Episode 99

## Summary

The hook ravens swarm but are quickly dispatched by means of an incredibly buffed paladin. The party travels through the desert, assaulting two drow scouts, and learn that a familiar face is lurking about. They follow parts of a broken retriever in order to find Nero, who plans on breaking into Deephold.

## Recap

* Toward the tail of her watch, Vahlka hears a scratching sound around the outside of the dome. She wakes everyone up. Godfrey, able to see through the magical darkness, takes a look and tells the others that there are three Hook Ravens surrounding the dome.
* Barkley casts Shield of Faith, Olivia casts Haste, and Vahlka casts Protection from Evil on herself. Godfrey, with a 6th level spell burning a hole in his pocket, casts Scatter and the rest of the party teleports about 30ft away leaving Vahlka to tank the Hook Ravens alone with her 24 AC and disadvantage to be hit.
* We are able to kill the Hook Ravens fairly quickly between Vahlka smiting the shit out of them, Deek smiting the shit out of them, Lucius casting chain lightning, and Olivia jabbing the last one with a toothpick and KSing.
* we mount up on Morgan le Fay and the flying carpet and set off again.
* In the distance we see a large dark building on the horizon surrounded by smaller camps. Deek's elfy eyes make out that they appear to be Nightwarden camps - Vahlka infers that the building is Deephold itself. Though she's never seen it from this perspective.
* We decide to continue following the Styx until we spot some scouts riding around on spiders in the distance. We debate about what to do with them for a few minutes before Deacon suggests we capture the scouts and question them and we're like ohhhh yeah, we can do that - good idea.
* Lucius and Barkley fly in ahead of the rest of the group and get things started. Barkley minor illusions the sound of horses approaching, the scouts intermediately try to flee but we chase them down. Lucius kills one of the scouts and his spider with Black Tentacles. He and Barkley try and grab the other and fail miserably "in the greatest display of dumbassery since you arrived in the abyss". Vahlka grabs hims and intimidates the pants off him. His name is Elzai.
* Elzai informs us that the Nightwardens are bringing insurgents down into Deephold from the riots in Umbravall. Yressa is in charge here. He doesn't know her by name, but describes a woman fitting Kiare's description has replaced Dirga as a Warden-General. She left yesterday morning though. He says Yressa never comes out, but she's always buying girls. He hasn't seen any girls with tattoos. We're six days away from the Court of Stars on foot.
* He also has a letter. It seems The Black Cat has been here and has fucked up one of the Warden's retrievers.
* Vahlka pulls out her teleportation bead to the rebel base and gives it to Elzai. Barkley and Olivia write a note for him to deliver to Anika. Godfrey fakes casting a spell over the scroll that will kill him if he does not deliver it.
* We find a crater with a retriever leg sticking out of it. We decide to track down the retriever, and a series of survival and investgation checks later we find another leg, then the trail is obscured, but Barkley is still able to follow it.
* We track the retriever/Nero to a hole in the ground and Olivia message cantrips him so we don't sneak up on him. He comes out and greets us, looking in the wrong direction like a dumbass, confused but glad to see us.
* Nero explains that he damaged the retriever because he is attempting to hotwire it, because it is after Anika, who was captured by Osyna while invading a warehouse in Umbravall and taken into Deephold. We head inside and meet with Katya as well. He says he saw a strange fog roll in for a few hours then disappear.
* We settle in for a long rest.

## Recording

LINK.

Return of the Lizard Wizard <- PREVIOUS EPISODE | NEXT EPISODE -> Spider-Gnome