Chapter 1, Session 2: Sleep well, Jolly

General Summary

Please, you have to help me Mr Spook.

• Mallus implores Fionn for help after collapsing in the mountain mines.

The party, recovered from the shock of watching Fionn stab Grand-Daughter Tiana through the chest with his bladed staff, jumped to action and began to intensely battle the strange halfling Tiana and her Quori Minor Hunter. In what quickly began to turn into a brutal and dangerous fight, Auriel and Esmerae were badly affected by the Quori Hunters 'Howl of Reflection' a strange howl that transported them to personal dreams; leading Auriel to a vision of a dinner table with two other young dragonborn and a woman's voice from another room announcing 'just wait my loves, it is almost ready... I'll look after you all.' and leading Esmerae to a vision of a cliffside watching the sea with a man who asked her if she would like to run away with him. Though the party soon showed their skills, with Hermione and Peregrine showing their aptitude for magic, with Peregrine using Bane to reduce the effectiveness of Tiana and Hermione attempting to strike the enemy with chromatic orb by seemingly building grenades in the moment and filling them with magic before launching them at the enemy. Meanwhile, Esmerae further showed her proclivity for blood magic by using a blood spear to damage the quori hunter, Auriel healed and supported their allies consistently and Fionn and Mallus showed themselves to be capable martial fighters, with Fionn assaulting Tiana with his spear and Mallus entering a strange possession like transformation with inky black filling his veins and leaking from his eyes.
Eventually, thanks to the groups efforts in attacking Tiana and supporting one another in battle, Mallus soon landed the final blow on Tiana, tearing through her body with his axe and bisecting her horizontally. As the dream dispersed, Auriel used a Healing Word to bring Esmerae back to consciousness and the group found themselves now awake in a space they didn't recognise, a dank and rotted cabin with stone walls and broken furtniture scattered across. The party met together in the darkness and immediately checked their Dream Trinkets, afraid of another trick by the Quori, however, upon finding they were now in the waking world the party were soon assaulted by the Quori Hunter that emerged from the corner to attack the party and started by goring Auriel and knocking her unconscious before, in a rage, Esmerae struck the Hunter with a wrathful smite badly damaging the creature and making it frightened of Esmerae, forcing it to whisper an apology for assaulting Auriel.
Moments later, Fionn drew his silver chain and wrapped it around the Hunter to restrain and grapple it as the party proceeded to PUMMEL IT, with a revived Auriel (thanks to Peregrine using healing word and their last spell slot), Esmerae and Fionn finishing the creature off.
In the quiet afterwards, the party investigated the cabin and found several weapons that they chose to ignore and a sealed scroll and rough piece of parchment that Fionn packed into his bag. However, soon enough, the party's curiousity was drawn to the hole in the centre of the cabin, nervous about this space, Hermione eventually convinced Jolly to dive below the hole and search for whatever is down there in the hope of finding more information. Jolly went below using his darkvision and found a pair of glowing orbs that they identified to be a pair of eyes. Soon enough, it was revealed to be Tiana, hiding beneath the floorboards. In a moment of panic, Hermione sent Jolly towards Tiana to be consumed in the hope of distracting her for some vital moments as, after Fionn revealed that The Unwaking Coven can't be killed and instead will simply regenerate, the party dashed out of the cabin and; after realising they were in the dark tunnels inside of a mountain, they ran as fast as they could in a straight line in the hope of escaping Tiana. This led the party through multiple obstacles, including a rickety plank that they had to cross before Tiana caught up and a wall that almost knocked Auriel out.
Eventually, Hermione identified that the stone qualities were different, with one direction having the stone shown to be pickaxed and mined and the other side showing the stone is naturally formed, with this knowledge, the party followed the mined route in the hope of escaping the tunnels and finding a town or group to help them.
After searching for a time, the party stopped to rest and found that Mallus had fallen unconscious after complaining of hearing water in the tunnels:
Mallus began his nightmare as he found himself swimming towards the mists of Thornden that intrigued him when he was younger, as he reached to touch the mists, he felt a black tentacle wrap around his ankle and drag him away. Becoming panicked and fighting hard, Mallus fought against the tentacles and eventually, in his panic, found himself under the water and drowning fast. As he looked up, he saw the nightmarish creature above, massive, inky and filling the water, as the creature stared at him with wide blue eyes it dashed in his direction and his world went dark.
In a panic, the party checked over Mallus and Peregrine, in her panic, checked for his heartbeat on the wrong side of his chest before Auriel took over and found that he was alive with his usual slow heartbeat and cold exterior, Mallus woke up soon after and declared that Fionn needed to help him with urgency. 
With Auriel now carrying Mallus so that he could rest, the party began to suffer with exhaustion after their fitful dream, constant fighting and then the long run they were forced to do to escape from Tiana. As a result, the party decided to stop for a moment and read the letter Fionn had recovered from Tiana's cabin, finding that it was from an individual with a strange swirling sign off at the foot of it. The letter said the following:

Grand-daughter, We have heard of you and your machinations, thank the creatures you give prayer to that your goals align with ours. We know of your wailing woman and your desperate attempts at power... all in the vain hope of being taken more seriously. Bloomwilt is a poor choice of town there, the sleeping king has his chosen guarding that town and we have decided that your chances of surviving against their ilk are slim, but not zero. And so we have deigned to give you some advice, should you choose to accept it, that will vastly increase your chances of living. Our first piece of advice is to never ensnare he who tames nightmares. Our second piece of advice is to ensure you burn this letter and map. We do not believe you will follow this advice and so we have a third piece of advice. Emerald Quick-Wick dies, if he does not then you will take his place Tiana. When you reform we assure you there will be a pit waiting for you one way or another. We are eyes, we are watching you as you sleep and as you wake, do not attempt to hide from us, We know.

After reading the letter, the party realised that Emerald Quick-Wick was the ruler of the town of Bloomwilt and they realised the other scroll Fionn claimed was a map with a sketched route out of the ruins going from the cabin to a final point that the party assumed must be a point that miners gather in.
With Auriel taking the lead, the party, after six hours of refinding their routes and then following the tunnels, finally navigated their way to Bloomwilt with many of them suffering further exhaustion points but, soon after, the party found themselves emerging through a sewer grate into the mountain town of Bloomwilt. They arrived in a silent middle ring that was dark and seemingly entirely asleep, the party realised that this was a result of the design of Bloomwilt, a town set into three rings that all wake, work and sleep at different times to reduce the amount of sleepers at any one time in the town... and thus reduce the amount of dreams...
The party decided to ignore the middle ring and instead, after being urged by Peregrine, they decided to move to the outer ring and locate the Cirque Arcadia, a colourful and excitable series of tents and caravans on the outskirts of the town with a few performers out front rehearsing, practicing and hawking to guests and locals. As Peregrine arrives, one of the workers catches her and seems genuinely surprised to see her before, as Peregrine explains they need space to rest for her and the group that saved her, the worker simply replied to Peregrine that 'she has been looking for you'.

Rewards Granted

• A letter from a strange group to Tiana
• A map from the mountain cabin of Tiana to the sewers of Bloomwilt's middle ring.

Missions/Quests Completed

• The party have made their way to Bloomwilt and escaped Tiana's dream.

Character(s) interacted with

• Tiana
• A circus worker

Notes

During this session, Mallus, as a result of his madness, heard the dripping of water and upon failing a wisdom saving throw, went unconscious and began to dream. His dream was as he described to Fionn, the water and ocean followed by a tentacle taking him beneath the water and the dream ending. After that point, Mallus made another wisdom saving throw and added a point to something that was not explained.

Report Date

13 Sep 2022

Primary Location

The Tightened Jaws

Related Characters

• Grand-Daughter Tiana
• Mallus' Nightmare