Many Pronged Paths

and

Justin as the DM

"**Many Pronged Paths**" is the twenty-first episode of Rise of the Arcane, the third season of Tales From Del'nasra

The Orbis Ancora built in Drowned Maiden Reef has been destroyed with strangely no resistance, and the Fonkey Casuals have found themselves in possession of yet another luminspire, this one containing the essence of Baba Yaga herself.

## Episode Synopsis

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

*"A variety of trinkets were stolen from a small, personal sloop called the Night Reaver and you all made up a plan to scout out this island where the Orbis Ancora was built. Torger and Grin swam around the exterior of the island to get as close to the cave as possible where Grin was hearing people screaming while the rest of the group attempted to catch up to the sloop that was now drifting out into the reef after its anchor had been shattered by Grin.*

*While Torger and Grin scouted the island they saw a group of elderly people being led to the base of the Orbis Ancora, unshackled by heavily guarded by numerous Umbral Knights. The team attempting to swim towards the sloop caught in just in time, having an easier chance at doing so thanks to the anchor chain dragging behind it.*

*Vonkar took the wheel, and succeeded by a hair’s breadth at maneuvering the sloop towards the rocky island to meet up with and pick up the others. Meanwhile, Grin and Torger saw the old people were gone as they flew towards the mouth of the cave and entered, flying into a large lone chamber at the end where thirty or so elderly people were shackled with spectral, mint-green chains to an archway painted in blood on the cave’s back wall. A handprint was pressed inside the archway and written around the edges of the arch were the words “NEGLECT” in Sylvan.*

*Torger and Grin spoke with the elderly people and also comforted them as well, and learned that all these old people had been blinded, but were also children that had been aged by some form of magic after visiting the Marquis mansion in Port Creach. While the boat-team began making their way towards the island, Torger was taught how to saw Neglect in Sylvan and pressed their hand into the bloody handprint after slicing their palm open which caused the chains to flare with light, aging nineteen of the thirty people to the point of death, leaving only eleven of these elderly children left. As they aged, it seems to power and open the archway revealing a gloomy landscape with a mile-tall dead tree beyond, similar to the landscape seen beyond the right in the sky.*

*It was at this moment that the boat team reached the island and made their way towards the cave, seeing it now oddly vacant of Umbral Knights and seeing the two Port Creach naval shifts sailing back towards the port. This group left Doe behind on the sloop with Lionel and Cornelius and entered the cave as well, regrouping with the others. Hopper deduced the chains were each powered by an Arcane Lock spell, while Vonkar saw that these chains seemed somehow tethered to a point beyond this archway. Realizing the island was now vacant, Grin flew outside to deal with the Orbis Ancora and after damaging one corner of it, saw a beating heart inside and commanded it to stop, causing the structure to shut down, the rift and archway to close which shattered the shackles and de-aged the captives back to their original, childhood ages.*

*Vonkar and Torger aided Grin in bringing down the rest of the structure to strangely no resistance, but their punches were futile against the tower, so Vonkar aided in bringing the surviving captives to the sloop. Antyr cast Atrophy on the corner that had been damaged which caused that portion of the structure to age and collapse, destroying the Orbis Ancora. It was at this moment that the group realized they’ve been continuously seeing “mint-green energy” for days now, and Antyr theorized it may be the ley-lines and that they had just acquired a green orb of the same color and made their way back to the sloop while Grin cut into the heart and pulled out a strange, egg-shaped veiny black fruit with a fading essence of good tied to it.*

*As everyone returned to the sloop it was revealed through a series of strange visions that the orb Antyr had acquired was a luminspire containing the essence of Baba Yaga who appeared to the party and told them that the Seelie and Unseelie Courts would have to form a truce to deal with the threat the Umbral Court now posed, mentioning that the Duskreaper was now in possession of the original luminspire the party had acquired and then lost which contains the essence of the most powerful archfey of all time, Titania’s mother and the original Summer Queen.*

*The spectre of Baba Yaga mentioned that one of her daughters, whose smell she recognized on Antyr, Hopper and Lionel could help the party with this before she expressed an interest in seeing what they did next before disappearing."*

#### The Episode

The party immediately began discussing their plans and started sailing the small sloop towards Port Creach which would take around eight hours to do. So, while the sloop (keelboat) was in motion Torger and Antyr went to the lowerdeck where Antyr successfully dispelled Doe's poppet doll and ensuring that they were no longer being spied on. They filled Doe in on what was going on, while Antyr tested out their new abilities on Torger which ended in Torger tattooing Antyr and helping finish the tattoos Antyr had. One of the children, George who seemed to be leading the group suggested they could enter Port Creach undetected through the sewers and the party could rest in their hideout for the night and in the morning George would show them the sewer tunnels that weave under the city. The party decided this was the plan; and realizing that Cornelius would be hard to conceal as a displacer beast, Baba Yaga spoke through her luminspire and mentioned she could help causing Cornelius to vanish in a flash of mint-green light.

The party also went over the ledger and various documents they had acquired from the sloop's captain quarters discovering detailed business documents involving Kastagar and the Marquis and this business seemed to involve building the Orbis Ancora and fitting the Port Creach naval ships with excavation tools. The notes mentioned a warehouse on the docks that they worked from and the notes seemed to be written by the Marquis and mentioned a masquerade on the 16th of this month where Duskreaper Aelinor would come to collect the weapon that the Marquis now known to be named Torgol Marrshade had found in Drowned Maiden Reef. These notes also explained that the people being held captive were having their life-force drained with strange magic to speed up time on the rocky island where the Orbis Ancora had been built. The party theorized this might be why after they activated the archway the island seemed to be empty all of a sudden and the naval ships were sailing away. The group expressed an interest in going to this masquerade, mainly Vonkar and Grin as well as Lionel.

Meanwhile, Hopper took a spot beside Vonkar who was steering the boat and had a conversation about responsibilities with Vonkar giving some wisdom due to his old age. Hopper remained near Vonkar looking out into the reef while Lionel and Grin also had a nearby conversation on how they could attend the Marquis masquerade since the two of them look so strange and may stand out. The pair of them came up with a plan that due to their size they could potentially perform some espionage and sneak around the masquerade and gather intel. Eventually, Grin flew off to do their own thing and Lionel went into his inactive state near the helm of the ship.

Eventually, the boat began to near Port Creach and Antyr snuffed the boat's lanterns to hide their approach. Realizing that Grin had destroyed the anchor eight hours previously they had no way to fully stop the boat, so Vonkar steered the boat towards some shipwrecks and rocks that lined this reef to sink the ship, and they would all jump out before it hit. Unfortunately, they didn't see a cluster of dark coral and rocks in their immediate path and the boat struck into them hard and capsized, throwing everyone overboard and while some got hit by debris and loose objects on the deck.

George led the party on their swim towards the sewer entrance near the docks, telling the group to avoid the shipwrecks if possible as things lived in the shipwrecks and would eat anyone who got too close, mentioning on of their friends that was part of this gang was killed a few weeks earlier. Eventually, the party arrived at the sewer entrance which was pried loose by George and everyone entered the filth-ridden sewer. George leads the party through the tunnels, eventually coming to a more narrow tunnel which requires a few members of the party to crawl through and after a few minutes it comes to a sheer slide down which everyone does, with Antyr attempting to crawl down without sliding but failing to do so and with Vonkar and Torger attempting to surf down, with the former failing and Torger surfing down on Vonkar.

They all splashed into a pool of pristine water which was strange based on being in a sewer and everyone climbed out and entered the children's hideout which was messy and filthy with stolen trinkets piled into one corner. George pointed out where the pantry was if they got hungry and pointed to another corner of this chamber that was filled with sleeping bags and eventually gestured towards a barricaded door saying that it led into the other tunnels of the sewer and that a lumbering creature with big teeth and three legs roamed those tunnels and had eaten some of the children in the past. He mentioned that the creature could also project thoughts into people's heads and with that George and rest of the children went to bed.

#### After the Break

While everyone slept, Antyr went to go investigate the pool they had all splashed in and was curious why it was so clean. They placed a hand in the water and cast *Discern* and could see visible mint-green colored threads weaving through the water and could detect that the pool was affected by the *Demiplane* spell. They could also make out a shadowy doorway at the bottom of the pool.

They produced Baba Yaga's luminspire and asked her what she could discern from this. She mentioned that the threads were manifestations of the leylines and that she was quite curious about what could be behind that door. Antyr asked about luminspires and Baba Yaga mentioned that they functioned similarly to phylacteries, but could only be made from the essence of a dying archfey. She theorized that Duskreaper Aelinor was only able to kill her because he possessed more than one, mentioning that she was of equal power to Titania's mother and that her luminspire wouldn't have been enough. She asked if he had killed any other archfey to Antyr's knowledge and they revealed that he had slain Oberon as well, causing her to believe he may also possess Oberon's luminspire as well.

Antyr tucked the luminspire away and returned to the group to finish their trance while Torger woke up and paced around the chamber keeping an eye out for any strange, lurking creatures. Eventually, everyone woke up to a not so good breakfast of beans in melted chocolate made by Grin. The group thought about contacting Guardian Peshan in regards to a possible traitor in their midst, so Antyr cast Sending twice to relay the message, mentioning that they were in Port Creach and that Thrammarn may be a traitor. Guardian Peshan expressed confusion, mentioning that Thrammarn had died a few weeks prior after coming into contact with the Umbral Court.

A few moments later while the party were discussing the possibility of Thrammarn being undead, Guardian Peshan appeared in the sewers via a *Teleport* spell. The party filled them in on the developments, with Antyr mentioning the strange pool of water connected to a *Demiplane* outside this room. They all went to investigate the pool, with Peshan dispelling the water while Grin flew down and through the doorway into a demiplane that appeared as a tall tower interior covered in glass windows depicting "weirdness" and the walls were covered in more of those shadowy doorways with a spiral staircase in the centre of the tower reaching towards the ceiling.

Grin flew back and explained what they had seen. Peshan asked them what they intended on doing, and they revealed they'd like to bring the children to a better home, which Peshan obliged by teleporting all of the children to Sir Arthur Wordweave's tower in the City of Embers and then Peshan teleported back to the party. They revealed that they couldn't reveal too much about the strange leyline flares and the connection to the moon as this was secret knowledge for the Ley Guardians alone. However, due to Antyr squatting in one of the order's towers, they could induct Antyr into the order if they so wished. Antyr agreed and Peshan teleported themselves and the party to their own tower and stepped through a window overlooking a crooked tower standing on a glacier within the continent of Dragon's Beard.

They all entered the tower and proceeded into the dusty, untouched basement to an archway of stone in the middle of the room which held the phrase ***"Beyond this point lies a gateway to the past. Heed this warning, for time flows both ways."*** Peshan placed two green orbs on the sconces flanking the arch revealing a shimmering mint-green colored curtain. They mentioned that beyond the archway lies a trial for Antyr to complete. Should they return they'd be a member of the Ley Guardians, and that there is a risk of death involved. They also explained that time wouldn't pass outside while they were in this trial.

Antyr entered the curtain with everyone following and they all appeared in the City of Embers, but the city was erupting into chaos all around.

## Featured Characters

### Player Characters

* Antyr Xiloscient
	+ Endylus
* Doe
* Grin
* Hopper Thimblefoot
* Lionel
* Torger Otrson
* Vonkar Eldsaga

### Returning

* Baba Yaga
* Cornelius
* George
* Kena Peshan

### Mentioned

* Auntie Gothel
* Beiro Peshan
* Duskreaper Aelinor
* Flitz Tumblepots
* Kastagar, Architect of Sorrowed Gloom
* Kena Peshan
* Marquis Torgol Marrshade
* Oberon
* Sir Arthur Wordweave
* Titania
* Thrammarn