Exploring Wandermere, Part 1

The party, along with Lucy Luck, entered Wandermere and were met with a Japanese-style town with floating warming crystals nestled into the shadow of Mount Shiomi. Ranoa dragged the party over to Deirdre Rockjaw‘s candy stand to grab some candy for his sister. The group then stopped by the Tea Gardens, which is tended to by a kind firbolg, Aelar. At the Tea Gardens, the group learned about the benefits of tea which varies from additional health to being able to cast some spells!

Fergus wandered off to Giro’s Gem Shop and purchased an elemental gem in hopes to use it in a tinkering project. At the same time, Ralathen and Ranoa stopped by Azuma’s Dojo. Ralathen burst in calling out for a fight and Nak went and fetched Azuma. Azuma decided to have his newest recruit of a couple weeks, Urthar, go and try to prove himself against Ralathen. The two squared up and exchanged a few blows resulting in Urthar being defeated and running off to his room. Ralathen noticed a look of familiarity coming from Urthar before he ran off. Inquisitive, Azuma himself squared up against Ralathen for a fistfight. Ralathen did their best, but in the end Azuma knocked them out with a blow to the side. Excited to catch the master’s eye, Ranoa stepped up to fight Azuma and yet another fell to Azuma using defensive spells mixed with his martial prowess. After the fights, Jukli wandered, healed up Ralathen and got strange looks by the dragonborn at the dojo. Azuma then healed up Ranoa with what appeared to be some life transference spell. Ranoa then admired the rare gem swords all the dragonborn carried and chatted with Draaldin specifically to meet up later at Sayuto’s Hot Springs. Ranoa asked to be taught the ways of Bladesinging, but Azuma denied him sighting a darkness still within Ranoa‘s soul.

The group then left Azuma’s Dojo and met up with the wandering Fergus and decided to relax and have some tea at Iroh’s Tea House. At the tea house, they met Iroh and Zuko who provided them with a tea ceremony and tea to go. Jukli chose Golden Water Turtle, Ralathen and Ranoa chose Honey Orchid, and Fergus chose Liana‘s Hand.

After their comfy tea ceremony, the characters went to check out The Glittering Mines. When they approached, they were met by Fignor Boulderbeard who started showing them around and sold Ralathen some gem dust as makeup. During their tour of the mine, the group learned that within the mountain the veil between the material plane and elemental planes is very thin which is why the gems here tend to have elemental properties. They also learned that there seem to be accidents quite frequently as Fignor explains their accident sign and right on queue, people can be heard screaming and running out of one of the tunnels followed by a roiling heated mass of water.