Chapter 30: Investigating the Finger

We meet at the Red Stirge Inn in Etonia. Avast has called us here, but first, we catch up in the tavern.
 
Eowyn has been busy with the elves. It was like, poof, the elves came out of nowhere. Now a huge refugee camp outside the East Gate of Etonia is filled with thousands of them. The Elves don’t even remember how they got here. As you recall, Elves were very rare around these parts, maybe less than a dozen on the entire continent, with Eowyn being one of the notable Elves. But that was last month, now there are thousands of Elves.
 
Julia heard many rumors during her time in Ecathan. Apparently, as Julia tells me, I eloped with Finn. Remember Finn? Claire’s lover? Claire is the Crown Princess of Ecathan and Chandler’s wife. Chandler is Will’s lover. I can’t keep all of this relationship mess straight. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I didn’t elope with Finn. Who would start such a rumor? Another rumor is that my father is the King of Auguston Citadel now. Yeah, right! My father is a low-level bureaucrat whose ego exceeds his talents (remember, he tried to sell me into slavery back, see Session 4, I Might Just Set Him on Fire). I doubt he’s truly king, but if he is… he might have some resources to come after me. Not good. The third rumor Julia heard is that Claire is a witch. I question the reliability of Julia’s informants.
 
Will spent lots of time with Chandler in Ecathan. Things aren’t great in that kingdom, as trust in leadership is at an all-time low. Only a few months ago, that city was nearly destroyed by the nightwalker (see Session 23, The Treason of Ecathan), so there is lots of rebuilding to do. Will also spent lots of time with Andaya, the adopted daughter of Lupa and Fassad (See Session 21, The Nightwalker and the Simulacrum. Julia asks Will what he thinks of Chandler’s cousin. Will thinks that the cousin is up to something sinister, undermining the royal family or kingdom. I am unsure who that cousin is. Will does say that Claire has many talents. I wonder if those talents include witchcraft…
 
Vardai returned home and shared many stories of her adventures and showed some of the artifacts she found. She learned some tribal magics and can now summon portals on a limited basis. She still has her visions and hears voices, which she refers to now as the voice of a silver dragon. When she hears that voice, she also feels that dragon’s presence. Someday, she hopes that the revelations from that presence will be useful. Her father shared a vision of a library where the books are actually people (more specifically, elves) with the knowledge of the books stored in the people.
 
At the revelation of Vardai’s father’s vision on the library, Eowyn is immediately interested.
 
When it’s my turn, I say, “I met someone, and we eloped,” playing off of Julia’s rumor. Everyone gets a laugh. Then I tell them what I actually did (summarize meeting Sophie and learning from Grandma Willow from the last session, as told by Temerity to her companions).
 
Conversation turns back to Eowyn and the elves reappearing. Eowyn explains that some elves are actually Eladrin. Eowyn is actually an Eladrin, she admits. As I understand, Eladrin are elves native to the Feywild, a realm of beauty, unpredictable emotion, and boundless magic. An Eladrin is associated with one of the four seasons and has coloration reminiscent of that season, which can also affect the Eladrin’s mood (referenced from eh 4e Players Handbook and the 5e Dungeon Masters Guide). Eowyn cautions us against mislabeling elves.
 
We ask her a lot about the returning elves. Again, the elves, or Eladrin, don’t remember how they got here. They seem to not remember how much time they spent wherever they were. They do remember life details like who their parents and friends were, and key details about growing up, but can’t recall where they were before here.
 
Will asks Vardai, “How do the elves here match those elves in your father’s visions?”
 
Vardai says they do not match exactly. She then reminisces, concerned her leadership and intelligence are not good enough for her clan.
 
“Leadership is about principles and convictions. You have that aplenty,” I assure her.
 
Will adds, “We would follow you anywhere, Vardai.”
 
We all travel to the council of Etonia. Most of the key players are there. Lavani (in from Montsilt), Savannah, Avast, Edwards, Aryo, Ranon, Aides. Noticeably absent are the guild leaders, who have fallen out of grace.
 
The topic of the council is Etonia needing Will’s assistance in hammering out a treaty between Etonia and the Ecathan Kingdom. Will says he will assist where he can. They discuss the elven refugee problem without any conclusions.
 
Eowyn tells us that some elves have been digging up graves and corpses, possibly under the control of a necromancer. Good, maybe Eowyn is starting to see how evil necromancy can be. Whether or not their behavior is caused by a necromancer or some other reason, we are asked to investigate.
 
She suggests questioning the morticians Gertrude and Morty. Yes, one of the morticians is named “Morty”.
 
We walk through the camp to find them. Gertrude says they came across a group of elves desecrating a grave. They seemed to focus more on one grave, but Morty stopped them with his rapier. The elves seemed to be in a trance while they were digging up the graves, later saying they could feel a presence in their minds.
 
We ask if there was a spellcaster nearby. Gertrude did not see one.
 
Gertrude then reveals a vial with a finger in it… from the grave. She didn’t want to desecrate the grave, but she felt it necessary to find out why they were focusing on that grave. The finger was desiccated, and was not the finger of the corpse itself that inhabited that grave.
 
Gertrude, who knows a bit of magic herself, did say that an enchantment was definitely in play. The elves that were enchanted did try to get Morty and Gertrude to be affected by the enchantment also.
 
We speculate, with Eowyn and Gertrude talking about the culture of Elves.
 
Eowyn asks, “Was it common for our culture to carry a memento of body parts?”
 
Gertrude, she herself being an elf, replies, “No, it is not. Maybe it had to do with keeping a body part for a resurrection spell.”
 
Resurrection spells need a body part to work. You touch a dead creature that has been dead for no more than a century, that didn’t die of old age, and that isn’t undead. If its soul is free and willing, the soul returns to the creature, now fully alive.
 
Gertrude guesses it could be the Queen trying to return to life.
 
Eowyn speculates it could be the Queen who set up the library of elves serving as the books from Vardai’s father’s vision.
 
We learn the people who were enchanted to dig up the graves are most likely in the city jail. The corpses themselves are still buried.
 
To the jail. Obviously, Will and I know where the jail is (see Session 11, Feldspar and Centipedes).
 
Eowyn suggests that we first go to the temple to get Protection from Evil and Good cast on us before going to the Constable’s office. Eowyn is worried we could be affected and wants us protected from any possible enchantment. I remind Eowyn that the spell probably only has a short duration and would last from the time we made it from the temple to the jail.
 
At the jail, prisoners are in cells 5 feet apart. Julia asks the prisoners, “What were you doing right before you started digging?”
 
Various answers come, such as normal activities… cooking, laundry, walking about, etc. Then they say that they had to dig up something so that it could be in the Sun.
 
I ask, “Why did the corpses have to be in the Sun? Are they vampires?”
 
Julia and Eowyn think it was the finger that had to be in the sun, nothing to do with vampires.
 
I cast Detect Magic to see what’s on the finger. It has all kinds of magic auras on it. A strong enchantment aura, in addition to many others.
 
Eowyn casts Identify on the finger. She ritual casts it, so it takes her 10 minutes. She learns that it is the finger of a particularly powerful ancient hag.
 
If the Queen was a hag, the Eladrin might all have been imprisoned by the hag. Hence the visions of elves being used as books in the library of Vardai’s father’s vision.
 
I suggest that Eowyn scry on the hag, using the finger as a focus.
 
Eowyn recalls some lore:
 
“Getting things distributed and working has been harder. The elves' experience was vastly different than what people in Etonia and Eowyn have lived. The elves lived in a city where the sun never set. An all-powerful queen protected the city and kept them safe. They almost talk of her as a god, not as a peer or high elf, so the queen was something different. The elves did not age, there was no death. Their pace was slow. They did not work for money but deposited stories and emotional experiences in libraries for the Queen in exchange for everything they needed. They remember it raining for days right before they appeared back in the Anhult Wildlands.”
 
Eowyn continues her Lore, “A long time ago the Queen summoned a hunter to fight a great evil, and she (the hunter) won. She fought Glain, Lord of the Land. However, Fassad has tangled with someone claiming to be Glain, so there are contradictions. There are stories of many other great wars. The Queen was a conqueror. There is some cultural knowledge of trading with the Orc civilization. There are also no children, although several parents talk of their grown children.”
 
I don’t really understand much of Eowyn’s lore. Some of it seems to fit, some of it seems to blend with Vardai’s father’s vision.
 
Asking the prisoners further, prior to their sudden arrival here in Etonia, they remember all being in Eylium. They can remember some details of their lives. They remember the orc kingdom. They think they are about 80 years old, which doesn’t make sense. They would have to be over 200 years old to remember the orc kingdom.
 
Eowyn, noticing the memory issues of the prisoners, which are consistent with the memory issues of all of the returned elves, wonders if she herself might have gaps in her memory.
 
We go to the library to do the scrying.
 
Eowyn attempts the scry, but it fails. Most likely it failed because the hag is not on this plane. Scrying only works if the target is on the same plane of existence as the caster.
 
Eowyn decides to cast Divination next. She asks, “What would be the most effective feasible way to protect against the enchantment that afflicted those who dug up that finger today?”
 
She completes the spell. A book within the library falls to the ground, opened to a page. The sound is dramatic, echoing through the silent library. The page opened in the book reads:
 
“The drums of war beat
Anger rang out to the first sister
The lure of popularity dug in deep
Envy and Hate called to the second sister
The superiority of their act was broken by sleep
When summoned by the third sister.”
 
That reminds me of the poem on Alven, the Greedy and Witless’s desk:
 
“The drums of war beat
Anger rang out to the first sister
The lure of popularity dug in deep
Envy and Hate called to the second sister
The superiority of their act broke by sleep
When laziness summoned the third sister.”
 
We look at the title of the book. It is an anthology of various stories.
 
Avast, who is there also, tells us that breaking the enchantment might be the key to stopping the elves from being controlled. He then says that many members of the council, including himself, were adventurers in their earlier years. Avast once fought an enchanted army, and to break the enchantment, he had to seek out a druid. The deal he reached with the druid was for the components for the counter-enchantment in exchange for Avast protecting an aarakocra. The charm worked, and Avast was able to end the enchantment on that army.
 
Avast suggests that we get such a component.
 
I think that the druid Avast mentioned sounds an awful lot like Sophie.
 
Avast confirms, yes it was Sophie. The component was some sort of plant.
 
While discussing this, Julia sees something spying on us. A cat with abnormally large fangs. Or is it a rat?
 
I turn into an ocelot to try to catch it. It is all that I can do to keep pace with it.
 
Vardai, much faster and more athletic than the rest of us, passes me up chasing after it.
 
Will casts a spell, but the cat seems allergic to something. Maybe it’s allergic to the magic, I don’t know. It sneezes. The force of the sneeze hits Vardai and me hard. I am knocked out of my ocelot wildshape. Taking too much damage forces a druid to revert to true form.
 
Vardai hits the cat with her hammer, and knocks it out without killing it.
 
After we secure the cat-rat creature, we wake it up. Julia links us together with psychic whispers.
 
Will asks, “What is your name?”
 
The cat replies, “I don’t like your tricks and I am trying to go home.”
 
Julia reads its thoughts. She gathers that it is looking for intel; the queen demands it.
 
Will asks, “The queen of cats?”
 
Julia, gathering from the cat, says, “An old and powerful queen.”
 
Will asks, “Can you take us to her?”
 
The cat replies, “You have to help me complete my mission first.”
 
Will asks, “How can we help?”
 
The cat says, “You have to help me get past the guardians.”
 
We follow the cat to a dry goods store to help it get past the guardians, whatever they may be.
 
We walk into a room and see at least a dozen of these things, now known as Gremishkas. Crap, this is probably a trap!
 
 
• Thank you to George Sanders, his Anhult Campaign, and World Anvil.