C1E27: At The River

Seeking guidance, Ferric centers himself, makes a divine offering to the Platinum Dragon, and enters a state of divine meditation.

After an intense, somewhat cryptic conversation, Ferric emerges from his trance focused on the troubling guidance of his deity. While the yuan-ti are an issue, it seems that Ferric is destined for different problems – problems that seems to direct his attention back home, to the Savalirwood, and ties a recurring dream he has. Links to Erash are revealed, and there's general concern that at least part of his vision has to do with the princess they helped back in Labenda. Based on this, the group decides to make their way to civilization as quickly as possible. Consulting their map from Manu, they determine the fastest path will be by water, back towards the tabaxi encampments along Raska Lake.

The group makes their way as quickly as they can to the water's edge, with their new allies assisting the less adventurous and skilled among their numbers.

After wrestling with how to transport so many former prisoners, the party crafts two large, crude rafts... no thanks to the sailors among them, who apparently can only steer the things, not actually build them.

Taking to the water, idle conversation follows among the passengers while Khoraka pilots one raft and Velia the other. Ryn mentions a circlet with the black opal set within it, which was the goal of her adventuring party, the Masks of Fable. Supposedly it lies somewhere within or beneath the abandoned city where the Fane of the Cloaked Serpent is located.

Upon overhearing this, Shard pipes up, "D'you mean the Crown of Nightmares?"  Tuning his beloved lute, he then regales the group with the tales of the serpent god that are common among those who grow up within the environs of the Quoraska.

Legend tells of The Nightmare Crown, and that it will be worn by the one who brings The Cloaked Serpent back into the material plane, from his prison beyond the Divine Gate. He and his faithful will open the gate and will one day be the ones who plunge the world into shadow, where the Cloaked Serpent will feed on the fear and the nightmares of mortals until all have fallen to his ravenous hunger.

But these faithful shall not labor alone. Did you see the murals in the Fane, there in the hall of war? The one what has the Nightmare Crown shows this leader. Nissava, the yuan-ti who is the leader of the fane, styles himself in this role. But the Nightmare Speaker, named Zalkasslah – she's not buyin' what he's sellin', I don't think. Least, that's what I overheard some of the elite guard types sayin'.

That other wall shows The Cloaked Serpent's sleeping army. A different serpent race, closer to the ideal than even the yuan-ti abominations who form the highest caste of this society. The stories say this race were the most zealous and beloved followers of Zehir, and that they await his return in some kind of magical stasis, several cells of them, located who knows where, waiting to be awakened. If you're lookin' at the wall, I figure that pyramid like box around them represents the magic that keeps them contained.

Anyway. They say that his champion – the one what has the magical flail lookin' thing – will lead this race of warriors forth.

When questioned more closely about the flail, and who might have it and where it might be, Shard largely shrugged it off. A story, after all, is just a story. But based on the murals, he figures the lash is in the stasis field with the army itself.

Meanwhile, on the front raft, Erash and Planksnapper patrol the river and the skies, looking for trouble. And boy, do they find it.

A fight ensues as crocodiles try to make quick work of several members of the party, and almost succeed. As Ferric heals Phelan (wait, Phelan?) with Bahamut's blessing and Phelan heals Ferric with a much more mundane alchemical salve, the river settles back into eerie quiet as the Freaky Gray Company floats ever onward toward the lake.