Session 28 - Borderline Blues

This is the 28th session of the campaign Ashes.

Summary
At the edge of Granite, the party recovered after doing battle with the cause of the earth elementals, a man infested with blue crystal. While examining the body of this individual, Acaelus reached his hand close and the still glowing crystals reacted like a still-living organism protecting itself, firing blue spikes in every direction. Acaelus was stuck with several of these crystals, and slowly pulled them out with no resistance and they each faded to grey after leaving his body. Elias willingly allowed three of these crystals to attach to his body, sensing a magical presence in them, but unsure of what it does. The further investigation of the corpse found that the man infected with these blue crystals was a fisherman or seafarer of some kind based on his clothing.

The Galeb Duhr remaining felt the earth settling back to normal, indicating to them that there may be a war ahead, but the battle was won. They thanked the party and promised them that they would safeguard Granite after ensuring that Jenny would make her way to Silverton to live with people.

The party left shortly after with Nikita, seeing as they were seemingly both heading in the same direction and began to make their way south into Blackdale.

On the road, several conversations were had between members of the party. Emeran discussed with Elias his changes, and Emeran talked with Acaelus about both of them returning to Blackdale and what that means. At one point Nikita pulled Acaelus aside and showed him the letter that she was carrying. The letter stated that she was forced to be mute via some kind of magic, that the mission she was on was of utmost importance, and that she could force the party to follow the archaic rules set forth by the Iron Council to transport her to her secret objective. She made it clear to Acaelus that she wasn't intending to force them into anything, but wanted to show this to Acaelus to potentially use it in the future so their passage would go undeterred.

After several days of traveling through the war-torn countryside, the party finally made it to the border between Dunland and Blackdale. As they approached, they saw several soldiers making their way over to them around a torn-up outpost, with trenches in every direction. A tank nearby sprung to life and aimed its weapons at the party's approaching carriage. The party spoke with the "commanding officer" though he showed no signs that he was part of the military. After seeing the note, and giving the party a hard time about their destination, he allowed them to pass through the border.

Eventually, the party reached the town of Pale Rock, a settlement with a majority Tiefling population, and saw what appeared to be a large graveyard. Within the graveyard were many horns sticking up out of the ground as opposed to headstones. They discovered an older, partially blind, Tiefling man named Craft going between the horns trying to find where some go. He agreed to show the party their way into Pale Rock.