Session logs from 2023

The quest in Kernenvale turned out to involve a lot of planar shenanigans, from a dying world, to Sigil, to the Feywild. They learned cosmic lore about the divine artefacts the Faces of Yxalon, and returned one of them to its own plane Mechanus. The comrades rescued a number of prisoners and gathered allies criminal and otherwise against Baron Rodvincent Von Kernenvale. Finally, they managed to end Larian Coldmoon.

This page contains campaign and one-shot diaries from 2023. Diaries from adjacent years can be found here: 2022 and 2024.

## Session 122: Behind the Stained Glass

January 8, 2023

Professor Yohannah Jauntlore and her sister Tarabelle Jauntlore appeared in Divenen Manor and spoke to the Comrades of Hope, giving them information about the Coldmoon servant Alaina. When Tarabelle attended the Properrun Academy for the Youth, Alaina was governess for a Coldmoon girl there called E. Coldmoon, or "Betty" who disappeared. (Crocus privately told Percy her name was Ethelbet, as the comrades already knew this Coldmoon girl was Crocus)

The Jauntlores also brought a box that had been delivered to Alaina with a letter from Rodvincent from Kernenvale "as thanks for her loyalty and to help her further serve the family". The box was empty, and the party assumed it had contained the slime that Larian Coldmoon extracted from Alaina. Rumors in Mythhold said a tall knight in black armor had visited the servant woman around the same time, and when Professor Jauntlore sent an elemental to fetch the armor, it flew towards southern Kernenvale. With Lady Willow Stormborn and the professor conjuring separate elementals at different locations, the party tried to triangulate the armor's position, but both elementals travelled along the same direction. Following this path, Willow, Beatris, and Neeril found the armor in the partial ruins of the Montano house, and it turned out to be the ferrofluid armor of the Integrator mind flayer. They retrieved the armor and returned to Divenen Manor.

Larian Coldmoon cast a sending to Percy to schedule a meeting between him and her slime experts. Unbeknownst to the party, Larian was also scrying on them at the time, although notably not seeing Crocus, Beatris, or Professor Jauntlore. In the early morning just before twilight, the comrades, sans the Jauntlores, who had returned to Mythhold, and Crocus who stayed in the manor, wind walked to Kernentown to meet Larian under the bridge. Ragna, Lo-Tha, Percy, and Neeril went as the faces of the party and spoke with Larian, while the others hid nearby. Venir could sense the presence of a couple of fey in the city, and dispelled one which turned out to be the familiar of Cael Ehlerstadt, one of the visiting wizards. Larian had brought the young wizards as his own backup. The comrades told them about the slime and the mind flayers, as well as the Montanos. Larian confirmed that he had been suspicious of the Montanos, and allowed the comrades to seek them out in Fort Kernen during the coming day. He expressed his distaste of the Montanos and the wizard Raymond Lonsten—the man that convinced the baron to have a visit from the young wizards—who was a relative of theirs.

After the tense conversation, the comrades snuck into Kernentown through a path pointed out to them by Percy and Crocus' connections. Percy gaslit a guard. Seb distracted two construction workers. Ragna and Beatris-by-proxy (through Akhtin) investigated the construction site to find a secret, unfinished tunnel likely created by Raymond Lonsten using the disintegrate spell.

The group, most of them in disguises since they left Divenen Manor, went to the local temple, a mysterious place that had lacked organized worship for a long time until recent months. The temple had previously proved not only impossible to scry into, but also harmful to even attempt such, much like the City of the Glass Pool. Sebastion and Akhtin scouted ahead. Akhtin (and thus Beatris, and through the telepathic bond, the rest of them) saw the large, circular mosaic window on the front of the building, and within it, a dark void where vague figures peeked out back at Akhtin. Superimposed on the void were visions of different circular symbols for each person perceiving it. Lo-Tha, for example, saw a big eye, but also the edges of a massive gear. The window appeared normal from the inside of the temple.

Akhtin and Seb also found the clergy and attendees inside hastily removing previously propped-up idols to various gods for private worship. The people there seemed desperate to bolster their own faith after a very recent loss (the death of the Integrator and many of its psionic mentees). A cleric promised a young man that their masters would return and once more deliver their gifts upon their followers, showing him down into the crypts. Seb saw a Montano woman cast a spell to calm herself as she collected shaving tools and followed the others into the crypts. Seb, still invisible, guided the party through the temple hall, and with Negril's pass without trace spell, they all managed to sneak down into the crypts and past two cultists stationed there. Following the light and sound, the party arrived at a chamber where the cleric from before was preparing the young man for some treatment involving a shaving. In the room, there were several tables, and next to them, glass-like tubes with a brown, briny liquid. Suspended in three of these tubes were three humans, one of them Mudskipper Tilda, all of them shaved. There was also a second cleric wearing the oddly Barendain-like yet clearly squid-aligned holy symbol, and one Raymond Lonsten, both standing in the corner over the container the Integrator earlier had escaped with. Beatris with her detect magic spell, also noticed a green shimmer on the far wall, indicating an illusory wall. Next time, we start with initiative!

## Session 123: A Cog Out of the Machine

January 22, 2023

The characters of the absent players are assumed to have explored the other side of the crypts under the temple in Fort Kernen (this is subject to change depending on the next session).

Neeril rushed into the room where the cultists were keeping three people, including Mudskipper Tilda, in tubes, and attacked Raymond Lonsten and the cultists. Lonsten fled, but Neeril could track him with her mind spike spell, pinpointing his movement behind an illusory section of the far wall. Percy hurried in, grabbed the container the Integrator had previously protected, hurried out again, and opened the container. Inside it where a number of mind flayer tadpoles that Percy then killed. Ragna and Beatris followed Lonsten through the illusory wall while the others dealt with the cultists. They questioned him when he explained that he was working undercover to uncover something "much more important" and he wasn't part of the mind flayer cult. He still knew about the cult's actions and did nothing to stop them, but his motivations were apparently fixed on an object on the other side of a portal in the crypts. He contradicted Larian Coldmoon's statement that he was the one who convinced Rodvincent Von Kernenvale to have the young wizards visit Kernentown, and claimed the baron had proposed the idea and sought out Lonsten. Beatris and Ragna pursued Raymond Lonston through the crypts, not wanting him to do something dangerous. Lonsten summoned a young sapphire dragon, Geraxxisax, to hold the Comrades back. He also banished Beatris, but she returned when Ragna knocked Lonsten out. The dragon picked up Lonsten and dove through the dark portal, which was located in a sarcophagus.

Percy burned through the cultists' reinforcements and dominated one of their clerics to make him heal Neeril. When the cleric regained control, only Lo-Tha remained with him, and she somehow convinced him that she wasn't an enemy. Then she stabbed him in the back lol. She also obtained some diamonds and one more shards of Zodion (the type of stone in her forehead). It is assumed the absent players' characters went to that room to guard it and deal with the people in the tubes. Lo-Tha joined the others in going through the portal, which led to that same otherworld that the portals in the Divenen and Montano manors did. Through this one, however, there was a massive adamantine cog floating in the air, corresponding to the location of the large glass mosaic window in the Comrades' homeworld. Gems were set into parts of the cog. A small triangle sat in the middle of it, which Raymond Lonsten explained was the "Face of Mechanus". When Percy and later Neeril moved closer to it, both being of chaotic alignment, they took damage from approaching. Percy touched the face and as a result fell to the ground, unconscious, but was healed by Neeril and Beatris. Lo-Tha noticed her palantír-like crystal orb reacted to the invisible creatures, which all had eyes similar to it.

Raymond Lonsten said he had been working on a spell to bring the face of Mechanus into Thindrel without damaging the cog, but he needed a tuning fork attuned to the material plane. Lonsten justified bringing the thing out of the dark otherworld by saying its connection to Thindrel could degrade if it remained in a dying world, and with it the connection of the gods that resided there, (this includes Osprem). Percy approached the face again and with her trueseeing saw visions of the plane of Mechanus, and when she cast divination, an ibis appeared in the vision with a scroll. Beatris translated the celestial writing: "To restore order, the parts (faces of the planes) must be returned to their right place (their respective planes or Thindrel), and if all parts are collected together, the powers in possession of them could change the cosmic order."

Now we just need to know if anyone in the party has a tuning fork to the material plane.

## Session 124: The Face of Mechanus

February 5, 2023

Willow joined the other comrades in the otherworld, where the abberations, called onlookers, approached and attacked. Geraxxisax the sapphire dragon helped the party fight back against the onlookers, while Raymond Lonsten summoned wolves from his magical gauntlet to fend off more approaching monsters. Percy found the remnants of souls in the dead world and was shown visions of their apocalypse, in which mind flayers conquered their world and separated it from its gods. The onlookers had already been present to witness this event too, and eventually, once the world was too empty for the mind flayers, the conquerers left it to die and be scavenged by other forces of the Far Realm. The souls, angry at their gods, did not want to be guided, but though capable of violence, were persuaded not to attack the party.

After exploring the metaphysics of the dead otherworld, the comrades left through the portal back to the temple, leaving Geraxxisax and Lonsten to guard the gear and the face of Mechanus while they collected what was needed for Lonsten's spell to planeshift the face to Thindrel. Geraxxisax allowed Percy to take a part of its body as the sapphire stone needed for the spell. The party brought Mudskipper Tilda and a man in the tube next to her with them, hoping to stop the process of ceremorphosis. All but Venir teleported to Divenen Manor, where they performed surgery on Tilda and the other victim. The man was too far gone and was killed. With a considerable group effort, Tilda had her growing mind flayer tadpole removed, but she was left in a coma at the cusp of death. Her nervous system needed to be restored significantly for her to come back to life, but lacking the spell slot to regenerate her, the party decided to postpone that a day. In the meantime, they would seek out the required materials for Lonsten's spell. Venir joined them by wind walking from Kernentown after leaving some bite marks on several town guards.

After more planning and brainstorming, all of the party except Neeril and Beatris wind walked to Kernentown, while Beatris waited to receive a tuning fork to the material plane from Jauntlore. It arrived via teleport spell, and the troubadours memorized its frequency as best they could.

In a department store in Kernentown, the halflings, accompanied by Sebastion, found a jeweller who could sell them the last needed gemstones for Lonsten's spell. For their disguises, they were noble cousins, Holly Fyrmwood, Molly Hardwood, and Sally Softwood, and finally their servant, Bastian. They managed to acquire the gems and Seb made a connection (and arranged a date) with the store clerk Heunika to gather intel and rumors later. When Neeril and Beatris arrived, they and Venir spent some time in a nice tavern and Venir opened up about his thirst for blood and what he really is. Not quite fully alive, is what he is.

The whole party infiltrated the temple, bypassing the guards now investigating the scene. They even convinced the guards to stay outside to buy themselves more time. Raymond Lonsten's planeshift spell was successful with the gemstones and the tuning fork. The gems were consumed by the spell, Geraxxisax disappeared, and the face of Mechanus, including the massive cog, vanished, all in flashes of light. Back on the material plane, the cog had appeared in the grand window on the temple's facade, and glass and stone had been shattered and hurled from the building, impaling and crushing several town guards. In the ensuing commotion, where the party tried to talk sense into Lonsten, the wizard disintegrated a section of the cog, grabbed the triangular face, and teleported away. Neeril, who had used a mind spike spell on Lonsten, could sense his location, tracking him, not to one location, but through a series of violent thrusts, as if Lonsten was not in control of his spell, to the Magus Tower.

The party rushed to the tower, some, naming no names, recklessly triggering traps, alarms, and glyphs of warding at full speed. When the halflings found Lonsten in the tower's dungeons, they saw that he was caught and paralyzed in a sort of magic circle, and next to him was Larian Coldmoon, who had taken the face of Mechanus from the conjurer. Larian also had a guardian construct in the chamber, and to make matters worse, Ragna was incapacitated by a symbol of pain.

## Session 125: An Extraplanar Excursion

February 12, 2023

Rather than a fight breaking out, the present party members, and some more arriving a little later, convinced Larian to have a conversation. They arranged to return the Face of Mechanus to its aligned plane of existence, and Larian took out a small device from his guardian construct. Neeril heard the voice of the strange man with whom she in the City of the Glass Pool had made the deal involving amethysts and harvested magic, urging her to steal the face out of Larian's hands. She did not. With Beatriss and Seb staying behind and hidden, the others were planeshifted with Larian and his guardian, and a bound Raymond Lonsten, to a massive, gilded hall were contracts were made between all kinds of creatures; angels, devils, humanoids, monsters. There, they were greeted by a modron and a marut, and all present (Ragna, Neeril, Lo-Tha, Venir, Percy, Willow, Larian, and Lonsten) agreed to make no attempts to claim the face of Mechanus nor aid their allies in doing the same or tell anyone how to. The deal was signed on a disk lodged in the marut, and they were informed that should the contract be broken by any of them, the marut would be sent to arrest them, or kill them if they resist with considerable force.

Neeril and Venir both sensed a vast amount of their favored enemies, and as the Jackal Fiend showed up, it was clear that Larian hadn't plane shifted them to Mechanus, but rather to Sigil, somehow. This upset the party, but Larian insisted that was their problem and he left them and Lonsten to find their own way home.

Back in Larian's basement, Beatris and Seb had been carefully looking through the mage's things. They took some of his notes and a spoon that appeared to be magic. They made it out before they got in any real trouble, and Seb made it just in time for his date with the store clerk Heunika. Beatris identified the spoon as an arcane lens that can bend line spells, and she spent some time in a rented room in the nice tavern spell scribing before solving jigsaw puzzles, and by jigsaw puzzles, I do mean a complete human skeleton.

Those in Sigil declined the Jackal's offer to show them around, and they instead went on a trip to the local fitness center where they befriended some half-giants. They met several odd types and some adventurers from other worlds, and of course they took all of Lonsten's things and kept him bound. Lo-Tha and Ragna found a magic item repair shop where a behir told them that there is no way to plane shift into or out of Sigil… except for the marut or with very particular artefacts, which are all mostly hoarded by yugoloths. Lonsten's gauntlet was partially broken, and the price to have it repaired was too steep, so the two halflings left the shop. Venir befriended a fey flying squirrel called Toskr, which decided to follow him on his quest against hags. Neeril bought a how-to-train-your-dragon book from a dragon. After a long rest, the group found a door in the City of Doors, which led to some place wherefrom they could plane shift back home using the tuning fork from Jauntlore.

## Session 126: Mission Imp-Possible

March 5, 2023

Sebastion got some info while on his date, and Izel appeared and told him that him reappearing there meant his boss, Seb's old friend, Gavin had to be nearby. The plane shifting crew appeared outside of Kernentown the morning after their infiltration of the local temple. They interrogated Raymond Lonsten further, and managed to convince him to agree to a Geas spell from Percy. The terms of the spell stated that he had to do his best within reason to protect the wizard students he had accompanied to Fort Kernen and bring them back to safety in Mythhold. Lonsten was given back his wand and robe and sent on his way to redeem himself.

The party then met up in the inn where Beatris was staying, and more of the party got to hear about Venir's past and affliction with blood thirst. A connection between the missing Gavin and the for-even-longer missing Mulch was theorised, and Seb used the skull of Rhilin Farspire to scry on Gavin. The old dwarf was in a dark cell, humming a dwarven song. A guard approached him and told him to stop, but a second, much weaker voice joined in and the guard left angrily. The party deduced his location to be in the cliffside dungeons under the town barracks, and Izel was sent in to scout ahead with his devil's sight. In their telepathic bond, the comrades heard a suspenseful tune being hummed by the imp each time he turned into an animal to sneak through a hole or under a door. Izel described his findings as he went along, and the party split roughly in two groups to execute their prison break in broad daylight.

The ground team was responsible for providing a safe landing for the escapees, while the break team was responsible for, well, breaking in and then out again. They knocked out seven guards in the process, and the prisoners they rescued were Gavin, Mulch, Dill, a one-armed tiefling woman who presented herself as Virtue, and finally Seb's older sister Henabella Redleaf. Mulch's health and eyesight had deteriorated over the years in prison. Gavin had been taken by guards after a fight with Impetus. Dill said she was put there because she snuck into the mage's tower after some commotion the previous day, and that she found and destroyed a vial of oblex slime. Seb's sister had been loosely involved with the thieves' guild, and was somewhat recently transferred to the fort's prison.

Virtue had a much more complicated story, which she told with some odd hesitancy and yet blatant admission of criminal intentions. She was a necromancy student once, and she recognized the blackness on Beatris' arm as something she had had herself before her arm was removed following a time where mages carved runes into it and experimented on her. She recounted having tried to blackmail her way into the academy, later being kidnapped by someone she couldn't describe, experiencing a normal-ish day in Redgate, possibly being kidnapped again, feeling powerful when the blackness expanded on her rune-inscribed arm, waking up on a cart full of bodies and lacking her left arm, meeting a tall woman with glowing eyes, seeing a high elven mage with dark hair and a ceramic mask, and finally being in the prison and failing to cast necromancy spells on her fellow inmates.

Seb, Venir, and Izel went on a quick heist to find some of Gavin's things, and managed to locate his Bleeding Greatsword, which they gave back to him, and a ghost shortsword, which they kept. Seb, his sister, Gavin, and Izel set course for Mythhold. Mulch, Dill, and Virtue are set to follow the comrades to Divenen Manor.

## Session 127: Plots, Plans, and Purpose

March 26, 2023

The party returned to Divenen Manor. The return of Dill caused some tension among the NPCs in the house, but it didn't escalate. While hunting, Venir, Ragna, and Neeril found a weird songbird, which later turned out to be an emissary of the archfey Lady Wintersong. Beatris and Willow had a conversation with Virtue and managed to dispel a powerful non detection on her, revealing a number of *modify memory* spells concealed underneath. After Mulch's eyesight was improved with a lesser restoration, the group discovered his memories had been altered too when he did not seem to remember Marigold. The spells to restore their memories would be prepared and cast the following day. In the meantime, the conspiracy board was expanded. Willow messaged Fholtarr and got him to look into Larian Coldmoon's time in the high elf city of Tirithil, in case that knowledge might hold any clues to the mage's abilities, motives, and connections. A plan for Kernenvale's future was drafted, in which Crocus would be placed as baroness after Rodvincent is deposed and she will eventually delegate that power to the guilds. Beatriss arranged with her father to meet at his estate for luncheon on the day after the next, and to stay there for a little while before the naming day of her newborn baby brother.

On the following day, Percy regenerated the missing part of Mudskipper Tilda's brain, and Tilda was left alive but not yet awake. Mulch and Virtue had their memories restored with several castings of *remove curse*. Mulch remembered Marigold, first as "the woman who killed my brother", then as the mage who planted the seeds of rebellion. He also remembered the few times he had seen Larian Coldmoon. Virtue remembered the details of her patroness, Lady Wintersong, an archfey whose tongue had been taken by Larian Coldmoon, thus stopping her magical singing, which the archfey used to use to grant magic and protection to her warlocks and other favored mortals. The archfey's weird songbird had stuck around and elaborated as best a bird could on the things Virtue remembered about Lady Wintersong. So Virtue's purpose in Kernenvale was to take back the tongue from Larian Coldmoon, and her preferred method was by killing him, something she obviously lacked the ability to do. The comrades were not yet set on killing the mage or the baron, but they let Virtue stay and reiterated the offer to regenerate her arm, though that would have to wait until Percy could cast the spell again.

The moment Ragna spots the weird bird while out hunting.Virtue, Willow, Beatris, Venir, and Lo-Tha pictured talking to the weird bird.Crocus when she decided to agree to the plan to make her baroness.Percy restores Mulch's memories of Marigold.
## Session 128: The Louhi Estate

April 23, 2023

Beatris spoke with the dead head of Albinius Montano, a cultists who in life had been promised transformation into a "gift giver", and by playing into his ego, she got the animating spirit of Albinius to reveal that Baron Rodvincent Von Kernenvale had known about the mind flayers for many decades. She then decomposed the head and kept the skull. From Larian Coldmoon's notes which Seb had helped Beatris acquire while the others were in Sigil, the comrades learned that the archfey Lady Wintersong once helped the Coldmoon drow when they fled the Underdark and Lolth's influence.

After a night's rest, so on the 1st Ashday, Moon of the Raven, 853 CL, Percy regenerated Virtue's arm, and the missing bit of her tail. The arm returned with no blackening or runic marks, and the tiefling's powerful necromancy did not return. She would have to start her wizardry almost from scratch, to which Beatris offered to find her her own old spell book from her childhood home. Crocus was already working with the troubadours on a plan to spread propaganda in Flowerfen to slowly get more people on the party's side and sympathize with their ideas.

Beatris teleported the group to the Louhi grounds and they split up into two groups. Percy, Venir, and Crocus headed to the Leigh farm to speak to Foxtail and his sister Barley. At the same time Neeril, Lo-Tha, Willow, and Ragna followed Beatris to her father's manor.

Team Leigh got a map from Barley, showing some underground tunnels in Kernentown between the castle and the Lord's Lodge. From Foxtail, they learned one of the Miereskis (another family working for the Louhis) might have been infected by a slime. The trio and Foxtail went to the Miereski farm and stealthily found the infected man, but a battle ensued, in which Crocus was briefly mind controlled to attack Venir, and Venir started biting and drinking blood from the infected man, even after the slime had been expelled. With a quick *banishment* spell, Percy deescalated the situation. She also learned that the man, while infected, had heard a voice in his head telling him to go to visit Demetrios Louhi. She then modified the Miereski man's memory of the event, so that he only remembered that a kind cleric of Hermes had come to cure him of his terrible cold. Foxtail was somewhat frightened of Venir—and no less so when he came out as "sort of a vampire"—but Crocus and Percy verbalized their sympathy for Venir concerning his situation. They got to overnight at the Leigh farm.

The others had a slightly longer walk to the Louhi Manor, and Beatris had some nerves about going home. Neeril spent some time wild shaped as a fox and playing in the snow. Upon reaching the house and knocking on the door, the butler, Mr. Verges, received them and welcomed them inside, somewhat surprised at the quantity of Beatris' company. The group made sure to subtly vibe check the family and servants for slime suspicions, but none of them were uncomfortable with warmth and fire. After luncheon with Beatris' father Demetrios and his wife Virgilia, Beatris got to meet her very tiny brother for the first time and learned his name was to be Claudio. Beatris took her friends on a tour around the house and the grounds, and they spoke with the groundskeeper. He told them about, among other things, some newcomers to the grounds, Ened and Iymin Sickeler, who had built a farm slightly closer than anyone else to the Underdark entrance that Beatris used to use to move between his parents' homes. Over dinner, the comrades told Demetrios about their experiences with discovering their own local baron's corruption/cult, and Demetrios appeared to agree not just in the specific case, but also on principle, with deposing a tyrant that undermines the system. This group slept in the Louhi manor.

## Session 129: Depose the Baron, Abolish the Jury

May 13, 2023 - D&D and Eurovision watch party

With a week left before the naming ceremony for baby Louhi, the still split party continued their research and planning. They brainstormed how to get the minor lords, specifically Demetrios Louhi, Timothan Tyllen, and Penlennard Ommel, as well as the guilds in Flowerfen, possibly through Lady Rosalina Barnspring aka "Rosebud" or "Buddy", to support deposing the baron and replacing him with Crocus. They sent a sending to Dill to get her to start listing the other enforcers, their employers, and contacts, so they could collect proof and build an argument that the Baron was encouraging corruption, if not corrupt himself, and directly responsible for the violence in the streets.

Venir, Neeril, Percy, and crocus visited the Sickeler farm and met the couple Ened, a human man, and Iymin, a mostly-human-possibly-slightly-elven woman and priestess of Sikis the Scythe Maiden. The couple turned out to be quite normal and not another plot thread or entry on the conspiracy board. Just an excuse to share some worldbuilding. The group did however find something else. Flying roughly from the direction of the nearest Underdark entrance, a spider floated through the snowy air on a thread of silvery gossamer. Crocus pointed it out, and Percy managed to capture it. It had a pink diamond/star symbol on the back of its abdomen, just like one encountered in Ryldz'tes.

Beatris spoke with her family to learn the specific plans about the naming ceremony, she got the guest list for the event, and she got her father's general vibe check on Lady Barnspring and the Coldmoon family, both generally positive but not well known to him. Willow did some reading about the religions of Agranor.

The next day, 2nd Moonday, after breakfast, the comrades met up and wind walked to the Valonar estate. They suspected the slime infected person sent to go to Demetrios wasn't the only one, and they were correct. Venir sensed an ooze present in Valonar’s house, but upon investigation, the party learned that the groundskeeper Evan Kallio was immune to the slime's mind control because of his fey nature, and he had captured it to show the comrades. Willow destroyed the slime with fire. The group introduced Jasper Valonar to Crocus/Shade/Ethelbet Coldmoon, and she stayed and spoke with Valonar while the party wind walked to the Tyllen and Ommel estates to check them for oozes as well. Neither ranger detected their favored enemies anywhere near the two houses. While Percy wind walked back to Valonar and Crocus, the others returned to Divenen Manor. Valonar had clearly taken a liking to Crocus, and the party's idea of getting him to endorse her as baroness, or even take her as his own ward and heir, was on track. Percy and Crocus then also returned to Divenen Manor where Mudskipper Tilda was awake and planning with Mulch and the other criminal do-gooders. The party got another long rest. Virtue got a level 1 wizard spellbook from Beatris. The plan for the new day included contacting Buddy.

## Session 130: A Rose by Any Other Name

June 10, 2023

On the 2nd Towerday, Moon of the Raven, the party sent a letter by animal messenger to Kernentown to book rooms in the Lords' Lodge for Lady Willow and her companions (Beatris already has access to rooms). The party members wind walk to Flowerfen to speak with Rosalina "Rosebud/Buddy" Barnspring. Neeril, Willow, and Venir got a tour of the enchanted garden while waiting for an audience.

The fiendish spider Percy captured no longer showed up on ranger senses, and was gone from the glass vial. Using *detect good and evil*, Willow sensed a distinct undead presence inside of Venir.

At their audience with Lady Barnspring, the comrades learned a number of things: There was a mage in-between Marigold and Larian, Ana Barnspring, Rosalina's secret wife and Rodvincent's secret mage. This secrecy made it easy for the baron's men to disappear Ana as they had with Marigold. The party suggested that she may be somewhere out there like Marigold was, but a sending to Sannl revealed she had not yet been identified among the pickled bodies. Still, it brought some hope to Lady Barnspring, and she opened up more to the party's suggestions.

Some gnomish artificers had also visited Lady Barnspring's estate to ask for funding, after the baron had 'bought' their first completed astrolabe originally commissioned for the observatory in Mythhold. The gnomes are still working on the device, since the baron ordered alterations to it so it resonates with the blue wanderer (the planet Nazyrai, which Neeril briefly visited using mind flayer technology). The artificers were given a deadline of midwinter, which at this point was less than three weeks away. This planet is apparently important to some stuff the baron wants. The inventors find it weird that they can't get the device to resonate with the dim wanderer (a more distant, rarely seen planet).

The party found out there were cranium rats in Flowerfen, and Percy found a halfling orphan boy who had somehow managed to kill one of the rats. She gave him some gold and told him to get the other kids at the orphanage to avoid the rats. Hearing rumours that the cranium rats came from the local alchemist's basement, the party went to his shop and found a kavaadic alchemist guild member there, an elegant but incredibly rude elf man called Ikar Brightshade. He was at first interested in buying cranium rats from the alchemist, but became more interested in an onlooker eye Neeril offered him, which he bought and left with. The alchemist swore the rats were not from his experiments and that he had nothing to do with them, in fact having hired adventurers to look for any rats at all and exterminate them, though none were found.

From the rooftops, Venir spotted that Lady Barnspring's orangerie's roof had partly broken. The party hurried there, just in time to fight off an animated tree and more plants uprooting to fight them. Willow used *speak with plants* and heard the plants cry out "no more hope!" which echoed Lady Barnspring's fear and grief. Beatris blighted the tree, Lo-Tha pummelled it, Venir gave it some of its own medicine, and Neeril was almost swallowed by its roots, all leading to Ragna chopping it to bits. With a surge of positive energy from the *heal* spell, Rosalina's emotions were stabilised and with that, the plants in the garden stopped lashing out.

With a lore drop delivered by Hermes through Percy, the party learned what happened to the gnomish mage. Ana was not brought to the mind flayers; instead when she was ordered captured by the Baron, she had been killed, and the culprits later had their memories of the deed removed by Larian Coldmoon. Hermes confirmed that Ana's soul had successfully passed on. Ana was mage for a very short time, and when she expressed disgust of the baron's character to Rosalina, Rosalina introduced her to the thieves' guild's mission shortly before Ana disappeared. Around the same time, a young Larian Coldmoon brought Rosalina on a short trip to the Feywild. Rosalina doesn't remember how she entered or left the fey realm, except that she did so with Larian. Rosalina has worked with Larian many times in the decades since, but always suspected his and the baron's involvement in Ana's disappearance. Now that this suspicion was confirmed, Rosalina promised to support the party and help them gain support from the guilds in Flowerfen. The party was given Lady Barnspring's literal seal of approval. She also gave the party 100 platinum pieces and the sending stone that connected her to Larian Coldmoon.

After a magnificent lunch (somehow a cooking check of 32 from Neeril), the party teleported to the exam room circle in Mythhold, where Jauntlore had been informed they would appear. They gave her back the planeshift tuning fork attuned to the material plane, and Beatris continued learning scrying from Jauntlore. The party went north in the city in the direction of Gavin's magic item shop, looking for diamond infused chalk on the way there. What they did find on the way through Mythhold's streets were the shops "Pip and Pipe", a straw hat- and magic herbalist shop run by Pepper "Pip" Highhill (and she was super stoned at the time), and "Reede & Booke's", a bookshop with a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction books and even some magic book-related items and enduring spellbooks. The employees present at the time were two gnomes, Marth and Wimothy, with whom the party negotiated the price of an *arcane eye* spell scroll. At the end of the session, Lo-Tha was browsing the romance/smut section, Beatris was ritual casting *comprehend languages* to translate an odd scroll for Wimothy, and the store manager Sophronia "Sophie" Reede-Booke came in through the door and said hi. Sophronia looks an awful lot like Percy.

## Session 131: Oh No, Now There Are Two of Them

July 12, 2023

Upon seeing Sophronia Reede-Booke enter the bookshop the party was in, Percy darted out in the alleyway to have a little bit of a panic attack about maybe putting Sophie in danger, pursued shortly by Lo-Tha and Akhtin. Using *blink*, she snuck into Sophie's office to wait until they could speak privately.

Meanwhile, Sophie showed Neeril some books, including one about the draconic language. Lo-Tha came back in and recommended (as a Barendain monk) that Sophie go to her office where "an important and good conversation awaits her". Beatris finished her *comprehend languages* ritual and assumed the text was an advertisement of some sort for Gavin's shop, where they were going anyway, so with the exception of Percy, the others went up to Gavin and Izel, while Percy had some alone time to bond and catch up with her long-lost sister.

At *Gavin's Extraordinary Spoils*, the comrades sold some magic items (thorn whip whip, flaming shortsword, and a drow cloak of elvenkind) and bought a few others (efficient quiver with ten +1 arrows, and a flame tongue handaxe). They also learned that a powerful enchantment was placed on Izel that prevented him from disclosing any information about the text Beatris had translated back with Wimothy at Reede & Booke's. This raised suspicion about the message and implied some powerful mage or fey being was sending adventurers on some type of quest that would eventually send those adventurers to the Underdark.

Back at the bookshop, they bought a magical book of knowledge entitled The Tome of Book for Almalak to aid him in his search for the missing archmages-turned-books. After dinner with Almalak, he pointed Neeril towards someplace she could find a buyer for her onlooker hides. Neeril walked down an alley and found herself in a gloomy, mysterious hidden place, like a shadowy/noir version of the city. There, a tall, lithe, and extradigital person offered a better price for the skins than Gavin had. Neeril sold the loot and as she went to put her new earnings aside, she found among her money a locally minted gold coin that she didn't have earlier that night.

Ragna, Lo-Tha, Neeril, and Percy wind walked to Flowerfen to carry out their heist of the gnomish inventors' shop and steal the astrolabe tha baron wanted. Beatris bought some diamond-infused chalk and completed spell-scribing scrying with Professor Jauntlore's help.

The heist gang carefully created the crime scene they wanted to leave behind and escaped with the astrolabe (partially but carefully disassembled) and the plans/blueprints for it. They purposefully left a piece of torn cloth in one of the traps the inventors had set up, triggered some alarm spells, and roughed up the room a little. Lo-Tha waved her new axe around a bit to help make the break-in look like the work of Praxidike, and Percy performed a show as said vigilante and made a rousing speech about the "evil baron" versus light, justice, and hope. Guards and neighbours showed up relatively quickly, but by then the others had snuck away. Their telepathic bond had ended, so when Percy darted off in her own direction, she couldn't immediately find the others. They communicated a meeting point via sending stone to Willow and sending from her, but when Percy went that way, she was found and racially profiled by guards patrolling the streets for anyone who might be Praxidike. She was taken in as a suspect. Neeril got a 0 deception to convince he guard that Percy('s current disguise) was actually her lawyer. When a fight broke out, Neeril darted off and Ragna and Lo-Tha joined Praxidike (gasp! it really was her!) in kicking some guard butt, both also in disguise, of course. The guards barely stood long enough to bring out Brutus, a minotaur evoker knight from Mythhold's Red Guard who was sent to Flowerfen as reinforcement to stop Praxidike.

Brutus knocked out Lo-Tha, who then had a couple of brief visions before she was stabilised and healed. In one vision, she saw two planets, one blue like the one Neeril had 'encountered'. The other had rings and somehow felt like a lost memory. It later turned out the group had forgotten the dim wanderer they had observed in the sky from the alleyway behind Reede & Booke's, and it had even erased itself from where Neeril had noted it on her star map. lo-Tha's second vision was of two figures in the dark, one showing up regularly and the other occasionally patrolling nearby without spotting the first. Then the figures met and the first killed the second and buried them. The buried figure rose the next day. It went back where it first went on patrol from, but did met up again with its killer several times afterwards. What could this mean?

After knocking out Brutus and delivering some more speeches about justice in Kernenvale to some bystanders, the group skedaddled and went back to Divenen Manor.

The next day, 2nd Wolfday, Raven, the comrades spent some time informing their allies of new intel and established contact between them and Buddy. The "Rumor Machine" was "activated", meaning the troubadours began work to spread the narrative that Praxidike's civilian identity is now known for sure. The comrades tried to make sense of the message Beatris had translated earlier and decided to investigate the nearest entrance to the Underdark, which Beatris knew very well from her many trips between her parents' homes. There they found some evidence that adventurers had been there in a timeframe that made sense with what they already knew. Lo-Tha spoke to some surprisingly sentient and apparently verbally communicating mushrooms, which was definitely the main takeaway from this session. The party also fought a whole nest of ankhegs.

## Session 132: Caper in Kernentown

July 14, 2023

The party found proof that the adventurers they were tracking had been a little ill prepared but probably hadn't died in these caves. After a short rest, Beatris scryed on the owner of a broken boot they found, and she saw a wizard leading a small party of adventurers through a field and talking about some cryptic messages they had been following but didn't quite understand, including something about a "glass pool". This led the comrades to decide to teleport to the other pery's location and tell them about the mind flayers and the fact that the City of the Glass Pool had already been dealt with.

This party of four 6th-level adventurers consisted of Beverin the half-elf wizard, who had received a box seven years ago in which was the first of the cryptic messages leading them on their quest, which he only opened some months ago; Merrylyn Brightbraid the dwarf cleric of the First Scribe who had been with Beverin's original adventuring party long ago and joined him on this new quest when it began; Gorgin the human fighter who seeks to break a curse on his family line that causes all descendents of one of his ancestors to seek out dangerous quests, because he wants to have a child that can live safely; and finally, Bratthew the human rogue, an edge lord.

After impressing this less experienced party over the course of a short rest, the comrades wind walked back to Divenen Manor. Their teleport had brought them so far across Agranor, that this journey basically took the rest of the day. Beatris crucially learned the *arcane eye* spell (from a scroll they had purchased at Reede & Booke's).

In a few days of downtime leading up to the naming ceremony in Kernentown, the party achieved a few things: Neeril cooked some fantastical meals with ankheg eggs. Willow completed some potions. Beatris finished learning elvish (I believe this was when we established this fact?). More meetings were facilitated to get Crocus and Tilda involved with Buddy's guild friends, which is going well so far. Fholtarr Thunderblood sent a sending to Willow giving her some info on Larian Coldmoon's time studying in Muthlaru. Some twenty or more years ago, the high-elf mage had studied conjuration, planar geometry, the directions of the deep feywild, mostly through books by Exalion Minyalaurë, which Fholtarr is not allowed to access.

The comrades prepared to do a heist simultaneous with the naming ceremony for Beatris' baby brother Claudio. Willow, Beatris, and Lo-Tha attended the ceremony in the main hall of the Lords' Lodge and socialised with nobles and merchants. Percy, Ragna, and Neeril went in disguise as servants (then cultists and then servants again) and made their way into the secret cellar under the lodge.

Team heist used Beatris' arcane eye, their telepathic bond, and Neeril's starry form ability to explore the tunnels behind the magically locked doors. When the team all wore mindflayer cultist medallions they had taken from the Montanos, that triggered a glyph that exploded the medallions and damaged them when they came near a door that required the starry palm to open. The designs on the two doors in these tunnels did not correspond to any of the designs in the cultists' notes. They located the hidden chapel from Barley's map, where they found evidence of past offerings to the four god statues. There was a plainly visible sign reading: "Say your prayers and be on your way. Do not disturb this shrine, and leave no offerings for your gods here.". A different note, written in elvish and hidden behind the statue of the First Scribe read: "There is no need to find the Tree Mother’s children to walk the echo realms. The seasonal deities here will do, but the common path is watched by the so-called Ley Lord. No matter. There is an other place; there is an other way". Team heist bypassed some guards undetected thanks to Beatris and her arcane eye spotting the guards first. The eye expired soon after, but team heist continued up into the castle proper, infiltrating it unseen by all but one nervous maid who had cleaned and lit the baron's fireplace. Oh, and one incredibly heavy statuette of a yeth hound also saw them once they got up to the baron's study. While there, they found a number of documents which may prove to be damning evidence against Rodvincent. They also found and took a magical dagger, a mysterious book, a shard of Zodion (like the stone in Lo-Tha's forehead), and a bunch of treasure. They barely made it out before the baron returned, but with Neeril polymorphed as a pigeon to create chaos, they bought themselves just enough time to get away, though not enough to cover all their tracks. The baron's desk was heavily damaged, for one. They may have set off more glyphs than they were aware off, but they made it out alive. They found a place at "the Tasteful" to hunker down while the full moon rose, just in time for Ragna to succeed some wisdom saves against her curse.

Team Attend the Ceremony stayed for the party after Claudio Louhi's naming ceremony. Beatris socialised with the people she was supposed to socialise with, and eventually had an awkward conversation with Theodore Tyllen, ~~man~~ wet rag of all time. Rosalina Barnspring also congratulated her on her brother and gave her many thanks and good wishes. Rosalina then left with a somber countenance, regarding the town as if for the last time. Lo-Tha was asked repeated to read peoples' fortunes, mostly for entertainment. Willow overheard two businessmen with Kavaadic accents and found them in the lounge where one then approached her. He presented himself as Alkhaim, a merchant from a company out of Tradefall that trades increasingly in magical material components, thanks to their connections with the chromatic dragonborn who plunder such things from the Thorothan deserts when fighting the undead. Alkhaim wanted to arrange a meeting with one of Willow's business representatives. He said he and his associate were staying in "the Tasteful" for the next day or so, including their room number, and implored Willow to send someone she trusted, as the wares they had with them to Kernenvale may soon no longer be for sale.

Team Heist received a knock on the door and a visit from Captain of the Mytholese Yellow Guard, Adver Gleansort. They were apparently contacted by the baron to, as a diviner, help find Praxidike, but as they said, they don't serve the baron; they serve the King. Captain Gleansort revealed they had spoken to Professor Jauntlore and from her learned about the slime satellites and their fear of fire. The captain got Percy to tell them about Praxidike's civilian personality, goals, visuals, and more, implying that someone would create this fake person as a way to fool the baron, and a tiny orb of magic seemed to record her words and illusions before the captain sent it away. The captain asked Percy politely, but also scarily, to keep the arson to a minimum and stop doing property damage. They briefly addressed the fact that Ragna and Neeril were hiding in the wardrobe, and then they left.

After this, the comrades all got a well-deserved long rest!

## Session 133: Diamond Deal

July 30, 2023

Beatris, Lo-Tha, and Willow met up for breakfast in the Lords' Lodge and planned a little for the day. Beatris connected them with a telepathic bond and then went to attend some family obligations. The other two went to the Tasteful to meet back up with Ragna, Percy, and Neeril. With the exception of Neeril, the group visited the room of the two Kavaadic "merchants" Alkhaim and Leandros to check out what their deal was and potentially buy some gems for spell components, such as a pristine diamond.

When Percy inspected the diamond up close and touched it, the substance on its surface made contact with her skin and delivered a potent poison to her system. the merchants had pulled back in the room and drew their weapons, ambushing the four comrades. During the fight, it was revealed the two ~~merchants~~ assassins were acting on behalf of royal court mage of Kavaad Mynwynn Viskhart. When the assassins had greatly weakened their targets and knew they too had no way out of the encounter, Leandros took the diamond and caused it to explode in a fashion similar to the gem-based explosions that occurred in Viskhart's base in Tradefall. This explosion caused significant damage to the room, a few other rooms, the party, the assassins, and several innocents, killing some of the people in the inn. The assassins were stopped immediately after this, Leandros dying and Alkhaim being kept alive for interrogation and to prove the party's accounts of the incident to the guards. Adver Gleansort was contacted and showed up while the local guardsmen were on the scene. The party gave their accounts to both the Kernian watch and to the Mytholese captain. The guards asked the party to stay in town for at least a few days, and offered to pay to house them in a tavern. The group met up in this other tavern, the Crown Inn, where they identified some objects from the previous night's heist. The book from Rodvincent's vault had some invisible mark on its denoting that an *Instant Summons* spell was cast on it, and it emanated divination magic which seemed to respond to Beatris' identify, by identifying her back and releasing random rumours instead of revealing its magic. It may be possible to identify more if the book is opened, but for several reasons it was not. One reason being it was locked. Another that it had some distinct abberation vibes just like the planet Nazyrai when observed with Neeril's primeval awareness.

The group had free lunch at the Crown Inn and heard some of the news spreading through the town. The baron will apparently address his people later today with a speech.

## Session 134: Roddy's Big Speech

September 3, 2023

The party met up in the Crown Inn in Kernentown, joined by Seb. After catching up on the latest events, the whole party attended the baron's speech. Crocus was informed via sendings of the baron's propaganda, so she and the others at Divenen Manor could deploy the right counter-propaganda. Beatris spoke with her father and those surrounding him at the Lords' Lodge, leading the conversation in directions more sympathetic towards the people and sceptical of the baron.

While disguised as a guard to follow another guard, Seb encountered a disguised-as-a-guard Trudence Rainfate. She had returned after Raymond Lonsten brought her and other the visiting young wizards back to Mythhold, trying to figure out why they had ben brought to Kernenvale in the first place. Seb convinced her to come speak with him at dawn in a safe, secret location. Neeril shadowed Prudence thereafter, following her into the temple and down into the dungeon where Trudence investigated the aftermath of Lonsten's quest in search of answers. Neeril saw her conspiracy board of notes, at it seemed she was piecing some things together and theory crafting something about Mechanus, a summoning spell, and a living material component supposedly needed to empower such a spell.

A *temple of the gods* was set up in the secret tunnel under the construction site. Ragna stayed there, chained up during the last night of the full moon, and thanks to a small blessing from Hermes in return for an offering, she pulled through with no issue. No wolfing out. Not exhaustion.

For the dawn conversation with Trudence, the party split up between a back and front room of Percy's temple. Percy (in disguise), Neeril, and Seb spoke with Trudence, while connected to the others with a *telepathic bond* spell. They told Trudence not to trust Larian Coldmoon, and they swapped information about the cultists and mind flayers, the otherworld portal that was under the town's temple, and about the *geas* of Lonsten. They specifically didn't give Trudence any clues about Mechanus; the comrades didn't want to break the pact signed in Sigil and attract a Marut.

After Trudence left, the party took a closer look at the "cursed" book from the baron's vault in his study. It turned out to be bound in still-living mind flayer skin with thoughts. Those who read in it saw their own handwriting recounting events in their own life, though not much they didn't know themselves already. Each reader saw the first page reading simply "I exist," except Percy, whose page said "We exist".

## Session 135: When You Judge a Book by its Cover‚ the Book Judges You Back

September 17, 2023

The comrades continued their investigation of the mind flayer-bound book. Neeril used detect thoughts to have a conversation with it, delving into information about it, the world, and Rodvincent Von Kernenvale. They got parts of Rodvincent's "search history", meaning what he had asked the book to inform him on. It also revealed parts of the Baron's, Larian Coldmoon's, and the Sisters of Dread's deals and interconnectedness. It exposed lore about the titans, the planets, and the Elder Gods, as it had supposedly been informed by the Elder Brain. Percy wrote a letter to Crocus and to Jauntlore, detailing relevant information from the book to each of them.

Notably, the book wasn't enjoying itself, and it thought very lowly of the group of adventurers.

The party decided to lure Larian Coldmoon out with the book and confront him. A few days of planning and set-up later, and when Beatris' relatives where safely out of town, the party made camp well outside Kernentown, setting traps under the snow and performing as best they could for the scrying orb that eventually appeared. Then two wizards appeared over the hill: Cael Ehlerstadt and Edwillem Hinterbren, quick to initiate combat. An invisible Larian and his invisible shield guardian where also present, and the group was bombarded with spells. When the the two younger wizards where downed, Larian teleported them, himself, and the construct away. The party healed up as quickly as they could and pursued, teleporting to the circle in the mage's tower. Guards and the wizard/sorcerer Stella Harbours were stationed there and tried at first to stop them. Percy and Lo-Tha dimension door'ed into the basement, followed by Neeril and Venir. The two halflings broke into Larian's laboratory and found him. Venir was attacked by yet another wizard, Henril Kavic, but Neeril made a truce with their assailant. Upstairs, Beatris revealed her identity to the guards and to Stella, convincing them to see her side of things and stop supporting the Montanos, and possibly also the Baron and his mage.

## Session 136: The Escape Room of Doom

September 30, 2023

Lo-Tha and Percy had managed to turn their encounter in the dungeon into a conversation with Larian Coldmoon. Running to reach them before violence might ensue again, Sebastion and Ragna activates a number of glyphs of warding and fought a water elemental myrmidon summoned by one of the glyphs. Larian justified his stealing of Lady Wintersong's tongue; she used her songs to twist and control the Coldmoons' fate, and Larian also just found the sound annoying. When he demanded the sentient book back, allegedly to keep the baron distracted and relatively pacified, the tension exploded back into combat. In the fight, Larian's spell-eating orb was destroyed, as was his shield guardian, and there were three other casualties: Ragna (who was revivified), Cael Ehlerstadt, and Edwillem Hinterbren. When Larian teleported out of there with an artifact in hand, the artifact he previously used to get to Sigil, a sequence of magic mouths initiated a sequence of glyphs of warding, filling the room with magical traps, poisonous fumes, and other deadly spells, while securing the are with a *private sanctum* and a *wall of force* to prevent the intruders from escaping. Willow wild shaped into a massive yuan-ti monstrosity and managed to disperse the fumes and put herself between a deadly spell and the very wounded party. For a later similar spell, Percy threw herself at it, trying to likewise cover that before its activation, pleading Hermes for aid, offering \*anything\* in return for saving her friends. A very minor intervention, despite a failed roll, allowed her to just barely keep the spell from her allies, but the price of the bargain was unknown (except for the shit ton on necrotic damage, which was felt immediately, followed by a fall damage death save failure). After many failed attempts at dispelling the spell that prevented them from teleporting out, and a creative, but likewise failed attempt from Seb and Neeril at controlling Larian's disintegrate glyph and aiming it at the wall of force, where Venir very nearly died to save Neeril, the spell was finally broken by Henril Kavic. Having collected the more significant items from the two scorched, dead wizards, Beatris teleported the party the hell out of there.

## Session 137: Pursuit Into the Feywild

October 8, 2023

The comrades plus Henril Kavic arrived in a dark cavern in the Underdark, all standing before the home of Beatris' mother Rosariel. First, they sent a sending to Stella Harbours to make sure she was fine and knew they and Henril Kavic were safely out, but not where they were. The drow received them and provided them with healing and shelter. The group set up two *tiny hut* spells so they couldn't be scryed on or targeted by outside spells. That way they managed to stay safe and get a long rest. [And they reached 15th level. DING!]

After their rest, Percy directed a sending to Adver Gleansort, and then one to Crocus. Both of them reported a fire in Flowerfen in the night, and Crocus was very upset she didn't get an answer when she used her sending stone to contact Percy in the night (due to the tiny huts), but assured her that she and the boys were safe.

With a helpful *aid* spell from Rosariel, the party travelled up by *wind walk* into the mountains above. Henril departed the group. Seb used the skull of Rhilin Farspire to scry on Larian but failed, as if there was no viable target. The group decided to return to Kernentown and try to use what they had assumed was Larian's secret entrance to the Feywild. They wind walked through heavy snow to the fort and managed to get into the basement chapel undetected. They gave an offering to each of the four god statues in order of their associated seasons. Then a secret outline of a door appeared on the opposite side of the corridor. The new door led to a mirrored but otherwise identical room. They gave offerings again, but this time in order opposite of the deities' seasons. The exit from the mirror chapel shifted slightly and became an entrance to the Feywild.

The party stepped through, hoping to learn more about Larian and catch him alone and off guard outside of his glyph-filled lair. The fey echo of Kernentown appeared as a dark, overgrown hill, full of thorny brambles and dead trees in place of buildings. The mage's tower and some of the castle turrets where replaced with massive, burnt tree trunks. Where the temple was in Kernentown, here there was a shallow crater in the shape of a massive gear, surrounded by bramble transformed into pure adamantine. In the middle of the crater, the entrance to a mausoleum was exposed, and behind it a plot of land where the very tops of tombstones jutted out of the ground. Beautiful pink butterflies fluttered about in the air, and plant monsters patrolled the woods. The party discovered that Percy apparently can't see any roads.

Willow spoke to a massive briar blocking the town "gate", and persuaded it to let the party through to the other side. On the bridge, which looked like colourful flint, they met a goblin-like character called Candlehat. Candlehat greeted the group and offered to made trades, of questions and answers, of stories, and of anything suitably interesting. It offered its name freely, but trade of names was made. In return for a long-dead lantern dragonette from Neeril's bag of holding, the fey goblin gave the group a map of their surroundings. (We can call this place Kernenfey.) Venir was told were the nearest babbling brook was. Candlehat seemed eager to make more trades when Willow offered to trade a story.

## Session 138: Detour to Cloudwick Tower

November 12, 2023

The comrades gained information from Candlehat, including that Cloudwick Tower was once Candlehat's lair and that its top in the cloud featured a magic theatre. No trusting that *wind walk* would be safe to traverse the Feywild's sky and mountains and the area around the tower, the party sought different methods. They were pointed in the direction of Bad Frog Swamp, where they would convince some floating frogs to help them. On their way to these frogs, the comrades encountered a group of razorbucks and giant boar. At first a combat, the fight was broken up by Willow through diplomacy in the Sylvan language of the fey. Along their travels, Venir collected things from the feywild's landscape.

After hours of travel, the party met Mootcaller, a flightless owl spirit. Candlehat had cautioned the party against this entity, as it had taken the tower from them for itself before Larian Coldmoon claimed it as his wizard tower. Mootcaller had recently eaten, and it had no personal quarrel with the comrades, so they passed it without issue. It warned them of a water spirit in the swamp who may trap them and drown them if they can't give it magics. The woods around the owl spirit's territory were full of pine tree with jumping cones, some of which the party pocketed. In the Bad Frog Swamp, the group met some tiny frogs that declared themselves nobility and royalty, claiming they were not really frogs, but dukes and princesses and such. When kissed, a frog turned into a bullywug, a toad-like humanoid, and lorded over the tiny frogs. In protest against this tyranny, the comrades went around and kissed each talking frog, and tried to teach them a more equal form of government. After this, the comrades walked across the surface of the water and managed to sneak past ghoul toads and other threats, finally finding the inflatable floating frogs. The group helped the frogs hunt their favourite food (big dragonfly-like insects) and convinced seven of them to join their journey up to Cloudwick Tower in the mountains.

To not spend too much time in the Feywild, fearing their time there may be distorted in relation to the material plane, they travelled to the base of the mountains by teleport. Beatris' familiarity with the material plane's landscape made this easy, and so they skipped many hours of *wind walking* and regular walking. The group trekked the rest of the way until the mountains and their chasms became too steep, at which point they had their newfound friends turn into balloons and carry them up the frosty mountainside. Approaching the peak, magic seemed to become spotty, and both spells and items became unreliable. The group made camp near the top and had a short rest. Venir shared some souvenirs from the Feywild with his new friends, things he had collected during their journey.

Getting up or even into Cloudwick Tower was a struggle. The moment the tower was touched, it grew to an incredible height, its second floor disappearing into the cloud above. Candlehat had informed the party of this trick and of the extending staircase between the two floors. The locked front door gave the group much trouble, but Venir made it inside with a *misty step*, which placed him in a fight with four gargoyles, an acid pit, and a canoloth. The others eventually managed to come in and save him, but the whole affair was quite disastrous. And that was only the lobby. The gallery next door hurt a lot, due to animated objects and spellcasting paintings, but those brave/stupid enough to enter did retrieve a gem with a key and exit, not unscathed, but alive. this experienced cemented for the party that this was indeed Larian's lair. The gem was an emerald of water elemental summoning encasing a large key. Also exploring a hidden storage and water closet, the group sat down to recover and prepare for whatever else the tower had in store for them.

## Session 139: The Song of Larian Coldmoon

November 18, 2023

Near the end of the group's short rest in the lobby and/or storage closet of Cloudwick Tower, the book bound in half-living mind flayer skin reached out to some of the comrades' minds; those who had read or touched it. It offered its help against Larian Coldmoon if it gets regenerated. It said it was willing to be put under any charm spell and consented to Willow's *geas* spell, cast at 7th level. Once regenerated by Percy, the gaunt mind flayer was given a mind blade greatsword and one of Larian Coldmoon's bathrobes. It introduced itself as Ssuulth, and awaited the party's ascent through the tower. While Neeril carefully watched Ssuulth, the others explored the ground floor further. They quickly found another key like the one from the gallery, this one encased in a ruby of fire elemental summoning. In a deadly library, where Lo-Tha and in particular Percy had a brief terrible time, they found another gem-encased key. When Seb was compelled to play a game of dragon chess in the game room, and had to complete the hours-long game before he could leave, Beatris and Akhtin freed him from the ordeal (and a possible trigger for a *banishment* glyph) by having the cat simply knock over the complex board. That room had the fourth elemental gem, also with a key.

Back in the lobby, the party noticed small keyholes near the ornately painted ceiling, each at a corner where a gargoyles had sat. The motif on the ceiling depicted the four seasons, which Willow and the alchemists in the party connected to the four elements. Novel idea: when simply pulling the handle to the door to the long staircase, gravity turned inside the lobby, hurling half the party into the ceiling violently. Now on the ceiling, those holding the elemental gems crushed them, releasing four elementals and four keys. They inserted and turned their keys, air corresponding to spring, fire to summer, earth to autumn, and water, winter. The door that reversed gravity clicked and unlocked. Turning the handle once more turned the gravity back again, the adventurers and their elementals plummeting to the floor (well, some could fly, slow fall, etc). With this puzzle solved, the group ascended the immensely tall staircase, with their elementals and their mind flayer in tow. After an hour, the elementals expired, and the staircase continued for quite a while. The ascent of both the mountain and now the stairs was exhausting, but they finally arrived at the second floor.

There, they fought a nastier-then-usual displacer beast, which Ssuulth then mind controlled, and a strange person made out of dark glass pulsing with a dim purple light. They also freed a faerie that was trapped in glass, learning it was one of Udhros Orixidor's spies. In the fight, Percy pulled from a bag of tricks and ape, a baboon, and a black bear to aid the comrades in battle. With glyphs on the next set of doors dispelled, the party ventured forth into a fog-obscured hall haunted by a waltz-like piano piece. The music was then accompanied by songs—songs about members of the Coldmoon family—sung in that same fey tone that Willow had heard in Larian's speech when they first met him. The song gave form to some figures in the fog, and they took on the likeness of those drow-descended Coldmoons. The figures, one of them manifesting as Ethelbet, another as Larian, and several others as their predecessors, attacked the party. The real Larian was up in a hidden room behind a wall of force. With *antimagic zone* Percy nullified the wall and the illusions hiding the entrance behind it, and the comrades started making their way up to fight Larian. When the fog was dispelled, four trolls became visible and ambushed the party, breaking concentration on the *antimagic zone*. When Lo-Tha made it to where Larian was playing on a grand piano, and failed to hit him through his magical defences, she changed strategy and simply kicked the piano 15 feet away, stopping the music. Without the music, the figures appearing as Coldmoons started fading, and Larian lost his edge in the fight. He did manage to dimension door away, appearing down in the room where a few of the figures could still fight alongside him. There, Ssuulth failed to take his "gifts" from him and was killed. Then Ragna and Lo-Tha descended upon the wizard, and Lo-Tha landed the killing blow, stabbing Larian through the abdomen.

Well that was quite a fight. Time for a short rest… and for looting the wizard!

That’s it for 2023. Session logs from adjacent years can be found here: 2022 and 2024.