It's not about how they look, it's about who they are. I love Olympia, I love Persicorum, because of who they are.
- Fen expresses his true feelings about Persicorum to Nash during a watch.
The session started with Kodo and Mimsi entering the Inner sanctum of the
Monastery of Flowers, prepared to face whatever
Elder Caste had lying in wait for them. When they entered, they found the inner sanctum was deserted and silent, barring Elder Caste and two monks who were instructed to leave and close the doors behind them.
Elder Caste watched the two monks approach and stood, clearly prepared to take a decisive action, though Kodo and Mimsi instead tried to reason with her and debate her belief and her hypocrisies around the philosophies of isolation. Kodo and Mimsi made themselves very clear, they did not wish to fight Caste, they instead wanted to see her offer other monks the CHOICE of whether to stay or go. After a moment of back and forth, in which Caste was clearly preparing herself to put an end to negotiations, Kodo realised that Caste was likely the key of
The Untethered and confronted her with this information, expressing his sympathy and pity for her. In that moment, seeing the wisdom and humanity in Kodo and Mimsi, Caste momentarily relented and promised them that she would offer all the monks in the monastery a 24-hour period of freedom, if they chose to stay in the monastery after that time then they would never leave. Additionally, Kodo, Mimsi and the rest of
Persicorum were to never return to the Monastery of Flowers. Kodo and Mimsi grabbed Thordak on their way out with them, ensuring their friend was safe with them once more.
With that, the two monks left the Inner Sanctum and found Fen and Olympia riding atop Baralas and approaching the inner sanctum, ready to protect Kodo and Mimsi after receiving the warning from Blackey. Kodo and Mimsi told the others what had happened and agreed they needed to notify the monastery of the 24-hour deal as quickly as they could and so, leaving Olympia to look after Thordak, the trio split in different directions to notify the Monastery.
- Kodo moved towards the kitchens and found Delthea with whom he immediately told of Caste's offer for the Monastery, Delthea seemed reluctant and nervous at first, especially highlighting the amount of young aspirants that could be left behind. Eventually though, Kodo convinced Delthea that she could give alot to the world outside and Delthea decided to take a group of aspirants with her out of the Monastery and she would make her way to Aria after Kodo recommended she go to The Monkey's Paw for help from his friend there. With that, Delthea left, expressing to Kodo that he had always been a good person and that she didn't believe she would have the restraint that he possessed if faced with Elder Caste and the truth. With Delthea leaving, Kodo made his way straight to Temperance.
- Mimsi ran to The King and his tavern at which point she ran in and loudly announced Caste's deal, she noticed immediately that her loud admission of the truth had the chance of turning the monks angry and riotous towards Elder Caste and so tried to persuade, then intimidate them into simply leaving in a peaceful and orderly way. Though Mimsi was struggling to be acknowledged or listened to. Luckily in that moment Anastasia kicked down the door and promised the monks within that if they made a move against Elder Caste then they would die... this seemed to calm them adequately. With that resolved, Mimsi told Anastasia what happened before they both made their way to Temperance to make sure he was made aware and repaid for the help he gave them.
- Fen realised he knew nothing at all about the monastery or people he should care about and so he simply went to the first place he saw, a stable where a single aspirant was grooming the horses. Fen decided to, quite simply, place the fear of God in this boy and summoned forth his Shadow mask to tell the boy he should leave the monastery with his friends and explore the world or he would die in the Monastery. The kid ran away crying in fear and gathered his friends, stealing the horses and leaving the Monastery. Realising that he had just told a bunch of children to travel the treacherous path out of the Monastery, Fen used sending to message Asharra Zenkei and tell her the deal that had been made with Elder Caste and he told her to find and help the aspirants to leave the Monastery. Asharra did so, expressing that she never wanted to see Persicorum again but that she would like Fen to thank Mimsi for her. With that done, Fen used his Reaper dog to shit on the Monastery Scriptorium floor before going to meet the others at the King's Head Inn.
Kodo and Mimsi told Temperance of the news and the deal with Caste to which Temperance left as soon as they could, seeing and taking their opportunity. Temperance also took
Asterion The Undefeated with them after the Kensei monk made Kodo promise that, in one years time, they would finally battle one another and end their 'epic' rivalry. As he left, Temperance told Kodo he was going to
Freyfrost to find his daughter and that the party would always be welcome in his home. With the main people saved, the party grabbed their NPC followers and met at the King's Head Tavern to decide on their next move.
On reaching the King's head, Mimsi shared a moment with the King in which she thanked him for his subtle help over the years and he explained his philosophy of the Drunken Master, the monk who is born to appear a fool and always be underestimated... it is what makes Mimsi so strong and the King expressed his desire to see the party once again to be beaten in another round of Pai Sho by Kodo. During this time,
Steady Rock gifted Anastasia a card that gave her an introduction to
The Mirrored in Alturis. With that, the King gave Mimsi the keys to his bar and left with Steady Rock, both taking their chance to see Alturis.
The party decided to move into the Mountains for the night and rest, citing their exhaustion and (especially for Fen) lack of resources. They built a bonfire and sat around it, talking and making their next plans. Eventually,
Daedric Marx visited the party (after being tracked down by Blackey) and offered his thanks to them. Upon being updated on the interactions with Elder Caste, he sent the Petals to intercept monks and offer them a chance to join Marx's Petals. During this time, Marx expressed his thanks to the party for everything they had done for him and the Petals and he offered Persicorum the chance to join the Petals ranks and Kodo and Mimsi could become teachers of their discipline to the next generation of monks. The two of them politely declined his offer at the moment, citing that they had more important things to deal with first. With that, Marx left after once more expressing his thanks to the party.
During this time, Thordak moved off to find a moment of clarity and he used his sending stone to get in touch with
Temptation and tell her he wanted to learn more about
The Hunt Temptation did not reply due to the time and so Thordak went back to the party hoping for a reply in the morning.
With that, the party decided to plan their next move in the morning and took a long rest, roleplaying with eachother during their watches, with Nash and Fen discussing their feelings about the party and their commitments to them (Nash then gave Fen a copy of the Life Transference spell for the wizard to add to his
Grimoire of Envy ), Thordak spoke to
Bazzle Strum-Strum about his feelings of loss and his desire for a 'win' to which Bazzle explained to Thordak his philosophy about adventuring party's, he lived for the party's wins and he mourned the party's losses as they were a family who supported one another. He then asked Thordak to try empathising with the others, as Bazzle believed that Thordak had lost an opportunity but his pity lay with Kodo and Mimsi who had each lost their homes. Meanwhile, Mimsi and Anastasia learned more about one another and bonded with each other.
However, despite the roleplay with each other, Anastasia experience a strange dream in which she looked upon a large door in the centre of a black expanse and, as she approached, a creature emerged and explained that it was the Untethered and has been abandoned by their former key... insisting to Anastasia that they become a part of her and join with her lonely form. Anastasia tried to lie (unsuccessfully) and claim that she was not lonely and did not need the companionship being a Key would bring. The Untethered insisted that her consent was, frankly, not necessary and reached out to grab her chest in a blindingly fast strike, Anastasia showed her skill and dexterity however and she managed to dodge his strike and end the dream with the Untethered claiming he would find another who was lonely enough to become a key.
The next morning arrived with the party agreeing to leave the monastery and move down to
Easthaven in order to find a boat to help them travel, Anastasia told the party about her dream and they concluded that Elder Caste was no longer the key of the Untethered (one way or another) and that the Entity had cast their eye upon Anastasia as a suitable new key. Kodo also further expressed his belief in the age and power of these entities believing that they had avoided being trapped by
The Dread King and now were exercising their will unnoticed. The party took Anastasia's fears into account and Thordak tried to reach out with his abilities but did not notice any other keys in the vicinity (potentially meaning that Olympia was NOT a key of
The Chaos).
Thordak then received a response from Temptation who expressed her anger at him for not coming to
King's Bay to meet her but insisted that she did not want him becoming involved in the Hunt and that she needed to meet him and the rest of his party... she then ended her message by stating she was not their enemy. Not even an enemy of Fen.
Thordak told the party about this and they agreed that he would tell her to meet them on an island north of the mountains of
Eastbourne and that their condition was for Temptation to bring
Lyren Killian with her.
With that, the party gathered themselves and moved south, as they passed through the monastery of Flowers Kodo paid his respects to the statue of
Long-Stride and, whilst there, found a letter from Delthea telling Kodo that she had heard rumour of masterful recipes throughout Alturis and that part of her desire to adventure was to find these recipes, so far she had found one that was possessed in the town of
Oar's Rest.
With that, the party left behind the silent monastery of Flowers and began their adventure towards Easthaven.
Comments