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======35. Entry Thirty Five: The Beastlands======

(January 2020)

While the Bishop was away on a mysterious quest, Helga continued to take care of things around town.  She sold the corpse of the Ethereal Doppelganger to the [[university_of_planar_studies#University]], and received the revenue from [[Giovanni]], who seemed to be doing alright despite having a fire break out and an invasion of Elementals of some kind.

After a few more days, the Party finally was ready to make the journey to [[the Beastlands]] to find [[The Beastlands#the Bow of Thaas]], the powerful holy weapon of leend.  They entered a portal located in a private arboreum in the Lady's Ward of Sigil that led directly to [[The Beastlands#Ilifar-In-The-Wind]], an outpost mostly peopled by Avariels, or Winged Elves, on Krigala, the first level of the Beastlands.  The city was built into a gigantic tree, and was primarily intended for winged people, but had some rope-ways and other allowances for non-flying people.  

The Party was able to easily secure a meeting with their leader, [[The Beastlands#Prince Allarien]], due to the spreading fame of Helga and the Bishop.  Helga was somewhat concerned that he knew that she was raising an army to fight against slavery.

He told the Planeswalkers that he had been part of a band of adventurers that included [[The Beastlands#Amakiir Anastrianna]], the Druid who originally wielded the bow, and [[The Beastlands# Allisiphone]], a Water Nymph who also lived in the Beastlands.  After he had given up adventuring to lead his people, Amakiir had continued to battle Demons in the Abyss.  She was unfortunately slain during such an outing, and Allisiphone had a hand in retrieving her remains from the Lower Planes and burying her, along with the holy bow, somewhere in [[The Beastlands#Karasuthra]], the third level of the Beastlands. 

 Allarian willingly informed the Party of the whereabouts of Allisiphone, in a pool a few days travel East of Ilifar-in-the- Wind.  He warned that we would have to travel through Wemic (Lion Centaur) Country, and mentioned that some powerful druids had recently gone to meet with the Wemics for some reason.  At Cal's request, he gave us some symbols that showed we had his blessing, including a bow, arrow and feather.

The Party spent a few hours in the settlement; Reinhalt, who has an interest in sculpting, got a brief lesson in the glass blowing techniques of the Avariel (who make glass as strong as steel).  The Bishop also took an interest in the glass, and talked with the Elves about commissioning a dome for the Dirty Habit.  Martigan put on a display of his martial prowess in a public area, and sparred with some of the locals.

The Planeswalkers decided to take the slightly longer route through the mountains to avoid dealing with the Wemics.   As they approached the base of the mountains that evening, they saw evidence of an unusual thunder storm at the top of the mountain.  There was some talk of Cal or Reinhalt flying up to scout out the event, but it was decided that the Party should go together the next day.

The next day, they started up into the mountain range.  After a few hours, they heard cries for help.  Rushing up, they found a man half-buried under rubble, saying he had come up the mountain to admire the view, and been caught in an avalanche.  Most of the party rushed forward to help him; however, Cal noticed that there were not really many rocks around as there would be if there had been an avalanche, and the Bishop was also suspicious, questioning the man.  

It turned out their fears were well-founded; they had walked into a trap created by some Slaad.  The man disappeared and was replaced by two Red Slaad behind the party, and a Grey Slaad a bit further away.  Helga immediately sprang into action; after Toby flanked one of the Red Slaad and distracted it, she drove her scythe into a critical part of it's body, slaying it in a single blow.  It melted into goo and dissapeared from sight after it's death.  The Grey Slaad called out a magical word which caused Helga to be overwhelmed and helpless (Power Word: Stun), and the remaining Red Slaad moved in for the kill.  Fortunately, the Bishop cast  Halt, stopping the Red Slaad in its tracks.

Cal unleashed a Sunbeam that blinded the Gray Slaad and severely wounded the Red one; Skippy also through a boulder at it from her Bag of Boulders, and the Bishop Stunned it with a blow from his magical rapier.  Toby quickly moved in and finished it off.  The Grey Slaad tried to teleport away, but was killed by Martigan and Reinhalt (in Dragon form) before it had a chance. Its body didn't dissolve as the Red Slaad had.  

As the Party recovered from the fight, the storm cloud that had been causing the strange storms earlier approached.  Cal called out a greeting, and a face appeared in the cloud; his name was [[The Beastlands#Breath of Life]], and he was an Elder Air Elemental with near God-like powers.  The Bishop quickly covered up the carnage with an illusion spell, worried that any sort of fighting on the mountain might be frowned upon.

Seeing through the illusion, the Elemental thanked us for getting rid of the Slaad for him, which was the reason he had been angry the night before.   He asked us another favour; to remove the Slaad eggs planted by the Red Slaad in several mountain goats.  Cal and Toby, both having experience dealing with animals, went ahead and attempted to cure the first Goat the Elemental led them to.  They managed to calm it down, but were having difficulty successfully removing the egg.  Using the rings, they asked if Skippy, who has considerable medical experience, could come and help them.  With her help, and the use of one magical coccoon from Cal, they got the eggs out of three Goats, and also removed the eggs from some already deceased Goats before they could hatch.

Breath of Life thanked them, and asked what he could do for them.  They told him of the great evil that was arising (without mentioning its [[Shadow Lord#name]]) and asked if he might be able to help the army in some way; he frowned and said he would have to talk with his associates, but counted the news as another favour.  The Party asked if he could send some Giant Eagles to them for transportation, but he did not know the Eagles exact whereabouts and said it might take some time, so the Party decided to continue on by foot or summoned horseback

In another day, they had reached the Pool of Allisiphone.  To their consternation, they found it foul smelling and polluted.  After calling loudly, they finally met Allisiphone, but she looked haggard and sickly, and was too upset to be of much help.  She informed them that something was coming downstream into her pool, but she had no idea what.  The Party continued another half-day to where the river connected to the pool.   The pollution seemed to have come from much further up.

As the Party rode up (on summoned horses and the wolves) along the river, Cal spotted something hanging much further up, from the branches of trees.  It looked like some sort of effigy made out of a frog which had been rent apart, along with sticks and other debris.  Skippy, going up to cut it down, first set it on fire with Alchemist's Fire; he Fire spread quickly to the trees.  Luckily, Cal had prayed for Create Water, and was able to put it out before it did much damage.  Skippy then completed cutting it off the tree, letting it crash to the ground, where it was destroyed beyond all recognition.  The Party was still able to determine that it was likely dedicated to a trickster Demon Lord called Fraz-Urb'luu.

 The Planeswalkers continued onward. Suddenly, the Horse Toby and Helga were riding on plummeted down a 100 foot pit, landing on spikes.  Helga and Toby were slightly injured, but luckily the summoned Horse (who was killed) took most of the damage.

Immediately after Helga fell, some ape-like demons (Bar-Lguras) bounded invisibly out of the forest and grappled Cal, Martigan, and also Skippy, off the front of the horse where she was riding with the Bishop.  Cal and Martigan managed to break their grapples.  Skippy tried taunting the one that had grabbed her, but it took no notice.  The Party moved to engage the Demons, with Helga flying out of the pit, carrying Toby, but they disappeared (teleported) away as quickly as they had appeared, carrying Skippy with them.

Reinhalt attempted to find their location with  a scroll of Locate Object, using Skippy's fiddle as the object, but she appeared to be out of range (over 500 feet away).  Silverpaw couldn't find her scent.  A distraught Bishop talked to Skippy through the ring.  She said they had done something to her; she couldn't move her arms or wings, and she couldn't see anything.  She thought they had sewn her limbs to her body, and perhaps also put her in a bag...

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