Want to help? Consider becoming a Patreon.

• Aros – Lightfoot Halfling, Rogue
• Galiena Erenaeth – Half Elf, Celestial Warlock / Druid
  • Dearbhán – NPC, Fairy Dragon (Galiena’s pet)
  • Kavium – NPC, Tiefling Paladin (Oath of Conquest)
  • Darko Wintersage – NPC, Undead Wizard (Flame Skull)
• Baldur – Human, Pack Chain Warlock (Spear) / Paladin
  • Hellina Kaitlyn Deramu – Human NPC, Wererat

• The party ascends finally to the edge of where the perytons nest, looking specifically for the matriarch Bloodwing, who was said to be larger and appears different than the rest; because taking her out would cause the other females to fight (to the death) to claim the next matriarch position and help decrease and slow down the breeding of the perytons

• The party quickly spots Bloodwing, as she is not only larger than the other perytons, but her wings are actually a deep red, from which she gets her name

• Bloodwing, hears the approaching of Kavium and Galiena and spots them, taking to the skies
• “Well, that makes it more complicated,” Kavium mutters, recalling his javelin was somewhere at the bottom of the mountain, in the chest of another peryton
• Aros fires his short bow, however, Bloodwing flaps her wings furiously, and the arrow flies off to the side (DM Note – It’s not a natural ability, just flavored why the arrow missed)
• Bloodwing swoops down on Kavium, her talons rip into him as she also begins to take him up into the air as her dive swings upward (Natural 20 on Strength!)

• Baldur looks at Bloodwing and hexes her by shouting, “You suck!” And Hexes her Strength, giving her disadvantage Strength checks and follows up with a Toll of the Dead which it fail against
• Galiena fires off an arrow into Bloodwing and hits
• Aros finds a 12′ boulder, and ties a solid knot around the rock
• Kavium manages to pull his arms free and hit Bloodwing with his axe
• With his arms free, he’s able to prevent Bloodwing from ripping out his heart and squeezing him for her two attacks (DM Note – just flavored missing attacks)
• Realizing he’s too much trouble, Bloodwing releases Kavium – so the Paladin of Prenah begins a rapid descent towards the ground
• Kavium tries to turn to see the ground rapidly approaching him and slams into the ground, the scalemail bursting upon impact, metal piercing his flesh, his bones snapping from the impact, but surprisingly the party hears him moaning in pain (DM Note – Kavium took 42 hit points of damage from the fall, but had 43 hit points left! Leaving him, on the floor, with 1 hit point!)

• Baldur seeing what Aros is doing – decides he should do the same and begins making a lasso one end while tying himself to the other end, with the idea of – if she grabs him, that she would not be able to drop him (ideally) – although, she could fly around and drag Baldur around the rubble
• Galiena casts the Bear Spirit Totem – which gives 10 temporary hit points and give him advantage on Strength Check and Saves
• Aros shouts to Baldur to give him the other end of his rope and ties a knot (and rolls horribly)
• Aros tries to throw this giant rope, however, it’s all over the place, and he’s unsuccessful in doing so (by a lot)
• Baldur points out that the knot was horribly done
• Kavium in the meantime uses his Lay on Hands on himself, giving him 31 hit points (plus 10 temporary hit points)
• Bloodwing meanwhile swoops down on Baldur, she misses with her talons and gore attacks, but Baldur manages to plunge his spear into her
• Darko fires two fire beams, both of which miss the giant bird
• Galiena casts Thorn Whip in hopes of trying to keep Bloodwing down, so that the others can lasso her, and Galiena hits and pulls her ten feet closer
• Galiena turns to Aros, “Stop messing around and lasso her now that she’s closer!”
• Aros looks at Galiena, “I am not messing around! This is a lot of rope! And it’s very heavy!”
• Aros secures the knot that Baldur pointed out
• Aros gives a thumbs up to Baldur, “It’s secure! You got this!” And Aros fires his bow at Bloodwing and hits
• Kavium stands up and hobbles over, “Sending you to your maker, now,” he growls, and plunges towards Bloodwing, but barely misses – Galiena having just Thorn Whipped it and moved it closer to her (DM Note – Flavoring a miss)
• Bloodwing tries to talon Galiena, feeling she’s thorn whipped to her; and misses, but her sharp, massive, beak pierces Galiena’s armor, punching a hole in her armor, where Bloodwing knows, she can try to get Galiena’s heart next time
• Baldur tries to lasso Bloodwing and also misses, with Kavium stepping on part of the rope; “Get off the rope! And Galiena! Stop yanking it away! Pull her this way!”
• Kavium manages to land a hit with his axe, followed by two shots with his fire eyes
• With another round, Baldur does manage to finally lasso Bloodwing and Galiena brings down a Witchbolt that strikes Bloodwing
• The battle clearly begins to turn in favor of the heroes now
• Another Witchbolt – brings a bolt through Bloodwing’s head, exploding through her eyes
• As Bloodwing comes down, Galiena and Aros who were further away, successfully dodge her massive body crashing straight down; but Baldur and Kavium are not able to avoid it, and take some minor damage
• The crawl out from beneath Bloodwing, and they find Bloodwing’s nest and find several eggs, which the party decides to destroy the eggs in the nest to prevent them from hatching, and notice that there’s several weapons that had been collected from several victims; still in the possession of the deceased remains
• Among the remains, Aros finds a longsword that has some runes on it; Baldur too finds a longsword with different runes; and Galiena finds a harp that has what she can tell are clearly elvish runes (DM Note – Each of the swords was was Longsword +1, and the Harp is a custom item called the Harp of Inspiration)
• “We need to get out of here,” Aros said, his eyes looking around, “the other perytons are out hunting around the island, and they’re going to come back soon.”
• As the party begins to quickly descend down the path, they hear a screech – and realize ont of the perytons has returned – and glancing up at the sky – they can see the peryton diving down from the sky – but the party has managed to get half way to the cave entrance
• The party all slides into the cave, avoiding the peryton who screeches at the cave entrance; the party moves to the furthest to the back of the cave and stare at the peryton, who stays there for awhile before departing
• The party slides against the wall, exhausted
• The party decides to long rest, using Darko (who in his undead state, doesn’t need sleep) to keep guard
• The following morning, the party quickly makes their way down the hill and heads back into Greenhaven
• They are pleasantly surprised to see that Lord Brenmoon’s men are not in town
• The party sees Eric Crowfeather who sees how badly damaged both Kavium’s armor (from the fall) and Galiena’s armor (from the gore attempt on her heart from Bloodwing) and says, “It looks as if you have encountered Bloodwing. If you’re back down here, I suppose the deed is done?”
• Eric offers to take them to the inside of the mountain where Crescent dwells, and see if they can get repairs
• Crescent agrees to help get Kavium and Galiena’s armor repaired and has Eric fetch the smith (Torin Stonepassage) to work on their armor; the smith explains that it will take a few days to gather all the supplies. Aros asks about someone to make better leather armor and Shera Lovelight is called to make armor for Aros.
• While talking to Crescent, Aros mentions that there were peryton eggs in Bloodwing’s nest, which they destroyed. Crescent explains as tragic as that is, it had to be done; because perytons must feed on hearts to breed; and once they reached maturity, no matter how well they might have been trained, they would have instinctively craving humanoids hearts.
• Galiena asks breaking the curse on the island, and Crescent explains that by using her spies, the wereravens – they’ve learned that some “form of light” must be released to break the curse; but they’re not sure what that means or if that’s even accurate or speculation, but Razathorn was behind bringing the curse to the island, which he’d done while in service with Lord Brenmoon; before Lord Brenmoon exiled him
• Galiena asks Crescent if she’d ever heard of Darko; and Crescent admits she remembers the name Darko while she’d been imprisoned by Razathorn and Darko was one of his many servants; another wizard, like Razathorn himself
• Crescent goes on to explain that while imprisoned by Razathorn, she’d heard how he was destined to be Razathorn’s primary pupil; but shortly after the curse came over the land, Darko was a name that was explicitly forbidden to be spoken in Razathorn’s presence; so something happened
• Crescent’s eyes narrow on Galiena, as her voice rumbles deep in her dragon breast, and she says, “It’s odd you would speak the name of Darko…”
• Galiena clears her throat and explains, “We sort of came across him.”
• Crescent presses the matter and asks, “What did Darko have to say? Did he attack you?”
• Galiena shook her head, “No, he’s dead, we found his skull.”
• This seems to put Crescent at ease and she leans back.
• “And we found a rod though his head,” Galiena adds.
• Crescent seems interested, “Then someone murdered him?”
• “It looks like that was the case,” Galiena agrees.
• Aros asks if Crescent can identify his sword he found in Bloodwing’s nest; and Galiena pulls out her harp and explains that she had found the harp in the nest; and Baldur lays down his sword as well
• Crescent explains that she can identify them; but it may take a few hours that much of her magic is used protecting herself from being detected by Razathorn or Lord Brenmoon, since they know the curse prevents Crescent from leaving the island
• The party heads to Greenhaven, and there, Baldur is wearing his armor, and people admire him; and Baldur talks about how he alone forged the armor, scale by scale; Galiena walks by him and whispers, “Don’t forget Kaitlyn…”
• Galiena gently takes Kavium’s hand, which shocks Kavium, and she whispers, “Come with me, the very least I can do is get you a drink.”
• Galiena and Kavium begin drinking at the bar, and he smiles at Galiena, recalling that fall and adds, “You know, in all my days, I’ve never fallen quite so hard.” Galiena laughs and shakes her head; even near death experience wasn’t enough to break Kavium’s personality
• The party heads out to the apple orchard to get an apple; when they each see something in the dark watching them…

TO BE CONTINUED.