Session 14

## Back in Goback

The session opened mid-battle after the party encountered a rival group of thieves in a Goback vault. The party found themselves amid a scene of chaos, with a sphere of darkness, the remnants of a *fireball*, and several dead and unconscious people surrounding them. Still unsure what to do, Ciarán cast a *sleep* spell on the goliath, known as Little John, before giving Lilliana some cover. After a brief scuffle, the opposing thieves began to flee. Lilliana had a clear shot at a thief known as “Robin,” but in a moment of compassion, she decided to let them go. Robin picked up the sleeping Little John and vanished. Before Robin disappeared, however, they spoke to Lilliana and said, “don’t follow us”. Bobby No-Nose was less merciful. She caught another of the fleeing thieves and stabbed them, and her companion Narnul Shadowslayer decapitated another.

Immediately after Lilliana’s *hunger of hadar* faded, Ciarán ran over to one of the thieves, a dead friar, who he recognised as a fellow cleric. Casting a *revivify* spell for the first time and drawing upon his newfound experience shepherding the dead back to life, he pulled the friar’s soul back to Evergreen. Then, Ciarán implored the friar to resurrect his friends and get out. All the thieves managed to escape, barring the one thief who Narnul had decapitated.

Bobby, too preoccupied to care about the fleeing thieves, asked the party to collect as many valuables as possible. Ciarán took some time to find four diamonds and tried to identify the god of the temple while Lilliana shovelled as much gold as she could into her *bag of holding*. Salibar approached a granite dais on one side of the room, upon which sat a head in a jar. The head’s lips were sewn together like those of the traders the group had seen earlier that day. Beneath the jar was a plaque that read: “The Blubbering Priest”.

The group then exited the vault the way they came, with Bobby casting an illusion of a rug over the open floor and Lilliana casting an illusion of the floor underneath. Once they made their way back through the tunnels under Goback, they parted from Bobby No Nose. Not, however, before she acknowledged their skillset and told them to seek her out if they were in town. She also offered to buy the head of the Blubbering Priest for 250gp.

On their way out of the city, Ciarán and Salibar lingered for some time around the city’s ominous Monolith. Upon inspecting the Monolith, they noticed no marks on the stone and no signs of wear. The runes on its surface were utterly unintelligible. Pretending to pray, Ciarán cast a *detect magic* spell over the Monolith. To his surprise, the Monolith contained every type and school of magic within it.

## Strange Dreams

Travelling some way out of town for the evening, the party, for the first time, decided to rest in their instant fortress. Activating the fortress, they found themselves in a large, three-storey tower. There were beds on the second floor and a fireplace on the ground floor. The party began to settle in for the night.

Before resting for the evening, Ciarán decided to visit Salibar. Remarking that they hadn’t spoken since the tiefling had died, Ciarán confessed his concern for Salibar’s future safety. He then offered Salibar his *Amulet of the Devout*. Ciarán told Salibar that in returning from the land of the dead, he had “made the toughest journey anyone could make,” and describing the Man on the Moon as the protector of travellers, Ciarán offered him the amulet to continue to protect him on his journey. Ciarán also confessed that he “didn’t think [he] was worthy of their blessing anymore”. Salibar responded by closing Ciarán’s hands around the amulet and giving it back to him, refusing to take it from him.

While Ciarán sat vigilant on the ground floor, Lilliana and Salibar rested for the evening. However, their sleep was interrupted by troubling dreams. In Salibar’s dreams, he saw oceans without water and forests without trees (***Okay, sunderance, but also Fisher King myth vibes – Salibar going on a quest for the holy grail CONFIRMED???***). Lilliana found herself underground in a cave that had likely never seen sunlight. She was surrounded by piles of dead animals and noticed open wounds on their heads. She could see their brains were missing and sensed something was watching her.

In the morning, Ciarán greeted the party with breakfast, but upon asking how their sleep was, the pair revealed they had both had bad dreams. The group then continued towards Glumm.

## A Tree, a Name, a Parent

After many hours of walking, they began to see the sprawling glade of Salizar Glumm appear before them. However, as they walked along the road, they saw an old woman appear in the woods behind them. She smiled, waved, gestured towards them, and beckoned them towards the woods. Despite Ciarán wanting to follow her directions, the party kept walking. When they looked back, the woman had disappeared.

Then, after walking some distance more, the old woman appeared again in the trees in front of them. Again she beckoned them. Ciarán pulled off his cloak, cast an *augury* spell to whichever god would listen, and waited for a sign. He received a sign that trusting the hag would be a good decision and relayed this to the group. Salibar meanwhile used his *divine sense* to detect the woman’s nature; however, he could not discern anything about her. Lilliana then allowed her raven to fly over to the old woman and noticed a small hut a short distance away.

Taking a leap of faith, the party decided to follow the old lady into the woods. Lilliana, being the wariest of the old woman, chose to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to allow the party to find their way back to the road.

The old woman led the party to her home and, taking a table and chairs from the hut, invited them to take tea with her. The party sat down at her table and were served tea from an enchanted teapot (a wary Ciarán drank from his *detect poison* chalice).

The old woman revealed she had been expecting them and told them that she knew they needed information from her. She knew of their quest to retrieve the items from Glumm and also revealed that Tobias Gold had commissioned her to help them: although she admitted that she did not need his money, she would have helped them regardless. She asked them for a favour: to return the ring of modified *polymorph* to her. According to the old woman, being a trader of trinkets, she had traded the ring with a trader who had swindled her with a less valuable item. She claimed she wanted the ring simply for an academic exercise and hoped to see if she could repair it. In return, she offered information to each party member. She looked at Salibar and said she knew the “location of a tree”. Looking at Lilliana, she said she knew the “name of an Archfae”. And looking at Ciarán, she said she knew “the location of a surviving parent”. When they finally asked her name, she remarked that she had been known by many names (***I WANT A LIST G!!! Please?**)*, including Baba Yaga.

When the party agreed to the deal, she told them in no uncertain terms that crossing her and failing to uphold their bargain would be a grave mistake. To aid them, she gave them information on how to get to the Beast King. First, she told the party to search for a buried “alter self potion” that would be able to revert Carlos Valas to his original form. Then, she told them to seek out the Bloody Baron, who could provide access to the Beast King’s palace. And finally, she told them to seek out and reinstate Tristan Errenion, the heir to the throne of Glumm. According to Baba Yaga, Tristan was currently imprisoned in Kesserfern, a town to the north of the glade.

The hag also gave each party member a powerful means of magical assistance. To Salibar, she gifted a potion bottle filled with bees; to Ciarán, she gifted a small mooncake with white icing; and to Lilliana she gifted a small prayer book capable of “calling a friend”.

Baba Yaga then summoned a cauldron to her side and announced she would be watching them. When Ciarán mentioned that the party had had “bad experiences recently with cauldrons,” Baba Yaga chuckled and remarked that she knew they had run into “Old Ironblood”. When Ciarán admitted that Granny Ironblood had spoken unfavourably of her, Baba Yaga seemed unbothered and revealed that all hags hated each other. She also dubbed all rumours about her as “malicious lies”.

## Kesserfern

The party finished their tea and parted from the hag, heading north through the glade of Salizar Glumm towards the town of Kesserfern.

When the party approached the town, however, they were surprised to see a gallows in front of the town’s entrance. Two bugbears hung from the gallows. The guards on duty told the party that the Beast King hanged the pair for sedition.

Once entering the town, the party quickly recognised Tristan, spotting an emaciated man in a cage surrounded by four guards. When they approached the guards and asked about the prisoner, they learned that he was considered a “heretic” and had been left in the cage as a demonstration. The party attempted to probe for more information, but the guards seemed hesitant to share anything with the adventurers. When Ciarán asked if Tristan was fed, the guards became even more suspicious of the party. Eventually, the guards told them to visit the local library rather than bother them with questions.

As the party lingered around the cage, however, Lilliana felt a presence – a relatively inexperienced presence – in her mind. A voice told Lilliana that if she wanted to help Tristan, she could go to the nearby tavern and ask “to go to the basement”.

Here the party decided to split to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves. Lilliana headed to the “Skimming Stone” tavern, and Ciarán and Salibar visited the library.

In the library, Salibar and Ciarán met a blind man with a bald, liver-spotted head and a long grey beard. When the pair entered, the man asked, “is that you, Geneva?”. Salibar introduced himself, and the man introduced himself as Zorias. He encouraged them to look through the library but assured them that he had stored most of the information from the books in his head.

While the library did not contain recent information, there were many historical records regarding the local area. Salibar asked for some information on the history of Salizar Glumm, and Ciarán asked for some texts on hags in the region. Zorias asked them to leave a gold coin if they borrowed any books. Ciarán left two gold coins.

Salibar found a wealth of information about the region, learning about the Bloody Baron and the Errenion line. In speaking to Zorias, he learned that Tristan was the son of Belladonna and Cladwell Errenion, the former rulers of Glumm. According to the old man, they were known to be a good family, as far as monarchies went, but fell on bad times some years prior to the arrival of the Beast King. In talking to Zorias, Salibar also asked about Geneva, and the old man revealed that she was a young woman who regularly visited the library to read.

Ciarán, with the assistance of Savos, managed to discover some information related to Baba Yaga. Savos spoke to Ciarán, asking if he knew “who he was talking to” earlier. The orb explained that he had deliberately kept himself hidden during their encounter with the hag and relayed his knowledge about Baba Yaga. According to Savos, Baba Yaga was once set to ascend to the highest office among hags, the rank of All Mother, before she was expelled from the order. Baba Yaga was rumoured to have given hag secrets to the witch Morgana La’Fae, also revealed to be Morgana Pendragon, sister to Arthur Pendragon. These events occurred a few years before the Strife of Camlin, a conflict that some rumours claim Morgana instigated. Baba Yaga’s expulsion from the order created a succession crisis that resolved when the Hag Nimue was exalted to the rank of All Mother.

Also in the library, Erianna attempted to research but seemed to find nothing of import.

Following the information she had received, Lilliana headed to the Skimming Stone. She spoke with the tavern’s bartender, ordered an ale for two silver (an exorbitant price), and waited. After some time, she saw a reddish-blonde-haired barmaid enter the main room. The barmaid cast her a curious look, and before too long, Lilliana heard a voice in her head say, “is that you?”. When Lilliana responded, the barmaid led her into the tavern’s basement.

The woman introduced herself as Geneva and revealed that she had bonded with Tristan after being charged with feeding him. Geneva asked if Lilliana was a family friend, and Lilliana responded that she had been sent to free Tristan. The barmaid provided some valuable information, telling Lilliana that the guards changed on the hour, that Tristan was fed at sunrise and sunset, and that the son of the Baron was willing to help break him out. She offered to hide Tristan underneath the tavern and showed Lilliana a secret entrance. She also suggested that the party make a distraction to draw away the guards.

Lilliana asked Geneva about her powers, and Geneva revealed that she had similar abilities to the sorcerer, including telepathy and telekinesis. However, she was unaware of any deal made with fae or other creatures.

The group then reconvened, and after a brief discussion in which they considered multiple strategies for rescuing Tristan, the party decided to pay a visit to the Baron.

## The Bloody Baron

After many weeks of travel and adventures, the party finally arrived in Glumm. They quickly found their way to the Baron’s manor, a building adorned with separate flags from the rest of the city. They noted a red heart on a black background, with a line of white cutting through the middle of the heart. Approaching the manor, they knocked on the front door.

Once inside, the party requested an audience with the Baron. A clerk informed them they were in luck, with the Bloody Baron having time to see them that afternoon. Soon the Baron emerged into the room. The party saw a large half-orc with big hands, a thick neck, and a blood-stained apron over his clothes. Salibar, from his research, recognised this man as Baron Johnson Reddington, a figure rumoured to be immensely cruel. With Lilliana taking the lead, they spoke to the Baron.

Lilliana did not hesitate to make their intentions clear and directly requested assistance in killing the Beast King, an intent the Baron repeatedly described as potentially incriminating talk. In the middle of this conversation, the Baron attempted to maintain a strongman image by shouting about the dangers of sedition before leaning in and asking about their plan. Lilliana unsuccessfully tried to sway the Baron by mentioning payment and potential trade opportunities that could be opened by overthrowing the Beast King. She mentioned their employer having money, but the tone of the conversation shifted when Ciarán said, “have you heard of a gnome named Tobias Gold?”.

The half-orc was visibly distressed and immediately responded, “how do you know that name?”. The party gleaned that the Baron had made deals with Tobias and was in some kind of debt to the gnome. Salibar connected some information here, recalling that the Baron’s estate had randomly burned down, with his entire family dying. Suspiciously, he and the family’s riches survived. The Baron was found guilty of killing his family and sentenced to death by hanging. When the rope magically snapped, he survived and was sentenced to death a second time. When the rope snapped a second time, the people thought an act of divine intervention had protected the Baron, and he walked free. When the party probed about his hanging, the Baron told a different story and claimed he had pulled himself up by the rope and lived. He showed the party thick rope scars on his neck.

With the party having revealed a connection to Tobias, the Baron eventually concluded that they were “after the looking glass”. The party confirmed that Tobias had hired them to retrieve the item. He warned them “that gnome is evil” and told them not to trust Tobias. Relenting, the Baron agreed to help them. As he said, “if [Tobias was] sending [them] [to Glumm], it [was] time anyway”. He agreed to lower the guard patrols if they could free Tristan that night and would organise for individuals to plant seeds of rebellion in the region.

## Freeing Tristan

With the baron on their side, the party returned to Kesserfern to prepare to free Tristan. During this time, Ciarán bought some noble-looking clothing to give to Tristan.

When the time came for the party to make their way towards Tristan’s cage, Ciarán disguised himself and pretended to be drunk. They encountered two sets of guards on the way. While the first encounter raised no alarms, Lilliana nearly blew the party’s cover with the second pair of guards when she said she was escorting her drunk friend “to the tavern”. Luckily, the guards did not catch the obvious lie and lack of logic.

When they neared the cage, the party split into two groups, with Lilliana preparing to *vortex warp* Tristan out of the cage and Salibar and Ciarán attempting to cause a distraction.

The guards with Salibar quickly grew suspicious and asked what he was doing in the town. Salibar pretended to be a trader in “trinkets”. When they asked for proof, he showcased his cold iron axe and attempted to stall the guards.

In the meantime, Ciarán cast a *sleep* spell over the two remaining guards, who both fell unconscious. At this point, Tristan stood up. Ciarán attempted to get his attention, and Tristan simply responded, “I can see you. What’s your plan?”.

Losing the guard’s interest, Salibar resorted to additional means to keep the guards away from the cage. As one of the guards went to turn away, Salibar stuck them in the face with the axe. Unknown to him, the guard was a changeling and shifted into a non-human form. Before the other guard could reach for their horn, Salibar struck them as well, knocking both unconscious.

With all the guards incapacitated, the party seized their chance to rescue Tristan. Lilliana teleported Tristan out of the cage and next to Ciarán. Checking that Tristan could walk, Ciarán explained that he would be making him invisible, and the two then made their way to the tavern. At this point, both Lilliana and Ciarán safely returned to the tavern's basement.

Salibar, on the other hand, was left with two bodies to clean up. As he contemplated what to do, Savos appeared and spoke to the tiefling. He offered Salibar some “bad news” and “good news”. He said the “bad news” was that Salibar had to kill the men to prevent witnesses from talking. The “good news,” he said, was that his “elf friend [Ciarán] [wouldn’t] be [there] to see it”. So, taking Savos’s advice, Salibar slit the throats of all four guards.

Back in the undertavern, Tristan profusely thanked the party for rescuing him. Ciarán handed Tristan some rations, and after stuffing his face for a moment, the young man revealed the location of the *alter self* potion to be in the Errenion Crypts. According to Tristan, the building was magically sealed and would only open for the eldest-born member of the Errenion line. Preparing to make for the crypt, they asked Geneva to look after Tristan. Ciarán asked if she could “clean him up” and then laid out some noble clothes on a table for Tristan to wear. Geneva pulled a brick from the wall, took out a five-pointed star pin – the symbol of the house of Errenion – and placed it with Tristan’s clothes. Lilliana asked Tristan for some of his blood, and the party collected a small sample in a vial. The party then made for the location of the crypts, a little way north of the town.

When the party arrived at the crypt, they were met with a smooth door with no discernible handle; above the door, they saw a stone gargoyle. When the party placed Tristan’s blood on the statue’s tongue, it reacted violently and spat the blood out. The party was confused, a confusion that only intensified when the gargoyle said the words “not the eldest”. Unable to access the tomb, the party returned to the tavern.

They questioned Tristan about any siblings, aunts, uncles, or other family members that might have still been alive. When Ciarán tentatively broached the question of any bastard children, the party came to a slow realisation. Tristan and Geneva shared the same blond-red hair, and standing next to each other, the party realised that the pair shared a distinct familial resemblance. Without explaining their reasoning, the party asked for a sample of her blood. She agreed.

On the way to the crypt, the party discussed whether they should have told Geneva about her heritage, and they agreed that they would tell her after deposing the Beast King. They repeated the same process at the crypt entrance, and the door immediately opened, with the gargoyle welcoming them inside the crypt.

## Down Among the Dead Men

The party made their way down into the crypt and found themselves in an open chamber. Statues of past Errenions lined the walls, and a large statue stood in the centre of the room. In the statue’s hand, illuminated by a single ray of moonlight, was a glass bottle. The party’s attention was drawn to a pile near the foot of the statue, where they noticed a skeleton lying in an unnatural position. Salibar decided to inspect the skeleton. When he approached and touched the skull, it sprung to life, exploding into flames. With this, the smaller statues snapped to attention, and the large statue turned its head to face the party. The group was thrown into combat.

After a tense encounter involving *spirit guardians*, smites, and *dissonant whispers*, Lilliana dispelled magic on the shield guardian, allowing the party to start chipping away at the huge construct. Around this time, Salibar fell unconscious after a massive hit from the guardian. As he was unconscious, he experienced another vision from the Magus. This time, he saw a star falling from the sky and landing in the oak tree. Ciarán, panicking that he would lose Salibar again, yelled, “not this again!” before healing him back to life. However, Salibar would spend the next few seconds on the brink of death.

Deciding to try something different, Ciarán teleported next to the construct’s hand and grabbed for the potion. He clumsily knocked the bottle out of the construct’s hand but managed to catch it before it hit the ground. With the potion in hand, the group decided to flee the crypt.

The construct, however, moved to block their path and stood between the party and the exit. Erianna, in a courageous move, shot tentacles from her arm and grappled the construct, holding it aside to give the group enough room to flee the chamber. As she did this, her arm began to tear apart, as Lilliana’s arm had previously done in Misclap. Ciarán used the scroll of *dimension door* he found in Luriel’s office to teleport himself and Salibar from the room. Both Lilliana and Erianna then quickly ran past the construct and escaped the vault.

Back in their fortress for the night, the party settled in for a long rest before facing the Beast King. After the encounter in the crypts, Erianna’s arm was quite literally falling apart, and Ciarán offered to look at her arm. He enquired whether such a thing had happened before, and she revealed that it only happened when she “pushed herself too hard”. When answering questions from Ciarán about her aberrant powers, Erianna kept looking nervously at Lilliana before answering. In remarking that she and Lilliana were “looking into it [who/what cursed them],” rather than a statement, she posed this as a question to Lilliana, as if checking that her sister would still help her find the Archfae. Ciarán then expended his remaining spell power into fully healing Erianna’s arm.

## In the Halls of the Beast King

In the morning, they set off for the Beast King’s castle in Glumm. Upon arriving in the city, they noticed a lesser guard presence, likely owing to the Baron’s arrangements.

Entering the castle, the party recognised what must have been a building of incredible beauty and opulence. Now, however, the castle had fallen into disrepair. On the ground, many large marble tiles were cracked and punctured with large claw marks, and the tapestries on the walls were slashed with large gashes. When some guards intercepted the party, Ciarán attempted to lie and claim they had an audience with the Beast King. It was only when Salibar mentioned that the Baron had sent them that the guards let them pass: seemingly intimidated by the mention of the Baron.

When the party entered a hallway, they were with a line of guards extending the width of the hall. In unison, the guards held their shields and morningstars up and shouted, “none shall pass”. With this, they began to advance on the party. In a split-second decision, Lilliana decided to cast *hunger of hadar* on the guards, but something hidden countered her spell. The party spotted only a shadow of something crawling along the ceiling.

After a tough encounter in which the party was pushed against a wall and had to fight to break up the line of guards, they eventually escaped and put enough distance between themselves and the guards that they could pick them off from a distance. Then slipping into a side room, the party conjured a *tiny hut* for an hour and took a short rest. During this time, Lilliana was filled with the distinct feeling of being watched. Finally, when they had recovered and made their way from the room, they headed towards a large courtyard.

Walking into the courtyard, the party finally came face-to-face with the figure known as the Beast King. Leaning against a statue, the party saw a monstrous, chimera-like creature, an amalgamation of multiple different animals, including a bat, a lion, and an eagle. The creature turned their bat-like face to the party as they approached. Ciarán attempted to open a dialogue and called the Beast King’s name, Carlos Valas – to which the Beast King responded that they hadn’t heard such a name in some time. The Beast King then asked whether the “cowards had sent [them],” and the party revealed they had come from the Ersatz University in Rymes. After the Beast King derided the University’s scholars, Ciarán asked whether they thought they were “better than them”. The Beast King landed before the party, spread their wings, and remarked: “I am”. With this, the party was thrown into combat.

Lilliana immediately attempted to blind the Beast King, but they easily resisted the magic. Similarly, when Ciaran attempted to silence them, they ran from the *silence* sphere and attempted to pin the elf to the ground. Around this time, a number of statuesque guards appeared and began to make their way towards the party.

A tense fight ensued that pushed the party to its limits. Quickly both Ciarán and Salibar made use of their gifts from Baba Yaga, gaining a blessing from the hag. Lilliana did not use her gift but unleashed a great deal of fire damage on the Beast King, before turning the tide of the fight with a web spell that grounded them. Salibar, in a decisive moment, hasted by Baba Yaga's potion, struck out at the grounded creature, dealing an immense amount of damage to the Beast King and almost finishing them.

In a final moment of spite, however, the Beast King, refusing to die to the party, conjured a *fireball* and cast it at their feet, setting themselves alight and knocking both Salibar and Ciarán unconscious in the process.

The session ends, quite literally, in flames.