Aerois - Chapter Three: The Road to Goldthrone

Katie Morrison as Aila

 Kim Richards as Nova V'ger

 Rhiannon Frost as Sentry

 Tom Hazell as Qillek Ad Khollar

**The Road to Goldthrone** is the third chapter of the Aerois campaign. It was broadcast live on both the Yogscast Twitch channel and highrollersdnd Twitch channel between 28th October 2018 and 6th January 2019, and consists of six episodes.

*In Chapter Three the team make their way north towards the illustrious city of Goldthrone. The path is not an easy one however, and the group come face to face with a mysterious ghostly elven princess as well as a group of the Remnant of Kallus Starbane’s forces who seek to use an Eterna for nefarious purposes.*

## Summary

After seeing an Aarakocran messenger flying overhead and Quill’s reaction to it, the rest of the party discusses amongst themselves how they might help Quill get back his lost wing. Along the road, the party stops at the crumbling ruins of the Elven palace that they had spotted in the distance while on the road to rescue Valla. Due to the age of the palace, they hope to find information that will help them: Aila about her strange lightning powers and original clan, Sentry about Solwynn, and Nova about The Remnant (an army hostile to Aerois, and likely responsible for the attack on their air ship). Valla surprises them with her lock picking skills and gets the gate open.

Despite the decrepit buildings, the gardens are beautiful and well-maintained. The party is assailed by all sorts of illusions that attempt to frighten or entice them away from the palace before Quill spots a Pixie who is responsible for them. From the Pixie, they learn that the palace is haunted by the ghost of a High Elf noble called Vesselvania, and that she is quite mad.

When they make their way inside the palace, they are set upon by two ghostly warriors who seem to recognise Valla for some reason. After they defeat the warriors, and upon doing some investigation of the palace, they find a hidden room which is home to an old man named Sellick Zostro, now undead and an ex-Paladin of Siaska (also called The Star Mother), and that he is committed to protecting the palace. He warns them about Veselvena, an Elven princess who was banished there after tampering with planar magic. Planar magic had allowed travel between worlds but had been forbidden by Siaska for unknown reasons. They try to get some rest under the watchful gaze of the undead Paladin but are set upon by more spirits; Lucius and Quill almost die and only then do they decide they should probably leave. As they are heading out, Veselvena appears and locks eyes on Lucius, believing him to be her lost prince. She takes him and locks him away, and allows Nova and Aila to stay on as prospective students whilst the others are instructed to leave.

Working together from without and within, the party manages to free Lucius before escaping and high-tailing it away from the palace. They hear a scream, and know that had they been any closer to it they would have died. The party presses on and makes it safely to Ironwick.

They meet a Beastwalker woman, Sanna, who has many features of a rabbit including long ears and powerful rabbit legs, and an old man, Galen. Sanna and Galen are being run out of town for being thieves, but Sanna is trying to help Galen find his daughter (one of a number of young girls who has gone missing) and the town has, for some reason, turned against them. As they pass by a local lake, they notice a strange green glow from within it and Sanna tells them that this has become a tourist attraction for the town. The glow reminds Nova of an abandoned vessel that she had found, in which she had found Tiangong, her mysterious sword.

Deciding to assist the pair, the party heads to one of the local shops and through the use of Detect Magic, they decide that something very weird is happening. Three strange young girls come to assist them in the shop and give off some unnatural feeling. They decide to return to the shop at night to investigate further only to find an enchanted trapdoor that hides a long tunnel which heads to the lake and the same odd, green glow that they saw earlier. At the end of the tunnel is a strange vessel that Nova recognises as Valkyrian in design: the Valkyrian Empire had sent its army to conquer Aerois just before The Sundering.

When they enter the ship, they are attacked by guards wearing a strange black leather uniform which is very similar to the group that attacked them on the air ship. They find a strange magical bow that is encased in a device, and it appears that this bow is powering the ship somehow. The bow is apparently sentient and speaks telepathically to the party, introducing itself as Nightfrost, a member of the Eterna race just like Tiangong. Nightfrost tells them that it had been forced to feed on the life force of a number of girls that had gone missing from the town. More guards appear and attack them, and Galen is killed. The party frees the bow, but with its power source removed the ship starts to collapse and sink further into the lake, so the party beats a hasty retreat back to town after rescuing Galen’s daughter. During the night, Lucius speaks to Nightfrost and bonds to it, allowing it to take an alternative form as a dark, shadowy cape.

In the morning they reveal what has happened to the townsfolk, clearing Sanna’s name, before heading along the Northern Road. As they are travelling, they come across two Guardians, Tracker and Scout, who are fleeing from a wyvern. After assisting the Guardians to defeat the beast, they join them on their way back to the next large settlement, Kalie’s Rest.

## Major NPCs

List of major NPCs encountered in this chapter.