Session 19: Ivasar

*“Beware the person that stabs you and then tells the world they’re bleeding.”*

We made our way to the camp of the Eternal Flame to check on our cuddly Weezards and the unnerving Lucretia.  On arriving, Viter spotted what he thought was the Vandywax sigil on crates of supplies and promptly threw a fit.  It was actually the Bandywax sigil, his own house, but due to competition over the years the Vandywaxes have “dastardly” morphed their own sigil to mimic and devalued his own.  It was a long story Viter assured me, one with a clear villain and hero in place, but I already knew who the villain was.

After he calmed down, realizing that it was indeed his own sigil, he quickly proceeded to capitalize on this and tried to scam his way into more ill-gotten gold.  He tried to rile up the crowd to no effect, they easily saw through his thin veneer of tall-tales and the foreman called for the guards.  After much bullying and pathetic pleading he managed to pickpocket (he calls it requisitioning) the receipt of the delivered goods.

If it seems like I’ve had a change of heart about Viter is because I have.  We caught him, slime-handed with the shell of a freshly killed Flail Snail as we left Lenore’s Garden.  At first he claimed that he had found it or some other excuse and I was ready to accept that as he has never lied to me before, but then I saw the glint of slime on his hands and the tears on his armor.  This was no find, this was murder.  At first I was shocked, but then I began to sour on his honeyed words and saw they were nothing but cheap wine, made to soothe the gullible and trusting alike.  I stormed off in tears, Ember was equally furious and we walked to the camp in silence.

After this heinous burglary, we went to the camp of the commoners, greeting the familiar faces of Altair and Milton among the sea of faces.  The camp had changed in our absence, it had grown more organized and better supplied.  There was a sense of purpose about the air and it seemed as if all those able had a task at hand.  The Weezards greeted us in their usual fashion and we entertained them with tales from our latest adventure and with a promise for a secret meeting tonight.  As we joined for a meal, and the fire dwindled down and with the shadows growing long, an old man recounted the tale of Tau the Voice Stealer.  An old tale about demons and trickery, of straying from the path and honored feathered friends.

Ember told a tale of her own, enrapturing them, and one I think to sow the seeds of dissent among their ranks.  It was about a falling star coveted by dark forces, but by sharing those pure of heart kept the star safe.  Later as the Warriors of the Dawn and campfolk gathered for a meeting, Ember and I tried to awaken the senses of the duped.  I failed spectacularly, trying to warn them about the evils of power concentrated in the hands of the few.  However Ember succeeded, reminding them of when has someone ever with power not asked for something in return and an uncomfortable silence ended the meeting.

We all headed off to bed, waiting for Anna to wake us for the meeting of the Weezards.  She led us to a thorny thicket, some ways away from the camp.  There a motley crue of waifs and ragamuffins waited, all eager initiates into the Weezards.  Viter started on a excessively boring diatribe on magic and I’m not sure he actually knew where he was going with this, but when he noticed that a few had fallen asleep and the rest were soporific and soon to follow, he hastily finished, claiming that he had cast the spell of sleep.  They bought it of course, the poor urchins, but I decided not to spoil the night.  Afterwards we distributed weapons that we had scavenged and a few coins and Viter gave them his first machination.  He tasked them with finding any markings of the House of Bandywax and to chart their locations.  With a few goodbyes we all trudged back to camp, carrying the little ones that had succumbed to the “Spell of Sleep”.

In the morning Anna recounted hearing Viter in a dream, but could elaborate no further.  We also had received word from Leucretia, expressing her wish to meet us which we obliged.  She expressed concern, to which we also had plenty, telling her of the Minotaurs, Gnolls and Leshen attack at Templar’s Gate and the transformed children of Emberwood Village.  In a conciliatory tone, she said that she understood our quest for justice and offered to show us the light, a vision from the flame.  We each gazed intently, seeing nothing at first, but then…

I saw myself walking in the time and space of reality, moving towards the future, with the path thinning until it was a single narrow line.  Shadow and darkness lay on one side and flame and light on the other, with the two halves merging overhead as if they were one.  Then I was standing on a hill overlooking the Winter Maple of Sacena, but it had been uprooted and eldritch flames spouted from the ground until it was engulfed.  I awoke, with Leucretia watching, I looked at her for an explanation but all she said “What you have seen is for you and you alone.”.

We gathered again and my companions had similar visions, of a divide of darkness and light.  Ember said she saw Leucretia walking with her and of seeing Sigrun’s hand in the light.  Viter was predictably cagey and brushed off the experience, claiming that he saw himself as the greatest hero.  I tried my best to hold back a scoff, but gladly failed.  Ember pressed him, and he claimed that he was being honest as he was capable of.  I’d call him a weasel but I like weasels.

Leucretia spoke and she offered to show us the trials of the empowered, knowing that we were curious of their transformation.  Tomorrow she invited us to witness the test, from which not all come back.