Session 30: Into The Light Report

General Summary

The Party began by waiting for about four hours for Jeeves to awaken, when he did, Boris , who was watching him, informed the group. Jeeves used his Chiurgen's skill to patch his few wounds, and Quirico helped a bit as well. Roy interrogated Cigfran as to the price to be paid for his service to the Duke, but Cigfran deflected the question for now. Jeeves headed down the corridor a short distance and found himself at a precipice, the glass-smooth surface where the sphere ended, and the massive rocks (ranging in size from a large boulder to a wagon, house, or small hill) still falling from the overhanging remains of the mountain making it clear how immense the recent events were. The group discussed what to do next, and finally decided to head to Levron's Citadel for about a week, then on to the The Pits of Borelius. Exiting the mountain, they saw the massive bowl where much of the mountain, and an adjacent mountain, once stood, as well as signs of the devastation wrought by the thermobaric explosion when roughly 17 million tons of atmosphere slammed into the center of the massive vacuum left by the sphere at close to 2000 meters per second. Looking around, Cigfran noticed the remains of a caravan smashed into a nearby mountainside, and Jeeves noticed another that had been, apparently, blown or dropped down into the bottom of the bowl, and buried under thousands of tons of rock. The group made their way to the caravan on the mountainside, where they found that nothing had survived, bodies were smeared across the ground as if grasped in a giant hand and shoved into the ground with incomprehensible force. The group flew over, and solidified, then explored the caravan, finding some food, some weapons, fancy cloth, and a strange metal chest with trapped heavily and enchanted as well. This led to the party, realizing that it was actually near midnight, asking Roy to conjure the wondrous watcher ward, where they spent the rest of the night. Before resting, Roy stored a few spells in his magic ring, then joined the others in sleep. Cigfran , with Boris , was on first watch and saw a massive shape fly overhead, but did not point it out to Boris . When they ended that watch, they woke Quirico and Roy , Cigfran told them about the shape, and when Boris asked why Cigfran had not pointed it out to him, Cigfran explained matter-of-factly "Because I didn't want you screaming like a little girl and waking everyone up". Thus nursing a slightly charred soul, Boris took to his bedroll and Cigfran did likewise. Roy and Quirico spent a quiet watch, and woke Roisin Marshfield for her turn before returning to sleep. Roisin Marshfield sat quietly, in the extreme darkness, thinking of the past few days. Sitting in the darkness, her eyes fluttered closed, and she fell asleep and began to dream.

You are a typical halfling woman in a typical town with a typical family. You have a husband and two children. Your husband is a baker, nothing fancy but a good provider. The children are well behaved and life is good, but a little boring. Then you met him. He was different, exciting, wealthy. He swept you off your feet, and before you knew it you had done something you swore you would never do. Two nights later you met him to do the same thing again, and again, and again. It became an addiction, you couldn't stop, you had to continue this illicit affair. Then, two months after meeting him, you went to the place where you met him, but he wasn't there. You returned every night for two weeks, but he did not return. At the end of that two weeks you realized you were pregnant. You managed to convince your husband this new child was his, but you knew it wasn't. You gave birth to a little girl, your Little Rose. She was two when the man came back, this time with soldiers. He took your daughter, murdered your other children in front of you, told your husband exactly what had happened, and how, in graphic detail; then he left, and you stood, ruined. Your husband, so kind, looked... shattered, wild, you'd never seen anyone look like that before, and then he killed you. He ran you through with a butcher's knife. As you bled out on the floor, you saw him take the knife to himself. You awoke on a marble slab, in a marble room, with a woman in black, with pale white skin, standing over you.
"Welcome, my dear, it seems you've fallen to unfortunate circumstances. I have need of a handmaiden. You may serve as my handmaiden, or you may suffer in hell, which is your rightful destination at this time. Which do you prefer?"
"I will serve as your handmaiden."
"Yes, I thought you might. Not to worry. Your daughter has a destiny, and she lives. You will see her again, briefly, and, if you serve here well, your destination will change. Come, let's get you cleaned up and trained."

Roisin Marshfield awoke to sunlight on her face, with a bloody butcher's knife in her hand, which she promptly threw to the ground. Jeeves asked what that was, and Roisin Marshfield claimed she did not know, but that her mother was killed with a butcher's knife, by her husband. Feeling sad from the depressing vision. Roisin Marshfield explained some of the vision to Boris , and answered a few questions from Jeeves , and explained that her mother was now a handmaiden to the Pale Queen.

As Roisin Marshfield said this, Jeeves noticed a creature standing about 15 feet away with its hand resting on Roisin Marshfield's shoulder, and the creature dragged Roisin Marshfield into it's embrace.

Roisin Marshfield, embraced by this horror, suffered mental anguish, but thanks to Roy 's magic the impact was reduced. Roy then launched a chromatic orb to freeze the creature. Cigfran fired a crossbow bolt, and struck the creature, but the impact was small. Jeeves moved behind the creature and stabbed into the creature, but found the rapier did nothing. Boris launched a spiritual weapon, which missed, then rushed up and hit it with the Rod of Justice. Quirico stepped up and rendered first-aid to Roisin Marshfield, even as she remained in its terrible embrace. The creature looked to Roy and said "clooosseeer, cloosseeer" as it launched an arm at Roy , which struck him harpoon-like, spearing through his abdomen leaving him unconscious. The creature dragged Roy into its embrace and drained away much of what little life remained to him. Roisin Marshfield escaped, and ordered Boris to attack, and Boris cast a sacred flame, which the creature dodged, then struck with the Rod of Justice. Cigfran struck with his crossbow, causing some harm to the creature. Jeeves used his Chiurgen's skill to revive Roy , and the creature struck out but Jeeves saw the attack coming and dodged. Boris struck with his Spiritual Weapon, then conjured Spirit Guardians, which burned the creature with holy radiance, as the creature said "Huuggss, Huggss for meee?". Quirico stepped back, summoned his echo, and struck with his warhammer. The creature struck at Quirico , but missed, then embraced Roy again, filling him with anguish that he managed to somewhat resist. Roisin Marshfield then ordered Cigfran to attack, and he managed to strike with his crossbow, causing some limited damage. Roisin Marshfield coordinated that with a second weapon attack that cause additional harm. Roy then launched a powerful phase bolt, blasting out the creature's chest. It looked at Roy in the eyes, and said "No, huggs, loonnellyy...." as it died in front of him then dissolved into black goo. Roy , saddened by this suffered further mental anguish, and cried out in pain. Jeeves and Quirico patched up a few of the party, and most of the party took a short rest while Roy cast a couple rituals on himself.

Boris attempted to dispel the magic on the box, then use magic to protect Cigfran from poison. Roy detected magic, finding that only illusion was active on the chest. Cigfran managed to remove the traps, and unlock the chest, then opened only to have a blast of flame reveal a creature of fire. After a few seconds of fighting this creature, Cigfran decided this must be illusion, and managed to pierce the illusion, causing it to end. Roy then approached the chest while Jeeves patched Cigfran . Roy went to the chest and it appeared to be empty, but Roy reached in and felt many small boxes. Each, when removed, was labeled and all appeared to be poison. Roy also found a key, and used that to find another on a rotting pile of remains. Roy gave Cigfran and Jeeves the two keys. Cigfran then investigated the remains, but found that there was a cloud of poison trap on the belt among the remains. The belt contained 8 poisoned darts, which were given to Jeeves .

The group then gathered themselves, a few people retained some poison, for their use, then transformed to mist and lifted into the air. At 30 feet above the ground, everyone was suddenly blown against a cliff by powerful winds. Quickly moving down, the group followed the road. They passed several groups of travelers blasted to bits before, after about an hour, they finally reached trees still standing, where some soldiers were looking around wondering what might have happened. Further down the group passed some additional groups of travelers who looked shaken and many with bandages over their ears. Arriving at the Citadel, they gave a confused account of events, and the inquisitor was called to get the truth. A discussion followed, under magic to ensure truth, which ended with the inquisitor going to the Council to determine if the party's actions warranted censure or punishment because they freed the Octolibrarch from the prison created so long ago to keep it isolated, and if there would be any taxes for the gems they had recovered. The party then went to the gemcutters at "The Mine" and negotiated to have their gems cut, trading their fine cloth and starmetal coins to pay the gemcutting fees, and were told it would take roughly two weeks, or a bit longer. The gemcutter, when asked, recommended they go to The Lady's Locket to have fine clothing made. The party finally headed over to the Raynight Rest to arrange for rooms for two weeks, with Quirico , uncharacteristically, paying the full bill.