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8.1
Key Events:
–The Lamplighters reached Tymanther.
-Viola reunited with her father and fought against Unther in an attempt to end the war until Eegan intervened.

The party reached the River Korvaash, the border with Tymanther, four days after leaving the Iron Knight behind. Crossing the river in Luna’s swan boat, the party came upon a few dozen dead Tymantherian soldiers, all dead from battle wounds, on the far bank. To the last they were Dragonborn.

Viola, sensing the party’s nearness to her home city, Arush Vayem, attempted to lead the party further south, but Luna, who had never known Viola to lie, caught her out. Viola wouldn’t budge, however, and the party had no choice but to follow her. Not far south, however, they encountered an abandoned enemy camp, where a detachment of Tymantherian scouts spotted them. Challenged, Viola revealed her clan name–Yaaldos–and the party learned that she was the daughter of the General at the spearhead of Tymanther’s war effort. The scouts escorted the party to Arush Vayem, in the foothills of the Smoking Mountains, a three-tiered city which Viola remembered as vibrant and alive but which, now, seems to have a pall of silence hanging over it. Weaving their way to the city’s crown, they found themselves at the gate of Viola’s home. Her father, Akaarosk, greeted her first with chastisement before breaking down and showing his relief that she was safe and had returned.

The party, wanting to give Viola some space, set off into the city, with a writ of passage from the scouts and an order for a warhorse from Viola herself. Mercy noted that she signed the writ “Yaaldos Vylaa”.
Mercy sought a stablemaster who, she found, had nothing to do but drink; all of the animals in his care had been taken to the front lines for the Tymantherian cavalry. He did, however, offer her company and liquor and some soft hay to take a rest in. Against her better judgement, she joined him for the evening, despondent, wondering if and when she would ever have her own warhorse, as neither Nutmeg nor Bliss had quite managed to be the horse of her dreams.
Kildrak sought a local inn, where, surrounded by rough dragonborn who had no patience for religion and no experience with magic, he dazzled the patrons with his skills before soliciting both information about the White Dragon. He learned that one of the Smoking Mountains’ largest peaks had recently vanished; a village on its slopes had been torn in half. Afterward, a White Dragon had attacked what was left of the village. Few there, he learned, were likely to be alive; the Mountain itself, it was said, had risen into the sky and floated away to the North. It was possible, however, that some of the villagers trapped on the flying mountain were still alive. Kildrak promised to do what he could to kill the dragon and return the villagers home, but not before discovering one or two things about dragonborn anatomy and his own predilections.
Luna set off, trying to find a way to shortcut the apparent immense distances between the Daughter’s Doors. In a fit of desperation, she sought a horse, with an intention to ride, alone, until she found where she needed to be; unable to do so, she lay down in the road and implored Cedric to help her. He led her to a house hidden away down an alley, within which a Satyr named Mauritius informed her of the existence of a hidden island in the Sea of Falling Stars and the former stronghold of the long-defunct Emerald Enclave which might hold the answer to her prayers.
Thurmack sought and found an armorer who was able to synthesize the Adamantine recovered from the Temple of the Adherents of the Blood into Thurmack’s scale mail.

Viola, meanwhile, met with her father, who claimed the Tymanther was winning the war and that Unther had invoked the Rite of Single Combat, an ancient tradition wherein two champions fought the the death on behalf of their countries. The losing nation of that fight would accede to the demands of the winning one, permitting there be no further bloodshed, and the war would be ended. Rykaar, Viola’s eldest brother, was meant to fight on behalf of Tymanther, but after Akaarosk retired for the night, admitted to Viola that their father was deluded; Tymanther was losing the war, badly, and it was he who had invoked the Rite of Combat, only did he not believe he could win, with the wounds he had already suffered in the course of the war, and indeed, he meant not to. He told her that he believed that no more bloodshed should occur, and furthermore, that Tymanther had no right to Unther’s lands. However, he also admired her willingness to return and stand for her country, and admitted that he knew he could not honorably represent Tymanther. Therefore, he said, Viola would fight in his place, and afterward, he would show her what had so dramatically affected his perspective. Viola agreed to fight on behalf of her country.

In the morning, Akaarosk asked the party to investigate the disappearance of the mountain and to locate another of his sons, who had been sent some days before and not returned. They agreed to do so after the Rite of Combat had taken place. Two days later, the party, Akaarosk, Rykaar, and one hundred Tymantherian and Untherian soldiers gathered on the time-honoured Field of Combat. Viola clashed with Unther’s Champion, a helmeted human warrior with a tall shield and devastating morning star, and both fought fought viciously. Just as Viola gained the upper hand, however, she spied a hooded figure on the dais just behind her father. It leaned down and whispered something to him–she only got a glimpse of long, bone-white fingers–but it was enough to know Eegan when she saw him. Before anyone could intervene, Akaarosk, her father, was stricken dead, and Eegan escaped through one of his red portals.

8.2
Key Events
–Rykaar suspected his now-dead father of having orchestrated his own death, and showed Voila that the Chronometer signified that each day’s dawn was not occurring when expected.
–The party investigated the missing mountain and found Viola’s other still-living brother, Phylaraak.

The party and Rykaar reconvened at Yaaldos manor. Rykaar gave the party three days with which to investigate the missing mountain before Viola had to return in order to bury her father in the crypts beneath the Hall of the Fallen. The party stocked up on potions, armor, and arrows in order to help prepare them for their confrontation with the white dragon Azzerkas.
Viola dined with her brother, who insinuated that their father had been acting strangely for some time and had instigated a policy of holding Untherian citizens in prison camps. He believed these people were being systematically killed and that this was evil of the highest magnitude. Viola initially disagreed, but Rykaar reminded her of Tymantherian history–how their nation had literally come from a different plane of existence and occupied traditionally Untherian lands. He vowed to surrender to Unther, but would negotiate for the two nations’ countries to live in peace and even, where necessary, become allies. Viola agreed that this was the wisest course of action–whatever was necessary to stop the war and the killings.
Early the next morning, before the party left for the Mountain, Rykaar showed Viola something else: the Chronometer, a sophisticated device located in the Jewelcutter’s guild which could keep time and was maintained by Modrons, proved that dawn each day was coming later and later, in spite of the fact the opposite should have been true. Viola prayed to Lathander, the god of the dawn, and found her prayer unanswered. Something was wrong with Lathander himself. Together, she and her brother surmised that somehow Eegan, the Mountain, Deothar and what was happening were all connected.
The party travelled to the village of Severn, arriving early the next morning. Nearly all of it had been destroyed–either covered in ice, smashed to its foundations, or seemingly having fallen from a great height. Dozens of dead lay among the ruins. However, Thurmack was able to locate a survivor–an old woman who, believing him to be a raiding goblin, shot at him with arrows. As it happened, she was nursing Phylaraak, Viola’s youngest brother, back to health after he had been wounded. Phy informed the party that he had discovered the possible cause of the Mountain’s disappearance. Strangers had begun making their way up to the mountain and not returning some months before, including a man with a skull tattoo on the crown of his head, carrying a tiefling infant. The party knew then that the Cult of the Sorrow’s Dawn, and indeed Deothar himself, were responsible. The mountain’s destination, Phy said, was apparently Waterdeep.
The party returned to Arush Vayem to find Rykaar having already gone to the Halls of the Fallen to begin the ritual to bury Akaarosk, but when they arrived at the Halls, they found the guard dead and Rykaar himself wounded. Rykaar revealed that he had found a black book hidden in his father’s chambers: a treatise on the God of Three Faces, that which Viola had seen in her vision. The book showed that the first face was Lathander, the second, Amaunator, and the third Bhaal. At the same time, shadowy, cloaked figures descended into the crypts below the Hall of the Fallen, where the Last Bell resided. Ringing this bell would destroy the foundations of the city, preventing it, through destruction, of ever being conquered. As the bell tolled, the tuning fork given to the party by Nil, which when struck and harmonized would transport the party to his location, began to hum. This was their chance to confront The Xanathar and claim the remaining piece of The Whelk–or remain, and see if they could save the now-crumbling Arush Vayem.

8.3
Key Events:
-The party used the Tuning Fork and were transported to a fighting arena

With Arush Vayem beginning to crumble around them, Kildrak made an executive decision to get the party out of harm’s way and struck the tuning fork against the stone floor, leaving Viola no chance to try to save her brothers or her city. They experienced a strange sensation of harmonic synchronization as they phased out of Arush Vayem, but before vanishing completely, witnessed Ankhion Daardendrian, the “Forgotten Princess” and once-champion queen of the Arena in Waterdeep and whom they believed long dead, rush past and descent into the crypts below the Hall of the Fallen.
There was no chance for Viola to challenge Kildrak on his decision; when the tuning fork ceased to hum, the party found themselves in a fighting pit, twenty feet deep, with stone walls; Nil’s hand, still clutching the other tuning fork but now made of stone, lay in the sand in the middle. The pit was surrounded by cheering onlookers–pirates–ome of whom, Thurmack recognized, were the villains who’d attacked his ship, The Siren’s Call, so long ago. He vowed revenge against them. An announcer whose voice they recognized as The Xanathar asked the crowd if they were ready for blood. By the crowd’s reaction, the answer was a most definite yes.
From four trapdoors sprung two Displacer Beasts and two Manticores, which beset the party, who fought tooth and nail. Luna summoned two Eagles to assist her, but when they dived into the arena, discovered that the top was shielded by a magical cage. When the creatures were nearly defeated, the announcer asked the crowd if they enjoyed their “appetizer” and were ready for “the soup”. “Soup! Soup! Soup!”, the crowd cried. With that, a cyclops came rampaging through a gate and attacked. While they fought it, Mercy spied a familiar face among the crowd, just as surprised to see her as she was him–Azos Eolathe, vagabond rogue and thief of Waterdeep, disguised as a pirate. The battle continued. Azos made his way around the arena and Kildrak spotted him as well; Azos signalled that he was willing to help the party escape, for a price, and Kildrak promised him a good reward in exchange for his help. Azos chipped away part of the upper wall, which fell into the arena and showed it was marked with a glyph of shielding. With the magical cage gone and the cyclops was nearing defeat, The Xanathar announced the “main course” and released both a Wyvern and a Chimera. Luna summoned a pack of wolves to assist the fight and Kildrak boxed the Wyvern in with a wall of force; the Wyvern, harassed also by the crowd, seemed willing to attack them if released, but in spite of Mercy’s insistence, Kildrak would not bring down his wall, afraid the beast would not discriminate between his friends and foes. Fighting was at a fever pitch when, above, a troupe of dozens of grungs, led by the golden grung King Zubzub, whom the party helped escape Skullport so long before, attacked the crowd from above, and all hell broke loose as the pirates swarmed to out to fight.

8.4
Key Events: The Party chased and confronted the Xanathar

An all-out battle royale broke out between the party, the pirates, the invading Grungs, and the still-standing Chimera and Wyvern. To make things worse, The Xanather, a frightening Beholder, attacked. Mercy befriended the Wyvern and mounted it, and the party and Grung worked together to defeat the pirates, at which time The Xanathar challenged the party to follow him if they wished to attempt to claim the Whelk before flying deeper into his lair. Azos Eolathe told the party they had come to an island, and that deep inside it lurked many acid flows; he left, saying he would try to procure a ship to aid in their mutual escape. King Zubzub, claiming the island as his kingdom, gave Viola a ‘grung whistle’ with which she could call for aid.

The party rested briefly, then went after the Xanathar. They negotiated a tunnel full of traps, cleverly using Luna’s Wand of Web, and escaped a room of closing spikes thanks to Thurmack’s strong faith–it seemed Valkur intervened on the Party’s behalf. The party chased The Xanathar into his lair, a vast chamber filled with acid. It was a difficult battle. Mercy’s Wyvern, whom she’d affectionately named Nigel, was almost immediately destroyed, much of the party ended up in the acid, and Mercy was turned to stone by one of the Xanathar’s rays. However, they eventually reached his high platform and were beginning to get the upper hand…