Session 18

Salix heads back to the camp, running into Vesper, the blacksmith's son. He gives her a whip left for her by Atlas. She asks him about the possibility of doing some leather work, and he says that he or Gert can do it. She then runs into Kyrie who asks about Dev.

Dev eventually comes back to the Grassgrave camp. About 75 people have made it to the encampment, and are looking to Sentinel, Gert, and Vesper for leadership. They discuss what to do, and decide to take the refugees to Azmarin. But first, they realize they have some errands to do.

Before they can do their errands, though they rest a bit. As they all rest and recover, Kendell gives Salix a box with a flower from the day that she got her tattoos. Sentinel, Kendell, and Salix head to go find the witch that Gert had told them about. Sentinel and Salix take the opportunity to hold hands and talk for a while.

Gert and Dev sneak back into town to get to Gert's hut for some supplies. The two of them both begin quickly putting all kinds of things in a bunch of bags of holding. She warns Dev not to put the bags of holding inside each other.

Meanwhile, Kyrie stops and asks Anara to fly up and scout around while they and Vesper go pick up some things from the blacksmith building. Kyrie asks him to tell them about the shop a little, as he says goodbye to it, and he does so. As they're getting things, Anara alerts them that something is outside. They hide and manage to avoid the massive horned devil.

Dev and Gert, unfortunately, do not have the same luck with the chained devil, and it attacks, seriously injuring Gert, whom Dev manages to wrestle away from it, and they put her in the one of the bags of holding.

Dev manages to get a message to Kyrie who heads their direction on their mount. The devil wraps some chains painfully around Dev, but they manage to squeeze out of the chains and flee, with Gert still in the bag. Kyrie arrives and pulls Dev onto the mount. The chain devil rakes its chains across all 3 of them. It pulls Kyrie down off the mount, but they fey step back onto its back, and they flee the area. When they get out of the town, Dev pulls Gert back out of the bag, and she freaks out, kissing them and pushing them away, gasping for breath.

Sentinel, Kendell, and Salix arrive at the White Witch's house. Sentinel tells them that he's going to stay outside, as he and the white witch don't get along well, since she doesn't like organizations, and he belongs to the Divine Covenant.

They show the witch the note, and she introduces herself as Luna. They tell her they are looking for anti-divination objects, and she asks them to tell her about themselves. Salix tells her they have run afoul of several organizations, and Luna asks which ones. When Salix declines to name them, she says she doesn't have what they're looking for.

They ask if they can sit and have tea with her still, and she says yes. Kendell tells her a bit of their story, and Salix admits that the Silence are the ones that they ran into. She asks them if they know of the Divine Covenant and if they are members. When they say they are not members, she says she can take another look for what they want, if they will hear her out about the Divine Covenant.

She speaks of the Dawn War, and how the Deities interacted freely with mortals on the material plane. After the war, the primal spirits set up the primal ban, forbidding both deities and primordials on the other side of a Divine Gate. The Divine Covenant, she says, is supposedly all about protecting that Divine Gate. She knows of a young man, whose parents were killed by the Covenant, so that they could raise him themselves and brainwash him. She says the same was done to her parents and sister, and she is the last of a long line of keepers. She says they've tried to kill her too, so the Silence are not the only ones to be afraid of.

Having said her piece, she brings them a box with 4 medallions, which she says will hide them from divination magic. Salix trades two vials of the Draconis Fundamentum for the medallions.

Kendell asks her about the Silence as well. She tells them about a friend of hers who joined the Slience to root out corruption, but that a small group of them worship The Whispered one. She tells them that the leader of the Silence is a woman from they Feywild, who, in her desperation to save a loved one, actually brought about their death. Kendell asks about the headquarters of the Silence, and she says it's nearby. She also lets them know that followers of Ioun are natural enemies of the Silence.

She gives them some pipe herbs, and they head outside. However, Sentinel is nowhere to be found. From the tracks, it appears that someone came and talked to Sentinel for a while, and then they left together. Salix and Kendell head back for the Grassgrave camp.

They arrive back to find their friends clearly healing up after a fight. Vesper begins forging weapons from the scrap metal that they recovered. Meanwhile, Dev talks to Gert, apologizing about having put her in the bag. Gert tells them that they took away all of her agency in the situation, and Dev, feeling badly, walks away.

Kendell goes after them Dev says that they feel like a screw-up. Kendell makes some tea, and says that he feels the same way about himself. Dev wonders if they should just go home, and Kendell tells them that, if they can be happy at home, they should do that, but he won't be as happy if they do. He also tells them that if they debate what-ifs, they won't be able to do what they want to do. Dev snuggles up close and Kendell heals them as the two rest.