OttL Session 7: Full Moon in Polaris Part 1

General Summary

The session begins as 91 magical spiders are swarming towards Barry the Airship's engine. There is considerable chaos on board. Ignacio Icarsus first attempts to solve this by pumping all of his spell slots into his bat familiar to serve as a distraction, but he botches the subsequent arcana roll and winds up popping said bat like a balloon instead. Thaiva Phenol enters the engine room and starts manually squashing spiders with a belaying pin.
Dreamonskii removes his mask and hands it to Natsu, before stepping into the hallway and unleashing a draconic breath weapon, shooting lightning out his nose and frying over 60 of the spiders in one go. Ignacio Icarsus is caught in the blast and is significantly injured. Ignacio Icarsus then remembers he has a spell that can deal damage to everything he sees, and finishes off the remainder.
One surviving spider, which is held by Natsu, is allowed to live. She dubs it Button. The spider is scared but speaks in an adorable voice and makes no effort to resist captivity.
After some debate, the party decides Memento Vitae should be tied to the mast for his actions. Dreamonskii volunteers to perform said tying, which he does in a surprisingly respectful manner which he makes no move to sexualize in any way.
Thaiva Phenol, who saw a striking resemblance between Dreamonskii and Ectraph Acdri, the king of Montia, gets him alone and asks about this in private. Dreamonskii hesitates for a moment and then says he was actually Ectraph Acdri's bastard son and was subsequently exiled from the country. He had fled on the Sedna, which is where he ultimately met Hobbs.
After this conversation, Dreamonskii goes back on deck to have a private talk with Memento Vitae. After checking to make sure the ropes arent too tight, he explains to Memento Vitae that the gods try to make themselves known when prompted because faith is their primary source of power. He also decries Lolth herself, saying that she eats her own followers. The nine hells and Gehenna have been at war for as long as anyone can remember, and at least according to Dreamonskii this is largely because the people in Gehenna are a bunch of assholes. He compares Lolth to a cornered animal.
In the morning, Thaiva Phenol unties Memento Vitae. As this is happening, Ignacio Icarsus wakes up in his room to find Dreamonskii hanging upside down from his ceiling.

Hey man. How's it Hangin'?

Still perched to the ceiling, Dreamonskii explains that he had an imp do some research into his situation. He had assumed that the fact his soul was bound to such a powerful device meant he was the slave of some powerful being, but none of the ones that he would have assumed capable of such feats would claim ownership of him, so now he is precisely as confused as Ignacio Icarsus himself is. They then proceed to talk business; Ignacio Icarsus offers to sell his soul, the entire thing, in order to assist Hobbs in the restoration of his memories. Dreamonskii is more than willing to make this arrangement, but he takes the time to explain he "can't offer the kind of security he normally likes to", because it is still uncertain why Hobbs lost his memories in the first place and he therefore cannot promise they can be recovered. Ignacio Icarsus has complications on his side also; his triangle anchors his soul to his body, preventing him from ever truly dying. Dreamonskii tentatively agrees to the deal, but he is going to have to start on some paperwork in order to get a former decision from his superiors, possibly going all the way up the chain to Penguin himself. Penguin himself is evil but his followers sometimes do genuine good in the world, and this is the sort of capacity in which Ignacio Icarsus would like to serve. Dreamonskii also swears to keep this arrangement a secret between the two of them.
As everyone wakes up, Ignacio Icarsus casts arcane lock to keep Memento Vitae locked out of his room. Izar comes out and puts a stop to this, expressing strong disapproval about the fact he was not consulted before a member of his crew was tied to the mast. Debate continues for a while, and Izar makes Memento Vitae promise not to "invoke the dark gods" while on the airship ever again. Their "disciplinary hearing" thus concluded, the party finally debarks and enters the city of Polaris.
The sun is just setting, and a full moon is already visible in the sky. The streets are completely empty, not even a visible guard presence, but there is smoke rising up from a building a couple blocks away. The party comes to investigate, and a guard explains that the resident had turned into an alligator, knocking over one of their own candles in the process. Sure enough, they are even shown the corpse of an alligator that has had a couple of limbs chopped off. After some discussion Bosgosho diagnoses the alligator with dead. The guard, after he gets the sarcastic clapping out of the way, warns the party to be careful while they are in town. They are urged to be as calm as possible and not to upset the residents. The church of Olidammara in particular, which is where they have come to visit, is being used as a shelter for Moon Plague patients.
The party then proceeds into the church. Two of the sin rooms (lust and wroth) are closed off due to moon plague. One of the virtue rooms, charity, is marked staff only. Dreamonskii and Hobbs go into this room and are not seen again for the remainder of the session. There are not one but two bars in operation, one of which has Lenora, the medusa the party fought in Session 4: Getting Stoned, drinking heavily. The center of the room has a large magic circle enchanted with calm emotions, which contains many stressed-looking residents. On the stage itself, Kiri can be seen performing the traditional Kenku song Mado Kara Mieru. Music is provided by a choir of Kenku flanking either side of the stage. This choir does not have any actual instruments; instead using their mimicry skills to imitate the sound of instruments. Against the back wall of this stage, two Theriantopes can be seen chained to the wall. These are Amadeus, the werewolf, and Memento Ipsum, the wererat. Both are in hybrid forms but have clearly gone to great efforts to look as civilized as possible.
The party approaches the stage, allowing Kiri to finish her song (now "the parting glass"). Ignacio Icarsus goes around the room comforting the patients, even offering a hug to one of the orcs. Once Kiri finishes her song she goes back against the wall and talks to Memento Ipsum in hushed tones. Ipsum is clearly nervous, but Kiri eventually plants a hand on her back and playfully shoves her forward. Ipsum sings several songs, but the first of these is "Wanderer's Lullaby", a beautiful piece about self-worth that renders the entire party silent for the duration.
Kiri, seeing that Memento Ipsum clearly has things under control, gets down from the stage to talk with the party. Natsu asks how she arrived so quickly, and Kiri shows off a small silver amulet that shows a diagram of the planes. She says it was a gift from "an old friend", and enabled her to travel quickly. She allows Ignacio Icarsus to take a look, but he cannot identify the item in question. Kiri sees the party is clearly in distress, and explains that both Amadeus and Memento Ipsum have volunteered to be chained up on stage in this fashion.
While waiting for those two to be available to talk, the party explores the church. Memento Vitae and Bosgosho go to the bar and drink with Lenora. Lenora explains that she is here because her children are missing. They all live together in Polaris, but she had sent her children to Kilead in hopes that they would be safer there. Apparently sometime around their encounter in Session 4: Getting Stoned, her children transformed into beasts (a tiger and a ) and subsequently disappeared from Kilead. She suspects they went to Moonbrook and is waiting for a chance to talk to Amadeus to see if he could help her find her children.
Bosgosho steps away from this, instead going into the Greed room (which is a casino) with Natsu. While casing tables Natsu notices that there is a woman at one of the tables wearing a mask of Olidammara that appears to be eyeing her. They choose that specific table to play at, and Natsu herself sits next to the mysterious woman. The woman plays with remarkable confidence, and is doing so with absolute perfection. Natsu tries to flirt with the stranger, but fails miserably and leaves the table out of embarrassment. After some failed attempts at cheating, the two head back into the main room. Natsu notices shortly after that her coin purse (with over 400 gold in it) is now missing. She spins around to see the stranger leaning against the wall and playfully swinging the purse back and forth.
The stranger returns the money immediately when confronted, and says "I thought I taught you to be more careful than that!" She then moves her mask aside for a moment, revealing a red-furred kitsune face in full fox form. Natsu recognizes this woman as Tsukiko, her own mother. She yells at her mom for abandoning her during childhood and then storms away into the magic circle.
Thaiva Phenol, meanwhile, approaches Lenora and has much the same conversation that Memento Vitae and Bosgosho did. She immediately offers the medusa assistance, and then climbs up onto the stage to directly ask Amadeus about the situation. He agrees to this, and so Kiri undoes the chains and escorts Amadeus, Memento Ipsum, Thaiva Phenol, Memento Vitae, and Lenora into a back room to talk.
Natsu, having calmed down somewhat, returns to Tsukiko and apologizes for her reaction. Her mother is forgiving, and the two hug as Natsu cries on her shoulder for a few moments. Tsukiko, who has been missing for 50 years, says she is now a moon plague patient. She also says she had to leave in order to protect Natsu, and that she is supposed to be dead. She tells Natsu not to reveal that she is still alive, but refuses to explain why. She instead tells Natsu to "look into the gift she gave her".
The others, meanwhile, insist upon taking Lenora to Moonbrook to look for her children. Memento Ipsum and Amadeus are hesitant, and urge the party to wait a day or two for the moon to wane before they go. Amadeus in particular says that he cannot promise that the children are there, or that they would be allowed to leave even if they are. He warns that it would be an unpleasant visit, as the children would be bound in chains and locked in cages. Thaiva Phenol remains insistent, however, and they agree to give the party an escort.
Amadeus also explains that Memento Ipsum had personally approached Respect, the king of Esma, and yelled at him for roughly three hours. She talked the king into some drastic changes, including freeing Amadeus and enlisting their aid in educating the populace how to manage Moon Plague symptoms. Since stopping the disease appears to be a lost cause, they are instead trying to demonstrate, through practical demonstration, that it is possible to still lead functional lives despite the curse. Memento Ipsum herself was kicked out of Ollie's Jolly Dolly, the bard college she was attending, but continues to receive training from her boyfriend Amadeus.
Natsu, having finished her conversation with her mother, finds a quiet corner of the main room and stares into her orb. At first nothing happens, but eventually her mind wanders to her father and she has a vision. She sees her dead father, Kei, standing serenely at the bank of a massive, raging river that she does not recognize in woods that look nothing like her home. The session concludes.

Report Date

19 Jun 2020