Session 09

Date range of Session 09.

## 57th of Duoary

### The Squire's Tale

We open with Amanita, Electra, Archion, and Zara/Zahim in the heart of the Obsidian Spire, with Amanita and Zara detaining a young squire, McCullen, in one of the Spire’s bathrooms.

Electra, accompanied by Archion, was busy flirting with a guard at the merch store and did not think to check on their companions.

Amanita questioned the squire, asking for their name and role, and tried to pull her rank over the toad as a councillor, telling them she was investigating on behalf of the Greenheart Council. Meeting no success, Amanita grew desperate and mimicked the memory of General Rex’s voice, attempting to deceive the squire into believing she was Rex in disguise. None of her attempts succeeded. The young squire, terrified, yelled out for the guards.

At this point, Amanita received a message in her head from Electra, who had decided to check in on Amanita and Zahim. She said, “*Amanita, I’ve got a banging headache. We’re going to go back to the inn so I can lie down in a dark room for a bit. See you back there*”. To which Amanita responded, “*Get up here right now. We are going to die. Bathroom. Third Floor. - Sincerely, Sister Amanita of the Celial Sisterhood*”. Relaying Amanita’s words to Archion, Electra and Archion headed for the third floor.

Electra got distracted on her way up, asking a knight for directions for sites of interest in the Spire. They suggested she visit the "Hall of Heroes". While Archion ran ahead, Electra tried to *enthrall* the guards coming up the stairs towards the bathroom.

With McCullen calling for backup, Zahim stepped forward and cleaved the squire’s head from their body with a swing of their divinely charged scythe. Amanita seemed annoyed - more so at the improper loss of memories - and tried to activate the teleport with McCullen’s hand. The teleport failed. Amanita tried to buy more time by creating an auditory illusion of McCullen’s voice in another room.

Zahim shiftweaved into a formal dress and peeked out the door to see Archion running towards them. Taking charge of the situation, Archion suggested the group leave through the bathroom window and called out, “*Electra, we’re going*”. Amanita cast *knock* to break the window and prepare their exit.

She then approached her companion, Savos and asked them to take the fall for the murder. Savos obliged, forming a weapon using a shard of broken glass, stabbing McCullen’s corpse, and ripping a section off their head to feign madness. Zahim bolstered the cover story by writing “*The Memories Know*” on the bathroom wall in McCullen’s blood. Amanita called out to the guards and urged Savos to attack her.

As the guards entered, they found the bloodied corpse, Archion wrestling Savos to the ground, Amanita bleeding out, and Zahim casting some healing magic on the Sister. Amanita convinced a pair of guards to accompany her to the Sisterhood to deal with the “rogue companion,” and the remaining guards questioned Archion and Zahim (now the distraught Zara). Eventually, Officer Goodman entered and questioned the pair more thoroughly. Before they left the bathroom, a guard slipped Zara 10gp, expressing thanks for their help in preventing the murder of a councillor.

Meanwhile, at the Hall of Heroes, Electra found a number of magical artefacts: remnants from the Spire’s history as the Mage’s Guild. Pretending to study, she encountered a young robed girl and shared “study notes”. The scholar lamented the loss of the Mage’s Guild, describing the Obsidian Butchers’ history as Mage Slayers. She noted that Electra could visit the Spire’s vaults with the right academic credentials, where she could find artefacts from before the Purge.

Finally leaving the Spire, Electra cast a sending spell to Amanita, saying, “Are you all dead? If you’ve got academic credentials, apparently, there’s a whole vault of stuff under here on the minus-fourth level… I have some books. Purge.”

As the party members separately left the Spire, they were filled with the sense that they had not seen the end of the McCullen debacle.

### The Memories of Sporeseers Past and Present

As Amanita was led away, she stressed the urgency of her situation, but the guards insisted on getting a medic to heal her wounds. When they finally reached Crookroot Mot, Amanita parted from the guards and spoke with Mother Mellean.

Speaking in the memories, Amanita divulged the truth of what had happened. Mellean was unsympathetic towards Amanita’s engagement with the “squabblings of the council” and reiterated the Sisterhood’s commitment to “observe, not to interfere”. Amanita tried to explain herself and urge the Sporeseer to assist her, but Mellean was obstinate. A fungal root wrapped around Savos’s legs, and their head exploded. They fell down, dead, their memories subsumed back into the network. Amanita recognised the threat of Mellean’s power. Mellean refused to protect Amanita and put the Sisterhood at risk, and expressed hope that the memories “would guide [Amanita’s] future actions better”. The Sister took Mellean’s words as her cue to leave Crookroot Mot.

Ushered out of Crookroot Mot, Amanita accompanied the Obsidian Butchers back to the spire.

Zara and Amanita met in the streets, where they parted from the Butchers and decided to visit Elmwood. Responding to Electra’s sending spell, Amanita told the cleric not to return to the Sisterhood and to meet them at Elmwood’s chambers in the Greenheart gardens.

### Elmwood

Around sundown, all four party members met at Elmwood’s residence, situated within the heart of a great oak in the botanical gardens. Upon greeting the party, the Ent noticed the Crown of Corruption on Electra’s head and advised her to remove the crown. However, when she tried, she could not pull the crown off her head.

The conversation turned to the Celial Sisterhood after Amanita suggested they would not likely aid her in dealing with the crown. Elmwood suggested that the Sisterhood had long stood by and done nothing in times of instability, especially during the Mage Wars. Amanita produced the notes she had taken on the *History of the Lost Northern Mushrooms* and handed the information to Elmwood.

Turning back to the crown, Elmwood was able to remove the artefact from Electra’s head, but not without injuring themselves. As they removed the crown, a terrible rot began to spread up their arm, and Elmwood seemed wracked with pain. Zara used a *lesser restoration* spell on the Ent, easing their discomfort slightly.

When Zara mentioned the missing tome *Root and Stem*, Elmwood was deeply perturbed. They dwelled on the nature of the elemental artefacts, noting that each element had a crown, a tome, and a ring associated with it. According to the Ent, the only way to truly destroy the crown was by using a crown of the opposite element – in this situation, the Crown of Wood or the Crown of Divinity. The Crown of Wood was broken with the fall of the Oddwen monarchy and became the tokens wielded by Greenheart Council members. The Crown of Divinity, on the other hand, was held by the Church of the First Element, with each Pontiff of the church bearing one-quarter of the crown.

They did have one other option: to destroy the crown. The artefact was made in the old city of Necropolis. Only there could it be unmade. The party would have to journey deep into the ruins of Necropolis, in the heart of Old High Ganymede, and cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came.

Considering how to deal with the crown, Elmwood advised against trusting the Greenheart Council with the artefact and suggested seeking the crowns or destroying the crown in Necropolis.

After an extended deliberation on their options, the party decided to seek out the Crown of Divinity. But the quest needed to wait as they followed up on leads in the Atrix Catacombs.

Elmwood offered to protect the crown while the group visited the catacombs (the Ent agreed to send the crown to Deitrick if they did not return) and offered them lodgings for the evening. Before resting, Electra contacted Deuteronomy, who seemed pleased that she had taken up reading and reminded her that the Empire was their enemy. She also sent a message to Mornon, who responded, “*I don’t know where I am. High Priestess Klaxi felled me. I’m in a cell. Don’t harm yourself to try to save me*”. Electra relayed these findings to Archion. She also sent a message for Amanita to a construct designated CR E230, asking for their aid.

Amanita took the evening to reconnect with the network and used Mother’s Heart to search the memories for information on the Atrix Catacombs. Amanita also summoned a new companion with the memories of Jack Kindleheart, a healer and follower of the Green Gods in life.

Finally, Archion offered his services to Elmwood and burned some loose wood.

As they slept, Archion felt an unusual and creeping heat spreading over him. Amanita saw something darker. In her dream, she saw the continent of Stormbound, sickness and pestilence gnawing away at its shores, covering the lands in a second darkness. She saw a ring of metal interweaving like vines, eaten by corruption, and finally, she saw the rusted crown in front of her.

## 58th of Duoary

### The Atrix Catacombs

Before leaving for the catacombs, Elmwood blessed the party and Zara visited the markets to buy Electra a “cat comb” for the catacombs.

Elmwood led them to an abandoned well house in the garden, where the catacombs could be accessed. Amanita, Archion, and Electra cast *light* on themselves to prepare for the darkness, momentarily blinding Zara/Zahim and their cloak, the *Optic Veil.* Elmwood rooted themselves into the ground and held a rope as the party descended into the catacombs.

They found themselves in a large octagonal room filled with stagnant water. They spotted some writing on one wall, but when Zara/Zahim approached the wall, their foot snagged in a bear trap. Archion pulled the trap open, and Jack Kindleheart healed the paladin’s gaping wounds. The writing on the wall was in Rodenta and spoke of a Basilisk, a terrible demon of the earth element.

Under the writing was a loose brick, which Archion pulled free from the wall. Inside, he found a wooden box and, pulling it free, triggered another trap, and flames erupted from the hole. Inside the box, they found two scrolls of *Lesser Restoration,* a small shiv, a key, and a note reading: “*The Basilisk is a fearsome enemy. If it comes to it, blind yourself with this tool, and you shall learn to see anew*”. The box also contained 900 gold worth of jewels, including a scrap of obsidian and an unnaturally cold black pearl. When Electra picked up the pearl, she was filled with the need to hide it from the group and protect it.

They travelled onwards and came into an interchange with a great circular valve in the middle of the room. Mormon, Electra, and Zahim opened the valve, opening some sluices elsewhere in the sewers.

Passing through some gates, they entered the third room where they saw an open valve and water pooling from an outlet. Amanita froze the outlet to give them more time before the room flooded. Moving onto the door on the other side of the room, Archion, Zara, and Amanita failed to budge the door. Electra tried a more acrobatic approach, cartwheeling into the door and knocking it open.

After opening the door, Amanita heard the sound of claws against stone, followed by a clicking, screeching call. The corridor fell silent, and a voice began to sing, “*They leave me behind to cut the bones ’cause I do it clean*”. Then, with a glint of eyes, a creature began to race down the corridor towards the party, mimicking their words from earlier. The party were plunged into combat against a twisted crow-like creature with insectoid mandibles, wires through its body, and a mechanical contraption on its neck.

A tense fight ensued in which Archion was grappled and heavily wounded by the creature. Over the course of the encounter, the creature repeated a number of lines in various voices, including, “*People die in these tunnels*,” “*It burns, it burns, it burns*,” “*Intruders alert, there seems to be four of them*. *Spell casters*,” and “*There’s a witch, take no survivors*”. Electra finished the creature off with a glowing, sand-like *guiding bolt*, and it sang a strange tune as the bolt cracked its skull. Amanita recalled the humming as the same song Xyanos the Lyre had sung at the Spire and the city gates.

We end our session with the party deep beneath the city of Greensgood, venturing further into the Atrix Catacombs.