Wednesday, January 10, 653 AU, continued

• Valya casts suggestion on one of the creatures, telling it to gather its companions and report to the Scarlet Lord. Unfortunately, it has no effect. Aurelia suggests they return to the dormitories, don the robes of the acolytes they killed, and attempt to pass as new acolytes. Valya approaches one of the creatures, and it growls something in a language they don’t understand. Valya casts comprehend languages, and telepathically tells the creature they are here to see the Scarlet Lord. The creature responds that “Kestevaud is not to be disturbed”. Valya replies that they were sent by Prathus, but the creature just repeats the same thing. Valya tries to pass the creature to explore the eastern hall, and it steps aside to let her pass.
• The murals in the hallway depict faceless humanoids writhing around on the ground, contorted in pain. The hallway turns and ends abruptly at an altar covered in humanoid skulls and strange symbols painted in dried blood. To the left of the altar is a small opening in the wall, barely three feet high. On the wall is a small door, which is locked. Valya tries to interpret the symbols, but most of them are unfamiliar, even with comprehend languages still active. She can make out a few phrases, like “the sky”, “sleepers”, and “blind eyes”, but that’s it.
• Bill sends William to explore the opening, and finds that it terminates in a small room. A humanoid skeleton is curled in the far corner. William drags the skeleton’s backpack back to the party. Inside, they find a potion, 30 gp, and a book. Valya tries to open the small door with a keyring she found in the dormitories, and one of the keys works. Behind the door is a narrow passage, longer than the other, which curves off to the right. Qhask explores the passage, and finds it terminates at another door. He opens it, and finds a small storage room filled with crates and barrels. There’s a normal-sized door leading to another long hallway. A humanoid hooded figure sits in the middle of the hall, rocking back and forth. Qhask returns the way he came.
• Aurelia checks the western hall. The giant pink creature allows her to pass, but it’s clear that the creatures are getting suspicious. Aurelia sees a large irregularly-shaped open area with many halls radiating out in all directions. The walls are decorated with murals of nothics dancing around in obscene revelry. A robed figure, walking through the hall, turns and notices Aurelia. The man is humanoid, but his face is pockmarked with sores, and short tentacles sprout from it. The man demands to know what Aurelia is doing here, and when Aurelia tries to deflect the question, the man attacks. He shouts to the pink creatures that they have uninvited guests.
• The creatures are extremely tough, and their punches seem to batter their psyches as hard as their bodies. Valya’s psychic damage proves useless, as the creatures are not only immune but reflect psychic damage to all surrounding creatures. During the fight, the man blasts the party with psychic energy, strategically including the creatures in his attacks so they reverberate the psychic energy back on the party for extra damage.
• They try escaping back up the stairs, but the man casts arcane gate, using it to cut them off and forcing them to continue fighting. The party win, but they’re almost out of resources at this point.
• In the tentacled man’s robes, they find 320 gp, a small black onyx, a small star ruby, and a book. They quickly flip through the book, and find it’s a ledger of names and dates. It appears to be a list of recruits—Keldax is one of the last names listed. Elmon is not listed, but Prathus is the sixth name on the first page, listing his recruitment date as over three hundred years ago.

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• They also look at the book they found on the corpse in the small room. It’s an adventuring journal. The last date is four years ago, and the final entry is:

It has been two days since the creature forced me into this room. I can still hear it grunting and muttering outside. Will it ever leave and give me a chance to escape? The others are dead, but we’ve learned enough. This is just some sort of nothic arts-and-crafts cult! Gods, will Lord Desmond really pay to learn that?

• Valya uses her incense kit to summon a smoke mephit, casts invisibility on it from a scroll, and asks it to explore the halls. It comes back after fifteen minutes and gives them a rough map of the halls. He points out a library, a long corridor lined with sarcophagi, a man muttering to himself in front of an altar, and a nothic who somehow saw him and stumbled after him while he flew back to Valya. There’s a nothic on the way, then.
• They wait a few minutes for the nothic, but it never shows up, so they follow the smoke mephit back to where it last saw the nothic. However, the mephit is surprised to find a stone wall where there was once a hallway! It doesn’t match the rest of the walls in the monastery, and Aurelia surmises that it must be a wall of stone. It takes ten minutes of concentration before it’s permanent, so there must be someone on the other side still concentrating on the spell. The nothic wasn’t following the mephit to fight the party, but to block their progress.
• Valya uses her cape of the mountebank to teleport with William to the opposite side of the wall. There’s a nothic wearing scarlet robes chanting and muttering. It smiles when it sees Valya and William, and they soon discover why; they’ve just teleported right on top of a symbol spell. It releases a burst of necrotic energy, dealing massive damage and instantly destroying William. Valya begins attacking the nothic, trying to break its concentration. The rest of the party start trying to break down the wall of stone. Instead of fighting, the nothic tries to evade Valya by darting down the maze-like halls. They eventually break the wall and kill the nothic, taking its eye.

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• Out of resources and knowing that someone will notice the carnage soon and come after them, they decide to retreat to the upper level, get Thaldohr (leaving the wolves behind to guard Galsin) and barricade themselves in the dormitory, leaving the smoke mephit to keep watch on the stairs. Aurelia argues that they should leave, since the whole monastery must be prepared for them by now, but they decide to sleep for the night (though they’re not sure what time it actually is).
• During Valya’s watch, one of the wolves scratches at the door to tell the party that they’ve been scouting outside the monastery, and saw the dragon fly by—it may have spotted them.
• During Aurelia’s watch, she fiddles with the compass she found, and discovers it’s a portal compass, which points toward the last planar portal it passed through. It currently points toward the southwest.
• Toward the end of Aurelia’s watch, there’s a sharp knock on the door. Prathus is outside, seeking to parley. He says they’ve killed many servants and made a mess of the monastery, and that they can do this “the easy way or the hard way”, and that he’d personally enjoy the hard way. But he can smell that the party are afflicted by the curse, and that they’ll be on his side eventually. They themselves will serve as willing replacements for those they’ve killed.
• Aurelia asks if the Scarlet Lord is connected to the comet and the dreams, and Prathus confirms, saying that it’s all in service of having the pieces in place for when the time comes. “Those who hear the call will find their way here, like you have. Soon the sleeper shall wake, and all the world shall rejoice in its waking and weep in awe at its endless hunger.” It sounds like he’s quoting something, and reiterates that the party will join the Scarlet Lord sooner or later. He’s sequestered the remaining nothics and anything of importance in the Scarlet Lord’s chamber, and will leave the party to their “tantrum” until their transformation is complete and they join the monastery.
• They debate what to do—Aurelia suggests trying to get aid from Lord Desmond. Valya wonders if someone in Ilek-Vaad will know how to brew the potion if they bring the eyes they have there. While they’re debating, they hear the wolves attack Prathus. They remove the barricade and join the fight, but Prathus is very powerful and just toys with them, making sure not to kill the soon-to-be nothics. He eventually grows bored and teleports away. They return to bed.

Thursday, January 11, 653 AU

• Aurelia sneaks back to Maggie and Ilyana during her watch. Maggie taunts that clerics always want more than their gods can provide, and Maggie is always willing to provide, for a price. Aurelia asks Maggie to help her obtain the nothic eyes. Maggie says if she moves so openly against the Scarlet Lord, she’ll have to leave and go into hiding, so Aurelia will have to offer something very valuable. Aurelia offers a bundle of letters from her pack, saying “these are the last happy memories I have of… someone who is no longer here”. Maggie smiles cruelly and calls it “an exquisite sacrifice”, and says she can teleport the nothics right to the party’s location soon. She sends Ilyana back with Aurelia.
• Aurelia returns to the party and warns them that the nothics are about to arrive. The party are confused—they ask what happened, and Aurelia says it’s not important.
• They wait, and eventually nothics suddenly appear in their midst, extremely confused. The party, prepared, dispatch them quickly and begin removing their eyes. A minute later, however, they all hear an ungodly howling in their minds, and see a vision of a creature sitting on a throne, wearing scarlet robes. Its spindly limbs bend at odd angles, and instead of a head under its hood, there is only blinding red light. It stands, awkwardly. They know the creature wants them to see it, to feel fear, and that it is about to come for them. They throw the remaining nothics into Torba and run for the exit as fast as they can. They spot a blinding red light down the hall as they run.
• The party make it out of the monastery and back into the tunnel where they meet up with the wolves. There’s no sign of the dragon, so they sneak as fast as they can back down out of the mountains and toward the Smoking Mirror. They stop after an hour of walking to cast gentle repose on the nothics and eyes, and discover that the nothics have a scroll and several books in their possession. The scroll is not a spell scroll—it’s some religious document titled The Maw in the Sky VII. It reads:

The sky is not empty. The Wound is there, forever weeping. They chart their false stars, and their blind eyes cannot mark the one worthy star among them. It wanders through silence beyond silence. When the wound yawns wide and devours the Firmament, the Sleeper shall uncoil; the chains of Distance shall break and its whispers will reach the Dreamers. Those who listen shall be remade.

• The other books are quite old and cover an assortment of random topics, but one appears useful: Reflections on Ilek-Vaad by Jothryn of Duskmire.

The city neither welcomes nor forbids; it simply abides. Those who walk through the Veiled Gate soon learn this truth. At its center rises the Ashen Keep, where Lord Desmond holds court. No banners fly there—there is only the pale stone, worn smooth by centuries of night. Few enter, and fewer leave. He rules not by decree but by inevitability. […] Beneath the streets lie the Archive Crypts, where Abigail listens. Whatever the Keep does not record, she does. Whispered secrets, debts unpaid, the names of the dead—these are her dominion. […] The Midvale Market thrives in the half-light—goods are bartered, memories traded, and once in a while something stranger exchanges hands. All pay their tax twice—once in coin to Lord Desmond’s collectors, and once in silence ti Abigail’s scribes. […] At the river’s edge stand the Drowned Walls. The stones sink forever deeper, yet the ferrymen still pass beneath its arches, their boats heavy with passengers. None can say for certain whether they answer to Desmond, Abigail, or to some unknown power older than either. […] Step carefully, and leave no trace you would not wish remembered against you.

• There are a few notes written in the margins:
  • A song under the arches, but no mouths to sing it.
  • A child with Abigail’s sigil chalked into his sleeve… he would not say who gave it to him.
  • Trust not the ferrymen!
• They make it across the Smoking Mirror and back to the river. They follow the river south toward Ilek-Vaad, hoping to get help from Lord Desmond—he seems to want information about the monastery, and they have plenty.
• A few hours later, a boat passes by. The ferryman gives them a weird stare, and they debate whether to ask for help. Ilyana says the ferrymen are creepy but that they’re reliable, and suggests that whoever wrote the notes in the book is paranoid.
• They take the ferry to Ilek-Vaad.

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• Once in Ilek-Vaad, Ilyana suggests an inn called The Phase Spider where they can stay for the rest of the day—she’ll introduce them to Lord Desmond tomorrow.
• The citizens are mostly drow, ghouls, ghasts, a few ghosts, and some elves, humans, and halflings.
• The innkeeper, a ghoul, is very disgusted by the party’s desire for food that isn’t humanoid flesh. Aurelia is horrified that the place is run by a ghoul, but Ilyana says this is normal, and ghouls are better conversationalists than zombies.
• Valya heads out to find a tailor—according to Ilyana, Lord Desmond does not tolerate inelegance. She also explores some armories, but holds off on buying any amor. Qhask, Bill, and Aurelia sit at the bar in the inn. After buying new clothes, Valya joins them.
• Aurelia confides in the rest of the party that she’s worried her visions come from the Scarlet Lord, not Soleil. She’s worried that somethiing horrible will happen to her if she gets near the Scarlet Lord, and suggests they make a deal with Lord Desmond to get out of the Shadowfell as soon as possible—they can save Sanctuary later, when they have more resources. She also admits that she made a deal with Maggie, and realizes that she doesn’t remember what it was that she gave her. Not only does she no longer have the letters, she no longer has the actual memories involved in them.
• When they’re done drinking, they head to their rooms.

Friday, January 12, 653 AU

• Ilyana guides them to the Ashen Keep, where they are led by a vampire spawn to a grand dining hall. Lord Desmond meets them there. He is regal, cold, cruel, and obviously extremely powerful. Lord Desmond dismisses Ilyana from the conversation and requests that the party sit and eat. Lord Desmond casually admits he’s been scrying on them and has gathered that they’re cursed to turn into nothics somehow. He can’t scry on the lower levels of the monastery, but has noticed an increase in activity at the monastery over the past few years and is annoyed he doesn’t know what it’s about. He’s willing to give them safe passage to the material plane in exchange for telling them everything they know.
• As he learns more, Lord Desmond is more interested in the curse than in the monastery. He commands the party to transmit the information to Ilyana so he can use her to infect others, hoping to turn the curse into a weapon against his political enemies. The party are appalled at his ruthlessness.
• Lord Desmond commands a spawn to fetch Ilyana, saying that he had sent her to the monastery to be sacrificed after he drained her spark of magic, but he’s delighted to realize “she has other uses”. He casually remarks that Abigail invented a ritual to absorb the sparks of magic from victims, and that he and Abigail have done this to dozens of victims already. Aurelia tries not to look disgusted.
• Valya asks about Sanctuary, but Lord Desmond says he has no interest in helping them. She asks about the shadow crossing, but Lord Desmond says he will not help them until they transfer their curse to Ilyana. Valya pushes back, and so Lord Desmond demands Valya grovel and beg for forgiveness. Valya continues arguing and offers to help Lord Desmond destroy the monastery, but Lord Desmond says he’d rather learn everything about the curse, take live samples from the monastery, and work with Abigail to modify the curse into something he can use to control his citizens. He calls Valya small-minded and short-sighted, and demands again that she grovel on her knees. “Oh, Valya, I can tell you think I’m a monster, that you’re quivering with rage inside and would like nothing more than to behead me, and so on. But the thing is, Valya, that I am more powerful than you. Much more powerful. I could kill you with a snap of my fingers. I make the rules, I dictate the terms, and you put up with it—if you’re smart. Now, let’s see if you’re smart. Grovel.”
• It takes all of Valya’s strength to swallow her pride and comply, humiliated, rather than suicidally attack a powerful vampire lord. “…As you say, Lord Desmond.”
• Lord Desmond leaves them alone in the room with Ilyana, saying he has important matters to attend to, and that he hopes they’ve finished their task by the time he gets back. He thanks them for “the lovely conversation”, and leaves. They immediately break into an argument over what to do. ❦