Escaping the Barn Temple of Baphomet + A New Arrival
You waited in the rafters and held your breath.
Ubys dimmed the candles below. The cultists came down the stairs and spotted Lessie right away — and that's when Ubys became Baphomet a second time. The same trick that closed the well. Dhuxtyn backed him with illusion, then put one of the cultists to sleep. After several long, fragile minutes — by the slimmest possible margin — the cultists turned around and left.
(While they were below you, KeYs felt the egg react. One of them had drawn a magical rod. The egg knew. It got excited.)
You burned the barn down.
The powdered silver in the ritual circle glowed green as it burned. You watched it long enough to know the fire would catch, then you ran.
Goblins watched from the shadows as you fled, but they didn't follow you out into the daylight.
You were halfway clear of Lodestone, past the still-sleeping giantess, when KeYs said it.
"Hey, where's Talon?"
He wasn't with you. He hadn't been with you in the rafters. You don't know when he disappeared. You don't know if he ran, was taken, or never came up. You stood in the road for a long moment.
You decided to keep going.
On the way back, you passed where you'd killed the zombies two nights ago. The Surveyor was there with a wagon, picking up the corpses. Two or three new zombies were doing the grunt work. None of you spoke. The Surveyor noticed you. You kept walking.
You camped at dusk. Ubys sulked. He'd lost a man.
KeYs borrowed 20 GP of Ubys' powdered silver — the same silver you'd taken from the Baphomet cult — and built a fire over the egg.
The shell cracked.
A small, light-metallic-scaled hatchling sniffed its way out into the world. Falkor. Bronze. Hungry. KeYs and Lessie fed him rabbit jerky. He got tired and climbed into KeYs' satchel and fell asleep, purring.
You levelled up.
Next session: home, briefly. And on to Leilon.