Session 31 - Seacrets

General Summary

We have to deal with this Rhene situation, we need to make sure she’s comfortable and safe before we leave, and that her episodes won’t endanger anyone. We determine that we can probably rely on Adelpha and Leos to look after her, we’ll need to clue them in on her situation to make sure they’re okay with looking after her. We also decide to ask Rhene if she’s comfortable moving out to the farm, that way Adelpha can keep an eye on her, maybe Rhene can even enjoy a little work? Something to keep her busy? We also want to fix up one of the buildings out there, make sure she has a roof over her head.
We still want to talk to Arsenios as well, maybe we don’t need to clue him in about Rhene but he might be a useful resource for learning about demons and what is happening to her. Kestor explains the situation to Rhene, she seems happy to move to the farm. Ionessa entreats Leos and Adelpha to help look after Rhene, and she’s honest about what might happen with her. They both agree, though they’re understandably a little nervous. We brief them on the dangers and they are very gracious about it. It’s nice to have friends! We go to talk to Arsenios, he says he has some information that might help us, but first he wants to know why Neo is avoiding his wife!
Neo says that he just doesn’t want to make people nervous by having Fytanke worshipers Demons are typically formed from the runoff of the Forge of Ptorge, whatever parts of a shade are unused are formed into a demon. Devils and demons don’t like each other, perhaps jealousy is at play over what is lost from one and gained by the other. Whatever is left from the shade mingles until a new being is formed. Demons are formed from lots of pieces leftover from the shades!
To summon a devil, you sacrifice one person and send their shade/soul to the underworld to replace the devil you summoned. By contrast, a demon is summoned by taking parts of a shade, not a whole shade. You need to desecrate the shade such that it is in many pieces, you need to shred someone’s soul and send it down to summon a demon, potentially if you send down lots of pieces you can summon a bigger demon. He doesn’t know exactly how you shred someone’s soul like that. Devils have some fleeting memory of their former life, demons do not, they cannot (that’s antithetical to Rhene’s experience unless she’s lying). Ionessa asks if you can take a demon apart again, but he doesn’t know. He suggests that if we really believe that this demon isn’t lying to us and faking knowing her previous life, that we talk to someone more knowledgeable, maybe a cleric.
Xanthos asks Neo if he shows up as anything other than humanoid to his clerical vision, Neo assures him he appears to just be human. Eos arrives in town! She loves all the charcoal. She starts making plans and a list of things that she’ll need to get things done here. Heromenes shows up in a stone cart being pulled by a stone horse! He’s traveling with a HUGE 12 foot tall stone statue called Niobe (she/her) who has been poorly crafted.
Heromenes’ statues animate when he’s finished, those who animate more traditionally do it at the point of completion but sometimes it happens later, you’d have to know the future to predict exactly when that would happen. Menarcles’ speech included “spears of portents,” implying that Adelpha was always going to animate at that time and Menarcles had some knowledge of the future. Maybe he went to the Oracle? Heromenes doesn’t want to meet anyone, he’ll let them come to him. He’s interested to meet Adelpha because she’s sculpted from Isadora, hopefully he’s tactful about it as we explain her deal. He gets about knocking down buildings with Niobe, but he wants the Sidero trees post haste!
Neo sets about performing a plant growth ritual, he recounts tales of Fytanke rebuilding the world, he scatters ashes out over the area and enriches all the plants within half a mile! The area where the tree was planted starts sprouting! By the end of the ritual there is a small sapling, about a year old. If he keeps doing this, the tree will continue to grow at this speed. It would be nice if more people appreciated this side of Fytanke, maybe Sideris would be a good example in the future.
We prep to head back to Cherianto, Ionessa brings up that we all need to buy pants because togas won’t do in underwater society. We head off, with a brief stop at Dromos to tell the farmers there that we dealt with Keos who was behind the burning of all their crops. They’re very happy to hear it, and offer to help out with Sideris if we need! We’ll probably buy seeds and such from them in the future. We reach Cherianto and purchase pants from a very personable mermanchant, as well as weaver’s tools to maybe tailor something for Neo.
We head to King Bion’s place and learn that he didn’t know about the plans to get the ember to a specific location yet. Nicocrean’s investigation is ongoing, he seems to not know what’s going on but hasn’t made any moves yet. Criton is in the care of healing clerics. Bion has no underwater book. Kestor works day and night to make pants for Neo, and he succeeds! He sews a smiley face on the butt because I’m a child.
We meet the Tidecaller at the temple of Thalakyma. A location has been discovered for the ember, and he will bring us there. There’s something we need to take care of there first before we can call in the full conclave to hide the ember. He gives us shells on a necklace that will let us swim and breathe under the sea, though not as adept as natural sea dwellers. We have a 25ft swimming speed! He also has a teleportation “scroll”, but it’s in the language of the sub-aquatic, which is written in knots on ropes of seaweed! Very cool. We teleport out!
We arrive underwater, which is a jarring experience. We’re in a dark underwater cavern in an area known as The Grave of Secrets, Ektikori’s domain. We meet a cleric of Ektikori, Crymmenos. She tells us that if we complete a trial for the god, the ember can be hidden here. Secrets of all types are kept here. She knows all of the secrets that we told Ektikori!!! We reach a threshold of pure blackness where Axiokeanos and Crymmenos leave us. Axiokeanos wants to talk with us about next steps after we’re done, and offers to bring us to Oiakis, though we’ll need to talk with the priests first.
Just before we leave, we hear a tiny voice say “wait.” There’s an itty bitty jellyfish, it’s here to guide us, without it the dark will eat us. Its name is Mikro. We follow it and start to hear guttural creatures moving in the darkness, large beings scraping against rock, which only grow louder as we progress. We’re attacked by creatures trying to drag us into the dark, and siren calls tempting us to swim into the dark. Kestor hears the voices in his head, Ionessa hears her sister, and Neo hears his mentor promising answers to all his questions. Kestor heads into the dark and finds himself on a familiar stage in the agora where Lambros and Eustathius try to convince him that this ember business isn’t worth it. Ophia saw herself turning into a tree amidst a burning forest, Neo has a conversation with Acheric the Fire-Eater- he doesn't reveal what he saw but this is what he experienced:
Neo is back in the Fire Eater's tomb. He's standing next to the flame elemental and can hear footsteps approaching. When he moves towards them, the elemental bars his way with their shield. "The Douser is coming." it says, "You must hide."
Neo retreats to the back of the tomb and sees the coffin restored. He opens it again, but this time the fire eater is awake, and almost whole, with a hole in his chest where his heart should be. Surprised, Neo helps him to his feet, and repeats the elemental's warning. "I don't think I can beat her in my current state." When asked about the douser, he says "She got lucky, I guess." Acheric asks Neo his name.
"Neophytos. I follow Fytanke."
Acheric points to his tomb. "Even if it leads here?"
"When it does, we try again in the next life. The cycle can't be stopped forever, not even when they tried to stop yours." Neo insists.
"Was there a better way?"
"I don't know about then, but I know it failed. So I need to find that better way."
In the end the hallucinations end and we slay a giant teleporting jellyfish! Mikro takes us to a door at the end of the chamber. Ektikori greets us there and offers us a choice, we can either use her domain to store the ember, or she can offer us a secret. Any secret we desire. Despite the temptation, we decide to store the ember there in the chamber of her greatest servant. Ionessa and Xanthos mouth off to the god, which Kestor takes offense at. Ektikori promises that while the conclave will attempt to keep it safe from the outside world, she will keep it safe from them. We place the ember in a crook in the chamber rather than a coffin containing her merfolk servant’s corpse in case the ember brings her back to life. Kestor is offended at questioning a god’s wisdom but it’s probably a good call.
Mikro reveals herself to be Ektikori’s sister, Mikroterikori, goddess of shapeshifters and curiosities and youngest of Saomenos’ children. She helped us with the trial by giving us light, Ektikori wanted us to do it in the dark. She asks us lots of questions, and shows us a strange and wonderful creature called a PENGUIN. She asks us what we saw in our visions, Kestor and Ophia explain what they saw but Neo dodges the question. She also asks us about the ember and offers us a boon in exchange for this knowledge, but we politely decline. Tidecaller Axiokeanos offers to take us to Oiakis, to the temple of Thalakyma! We zoop!
The end!

Notes

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Report Date

29 May 2023