides to check it out and finds a perfectly sealed bottle of vintage wine. He takes it and the party move on.

Moving onward the group stop walking across the beach as the terrain shifts into a grassy lightly forested area. The path they were coming from seemed to be some ancient road that hadn't been walked in ages, and as they followed it they came to fresh trails.

As the group comes to this new area, the smell of rotting garbage hits their senses as a large trash heap comes into view among the trees. They near a river and a sign that says "NO DUMPING" and on closer inspection identifies this area as Stowen Park.

The group hear a pair of young human women who are fishing in a nearby stream and chatting as they eat and drink while waiting for a bite. Ashes comes up to get some answers from the lady about why there's dumping in a area that says no dumping, and the drunken lady mistakenly gets aggressive thinking that the goliath is some sort of snitch.

Moving on the group follow a road that is supposed to head to the "Lower Commons" of Jaskir.

##### 🐱**LEOPOLD, THE ABSENT CHANNELER - CHAPTER 3**

###### **JASKIR LOWER COMMONS**

The group move into a small region of Jaskir known as the Lower Commons, and the first building they come across is known as Lousee's Leathers. As they pass thru the window they see Leopold, who looks like he's finishing a conversation with the clerk of the shop.

As Leopold comes out, he greets the group and apologizes for his absence since he has been feeling kind of wonky because of his suncluster usage. Ashes and Silent Peepo are stern and cold, wanting to find a room as quickly as possible to rest; Ashes in particular as the sun has almost completely set.

Bogladin and Leopold follow Ashes and Silent Peepo into town, and as they come into a small bustling small market, the goliath tells the two to wait as he'll look around for an inn. Peepo comes along.

##### 👥**MAIN GROUP - CHAPTER 7**

###### **THE POTION SALESWOMAN**

The two are immediately drawn towards a scene of a man being sold something by a woman who seems to be peddling some sort of potion or elixer. They come just as the transaction completes and Leopold asks if she has some sort of remedy for his grogginess, to somehow cleanse his body.

She happily looks around and pulls out a small clear vial of clear liquid which she claims to be purging potion, which can supposedly reset you back to normal if you're experiencing any sort of negative ailment. He buys and tries one, and its a strange feeling of cold down the throat and hot in the stomach as it suddenly subsides. He feels better, and buys a couple more clearing out her stock.

Walking around a little more, Leopold spots a tall building and what looks to be beer and smokes placed in the displays through the window. The building has a sign that names the place as "Cassie's Smoke Shoppe".

###### **DEDREDE'S DIVINATION & CASSIE'S SMOKE SHOPPE**

Bogladin on the other hand spots an old elf woman rocking back in forth in a rocking chair, reading what looks like to be a brail book with her hand. As he comes closer he sees her clouded blind eyes. The monk introduces himself and asks for her name, who she happily gives to be as Dedrede.

Bogladin asks if she could identify a magical ring he had picked up, which she happily obliges in doing. Performing an identify her once cloudy eyes surge with magical light for a few moments but fading shortly after.

She hands back the ring and tells him that it is a Ring of Protection, and Bogladin pays her a few platinum pieces, as well as a gold. Eye eyes almost bulge in surprise as she thanks the monk humbly for such a large donation. Ashes bows and she bows in return despite not being able to see, and he goes back to the clumsy catfolk.

The monk heads up the steps to the front porch of the establishment and looks at the catfolk who's peering through the glass like a child at a candy shop. He also looks for a moment and see's this establishment is one that sells alcohol, tobacco, some herbs, and food. There's one table with two people who are eating some sort of soup or chowder and drinking some fine wine, while the waitress seems to be performing some magic keeping instruments aloft while they play themselves.

They both head in and are greeted by the staff who wait them to a table, the catfolk orders a massive set of 4 rib meals, 2 steak meals, and 1 lamb meal. The monk orders a fruit parfait and the girl gives the order to the other lady staff as she bolts out to get fruit.

A few minutes pass and they both get their meals. Bogladin enjoys his sweet patiently, as Leopold begins his almost competitive styled eating of his meats and potatoes. Slowly the eagerness subsides and the catfolk begins to have issues eating, and takes one set of ribs to go in a doggy bag. The two pay and head out.

###### **AMERTIA WOOD EQUIPMENT SALEMAN**

Heading further down the street to the east, the duo spot a tent with a man wearing a green sash who seems to be demonstrating the sharpness of his what looks to be, a wooden dagger. He cuts it across his palm and the man who was hesitant on buying the blade gives in to the sales pitch and walks away satisfied.

Leopold comes and talks to the merchant after he bandages up his hand with some rags, discussing his wares and what they are made from. The merchant says that this is Amertia Wood scraps from the Jaskir Lumber Company which he got for a really low price that his boss is totally fine with his business venture of working them into weapons and equipment.

The weapons salesman's cat meows hungrily as it sleeps on a bed of wood shavings, Leopold offers the shop keep his leftover ribs that he just bought, and as thanks the craftsman gives the catfolk druid a set of three Amertia Hardwood Throwing Daggers.

Leopold takes interest in how the craftsman creates these pieces of equipment, and he goes and shows a worn crafting tool that he says has around a year left of usage (at his rate of use) out of the two years the tool usually lasts. Leopold offers to buy the tool and the shop keep obliges since he can use his newer sharper tool and make a few coin in the process.

###### **A WORKING CLASS BUTCHER**

Happy with his new set of throwing daggers, Leopold and Bogladin proceed down the next tent and are immediately made aware of where the smell of barbecue and fresh game was coming from, as they came into a bloody sight of a man hacking away at a bucks body while a woman tends to a blazing barbecue flipping meat and kebabs.

The two interact with the couple for a bit, and Leopold asks the butcher where he hunts for his game. The man says that he gets his meat in the Realm of Conflict.

The duo see the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon and decide to wander a bit and maybe find an alley to sleep in, opting to not pay for a room. They head north and see a gambler orc put away his dice, and an artist putting away his easel and paints.

###### **A GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE**

The two proceed up towards the Upper Commons of Jaskir drinking a bit of alcohol they have on hand as they look around to find an alley they can call their beds for tonight.

Luckily enough they stumble enough a seemingly clean alley along a set of residential housing and sit down and prepare their bed rolls. As they finish setting up Bogladin tosses a spoiled ration out from his backpack down the alley as he organizes his backpack.

Leopold notices a massive swarm of rats coming at them from down the alley, they congregate over the spoiled ration and it vanishes after they pass by it. They two immediately prepare to defend themselves. During the scuffle, Leopold accidentally throws a flask of acid through a window and awakens a man who hears the glass breaking who yells at them to be quiet.

Using the tight area the two are able to take the fight from the alley to the roof, but the swarm of rats persist and begin to climb up the drainage pipe. Leopold uses a his old broken scimitar that he shattered on the Displacement Island as a means to pry the pipe off the building.

He is able to detach the pipe and many of the rats fall and immediately die on impact on the hard stone floor below, but using the corpses some soften their landing and still proceed to chase, now using the angled pipe to climb up to the roof. They leap across from one roof to the other where the duo attempt to make their last stand.

Leopold is able to use the throwing dagger he acquired from the merchant just a few hours ago and throws it in such a way to curve and strike the last three chasing rabid looking rats which shish kebab onto the sharp instrument.

The two now lay down on the rooftop looking at the clear starry sky, and the moons. The one giant red moon, and the smaller yellow moon. They finish another bottle and then one of them moves their sleeping bags up to the roof, where they fall asleep; and Leopold has a strange dream.

#### 🌧️**WIND RAVAGED RASUGIA (A HAZY RECOLLECTION)**

##### 🐱**LEOPOLD, THE ABSENT CHANNELER - CHAPTER 4**

###### **DREAMING OF YARNUE**

Leopold shifts around for a bit before falling into a slumber, but in his sleep he dreams of a past event in his life, back when he was 20 years old and he and a group of students, and his love interest named Adav, were led by their teacher, Master Gree, to experience one of his famously known "lectures".

Master Gree lined everyone up in the entrance of the once proudly standing but now nearly entirely collapsed tower, where he began to start pacing back and forth preaching his message towards the young students.

He began to speak of the fire towers (Yarnue, Yarnie, Yarnoe, Yarnae, and Unity - *previously Yarnee*), which were constructed by the various druidic tribes that reside within Rasugia. After some time passed and technology and ideals began to change, the towers initial use as places of meditation and commune with nature were slowly changed; starting with Yarnee which was converted into the capital of the united peoples of Rasugia, Unity.

Slowly over time, the other towers were repurposed for other uses such as study of astrology, chemistry, and other non magical means of emboldening themselves. The druids of Rasugia were being phased out for this new ideology and technical revolution.

Magic was outlawed within the city of Unity just barely weeks after it was founded, when a group of various druidic extremists from both the rat and catfolk tribes came into the city unarmed, attempting to speak with their leaders to discuss some means of peace or truce; but secretly wielding powerful magic that wrought chaos and mayhem the moment they were allowed inside the cities capital.

Because of this act of terrorism; magic had been completely outlawed within the city. If someone was caught performing or being able to cast magic, they were captured and sent down to the experimentation labs underneath the towering capital building; where they are apparently working on some means of completely nullifying a magic casters ability to perform any magic whatsoever. The only reason they know this truth is because Master Gree was one of these extremists who was caught, but was lucky enough to be able to escape from their capture during a siege of the city.

The sight was horrifying, the sterile lab environment was incredibly jarring to see. let alone be part of for the powerful catfolk druid, Master Gree was able to beast shape himself as a mosquito and evade the dire fates that the other magic users that were inside the other cells in the dungeon would unfortunately have to go through, as he couldn't save anyone but himself.

This tower, Yarnue, was a tower dedicated to the study of bio engineering; more importantly a means of creating a clone of something without the aid of magic. The experimentation here culminated in the creation of a cloned dragon which went berserk before detonating itself with unstable magic. They were successful in creating a clone, but they went too far and cloned a magical beast which they hadn't attempted before, causing the dragon clone to go wild and start attacking everything before being slain by the security team, and then detonating like a bomb causing the 25 floors of the building to shrink down to only 3 barely standing floors.

Leopold looked around after Master Gree finished speaking as instructed, his teacher told everyone to look around and see what horrors await those who stray away from the natural means of magic and fester by using this corrupted "technology".

In the center of the main chamber, being poured on by the ever present rain in Rasguia through the hole in the roof created by the explosion, was a massive golden cobra statue made of gold with a unicorn like horn that resembled a DNA helix tapering into a tip.

Leopold notices the crystals scattered around the walls and floors, they were pink and hummed with a strange buzzing feeling that was similar to a limb falling asleep, moving ahead he found a table with a microscope and a slide. He proceeded up the stairs to the next floor, where he suddenly woke up in a shiver.

**Story Arcs**