Through the Vortex (Date 2/2/3)

“Beware the Vortex.” The warning buzzed in their ears, as the party descended through the Increasingly treacherous canyon. The water ran faster and rougher with each passing mile, and there was less and less easy footing on what could be generously referred to as the river’s bank. It wasn’t until they stood over a drop of some twenty feet onto jagged rocks near a grinding rapid, that the party halted their approach, and sent Ilyana ahead in her elemental form. What she found wasn’t the whirlpool she expected. Instead, the river plunged in a cascading fall into a vortex of energy which seem to be disintegrating the liquid after briefly merging with it. Out of curiosity, she decided to test the vortex with a summoned dolphin. The poor creature didn’t even reach it. As it plunged over the falls, a serpent shape of water and energy cracked from the whirlpool and ripped the summoned beast to shreds in an instant.

The party fell back. Marty sought an answer from Strom, but only got a cryptic warning to be careful. Leaving Edgar and Steven a safe distance away, the party did battle with the warped, elemental weird by standing atop the waterfall and hurling missiles and spells from a safe distance while distracting it with summoned creatures. Suddenly, a powerful surge of water swept Euwyn over the falls! Fearlessly, the party gathered their two apprentices and dived in after the prince.

They fell further than they expected. No longer was the vortex beneath them. Here, they could see only mountaintops far, far below them. The wind was biting as it tore passed them so fast it cut like knives. As clouds whipped by, the party gathered together. Edgar shouted caution, that they were too high. Anxiously, they clung to one another tightly as the ground rushed up toward them, until Edgar called it safe. Magic enveloped them, and they drifted down to the mountains. Euwyn summoned a cottage to protect them. They huddled inside wondering where they were and just how they had come to be there.