Aurora Isilime, the Valley Elf Bard who has more instruments than she can carry
Pharin, the Drow Wizard and summoner of demon bunnies
Skye, the Air Genasi Druid
Dervish, the Kasathe Fighter
Nanu, the NightmOrc Fighter who is late
Oryn Talus, the mysterious and ancient "Halfling" who has employed the group
Jayce and Jarrid, the Human Barbarian brothers
Lothar the Sovani Smith
With only nineteen hours to prepare to leave Blackmoor the group scattered to the market, determined to find supplies to help them on their journey. Nanu enlisted both Skye and Aurora's help in purchasing some horse shoes, since she had discovered her abrupt and abrasive personality does not make shopkeepers inclined to give her a fair price. Pharin looked for components needed for a ritual that would give the group a chance at finding some of the pieces of Vecna, and plotted revenge against Nanu for taking a piece of star metal Oryn had given him. Pharin had convinced Nanu that the metal was cursed, and planned to mess with her accordingly. One of the components Pharin required for his ritual was lich blood, and the only way that can really be acquired is by summoning a lich. Once Pharin gathered what he needed to summon the lich he and Oryn did so. While the lich he summoned was weaker, a weak lich is still extremely difficult to beat. Pharin managed to defeat the lich, but it was no easy feat, and he was unable to summon its phylactery until after he beat it.
The Bane met Oryn in the museum at the end of the nineteen hours, and were introduced to another agent of Oryn's, a Sovani named Lothar. Somehow during this time the museum had completely emptied of its exhibits, and they were now in a large, empty room. Oryn told the group that he still had two wishes left from the Moon card he had drawn, and had a couple of ideas on how to use them to help the group. The first idea was to wish for all of the pieces of Vecna to be scattered throughout Oerth, to force the cult to have to seek them all out again; Oryn explained that would take up both wishes. The other idea he had was to break the blood bond on the Eye, Hand, or Heart, which could potentially get one of them out of their hands. Oryn had another agent in the field who was near the Hand, and with the bond broken he could potentially get it away from the cult before they could redo the bond. That would only take up one wish, but without super powering the wishes they still wouldn't be able to scatter the pieces. While the group was arguing over which would be the better course of action, Lothar received a suggestion from Moradin, to use sacrifice to charge the wishes. He shredded his wrists, and used his own blood to power the spell, giving the group the ability to break the blood bond on the Eye, and scatter the pieces. Since they chose to break the blood bond first, the Eye was scattered with everything else, leaving the cult with only the Heart and Hand. As soon as the wishes were made, Lothar was helped and his death was prevented.
Oryn instructed the Bane to travel to Yecha, where they could find a vampire skull; the final component needed for Pharin to perform the ritual that would help them find the pieces before the cult did. Oryn suggested they stop in Eru-Tovar for any final supplies, since they would not see another city until they reached Yecha, which was about three hundred miles from Blackmoor, and would take about thirteen days to complete. Lan had already left for a different destination, having a separate mission from Oryn; Jarrid and Lothar also went in different directions, and Oryn vanished after the meeting adjourned. Oryn left the Bane with an item that gave them Leomund's Tiny Hut once a day, so they would have shelter while traveling, and a carriage that was bigger on the inside, with the same mysterious driver and horses they had all had on their way to Blackmoor.
Since Eru-Tovar was a little more than a day's journey from Blackmoor, they stopped before sundown and made camp for the night; the driver and horses vanish daily at sunset, and do not reappear until sunrise. The Hut provided a force field to keep the group safe, so they did not set up a watch schedule, and all just went to sleep instead. After a few hours Skye was awoken by something shifting the air, and she saw humanoid looking shadows out of the corner of her eye, Skye decided to wake up Pharin first, but his spider bit her when she tried; she then tried yelling at the spider to wake Pharin to no avail. She thought about trying to wake up Nanu after failing to wake Pharin, but realized that the foul tempered NightmOrc would probably have a worse reaction to being woken up; Skye decided to wake up Aurora instead. Aurora saw the shadows as well, and helped Skye wake Dervish and Nanu. They realized that the shadows were avoiding the area where their fire was, and began lighting torches to help repel them; they planned to light a path to their wood pile so Dervish could get wood to help them ring the Hut in fire. During the commotion Jayce woke up, as did Pharin, though Pharin decided to play opossum whilst readying a flaming sphere. Skye suggested Jayce wake Pharin by kicking him, and Jayce, not sensing sarcasm, kicked him in the torso, setting Pharin's flaming sphere off, and hitting Jayce with it. This sent Jayce into rage, and he ran out into the darkness to gather wood; Dervish followed a few seconds later, while the rest of the group began pouring oil flasks around the perimeter of the Hut to spread the fire. Dervish returned quickly, but Jayce stayed outside gathering wood. Pharin got the idea to summon a fire elemental to keep their fire going until sunrise; he summoned a very tiny one, and offered it freedom in exchange for keeping the fire going, which the elemental accepted. While Pharin was making his deal with the elemental, Nanu decided to help Jayce collect wood, but got hit by one of the shadows instantly and it sapped her strength. Jayce threw the wood he had been gathering into the ring and tried to throw Nanu back into the hut because her strength was so badly diminished, but she decided to attempt to fight him, so instead he was only able to shove her to the edge of the ring of fire. The NightmOrc angrily went back into the circle, and after pummeling a couple of shadows Jayce followed. Nanu hostilely confronted Jayce about man-handling her, but he was clearly unwilling to fight her about it, he was trying to protect her and felt he had done the right thing. The group was able to rest in safety for the rest of the night, since Pharin's elemental kept the shadows at bay.
The next day the group arrived in Eru-Tovar and decided to stay until sunrise, hoping that would give them enough time to shop. While in Eru-Tovar, Pharin arranged for Nanu to receive a crate containing a vermin infested bale of hay as part of the "curse" that was on the star metal. The sneaky drow was able to have the crate delivered in a way that could not be traced back to him. Nanu did not notice the crate, even though it was in the carriage, for several days. The next morning marked the beginning of their journey toward Yecha.
The first few days of their journey were quiet, and the space in their carriage allowed them to comfortably work on various projects. After multiple mishaps with burnt potions, Skye was given the moniker "Burnt Potions" by Aurora, who refused to stop calling Skye that even after several well-made potions. Pharin began using a spell that allowed him to create a block of air hot enough to be a forge, but it was not hot enough for the star metal. Pharin decided to summon a fire elemental to see if he could convince it to help him. He summoned the same elemental that had helped them with the shadows, but the elemental had grown a lot in the days since their first meeting. This time the elemental did not want to help Pharin or comply with his request, and instead took offense to it and left.
After a few days on the road, while traveling through the Wolf Nomads, Skye sensed a pack of about forty wolves near them. She told the group that the wolves were hungry enough that they might try to attack, and that needed to be prevented. While the carriage did contain two tables with the Heroes Feast enchantment, a spell that lets food constantly be restocked no matter how much is eaten, it could not produce it quickly enough. Pharin got the idea to alter the magic on one of the tables, he planned to only make the steaks on it multiply, but instead made the entire table quadruple the amount of food being generated. The group quickly threw food out of the windows to help the hungry wolves, and after a few miles Pharin was able to shut down the spell. Skye was pleased because they had just helped all of the wildlife in the area, not just the wolves, and not a single wolf was harmed in the process.
A few days later, Pharin decided to summon bunnies to test a gaseous poison, but Skye caught him before his test was complete. Skye used her abilities to clear the poisonous air around the bunnies, but did too well and broke the barrier of the protective circle that Pharin had the bunnies in. She then healed the bunnies, but did that too well and made them super bunnies; she thought this was great at first. The group spent about ten minutes running around the carriage trying to deal with the bunnies, with Aurora yelling to get rid of them because she thinks all bunnies are evil, while Skye tried to convince her otherwise because they're fluffy. The group was so focused on the bunnies that they did not notice the group of bandits surrounding them until it was too late. They heard a couple of thumps outside the carriage and looked out the window to see the bandit leader laughing at them all because of the bunnies. Pharin responded quickly by throwing a bunny at the leader's face, knocking him off his horse and getting his face clawed in the process. The leader attempted to salvage the attack, by picking himself up and announcing that "if you surrender..." That was as far as he got before being hit by a couple of arrows and another bunny that exploded into an ice knife, while being entangled by Skye's vines. The rest of the bandits abandoned their leader and the Bane took him prisoner. Skye set all of the bunnies free.
Nanu finally noticed the crate with her name on it after Aurora asked her is she would get the damned crate out of the way; it had been sitting by the door to the carriage the entire time. Since the hay had been sitting for several days, it was moldy and foul smelling when she opened it; the vermin had vacated the hay several days earlier. Nanu was furious at being given hole-riddled, moldy, vile smelling hay, and began throwing it out of the carriage; few things are more insulting to the NightmOrc than people treating like she's just a horse. The rest of the Bane vacated the interior of the carriage, moving to sit on top of it to get away from the stench of Nanu's "curse." She did not find out that it was Pharin's doing.
One night after the carriage had stopped for the evening, the group saw a large group of people on horseback riding toward them. They immediately assumed it was the bandits returning for their leader and began preparing for battle. As the group drew closer the Bane realized that they was carrying royal banners; these were not bandits, but instead part of the royal guard. They had come because they heard the group had encountered bandits, there was a rather nice bounty on the gang. The Bane gave the guard the bandit leader, and Pharin decided to summon the bunnies again, to give them the opportunity for revenge. The bunnies had grown in the few days since Skye had them released into the wild, and the way that Skye had broken the circle Pharin had had them in made them evil. They certainly wanted revenge against the bandit, and would likely have tried to slaughter everyone present if Jayce hadn't intervened. When Jayce saw the rabid rabbits, he put himself between them and everyone else, making it so they would have to go through him if they wanted the bandit. He managed to intimidate a gang of demonic barbarian bunnies to run away, but it was close; for a few seconds it was unclear if the Bane would have to fight these beasts. After Jayce made the rabbits run away the Bane was able to return to the business at hand, trading the bandit leader for a bounty. Aurora saw the encounter as proof that bunnies are indeed evil and spent the next two days writing a song about the evils of rabbits.
A day or so after the encounter with the demon hares, the Bane found the same group of bandits approaching them again. This time the group was not scrambling after the devil bunnies and actually saw the group coming. The bandits seemed reluctant to be attacking them, as if their new leader had forced them to come. Pharin went to summon more rabbits to use as projectiles against the bandits, but Skye forbid him from summoning more bunnies. Pharin summoned a group of flumphs instead, and knocked them unconscious so the group could safely throw them at the bandits. Unfortunately the Bane did not get the amusement of throwing slumbering flumphs, since Aurora, Dervish, and Nanu had been intimidating the bandits to leave. They succeeded at about the time that Pharin was ready to begin chucking flumphs, leaving the drow a pile of flumphs to clean up... Which he did by dropping a flaming sphere on them...
The rest of the trip to Yecha was uneventful, and soon saw the skyline of Yecha on the horizon. Yecha is basically a nomadic village that has spread out to resemble the size and population of a city, but calling it a city is generous. As the Bane watched their approach to the little city, they realized something was terribly wrong with Yecha... Most of Yecha was engulfed in flames.
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