Session 7 - Assault On Saile Pt.2

The danger of Gab's assailant seemingly quelled, the party works on how to get the arcane shackles off. Upon a brief inspection, the party realizes that they are by no means equipped to take them off. Thus they retreat to Onika's abode. On the way, Gab senses a presence following them, passing from rooftop to rooftop. With haste, the group devises a plan to catch their pursuer in the act. As soon as they begin to act, however, their follower runs in fear, escaping into the morning light.

The group safely makes it back to Onika's house, and after a minute of knocking, their goblin friend meets them at the door. Filtar, a surprising new addition, waltzes into the house and takes a seat on the small sofa in the back, picking up a book of some sort that was left on the adjacent table. The party explains what had happened in the brief time they had been gone. They all step inside, and Onika shunts Gab up into the lab since he cannot climb the ladder. Patch rests in the corner, while Vordia starts arguing with Filtar about manners. Filtar reveals that the book he found was in fact a diary belonging to Onika, and he begins copying its contents down into his own notebook much to Vordia's dismay. They get in a bit of a wrestling match, which Toni then intervenes upon into a three-way tango over this diary.

Meanwhile, Onika looks at the shackles around Gab's hands and neck. They say they've seen similar arcane manacles before, but these were apparently custom designed, to which Onika inquires, asking why Gab might require such a restraint. Gab claims no knowledge, and Onika keeps investigating. They find that they can probably get the arcane part of it off, but there is a chance it will explode. They move outside as the rest of the party scrambles to cover up their wrestling match. Filtar stays inside to watch from the window while everyone else joins Onika and Gab outside.

Moving to the small clearing behind the goblin's house, they begin the process. Gab attempts to remain perfectly still as Onika tries to pry the magic out. It is a close class, but they succeed. Onika then instructs Gab to start simply running in circles, which he does with glee. A noxious cloud of arcane essence drifts in the air, seeming to chase Gab to get back into the manacles which, while now free of magic, are still locked around his wrists. At this glorious sight, Filtar comes out and pesters Vordia some more, while Onika asks Toni to fetch a "silver bug net" in the lab.

Toni accepts and runs into the lab. She finds the weird looking net, but touches the shining mesh and her hand briefly loses its fur, turning it into a strangely human hand. With a yelp, the tabaxi drops it to the floor and returns to Vordia's side in the alley, claiming she could not find it. Vordia goes with her to help, but Toni retires to the loveseat where she slept the previous night, opting to take a nap instead. Vordia ascends to the lab and sees the net laying on the floor. She picks it up and returns to the clearing, handing it over to Onika. Gab still runs around, and decides to play a funny prank on Filtar by running a lap around the house, drifting the arcane cloud into him and unfortunately Vordia. A splitting headache hits both of them, but they are briefly granted odd colorful vision of the word. In this moment, Vordia sees this little flicker in the distance of bright orange light out towawrd the south-east past the city. As Gab runs around the house, the cloud drifts through the wall and just barely passes over the resting Toni, giving her a little tingle.

When Gab returns to the clearing, so does the cloud, and Onika catches it in the silver bug net. They then put the magic essence in a jar and consider moving to the collar around Gab's neck. Gab decides to leave it be, and tucks the sort of leash into his belt. They deliberate on what to do about the shackles themselves, now that the threat of explosion is gone. Filtar offers to drop a rock on it, and he nearly hits Gab doing so. Gab figures he can do it himself, and successfully breaks the manacles on a rock.

Moments after, the party hears a blaring horn blast from the center of town. Maius attack. The party knows exactly what is going on, and Onika is terrified to see how close their Maius got to the city before getting detected. The party instinctually gathers, feeling a bit more rejuvenated after this rest period with Onika. Onika grabs their staff, and they all begin running southeast toward the city walls. Instantly it seems day turns to night in the city and rain starts to pour.

As they ran, they joined amongst the crowd of various armed fighters, many of them boasting different tattoos signifying gangs. The party catches sight a small troupe through an alley bearing the sigil of the Whitebloom Seekers. Among them they see an elven woman boasting silver and blue hair dressed in an ornate scale mail gown, two rogue-ish twins with matching eye scars.

The group bursts out onto the battlefield where they see many other graviturgists and warriors lobbing fireballs and arrows from the sky. Onika springs into action and sends the party forth with speed sigils. Once they are up close, they alter them into three larger sigils to help them ascend. All the party manages to, using the boost, jump onto the Maius except for Vordia who finds herself high in the air. The rest of the party ascends to the back of the Maius, aiming for the gaping wound in its back. They struggle up the spikes on the back, with some assistance from Onika below. With some near falls, they manage to make it up to a spike just below the wound. Meanwhile, Vordia catches herself on the way down on the vine-like furs of the Maius legs. Taking the rope burn, she slides back down to the ground, getting fairly injured in the process. Filtar, who had decided to stay on the ground with Onika, comes rushing over with a health potion, quickly administering it to her. Onika repositions behind the Maius to get better aim where the party is.

They set their staff aside and vanquished all of their glyphs in favor of one massive one at the open wound on the back. Throughout this fight, and most notably at this moment, the Maius seemed to be dramatically shifting its attention at the flip of a coin. Here, it turned straight on Onika, making  a massive pivot and digging its foot into the earth. Whirling around, it flung an enormous hail of stone and earth at the three on the ground, taking out some airborne casters with its arms simultaneously. Vordia rolls out of the way, but Filtar and Onika are buried beneath the rubble and the large glyph is dispelled. In a panic, Vordia starts digging to fish out Filtar. Meanwhile above, the rest of the party struggles to hold on. Gathering their senses, they start to smell a strange semi-electric smell. Then, out of nowhere it sparks. What looks like a comet from the sky rapidly speeds straight through the gaping wound. The shockwave sends Toni, Patch, and Gab flying nearly back into the city. Within an instant, the night returns to day and the rain clears, and the Maius falls to its knees, dead once more.

As Vordia desperately digs toward Filtar, a heap of rocks nearby levitates and is cast aside as Onika, bloodied, bruised, and battered, shouts in the name of their parents while casting one more pillar of glyphs beneath their three airborne comerades to break their falls before falling unconscious themself. As Vordia digs, a figure comes up behind her saying "let me help you with that". Vordia turns to see what could only be the figure who attacked and killed the Maius from the sky. His red and gold hair shines alongside his beautiful silks and mithral chain mail. He reaches his hand into the rubble and just splits the rock, leaving Filtar standing in awe in a crater. The figure introduces himself as Heinlin Gosander. Heinlin then starts stately walking toward the crowd that has now amassed at the edges of Lovely Straggle district. Filtar goes and picks up Onika's unconscious body and the three of them walk to go meet up with the rest of the party.

Heinlin then proceeds to start a speech addressing the crowd, confirming himself as a Whitebloom. He claims the Whiteblooms were sent from the heavens above to help be rid of the issue of the Maius and he personally seeks to dominate and destroy them. At this, Harmonious Gab shouts from the crowd that Heinlin in fact resurrected the Maius. Among the crowd a few whispers stir in gasps saying "is that the Harmonious Prophet?" and the like. Some of these folks come and stand behind Gab, all wearing a bracelet adorned with a blue peony. Heinlin retorts by saying it was another Maius that resurrected this one, controlled by a traitor group going around under the name Whitebloom Seekers aiming to undermine his name. The two start to have almost a political debate with the crowd whether or not Heinlin is trustworthy or actually saved Saile. A good number of people rally behind Gab, but an even greater number go to Heinlin, their apparent divine savior. Heinlin requests that the citizens of Saile place the Whitebloom name into their minds and libraries, and ends his speech.

The party levels up to level 4.