Quest for the Phoenix

One day, a bottle of wine was sent to Arao's home as an anonymous gift. As was his habit, Abid intercepted the bottle to inspect it. The bottle was poisoned -- not just the wine inside of it, but the very ink on the label, to ensure that whoever touched it would die in great pain. Abid had the presence of mind to test the poison, and realized that it was the same that he had used to assassinate a criminal some weeks before. The poison had been chosen not only for the physical and mental suffering that it would bestow before the victim died, but also for its cure, which contained an element so rare that it could well be impossible to procure: the egg of a phoenix. Before delirium overtook him, Abid compiled all the other elements of the cure, and the instructions for it. Thus set out Arao, Sigarni, Kaden and Greg, the former three possessing some measure of heavy hearts and preoccupied minds, the latter a concerned observer of it all, to seek out this last, perhaps impossible component for the cure.

The party journeyed into the forests that lay at the foot of the Northern Mountains, following directions which Kaden had hastily procured through some research at the Mages Guild. They made camp, and were disturbed during the first watch by a small pack of wargs, which savagely attacked the party, seeming to focus mainly on Kaden and Greg, the latter of which was nearly dragged off into the dark forest to be horribly eaten. The intrepid adventurers fought them off, however, and in the morning Sigarni attended to Kaden's wounds before they marched on.

They then reached a long rope bridge which spanned a wide ravine. Midway across, they were accosted by two large dire bats, who swooped in and strafed the party as they were stranded in the middle of the bridge. Sigarni managed to sink a throwing knife deep into the belly of one, while Greg dispatched the other one. The first bat grabbed Kaden by the hair and dragged him from one end of the bridge to the other, stopping only as the extent of its wound overcame it. Its bulk began to tip the bridge sideways, and the entire party was threatened with plummeting into the mists far below; the humans of the party were able to hold on in some way, but Sigarni's hound, Dagonet, was not so lucky, and needed to be saved from certain demise by the grabbing hands of Greg and Sigarni. Greg ended up dropping one of his pistols and losing it forever, in order to save the hound's life. At last the bat ended up dropping into the ravine, and the bridge righted again, leaving the party shaken but for the most part unharmed.

They continued up the mountain to find a valley filled with lush grass and wildflowers, the sun warming it even at this height. They ascended a hill toward a grove of trees, and there the Phoenix swooped down to encounter them. She was able to communicate telepathically with them via Greg, and thus the party unwittingly passed the first of a gauntlet of tests.

Then, the Phoenix told them to catch her, and flew high up into the sky. Arao used a magical reagent to sprout wings and course after her, managing to catch her on the leg and make her come to a halt.

She then took the adventurers on her back to a cliff high above on the rock wall overlooking the valley, to her 'nest'. To the party's dismay, nothing lay within the nest but bare stone. She then commanded them to light her pyre for her. Kaden used his fire magic to ignite the very stone itself, creating an inferno which required both Arao and Kaden to throw up magical shields in order to keep them from being incinerated, themselves.

At this, the Phoenix said that they had convinced her to give them her egg -- but that they would now have to convince her Champion. At this, a tarasque, emerged from a cave cut into the cliff wall, and mauled the already very battered Kaden. Greg managed to shoot off the spear-shaped stinger at the end of its tail, and Sigarni hacked deep into one of its six legs with her hatchet, but with the adventurers balanced high on a cliff with an inferno at their backs, things seemed very dire. Sigarni bravely advanced on the beast and sketched an Obey sigil on its armored carapace, and commanded it to leave them alone. Snarling, the beast did so, and the last of their tests was completed.

The Phoenix then stepped into the fire to give up her life, an action which astounded and greatly moved some of the adventurers, for they had thought that they merely had to obtain an egg she might have laid, and sacrifice one of her young. Her ashes were formed into the shape of an egg, scented like myrrh, and coated with a thin shell of stone turned to glass. Such seemed to be the end of her, but a new Phoenix appeared afterward, brightening the hearts of the adventurers. With this newest Pheonix's blessing, they returned promptly home via a portal the Phoenix conjured for them, returning straight to the Grove.

The cure was then made and administered to Abid, who began to recover swiftly. In gratitude, Arao bestowed Names on Kaden and Greg, and inducted them and Sigarni into the spontaneously-formed Order of the Evergreen.