Session 39: The Marble

## Summary

The session begins with Shade falling through his pocket dimension endlessly with the corpse of the marble ruler at Oliver’s feet. Shade eventually pops back into reality, and Cryllos splashes a healing potion onto the marble lady.

Nonamé and Amalesca ride around on Amalesca’s spectral horse and succeed in dealing damage to the hill monster. Veins of red light spread out from it, the hand on its back begins dissolving into dust. Both of its back legs and one eye have crumbled by this time. Annora, who has transformed into a bird with sword-talons, scratches the monster as well.

Meanwhile, in the tower at Lighthouse 1, Oliver, Shade, and Cryllos review their options concerning the marble ruler. They decide to stuff her in a closet, pushing open a door with the appearance of a broom-closet and setting off an alarm. The room turns out to be very much not a broom closet; it is made entirely of white marble, containing a low desk with an open journal on it and some pillows. The party goes to read the book. In it is a handwritten note with no address, which speaks of doubts about the author’s “lord” and their trustworthiness, who has given the author a job at the lighthouse away from the Palace of Mirrors. The signature is illegible, and the note is dated about three days before. It is observed that the handwriting is ‘insufferable’. Oliver and the party stuff the marble ruler under her marble bed and take the book, which turns out to also be made of marble, and needs to be opened with hinges. Oliver is very annoyed.

Back at the hill monster, Annora, Alastor, and Nonamé attack the weak spot in the chest, slowly chipping away at the monster, which is still trying to pull itself along with its one remaining arm. The monster swipes Nonamé out of the air. She manages to stab her scalpel into the magic horse’s hoof and stop her descent, and the horse drifts safely down to the ground. After another blow, the monster finally dies (again), and red ghost lights spew out of it. As it collapses, one of the ghosts congeals into a human child and glares at Alastor, saying, “Well . . . thanks for the fun anyway,” then dissipates. The three adventurers head to Lighthouse 1 to join the rest of the party.

Before they get there, Oliver tries to prevent the marble ruler from escaping from her prison by putting the piano against the door to block it. He attempts to shove Cryllos inside the room with the marble ruler, as Cryllos has decided to talk to the woman. Shade thinks it’s a dumb idea, which is saying something. The marble bed tries to get through the door but is too big to get out. They close the door on the bed, using ice magic to help keep it closed. However, the ice re-opens the door instead and creates a shield of ice around the doorway. The bed transforms into the woman with a fox mask, who is very upset and starts punching the ice. The marble ruler determines that Cryllos is the god candidate, and wants to kill him to prevent him from becoming a god. Oliver plays a horrible birthday song on his piano to make them die. The stone woman explodes and her mask falls to the floor, which Shade fails to put in his pocket dimension.

The other gang then arrives, with the exception of Amalesca, who returns to her court to try to convince them not to kill Cryllos. The two parties reunite in front of the tower, and Oliver decides to put the mask in warm water. Annora searches in her briefcase for some warm water but only comes up with applesauce. Nevertheless, Oliver decides to go ahead and dunk the mask in the apple sauce, in an attempt to soften the wood to form the mask into a stupid shape. Nonamé asks for the applesauce, very much not wanting Oliver to cover the mask in apple sauce, but Annora gives it to Oliver. Oliver pours the apple sauce over the mask and converts it to a necklace which he then tries to give to Annora, but ends up wearing it himself.

The party bribes Oliver to hand the marble journal to Nonamé; Annora gives him a potted daisy in return, which he is very excited about. Nonamé reads the book. The entries that she reads are fairly recent and explains that the marble ruler came from the mirror palace and was booted out because she disagreed with the King on something mentioned. It also talks about the court being divided and their inability to stand up to the Amber court. The marble ruler is uncomfortable in the fancy tower. There is one entry that stands out, which speaks of the marble ruler beginning to think she must do something about the situation in court. She believes the King is unstable again, and she fears him. She doesn’t want to go to Amber Court and decides to go to “her”, the siren, to get a second opinion. The marble ruler also wants to consult the truth stones. She decides to charge up the Nexus gate and journey to Eltica.

Annora puts the book in her suitcase, and the group decides to go to Eltica in the flying car.