Bargains & Bloodshed

"Bargains & Bloodshed" is the third episode of Book 1: Sand & Starlight of Regolus: Dark Age.
==Official Description==
"Our adventurers journeyed deep within the rat-infested mine of the Lifeless Sea, finally encountering a massive crystal trapped within the corpse of the rat-Queen. One by one they communed with the crystal and were met with a vision of Ünen. Now linked by something unexplainable, our Copper Legion examinees must journey back to Spearhold keep before sundown."''
==Plot==
=== Part 1 ===
* As the group convenes outside the mine entrance, grappling with all that was shown to them by the so-called god Ünen, they explore their newfound abilities that now connect their group. This time is short lived, however, as they notice a raft racing to the ravine where their dune hogs lie in wait. Sal makes contact with the approaching group telepathically, attempting to reach a point of understanding, but to no avail. This group is revealed to be Team B, consisting of Athamé, Ophelia Pyrrin, Gerden, and Valentinus.
* Team B releases Team A’s dune hogs, before being approached by Bubbles and Jean-Baptiste. Bubbles and Jean-Baptiste try to stall Team B so Aelys, Salvador, and Synnove can get closer and into a flanking position. While stalling, Team B reveals that their objective is to kill Team A and steal their magical salt. Bubbles continues attempting to stall Team B, but Team B is already preparing to fight as Aelys notice an approaching ship on the horizon.
* Combat kicks off with a powerful display of magic from Athamé, using the spell earth tremor. Jean-Baptiste gets Athamé in a headlock, and the players roll initiative. During combat, Jean-Baptiste wrestles with his rage to give way to mercy, Synnove makes a new “friend,” and Aelys falls unconscious - revealing the darkness that resides within her. This mysterious darkness that emerges from Aelys fully compresses, or crumples, Valentinus.
* Combat comes to an end with Aelys still unconscious, but in her mind she is falling through ice. Synnove’s god, Stella, yells frantically to her “Help them, go to them, they need you now!” (01:51:22). Synnove runs to Aelys but is frozen in place once she gets within a certain radius of Aelys. Synnove's book flies into the air and starts flipping pages above her. Bubbles is frantically taking notes and researching the magic border surrounding Aelys, only to find that nothing makes sense based on what he knows about magic. As all of this is happening, Hareem Lord Hareem makes a loud arrival, only to find his help is no longer needed.
* As Aelys falls through ice, she lands “in a landscape made of ice, the sky is jet black with little stars dripping everywhere, as if someone tried to watercolor paint them with too much water, and they now drip through the sky, bleeding through the rest of the paint.” (01:55:47) Next to a prone Aelys is a confused Synnove; on an iceberg-like throne sits the Xilyreon, a creepy, pale, long, and disproportionate figure with a Cheshire cat smile, who says “We’re going to have a lot of fun” (01:57:07).
=== Part 2 ===
* The Xilyreon brokers two deals: one with Aelys and one with Synnove. The Xilyreon states that Synnove did not bring the one it desired with her, that Synnove smells delicious, sweet, like honey, and that they have not eaten in so very long. The Xilyreon then moves on, saying it wishes to make a bargain.
* To Aelys, the Xilyreon offers a piece of what she had lost; to Synnove, the Xilyreon offers something that could help her in her cleansing of the world. Each offer comes at a cost. From Aelys, the Xilyreon would require, once, at a moment of its choosing, for Aelys and it to switch for 30 seconds. For Synnove, the Xilyreon wants to be able to speak to Stella once a night. The Xilyreon claims that Stella also wants to talk to them, and that they are both missing pieces. A condition of the deal, for both Aelys and Synnove, is that they will not remember the deal that they have made once they return to consciousness.
* The Xilyreon states that it will do whatever it takes to prove that it is true, that it is part of the one truth, the sleep, the first and only, and that there is no lie. Synnove asks them, “What do you swear upon, when you swear true” (02:29:18), to which the Xilyreon responds “My mother.” The Xilyreon does not have all of its pieces, thus they does not remember their mothers name, just the cloak of their mother from which they were born.
* Synnove makes the Xilyreon swear upon its mother that it will not hurt Stella. 
* The Xilyreon gives Synnove a small bead to put into her book to help cleanse ‘them’; the bead contains a once per day use of the spell dispel magic. When questioned how they know about that, the Xilyreon says that the gods bicker, scream, and bash against the sky whilst the Xilyreon is trapped, and the gods are not.
* Aelys receives a shard that grants her a one-time casting of a ninth level disintegrate. She explains to Synnove that the Xilyreon is her bloodline's burden, and that the book they seek will tell Aelys more about them. The Xilyreon interrupts them saying “silly Sorrow and his silly scripts.” (02:33:14). The Xilyreon grows impatient, Synnove makes one more stipulation for this deal, insisting she be part of these nightly discussions. The Xilyreon agrees for the price of a page of the book a night, but Synnove says that that is up to Stella. The deal is taken, and Aelys and Synnove return back to consciousness.
* When they awake, they see a frantic Bubbles, who is disturbed by the fact that the magic surrounding Aelys was something that shouldn’t work, and doesn’t make sense to him. Jean-Baptiste is calming himself down on the edge of the ravine, and Salvador is connecting what he knows to the situation at hand in an attempt to understand.
* The elder-blooded people, the elvhenan, often draw a lot of attention due to their innate magical abilities. The Viraan family specifically has an hereditary responsibility to take on what Salvador knows as “The Burden of Ichor.” During this conversation, the friends spell cast on Gerden wears off, but he is pretty calm about it all… after a threat from Hareem. Bubbles stomps off to think, and Hareem is left standing confused.
* Soon enough, the group begins to head towards the skyship to get a speedy ride back to Faleeria after Synnove checks in with JB and Aelys checks in with Bubbles. Bubbles is anxious and upset about the unknown of what is inside Aelys, saying that it breaks his logic, and logic is all that he has. Aelys says that she also does not understand it, and that that is what she is hoping to do.
* Once they get on the beautiful resplendent ship, Hareem starts questioning them out on what they found in the mines. Hareem seats them around a table made of pure gold, which was made to replicate a gold coin. Hareem speaks of the previous D-ranking leader Værina and her solo mission after seeing strange lights in the sky; she never returned from this trip. Hareem then shows the group a large relic with multiple symbols on it, the Errant Cryptoglyph, that has been passed down his family for generations; Synnove can read the symbols and translates for the group. The symbols say Longing, Temperance, Beauty, Knowledge, Solace, and Regret, with longing being the symbol shown in the sky. When all of the legionnaires touch the relic, a wisp flies out of it, in a southwest direction away from the boat.
* Hareem informs the group that he believes the legion knows more than they are letting on, especially with the disappearance of Værina. Hareem also says that the A-team is now bound to this stone relic.
* Hareem wants to pursue this path but knows the legion work can interfere. He explains that the legion takes 75% of their cut from missions while they are D rank; however, sometimes Hareem will give the team missions of his own, for which they will be paid in full, while he pays the legion from his own coffers. Hareem explains that he is so interested in the stone because this stone is a challenge, an interesting puzzle to be solved, and he is bored and rich.
* Hareem’s family once moved in a huge marvelous boat, but they lost the boat. Not lost as in it died; they literally misplaced the boat.
* Synnove and the others get into a small argument about the gods, the existence of them, the state of them, and the importance of them. The group then goes their own way for the remainder of the trip to Faleeria.
* Jean-Baptiste takes a bath and relaxes himself in the crows nest, feeling more at peace with the air than ever before. 
* Aelys attempts to meditate with the ichor flowing inside of her, moving through her veins, and finds herself much calmer. Synnove interrupts Aelys’s mediations to ask about her past. Aelys opens up, speaking about how she used to be a mage, and how her ancestor, Ur-Viraan, was the first elvhen, the first mortal. During his life, Ur-Viraan was shackled with what is known as a Divine Burden. Ur-Viraan fragmented the Divine Burden, and Aelys now carries one of those pieces.
* Synnove asks Aelys if she wants to touch her book, and Aelys, surprised, tentatively does. Aelys and Synnove are given a vision of Stella in a cage, 
“A girl trapped in steel, bound in flame. This heinous green fire. It tears her apart, and yet she persists, her soul is forced to cut away that which begat her… She is one with the steel and one with the flame, she does not wish to be, she wishes for freedom. She wishes for freedom. There is light, there is heat. The sun rises, the girl is freed and a book is made.” (03:52:35).
* With that, the pair are released from the vision.
* Synnove states that that was not what she thought would happen because she thought Aelys would be cleansed. Aelys does not like that and says that she does not want to be cleansed. Synnove says that Stella is another option for Aelys and requests that she try and keep that in mind since all Stella wants to do is help. Synnove’s book vibrates, and in the book there is a message: “There is space in her for the light.” (03:57:15). Synnove reiterates that it is okay to ask for help, that Stella isn’t the only option, but she is an option. Aelys states that she doesn’t want help, and that she deserved to be in the position that she's in. Aelys proceeds to state that she is more than willing to talk to Stella but not if it is out of pity for being weak. Synnove says she has never thought of Aelys as weak.
* Synnove then opens up about how she got her book, saying that she was around ten years old when she got it in an old ruin by where she lived. Once she saw someone there, and then a couple of weeks later she saw the book there. She thought it looked kind of sad, and that she was sad too; she started writing in it, and it started writing back. Aelys tells her not to underestimate her role in Stella's story, in which Synnove responds that she doesn’t, but she rather enjoys being underestimated. Before they part, Aelys tells Synnove to not lose track of how lucky she is to have what she has and to remember that it is hers and not Stella’s.
* Salvador takes a bath, and gets a message from his friend Beninan: “Trouble, Sulevara, Nevricīl, Kantiisa, need-.” Sal then goes to get food, investigate Hareem’s rings, and eventually runs into Bubbles. Bubbles asks if Sals psychic mind disk are magic, and Sal says kind of but not really. Sal asks if Bubbles is familiar with Arla, Tanel’Inan, Lincila, or the Venetorix; Bubbles reveals that he actually is familiar with them. Bubbles knows that they are kind of mind assassins, and they helped him get over to the Copper Legion, but the only name he remembers is Keno. The Nevricīl do not like the Tanel’Inan, Sal reveals that he believed that there is some good in the Tanel’Inan, but he now believes that some are being manipulated by Üthevhenan. Sal also shares that he was almost a part of the Tanel’Inan. At some point, Sal started having other people's dreams, hearing other’s thoughts, and it only grew stronger. He went with the Tanel’Inan to train these abilities. He left, however, because there was lot of fear within his family and Tanel’Inan. Sal wants to find what this fear is but doesn't believe he will find it in a school.
* Bubbles then opens up about his past, saying that at a very young age he was taken from his family by orcs, which is where he was given his harness. Bubbles states that the orcs are horrendous creatures, and that they were part of an organization called the Psionauts. The Psionauts are or were the psionic power on the continent.
* Sal tells Aelys that he has to leave for a bit, that he has business to attend to. Jean-Baptiste is serene, one with the air, as Synnove keeps him company. Eventually the boat lands back in Faleeria, thus marking the end of the session.
== Characters ==
=== Player Characters ===
*Aelys Sa’Viraan
*Bubbles Bathington
*Jean-Baptiste
*Salvador E. Montebank
*Synnove Oleander
*Keno (mentioned)
===Mentioned===
* Værina
* Kantiisa
=== NPCs ===
* Athamé
* Gerden
* Ophelia Pyrrin
* Valentinus
* Hareem Lord-Hareem
* Aloysius
* Leonaard
* Stella (Dark Age)
* Xilyreon
* Beninan (voice)
* Ygritte Bertrand
== Locations and Organizations ==
=== Locations ===
* Sun Salt Mine
* Spearhold Keep
* Sulevara (mentioned)
* Tanel’Inan (mentioned)
* Üthevhenan (mentioned)
=== Organizations ===
* Copper Legion
* Dalarae
* Mind Assassins/ Venetorix  (mentioned)
* Nevricīl (mentioned)
* Psionauts (mentioned)
== Tarot Card and RP Warmup ==
The tarot card for the episode was Justice, drawn by Woody.
The roleplay warmup question was: "What does your character smell like? What is their signature scent?"
==References==