For the Heart of the Mist

Modokus

Ena

Minty Pineapple

Leora

Via Rose

Yoko Mashkin

The party woke in the morning and Edric introduced everyone to Pravicar Domaiar Nilvenishun. Modokus and Eero were particularly wary of this newcomer, but everyone agreed having an extra ally would be more of a boon than a hinderance at this point. The Pravicar seemed very unimpressed with the party's lack of discipline, particularly that of Minty, Via, and Yoko.

The party gathered their belongings and continued their trek inwards towards where they suspected the adamantine citadel to be. As they continued, they expected the area to be teeming with activity, as the night before all watches had seen creatures passing nearby their camp. But they encountered no one.

As they continued down the tunnels, the area became more wild and verdant. Patches of grass and small bushes were appearing where it would be impossible for them to survive. As the party continued, multicolored mushrooms and fungi and all manner of flowers and bushes sprouted from the walls and ceilings of the cave... Until they didn't.

The party crossed a threshold and suddenly, everything on the other side was rotten and dead. The grass beneath the party's feet crumpled like dried leaves as the party stepped over them. Everything was dead, just like the center of the wild zone in the feywild. The party was getting close.

Eero and Tamel but felt the power of the mist was stronger here, and they felt empowered by it. Both of thier bodies began slowly emitting mist involuntarily, like they couldn't contain the full power coursing through them. Eero suddenly felt the same judging presence he felt in the Hall of Prophecy back in Luracia, and he mentioned this to Edric. Edric used his detecct magic spell and noticed Eero's ring was glowing brighter than usual. He examined it and found the soul slot inside the ring was filled with something.

Eero peered inside the ring with his psionics and he met the entity he had unknowingly been carrying along with him all this time. When Eero peered in he saw in his mind's eye five stars staring down at him like eyes. He told Edric about this and Edric identified the five stars as likely the eyes of an Aeon, beings of perfect law who reside in Mechanus and Arcadia.

Eero addressed the eyes and they told him they were an Aeon named Exiles. Exiles told him that Lady Ollana Linege had gifted Eero with the ring containing Exiles because she suspected anything making the divination deadzone was likely not of this world, and Aeons have powers designed to keep the planes of existence separate from one another. Banishing things that do not belong on this plane is one of the specialties of an Aeon.

Edric looked to Sir Graham, who admitted he knew the Aeon was in the ring, but was not at liberty to tell the party until now.

Now with the knowledge of the presence of an Aeon in their party, the party continued onward. It wasn't long until they knew they were close. Ena used her primeval awareness and felt the presence of over sixty fiends nearby before she suddenly felt the presence of one fiend so powerful it made her freeze. Its presence overwhelmed her even at this distance, and she became frozen until Leora cast heroism on her to snap her out of the spell.

The group cautiously continued on, and they entered a massive underground chamber where they spotted a gigantic adamantine octahedron shape. They were looking at the top of a buried adamantine citadel. It was visibly damaged and had small stalagmites growing on top of it, indicating it had been there for several centuries. The party began investigating the structure and several party members attempted to attack the citadel to try to gain entrance, but a psionic field kept confusing them and causing them to attack in random directions instead of at the citadel itself.

Several party members began to climb the citadel and when Tamel attempted to do the same, he found himself unable to exit his mist form. Via Rose knocked him away from the citadel with her gust cantrip and he was able to reform. He said when he was touching the citadel it felt like he was overcharged with mist energy and couldn't force himself to revert to his original form again.

Eventually Edric used his acid spell to try to eat a hole into the citadel, and he managed to make a hole small enough for Via to enter as a housecat and Minty to use her Fey Step to enter. The inside was stale and dark as the two fey party members began to venture further inside.

Then, Modokus tried to reach inside the citadel with his telepathy and found the citadel was a hub for thousands of psionic voices. He listened in hard and learned these voices were the voices of the Quedem people, living their lives. Eero reached out to do the same and found himself connected to a massive psionic network that connected all of his people. Every descendant of Zaquen was linked here.

Eero reached out and found the voice of Anella who told him she was safe and worried about him. She said she was at an ice temple in the feywild, but the connection was lost soon after. Eero reached out his old Arafel partner, Chalan, and managed to get ahold of him. Chalan was looking for Eero and said he was gathering mistwalkers who survived the coup in the feywilde where Zahir wouldn;t be able to find them. Eero told Chalan to meet him at the ice temple as soon as he could and Chalan agreed.

Finally, Eero noticed several Quedem psionic voices were clouded, surrounded by a mysterious darkness that he guessed was the result of the ritual Zahir had forced them to undergo.

Eero was about to leave when a voice contacted him. The voice introduced herself as Lezra, wife od Zaquen. She explained that she was a githzerai, and was the only survivor of when this adamantine citadel crashed here several centuries ago. This citadel had been damaged in a battle with a nautiloid ship, made by the mind flayers and had crashed here after the battle. The twelve githzerai keeping the citadel in its proper shape survived but were all in a deep trance, keeping them alive longer and keeping the destructive power of the limbo energy inside the citadel from destroying the surrounding mountain range.

Outside of the meditating gith in the citadel's center, she was the only survivor. She left and met Zaquen and became his wife. The promise Merolius had made created a divine bond between all of Zaquen's descendants, and this divine connection was being used to connect them all psionically as well. The people's faith in their land becoming prosperous if they were diligent and good was controlling the limbo energy leaking from the citadel as it suffused with this plane was psionically making it happen.

Lezra warned Eero that the hag Judith and her Coven had been trying to gain access to the citadel for centuries. Eero's blood could be used to open the citadel because he was Zaquen's chosen. The divine bond of his people was strong in him, which was why he was an aasimar. But the divine blond being so strong in him meant if Judith got her hands on it, she would be able to force the citadel to open to her.

Judith was trying to find a way to pull the souls of Eero's ancestors back through the citadel as the divine bond was still tethering them there. Judith was a night hag and acquiring so many pure souls could make her one of the most powerful hags in Hades. Then, Lezra warned Eero that Judith was coming.

Eero left the connection and warned Edric they needed to seal the breach in the adamantine citadel. Via crawled back out and Sabrielle had to shrink Minty so Leora and Lykus could pull her out. Eero took the two adamantine shortswords from Edric and used his mistwalking ability to try to reincorporate them with the citadel to repair the damage. He was almost successful and had top leave behind his cloak of protection to ensure the breach would seal.

Then, the party heard several walls in the chamber break, and a massive, gnarled and misshapen creature crawled over the top of the citadel. This creature, was an Altroloth. The party saw the arm of a nightwalker had been grafted onto it, as well as some shite skin from some other creature, and one of its gigantic antlers. The chamber flooded with low level yugoloths and thri-kreen and the majority of the party moved to suppress the oncoming hordes.

The Altroloth bore down on the party and its fearful aura froze some of them. Its necrotic presence hurt the party just by being in proximity to it, and with one point of its finger, it froze and nearly killed Eero. The party's weapons did hurt the beast but barely seemed to make a dent in its massive form. Leora moved quickly and knocked Eero's ring off and released Exiles.

Exiles opened a gate to Hades and began pulling the much stronger Altroloth through. Resisting an Aeon's banishment was nearly impossible, even for a being on par with pit fiends and balores. The Altroloth was banished and the Aeon cast mass see invisibility on the party, revealing all three hags of the coven inside the chamber with them. The party began battling the hags, and Gaia beckoned Tamel to rejoin her side, which caused him to freeze. Marcia taunted Minty by saying she was the spitting image of her sister before casting bling on Minty, indicating Marcia had some connection to Minty's temple where Anella was hiding.

Several yugolths got past the perimeter defenses and one ripped Yoko's cat in half. However, despite the odds, with the Altroloth gone, the party began to turn the tides and the coven realized they were outmatched without their trump card. Judith used her coven connection to cast plane shift on all members of the coven, allowing them to escape.

The party mopped up the remaining Thri-kreen and yugoloths and won the battle, though everyone but Modokus had been moderately to severely injured.

Edric immediately sent Monana a sending asking her to send Luracia to help. He then sent a sending to Zahir, telling him they knew about the hags and the citadel and Luracia was coming. Zahir said he would gladly discuss anything Edric had found and said he assumed Edric had dealt with the deadzone.

Everyone regrouped at the center of the chamber to discuss their plan of attack. The day was one but all the hags still lived, and they likely planned to re-summon the Altroloth soon. This conflict was not over.