Session 49 - Dreams and Nightmares

General Summary

It’s evening in Rheo, Kestor buys everyone a night at a fancy cottage and we strategize what we want to do next, we also check we’re not being scried on. We need to talk to Brigos, Nicanda, and Prytanis and let them know that peace is viable with Vas. We also should find a way to discredit Parmenion, maybe revealing his corruption or embarrassing him on stage. We think about finding the guy Parmention fought that resulted in his exile, Kestor dissociates but Xanthos remembers it to be Silanos. Kestor sees the room turn dark, his breathing is louder and echoing, he hears something scraping against wood coming closer coming down the hall. He’s paralyzed with fear, the sound becomes many talons scraping against the floor. He’s in the tomb of Acheric and he’s hearing the guards challenging Pairairi before he killed them. He freaks out and we decide to set up watches in case he does show up.
In the morning, Neo receives a sending: “Neo, this is King Bion. I believe Dorien has located the potion, please inform our allies post-haste. I will do the same.” Followed by: “Low on magic, inform the conclave. We will have to meet to discuss.” Neo goes to tell Kestor, who is on watch, but when he walks through the cottage he notices something is weird and wrong with the hallway he’s walking down. He casts detect magic, but there’s none. He finds Kestor asleep in a chair and wakes him up, but then Keir starts playing him so uh oh. Neo notices something is wrong and asks Kestor to name his father, it’s revealed that this was all an illusion. “Kestor” is Parmenion, Neo is in a dream controlled by Parmenion trying to get information on the ember. It would all be better if Parmenion was able to deal with all of this, but he sees Neo is not going to reveal anything so he turns the dream to an inferno.
Luckily Neo manages to resist and doesn’t lose his night’s sleep, he’s two for two on making saves against that guy. Neo’s freaked out about it, so we comfort him and let Bion know that Parmenion is poking around. We head to the acropolis to speak with Brigos first. They won’t let Kovu in because he has fangs (Xanthos takes offense) and they want him muzzled, he waits outside and Ionessa vows to get the captain who gave the order fired, her name is Phylia. We meet Brigos, the Lion of Rheo. We show him the seal and deliver the messages that Eurydia has no intention of invading Rheo or fighting them unless Rheo attacks first. She would like there to be peace. Second, she has made peace with Kairemos and so has been redeemed for the blasphemy that was such a trigger.
He seems kinda sus of this whole deal, and he doesn’t trust Kestor because he’s the Noonshadow. He will try to verify our account. We ask him about his deal with Parmenion, he doesn’t consider himself to have been played. He wanted Parmenion’s ships and was willing to give him citizenship in exchange. He believes that Parmenion will not sway the populace with money and honeyed words, but he comes off as kind of naive about it. Oh well, maybe the Basileus will be more reasonable. Also Brigos doesn’t want to give us the seal of the Vasily back because he wants to verify its authenticity. Xanthos says he wants to keep his eyes on the seal to make sure it isn’t being used for nefarious purposes, but he holds onto it anyway.
Next, we relay the news to Basileus Prytanis. She seems more reasonable and is especially interested in the news of Eurydia making peace with Kairemos. We ask her about Parmenion, it was at this moment that I realized how to beat Parmenion. She doesn’t know a lot about him, but hopes any of his darkness can be brought to light in public. She tells us where to find Nicanda, and where to find Silanos, he’s in prison for public intoxication. We head out and link back up with Kovu. Ionessa and Xanthos hang out outside the acropolis in case someone sketchy tries to sneak in and do something with the seal while Kestor and Neo head over to the prison to talk to Silanos.
When we get there, we find he’s been transferred due to additional assault charges while in prison. Fishy as heck. He’s been transferred to the Panopticon. Silanos and another prisoner were involved in assaulting a third prisoner, both were transferred. The second prisoner was imprisoned for pickpocketing and arrived before Silanos, the third prisoner was healed and released. The Panopticon is a tall, windowless tower owned by the philosopher Phosidaeus. He takes coin in exchange for housing dangerous criminals, especially because the tower is designed to contain magical prisoners. People are usually put in there for life, and those who do leave have usually been driven mad.
We link back up and pass on the news, and try to come up with a few strategies for how we might gather more information to try to get Silanos out of there. While we’re waiting, we see Eustathius coming along to the acropolis, but Ionessa sees through his illusion under which is Speaker, one of the kenku we met back in Istodraka. We decide to wait until he gets right up to the guards and dispel the illusion, at which point Speaker is taken into custody while shouting, “they’ve got him and they’ve got me too!” Security increases at the acropolis, it’s unlikely Parmenion can try that again, so we follow the prison escort to make sure nobody springs or assassinates Speaker. They’re taken to the temple of Kaiotim, but because they’re a magic user they will send them to the Panopticon.
They send for someone to transport the prisoner, and we decide to intercept that person and disguise as them to rescue Speaker as we’re pretty sure they’re dead the second they leave the temple. Maybe we can gather some records while we’re in there? We follow the rider sending the message and stay out of sight, and from the Panopticon comes a prison cart driven by horses with two people at the front. Ionessa convinces a cow to block the road to bring the cart to a stop, Kestor and Neo pose as farmers and Kestor looks like an abusive father to lure the cleric of Kaiotim over to settle the matter. While he’s doing that, the others KO the philosopher and the guard on the cart with the help of the silence spell. Kestor replaces the philosopher and creates an illusion of the guard and takes the cart back to the prison.
When he gets there, he sees another philosopher who is on security, but he is allowed into the prison to see Speaker and take him back out. We get away scott free! What a heist! We ditch the prison cart, stash the philosopher’s keys and identification seal, and take Speaker back to our home. He tells us that when Jangles was arrested for pickpocketing, Parmenion used him to stage the fight at the jail to get Silanos imprisoned in the Panopticon. An agent of Parmenion, a voice we don’t recognize, then coerced Speaker into impersonating Eustathius for his scheme. “I can see to it that your friend is released from their unjust custody, but there is something you’re going to have to do for me first.”
We follow an invisible Speaker to his gang’s hideout to link up with Hero and Chanting. Chanting tells us that things had been going pretty well for them here until the recent troubles, the assault at the prison seems very out of character for Jangles. They suspect that the Parmenion agent they met was disguised, probably magically. They were thinking of leaving anyway because there is a dark and unknowable presence lurking here. Kestor asks if it’s Pairairi and they all shush him, speaking his name might summon him. He is a creature of nightmares, and serves Mourionos. Mourionos was the god of dreams and prophecy, he lived in the future and the past and gave his wisdom through dreams.
Mourionos is dead, but he lived in the future too. He would have known of his own death, he would have made preparations, he might have made the kenku for this reason. Pairairi has an intense desire to search for things Mourionos wants or needs, he is searching for the ember to bring Mourionos back. He’s the child of Kairemos, which means he’s from the previous cycle. DID MOURIONOS HELP KAIREMOS SURVIVE THE PREVIOUS CYCLE!? Then he made the Kenku so they could search for something to bring him back to life when he was killed by Kymenon and company, which he foresaw. The kenku lost their way over time, but Pairairi is the only one left who is old enough to still have that drive within him, and he’s seeking the ember at any cost, having been twisted by corruption and zealotry. He can travel through dream and nightmare, but he can manifest physically as well. His blade is as dangerous in your mind as it is in reality, and he cannot be killed, he is an ancient thing.
His blade is a nightmare made manifest, he’s always had it, maybe it’s not Zenodoria’s… maybe she got hers from him. The blade was drawn from the very first nightmare. Kestor shows Chanting his wound and tells her about his vision where he is killed by Pairairi, and she really wants to know what the thing is that Pairairi and Mourinos want. That would be really dangerous for us to tell her though, there’s a lot of people who want it and it would put them all in danger. We debate what we should do here, we seem to agree that it would be best if we waited until we had dealt with Parmenion and perhaps we would need them to make a deal with Ektikori to preserve the secret.
If Kestor’s vision is real and Pairairi got his hands on the ember, then he still has it. There’s no way he got his hands on it and was separated from it later. But he ain’t got it so what the heck? Maybe he didn’t get his hands on it? Maybe there’s more than one ember? Maybe he COULDN’T get his hands on it!? Because he’s a nightmare guy!? Also, Pairairi is probably going to target us and Parmenion, anyone who seeks his prize. One thing’s for sure, we need to free Jangles next.
The end.

Notes

(￣ρ￣)..zzZZ
Alternate title: Plane

Report Date

06 Nov 2023