Tough As Dirt #14
Seedy Folk Need the Dirt
08/18/2023
The group made their way back to the Gateway Clipper to find Commander Renn Krayte and a Relic Hunter named Harvest sitting aboard their vessel
The Commander explained the Dawn Chaser fleet was approaching Cypress and he intended to keep the two girls safe, who he explained were the Daughters of Eve Galdation, the most powerful necromancer to have ever walked Vault
He was assigning Harvest to their protection at great cost, and asked if the group would be willing to relocate the girls to a safer location once the battle begins
The group agreed but before they decided what to do next, Harvest informed them that Yella had left the ship and was acting oddly
Following Yella, Tough as Dirt discovered him entranced by some mental magics, and upon delving into his mind, Brother Moor discovered his single thought was to make his way to the Fernweh, the ship embedded in the hillside of Cypress
The group followed Yella, and many others also entranced, to the Fernweh where they discovered a group of pirates, including an Orc named Rotten, shepherding the entranced people through a portal, equipped with armor and weapons, although the pirates also seemed to be acting under the mental magics
Gideon took a look through the portal and discovered a hellscape of broken lands, boiling skies, red lightning, and a Sphinx commanding the new arrivals through the portal the front lines of a battle against creatures indescribabe and unbearable to perceive. At the back of the grotesque and twisted creatures who did not make sense to the mind was an individual with a scythe, piercing spiked armor, and a countenance that caused Gideon to lose a part of himself to the sight. Above the battlefield a massive dragon swept through the skies
Gideon disengaged from the visuals and the group dispatched the pirates, and shattered the area around the portal, making it so others couldn't access the space
When they tried to leave to find someone to dispel the portal, La'Nesh met their at the bottom of the cargo hold in the Fernweh, revealing she had come to this land aboard this very ship over 200 years ago.
When Gideon asked about the portal, La'Nesh said her partner needed to forces and the people she was sending through were hopeless and had given up on life. She was giving them an important purpose. Any further information was denied Gideon, and La'Nesh scolded him for trying to involve himself in something far beyond his ability to understand.
La'Nesh became angry, told the group to leave and never return, and if they actually wanted to help to "rally your forces, gather your people to you, and ask the question: Where is Ordnung? Where is his shield?"
Tough as Dirt returned to the Gateway Clipper, bid farewell to Lily and Dahlia, and readied for the incoming Dawn Chaser fleet.