20 Rova 4715
Moonday
Session 27
Ham wakes up early to meet Talula while she practices, bringing some of her favorite drinks and snacks. Ham gives her another speech about how he is with her and seeks the same thing as her, but to not let the violence rule her in her goal. She asks Ham to train her a bit with the weapon and he agrees.
The party heads back to Longroads only to find that the toll on the bridge has gone up to 5 silver, a 10x increase.
Back at the wasps’ nest, Lucius finally breaks the news of Rexus parents to him, sharing with him the rings and the portrait. Rexus is somber but thankful. With a quick regroup, the party gathers some consumables and heads back to Hocums to find Nox. The journey back into the Phantasmagorium is relatively uneventful, and quick but careful progress is made back to the double doors that were blocked off in the last chamber. The group puts a more careful breaching plan in place, buffs up, then burst down the door.
The breach goes off without a hitch, and while the redactors reinforced their numbers, they were significantly less prepared. The fight goes very well, and redactors are crushed left and right before Nox finally reappears.
Session 28
The remaining two Redactors are quickly cleaned up by the concentrated efforts of the party. With no other targets, Ayse, Zach, and Ham begin to focus on Nox. Tahlulah takes the opportunity to step in for revenge, and with a massive spell strike, finally knocks Nox unconscious. Prepared for her regeneration, the party begins coup de gras after coup de gras, but despite their combined efforts she continues to regenerate. Ham, seeing their plight, lets out a desperate prayer to Milani, and his morningstar erupts in Divine energy. He brings it down to smash into Nox, whose body begins to burn away at contact.
With the combat finally done, the party takes the time to actually explore this section of the labyrinth that they have yet to go over. The room where the combat took place seems to be some kind of meeting hall or gathering space. Tables are covered in half-eaten food as well as a large variety of additional texts of interest to the Redactors. While additional bed chambers are found off of this main hall, nothing of interest is found in them, leading the party further back toward the much more interesting outdoor scene that has been set up at the back of this underground place.
There seems to be an almost theater-like set made in the eastern half of this chamber, though much of the plant life and grass here are in fact real. The party crosses a bridge over a running river which leads up to a hill along a pathway. The pathway ends at the crown of a small hill, upon which sits a small, live tree. Shaded under this tree are two piles of the most important texts to the Redactor’s works; the soul tones left behind by the Scrivenite. Though at first it is not obvious as the texts read to be mundane, day-to-day recordings of someone’s life, almost as if it were a journal kept with boreish detail, Ayse is able to figure out that these are actually the product of the Scrivenite, who is able to drain all of the intelligence from a victim, imprinting their thoughts and memories into a Soul-tome.
Three books are kept separate from the main pile, which seem to be of particular interest to Nox. The first is an account from Aneron Victocora, which is filled with his trepidations towards being a supportive father for everything that Rexus is going through in his life at the moment. The second is from Portia Victocora, which references the details surrounding the sale of Hocum’s Phantasmagorium to the Archivists, and all of the work that they put into transforming it’s underground layer into what they call the “Many Steps Monastery”.
Also of particular note in this tome are references to the “Diabolic” chapters of the “Book of the Damned”. Lucius is familiar with these, one of three books compiled by the Angel Tabris which chronicle his journey through the Outer Rifts, going to a variety of planes. The Diabolic chapters cover travels through the evil outer plane of Hell. What starts as a travel-journal, quickly devolves into the rantings and ravings of a corrupt soul discussing all manner of evil magics and powerful beings. The book is now considered to be a very powerful evil artifact that has been copied and disseminated across the Material Plane. She recalls that there was a copy of this book held in the monastery, though nobody had ever had access to it save for one strange man known only as Trailblazer Huni. Huni himself was not an archivist, but was able to convince them that he should have some time to study this book. Despite great searching, the party was not able to find these chapters, and Huni was purportedly the last to have them.
The Third and final of these separated tomes belongs to Ian Hardware, Ayse’s uncle. He seems to have an uncanny awareness of the process that is happening to him as his thoughts and memories are pulled out into the tome. What starts very similar to the others as a detailed journal of thoughts, quickly turns to him forcing to the front as many good memories of Ayse and his time together, how proud he was of Ayse, and everything that he wishes he could still teach the little lad. He has thoughts of abandoning the archivists and Kintargo, but decides that he must stay, thinking of Ayse and the formulas that he must pass along. He expresses concerns about the Redactors and who will take up the mantle after he is gone. He considers the deaths of his sister and her husband and the boy that they left him to raise. Despite all of his deep concern, the latter half of his soul-tome is filled with nothing but recognition, admiration, and praise for Ayse.
Some time is spent gathering all manner of items left behind by the Redactors, though Lucius notices a disturbing lack of a few key pieces of gear from his friends that had been killed by Nox and left behind last time. Lucius is unable to find the pearl of power or the cold iron greatsword that he gifted Larc, and this disturbs him greatly, as he had hoped to find them to remember his friends by. Once the group has a chance to parse through all of the information found here and pack everything up, they move back upstairs, ready to make their way home.
The remaining two Redactors are quickly cleaned up by the concentrated efforts of the party. With no other targets, Ayse, Zach, and Ham begin to focus on Nox. Tahlulah takes the opportunity to step in for revenge, and with a massive spell strike, finally knocks Nox unconscious. Prepared for her regeneration, the party begins coup de gras after coup de gras, but despite their combined efforts she continues to regenerate. Ham, seeing their plight, lets out a desperate prayer to Milani, and his morningstar erupts in Divine energy. He brings it down to smash into Nox, whose body begins to burn away at contact.
With the combat finally done, the party takes the time to actually explore this section of the labyrinth that they have yet to go over. The room where the combat took place seems to be some kind of meeting hall or gathering space. Tables are covered in half-eaten food as well as a large variety of additional texts of interest to the Redactors. While additional bed chambers are found off of this main hall, nothing of interest is found in them, leading the party further back toward the much more interesting outdoor scene that has been set up at the back of this underground place.
There seems to be an almost theater-like set made in the eastern half of this chamber, though much of the plant life and grass here are in fact real. The party crosses a bridge over a running river which leads up to a hill along a pathway. The pathway ends at the crown of a small hill, upon which sits a small, live tree. Shaded under this tree are two piles of the most important texts to the Redactor’s works; the soul tones left behind by the Scrivenite. Though at first it is not obvious as the texts read to be mundane, day-to-day recordings of someone’s life, almost as if it were a journal kept with boreish detail, Ayse is able to figure out that these are actually the product of the Scrivenite, who is able to drain all of the intelligence from a victim, imprinting their thoughts and memories into a Soul-tome.
Three books are kept separate from the main pile, which seem to be of particular interest to Nox. The first is an account from Aneron Victocora, which is filled with his trepidations towards being a supportive father for everything that Rexus is going through in his life at the moment. The second is from Portia Victocora, which references the details surrounding the sale of Hocum’s Phantasmagorium to the Archivists, and all of the work that they put into transforming it’s underground layer into what they call the “Many Steps Monastery”.
Also of particular note in this tome are references to the “Diabolic” chapters of the “Book of the Damned”. Lucius is familiar with these, one of three books compiled by the Angel Tabris which chronicle his journey through the Outer Rifts, going to a variety of planes. The Diabolic chapters cover travels through the evil outer plane of Hell. What starts as a travel-journal, quickly devolves into the rantings and ravings of a corrupt soul discussing all manner of evil magics and powerful beings. The book is now considered to be a very powerful evil artifact that has been copied and disseminated across the Material Plane. She recalls that there was a copy of this book held in the monastery, though nobody had ever had access to it save for one strange man known only as Trailblazer Huni. Huni himself was not an archivist, but was able to convince them that he should have some time to study this book. Despite great searching, the party was not able to find these chapters, and Huni was purportedly the last to have them.
The Third and final of these separated tomes belongs to Ian Hardware, Ayse’s uncle. He seems to have an uncanny awareness of the process that is happening to him as his thoughts and memories are pulled out into the tome. What starts very similar to the others as a detailed journal of thoughts, quickly turns to him forcing to the front as many good memories of Ayse and his time together, how proud he was of Ayse, and everything that he wishes he could still teach the little lad. He has thoughts of abandoning the archivists and Kintargo, but decides that he must stay, thinking of Ayse and the formulas that he must pass along. He expresses concerns about the Redactors and who will take up the mantle after he is gone. He considers the deaths of his sister and her husband and the boy that they left him to raise. Despite all of his deep concern, the latter half of his soul-tome is filled with nothing but recognition, admiration, and praise for Ayse.
Some time is spent gathering all manner of items left behind by the Redactors, though Lucius notices a disturbing lack of a few key pieces of gear from his friends that had been killed by Nox and left behind last time. Lucius is unable to find the pearl of power or the cold iron greatsword that he gifted Larc, and this disturbs him greatly, as he had hoped to find them to remember his friends by. Once the group has a chance to parse through all of the information found here and pack everything up, they move back upstairs, ready to make their way home.
Session 29
The party finds themselves on the front steps of Hocum’s pondering their next move. The weight of the past few days weighs on them so they decide to head back to Longroads to rest and recover. The party returns to the Wasp’s Nest to find a round table of their various crew members discussing various political theories, and how a system of government should be set up in a post-Thrune Kintargo. Lucius takes great interest in giving his opinion, and decides to jump in, pressing the various members on where they stand with regards to the place of capital and its distribution to the workers, as well as to what level the state should interfere with the means of production.
While this discussion is happening Ayse pulls Rexus aside with the solemn task of giving him the soul tomes of his parents, and tells him of the victory over Nox. While Ayse delivers the news, reassuring Rexus of his parents pride in him as well as some of the secrets they found regarding the order of Archivists, the rest of the group begin discussing the holes in the rebellion’s leadership and the various openings that Perfidus and Tallulah could fill.
Throughout the next 6 days:
The group decides to take a week to do some research and gather information across town while resting. Ham works odd jobs around LongRoads doing manual labor and assisting with the day-to-day tasks of the coffee house. Lucius goes out into the city to get a Vibe check on the various rumors and track down any leads on Trailblazer Huni. During his search, Lucius finds little in connection to Trailblazer Huni, however eventually figures out, with Ayse’s help, that it is an anagram for Barzilai Thrune, who likely worked his way into the order prior to his public appearance in kentargo when he was still unknown.
Additionally he hears some rumors regarding the spin on the silver Ravens arrest at the public excruciation, which the group had tried to spin at the Millanite service, which began to cast the Silver Ravens as a heroic resistance instead of a public nuisance. At a tavern, Lucius overhears discussion of some illicit authors who had been posting anonymous opinion pieces on the state of Kintargo that seemed to be critical of the Thrunes. The first was “Boswith the Bard”, the second named “The Poisoned Pen” is rumored to have been captured or killed due to a long period of time without a publication.
More rumors abound of the Holding House being reoccupied by the government, being used as a temporary work camp of some variety, with potentially a “fiend” that specializes in extracting information. The last thing that Lucius finds during this time is that there were potentially more people who were murdered and found near the Southern Wall which bore strange markings, eerily similar to the murders done by professor Mangvoon the serial killer.
Ayse digs into as much as he can find regarding Scrivenites. He learns almost everything there is to know about them, and is able to determine through a variety of clues that his Uncle is most likely still alive in a coma somewhere, and he finds out how to return the memories from the soul tome to his uncle to wake him up. This can be done at any time, but Ayse decides to wait till he finds his uncle to make sure it’s safe to do so, and to glean as much as he can from the pages first.
Talula spends the vast majority of this time with Perfidus and the Imminent Zach. The time is equally split between learning as much as possible about Axis and Heaven from Zach and Perfidus respectively, as these are their home planes, and intense bouts of sparring for Talula to train. Sadly, she also walks in on Ham absolutely railing Laria in her office, and Laria makes it very clear that she isn’t trying to become Talulas aunt, nor is she trying to butt in on Talulas life, but the relationship between her and Ham is purely physical and there is no emotional component whatsoever. Talula never wants to talk to Laria again it seems.
The week draws to a close, and a new rebellion turn begins