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Harriers & Harpies

Last week, the party trekked into the wilderness to follow the Circle of the Black Sun. They safely navigated the roads and started following a stream that came from the Black Sun's expected destination, Lake Solace. As they ascended into the mountains, they noticed a furtive movement ahead of them, so Charlie snuck off to the side to get high ground and Ayala swam forward in the stream to scout ahead. She found a group of Black Sun rangers, and they also noticed her in the water. They tried to shoot her, she tried to drown them, and the battle was joined. Mikolash found himself out of position and became with riddled with arrows, suffering his first vital wounds since the adventure started. He was greatly displeased. However, the party made good use of their terrain by wantonly and repeatedly tossing rangers into the river, and managed to finish the fight with no less than three new prisoners who surrendered during the fight and no successful escapees. The rangers initially tried to resist interrogation, but the party's combination of glowering, demonic menace (especially Camilla, though points to Gregory for trying) and friendly persuasion (especially Ayala) convinced them to share everything they knew.

According to the rangers, the Circle of the Black Sun was indeed trying to use the power in the Sekerren Ruins for unknown purposes. This group of rangers was one of the groups that had been told to infiltrate the Nullwardens to prevent them from interfering with the Sekerren Ruins. However, something they found surprising was that they were taking orders within the Nullwardens from an elite Void Champion named Veera who predated the infiltration. Veera already seemed to know about the Black Sun's plans, and she was the one who told the rangers that their cover was blown and that they needed to gather with the rest of the Black Sun and retreat to the mountains. The rangers didn't know the exact nature of the magic the druids were performing, but expected that it would be harmful to Praxis in some way.

With that new information, the party decided to keep following the Circle of the Black Sun with the prisoners in tow in the hopes that they could use the prisoners for leverage. Farther up the mountain, they noticed a group of harpies trying to be ambush them, and tried to back away. However, the harpies noticed their attempt to retreat and gave chase, and another battle ensued. The party once again made good use of forced movement effects to punish the harpies for their foolish attempts to fly, and managed to mostly resist the harpies' songs. However, Mikolash was caught off guard by a ferocious talon dive that left him unconscious at the brink of death. The party scrambled desperately to try to save him, and Gregory tossed Camilla his most powerful magical emergency potion so she could quickly feed it to Mikolash, leaving him barely alive. The harpies took advantage of Camilla's distraction to fill her full of arrows as well, so both Camilla and Mikolash took cover behind a rock wall to stabilize. The rangers saw how wounded they were and were concerned if the party would survive, so they offered to help, and Camilla decided to free them. The rangers ran into the fight and helped the party finish off the remaining harpies, and the party took a moment to lick their wounds and contemplate their next move.

Join us this week to keep tracking the Circle of the Black Sun and to discover more reasons why people in Praxis stay out of the mountains!

Stupid Awards

Ayala: Camilla: Charlie: Mikolash:
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