AD&D Session 98 - A Funeral for the Living
18th of Horisal, 835 PD
After Marcus arranged his own escape from Rexxentrum through the Cobalt Soul, the rest of the party was left to resolve what they could in the city before Imperial scrutiny closed in further. Bibi continued maintaining her cover as a harmless herbalist and healer, visiting a temple under the pretext of offering her skills to those in need. Instead of an ordinary patient, she found a family of werewolves gathered around a gravely ill husband and father. From what she learned, the man had been subjected to cruel arcane experimentation, likely by the Cerberus Assembly or forces acting under its protection, and had then been abandoned to die under watch.
Bibi chose not to leave him there. By means that remained remarkable given the temple oversight and Shimmer Ward security, she managed to remove the dying man from the temple and carry him out of the ward. Once she rejoined the others and explained what had happened, the party split their efforts. Whisper and Zefran went to Marcus’ townhouse to stage a break-in and recover the belongings the group had left behind. Their attempt to use Marcus’ cipher to bypass his alarm wards went poorly, and they managed little more than retrieving their own possessions and stealing a shelf’s worth of valuables before withdrawing.
Meanwhile, Bibi and the others brought the rescued werewolf to their acolyte contact in the Mudtops. There, with help from those present, Bibi treated him well enough for him to regain consciousness. With the patient alive but still unsafe in Rexxentrum, the party decided to leave the city under the guise of transporting a body for a funeral. The deception gave them a plausible reason to move him out without explaining his condition, and by nightfall they had put Rexxentrum behind them, making camp outside the city.
19th of Horisal, 835 PD
The following morning, Serene Waters approached the party’s camp, though her attempt to do so unnoticed failed quickly and turned the meeting awkward. The group only vaguely remembered her from their earlier time in Daestok, while Serene remained suspicious and guarded in return. Rather than properly joining forces, she offered only a brief warning that matters in Daestok had become strange again, then left the party behind and continued ahead on her own. The encounter ended less as a reunion than as an uneasy crossing of paths, leaving Daestok once again looming as the next unresolved thread.