Session 11 - Prophecy

General Summary

There is shock in the Administorium. Eurydia declares that Korymour is now a part of Vas and she will bring order back to the process of seeing the Oracle. With that, she leaves to go up the stairs to “investigate the depth of the corruption in this place” before the Keepers can run away with the gold. Ionessa challenges her on the steps for murdering a man and taking the city. Eurydia is unconvinced and seems to believe she’s doing the right thing, she leaves up the stairs. When the party leaves, the sky forms storm clouds and an unseasonal snow, a portent? Weather changing is a fairly common omen, usually means a God is displeased, it might be Kairemos due to the sky but could be another God. We head back to the inn. People are very nervous and are debating the way things are going, whether it’s a good thing or not. We know we need to do something to combat what’s happening, but we’re not sure exactly how to go about it. We can’t fight the army. Neo suggests the problem would be resolved if the Oracle disappeared. In the end we decide to try a two-pronged approach: there’s a tortle at the top of the list who we may be able to convince to take us with him, we can also talk to the old guards who are about to be ousted about ways to get in to see the Oracle.
Eussorus the Tortle. He’s here to inquire as to when his grandson would have children so he could plan accordingly. Kestor pretty much beefs it because he’s trying to manipulate the guy, but Ionessa is genuinely interested in befriending him and does much better. She seems in good graces, but doesn’t ask to accompany him to see the Oracle. Neo and Xanthos find a guard who is upset about the way things are going, he’s quitting and getting out of the city before war breaks out. He reveals that there is someone with an alternative way up the mountain living outside the town itself.
Next, they look for a Keeper and find one. She thinks Vas is planning to use the Oracle for use in their military conquests. Neo says he can help to avert this, and asks if she knows the person outside of town. Unfortunately she doesn’t. Tensions in the town are high. Ionessa goes to talk to a bird about the whereabouts of the person outside of town! She trades food for info. One lives on the mountain, Ionessa buys a bunch of fruit and grain for the bird and learns the location in return! We are led up the mountain by the harrier bird, everyone does pretty good except for Kestor but eventually we arrive at a hidden door on the mountain by a lake.
We meet Raki! A nomad living on the side of the mountain who sometimes helps people up the mountain if their cause is just. We tell her why we are here, we don’t explicitly name Bion but tell his story more or less and she seems to consider us worthy of going up. Unfortunately most of us are really bad at climbing mountains, it’s a real slog through the snow, but eventually we make it up thanks to a lot of luck and determination! We say goodbye to Raki, clearly an adherent of Peri. We also find a waystone and shrine of Peri, which we pray at.
We arrive at the Oracular Chamber, Ionessa bluffs the guards and we are allowed inside. Xanthos steps forward to speak with her, and the incense turns to ash and smoke from a forest fire. He relives becoming the creature he is today, no longer needing to breathe, the constant thirst. He travels down a river into a great sea, waves breaking on a great ship, the wood shining like silver. It becomes part of a fleet awaiting a signal. Then he returns to the chamber. HIS PARENTS ARE CALLED XANDRA AND RASMOS.
Xanthos beseeches her for the life of King Bion to be returned. She says his death was foretold in prophecy; Xanthos believes he can resist fate, that he was fated to die and is still among the living. The Oracle implies that perhaps his fate was to be saved, Xanthos agrees. She knows of ways his life could be returned, prophecy need not be the end. First she must test the rest of the party’s mettle.
Neo finds himself in an endless field, the horizon dominated by a singular olive tree, fruit of gold and leaves of budding flame. A cold wind cuts through the pasture, silver axes cut the tree, around the tree is built a city at dizzying speed until the plain is unrecognizable. Clay men flock to the city coveting the fruit and feeding on the sap, ignorant to the coiling mass of roots that suddenly surround them. The sky turns to an endless sea of stars. The tree is turned to two halves, and Neo returns to reality.
Kestor. A familiar place, a private theater for practicing the forbidden. Shoulders are heavy with thick fabric, he hears his cue, a woman is performing a soliloquy. He is bound and masked.
[He kneels, eyes cast downward, never to look upon her again]
Pour forth from fractured whole; once two, three. Lost hearts, minds, scattered hence. Formless, ancient, seeking. It cannot be that all renew, and thus, a choice: The dreamer? The sundered? The crumbled leviathans? Or those who would take from all?
[The bone snaps once more]
These, his words, maddening smoke from doused flame. Who is he to decide? Gentle cruelty does not but lovely daggers make. To ascend his heights would be to sink. Golden chambers ought lay empty. Eat, for he would have you starve.
[She falls]
When he comes out of the vision, he has transcribed the above as a new page of the play.
Ionessa is floating weightless beneath the waves. Something is amiss, the water is roiling and dark, thick like ink. Around her, thousands of tiny red eyes peer out of the darkness watching curiously. An invisible barrier traps her. From above, radiance, cold and blinding and below an inferno, chaos. Each seeks to engulf her, she pounds on the barrier, fists give way to claws and teeth. Tiny cracks appear in the barrier and she breaks through with a mighty roar. She grasps hold of something, it’s Xanthos’ hand, she’s back in the chamber.
Ophia won’t come through, she doesn’t share our path anyway. To bring Bion back, we must retrieve an object with the power to do so. It is ancient and primordial, a fractured piece of something greater, am ember of life itself, burning eternally. Ionessa knows what it is, she saw it beneath the waves and hid it there because her captain told her it was not a good thing. Neo has heard of this undying ember. When Fytanke was defeated by the Theoninta they were fractured and lesser afterwards. When they were broken and shattered, embers from their once true great form were scattered across Koss and gave life to the beings which would come to be mortals in the future, swept up in the clay that Kalipilos would eventually form into man. It sounds like this is one of those embers.
Kestor asks what’s wrong with him. “You have come into contact with something beyond what the mortal mind can itself comprehend. It has changed you as it has changed those who came before you, and it will continue to change those who encounter it in the future. You are one of many whose minds compiled to comprehend the incomprehensible. In the mind of a mortal, it is unstable. You cannot hope to comprehend it. Either purge those other minds from yourself, or join them and find another who might yet.” She cannot answer how to purge them. He will not be able to make the choice whether to join them or not.
Neo asks why his oracle powers are different. "Our gifts come from different sources. I am water and sky, you are fire and earth."
Neo asks how he can come to understand his vision. “With time, you will come to understand yourself.” He says there’s not much point in him asking questions, there’s not much more she can tell him. “You are on the path to answers, but I can guide you no further.”
Ionessa asks to whom Pearl belongs. “The child of the sea belongs to the sea. Deliver the child to those who would see her raised right, but not beyond her domain.”
Xanthos asks how he can gain independence for Sideris.. Eurydia will speak to the Oracle, and the Oracle will speak to her then. Eurydia will not deny Xanthos once they have spoken.
Ionessa asks about her thoughts on what is happening in Korymour. “The chaos that follows is inevitable. I am where I am supposed to be until I am not. Whether it is the people of Vas, the others that come, Korymour expects a time of disruption. I do not fear, I am witness to fate but have no power over it. I have a great many feelings, some mine, some not, it is difficult to explain to one who has not been through it. There are a great many things that you can do. Chaos will extend beyond the walls of Korymour, beyond known lands and seas, ripple becomes wave.”
Neo asks if he made the right choice when he left. “You did not make a choice. There are no choices”
We return down the mountain, but on the way find Eussorus freezing at the shrine of Peri. We help him back to the path and make sure he’s alright (we think). We make it back down the mountain relatively unscathed. Back at our rooms we warm up and talk about our visions. We’re all feeling pretty vulnerable. Ionessa isn’t sure whether we should get that ember, she made a promise to her old captain (who is now imprisoned in Limpani) not to meddle with it. She needs to sleep on it, but we’ll probably take a trip to Limpani to speak to him first. There’s also that island the map in the water pointed to…
Kovu reveals his vision. He was in an egg, a fight was going on outside it. He wasn’t sure who he wanted to win, and he doesn’t know who won. Ionessa thinks she was in that fight (in her vision?) Kovu will be okay. Ionessa doesn’t know if she’ll be okay, but when she goes to sleep she finds Kovu has left a platinum piece on her pillow. N’awww.

Rewards Granted

Visions!

Missions/Quests Completed

A Glimpse of the Future (Visit the Oracle of Korymour)

Report Date

07 Aug 2022