Saralas: Session 38

15 Elient, Morning

• We are in Easthaven. I would like to figure out what is going on with my family
• Saralas would like to either go look in the Mirror near Lonelywood to understand if what he saw was actually real, which is the compromise he was mostly OK with. Failing that he'd like to just go look for his daughter.
• "How long do you think it will take them to dig out?"
• We head towards Lonelywood, planning to stop at Targos along the way. We see a pack of Coldlight Walkers along the way, milling about in a copse of trees. It takes about 2 days.
• It's the night of the 16th and we've arrived in Lonelywood. The inn is in good condition, Kate Bush is happy to see us, Sahas is also doing well.
• We spend the evening in the inn, uneventfully, and head out in the morning.

17 Elient, Morning

• We make our way to the Elven Tomb to check out the mirror.
• Karthos unattunes from the mirror, and Saralas starts to attune to the mirror, and goes to look for Elodie.
• The Mirror resolves to show her busying herself about a loom in an unfamiliar building. She looks quite intent. It's a modest wooden building, but looks stout. Seems pretty newly built. She's surrounded by various weaving contrivances, the loom, bolts of fabric. It's dark in the windows I can see.
• There is a coat rack by the door with a stout looking fur coat with a big hood on it. I watch her until the vision fades.
• I explain to the others what I've seen. Unfortunately I don't recognize the building and so I'm not feeling much better.

18 Elient, Morning

• Karthos looks in on Sunblight. He's screaming at the Duergar, who are looking exhausted
• They are working to clear the rubble, but there's a lot to do.
• It's not obvious from this vantage point but it seems that the avalanche did a lot of damage and progress is slow.

19 Elient, Morning

• Resda attunes to the Mirror, looking in on her grandmother
• She sees an older but attractive grandmotherly woman in a cell
• A large and rather angry looking man is her apparent cell-mate
• As soon as Resda initiates the spell her grandmother immediately notices. She appears to be fully aware that someone is watching.
• She grabs a piece of paper from a crude desk and scribbles "come find me" in common.
• How powerful must she be to immediately detect the spell?
• We debate where to go. Lonelywood is the nearest town but Revel's End is maybe 20 miles north across snow and ice.
• Saralas promises to help Resda look for her grandmother when they can, after we deal with the dragon threat.
• We head back to Lonelywood. Every time we see the forest there are fewer trees and more stumps. Without the trees to hold it back, the wind tears through the landscape. There are frozen carcasses of dead animals across the barren landscape.
• At the logger's camp, the logs are stacked higher than we've ever seen before. They are even moving the logs around by magical means.
• We are in Lonelywood on the afternoon of the 19th. I would like to stop by where I saw my family along the way to the entrance on the map. I ask if they *really* intend to go to the underdark?
• It's about 4 days to get to the spine of the world, about 2 to Easthaven and another 2 or so to the area where we saw my family.
• We make our way to Easthaven without too much events, but we see some bodies along the way. Conditions in the Ten Towns do seem to be getting worse.
• From Easthaven we set out south to Dougan's Hole and across the wilds. On our way out of Dougan's Hole we see the white dragon. We leave it be. We make our way to the foothills, and soon enough make our way to where Saralas is convinced he saw the children last.
• Eventually we see a figure standing by the edge of the trees. It's a woman, but she's a ways in the distance. It's Elodie. I jump off the sled and give her the biggest hug I can.
• I ask her what is she doing out here. The winter has been infecting Neverwinter, and she's come up to find me even though I told her not to. She searched in Targos, Bryn Shander. But as soon as she mentioned my name to the speaker he almost had her locked up. As she talked to other people she met in her travels, who said as long as she was marked by Niham she wouldn't be safe in the Town. She was able to procure lodgings and has a house.
• Mika and Aestos are back in Neverwinter, apparently fighting the encroaching winter and the monsters that come with it.
• She leads us through the snow, into a narrow valley between two foothills. She says "step through it" and disappears into what is apparently a magical field.
• Karthos detects magic, clearly.
• "My family are craftsmen and artisans."
• Resda recognizes immediately that this is Mordenkainens Private Sanctum.
• I follow Elodie.
• The children run up and hug Saralas. We see the outside of what looks like a fairly newly constructed cabin. It's nestled into the base of the valley up against the rock. It feels quite warm for some how.
• I ask who helped her and how this cabin was built.
• She tells me that the house was constructed magically. It came in a tiny box, and she pulled a string, and the house popped up. The second box creates the magical effect that prevents anyone from discovering their little sanctuary.
• "That's remarkable"
• She's never even heard of artificts of this kind of power before, but they found them in a caravan they found along the way. It's very cozy, and she even has a little garden in the back.
• She says there were instructions.
• She invites us inside. I go in, and Pearl and Rudra follow.
• Korag stays outside and walks around the cabin. He sees the garden in the back, and finds the source of the warmth, which is a little lava pocket which has allowed things to flourish in this spot.
• This is the cabin I saw the other day. In the kitchen I see the loom and cloth. Elodie has brought quite a lot of supplies with her. In her bedroom I see a collection of books, many of which I remember as family books.
• Everything I see says this is my daughter.
• She laughs and I tell her that I told her to stay in Neverwinter, but she laughs, punches me in the shoulder and said "that made sense until the wilds found me".
• Luskan is under ice, and winter has found its way to Neverwinter. She came up looking for me.
• She expected conditions to be much better than they turned out to be. But reality was much different, and much worse. They came upon a caravan that had been recently attacked. Her caravan picked over the belongings, which is where she found the magical boxes. The one that made the cabin, and the one that made the force field.
• The one that made the cabin is gone, it is the cabin.
• She brings out the one that made the force field. It's about 6 inches across, is white and purple, and it has a LEIGH&CO logo and serial number on the box.
• She found she was not safe because of our run-in with the Speaker of Targos and her relation to me.
• We talk for hours, catching up since it's been so long. I tell her to keep the box and keep herself and the kids safe.
• She has seen Duergar parties traveling through the woods, and the white dragon.
• As we talk, Resda perceives that something seems wrong with the box, like the box is broken.
• Karthos notices that the shard of black ice is cracked. Unless it is recharged the spell will fail, maybe in days or maybe weeks. But it won't last a long time.
• To fix it it needs to be in the presence of a magical object. If it is it will drain the magical object.
• He tries his pearl. He sees the box draining the pearl, but it's not enough to fix it completely. The pearl is destroyed. Karthos also pulls out Min's wand of the spell mage, which improved the performance of the cube, but it's not fully fixed. Elodie is worried but thankful that it has been improved.
• I suggest we stay the night and then try to get back to saving things. But first I go play hide and seek with Willow and Mari.
• We spend the night, and wake up in the morning well rested.

21 Elient, Morning

• There is breakfast.
• I talk with Elodie, ask her to stay safe and keep an eye on the box. If things seem to go wrong I say she should go to Easthaven and look for Imdra, who may help her. But if she can, stay here and safe.
• As we eat we look over the map Wodna provided and do some planning.
• We know the underdark is huge, and stretches for hundreds of miles under the surface of the earth. There are entire civilizations down here, including the Drow, the Duergar, Deep Gnomes.
• The party doesn't have much for better ideas than to go through the Underdark, except Resda who mentions we could go looking for her grandmother.
• We leave Elodie's cabin, and travel most of the day to the spot Wodna indicated on the Ten Towns map. It takes several hours, but we eventually find a break in the rock that is the entrance to the underdark, and we enter.
• Saralas enters along with the rest of the party.
• We are in the entrance, which is a narrow cavern that leads off to the north.
• Karthos moves north, and sees a twist in the passage. He sees signs of many creatures, probably because this is the only real way for creatures to go. The cave seems sound enough, but he sees evidence of rock falls.
• Resda has a torch. Saralas reaches into his gray bag of tricks and pulls out a boar.
• Resda douses her torch and is plunged into darkness. She has a panic attack. The boar runs out of the cave. With some time we are able to calm Resda down.
• Karthos moves forward quietly, and comes to what appears to be a fork in the cave.
• Saralas tries to sense which is the way forward. The path to the east seems to be the right direction; the south is a dead end. We come to the east and the path splits again. There's a rockfall to the northeast, though it would be possible to squeeze through. I think we want to go east, and we keep heading east.
• Eventually the passage turns sharply to the north.