20 Cuersaar 837
Paige starts the morning by insulting a bunch of high-elves (DIY-ing a very chic gift they’d bestowed upon her) and getting kicked out of their brothel/tavern at around 9:21 AM with a hangover. She immediately runs into Jon, who is equipped with a box of donuts he’s been steadily working his way through. Jon tells Paige that he “knows where Aida is” so they don’t need to look for her, before stating they should probably make sure Pandora didn’t murder anyone. Paige recalls seeing Pandora slip off with a purple tiefling, and tells Jon that she knows where Pandora is.
Pandora, who had a wild night, fell asleep and woke up with a really bad hangover after failing to trance. She elected to go back to sleep, and doesn’t wake up again until around 11. While she sleeps, Paige and Jon crush down a ton of breakfast food, including ordering “all the bacon” in the tavern.
When Pandora does wake, she sneaks past her two bed partners and leaves a note for each.
Kallista,
Oops. You agreed. Can’t be mad. Bye.
Stranger,
Thanks for the fun. Never talk about this.
- She does not, however, sneak past Jon and Paige, feeling more clumsy than normal. When Paige spots her, she’s smirking, and Pandora immediately messages to ask what the fuck she knows.
- Rumis wakes on the steps of a temple to the Raven Queen missing his coin pouch. He makes his way inside, and encounters an ancient woman who identifies herself as the Duskblade. Rumis decides to “confess” his sins and troubles to her.
“First, I guess, yeah. Last night was crazy. I’ll probably not be doing that again. I think it went good. I kind of blacked out after the whole crowdsurfing thing, but in case I did anything bad, maybe overconsumption, something I’ll work on in the future. That’s the confession part. The prayer part.” This is definitely not the first time I’ve asked this. I’ve asked this many times, and I’m speaking to the person, but really I’m trying to speak to the holy, spiritual thing. “Why can’t I remember anything? Why is it so hard? And will I ever remember anything? Or am I doomed to travel this world as an enigma?”
And the Duskblade, as she has introduced herself, listens to you quietly, and her watching you, you’ll probably notice that she doesn’t blink. You’ve never actually seen this woman blink. And the expression that she wears is very passive, very neutral. And she answers you in the same way. No flashy prayer, no ritualistic tapping of her staff. She just listens to you and then answers. And she says, “the Matron is not concerned with overindulgence, so you have nothing to confess. You can’t remember because you’re not ready. When you are, you will.”
- Rumis realizes that, once he leaves the temple, his hangover has vanished, and the only thing he truly can recall of the night before is that same name, reverberating through his head as he searches for his companions: Illyria
- Rumis finds Paige and Pandora bickering, while Jon attempts to drown himself in bacon.
Rumis: “That was quite the night last night, huh?”
Paige: “You fucking know it, brother.”
Pandora: “We don’t need to talk about it. It’s okay. It was good. We’ll just not talk about it.”
Rumis: “I mean, Paige was jamming out. It was awesome.”
Pandora: “And then we all went to sleep.”
Paige: “Yeah that’s all that happened. And nothing else happened. Nothing else happened with that tiefling and fairy I saw you with.”
Pandora: “Nothing happened, because that person doesn’t exist. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Paige: “Oh, yeah, I totally didn’t see you three walking to this brothel.”
Pandora: “Nope, you didn’t, because I was alone. I woke up alone. And now I’m eating breakfast with you people.”
Rumis: “You went to a brothel alone?”
Jon, around a cinnamon roll: “We all woke up alone.”
Rumis: “I mean, usually you go to a brothel alone, but you meet someone there.”
Pandora: “No, I just felt like the atmosphere was really ideal for thinking thoughts.”
Paige: “Yeah,” I look at all of them. I look at the cyber goth in the corner. “Yeah.”
Rumis: “I guess I can’t picture you in a library.”
Pandora: “We literally went to a bookstore. Rumis, I’ve been in libraries!”
Rumis: “I meant like hanging out. It doesn’t seem like your kind of place.”
Pandora: “What the fuck am I, a wizard? That’s a wizard’s job.”
Paige: “Were you here for slam poetry last night?” I look at the poster on the wall a little bit away.
Pandora: “Yeah, there was something slamming all right.”
Jon choking on his cinnamon bun: “well, we should probably find everybody else. Don’t you think?”
- Pandora realizes she spent at least 50k at the tavern, and drags Paige out after Jon and Rumis to avoid Paige witnessing anything particularly embarrassing.
Rodreck wakes to breakfast in bed, water, and coffee, and writes down a poem. He does not ask the prostitute for her name because he doesn’t want to get attached.
As he walks downstairs, he’s greeted by the crew, and when he asks how everyone slept, Jon gives him a donut and Pandora shoves one in Paige’s face.
As the group decides to head for Aida, Pandora casts her a sending that essentially warns her to “hide her shit” since Paige is already insufferably smug enough.
Aida wakes after a night with Z, and discusses the dream spell and other things with them. Z expresses interest in being a student of Aida’s, and as Aida gets excited about teaching them, she receives the sending from Pandora, and replies with a thank you.
Z and Aida discuss their night, among other things.
So they’re going to kind of like, you know, just very gently, maybe not even touching you, but just kind of put their, their finger up and offer you just this dazzling smile and say, “I understand what this was. Come back and see me when you want to, when you can. And we’ll work on that spell.”
- Z writes their schedule in the tome of Ioun as well as a courtship letter detailing how much they enjoyed the night, and how Aida shouldn’t allow shame to taint it in any way. Additionally, they write the names of their clients, with Aida’s at the top and confirm she’s their favorite client. They leave, and Aida blows them a magic kiss before the others arrive.
- As they all convene in Aida’s room, Rodreck recites his latest poem (see Rodreck’s Poem from the 20th of Cuersarr), and Pandora fey steps away to avoid the oncoming conversation that is sure to involve her one true weakness: emotions. Paige starts dissociating.
John’s like, “are you okay?”
“I had a bit of inspiration last night.”
“Yeah. Does that…Can you put that into non-iambic pentameter? Do you want to explain your feelings in a different way?
“No, I think I like it this way.”
Aida, struggling with what to say, “That’s very well written. I love it, love to hear it. Is everyone ready? Do we have our things?
Pandora calls from down the hallway, “yeah, just let me know when you guys are ready to get back to the airship. I’ll just be out here.”
- Paige is smug about Pandora’s avoidance of Rodreck’s poem, and conveys this with her magic. After more bickering, the group heads out to find the airship chained to a building and hovering in the air above Kymal.
Rodreck’s Poem
Trauma sticks to me like an invisible mask
I need help but how can I ask?
Hide the pain, don’t let it slip
But it all spills out when drink I sip
Find comfort in strangers rather than friends
For the crimes to my body and spirit I’ll never make amends.
Pandora buys a gun, drops some rumors to her contact (she is “heading” to Marquet, and Spiriling Harrock is a “traitor” to the Clasp), and Aida and Jon go grocery shopping as they track down the wayward Dauntless crew and ship.
Jon and Aida discuss Jon’s eating habits, and her need to take care of those around her.
And he gets that kind of sulky look again. It’s not directed at you, right? He’s not yelling at you or anything for suggesting that he should eat more vegetables. He’s just mad about it. He’s basically discovering that those abs aren’t gonna stay that way forever.
“Oh boy. Well…you know what? Have fun. If anything happens, I gotcha covered. I’ll take care of you.”
“I mean, you don’t always have to take care of everybody.”
“Come on, Jon!” Aida looks at him, and switches to halfling. “What are you saying?”
He takes a minute to kind of digest, because he’s still not fluent in halfling, but he is trying really hard. He’s trying to express a feeling, and he quickly grows frustrated that he can’t do that in halfling, because he doesn’t know the right words, and says… “It’s just all of this soul-searching seems like a lot of work to find pleasure, when pleasure is so plentiful,” and he kind of motions to the stores, and the brothels, and the casinos, and has a very enigmatic expression.
“Is it all too much for you?”
“It’s a lot. It’s a lot. It’s really different than Nicodranas, y’know? It’s very different from Zephrah as well, which I’m not sure I like. The donuts are good, though.”
“Yeah. We can focus on the positive things that we have now witnessed and experienced here, and then we can talk about things that we can watch out for in the future if we ever visit again, in order to keep things light, and calm, and peaceful.”
“I suppose.”
“Also, if these trips… I mean, I’m quite strong. I can carry these groceries back to the ship, if you didn’t want to hang out, that’s all good.”
“No, no, no, no. I’ll carry them. It’s fine. I’m just… I suppose I’m overwhelmed by all of this.”
“If Paige hadn’t reached out to you, would you have stayed in Zephra?”
“For a little while, anyway.”
“You could go back.”
“There’s no pointing going back right now. You’re here, and we have a mission.”
As Aida pays the shopkeeper and tells them she’ll help if they need her to, she is mistaken for a secret assassin of The Voice of the Tempest.
Zook is incredibly hungover when he greets the group, and informs them that Sentinel and the rest of the Dauntless crew are down in Kymal. Aida casts sending to Sentinel, and learns that they are at the Wish Fulfilled gambling.
Aida makes a hangover tincture for a very grouchy Zook, after which Aida cooks Rumis a tasty breakfast with her mess kit, and Rumis asks Aida to teach him some recipes (which she is delighted by). She invites Rumis to visit her family’s bakery, and he says he’d like to.
Pandora goes to take a nap, and Rodreck chases after her to borrow her gun. While Pandora is taking said nap, Rodreck lifts the gun off her and shoots it with his mage hand right above her head. She wakes up and immediately reaches for a knife, chasing after Rodreck and threatening him if he does something like that again while Paige watches on just out of sight of Pandora’s ire.
“Okay, Roderick, what the fuck were you doing? Two assassination attempts, and you think it’s a good idea to hold a gun over my fucking head while I’m sleeping?”
“I needed to test if Mage Hand worked on it.”
“You can ask! You could ask! Oh my god.”
“Next I need to see if animate object works.”
“Touch my gun again without permission, and we’ll see if your animate dead spell works. On you.”
Rumis, Rodreck, and Paige head down to Kymal on the flying carpet to track down Sentinel and the Dauntless crew, hoping to get a move on. Once the crew is back, the ship sets course for Emon.
Rumis discusses a few things about his time away from the group, and shows Pandora the raven pendant he found in his travels. She realizes, after a weird feeling, that Rumis is a shadar-kai from the Shadowfell, the very plane the Raven Queen is rumored to hold dominion over. She tells him that the pendant feels old, but cheap. A detect magic from Paige tells nothing about the pendant either, and she is not able to cast Legend Lore until after a long rest.
Something about Rumis makes Paige and Pandora uneasy, and they both attempt to understand what exactly it is about him that is causing that feeling. Pandora is unable to narrow it down, but Paige quickly has a realization and pulls Rumis away from the group, asking him (quite ominously) if he wants to go to the “darkest part of the ship”. Rodreck follows invisibly, and Pandora sends Orpheus to act as her eyes and ears for the meeting as neither trusts their party members fully.
Paige, realizing she doesn’t know the light cantrip or have any way of producing light except a torch, grabs Aida and gets her to meet her and Rumis in the cargo bay. Aida offers her driftglobe, and Paige casts detect magic on herself. With some manipulation of the drift globe and Paige’s hat, Paige, Aida’s familiar (Oliver), and Rumis spot the wiggling of Rumis’ shadow. Paige is incredibly vague, and her detect magic picks up nothing regarding Rumis’ strangely moving shadow.
“What’s this all about, Paige?”
“Do you get any weird, like, feelings or something from your shadow? Do you feel like you’re being watched or followed occasionally? Like, more than you feel like you should?”
“It’s weird that you say that. I didn’t connect it to my shadow, but yes, I’ve often, especially recently, have felt like I’m being watched.”
“Because it might be true. Earlier and just now, I saw your shadow flicker in a weird way. Like, in kind of an unatural way, like it was moving on its own. And I’m trying to see if I can get it to come alive again. To see if it is willing to show its face or something. Because there is something attached to you at the feet.”
After Paige’s explanation, everyone but Aida spots the strange motion of Rumis’ shadow (including Orpheus and Rodreck), and Rumis can feel his shadow behaving weird. Tentacles made of shadow are apparent, and Rumis feels them slide into his being. Paige, to her surprise, detects nothing magical nor planar.
Aida spots Orpheus as he retreats to inform Pandora. Pandora make her entrance, and detects a horrible sense of desecration wafting off of Rumis, Rodreck, and Orpheus with the use of Detect Evil and Good. Aida bemoans the sneaking, as the discussion of what is going on begins.
Pandora questions Rodreck and Rumis on what exactly they did and what they accepted, warning them that these things always have a cost. Rodreck reveals he picked up the mask in Stilben, and that it promised him power and fame through his works. Pandora watches his mask as he materializes it for them, and realizes it is more akin to possession than warlock pacts from what she remembers. Paige is unable to distinguish Rodreck’s mask from the multitude of other religious artifacts that take the form of a mask.
After Rumis explains his encounter with the shadow creature that proclaimed itself “protector of all that is dark and below”, Pandora reveals that she also had an encounter during her watch the first night they were reunited.
“I might have…Taken its hand…When it offered to help me regain my memories.”
“Something spoke to me through Orpheus. And it wasn’t Orpheus. I… While you guys were in the bookstore, reading the sex novels, I was doing a bit of research. Familiars are commonly taken hold of by extra-planar entities, whether it be a deity or something else, as a line of communication. They’re easier to access. So, it didn’t narrow it down any. But… It spoke to me. And it said something about…It said something along the lines of watching us. It said some of us have potential. It didn’t give me anything. And I didn’t give it anything. It said it would come back later, when I needed it more.”
Paige and Pandora investigate the place where Rumis’ hand shook the shadow creature’s, and Pandora makes contact with Detect Evil and Good still up. It is uncomfortable to touch, akin to sewer water, and feels evil in a way few things do. When Pandora tries to let go, three hands grab her, and she loses concentration as she backs away.
Pandora tells them that this is the reason she became a cleric rather than a warlock.
“Do you know why I became a cleric in the first place?”
Paige snarkily interjects, “Power?”
Pandora agrees, “Power.”
“Oh, that was the joke, shit, okay.”
“There’s multiple different ways you can get it. You can get it by being born with it, like my birth mother. You can get it by learning it from a book, like Paige. You can get it by making a deal, like warlocks. Or, you can get it through worship, which is the currency I decided to deal in. I don’t… I didn’t make a deal because I’ve read of the consequences. There… It’s difficult dealing with things that are more powerful than you. The Raven Queen’s benevolent enough. Ioun, when I dealt with her, was benevolent enough. They don’t ask the same extent that deals do.”
“They usually ask for more dedication and work, but yeah, usually the more work you put in, the better. Because if it doesn’t ask for much of a sacrifice, it’s gonna take something from you.”
- Rodreck allows the mask to disappear, before informing them he was aware it was a bad idea.
“In truth, I knew this was a bad idea, but I wanted to see where it went.”
- Rodreck also reveals the name the mask gave him: Zantras, the Kingmaker. Paige is only able to determine that “kingmaker” is a pretentious title, and gives bard vibes.
“Let’s face it. I already hear many voices. And I’m already on a downward spiral. Either this will speed up my descent towards madness…Or help.”
“Rodreck? That…That’s one hell of a gamble, buddy.”
“It’s a welcome change to me. A faster descent is better than a slow one.”
“There’s gotta be an easier way. There’s gotta be ways to protect the brain from intruding voices.”
“At the very least, it’s an interesting story.”
Pandora and Paige put their heads together to try and determine what exactly is the nature of the dark entities contacting the party, specifically focusing on Rumis. They have difficulty seeing things from each other’s unique magical perspectives until Pandora - for the first time - shares her power to lend Paige the sensation she feels from Rumis with Detect Evil and Good up. This, combined with other clues, allows them to determine that Rumis has inadvertently made a deal with Torog the Crawling King.
Rodreck and Rumis realize they experience a mild repulsion to each other, like magnets, and Pandora and Paige turn their focus to Aida, asking if she’s been contacted by anything. After some pushing, she admits to being contacted, and does not offer any information on their identity, only states that they sought to make a pact, offering her knowledge, and she refused.
Pandora points out the most of the knowledge available on the Betrayer Gods is maintained by the Cobalt Soul or other private wizard factions, as that type of literature is frowned upon. She mentions that Dione told her to look into Vespin Chloras, and she’s not found much. Rodreck realizes they could, potentially, receive answers with a spirit session.
As Paige summarizes their situation and says she hasn’t been contacted by anything, Pandora feels a wave of distrust. She finds it incredibly strange that everybody, including Aida, has been contacted, but not Paige, and finds the simplest explanation to be the most attractive:
Well, maybe Paige is special in some way, even amongst you all who are fate-touched and thus, like, God’s favorite little children. Or, maybe a more mundane and simple reason, you know, following Occam’s Razor, Paige sometimes lies, and seemed to want to drag the truth out of Aida in particular, but seems pretty insistent that she hasn’t been touched by this at all.
Pandora messages Rodreck when Paige’s back is turned to not say anything further, and tells him it was a mistake to show her cards whilst questioning how much she can trust any of them.
The spirit session, when it i conducted, has no visible effect beyond the glowing afterimage of the mask on Rodreck’s face, almost appearing as though it wants to entrap him. Rodreck regains his spell, but the ship is flying too high and too fast for spirits to keep up so no communication was had.
After the group adjourns, Aida takes the Tome of Ioun outside and sits in a summoned tiny hut. She uses Dione’s gift to find comfort in the wellbeing of her mother, before leafing through the book while thinking of the meeting. She finds page after page filled with mentions of Torog, though they seem more in line with tabloid journalism than factual encyclopedias. Eventually, Aida comes back inside to rest.
Paige gives Jon a gift for Aida to open in the morning
Pandora asks the Raven Queen what contacted her, and is only given the vague impression of something just as bad as Torog.
Rodreck’s Summary
Dear Aida allow me to recap the night
I lost Paige so I had a drink with mother
I found out later she nearly started a fight
From one bar I traveled to another.
I found the others and helped them dispose of some drugs.
Rumis was so happy he gave out free hugs.
I finished the night relieving my burdens to a prostitute.
I assume Pandora was looking to find her faith a new recruit.
