Act Three, Chapter 29: "Reg(g)rets, I've had a few." (2023/02/18)

In the haven of Berrik’s Oasis, the Ashen Company waits for the newly released toxic gas to dissipate around them. The issue of the egg weighs heavy on everyone’s minds and the party discusses next steps. We decide to investigate the chamber before deciding what to do with the egg - there may be something in there to push us in one direction or another. Silas summons Reno.

Once the air is clear, the party approaches the doors. Peering inside, we are shocked to find… very little. Nassandrial had next to nothing to her name at the end, the result of her spiteful, unquenchable thirst to kill the Ashen Company. The large chamber behind the doors is empty of coin and gems. A light film of ruby dust covers the floor - all that remains of the series of simulacrums she sent our way. We do, however, find a few items: 3 pieces of exaltium (red, blue, green), 5 potions, a shining metal badge, an elegant red travel cloak, and a beautiful cherry wood and metal staff with a red stone. Berrik will identify these later.

The Ashen Company reconvenes. Now what? No matter what we do with the egg, we can’t leave Nassandrial’s carcass just laying there, right? What if the egg hatches and sees its dead parent? Plus it will take time to harvest what we want from the body. We decide to long rest in this horrible, goopy place and get to work tomorrow. Berrik ritually casts the hut, identifies the magic items we found and then passes the fuck out.

(This is what the loot was: Staff of Defiance, Invisibility Cloak, Defense Matrix Integration System. Also one of each of the following: Potion of Flying, Potion of Radiant Resistance, Potion of Disguise Self, Potion of Tongues, and Potion of Invisibility).

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Silas and Null take first watch. Silas broaches the subject of the egg. He’s lived and will live a long, lonely life - he sympathizes with egg having to face 100’s of years of the world alone without a companion or a guide. It’s a tough way navigate life. Could he and the egg help each other? He asks Null what she thinks they should do with the egg. Her opinion reveals that she carries a lot of guilt over what happened at the orphanage and the retaliatory aftermath - she thinks the Ashen Company is poison for those they love, regardless of good intentions. 

Silas asks what she remembers from the orphanage - she ran ahead and they thought Null was lost until she reappeared at their trial. Null describes the horrific flashback she experienced in the lab, then chasing Trolley through the burning lower levels and into a strange room. Cornered there, she followed Trolley through some sort of portal. She remembers nothing of what happened next. It was only when she appeared in the Exchange courtroom that she discovered the orphanage site had been obliterated. Now she’s left with the knowledge that something terrible happened to her at the orphanage when she was a child, something awful happened to her when she went through the portal and returned with a superpowered arcane mark and, all because of her damned curiosity, something unforgivable happened to Roberto and Nikolai.

When we care about something, we put a target on its back. The lives of those we love about are made worse by our involvement. We couldn’t protect our own kids - how could we do this to a baby dragon too? Coming back from her tangent, she remembers Silas’s initial point. She softens a bit. Silas is her brother, her closest friend. She knows she won’t live as long as he will - who is she to begrudge him a companion who can be there for him long-term? 

Null is then reminded of something: Before the battle, Silas had cast Magic Circle around the egg (a spell that affects several creature types, including fey). Had he not trusted her to go near it? The thought of her friends doubting her intent breaks her heart. The Ashen Company and Latharial are literally all Null has (due to her memory issues, she can’t even be sure if those she knew before she arrived in Zanidonia were ever real), so the idea of those connections being fallible is a terrifying concept for her. Silas, however, assures her that he wasn’t personally targeting her and that he absolutely trusts her. Null reiterates that she would never betray him. As long as she’s in control, the Ashen Company has nothing to fear from her.

Wow, heavy stuff! Silas and Null are physically and emotionally exhausted from the day and from this conversation. Time to wake up Lotty and Flynn.

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As Silas, Berrik and Null lay sleeping, Flynn ambushes Lotty with a hare-brained plan to keep the egg, raise the dragon and provide for the children’s futures.

Lotty gently explains that the plan seems well-intentioned, but a bit exploitative. It doesn’t have the egg’s best interests at heart. Lotty continues, noting that Mordecai sometimes seems as though he doesn’t have Flynn’s best interests at heart. Yes, the genie bestows Flynn with great cosmic power, but there are times when he lashes out at Flynn, hurting him or putting Flynn and the party in danger. Lotty reveals that a great love of her life, a dwarf, let her down when she needed him the most. She was devoted to him, but love was not enough and he betrayed and left her. Does Flynn feel Mordecai will be there for him when the going gets tough?

Suddenly, Mordecai’s voice echoes in Lotty’s head, “You’d be salty too if he forgot your birthday.”

Lotty delves further. How close are Flynn and Mordecai? How well do they know each other? Do they know each other’s birthdays?

Flynn reveals that Mordecai is the longest relationship he’s ever had. He seems extremely uncomfortable. He definitively states that he absolutely knows when Mordecai’s birthday is. For sure.

Lotty suggests that they work to come up with an idea to help cultivate his partnership with Mordecai. It’s important to remind people that you care, and long relationships need effort to be maintained and to thrive. Maybe Flynn could make him something? They spend the rest of the watch brainstorming, interrupted only by Reno’s flatulence.

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In the morning, Ashen Company reconvenes and comes to a semi-decision about what to do with the egg. We will leave it here for now, it seems to be the safest place for it. We will block the entrance to this place with stone shape, hiding the fact that there was ever a lair here. In the meantime we will try to find someone trustworthy who can protect the egg while it incubates. Maybe Remmi? 

Time to get to work! Berrik dons the suit and heals the egg while the rest of the party gets to looting Nassandrial’s corpse. Null manages to get all 10 talons from the two front claws, in addition to the 7 teeth she took earlier. Lotty and Flynn work together to harvest scales and manage to gather 10000 GP worth. Silas takes her heart. The heart, scales, teeth and talons weigh well over 1100 lbs total, so Silas rigs up Reno to help heave the haul through the massive doorway. The party had dispatched the Mat of Welcoming, so the doorway conveniently leads to the home storages at their villa. This undertaking takes all day. Berrik casts Disintegrate twice at Nassandrial’s remains, but only manages to get rid of half. We will need to rest here one more night in order for Berrik to finish the job. 

The second night in the goopy lair brings less conversation than the first - everyone is exhausted. The evening passes without incident and we awake the next morning. Berrik casts Disintegrate twice more, ensuring that Nass is truly gone from this world and that her progeny won’t have to see its parent’s corpse when it hatches. We do one last check on the lair, making sure the entrance is truly sealed. The Ashen Company bids the egg adieu and then Berrik casts Teleportation Circle to bring us back to the Last Stand Inn in Sierrona.

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We appear in the middle of Mira’s work from home set-up, with the party appearing in the space just a few feet from her bed. She scolds us for not giving her a heads up about our arrival - she could have been changing or something. We genuinely apologize, admitting that Cade usually took care of the Sending. Maybe we should look into getting our own circle for the villa. Mira doesn’t appear to harbour any grudges, however, as she proceeds to introduce us to her new cat. The cat seems wholly unskilled, obscenely wealthy, desperately insecure and utterly unfunny. Despite its insatiable need to be liked by the masses and its vast amounts of gold, it never follows through on its promised acts of public good. It's thinking about manufacturing a line of automated carts with poor safety standards, built by cutting corners and union-busting. It wants to buy Sierrona’s local message board and fill it with postings about how cool it is. This cat is a bad person who deserves none of the attention it gets. This cat ruined Grimes for everyone. 

Gosh Mira, do better.

We take our leave from Mira’s study and head upstairs to Remmi’s large meeting room. As the the Ashen Company enters, they seem Remmi and Latharial hunched over a map, looking troubled. We’ll find out what’s bugging them next session.

Act Three, Chapter Twenty Eight "Nassandrial vs the hands of fate" (11-02-2023)

Our band of heroes gather in Nassandrial's lair in the dead of night hearing the beating of invisible wings and the inhale of breath, they all call upon the fates to help them however they can, be it a prayer to The All Father, a squeeze of a memento, thoughts of a loved one or just the hope that they need fate to be on their side.

Silas' prayer imbues himself with a little extra protection against the Verdant Doom, Berrick called upon the unity of friendship to make him and his allies stronger when they are together, Null made sure when she hit she was going to hit hard and Lotty was able to act fast sinking a potion of bless before the rest of the group followed suit. Berrick unleashes his own Draconic spirit, mocking Nassandial with a breath weapon that takes out two zombies that have crawled from the green poison goop. As The Ashen Company spread out across the lair to avoid the inevitable breath that Nassandrial was soon to be unleashed against them Nassandrial revealed herself not with her poison breath but a spell, attempting to banish Berrick and Lotty. Berrick is sent to a, somewhat familiar, harmless demiplane but with Remmi's words of encouragement still ringing in her mind Lotty is able to hold on and flies up to take a cheap-shot in Nass' eye momentarily giving the dragon a hard time hitting them back.

Silas and Null fly up to Lotty's side dealing heavy blows to Nassandrial, grouped together the dragon takes the opportunity to blast the three of them with her toxic poison breath and flies down to take cover in the poison gas clouds that she's summoned around her lair. Empowered with spells of protection from poison the heroes take the blast in their stride and head in to the poison clouds to continue taking blows at Nass. 

The Verdant Doom seems like she's on the ropes as Flynn fires eldritch blasts in to her side and Silas deals a divine blow hard enough to break her concentration on keeping Berrick banished. In retaliation Nass banishes Silas to labyrinthine demiplane where he can't inflict any further damage on her. Silas' faith is strong however and he senses the divine light of Aeon guiding him out of the maze and back in to the fight, as he removes the bandages from his hands accepting the scars he takes a firm grip on his fate touched blade.

As they continue to rain down blows on the evil dragon whatever upper hand the Ashen Company had in this battle is quickly diminished. With everyone back in the fight Berrick finds himself being pulled in to the poison lake by countless zombie hands, Nassandrial sucks the life out of nine zombies that have emerged from the pool, bolstering her health enormously, before the Ashen Company can tackle them. The dragon unleashes a powerful spell as she whispers "kill" in Null's direction sending her lifeless body falling to the floor.

When it feels like fate has forsaken the heroes Flynn flies down to Null, he may not have been part of the group for long but he cements his place as a true member of the Company putting himself in the line of fire to revivify Null with the potion from her belt. Lotty flies over to provide protect from poison and deliver another potion of Bless as Null steadies herself with a healing potion. Nassandrial tries to disintegrate Lotty before Null sacrifices herself, throwing herself in to the line of fire and taking the damage instead. 

Berrick dimension door's himself out of the poison pool and readies the charge to take this dragon down once and for all. Taking Berrick's cue Null digs deep, hurting hard but determined she prays, she doesn't really know to what, but she does it anyway and calls out to Silas that she feels in this moment Nass would be vulnerable to his radiant power. Sensing that feeling in her radiant infused wrench Lotty glows up the wrench, points it to Silas and asks him to finish it for Cade. As Flynn's eldritch blast pulls Nassandrial closer Silias seizes the moment to drive his divine blade swift and hard in to the dragon with every once of power he has, smiting her with the divine power of Aeon behind him he sends her lifeless body crashing to the ground.

As the poison clouds rescind the Ashen Company are at first stunned by their victory, this evil that has plagued their every waking moment for what feels like an age has finally been defeated. As the realisation washes over them they hug, they cry, they feel exhausted.

Thoughts turn to recouping their losses in the form of finding any kind of hoard Nass may have and taking care of the dragon egg.

Silas and Flynn are on team egg whilst Berrick, Null & Lottys take team door.

Team egg go straight to the broken egg, Flynn manages to dimension door the egg to the chamber and begins to shape a stone plank over the poison pool to suspend the egg, Silas dons one of the protective suits and after a long slog back to the chamber slowly starts to pour the poison over the egg to repair the damage done earlier, discarding the odd zombie limb here and there. Flynn tries to communicate basic feelings of cooperation and friendship to the egg and gets feelings of curiosity in return.

Team door manage to dispel the many wards that surround the door, Berrick and Lotty working together behind Berrick's own ward to keep them safe from the dangers of any thing they can't dispel. Once the wards are safely gone Null ghost walks through the door, unable to pick the lock. She's met by a noxious cloud of poison with little visibility, she tried to lift the bar that's blocking the door but doesn't have the strength to do it alone and walks back through before she succumbs to the gas. With protection from poison reapplied to Lotty & Berrick and Oasis still protecting them; team door misty step back through to the other side. With the combined might of all three of them and the tiniest bit of help from Berrick's Arcane Hand they lift the bar from the door and manage to push the door open (with their mighty strength and a little help from Nessie pulling from the other side), bringing with it the cloud of toxic gas. Berrick rushes down to cover Flynn with the oasis until the cloud dissipates and they figure out their next move. 

Act Three, Chapter 27: "Egg-sistential threats" (2023/02/04)

The fight continues. Null, frightened and poisoned, knows she's almost useless in this state. She heads over to the group in the hopes that someone will re-up her Protection from Poison. Flynn holds his Eldritch Blast for the moment the Dragon Blessed makes an appearance, which results in her being pulled out of her hidey hole. She is left dangling from a ledge with one hand, totally defenseless. As the Ashen Company had so conveniently clumped up in front of her, Nass responded by summoning a meteor swarm. The damage is truly devastating to all in the affected area (the Dragon Chosen are pulverized). Luckily, however,  Berrik is the only party member knocked unconscious. The fight continues - Null revives Berrik. The Dragon Blessed falls to her demise in the poisoned pool below.

Despite the druid's powerful and beguiling physique, the party was shocked to find that her ass did, in fact, quit.
QUIT LIVING, that is. RIP to a real one.

No time to celebrate/mourn the departure of our gal, however. Nass casts an 8th level Banishment in an attempt to get rid of of us all. Flynn and Silas manage to save against it, but Lotty, Berrik and Null are zapped away. Silas, understanding the gravity of the situation, knows he needs to bring his friends back before Nassandrial has the chance to gain the upper hand. Silas goes BEAST MODE - He wields Flare like an artist with a brush, like a conductor with a baton, like a farmer reaping wheat. With a series of slashes and smites, he brings Nassandrial to her ashy dragon knees - doing enough damage to pop his friends back into existence in time to watch him finish her off. But alas, to everyone's annoyance, this was another fuckin' simulacrum! The draconic body melts away.

Time to explore - we delve deeper into the complex. There are pools of poisoned water scattered between a series of constructed stone chambers that are adorned with dragon iconography. There is also a room with cages - they contain long-deceased, partially transformed humanoids. Grim. Eventually we find our way into a larger chamber with small niches. In one of these niches we find a strange tableau: Two bulky mechanical suits face each other. They are unlike anything we have ever seen before. They seal the wearer against the elements (presumably water and poison), but they are clearly unsuitable for combat. Between them lie two sturdy brass rings, a few feet in diameter. We keep them in mind as we move along.

Next we encounter a niche with another thing we haven't seen before: a large scaley egg lies before us, perched on an altar. Curious, Null and Flynn approach and are immediately charmed by an effect surrounding the egg. They must protect the egg against thieves and blasphemers, against these intruders who would harm it. Egg is love. Egg is life. Null and Flynn go on the offensive and the rest of the Ashen Company scramble to knock their friends out of it. Attempts to attack the egg only infuriate Null and Flynn further. What follows is truly chaotic: Both Null and Flynn get uncharmed and recharmed by the egg. Nessie grapples Flynn and drags him away. It's very funny. Eventually everyone gets back to normal after some dispelling (of the charm effects and the enchanted area around the egg), which unfortunately uses up more spell slots from the party. 

So now that we've found Nassandrial's egg, what do we do with it when all this is over? It remains perched on its altar but after the party's initial attacks, it's clearly much more fragile than before. We recall Cade's research about green dragons - they reproduce by essentially cloning themselves, yes, but it isn't a personality transfer. When Nass dies, her essence will enter the egg, bringing it to life. We wonder: How much of Nass will live on in the egg? Can the egg move through life independent of the influence of its predecessor? Green dragons have a tendency towards evil, true, but it isn't necessarily guaranteed. Flynn tries to telepathically convey notions of peace and friendship to the egg.

Null: Wants to either destroy it or leave it alone. She thinks interfering with its upbringing is wrong and trying to mold it into something it's not will breed resentment in the dragonling and will backfire. Let it become what it will become outside of the influence of others. She may be a little biased due to her past experiences with Trolley/the orphanage/the Marionettist.

Silas: Wants to protect it and does not think it's predestined for evil. In true dad fashion, does not want to just leave it here unattended. Silas thinks he and the Ashen Company could help it thrive.

Flynn: Wants to take the egg for unclear reasons. For friendship?

Lotty: Does not want to destroy the egg, thinks it is innocent. She would be agreeable to leaving it alone, or taking it elsewhere for safekeeping.

Berrik: No strong opinions.

The Ashen Company ends the conversation without a plan for the egg. We know we want to use it to taunt Nassandrial, but what comes after is less clear. 

We decide to short rest in front of the egg, trying to prepare one last time for the fight ahead. People heal up and regain spell slots. Conversation is a little grim and the upcoming confrontation weighs heavy on everyone. We wish Cade was here. As we get up to move on, Silas casts Magic Circle around the egg to protect it from certain creature types (celestials, fey, undead, elementals, fiends). Lotty re-ups Protection from Poison for everyone. No matter what happens, we love each other very much. Off we go!

We next encounter a large chamber that features the same draconic iconography. Linked to it are a few smaller rooms that we scatter to investigate. Null finds a room that has a vial with a sickly green liquid inside. Upon realizing it's not poison, she calls for Lotty to help ascertain its use. Lotty is still reeling from her death a couple days ago and using her alchemical skills on an unknown substances seems risky. Null suggests smashing the vial if we can't use it? The rogue's suggestion is so brutish that it convinces Lotty to do her alchemical thing. Lotty cautiously tastes the substance and determines that it is a potion of poison immunity. She urges Null to take it and Null feels silly for wanting to smash it a few seconds ago. Null reluctantly takes the potion from Lotty, but makes sure to trade her back a superior healing potion in return. Flynn peeks into a room with an imposing statue in it and decides we should keep moving. At the far end of the large chamber there is a set of ascending stairs. We take them as far as the second to last landing. Null hears breathing in the next room. The party takes the time activate any features or drink any potions that last longer than a minute in order to be as ready as possible. Once more unto the breach.

The Ashen Company enters a truly massive, cavernous chamber. Nassandrial is nowhere to be seen. The space is impregnated with poison: a toxic cloud fills the space and the structures are positively gooey with green corruption. We spread out a bit. Scattered throughout the main chamber are a series of vents, made of stone and bone. Their purpose is unclear. At the far end of the space are two sets of stairs that lead to a large dais. Behind it, a set of enormous doors. Embedded in the doors is a large, glowing purple stone shaped like an eye. Null approaches and notices the eye follow her movements. Unnerved, she stabs it with Latharial's Grace and it shatters. A burst of light emits from the point of impact, blinding Null. She "Walks it Off" in time to perceive the heavy beat of monstrous wings above her.

"She's here!" Null shouts.

A hearty chuckle answers, echoing throughout the room.

"Welcome to your doom (bitches)."