Session 4: The Riverthaw Festival

## **Session Recap**

The party has joined the one of the Solarius trade caravans on their journey to the city, looking to achieve their various goals. For Alexi, it's to be reunited with their ship in the Solarius port. For Rusty and Loramae, it's to look through the Library of the Sun for their own separate research. For Iraprath, it's to find some other fey citizen there on the Material Plane, who could perhaps better explain to them what is going on and how they can return home. For Reais, Creature and Alomit, they're more invested in the new people they've met, than the journey they may be travelling.

They all awakened after a long, restful night on the road, having been left to sleep as their cart was led along by the rest of the caravan. They awoke to the sounds of some gentle conversation between the other caravan-goers, discussing plans for when they get to the city. Iraprath was panicked when they woke up, having been stricken by nightmares from the Abyssal encounter they had the day before.

The party spends the morning travelling and conversing with the rest of those who were in the caravan. After the stressful day from before, both Creature and Alomit were victims to their own recurring hallucinations upon waking up, and Creature ultimately chooses to walk beside the cart as they travel. Those in the party notice that their new marks seem to have a weird building energy behind them, with slight sparking and burning feelings.

Later on during the day, with a successful perception check, several of the party members were able to spot the assassins moving through the trees after the caravan, with bows and swords in hand. The party gave themselves a round of actions to prepare, before engaging with them, triggering combat. Once the fighting started, the party mostly removed themselves from their cart, choosing to go out into the trees and engage the assassins in melee combat.

Creature raged with their Wild Magic ability, causing magic to infuse with their greataxe, and allowing them to hurl it at the assassins waiting in the trees. Reais raged with their hurricane, taking down several assassins with their greatsword. Rusty climbed up into one of the trees, and cut one of the bandits from navel to throat with her chakrams. While they worked on the left side, Iraprath, Alexi and Loramae worked together to take on the bandits on the right. When targeted by an attack, Alomit was able to activate her symbol to summon a protective shield in front of her. It triggered as burst of the Chaos Arcanum, and as a result of the icy burst that followed, she was turned to stone.

Iraprath managed to take out an assassin without killing them, leaving them alive for questioning. Rusty saw Alomit be turned to stone, and went over to help. In doing so, she heard a voice in the back of her mind, telling her to use fire. When she did so, she activated her mark, and freed Alomit from her stone form. This triggered a Chaos Burst, the effects of which are unknown. When the assassins were eliminated the combat concluded, and the party surrounded the one living assailant.

They discovered that an unnamed rival of Nalder's was looking to kill him, so they may take over his trade routes. Loramae looked to poison him after getting information and finish him off, but was told not to. Nalder informed the party how he'd rather bring the assassin to the captian of the Solarian Guard, Captain Ardenorth. It was revealed that Alexi knows who she is, and seemingly has some kind of history with her.

After the interrogation, the caravans resumed their journey at haste to reach Solarius before they could be attacked again. they travelled far until nightfall, where they made camp by the edge of the woods. The party was allowed to take a long rest here, sleeping for the night.

During their night's sleep, Rusty and Alomit find themselves in a shared dream. They find themselves in an ancient, abandoned monastery, with the only other company being two large figures at the other end of the monastery. Seemingly having a pleasant talk while waiting for the other two to join them. Once joined, they explain that they are dying gods, and that the two of them and their friends were each chosen as anchors for the gods to do their work in the Material Plane while still in their mortally wounded state. They introduce themselves as the Lifegiver, and the Protector. After their conversation, Rusty and Alomit awaken, as the next morning comes.

After the nights rest , the caravan packed up their things, and continued on their path to Solarius once again. It took several weeks to trek through the thick woods of the Forest of Ithia, but the caravan eventually broke through to reveal the beautiful Solarius countryside. As Solarius came into view in the distance, Nalder told the party more about the city, for the benefit of those who had never been there before. As he was talking, Iraprath made a perception check, and saw a red-robed figure running back into the trees, after clearly having been watching the party.

A few hours passed in the journey down to Solarius, the characters arrive at the giant stone walls and heavily guarded entrance to the city. They and their cart are thoroughly searched by the Solarian Guard for any signs of being a threat, and the party interacted with an unnamed guard, who was seemingly mute. It was revealed here that Loramae knows sign language, using it to communicate with him.

Upon entering Solarius, the party saw a small amount of decorations scattered around the Outer Ring, and it was explained that these were put in place for the Riverthaw Festival.

The caravan continues stopping in the Middle Ring by the Flaming Ale, run by Marisol Krev and her wife Laura Krev. Here Nalder meets with Captain Ardenorth, and explains the incident on the way down from Beowich. The Captain also shares a brief, awkward conversation with Alexi, before flying off to resume her patrol.

As the party look moved through the middle ring, and to the inner ring, they’d notice that there is indeed a festival in full swing. Majority of the party agrees that they should go straight to the Library of the Sun, with Alexi wanting to visit their ship. But both options were revealed to be closed off fo the week, as the festival was going on.

The party split off to enjoy the festival separately for a while, before reconvening around a game based on magical prowess, called Spellar Performance. They all took turns demonstrating their magical power, and won stuffed animals as prizes. The top 2 performers, Iraprath and Alomit, were secretly noted down.

They returned to the Flaming Ale as night fell, speaking briefly with Marisol before retiring to bed for the night. Three of them sharing a room, Alomit Iraprath and Loramae, were kidnapped in the night. The next morning, the party discovered them missing.

## **Information learned in the session**

* Triggering the marks releases the Chaos Arcanum
* Rusty is the champion of the Lifegiver, Alomit is the champion of the Protector
* Alomit has a bad habit of turning to stone
* The party is being watched
* They won't hesitate to take the party for their own purposes

## **Featured Characters**

### The Party

* Alexi the Great
* Alomit
* Beaker
* Creature
* Iraprath Argentaamn
* Loramae Cazenave
* Pebble
* Reais
* Rusty Sideris-Matsouka

### New

* Captain Ardenorth
* Laura Krev
* Marisol Krev

## **Items/Rewards Gained**

* Stuffed animals from Spellar Performance