Session 65 - Flashback

General Summary

When Gorgoroth saw Qix in Sigil, a flood of memories came back to him.
He remembered the “feasts” hosted by githyanki in which he, Digen, Thom and Caesar were tortured under psychic illusions and dreams. He remembered that no matter how much he fought, they were able to break into his memories one after the other. It felt like nothing he could do could stop them. It made him sick to his stomach. He, as well as his friends, could rarely eat a bite after each session. Their bodies wasted away.
He remembered Sangwyr, the formorian upstart who assassinated Cachlain, the Stone-Skinned King. The Usurper King, as Sangwyr became known, was sadistic. Cachlain had tried to remain neutral in the gith war, but Sangwyr allied with them so that they would support his rise to power. In exchange, he allowed their troops free access to his portals and allowed their commanders free access to his prisoners.
Gorgoroth remembered Sovacles, the strange human who first attended Cachlain and later Sangwyr. The man seemed to have a strong influence over both kings. Gorgoroth recalled that Caesar didn’t like the man’s eyes.
Gorgoroth remembered the gladiatorial fights. If they fought well, they were rewarded with more opponents until they were too weak or injured to stand. If they refused to fight, the traps and magic spells in the arena would kill them. He remembered their team losing hope. How many times had Digen wanted to end his own life, trusting he would reincarnate in another life?
He remembered the other prisoners. There was a cyclops, once the Stone-Skinned King’s advisor. Two eladrin ambassadors to the Frostwhite Forest were frequent guests of the githyanki “feasts.” There was a gnome thief, who seemed to be the only one who deserved to be locked up. The gnome warned everyone to stay away from the gloura, for her gifts came with a price…
The gloura. Qix. She was a strange creature. Butterfly—or were they moth?—wings grew from her back. Rams horns sprouted from her head. Her feet were hoofed, also like a goat. The rest of her resembled a drow: black skin, white hair, elven features. Except the eyes… Caesar didn’t like Sovacles eyes, but no one else noticed the human. They were too busy catching glances at the fey creature with spider eyes.
She cried. A lot. She wasn’t tortured, nor did she fight in the arena. But she wept with great empathy at the demise of others. She wanted to help. She wanted to heal them. But she had no magic of her own. She could, however, petition her patron.
The gnome warned them not to trust her. Her patron was a fickle fey, who was as likely to curse you as to help you, he said. He claimed that a gloura once asked his friend, “Can I have your name?” and as quick as he’d shook his head, his name was gone. Missing. Struck from legal documents and forgotten by even his closest family.
Gorgoroth wished he could stop those mind-fucking gith. He wished that the next time they visited his dreams, he could show them a nightmare. Something to stop them. Stop all of them. Stop the whole damn war. But he never spoke a word to the gloura, sure that he and his friends would figure a way out of this mess.
Gorgoroth remembered the day that the Usurper King was assassinated and another took his place. After a series of long, pointless fights, Caeser used his cape to fly into the audience. He stabbed Sangwyr in the knee. The formorian laughed. But his laughs turned to gurgles when another sword tip erupted from his throat, thrust through the back of throne by Kylar Bearcharger, one of the original Heroes of Brindol.
Kylar ordered the fights over, but Sovacles teleported the heroes back to their cell instead of to the king’s audience chamber. An hour or two later the king arrived with his entourage, attended closely by Sovacles. Kylar’s voice had an odd tone and he was consumed with finding Erthok Huntinghawk, another original Hero of Brindol. He seemed to be under the influence of a magical spell. His eyes twinkled green.
The Heroes, wounded from their last battle, couldn’t fight their way past the lone human advisor, whose skin was as hard as dragon scales. Kylar walked out of the room deaf to the yells of his friends.
“Don’t bother,” Sovacles said. “He may have bought a favor or two from the gloura’s patron, but even an archfey is powerless against the might of Tiamat.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are? What did you do to our friend?” Gorgoroth demanded.
“Our ‘liege’ has important matters to attend to, where you have an appointment with our githyanki dignitaries,” Sovacles said. “They have prepared a feast in your honor, though I fear that this may be your last. Before you go, know that it was I who negotiated with the githyanki and started the Scales of War. Know that it was I who trapped the Heroes of Brindol and brought them to their doom. And know that it was I, Virizan, exarch of Tiamat, who will usher in a new era of rulership for dragonkind.”
The memories flashed through Gorgoroth’s mind, lasting only seconds. He refocused his attention on the present, inside the Contra Conclave in the city of Sigil, where they talked to the tiefling Uanna Dezirinda about passage to the Beastlands.
Through a conference room doorway, Gorgoroth met eyes with the gloura, Qix.

Sovacles, AKA Virizan - Exarch of Tiamat

Report Date

19 Nov 2023