Saturday, January 27, 653 AU, continued

• Before bed, Aurelia casts sending to Lucan: “It’s about time you spoke to your sister. We know you’re here.”

Sunday, January 28, 653 AU

• At dawn, Lucan knocks on Valya’s door. He hugs Valya, who bursts into tears. Lucan thought Valya was dead, and when he heard she was alive, he stayed away to protect her from his knowledge of the comet.
• Lucan has been turning condemned criminals into nothics for their eyes. He says he assumes Aliatha’s killer was a doppelganger, but Aurelia notices he winces slightly when he says this. He also warns Valya that the nobles of Thamior plan to divide up the Haedel estates, but saving the world is more important.
• Lucan woke that night holding Grieving Edge, saw the carnage, and fled. He believes it may descend from the “void-forged blade” of The Maw in the Sky, a weapon that can harm gods. Cal has it now, but Lucan says the dagger matters more: it holds the soul of Siora Virren’s son, a paladin whose prophesied role isn’t finished. Lucan wants to break the dagger and free him. If Lord Cloudfang’s dagger is the wrong one, his next lead is in Sol Harsk, in Khorsir.
• Aurelia presses him about the blacksmith apprentices attacked when two Virren daggers were stolen. “I didn’t mean to attack those blacksmiths. It just happened.” Lucan, in turn, wonders whether Ilvoth let the party leave the Hells, and warns Valya never to trust Valspira.
• Lucan insists on traveling alone. Valya shows him her spellbook (he tactfully says it must be a school of bladesinging he hasn’t trained in) and gives him the ring of force resistance from Ilvoth’s vault. He leaves for the train station.
• Aurelia confesses that she was the one who sent for Lucan.

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• Olivia gives Aurelia her quest for the Order of the Radiant Dawn: return to the Shadowfell and scout out Beatrice’s supposed undead army. In confidence, she adds that an army of Neesha is gathering in Dazg Bok, and that not even Soleil can see into Vodona’s forest anymore.
• Renward has found no Ashen Peaks in Castalia or the Gemra Empire, but there is a mountain range by that name on the moon.
• Aliatha says the displacer beast fangs come from the heathland southeast of Thamior. Her next shipment is a month away, so Lord Cloudfang has a monopoly.
• Valya is down to 92 gp, and Rylvah lectures her that steady income comes from land: “In a few decades, maybe you’ll be promoted to a minor noble of Crystalport.”
• At Arcane Curios, Valya haggles 20% off potions from Jensen Honeymead in exchange for exclusivity. Aetheris buys some digestive rocks, a taxidermied “fairy ancestor” monkey with dragonfly wings, and a 500 gp Khorsirian wolf mask. The mask has no magical aura, but she feels it has some effect on her senses.

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• At his estate, Merthan Medwarum shows them Caranthiax’s contingency plans in case she were killed. Bellaroth and the demons broke Caranthiax’s forbiddance and opened a permanent portal to the Abyss in a forgotten god’s temple beneath her lair. The portal must be closed. Caranthiax left a cache of weapons and information with the dragon Trixia in southern Nahalis, to be released only in the care of Caranthiax’s kobolds.

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• They return to Crystalport to find Calziver Cobblegem. Protesters confront the Dawnbringers at the Crystalport station, chanting “Down with the Dawnbringers! Give them up!” Apparently, many people blame the Dawnbringers for Bellaroth’s animosity. Kat Steelgrip is nearby, takes notes and smiling cheerily at the party.
• Valya catches Duchess Louise Daykin leaving Valya’s estate, having just visited Valspira. She reports that the city will run out of money for Bellaroth by March. She tells Valya that Lord Woodmore has a plan: drug the party so they appear dead, then hand them over to Bellaroth, who will surely, in her pride, turn her backs on the Dawnbringers, allowing them to wake up, wreak havoc and kill her.
• Meanwhile, Gertrude Crow reads Aetheris’s tea leaves: You must not go there in a straight line (Aetheris assumes this refers to the Ashen Peaks). Gertrude also reads Aliatha’s: Beware your friends.
• Aurelia returns to her own estate, where Leander and Lythienne are staying. Leander tells Aurelia that Valya’s magic is “not arcane,” and suggests Valya has made a pact, possibly even something related Cult of the Eclipse. Lythienne counters that Valya’s heart is clearly in the right place. Leander also mentions that his wedding to Prince Calvin is three and a half weeks away. They plan to test whether a ring of mind shielding blocks Pamona’s control over her undead.
• Aurelia casts commune.
  • Is Valya’s power coming from Neesha? It’s complicated.
  • Was Valya dead and resurrected the night of her family’s murder? No.
  • Can I trust Lucan? No.
• At 2 a.m., Valspira storms in to Valya’s room: Valya broke their deal by letting Azakon go, and calling him a Dawnbringer doesn’t count under clause 15(d), part (c). Valya evicts her. Valspira says Valya will never figure out what actually happened that night, and says she’s already made plans to move into the Daykin Estate.

Monday, January 29, 653 AU

• They head to Utaz’s tower, where they give Utaz one of their nothic eye potions. Utaz believes Uxovaharis destroyed the flawless crystal rod needed for the spelljammer helm, and another can only be found in the Underdark, reachable through the tunnels past Nellie’s Narthex or the dwarven kingdom of Karst.
• They ask around, and are told that Calziver is at the Adventurers Guild. They head there, and see that a banner has hastily been added underneath the “Adventurers Guild” sign, reading “and Gnomish Geniuses Club”. Inside, Sneenensnort is working on some contraption. Their conversation is interrupted as a propeller erupts from Sneenensnort’s backpack, lifting him off the ground, and he shouts that he needs to be taken outside immediately. Outside, he rises 200 feet in the air before a lightning bolt shoots from his backpack along with a deafening rumble of thunder. Sneenensnort descends, unconscious. When he comes to, he explains that it was just the safety release mechanism of his thunderstorm-in-a-bottle grilled cheese maker. “It’s like burping a sourdough starter,” he says.
• Meanwhile, Calziver Cobblegem is hard at work on some scribblings, which he won’t let the party see. Sneenensnort says Calziver hasn’t slept in three days. He’s paranoid and erratic, and accuses Aetheris of trying to scoop him. Although initially resistant to the idea, they convince Calziver to come with them to the Shining Citadel.

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• On the train, Valya puts Calziver to sleep with suggestion, then tries to read his mind. Somehow, his mind is pure psychic static. Everyone wants to know what Calziver has been writing, but touching his briefcase key brings on crushing shame, and Aetheris has to suppress a strange urge to throw the key out the window. Aurelia’s see invisibility reveals a huge, one-eyed, tentacled creature on the Ethereal Plane hovering over Calziver. It communicates with her telepathically: There is nothing that you can do. Let it play out, Priestess.
• There’s not much they can do to a creature in the Ethereal, so they nervously sit on the train with this hideous creature floating next to them. Valya’s detect thoughts catches Calziver’s plea, almost imperceptible beneath the static: Read my notes! The briefcase is full of mad scrawlings in Deep Speech.
• Once in the Shining Citadel, Valya casts dimension door on herself and Calziver, taking them 500 feet towards the Temple of Soleil. But Aurelia watches the creature immediately fly in a straight line toward Calziver, unimpeded by buildings. They reconvene outside the Church of Soleil, where they’re met by Vestan, who casts protection from evil and good on Calziver at the party’s suggestion. The creature pops into the Material Plane with an audible screech, and a battle ensues.

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• The creature fills the square with necrotic darkness. Its insanity beam drops Aurelia, and Valya feels horribly contaminated by its tentacles. High Priestess Olivia rushes out and dispels the darkness, but the creature traps her in a bubble of force. Meanwhile, Aetheris yells at Qhask’s drake in Draconic, the first time anyone has ever tried. (“You can talk?” “I guess so.” “Fascinating.”)
• Aetheris, trapped in more of the creature’s darkness, dies. When Aurelia’s radiance of the dawn clears it, Aetheris’s body has changed: regal, with purplish hair and pearlescent skin, not native to anywhere they know.
• The creature, at this point exhausted, tries to flee, Aurelia brings it down with flame strike. It crumples into the central fountain, contaminating it with black ooze. Aurelia revivifies Aetheris, who babbles in Infernal for a while.

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• Calziver wakes saner, but it’s apparent there are holes in his memory. He can’t remember what his discovery was! Through the creature’s corpse, Valya learns that Calziver managed to hide his breakthrough in his notes. The creature meant to use Calziver’s conference to curse the whole audience.
• Using the notes, Calziver and Professor Niku are able to reconstruct his discovery: The demiplane and Dicora are in resonance, so there should be a portal between the two! But how to find the portal?
• Aurelia finally reveals the portal compass she found at the Monastery of Kixist. It only points to the last portal it passed through, but Calziver thinks a time crystal could make it remember a portal it hasn’t passed through yet. According to Niku, the nearest time crystal may be the floating pink crystal at Ing-Sa-Treng.
• Curious about Aetheris’s true appearance, Valya reads Aetheris’s mind. Her memories begin in Tel’Arisse, with nothing before. Valya sees Aetheris’s vision of the Ashen Peaks and recognizes it: it’s the surface of the moon, where the lunar dragon Razai once took her… ❦