Thursday, January 25, 653 AU, continued

• The female dragonborn does not wake up, and appears to be in the late stages of the nothic curse, based on her mumblings and the closeness of her eyes. The Dawnbringers question Vanessa about her employer, and in the process she lets slip that he can possibly intercept sendings.
• Terryn heads back to his inn to retrieve his belongings, saying he’s planning to return to the Shining Citadel to make a report, and that he can accompany the party there when they leave Telmir.
• Valya somehow acquires a blue-ish pseudodragon familiar, Ryleth, who is obsessed with wealth and fashion—the rest of the party find him suspicious.
• They briefly discuss Bernard, leader of the local cultists. Vanessa has only seen him a few times—he’s a nondescript middle-aged human male.
• They debate whether to give the dragonborn one of their nothic eye potions. Vanessa suggests just killing her before she finishes the transformation, and points out that if the cultists were harvesting nothic eyes then some of them must have knowledge of the comet—more than just receiving instructions in dreams.
• Valya tries to read the dragonborn’s mind, learning that her name is Jura and that she was a tailor who began having dreams about the comet. She too visited the dream interpreter Genevra and was captured by the cult.
• Vanessa suggests that her employer take Jura off their hands, because her mutterings might prove useful. She confirms that her employer is Uxovaharis, and that she has been working for Uxovaharis for months—since before the Dawnbringers woke him up three weeks ago—but adds that she was working through his “associates” and that Uxovaharis only recently became more hands-on.
• They agree to let Uxovaharis take Jura, and Vanessa casts sending, which Aurelia notices she has to vocalize slightly. Vanessa says it’s part of a modification that Uxovaharis has made to the spell.
• Uxovaharis teleports to the party to take Jura off their hands. He implies that he was planning on the party waking him up, and that their interests coincide. He flatly states that he will not share with them what he learns from Jura, though. He confirms that the way he acquires nothic eyes is “distasteful”, and that the cult allows their weakest members to transform so their eyes can be extracted to be used on the most valuable members. “It’s interesting, though, don’t you think? Why do they need to remain humanoid?”
• Uxovaharis also muses that the queen is aware of the comet and has her diviners working on it, and that she has her own distasteful supply of nothic eyes. This is just conjecture, however—the queen and her most trusted advisors are constantly mind blanked and her royal chambers are under the effects of a permanent private sanctum.
• “Why not work with the queen?” asks Valya. “Our interests, as I said, coincide. My interests diverge from the queen’s quite a bit.”
• Finally, they ask Uxovaharis about Pamona and Lord Desmond. Uxovaharis informs them that Pamona and Desmond are rivals, now that Tharruk is our of the picture. Pamona is also mind blanked and never leaves her private sanctum, but Desmond, being uncontested lord of his domain, doesn’t bother with that. Uxovaharis warns them that Neesha’s eclipse cult still has a large part to play in all of this. “The comet is coming, yes, but Neesha still wishes to bring about eternal night.”
• Uxovaharis teleports away with Jura, leaving behind four nothic eyes.
• They make a plan to investigate the Sarlana Estate that evening. Qhask and Bill will stealthily explore the basement while the rest of the party have dinner with the Duke and Duchess.
• They look into the volumes of The Maw in the Sky using the crystal, and see:
  • In the red volume, an angelic figure with membranous wings shining light from its face onto a crowd of humanoids.
  • In the green volume, a gaunt figure with awkwardly bent limbs, wearing a long flowing robe.
  • In the indigo book, a great stellated dodecahedron with a calm eye at its center.
  • In the purple book, a mass of tentacles, each of which has a tiny corpse at its tip—more tiny humanoids approach it with open arms.
• They recognize the figure in the green volume as the Scarlet Lord. They assume each book depicts one of the Seven Blasphemies.

⁂

• They return to the Church of Starry Wisdom with Vanessa and discover the town guard examining the carnage. A guard tells them there are rumors that some of the victims were members of Avex’s guild, and that the butcher’s shop next to the church was filled with unidentifiable meat and blood.
• The guard captain, Ivolen, tells the Dawnbringers that the bodies were discovered in the morning and that they might have been carrying an explosive device, but that the butcher’s shop has most of the guards’ attention right now, given what they’ve discovered behind the trapdoor in the back. He allows the Dawnbringers to enter through the trapdoor after a guard reports that two of those sent to investigate have gone missing.
• Back in the cult hideout, they head down one of the stairs they neglected last time, which Vanessa says she was never allowed down. At the bottom, they find a labyrinth of old, sagging tunnels.
• They’re ambushed by a large snake-like creature with a single large eye in its face, like a nothic. The creature uses the narrow passages to its advantage, teleporting around and blasting the Dawnbringers with lightning, and its gaze prevents the party from healing. It’s about to kill Bill when Qhask finally kills it with an arrow.
• They find one surviving guard, Aldis, but the other guard, Bealei, was killed by the nothic-snake. Aurelia casts prayer of healing, including Aldis in its effect. Aldis returns to the surface while they continue exploring the labyrinth.
• They find an iron door, much more recent than the rest of the stonework. Bill picks the lock, and behind it they find a small dead end. Held up by tentacles that emerge from cracks in the wall are three humanoids—a young girl, a middle-aged woman, and an old crone. The middle one looks up and says “Bernard, is that you? Please, come in, we have so much more to teach you.” The old crone says “Hush, sister! I can smell that this is no Bernard. Say nothing to them!” The young one remains silent. All three have blank voids behind their eyelids.
• They are able to glean that these three have been teaching Bernard, that there is a “feast” in progress, that “the victims must be cleansed before the sacrifice”. The young one does not speak, but when Bill asks her directly if she has anything to say, she says she’s hungry. Bill gives her some rations, but the food just falls out behind her face—he realizes that all three of the women are just skins, and that behind their eyes and mouths is not a magical black void, but just the dark stone wall.
• “They’re able to learn a little more, and suspect that the “victims” are the townspeople, and that feeding them flesh from the pool is part of the “cleansing”. The middle one says that “soon the Singing One will come to feed”.
• Bill asks if the Singing One is coming with the comet or before the comet. “The Singing One is already here Bernard, all around us. Don’t you remember?”
• The old crone shouts “Silence! They are not Bernard. No more speech!” The tentacles pull the skins back through cracks in the wall, and the room is suddenly empty.
• They return the body of the dead guard to the surface, then return to continue exploring. They find a small chapel with a heptagon carved into the wall. In a stagnant fountain, they find a small beholder-like creature. Questioning it, they discover it was tasked by Bernard with protecting this entrance to the chapel, but it refuses to stand down, so they kill it. Continuing further, they find another trap door that leads into the ruins of the Church of Starry Wisdom.
• The guards are still working. Ivolen says two of the cultists were members of Avex’s guild, but he can’t find a connection between the others. The guards are positive that Avex is the head of the assassin’s guild, but without any hard proof they can’t raid his offices.

⁂

• While waiting for their dinner with the Duke and Duchess, they consider finding Genevra to stop her from collecting victims for the cult. They use a raven figurine of wondrous power to send a message to Terryn, asking him to meet them at the temple of Soleil. Valya, however, goes to the market to buy new clothing.
• At the temple, Terryn gives them more information about Genevra. She was just outside a main square not too far from the temple. Terryn also explains that he mostly does detective work, noticing the disappearances in Telmir and coming to investigate on behalf of the diviner’s guild.
• Aurelia pries into the diviners that go missing, which Terryn mentioned, asking if they’re generally high or low ranking. The high diviners mostly report to Zobus, the high seer. Most of the disappearances are these high diviners… The party has seen Zobus briefly—now that they think about it, wasn’t his staff topped with a large eye?
• Meanwhile, while Valya is shopping for dresses, Siora’s locket suddenly explodes, dealing immense damage to Valya, her familiar, and everything around her. An arcanoloth appears before her. “Ilvoth sends you his regards, and now I’ll send you to him!” Valya, still suffering from amnesia, does not know who Ilvoth is, leading to some humorous exchanges between her and the arcanoloth while they fight.
• The arcanoloth hits Valya with several magical bursts, and then Valya gets into the arcanoloths’s mind to psych it out. Thankfully this strategy—plus Valya’s genuine lack of memory of the whole Spire of Pain episode—works, and the arcanoloth misses most of its subsequent attacks. It reveals its name is Grimgan and teleports away, saying it will return later, possibly in Ghelroth’Far.

⁂

• They head to the Sarlana Estate, where they are let in. Bill and Qhask use pass without trace to sneak off while the rest of the party enters through the front door of the manor.
• Leander and Lythienne arrive before the dinner. Leander explains that, given Aurelia’s message to Lythienne about Pamona, he fled the Citadel and has been staying here, hosted by Prince Calvin’s sister.
• Meanwhile, Qhask and Bill enter an unoccupied room via a window and begin sneaking around. They pass an alchemy lab, which smells awful. A mean-looking old man is sitting at a desk in the lab, writing something. A servant asks him if he will be attending dinner—the man says he is too busy and will have dinner in his private quarters.
• Aurelia explains the vision of Beatrice she had to Lythienne, and says her plan is to head straight to the temple in the Citadel to warn them of her vision, like she’s already warned Vaeri. Lythienne admits that Vaeri might be pro-secession from Castalia, and has been rumored to be helping the nobles of Tel’Arisse. Aurelia wonders why Vaeri would be involving herself in politics. Lythienne says if she doesn’t like the church getting involved in politics, she might not like what she finds in the Shining Citadel. They also discuss the poisoning of Ingesin, and what possible motivation anyone could have. A servant arrives, leading them to the dining room.
• After being introduced to the Duke and Duchess and making small talk about trade with Thamior, servants begin bringing out the dishes. Aurelia recognizes one of the servers—she is pretty sure the girl was working at the Temple of Soleil here in Telmir!
• Qhask and Bill, having wandered around and now passing near the kitchens, witness the old man they saw in the alchemy lab yell at a different servant, saying that he specifically told them not to have Lucille on duty for the dinner. They continue toward the kitchen, and find their way to a wine cellar. From the wine cellar they make their way into an old storage room, and then to a tunnel that leads to the Sarlana family crypt. They don’t find incriminating evidence or another hidden door, but they do find some curious cracks in the back of the room, out of which are poking little tentacles, much like the tentacles in the room with the three sisters. “They did say the Singing One was everywhere around us…” says Bill.
• They go back up to the kitchens and reveal themselves to some servants, asking where the dungeons are. The servant calls for the guards, so they hide—Bill in a closet down the hall, Qhask motionless on the ceiling. Guards come rushing in, along with that old man from the alchemy lab. The alchemist knows Qhask and Bill should have been at the dinner, and that they must be trespassing somewhere in the manor. He says to the servants to tell Lucille to go home at once, and he and the guards leave. Lucille comes in, and refers to the alchemist as Aubade, and says she is gathering her things and leaving at once. She also mentions to the other servant that the guests are the Dawnbringers, whom she’s seen at the temple.
• At this point Qhask drops down from the ceiling, winks at the two, saying he’s undercover and investigating. Lucille and the other servant are star-struck. “That’s Qhask, the dragon-man!” Qhask recognizes Lucille from the temple, and asks her if she’s seen anything unusual, but she seems not to know anything. She leaves. The other servant says she doesn’t know anything about a devil living in the dungeons, claiming it’s just a story and that she’s worked here fifteen years and never seen anything weird.
• Qhask follows Lucille and witnesses her stare oddly for twenty seconds at the large tree on the grounds before continuing on, as if she’s in a trance. Qhask and Bill investigate the tree, finding dried shriveled mushrooms, exactly like the kind in Ingesin’s soup!
• Meanwhile, the conversation in the dining room turns to the poisoning of Ingesin. Valya surreptitiously reads the minds of the Duke and Duchess. The Duke doesn’t appear to know what’s going on, but the Duchess is distraught that the “messy business” needs to be completed and that she “shouldn’t have trusted Aubade”. Out loud Talia Sarlana says she’s glad Talia doesn’t have to take over as high priestess quite yet, but inside she’s thinking “Shit! Oriel is going to kill me.” The duke is just wondering if Avex is behind this.
• Valya turns the topic to the Tephug legends. Duke Adorin Sarlana says it’s just a myth that his ancestors made a deal with a devil to get rid of their worst enemies, in exchange for regular sacrifices. Based on Valya’s mind reading, neither Adorin nor Talia believe in Tephug. The duke does confirm that there are torture rooms and oubliettes in the lower levels of the dungeons, though, and that the castle is one of the oldest in all of Castalia—it was, for a time, the capital.
• Valya acts very enthused about the history and architecture of the manor, and asks if they can tour the dungeons. Curiously, the duke is thinking “How would they even know? Are they working for the Wood Scorpions?” The duke suggests that they would find a tour boring, and that he would need to get permission from the queen to allow them to make contact with the prisoners. The party press, and the duke nervously asks a servant to fetch Aubade, informing him of the party’s desire to see the architecture of the old dungeons, but stressing that they cannot be allowed to interact with any of the prisoners. Aurelia suggests the party wear blindfolds while passing through the occupied upper levels. The duke, hesitantly, accepts. Aubade leaves to “make preparations”, and Valya notices that she can’t read Aubade’s thoughts.
• Qhask, perfectly stealthily, sneaks into the dining room and takes a seat while no one is paying attention. Bill pretends to be late and heads to the front door. The guard is suspicious, seizes Bill, and brings him to the dining room. The guards, noticing Qhask move to seize him too, but the duke holds up his hand and allows it, warning Qhask not to pull something like that again.
• The duke and duchess retire and bid the party good night, and Aubade motions the party to follow him to the dungeon.

⁂

• Aubade stops at a heavy door of wood and wrought iron, makes them all put heavy cloth sacks over their heads, and unlocks the door. They carefully make their way through several halls and down several staircases. Qhask, having blindsight, is able to sense that they are passing by many jail cells. There are prisoners chained to the walls, and they seem to be unconscious. The party are led through another door, which Aubade shuts behind them, and then tells them they can remove their hoods.
• They find themselves in a large forty foot square room, at least a hundred feet tall. Iron cages hang from the ceiling, and torture chambers line the walls along the staircase that hugs the wall down to the floor. Aubade assures them that these are no longer in use.
• As they descend, Aubade mentions he is the head alchemist for the Sarlanas. He also points out that this massive chamber has not collapsed in over six centuries because it’s held together by transmutation magic.
• At the bottom of the chamber are several trap doors, which Aubade informs them are oubliettes. They notice that one oubliette has a more corroded door than the others, but Aubade says that’s probably just a difference in moisture. Aurelia notices a slight breeze, so she intentionally drops her bracelet into the oubliette, allowing Valya an excluse to slide down a rope and explore the oubliette. She notices the breeze coming from a corner, but doesn’t see any cracks. Investigating further, she realizes there’s an illusion—there is actually a small tunnel in the corner, barely big enough to wiggle down. Valya sends Rylveh into the hole, who informs Valya there are more tentacles in the walls, larger than the ones they’ve seen before. At the end of the tunnel, Rylveh finds a lot of tentacles and a lot of bodies scattered around, motionless.
• Valya returns with the bracelet and tells Aubade she found something “sinister”, and that they’ll need to speak to the duke immediately. Aubade, concerned, agrees. While they’re ascending the stairs, Valya asks Aubade if the name Azakon rings a bell. Aubade says of course—he was one of Raymond Fentris’s adventuring companions, along with Tashklon and Meriel. The party, not being from around the Citadel, had not actually heard much about Raymond Fentris—Aurelia wasn’t aware he was an adventurer.
• They put their hoods back on and are led back through the prison. However, the door slams ahead of them, and the hand Aurelia was holding suddenly vanishes. She takes off her hood—the door ahead of them is closed, and Aubade is nowhere to be seen. He’s trapped them. They all take off their hoods and look around. The prisoners all look drugged, slumped unconscious on the walls.
• They try to teleport out, but discover that the whole prison is under an antimagic field. They’re trapped, but they decide to use this opportunity to explore the tunnel.
• As they descend the staircase, they notice a bit of stone falling from the wall—there’s a tentacle high up in the wall that wasn’t there before. “The Singing One is everywhere…” quotes Valya, frowning. Bill notices several other small tentacles that he’s sure weren’t there before.
• Squeezing down the tunnel hidden in the corner of the oubliette, they see the bodies Rylvah mentioned. They don’t even appear to be dead, just unconscious. They’re all connected by thick tentacles to a large, bloated pig-like creature in the center of the room, which is also inert.
• They notice that one of the bodies is clearly a wizard, based on his clothing, and clearly very old—perhaps it’s Azakon? They try to sever the cord connecting him to the creature, and the creature shrieks and convulses. When they separate the tentacle entirely, the creature stands up and screams: “My prizes! I will not be denied my prizes!”
• Tephug appears to be controlled by tentacles, and is himself a skin puppeted by a mass of tentacles. He casts many poison-based spells, which is unfortunate to Valya since her cursed armor makes her vulnerable to poison damage. In the middle of the battle, Tephug casts cloudkill and hides inside it, attacking the party while remaining hidden and dealing massive damage.
• They eventually defeat Tephug, and his skin simply deflates. Aurelia casts sending to Leander, telling him that Aubade trapped them in the dungeon. Leander responds that Aubade said they left, and that he’ll see what he can do to rescue them.
• They inspect the bodies—they all seem to be alive. How will they rescue them? All of the bodies are elven or gnomish—there are also a lot of skeletons in this room. Maybe the elves and gnomes survived because of their long lifespans?
• They rummage through their belongings and find 4400 gp in coins and jewels. They don’t take anything from Azakon, but they do search through his belongings, and find an old crumpled piece of parchment in a leather pouch. It reads:

Dear Me,

You must never remember what transpired, for the fate of the world hangs in the balance. The only one who remembers is Raymond, and I would not wish his lonely fate on anyone—know that we chose him by lot, and that Thilros died for it.

Our enemy, whom you no longer remember, had the power to kill gods and poison the very knowledge of their own existence. Through divine intervention and luck, we succeeded in buying ourselves time. The window has closed, but it will open again.

Meriel is going to use the Orb of Souls. I’m so sorry. No one aside from Raymond—not even the gods—will remember what happened. We must help Raymond—he is now the only one who can prepare us for our enemy’s return.

Do whatever Raymond says, no matter how strange. Above all, it is imperative that we discover a way to replicate Thilros’s Gift. Without the power to resist the curse, the ability to prepare for the enemy’s return will die with Raymond.

Azakon

• Unfortunately, Azakon is unconscious for now, though they really want to question him. Then they remember something: the very first thing Valspira ever said to them was that she “knows where Taskhlon hid the Orb of Souls”. Aurelia curses. “We always discover Valspira knows more than she’s let on…”