📜 Session Overview

They came into Nymis Grove like the last survivors of some forgotten war, stumbling out of one nightmare and into a place too holy and too quiet to feel real. In Theros, beneath the watch of Nymis, the party was bloodied, heartsore, and wrung hollow by everything they had just endured. Even their dragons, those proud and ancient companions, were not gentle with them. Frustration hung thick in the air between rider and bond, every creature carrying its own grievance, its own hurt, its own measure of disappointment. Only one among them seemed content, and that contrast made the rest of the silence feel all the sharper.

While the others gave themselves over to what little rest they could manage, Sinora and Warwick remained awake beneath the grove's dim and sacred stillness. Sinora endured the harsh truth from Schiznin, a scolding that cut deeper than any blade, not just for failure, but for choices made and secrets touched too carelessly. There was something guarded in the words exchanged there, some half-veiled warning about bonds, about breaking, about knowledge that was never meant to be spoken lightly. Nearby, Warwick lingered with his own dragon in a quieter reckoning, turning inward, staring hard at the shape of his own heart. The things that had been done to survive weighed on him, and the things that might still have to be done weighed more. In the hush of that strange night, the truth settled over him that courage in battle was not the same as the strength it would take to destroy one of their own if the moment ever demanded it.

And there in the grove, as sleep finally claimed the party in broken pieces, another burden remained unspoken but understood. Tyel'Koron carried the memory of what nearly had to happen, and Sinora, even in her exhaustion, did not look upon him as a would-be executioner, but as the one who had chosen to save her when the cost of that mercy might yet come due. It was the kind of understanding that left no comfort behind, only a quieter kind of sorrow.

When rest ended, it did not bring clarity with it. The party rose no less battered, and no closer to certainty. Beneath the looming presence of Nymis, they picked through possibilities like wounded soldiers sorting shattered weapons after a rout. They spoke of the Oni, of the cult, of the body they needed to find and the death they needed to make permanent. They spoke of risks, of traps, of who among them might serve as bait if it came to that, and the name of Sorina entered those conversations with all the cold practicality desperation demands. Through it all, Nymis watched in that vast and unsettling way only a being of divine scale can watch. Then, twice, the great goddess reached into the air as though touching something invisible. The second time, the leyline presence around them shivered and dispersed, and Warwick, peering with the senses of a Realmstrider, caught sight of magic unraveling in the wake of her gesture. What followed was confirmation in the likeness of Sir Magnus Opus U'rilius Corbus, Arch Mage of the Cerilian Spires of Arkon, a sign that the unseen workings around them were neither accident nor imagination.

Still, for all the talk, no plan had fully hardened before Xerocomath made the choice for everyone. In one sudden, decisive motion, he realmstrided straight for the cultist camp, snapping the argument in half and dragging the rest of the party behind him in his wake. One instant they were in the sacred safety of the grove. The next they emerged back into Ethoria, into blaring horns, raised alarms, and a battlefield already turning its face toward them.

Whatever hopes they had of stealth died immediately. The cult had not left its heart undefended. Charging to meet them was a monstrous, four-armed Barlgura, all brutal momentum and grasping violence, and across the waterway that split the camp stood something worse—a towering Balor, flame whip writhing, lightning blade drawn, a living engine of ruin set as the Oni's sentinel. It was not a skirmish waiting for them there. It was an execution ground.

The party wheeled their dragons hard, trying to break away before the fiends could close, but chaos came too fast. The Barlgura seized Clisculit, Sorina's silver-bonded dragon, grappling the creature in a savage hold. Warwick drove his own dragon into a desperate dive, trying to tear the demon away, but the strike failed to find its mark and was answered with brutal retaliation. In that flashing span of panic and violence, Clisculit was broken, his form torn apart, and the silver dragon vanished back into Sorina, his loss striking like a death even if the bond endured. It was one of those moments that passes in seconds and leaves a wound that lingers long after the sky has emptied.

Broj, raging with all the force of his fury, drove downward with his dragon in a desperate attempt to reach Sorina before the disaster could claim more. Around him, the sky had become a place of falling bodies, screaming wings, and split-second decisions. Sinora herself dropped in the chaos, only for Schiznin to catch her descent as best he could. The impact still hurt, still jarred bone and breath alike, but it did not kill her. In the scramble that followed, dragon and rider alike moved on instinct and devotion. Sinora and Sorina were hauled back from death's edge, gathered up and carried clear as the party fled the fiends' reach. It was not victory. It was escape by inches, bought with pain, fear, and the knowledge that they had just looked upon the scale of the power guarding the Oni's stronghold.

So they turned their flight toward Wyrmhollow, seeking distance, shelter, and a chance to think before their enemies could close the jaws again. But fate, as it had so often of late, gave them no clean road. Along that path they crossed into the shadow of another terror—the plague dragon that ruled the farmland below, the same monstrous creature whose goblin-ridden territory had already felt the party's violence. Where another beast might have attacked outright, this one watched with a cruel and interested intelligence, and Tyel'Koron saw in that moment not just danger, but opportunity.

So they descended into the dragon's domain and bargained with corruption itself. They spoke with the plague dragon as one would speak with a tyrant or a carrion king, offering terms where steel would have failed them. The creature agreed to aid them against the cult, but only at a price befitting its nature. It wanted time—two days—and it wanted its reward measured in the dead, in the ruined, in the right to claim what remained. It was less an alliance than a promise to stand near one evil so they might destroy another. And even that agreement nearly turned bloody when the dragon lashed out as they dispersed, a final reminder that nothing in that place had become safe just because words had been exchanged.

That was when Warwick's curiosity cost him dearly. Drawn to the foul substance coating the land and clinging to the dragon's hide, he touched the corruption and was struck with disease almost at once. It was not some simple sickness, but a living plague, invasive and ravenous. Sorina rushed to aid him, and the party pushed onward toward Wyrmhollow with new urgency. Above them, danger still stalked the sky. Tyel'Koron spotted the guarding Roc and, with no better option, tried to guide the mighty creature toward the city rather than let it descend on them as another enemy. He called to Vyr for aid, and Broj hurled himself into the effort beside him, lending strength where chaos threatened to undo them all.

But by then Warwick was failing fast. He collapsed, unmoving, even as Sorina worked to save him. The sickness had him by the throat, and the magic used to preserve him wrapped around him in a cocoon-like sheath that turned horrifying when it became clear he was suffocating inside the very thing meant to keep him alive. Then came one of the grimmest moments of the night. Sinora went to him without hesitation and cut into the wrapping, tearing it away while the others helped where they could. What came out was grotesque—plague and binding, internal and external, drawn from him in a display as dreadful as any battlefield wound. They stripped it away in bloody handfuls, hauling the corruption from his body piece by piece, dragging him back from the edge while breath and life fought to remain in him.

By the time they reached the Manticore, they were not heroes returning in triumph. They were survivors carrying grief, bargains, and impossible decisions into the dim promise of another night's rest. Vyr had brought them together there once before, and now that shelter held them again while they gathered what little strength remained. Their enemies were still out there. The Oni still lived. The cult still stood. A plague dragon waited on the edge of its promised alliance. One dragon bond had been shattered into silence, others strained nearly to breaking, and every soul among them had been forced to look hard at what they might yet have to sacrifice.

And so the night closed not with peace, but with breath drawn before the next plunge—Warwick, Broj, Tyel'Koron, Xerocomath, Sorina, and Sinora bloodied but unbroken, huddled in the aftermath, planning how to march back into the jaws of horror and finish what had begun.

⚔️ Key Events

• The Grove's Reckoning: The party arrived at Nymis Grove on Theros battered and broken. Their bonded dragons were furious with them—each conveying its own grievance. Sinora and Warwick stayed awake while the others rested. Schiznin scolded Sinora harshly, and Warwick spent the night in quiet reflection on the limits of his own courage.
• Tyel'Koron's Unspoken Burden: Tyel'Koron carried the weight of what he had done to Sinora in silence. Warwick admitted to him that he does not believe he could kill his own friend even if it was the only way to save them. Sinora, even in unconscious rest, conveyed no blame—only the understanding of someone who knew they had been saved, not murdered.
• Nymis Pokes the Sky: While the party debated their next move, Nymis twice reached into the air as though touching something invisible. The second time, leyline presence dispersed around her gesture. Warwick, using his Realmstrider sight, caught the faint unraveling of magic. Nymis confirmed the vision of Sir Magnus Opus U'rilius Corbus, Arch Mage of the Cerilian Spires of Arkon—a warning that something larger was watching from unseen angles.
• Xerocomath Makes the Call: While the party debated and planned, Xerocomath ended the discussion with action. He realmstrided directly to the cultist camp and the rest of the party followed in his wake. There was no gentle approach, no prepared formation. They arrived into blaring horns and a battlefield already set against them.
• Clisculit Falls: The cultist camp met them with a four-armed Barlgura and a towering Balor across the waterway. The Barlgura grappled Clisculit, Sorina's silver dragon. Warwick dove to help but missed—and his dragon was struck in retaliation. The demon broke Clisculit, and the silver dragon vanished back into Sorina. The bond endured, but the dragon was gone from the sky.
• The Desperate Escape: Broj raged and dove toward Sorina but couldn't reach her in time. Sinora fell in the chaos—Schiznin caught her mid-drop, dulling the impact but not erasing it. Schiznin then grabbed both Sinora and Sorina and fled. The party broke away from the camp battered and one dragon bond shattered.
• The Plague Dragon Alliance: En route to Wyrmhollow, the party encountered the plague dragon of the farmlands—the same creature whose goblin territory they had raided. Tyel'Koron descended and negotiated. The dragon agreed to aid them against the cult in exchange for two days and the right to claim everything that remained as its own afterward. A dark bargain, sealed with the knowledge that both sides were using each other.
• The Dragon Lashes Out — and Warwick Touches the Rot: As the party dispersed from the parley, the plague dragon swung at them in reminder of its nature. Then Warwick, curious about the foul substance coating the land and the dragon's hide, touched it—and was immediately struck with a devastating disease.
• The Roc at Wyrmhollow: Approaching Wyrmhollow, Tyel'Koron spotted the guarding Roc and called on Vyr for aid. Broj joined the effort. The Roc was guided away from the approach, and the dragon covering Tyel'Koron saved him from a direct pass as the great bird swept overhead and clear.
• The Cocoon and the Extraction: Warwick collapsed. Sorina attempted to wrap him in a healing cocoon using Realmstrider abilities—but the sheath sealed around him and he began to suffocate inside it. Sinora cut the cocoon open without hesitation, and together the twins pulled the plague out of him—internal and external—in a gruesome, desperate display. Warwick was pulled back from the brink.
• The Manticore Once More: The party returned to the Manticore, reunited under Vyr's roof. They ate, rested, and tried again—as they always do—to plan what comes next.

⚔️ Combat Encounters

👥 NPCs Encountered

🔍 Important Discoveries

💰 Loot & Rewards

• The Plague Dragon Pact: A conditional agreement with a plague dragon to strike the cultist camp within two days. Dangerous, unpredictable, and the closest thing to an army the party currently has access to.
• Warwick's Life: Pulled back from the edge of death-by-plague through the combined efforts of Sinora, Sorina, and the horrifying extraction of the corruption from his body. Not a reward anyone would choose, but a survival worth noting.
• Intelligence on the Camp: The party now knows the scale of the demonic defenses guarding the cultist camp. They paid for that knowledge in Clisculit's destruction—but they have it.

✨ Character Moments

🖼️ Session Images

📝 DM Notes

The session opened with intentional restraint—letting the emotional aftermath of last session breathe before throwing the party back into action. The dragon scolding scenes and the nighttime conversations were meant to let characters process without rushing. Warwick's honest admission to Tyel'Koron was one of the most meaningful roleplay moments of the arc so far, and it landed exactly because there was space allowed for it.

Nymis poking at the leylines was designed to plant the flag of Sir Magnus Opus U'rilius Corbus without a full reveal—the party now knows something is watching; the why and the how remain threads to pull later. Xerocomath's unilateral realmstride to the camp was a beautiful, chaotic, perfectly in-character decision that immediately forced the session into its next phase. The demons were always going to be there; the party just didn't control when they arrived.

Clisculit's destruction was a significant story beat. The plague dragon negotiation that followed was designed as a foil to that loss—the party immediately turning to diplomacy with something horrible because honorable options are running low. Warwick touching the corruption was not scripted; it followed naturally from his curiosity and the temptation of something new and strange. That single choice cascaded directly into the extraction sequence, which became one of the session's most memorable moments. Next session, the two-day clock is running and the plague dragon alliance must be activated or renegotiated.

🎭 Looking Ahead