Session XVI - Truth
10th of Tororima, 560 AL
Melinoe dreams of a woman's screams.
They are piercing and shrill, echoing in the thin air around her. She wakes in a cold sweat.
Strattora dreams of the wails of a man -- and then a chorus of agonizing moans from the Unnumbered Fallen beneath Zivilon.
Flint dreams of a new companion. An earthen mastiff made from stone and vine. Strangely, the ground beneath him heats up to a boiling point. The familiar burning figure of his warlock patron floats towards him. Her bare form looks down on him and speaks with a crackling heat. She admonishes him for choosing the way of the "Bog Man", reminding him that he will be hers. He is "promised" to her.
She does not seem as willing to share his soul as his paladin patron.
Flint, steel-eyed and resolute, tells her that he is hers. That when he is done with this life she can take him wherever she pleases. Though displeased, the blazing woman seems taken by Flint's passion. She seems assuaged for the moment. The fiery patron leaves with one final gesture; with a flick of her wrist, Flint's new mastiff is melted into a strange new form of fire and dripping lava. Its barks are now muddled and wet as its burning skin seems to droop from its face. The dream ends and Flint summons the strange creature into being.
As the rest of their dozen companions awake, the party enters their portable hole storage to remove the loot from the Doctor's dungeon. They then immediately go against Demesia's wishes and inspect the object in the corner of the extradimensional space. A body is wrapped tightly in a corner there, fresh and not decomposing. Unwrapping its coverings, the party discovers that it is an old Obrakr earth genasi woman. She seems to have been magically sustained, as by a gentle repose spell. They exit and immediately confront Strattora's parents. They are surprised and incensed that the party would disobey their wishes.
They explain that the body is of a comrade of theirs, Saakshi. She perished weeks ago and they have carried her body with them in the hopes of finding a priest with the power of resurrection. She is a fellow Braid of Light. They would go to great lengths to save her. Melinoe tells them that she can perform a raise dead ritual on the genasi. Reluctantly, Argus agrees to bring her the diamond required to perform such a spell. The two parties bid each other farewell for the moment as the party heads out into the city in search of supplies.
Before departing, Strattora attempts to contact Kirasum via sending. At first, she is unable to break through the Dial's binding restrictions. On her third try, the spell breaks through. She questions her adoptive mother, asking if she knew about her biological parents. The archmage does not seem to recognize the names, but she recognizes the deeds that got them exiled from the plane. According to her, she was unaware of their connection. Frustrated, Strattora cuts the connection short.
Carousing the city for items and reagents, the party makes a stop at Argus Sorceries in the Crystal Ward. A strange mechanized beholder named Dokan manages the shop. It does not haggle, charging steep prices for the shop stock. The party purchases a few items, Astra buys several potions, and they sell their metal scraps for a substantial sum of coin.
The party heads back down to the Bubbles, where a broad market offers them a huge variety of goods. They buy reagents, containers, and magical items. Strattora and Flint find a mundane shack on the outskirts of the market. An extradimensional space sits on the shack's inside.
It opens into a magnificent greenhouse storage area lit by golden sunlight. Flint commissions the shopkeeper to enchant his shield and war hammer with vigilant blessings. Cornelius gives the shopkeeper his staff of fire, Herod, to inspect. The staff itself is an ancient make unfamiliar to the shopkeeper, though the enchantments surrounding it are fairly new. The man confirms that the staff is unable to recharge its powers. He adds, however, that this could be overcome by bringing the staff to a plane associated with elemental fire or a corresponding node of fire. Cornelius thanks the shopkeeper and departs the shack. Later on, Cornelius picks up his Dial shard from Kveldr's shop in the Crystal Ward. It seems inert for him, however, provoking no reaction or visions.
After gathering their supplies, the party returns to the Rolling Moon Inn. Melinoe channels the raise dead spell with their new reagents. She is successfully able to resurrect the fallen freedom fighter -- an Obrakr earth genasi named Saakshi. Strattora's parents are profoundly grateful to the party. The newly resurrected genasi is stunned and silent. A tearful reunion ensues between all of the genasi members of the Braids of Light. Saakshi is returned to life and the air genasi operatives have been freed. Demesia and Argus celebrate with their companions.
The squadron of freedom fighters gives the party a heartfelt thanks as they prepare to depart the inn. Demesia and Argus give Strattora a bittersweet farewell. Demesia reminds her biological daughter to contact them with the sending stone if she ever wishes.
The reunited band heads downstairs and exits the Rolling Moon Inn.
The party begins to plan their next steps. They are reeling from many different revelations and need to determine where they stand. They need to question the archmage Kirasum Acari -- Strattora's adoptive mother -- to figure out her allegiances. Strattora casts sending. She pleads to Kirasum for her to come to them, telling her that they are in grave danger. The archmage responds immediately, telling them to come outside of the city. She will teleport to them.
The party exits Attjandi's eastern gate and climbs into the countryside to find an empty area to summon the mage. Just outside of an abandoned farmhouse, they pause to contact Kirasum again. The archmage forces her way through the planar barrier with a burst of arcane energy. She plane shifts next to the party through a split in a nearby oak tree.
Ready to question the archmage, Flint casts zone of truth. The archmage is confused but obliges when the party explains their motivations. They need to determine why they were sent on such a perilous mission.
Kirasum Acari allows the truth spell to take hold without resistance.
Angry and confused, the party asks why she sent them there in the first place. She explains that she orchestrated the mission's assignment for them to achieve two goals: a promotion to legionnaires -- which would give them access and opportunities that lower ranks would not get, and their fate readings from the Norns -- which would give them the ability to use the Fatestone to change their destinies. When Strattora asks her about her past with Mirabella, she mentions that her mother wanted to use the stone to secure a better life for her. Kirasum replies that they never found the stone: she worked her way up to her current position over decades of toil.
The party further presses her on her ties to Zivilon and her reason for fighting the war. Kirasum tells them that their country, Zivilon, used to be a warmongering nation. The empire of Sivillos from which it spawned was built on blood. It has improved vastly since then, though even members of the Lords of the High Thrones are still warmongers. She gives a list of names: the Warhawks and Pacifists of the High Thrones are all, according to her, bloodthirsty individuals. The only two names left out of her list are Petreia Thallus and Dargon Hightide.
Glamene, for her part, has become much more protective of herself over the years. Multiple attempts on her life have led to authoritarian crackdowns on the populace. The most recent attempt was by Argus and Demesia. Kirasum did not know their names, so the mention of them was unfamiliar to her. She is aware of the attack, but unaware that the two of them were her parents.
Kirasum tells the party that Zivilon is planning to send a strike force to invade the Sonapailes and shut it down or destroy it. To do so, they are going to disable the veil around the dial of the plane of moss. The strike force, accompanied by her, will then teleport within the Sonapailes to disable their production of the golems. Kirasum adds their city has captured numerous citizens of Attjandi for interrogation, and that all of them seemed unconcerned about the possibility of invasion. The citizens simply think that their golem war machines will handle the intruders themselves.
She gives an oath to the party that she will minimize the casualties of the invasion. They seek only to invade and disable or destroy the Sonapailes factory. They are not looking for blood, not even of the nobles. The far bloodier option would be to leave the factory alone and accompany the invading Zivil forces as they tear southward through the forest.
As the zone of truth spell wanes, the party weighs the responses that the archmage has given. She has seemed honest and forthright with them, whether magically induced or not. They trust her at face value for now. The party tells her that they will decide which route they will take on the morrow. She thanks them before exiting into her extraplanar mansion through an arcane rift at the farmhouse.
Carousing the city for items and reagents, the party makes a stop at Argus Sorceries in the Crystal Ward. A strange mechanized beholder named Dokan manages the shop. It does not haggle, charging steep prices for the shop stock. The party purchases a few items, Astra buys several potions, and they sell their metal scraps for a substantial sum of coin.
The party begins to plan their next steps. They are reeling from many different revelations and need to determine where they stand. They need to question the archmage Kirasum Acari -- Strattora's adoptive mother -- to figure out her allegiances. Strattora casts sending. She pleads to Kirasum for her to come to them, telling her that they are in grave danger. The archmage responds immediately, telling them to come outside of the city. She will teleport to them.
