Session 13: Dissonant Whispers Report

General Summary

Having witnessed Mother Idal's scrying of Marko, the party begin to speculate on where in the city the fortress could be. Curious over the fate of his former party, Heato pays the hag for a personal reading, yet is horrified to find his friends being beaten and bruised in the gut of Terren. Idal warns him that 'Nightmares are warnings in disguise': the exact same words Heato said to his fellow party members the day of the incident. This made him quite suspicious of the hag and he left feeling paranoid. Exhausted due to the long goose chase to find Zelèna, the party found a quiet tavern on the outskirts of the city to rest in. However, just before they went to bed, Averel realised something was off with Tony - he seemed to be shaking violently, and his head was unnaturally warm. Tony shook it off as just a headache or a fever, but in reality, he knew that the curse of the golden pendant was taking hold of him.   After an hour of sleep, at around four in the morning, Tony decided he couldn't sleep so left the common room for some fresh air and a trip to the bathroom. Wary of Tony's intentions, both Donevan and Rostliem silently trail him, though Rostliem later decides to go back to bed. At this point, Heato begins to have a terrible nightmare: he finds himself in this dark twisted landscape where he can hear nothing but the sound of nearby suffering - and as he approaches, he looks on to find Tony's body bleeding out onto the cold stone floor; his throat slit and the scales around his left eye ripped out. Absolutely beside himself, Heato jolts up to the sound of a window smashing, and Tony disappearing into the night.   Panic ensues. The rest of the party wearily grab their gear in a flustered rush to try and catch the renegade Kobold before he finds himself in too much danger, yet his footprints seem to wind back to Mother Idal's tea house. Although the party soon learn of Idal's innocence in Tony's sudden disappearance, she knows that this is the same fate that befell Zelèna, and so warns the party that this is once again Vess' doing. As a result of being hypnotised by Marko's pendant, Sly Tony must have had nightmares of Vess, of which afterwards rendered him unconscious and split his physical body to his soul, or psychic essence. In other words, Vess had tore Sly Tony between two planes of existence. She pulls Heato aside and tells him that these nightmares that he's having are similar to those she used to experience, and that he can use his psychic abilities to reunite the two halves of Tony. Though before they depart, she lastly informs him of a secret rune that can be used to allow him to roam the psychic demiplane. But it can only be used once, and only when Heato is sure he can find Tony in time; otherwise the creatures that lurk in the darkest corners of that realm will come looking for him as well.   Upon leaving the tea house, Heato finds a new trail of Tony's and expertly tracks it to the Industrial District of Holdenglade, in San Cherico. What they find there is strange to say the least; a half finished pentagram drawn with jet black blood and signs of a struggle leading to the back fence of a factory being climbed over. Eventually, the party wind up once more at House Dragic, where the trail then seems to lead them to the back of the manor to the pond of reflection. There they find Anton who knows that Tony used the pond, as the closest memory to the surface of the water is his. Knowing they can use the pond for information, the party all gaze into the pond and see for themselves Tony's nightmares caused by the pendant; how Vess said that his Draconic blood was needed for the cult's creation and how the little Kobold, charmed by Vess, tried to do his bidding with a hastily drawn pentagram before coming back to his senses and running away. It's made clear to the party that Tony is in a constant cycle of being possessed to fulfill the cult's orders and routinely snapping out of it in a state of primal fear. Anton informs them that the groundskeeper saw which direction Tony ran after he was caught using the pond, and so once again, the party followed his footsteps.   They reach a wall with a single one of Tony's daggers planted into it and come to realise he tried to climb it before changing his mind and making a beeline straight for San Cherico once more: a telltale sign that once again, Vess has taken hold. Dawn begins to break as the party make it into the Industrial District for the second time in a matter of hours, though the now bustling streets cause them to lose track of Tony. Rostliem, however, spots a gang of Kobolds in the distance mugging a street vendor and decides to approach them with the hope that they know of the whereabouts of Sly Tony. After a long conversation and a sum of gold payed to the 5 year old gang leader, he astutely tells them how but a few hours ago, the gang tried to rob Tony of his gold, before Tony, in his dazed state, murdered one of them in cold blood. The gang leader knows where he went and is willing to take them through the roughest part of the city for a fee, despite being bitter towards Tony's actions. The party decide to hire the runt of the Kobold litter, Boris (who can be a little slow) to guide them through 'The Hood' of Holdenglade, though it turns out he has absolutely no idea what he's doing.   As they eventually make it to the infested alleys of downtown San Cherico, Heato suffers another nightmare - this time of a hellish purple world long abandoned. In front him, he caught a glimpse at a flickering image of Sly Tony, his spectral essence, along with another image of who Heato could only take to be Anton's missing daughter, Zelèna De La Vére. Tony eventually turns to Heato and signals the location of his body using the lights of each derelict factory sign to spell 'Wrachen'. Yet soon after Tony warns his fellow party member to hurry, Vess manifests behind him and mocks Heato that time is running out to find Tony, and if they don't find him, the creatures of his twisted demiplane will surely find him first. Flustered and distraught, the party finally find the abandoned 'Wrachen & Co' factory in the middle of the district and uncover Tony's uninhabited body - an empty shell. Heato knows that it's now or never and carves the rune into his halberd, creating a rift between the two planes in the shape of a 15ft radius forcefield. On the inside, is the material plane of Avalǿn, the party and Tony's body, and on the outside - the purple unknown, and the horrors that wait in its mists. The rune also renders Heato's body unconscious as his soul is torn from his body.   And so a last stand begins between the Rostliem, Donevan and Averel holding off the hordes of atrocities that spawn from the demiplane in an attempt to protect the bodies of Tony and Heato, whilst Heato's spectral manifestation searches the unrelenting landscape for Tony's soul. Carving through waves and waves of Vess' monstrosities, the party members inside the forcefield buy Heato just enough time to find the flickering image of Tony once more, all the while running from the dissonant whispers of Vess. Staggering back to the circle, Heato reunites with his physical form but can't connect Tony to his body no matter how hard he tries. The onslaught around the field wanes and just as Donevan explodes the last of the Psychic Dreadnoughts and an angered Vess charges at the party to finish the job once and for all, Heato channels all of his arcane energy into Tony and unites his two halves before destroying the rune in a devastating explosion, cutting off Vess and his army from the material plane.   Weak but relieved for Tony's return, the party choose to finally take a long needed rest to process what just happened. And armed with Tony's knowledge of the other world, they learn that there is still a chance Zelèna is alive; it's just a matter of finding her physical form. Later that day, the party receive another invite from Anton, this time for a feast. He tells them that with their, and Mother Idal's help, his men have surveyed Reaver's Keep, where the entrance to the undercity is, and hatched a foolproof plan to make it through the compound unseen and unscathed. Once they make it to the undercity, they have a chance at finally rescuing Zelèna and ridding Holdenglade of the Brothers of Vess once and for all. And then of course, Anton will make it in his own interests to aid the party in taking the city for themselves in an effort to bring down the Empire . Holdenglade's reckoning is nigh. But it all starts with a Heist: a Great Rat Heist...