In which our heroes discover the perils of flight . . . Book Two, Chapter 2.3 (session 52, 24 th May 2018) Finally, peace and quiet falls upon Parnast as the shadows pull back and the last corpse shudders into stillness. Its an eerie quiet though, looking around it is clear that the village is deserted, doors and windows hang loose or are shuttered shut – those that haven’t been blasted by magic or torn off by the titanic clash of daemon and dinosaur. A thorough search of Parnast reveals that it has been abandoned in an orderly and effective manner – no panicky flight or forced relocation, rather a very methodical packing up and leaving. There are very few supplies left in any of the buildings, just a bag of onions here and some dried beans there. Despite Franz’s best efforts no discernible tracks can be seen leaving – there really is only one road out of Parnast, the one that leads to his Hunting Lodge. Even taking to the sky to scout the area around, Franz can detect no trace of a campsite or evidence of how the cult soldiers arrived here. At the south west end of town, the gorge that once contained the flying castle Skyreach, is now empty. The forlorn jetty / drawbridge extending into space affords a treacherous viewing platform from which can be seen a perilous stairway / path carved into the face of the cliffs. This is the end of the Black Road – the ancient Zhentarim trade route that traverses the desert all the way to Zentil Keep and the Moonsea. Spending the night in the abandoned tavern, our heroes collect their thoughts, supplies and hippogriffs and set off into the desert in search of the crash site of Skyreach. For 4 days the scour the desolation of Anauroch in a line along the Black Road looking for signs of a crash to no avail. On the 5 th day, however whilst flying in their usual search pattern they are spotted by a flock of wild griffons who circling high above, tuck their wings and dive towards our heroes. There follows a chaotic swirling airborn melee, as everyone attempts to dive their hippogriffs to the ground as fast as possible. Mads, flying higher than the others gets attacked whilst still in flight, with eldritch blasts he knocks griffons back into the path of Augustus, who has attracted his own attackers. Raging Augustus smacks the closest griffon in the beak with his ae, sending its lifeless body plummeting. Jamna and Franz dive hard, Franz throws his staff up and hurls lightning against one of the griffons, sparks and charred feathers fall past him as the beast roars. Jamna pulls her bow and shoots, managing to stair in the saddle as her hippogriff dives. Naergon drives hard straight down making it to the ground first and there prepares his defence by casting multiple images of himself. The griffons close in and Jamna shoots again but slips from the saddle as she turns, wailing she plummets 300’ or more landing with a sickening thump close to Naergon. To the north the griffons attack Augustus’ mount, tearing its throat out and sending the corpse spiralling to the ground. Augustus manages another strike against the griffon as he starts to fall – then his ring activates and his descent slows dramatically as he drifts slowly down, feathers fluttering around him. Mads continues his fight with glaive against a mob of griffons but again they coincentrate on his mount, rending it apart and sending both its lifeless corpse and Mads plummeting to the ground. Shrieking Ringo leaps from Mads, wings beating madly as it turns invisible. The griffons tuck their wings and dive after the falling Mads. Franz drives his mount to the ground, griffons diving after him, rolling from the saddle bow in hand he starts peppering them, one falls in a splatter of feathers. Behind him Naergon casts a cone of cold just over his shoulder, the icy blast clipping him as it tears into four of the griffons, amidst the shrieks one falls gracelessly, shattering on impact into shards of frozen griffon meat. Jamna picks herself up and limps over to the cover of a boulder where she hides, preparing spell and bow. The griffons above tear into her hippogriff and its lifeless body falls nearly landing on Franz, who nimbly side steps as griffons land around him and tear into his defenceless hippogriff. Naergon seeing the griffons above plummeting towards him casts another cone of cold directly up, inflicting much damage and killing another griffon in a shower of frozen shards. To the north Augustus slowly falls through the air, bellowing in outrage at the lack of targets. Mads falls, hurtling towards the ground and then Misty Steps at the last instant, emerging from the mist on the ground, glaive ready as the griffons land around him. With everyone (apart from Augustus) safely on the ground the battle turns in the heroes favour as spell, arrow and glaive make short work of the remaining griffons. However the cost is high, Jamna is near death and of the hippogriffs only Naergon’s badly wounded mount has survived. As they regroup and start to ponder what to do next, Jamna admits that just prior to the griffon strike and seen only briefly through the blur of activity (and dizzying fall) she spied a large distinctive looking sandstone cliff rising from the desert some miles to the north, to either side of which appeared to be some kind of structure or ruin. However more importantly in front of this cliff (and only really coming into focus as her altitude dropped in freefall) there was the definite shape of some kind of large stone edifice at the end of what she swears looked like a big ditch or gorge – just the sort of trough a falling sky castle might make as it crashed? No levels were gained this session: Naergon 12 th level Mads 11 th level Franz 11 th level Jamna 11 th level Augustus 11 th level XP earnt is now irrelevant as the rest of TOD is based on milestone XP In-Game the session ended at 11:15 on 15 th Tarsakh 1485 DR as the heroes ponder the difficulties of being stranded in a deer without mounts Next session Thursday 31 st May