‼️ Escaping the Convoys

The session picks up as the party finds themselves scattered amidst the convoys, deciding on what move to make next.

Lyra manages to secure the Everflame core, shadow-stepping out of there and linking back up with Ember, working together to obscure the core and heave it back to their inn.

Meanwhile, Xolo communicates with the two prisoners, scribbling down questions in their cookbook and getting them to scribble back answers. They demand to know if Xolo is somehow part of the Usurper Choir, and if "Lorinveil" had sent him. Xolo decides to free them in order to ask more, and they each teleport to a nearby rooftop.

While this is going on, B burrows to one of the adjacent carts, and using her artificer tools, funnels out and steals a significant portion of the gold being transported.

🎻 Questioning the Usurper Choir

On the adjacent rooftop, Xolo and the two elves remain low as they quickly and sharply exchanged questions. Their names are Xyrix and Lorna, and they are members of the Usurper Choir who fell during the siege and were captured.

They are soldiers of Lorinveil Lavandra, heir to the Lavandra line and who they claim to be the "rightful" heir to the throne of Rivelium. Xolo learns that the Usurper Choir funded the takeover of Flammenvielen as an attempt to seize back power on the continent after the humans who ruled before supposedly killed the rest of the Lavandra heirs.

They tell Xolo that they know not what happened at the siege since they fell during the first attack, and so their next plan is to head to the elven capital, Aelfhelum, and figure out what the Usurper Choir's next plan is. They flee, leaving Xolo to link back up with the others.

🔥 Inspecting the Core

Lyra and Ember remain in the streets as they wait for Xolo and B to catch up. In the meantime, Ember attempts to investigate the core, and discerns that the Everflame contained within it is producing magic that is on the cusp of sentience, almost being able to communicate with it. She discerns that these cores are used to give the Flammenvielen defence wardens automated sentience, but wonders what one is doing here, outside a robot host?

Combat Start | Flammenvielen Tracker Imps

As the party join back together, Ember begins to sense a disturbance in the Everflame core, and realises that something is tracking and tailing it. Before they can react, three mechanised imps powered by Everflame zoom down the street towards them, presumably deployed by the Flammenvielen militia.

A clash breaks out down an alley of Calvantrus as the party fights back against the imps, destroying them one by one as they explode in flames, and the staple, brass Flammenvielen mechanism materials.

As the party fend off the tracker imps, Flammenvielen soldiers soon follow suit and attempt to overwhelm and seize them. However, just as the party become outnumbered, the Usurper Choir Elves, Xyrix and Lorna, show back up and help fend off the soldiers as a way of thanks. The party gather themselves and flee, leaving the elves to fend off the converging Flammenvielen soldiers.

🔥Lorna Returns

The party gather back at the inn, and take a much needed breather after the events of the day. Still on edge, they prepare for the night and rest while Lyra stays up on watch.

Not before long, there is a desperate knock at their window, and Lyra opens it to find and let in the Usurper Choir elf, Lorna. She is desperate, and bloody, and singed - missing her entire left arm. The party wakes and gathers around her in worry as she reveals to them that Kraetor arrived and burnt Xyrix to death with what can only be described as an all-consuming fire. One which cannot be put out. She tells that her arm was caught by the same fire, and so she had no choice but to amputate it before she too burned to death.

Dazed and overwhelmed, she settles in for the night with the party at the inn who take care of her for the time being, and keep a nervous watch out for Kraetor, and any other Flammenvielen personnel who might arrive to finish the job.

🌄 Morning at The Passer's Buy

The party awake and gather after the intensity of the previous night, and plan what is to be their last day in Calvantrus. They console the crippled Usurper Choir elf, Lorna, and allow her to stay in their room while she heals.

After this, they depart into the streets once more, planning on visiting a few shops and chat with a few individuals before setting off.

🔥 Kraetor Militia Leaving

As the party make their way to The Lott, they notice that Kraetor and his guards are packing up to leave. Ember and Xolo decide to speak with Kraetor, knowing that their involvement in the attacks on the convoy are still not known by him, and discover that he and his crew are now headed to Yanaviere instead of their original plan to head to Aelfhelum, due to the complications spurred for them at Calvantrus over the last few days.

During this encounter, the pair spy a strange sigil branded into Kraetor's eye, unlike anything they have seen before.

❤️‍🔥 Ember's History

The encounter spurs Ember to reveal to the party the reason in which she left Flammenvielen and is wary of Kraetor and his men. She explains that her mother was a researcher for the Flammenvielen military, and that her father and brother are both battlemages for them also.

After conducting independent research on the origin of the Everflame, Ember's mother was fired from her role as researcher, and soon after died in a tragic accident. Since then, Ember has found a letter detailing her mother's research, and has chosen to continue it in her stead.

Soon after she took on this decision, an attempt was made on Ember's life that made her realise that Flammenvielen truly was keeping something about the Everflame concealed. She left the castle after this, and soon after, the siege on Flammenvielen had begun, leading her to join the mass exodus.

🐲 Meeting with Mayor Bronwyn

After briefly popping into Sheila at The Lott to discuss about Yanaviere, learning a little about it's mysterious inhabitants and more importantly, Sheila's old spider friend Mary - the party decide to take up Mayor Bronwyn on her previous offer of tea and head to her place.

They are let in by a doorman and are greeted by Bronwyn and her pet dragon wyrmling Lincoln in her finely adorned, antique home. She tells the party how since the fall of the Lavandra dragon riders, dragons are practically extinct and are exceedingly rare to see on the material plane. The only reason she is allowed to keep Lincoln, is because his wings were clipped a long time ago, preventing him from growing past the stage of wyrmling.

They talk over tea and learn that Bronwyn comes from a wealthy family of dragonborn landowners and business moguls who mainly reside in the Nine Hells.

Furthermore, they discuss the Fall of Flammenvielen, and learn from Bronwyn rumours that the largest prison in Flammenvielen seemingly just disappeared amidst the attack - a prison that held many members of the tiefling-ran drug cartel, The Blazing Rain, and members of the Keepers of the Iron Helm, a legion of nationalist military veterans turned vagabond.

The party eventually bid Bronwyn farewell and return to the inn for their final night of stay, reconvening with the injured Lorna, and settling in before their departure from town the following day.