Making Friends all over…
(Path to the Altis Palace)
I gathered my Ebony Tome and bid Mortimer; my humble servant to finish clearing off the table, as I began to head to the center of Port Mirandia to meet the rest of my group so we can finally find the Altis Palace.
The Altis Palace, after a long trek in hunting down the all of the Symbols we are now going to make our way to what I’ve sought after for a few months now….the mystery that these symbols lock away, or perhaps protect. Meeting up with Cober; a man with a lisp but strong magical strengths for a Yuan-ti, stands waiting at the entrance. We both nod hello and Ildan our eager leader who seems to be very brash for a paladin, comes forth with Quinn and her giant bird Valor who seems to be walking along with another member Ogisl; a head strong holy man…brave and fool hearty fellow. Last but not least Tramenor, the friendly Fibolg who is stuck to Ildan’s side; making sure to not be far from as he calls it his “friend.”
Our group now assembled, we touch base with Quinn and Ogis about our objective as they are a little new to our little group in going down this path for the symbols. Ildan goes to speak to one of the locals about the Fey court to the woods south of Port Mirandia, a gnome fellow that I forget their name. The fellow suggests we are crazy to seek out the Fey court in the woods; yet we head that way anyways as we need information before we fight this Shadow Queen and her minions, again. As we make our way out of town we don’t encounter much in terms of threats as we notice some large centipedes half a days march from town but they seem harmless so long as we keep our distance.
During our first night we set up camp inside Cober’s magic use of “Tiny Hut” spell, and during the watch with Quinn and Ogis, they notice two men sneaking up to the north and as such Ogis and Quinn go to investigate after waking us all from our sleep. Seems its best not to get surrounded as we camped in our magical campsite; as we go to investigate we find it two be a Dwarf and a Human man; where the man seems to be in a bit of pain from withdrawals by using some “Moon Dust.”
The Dwarf fellow tells us that his friend “Ol’Joe” got this “moon dust” from some shady type of person in Port Mirandia. It seems the Port has some illegal acts going on for a soon to be bustling town. We escort the men to camp alongside us for the night, and at morning some townsfolk from Port Mirandia who were searching for “Ol’Joe” as he left town in a drugged up bender from the “moon dust” during the night, they escort the two back to town.
We pack our belongings and begin to head into the Woods south of Port Mirandia and attempt to find the Fey court that dwells within. After some searching, we stumble upon a strange Fey woman and her…elk companion.
Tillimenilla is her name and she sat comfortably drinking from her chalice as we approached, looking for an audience with the Fey Court we inform her as we begin to speak (I just call them the Court of Seasons as I do not know their actual name, crazy Fey). Tillimenilla tells us that none can see the court and that she always enjoys company, especially those who wish to battle against her “Auntie” the Shadow Queen. From what we know from Tilli, is that those on the court are her Aunts and the Shadow Queen is also part of the court but the Court themselves do not hold the Shadow Queen in high regard, or so Tilli implies. We do not find much beneficial information about our expected foe nor her objective with the Altis Symbols or her true power on the island. Tilli is happy with us going to face the Shadow Queen and that we presume none on the Court of Seasons would stand between us anda fight with the Shadow Queen nor would they aid her in any way. We set off after TIlli confirms that the Shadow Queen is hold up in the mountains south-west of the woods; which we believe is also where the Altis Palace is located…seems “Auntie” has made the Palace her home.
We made our way out of the woods and scaled upwards into the mountains southwest of the woods, in search of the Altis Palace. The Altis were a band of Heroes who fought off an ancient and powerful race of Yuan-ti that ruled the western end of the Island ages ago. Now in their deaths they protected their symbols which seem to serve as some key or marker for some sort of ward that locks away the Yuan-ti civilization or perhaps locking away the key to free them. This is what I have been working for with my group of associates, that I have traveled with for most of my time on this Island. An ancient group of heroes, they are bound to hold magical secrets or strong artifacts that would be far suited in my hands to further the Raven’s Queen agenda….
As we camped in the mountains, we settled in Cober’s magical hut but during our watch footsteps are heard that seemed quite loud for any normal sized creature.
This gigantic woman is heard speaking in a tongue I am not familiar with but the friendly firbolg Tramenor is speaking to her as Tramenor speaks to anyone he meets. After some brief back and forth Tramenor tells us that her name is Melidee and she is apart of the GKE alliance. She is tasked with hunting a bounty that has escaped its way into the mountains near us, a dragon of sorts named “Azi Dahaka.” We mention we are apart of White Moon Cove and our purpose is to find the Altis Palace that resides in the mountains, we exchange information between one another and Melidee goes on her way as we continue our nights rest.
As we head out further into the mountains we stumble upon a path that looks to be carved out by someone that is elevated like a small spiral up the mountains. We all cautiously set up the path, but I decide to take a more direct route by invoking the powers I have been given and morph into Atiesh (my raven) to fly upwards and thats when I see the top of this path.
This dragon was nestled in the far corner waiting for us to make our way up the path to strike us. Thankfully I spotted the creature while flying high but it was not much of a warning for my companions as it swooped in over us on the ridge above and let out a heavy breath of lighting that struck Ildan, Quinn, Valor and a few others. A mighty blow to our group that left us to scatter about as we all did not want to be caught by that attack in a group again. The dragon took to going further up the ridge as I nestled on the edge, Cober climbing up with Ildan scaling the mountain ridge and charging at the creature in force. Ogis and Tramenor both hugged the wall as they began to make their way up the path and staying out of reach of the breath attack. However Quinn was distracted seeing her companion Valor fall in combat, she began to bring her partner back to life with her magics while knocking arrow-after-arrow into the creature from a far distance.
Ildan now pressed face-to-face with the dragon while deflecting and at times dealing with its mighty blows. Cober and I now on the same level of the dragon taking its fierce lighting strikes as we pelt it with our magical prowess and flying from far and away are the arrows of Quinn taking her revenge on what this creature did to Valor. After a few more bouts of exchanging blows we finally defeat this creature, and now we go to investigate to see what lies at the top of this path and if this Azi Dahaka has any items stashed away.
We search the bag and find a large amount of gold; though Tramenor was hasty in looking into the sack as I summoned Mortimer to take a look but seems his job was not meaningful for Tramenor to wait on. Never the less we decide to load the bag up by carrying it out of the mountains back to Port Mirandia. Yet our goal has not been met so Tramenor does some of his magical guidance he is able to see from such a far distance a gate that requires what we assume is one of the symbols to open. With a better understanding of where the Palace is, we decide to retreat for now with our earned loot after a strong fight.
As we head back on our path to Port Mirandia, we notice some Giants playing catch with a…giant size diamond. We take a tad bit closer of a look and notice they have a bunch of slaves (or so we presume) excavating the earth to form some mines. As Tramenor suggests that he can peer over the vast distance to get a better look without having to move closer thats when we see a very large shadow descend from the clouds above.
Now that this flying palace has come into view, we all urged Tramenor to spy inside with his magic. After a few brief seconds Tramenor tells us we must run back to town as fast as we can travel. Before I could respond we hear a horn from the flying palace and the Giants are grabbing their weapons and looking around; seems they caught on to Tramenor spying with his magic. As we are running back to the Port, Tramenor fills us in on how he saw a ghastly looking type creature that by his description resembled what is drawn below.
Another creature he noticed was an Ice maiden of sorts, perhaps another Fey creature of sorts as this one was conversing with that apparition type more than likely about what lies in the mines; such as those large diamonds.
Lastly the one that Tramenor was hesistant to describe was the one that saw his magical spying and snuffed it out in a second. A strong type of Fey creature that Tramenor believes holds a leader position within that floating Whale Palace.
With these images depicted of what lies inside the floating whale palace, I now see that the Fey are much stronger of a presence here on the western end of the island. A force that searches farther than this Shadow Queen that wants to end our pursuit of the Altis Heroes, and the impending Yuan-ti threat that these Altis heroes died to seal off in ages past.
Lastly when we were nearing Port Mirandia we saw some obelisk type structures that sprouted out from the ground, with the fear of the giants pursing us didn’t stop to investigate. With our last night spent we all braced ourselves for what was to be expected, and sure enough the loud footsteps of a giant creature came upon us in our Magical hut and it called out to us. Tramenor perked up in excitement as he mentioned his “friend” Melidee has come seeking us again.
Melidee came seeking us to give thanks for killing the bounty she was after as she didn’t expect us to stumble upon it in our travels. As well for doing her this deed she gave us information on the Altis Palace as during her search for the creature she found what we were looking for. Melidee pointed on our map exactly where the Palace is at but it was guarded by her count over 30 archers and that to enter through the main entrance would be a fools errand, Deterred by this bit of information it seems I will need to search for more information on these Altis heroes and their Palace. Find another way in, perhaps further deep into the mountains or by the rivers that cut into the mountains….we need to avoid the archers guarding the entrance and hinder the efforts this Shadow Queen is doing inside.