Red Sky in the Morning

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## Deja Vu

After decking Kiira in the face, Emota found herself at the centre of attention of the other party members. Ahsatan and Mirik combined their spells, Spirit Guardians and Energetic Shroud, to engulf her in magical energy and inhibit her movement. With a new movement speed of 5ft, she was certainly going to have trouble catching up to Kiira now. Ahsatan also immediately lost control of her demon, who then rushed over to bite at Carric. Ahsatan shouted after it "Michael, no!", but he ignored her and continued to bully the bard.

Kiira manages to run away from Emota, passing by the sleeping worgs and screaming to wake them up. Emota sighs, and calls back to the bushes behind her for Vhaara to come out. A familiar yellow and brown constrictor snake slithers out of the undergrowth, this time sporting some large cuts and gashes with exposed bone and muscle, and snakes off after Kiira. Emota tries to free herself from her snail legs by punching Ahsatan and Mirik in an attempt to break their concentration. She breaks free of Spirit Guardians, but Ahsatan manages to maintain Energetic Shroud at the expense of barely managing to maintain her own hp. The hobgoblins rush to attention by this point, but unfortunately only see a strange yuan-ti looking angry and the much more obvious threat of a demon attacking Carric. They raise their swords into the air and converge on Michael. Whilst the demon is occupied, Carric turns Ahsatan invisible to protect her from Emota's fists of fury, and she sneaks away to the nearby treeline to magically transform her sword into a longbow. Kiira continues to run away from Emota and the snake, and manages to duck and hide behind one of the hobgoblin tents. Vhaara slithers straight past her unaware of her hidden state, which allows Kiira to rush out of the shadows and deliver a devastating blow, impaling the undead snake's skull to the floor.

Ahsatan pops out of invisibility to hit Emota with a strong shot from her longbow, and Mirik dishes out some more radiant damage. She begins to inch closer to Kiira, who's stealth and cunning can do nothing to hide from the piercing gaze of vengeance (damn girl chill). She steels her gaze on the red-haired rogue, who feels a chill creep down her spine as her muscles are locked in place, paralyzing her. Before Emota can lash out against Kiira once again however, Mirik Carric and Ahsatan unleash another round of firepower, destroying her once again into a pile of snakes. Kiira is freed from her paralysis and stands up breathing heavily. Michael is unsummoned back into the sword, and the group have a short rest over breakfast to tend to their wounds before setting off for Gravenham once more.

## The Town in Shadow

Continuing forward, Avran turns to Mirik and asks him about his aligned deity, the Dawnfather. He laughs, commenting on the differences between Pelor and Bane and the current divine war between the two of them. He begins to loredump on Mirik, and reveals that Bane was once known as the God of Humans, who's love for taming the wilds for civilisation to thrive became twisted and corrupted in the eyes of others, thus putting Bane as a betrayer god in the eyes of many. Mirik smiled politely and didn't ask too many questions.

Carric takes the opportunity to ask the worg riders if they know anything about the initial invasion plan that involved Thelanzer, and the higher ups at the company, in order to see if there's any more information that Zaldran may have concealed. They reveal mainly the same stuff, in that Thelanzer was going to capture Gravenham and hand over control to Zaldran once Grimmholm was properly secured. The main spokesperson for this operation was Thanel, but the other four higher-ups seemed to be involved as well. They didn't know if the current CEO (Victor Ramstoke) was involved in any way, but they seemed to think that most of the vampiric activity in the factory and by extension the allegiance was going on under his nose.

Eventually, a dark mass appears on the horizon. The hobgoblins point it out to the party, and reveal that Gravenham is within. As they grow closer, they see that the mass is a giant opaque sphere of black, not too dissimilar to Carric's hut he made last night. The worgs come to a stop outside the dome as the hobgoblins inform the party that this is as far as they will take them. Ahsatan puts her hand to the dome and finds that it passes straight through out of sight. She walks fully inside, and is greeted with a drastically different scene. The land around is coated in shadow as the sun's rays fail to pierce the dome. The sky above is a deep dark red with thick black clouds and flashes of light, illuminating hordes of flying bats in the distance. Stretching down towards the town, the once golden fields of wheat have taken an ashen grey colour, with distant figures of shambling mounds slowly stumbling through the fields. Patches of mist roll across the land, partially obscuring the faraway town of Gravenham from sight. The factory lurks behind the from this angle, with a dark fountain of black smoke erupting from the chimneys into the sky, presumably forming the giant dome. The rest of the party step through to see the scene before them. Turning around, they find that the world outside the dome is somewhat visible from within. They stick their heads out and say farewell to the hobgoblins. They wish them luck on their mission, and say that the army will set up camp just on the outskirts of the dome waiting for them to shut down the machine. The party leaves, and begins sneaking through the fields towards the town walls...