🌅10. fun in the sun
session 10 • 02/08/2022 • 1,886 words
『 📜 』 adventure log
🌞 DAY 3 • 📅 ELEINT 24
Beach Episode
As the fight draws to a close, the two groups of adventurers get to talking.
The young elven mage, Esta, runs up to Colt and begins to gush over his magic and swords skills, while the muscular elven fighter, Ayluin, compliments Hugh on his excellent form in battle, as well as on his shoving technique. The cleric of the other group, Celaena, seeing Lera's holy symbol on her shield, approaches Lera to ask her about Helm. During this time, Sorennar walks past and Lera notices that Celaena shifts away from him.
Esta tries to compare / introduce Aien (Ayluin's brother) and Colt, given their similarities in fighting style, but Aien seems irritable and goes to sit alone by a distant tree. During this talk, Esta refers to Sorennar as "it", and begins to ask odd questions about Sorennar -- whether the "dirt elves" glow in the dark and grow horns. Colt defends Sorennar in this conversation.
Hugh reprimands Ayluin over his mistakes in combat, and Ayluin takes it all in stride, before deciding to go for a cannonball in the lake. He invites the rest of the group, who all follow.
After tempting the eating baby hyena away from the Bulette corpse with jerky, Sorennar begins to investigate it, learning that the Bulette had almost certainly been chased out of the Underdark by these gnolls (it left a bloodied hole nearby).
He considers the implications of this regarding his family being in the Underdark, as well as how it weighs against the Oblex's claims of an invasion; then shares this with the nearby Lera. She in turn shares with him what she gleaned from her past readings: that the Gnolls serve a Demon Prince named Yeenoghu.
Celaena and Lera have a talk about Helm, in which Lera questions Celaena about the philosophies of Helm, as well as her idea of impartial justice towards actions such as murdering in self-defence. Lera seems to grow disillusioned with Celaena's attitude towards justice and punishment, especially when Celaena begins to seem a little overeager to indoctrinate Lera in to the church of Helm. Lera confronts her about her reaction to Sorennar, convincing her to "promise" to judge Sorennar only after getting to know him.
Adventurer Olympics
Ayluin, in the meantime, is strongarming ;) everyone into various competitions of strength and athletics, taking an interest in Hugh and Sildar especially for their build. He competes against Sildar, Lera, Colt and Hugh in arm-wrestling competitions, winning all of them. He then challenges them all to a swimming competition, which Colt wins easily due to his dexterity (BA dash).
Sorennar joins the group in the water, taking off his cape and sitting alone at a far corner. Lera comes by to kindly sit by him while watching Colt's coat, but due to how seemingly bothered he is about the demons + new adventuerers "stealing" the party, Sorennar is unfairly cold towards her.
Sildar drops by to speak to Sorennar, and in his frustration, Sorennar outright reveals -- to a completely oblivious-till-now Sildar -- his desire to take their relationship to a carnal level. Sorennar leaves Sildar extremely flustered and speechless in the water, heading off into the forest to collect some plants.
Esta begins continuing her line of questioning about the "dirt elf", which Hugh is within earshot of this time. Hugh vehemently defends Sorennar's honor, confusing Esta as she seeks confirmation from Ayluin that "the drow are the ones who take people to the Underdark to enslave, right?"
Ayluin confirms this, and emboldened in the idea that the adventurers are being forced by Sorennar to stay around him, she lets it slip that Aien is currently "taking care" of their Drow problem, and that they don't have to worry anymore.
Battle for the Drow
In the woods, Sorennar gathers a few herbs before being attacked by Aien. He manages to avoid the first attack and attempts to reason with the rogue, but to no avail as Aien tells him to "just lay down and make this easier for us, drow". Understanding why he's being attacked, Sorennar sends a message to Sildar asking for help.
Back at the lake, Colt, Hugh, Lera and Sildar immediately start searching for Sorennar before realizing that he was alone in the woods, and that Aien was gone. Immediately, the group starts to sprint towards where they last saw Sorennar (;-; thank you guys)
Unfortunately, Ayluin immediately manages to grapple Sildar with his flail-grapple attack and drags him back into the water. Hugh and Colt make it a good distance by saving (double nat20!!) against Celaena's Hold Person and Esta's Phantasmal Force, but immediately both get caught in the spells in the next round.
Lera, however, manages to make it to Sorennar and finds him running for his life before Aien gets two attacks in that knock him unconscious. She uses her last spell slot to command Aien to "flee" in order to heal Sorennar, but Aien resists the spell. She manages to heal Sorennar with Channel Divinity, and the two struggle to fend off Aien as he tries relentlessly to knock Sorennar unconscious again. Lera tries to protect Sorennar with her body oh my god thank you ;--;
Back at the lake, Hugh struggles to pass his investigation check against Esta's Phantasmal Force, which has taken the form of thorny vines and flora squeezing Hugh tight. Esta pleads with him to stop fighting her friends so that she could "stop hurting" him, but Hugh attacks her with Halo of Spores but fails to break her concentration, causing her to back off and maintain the spell.
Celaena, who is berating Colt for his stupidity in letting a Drow get close to him, attacks Colt with Sacred Flame but then suddenly begins losing grip on her powers. Colt wrangles himself free of the weakening Hold Person spell, double-dashing to Aien, Lera and Sorennar at impressive speeds.
In a fury over the possibility of losing a friend again, Colt assaults Aien with intent to kill, until Lera asks him to stay his hand and Sorennar tries to get him to calm down. Together, they manage to badly wound Aien, who retreats back to the lake.
Sildar, hopelessly caught in Ayluin's strong grapple, desperately attempts to break free several times before realizing that it was futile. He begins to fight back despite not having his weapon, activating his Action Surge feature for the first time -- headbutting and lashing out at Ayluin four times in a round.
Ayluin seems more fired up than ever at this new development, however, and Sildar, in a rage, calls Ayluin "a coward" for not letting him retrieve his weapon for a fair fight. Ever-eager for a fun battle, Ayluin lets Sildar go, who promptly grabs his longsword and hits Esta, breaking her concentration on the spell holding Hugh -- despite Esta having Mirror Image and Mage Armor!
Hugh takes off running to grab his weapon, hitting Celaena on the way back and threatening to kill Esta if she did not "shut up and sit down". Celaena, convinced that Sorennar had done something to steal her powers away, runs up to Sorennar in a frenzy in an attempt to kill him and undo her loss of powers. Colt stabs Celaena in the foot, knocking her unconscious.
Colt rushes back to the lake to help the rest of the team, while Lera helps a badly injured Sorennar to his feet and instructs him to stay behind her, which he gladly agrees with. He thanks Lera for rushing to his aid, and is on the verge of tears.
The tides turn as Sildar, now with his weapon, gains the upper hand on Ayluin. However, Aien (who had narrowly escaped from Colt, Lera and Sorennar) emerges from the woods and sees Sildar attacking Ayluin. Angered and protective of his brother, Aien strikes Sildar and knocks him unconscious just as Colt and Lera approach.
Lera tries to convince Esta to stop fighting, and succeeds -- Esta pleads with Aien to stop fighting, but Aien claims that the party had killed Celaena. Colt knocks Aien out while Hugh strikes Ayluin with intent to kill, putting him on death saves.
The fight is over, with only Esta remaining conscious from the other group of adventurers.
Aftermath
Lera rushes to stabilize Sildar, but realizes that Aien had not attacked Sildar to kill and that Sildar was unconscious, but already stable. She turns her attention to Ayluin, who is dying from Hugh's attack, and stabilizes him as well.
Sorennar limps out of the forest while supporting an unconscious Celaena, and regroups with Colt, thanking him as well for rushing to his aid. They hug, despite Sorennar's injuries, and when Sorennar reacts in pain, Colt gives him "air hugs". Colt gives Sorennar the health potion back and takes Celaena off of Sorennar's hands, allowing Sorennar to notice that Sildar is unconscious on the ground. Alarmed, Sorennar rushes over and feeds the health potion to Sildar, rousing him.
In a panic, Sildar reaches for his weapon before realizing Sorennar was kneeling over him. Sildar checks Sorennar for wounds then hugs him ; ; before apologizing for not being there for Sorennar, which Sorennar brushes off. The group share a group hug, wherein Sorennar apologizes for putting everyone in danger -- they brush this off. Hugh refers to the group as the Fabulous Five, as his pitch for the group name!!!
Sildar, Colt and Sorennar go rest by a rock. Sildar gives Sorennar head.
Colt, Lera and Hugh finish tying the other adventurers (minus Esta, who is still sitting on the ground in fear of Hugh's threat) to the tree and stripping them of their weapons. Hugh, who lost his flail in the lake during the scuffle, takes Ayluin's flail away.
He also finds 13GP in Celaena's pocket, which he tries to give to Sorennar, who in turn refuses as he's been giving all his money away. Hugh puts the gold into the party's shared pouch. Hugh also takes Esta's spell focus / quarterstaff from her, giving it to Sorennar as well.
Lera talks to Esta to try and better understand why the group attacked Sorennar for seemingly no reason. Esta explains that the group makes a point of freeing the oppressed and enslaved, and that they have come across groups of people being held hostage before -- too afraid to express the desire to be saved.
The adventurers had assumed that the party being friendly to a Drow meant that they were being controlled, threatened or manipulated by Sorennar in some way, and were looking to save them. Lera assures her that the party was not being held hostage in any way, and that Sorennar is their friend, complimenting Sorennar's musical skills. She brings Esta to say hi and apologize to Sorennar, who is playing Colt's song. Sorennar barely acknowledges her, but tells her to take her quarterstaff back.
Esta is very confused, citing her traditional elven upbringing in asserting that she was taught "the only good Drow is a dead Drow". Lera explains to her that not everything you are taught is true, and that she should adventure into the world to experience and decide things for herself.
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