Session 41: The Wandering Tale

General Summary

Telling Many Tales

• The Crew entered the tavern. Instruments were playing themselves onstage, while a silver statue danced gracefully. Floating slabs of wood surrounded beautiful wooden tables, and the structure was lined throughout with brass filigree. Out the windows, each member of the Crew were enchanted by the landscape they desired to see the most.
• Curious individuals and trinkets were scattered about, and each Crew member went their separate ways.
• Maleakos headed straight for the bar and began chatting pleasantly with Aegothiaryss. The tall, cheerful, dark-skinned, pony-tailed barman was happy to exchange drinks for stories. He recognized Maleakos as a Padovana, and said his father had been in the tavern not a few days earlier, saying he was on the run. Some halflings had come knocking at his house, and were not there for tea and a chat. But, he had escaped.
• Lumen and Viribus went to the shady individual in the shadows of the tavern, who was mysteriously shuffling a deck of cards. He said, in thick accent, that he offered the chance to draw from the Deck of Many Things, the wondrous artifact equally capable of granting immense power or a terrible fate. His price was too steep, however, and both refused.
  • Maleakos came strolling over, however, and was more than happy to draw. N'nchyk tried paying the halfling to disallow Maleakos from drawing, but he happily accepted both payments as Maleakos confidently drew a card...and was granted the Mini Flame, with the capability to light and extinguish a flame on his fingertip at the snap of a finger.
  • Due to the halfling's thick accent, the item was actually a Deck of Mini Things, not the legendary artifact they had initially thought.
  • With some clever manipulation and scam techniques, N'nchyk and Viribus managed to acquire the deck from the halfling, at the cost of one phallus drewsii.
• Ashpin spoke with a half-elf carefully tracing calligraphic patterns on a parchment, as he seemed vaguely familiar to him. It turned out he was a mercenary named Brontes that fought alongside Ashpin in the Last War, and gathered the Crew around him to tell them about the time that Brontes saved Ashpin, and Ashpin ended up turning tail and running.
  • The Crew spoke about the morals of war, as Brontes wanted to know why Ashpin, "a pacifist", had been fighting in a war. Ashpin thought that some people were worth redeeming, while Brontes and Viribus said putting a guy down was the most efficient way to take care of them.
  • Brontes also mentioned how someone had come looking for Ashpin after he had left. He said he was a fairly good-looking guy, but couldn't tell if he was human or half-elf, and called himself something like an Informer. Brontes' eyes went pitch black and his neck turned at an odd angle as he said the guy would find Ashpin.
• Dooturr changed his disguise to that of a farmer and approached an individual fiddling over a chess board, who Aegoth says was the best chess player he'd ever seen, and played for large bets. The chess player was Maul Plorphy, a soft-spoken gnome who had long been searching for someone better than him. Maul said he'd bet a warship - the Pride of the Mists - on the game, and Dooturr wagered the Relic of Life or Destruction. And after an exciting, attacking game with opposite side-castling and sacrifices, Dooturr emerged in the endgame up a piece and emerged victorious. Dooturr requested the deed to the ship be sent to Flamekeep, and began making arrangements with the SCS.
• There was a lizardfolk in a trench coat tweaking around, and sometimes began to inexplicably float around the ceilings of the tavern. Maleakos and Dooturr bought some exotic products, while N'nchyk acquired a fine quantity of amanita.
• Aegothiaryss was widely known as a master of lore and storytelling, and the Crew inquired him as such. N'nchyk asked about the daelkyr, and unlike the dozens of other people he'd asked that had no clue, Aegoth said he did have one story about the daelkyr, but he doesn't know where it came from. And it wasn't a pleasant one.
  • Aegoth told the story of Ul’zaryk, a dragonborn that was saved by the daelkyr and studied the medicinal arts. Ul’zaryk gained a friend along his journeys, a half-elf artist named Tarianos. However, Ul'zaryk's work quickly grew out of hand, as he began studying the art of pain - how to create it, how to maximize it...and he ended up turning against his friend Tarianos and used him as a gruesome test subject.
• Aegoth introduced the Crew to Professor Burnkles, a smooth quartz orb that carried himself around with Mage Hand. He said he was created accidentally by the Korranberg Library, the premiere academic institution in all of Khorvaire, and now studies under it. He said he enjoyed traveling with adventurers to gain practical academic knowledge, and requested to join the Crew in their travels.
• Maleakos, in his expanded drug-induced mental state, began identifying some of the curios around the tavern.
  • A strange, dark brown whorled material on a shelf was sentira, and was a remnant of a githzeri city-ship that travels through the space of Kythri, the plane of Churning Chaos. Aegoth gave Maleakos a fraction of a Korranberg student's thesis related to Kythri and the githzeri.
  • A dark bauble with eye-like inscriptions on another shelf was related to Dal Quor, the Region of Dreams. Strangely, Ashpin recognized the foreign inscription on the bauble, that said "In dreams, unity."
  • A magnificent clockwork pocketwatch on another shelf tells the time accurately and never loses a minute so long as it is carefully wound each day. It accurately records the phases of the moon, as well as local noon, sunrise, sunset, star-rise, and local midnight. Maleakos saw that such an item would help one interested in learning the art of tinkering.
• Aegoth was once again happy to trade these curios for stories and unique trinkets of their own. The Crew told him about their exploits along the abandoned trade route, including their death in the depths of the temple, and the fight against the giant lizard. Aegoth told them that this creature very much sounded like the descendant of Zodgilla, one of the champions of The Devourer. There were other champions of The Devourer as well, such as Kong King, the great ape. There was said to be another creature that was meant to be the greatest of the champions, but was a failure - and had abandoned the Devourer.
• Suddenly, a magnificent golden tome nearly struck Viribus in the head. It had a beautiful depiction of a dragon on the cover, and it was titled "A History of Dragons". It flew through the air, leaving a trail of golden sparks behind its path. Seeing the Crew's interest in it, Aegoth snatched it out of the air, and happily traded it for The Tao of the Earth.
• Aegoth spoke with the Crew about their upcoming journey, and their intent to explore the Graywall Mountains. He said he gathers a lot of rumors in the Wandering Tale, and had heard some about the Graywall Mountains. There was a Droaamic stronghold he knew of called White Plume Mountain, and it was said there were three powerful sentient weapons contained within it.
  • Aegoth said he had a particular discernment with sentient items, and he gestured towards Professor Burnkles and an ancient elven Moon Blade called Elandorr. It was said that the weapons in White Plume Mountain were quite particular with who they chose to wield them.
  • Aegoth said he could offer information to the Crew about White Plume Mountain that might help them, in return for the weapons being returned to the Wandering Tale, if the weapons did not bond with any of the Crew. Not only was Aegoth extremely interested in such items, but the weapons had been stolen from their owners, who were each incredibly dangerous individuals, and anyone in possession of the weapons would constantly be in grave danger. In the Tale, however, they would be safe.
  • The Crew agreed, and Aegoth said that a friendly group of elves called the Enclave of the Valley could help them. They lived in the shadow of the Graywall Mountains, and could provide shelter and aid. To reach them, Aegoth said the Crew should travel to Tryggsylfen, the Ancient Oak, then travel due west of the old path by about 30 degrees. Tell them Aegothiaryss sent you, and ask for Lorend Hazelvale.
• That night in the tavern, Lumen had a rather strange dream, and was feverishly trying to write it down while the memory of it slipped through his mind. Viribus, having worn the bauble overnight, said he had learned about Dal Quor, the Plane of Dreams, while he had slept, and the dream was stuck solidly in his mind, as opposed to Lumen's.

The Journey Continues

• Dooturr discovered that Njord did not like something about the cloak he had recovered from the temple, which he had since been dual-wearing alongside his Cloak of Billowing. Upon closer inspection, it was a Cloak of Elvenkind, but still had residual dark energy from the Devourer.
• The Crew's journey took them deeper along the path, which quickly began to transition into a swampy terrain. Snowy sludge became mixed with wet mud, suctioning each step. Bridges made of rickety wood and solid stone were everywhere, spanning small tributaries and slimy pools of water.
• The rest of the day was rather uneventful. As they Crew settled in for a night in the most beautiful swamp cave any of them had ever seen, Philip threaded a strand of rope through his latest work of origami: a vial, inscribed with the mark of the Undying Court, fashioned in the likeness of their fallen ally, Verin.
• That night was the first clear night since escaping from Arawai's temple, and the first clear night since the birthday of Dooturr - the anniversary of The Mourning. The Olarune moon glowed particularly bright orange in the sky, as it wass in the peak of its ascendant phase. Wisps of orange fell to the ground, like smoke from a cosmic fire, as spirits began to form around Dooturr, as whispers emanated from him.
• The next morning, Maleakos looked like he did not get a night's rest at all; so much so, in fact, that part of his life essence seemed drained.
• N'nchyk, in nearly identical fashion to Lumen the day before, woke up and immediately began scribbling down notes. He said he too had had a strange dream. He was in a cave full of dead triton, but couldn't move to inspect them, and woke up as he felt a creature behind him.
• The next day, disaster struck on one of the rickety wooden bridges. When Glorker tried strolling across, it swung inwards, and he confidently walked forward, directly into the murky water, where he was quickly snatched up by a whirlpool of bubbles.
• A chase began, with the nimble Dooturr and deft explorer Lumen keeping up easily, while the rest fell behind in the swamp. The abductors were four bullywugs, cruel frog-like people of near-humanoid intelligence. They were sitting atop their giant toad mounts, but were still handled rather trivially by the Crew. Dooturr was briefly swallowed by one, but it was turned to dust from the inside.

Rewards Granted

• A History of Dragons
• A bauble with an inscription that described Dal Quor while asleep
• A fragment of a githzeri city-ship from the plane Kythri

Character(s) interacted with

• Aegothiaryss, proprietor of the Wandering Tale
• Maul Plorphy, former chess champion of Western Khorvaire 
• Brontes, half-elf mercenary that fought "alongside" Ashpin in the Last War 
• Lizardfolk drug dealer
• Professor Burnkles, a sentient lore orb from the Korranberg Library

Date begun:
24 Olarune, 998 YK
Date ended:
26 Olarune, 998 YK
Party level:
8

Report Date

23 Dec 2021

Primary Location

Khorvaire