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Sisyphean Attempts at Self-Improvement #1097354 added September 14, 2025 at 4:10pm
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The Notorious Bigger-E
Collecting yourselves from the wreckage of the train to Ansgar, you begin to gather the survivors and figure out what happened, while Reggie spends his time focusing on the fire elemental in the containment device which powers the train. Soon, the rumbling earthquakes approach once again, and a gargantuan purple worm burrows back into the tunnel and swallows a pair of the mercenary hirelings whole.
Big-E faces the worm down and gets bitten but just barely avoids being swallowed whole, but isn’t so lucky a second time when the monster again bites him and manages to devour him while simultaneously impaling Thogun with its tail stinger and pumping him full of enough venom to send him into unconsciousness and a series of death saves.
The worm then bites and swallows Reggie, but the combination of Big-E and Reggie dealing damage from the inside of the worm is enough to cause it to retch and regurgitate them all (including the two now-decomposed-by-digestive-acid) hirelings.
Thogun fails two of his three death saves, as the worm, having sustained a massive amount of damage from all of you plus the dozen surviving mercenaries from the train, manages to flee by burrowing away in another tunnel. Big-E stabilizes Thogun, and after a touch-and-go four hours, Tho regains consciousness and quickly casts Leomund’s Tiny Hut to keep you all safe while you long rest and recuperate from the fight with the worm. “You all” meaning, of course, you, Everard, Thayer, and only some of the hirelings from the train while the others are left to fend for themselves on the outside of the hut during that time.
Once everyone is healed, Big-E takes off on Big-D to intercept the second train and warn them of the debris on the track, while Reggie convinces Thogun to cast Speak With Dead and ask the deceased train engineer questions about the fire elemental.
When Big-E arrives with the second train, everyone helps move the debris out of the road so you can continue onto Ansgar, The City of Chains. On the train platform upon arrival, Big-E gets the surprise of his life when his orc father, Elgin, meets him.
Big-E then gets the surprise of his life again when he’s told that his mother died giving birth to him (as opposed to being off on important work for the P.I. Guild as his father led him to believe all his life), and then gets the surprise of his life again when he’s told that he has an older brother who hates him for causing the death of their mother.
The family drama doesn’t stop there, however, as you all realize that Big-E’s brother, affectionately referred to as Bigger-E, is the orc warlord who’s made a pact with Ar’unath and is helping the demon lord assemble a fighting force to command as soon as they find a way to bring him to this plane of existence. They plan to accomplish this with a pair of magical artifacts known as “The Well” and “The Way.” From what Elgin describes, “The Well” could be the artifact you thwarted mercenaries from stealing off Dallon’s ship back in Kyriel. “The Way” is believed to be somewhere in the Vinsala Desert (where Bigger-E and his brigade are now headed), and Elgin has a point of contact in the city of Sarisa that might be able to help.
You agree that Elgin should go to Sarisa while you go back to Kyriel to confirm the provenance of the artifact that you stole from the ship, with plans to meet up with Elgin in Loriell (the midway point between Sarisa and Kyriel) in two weeks’ time. Thogun pays Everard and Thayer fifty gold each to follow Elgin without his knowledge, and to not lose sight of the powerful cleric. The pair promptly lose sight of Elgin, who elected to travel to Sarisa via a teleportation spell.
Back in Kyriel, you arrive at Azer’s magic item shop to discover three orcs violently interrogating him. You make quick work of them and Azer provides you with the magic item, as well as an appraisal letter from a colleague. You determine there’s likely something hidden inside the statuette and shatter it on the floor (in the main room of the shop which the orcs trashed, so you can claim it on Azer’s insurance filing), discovering an elliptical piece of thin, silky cloth which, when laid upon a flat surface, opens a random portal to another plane of existence. Azer identifies this as The Well of Many Worlds, a powerful artifact long believed lost. You cleverly commission him to make five counterfeit statuettes and send them to the far ends of the continent (with one more to sink in a mysterious shipwreck), and Azer is more than happy to carry out the ruse as a thank you for saving him from the orcs who attacked him.
When you arrive back at Harborcrest Keep to check in before departing for Loriell, you discover that the field claimed by Reggie has been transformed into a training and sports field (courtesy of Thogun’s subtle parting instructions to Nestis before you set out for Calira), and that Ezra is now the interim steward of Harborcrest Keep. He didn’t get the job as Azura’s second valet (what with his resume as a mercenary assassin), but the job did go to Nestis, who has been doing his best to help train up Ezra in the stewardship of Harborcrest while also acclimating to his new job working for Azura.
You take your bastion turns at Harborcrest then head out again for Loriell, but plan on stopping by and visiting Nestis and Azura on your way out of town.
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950 words
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