With the artist A.R.N. saved, the Party returns to The Hunter's Table to rest. Vurguron finds a friend of his father, who challenges Vurguron to a fight so that he may hand over a legendary shield to Vurguron. The Party restocks on potions, and then returns to A.R.N. to get paid. A.R.N. does some scrying, and we see our first image of Majorie in a long time.
We found A.R.N., after fighting and persuading our way through A.R.N.'s mansion, and defeating the Stone Lorelei that A.R.N. had carved.
A.R.N.
So we give A.R.N. some food and water and let A.R.N. get nourished. In between bites and gulps, A.R.N. asks us who we ware.
Ryltar answers: The art dealer Winifold asked us to find A.R.N.. A.R.N. is a male-ish Half-Elf; dye leaking from orange-brown hair. An open, loose shirt, covered head to toe with stone dust from the destroyed statue.
We apologize for destroying the art, but "From what she did here, she deserved it." A.R.N. has been working on the project for a week, but has only been under the influence for the last couple of days.
Ryltar says A.R.N. has a knack for creating deadly things. "Some say it's a gift; some says it's a curse. It's art."
We suggest informing Winifold; A.R.N. says that Winifold will know tomorrow morning when it's time to auction off the now-destroyed statue.
Jerry suggests maybe putting the statue back together with iron pins. A.R.N. waves a hand, and it's like time reverses for the statue: its bits reshape and reassembles. Ryltar asks if this is safe.
A.R.N. says, "most of them have to be killed once or twice before they're safe." It's a risk when all his art comes to life.
We run down the places we went and what we might have damaged where. All told, we didn't do that much damage.
A.R.N. thanks us for finding A.R.N., says, "And what…" A.R.N. pauses, resettling and looking at the chipped hands. We ask, "Do you need escort through your house? Are you safe here?" A.R.N. begins to leave the room, turns, asks us, "and who are you?"
We introduce ourselves. A.R.N. speaks to the house, "These people are good. The house exists to protect me and my art. It does not attack people escorted by me. Let's get a better meal," and A.R.N. leads us down into the tunnels, and from thence, to the kitchen.
The cutlery that was offered a ration has made a very nice charcuterie board out of dried meats, nuts, bread and cheeses. The food has been improved in quality; it's now luxuriously bourgeois. More than just the ladle and butcher's block and cleaver are now animated. They're preparing food. The kettle has gone onto the stove and the flame elemental is content to grill the meats. It gets the egg shells.
A.R.N. leads us into the dining room, and sits at the head of the table, in front of the fireplace. A.R.N. waves a hand, conjuring a glass and the wine that pours into it. We're invited to sit; the books and tables will not hurt us. Ryltar said that he was worried that they'd bite; A.R.N. becomes thoughtful and takes notes.
Salris asks what A.R.N.'s name stands for; A.R.N. says that it's the name A.R.N. uses to publish and sell the art. Like a pen name, we intuit.
We spend some time providing feedback on the house's traps. The kitchen emits a cart covered in delicious foods.
A.R.N. apparently doesn't trust Winifold entirely; or doesn't trust Winifold to be able to protect A.R.N. from A.R.N.-hunters. That's why A.R.N. doesn't give Winifold a key or password to ensure safe passage.
A.R.N. asks what our promised reward was; Winifold had promised us $2,000 gold. A.R.N. says that we'll get our reward tomorrow.
If the statue had let A.R.N. take rests, A.R.N. might've been able to complete her earlier.
A.R.N. tells us what it's like to live in the house populated by his creations: it is not a lonely life. A.R.N. will pay us at noon tomorrow.
So we get out of A.R.N.'s hair, leaving by the kitchen and the main gallery. We put the mirror back in its room, taking care to make sure it doesn't look at us.
We leave the house; the door locks behind us. It's late in the evening. We head towards The Hunter's Table. Salris determines the effect of the acid-clay golems, and Percival determines that the way to heal Salris' lessened HP is Greater Restoration, a spell that Percival just happens to know. It consumes 100 gold worth of diamonds, which Percival already has on hand. He grinds them up, pops the dust into his bagpipe, and plays a jaunty tune that clears up Salris' pain. Salris thanks Percival, after some prompting.
Percival says that he's going back to finish his report for Dirius. What is Percival writing a report on? The origin and architecture of the temple of Ioun in Quadroads, he says, and none of us believe he's lying. "Give Dirius our best," says Ryltar, and Percival wishes us luck before teleporting out.
The Hunter's Table
So we wander back to the Hunter's Table. The guards out front recognize us and admit us; we're still covered in ink and paint and burns, and Ryltar has bloody holes in his clothes. Ryltar and Salris are covered in blue-green paint. As we walk in, they start patching up and cleaning their clothes.
Ryltar and Salris go up to bed; Jerry finds Winifold's posting on the bulletin board, removes it, and spikes it on the sword which is set up there for that purpose. The room sends up a small cheer. Jerry waves in acknowledgement. We stand out as a casting party in a mostly strength-based bar.
But the drunker members come up and pat us on our backs, and buy Jerry and Vurguron drinks. They don't say much about the job.
From the crowd comes a drawl: "Vurguron, son of Valanoir, of the Third House of Draconium, of the Third House of Draconium." A name Vurguron hasn't heard in a long time.
The voice comes up: a brass dragon-borne, missing scales, with a crutch and splinted leg. A spear and shield and a tattered cloak ending in greens and browns, with the emblem of the Scaled Legion embroidered upon it.
"I have not had a use for that name," says the Dragonborn, "but it is interesting to see the son of a friend some long way away from the towers."
This is Rathkan, of the Seventeenth House of Draconium, a commander within the Scaled Legion. This was someone who fought alongside, grew up alongside, Vurguron's father. He stayed in the military forces when Vurguron's dad went to the religious side of the Scaled Legion.
They catch up a little.
"Being of the Third House allows you more privilege to get out of the Legion, rather than someone like me." It seems like Rathkan has something he wants to say, and leads Vurguron and Jerry over to a small table in a corner.
He says that the Fourth House has lost a family relic. He's received orders to return home to help protect them, but laments his harmed leg, saying he'll be more of a liability.
Jerry tells him to get off of it; she's known leaders who suffered worse and still contributed to their commands. Rathkan objects; he won't be able to cross the Red Wastes (the desert south of Setton). "Does a bag of luggage detract from anyone's ability to cross the Red Wastes?" asks Jerry. Rathkan says he would not want to weigh them down.
Insight roll time: Jerry realizes that brass Dragonborn especially are willing to realize that they are in a place to contribute, to help. They are reluctant to expose themselves to failure, and will stay in a place they can contribute. Rathkan realizes that she views this position as a form of cowardice; he would
What brings you this far north, Vurguruon? Surely the Platinum Scale has not come this far north?
Jerry explains that we're here to check in on her daughter, who travels to
Three ships traveled from Grey Harbor to Setton, where they continued up the River Road, to where they met up with three divisions that had traveled up the Water Line through the Red Wastes.
"Where are they headed now?"
"I was only able to talk with the one soldier; that's all they had. Said something about clearing out the remnants of the last war. Figure out if there's any of the Yuan-ti left."
Jerry is intrigued; she only fought the Yuan-ti on the southern half of the continent, to the east of Greyharbor. The expeditions were going to the north.
"But that is perhaps less important than your Fourth House's missing relic. Where was it stolen from?"
"Draconium, the South Haven."
"And what did it look like?"
"A crown of sorts? Vurguron, you would know."
Vurguron knows of it. It's a wreath of Tiamat of some sort. The crux of why the Fourth House is to keep it is that they're preventing Tiamat worshippers from regaining it; Vurguron would destroy the heretical item if he could. "You have your father's convictions," says Rathkan. But that it has gone missing is a threat to our people and society. I wish for you to complete your goal to save our culture."
"I heed your words, and will work to save it.."
Rathkan appraises Vurguron, looking him up and down. "I think I may be able to help you with that."
"It'll be just like old times, with you and my father fighting together."
Awkwardly, with one hand, Rathkan slings his shield onto the table. It's a triangle shield with a dip at the top. Across the front is a depiction of a dragon's eye, with the pupil as an orange gem.
"It helps you to seek out what's needed, to see ambushes and find your quarry. Helped me to spring my own traps; has helped me tremendously." Looking dismissively at Jerry, he says, "My time to lead at the vanguard has waned, I understand. But a soldier as himself does not willingly surrender a piece of his trusted armor, you understand? Right, Vurguron?"
Vurguron starts; he thought Rathkan was talking to Jerry. "How does this…"
"So I am offering this, not to give, but for you to take, if you can take it."
"I will gladly accept your offering."
"It's not offering. It's a challenge." He's got a grinning pride in his voice, and the room looks over, teeming with grins and excitement.
Rathkan's Challenge
"A challenge has been offered!" cries someone. "Accept?"
Vurguron leaps to his feet and cries, "Challenge accepted!"
Swiftly the patrons clear the floor of tables and chairs, ascending to the galleries.
Rathkan tips a drink and lips around the room, towards one door, as the rest of the bar push Vurguron towards another door, into a subterranean training area. There's a stone pit ringed with wooden benches, above a 20' wide square sandy floor. Balconies of seats, ten feet above the sand and dirt pit. Banks of weaponry and shields and armor along the walls. Ladders up to the balconies.
Rathkan and Vurguron are led to opposite sides of the ring, standing at the openings.
"With what you hold, to yield or defeat," says Rathkan, throwing down the crutch and pulling his arm our of his sling, and Vurguron accepts the challenge: to yielding or unconsciousness.
"Prepare to lose," replies Vurguron.
Rathkan pounds his shield with his spear, and an orange flash crosses the arena. With an advantaged 11 to Vurguron's 10, and Vurguron temporarily blinded, Rathkan strikes first.
The orange light passes over Vurguron and sinks in; Rathkan's eyes glowing. He advances on Vurguron and tries to spear him. Vurguron Shields, and Rathkan bounces back.
Vurguron casts Blur on himself, giving Rathkan disadvantage on attacks.
Rathkan understands the Blur, steps to the side, inhales, and exhales a long line of fire to grab Vurguron and the far wall. Vurguron laughs as he takes halved fire damage: 5. "You should know that fire does not affect me!" Rathkan replies, "I stand and breathe the fire of the Legion. What shall you?"
"You will taste the blade of my sword," says Vurguron, and attacks. He swings twice, connects once. Rathkan's reaction stabs Vurguron for a little bit of damage. "Do not overreach yourself," says the elder Dragonborn.
But Rathkan's follow-up spear thrusts miss, thanks to Blur.
Vurguron swings, misses, swings, deflected by the spinning spear, swings, hits, one critical, and he manages to get under Rathkan's armor, which is more designed for protection against brush. "Simply tell me when you've had enough, Old Man."
Rathkan stabs Vurguron in the gut directly, for 13 piercing. "I told you: the shield is to be taken, not given." He steps back, and winces. The adrenaline of calling out a challenge is failing.
Vurguron swings again, and is deflected by the old man's spinning spear. He swings again, and deals 15 slashing 4 radiant. "This fight could've been over minutes ago, but you decide to keep going!"
The old man spends some time dodging.
"This one's from Bahamut," cries Vurguron, who makes a breath weapon attack. It does only 2 damage, when Rathkan's resistance to fire damage creeps in, but Rathkan smiles. He understands that Vurguron has the spirit.
Rathkan swings twice with his spear, looking at everything on everything that's going on, on all of Vurguron's Blur echoes, and connects never.
Vurguron makes the standard sword attack, missing, then bashing the shield aside only to be deflected by the spear, and then again he misses! "I thought your father taught you well," taunts Rathkan.
He stabs Vurguron twice: 13 and 12 piercing. Vurguron oofs.
Vurguron attacks twice, doesn't do much damage.
The old man attacks, stabbing Vurguron for 6 piercing and clocking Vurguron under the chin with his spear butt. And then his leg gives out, and he falls over.
Vurguron points his sword under Rathkan's chin, says, "Do you give up?" There's a joy in Rathkan's face, an he throws aside his spear.
Vurguron helps Rathkan up as the crowd cheers, helps him off the field. A green Tiefling appears and hands Rathkan his crutch. Rathkan puts his arm back in a sling, hands Vurguron the shield to hold. "You still have the," pants Rathkan.
"Your technique is remarkable. I see why my father fought alongside you." Vurguron really got close to death.
"The fire of the Legion burns inside you still. It's good that the shield has a better master."
"Thank you very much. What are your plans for afterwards, now?"
"I do not know. Fate has landed me here; let's see how long it lasts."
"I'm sure my father would love to see you again, if you ever end up in South Haven again."
"We'll see. I may be able to muster up some amount of gold, to get South." There's a pained pride in his face, smiling through the pain. Vurguron givers him a healing potion.
They are feted in the bar, and Jerry looks on at the festivities.
Eventually, Rathkan limps up to bed. The shield is a Sentinel Shield, granting advantage initiative rolls and perception checks. It doesn't require attunement, either.
<aside markdown=1">
Rathkan is a Full Fighter: Battlemaster. When the light passed over him and latched on, that's a version of Hunter's Mark.
</aside>
That night
Salris turns in his sleep. The stress of attuning to the weapon known as Thalia's Grace, the passing of one's soul to something else, connection to something different — he finds himself in that same darkness he's slept in before.
The gravelly female voice reaches out: "Now what? I've given you much. This choice is your undoing."
The scene shifts. Salris awakes up, not in the Hunter's Table, but in a stone cell with iron bars blocking to the fronts and rights. Solid stone walls in all other directions. There's a stone slab bed. Another cell next door, with a rousing figure, dark purple skin, black curved horns. He wonders: is this his brother? The figure turns to look at him, and it's himself, younger, months younger. He's seen this. The younger self's shirt is torn and disheveled, stripped of all his adornments.
He's had this dream before, from the opposite direction.
Now a roiling void stands outside the younger self's cell.
The bars are open on the older self's cell. The younger self looks at the older, confused.
"What is this?" asks the younger self. "This is not a crime that happened to me? I didn't commit that crime."
"I know you didn't."
"Are my past crimes catching up with me?" He looks up at the void.
"You don't want to do that, friend."
"Why not?"
"The void is constant and cold. Its demands are never-ceasing, and all at once. The void is chaos, which can't be controlled. I know what that path is like. It is tempting, but stay the course. This is not worth an eternity of nothing."
The younger Salris' head tilts in comprehension. He takes a step.
With advantage, older Salris rolls a 15 persuasion.
The younger self takes another step closer to the void's open claws.
"I'm serious. Power might be tempting. It's not worth it." He sits in the stone bed, reaches out a hand. "Come on back."
The young Salris takes another step.
Old Salris gets up. "It's not your destiny. It's not worth it." He grabs the young self's shoulder, spins him around. "Why don't we go back," 21 on Perception. The younger self turns to face Salris, something in his face - Salris knows what this next two steps are going to be. The young Salris hasn't experienced it yet, but older Salris has. "Out with it," says the elder.
"Do you believe that there's more to this?"
"I do."
The younger self puts his hand on the elder' shoulder, and in a flash the cells and stones and void are gone, leaving Salris the elder and younger standing in an empty gray field.
The younger Salris turns into a white outline of Salris.
"Everything will be fine," says the elder. "Stay the course, and keep an eye on Tula."
The younger's voice changes, deeper and masculine now: "Have you stayed the course? Or do you sail a new course? A brighter course?"
"Yes…. A course that leads me to more than just being focused on myself. Perhaps a rebirth, if you will."
"With a change of direction, there's always things you give up, but there's also things you gain. For due to my change in course, I have gained and lost much more than magic. Friends."
The younger stretches out his hands, and with them come reflections, memories, of Salris saving everyone around him. Moments of inspiration, heartfelt saviors, all around him." Salris sniffs with emotions. Images of creation and death and destruction, and a change of course: the younger turns his hand, and the demon wipes and twists and becomes angelic. The negative energy becomes light. The undeath becomes a radiant guardian.
"It is time to align your magics with your directions," says Salris' patron.
"I understand," Salris says.
The new patron continues: "But there is still a path to walk. A course to reset. And still a debt owed."
The first voice, gravelly and feminine and whispering, says, "I'll see my debts paid," and Salris hears a crashing of water.
Salris wakes up again. Not a rude awakening, but a realization, that something has changed.
The next day
We wake up in the morning, fully refreshed.
At the breakfast bar, we catch up on Vurguron's accomplishments, and plan for the day. We need to pick up more healing potions. We slurp down some giant sausage, and ask the bartender where to find healing potions.
He pulls out a straw-packed carton full of small glass vials. "What do you need?"
Well, we haggle for a while, and end up walking away with a Potion of Speed, 4 Healing, 3 Greater Healing. We don't buy the Potion of Supreme Healing.
We hang out in the bar and talk with curmudgeons, shoot the shit. Rathkan wakes up, comes downstairs around 10. He lectures the younger folk among the rabble for a while.
Getting paid by A.R.N.
We head up to the plateau and come to A.R.N.'s house. Knock at the double doors. The shield guardian leads us inside. The statue waits in the foyer, draped in a sheet, in the process of being packaged. A.R.N. comes out of the office and greets us, dressed to the nines in a fitted jade-green doublet over a billowing shirt, with long tails on A.R.N.'s robe, with sleeked-back green hair. A.R.N. leads us into the office, and asks us if there's anything else that A.R.N. can do for us. We demur, saying that A.R.N. can contact us, though we may not be easy to find. "Oh, I can contact you, it's no problem."
We ask A.R.N. if he knows anything about the tribes of the Kulahaar Wilds. He doesn't, but does he know any anthropologists? A.R.N. recommends the Abahaar's Solis who tries to send someone to apprentice every year. Where would we find that? "It's about a week's travel away, but I can send you off to it this afternoon if you wanted." Alas, this is to the northeast, away from our desired destination, to the west.
We debate what our course of action is; A.R.N. interrupts to ask why on Earth we would want to go wander around the Kulahaar Wilds. Jerry explains that we're going to look for her daughter.
A.R.N. offers to scry on Majorie.
"If it wouldn't be a bother," says Jerry. A.R.N. makes it clear that we saved A.R.N.'s life.
So we go up to the painting studio, and A.R.N. pours a milky paint into a bowl of water, instructing Jerry to swirl her finger in the water, naming the person to scry upon. "Majorie Nathandem-Falone", says Jerry, and the water changes color into lots of different colors of paint. A.R.N. brushes the paint upon a canvas
Majorie wears a green tunic, kneeling beside a tree, cutting warts off a tree, which emit reddish sap and water. The painting moves, showing her every action. Her basket fills with gnarled bark-textured boils, and a muffled voice calls for her. She calls out, "I'll be right there," and she turns around. A.R.N. flicks a hand, and the painting becomes ripped. A.R.N.'s paintbrush heals the rip, but the painting is still: Majorie looks over her shoulder, eyes directly on Jerry.
"So there's your daughter," says A.R.N..
Next session
What on earth is up with Majorie?
Ryltar needs to do something for the missionaries of Denier.
Was Seamus poisoning the whole bar? Is that why he wasn't drinking? Is Salris' brother also a bearer of the curse that afflicts Salris? Or is he just part of Rezzik Brazzik now?
We know how to trap the Jester, with Magic Circle
What's going on with the stars? Are Ryltar's theories about colors and significant plot-relevant things' colors correct?
How can the Mummy Lord be defeated?
Determine how to resolve the Eta'el-Kerjes plot
Remember to un-petrify Ockoh in the Ice Lord Wint's Lair, so that we can give him the foodservice contract for the Irregular Inn