101. Rocs Fall; Everyone Dines

* It is the end of the group's 10th day in the Minauros, the Third Hell. Many among them are exhausted from the constant efforts the infernal swamp demands of them, and their food supplies are running dangerously low. So low, in fact, that Pyt took it upon himself to try eating lemure meat before bed, resulting in him seeing vivid hallucinations of people from his past while he rationalises their presence and the conversations they have.
* The group settle into Pyt's drum-yurt for another fitful sleep. Halfway through their rest, while Ingvild is outside the tiny hut minding the nightmares and keeping watch, five titanic rocs appear in the distance, flying in a wedge formation at incredible speed. One of them peels off from the back of the group, screams down right towards Ingvild and the hut, and snatches a mount in each of its talons -- Ingvild's and Zadimus's -- digging its massive clawed feet into their flanks as it goes to fly on and catch up with the other rocs.
	+ Ingvild sticks her head in the hut and shouts to wake the others up.
	+ The others scramble to rescue the horses from the monstrous bird. Wilfred casts *Haste* on Pyt's nightmare then hops aboard his own and resumes the well-worn routine of having to battle the thing to make it do what he wants.
	+ Zadimus ran off to try and hop onto the back of the roc before it got away but it shook him off and sent him hurtling to the ground.
	+ Pyt hops on the back of his *Hasted* nightmare, which, from his perspective, appears to start talking to him as they ride through the air at incredible speed and catch up with the roc.
	+ Clwyd uses the magic of her witch totem to teleport herself into the saddle of Wilfred's saddle right in front of the gnome as he rides in pursuit. Wilfred pushes the horse for a bit, grabs Clwyd, and Dimension Doors the pair of them onto the back of the roc.
	+ Wilfred can't keep his footing on the back of the sky titan but a quick *Feather Fall* spell as he tumbles off spares him a hard landing.
	+ Meanwhile, Clwyd does keep hold on the back of the roc. She takes her fox skull in hand and curses it with the Evil Eye, then braces for impact, then casts Hold Monster on the bird, locking it up and sending it crashing to the ground. . . along with the horses trapped in its talons, and along with her on its back. The impact is deafening, the nightmares are buried beneath the bulk of the massive bird -- both very close to death -- and the roc has turned from predator to prey.
	+ In Pyt's eyes, this thing represents food for months. He has his horse, Johnny, swoop in close, then completely whiffs a strike with his rapier.
	+ Thankfully, Wilfred and Clwyd shook themselves off and joined in, and together the three of them can eventually kill the massive bird, but not before it took some horrible swipes and pecks at a few of them. Wilfred had to resort to using his *Mental Prison* spell again, putting him very low on resources by the end of the affair.
	+ A few healing spells from Pyt manage to prevent the death of the two captured nightmares.
	+ The rocs screeches as it neared death alerted its four brethren still on the wing. In the distance, the four rocs swoop around and begin flying back towards the party.
	+ Not wanting to give up the corpse and the meals it represents, the trio decide to hide as best they can. Clwyd throws up some massive columns of stone for them to hide amidst and they turn themselves and the horses invisible, hoping to wait out the return of the rocs.
	+ The four rocs return, landing near the corpse. Three of them set to nudging it with their heads before starting a process of mourning in their own way. A fourth, meanwhile, is alerted by Wilfred, whose state of fatigue is making him careless, even in his efforts to hide.
	+ The roc tries to slam its way through the columns but is too big. It waddles around them instead, head snaking out and rounding the corner long before the body follows behind it. And it heads straight for where it heard Wilfred.
	+ The gnome repeatedly tries to lose the roc, but it's hot on his trail, harrying him with questing pecks that are no less deadly for the bird's uncertainty. At the very least, Wilfred succeeds in drawing the thing a little bit further away from the others.
	+ Eventually, Wilfred gives up the attempts to hide, spots a small outcropping of stone in the distance, and *Dimension Doors* behind it.
	+ The roc is left confused. It hunts around for its missing prey, and hears Pyt's horse stomp a foot. Pyt immediately rides the horse skyward and the roc makes to pursue.
	+ Meanwhile, the three other rocs have finished their vigil. They take to the wing once more and begin to fly away.
	+ Pyt rides his nightmare as deftly as he can, eventually losing the pursuing roc's attention once more.
	+ The bird at last relents, flying off to join its fellows in the sky. And the four massive predators fly away, leaving the group with their spoils.
* They all regrouped by the corpse of the roc: Clwyd, Pyt, and Wilfred, along with Molly, Zadimus, Ingvild, the incapacitated and shrunken Ilphas, their four nightmares, and the two caged, silver pseudodragons Wilfred had saved from the Umbral Market.
	+ Most of the group decide to forego sleep so they can devote themselves to butchering the roc as quickly as possible -- nobody knew how quickly mould and rot would set in in Minauros, but they all assumed it would be sooner rather than later and they couldn't afford to lose all this food at this stage.
	+ Wilfred camped out on of the roc's feathered wings while the rest of the group set to work plucking, deskinning, and carving out a hunk of the opposite side's breast meat to fill their portable hole -- enough meat to last them all months.
* Day 11:
	+ Wilfred somehow manages to get a full rest out in the exposed air of Minauros.
	+ The others are busy for the first three hours of his morning finishing off their work butchering. As soon as they're done, Wilfred casts Gentle Repose on the meat to preserve it, before they deposited it in their portable hole, utterly ruining the few things they had left in there, but alleviating their worries about starvation for the foreseeable future!
	+ They also work off a roc drumstick to feed on for the day, because they'd decided that it would be best for them to just take the day off and try to recuperate as best they could. Pyt *Polymorphs* into a giant crab and carries the massive bird leg all the way back to their campsite -- the place where the roc had come upon them in the first place. The others follow, they get a fire going, and the group try to relax and enjoy themselves as best they can despite the surroundings. Once the leg is cooked, they're all incredibly relieved to find that it tastes good.
	+ As the day of rest goes on, Pyt's lemure-meat-induced hallucinations lead him to perceive his old lover Riss sat nearby and playing a familiar song. He tries talking to her but she doesn't answer. Eventually, Pyt hallucinates a version of Mennick who, true to form, tries to get Pyt to realise that what he's seeing doesn't make sense. Wilfred adds to the hallucinations efforts by speaking in Sylvan to Pyt, telling him they're in Hell, and that there weren't good things here. Pyt uses one of the Lesser Restoration tattoos he'd got from Aerendyl and Grace in the Umbral Market to clear his mind of the hallucinations. In some ways, it's bittersweet, but the phantoms had proven to be very distracting and didn't seem to be running out any time soon.
	+ Their day goes on undisturbed right up until the sort of time the group are deciding to go to sleep. Wilfred and Ingvild spot some movement in the distance, over where they'd left the roc corpse. After some staring, they spot sight of a human-sized, onyx black, winged demon that Clwyd identifies as a nabassu -- she also tells them that those things are powerful, ravenous, and capable of stockpiling great strength when they feed well.
	+ The group collectively agree to not sleep anywhere near that thing. They mount up and ride on for a few hours, giving the roc site and the nabassu now feasting on the fallen bird's flesh a very wide berth. Even still, they see the thing poke its head up and look at them as they ride on, viscera dripping from its jaw. As it looks on, the air warps around it, growing darker, shielding the thing in the umbra in a move that strikes the group as undeniably predatory -- like a thing contemplating the hunt. But the demon ultimately decides its current scavenging is the better of the options, and it returns its attention to the easy meal before it instead. The party ride away.
	+ Ingvild is able to find them another spot to set up Pyt's hut and the group get some rest.
* They continue to circumvent the ruined city:
	+ Day 12:
		- They awake with everyone having shook off their exhaustion, thanks in no small part to their day of rest and the knowledge that they have a lot of food now.
		- Wilfred fails to get his horse to comply with his wishes for much of the day but they ride undisturbed.
		- After 9 hours in the saddle, they've covered 54 miles.
	+ Day 13:
		- Wilfred wakes up failing to get the benefits of a long rest and picking up a point of exhaustion again, then fails again to get his horse to listen to him, forcing them to a slow pace of travel for the day.
		- They ride for eight hours and then stop for Wilfred's sake, netting them 48 miles of progress. Again they ride uninterrupted.
		- This is their last day of eating the nutrient-rich frogs. From tomorrow onwards, they'd be on the bird meat.
		- They go on a lemure hunt before bed, getting another one to bring their total in Ingvild's saddle sack to 3.
	+ Day 14:
		- Wilfred wakes up again having not gained the benefits of a night's sleep -- now effectively having gone two days without sleeping.
		- The gnome struggles with his horse again -- almost an inevitability when he's nursing exhaustion.
		- They do 8 hours in the saddle again, netting them another 48 miles progress, once more doing so without interruption.
		- And they eat a lot of bird meat before bed.
	+ Day 15:
		- Wilfred manages to get some proper sleep at last. Pyt, however, does not.
		- Further, the party trio's diseases progress to their second stage:
			* Wilfred: His speed is reduced even further by his Brittle Bones disease, which, combined with the reduction from his Unequilibrium means his movement is reduced to a mere 5 feet. Meanwhile, the ringing in his ears from Unequilibrium has gotten to the stage that he's now vulnerable to thunder damage and has disadvantage on Acrobatics checks and Dexterity saving throws.
			* Pyt: His Death's Helper disease has gotten worse; the taste of ash in his mouth is more potent and the smoke he blows out with each exhalation is much more noticeable now. On top of his death saving throws only succeeding on a roll of 15 or higher, his death saves now only reset when he finishes a long rest.
			* Clwyd: due to her reincarnation that made use of the ambient powers of Minauros, her two diseases have mutated. What had originally been stage one Brittle Bones -- resulting in her being unable to wear medium or heavy armour, unable to wield weapons, and unable to carry more than 15 pounds -- had mutated to *also* convey the problems of stage two Unequilibrium -- minus 10 feet to her movement speed, vulnerability to thunder damage, and disadvantage on Perception checks relying on hearing, Acrobatics checks, and Dexterity saving throws. Meanwhile, her stage one Deep Fatigue -- which means she only recovers half hp from hit dice she uses to recover -- mutated to *also* convey the problems of stage two Mind Wilt, meaning she has disadvantage on all checks and saves using Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma.
		- They saddle up and Wilfred once more struggles to get his horse in line, forcing them to a slow pace.
		- They fully pass the ruined city they'd been travelling around for the last few days after 7 hours in the saddle. They put in an extra hour after this and then find a place to camp once more. Another day of undisturbed travel.
* Day 16:
	+ Both Wilfred and Pyt fail to gain the benefits of a long rest as they wake up this morning. This puts Wilfred at 1 night without a long rest and on 2 points of exhaustion, with Pyt at 2 nights without a long rest but no exhaustion right now.
	+ Further, the consequences of their many dives through the bones and rotted corpses in the balhannoth's nest as they looked for loot show themselves. The two of them have contracted new diseases in Minauros!
		- Wilfred's picked up a second, virulent strain of Brittle Bones, which causes his condition to immediately worsen to stage three: he now has vulnerability to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. Further, he's got himself a case of Green Mist, meaning he is effectively under the Poisoned condition: disadvantage on *all* ability checks and attack rolls.
		- Pyt has picked up a nasty case of Slow Thought: at stage one, that means he can't use Reactions and has disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws.
	+ Pyt immediately decides this situation is getting ridiculous. He uses his second and only remaining Lesser Restoration tattoo to rid himself of the new Slow Thought disease.
	+ But then Pyt learns that nobody else in the group got Lesser Restoration tattoos! Unless they sacrifice a Greater Restoration tattoo, they were stuck with the diseases as they were.
	+ Wilfred fails to get his horse in line and so they ride at a slow pace for the day. After 8 hours in the saddle, Clwyd updates them with the news that at long last they were close to their destination -- or at the very least, the destination before their true destination, that being an exit up to the Second Hell.
	+ They decide to stop and rest, so that they're fresh when they arrive at the thing they've been travelling towards all this time.
	+ Once more a day without outside interruption!
* Day 17:
	+ They wake up with everyone having rested successfully. As a result, Wilfred alone is nursing one point of exhaustion.
	+ Again Wilfred can't get his horse to properly comply so they're forced to travel at a slow pace.
	+ All the same, the sight of the thing they've been travelling towards for two and a half weeks come into view after only two hours in the saddle: the flooded city of Minauros itself. In stark contrast to the whole of the realm around it, the city seems to sparkle. Pure white alabaster buildings of incredible size and truly grand shapes and designs reach up to the bleak, cloud covered sky. The streets are flooded with crystal clear water, giving the appearance, when looked at from a distance at least, of grand canals. And rising high up at the top-centre of the city is a grand platform that majestic waterfalls pour down on all sides. Atop it sits a beautiful, parthanon-esque temple. And Clwyd knows as she looks at it that, in some way or form, it is their goal and destination. But for all the majesty of the city that gives the Third Hell its name, there was a threat too: for the flooded streets were filled with the mysterious shaytan known simply as the Boatmen, who all pushed their little gondolas around in eerie silence, and also, here and there, Styx Toads could be seen in abundance.