FCG was greeted by icy peril, as the shadowy sorcerer unleashed his spell upon them. Shocked sober from the freezing pain now wracking their bodies, FCG steeled themselves for battle. Soren cried for Bahamut’s aid, but much to her dismay, her platinum patron did not hear her plea, and her spell failed to manifest. Before the rest of the party could engage their foe, the hostile mage vanished from sight while four previously unseen thugs loosed crossbow bolts in the party’s direction. Triple J unleashed a psychic assault on one of their new attackers, Endrin fled to a nearby rooftop for better vantage, and Soren and Conan each engaged thugs of their own. When the opportune moment arose, the mage reappeared further down the darkened street and bombarded Soren with an unrelenting barrage of arcane missiles, seemingly homing in on the holy warrior specifically. The spellcaster’s assault on Soren did not cease until the paladin was facedown on the frozen dirt of the Outersteads. His mission now complete, the mysterious mage vanished once more, leaving his henchmen to fend for themselves. The rest of FCG made quick work of the remaining thugs before healing Soren, bringing her back from the brink of death.
Fearful of another entanglement with the crownsguard, whose shouts could now be heard closing in around the scene of the battle, FCG made for their hideout at the nearby stables. Triple J talked their way through a brief altercation with the guards, but the party eventually arrived without further incident. Now that the party could finally peel their eyes away from the shadowy alleyways, they all turned their gaze and frustration toward Soren, as they had deduced that the cause of their recent attack was likely related to the secretive warrior. Soren remained guarded initially, but Triple J and Endrin refused to relent in their interrogation, Endrin even proceeding to knock Soren back into a wall with a blast of wind.
Sensing the growing ire within her companions, Soren eventually gave in and revealed everything. Soren was, in fact, not the paladin’s name, but rather Princess Eris Dwendal, granddaughter to King Bertrand Dwendal. Eris told her companions the story of how she fled from the clutches of the Cerberus Assembly up in Rexxentrum a few weeks ago, and that she believed they were the ones orchestrating the recent attempts to capture and or kill her. That wasn’t all however, next Eris revealed to the party the nature of her affliction, a taloned, scaly white arm with bits of frost clinging to it. Jaws dropped as the rest of the party beheld it. Eris told the group that she believed her illness to be the result of the Cerberus’ experimentation on her mother, who had difficulty conceiving a child, Eris, without arcane aid. Finally, Eris told them that she believed the cure for her ailment lay to the north, in a region known as Eiselcross.
Exhausted from the raw emotion of the moment, Eris bade goodnight to her friends and retired down below. Conan decided that hard conversations call for hard drinks, and grabbed a bottle of swill from behind the bar. Triple J and Endrin joined in, exchanging swigs from the bottle and stories from their past. The details of note were that Triple J’s name is actually Xavier Emberstone and that he hailed from the Menagerie Coast. Conan let on that he was from a small town to the north of the Empire, and Endrin disclosed a bit of his family’s history from his small home town outside of the Empire. After many hours of talking and drinking, faint rays of dawn light began to creep through the windows, and the rest of the party retired.
FCG decided it was probably best to lay low at the stables for the next few days leading up to the New Dawn Festival, as the majority of their preparations were complete. Conan spent his days hunting for food for the group and occasionally checking in on the Soup Kitchen. While Conan was out, he also heard word that the Miracle Movement, under Lydia Truscan, had founded a clothing charity for Zadash’s downtrodden as well. Soren and Triple J retrieved their wolf pups, along with Conan’s, from the Gentleman and also picked up the agreed upon explosives. Endrin, accompanied by Triple J, spent a little time at the Valley Archive of the Cobalt Soul researching Eiselcross while Triple J checked in with Curator Edna Inarth. Edna was pleased with the group’s charitable efforts in the Outersteads and welcomed Triple J and all fellow Grinners into the Cobalt Soul’s network. Edna offered grim tidings as well, revealing that further Remnant activity had been encountered in the northern Outersteads.
Over the course of these events, five days past, and the eve of the festival fell. FCG spent the night running through various scenarios they might encounter upon entering the victory pit the next day and finalized all of their plans. They retired and rose early the next morning to the sights, sounds, and smells of the New Dawn festival. The long awaited day was finally underway.
