The one where they went to the spa
General Summary
Our story begins with Brant sneaking through the Hive in the early morning hours as the city is waking up. Moving with more caution than one would expect someone to take when returning to their own apartment building, he scales the fire escape and slides open the living room window.
Sneaking in, he makes some oatmeal for his friends and roommates, placing the bowls down on the counter. As he moves to leave, he suddenly becomes frozen in place as Clay emerges from his own bedroom wearing only his underwear and rubbing sleep from his eyes. They have a brief, awkward discussion as Clay expresses concern at Brant's obvious absence over the past few days. Brant, panicking, launches himself out of the window and down the fire escape attempting to flee. Clay tries to jump after him and makes a large clatter as he falls on his face, waking Nix, who flies out of her room, sees Brant fleeing and vortex warps him back into the apartment. As the two of them stare each other down, they begin telling Brant about the job that he had just missed and how it had very nearly resulted in the loss of the job and of Araceli. After listening to their story, Brant confusedly takes in the idea that they did worse without him and decides to join them on their next job.
The crew makes their way to the agency, and are given a job by Miriam in which they are tasked with finding the lost husband of a client named Bookwyrm. They are given a portal location and key and sent on their way. After passing through the portal, they find themselves on a rocky crag in the middle of the sea standing in front of a fortress. They approach the guards and explain who they are. The guards say that they recognize them and state that it's very abnormal for them to be allowed in without a book. Araceli pulls out a romance novel from her bag to pay the fee and they are allowed in. They are then taken to The Hearth where they are welcomed in and shown to a meeting room. There they meet Bookwyrm, the First Reader of Candlekeep. He explains that his husband had gone missing a few days before and that he's terrified. He talks about how his husband had been depressed and had been feeling really upset about aging. Bookwyrm said that he had been using a book called The Price of Beauty and that he had noticed his husband was feeling a lot better since he had started reading the book. The crew discussed what Bookwyrm had noticed and spent time investigating the book, eventually discovering that it inexplicably had the ability to open a portal inside of Candlekeep to somewhere else in the multiverse, despite the fact that Bookwyrm said that shouldn't be possible. After receiving promises of additional gold and a favor from Bookwyrm, the crew hopped through the portal and arrived on a path in a very old forest. After following the path for a little while, Dorica checks the area for any fiends or fey and finds that there are both somewhere within a mile of the path. The crew stealthily make their way forward until they come upon a clearing featuring a grand temple covered in engraved lilies.
They see a sign that says that the building is called the Temple of the Restful Lilies. Brant stealths his way up to the building, peering in through the windows and finding a spa. He sees an elven man standing behind a front desk, makes his way over to the next room and sees a lounge filled with people resting and getting pedicures. Briefly scanning the room, he makes direct eye contact with a beautiful moon elf woman.
Realizing that he's been made, he hurries back to his friends and relays what he's seen. Dorica and the rest of the crew decide to push forward and make their way up to the front of the building where they are met by the elven man that Brant had seen. He welcomes them in and begins explaining what the spa offers. They silently communicate with each other that they are going to request a tour and that Brant should go scout out the place. He stealths away from the group by waiting until they're in the more secluded, private bedroom area and then the group works together to help him sneak out. Jumping out a window, he makes his way around the building, finding another elven woman practicing exercises in a courtyard with some guests, an empty bath hall, a tower, and a mysterious abandoned building hidden on a different part of the meadow.
Brant communicates this via a message spell to the rest of his compatriots and charts off to explore the abandoned building. Arriving, he finds a shrine to the god Sune whom they had seen a reflection of in the mirror on front of the book back in Candlekeep. He notices that the shrine is falling apart and that the entrances have all been covered in a thick, clear resin. Scouting the building out, he discovers that the roof has caved in so he decides to lower himself in with some rope and climbs down. Inside the shrine, he finds a room with mirrors on the walls which have been smashed, covering the floor with glass. On the other end of the shrine he sees a statue of "Sune-love", once beautiful but now covered in dirt and grime. He moves forward to investigate the statue and finds a staircase leading down. Stepping backwards from the staircase, he looks up at the statue of Sune and attempts to connect with the Goddess, saying "I think I lied earlier, Sune-love. I think I do need help with how I feel about myself."
In that moment of vulnerability, he sits down on the ground and takes in the statue of Sune, who once was beautiful and laughing but because of the dirt and grime looks like she's currently weeping. He recognizes something of himself in this moment, and Sune sees his honesty and chooses to connect with him by unblocking an emotion of connection and peace and love in his heart that he had thought died with his crew.
As he let that feeling pulse through him, he saw a head with eyes covered in a bandage and hair made of snakes poke around the edge of the statue. The being stumbled through a couple sentences, attempting to connect with what Brant had just said before starting over and introducing herself by saying "Hi, I'm Silvarie."
Back in the main building, the crew finished the tour and Dorica attempted to intimidate the employee Saeth into giving them a discount. The moon elf woman, upon seeing this seemed to be very attracted to Dorica, and attempted to learn more about the group. Clay recognized that this moon elf woman was not someone he had seen before but was definitely familiar in some way that made him profoundly uncomfortable. The moon elf introduced herself as Morganna and began flirting with Dorica while subtly insulting the rest of the party. She revealed that she ran the establishment with her two other sisters, and the group was able to pick up on the fact that she hates her sisters. Latching onto this, Araceli subtly insults her back and then says that she has issues with her sister too. The two of them briefly connect over the pain of being a middle sister, and then Morganna requests that they solve a problem for the bathhouse by getting rid of a particularly capricious elemental spirit living in the bath. The group agrees and Morganna offers them a set of rooms to stay in. She explains the rules of the bathhouse to them and then has an attractive humanoid employee show them away.
They are shown to their rooms and given keys to chests where they can store their gear. They are then given robes and slippers and shown to the showers to wash off before getting into the baths. The group make their way to the showers and as they are each stepping into their own shower, Brant tells everyone that he has found Sylvarie and that he's learned that the sisters are all hags. Nix relays this information and passes it on to the rest of the group. Panicking, Clay touches into his divine sense and smells the putrid scent of an infernal close by. Sneaking out of the shower stall, he attempts to tip toe in his robe over to the door as his sandals "Fwip, Fwip, Fwip" against the marble floor, echoing in the open air baths. Dorica hears this just as he places his hand on the doorknob, attempting to look down the hall for the source of the infernal scent. She asks him what he's doing and he says nothing and then attempts to hand wave her back into the shower before peaking down the hall and seeing Saeth at the front desk. Making his way back, Dorica comes out of their shower and is quickly pulled into a shower with Clay where they whisper nose to nose about what he's just discovered. Hearing them whispering, Araceli makes her way over and is also pulled into the shower, fully clothed with an orc and a firbolg. Nix then hears the whispers from three showers down and makes her way over to get pulled in and discuss the situation with her friends. After briefly making a plan, they all get out to swim in the baths. Dorica immediately goes into protective mother hen mode upon seeing that the rest of the group is freaking out, and makes sure they all know they will be protected as long as Dorica is around. Clay mentally confronts the idea of interacting with a hag again, and steels himself in preparation. Nix grapples with the idea of three hags when the last time she met a hag she couldn't even handle one. This thought shakes her to her core and she briefly experiences a surge of magic resulting in her temperature rising and steam floating off of her body as she swims through the bath.
Meanwhile, back in the shrine, Sylvarie leads Brant downstairs and reveals where she's been staying for the past 10 years. She tells Brant her story and reveals that she had been a priest of the God Sune, who ruled over love, beauty, and self-love.
She explains that she had been happy, but insecure in her position and that the sisters had arrived and taken advantage of that. She explains that she felt inadequate in her right to be a priest of Sune and that when the sisters saw this, they offered her beauty beyond imagination. Silvarie took this offer, and spent a blissful year finally feeling like she was enough. Until on the one year anniversary of her bargain with the sisters, she was transformed into a Medusa. Confronting the hags, she was thrown into the shrine and locked away. Presumably with the hope that she would turn herself to stone while surrounded by mirrors. She explains that she has been trapped and alone for a decade. Brant connects with this and the two share a moment of empathy.
Brant asks Silvarie if she would like to leave, and she expresses fear that she might hurt someone or turn someone to stone on accident. Brant assures her that it would be safe, and she agrees to be taken out of the building.
Brant hoists her out of the hole in the roof, and watches as tears slide out from under the bandages covering her eyes as he realizes that this is the first time she's felt sunlight or smelled fresh air in 10 years.
They climb down from the roof together and begin making their way over to the tower. Pausing in the trees, the two of them survey the tower, noticing a stone statue of an elf with wings above the front door. They relay this information to the rest of the crew and everyone agrees to meet up.
Back in the main building, the crew leaves the baths and gets ready to gear up and head over to the tower. Dorica realizes that Clay and Nix are both panicking. They speak with Clay first as Clay explains that he's having a PTSD response and relays his experience with the hag Bavlorna. Dorica tells him that it's okay that he's afraid, but that he doesn't need to be because when he fought Bavlorna he didn't have them around. Clay receives this with gratitude and hugs Dorica before putting on his armor to get ready. Dorica then leaves and walks over to Nix's room, and asks what's going on. She relays her version of the events with Bavlorna and says that she's afraid that she feels like it's her fault. She communicates that she's afraid she won't be able to protect her friends against three hags. Dorica comforts Nix as Clay walks out into the hall and sees Araceli pacing. He has a sudden realization just how much younger than him she is and communicated that even though he's 175, he's still scared, but that he's there to protect her and won't let anyone hurt her. He gives her a hug and casts Protection from Good and Evil on her. The crew then climbs out a window, Brant style, and makes their way over to the forest where Sylvarie and Brant are hiding.
They briefly discuss their options before Nix turns herself invisible and flies up and around the tower looking into each of the windows.
She relays the information that she sees back to her team, describing a weak and withered dragonborn sweeping in the front hall, a luxurious with a large bed covered with silk sheets, a studio with magical light illuminating the room and a large orange chest in the corner. On the second floor she saw a tower kitchen with an incredibly old dwarf and a statue of a winged elf. She spoke with the dwarf and discovered he was Falthrax, the husband of their client that they had been sent to find. He seemed terrified of responding to Nix and kept glancing over at the statue. He explained that the hags come back at midnight but that they aren't there right now. Nix then flew down to the first floor and attempted to speak with the dragonborn, but was unable to get through to her. Flying back up, she realized that there were no windows to the other room on the second floor. Flying to the third floor, she found the hags lair, with statues of Sune covered in dirt and filth. Nix returns to her friends and tells them what she had seen. They discuss their options, investigate the book, and Silvarie tells them that they will be able to open up another portal with it at the next dawn.
Returning to the bathhouse, Clay wades into the bath in his full suit of armor and attempts to commune with the elemental. A dryad pops her head out of the water and reveals herself to be Naiad the Dryad. She tells Clay that she has lived in these waters for a long time and that she has the ability to turn the water into acid. She agrees to fight with them when the time comes.
The group decides to attack once they know they can successfully flee, and heads back to their rooms for the night. Upon arriving back to their rooms, the crew stumble upon a kobold with white scales attempting to break into another room. They convince him that they mean no harm and he breaks down and tells them that he's attempting to stage a coup against the hags. He tells them that he used to be a jeweler in Waterdeep and that he made a deal with the hags to grow a few inches taller. When he tried to go back on his deal, he was transformed into a Kobold. He talks about the other workers at the spa and says that there's something strange going on with the "humanoid" workers. The group agrees that the statues are weird, and he says that there is one other employee that arrived a few months ago and Glitter can't tell what side he's on.
They all decide to team up against the hags and agree to meet up at dawn before the crew piles into one room for bed. Brant opts to sleep in the woods with Silvarie and watch over his compatriots in the main building. The two sit back to back, looking up at the stars and talking about their day. Silvarie opens up and explains that she had felt stuck for such a long time, in a very literal way, but that she feels like she had honestly been stuck long before that. The hags came along and took advantage of that, but that she had already been stuck when they got there. Brant says that he won't push her if she doesn't want to, but that if she's open to it then he will help her fight. She says that she feels like she doesn't want to be stuck anymore and that whatever comes next, she'll join him. Brant digs deep inside of himself and tells her that it isn't her fault that she was stuck and that she shouldn't blame herself for what happened. She holds his hand and squeezes it before thanking him and saying that she had been alone for a long time and that she really needed to hear that. Brant, overcome with feelings, goes to lay down and go to sleep. He sees the shoulder of his friend as she leans against a tree and feels a return of the feeling he felt in the shrine before it flits away.
In the main building, Nix has a nightmare. In her dream she sees Clay, twisted into a monstrous form by the hag's magic, who accuses Nix of causing all their misfortunes, including the curse, and declares her a curse upon everyone she meets. She wakes up and Clay feels her panic, immediately knowing what's happening. They talk about the dream and Clay comforts her, before they all return to sleep, cradled in Dorica's arms.
Outside, Brant dreams too. Brant sees his crew, vibrant and alive, working on the ship. Suddenly, dark, tentacled shadows emerge from the sea, enveloping the ship and crew. The scene changes, and he suddenly finds himself wandering through a prison, hearing whispers of guilt and betrayal. He sees Araceli looking through the bars at shadowed figure, who is shackled and pleading for understanding.
Suddenly, he awakens...
TO BE CONTINUED
Report Date
26 Jan 2024
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