The Therian Academy

This was the morning the party had agreed to meet Triana at the underground exit from the school, at the end of the tunnel. As they approached the exit, it was determined that Shanris should stay behind with the elixir and ring, while the rest of the party would go on ahead and make sure they weren’t walking into a trap.

They proceded to the end of the tunnel, and there Triana was. She was able to verify that she was the one who talked to the party earlier, so the party went and retrieved Shanris.

The party explained the situation to Triana, and she offered her assitance through several scrying rituals. First she offered to try and find Tybalt Eckhardt, Percy’s brother. She explained that the ritual would require Percy to drink some of his own boiling blood. As painful as he knew it would be, he agreed as it seemed the only way to find his brother, whom he cared deeply about. The vision showed Tybalt chained to a wall in some dark cave, clearly beaten and bruised. It was a circular room, and there appeared to be several other chained to the wall, and some beast they couldn’t quite see chained to a post in the middle.

Next, Triana attempted to scrye on Deidrick Barrister. This was much easier, as the party had a few of his belongings which could be used in place of the drinking boiling blood part. The image this scrying produced was rather disturbing. It showed seven cloaked figures standing around a fire, apparently involved in some elaborate ritual. Inside the fire was the shape of a man on an altar made from seven pieces of wood. It was unclear to the party if Deidrick was the man in the fire, one of the hooded figures, or simply somewhere nearby. The party’s glimpse at this unpleasant scene was cut short, however, when one of the coven members noticed that they were being scryed on. As soon as he looked at the point of view the spell was allowing the party to see from, the spell was cut short.

The party now had a decision to make. Percival obviously wanted to find his brother as soon as possible. However, that cave could be literally anywhere in the world; though Triana recognized that the type of rock the walls were made of could be found in this area. While Triana did seem to care deeply for the well-being of Tybalt and those being held with him, she was obviously more concerned about the Headmaster and seemed to recognize the area that scrying on him had shown. She asked the party to go there and investigate while she consulted with some of her woodland contacts to try and determine whether the location of the cave containing Tybalt was nearby. She even offered to teleport the party to the site to save time.

The party agreed and preparations were made, which included informing Denise of their intentions. She felt that somebody should stay at the school and said she would defend it as best she could by controlling the golems, which she had apparently gotten better at.

Once everyone was ready, the party went back to Triana and she drew the outline of a doorway in the air with her staff. Once the drawing had been completely, it glowed brightly and she asked the party to step inside. One by one they all went through, arriving safely on the other side. The trip through was very disorienting, however, and everyone took a few minutes to get their bearings straight.

While they were all safe, it was quickly apparent that this was not the right area. They weren’t sure why Triana had sent them to the wrong place. There was nothing to do at this point though except try to find the correct location and find their way back to Triana from there.

They spent the better part of the day systematically exploring the woods. While doing so, they discovered a number of interesting things. For one, the woods were quiet. Too quiet. Much like the tower had been several nights before, there was no noise whatsoever; no birds, no bugs, no deer, nothing. If any member wasn’t on their guard before, they certainly were now.

All throughout their searching, Shanris had been periodically climbing trees to get a better vantage point. When the party approached a very large white tree, he figured it would be an ideal tree to look from. It was much taller than the other trees and extended above the canopy. However, their were no low branches on this tree. After some trying though, he and Clarence were able to get a rope around the “lowest” branch (which was 30 or 40 feet off the ground). As soon as Shanris had finished climbing the rope, he found himself face-to-face with, well, a face. There was a child’s face in the tree looking right at him. This startled Shanris and he jumped back, almost losing his balance and falling. Not wanting anything to do with this seemingly magic tree, Shanris quickly scrambled back down, followed closely by the face, which had moved to the trunk to descend with him. Percival attempted to communicate with it, but with no success. When he put his hand on it, however, it was like his mind was transported somewhere else. He found himself in a beautiful forest standing face-to-face with a beautiful (and nude) Nymph. Again he tried to talk with it, but was unable to get through. However, he could sense what it was feeling. It seemed to be concerned for this area, but Percy was not able to figure out why. Removing his hand from the tree, Percy was immediately back in reality. During that time, the rope they had tied to the tree had fallen back down to the ground while Shanris and Clarence were discussing how they would get it back. Since there seemed to be nothing they could learn from the tree, the party moved on.

After several more hours of searching, the party came upon a clearing that looked very similar, if not identical, to the one they saw during the scrying. They were not the only ones there, however.