I'm Not Writing That Down

Session 49

The Librarians travel for 3 days northward. Not much of note happens on the road, but some of the Librarians get up to things. Cass casts Dream each night to give nightmares to Popofsky.

As Popofsky starts to dream, she hears the erratic ticking of clocks echoing from all directions. Clock faces scatter the desolated terrain.

Ghostly apparitions of missed opportunities and unfulfilled potentials float through the air, whispering regretful laments that seep into Popofsky’s subconscious.

Amidst this surreal environment, towering hourglasses stand like monolithic sentinels, their sands slipping through the narrow necks with unsettling haste. Each grain of sand represents a lost moment, an irrevocable piece of life slipping away.

Sunsets and sunrises race each other across the sky in a futile contest, perpetually caught in the struggle between dawn and dusk.

In this Dream, Cass is chilling behind a giant hourglass in the distance, smoking a vape pen and monitoring the situation from a distance to make sure the nightmare goes on smoothly.

She wakes, sleepless, having also taken physical damage to herself. It gives her a total feeling of panic. Narrated from afar, we know that she's gone to a friend who may know what was happening. Future casts of Dream may be affected...

Maltheo and Cass have a private conversation one of the evenings on the road. He asks Cass how they are, and notes they've been busy lately. He also mentions he has eavesdropped on a conversation that Cass and Briya had previously. And from it, has gleaned that Cass may have a beef with the Cerberus Assembly, which is confirmed. Then Maltheo shares that he also has issues with the Assembly, and believes they should be brought down, and the Empire ruled in a more fair and equitable way. Cass is on board, as long as the Assembly is hurt in the process. They shake, hand-in-paw, with a shared goal of destroying the Assembly.

Briya communes with nature to find ways to help us locate the Fire Ashari. However, at the moment she finds mostly hillside vistas and small pockets of cultural significance. There aren't any signs of giant forests nearby. It seems for now there is not much to find.

In general, though, the group notes that they're traveling through endless beautiful countryside. It seems to have nothing but rolling hills and green farmland. But also well-maintained roads and not a single feeling of danger. Everything is comfortable and safe.

Yahnist realizes this is the furthest south he's ever been. It's quite a new experience to be in this part of the Empire.

Prophet keeps himself disguised as often as possible. It's almost a change in color scheme; subtle but definitely doesn't look too Kryn. For anyone in the know, maybe skin is a little too fantasy-Photoshopped but still fairly convincing.

Eventually, the land flattens out a bit. Kamordah and the surrounding region has lots of vineyards. It's the Empire's wine country, inhabited mostly by humans and halflings. As we make it there, we note it's big for a village, but too small to be a town or city. The place really says "rich" though. Very affluent and definitely lots of money floating around this place. Some houses are higher up than others, and there's a stone wall surrounding the central part of town. Faintly in the distance we hear sounds of festive music; there's an excitement in the air. As we approach, the sounds of music and voices partying increase. Getting closer and closer, we see there are decorations and indications of festivities, like banners, flags, and other decor, etc...

We realize tomorrow is the first day of spring, hence all the celebrations. Maltheo, having been in Kamordah in the past notes that our timing is great, and this is the place to be during a festival! Maltheo tells Prophet to not speak about the Luxon or... the Prophet. Most of the people in Kamordah would be worshipping the "law bearer", the god of law, civilization, thrones, scales, and general advancement of proper society. Briya opined that this would have been her mother's favorite time of year, and that she's anxious about wanting to perhaps visit a temple of the Wildmother. Sadly Maltheo lets her know that the Wildmother has been banned from the Empire, but there may be places to find discreet worshipping sites.

Briya also shares that her mother was lost; taken by something in the swamp and died. Maltheo offers condolences, and Prophet asks about rituals she might want to perform. "I don't know, it was her thing. I was just there, really."

The town also seems to be full of Righteous Brand soldiers. We think maybe they're there to help keep civility with the extra crowds from the festival. A woman with a large gold and white griffon resting its head on its paws is guarding this entrance to the town, wearing leather-studded armor. She asks us to register ourselves and notes she's happy to be here so she can participate in the archery contest. Maltheo asks for her name, and we hear that she is Commander Mary Pelinost, here with her two brothers Captains Paul and Peter. We registered as 5 people plus 1 cat and are able to enter town.

Streamers, pastels, and myriad decorations are all covering the central town square. There are minstrels playing beautiful music everywhere; carts and vendors set up for each vineyard in the surrounding area. There's a grand fountain with a statue of a short halfing woman with a shawl on head. She's peering into the distance with a look of inspiration holding an amphora. Behind her stands a statue of human man wearing religious vestments. He carries a staff ending with balance scales, and his hand is up in a prayer posture. Even this is decorated for the festival. To the west we see further into town and higher up the temple to the Law Bearer; it's a fairly new circular stone building. To the north of the square is the telltale sign of an inn, and it has tables outside on the terrace for lunch. To the east is what seems to be a more residential area of town.

Finally, there's a town crier dressed in colorful clothes dancing around the statue and square screaming things like "welcome welcome for the celebrations of spring" (mentioning archery contest; maze of debauchery, etc...)

Cass asks Prophet to Create a bow fit for a cat her size. It's in purple with wisps of smoke and made to be launched using all 4 cat paws.

Briya says to the crier, "I've never been to a town festival like this before. What's a debauchery maze?" And thus the minstrel this hour on the hour, begins to tell a story. The Lady of Kamordah left the village of the bad wine makers. A young halfling woman who didn't want to partake in the hedonistic village of her origins. As she was trying to leave she fell in a crossroads and encountered a brother of the Law Bearer (featured in the statue). He saw her true nature of wanting a town to grow with a sense of righteousness and civility, not the bad stuff. So he blessed her with the guidance of the Law Bearer to found her own village; one that makes wine not for sin but for communion and community. A wine that could grow into a powerful resource to build a town on morals, not destroy it with debauchery. The maze represents the experience the lady herself felt. There are temptations, but whomever resists comes out on the other end and receives a blessing.

We learn that the archery contest is later in the afternoon, a trivia night after sunset, and the maze of debauchery opens at midnight.

Briya is on the hunt for diamonds, and so we learn the location of a jeweler, and another shop called called Vandleth. At the jeweler, we find lots of fancy stuff. Necklaces in vine motifs, earrings as grapes. It's all a bit kitchy. Cass casts detect magic at Maltheo's private request, and finds no protections on the front of the store. Everything is locked normally. There's abjurative magic in the back; most likely protecting expensive items. He brings a set of engagement rings each with diamond worth 300 gold. But thanks to some intimidation haggling from Prophet the price gets knocked down to 500.

Next, we enter Vandleth's magic shop. They have herbs dangling from the ceiling; many magic items could be bought here. Then we meet the elven shopkeeper. A gray-haired bright blue-eyed super joyous person. Very vibrant.

"What are you looking for my dears?" as she offers us some matcha tea. This time, Cass's detect magic finds threads of gold circling her clothes. A telltale sign of mage armor. There's not much else is glowing save for the same magic that matches the door protection at the other shop. Perhaps she was hired to do that one. She also has a blackboard of spell services. Maltheo looks for signs of the Cerberus Assembly. She has permit to operate for them but that seems to be all. She also has sending stones for sale, and an ivory oval shaped object. It's a wondrous figurine that can summon extra-planar beasts, or even just a goat for example, for a period of time. This one is special because there's no being attached to it yet. "Were you to find a creature able to be contained within, it would become a wondrous figure of that beast," she says. Anything worthy of the extra-planar would work, but it will not work for people. The selection is wide, but most likely limited to non-sentient creatures and humanoids) It sells for 2000 gold.

Kra'naelen asks if she could tell him about one of the anomaly stones. She says there's something quite elven about the dove figurine, and for 200 gold could cast Legend Lore on it for him. He declines, for now.

Back at the inn, Yahnist is taking rooms for the group from the innkeeper, who is missing one hand. It has been replaced with a mechanical attachment to pull on beer taps. His name is Burton Barleyman, an older gentleman. He takes two rooms for the party a third for Prophet. Yahnist sees a man when leaving named Milo, the trivia night host. He's a somewhat unhinged-looking elderly skinny man with crooked teeth and a bit drunk.

Then it's time to go to the archery contest! It's located on a side street off of the main square. There's a 600 foot section of street blocked off and the contest is being judged by the previous minstrel we met. "We have sinful wine-drinkers over here" (the targets are people) halflings and humans; 4 of them holding up signs with bullseyes on them. The entire cardboard sign is sort of shaped/painted/silly looking like little devils drinking wine. Red skin, horns, cups.

Prophet takes bets. 80 gold for Cass. 16 for Yahnist. Others show up; Pelinost arrives as well as another archer, non-binary. Leslie. She looks super prepared. The winner is the first to hit 4 targets in the least amount of rounds. Yahnist's bow is glowing.

First round, 100 feet away. Yahnist scores a bullseye. 2nd shot another bullseye in a human. Mary is next, with one miss and one hit, just off the bullseye. Cass goes next. The minstrel narrates: "Ooh, a sideways method. Catapult style. Interesting technique." The arrow basically drops to the floor. The stranger finally goes, and uses Archer's Eye, giving a bonus on first roll. They raise their longbow but still miss the first shot. The second is so good, it splits Yahnist's arrow in half.

Second round (Y = 1, C = 0, M = 1, S = 1). Range is now 200 feet away. Yahnist hits on his first attack. Cass chronoshifts a nat 1 helping Yahnist hit another target. Mary hits one and misses one. Cass misses one. Stranger hits one. Hits another.

Third round (Y = 3, C = 0, M = 2, S = 3). Range is now 300 feet away. Yahnist with a nat 20... the entire devil explodes. Peter Pelinost: "Don't worry Mary, he just got lucky!" He shoots again and rolls a second nat 20. The second target explodes.

Skywriting for his name from Briya brings cheers from the crowd. A box is brought to Yahnist that, when opened, reveals his very own bottle of Kamordah Red worth 85gp, and next to it is one long crossbow bolt. It's called an Acid Light arrow. Magical. Think: Faerie Fire + Acid.

To be continued...