Session 07 - The Dying and the Light

## Rewards Rituals

> The early hours of 547/04/06
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The party began by splitting into two groups, one group would take the captured necromancer back to the university for treatment, and Liliana would stay behind with Henoch Eahom to give evidence of the captured necromancer. Liliana returned the crypt key and showed Henoch the necromancer’s skull-covered spell focus as proof, which he seemed to accept. He offered her to keep the staff, which grants the spear the dying cantrip.

In the meantime, navigating through the city at night, Salibar and Ciarán encountered a swarm of giant, mosquito-like bats that attacked the trio on sight. After a struggle, they managed to overcome the swarm and reach the university, raising only a few strange stares on the way. Handing the necromancer over to the university guards for safe-keeping, they searched the necromancer’s effects, finding a strange coin, a silver sturgeon used by the Tritons of the Ice Sea in the distant north (worth about 15 gold). Salibar took the coin to examine further.

The party then returned to the graveyard, where they received the “Blessings of the Reaper” from Henoch, gaining some degree of protection against death. Henoch offered the party a place to stay overnight, and the party took some time to rest. Ciarán removed the skulls from the necromancer’s staff and, after receiving some judgemental comments and looks from Henoch, returned the skulls to the Cryptkeeper to be laid to rest.

## The Journey and the Darkest Night

> Later that same day.
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Having rested, the party then resolved to join the expedition for the Hand of Malediction. Returning to Daisy and James Chinell, the party agreed to sign the contract. Liliana signed the contract normally, but Ciarán chose to mark the paper with a stamp of his moon-collar clips. Salibar similarly elected to mark the contract with his blood, drawing a confused but amused look from James.
The first few days were relatively uneventful, passing through the glades and greenwood. The party spotted a party of jackals at one stage, who avoided the group due to their size. Ciarán volunteered to take the watch each night and was accompanied by a stranger whose face was covered in bandages. On the first night, the two sat in relative silence – with the bandaged figure carving figures out of wood and Ciarán embroidering his cloak.

> Late Night. 547/04/08.
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On one night closer to the darkwood, the watchers spotted a figure with a lantern in the distance. Having woken both Salibar and Liliana to join the watch, they were met with a strange fae creature with a mantle of leaves and a long beard. They sat upon a floating carpet with a floating lantern accompanying them. The fae advised the party to turn back, warning them that unimaginable danger awaited them ahead. Then, in an ominous warning, the fae looked at Salibar, Ciarán, and Liliana and said: “look for the light [towards Salibar], stay out of the dark [towards Ciaran], and not all things can be solved with fire [towards Liliana]”.
After this encounter, the others returned to sleep, and Ciarán had some time to talk to his companion. After Ciarán began to question why they also could not sleep and divulged a bit of his own past, the bandaged figure unwrapped their bandages to reveal a face of metal. They revealed themselves to (at least in part) have been worked upon by Daisy. The warforged then handed Ciaran a figure they had been carving as a token. The wooden figure was a raven, not unlike the form of the Stranger. Confused, Ciaran asked what the meaning of the gesture was, but the warforged seemed confused, having no link themselves to the Stranger.

> Late Night. 547/04/09.
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The following night, the watchers spotted an immense darkness encroaching upon the camp, with Ciaran’s lantern and the campfire dimming. Seeing this darkness, they raised the alarm and woke the camp, but before long, the camp was in complete darkness and an uneasy quiet. Any attempts to produce fire or light failed, and the group was completely helpless. Reaching out for the warforged, Ciaran’s hand brushed against something with fur. Suddenly, a pair of red eyes and white teeth appeared behind Liliana before the teeth sunk into her shoulder, and a fight began. Spells against the creature continuously failed. One guard, managing to sink their blade into the creature as a last-ditch attempt to save their skin, was dragged into the darkness. Unable to defeat the creature, Liliana magically compelled the creature to flee, giving the group eight hours of respite – enough time to reach the ruins of Grimordia. Once the creature had fled, the group assessed the damage, finding that a guard and an academic had died in the skirmish. They found one body that had been dragged from the camp and another stuck in a tree. The group dug graves for the lost guards, and Ciaran uttered a prayer before the group moved on.

> Noon. 547/04/09.
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Upon entering the darkwoods, the party felt overcome with a slight difficulty of breathing, owing to the corrupted air of the woods. Only Ciaran seemed unaffected by the oppressive air of the darkwoods. Soon after entering, however, Ciaran saw the figure of The Stranger appeared a distance away and began to head towards them, only to stop when an arrow narrowly missed him. The group was confronted with a yuan-ti scouting party, who shot tranquiliser darts at the group, knocking everyone except Liliana, Ciaran and Daisy unconscious. Daisy communicated in some variant of Sylvan with the yuan-ti, who seemed to accept her words and allow the group passage. After every member of the group had been woken, they continued on towards Grimordia.

James and Daisy muttered something about the mind-whisperer, which Liliana thought she overheard, inquiring what the mind-whisperer was. Both Chinells seemed concerned by this inquiry and said that they were unaware of what she was talking about. Similarly, after attempting to telepathically communicate with Ciaran, Liliana received a different message in response, as Ciaran’s voice seemed to tell her to steal the teleportation scroll.

## The City's Remains

> Afternoon, same day.
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Upon arriving at Grimordia, the party was met with a warm, rather tropical heat. Snakes lingered in every corner. Upon a mountain sundered in two sat what was once the great keep of Grimordia – an old building displaying pre-sunderance architecture. The party learned that Grimordia was a “plague village,” where the monstrosities created by yuan-ti rituals were sent. The group remained on their guard.

Upon entering the keep, the party came upon a room with a 15X10 grid of tiles on the ground, covered in runes of some kind. After instructing the academics accompanying them to burn away the vines on one of the walls, the party discovered a series of the same runes on the wall, arranged in what looked like mathematical formulas. A circle with its radius highlighted indicated to the party that the solution to the puzzle was in some question of geometry. After some time, the party managed to pass through the room without triggering the fire traps in the room.

Entering the next room, the party noticed a few swarms of snakes, a yuan-ti abomination, and a half-humanoid yuan-ti. Despite initially attempting to sneak past and surprise the yuan-ti, the party was soon spotted, with only Liliana managing to surprise the creatures. The party lost a few guards in the ensuing battle but ultimately managed to survive and move on. The academics remained behind, leaving only Daisy, James, Salibar, Liliana, and Ciaran together.

After passing into this final room, the party discovered a drop 60ft down from which whispers seemed to emanate, whispering “*rage against the dying of the light*”. After tying two ropes together, the party descended into the opening, with Liliana and James staying at the top of the opening.

In this storage room, the group saw the Hand of Malediction upon a pedestal. The party checked the pedestal for traps but found none. Daisy, reaching immediately for the wand, then triggered the trap, causing a stone wall to ostensibly fall between the opening and the room and awakening a yuan-ti abomination of some kind. Ciarán and Daisy were immediately knocked unconscious through some magic the creature seemed to wield, and Salibar - having endured the spell - dove for the wand, luckily grabbing it before the yuan-ti. Casting a mass cure wounds, Salibar brought his party members to consciousness, and a fight ensued. Liliana, in the meantime, hearing the sounds clearly from below, figured that the stone wall was an illusion, and both Liliana and James entered the fight. The party was also forced to contend with a wraith-like form that seemed to have apparated from the wand and began to attack the party. Salibar fell early in the fight, only to be restored to consciousness, where he continued to use the wand to cast curing magic. Despite Liliana temporarily blinding both the wraith and the abomination, the battle quickly turned deadly, with the party without many remaining spells. When the wraith attacked Ciarán, who was protecting Daisy, they tore a spectral version of his heart from his chest, leaving him severely wounded. Ciarán, fearing for his life, apologised to Daisy and teleported away and out of the room. Soon, Salibar, Daisy, and James had their hearts ripped from their chests, and only Liliana remained fully herself. Ciarán, in the meantime, emerged out of the opening and saw the figure of The Stranger before him. Getting closer to the Stranger than he ever had, Ciarán implored them for help. However, the Stranger gave no response to anything Ciarán said. Instead, the Stranger conjured an illusion of the orb and pointed towards a pit of exposed lava. Taking their meaning, Ciarán threw the orb into the lava. A small, white pseudodragon emerged from the lava and seemed to bond to Ciarán. Using the pseudodragon to take the wand from the room below, Ciarán cast the wand into the fire, destroying it and, with it, the wraith of the lich. Finally overcoming their foes, the remaining party members in the storage room managed to overcome the yuan-ti, with Salibar landing the final blow. In a final act of spite, Salibar wrenched the creature’s heart from its chest. The wraith dissipated into nothing, with only the hand remaining. But, by the time the party had regained their senses, the hand had vanished, with only Salibar aware that the hand had found its way into his belongings. With their new pseudodragon, the party used the teleportation scroll to escape the ruins and return to Rymes.

## Back in Hommel Glade

> Afternoon. Same day.
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Back in Rymes, Salibar and Ciarán collapsed and were taken to healers at the Ersatz University, where they could recover their strength. As they recovered, both suffered intense and ambiguous visions. Salibar saw a scene featuring a large iron gate, which he was marched through. When the gate closed, however, the gate remained ever so slightly ajar, possibly allowing others to pass through …
Ciarán, on the other hand, saw a vision of an empty stone courtyard and the ruins of a blacksmith’s shop. All that remained in the vision was an anvil with a curious and unknown symbol on it. In the vision, he saw a hunched and cloaked figure who carried some kind of package.

> Late morning. 547/04/11.
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Having returned to consciousness, Salibar realised that a piece of paper had appeared in his belongings which had the words “I’ll be seeing you” written in a hand that seemed familiar to him and signed with an “S”. Ciarán detected magic on the paper, revealing that there had been a spell cast upon it, while Salibar, using his new detect extradimensional spell, was able learn that this note had recently travelled to Evergreen from his original plane, and that its origin was from a third material plane.

Similarly, Ciarán resolved to return to Dean Marikosa to come clean about stealing the egg and to ask for help regarding the pseudodragon. She chided Ciarán, somewhat playfully, for stealing the egg, revealing that she had immediately realised it was him. Marikosa revealed that the orb had been given to her by Merlin shortly before he disappeared , and she had been instructed to hold onto the egg until the right person arrived. Only Marikosa knew the orb was a dragon egg. When Ciarán offered to return the dragon to her, she refused. Making tea for the elf, she advised him to seek some sort of hobby or calming activity, noticing his general anxiousness. She similarly expressed interest in his parents. Before leaving, Marikosa pulled a small marble stone from her desk and dropped it on her desk before saying, “interesting”. Ciarán, confused, was dismissed.

In this downtime, Liliana managed to buy some caltrops and Ciarán, and Salibar visited the Church of the Forging Father. Here, Salibar repented before the Magus, feeling unusual due to having fallen unconscious multiple times in the past few battles. He received some advice from the Magus. Ciarán, looking for a statue of the Stranger, found only an empty pedestal. His pseudodragon seemed drawn to the pedestal and landed upon it. Ciarán took the wooden raven figure from his belongings and placed it on the pedestal, expending some of his magic to transform the figure into a full-sized statue.

We end at 2:30pm on the 547/04/06 with the party about to embark on the next stage of their journey to Oronia.