Session 54: Oh, That's Just My Pocket Rat

General Summary

The party makes preparations to head to the Dunnith Mountains in the Kingdom of Louth, to be led by Elkantar of House Teken’Duis. Despite Tertius’ arguments against "big alchemy", Bolvaic heads to Eastbridge to purchase some healing potions, but finds the exorbitant prices for the more powerful ones. He purchases a couple of healing potions, giving them to Tertius to hold with the instructions to give them to Bolvaic if he goes down.   Once ready, the party leaves on foot, led by Elkantar. Jorrunde will be gathering a crew during the party’s absence and Obadiah will be looking for people to assist with the lycanthropes.   Elkantar is aloof, keeping to himself for most of the trip, but once they are on the road, he explains more of what he knows.   Aeons ago, while the old gods were still young, Nyctelios was a god of discovery and sought to learn of other worlds and planes beyond this one. In this seeking, he discovered other planes and worlds that were so alien to everything that reality understood. He sought to understand it all, so that he could return and have Emone record it for it to become a knowable reality because Nyctelios and Emone were once twin gods of discovery and knowledge, both arrived from elsewhere..     However, upon returning his consciousness to this plane, this understanding could not exist in the order of this world and his mind splintered and shattered. Aberrations, strange alien beings that should not exist, emerged from his shattered view of reality and entered into the world.     Nyctelios had also returned with powerful abilities to change realities, more so than any god should have. He rose against the other gods, wanting reality to reflect his maddening vision and he struck down two of their order. Miseria, the goddess of fear, and Sisig, the god of dreams fell before him. However, Nyctelios did not absorb their powers and ruling claims, instead he set them free into the world. This is why today dreams have no rules or order and why fear and terror can take any form. For instance, did you know that some people actually fear spiders? These concepts freed would also mingle, and fear and dreams would collide to create nightmares.     Fearing for the freedom of concepts, the gods banded together. Belenos lit the forge for Ctenmillar to craft the chains. Aine created the arcane lock. The Red Knight delivered the battle plan. All of the gods took part in the capture and binding of Nyctelios. He would be held and bound deep beneath the surface. They chose beneath the earth near Myrloch, as the mystical connection of ley lines helped to weave the bindings. And so he was captured and bound, and a great lock used to bind him.     Occasionally he would pull hard enough at his bindings that the earth would shake. Sometimes this would release madness into the world. However, fear and dreams were once touched by his hands and so madness was out there in the world and he could sometimes still reach out and touch the minds of the affected. And because Emore, is the god of knowledge and written word, is also his twin, sometimes Nyctelios’ words would be written down into the pages unknown to even the authors.   Elkantar shows the party several books that were discovered: a guide to herbology, a biography of an elven paladin, a fiction about a silver dragon in human form. The books seem typical enough, but there are words and passages that are circled with furious notes written in the margins about how they match other books and possible links.   He tells them that the Bookhouse Society was the front for a cult that collected these books to try to decipher the message that was hidden within them and they discovered that it was a message of how to open the locks that bound Nyctelios.   Elkantar claims that they had captured some of these cultists who told them everything with zeal even before the threats of torture. They are down there now, at the great lock, trying to open it. Once the binding lock is opened, Nyctelios will be freed into the world again. However, the cultists are apparently still missing a book and have not been able to fully undo the lock.   During one of the early nights of travel, Levi and Ilbryen discovered a wanderer named Finster, who claimed to be just passing by. The pair realize that he is lying, but find no direct threat from him and allow him to sit and enjoy a bit of their meal. Suspicious, Ilbryen casts Detect Good and Evil and discovers an aberration in Elkantar’s tent.   Waking the party, they investigate and discover that there is a cranium rat with Elkantar, which he states is “sort of a familiar” for him, and its name is Poppy. Dismissing the threat, the party returns to sleep and watches as Finster takes his leave, bidding the party good luck.   After a few more days of travel, the party finds themselves deep in the Teapeak Mountains, beneath the dwarven passage that they took before. After a bit of travel, the party smells the thick scent of rotting meat ahead. Tiarjead heads forward to investigate and finds a bloody trail where something was dragged down a passage and holes higher in the cavern wall. She heads back and reports it to the party.   The party advances cautiously and eventually make it to where Tiarjead scouted, finding a group of carrion crawlers that had nested and they advance from the upper burrow passageways to attack the party.