27 May 2023
Combat with the illusionist continues. She reveals herself to be Queen Mauve and summons a purple dragon. [[Jaezred]] kills her and the dragon disappears. Tal continues to have a panic attack as the illusion(?) airship floats up away. The party attempts to kill Mauve’s homunculus servant. Eventually they kill it. [[Pip]] flies up to the airship to try to help Tal and finds that a trapdoor has been revealed after Mauve’s death. The rest of the party remembers that Mauve often has clones. Inside the airship are the real people from earlier and they start shooting arrows at [[Pip]]. Tal breaks out of his panic attack and helps [[Pip]] attack the crew. Kill a couple and then Tal persuades the rest to surrender. The bard introduces himself as Thomas and says that it is his ship, the Bumblebee. Thomas lands the ship. [[Gammy]] interrogates him. He was hired by Queen Mauve to travel from Aquum to Hivbar to [[Jern]] to Hivbar to Lull and finally to Mauve. [[Gammy]] convinces him to help and take the party to where the slaveholders will be.
[[Ishtar]] realizes that a magic item he has access to might be able to put Tal in an isolated sanctuary for the duration of the airship flight. The party directs the airship back to [[Jern]] for a quick chat with [[Limmos]]. After that, the party heads out for the flight, with Shelldon rejoining. Just before the ship departs, a messenger runs up with a delivery for Tal: 500 platinum and guaranteed space for his shop for wherever/whenever [[Jern]] is rebuilt. Before going into the sanctuary, Tal Sends a message to [[Brigadesh]], letting him know that [[Jern]] is going to be destroyed by fire giants. [[Brigadesh]] thanks him and informs him that he will be following the red fungus (“Merkeve’s Vein”) towards Bimoranto.