Enola Yarn – blogpost 2

We suddenly see the northern portal open up. A person is running towards the portal – towards us – he is chased by two others. The two people behind him start to throw fireballs and one casts a spectral hand to catch the nearest person. The person jumps out of the portal and before anyone can react, the spectral hand grabs Pethar and pulls him back into the portal. The last thing we see of him is his surprised face and the fireball about to explode when the portal closes…

I am flabbergasted. What the f*ck just happened?! The new person is a Fire Genasi and is panting on the ground. He looks around and is disoriented. When he realizes he is safe, he introduces himself as Aiden Demifire. He just came from level nine – the wizard academy. He was chased from there because he figured out necromancy magic is used there by the students and other persons. We all introduce ourselves as well – where Valentine is impersonating me again. I think it is SO annoying, but there is nothing I can do about it. Aiden is a wildfire druid and his family believes that vile use of necromancy magic causes nature to be out of balance. He was looking for the source of the necromancy at the wizard academy but ended up being attacked. Unfortunately for my sister and me, he doesn’t know the directions to the academy because he used a crystal to activate the portal to flee. He really discourages us to travel there through the portal: the people at the academy were way too powerful for him.

We decide to investigate the other portal some more. The party tries everything: be silent for a minute, impersonate the elves on the portal, but nothing works. It becomes clear to me that we need to cast silence to activate this portal. Unfortunately, I don’t have that spell in my spellbook.

We walk for a while and hear some giggling. We chase it for a while and I think it is invisible. We cannot find it. Behind a door I hear something about a treasure and that the people I can hear don’t know how to open a big door? Farryn tells me about the black door in the throne room where Skella was: it is supposed to lead to the treasure of the dwarven king. He also tells me that he found a crown somewhere in a room, and suspects it to be the crown of the dwarven king. We come across some Duergarr in another room, Valentine shows an illusion of the pendulum Skella gave the party before we joined, and the Duergarr immediately act less hostile. The Duergarr stand near a new portal, and in the back of the room, we can see a keyboard made of stalagmites. Valentine immediately wants to play on the keyboard. I hold her back, I firstly want to know it is completely harmless before I let my impulsive sister use it for fun. It looks like a royal instrument: even the stool in front of it is made from raw gold, even if it looks like stone. I deem the instrument harmless. Valentine immediately starts to play – badly, I might add: she never took any lessons. The instrument sounds like a church organ.

I want to investigate the portal. In the arch, a hand with a sigil is placed. Someone casts mage hand on the portal, and it opens… The Duergarr think it is dangerous and take a step back. I look through the portal and see a swamp with Troglodytes, it looks like ten to twenty of them. This is way too dangerous, so we decide to go back.

After a while, Valentine takes a right somewhere and screams. I see her walking and falling due to a trap. The floor just collapses. She screams! In a reflex, I cast feather fall to rescue her. I can see a fire blast coming from the hole in the floor! I am so worried for my sister… Luckily, I can see her standing on the bottom of the pit when I look over the edge. Aiden throws a thorn whip to get her up, but it doesn’t work – we try a rope instead.

After the initial shock, we follow Farryn to another room that turns out to be a lavatory. It smells horrible and there are holes in the ground. Farryn investigates one hole and a Gray Slaad comes out. It is all brown… UGH, disgusting! The Slaad casts fireball a couple of times, but it disappears every time: I think Valentine counterspells it. I cast polymorph to transform the Slaad into a rat, but it doesn’t work. I feel stupid: it is a shapechanger… How could I not know that?! Shit.

I cast fireball instead, but it doesn’t do as much damage to the Slaad as I would like. Suddenly, I feel super scared of the Slaad. I don’t get why, but I feel the urge to run away – so I do. A couple of seconds later, I come to my senses in another hallway. I calmed down and realize: I HAVE TO GO BACK TO VALENTINE! I run back, and use misty step to teleport me further. I use poison spray and surprise the Slaad: he is really taken aback by my attack. In the end, Smoke on the Water kills the creature.

We decide to walk back to the portals where we met Aiden. I cast tiny hut to rest. In the hut, Farryn and I investigate the sword from Valdemar. Farryn doesn’t know anything about the history of the sword, but I see it is an emerald blade, and that it is very sharp. At the heft of the sword, we can see many diamonds. It feels very magical: like something lives inside it. The party decided I can attune with the sword to investigate it further: I look at the sword. It gets more beautiful by the minute… I hear a low voice inside my head: “Hi, I’m Tearulai, I’m the most beautiful sword that exists.” I feel he is not arrogant, he just speaks the truth. I put the sword away when Aiden asks to talk to Valentine and me. He wants to know what our goal is. Valentine and I tell him we want to go to the wizard academy, but to investigate, not to learn necromancy. He wants to go with us, and we accept.

Tearulai details
 Weapon (longsword), legendary (requires attunement by a creature of non-evil alignment)
 The longsword, Tearulai, is a sentient, neutral good sword of sharpness with an emerald-colored blade and precious gemstones embedded in its hilt and pommel. The sword’s magical properties are suppressed until it is removed from Valdemar’s skull.
 Evil creatures can’t attune to Tearulai; any evil creature that tries to do so takes 20 psychic damage. The weapon’s emerald blade can’t be damaged or dulled, and the sword can’t be teleported anywhere without its wielder while the two are attuned to one another.
 Spells. The sword has 6 charges and regains 1d4 + 2 expended charges daily at dawn. A creature attuned to the sword can use an action and expend 1 or more charges to cast one of the following spells from it without material components: fly (2 charges), polymorph (3 charges), or transport via plants (4 charges).
 Sentience. The sword has an Intelligence of 17, a Wisdom of 12, and a Charisma of 20. It has hearing and truesight out to a range of 120 feet. It communicates telepathically with its attuned wielder and can speak, read, and understand Common, Draconic, Elvish, and Sylvan. In addition, the sword can ascertain the true value of any gemstone brought within 5 feet of it. See sentient magical items for more information.
 Personality. Tearulai admires great beauty, music, fine art, and poetry. Vain, the weapon strives to improve its appearance. It craves gemstones and seeks out better ones with which to adorn itself.