Chasing a Blaze in the Sky Session 35 Downtime Summary

With the holy trinity of Matthias, Boghi, and Halthor having finally gained the privilege of being able to go to the church, Matthias gains a prosthetic arm of marble, while Halthor and Bodhi acquire holy water that they promise themselves they won't immediately waste on something stupid. The party's been pretty solid financially speaking, so wanting to take advantage of their wealth, they decide to buy one of the most important items they've been neglecting. That's right; they purchased a bunch of wine and then bought a mercenary that they nicknamed Cork. It may seem like a frivolous series of purchases, but wine has been shown to be a solid negotiating tool, so they figured the might as well stock up on the stuff while they can.

With the party prepared, thy set off once again to the Palace of Arekasadra in search of goodies.
Aside from some haggling with a trio of Gigenes for passage, the party make it to the palace with little issue, and in no time find themselves back into the the second floor. Their intuition and path-finding has been surprisingly sharp in this location as it does not take long for them to find even greater treasures in the room where they were warned of the dangers of statues. There, they find another sword, a spear of excellent quality, and a ring that makes Halthor feel oddly confident upon holding. He does not equip said ring however, as he wants to find out more about it in case it is incredibly cursed. They did get these trinkets off of a corpse in a sarcophagus after all, and last time they defiled a corpse for treasure, it had cost Halthor over a decade of his life, and Randon over twenty.

They continue exploring from there, but as they enter a particularly long hall, Halthor notices how utterly empty the area is. There have been plenty of long halls already but they typically have at least one door nearby or connect to something, but this all seems eerily similar to the hall that was booby trapped and dropped them into the deeper floors. Despite the multitude of red flags the party continued regardless.

And now half of them have been dropped into the fourth floor.

At least they were aware enough of the fact that they walked into an obvious trap, as to make sure to take off their armor so they won't drown. So now, Matthias, Bodhi, Halthor, and Randon are at the bottom of the newly formed shaft. At least these are some of the strongest men in the group, if something bad were to happen down there, they would surely be the most capable. "If" is a misleading word however. It implies that there's the possibility that nothing bad was going to happen, which in the CeeCee's hearts, they knew wouldn't be the case.

The moment they got out of the murky deep of the river and made it to a shore, a large beast begins swimming towards them, and though they had a nearby exit they were hoping they could escape through, they are unable to escape the creature, as a monolithic crocodile emerges and takes a nearly engulfing bite of Bodhi within his maw. Breaking the promise they made to themselves Halthor and Bodhi waste all of their holy water in failed prayer as Bodhi goes unconscious. Randon attempts to strike the creature with a blast from his ray gun, and that almost seems to work until he realizes the blast did literally nothing to it. At the very least, the party is able to get its attention and it opens its mouth freeing Bodhi from the death sentence of being dragged underwater where the party surely couldn't fight it. He was still released into the water however, leading to Stephanos taking a two floor swan dive into the river to rescue him. Well aware that without armor this thing could tear them to shreds with ease, the men at the bottom all rush the crocodile in a desperate gambit to kill it before it has the chance to do them in. Thankfully, that mixture of fear and adrenaline is just barely enough to end the creature's life, and after a little bit of creative problem solving, they tie a rope to an arrow and shoot it up the shoot for Joe and Eptun to grab. They then pull the men up to safety.

Damp and demoralized, the party carry Bodhi's unconscious body as they decide to explore just a few more rooms before leaving. They had a brief run in with another group of travelers who offered to trade dungeon information for one of their swords, as if that would actually happen, and after a bit of exploration they find a stairway leading into the third floor. It may not be the most optimal path, but they've now found a way into even more dangerous territory with relatively low exploration. As they consider heading down to take a look before leaving, the sound of a galloping set of hooves is heard running up the stairway.

Approaching them from the stairway, was a pair of unicorns. Eptun looks at the two equine curiously before asking, "Do unicorns speak?" This led to a series of sassy remarks from the duo that would later introduce themselves as Ivoryhoof and Goldhorn, a pair of unicorns who are incredibly smug and extremely anal when it comes to pronunciation, but Eptun seemed too excited to meet such "majestic" creatures to mind, despite the blatant roast session they were having at his expense. On the bright side, at least the unicorns clarified that the unicorns are not necessarily hostile towards humans, or at the very least, they are some of the least worrying figures in the third floor. They even gave the group the offer to join them in a game of chess in the not too distant future. Nobody is especially competent at the game with the acception of Randon, but they agree regardless as hospitality is a powerful tool in such a dangerous location.

With that the party left the palace to return back to the village. It was blizzarding outside, but the group had warm furs, and it would only be a night's rest before they could make it back to Saliagos, so the party continued for as long as they could before setting up camp for the night, so they could finidh their travels on the next day. Stefanos and Eptun later die from hypothermia.

Oops.

Session 35 Downtime Events

Halthor consulted sages and his tomes about the emerald ring that he had found within the Palace of Arekasadra. He was unable to find any information about the dangers of wearing such a ring and the sages he spoke with assured him that he should wear the ring. Bodhi and Turni joined Halthor in consulting sages and their tomes of lore. They were unable to find out any information about the bronze gold-cracked sword. They were able to find out the identity of the sword with the raven on it's pommel. The sword, called Broadcleaver, was once wielded by the Dark Knight Freedan and was used in the slaying of Flayzer the Diamond-lord.

Upon carving eighteen wooden pieces Matthias was taught chess by Randon. The two of them spent their time in Saliagos playing chess.

To Joe the Agreeable's delight, Morrigu returned to her companions informing them that she was initiated into the Cult of Herakatropia. She informed them that for her allegiance she was taught the means of preparing of the sorcery Seeds of Persophone.

During their stay in Saliagos the blizzard continued for 4 days. On the 5th day, the winds died down and the snowstorm ceased. The villagers of Saliagos threw a feast to celebrate the end of the blizzard, and the Combative Companions dined heartily. During the remainder of their time in Saliagos the snow fall was limited.

Rumors gained during downtime:
1) In Likas, there is a band of silent men who serve a cruel master who would sell a cloak of invisibility.