OttL Session 19: The Troubles of House Klaedris - Part 4

General Summary

The party meets back up in the servants' quarters to discuss theories. The main suspects are Ailmon, Eesa, and Femtid. This last one struck the entire party, including Izar, as the most suspicious, but when they go to question her they discover that she is not visible on the map. Natsu fails a roll to use Vecna's Orb to locate her, hearing only the following:
The party splits up in search of her. There are some light shenanigans along the way, including Natsu and Vannis stopping to talk to Eraan, the steward. He wears a hat, but is quickly eliminated as a suspect by purchasing said hat. Hobbs also searches the castle, but he is looking for marbles. He checks many places, but the search is ultimately fruitless.
The search is concluded when Natsu smells blood coming from the throne room. Memento Vitae, Thaiva Phenol, and Vannis are all close enough to join in when she enters the room. Ignacio Icarsus and Hobbs miss the fight due to player absence and a marble search, respectively.  The marble search recurs several times throughout the remainder of the session, but it is entirely unsuccessful.
Inside, the room is unnaturally dark. The torches appear to have been snuffed out by magic, and Femtid is attacking Kilfras Klaedris with a large black blade composed of magical black flames. Her eyes have also gone completely black. Kilfras Klaedris is already heavily injured as the party en tires the room, and it immediately becomes apparent why; Femtid is making two attacks per round, with advantage, and dealing a massive 6d8+5 damage on each. Before she even gets her first turn of combat, Thaiva Phenol awakens her new Conduit power: as a deathblow is flying towards Kilfras Klaedris, she feels a new sensation and finds she is capable of saving him.

When an ally within 200 feet of you is struck by an attack, you may swap positions with the ally, taking the attack in their stead. This protects your ally from all damage, even if their new position would still be in range of an AoE attack. If the triggering attack would have been a critical, it is reduced to a normal hit instead. You may use this ability a number of times per day equal to your constitution modifier.

During the fight, Thaiva Phenol uses this on two separate occasions to save her brother from being knocked out. On one of these, Thaiva Phenol herself is knocked unconscious in the process. Hinfyire Soriel later joins in the fight, grabbing Femtid by the throat, her hand wreathed in black flames. She eventually knocks Femtid unconscious in this way.
After the party regroups and tends to the wounded, Femtid is taken away to a meeting room. Thaiva Phenol talks with Hinfyire Soriel, and presents her theory that Lolth is the one behind the attacks on House Klaedris, in order to put Hinfyire Soriel in charge, whether she wants it or not. Hinfyire Soriel does not like this idea, but admits it seems very plausible. She further posits that it may have been an attempt to recruit Thaiva Phenol herself; first Lolth would frame Thaiva Phenol for murder, and then lure her into the church by offering a means to exact revenge.
When the party interrogates Femtid, she has almost no memories of who she is. She does not even immediately remember her name. When she realizes what she did, she apologizes profusely. She says she is sure she was in control of her actions, but she felt desperate, like she did not have a choice in what she was doing. Thaiva Phenol theorizes that there was mind control of some sort involved, but Femtid seems hesitant to say that is the case.  She also discusses her visions, albeit in strange, disorganized outbursts.  She seems to have trouble distinguishing real memories from visions.  She remembers a vision with people arguing about angles.  She saw a kitsune with many tails who "wasn't doing anything", even though she could have.  She wanted to ask why not, but she "wasn't really there".  Everything hurts and she doesn't know why.  When told she seemed to be working for Lolth, Femtid checks herself for a holy symbol but does not find one.  When shown Memento Vitae's true face, she panics again.  She says Memento Vitae was there in her vision, but he wasn't doing anything.  She thinks that she was a warlock, before Hinfyire Soriel did her thing, but is not one any longer.  She is convinced she lost something very important.
Izar pulls Thaiva Phenol aside, and explains that the tree Femtid hung herself on was The Hanging Tree, the former Avatar during The Age of Sacrifice.  The problem is, the tree has been destroyed.  The only place you would see anything that looks like it would be in Vigrid, but that doesn't make sense either, because that is where the Einherjar live.  In other words, that would imply Femtid was already dead before hanging herself in the vision.  Izar also says that when he first found Hobbs he was in the same state Femtid is now.  The symptoms are so similar he asks if Hinfyire Soriel might be the one who took Hobbs' memories away.  He also proposes trying to take Femtid with them aboard Barry the Airship.
After the interrogation, Thaiva Phenol talks to Hinfyire Soriel again.  Hinfyire Soriel freely admits to taking Femtid's memories, but says Lolth is the one responsible for revoking her powers.  She says Femtid has been "excommunicated".  Thaiva Phenol does not press her sister for details on this, instead redirecting conversation to the subject of Hobbs.  Hinfyire Soriel claims she had only had her ability to remove memories for a couple of years, but when asked if she recognized Hobbs when the party first came to Xumasha, Hinfyire Soriel refused to answer.  Thaiva Phenol knows her sister well enough to know that this heavily implies she did in fact know Hobbs before.  Thaiva Phenol follows up on this by asking if Hobbs might have been involved with Lolth in some way.  Hinfyire Soriel again refuses to answer, saying that she does not want to end up like Femtid.
After this, Thaiva Phenol asks if they can take Femtid with them.  Femtid is reluctant, because she wanted to keep Femtid as a slave for her vampire husband Ulmec Soriel to feed on, but does eventually agree to permit this.
Meanwhile with Hobbs, the quest for marbles continues.  He is getting drunk with a bunch of guards, but not having much luck getting marbles from them.
Hobbs uses his new monocle on Femtid, to ask which god she serves.  The answer he gets back is "none", which is confusing, so he goes back to Dreamonskii.  He fails to find Dreamonskii at first, on account of him being invisible, but once Dreamonskii reveals himself they talk about the monocle for a bit and confirm it is working by having Hobbs use it to see where Dreamonskii will have his afterlife (The nine hells).  Hobbs then asks if he could learn how to be invisible.  Dreamonskii does not think he could teach it, since its an incubus thing and not a monk thing.  Magic items are an option, but are prohibitively expensive.  Hobbs then has the idea of trying to become an incubus himself in order to gain invisibility, and asks Dreamonskii several questions about that subject.  Hobbs concludes that he needs to find a warlock to serve so he can become an incubus.
Thaiva Phenol also seeks permission from both Kilfras Klaedris and Alibor Klaedris to take Femtid aboard Barry the Airship.  This is challenging, but she is ultimately successful.  She announces the news to Izar, then gathers people up to spend the night in the guest quarters.  Social shenanigans ensue, including a debate between Hobbs and Natsu on whether or not they should steal Dryxora's bed for the night.  This debate is eventually resolved when Thaiva Phenol tells them not to do it, but they do decide to share a guest room for the night.  Memento Vitae, meanwhile, sleeps in a closet hanging from the ceiling.  The next morning he terrifies an unsuspecting servant who opens said closet and wakes him up.
The party then has dinner with House Klaedris.  Considerable shenanigans are had.  Most notably, directly in front of the entirety of House Klaedris if anybody knows a warlock.  Everyone points him to Memento Vitae, and so Hobbs promptly asks Memento Vitae:

Do you know anything about sex then?

Memento Vitae is understandably confused as the room erupts into laughter.  Hobbs explains that he heard that he heard that if he did it "appropriately enough and frequently enough", he could turn invisible, if he knew a warlock.  Memento Vitae makes an arcana check to translate this line of conversation, but fails, so he tells Hobbs he is clearly far too drunk.  The remainder of the meal is spent on shenanigans of various kinds.  Natsu steps out partway through out of embarrassment, but is waylaid by Ailmon, who again expresses admiration and even gets an autograph.  Natsu insists she is not special, but Ailmon persists.  He claims to believe in "untapped potential".  The party is told that their next job is going to be to purchase a large diamond for House Klaedris, suitable for casting true resurrection.

Report Date

12 Sep 2020