[Alliance] Chapter Two: Session Twenty
August 10th
0:00
As the day progresses, the sun begins to go down. The soft, gentle rolling hills start to transition into steeper peaks, but still trees and foliage dot the area.
As they are wandering through, Gil hears something distant. It’s the trademark beating of wings, and he takes a look upward. It’s a large figure ducking in and out of the clouds. It has large, leathery wings. There is the trademark sheen of red scales before it disappears into the clouds.
Gil says nothing.
As the sun continues to set, they make camp around 8pm.
As tents are set up, Gil pulls Vel off to the side. He asks her if Uther had talked to her yet, and she’s confused for a moment, and said that they only really talked while playing Hearthstone.
Gil said he will probably be talking to him again then, and they head back.
Just in time for Uther to ask Vel for a moment of her time. They talk, and Uther mentions that Gilveradin had expressed that she had felt like he put the burden of his safety on her. Vel confirms, and he says that was not what he intended. He adds that, ultimately, they are not much different, and that they would both shoulder any burden to protect those they care about. So they would just have to protect each other.
Vel cites the succubus instant, and how immediately after she had to, once again, keep him from acting. He counters that he listened to her then, and she acknowledges the fact, but adds that he should be capable of tempering his actions without her being present.
He pauses, and acknowledges she’s right.
Vel continues that, whether he likes it or not, ultimately Uther remains one of the most important people in the group. The consequences of something happening to him weigh much heavier than the rest of them, given who he is. And he says he will endeavor to keep that in mind.
Vel also then cites a line from his oath: “Never fear to act, but do so with caution.” And he smirks, unsurprised she looked it up, but once again says that he will try to be more careful.
They return to camp, and the night is uneventful.
August 11th
0:25 While continuing the next day, they hear voices speaking in Zandali. The voices are very loud, and deep. Clearly not elven. Vel and Gil are the only ones that understand Zandali, and Vel turns Gil invisible so he can creep ahead.
He does so, and he sees smoke from a campfire. And three very large figures. All three are massive trolls, seemingly dire trolls. One of them is a sand troll, the other a frost troll. One is holding a massive haunch of some sort of creature. There is a dilapidated stone and wood hut, and a massive forest troll is peering into it and rummaging about.
They are still talking. The sand troll complains about how things were easier when they received offerings from their lessers. The frost troll is seemingly female, and expresses it was his fault they got stranded anyway. The forest troll looks back, and tells them to quit complaining. They would be trying to head back soon.
The forest troll had pulled out decayed remnants of a humanoid, and drops the pile of remains next to him as he comes back to the fire. He grabs a femur from the pile, and starts to pick his massive teeth.
There are remains of other creatures around as well. Some of the remains are indicative of a hawkstrider, as well as several other humanoid bodies.
It was likely that, whoever was living in the hut, fell victim to the trolls.
Gil takes a closer look, and he sees signs of them passing. They seem to have come in this direction, but from what he can tell, they haven’t been there for long. They seem to have been continually moving.
Gil creeps forward, and scratches, in Zandali, in the ground directions to the Darkspear, and then uses magic to make the sound of a screeching bat, like the bat Loa they had heard of from Rai.
There is some bickering, as the trolls definitely hear the sound, and finally the forest troll lumbers in the direction. Gil darts behind a tree, the invisibility fading. The troll sniffs the air, and it sees the scratching on the ground.
It looks at it, then calls back: “I found something. And it smells of elf.”
The other two trolls stand up and start to search the area. In common, one of them says: “I smell ya, elf. I won’t fall for whatever this trick be.”
Gil casts pass without trace, and tries to get out. The troll gets to the tree, and takes a massive hand and uproots the tree. However, Gil is long gone. The troll squints, and looks around, muttering that it definitely smelled elf.
The frost troll comes over. “Well. Where is it?”
The first troll claims that he definitely smelled it, and the female whaps him on the back of the head and they start to bicker.
The sand troll says they should be moving on anyways. One of them mentions that the scratching said something about trolls to the south, and they seem to agree it was some sort of trap. They start to head into the opposite direction.
Gil returns to the party, and informs them what he saw, though he leaves out what he tried to do. They need to go deal with the problem.
They follow Gil back, and they pass through the ruined cottage and see the damage they dealt. They follow the dire trolls’ footsteps to a series of mountains and caverns. The group starts to move forward, and they can hear the trolls up ahead.
1:00
The trolls turn, sensing their approach, and Gil fires off a series of arrows. His second arrow shatters onto the side of the sand troll’s head, stunning it. Gil calls for them to stand down.
The forest troll shoves the stunned troll over to the side, and rushes Gil. It swings at him, buffeting him and biting him as it grapples him. Vincent fires an arrow, and misses, but ducks out of sight.
Vel rips open a dimension door, and takes Gil with her to the top of the rocky outcropping next to them, freeing him from the grapple. The troll is confused, his captive now suddenly gone.
Tess attempts to attack, but her blows glance off, while Arator uses compelled duel to draw the forest troll’s attention and swings hard into it. Uther follows up, slamming into the creature. He swings again, thrusting his sword straight through the creature’s heart.
Gil summons a small orb of fire in his hand, and hurls it at the sand troll. However, interesting enough, the fire doesn’t seem to halt its regeneration, as it is a Farakki troll. However, it does get knocked to the ground.
Arator follows up on the female dire troll, slicing into her. However, the wound immediately closes, and she scrambles to attack him. However, he rolls to the side twice, and then kicks off her head, avoiding all three of her attacks.
Uther, meanwhile, moves in on the sand troll. He plunges his weapon into it, his greatsword igniting with holy fire. He then twists the blade, further damaging it. He then wrenches the blade out, and it releases a lot of painted gurgling noises. An arc of fire arcs past the creature, splashing against the wall as he also utilizes green flame blade. There is a gaping wound on its chest, and it is not doing very well.
Vincent then dashes out, and fires a poisoned dart straight into its heart. The heart stops beating, and it falls still for a moment, but then its eyes spring open again and it starts to frantically burrow into the ground. However, Uther plunges his blade down, and it ceases to move once again.
Vel fires a chromatic orb at the frost troll, but it misses. She mutters in annoyance.
However, the forest troll immediately stands up from where it was, and rips into Arator. The frost troll follows up, and Arator falls unconscious.
Vel fires of a cold chromatic orb at the farakki troll, trying to shut down its healing as it is seemingly unaffected by fire, but the cold does also not halt it.
Gil, however, shuts down the forest troll with produce flame as the sand troll burrows under the ground and erupts from beneath, Arator and Tess, shoving Uther back. Gil heals Arator, and Uther runs forward at the sand troll, putting it down again.
Gil shoots the frost troll twice, and Tess stabs into her. The frost troll rounds on Tess, biting her, and then slams Arator against the wall. She grabs Arator, trying a gambit of using him as a hostage. However, Vel takes stock of the situation. She pushes by Gil, and swan dives off the side of the cliff, opening a dimension door down below. She connects with Arator, grabbing him and taking him through the open portal, and they reappear on top of the cliff in safety.
The frost troll seems to be panicking, her gambit now gone.
Uther drops the sand troll as it revives and rounds on him. Vel tries to drop an acidic chromatic orb down on the sand troll, but at the last second veers to avoid Vincent, and the spell sizzles on the ground next to it.
Vincent prepares a strike, and as soon as the sand troll starts to rise, Vincent puts it down again.
The frost troll realizes it’s surrounded, and it tries to just go for the elfiest thing in range. There is a horrible grinding sound as its claws rake across his moonsilver longsword, damaging it slightly.
Uther brings his sword over his fade, golden fire igniting, and he brings the blade down through the creature’s skull. The frost troll collapses, lifeless.
Vel takes one deep breath, and drops a final acidic chromatic orb on the sand troll, dropping it permanently.
2:03
Both Vel and Gil go to Arator, who is a bit confused as Gil heals him. Vel tells him not to roll over, as he’ll fall, and he realizes he’s on top of the cliff.
They reconvene, taking a brief rest and looting the bodies. During which, Vel looks at Uther, with a slight smirk, and just states: “Like I said, calculated risks.”
Uther says she doesn’t get a free pass because she’s better at it.
Vel says he just needs to get better, and she has a book on probabilities if he wants it.
2:10
The group continues on after their rest, finding a number of signals that Farstriders use to communicate, which were likely from Vereesa. Eventually, they come upon a camp. Jaina is pouring over her notes. Vereesa is tending to the fire. Theo is sitting nearby eating rations. Valeera is struggling with a tent. Caleron is playing fetch with Whisper, while Zaeneas is both laughing at Valeera and checking her out.
Gil starts to fill them in on what happened, but Vel interrupts him, instead explaining, quietly. She mentions it would be best if only Jaina, herself, or Uther openly state any sensitive information given the threat of divination magic. Jaina agrees.
Jaina and Vel start to triangulate the locations of the moonkeys, illuminating areas of the map according to the coordinates imprinted in their minds from the runestones.
They discuss a plan.
Gil presents, via a note Vel is holding, that they contact Talath about moonkey forgeries. Jaina agrees, and she and Vel agree to go to Dalaran once they get one of the keys to get him started on such. Vereesa, momentarily, is very interested when Vel mentions Talath is living in her manor, but mentions she’ll ask more later.
Once they have all the keys and forgeries, they can potentially make a double-play gambit, with someone getting captured willingly, and the rest of the group posing to try and get them out, which may draw the warlocks out to try and interfere--as they don’t know there is actually no risk to them from Kael’thas any longer. In the meanwhile, the real moonkeys would be given to trusted individuals, such as Valeera and Finnall, to get to Kael’thas, while the fakes are held by more obvious people.
Vel also mentions she’d been working on a tracking spell that she can finish and potentially place on one of the fakes, which Jaina expresses that such a spell in general is “quite brilliant.”
There’s a bit of pride on Vel’s part.
2:35
Vincent and Valeera converse a bit, and Vincent asks if she took care of what he asks her to do. She said she did. He comments on her tent skills, and Valeera invites him to show her up.
Vincent assembles the tent quickly, and turns around with pride. However, as he does, it immediately collapses. Valeera starts laughing. Zaeneas comments “swing and a miss, Vincent.”
Meanwhile, Vereesa is prodding Vel for the “scoop” on the mansion she had mentioned, and her roommate. Vel explains the story of how she inherited Kel’Thuzad’s manor, and states simply that Talath living there was for practicality and it benefited them both: she could trust him to take care of things, and he could take care of her cat, and he was in a very good place to grow his jewelry business.
Vereesa is simply giving Vel a look, but Vel insists it’s a business partnership. Vereesa laughs and simply says that “had it been anyone else, she wouldn’t have believed a word of it.” and tells Vel to “never change.”
2:48
August 12th
The groups bid each other farewell, Arator going with Vereesa this time, while Jaina goes with the PC group. The first day is completely uneventful.
August 13th
As they head down the path, they see a piece of wood roughly hewn and set up. There is writing in Thalassian in not particularly neat script: “Caution. Road work ahead. Unstable rocks.” They opt to risk it.
They hear the rhythmic sound of mining as they go, and they see a lone elf working. Jaina disguises herself, and she and Vincent approach the man.
He greets them, and asks why they are there.
Vincent explains they are passing through. They take stock of the situation, and ask how familiar he is with the area. He’s quite familiar, and confirms this is the safer passage, as there are some stories around the other routes that are quite dangerous as the animals are quite prone to be more vicious around the area. He offers them compensation for aid, such as a hot meal.
They discuss potentially helping the man, and agree to do so. The appear, and Vel casts unseen servant to help, while Vincent assists Uther by clearing out small rocks while Uther breaks apart big ones. Meanwhile, Vel freezes rocks, while Gil uses fire to cause them to explode in a form of mining.
Tess is mining with tools like a boss.
Jaina also uses magic to help, utilizing telekinesis. The miner is flabbergasted, and they get done, together, in about a half hour. He invites them back to his abode so he can give them some rations, and they can refill their water skins.
When they approach the small stone abode, they seen a golden-haired dog tied loosely nearby. The man undoes the leash, and the dog immediately runs to Gil and jumps up on his chest, trying to lick him. Gil goes to play with the dog.
The dog keeps a wide berth from Vel, however. To no surprise of hers. It keeps about a 10 foot radius away from her.
Gil asks the man where he got his dog, and he mentions that the dog’s name is Quenya, and he had gotten an affection for the breed from his wife, who was a human. This one was a gift from his daughter, who had enlisted in the military down north.
Gil nods. It checks out.
The man offers payment, but they said that just some info on the area was fine, which he provides. Gil asks him how long he had lived there, and he replied only about 100 years. He had moved there with his wife, previously, who had passed away from age, but he had fallen in love with the hills.
They ask some more casual questions, and he mentions that a group of Guardians of Eternal Spring had passed through recently.
He offers them to stay for as long as they need, but he would hate to force them to tarry longer than needed. He introduces himself as Zenas. Gil says he name is Galadin.
As they leave, Vincent sneaks one of the gemstones they looted from the trolls into a drawer. Only Tess sees him do it.
Once they are a safe distance away, Vel sends Borel, asking if he sent a squad to the moonkey east of Tranquilien. He confirms he did.
They get to the fork that Zenas had mentioned that was a dead end. Jaina detects magic, but senses nothing, however, they veer toward the dead end.
They start to feel and search around, Jaina having sensed magic, and Vincent finds a small, person-sized section of the wall to the left that seems to be covered by an illusion.
Vincent squeezes into it, and on the other side of the wall, there is a magnificent gazeebo-like building. Nestled on an alter is a small, crystalline object suspended magically in the center of the altar.
There are guardians of the Eternal Spring and Spellbreakers situated around the gazeebo. He then hears a voice.
“Someone approaches! Someone is approaching!”
There is a young male magister with fiery red hair that springs out, alerting as many people as possible. He informs them someone had triggered his alarm.
Vincent slips back, and it seems no one saw him, but there is the sound of armored footsteps bracing inside.
“Attention intruders! Reveal yourselves immediately! You’re in a restricted area. Reveal yourselves now, and you’ll be treated fairly.”
Vincent recognizes the voice.
It’s Captain Lana’thel.
