Scourge of the Clouded Skies

Summary

Adventure: Scourge of the Clouded Skies
GM: Bernard
Session: Autumn 826 wk
Day: Wed
Level: High-ish

Party

• Elidon - Ice - Michael M
• Eugene - Fire - Sam S
• Vixen - Fire - Kita
• Elderan - Air - Ian A
• Aaron - E&E - Helen S
• Uthgard - Mind - Anne S

Adventure Full

Employer

Mission

TBC

Pay

TBC

Scribe Notes

Session One

Day One

We are led to a Guild meeting room. Seems to be a tall party for once. It’s nice to see Uthgard again, she’s a hill giant mind mage and Elderan, an elven air mage. Aaron has also joined the party, he’s a human E&E mage. Apparently Elidon, an elvish ice mage, has decided he is strong enough for this party, we will see. And then we unfortunately have Eugene, a human fake fire mage. I doubt if he will live til the end of the season, of course won’t be by my hands, unless he happens to stand in my way.

Once we have done introductions, we sort roles. I am stuck as scribe since no one else wants to do it. Elidon tried to offer but came up with too many excuses, so I took over. Elderan being the competent healer will save our ass from dying. Apparently none of us know how to cook proper food, pity. Eugene will unfortunately lead us in battle, with Uthgard as secondary lead. And I will be the actual Leader of this party.

Once this is all sorted, we hear a sound coming from outside. Like fast horse movement, then a screeching sound. Then we hear a thud, I assume a person jumping off the horse. Then a couple minutes later a 5ft4 Orc dressed in a heavy weather sailors suit walks in. Have not a clue what their gender is, don’t really care either. They introduces themself as Captain Torga. Apparently a merchant type.

Torga explains that the “Weather has been wrong” in an area of sea after a previous party had dealt with the tower there. And how the Sky wasn’t behaving right. This person isn’t making much sense to me.

They go on to explain how they have been having a bit of unseasonal weather and recently started noticing heavy fog banks, about 200 miles from the banks in open water. Ships are being raided in the fog banks, but the thieves aren’t taking everything, they seem like they are looking for something in particular. So far 2 ships have been raided but also 3 ships have gone missing in the last 2 weeks. The three missing ships are called Bright Falcon, Silver Wind and Deep Ale. The crew from one of the raided ships ended up on a Liferaft ship, they are the ones that sent a message.

The Captain gives us each a Letter of Intro as well a navigator package and six flares to the group. He says that we should go talk to Captain Auldrich at his Silgorn ship called Morrowwind.

At this point, it’s evening. We get greaters from Aaron and call it a night.

Day Two

Today, Aaron spends his time doing rituals. Eugene, Elderan and Eugene head to the library. Eugene uses his super smarts and learns that the Mountain range in Palestina is very high. Go figure.. Although we do learn that there is a Roc in the mountain (big bird) and the last party that flew via cloud in that area got attacked by a flying ball of light. Delightful. They learn from some scribe notes that there are merfolk that are in the great shallows who worship Vephar. A very nasty demon, not keen to meet them. But thank god for scribes who take accurate and detailed notes. They also have a look at the navigator pack and learn the trade routes.

While the boys are busy, Uthgard and I decided to head to the docks to talk to the ship captain. We found a ship, called Foamy Gull. We noticed that it was dusty, like it hadn’t moved in months. After chatting to someone, who’s name I didn’t care to get, we learnt that no one goes into the great shallows and just sticks to the western kingdom borders. This ship used to go into the great shallows but looks like the crew has abandoned the ship.

Uthgard tries to knock on the door and yells hello quite loudly, in retaliation, the ship zapped her. Hehe. I notice that people avoid the ship, as if it had a bubble around it. People walk around it, as if it’s an unpleasant thing.

We then go and find the dockmaster. He tells us that a halfling known as Captain Tallfoot is the owner of the boat. He then directed us over to a boarding house 3 streets over. Once there we walk through the double doors. In front of us was a tiny girl, maybe 10 or 12 behind a desk. Apparently didn’t like us immediately and rang a bell. Four guards run in. After explaining who we want to talk to, one of them goes and talks to the Captain. Comes back and tells us that the Captain refuses to see us. Ridiculous and not helpful at all. But the Guards are able to tell us that when the crew from the Foamy Gull came back from their last outing they just went straight to their rooms. Now we crew come back from successful outings, they come back and drink their winnings which in my opinion is such a waste but I’m not a peasant. But this crew came back and were quiet. Sounds like nothing bad happened but it’s like the crew have a bad feeling about sailing and don't want to sail anymore and some now work a normal job in town. It was about 6 weeks ago. Might be connected to what’s been happening, we will have to investigate.

Session Two

Day Two Continued

We fly off on a cloud to the town of Silgora on the island of Falanion Federation. I did get Elderan to check if the cloud we were on was his master, Cloud the Dragon. Elderan thinks it’s not. We set up the cloud with the Picnic set and chairs that had been in the Cloud Storage. Little hard since the cloud is a bit hill-like. We spend this day travelling south around, following the coast line. Near the end of the day Elderan starts turning the cloud west, while in the dark. Bold choice. Can only hope we are going the right way. We work out watches. I’m with Uthgard on the first watch. I’m glad to be with someone competent. Eugene and Elderan on Second watch and Aaron and Elidon on Third. We apparently notice nothing while on watches. That could be true or we missed something.

Day Three

As we continue on, we see land North and South of us. We are currently in a straight that has no name. Apparently causes fights if we try to name it. How stupid.

In the Afternoon we get to the end of the straight but head towards cloudy weather. There is some stormy weather about 10 miles out but the clouds at the moment are in like multiple levels which makes our vision lines a bit hard.

  - Level 1: Icy Crystal Clouds
  - Level 2: Fluffy Clouds
  - Level 3: Fluffy Clouds

They are technically in the right space but are interacting weirdly. According to the air mage. This ain't my area of expertise.

Elderan slows down the cloud and does a ‘predict weather’. We notice that the clouds are moving around, the wind is moving weirdly but some clouds are stopping randomly like grinding to a stop, then grinding to a start and some are crossing each other. Rather odd.

We follow the storm’s edge to the south. Elderan decides to DA a cloud.

  Aura - Magic but cloud is not a spell or ritual (Ambient magic, zone not spell)
  Power Associated - No Answer 
  Major Magic in Effect - Weather influenced (Non-Collage)
  Negative Effect on Me if Touched - No Answer

I send a fire bolt at the cloud but nothing abnormal happens. While Elderan was DAing he noticed an aura at the front of the cloud, for context he was standing 50 from the front of it. Then the cloud suddenly grinds to a sudden stop. Elderan faceplants the cloud while the rest of us only stagger. Our spells like Mage wind are still active but the cloud is unable to move, like it's stuck on something. Breathing feels like breathing through a straw.

Eugene tries to get his nightmare horse but it says it can’t fly. Elderan uses his DA = Best Way to get Cloud to Leave - Remove the adhesion. Ahh now this is where I can be useful.

I decide to use dragon flames on the edge of the cloud, the air explodes. Oops. Uthgard casts ESP to check there are no other entities around, thankfully she just got the party. I try again using fire but using my fire bolts instead. Elidon casts cone of cold, aiming the opposite side of me. I notice like when I do alchemy, that a fire goes along a thread of glue. This area is less sticky. Feels like were in a web. Elderan passes out ice balls. We will use this to freeze the glue to condense it. 15 seconds of ice explosion. Once done as we move we see ice shards and spider webs everywhere. Air doesn't feel gluey but still hard. I cast dragon flames, there is now fire and ice in the air. Cloud moves again Aaron falls over. We head forward, narrowly avoiding another dead zone.

4 hours later, mid afternoon to evening, we notice a large ship 20 miles out from the coast. We head down and park the cloud 200 feet from the ship. It’s a cog that’s been battle damaged. Such a shame. My infravision shows me that there is a halo of lightning around the ship that’s causing the metals of the ship to burn red. Using Elidon’s iceberg, we get closer to about 20 feet from it. Uthgard checks for any minds and only got us and the hungry fish below us. If only fire worked well underwater, then they would be dead fish. Elderan gives the lightning aura of the boat a 5 second stare.

 Aura - Magic
 Best Method of Not Injuring Me that I can do - Dampening Pain

And then the aura of the boat itself:

 Aura - Formally Living Composite

Eugene casts flame beast and sets it to attack the ship. I ask Elidon to move us back, I don’t trust the fake fire mage. The beast SNAP, CRACKLE and pops away. I ask Elderan for a bird, none appear after 5 minutes, apparently too far from the coast. Pitiful birds.

I try to send off a glass explosion, which I cast very well, at the deck of the ship. As I sent it off, the lightning of the ship went down the line of magic and hit me. Thankfully for a pitiful hit. But I now had a lightning aura. I touch Eugene to see if it zaps him, it does but it also doesn’t transfer. Disappointing. Elderan checks out my aura.

 Aura - Lightning magic
 Major Magical Effect - Storm Touch
 Negative Consequence of Storm Touch - Draws attention of greater storm entities. 
 Storm Touched Duration - Until used, consumed or curse removed

Fun..

We try to move right next to the ship but Elidon can’t drive and we hit the ship. The iceberg gets hit by the lightning. Elderan and I are fine but Aaron and Elidon get hit hard. Elidon falls unconscious and the iceberg disappears. We jump to the bridge and we manage to catch Elidon. They both now have the lightning aura. If I had gotten wet, I would have dropped Elidon in the water.

We climb onto the boat. The damage was clearly caused by being attacked by another ship. The air mages notice that high ranked lightning bolts have hit the ship but no blood around. We have a look around. The Captain’s quarters had been well searched, pity. We did find some papers from a logbook in a chest. It’s written in folksprach but doesn’t seem to belong to the Captain. We also found a brass scroll tube with etchings. Down in the cargo pit we find loads of bulk supplies and an odd item, which was a large net (woven wind breaker). As we keep looking around, we notice in the rigging, stuck to a rope are a pair of gloves. I climb up and grab them. With the gloves, I got a free set of skeleton hands. They look like they were ripped off of a body, poor thing. Ill give them to Eugene cause he's a necromancer. Oh wait, no he’s a fire mage now. Eh, I'll put them in his soup anyway. Later on in the cargo bay, we find 3 lightning bolt crystal shards. Don’t think I’ll mess around with them. They are laying in a line but we can see that they want to move together. When they started actually moving, me, Elderan and Uthgard all grab one to keep them separate. We take some time for Elderan to have a quick look at each item.

Scroll Case =

 Aura - Magic
 Nature of Magic - Messaging (charged)

Wind Breaker =

 Aura - Formerly living composite (Leather)
 Nature of Magic - Shelter

Gloves =

 Aura - Formerly Living composite
 Affect on me when Worn - Secure grab on ropes in high winds. 

Crystals =

 Aura - Magic
 Nature of Magic - Lightning Effect based on target
 Power Associated - No Answer
 Affect when combined - Formation of greater lightning shard.

As we look at the damage on deck, we realise that the crew were taken/ kidnapped shown by the drag marks. We could also tell that blunt weapons were used as well as lightning.

Session Three

Day Three Continued

After we finish looking around, we decide to get back onto the cloud. We decide to check everyone’s Auras.

 Major Negative Effect - More of a lightning rod than normal (not a curse)
 Method of Consumption - Something else consumes it
 Affect on Incoming scry and clairvoyant spells - Curse of attracting storms (creature). Magic casts by the Storms will find us and not the thing they are trying to find)
 Method of Use - Attunement of self and storm.

Around Midday, with a couple hours of flight to go, there seems to be a storm cloud a couple miles from us but it's too high and static. It’s also shorter than most storm clouds. We start heading up towards the dark cloud. As we get closer we notice multiple dark storm clouds that are a bit bigger than ours. It looks like it is hiding/protecting something in a sphere around it. Some of us noticed a glint of the thing that is in the middle of it, something possibly metal.

Elderan summons 6 seagulls. They come in glowing from lightning and panting due to how high up we are. We try to send them in but they dont want to do it because it's too windy and “The fish in the sky that eat them”. Maybe its sky piranhas or sky sharks? Eugene wants to know if the “fish” are sharks and asks Elderan to translate the question to them. The birds in turn call him stupid for explaining what a shark looks like to them. They said it, not me.

We decided to just go in. First try didn’t work but the second time we found a break and went through. Inside is an area about 500-600 feet wide. We park and have a look at the structure in front of us. It was bits of multiple ship wrecks, platforms and some stationary clouds. There is also a large oval metal egg on one of the wreckages.

We move the cloud forward and get onto the structure. As we moved, 5 shadowy figures appeared on the other side of the structure. They produced no heat and didn't have a mind. They tried to hit us with magic but once realised it didn't affect us, we just ignored them.

There were 5 crystals on plinths spread out on the structures. We DA’d the closest one which was a yellow ball.

 Aura - Magic
 Effect if Destroyed - Loss of Containment of Content
 Primary Magical Effect - Source of Great Power
 What can it summon - Answer not given, third party intercept to give an answer = The hearts desire, beware the inverse. 

Elderan starts to glow brighter, unsure why. Could be concerning.

We DA the Red crystal

 Aura - Magic
 GTN of Content - Earth Elemental

Elderan decided to try and look into the orb and found an aura - Formerly living Avatar. That’s a bit unnerving. For some reason, Eugene could suddenly DA the yellow and green crystals. I wonder what fuckery happened there. Hope he didn’t sign another fae contract.

Green Crystal:

 GTN of contents - No Answer
 Affect on me if I break it = No Answer
 Primary Magic in Effect = Stability and Undead Suppression

Yellow Crystal:

 GTN of Contents = Elder Storm Leviathan 

We get Elderan to DA the Shadow things that were trying and failing to attack us.

 Aura = Non Sentient animate 
 GTN = Mist Ghost
 Non Standard Ability = Cold Aura
 Major Weakness = No Answer.

Then we have a look at the other crystals.

Blue Crystal:

 Effect on removal = If the ship was still together than yes there would have been but now no affect. But might affect the cloud paths (minutes to hours).

Green Crystal in the middle:

 Aura - Magic
 Effect on Removal - Cessation of Stability and undead anchoring

Green crystal on platform:

 Aura - Magic
 Power Associated - No Answer
 Range of Primary Effect - The sky the area controls
 Time since activation - Several thousand years

(This is the same one Eugene DA)

In the rigging for one of the wreckages, I find a javelin so I climb up and retrieve it. This is the second time I’ve decided to climb something. I don’t know why I don’t just get someone else to do it. Elderan then decides to DA the platforms and ships and ask Plane of Origin. The platforms come back with Alusia, which is surprising but the ships come back with Astromandy.

Session Four

Day 3 Continued

We realise that these ships are likely water ships so if they have names, then it would be on the bottom. Aaron uses his Wizards Eye to have a look. The boat is broken into two parts but we find a name - The Emerald Bounty. It is written in Common, Orcish (artistic/fancy) and Drown (not elvish). It’s also written in two other languages but we don’t recognise them - inlaid in bone in pictographic language, second one - no idea but creepy feeling in the dark, we shudder, like things watching us and slimy slugs.

The ship with the metal egg is called The Storm Herald. This was written in Titan, Storm Giant and Common. It showed a heraldry of crossed lightning forks. We go and check out the Egg. Elderan sniffs it and says it smells like Damp Ozone. Didn’t know Ozone had a smell. We realise that the damage done to this egg came from the inside. Whatever it was that exploded had been kept in a bag. There are scraps of the 60ft bag left behind but not sure what kind of fabric it is but I do know its crumbly and gross. The egg itself has no ribs to hold its shape so must be from magic or whatever was in the bag. The egg is made of light steel but it is disintegrating from the elements.

Me and Elderan take the back two crystals while Uthgard grabs the blue one. The rest run back as well. But as we pulled the crystals the Ghosts stop and scream and start to get thicker. We decide we needed to get the fuck out of there quickly. I fire arc me and Elderan to the cloud while the rest book it. We notice that some of the clouds have holes in them from us, oops.

As we pull away, we hear chanting. I’m sure that can’t be good but we head quickly down into an exit. Some of us went flying for a bit but were caught. As we looked back, we noticed that there were some meteor showers and falling stars landing where we were. Yikes. That would have hurt. We hear rocks falling and crunching and more things falling. It might have been our fault it broke but can’t prove anything.

As we leave, up behind the breaking apart storm cloud, the sky opens up and there is a massive eye in the storm gazing down upon us. I didn’t see it but Aaron and Uthgard did. They get a bit sparky. Then the eye closes. Elderan gets a sudden vision via predict weather that a storm is coming. Doesn’t feel soon, maybe weeks away. How odd.

We sail on. As we get to near dusk, we believe we are in the right area. As we look over the cloud, we suddenly see a light appear from below. Then more appear. Seems to be a city. The city is situated in between two cliff sides.

As we move the cloud to the cliff on the left side, we see some lights move in the water below us. It's very dark so Elderan can’t tell what we are landing on. Suddenly we hear up and behind us, some distance away, “Ahoy the cloud, state your business”. Us with infravision notice someone flying on not bright wings, possibly shadow wings. Elderan says we are looking for a spot to land. The guy says to use the bright landing zone. Which is where the first light we saw on the ship/water. We land.

About 10 minutes later, a 16 man row boat heads towards us. The one standing welcomes us and asks what our business is. We hand over the letter of intro we got from our employer. This seemed to be acceptable and he allows us to join his boat. We learn his name is Yora.

He then gives us a bunch of rules:

 - Be aware the streets are very crowded so don’t run with knives.
 - Don’t damage the city (Apparently care more about the city then people)
 - Don’t cause a crowd stampede or move people magically
 - Don’t throw people out windows 
 - Don’t get caught using the sky bridges (The high cloth road).
 - Don’t go to the Ridge ends on either side as you WILL be killed
 - Don’t offend anyone you can’t afford to buy their forgiveness (apparently more likely to work in lower city)
 - But as a note: Crimes against people tend to be dealt with by people and NOT the city.

Fucking hell, I would love to know the stories behind these rules. This city is build taller than Seagate but is more cramped from what we can see. The city goes up the cliff sides on both sides. There a number of ways to move between the levels.

 - Chain bridges
 - Lifts
 - Sky Bridges - typically reserved for the rich, some are even owned by the rich. If caught the rich will decide what to do with us
 - Or there are stairs.

There a few important places:

 - The Verdant Grove Onclave (IDK what this was)
 - Smithy Area (High up on cliff)
 - Spire Towers (A bunch of tall towers, owned by the rich and nobles. Situated in the middle of the valley)
 - Merchant Market Square and Merchant Quarter
 - Dock + Harbour District
 - Healers Sanctuary (Outside the city).
 - Central Ridge at the top is a no go Zone. 

As we are brought into the dock area, we ask about the Morrowwind. He scrunched up his face and said that he’s unhappy that it's still in his dock. That the crew is still around but are finding it hard to find someone to fix their ship. Yora says we can talk to the dock master Rovan but in the morning.

We ask where to stay and apparently there are no inns in this city. Kinda dumb. They must really not like outsiders. He tells us to go see Elenor but we may have to pay her for the inconvenience of our presence. We head to Eleanors and we smooth things over with the ones we displace. Beds are large enough for us. We do watches and the night passes fine.

Day 4

In the morning we are served herb bread scones and tea.

 Uthgard - Elves eat this prissy food
 Vixen - What, do you want to eat rats?

As we head outside, it’s still quite dark. We head to the dock master’s place which is kinda in the middle of the dock. As we head inside there are a couple desks with people at the far wall - a female human and a dwarven man. We realise that this place seems to be the tax hub for the docks. We talk to the receptionist and he points us to the dock master. He's a human with grey hair.

Elderan leads the chat to Rovan. Rovan is disappointed to learn we weren’t shipwrights. We repeat the same thing of giving the intro letters and ask about the Morrowwind. Rovan informs us that the boat needs to be repaired before it can sail again but none of the shipwrights will work on it. This is because old Rennic believes it's cursed. They do know that the damage is from the storms, but unsure if it was the weather or a creature.

Renic is a long lived human who lives on a ship that's stationed at a smaller dock, pass the Old Rennic’s Cauldron. We are also warned not to get on Thesk’s bad side. He is an Orc, has one ear and has a big leather coat. He should meet Boom Boom as he has a spare ear. But I won’t say that in front of him, apparently Thesk doesn’t like ear jokes. But if we get rid of the boat, we will get on Thesk’s good side. I guess we better get that boat fixed.

Buffs & Mil Sci

• Aaron has rank 11 Enhancing Enchantment (up to 11 ranks on an aspect of a spell) duration 65 sec (13 pulses) Minimum range 15 ft, Max 180 ft.
• The greater from Aaron is rank 20 (4 Areas +21) last 21 days (Cost 4000sp in myrrh for the whole party, with the bonfire) Seasonal is 12k in myrrh each.

Buffs and Abilities

Long Term (assumed always on)

Magic (caster)	Rk	Effects	Duration	Elidon	Eugene	Vixen	Elderan	Aaron	Uthgard	Minion 1	Minion 2	Minion 3
Mind Shield (Uthgard)	9	+28 vs Mental Attack, Stops Mind Reading	19 hrs	?	?	?	?	Y	Y	?	?	?
Barrier of Wind (Uthgard)	10	+25 Def vs Range +15 Defense vs Melee and Close	5.5 hrs	?	?	?	?	Sit	?	?	?	?
Enchant Armour (Aaron)	16	34 def +1 Arm	8.5/14 hrs (21 days)	?	?	?	?	Y	Y	?	?	?
Eleutherian Ward (Aaron)	11	Reduces Encumberance/Armour AG mod by upto 3.	6/11.5 hrs	?	?	?	?	Y	Y	?	?	?
Hot Wind	12	29/17 def	390 Mins	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Vapour Breathing	10	Magic	5.5 hrs	?	?	?	?	?	Y	?	?	?
Feather Falling	9	Magic	6 hrs	?	?	?	?	?	Sit	?	?	?
Name	##	Magic	hrs	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Short Term

Short Term/Situational

Magic (caster)	Rk	Effects	Duration	Elidon	Eugene	Vixen	Elderan	Aaron	Uthgard	Minion 1	Minion 2	Minion 3
Mind Speech	10	11 Targets + Principal target mental communication with pictures	110 mins (210 mins)	?	?	?	?	Sit	Sit	?	?	?
Enchant Weapon (Aaron)	11	+12 SC +4 dam	16/27 mins (21 days)	?	?	?	?	Gl/Sw	?	?	?	?
Scales (Aaron)	16	52 pts ablative vs Magic & Mundane before Armour	26/37 mins	?	?	?	?	Sit	Sit	?	?	?
Arrow Flight	16	+16sc +5 DM	21 mins	?	?	?	?	?	Axe	?	?	?
Name	##	Magic	hrs	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Talents, Skills, other buffs

Magic (caster)	Rk	Effects	Duration	Elidon	Eugene	Vixen	Elderan	Aaron	Uthgard	Minion 1	Minion 2	Minion 3
Sense Danger	12	Sense the presence of a danger to the adept	Always	?	?	?	?	?	Y	?	?	?
Sixth Sense	na	Thief	Always	?	?	?	?	119%	?	?	?	?
Name	##	Magic	hrs	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Name	##	Magic	hrs	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Name	##	Magic	hrs	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Other buffs

Arron can extend the duration of elemental defence, armour or weapon spells of other Adepts to 21 days, Although I can see problems with extending some like Std Imolation for example.

Watch Order

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
1			2			3			4
5				6				7

Marching Order

Skirmish Formations (Front)
Default 1 2 3 4 5 6	Tracking/Scouting 1 2 3 4 5 6	Single File/Danger 1 2 3 4 5 6

Calendar

Autumn
	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
	Lugnasad
Fruit (4)
			1	Guild Meeting Astrology: Warrior GREATERS	2	Armour & Weapon spells ritually cast	3		4		5		6
	7		8		9		10		11		12		13
	14		15		16		17		18	Astrology: Warrior ends	19	Astrology: King starts	20
	21		22		23		24		25		26		27
	28		29		30
Harvest (5)
							1		2		3		4
	5		6		7		8		9		10		11
	12		13		14	Astrology: King ends	15	Equinox Astrology: Mother starts	16		17	Seagate Autumn Fair	18	Seagate Autumn Fair
	19	Harvest Moon	20		21		22		23		24		25
	26		27		28		29	Michaelmas	30
Vintage(6)
											1		2
	3		4		5		6		7		8		9
	10	Astrology: Mother ends	11	Astrology: Magician starts	12		13		14		15		16
	17	Blood Moon	18		19		20		21		22		23
	24		25		26		27		28		29		30	Beerfest