Sessions 36 & 37: Music to my Ears; Playing God
General Summary
We start the session out with yet another party member running off on their own when it’s time to leave, but this time it’s me! Feeling guilty that the holy diamond is in my possession again, I tell everyone I need to go clear my head and then disguise myself as the locals and make my way for the shrine. Right now, repairs are still going on and before I can put the diamond back, another bird pulls me aside to tell me stuff to do. Here’s the problem though…I don’t understand their language. But luckily with some good ass bluffing, I manage to convince him that I’m deaf.
With the diamond put back, I think I can finally leave with my friends, but get roped into helping with the repairs. Figuring this must be karmic community service, I accept my fate and began working while my friends are urging me to move along. Once I work off the weight of my sins, I make my way back the group so we can finally leave. With our next shrine being a couple of days away, Elathera conjures up a doorway to a fancy, magic manor on the ethereal plane. Being here sucks though since there’s no cougars to tame, So Virhea kindly reminds me that I could tame that man of mine. I don’t have a clever retort for that until Industria brings up that her sister would technically be considered a cougar.
So yet another party Roast Fest begins as we all drag Virhea for being old, but she fires back by coming at my boyfriend who is a good century older than me and calls him a cradle robber. I do not appreciate this injustice against Rikius and get mad so she says it sounds like I need the baby harness now. Uproarious laughter…except from me and I test my luck by calling her a grandma again, get put in a headlock, but luckily a jolt cantrip frees me. After some more joy and fun with friends, we all part for the evening to get some rest and come morning, we continue on our journey to the dreamstone mines which hold a shrine to Cato.
Once we reach the path to this cave, the surrounding forests look like a bunch of giant creatures went ham. These boys went absolutely bonkers, bro. The rest of the party holds back in the forest while me and Virhea break off to the left and right to scout the area out. Virhea comes across two giants making casual conversation and I find a town the giants have made. We regroup and go to visit the two conversationalists and find out that their “god” told them pilgrims of Caelsimil aren’t welcome here, thus they’ve been killing any travelers coming this way. There’s no use trying to talk to them civilly as these big boys are also Prime Rowdy Boys, so we dispatch them quickly and head into the cave.
We follow the sounds of beautiful singing that sounds like some church’s choir got embedded in the walls of the cavern and eventually come upon the shrine. There’s musical instruments all over, left as offerings to Cato, so some of the party leaves their own offerings. I leave one of my sister’s gold pieces, Industria leaves the banner of her order and a golden chalice, and Elathera conjures up a fancy piano because of course she does. Meanwhile, Lucky and Virhea enjoy a dance to the sounds of the heavenly choir and I go scout the other path in the cave. I find a skeleton with a note and find out the guy’s name is Gilligan. The note has directions and now I’m curious as to how he died, so I tell Industria who casts speak with dead and we learn that Gilligan died fifty-seven years ago because he got lost, tripped, and broke his ankle and couldn’t find his way out.
He wants to be returned to his mother, Marianne, in a city called Assisi. With her most likely being dead by now as well, we just tell him consider it done. Virhea collects his bones so that she can bury him alongside his mother if we ever find ourselves over in that neck of the woods. We mine the remaining dreamstone in the cavern as our plan to talk with the other giants is to act as traders. The plan works and soon we’re speaking with the elder, Rico, who tells about his “god”, Filius, and how he sends out halflings to give the giants messages. Such as “kill pilgrims for no reason” and then points us north which is where his little buddies come from. Industria suggests we wait here so we can speak with the halfling, so Elathera crafts us another manor on the go.
With her and Virhea now go for the night getting some stuff done at the local blacksmith, I wake up and wander downstairs in a pursuit of sweets because pregnancy cravings. Yep, that’s right, kids. I’m four months pregnant and on the road getting kicked around by dragons and now possibly another god. Rikius had told Industria about it apparently, so she’s not all that surprised when she magically makes a dessert buffet and I go scarfing the treats down like a dog that hasn’t seen food in an entire year. I get to tell her and Ilyana the name me and Rikius picked out for our baby. Lilac. Ilyana gives me a hug and we all head off for bed. Come morning, Elathera and Virhea are still at the blacksmith who Elathera had to shrink down to her size so he could properly work on Virhea’s gear, and I head out shopping.
Eventually the halfling arrives and we all regroup to question him. Now this little fucker is vague. Vaguer than a mutual passive-aggressively posting about you on their tumblr when they’re dissatisfied with you. Vaguer than a child who has an idea of what they want to eat, but they still insist on testing to see if you’re actually a mind reader and will magically get them what they want. We ask to head back with the messenger to see his god and he says we can’t go just yet as he needs to let Filius know we’re coming. And off he goes and with us all feeling this is suspicious as fuck, me and Virhea go sneaking after him to figure out what the fuck’s going on.
We follow and get to watch him hunt, before he simply collects the deer pelts and leaves the bodies as waste. He heads to the river to clean them off and Virhea goes invisible and sneaks up on him to scold him for that. The poor guy is scared shitless and falls into the river, his pelts and him getting dragged away. Virhea saves him and the pelts before dropping him back on land to give him a stern talking and he assumes she’s a river goddess. So we need a name and Industria telepathically suggests Aquina, but after a miscommunication, it’s Aquafina. After the stern talk, Aquafina tells the halfling to bury the corpses, which he does so without question. Then he heads back to the path and runs like his life depends on it, both of us still following after. We watch him give the pelts to two centaurs standing guard and as we approach, they tell us we can’t get through without paying a toll. They want items of use, so I hand them a red dragon scale.
When they try to get Virhea to pay for herself, I finally whip out the diplomacy skills I surprisingly have and bat my lashes as I tell them it should be enough and they let us through. Beyond this point is a forest that is a centaur community until we eventually follow our boy to a small camp of halflings. We learn his name is Baldwin. Baldwin tells another man about us and the guy disappears for a few hours to ask his “god” if we are the ones he needs. When he comes back out and says “yes”, Baldwin then takes a seat to rest and Virhea pulls out her Aquafina routine once more to ask him why Filius is so interested in us.
Filius is looking to ascend to godhood and after he heard of what we did to Velevana, he assumes that by killing us, he can achieve that. Filius has an entire ambush planned and has three friends working with him. With that information collected, me and Virhea go to beat Baldwin back to our group and tell them what we discovered. After some more time, Baldwin arrives to lead us to the ambush that we’re pretending we know nothing about. We pile into Elathera’s phantom carriage and I say it could be better with sweets. Rikius, like the good boyfriend he is, pulls some sweets out of his bag. As soon as I get them, Elathera reaches over for some and cue hormonal, territorial behavior as I slap her hand away and hiss at her. She’s taken aback and immediately worried that something’s very wrong.
Virhea tells her not to stick her hand near an animal’s food and I flip out on her and call her a jerk. She asks everyone if she’s a jerk and I give them all hard stares and Rikius, being a good boyfriend yet again, says “yes” without even thinking about it. She gets upset and eventually leaves the carriage to escape my hormonal rage. I feel instantly guilty and burst into tears, so Rikius wraps his arm around me to try and comfort me. Elathera asks him telepathically what’s going on and he doesn’t reveal the pregnancy and with her being invisible, I’m feeling guilty even more and crying because she left me too. Rikius pleads her to turn visible and she does and assures me she’s still there and she’s now suspecting I’m back on the ‘nip.
Probably feeling a little self-conscious because of my rage, Virhea asks Industria if she’s cold to everyone and Industria reassures us that when she’s nice, she’s incredibly nice. It does little to ease Virhea’s mind though. After some more heart-to-heart between the sisters, I’m still crying cuz I’m sure Virhea’s never gonna return. Elathera telepathically urges her to come back inside because she needs her and the trick works. Virhea steps in to see me sobbing and stuffing my face with sweets and she starts interrogating me to figure out what the problem here is. I finally blurt out that I’m pregnant and while Elathera is overjoyed, Virhea is pissed. She starts scolding Rikius for allowing me to come on this trip pregnant and he defends himself by saying he assumed the pilgrimage would just be a trip to see some shrines.
But Virhea raises a good point when she says that nothing can ever be that simple with this group. Baldwin is terrified and guilty at this point as he overheard that and doesn’t want to watch a pregnant woman die, so he admits to us all that he’s leading us to an ambush. We concoct our own plan. Baldwin will go inside and say he couldn’t convince us to come along so Filius drops his guard, and we’ll turn the ambush on him instead. Virhea gives me her bow because she absolutely does not want me getting close to such a dangerous group and once we stop for the night, she practices swordfighting with Ilyana so we’re all ready to go.
The next day, we follow Baldwin into Filius’s mountain fort under invisibility and the halfling fucks up his part, so we spring our attack quickly. Filius and his group are formidable enemies and don’t go down so easily, but after some fuck-ups and desperate attempts to turn the tide, we eventually get the upper hand and take them all out. Except for his fighter, who Elathera kindly teleported five miles away and trapped him inside the mountain. We have Filius as our prisoner, so now we have to decide his fate. We decide we’ll drop him off in Velevana’s plane.
When we teleport back there, we see our incubus buddy, Pandomonius, who got stuck there after we defeated the goddess. He’s been renovating the place and bringing in some of his friends and thanks us for the free plane. He’s actually very chill and cool with us and while none of us are fond of buddying up with a demon, he provides a new resource for us that we can use up until things between us and him fall apart. As thanks for what we did for him since he’s now a minor deity of the drow and some other demons, he agrees to be our jailor for any particularly unsavory and dangerous individuals we come across. With that worked out, we bid him farewell and teleport back out of that plane. That’s totally gonna be a problem later.
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Report Date
03 May 2021
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