Tangled Up in Knots

Sylirix was unable to offer her help to Perinor at this time. She had far too much trouble with the foulspawn drawn to the portal in her basement to leave the island of Trion just yet. But, were we able to close the portal, she would be more than willing to add her brood and herself to our quest. For now, our plight was intriguing enough that she sent one of her number with us.

“Karellastian,” she called out to her brood. “I have a quest for you.” A gold scaled dragonborn, taller than most, stepped forward. He had a greatsword slung across his hip and a longbow strapped across his back. Like his brothers, he wore a red tabard with two gold and silver dragons on the front. He knelt before the gold dragon. “As you wish, Mother. What am I to do?” Serelix smiled warmly down on him. “My son. The fight for our new island is a valiant one, but if we cannot close the portal, the foulspawn will continue to come through it and the Torog cultists will continue to be drawn to it. We cannot continue to wait for help, as it appears the world at large knows little of our plight. I am sending you with these humans on their quest. Perhaps along the way you will encounter someone who is capable of closing the portal.”

Sylirix looked up at the order. “Should you help my son and find a way to close the portal, we will crush the forces of the Far Realm and of the Crawler Below. Then we will aid you in the crushing defeat of that whore-goddess Tiamat.” She roared and her brood roared with her. “Now I must return to the work of crushing these pathetic cultists. A few of my order will escort you back to your ship.”

We boarded the Southern Stream that night and Captain Raccan set a course for Perinor on the dawn tide. We got calm waters and fast winds all the way into Aurincia. The ride did give us time to get to know Karel. Turns out that the paladins had only been on the island about 20 years. Forces of Torog had taken over their homeland in the southern tropics. Sylirix, sensing everything would soon be lost, took as many dragonborn eggs as she could transport and fled. She found the island of Trion and settled in to recreate her lost society only to find a portal to the Far Realm. Resolved to cleanse the foulspawn from the world she created the castle and began hatching the dragonborn, raising them to be her warriors. Karel himself was a bit of an outcast among his brothers—instead of a paladin, he was mainly a fighter. His divine path through clerichood was almost an afterthought.

We were greeted at the Aurincian docks by a party of 10 mounted elves. Two were dressed in robes of exquisite quality while the rest wore the shining silver armor that denoted bodyguards of the High Elven Council. “Kylira Banndilues, you are summoned to take your place on the council by the High Chancellor herself.” Those of us on deck looked at Kyri in surprise. We’d known she was noble but none of us had guessed she was this high. Kyri looked at the speaker with something that wasn’t quite a sneer. “I suppose Mother sent you here to prevent me from slipping out of port. Never fear, Iamlaon, my bags are packed as you can plainly see-and I am ready to do my duty to the elven council.” She mounted the extra horse and the party headed off.

Aurincia was still under repair. Most of the major buildings still had major damage but I was pleased to see that most of the residential areas had been rebuilt. We headed first to the palace to relate the tales of Vertinia and Trion to the High Council and the King. They accepted the news that we would get no help from Vertinia with alarm and surprise. That a gold dragon could come to our aid was favorable, but none of the magical advisors could tell us anything about closing a portal to the far realm. They dismissed us with word that the Southern Stream was being reprovisioned and orders to head west.

We had just over a day to ourselves in Aurincia. I had hoped it would have been more. I had wanted to go to Far Port to see my family and assure them I was ok. As it was, I would have to leave my letters at the temple of Kord. Eager to be apart from each other for the night, the party split to the different districts of the capitol city. Yvala scrambled off to one of the seedy parts of town to sample the gossip and the “local flavors.” Maybe she’s right that I do need to loosen up, but I had other things to do that night. Kalena disappeared to the university district to study portal closure. Wouldn’t be surprised if she shows off her expanded capabilities as well, I thought wryly. Vixi disappeared without telling anyone what she was up to, while Markas peeled off for the temple of the Raven Queen. Karel had nothing to do, so I offered to bring him with me to the temple of Kord. At least there would be other dragonborn there for him to talk to, and I knew enough draconic that we could actually talk as we walked.

Karel had been most surprised that we had gone to a group of humans for advice and to make our report. He wondered why we did not go to our dragon. I told him gently that Perinor had no dragon ruler and few dragons in general. He thought over this for a minute, then politely informed me that we would do very well to have a dragon in charge and that he would take it upon himself to get us one once we had found a way to close the portal.

The temple of Kord was bustling, as one would expect when there was an ongoing and upcoming war. Quite a few of the paladins had gone with the majority of the dragonborn to help Garn retake Arborea. I noticed more offerings than usual at the public altars but otherwise the place was fairly empty.

I was leading Karel to the barracks when I was stopped dead in my tracks by a female paladin. Brina was a human, a couple years older than myself. While we had gotten along well enough, we weren’t exactly friends. “Great Kord! Is that our little cleric Tavia? Look at you! I barely recognize you. You finally look like a war cleric, and not some pansy medic.” She punched a hand on my shoulder hard enough that I stumbled back onto Karel. “Jordan said you were running with the Order of the Rampant Dragon and that you were at the first battle of Aurincia, but it was so incredulous that I didn’t believe them. I thought to myself, ‘Tavia? Our Tavia? Ridiculous, there’s got to be another.’ But here you are.” She ran an appraising eye over me and my companion. “They’ve got a shield on you and your chain has taken some hits. And a mace. Damn, no one thought you’d pick up a real weapon after that botched job with the deva five years ago. But can’t stand here chatting. I’m being assigned to another group to head up to Arborea.” She hit my shoulder again and was off.

“What interesting friends you have,” said Karel after she left. “Just ignore her and everything she said,” I replied tersely, as I tried not to think of how sweet bashing Brina against the stone hallway would be. I blamed all the time spent with Yvala for the fact that I was having thoughts like that one more often. I poked my head into the room and was happy to see one of the dragonborn I knew fairly well. “Dranth. Good to see you. We have a visitor; his name is Karel and I was hoping there was a spare bunk to put him in for the night.” He smiled and said “Sure, Tavia. Are you off to see Jordan?” I nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll help him out.” I thanked him, introduced Karel, and headed to the War Chamber to make my report.

The Southern Stream sailed with the tide the next night with the blessings of clerics of Kord and Melora for safe travel. It seemed that this time the blessings did no good. Three days out one of the sailors shouted for us to look at a spot of churning water off the port side. Tentacles as thick as tree trunks rose from the water. Yvala threw a few daggers but the arms barely flinched. They swept across the ship, knocking into everyone and everything. The tentacles reached around the ship and began squeezing. The screech of timbers was horrific and we threw everything we had at the monster.

The tentacles that weren’t busy trying to crush the ship continued to whip across the decking. Karel and Markas bravely ran forward to fight at the railing to give the rest of us the chance to go after the body. It worked for a while until the squid’s tentacles wrapped around the paladin and fighter. We eventually freed Markas, but Karel kept being hooked every time he got free. Eventually, the squid got tired of us or one of us managed to get in a hit that rattled its little brain and the squid let go and slowly sank under the ocean waters.

The boat was badly damaged by the squid and we would have to land immediately. Fortunately, there was a small island with a black cloud covered peak that we had been watching on the horizon. It took a day and a half, sailing as slowly as possible to reach the island. It was a lush tropical place, with steep black cliffs covered in greenery. A small cove held a sandy beach and we maneuvered the ship inside it to survey the damage.