18/08/5-10

The group headed to the Open Tap to find the Stormstrike members. On the way they saw  a few buildings of note, a blacksmith and a dwelling with a sign saying "Hunters". As they approached the Open Tap, they saw that the front door was being held, by a one of the Stormstrike, a goliath, who was holding it up, while another of the members, the dwarf was fixing it. The goliath greeted them and said the others were inside, they should speak with Felix. Inside were the other members. They were all helping around the place at the direction of a Skardir. Upon seeing the party approach the Skardir stopped them and introduced himself as Felix, the proprietor. He explained that this tavern was free, but you should repay with donations or doing work.

Valeyo approached Belbera and they began to chat. She told them they were still expecting Janske and that the orc at the Hunter's had seen the bird they were after. Valeyo told them, they still needed to pick up some gear, but they would go to the Hunter's first and so he, Milivoj and Sapphira headed over. Before they left, Belbera warned them to be careful of the man's dogs.

The Hunter's was a large plain building, but inside was full of trophies, including a huge rabbits foot. By the desk, was a large construct dog, reminiscent of the warforged of Temeria, which only a few of the party recognized. Valeyo shouted a hello, and from one of the doors came a 6'6" tall, extremely muscular half-orc in leathers and grubby boots, clearly an outdoors type. He asked what they wanted. Veleyo told them they were here about information regarding the large bird. The half-orc, Thrasak, said the hadn't so much encountered it as seen from a distance. The first time was near the lake to the south. Valeyo was surprised he had seen it in the valley as opposed to the mountains. Thrasak explained that he avoided going to the mountains, doing more hunting in the valley. At that time, it was breathing fire onto some giants. The second sighting was west of here, where he saw it circling one of the distant peaks. He pointed to one of the mountains. The first time he saw it, was a couple of months ago.

They asked him what supplies they would need if scaling the mountains. He suggested getting warm clothes, something to tie them together, climbing gear and some sort of camouflage to avoid the yetis. He looked them over and asked if they had ever seen a Remorhaz, none of them had and so he took them to a side room to show them the head of one. It was a huge head of a centipede-like monstrosity. As for giants, the most likely to find were Stone or Cloud giants and both could be reasoned with. Valeyo then asked about his dogs. According to Thrasak, a person named Beatrice made them from the bodies of constructs, he found in the mountains west of there. She had made an automaton helper for herself and 4 hounds for him. When he found them they were partially buried, seemingly having fallen off the mountain. Valeyo asked if he could instead the dogs and with a whistle Thrasak had them like up. After a quick look Valeyo could spot markings on the parts that were Temerian in origin. Valeyo wondered how they made it there and Thrasak said he didn't even know what they were. Valeyo said they were over a thousand years old and asked who this Betrice was. It turned out she was the owner of the smithy's.

After saying their thanks, the group went to leave, but before they could Thrasak asked Sapphira if she was looking for a new bow, as hers looked quite worse for wear. From a nearby room, he showed her two bows and a crossbow:

+2 Longbow

Dazzling Longbow, which can blind enemies.

Arcane bolt, crossbow.

The group tried offering him a Dream Seed to reduce the price and he said they should have Beatrice identify it first and then they could talk. Meanwhile, Otto messaged Janske, who said he was in the air and would be there by the 20th. Then he started asking around for a place where he could buy a silver pin. He was directed towards Beatrice and soon arrived at the forge. Out there, manning a set of bellows was a humanoid made of metal, who was tending to the flame. He tried speaking to it, but it didn't respond. A minute later, the doors opened and he was greeted by a manic-looking dwarf woman with frizzy blond hair. She said it was  early for business, before asking Otto what he was after. He told her of the silver pin and after looking through some storage boxes, she found one that fit the bill. He managed to negotiate down the price by offering his old chainmail. A few minute later the other arrived.

The group looked over the automaton. It was clearly not a full warforged, large part having been made recently. They were to a warforged what a skeleton was to a human. Inside they met Beatrice and she identified the seed for them an offered some other wares. According to her the seed would be worth around 10k. They returned to Thrasak and bought the bow, in exchange for the Dream Seed and 2k gold. They also arranged for warmed clothing with Valeyo choosing to get the warmest option a yeti cloak.

Soon they returned to the Open Tap, where they discussed the plan of action with the Stormstrike. They expected a fiery bird to be rather easy to track in the snowy mountains, especially in the dark. They would head up the mountain together and then split up to cover opposite sides. Before going to bed, Cassini fixed some things around with Mending and Valeyo spend the evening telling stories to the patrons. Valeyo also spoke to Milivoj about wearing the Ring of Mind Shielding when facing the phoenix, to avoid the Violet Flame making him go out of control again.

19/08/5-10

In the morning, Sapphira approached Otto and told him that she was worried that her memories might have been modified by Tilda in some way. She wanted to know if there was anything he could do about it. Otto had heard of the spell, but was no expert on it, so he didn't know.

As the evening drew in, from outside the Open Tap, a scream was heard. They exited the tavern to see a kid pointing in the distance, where the silhouette of an airship could be seen coming from the south-east. It was engulfed in violet flame and soon after a huge bird-like creature made of purple flame was flying away. Now having seen it in person, the group can tell it was very similar to the Violet Flames, they had seen before. Cassini tried to tell where the ship will fall and could tell that someone was trying to make a controlled descent to the west of town. Soon after, multiple figure could be seen jumping from the vessel and them opening large parachutes to slow their descent. Belbera, who had appeared at the group's side, said they would go collect those with the parachutes. The party instead headed to where the ship was going to land, to try and deliver first aid. With Cassini's guidance they managed to arrive right as the ship crashed into the forest, breaking the canopy. The ship shattered trees and dug into the earth. There the left-most sail was engulfed in fire, manifesting from it was an elemental of Violet Flame. Some of the other trees had begun to catch aflame too and more elementals were being manifested. Some of them resembled black charred skulls covered in Violet flame. The skulls are likely what remained of some of the crew. In the back was another, more serpent-like, likely what remained of local wildlife.

One of the skulls noticed them and threw a fireball, engulfing Milivoj's horse in flame. When the fire cleared, all that was left was a charred skeletal steed surrounded by the energy of the Violet Flame. In the fight many of these creatures set the party aflame, when landing hits. Eventually, the group managed to defeat the remaining elementals and prepared to search the ship.