Chapter Twenty-Eight: Dray

We leave Altaruk to find the mindbender to fix Xa'oc.  It's a five-day journey to Fort Thetis.  On the first day we start running low on supplies, but Aruna finds a huge beautiful troop of edible mushrooms.   We can use them for healing.

                 On the third day Xa'oc notices three creatures with big cloaks, but underneath they look dray-ish.  Kriv remembers hearing legends of Dragoth turned people into dray, and this is what they were described as looking like.  They are traveling but having a hard time of it, heading in the opposite direction as us. Vex suggests going around them, but Kriv is concerned about what they are up to, could be serving Dragoth.

                 Aruna sneaks us up within 120' and Vex casts hypnotic pattern on them. Two are stunned and we jump out and surround them.  Kriv levels his glaive and says, "What's your business out here?"

                 "We're just trying to get home to Nibenay."  He throws a coin purse at Kriv's feet and says, "We don't want any trouble.  We're returning from those ruins, there was something valuable that we needed there, but we didn't find it, a magic item."

                 Aruna searches the two that are incapacitated, and finds a morning star with triangular jagged teeth.

                 "A book that some incantations on it, but we couldn't find it, it probably fell apart."

                 Kriv: "Who wants the book?" says intimidatingly.

                 "We were just going to sell it, we don't have a buyer.  We heard about it from a noble in Nibenay named Adam."

                 Vex shakes her head at Kriv.

                 Kriv: "Maybe you want to revise your statement."

                 "I don't know what you're talking about."

                 Kriv stabs at the dray, and the rest of us murder him, and the second one that starts running.  Kriv shakes the third and remaining one awake, and they say "I would rather have helped you."

                 “We didn't came from the ruins, we came from a door, we were in a different place and the door brought us here, but I can't tell you where."

                 Kriv threatens to kill her, and then asks, "What were you looking for?"

                 "We weren't looking for anything.  It was an accident, and we're trying to get back"

                 Vex thinks she isn't lying.

                 Kriv: "Who sent you?"

                 "I can't tell you"

                 Vex casts detect thoughts while the interrogation proceeds.  Vex can sense that she's freaking out, and is worried about giving out information due to her devotion.

                 Xa'oc learns a memory of her in an underground cavernous area that is extremely well appointed, and she is standing front of a tall mirror with an ornate frame, walking into the mirror, and ending up somewhere completely different.

                 Vex recommends that we keep her captive and take her with us until we can rest up enough to pry the information out of her mind

                 Xa'oc asks internally if anyone recognizes the memory of the dray, and feels the big looming trying to get in touch with him but it fails, and Xa'oc does not pursue.

                 Kriv: "what are you called?"

                 "Alder"

                 We tie Alder to one of our mounts and she doesn't try to escape.

                 The next day we come across a wagon with a cage and a roof with two people inside led by three people, one on a kank, and two on the wagon which is being led by a second kank.

                 There is no question about us murdering the slavers and freeing the slaves.

                 We set up an ambush in a canyon.

                 Aruna charges into the middle of them and punches the leader so hard that he falls off the kank.

                 The two riding in the wagon are surprised.

                 Kriv charms both kanks and befriends the one without a rider.   Xa'oc leaps onto the back of the cage and attacks the guards.  Vex, perched among the rocks, blasts the leader.  Aruna keeps punching.

                 The leader spears Aruna.  The guards spear Xa'oc.

                 Kriv shoots one of the guards with his longbow, but his bow breaks.  Xa'oc strikes the guards.  Vex blasts the leader.  Aruna punches the leader and he says, "Okay okay, take 'em."  Aruna: "I don't like slavers."

                 The leader jumps onto his kank, the one that Kriv charmed, and the kank isn't responding to him, so he dismounts and tries to run.    Aruna hits him in the knee and he doesn't go anywhere

                 The guards keep stabbing Xa'oc, and Xa'oc's weapon starts dissolving.

                 Kriv's damaged bow prevents him from shooting the leader.  Xa'oc punched a guard.  Vex murders the leader with a shadow through the neck.  Aruna punches a guard.  Kriv charges in atop his mount and blasts the two guards with his lightning breath, and they both look super hurt.  Xa'oc keeps punching the guards and almost kills one of them. Vex steals Xa'oc's kill, and Xa'oc attempts to give Vex a dirty look.  Aruna punches the last guard and her staff is damaged.  Kriv stabs the guard with his glaive.  Xa'oc kills the last guard and absorbs his corpse into his weapon.

                 The slavers were working for House Tomblador.  Vex tries to talk to the two slaves.  They were coming from Fort Thetis.  We give them one of the kanks and tell them that they can follow us to Fort Thetis or leave on their own.

                 Nirin runs up to tell us that Alder escaped.  Kriv immediately takes off to chase them on his mount, and the monks effortlessly keep up.  Vex follows on the kank hitched to the cage cart.  We recapture Alder and throw her in the cage.  The two freed slaves are happy to keep the kank and travel back with us Fort Thetis

                 We arrive at Fort Thetis, it's not large but it's nice enough.  The two freed slaves knock on the gate and vouch for us to the city guard.

                 Vex says we are looking for Foxfang, and they assure us that we will not be disappointed.  We are directed to a group of kenkus who love in a bunch of tents in a section of the fort.

                 We are introduced to a masked kenku with an orb in her hand.  Vex, telepathically: "we are in need of your services."  She sits in front of the fire, and they are active at night just like us.  Vex tells Foxfang an abbreviated version of Xa'oc's story.

                 Foxfang wants to take us to the moon pool to see into Xa'oc's mind.  Vex asks Kriv and Aruna to join her inside Xa'oc's mind.  Foxfang agrees to help us in exchange for Vex's information about the Pyreen.

                 Foxfang offers to let us sleep in the guest tent with the other guests.

                 Kriv remembered that we also have a prisoner.  Kriv explains that there are some dray that are searching for something, and that it would be catastrophic for everyone if they acquire it, and we think this dray is one of those, but they would rather die than talk.

                 Foxfang offers to extract the information from Alder without a fee.  We are going to the moon pool now with the prisoner, then rest there, then fix Xa'oc.

                 Foxfang: "I've never seen anyone come back from the Gray. What effect does it have on you?"

                 Aruna: "It depends on if you die in it."

We stable our arynxes and walk with Nirin and Alder to the moon pool.  It's an hour's walk to a bog and Foxfang tells us not to drink any of the water.

                 There's a hidden opening into a small underground cavern with a pool in the middle that is filled with extremely clear water illuminated by a small opening in the ceiling.  We sit around the pool in a circle and have to wait for the moon, which only takes about twenty minutes.  The moonlight causes the pool to glow with blue light and Foxfang tells us to drink.

                 Foxfang, and Vex, and Alder drink from the pool, then Foxfang tells us to sit back so that we don't drown when we fall asleep.  Vex copies Foxfang's actions.

                 We wake up in a different underground cavern, one that is dank and unfinished.  Alder looks around nervously.  Foxfang walks off down a corridor, and Vex follows her, and Alder opts not to.  This seems to be a community space for a variety of people, mostly human and elves, who live in underground rooms.

                 Foxfang leads us to a restricted area that she forces her way into. The room looks exactly like the room Xa'oc described, the well-appointed cave with a giant mirror, and there are several dray in the room, the ones with the tails, armed.  They force some warped dray like Alder into the mirror, though most of the people are going through willingly.

                 Alder is standing in line, waiting her turn.  On the mirror are five slots and one of them is filled, matching the description of Kriv's journey.  Vex asks Foxfang for help finding details.