Air and Shadow

Gigs

Koritha

Artemis

Abe

Warren

Blažej

Tenebrae

The next day after defeating the necromancer and putting Azban to rest, the guild assembled and Blanka cast speak with dead on the necromancer's skull. They learned the Necomancer's name was Kelro. He was sent to Alfenheim to exact retribution on Jill for stopping the production of the Red Void, or Kaos, as it is called on the mainland. He said he was working for a being named Lilith, and that she was not on this plane of existence.

Later that day Jhonn took Jill to a pub. While he was getting them drinks he saw Tenebrae and mistook him for Lux. Jhonn went back to Jill and they reminisced on old times back from the ΩTimeline before Jhonn asked ot come and work for the Alfenheim guard. Jill accepted and the two of them were approached by Tennebrae.

They learned he was from the Nabla world that several guild members had become trapped in over the winter season. They took him to the guild where he met Luxur. He agreed to join the guild for a while until we could find a way to possibly get him home. Warren came to Tarthurac and informed him that he would be taking a leave of absence from the guild to adopt a child. Tarthurac wished him luck and said he would be welcome back any time.

### Getting the crystal (Story A)

A little over a week passed. Tarthurac, Gigs, and Warren worked tirelessly to build Daisy a new body. Artemis and Blažej worked on her core. The body was completed and the core just needed one last piece; a Zidal crystal. Specifically for Daisy's body it would require a Zidal type 4 crystal, only found on the elemental plane of air. Artemis devised a way to temporarily re-open one of the air plane rifts she closed a year earlier, but she would need Blanka's help. She, Blanka, Warren, Tennebrae, Abe and Blazej recruited Whirl of the NewTown defenders. When they came to recruit her, the tabaxi mystwalker Adjjet insisted on accompanying them.

Once Blanka opened one of the old rifts she had to stay on her side to keep it open. The rest of the group entered the elemental plane of air. Artemis and crew began to gather small Zidal type 4 crystals from the bottom of floating islands. They couldn't find one big enough to use to power Daisy's soul. But they found enough small ones that Artemis was able to cast fabricate on them to form the into a single crystal. But the ritual would take 10 minutes. To help Adjjet fly, Tennebrae turned him into a quetzalcoatlus, but Adjjet suddenly took off toward the largest island in the cluster. Abe, Tennebrae and Warren flew off after him. He was faster though and when he landed he began fighting something up there.

When they arrived they saw Adjjet had returned to his normal form and was battling 2 air elementals and 2 air Myrmidons. The group lept into action to help him, with Warren repeatedly disarming the Myrmidons, Tennebrae raining fire on them and Abe summoning a fire elemental that consumed one of the air elementals whole, taking some damage in the process. Tennebrae healed the group up but Adjjet's sword hand was damaged. He covered it in bandages but Tennebrae noticed a lump in his arm that didn't belong that seemed to attack to the handle of the sword.

Abe went back and got Artemis, Whirl and Blazej who had completed the crystal. When Artemis arrived she cast remove curse on the sword and as she did the sword began to resist her. For a moment she saw it had shot back to tooth-like metal formations from the quillons of the guard that had fused to Adjjet's arm bone. Artemis successfully unattuned the weapon from Adjjet who was immediately grateful. He said the sword had been slowly taking over him ever since he picked it up in the Astral sea over a year ago.

Blazej identified the sword without touching it as a greater sword of vengeance. It was still cursed with the spirit of Abjanar though. Artemis cast remove curse again and Abjanar himself popped out. The spectral form of a adolescent cloud giant appeared. He summoned a greatsword from the air made of spectral frost and was about to attack. Abe offered to fulfill Abjanar's quest for vengeance against Kazosk, the man who destroyed him and his family. Adjjet singnaled to the group that this was a terrible idea. Artemis used polymorph to turn Adjjet into a woolly mammoth to start the fight.

Abjanar was a strong opponent with heavy elemental resistances and necrotic damage made him heal. Once when Abe tried to strike him, the Staff of Dis disappeared from his hands mid swing and did not return. Halfway through the fight Abjanar turned his sword upside down and summoned a blade of spectral flame. He even absorbed Abe's fire elemental to restore some of his own health. Warren managed to strike two critical hits against him with the Bonesaw for massive damage both time. Artemis finally managed to finish Abjara's spirit off with a witch bolt of radiant energy, and Abjarar was no more, leaving behind his Greatsword of Fire and Frost.

### The Shadow Sprite (Story B)

Meanwhile, back at Yao's Dojo, it was feeling a bit empty after the disappearance of the warforged had caused him to lose one of his students, Allison, also known by her stage name, The Machine. Yao was working with his students, Fireball and Backbreaker when there was a knock at the door. A man dressed in monk robes with remnants and pieces of old black armor, and an old monastic Scapular of Kord worn over his shoulder like a sash came to the door. He was an old man in his late sixties or early seventies. He said his name was Radz, and that he had come across the sea to go to Manderu. When Yao asked why he said he was told to in a vision and had no information beyond that.

Yao told him of King Gubis and the man said his vision coincided with the time of Gubis' death. Yao took Radz to see Tarthurac and it was immediately apparent that the two knew each other but hadn't seen one another in years. Tarthurac seemed surprised at how frail Radz had become. They gathered Gigs to come with them to manderu and they teleported to Seelie's Bane to get a head start on the journey.

On their way to Manderu, Yao and his team found the fey valley unusually cold and they saw Manderu was in deep snow. Something that should never happen. Koritha joined them on their way as she was still seeing to matters in Seelie's bane and Tarthurac wanted all the help they could get if Manderu was in trouble.

When they arrived, Master Kokanai met with them, ensuring Yao wasn't drunk before letting him in master Kokanai said the winter had begun here just after the war ended. They suspected the last hag or the frost giants were responsible. once the group had gotten warn, Radz offered to cast a spell of meditation to try to get more answers from Kord about what could be done.

The group attempted to meditate, and everyone fell into a deep trance besides Gigs. Once inside the trance, the group saw a spectral green wolf holding a blue greatsword begin to descend toward them, but it was stopped by a magical barrier. The barrier emitted oily shadows that dripped down on the group and Radz was hit, knocking him out of the meditation, leaving only Tarthurac, Yao and Koritha inside.

On the outside Gigs could tell something was off and that he wasn't in the trance with the rest of them. He immediately began casting guidance on Koritha for the duration of the trance to help her out.

A cloaked creature appeared before them, it was twisted and ugly with fingers and nose disproportionately long for the size of its small body. It pointed at each member of the group and tried to steal their shadows, but their wills were too strong. The creature sank into the floor and disappeared. Radz's voice came to them in their minds telling them he was not physically present in the meditation, but he would try to assist them with advice. He identified the creature as a shadow sprite. He said it would attempt to steal their shadows and make them guess which shadow was theirs between their own shadow and the shadows of two people close to them.

Radz explained that a shadow will consist of dark parts of your psyche, or attributes you possess but repress or haven't learned to face. These attributes would be conglomerated together to form a full being and anyone the sprite stole a shadow of would have to correctly guess which was their own, or be forced to fight the other shadows.

The shadow sprite attempted again to steal the group's shadows but was repelled again. But on its third try, it managed to snatch Yao's Shadow. Gnarled and twisted trees sprouted from the ground to form an archway that lead to a different room. Inside the room Yao was faced with 3 shadows.

One appeared as a sickly monkey with its jaw gaping unnaturally wide in a horrified scream, but no sound came out.

One appeared as a monkey with six arms, covering its eyes, mouth and ears.

The last one appeared as a hulking ape with its body covered in mouths that tried desperately to drink from the air.

Yao wasn't sure which one was his own shadow. The group discussed it, and Yao found that the apelike one ignored everyone, the screaming monkey was afraid of everyone, and the ignoring monkey was ignoring Yao specifically. It kept its back to Yao which allowed him to make it face Koritha and Tarthurac. They noticed it wasn't covering its mouth, but shewing angrily on its fingers, and had gouged its own eyes out with its second pair of hands sticking their fingers in the sockets.

Yao attempted to get this monkey to turn around and when he touched it, it snapped back into him and became his shadow. He had chosen correctly. The other two shadows revealed their true masters. The terrified shadows became Blazej, and the thirsty shadow became Yao's rival, Anu. The Shadow sprite appeared again and stole Tarthurac's shadow this time. The trees appeared again and lead them to a room with 3 shadows.

One shadow just seemed very grumpy and defiant.

Another stood 20 feet tall and had obsidian skin and a spear and stood unmoving.

The last shadow was eternally trying to climb a pillar that was steadily getting taller to reach an egg on top.

Again the party was unsure which shadow was correct. They talked about it for a while, but eventually Radz told Tarthurac to remember the first lesson he had ever taught him and asked if it still applied. Tarthurac said it did, and chose the center statue, the massive one with the spear and obsidian skin. It snapped to him as he had chosen correctly. The grumpy shadow belonged to Nyanta, and the eternally climbing shadow belonged to Temtum.

The shadow sprite appeared again and attempted to steal Koritha's shadow. But she had had enough. She raged and began combat. The shadow sprite pulled three shadows from Koritha, but instead of taking deceptive forms, they took the shadowy forms of Koritha, Palar and Koritha's father. 3 vs 4 the battle began. Tarthurac stayed trained on the shadows sprite which seemed to be able to teleport away every time Koritha landed a hit on it. Yao tanked the wrath of the shadows with Koritha while Tarthurac mercilessly hunted down the shadow sprite.

Eventually Tarthurac managed to slash the shadow sprite to pieces and the battle was over. The shadowy barrier keeping rhe wold and sword out disappeared and the two celestial messengers descended.