Aerois - Episode 14: Brush with Death

Katie Morrison as Aila

Kim Richards as Nova V'ger

Rhiannon Frost as Sentry

 Tom Hazell as Qillek Ad Khollar

**Brush With Death** is the 14th episode of the Aerois Campaign. It was broadcast live on both the Yogscast Twitch channel and highrollersdnd channel on 4th November 2018 from 5PM to 8PM GMT.

*The party of five head deeper into the ruins and find more than ghosts in this evil place!*

## **Summary**

### **Announcements**

* Mark welcomes everyone and introduces the players.
* D&D Beyond is the sponsor this week.
* Merch: tote bags, 2019 calendar, and metal Aerois dice are sold out, but plastic dice are available, as are Aerois t-shirt, hoodie, and signed MCM posters.
* Podcast is out on Monday and Thursday.
* Rogue's Gambit is on Mondays on highrollersdnd and dnd Twitch channels.
* MCM show is out on YouTube (audio only) and podcast.

### **Recap**

"*Last time on High Rollers, the gang set off from Rosehall, which is a small frontier town on the continent of Suvonna, after their airship crashed and they made some friends in the town. They are currently investigating an Elven ruin, of which the town got its name, called Rosehall, where they've encountered some spooky goings-on and some not so spooky goings-on. There seems to be an old Elven palace with touches - elements of the fey, definitely a ghostly woman that has been seen on numerous occasions now, who is an old Elven princess from the days just after the Sundering of Aerois. You are currently just investigating the ruins - or the house, really, it's not much of a ruin, more of a fully intact manor house. Upon arriving, you were beset by what appeared to be a number of tricks designed to try and spook you away, revealed to be a Pixie who had been summoned and controlled by the princess to basically keep people away from the manor house. You discovered a few things; you discovered some Elven bodies out in the gardens, or Nova and Quill did, still wearing rusted armour. Stepping inside, you were assailed by two spirits of Elven warriors who seemed to be kind of vestiges of life, looking to drain away the life force of the party, leading Nova and Quill to be in a precarious position - with their maximum hit points reduced, they are not in a good way. Arval Dagos, the Dwarven merchant who's been accompanying you, showed that he has a very crippling fear of undead and spirits, and didn't seem to be very useful in a battle. Valla, who is the young ward that you've taken on after her guardians were murdered, continues to prove herself; she seems to have a bit of rudimentary skill with lock-picking, little bit of magic - she's kind of carrying you at the minute, yeah, sure. That is pretty much where we were. Oh, the spirits did seem to have some kind of recognition [of Valla], or they said "You", you're not quite sure of the nature of it. You did discover a magical ring stored away, and signs that the house has been plagued by thieves who met a grizzly end at the hands of some sort of trap or some such.*"
### **Part 1**

*The party of five head deeper into the ruins and find more than ghosts in this evil place!*

Arval is a bit worried about freezing up again if they are attacked and suggests that he wait in the hallway and guard the door, but Valla is keen to investigate - they decide to continue, leaving Arval behind. They head upstairs and Quill notices a very faint aura of abjuration magic: Nova lobs her bag of sand up the stairs to see if it will trigger any traps, but it does not. They see two more paintings hanging on the wall opposite the study: the first shows a very handsome-looking male High Elf with long flowing blond hair, and very regal-looking clothes; he stands in a heroic pose in an alien landscape with a sword at his side. The second is a painting of the same alien landscape.

Quill hears a clanking sound from behind the door opposite him: it sounds like someone moving around in armour, there is also a very faint creaking of floorboards. Once Aila is alerted to it, she hears a raspy breathing coming from the same room. Nova looks at the painting, feeling as if she should recognise the man in the portrait, but realises that she does not know who he is.

Quill braves the stairs and sets off an *alarm* spell when he reaches a small landing between the two sets of stairs. The door leading into the room opens with a creak, and standing in the doorway looking down on Aila is a figure in a full suit of elven plate with a closed helm: there is a thin slit for the eyes with a faint blue glow coming from it. Where there would normally be skin showing has been bound up with leather or a faded tunic – the entire set of plate armour has a faint blue glow, almost like veins or thorns that run through the whole armour. The mysterious figure has a longsword sheathed at their side but also seem to have a multitude of other weapons: three swords in scabbards on its belt and one on a back scabbard that looks like a greatsword. The figure stares down at them and says in a deep, gruff voice, “You shouldn’t be here”. Nova asks who the figure is – he turns towards her, his movement slow but organic, and his faint glow begins to pulse, “I am Sellick Zostro, paladin of Siaska. Leave this place now. Only death awaits you here.”

Sellick says that he was sent there long ago to protect something and that many have come over the years to plunder the place: the party must have some strength to have survived his brethren, he says. Aila tells him that they seek information, not trinkets, and he asks if they are willing to pay a great price for it.

He asks them to come into the great hall, telling them that Quill and Sentry have alerted Veselvena’s guardian, and it generally does not come into that room. He moves back out of the doorway into the room – the armour is near silent, but the boots hitting the floorboards were creaking and the swords hitting each other were making the clanking noise. They see inside the room well-preserved sofas and armchairs sitting in front of a fireplace with a green flame eternally crackling on the wood. Everyone but Quill and Sentry moves into the room; Quill hears some heavy footfalls coming towards them from the second floor, so Quill and Sentry move swiftly downstairs and into the room with the rest. Lucius is told by Sellick to close the door… quietly. He does so with difficulty because the hinges are a bit stiff – as he is just about to close it, he sees through the thin remaining crack in the door, a giant boot. The wearer must be about 8 or 9 feet tall, and their leg is as thick as Lucius’ torso: as the second foot comes down, a red mist begins flowing onto the stairs itself. They hear a low voice, “Intruder…” as Lucius shuts the door. There is a pile of weapons, scraps of armour and leather cut from armchairs: Sellick has been making himself makeshift leather armour. Sellick tells them that the guardian and his former brethren are always seeking him, but have an aversion to the room they are in – perhaps because of his last prayer to Siaska.

Sellick tells them his story: he is a paladin of Siaska; the princess, Veselvena, was exiled just after the Sundering, and Sellick’s order was sent to keep an eye on her. They had a small monastery not far from the place and would check in every few days. Veselvena had been dabbling in magic that the Starmother had forbidden long before her death – planar magic. Veselvena had become dangerously obsessed with it, and spoke of a prince, an Elf of another world with whom she was in love and who she wished to bring to Aerois, but after the Archways and Vortinssar, Siaska did not want another planar incident. Too many of the planets are gateways to Starbane and his forces, so Sellick and his brethren were sent to ensure that Veselvena did not continue her research. A few years after she settled in the palace, she seemed content with galas and parties, inviting nobles from the skycities and the merchant Dwarves of Suvonna.

After some time, she began to miss her prince and began to research planar magic once more – her studies became more dangerous. One day, one of the serving staff came to warn the order of paladins: Veselvena was preparing to conduct a ritual to bring her prince to her. The paladins came to the palace to stop her and caught her in the middle of the ritual: Sellick begged her to stop, told her that it was dangerous and something she did not understand, but his brethren were more upset than Sellick. They were offended that Veselvena had turned her back on Siaska’s teachings and sought to teach her a lesson: they shattered the mirror, an object that she had created to speak to her beloved prince, and disrupted the ritual, and Veselvena in her madness killed everyone including Sellick. The rage of his brethren turned them into spirits, but not so Sellick, perhaps because of the sympathy that he’d shown for Veselvena and the final prayer that he had uttered to Siaska. Sellick had implored Siaska to allow him one day to free Veselvena from her madness, and it seems that this and his armour, a holy relic of his order, kept his sanity intact. He is dead but his spirit endures.

Veselvena and the other spirits are bound by their anger and rage at their murder; Veselvena is still bound to the place because of her loneliness and desperation to reach out to the beloved prince, she is a lonely tragic figure. Sellick says that his mission is to stop fools from coming to the palace and getting themselves killed: Veselvena was always a powerful magician in her own right when she was alive and is even more powerful as a spirit. Lucius asks if would be possible to free Veselvena: Sellick would appreciate it if they could convince her that her research into planar magic was wrong, to free her spirit and allow her to see Siaska’s light – this would bring her spirit peace.

Even before she was exiled, Veselvena was in love with and obsessed with her prince, Swiftsong. Veselvena was an artist, a painter, creating paintings using illusionary magic so that the paintings move on their own; they show scenes from her memory. The painting of the man in the hall is the prince she saw in her mirror, and the landscapes are those of his world. No one knows how she got the mirror – whether she found it or created it herself – but it was destroyed when the paladins stopped her ritual.

Sellick believes that his purpose is to try to find some peace for Veselvena, but she will not listen to him, and sends her guardian, an animated construct and her bodyguard, when she sees Sellick. Veselvena created the guardian when she became paranoid that the order would try to stop her rituals, and it was responsible for killing several paladins. It has some immunity to magic (like *heat metal*) but is also a competent warrior.

Nova asks where Veselvena conducted her ritual and is told that it is in a room on the second floor across the archway. Nova asks about any books that Veselvena used – he tells her that she learned from many books about planar magic that were old copies from the High Elves who wished to see the return of Jassavir, and so researched planar magic with the Genasi; they had been unable to destroy the books that she had located before she killed them. He wishes to know why Nova wants to know, and when she fails to answer his question, he stands and puts a hand on his longsword saying, “I should warn you Genasi, I gave my life to stop Veselvena from investigating planar magic: I do not advise that you do the same. There are dark things that await out there beyond the Dark Beyond - do not think yourself so clever as to know yourself beyond a goddess does”.

Aila asks Sellick if he knows anything about old Elven clans: he tells her that many Elves rejected the skycities and came down to the lowlands when he was a young recruit, where they formed tribes or clans. These clans fought against Starbane and the Court of Shadows. Aila asks him about the Lair Dir Lann – he tells her that all he knows is that this was four tribes blessed with elemental powers, and that Veselvena might know more because she showed interest in them for a time.

Sellick gives them a final task: if they cannot convince Veselvena to stop her attempts to complete her ritual, they must destroy her and end the madness so that they can both find peace. Sellick says that he is prepared to help them given that they seem of good heart, and while the bodyguard outside senses life, he may be able to keep it occupied for a time.

Sentry asks if the bodyguard is a Guardian like herself – Sellick says that it just follows orders and does not have an intelligent spirit, but that the magic used to create it was derived from that used to create the Guardian race. Sellick had heard of Solwynn and was a boy when the Sundering happened: Solwynn, he says, was a city of wonderful technology – carriages that moved on their own and weapons of light. He does not know where it might be now, but thinks that it may be destroyed, lost beneath the waves.

Nova introduces Valla, telling Sellick that two of his brethren seemed to recognise her; he says that she looks familiar, but does not know her – he cannot ask Siaska because his powers do not function as they once did. Sellick says that many of his brethren do not like the sunlight because it weakens them, so the curtains are usually drawn.

They decide to have a rest in this room and Quill sends a *message* to Arval to let him know, but gets no response. It is likely that Arval has left the house. They take a long rest. Sellick and Sentry take the first watch and discuss various topics such as how to fix her Echo (which he suggests may be done in one of the skycities).

As Lucius and Aila are waking from their trance, the room begins to grow icy cold. They hear the jangling of chains and scraping of metal against metal. Drifting down through the ceiling, three spectral Elven warriors, their green shapes shimmering into being, suddenly attack them. Sellick readies himself and tells Sentry to wake the rest – they ignore him and come for the living. They damage Aila and Lucius but miss Sentry. The party make multiple attacks, most of which the spectres are resistant to, but Valla finishes one off with a *magic missile*. Lucius is hit by one of the spectres…

### **Part 2**

*One of the team has fallen, can the party survive this gruelling encounter?!*

…and falls unconscious. Valla retaliates with a *magic missile* and injures it. Quill destroys it with another *magic missile*. The last spectre turns and heads for Quill: Quill is hit and also falls unconscious. Sellick hits the spectre and destroys it. Sentry casts *cure wounds* on Lucius and wakes him; Aila feeds a healing potion to Quill and heals him. Sellick tells them that there will be two of his brethren remaining somewhere on the other side of the dwelling. Everyone else in the party now wants to leave, except Aila – she is insistent on finding information on her clan and will do so alone if necessary. Since the party will not leave her, Aila says that she will go with them and come back later if necessary – they can push on to Goldthrone for now. It is also safer for Valla to do so.

As they move out into the corridor, they feel like they are being watched, and as they move to the door, Aila see a semi-translucent woman with long white hair, wearing a white princess gown, standing at the top of the stairs. She sees them and wonders who they are since they are not her usual servants. Aila tells her that they are searching for knowledge. She thinks them students from one of the cities come to learn from her, and drifts down the stairs towards them, asking what they have come to learn. Aila mentions the Lair Dir Lann and Veselvena says that she knows of them but does not understand why they would leave the skycities to live in the dirt in exile – she believes that she may have written something about them. Veselvena asks if there are other students with Aila. Sellick is pressing himself up against the wall, trying not to be seen by Veselvena, and Nova whispers to him not to believe what she is about to say to the princess. Veselvena sees Nova and recognises her as “one of the ones from Vortinssar” – Nova tells Veselvena that she wants to study with her.

Veselvena asks if Nova wants to learn of the magic that brought her people to Aerois: Nova says that she wants to learn what happened at Jassavir. Veselvena tells her that she only has knowledge from that time, but that Nova is welcome to look at it; she asks if Nova will help her in turn. Nova agrees and recommends that the rest of the group leave, which Veselvena agrees to. Aila asks again about her clan, but Veselvena tells her that she cannot recall information and that she can show Aila her books instead. Lucius decides that it is time to leave, but as soon as he steps out and she sees him, her expression changes, calling him “My prince” and “Swiftsong”, gliding over towards him.

Veselvena wants to know how Swiftsong came to be here. Lucius bluffs by saying that it took his life’s work, but that they can now be together. She is delighted with Nova for bringing Swiftsong to her and holds out a ghostly hand for him to take – Lucius is near to death after his battle with the spectres, so does not dare to take her hand. Nova explains that the prince is exhausted and not well after the journey, so Veselvena insists that he must rest in her chambers. Lucius insists that the moment must be perfect and that he does not want her to see him like that – he persuades her successfully to let him rest in one of the guest chambers instead. She is concerned that her mirror is broken, so they will not be able to see Swiftsong’s home again, then says that Nova will be able to help her fix it. She claps her hands which summons her guardian. A looming iron statue, metal armour and magic incarnate, nothing like a Guardian, appears at the top of the stairs: she instructs the guardian to take Lucius to the guest chambers and tells Aila and Nova to come with her. The rest, she says in a suddenly terrifying voice, must leave. Valla says that she must attend to the prince as his squire – she is allowed to follow Lucius to the guest room.

Sentry and Quill leave the house as instructed and see Arval by the gate, shaking and holding his crossbow. Lucius is taken upstairs to a guest chamber, while Nova and Aila are taken over the bridge to the other side of the house. Quill and Sentry explain the situation to Arval, and they plan to fix the mirror so that they can finish Veselvena’s business and put her spirit to rest. Arval worries about Valla and Lucius in particular and feels guilty that he has done nothing.

Aila and Nova follow Veselvena over the bridge and she does magic on a door that she had warded against thieves, enabling them both to enter the room without risk when they are with her. Inside the room there are all the signs of a battle, but without the bodies: there are scorch marks and blood splatters, and they smell dried blood, burned wood, burned flesh and decay. In the centre of the room, etched in a glowing silver pattern is a ritual circle: three rings encompassing a larger ring with several rings inside that – in the very middle of the circle is a large, full-length mirror and shards scattered all over the ground. Veselvena tells Nova that she wants to repair the mirror but cannot recall the spell to repair it - she wants Nova to help her: Nova agrees but says that she needs to know more details. Veselvena dismissively gestures to a bookcase at the back of the room, telling Aila that there are books about the races she has encountered, and that she may read the books in this room.

Veselvena then turns to Nova, explaining to her, “I will tell you, I learnt much of Vortinssar and Jassavir; I became interested in other worlds. You see, my father had kept me locked in my palace up in the skycity and I so longed to see other places. When I learned that there were others beyond the stars, I wanted to see them, so I found books that taught me magic that would let me see and over time I built this mirror. It took me a lot of money and a lot of time, but with it I could glimpse these other worlds. One day I met him, my prince: his land is beautiful, like nothing you've ever seen - trees and flowers, none of which we have here on Aerois. We spoke - he's got a curious mind like me. He wanted to see our world, he wanted to visit. We talked about art, music and adventures and I fell in love with him. I wanted to bring him here and I found a ritual to do it - an old text using the magic of the archways built by your ancestors long ago, but those paladins,” and her form begins to darken once more, “those religious zealots, they didn't understand. They didn't want me to see him, to be happy: they just wanted me to suffer like my father did. They tried to stop me, so I killed them, but now I can't seem to finish my work. I can't fix the mirror and the people that come here, they're thieves or they hate me and they're not like you, Genasi. They're not students of understanding, so that's why you can help me”.

Nova promises to help her, so Veselvena promises to teach Nova the magic that lets her see other worlds. She says that Nova’s people deserve it and that she should be able to see her home. She says that the Church of Siaska doesn’t want them to see the beauty of other worlds because they are jealous of them, and this is what Prince Swiftsong told her.

Nova asks if Veselvena knows the name of the place that Swiftsong is from: she thinks for a moment and replies, “he simply said it was his realm - he didn't give it a name, I never thought to ask”. She gestures to a table where there are powders and mixtures all in perfectly pristine sealed bottles, “These are the materials I used to make the mirror. These, with a small amount of magic knowledge, should allow you to fix it. I can instruct you”.

Nova asks if there is anything she can read to instruct her since the knowledge is very hard to come by. Veselvena offers to take control of Nova’s body and to work together with her in that way to fix the mirror. Aila says that they are tired and asks if they can rest before they attempt to repair the mirror – Veselvena looks irritated at Aila, as if she has interrupted something important, but offers to let them sleep before performing the ritual. Aila suggests that she might do some light reading before bed but is told not to take the books from the room. Veselvena leaves to get herself ready to see her prince.Lucius and Valla are led to a dusty but good quality room by the guardian – it opens the door and gestures them inside. Once they are alone, both start to panic, Lucius about what will happen if he makes a mistake, and Valla about whether everyone will be OK. Lucius suggests that Valla escapes and gets Sentry, Quill and Arval – there is a window, but they have no rope, and she is not great at climbing. She opens the door a crack and sees the guardian standing directly outside, so closes it again.

Lucius casts *dancing lights* at the window which is seen by Quill. They make plans to climb up to the room where they have seen Lucius. Sentry manages to climb up but slips and makes a noise – the guardian comes into the room and starts searching, ignoring Lucius’ protests. It picks up the bed, and seeing nothing under it, puts it down and leaves the room.

Valla unlocks and opens the window to admit Sentry and Arval, who then discuss a plan to get them out. Aila and Nova come back, and see the guardian outside one of the rooms. It points them to the room next door, where they both start to panic about the idea of Nova being possessed. Arval tries to shimmy over to their room, loses his footing and falls into the rose bushes below. Sentry suddenly jumps out the window and uses the rope to slow her fall as the guardian bursts into the room again, slowly looks around, sees nothing, and leaves again.

Quill starts to message them, and being able to relay messages between them, they get Valla to slide along and pick the window lock to the room that Aila and Nova are in, which she does successfully. Nova decides that she wants to stay to learn the powerful magic that Veselvena has promised to teach her (she also says that if they leave, Veselvena would be disappointed, and she has never disappointed her teachers), and Aila wants to get the book on her clan. Lucius wants desperately to leave. They eventually decide that the best thing to do would be to leave and come back later if they can.They climb down – Aila falls; it is dawn, and they make their way back to the road. Aila is irritated that she did not get to read any real information in the books that she saw, although she knows that there is a lot of collected information about Wild Elves who came to Aerois, and to Suvonna specifically.

They rest and Quill dreams:

> *Quill is not flying: this time he is at a mountaintop. It's a wide valley and at the very edge of the valley, a permanent storm: the Valley of the Storms, his final test as a messenger. There are no other Aarakocra this time: it's just him, with both of his wings, his messenger bag, everything he had. There's someone flying from the storm towards him - a man, with long feathery white wings, who holds a staff. As the man flies closer and closer to him, Quill begins to see him smiling. The man nods and the vision before Quill changes: he sees Rosehall Palace, the manor. The vision shifts and changes again: he sees the archway bridge; he follows a woman. She makes her way over to the guest chambers. Quill doesn't hear her, but he can see her. The door opens and she sees an empty room with an open window, and she screams. Quill knows that that scream would end his life if he was there. Her face distorts and turns black, and he begins to see a dark power clinging to her. Then his vision begins to change. It follows back the way that she came, leaving her screaming, howling in rage. Quill’s vision passes into a room that he’s never seen before. A broken mirror stands in a circle, a bookshelf behind it. A book glows with H’esper’s light – white, golden light. On its binding, he sees a silver feather, and a voice speaks: “Something tragic happened here once. Magic beyond even mine. It's amazing what you mortals can achieve. There's something here that will help you, but there's a danger: that mirror, it holds a dark power. I know that this is new to you, Qillek, but this is what happens when you're chosen,”* and then the vision ends.
>
>

Nova dreams:

> *The same blackness, that empty shuttle. Tiangong. There are no words, just that pulsing green light. The power, whatever it was in that old shuttle, that forgotten magic, Tiangong hovers in that same chamber where she found him. She gets that same hunger that she felt before, “Power…need power…” She sees the mirror that she saw in her memories, and Tiangong saw it too. “Power…need power…”*
>
>

At the end of their eight hours, the people on watch hear the scream: her wail echoes, and even as far out as they are, they feel it shake the essence of their life. Weakened as they are, they think that if they had been closer, that scream had the power to kill.
They all wake feeling great, and Arval is cheerfully cooking breakfast. Everyone feels better, but Lucius notices that he has a pure white handprint, almost like a claw print over his heart where his skin has not regained its natural colour.

They discuss the events of the previous day, agreeing that what had happened with Veselvena was sad although she was probably mad. They tell Nova not to get involved with planar magic because it is dangerous and brought on the Sundering, with people coming from other worlds and destroying everything. Nova disagrees, saying that they didn’t come via planar magic.

Valla says that the “Dragon men” came from another world, that she has met some of them and they’re ok and helped to fight Starbane. Nova asks Lucius if he knows what happened at Jassavir – he doesn’t because he kept skipping history lessons. Nova explains that the High Elves did experiments in planar magic and somehow teleported the entire city of Jassavir to where her home city of Vortinssar was and brought Vortinssar to Aerois. She says that not everything that comes from space is evil and dark. Nova says that she is trying to find a way to bring Jassavir back, to bring the High Elves home and to see if there are more Genasi out there. Nova wants to combat the fear of the unknown with knowledge and says that there are probably more good races out there like the Genasi and the Dragonborn – Aila counters her argument by saying that there are also probably bad races out there. Arval tells Nova that Siaska banned planar magic for a reason (“because of Kalus” claims Nova) before Kalus. Nova does not want to put Aerois at risk, she just wants to see where Jassavir went and if there are more Genasi out there.

They discuss what they should do and decide they should head to Goldthrone (which makes Arval very happy). Nova uses the Glamourdisc to take a full body scan of Aila so that she can research the Wild Elf clans. Quill tells them about his vision of H’esper, and he now wants to go back to the ruins. Lucius says that they can get reinforcements at Goldthrone, and he may be able to get some help from Daddy.

## **YouTube Timestamps**

00:01 - Episode Start
05:17 - Intro
08:35 - Part 1
1:24:18 - Break time/Donations
1:29:57 - Part 2
2:17:36 - "I think I just shit myself, Valla" Lucius
2:21:32 - Arval fails at climbing
2:47:40 - Outro/Donations

## **Featured Characters**

#### **The Stormchasers (Player Characters)**

* Aila
* Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto
* Nova V'ger
* Qillek Ad Khollar
* Sentry

#### **New NPCs**

* Sellick Zostro (undead paladin of Siaska)
* Veselvena

#### **Returning NPCs**

* Arval Dagos
* Valla

#### **Mentioned NPCs**

* Kalus Starbane
* Prince Swiftsong
* Siaska

## **Trivia**

* Rhiannon lets out a "Mark Hulmes-style burp" at 1:59 in the YT VoD.
* Mark is asked if he is wearing pants: he is wearing jogger bottoms because he's "feeling real lazy".
* An example of the books that might have been found in the study was “Plants of Herbology of the Lowlands”.
* The spirits in the palace are Vengeful Spirits.
* The armour that Sellick is wearing is very magical and seemed to protect his spirit.
* The spectral warriors are Spectres.
* Trott has a small whiteboard on which he tracks initiative with initials in one column and initiative in the second. At one point (1:01:28) he turns the whiteboard to show Tom, and next to T.H. is written “YOU’RE A SHIT”.
* Valla does not roll below a 14 all session. She is the true MVP.