3x28: Alaxar

Iselda awoke to realize she was under the water and had been infected by a disease, courtesy of the undead aboleth they had fought the day before, causing her to need to be in the water at all times. The party took her on their newly acquired skyship to Vesrah where they were thanked for their help in defeating the creature, and Iselda was cured. The group told Arbiter Brom to rally their allies for a final assault on Emon in a few days. They then teleported to Emon, hoping to escape the city to make it to Riverrunn in time to save Tannin's parents.

Appearing in Gilmore's old shop in the center of Emon, an explosive glyph went off, sending a cone of cold towards the party. It set off alarms in the city, but they were able to barely escape in time, using the magic of Sovelis to stealthily move towards the city gates, leaving behind a small faun in the shop. They bluffed their way through two checkpoints, using disguises to convince the guards that they were veil soldiers escorting undesirables (an elderly casino-owning woman and a Yuan-ti gold digger) from the city. They made it to the edge of town and Iselda used a spell to convince a farmer that he had been saved by them from bandits, and he gave them a horse with which they could travel to Riverrunn.

Upon arrival in the town, the group went straight for Tannin’s parents carpentry shop, where they saw Maurice Arroway drunkenly confronting Tannin’s father. Lupin pulled him outside, and discovered that he and Tannin shared the same mother. Inside, Cogul told the party that Tannin and Lupin’s mother Thelma was missing, and they went searching for her. They heard reports of the butcher next door acting weird, and went to check on him first. He was discovered to be a vampire thrall, and told them that Ixrattu was waiting for them in the mayor’s house before he was killed.

In the mayor’s house, they saw Thelma, wearing a dark metal amulet, and Ixrattu told the party that she wanted them to work for her. They refused and began to attack, so Ixrattu caused the amulet to explode, killing Thelma. The group fought the tiefling vampire, and she turned Iselda against them for only a moment before they all took her down, Sovelis dealing the killing blow with his gauntlet, Carnelion’s Might, which exalted in his hands. Holly using the shimmering scimitar to redirect the sunlight from the open door to the vampire’s misty form. Seeing the corpse of Tannin’s mother on the ground, Red rushed to the local temple to plead for components to resurrect her, with Tannin’s help, using the Wand of Atheneum to give her body a repose, they were able to complete a resurrection in time and bring her back. Red, completing the resurrection ritual was able to Exalt the Belt of Yos Varda, using the power of Pelor to bring another soul back to life.

The group then searched the mansion and found another vampire, whom they decided to interrogate. He revealed himself to be ex-white helix, and they stake-ed him through the heart and resurrected him as a potential ally, sending him to Emon to create two of the bombs they had once seen underneath the city. While the group prepared for an assault, and sent word to the pirates to move on Emon, Holly went in search for Moon-Among-Clouds, finding her in a small village south of Emon. Holly spent some time with their old family friend, and some new tabaxi who Moon said had the wanderlust. Meanwhile, Lupin talked to Iselda about who she was, and the two of them shared secrets. Iselda showed him her true form, a Changeling named Ti, and Lupin agreed to keep her secret. The group had a final dinner at the Cogul residence, and Tannin and Lupin got to talk about what had happened. During the night, Iselda had one final vision of the Death Knight, seeing him tearfully killing Todora, who was revealed to be a Changeling as well.

The party geared up and traveled to Emon under cover of night, choosing an abandoned house to rest in overnight. While Red was on watch, a group of shadow assassins ambushed her, and the Death Knight walked in, searching for Iselda, the holder of his soul-bound crossbow, Condemner. Iselda and Malark fought an epic one-on-one duel with Iselda taking the form of the woman he killed to take the crossbow to begin with, slaying the Death Knight for good, causing him to confront his actions. As he fell to the ground, the weapon exalted, taking the form of the Raven Wing Bow.

After the party rested, they headed for the Cloudtop district where Alaxar was to give a speech to the Veil and the people of Emon. A few of them blended in with the crowd, while Holly and Iselda flew overhead on the gryphon. Iselda invisibly fired an unseen arrow, striking Alaxar, causing the speech to come to an abrupt end. He shifted his form from man to Gargantuan Amethyst Dragon in front of the entire city, who finally recognized what he was, and he had no choice but to attack the party in broad daylight. With Iselda's newly exalted Vestige having destroyed Alaxar's anti-magic field, the Saints were able to engage with all their power. Tannin summoned a massive magical version of himself, Red unleashed a S*unbeam*, Lupin and Sovelis flung themselves forward from a huge earthen hand, Holly rushed in with swords drawn as Iselda fired off arrows while falling to the ground, her *Fly* spell having been undone. As the fight raged on, most of the townspeople and soldiers fled, the guards breaking ranks, not knowing which side to join. Alaxar fled to the remains of the Citrine Garrison, and the party followed, peppering him with deadly attacks in the pursuit. Once inside, he unleashed a powerful breath of fire on them, and backed away through a portal that led to the lair underneath the volcano in the Ashen gorge, which the party had previously seen in visions from the Amulet of Drassig. The group followed, and Tannin, using the power of his wand and the huge magical force being he had created, cut the head from Alaxar’s gem-covered draconic body, Exalting the Wand of Atheneum in the process. They then looked around, trapped in the lair of an ancient beast surrounded now by two giant corpses of dragons, a monumental fortune of gold and relics, and a statue of an ancient god which they had been told held the key to opening a gate to the plane of Tartarus.