Session1

**The Gathering in Lyrabar **
Erevin, accompanied by his friends Shri and Dominic travel along with Wren and her companions, Loch and Kale. Erevin and Wren have been sent to attend a wedding at the requests of their mothers. Lynneth and Magnus are to be wed in the city of Lyrabar. Upon arrival at the large city, it is joyous and in celebration of the 1 year anniversary of the War on Lyrabar.

Thorn walks casually down the streets of Lyrabar, the celebrating people are easy marks. His grandfather, Falco, and his sister, Marigold, bump into him unexpectedly. They have come to see the wedding of the niece of Falco’s dear friend, Magarite. Falco takes his two grandchildren to the Inn of the Unexpected Monkey, where his friend Hoppy Keenwhistle is the owner.

Posy, a lone gnome barbarian has been traveling by night, chasing the ghostly spirit of her uncle who only appears at night. As dawn rises, her ghostly uncle drifts into the gates of the city… leading her in. Lyrabar is a city of mainly tall folk. Most see her as a child, as she is so short. She bumps into a red-haired halfling called Maliumpkin, and her elder friend, Esme. Mally is busy eating cherry pie, but finishes hurriedly to introduce herself at Esme’s request and a whack of her stick. Esme takes the two of them to the Unexpected Monkey Inn.

Carnival food, pennants, and a grand celebration are all around the city as Erivin, Wren, and their companions arrive at the Hall of Lathander. They pass a white marble statue inlined with gold. Lathander is the god of the sun, dawn, and new beginnings. Shined up knights line the hall. In this area, they are the Order of the Dawn. Lathander was known as a player… dating 3 goddesses at once - Selune, Chauntea and Sune. Margarite is waiting there to greet us. Little bitty girl, who looks about 14… this is our paladin. She says she’s cursed with a spell. She tells us that we are being housed in an Inn on the other side of town called the Unexpected Monkey. We will travel to the harbor in the morning where the wedding will be held on a ship called “The Destiny”.

The well-dressed humans, Azarius and his sister, Amara, arrive… they go to the cozy inn that seems to be made for the wee folk. Here they meet Falco, Thorn, and Marigold. Amara thinks Thorn is a cute child and rubs his head, he excuses her as he is lost in her oversized bosom. The meet Hoppy and obtain rooms. Fritz, a lemur monkey pops out from out of nowhere! Well… that was unexpected. ;-)

The elves arrive at the Inn. Wren and Erevin exchange a glance when the see the Inn they’ve been sent to. The lemur monkey likes Shri and climbs onto her shoulder. Shri is less than amused “What is it? Get it off!” Wren nudges Inali who leaps onto Shri’s other shoulder and then proceeds to chase the monkey around the room. People start taking bets against the fox vs the monkey until Wren calls Inali back and tells her to stop harassing him.

Esme and Falco meet up when she arrives with Malli and Posy. Esme seems very happy, but Falco quiets her about their past. It’s a cozy inn with shorter, but adequate ceilings, with appropriately sized beds for everyone.

Its been 4-5 years since Dominic has been to Lyrabar. He is concerned about his “backstabbing family” who has supposedly returned and set up in town. He wears an apothecary mask, so as not to be recognized.

The Inn seems to be reserved for us, with very little other people here. We all fill in at a long dining table for dinner.

A small group of scantily clad attractive women arrive, marked in robes as priestesses of Sune, the goddess of love. Rue seems to be upset that rooms were not available for them at the temple. Yuki assures her that it will be okay, as she brought soap. They obtain the last room at the inn available. They join the elves at the dinner table. They were brought in to help fill in at the temple where so many priests and priestesses were lost during the war. They’ve been traveling for months to get here. When they hear about the wedding, they’re very excited as it could very well be the wedding of the year! Yuki is looking for a date.

Falco and Esme sit together and talk. He seems a little intimidated by her. Marigold is very excited at the dinner table to have run into her brother, Thorn, who was off on a grand adventure. They are from a town known as Crossed Spoons. Falco was apparently a skirt chaser back in the day.

Falco Springfoot, Esme Bramblethorn, Margarite Moonstar, Raven Dreamspinner, and Jerome the gnome called themselves the Guardians of the Tome. The traveled all throughout the lands. They describe Jerome as crazy! Falco tells the story of 4 dragons and 2 liches where he was a great hero! They say that Raven was the quiet, mysterious one who kept her secrets. Posy strangely looks at an empty chair, where only she can see the ghost of her uncle… Jerome the gnome.

We go to our rooms. Posy speaks with her uncle. She asks him about Falco’s stories. He says “That halfling is a LIAR! So is his grandson! A whole family of liars! I was the hero…” He finally understands that no one else, but Posy can see him, and understands that he is dead. He tells her she’ll have to be twice as crazy for him. He disappears in the morning.

Get up in the morning. Yuki and Rue discuss Alain – the priest of Sune who will be performing the wedding. He is so handsome, it will be such a pleasure to work with him! Rue agrees and adds she’ll be working under him if she has anything to do with it.

Posy is gifted with new clothes for the wedding from Esme. Mali receives a hand-me-down gown. The others have come prepared with wedding clothing.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">Off to the boat – its elegant, decorated beautifully, and radiates with magic. Everything looks new, including the wood. All of the noble families of Lyrabar are here. We meet Erevin’s sister. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">Wedding music starts, the bride and groom enter…

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">A hooded figure sneaks off to the back of the ship and enters a door, possibly the captain’s room. Appears to be female, ranger-ish in clothing, and she’s limping. Erevin goes to check it out, followed by Mali, who seems to be entranced by the pretty elves. Yuki notices, but puts her priorities on watching the romantic wedding. They come to a strange door that seems like it should be a door that leads to the outside of the ship. Mali opens it. Air here seems to draw inward, like a vacuum, and there is a deep staircase. The figure is seen below by a pillar doing something.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">“And I now pronounce you man and wife! You may kiss the bride.” Magnus sweeps up <span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Lynneth <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.499999046325684px;"> in a romantic kiss. There are cheers and applause.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">Mali goes down the stairs, while Erevin holds the door open, and sees the hooded figure place a package by the pillar. The figure notices her come down and angrily asks her, “What are YOU doing here?” Mali answers innocently, “I came down to see what you were doing… Hi, I’m Maliumpkin!” The figure sneers at her and says, “Well Maliumpkin, I’m the person who’s going to kill you!”

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">The people above are cheering as Magnus sweeps up his new bride on a beautiful white horse and they, along with their wedding party move to exit the ship.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">The figure’s hand glows blue as she moves to attack Mali – Erevin fires his bow from the top of the stairs and hits her. The package the figure left goes off and the whole ship rocks with an explosion. The figure dashes over the railing.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">The ship seems to do loops in the air. People are falling off as we go! We see blue sky, clouds, ships floating in the sky, lightning over mountains, and finally a vast dessert with a black pyramid… the ship rolls and lands in the sand. It’s immediately hot and sunny. As we stumble about… we realize everyone has been lost, swept off of the ship, except for the 6 of us. No one responds when called, we can find no one else. Yuki realizes that she can no longer feel her goddess, Sune, and falls to her knees in tears.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">Erevin and Mali explain what had happened below. We go to the pillar that exploded and Yuki attempts to mend the crystal that exploded. “Destiny” appears from within the pillar. A winged fairy. She says she is the heart of the ship. A group had repaired her before. The ship is still fully functional, but she can’t get us out without a navigator. She needs a hero from this world who’s time is almost done to join her. She can sense one and can lead us … We follow the fairy out.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">We travel in the sand, in the dark of night, heading toward the tree line in the distance. Green lights move from the tree line and flow toward the black pyramid. We are being hunted. 5 big mastiff dog people attack us. There is a big battle! Down to one dog left, and someone grabs Yuki from behind. He tells her “ You don’t belong here, priestess of a foreign god…” Erevin hits him with an arrow, we put down the last dog-person. The man holding holding Yuki tells her his name is Malice and that he’ll be coming back for her. He disappears.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">We move northeast to the trees. The flora here seems the same as in our world. As we travel, Posy asks Jerome about the Guardians of the Tome. He tells her about the Temple of the Tome in lyrabar. They had found a book there that Raven was excited about. Avidon, a famous writer, said it had a deep, dark secret. He and Raven said they needed to guard the library. Their group eventually broke apart. Jerome says that it was Falco’s fault. He says they did magic to lock down the book. Raven knew the most about it. No one guards it anymore. Must not have been that dark of a secret.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">As we walk, we see tracks of orcs. Seems they came through a week ago, traveling east – the direction we’re heading. We continue traveling for a couple of days. We arrive to see the orcs battling humans and elves. One of the human men declares, “For Parthia!” We see Kale dressed in their armor among the elves in battle.