Chapter 1, Session 8: What's Wrong With Fionn?
General Summary
I will move on when you are ready for me to move on... until then, I will always be here to believe in you and remind you that you are different...The session opened when Fionn visited Mariah Calcus in The Smiling Rock tavern and began to work with Mariah about her dreams in which the woman described a wolf chasing both her and her wife who nodded along without speaking. Every night the wolf would chase her and her partner before howling to the sky and screaming their names. They each have identical nightmares.
- The figure from Fionn's dream explains their limited understanding of Fionn's dreams.
Fionn, upon interviewing them further, deduced that secrets were being kept and eventually learned that Mariah and her partner were both changelings who had been hired to play the part of Nashien Calcus' sister in order to help him create his identity as a doting family man and better ingratiate himself to the people of Bloomwilt, in return they are paid handsomely and are able to hide themselves from The Wheel and, specifically, Niles Five Eyes as they were his former concubines... Mariah also stated that her wife lost their tongue due to speaking out against Niles; something he sought to punish in an eye-for-an-eye manner.
With this information, Fionn was better able to support the pair of them as it became clear that the pursuit was a nightmare of their anxieties in working with Nashien and their desperation to escape Niles. Fionn advised them to speak to Nashien about this and he also recommended that the moment they realise they are in a nightmare that they kill themselves to end the dream as quickly as possible. Upon the pair of them profusely thanking Fionn he revealed he would check in on them the next morning and in a few days time due to him needing to leave Bloomwilt to run some errands and with that he spent the night in Nashien's tavern.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party took a long rest in the home of Da'Shaw Zalnyx and all of them enjoyed a peaceful and dreamless night with the exception of Hermione who had a short dream of a vaguely familiar figure with a manic look toting several pistols.
The next morning arrived and the party prepared themselves for the trip by moving downstairs for breakfast. Peregrine tried to take initiative and cook breakfast only for the estate staff to become extremely panicked and nervous as they revealed they refused to cook out of a fear of disappointing Da'Shaw Zalnyx and so the party waited for Zalnyx and Fionn to arrive where they had a breakfast together and Zalnyx brought them outside to receive lesson on how to use Sand Speeders in order to more effectively travel during this excursion.
Esmerae proved herself to be a very capable caster and driver as she successfully got the Sand Speeder functioning on her first attempt and the party found themselves travelling quickly towards the The Slumbering Incisors mountaintops where, according to Zalnyx, was the outpost he needed to reach. As the party continued travelling however, Auriel quizzed Zalnyx on dragonborn culture, learning that the Da'Shaw clan value strength and believe magic to be a crutch for the weak; a large reason that Da'Shaw Calinax and then Da'Shaw Zalnyx left them behind. The clan are a marauder group and barbarian wanderers who never stay in Kaechaek baronies long but, notably, were one of the bandit groups to lay claim to The Drake until Solaire Ardaith returned to put them to the sword. This made Auriel far more confident that she came from that clan but was unsure of who was her specific father (not helped by Zalnyx explaining that young dragonborn were raised communally; meaning that it was likely Auriel could have been mixed up with several different children).
During this conversation, the party also checked Peregrine over once more and Hermione identified the hand mark on Peregrine's face; leading her (in tandem with Auriel's medicine check) to conclude that Peregrine's mark was a modified and VERY powerful Symbol spell that had the 'sleep' effect and was, in fact, named [The Destined Dream]... this brought the party to a panic about the nature of Peregrine's symbol and led them to make a plan to possibly cut open Peregrine's skull to check if their brain was unique as well...
At this moment, the party were alerted to a new danger on their travels as they watched as a flurry of firebolts were pitched towards them and they looked back to see a group of raging fire elementals rushing towards them at speed. Leading to a CHASE ENCOUNTER!!!
Esmerae started driving at speed, desperate to escape the approaching elementals as the rest of the party did their best to support the movement by destroying fallen trees and other obstacles in their path. The travelling group saw a wide river in the distance of the mountain forest that represented safety for them and so they careened towards it as fast as their sandspeeder would carry them.
During this time, Fionn sent out his Spook's Senses and realised the cause of the realisation was coming from within himself and so he went into a state of shock, desperately checking his Dream Trinkets to ensure he was still in reality before stuffing Mallus into his bag of holding to keep the boy safe.
Getting closer and closer to the river, the party began to panic as to how their sandspeeder will cross, in a desperate bid to drop weight from the sandspeeder, Hermione created a floating disk and forced the whole party (barring herself, Auriel and Esmerae) to go onto the disk in order to drop weight from the speeder.
Rapidly approaching the wide spanning river, Esmerae, Auriel and Hermione enacted their plan together as the Sandspeeder hit a nearby bank and lifted, Hermione used her draconic breath weapon to act as a forceful thruster and give more lift to the speeder, at this exact moment Esmerae relinquished control of the sandspeeder and Auriel spent a spell slot to establish control over it and, succeeding in asserting her will over the speeder, Auriel used her power to create a set of gliders on the side of speeder; allowing it to glide to the other side of the river and letting the party escape from the attacking elementals.
Safe from danger, the party continued travelling and soon came to a rest for the night, knowing they had made good time and would arrive at Zalnyx's destination the next morning. During the night, Auriel fell asleep on her watch and was immediately punished by Erstwhile's Warden for her inability to protect her allies. During this time Peregrine activated her newest sorcerer ability and stared into her necklace to see it now contained the phrase ' “The sun, the sun oh the lyars, the lyars in ink” which left her concerned and confused due to the similarity the necklace phrase shared with their recurring dreams and nightmares. As watches continued, Fionn and Peregrine both dreamed with Peregrine having her usual traumatic nightmare.
Fionn, however, found himself in a familiar space; the home that was once his. He spoke to the woman in his dreams and desperately sought her help as he felt out of his depth, panicked and under pressure from all sides... not helped by the increasingly concerning things happening around him and his fears for the safety of his fellow party members. The woman reassured Fionn that, despite everything else, he remained a good person and that she believed in him... though she also advised him to remember that he was different and to make use of that which once made him a feared member of The Spooks but also what made her love him more than anyone else.
Report Date
07 Mar 2023
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