Spearhold

"Spearhold" is the fourteenth episode of Book 1: Sand & Starlight of Regolus: Dark Age.
== Official Description ==
"When last we left our brave Sigil bearers, the storm above Faleeria had broken, unleashing a host of 25 spectres upon our heroes. Aelys struck a dangerous bargain with the mysterious Xilyreon, while Synnove and Stella blurred the lines between “I” and “we.” Amid the chaos, Bubbles channeled the power of his Sigil, receiving a cryptic message to seek the "Lighthouse of Longing" to prove their worth as Heralds. Now, with the storm passed, our adventurers stand at a crossroads: to steal Commander Bertrand’s orichalcum spear now, or wait and plan their next move. Their choice will shape the fate of Faleeria.”Spearhold (YouTube).
== Plot ==
=== Part 1 ===
* Theagus and Aelys prepare themselves with a few spells before they arrive at the commander’s office/quarters to see if they can steal the orichalcum spear. They listen for any sounds, but all Aelys can hear is scrabbling, while Thegus hears nothing. Theagus misty steps inside, while Aelys waits outside and tries to help through their mental connection. He can see the spear where it was the last time he was in the office, being held by the statue of a minotaur, but through an open door, he can also see the sleeping body of Commander Bertrand. The googles show that the statue is enchanted with some kind of abjuration magic and the spear itself is illuminated with raw magic.
* Meanwhile, Synnove and JB make their way to the barracks. Katari, still hogtied, wakes up and watches them as they enter. Synove doesn’t want to leave her without her being able to protect herself before she has to go and tells Katari that she should not be an extra in anybody’s eyes. Katari asks where they want to go but Synnove doesn’t really know the answer. JB stops her before she can unbind Katari because he does not trust her. Katari tells them that they cannot trust her but they can trust the deal she made. Synnove is still going to do it, no matter what JB says, so she frees Katari, who immediately levels her spear at the both of them, before she puts it away. She tells Synnove that they are not done yet, that there are still so many more things to learn about their people so if they are going, Katari is coming with them. Before they go to meet the others, Katari turns to JB and tells him that she is leaving in part of the deal but she would also like to ensure that if necessary, nobody kills Synnove but her. 
* Aelys informs the others about what is happening when they arrive and that they need someone to dispel the magic in there. Synnove uses her new ability that she got from the Xilyreon to dispel the magic on the statue, but where her magic is usually a golden light, this one is now looking as if through a negative filter. As the magic reaches the statue, Theagus sees the symbol of Sentinel briefly appear on the forehead of the minotaur. 
* Katari demands answers and levels her spear at them again. They try to explain to her that the commander was part of the group who killed the people on the train and that they need to steal the spear in her office. They will explain more but not at this moment. 
* Theagus decides to investigate the desk. He finds a Copper Legion contract of S-Rank, that dictates: “The Vanguard would like to seek the proper identification and efficient capture of local vigilante known only as Black Star.” The contract is marked as a conflict of interest. Theagus transcribes it before he searches again for something connected to Sentinel. In a hidden drawer, he finds a folder with the symbol on it that he puts in his pocket for now. He then tries to carefully get the spear out of the statue
* Synnove and Katari walk down the hallway to keep watch, as they suddenly hear footsteps on the roof. 
* The spear scrapes against the side of the metal statue. Commander Betrand immediately shoots up and Theagus tells the others to catch him, as he Misty steps out of the room with the spear in his hand. What he didn’t realize is that the others are not out in the courtyard but in front of the office door. Aelys runs outside to try to catch him but is not fast enough. Bertrand’s “You don’t know what you are doing!” and a small cloaked figure jumping from the roof are the last things he hears/sees before he falls unconscious. 
* Aelys reaches Bubbles and the cloaked figure. As she stuns the figure, she sees the Sentinel symbol on a charm in between their hand wraps. She picks up Bubbles and the spear and climbs up the walls to the battlements to get to the skyship. 
* Commander Bertrand steps out of her room and asks them what they are doing. They try to stop her but she is able to get away and run into the courtyard. JB tells Synnove to let her go and go to the skyship before he catches up to where Aelys is with the unconscious Bubbles over her shoulder. 
* Bubbles made a deal with Halifax a few days ago. He has one chance in the space between life and death. He is able to slip towards life, as a massive pale white wyrm coils in the green aurora around him. It says: “Well done, Mortal. You yet thrill me. Go, make things exciting again”. Bubbles wakes up on Aelys’ shoulder. He whispers “I’m alive”. Aelys just claps his back and says “I’m glad. We’re getting out of here” before they run towards the ship. 
* Synnove grabs Bertrand’s arm and demands answers. Bertrand tells her that these things are not theirs to know, but Synnove shows her the Sigil on her hand. The commander stops and asks how many of them have that. Synnove asks again what that means. “Somebody is attempting to access the lighthouse. They have been for months and it needs to stay safe. And if you know what’s good for you, you will leave this alone”. She has been guarding this for longer than they know and she needs the spear, the key, the lance, back. Betrand continues to run into the courtyard where she has a conversation with the assailant, so Synnove grabs Katari to run to the Heirloom. Hareem tells Leonaard and Aloysius to start the engines so they can get away as soon as everybody is on the ship. 
* Aelys and Bubbles reach the skyship, as the assailant jumps up on deck. Before they can reach it, Aelys shoots a Ray of Sickness their way which makes them land right on the battlements next to JB, Katari and Synnove. They attack JB, which makes JB go into a rage. Bubbles is able to teleport the assailant away to the other side of the courtyard, which gives Synnove and Katari the chance to get on deck. 
* As the ship gets ready, the sound of a massive wheel clinking and turning appears, as in the sky, a white hole appears with spokes of gold appearing off of it. The body of Lenore drops out of it, completely unconscious and dripping blood from her hand. The hole closes above her. 
* Aelys is able to get Alewjin on the ship by punching him unconscious. With him on her shoulder, she climbs up the ladder and gets help from the others to get them both up, as the ship lifts off the ground, leaving the assailant and the Commander behind.
=== Part 2 ===
* When they try to heal Lenore, they can feel a new layer of magic fading away from her, wisps of light from evocation magic trailing off of her. She wakes up and sees that familiar face again before everything goes back to normal. JB gets healed by Aloysius and wakes up too.
* Bubbles wonders why Katari is with them. Synnove tells them that it was her decision and the right thing to do and Katari still has to follow up on a promise. She tries to learn what the value is of breaking tradition as she is bound to teach tradition to those who would otherwise think to break it. Bubbles demands that decisions like this have to be made together because it concerns all of them. 
* Hareem joins them and congratulates them for having succeeded in something he was not sure would be possible. They are now treading on uncharted bounds. Aelys has doubts about the whole situation because of the way Sentinel and the Commander were acting. Hareem says that they can’t live any longer in the dark that the gods left. Aelys is sure there is a reason why they did this.  
* Aelys imbues the spear with the sigil magic, whereupon Bubbles identifies it as the Orichalcum Lance. Historically, he gets one line of information. Cited from the Chronicles of the Clearhearted, it says: “In copper, in gold, the lance writes only truth - that which was, that which is and that which must not be.”
* Synnove asks about what Bertrand said, that it was a key and that someone is trying to access the lighthouse. Hareem believes that there is a lighthouse that corresponds to each of the Beaconsigns and that Værina must have had something to do with it all and that is why she disappeared/died. 
* Bubbles shows them the contract and the papers he has found in the Commander’s office. Hareem knows about the contract and believes the individual contracted to be found is a member of the Legion and that is why it is marked as a conflict of interest. They can’t just detain an A-Ranking member of the Legion when they are already down so many members anyway. When they look at the Sentinel folder, it is in code, so Leonaard will try to break it but it will take some time.
* Before Aelys goes to her room, she checks in on JB after she had to take him out to get him on the skyship. 
* Before JB does the same, he gives a word of advice to Katari. If she is going to betray the group in some way, it would be better for her to kill JB first.
* Lenore asks about JB’s new shield and if he got inspired by hers. She asks if Synnove was alright when she was gone and thanks him for watching out for her. 
* Bubbles follows Hareem into his quarters and reveals his real name to him, that he is from a place called Mobiaux, a part of the Seekers of Time and is looking for something called Temporite. Hareem tells him that if they find the Leviathan, the vessel his family lost, he can help Theagus get home. Before he leaves, Theagus also shows him the Morphocite Iridia gave him and that he is interested in finding out more about this too. Theagus then tells Katari his real name as well before he goes to bed.
* Synnove gives Katari a letter that she reads as soon as Synnove goes away.
* Lenore and Synnove go into one of the rooms to talk. Aelys is staying in the room next to them and can hear them talk, but they speak in isskarin so she just picks up on the tone of the conversation and a few names. 
* Lenore tells her sister about her work trip. That she met a guy called Sethius and that she is so excited about it because they did something that feels like it matters and she feels like she could be more than she is. Maybe she could still be powerful but not stuck anymore in the way she is. Synnove asks if that means she will not work for V anymore, but Lenore tells her that it could mean not working for anyone anymore. And that she thinks that if they follow this path forward and help the gods to return, they won’t need to use other people as pawns. That they don’t have to be bound. But Synnove chose her connection to Stella and doesn’t want to be unbound. She thinks V is manipulating her sister and would wish for her to leave him. Syn asks more about Sethius and their job. Lenore tells her that they tried to get some kind of crystal but she was not quite able to reach it. The book begins to vibrate. Syn asks why Lenore thinks it is okay to bring the gods back. Lenore gathered that they didn’t want to leave and she knows what it is like to be cast out of your home so she thinks V chose her because she can relate and will help them to go home. She doesn’t know exactly how Synnove left home, just that they tried to reeducate her, but she thinks Synnove could relate too. Lenore wants to give them a choice to make their own decisions. The book vibrates again, so Synnove opens it: “She is but a sad sheep led astray by a wolf. The flock must be saved”. Synnove doesn’t understand because if the gods leave again, everything will be tainted. Lenore wants everyone to have a choice and Synnove can still follow Stella if she decides to do so, but Stella does not get to decide to make that choice  for everyone who they should follow. Synnove is afraid that other gods will try to hurt Stella or them. Synnove wonders why Lenore works for V. It would be so much easier because Stella would not hate her if Lenore stays away from V. But if Lenore did not work for V, she would still be in the Distortion. She made the choice to work for him because she probably would not have survived otherwise. She could have decided to stay and try to get away on her own but she took the help she was offered. Stella sends Synnove another message, saying “She should have known her purpose. We all suffer before we grow”. Synnove thought that if she could convince her sister away from V, everything could be solved but it is so much more complicated than that if this is about all the other gods. Before she leaves and gives her time to think, Lenore asks Synnove two more questions: “If I ask you to leave Stella, like you are asking of me, would you do it? [...] After everything I have told you about Inara and how I got pushed out, do you think that I abandoned you?”
* The second Lenore leaves the room, Stella manifests next to Synnove to comfort her. Stella tells her that these wounds will be healed and that there is only the light and the shadow they cast, and then they will be new with the world. Stella is sorry about the burden Synnove must bear, but no one else can carry it and the work must be done. Stella knows that Lenore does not mean to harm her sister, but her existence alone is a wound. When Syn tells Stella that Lenore does not listen to her, Stella asks if Lenore is family, or enemy. Stella is always here for her when Synnove needs her. 
* Lenore heads to the top deck, where she finds the figure of V standing there. He is pleased to feel her return because he was not the one who sent her so far away and does not know who it was and why it happened. V tells her that Lenore was close to an old relic of his family, the mechanism by which they used to travel here. Lenore asks about Sethius, because he said he knows and worked for a version of V. For V it is like a memory of a dream but that he is the only version of him. But if Sethius helped to get the crystal, he is an ally. V should still be able to journey to the Faded Realm where Lenore found the relic. V is glad to see her safe and that she felt the importance of the World Beacon. The World Beacon was first known as “Regolārydem” (in Celestial). Lenore wanted to help V and Sethius said it would so she tried to get it, even though she is just a tool for him. V says that it was rude of him to say that and that she is a necessity and that “her” wheel is spinning fast now and that he isn’t even really here. They don’t know how much time they have but that ruin is part of the reason they are where they are. Lenore will try to get back there somehow, maybe with the type of blood magic Sethius used and showed her. The Faded Realm was there even before the gods were out of their reach. But V has another thought on his mind. He is mostly here to warn Lenore about her sister. He tells her that Stella is not a god, that he doesn't know what that is. He sees many things from Phylaxis, his domain, when he scries on this place but he cannot see that book. He can see all the other gods, for better and for worse, but it is like it has not yet come to pass. “It is, and it was, and it isn’t.” Lenore can’t tell her sister that because she likes the book more than her, but V wants Lenore to destroy the book. It presents a great unknown. Lenore just told her sister that it is all about choice and now V wants her to take that choice away from her. Lenore can’t do that because she has already given so much, but V tells her that there is always more to give. He asks for nothing, he simply sees, as that is his role, and Lenore’s role is to ensure the impossible does not come to be. Lenore struggles with that because V asks her to hurt the only family that she has seen in so long. V thinks that if that book stays with Synnove, she won’t be her family. Lenore asks for more time here to think. They are both doing the same thing, seeking to heal their families and go home. V asks for these tasks because he knows Lenore can relate. V believes that if that book is unmade, all of these troubles will be unmade. Lenore needs time but thanks him for letting her stay here. When she looks up, V is gone.
* Aelys was able to pick up the tone and some of the words that were spoken in the room next to her between Synnove and Lenore and then one side of the conversation between Stella and Synnove. She hears Synnove’s sadness, so she decides to open their mind connection and does not say anything, but leaves it open if Synnove wants to talk. They are just sharing that space of comforting silence. 
* When the night comes, JB has a melancholy dream. He finds himself in a vast, infinite mountain range, a lonely feeling. He settles into himself  when he notices a figure in the distance, striding over the mountain top towards him. He watches the feminine looking figure and the elements around her. She sits down in front of him and says “You’ve done quite well, I think. A temper, but that is nothing to yell about. Do you think you have done well?”. JB asks who she is and she tells him that she is an interested party. He is kin, if distantly. JB does not know if he has done well, so the figure asks if he is looking for training/help. JB is unsure which one is the right way and feels as if he is in two places at once, but is only able to control one of those places. She can help him with how to do both, to be like the wind, calm or like a storm. He does not have to decide, he can be both if he wants to. JB asks if he killed one of her priests. The figure remembers someone, but she would not need anything from him, she just needs him to be and want. She has been really bored and JB got her interested again. JB asks if she can help him save his friends. She agrees, so JB accepts her help and asks for her name. She introduces herself as Sin. 
* As dawn breaks, the ship stops moving. They are in the middle of the desert and below them is a crater with a rectangular doorway set into the ground, that radiates schoolless, untamed magic. Hareem tells them that he will wait in the sky, but gives him a way to call him if they are done. They don’t know what will be happening down there, but they are here to prove something to someone, as the voice said last night when they connected their sigil to the storm. Katari would rather go home but she can’t, so she has to decide between the jester and mediocrity or make history with them. She decides to join them. 
* They jump down into the sand; a hum lies in the air. From the top part of the door an iris appears, telling them to “present for entry”. It scans them and reveals their designated birth name and origin:
** Sigil Bearer identified. Synnove Oleander. Origin: unclear.
** Lenore Oleander. Origin: unclear. Passenger status identified. 
** Aelys Ir’Viraan. Origin: Üthevhenan.
** Jean-Baptiste Beaumont. Origin: The Howl.
** When it scans Theagus, something changes. It has to process Beast Speech first, before it reveals: Designate Birth Name, common pronunciation: Thinker. Origin: Mobiaux IV.
** Civilian identified. Katari. Origin: Asaal'atāsh
* After everyone is scanned, the door opens and a voice appears: “Come, meet my memory, Sigil Bearers.”
== Characters ==
=== Player Characters ===
* Aelys Sa’Viraan
* Bubbles Bathington
* Jean-Baptiste
* Lenore
* Synnove Oleander
===Mentioned===
* Sethius 
* Inara
=== NPCs ===
* Hareem Lord-Hareem
* Ygritte Bertrandt
* Katari
* Voltaire
* Aloysius
* Leonaard
* Værina 
* Stella
* V
* Sin
== Locations and Organizations ==
=== Locations ===
* Spearhold Keep
* Lifeless Sea
* Phylaxis (mentioned)
* Faded Realm (mentioned)
=== Organizations ===
* Sentinel
== Tarot Card and RP Warmup ==
The tarot card for the episode was The Lovers, drawn by Will.
The roleplay warmup question was: "What is your character’s biggest pet peeve?"
== References ==