The wand will mocks Ryltar in the voice of Dirius; it glows. As an action, he can make each creature in a 30-foot radius has to make a DC15 Con save, fail for 4d6 and blind, succeed for half damage and not blinded.It's a one-time-use spell.
And then it's onwards. We can't see beyond 120 feed; there's just fog and an ever-present soft light coming from the clouds. We discuss flying ahead on Bugfood's four eagles, and decide that it's probably a bad idea. We climb onwards, and after an hour, the eagles fade.
The Party comes to a small open ledge, on which three figures stand. On the right, on a rubble pile, is an older female purple Tiefling, in black mourning robes, embroidering a white cloth with white thread. On the far end is a younger male Tiefling, also purple, who looks a lot like Salris, waist-deep in a hole that he's digging. And to the left, posing like Captain Morgan, staring at the clouds, is a middle-aged purple Tiefling, the father.
Not Bugfood's Trial
Salris suggest that this is Bugfood's trial.
Without turning his head, the father says, "Salris, now it's your turn to join us."
The clinking of coins accompany the mother folding a white funerary shroud, which she tosses to Jerry's feet. The shroud bursts open, scattering coins everywhere. The mother speaks, "This should be enough for the exchange." It's a few hundred copper.
Salris laughs.
The digging youth's shovel clunks against a coffin; he brushes it off and we hear him pry the coffin open. He climbs out of the hole to stare at Salris. The mother and father join the son, standing behind an open pit. "It is time for you to join us," they all say together.
"Surely you think I'm worth more than that," says Salris.
Ryltar looks at the pile; it's about 300 copper. "I don't know, Salris, 300 copper is worth a lot these days."
"The copper market is tanking, I suppose," he says.
The mother pulls down her black veil, the son dons a black mask with two eyeholes. The father's skin greys and black bile pours from his mouth as they say, "Time to join us." They point into the pit. "Join us."
"Join you? In a coffin you don't deserve? I left you in bed, throat slit, poisoned."
From the pit a rumble comes, female, forceful: "JOIN ME." A familiar voice.
"Now why would I do that?" asks Salris. The family freezes.
The air grows heavy, sickening, rotted. Bugfood and Jerry and Moon are poisoned. Decay blossoms across the ledge, and a cold fog rolls across the ground.
The pit seems to widen, get closer to Salris. But it's so far away.
Jerry shrugs, says, "We've paid a lot more than three hundred copper for this kid."
Ryltar says "He's done a lot more than 300 gold of good in this world."
Salris holds Jerry's shoulder, walks around her, walks towards the pit.
"Salris, you're not serious," says Ryltar.
"I was always the runt," he says. "He was bigger, brought more gold, more pride. But it was me, I killed you." With a natural 29, his intimidating words part the illusion of the growing pit; it freezes. The family stands there, stoic but not aggressive. "I know you're not here! You may have taken him over, but you won't take me! He was weak, craved power, foolish. Your boon will die with me! Whether that's here, or sixty years from now, on some farm, you will plage no one else's nightmares!" He continues walking towards the pit.
The family says nothing.
The pit does. "IT WILL NEVER DIE."
Salris approaches to the very edge of the pit, looks down, seeing an open wooden coffin, plain and unremarkable. The coffin falls into the pit, deeper and deeper, tumbling into the void.
He looks at the three figures, who stare at him. The brother's eyes now glow red beneath his mask. "The curse will not die with you," the three say.
"I will ensure it dies with me," says Salris. "There will be no one left to inherit it."
"Then join us."
"My time here is not finished."
"Join. Jump. Drop. Into the Abyss." The casket is hard to make out, but still present in the dark.
"You have no power over me."
"But She does," snark the family.
Salris takes half damage as a rush of air blasts from beneath the pit, 6 points thunder damage.
"WHAT IS YOUR CHOICE."
"My choice?"
"You want your pact with her to die with you."
"It was not my choice."
"You slit my throat. You took it."
"Unknowingly. No offspring, no close relations; I cannot pass it on. The last time you contacted me, months ago ‐ months — surely the influence of this creature cannot be that great. They only reach out so infrequently. No demands, easily swayed. You lost long ago! You were merely liberated, though I did not know what I liberated you from. Had I known, I might've let you wither away as a husk. You deserved every second of suffering that you had. But so what? I can't go back to Greyharbor because I might be wanted? I have no reason to return there. To see dear old Dad? Fuck him."
From the pit comes a new voice, older. It's Thalia, calling from the other side: "Do it." And Rezzik Brazik: "Do it."
Salris looks at his hand. "Why would I? So I can please you with another soul? No."
The Burning Blood drops out of his hand; he dives after it even as his Cruelpesh falls beside him. He's going after the Burning Blood.
The Party sees Salris leap into the hole with no hesitation; Ryltar runs forward and lands on ground; the pit is closed. The three figures still stand there, staring at the group, and slowly fade in the wind's rotting stench.
Salris falls in the pit. He falls in darkness, seeing a coffin-sized shaft for the first few dozen feet, widening and widening. At the bottom, the coffin still falls, towards a cage made of stone. Darkness comes in the form of a hand, playing with the Burning Blood as it falls in front of Salris. "POWER, DEMANDS," muses a voice. The hand grabs the Blood. "I'VE MADE MY DEMAND. fREE ME." The hand releases the gem.
Salris reaches for the gem and finally grabs it, and he collides with the ground at the same time. Takes 20 bludgeoning damage as he collides with something soft. Something hard presses him from behind, pushing him into the ground, and he begins to suffocate.
Aboveground, the Party sees the dirt has filled in the hole, like a freshly-dug grave. Vurguron says he doesn't want to dig up a grave, for religious reasons. Doesn't want to disturb a restful peace. Jerry thinks that Salris won't sleep restfully, and expends a copper pipe cypher to make a shovel. Ryltar digs with his own hands.
Salris feels something moving in the soft dirt under him. A hand grabs his.
Ryltar feels a hand under him; he grabs it and casts Dimension Door to teleport a foot above the ground, dragging Salris.
Salris looks at Ryltar. "I can't lose it," he says, by way of explanation. Ryltar understands.
Memories flood back to Salris, of that night and every dream since. And he gains double proficiency for anything related to recalling information: Arcana, History, Nature.
The ground is disturbed, but it's not a grave anymore, just scattered rocks.
Salris' Story
Ryltar has questions. "Just fratricide, or…"
"Both. I was caught."
"And the curse?"
"It's not exactly a high-priority problem of mine. I'm solving it by …"
"Ignoring it?"
"Kinda."
"You met the people in the Warlock Club at Sky Diamond Academy. Did you ask them? Did they have knowledge?"
"They did not. Most of what they knew is what I already knew."
"When you die, does it get passed to your brother?"
"I just have to outlive him."
"This doesn't seem like the sort of lifestyle that would let you outlive him," says Ryltar, who has very few hit points remaining.
"Why do you think I choose to stay away from home?"
"I don't think that your proximity to home precludes you living a longer life…."
"It made sense to me at the time. It's not worth revisiting at this point."
We discuss poisoning; those poisoned have black lips. Salris casts Remove Curse on her but forgot he's out of spell slots. Zelrathi casts Lesser Restoration on everyone.
Zelrathi has questions. "You killed your parents. Why?"
Salris says: "I bought some poison, poisoned this dagger," he pulls it out, "cut his throat, poison did the rest. Part of the reason I took this on the way out, in case I needed spending money. Went to walk out, dagger was covered in blood, as it happens my mother happened to see it, killed her on the way out."
Ryltar: "Doesn't answer Zelrathi's question. That was how, not why. You said you'd answer questions; asnwer the one that was posed."
"I killed my mother because she saw, and was making it difficult. My father, he … was never really the best person. Time went on; he grew more … angry? Greedy? I was greedy, I was offered money to do it. The gold was another incentive to do it."
Zelrathi: "Just like you were offered gold to kill me, the first time you met me."
"Yes. Same person. 'You killed before, you can kill again.'"
Ryltar: "So what's the relationship between Zelrathi and the entity?"
"No idea."
Jerry: "What's the relationship between your father and this entity?"
"I assume that it's the same as me: patron?"
Ryltar: "Hearing voices talking in your head is probably a bad idea."
Moon taps Salris on the shoulder.
"I guess it could be like Lolth is to Moon?"
Ryltar: "So you did it for money, because he seemed bad?"
"The money took it over the edge. He was the captain of the ship that I worked on, with my brother and our crew. There was a mission, years and years ago. I was young and I was learning to do something, I was young, seven or eight. He goes to get an artifact, takes the ship with us, to get an artefact for the noble of the town. They find the chest, half the crew mangled and slaughtered, the half of the crew that he took with him to get the chest. My brother was thirteen or fourteen; he knew how to use a sword better than I can. Half the crew went in; he came out alone, with just this," draws the Cruelpesh, "and says that there was no treasure to be found. We go back to the noble, demand finder's fees for finding nothing. And after that, he becomes obsessed with finding, with finding something. He never said what; I don't know. But whatever this piece of iron is," hefting the Cruelpesh," it seemed to corrupt him. His skin grew darker, his mood too. He started to beat the crew. That's how I got this scar," pointing to his face.
Ryltar: "So who's to say that your brother isn't already bearing this curse?"
"My father wasn't well liked by the crew. My mother was … well, that's going to make it hard for me to face him."
"Do you suspect that your brother is trying to find you?"
"I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"I imagine that what he would do, based on how he was, is grieve for a bit and then take up the reins of the ship. He's now its captain."
"And with a boat you can go many places, find the person who killed your mother and father."
"I try not to think about that."
"Whether or not you think about it, it can still happen."
"That's a problem for future me."
"Anything else, Zelrathi?"
Zelrathi: "You denied four thousand for me. Can you be bought?"
"Then or now?"
"Current price? 'Everything has a price.' I used to think that. But recent events, like when we saw Ren, have made me reconsider. To directly answer your question: no."
"Good," says Zelrathi. "This is a flat spot," he observes.
Rest on the Ledge
The Party takes a short rest, and debates whether to take a long rest. Rather than expending the Potion of the Sleeping Stream, we take a long rest. Ryltar doesn't take a watch; he just wants to sleep. Zelrathi meditates.
We try to lull ourselves to sleep. But the ever-present light keeps us up, no matter how we do our blindfolds, no matter who dons Ryltar's sunglasses, no one is able to no off. So we pass around the Potion of the Sleeping Stream, and take our long rests once per minute.
Ryltar regains his hit point max; Salris doesn't regain his Pearl of Power or Ring of the Arcamag. Vurguron doesn't take a swig.
Bugfood's Identify tells us more about the Potion of the Sleeping Stream: it's the Waters of the Lethe, the river that runs along the borders of the Ethereal Plane. It works for Ryltar because it's allowing him to sleep, for the first time that this Drow has ever slept. "Sleeping is weird," he says. We spend some time talking about sleep. Zelrathi staggers his sleeps for an hour, and comes out of the coffeelock trance with a short rest.
The path leads onwards, or we could climb upwards. The mountain's slope is thirty degrees off vertical, so we climb the side of the mountain.
We scale it on hands and knees, bouldering sort of, and in time the slope shallows out to 30 degrees from the horizontal.
A Figure in the Light
The clouds dim, and from the light around us coalesces a figure with many arms, iridescent in color. We whisper among ourselves, and no one recognizes it or claims it, not even Zelrathi.
The figure speaks, in feminine voices, coming from all directions. Her rainbow tendrils stretch around the Party.
"YOU HAD/HAVE YOUR DUTY," says the figure.
"YOU LEFT ME. NOW I REST. TOO LONG. I HAVE BEEN AWAY SO LONG."
Zelrathi isn't speaking, but the voice says, "DO NOT DARE SAY WHAT YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING! I AM STILL LOST. MY BROTHER, LOST. YOU RAN."
A tendril whips out, through all of the Party. Moon and Jerry and Salris and Ryltar fail a Dexterity save; they roll 1d8. Salris takes 24 lightning damage. Jerry takes 20 poison. Ryltar takes 12 cold. And those who succeeded take half damage, but Vurguron takes no damage.
Todd doesn't think this is a god; this person has a brother.
Jenn thinks it might be Bugfood's sister? From a dream?
The entity before us is a massive gathering of light, shining out. "NOW, I AM NOTHING. YOU FLED. FINDING THOSE UNWORTHY, FINDING THOSE WHO DO NOT BELIEVE. WE FADE, AND SO SHALL YOU." Now brightness begins to consume the world, growing from the figure. "THOSE MORTALS FAIL YOU, AND WILL FAIL YOU AGAIN AND AGAIN."
"What makes you so sure," asks Ryltar.
The light bursts again, and Ryltar is blinded. He's not really surprised; the light blasts through the sunglasses to pierce the darkness within his eyes, as bright as the Sun itself.
"WHAT MAKES THIS ONE DIFFERENT? WHAT MAKES THIS ONE ABLE TO SUCCEEDS WHERE OTHERS FAIL? YOU HAVE LED THEM ASTRAY TO THEIR DEATHS. WHAT MAKES THIS ONE DIFFERENT?"
We hear a softer, younger voice, still female, scream out from behind and around the Party: "I BELIEVE IN HIM! I BELIEVE IN HIM!" The Party gain 13 temporary HP.
Ryltar looks for the other voice, using his ears, and hears nothing that he can distinguish from the echoes.
Jerry feels something standing immediately behind her, as do everyone else. Behind Zelrathi is that same sort of prismatic presence, two wings behind his back. There is a tension, as the light shakes and shudders, dims and brightens, a battle of unseen and unheard wills. The light figure in front of the Party fades, saying, "WITH WARNING: MY BROTHER WILL NOT BE THE SAME."
The clouds return to that same everpresent soft light. The wings behind Zelrathi fade as well.
The Party spends some time getting their heads wrapped around this. Jerry thinks that this was Zelrathi's patron having a conversation with that patron's patron, and Ryltar explains it better. But this means that Zelrathi will have to go to sleep, to talk with her about it. He doesn't know what that was all about; it's never came up.
"The last few times you visited your patron, it sounds like she didn't want you to be there."
"I didn't want to be there. It's a way for her to communicate with me, more direct, personal, uninhibited. But she's never taken the form of light, or wings, or anything like that! She's just a girl. Granted, she has powers, powers that change dreams and grant me what I have, but I don't want to be with her. But what she does, helps."
We wonder whether she has other patronage relationships, other people working on the problem that she assigned to Zelrathi. "I don't know. I got the impression that she's not really that powerful. But she doesn't tell me about these things." We talk about how she sees what he sees, hears what he hears, how she seems to be with him always. How the light fluctuates under his half-mask as she pays attention.
"This may be a bit personal to ask," says Salris, "But would you mind removing the half-mask?"
He does, and his eye is white. Sprawling out from that eye are runes. Salris sees that this is a pact mark, a physical representation of a pact made. He says, "I don't think you're dealing with a deity here."
"It's supposed to be something good, celestial, divine? Higher planes."
"It's possible that you're dealing with something similar to what I have," says Salris, "possible, but, hmmm. It's certainly a unique marking."
"I don't go around killing people."
"You go around helping people," says Jerry.
"She tells me to!"
"So it is a similar relationship!" says Salris.
"Not a demon," splutters Zelrathi, but Salris continues: "This prophecy could be for a fallen angel, to help the fallen angel reattain its power and status as a deity."
"But the big ball of light said it had a brother," says Zelrathi. "If she has a brother, that means that to him, she's his sister. 'Guide the fallen star to sister's light,' says the prophecy."
"I drew the connection," says Ryltar.
"And also to 'release the traitor's curse of howling might.'"
"Perhaps the sister was betrayed by her brother, or someone else in her family?" says Zelrathi. "But what is Arye? A cousin?"
Salris asks Zelrathi, "Can you still see out of that eye?" He can.
We thank Salris for the opportunity to learn more.
"Having a god meet their god is not what we'd normally expect," says Ryltar.
And now we're left in that same void. How tall is it? How long have we been climbing? Jerry, who is proficient in Survival checks on Mountains, doesn't really have any idea.
Bugfood says, "Things are … thin here. Between the planes."
Next session
Short-term:
We're on the World Spire, and … it pierces the planes?! That's one way to bring you closer to your gods, for sure.
Bugfood's time to shine…
Long-term:
We know how to trap the Jester, with Magic Circle
What's going on with the stars? Are Ryltar's theories about colors and significant plot-relevant things' colors correct?
What's left to complete the Ice Heart of Winter?
How can the Mummy Lord be defeated?
Determine how to resolve the Eta'el-Kerjes plot
Remember to un-petrify Ockoh in the Ice Lord Wint's Lair — if Dirius didn't shatter him. Grab the de-petrification potions from the Elven town.