Return of the Lich
This is a storyline that took place in the Platinum Instance during 2019 - . Official title is "Return of the Lich".
Return of the Lich
24 Lumnea: Wehnimer's Landing and Environs
Seika found Jeofrey's lab and attacked him, reducing him to "a single sliver of a red gem". Jeofrey fears that Seika may have acquired his latest creation, a new daughter. Jeofrey created this "new daughter" to fight Seika and named her Annebella. He tasked those gathered to find Annebella; she was sleeping in his lab when Seika and her undead minions attacked him.
Jeofrey was also in the process of creating a new body for himself that should look vaguely elf like as he hadn't completed it. He also fears that Seika found his notes on how to transfer his essence to this new body.
The group of adventurers ventures out into the Lower Dragonsclaw forest in search of Annebella and eventually find her wandering the forest trails. Annebella is convinced to come back to town with the group and they head to the Wayside Inn to discuss their next move.
It is suggested that Jeofrey be handed over to Leil of the Mage's Guild to restore him, but he is loathe to be made a lab rat by the mages of the guild. He thinks he may be able to barter for Leil's help in exchange for access to his lab.
Seika makes a brief appearance in the form of a floating eyeball to gloat.
To make matters worse, Jeofrey's current state is not sustainable and he will ultimately perish if a new vessel is not acquired soon. He explains that he needs a cleric and Chayka before he can attempt to transfer his essence to the elven body he created.
For the time being, Jaired and Leiana take possession of Jeofrey's shard and pledge to safeguard it.
26 Lumnea: Wehnimer's Landing and Environs
The shadows of the night seem to deepen and all goes quiet again, in the area surrounding Landing. The hot night air is heavy with soemthing, something that doesn't feel quite right, the feeling of something baleful watching from the distance.
Seika has been unable to break the protection on the new body that Jeofrey created and in frustration sends a large force of undead to attack Wehnimer's Landing.
The undead are annihilated by fire that is rained down from above by a floating figure above the Raging Thrak Inn. Onlookers say the figure was wearing a hood but red hair was visible.
Various people gathered at the Raging Thrak Inn to discuss the town's defenses and what to do next. The crowd eventually turned their focus to Qualeric and his apparent bond with Seika. Fearing that he was a traitor in their midst, a few individuals performed a gruesome examination of his body, cutting into his flesh many times to look for a curse mark. No such mark was found.
7 Koaratos: Solhaven, The Revelry
Whick has learned that Jaired and Leiana are keeping Jeofrey's shard somewhere aboard their vessel, the Muse, and he enlists the aid of a small group in order to infiltrate the vessel and acquire the shard. The party travels to Wehnimer's Landing via the Chronomage Portals and boards the Muse under the guise of invisibility to search for the shard.
As they search the vessel, nothing stands out except for a cat and three magical seals. The seals are discovered to react violently to any magic cast at them. Believing the seals are hiding Jeofrey's shard, the group attempts to disable and overwhelm the seals by casting powerful magics at them.
The seals are actually more of a warning device to alert Jaired and Leiana to the presence of intruders. Leiana returns to her vessel in a fury and lashes out at her unwelcome guests with words and magic. A couple of the intruders are made to flee the vessel, but Whick appears from his shroud of invisibility and subdues Leiana with a sleep spell. He sends a thought to the others that he found the shard on the collar of the cat and for them to quickly retrieve it.
The sorcerer, Daeoas, helps due subdue Leiana by subjecting her to constant mind jolts. Fearing that her power will overwhelm himself and Whick, Daeoas casts a powerful nightmare upon Leiana and makes her relive being burned alive. The others report that they were unable to remove the shard from the cat's collar and that the cat has now disappeared along with the shard.
Whick orders a retreat and they run from the vessel. To keep Leiana occupied though, now that she is no longer being subdued, the group sets fire to the Muse by hurling fire bolts at it. The conspirators make their escape and regroup aboard Whick's vessel, the Revelry in Solhaven. He advises them to keep a low profile for a time as he concocts a plausible story to twist events in their favor.
Smoke drifted in through the porthole as she lay on her bed, exhaustion both mental and physical suffusing her bruised body. She tilted her head to gaze blearily out the small window to the sea and let out a soft sob, tears brimming to drift down her soot-smudged cheeks. They had come to pilfer the gem that held the remnants of Jeofrey's essence. Finding that more difficult than expected, they had tortured her to buy themselves time while they worked on retrieving it. They ransacked her things. They set her boat on fire. So she'd fled. The Landing had been a place of comfort for her since she was a child and now it was a place of uncertainty and fear. She'd lost things more important to her than she could bear to admit, and she'd found something she'd never known was possible; both in that place. And now she was fleeing it without a true understanding of where she was going or what she was going to do, only that she had to get away to survive. She could recall how they looked as they set her boat on fire while she stood on the bow - the smirk on Whick's face as he nodded to his crew and they left the docks, and her, to burn. "Them".. she thought bitterly to herself. Whick and that sorcerer, Daeoas - the two who had forced her to submit to their search of her boat by knocking her out and then subjecting her to the nightmare of burning alive. It didn't matter that she'd grown immune physically to the elemental magic cast by those who were skilled enough to wield it. This was mental torment - to relive what it felt to have flames licking at her skin, suffocating her, and the terror that it brought as she remembered sitting in that chair while Whick set her on fire. Krasus - the one healing her so that they could do it all over again. Ezabell - the one who joined Whick and the sorcerer to cast fire at her boat. Balatra - the one who had been standing on her deck as if it were her own when Leiana had arrived. They would pay. ALL of them would pay. For now, however, she was fleeing the town she had called home for so long and all that was in it. She hadn't even had time to alert Jaired. She'd just run.
8 Koaratos: Wehnimer's Landing, Town Square Central
Chayka and Annebella appear in town square central to speak with adventurers gathered there. Annebella believes she has a lead on a priest that may be skilled enough and inclined to perform the ritual necessary to help Jeofrey transfer his essence to a new body. She tells those gathered that she will be leaving Wehnimer's Landing for a time in order to search for this priest.
In order to spare Wehnimer's Landing and other towns from various attacks, Chayka decides to accompany Annebella. Seika's continued attacks on Wehnimer's Landing were due to Chayka's presence in town, without him there she will have no reason to attack the town further. The two depart in search of the priest.
Credits
~GM Skhorne