The Bound Betrayal

and

Justin as the DM

"**The Bound Betrayal**" is the ninth episode of Rise of the Arcane, the third season of Tales From Del'nasra

The flames from a ceremony known as "The Immolation" have sparked out of control and have now set the buildings and the scarecrow inhabitants of the hamlet of Thistledale aflame.

## Episode Synopsis

#### **Previously on Tales from Del'nasra**

*"You all fought the scarecrows that had animated, defeating them with relative ease, even while a few of you were obscured by a sphere of darkness, and with Vonkar collapsing the ruined windmill. You proceeded through the red prop door and found yourselves in a forest of dense, dead trees covered in thorns. Nearby was a wooden stump with strangely enough lanterns for each of you and sized accordingly.*

*As you approached the stump, the top opened like a trap door and out stepped a three-foot tall spider/wolf hybrid creature with a cute, wolf-like face and fuzzy gray body. The figure was wearing a green top hat and bowtie and introduced himself as Hatrick and mentioned that he was the tollkeeper for the Verminwood beyond and that for the price of a secret you could get one of these worm filled glowing lanterns that had a chance to repel the king of the woods, with the more lanterns the better chances of doing so, and that the woods beyond would lead to a hamlet called Thistledale and past an abandoned carnival just before then.*

*Torger, Grin, Hopper and Antyr offered up secrets to Hatrick and received lanterns while the others didn’t divulge any secrets or failed to do so. The Creep mentally told Hatrick his desire to destroy him, which caused Hatrick to flee back into his stump. You all then pushed forward into the Verminwood, down the dirt road with Hopper leading the way.*

*After about an hour of walking, and trying to decide what the group’s overall goal and purpose was, you all heard what sounded like trees falling over and the thousands of rats approaching from your left. Torger flew over the fence and hid behind a tree, while the others remained on the road, concealed by The Creep’s Darkness spell.*

*As the sounds drew closer, Antyr conjured Endylus and looked through the potoo bird’s eyes to see a massive, pale, hairless fifteen foot tall rat covered in tumors and growths that seemed to squeal. It was pulling its massive, bloated body along with its forelimbs as it seemed to lack any use of its hind limbs. The sound of thousands of rats however seemed to emanate from a cloak-like growth of thousands of rats ensnared by their tails on the back of this giant rat that scooped up a perched bird and the cloak began to devour it. This grotesque, large rat eventually crossed the road, mere feet in front of the darkness spell and continued into the opposite side of the woods and disappeared.*

*Waiting a few minutes for the sounds to dissipate you all quickly moved forward in the hopes you wouldn’t encounter it again, theorizing that it was the king Hatrick warned you about. Another hour passed, and the sounds of the rat-thing picked up from behind just as you all passed by the abandoned carnival, swearing you could smell kettlecorn on the wind. The other road eventually led you to a hamlet made entirely of wicker and inhabited by sentient scarecrows with jack-o-lanterns for heads. They offered you accommodations just as long as you participated in a ceremony where offerings of trinkets were burned inside a massive wicker statue of a scarecrow in the center of the hamlet. You all agreed and met with a scarecrow called Dreamwalker Somnius who manifested some of your dreams and or nightmares in visible, tangible trinkets and you all made your way towards the hamlet’s square and offered up a variety of things, and Antyr was given the honor of setting this wicker statue known as The Father ablaze.*

*As the flames ripped through the statue, the people of Thistledale began to dance and cheer, but their joy was cut short as the flames took on an emerald green hue and a malevolent figure with obsidian skin, green eyes and six horns arranged like a crown beneath a head of black hair appeared in the flames. People shouted in confusion that this wasn’t the father, before it blew the flames like a candle which caused them to jump to nearby buildings as well as engulf members of the crowd who began to scream in agony just as the voice said, I live for the moment when I can turn something pure into something perverse."*

#### The Episode

The party quickly got to help extinguishing the flames that mysteriously erupted from the ceremony as the figure that had appeared faded into the smoke and flames. After the flames were dealt with, the Mayor approached the group, blaming them for the cause of the flames. While the rest of the group persuaded that they were innocent, The Creep's offering was found within the burnt remains of the wicker statue and was unharmed. Believing The Creep was behind whatever ordeal this was, the Mayor along with Dreamwalker Somnius took The Creep to be interrogated with Grin and Vonkar following, while the remainder of the party went to the abandoned home in the hamlet to relax.

The half in the abandoned home discussed how The Creep may be untrustworthy and that they also felt Grin was an unreliable narrator, while Antyr began putting the pieces together learning that the figure was the demon prince of pleasure, Graz'zt and was connected to The Creep in some capacity. During these conversations Leek was consoled by Doe having seen the former shut down and appear totally vacant since the fire started. Meanwhile, at Somnius' home, The Creep was being interrogated and asked questions with tensions starting to rise.

Telepathically, The Creep began to push into the minds of his interrogators and won them over by deceiving them, making the mayor and Somnius believe that The Creep was innocent. As his deceptions seemed to stick, the mayor approached The Creep to cut his bindings, seemingly being puppeted by some sort of unseen force. The mayor cut a hole in Creep's bandages so he could speak and in turn this caused the bindings to fall away and reveal the earth genasi beneath the bandages. Graz'zt, the Creep's master spoke through the darkness and unlocked potential within The Creep causing him to transform into a towering titan of elemental earth, causing the building to shatter around him, while Somnius cast *Hold Person* on Vonkar, and Grin went invisible.

The Creep, in his titanic form began burrowing rapidly towards the abandoned home with this half of the group witnessing this all occur in rapid succession. They all fled from the home, while Antyr rushed to Vonkar's aid in an attempt to snap him out of his paralyzed state. The Mayor attempted to stab Vonkar, but was put down by Antyr. The titanic version of The Creep erupted from the ground, destroying buildings in his wake and attacked Hopper, attempting to steal their bag of holding during the attack and succeeded. Upon succeeding The Creep burrowed under ground and before anyone could land a blow on him, he teleported away with Hopper's bag of holding.

#### After the Break

The group began to process what had just occurred, with anger brewing within the party towards The Creep and towards Grin for dragging such a threat around with them at all times. Grin tried explaining that he wasn't like this when he started, theorizing that the luminspire unlocked some form of powers within him that aided in his betrayal and escape. During the heated discussion and high emotions, Hopper gifted Antyr the helmet they had been working on, and the group decided to unwind they'd head to that abandoned carnival as they still needed to kill time before they could leave the Feywild and because they were told the fey crossing they needed back to the Material Plane most likely resided there.

The party began the trek to the abandoned carnival in the Verminwood, while the no-longer charmed Dreamwalker Somnius stayed behind in Thistledale to pick up the pieces and restore the damages that had been done. After about an hour of walking without talking to one another, the group arrived at the abandoned carnival and entered the premises. Torger snuck into the abandoned ticketbooth and stole a bunch of tickets and as he touched the tickets, they seemed to restore themselves and the carnival shifted into a far different carnival alive with colors, sounds and guests galore.

Torger approached the new ticket booth and met with a goblin looking through a spyglass who stamped everyone's tickets and welcomed them to the Witchlight Carnival, giving them each a pair of colorful, cloth butterfly wings to wear and gave Torger a map of the carnival.

## Featured Characters

### Player Characters

* Antyr Xiloscient
* Doe
* Hopper Thimblefoot
* Leek
* The Creep
	+ Grin
* Torger Otrson
* Vonkar Eldsaga

### Returning

* Dreamwalker Somnius
* Graz'zt
* Mayor Harveston

### Mentioned

* The Archmaw
* The Father
* Iggwilv
* Lord Oberon
* Queen Titania