Episode 10: Rise to Fall to Begin Again
General Summary
This one was a doozy. The session began with a heated discussion on how the Fates card should be used; whether Fives should use it now to simply erase the curse that had been laid on the coins, rewriting history so that they were never cursed, or should he use it for something greater, erasing every curse that had ever happened. After fervent discussion, the conclusion was eventually drawn that the simplest answer is the best answer, the card would be used to erase the cursing of the platinum coins from the rose protectorate.
When this was enacted, the group lost all the coins that they had stolen. If they had never been cursed, they would not have been left out on the Vagabond's bedside table, but instead located in a secure location with a contingency spell laid on it to send it through a teleportation circle and to the proper authorities within the Tenebric Vanguard. Therefore, everything that they had ever purchased with their platinum was returned to the vender and they were left with what equipment they had left and a little less money.
However, because the coins were never cursed, when the time would come to hire Captain Eammon McGregor, they would all have to work their way across the sea instead of just paying him for room and board. Because they had to work for him, they had to listen to him. Because they had to listen to him, they all would have gone below decks when the Captain ordered them to so they would avoid the sirens. Because they avoided the sirens, the Vagabond would never have to shoot Charles in an attempt to get him to snap out of his trance. So Charles never died at sea. Therefore, Charles was alive to interact with Vanderlith, the ghost in the coin, and he bonded with him, not Fives, effectively taking back his rightful position from Fives within the group. Because they would never get a chance to examine the coins, the Vagabond tells the party that the coins were minted in the Rose Protectorate as part of his parting gifts of wisdom.
Continuing onwards, because Charles was around and there was never any pressure to keep secrets in bags hidden from the group, Valan, who had stolen 1.5 million in extra skimmers fees initially, never behaved in such a way that threatened the groups trust in him and his in them and they all went to get the Stormdancer together, which immediately went to Charles due to his ancestral connection to the blade, and healed virtually every rift within the group.
Because the group travelled back to Sirenwall together, they arrived in time to mitigate the damage done to Honeywell in the Hazel Festival Massacre, where the group attended another performance of Cirque de Stille, interviended with silvered mead and hard candies, Tyra and Valeria directly speaking to the Ringmaster and the Illusionist who were passing out the candies, confronting them to find out if they were responsible for the poisonings. They swore up and down that they are not, that someone was using their treats as a means to commit these crimes and they were completely unaware of any malediction. While they believed the two were telling the truth, Tyra made the Ringmaster promise to make an announcement during their performance to warn of the poisoned foods, which he followed through on. However, during the performance Valeria, who was patrolling the outside, was confronted by an invisible assailant who stabbed her with a long slender blade after attempting to goad her into following them with her blindsight into an alleyway. A disembodied voice asked why she would protect the changelings if she wasn't one; the blade, upon making contact, should have instantly killed her if she were a changeling.
Shortly after this confrontation, the main circus tent went up in flames, followed shortly thereafter by the rest of the city. A fireball was dropped on Tyra and the rest of the fleeing townsfolk, many of whom were killed. As the fire burned, a group of Seven people could be seen gathering at the far side of town, one of whom sheathed a slender rapier as it came out of invisibility, and they were all teleported away by a central figure.
At the end of the day, 75% of the town perished, about 96% of whom appeared to be changelings. But three-fourths is better than total casualties, as Fives knew, so they were disheartened but not defeated.
Because there was no mistrust, Dahlia left on better terms, telling the whole group to continue working on unraveling the conspiracies of the Empire while she went to deal with the civil war brewing in her homeland.
And so time caught up to the Accused. They continued onwards towards Sylva and Franrider, now driven by the clues from Tyra's Mother and the tip that the Vagabond gave them. They arrived in the Rose Protectorate soon afterwards, slowly noticing that the wide Midwestern style plains of the Aurelian Empire began to be covered by more and more patches of trees until fully submerged in forest. The next change was small at first; a few purple and gold Johnny Jump-Ups here, a vine of jade flowers clinging to a branch there. But eventually, the ground was covered with white lilies, wisteria trees made up a majority of the forest, and through gaps in the foliage, they could see in the far off distance rising hills covered in rose upon rows of curated gardens and vineyards.
The Garden of the Rose Protectorate.
As they entered the Protectorate, Charles was overcome with a vision of Vanderlith's past. Golden hour light flashed across a serene forest town as the sun faded beneath the horizon from a beautiful cliffside ocean view. The hustle and bustle of his kinfolk moved all around him as they made preparations for the Harvest Festival. His vision blurred for a moment, darkening and reddening, but soon returned to normal.
A young elven child ran up and he clasped her in his arms. Charles didn't recognize her, but he knew that she is Meli, his little honeybee; his daughter. There was a splitting pain in his gut and Charles' vision blurred again. He could feel a slight stream of blood run from the corner of his mouth, and looking down his hands too were covered in blood.
"What's wrong, father?" the little girl asked. As he turned back to her, Charles saw that she to has a smear of blood across her pleated woodland dress. Her neck was bent at a strange angle and dark strands of blight filled her veins.
Charles struggled to stand, but another arrow slams into his chest, joining the two in his gut and knocked him back down to his knees. Charles saw himself on the field of battle. His vision is blurry, and he is kneeling, facing the form of the Bowman silhouetted against his burning village with the roiling black sky flashing above a great precipice over an endless ocean behind it. Bodies of Vanderlith's kinfolk and Soldiers of the Wild Hunt lie in mounds between Charles and the Archer as it draws its weapon for a fourth strike. Red lightning crackles in the distance behind it, illuminating for a moment the sunken eyes of the mask of the hooded figure. "Traitor," it whispered into the bow.
Charles' hands, slick with blood, reached down to grasp his sword, letting the limp body of Meli slip from his hands, her glossy eyes reflecting the burning green runes of Vanderlith's blade as it ignited, and Charles snapped out of his vision, the faces of concerned comrades looking down at him.
Later, in a much calmer encounter, the party met a man who was scolding a set of animated instruments for dragging during their set. As the party approached, they saw a group of woodland creatures appeared to have gathered around him to listen to the music, and even the flowered trees seemed to be leaning in to get a better listen. He warmly greeted the party, introducing himself as Etain Aengus. As the party shook his hand, coming into contact with his ring, they were overcome with a feeling of peace and good vibes. Valan realized that he had been feeling a little down, and this man had somehow fixed that within him.
Etain put on a performance for the group, and then they moved on their merry way. In the distance, they could see the rising towers of Sylva, the City of Towers. They could see the city from a two days march away; it is a huge city of floating towers attached together by sturyd walkways and arcane wards, each filled with apartments of mages trying to hone their Attunement to the Call. At its center, Zhestia, the Tower, home to the Scribes of the Six, rises from the ground to the very top of the city, with its rotating stories sending pathways out to each tower on their level at the command of the Gatekeepers. Countless mages come here to find their way in the world. Innumerable of the countless don't even make it in the door. It is a place for the trade of knowledge and not for the feint of heart.
Arriving in Franrider, the group met Tyra's Mother and a few of the orphans under her care. Squiddly, Nat, and Jenks were put in charge of the other orphans as the group was brought inside to here what Mother had to say. She informed the group that something is amiss in the Rose Protectorate. MNages are travelling through illegal teleportation circles hidden throughout the countryside and those who witness it are going missing. Mother was lucky, she was hidden when she saw what happened, but she fears for her safety and that of her neighbors, and that is where the session drew to a close.
When this was enacted, the group lost all the coins that they had stolen. If they had never been cursed, they would not have been left out on the Vagabond's bedside table, but instead located in a secure location with a contingency spell laid on it to send it through a teleportation circle and to the proper authorities within the Tenebric Vanguard. Therefore, everything that they had ever purchased with their platinum was returned to the vender and they were left with what equipment they had left and a little less money.
However, because the coins were never cursed, when the time would come to hire Captain Eammon McGregor, they would all have to work their way across the sea instead of just paying him for room and board. Because they had to work for him, they had to listen to him. Because they had to listen to him, they all would have gone below decks when the Captain ordered them to so they would avoid the sirens. Because they avoided the sirens, the Vagabond would never have to shoot Charles in an attempt to get him to snap out of his trance. So Charles never died at sea. Therefore, Charles was alive to interact with Vanderlith, the ghost in the coin, and he bonded with him, not Fives, effectively taking back his rightful position from Fives within the group. Because they would never get a chance to examine the coins, the Vagabond tells the party that the coins were minted in the Rose Protectorate as part of his parting gifts of wisdom.
Continuing onwards, because Charles was around and there was never any pressure to keep secrets in bags hidden from the group, Valan, who had stolen 1.5 million in extra skimmers fees initially, never behaved in such a way that threatened the groups trust in him and his in them and they all went to get the Stormdancer together, which immediately went to Charles due to his ancestral connection to the blade, and healed virtually every rift within the group.
Because the group travelled back to Sirenwall together, they arrived in time to mitigate the damage done to Honeywell in the Hazel Festival Massacre, where the group attended another performance of Cirque de Stille, interviended with silvered mead and hard candies, Tyra and Valeria directly speaking to the Ringmaster and the Illusionist who were passing out the candies, confronting them to find out if they were responsible for the poisonings. They swore up and down that they are not, that someone was using their treats as a means to commit these crimes and they were completely unaware of any malediction. While they believed the two were telling the truth, Tyra made the Ringmaster promise to make an announcement during their performance to warn of the poisoned foods, which he followed through on. However, during the performance Valeria, who was patrolling the outside, was confronted by an invisible assailant who stabbed her with a long slender blade after attempting to goad her into following them with her blindsight into an alleyway. A disembodied voice asked why she would protect the changelings if she wasn't one; the blade, upon making contact, should have instantly killed her if she were a changeling.
Shortly after this confrontation, the main circus tent went up in flames, followed shortly thereafter by the rest of the city. A fireball was dropped on Tyra and the rest of the fleeing townsfolk, many of whom were killed. As the fire burned, a group of Seven people could be seen gathering at the far side of town, one of whom sheathed a slender rapier as it came out of invisibility, and they were all teleported away by a central figure.
At the end of the day, 75% of the town perished, about 96% of whom appeared to be changelings. But three-fourths is better than total casualties, as Fives knew, so they were disheartened but not defeated.
Because there was no mistrust, Dahlia left on better terms, telling the whole group to continue working on unraveling the conspiracies of the Empire while she went to deal with the civil war brewing in her homeland.
And so time caught up to the Accused. They continued onwards towards Sylva and Franrider, now driven by the clues from Tyra's Mother and the tip that the Vagabond gave them. They arrived in the Rose Protectorate soon afterwards, slowly noticing that the wide Midwestern style plains of the Aurelian Empire began to be covered by more and more patches of trees until fully submerged in forest. The next change was small at first; a few purple and gold Johnny Jump-Ups here, a vine of jade flowers clinging to a branch there. But eventually, the ground was covered with white lilies, wisteria trees made up a majority of the forest, and through gaps in the foliage, they could see in the far off distance rising hills covered in rose upon rows of curated gardens and vineyards.
The Garden of the Rose Protectorate.
As they entered the Protectorate, Charles was overcome with a vision of Vanderlith's past. Golden hour light flashed across a serene forest town as the sun faded beneath the horizon from a beautiful cliffside ocean view. The hustle and bustle of his kinfolk moved all around him as they made preparations for the Harvest Festival. His vision blurred for a moment, darkening and reddening, but soon returned to normal.
A young elven child ran up and he clasped her in his arms. Charles didn't recognize her, but he knew that she is Meli, his little honeybee; his daughter. There was a splitting pain in his gut and Charles' vision blurred again. He could feel a slight stream of blood run from the corner of his mouth, and looking down his hands too were covered in blood.
"What's wrong, father?" the little girl asked. As he turned back to her, Charles saw that she to has a smear of blood across her pleated woodland dress. Her neck was bent at a strange angle and dark strands of blight filled her veins.
Charles struggled to stand, but another arrow slams into his chest, joining the two in his gut and knocked him back down to his knees. Charles saw himself on the field of battle. His vision is blurry, and he is kneeling, facing the form of the Bowman silhouetted against his burning village with the roiling black sky flashing above a great precipice over an endless ocean behind it. Bodies of Vanderlith's kinfolk and Soldiers of the Wild Hunt lie in mounds between Charles and the Archer as it draws its weapon for a fourth strike. Red lightning crackles in the distance behind it, illuminating for a moment the sunken eyes of the mask of the hooded figure. "Traitor," it whispered into the bow.
Charles' hands, slick with blood, reached down to grasp his sword, letting the limp body of Meli slip from his hands, her glossy eyes reflecting the burning green runes of Vanderlith's blade as it ignited, and Charles snapped out of his vision, the faces of concerned comrades looking down at him.
Later, in a much calmer encounter, the party met a man who was scolding a set of animated instruments for dragging during their set. As the party approached, they saw a group of woodland creatures appeared to have gathered around him to listen to the music, and even the flowered trees seemed to be leaning in to get a better listen. He warmly greeted the party, introducing himself as Etain Aengus. As the party shook his hand, coming into contact with his ring, they were overcome with a feeling of peace and good vibes. Valan realized that he had been feeling a little down, and this man had somehow fixed that within him.
Etain put on a performance for the group, and then they moved on their merry way. In the distance, they could see the rising towers of Sylva, the City of Towers. They could see the city from a two days march away; it is a huge city of floating towers attached together by sturyd walkways and arcane wards, each filled with apartments of mages trying to hone their Attunement to the Call. At its center, Zhestia, the Tower, home to the Scribes of the Six, rises from the ground to the very top of the city, with its rotating stories sending pathways out to each tower on their level at the command of the Gatekeepers. Countless mages come here to find their way in the world. Innumerable of the countless don't even make it in the door. It is a place for the trade of knowledge and not for the feint of heart.
Arriving in Franrider, the group met Tyra's Mother and a few of the orphans under her care. Squiddly, Nat, and Jenks were put in charge of the other orphans as the group was brought inside to here what Mother had to say. She informed the group that something is amiss in the Rose Protectorate. MNages are travelling through illegal teleportation circles hidden throughout the countryside and those who witness it are going missing. Mother was lucky, she was hidden when she saw what happened, but she fears for her safety and that of her neighbors, and that is where the session drew to a close.
Rewards Granted
Charles: Life
Missions/Quests Completed
Franrider reached, Mother met
Character(s) interacted with
Mother: An old lady who is very protective of her orphans, regardless if they are still in the nest or not.
Notes
To get inspiration, what do you think the group should be called? Let it be known, if Sandesh is the only one to respond to this, Sandesh gets full say in what the group is called.* I don't make the rules
Unless it's dumb.
Unless it's dumb.
Report Date
17 Jul 2021
Comments