Session #5 Recap
While recovering from the attack at the campsite, the party
notices the bodyguard is missing and then hears a scream in the forest. All but Quaithe go to investigate; Quaithe
stays behind to make certain that Delix’s body doesn’t go missing. Io goes invisible while traveling, and the
party members come across a clearing in the forest. A creature which appears to be a Uderfhan in
priestly robes has the bodyguard nailed to a tree, with the bodyguard’s
entrails pulled from his body and laid out to view, much like an augury
viewing.
The creature turns around and asks the “Boy-Oracle
Child-Robinn” what he discerns from the future laid out before them. Robinn does not answer, but goes into a
prophetic trance and calls out some kind of prophesy:
West of rest is sleep
East, dream
Where waters meet
North, emptiness,
South, wakefulness,
And out, rising up
To the stars,
Peace.
(Source: a poem by
Jeffrey Yang)
Morgrym steps up and shoots a crossbow bolt at the creature,
nicking it. The creature waves at
Morgrym, who is suddenly frozen in place.
The creature talks about the wrath of the dwarf and the lust of Aean as
well as “the obviousness” of Juliet. It
speaks to the fact that it cannot directly kill the party, but then reaches
into its robes and pulls out a glowing piece of the blue mineral as well as a
golden pyramid. It says it can at least
make things difficult for the party, and then twists the pyramid in its hands.
The creature disappears and the party is left standing in
the dark. Meanwhile, back at the camp,
the campfire suddenly goes out and the body of Delix is now just bones and
rotted bits of clothing; the horses are gone.
Quaithe goes in search of the rest of the party, who also notice the
body of the guard is now a rotting skeleton.
Morgrym realizes through signs in the clearing and the positioning of
the stars that a couple of years have passed; the party has been pushed forward
in time. The blue gem which the creature
was holding now lies on the ground, no longer pulsing with light.
Morgrym and Io decide to go back to the village with the
bore in the side of the hill to see what has happened in the couple of years
they have been “gone.” The village is
now completely abandoned from all looks, with the bore standing wide open and a
sense of evil and doom radiating from the village. Io goes in deeper into the village, and
thinks he sees a child in a white shift running around the corner. They both decide to go back to the rest of
the party and go around the village.
The journey south towards Korvosa is now on foot through the
snowy landscape, and they see no one on the road during their travels. At one point, they see off of the road to the
east a glint, and upon investigation, find a pool of water from a small creek
which holds a box engraved with the symbol of Sarenrae. Inside the box are 5 teardrop-shaped vials
holding a magical liquid. Upon research,
the liquid, when swallowed, gives the person protection from disease
permanently, and each of the members except Robinn swallow one of the vials.
Upon finally coming up to Korvosa, the party notices very
little traffic, all going into Korvosa and not coming out, with many guards
vigorously checking those entering the city.
When they approach the gates, they are questioned as to from where they
are refugees, and then written into a journal and told where an Inn has space
available, a place with a man on the sign next to another man on the sign in a
frame. The Inn is in Old Korvosa, the
more run-down area of the city.
The party go to the Inn, which is a large tavern/ inn with
mirrors all around the inside of the tavern walls, and they rent the last 4
rooms available. They spend the night,
and then split up the next morning to figure out what is going on in the city,
shop, and discover what they have missed in the intervening years.
Juliet, Robinn and Io go to the main church of Sarenrae and
find out that the strange symbol the party found at the conjuring site next to
the lake and on the bodies of the Urdefhan are being worn by many daemons who
have filled the country surrounding the city, almost like a holy symbol. The city has been taking in refugees from the
surrounding villages, and ships from other countries come once a week to take
loads of these refugees away from Korvosa and Varisia, away from the daemons
which are terrorizing the land. This
appears to be happening all around Varisia, although very little news has come
in from Magnimar or other parts of the country.
And most of the villages surrounding Korvosa are now cut off. Also, not all the daemons are wearing these
symbols, and there appears to be infighting among factions of daemons.
Morgrym goes by the Academia to discover what he can about
the blue mineral gem and see if there are leads to his missing brother, but the
Academia is closed to all outsiders and the guards will answer no questions nor
pass on information for Morgrym, who is gruff in his approach. Morgrym also discovers word of the refugees
from word on the street, which explains why there are refugees but not so many
as to overwhelm the city or to show much signs of starvation.
Juliet, Io and Robinn also stop by the watchhouse for the
Korvosan Guard, where they meet the Captain of the Guard, Field Marshal
Cressida Kroft, a human female who is gracious but obviously harried from the
large number of refugees. She has no
information on Delix being missing or any ramifications, and truthfully, with
the daemonic invasion, would not be a priority at this time. She does tell about the timetable of the
ships coming in to take the refugees away, as well as being watchful for ships
full of wrathful raiders who try to land in the port city. She also says that if the party is
interested, she would be very grateful for any assistance they might provide to
the city.
Quaithe wanders around the city market and learns much the
same information, while Aean goes to the temple of Calistria to check in as
well as to see if there is word on Lady Eva, which there is not. Very little communication has been available
from Magnimar, which is where Aean last saw Lady Eva. Each of the party members then wander towards
the market where Quaithe already is.
On the way to the market, Juliet, Io and Robinn hear
screaming down the street and come upon a large creature standing in a
fountain, terrorizing the local people.
It appears to be a construct of the skin of faces sewn together with
straw stuffing the insides. They take
the creature down, and afterwards, overhear one of the guards from the city who
came to investigate that the faces seem to belong to missing people from the
Academia.
The party all ends up in the market, although Morgrym never
reconnects with the rest of the party.
Some party members go to local enchanters and such to have armor and
weapons enchanted with magical power, and leave this gear overnight to be
picked up the next day.
Morgrym ends up by himself in an abandoned area of the city,
with derelict buildings all around. He
senses and then sees a child in a white shift, blood running down the front, on
the third floor of one of the buildings, and it brings to mind the “child” Io
saw in the abandoned village as well as occasional viewings by the party since
then. He goes into the building to
investigate. Inside, a staircase barely
holding together goes up to the second floor, which is dark and has a real feel
of evil and dread flowing down the steps.
The shaken Morgrym looks for the child in the rooms on the first floor,
but then suddenly feels a hand grab his own and pain courses through his body
as if life is sucked out of his body. He
looks and sees the little girl with the bloody shift, and as he stumbles away
and out the door of the building, he looks back and sees many children standing
on the staircase, all in bloody shifts and all staring at him.
The party all meet back at the Inn they are currently
staying at with the strange sign.
Morgrym stumbles in after, and immediately orders a drink. While the party is in the common room after
eating, they hear in the corner two men arguing while pulling one of the
barmaids from either side while the fire in the fireplace and all of the
torches on the walls suddenly blaze an orange color. It begins to get violent as they pull her
arms harder and harder, trying to take her from the other while yelling, “She
is mine!” The barmaid, who should be
screaming from pain, seems to be in the throes of ecstasy. Io, Aean and Juliet rush over to help her,
while Morgrym notices the tavern keeper seems to suddenly be getting angrier
and angrier and Quaithe sees the minstrel slump over, drooling on himself while
just sitting on the stage. Morgrym looks
into the next room, and a table of patrons is fighting with deadly effect.
Quaithe notices that Robinn is looking around the room with
a horrified expression, but not at the patrons:
at the mirrors. She grabs him and
suddenly sees a vision in the mirrors, which Robinn is likely seeing: blue light is streaming all through the room,
the mirrors do not show reflections but instead some shrine with humanoids
“swimming” through the air, a terrible creature sitting on a throne but unable
to move off of it. One of the swimming
creatures sees Quaithe and Robinn, smiles a pointy-toothed smile, and then
starts pounding on the “mirror,” which begins to crack.
At this point, the party is trying to exit the tavern which
has gone crazy. Quaithe yells out a
brief shout of what she saw, picks up Robinn, and runs out into the
street. In the distance, a dull roar is
heard, and the street lamps at the end of the streets begin turning
orange. Everyone leaves the Inn,
although Io is caught up as the mirrors crack open and flood the Inn with
water, pushing him out into the street he was heading for anyway.
Morgrym sees a man running up one of the streets at a dead
run towards the party, and it turns out to be Trufargus, who grabs Robinn and
yells, “Run! Run, you fools!” All of the streetlamps are now orange, and
mobs of crazed people are coming up both streets straight at the party. Up above their heads on the top of a
building, the party see the strange priestly Uderfhan, and it shouts out
gleefully, “Let the Plague of Sins begin!”
