Session 135: Weighting

General Summary

9th-10th Sydenstar 836PD   9th Sydenstar   As the psychic thrumming of the Ancient Elder Brain dies out with its mind being blown, Zeni screams over the telepathic link for Simeon to save Enessa.   The guardian aasimar descends down to her body, he clasps the Vestige amulet of his Lady Sehanine, the Weaver’s Breath, and starts the revivifying ritual. The light from his radiant soul flows through his amulet, shining bright white as a moonlit night, and bathes the drow’s body.   Having perished before, the call for Enessa’s soul is more fraught, but Simeon successfully completes the ritual. However, whilst Enessa’s body has been revived, it is still lifeless as if something or someone is stopping her soul from returning to her body…   ----   In the realm between realms, Enessa’s soul is surrounded by the darkness of the Matron’s domain. A Silent, a black veiled being of the Order of the Raven, appears next to her. They welcome Enessa to the first step on her final journey, a path of starlight forms out of the dark, leading towards a doorway.   “Is that the door out Darling? My friends must be bringing me back by now”, Enessa attempts to casually quiz the veiled figure.   The Silent tilts their head towards the soul, and does something that is never seen on the mortal plane, they lift their veil, assuming the face of someone familiar and comforting, their Syngorn bladesinging friend Tarathiel.   “Lady Enessa, your allies have made a claim for you to return. Unfortunately, another seeks to claim you and so your soul must be judged before it can be freed.”   “Oh, we wouldn’t want that, Daughter of mine…” a voice coldly echoes across the void. Enessa worryingly recognises the voice, readies her bow and looses an arrow through the sudden apparition of Meredith Saeness.   “Hello Mother, glad to see you’re dead too! It’s a shame though as I had always hoped I’d be the one to kill you!” Enessa spitefully replies.   Meredith taunts, “That’s my girl. Oh, my patron has been ever so patient, waiting on her promised child to join our family in her wonderful web.”   “I would tear my soul apart before you and that Spider Bitch try to take it!” curses Enessa.   “You are mine, and we are Lolth’s!” screams Meredith, before she disappears back into the void.   Enessa pleads with the Silent for a way to get back to her friends. They cannot avoid the weighing, but they still have time to wait. There could be a way to get a message to the Unbroken, perhaps through her connection to Ussi…   ------   As Simeon checks over Enessa’s revived but soulless body, he looks up to come face to face with the fey spirit panther Ussi. The party struggle to communicate with Ussi, but take their presence as a sign that Enessa’ soul isn’t completely lost and they have to find a way to reach her.   The party exhaust several options before Arthur sees in Karkematth’s back up spell book, a way to Contact Other Planes. However, Zeni and Arthur will need an evening to learn it and they don’t feel safe staying in the laboratory. Arthur can work through his exhaustion to set up a teleportation circle back to Emon, so they can rest safely in their Keep.   As Arthur sets up the circle, Raphael investigates through the remains of the aberrations, at first finding a Ring of Mind Shielding and then a splintered diamond held in a fine silver frame, the Soul Splitter! With relief that this fight and temporary loss have not been in vain, Raphael persuades the rest of the Clones to enter into the teleportation circle with them.   The party arrive at Allura’s, provide a briefing on the laboratory and cloning situation. Allura procures a covered wagon to escort the clones without drawing attention to them, and promises to clear out the laboratory and its cloning technology. Back at the Keep, the party rest and prepare their next plans to save Enessa’s soul.   10th Sydenstar   In the morning, Raphael attunes to the ring of mind shielding, and he hears a voice inside his head. That of ‘Matthias Karken’, a soul of someone that had a connection with Karkematth trapped within the ring. The voice offers to show Raphael something, but the Winter Knight is too cautious for now.   -----   “What’s taking them so bloody long?!” Bemoans Enessa as she paces across the void, careful to avoid around the path that keeps getting steeper towards the judgement door.   For one of those rare moments in Enessa’s life, she willingly seeks the favour of the Gods. She reminisces fondly of the feywild forests, and the abundant life held within nature. If those powers brought Ussi back, could they bring her back?   The Silent still ever present, lifts their veil again to take on a new form, that of Sariel Oakenheel, the Exarch of Melora. They have heard Enessa’s prayers, and would normally help but they are limited in directly interfering with the domains of other Gods. However, whilst she wouldn’t be able to message the Unbroken directly, she could pass on Enessa’s concerns to Ussi…   -----   Come breakfast, Zeni finishes the final formulae for copying from Karkematth’s spell book and is able to contact another plane for guidance, which confirms that the best way to help Enessa is to journey to the Raven Queen’s realm and that the Matron would have the power to break Lolth’s claim on her soul.   There’s soon a knock at the door, as the Exarch Sariel appears to deliver a message to “Ussi”. She informs Ussi, in front of the Unbroken, of Enessa’s current situation of waiting for them in the soul realm. With all other avenues explored, Raphael calls on his patron Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness, as daughter of the Raven Queen to help.   The Fey Queen of the Winter Court appears before her Knight, he asks her if she had known of the person in his ring, Matthias. She knew of him as someone ‘honourable but misguided’, he was eventually betrayed by his identical twin brother, Tommas.   Raphael asks Mab if she can send him and the party to the Matron’s realm, and while she does not approve of her Knight’s sentimentality to save a fallen ally, she honours her Knight’s decision.   Raven offers to guard them as Mab places the Unbroken under a spell that would allow their souls to project from their bodies into the spirit realm.   They all awaken in the same dark void, and are able to will themselves across it like moving through a dream. They then arrive to find Enessa hanging onto dear life from the now sheer drop of the path towards the doorway.   “You took your time, I bet Simeon didn’t have to hang around this long when he died!” Enessa exasperatedly exclaims.   Zeni pulls her back up from the steep path, and it seems to reset with the Unbroken’s presence. They tell her that she would have to be judged by the Raven Queen to have a chance to be freed, but she won’t face the Matron’s scales alone.   Enessa collects herself, and the Huntress prepares to face the unknown once again as she strides along the starlit path, and pushes through the doorway into…a tavern?   It takes a moment, but Enessa and the party recognise it as the Eagles Landing, the very first place where they all met. The Silent appears behind the bar, with the same comforting unveiled face, this time of the Bard barkeep, Rebur.   Before they get too comfortable, a sickly scuttling sound is heard approaching the tavern entrance, and there enters two female Drow, Meredith Saeness being led on a chain by Lolth, the Spider Queen.   With the arrival of the Queen of Spiders, the Queen of Ravens is channelled through the Silent’s body behind the wooden bar, which also morphs into a set of scales. Court is now in session!   The Matron presides. “Lady Enessa Saeness, you have passed into my realm to face the scales and my judgement.   “However, before your soul can be weighed, there are two competing claims for it. The Unbroken have sought to claim you quickly back from death to continue in your divine given mission against the Chained Oblivion.   “Whilst another, much older, claim has been invoked that would see your soul caught in the Demonweb of the Abyss. I will hear the cases made for each respective claim before deciding your fate.”   Meredith speaks in her Mistress’s stead, as her patron’s voice would be too powerful for even the everlasting forms of souls to endure hearing. “As Enessa’s mother, carrying her in my womb, she was promised like the rest of her siblings and her lineage, to live and die in service to the Spider Queen. It is a claim with precedence and kept by all the Saeness’ as Lolth’s Children of Malice.”   Enessa tauntingly refutes. “Even in death you still have the gall to call yourself a mother! You gave your daughter’s soul away when she could not speak, to give your Mistress the perfect drow, but you failed her…and me.   “You made a promise that wasn’t yours to make, and wasn’t mine to keep. And ever since I’ve had a voice, I have refuted the mark you’ve made on my flesh and my soul.”   Enessa turns to stare into the Drow form of Lolth. “I have bargained with the Lord of the Hunt to save my friends, and willingly joined the Wild Hunt of the Feywild.   “I earned the Bow of Melora’s Champion, Death’s Whisper. The Wildmother’s Exarch reunited me with my Ussi, and just now in my darkest hour I prayed her to see my friends again.   “I have circled through the Reverie Walks of Syngorn, and found enlightenment at the Stone of the Arch Heart. I’ve even pulled up a chair by Corellon’s side at the Council of Celestia.   I have made a lot of choices and stupid decisions, and I hope to live to make even more of them. But I have not and never will choose YOU!   “The only promise I make to you, Spider Queen, is that one day I will kill you and blow your cobweb out of the realms!”.   The resting smirkface of the Drow Avatar of Lolth splits into a fanged maw, the two cold lilac eyes split into a rash of eight predatory red eyes. A voice screeches through that makes every present soul’s skin crawl. “Ignorant fly! You dare to invoke their name against me. I OWN YOU!” Her arms crack into multiple claws that strike towards Enessa, but are suddenly frozen in place as the Matron intercedes.   “You are in the Realm of Ravens, not Spiders, Betrayer. And I have made my decision, Lady Enessa’s soul is HER own. She may not lead a perfect life, but it is for her to prove where she will end, and at this moment it will not end in your web of torment.   “I consider your claim on her soul null and void. She is free to choose her fate, and return to the mortal realm.”   The arachnid avatar briefly regains its regal drow composure, her chained servant Meredith tries to placate her. “This is no loss my Queen, there are three others of mine promised to you that will have a chance to prove themselves as your perfect Drow.”   Enessa curses her deeply at the revelation that some of her sibling’s had unknowingly survived the attack at their home. Before more barbs could be traded, Lolth the Spide Queen scuttles off in a barely repressed fury, and Meredith’s soul is yanked along by her patron’s chain back into the Abyss.   The Matron acknowledges she is postponing the weighing of Enessa’s soul for now, and grants her the grace of her patience to collect. Allowing her and the Unbroken to return back alive into their bodies.   Enessa wakes to see a worried and now rapidly relieved Raven watching over her. She embraces her companion Ussi and her friends. As the warmth of their arms’ embraces travels across her back, she feels the spider tattoo that marked her mother’s promise to Lolth burns away, freeing her finally.   As the burden lifts, something causes the wood of her vestige bow, Death’s Whisper to grow and glow…