S1 E47: Prison Break
General Summary
In which the gang rescues an Aasimar and plots a big plan.
- The two groups reconnect inside the sanctum after the split-party battle in the yard and in the temple, and discover a magically unobtrusive servant - a ratlike man, or manlike rat, named Albigen who was evidently a steward of the Pyromancers of Aot Solorex. He makes it clear that his allegiance is to delivering the best service he can to his masters and guests, and since the masters are gone, he's delighted to find the gang something to eat and a safe place to take a rest.
- On their rest they discover that the beam from their temple does indeed cross the path of the moon, and they find further that destroying the moon was evidently something Aot Solorex had wanted to do - to turn the moon into a ring around the planet, so it would not obscure the sun during its eclipses. While this is may merely be pious devotion to the sun go, it also seems like a horrific crime against the world should it be allowed. Nevertheless the beam cuts across the face of Tergaith's lavender moon in just a few minutes, leaving a thin but visible black line in an arcing path rather than a straight line, suggesting the complex pathways and enormous speed of heavenly bodies in motion.
- Aot Solorex has left the temple to acquire Borem's heart, finding the cult contrary to his belief in the supremacy of the sun, but moreover, selfishly, as he too has heard the rumors that the heart of Borem can elevate one to true godhood; but Quindarin had explained a few other things as well that Aot perhaps does not know - controlling the heart gives one control over Borem, and evidently this is what the cult is doing with it in the first place - the reason Borem doesn't keep his heart in his own body like a normal being. And destroying it would destroy the threat - but how pure of heart one would need to be to decide neither to control a godlike being, nor become a god one's self, but simply destroy the heart and presumably return the sapient lake of boiling mud to being simply water mixed with soil in a hot spring somewhere on the elemental plane of mud.
- The map the gang procured is clearly not a normal, simple map of landmarks in relative position, but instead a portal map of 4 ways to get into the Temple of Borem: via a portal in the haunted wood, via the swamps near the Keep on the Borderlands, and two other places not readily identifiable: the "DX of A", where DX is often an abbreviation of 'District', which is a term used for the different parts of the Capitol city of the realm; and an unlabeled tower of obvious connection to the Empire of Silk and Spice, though not specific enough to immediately narrow down which of the thousand such towers in that land are the correct one. Regardless, the Haunted Wood is a four hour trek to the north, and should that go badly, the Lizard Folk and their swamp are also well known to the Scale Squad.
- They decide to clear the prisons, and find a creepy Kenku who could have gotten away any time, as well as an Aasimar woman sporting spectral wings named Alura Firebrand, whose interests obviously align with theirs. They take their leave of Albigen after the fight with the prison guards, and return to Ettinston to resupply before setting out on the road to reach the Haunted Wood.
Missions/Quests Completed
- Tamping the Fires of Aot
- Moonburn
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