[Alliance] Chapter Three: Session Eleven

Appearing Characters: Aethas Sunreaver, Elissa Cross, Esara Verrinde, Fennie Hornswaggle, Galadin Windrunner, Gilveradin Windrunner, Giramar Windrunner, Hardigan Ironjaw, Hemet Nesingwary, Hilda Hornswaggle, Hugh Deepstone, Imogen, Raluhi, Remnii, Rhonin Windrunner, Seria, Uther Menethil, Velameestra Windrunner, Victor Prestor

December 12th

Hugh explains that the Shadowhide gnolls are a rare breed and clan of gnolls that has not been seen for a long time.

She offers 150 gold pieces.

Remnii said she didn’t have time today, but she promised to return tomorrow with a friend of her’s in tow, which left Hugh quite excited.

Remnii nods.

Remnii nods confidently.

Hilda expresses that Remnii could likely make some money if she wrote a dissertation on it, but she said she can get a list together. Brann Bronzebeard was one of the main ones, though she also mentions the human expedition that left several years ago. Greydon Thorne from Stormwind was one of the names she provided.

Remnii asks if there is anything she could bring tomorrow, and Hugh pipes up that if she has any artifacts she is willing to part with, he would happily like to take a look at it.

She pulls out an orcish iron coin.

Hugh gleefully reaches out for the coin.

Remnii nods and he happily takes it.

He shakes Remnii’s hand again and then elbows his compatriot.

Ironjaw confirms.

Ironjaw and Hugh share a look, curious about the fact this alien individual holds the religion.

Remnii nods.

Remnii chuckles.

Remnii laughs, endeared, and then looks to Vel to check to make sure the elf was also ready to go. Vel had been watching the exchange and had shared a side glance with Imogen given the situation was simultaneously comical but also endearing.

Vel then nods to Remnii.

Vel gives her a nod and Remnii and Vel leave.

At the manor, while Vel and Remnii are out, Gil tracks down Victor who is getting ready to leave as well. He is gazing off in the direction of the mountains.

Gil tilts his head.

Gil smiles.

Victor furrows his brow for a moment.

Gil nods.

Gil grins.

They hear the sounds of Vel and Remnii returning.

The group that is leaving sets off from Dalaran. Rhonin and the boys said their goodbyes earlier, as did Talath before he headed out to the guild, but Raluhi, Remnii, and Gil bids them farewell.

Uther, Vel, Seria, Esara, Elissa, and Victor begin the trek, heading eastward toward the Alterac mountains. Esara bounces between riding with Uther and Elissa. Seria had taken the form of a fluffy wolf-like creature. Periodically they stop to eat and rest for a moment, but they quickly approach the mountains near sunset.

The lights of a town shimmer near the base of the mountains.

He points at the small town.

They ride into the small town. There are less than a dozen buildings. A general store, a few lodges. There’s an inn, and an old watchtower that looks like it’s mostly repaired, but there are lights in the windows. As they pass the square, there is an announcement board. However, something catches Uther’s eye.

One of the pieces of parchment shows the sigil of Alterac as well as the sigil of the Knights of the Silver Hand.

Uther stops to investigate.

Many of the entries are general fare. There is an older woodcutter looking for an able-bodied youth to marry his daughter, and other common requests.

But the one that caught his attention has a few extra things pinned to it. It is a variety of outstanding bounties with several associated names of members of the Silver Hand.

Uther knows the basics of the people.

Sir Zeliek Kane is the leader of a subset of the Silver Hand called the Justicars. They are a sect of knights and hunters that specialize in hunting and tracking criminals as well as dangerous monsters. He is Julia Celeste’s commander.

Lady Adelaide Kane is Sir Zeliek’s wife, though he doesn’t know anything about Lady Yvette Blackheart or Sir Mirran Lichbane.

The inn has a single room available, which Victor rents. The rest of the group camps outside.

Back in Dalaran, Remnii has gotten through another day of common.

Gil is working with the Sunreavers more. He is able to triangulate the demons and their movements, and got quite a bit of information. He also ran it against the census data, adjusting for margin of error.

December 13th

The next morning the group sets off. It’s actually fairly good weather.

At the end of the second day with the Sunreavers, Gil hears his name. He turns to who spoke to him, and he sees a young elf with long ruby-colored hair and bright blue eyes. He’s well-dressed in a long indigo jacket, but the sigil of the Sunreavers is on a small pin on the jacket.

He offers a hand, and Gil slow-blinks then shakes his hand.

He quiets his voice a bit and gestures for Gil to walk with him.

He leads Gil to the Cantation Cantina, and they are able to sit outside as there is a small amount of magic keeping the area immediately around the diner temperate. Aethas pays for Gil’s meal and makes small talk. He doesn’t bring up the Sunreavers again.

Many eyes glance to them, and there is a lot of gossip brewing.

Gil asks about Aethas’s long-game with the organization.

Gil nods.

The waitress comes by with the bill, and she immediately runs back to her fellows to giggle about the two handsome elves. Aethas pays the bill and they say goodbye and part ways.

Some of the waitresses also look at Gil and giggle, and an older elvish woman scolds them to get back to work. Gil winks at them and one blushes, but they do get back to work.

Gil then heads back to the manor.

Meanwhile, Remnii had gone out with Raluhi to visit the Explorer’s League. They meet Hugh there, and Fennie is also hanging about organizing books and the like. Other people come in and out.

In common, Raluhi explains that this is going to be like a final test and Remnii will not be using magic. Hugh is eagerly noting the differences between the two of them, and they go on to talk for many hours about the draenic people.

Remnii answered many questions and also formerly introduced Raluhi, emphasizing that he will be staying in the city for the foreseeable future.

Near the end of their time there, Remnii does bring up the Violet Star again.

Hilda comes out with a stack of books and she drops them on the table.

She puts some spectacles on.

She looks at Raluhi gratefully.

Hugh looks at Raluhi.

Hugh is quite pleased, and Remnii asks if there are any other questions for her before she leaves.

Which Hilda confirmed they did in the last few months.

Remnii agrees.

He clams up and Hilda gets a good chuckle. Raluhi suggests that he and Remnii leave and get back to the house, and the two draenei thank them again and head off.

Upon seeing Gil at the house, she greets him.

Gil pauses, then smiles.

There is more cute thanks between the pair of them, and Raluhi expresses that he is going to check on Talath to see how he is doing.

He heads off to check on Talath, and Remnii asks Gil how his day was.

He looks a bit unsure.

Gil nods.

She’s quiet for a moment, and then she nods.

Gil nods.

Remnii nods.

Gil shrugs.

Gil considers for a moment.

Gil shakes his head.

Gil stops and thinks for a long moment.

Remnii nods.

Remnii smiles.

Remnii says that with a look on her face. Like she’s seen it before.

Remnii nods slowly and thoughtfully.

Gil listens earnestly.

They nod, and Remnii heads to go find some food.

Gil shows Giramar some of the training Farstriders go through, which included wrapping Giramar in vines and telling him to figure it out. Galadin also joined in, and Rhonin sat watching, sipping some hot cocoa from the window.

Back with the group traveling through the mountains, they awaken early and prepare to ascend the mountains. They head east out of the town and start to traverse the jagged paths.

While Seria had never been in this area, she understands enough about paths through the mountains that she can figure out enough. They move slowly and carefully. There is no real trail, simply more sections of mountain.

However, they can see the city of Dalaran in the distance behind them.

The snow crunches underfoot as they meander through. About three hours into their journey they hear, echoing through the sky, a gunshot. Birds immediately take off into the sky, and several other gunshots go off.

Victor looks up and then back to the rest of the group.

Cautiously, they move forward. They travel for an hour, and then they see something up ahead. There are three mounds of white fur. Some snow has blown over it. Flecks of red are bright against the snow.

It’s still a good 300-400ft ahead.

Vel uses major image to conjure a snow drift to mask the rest of the group’s presence while Seria scouts ahead. She changes form into a snowy lynx, and she slinks toward the bodies. She smells recently spilled blood and gunpowder.

She keeps low in the snow, her paws barely leaving a dent. Two of the figures are much larger than her, and the other is a bit smaller than her lynx form. They are large, muscular, humanoid-esque creatures with bluish skin and white fur covering their bodies. All three are very dead, and they have monstrous faces transfixed in roars and death throes.

Most interesting, there are stumps of horns that have been sliced off on all three of them. But the three are very much dead.

Seria continues to slink around to find any sign of other activity, and she’s five sets of footprints that continue heading east. There is blood spattered about, but no other bodies. The boots are hard to place, but judging by the size of the bootprints, two are larger with a shorter gait, while one is smaller with a longer gait. She wages that the two short gaited large prints are dwarves, and the others are likely humans.

Seria then hears the snow drift shift, and the group sees a small yeti crawl out of the snow drift and crawl to the two larger bodies. The young yeti places a hand on the side of one of the yetis and makes a quiet crooning sound. It doesn’t seem to have noticed Seria or the others.

Seria is poking around and she is able to identify the creatures as wendigos. They are very slightly different than yetis. Vel does know these creatures are generally very solitary or they live in small family groups. Typically speaking, the only time they live in groups are when they are rearing young.

It’s hard to say how old the creatures are, but it seems to Seria that the babies are relatively newborn. The stories she had heard were of ones much larger than these as they hailed from ice troll homeland. They normally reach maturity at about nine years, but a wendigo bereft from its parent before that will not survive.

Both Vel and Seria know they are most dangerous when instigated.

Vel and Victor both agree just going around or scaring it off would likely be the best. Elissa doesn’t want to just leave it and wants to maybe find another couple to leave it with, but Esara says that’s not really how that works.

Vel is looking at Seria to see if she does anything. Seria is doing nothing, so Vel shifts the illusion to take the guise of a roaring blaze of crackling fire. The baby yeti looks at the fire wide-eyed and tries to drag one of its parents, but realizing they didn’t move, it then skitters away and disappears.

Victor steps out of the illusion and looks back at it.

Vel then dismisses the illusion and Elissa stares wistfully after the baby wendigo.

They start to continue moving forward, and Seria transforms back into her humanoid form. She goes over to the trees near the bodies, and clasps her hands together, whispering to herself as she casts force of nature.

One of the nearby trees starts to move and the huge evergreen begins to shift, its bark forming into a face. It then lifts its roots out of the ground and moves closer to the wendigo bodies.

The tree speaks in Darnassian.

The tree creaks in answer and its branches curl together around the bodies and bring them to the site of its roots. It then plants itself into the ground again and begins to drag them into the earth, burying the bodies within the reaches of its roots.

The rest of the group is just staring.

Elissa comes over to Seria, her eyes wide.

Vel breaks the frozen motions and starts to follow the footprints. However, Seria speaks in druidic to the site of the bodies.

Elissa puts a hand on Seria’s shoulder with a smile before she mounts back up and continues on with the others.

They follow the tracks for a bit, and its not long before the group sees the smoke of a campfire up ahead. There are people sitting around it.

Victor keeps heading forward.

The group heads over and there are five figures that note their approaches. As had been suspected, there is a squat older dwarf with a long cloak made from a polar bear’s fur who is bald. They are enjoying a meal, and they note their approach as a group.

The older dwarf is the most well-dressed. There is a human with brownish red hair in a bun and a bow on her back that she is fletching arrows for. There is a second human with facial hair and similarly-colored hair with a gun. There is another dwarf with bright brown hair who is looking through a number of pages. Lastly there is a darker-skinned human woman with long black hair on one side and a braided undercut. There is a great axe leaning against her things and she is enjoying her meal with both hands.

Seria has her hood up.

The dwarf with the book hails his leader and points out the travelers.

The elder dwarf stands up and looks toward the group.

She is looking at Seria.

Nesingwary looks at the rest of his group and suggests they get back to Stranglethorn. He mentions his layabout son and is wondering if he made any progress on what he’s doing.

Vel starts moving by the camp and the others follow. Seria follows, but she lags behind and casts a spell. She mutters the incantation, and there is a wisp of red magic energy that course from her hands and eyes, and then it vanishes.

In the distance, Nesingwary stops and blinks, and then looks up to the sky, but he shakes his head. He looks about, scanning the area with his rifle in hand, suspicious. But he doesn’t seem to see anything.

The others grab their weapons as well and begin to break up camp.

Seria feels a seething hatred in her chest.

The rest of the group sees Seria cast the spell. Vel identifies the spell, but she says nothing.

Esara, however, puts a hand on Seria’s shoulder.

Esara smiles, then switches to Darnassian.

Seria just nods, and they catch up with the others. For the first hour or so, Seria is still very angry, but that subsides with time.

For a little bit, the group gets sidetracked and a few small details were missed. However, Seria was able to recover from it before nightfall. As the sun sets and the day of travel is complete, the group finds a small snowy clearing to sit down and make camp. Vel sets up her alarm spell and spends some time training with Esara.

Uther and Victor have first watch.

Victor swallows.

It’s obvious Victor is proxying the question, but Uther has gauged him enough that he can tell that he’s hiding something more. He’s looking for advice, and that’s why he’s asking.

Victor takes a deep breath.

The watch comes to an end, and Vel and Esara come out to relieve them. Vel glances at Victor.

Nothing of significance happens. Esara periodically points out things in the sky as she stargazes, but they spend most of the time in companionable silence.

Seria and Elissa come out for the third watch, and by the tablet, Elissa is painting on a tablet. Periodically she will look at Seria and then continue drawing on her tablet. By the end of the watch she smiles and shows Seria what she did.

It was quickly painted, and it’s Seria kneeling with the treant she had awakened behind her. It’s a very powerful picture featuring Seria communing with this great nature spirit.

Seria doesn’t know what to say.

At that moment they hear the sound of something metallic, and the sound of something nearby making a crooning sound. It’s not far. Or rather, Seria hears it. Elissa doesn’t.

Seria immediately gets up.

Seria is quiet, looking around where the noise came from. It was from the north of the camp, fairly close.

Elissa nods.

She draws her sword and shield.

Seria starts to creep in the direction of the noise. Less than a minute away, they see something through the trees. It’s a quadrupedal creature with a brilliant white coat. Upon its equine head is a long mane of tealish hair, almost the same color of the moonlight. And on its forehead is a long curved horn that comes up and curves back in an arcing semi-circle. It’s front right hoof is caught in a rusty bear trap.

Seria doesn’t know anything about this creature, but it looks at Seria with intelligent eyes. Seria approaches slowly, and it looks at her warily, but then it brings its head up in a proud manner.

Seria talks to it quietly as she reaches for the trap, but she feels something touch her mind. It’s a wariness, a communication from the creature, as if it’s asking how it could trust her.

Seria holds out a goodberry, and the unicorn squints. There’s a glowing light, and beautiful, almost wispy light washes up from its horn in an array of moonlight. Then it looks at Seria, and she gets the thought of “you’re just like they were.”

The unicorn then eases and takes the goodberry.

There are thoughts and feelings that say “The others. I will show you, when you free me.”

Seria ducks down to remove the trap, and she muscles it open slowly. The unicorn pulls its hoof out, and there’s the feeling of immense gratitude from it. She also casts cure wounds on the wound.

The unicorn nods to her and presses its head toward her as she stands. It looks over to Elissa and she gets the question of “who is she?”

Seria looks at Elissa then back to the unicorn.

Elissa’s eyes light up.

Seria gets the impression of “I will take you when you’re ready. Do you have other friends here as well? I smell them.”

There is the question of “are they safe to trust?”

Seria nods, and then the unicorn follows her back to the camp. At this point the sun has begun to rise, and the night is beginning to end. One-by-one, the group wakes up to the sight of Elissa brushing the coat of a unicorn that was not formerly here, and is now resting near Seria and the others.

It sends her the impression of what it would be called. What she gets is the sensation of longingness and serenity that comes from listening to a waterfall rushing down the side of a creek.

The rest of the party is roused, and there’s a lot of confusion over the fact there is a unicorn here. Vel momentarily wonders if perhaps it’s the steed of a paladin, but that is quickly determined to not be the case. However, Seria presents that it wishes to help them.

The unicorn opens a portal and steps through it, and Seria and Elissa promptly jump after it. There are a lot of exchanged glances, and one by one the party follow, though Victor is incredibly exasperated by this entire situation.

The party finds themselves inside a very well-kept ice cave. There are beautiful, prismatic stalactites, and the floor is made of ice, but there is a lit lake beneath it. In the center are trees. Beautiful trees growing out of the ice itself.

There are birds in the trees. It’s warmer than an ice cave should be.

The unicorn walks to a grove nearby, and Seria follows. There are some stones and trees, and there are a series of notes in druidic upon some of the stones that look like they were placed there on purpose.

Beneath the stones there is a troll entombed within the ice. One with thick, blue-white fur, who almost appears to be slumbering.

This page was last edited on November 29, 2020, at 06:51 PM

• ▲ Top ▲
• Search
• Recent Changes
• All Recent Changes

“Oh no! You can take that ship’s mast and shove it up your arse, demon prince.”

• Ancestries
• Achievements

World

• Characters
• Creatures
• Items
• Languages
• Lore
• Factions
• Places

Story

• Timeline
• 1 Matters of Life & Death
• 2 Casting Dice
• 3 The Scales Tip
• 4 Homecoming
• 5 Civil War

Spells

• Death
• Chaos
• Life
• Light
• Order
• Shadow
• Elementalism
• Arcane Warrior
• Artificer
• Paladin
• Ranger
• Black Dragonsworn
• Blue Dragonsworn
• Bronze Dragonsworn
• Green Dragonsworn
• Red Dragonsworn

Organization

• Templates

edit SideBar