Session 24 (August 16, 2023)
Last session, our heroes turned their cult encounter into a shopping trip. Heph purchased a shield and both Elias and Rormir purchased new armor. The members of the cult, enraptured by “Zacharias the Great” but wary of “Rormir the Betrayer”, introduced themselves as Piki Barbat, Isabella Isabelli, Fruto Bupbop, and Captain Backbend. Isabella helped Heph break in his new shield and Fruto explained that he was an expert on carapskit and that The Devotees of the Heavenly Cap would be one of the parties trying to tackle the unusual migration the next day.
They then went to a shop simply labeled “Alchemist” and bought two health potions and one Potion of Hill Giant Strength. Rormir got some glass vials before being asked to leave by an impatient shopkeeper upon asking about poison.
The party then went their separate ways. Heph, always the responsible one, went to the Blue Barrel Inn and reserved a room. Elias went to the wall to look at the Dune Port, where in the distance he saw glowing turquoise fog, within which were the shadows of impossibly-large cairn-like towers. And Rormir walked into the desert to convince a nest of rattlesnakes to provide him with poison, offering a snack from his Hat of Vermin as a bribe.
Rormir then came back to the Inn, where he conducted a ritual on the vials of poison. On a nat 20 religion check, the great snake spirit Urobor himself heard his prayers, adding some additional magic to the vials. Heph, on a nat 20 religion, detected this as it was happening.
The party then slept, Elias on top of the guard tower and the other two in their room. Heph thought as he drifted off about the belief that the firmament is a cloth covering the world, forming a barrier separating it from what lays beyond. Stars, according to this belief, are holes in the cloth created when something passes through, making Heph wonder what it might mean for there to be more stars in the sky, and what might have passed into this world to create them.
- This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
- While heading to the Dune Port, Heph and Rormir have a conversation about Elias, and how he’s not a team player
- Meanwhile, Elias wakes up, notices nothing, and climbs down the tower
- There are a few groups of adventurers gathered, as well as a crowd of friends, families, and onlookers to see them off
- Heph and Rormir show up, and see Elias
doing cheap magic tricks for the cultists
- Heph decides to play along, and makes a rock smell like a nasty fart and tosses it into the group before getting there
- Elias walks away and greets Heph and Rormir
- In the background, the cultists seem to be having a heated argument, presumably about the smell
- Frederick and Thom start to approach, but before they get there Rormir confronts Elias about not being a team player
- Thom and Frederick arrive at this point,
Thom looking entirely exhausted
- Thom says he and Jörnann are working on an agreement where they take turns sleeping during each other’s “shifts”, although it’s still pretty rough
- Frederick thinks Zacharias is Elias, but Elias convinces him he is Zacharias
- They were a few days ahead but got held up by the port blockage
- Heph checks on the puzzle box
- It is not reacting at all right now, but Heph (on a nat 20 history) remembers that an old folk hero named Zora had previously trapped Jörnann in the box
- In summary: an incredibly powerful figure trapped Jörnann in the box, and if the party could perform the same ritual, they could maybe trap her again
- See Jörnann § How she got trapped in the puzzle box for more information
- Information about this ritual can probably be found in religious and university texts throughout the Bismarck Empire
- Eken would have an extensive library, and temples exist throughout the Haden Desert
- There are a few other groups gathered
- A group that is dressed real fancy in stage costumes, the Devotees of the Heavenly Cap, and a group in aprons with butcher knives that the party remembers some of from the Blue Barrel Inn
- As Zacharias flourishes his cape, the stage actors seem to be judging him as mediocre
- He tries again with some prestidigitation sparks, and they seem to think he’s trying a bit too hard
- Zacharias starts to pull out his crossbow, but at that moment the person shows up on the main stage and he puts it away
- She’s an Earth Genasi woman, like 7 feet tall
- She thanks everyone for coming to assist, and tells the assembled group that they will take a dune skimmer and disembark into the fog
- She gestures towards what looks like a small ship with a flat bottom and skis
- It will be an extremely dangerous mission
- There is a humanoid carapskit-like creature that seems to be leading them according to accounts
- She’s unsure if killing it will solve the problem, but she admits she doesn’t know that much more than the assembled parties
- Whoever returns with the head of the creature will receive the reward money of 1000gp
- She steps down and heads towards the dune skimmer that has been prepared
- Rormir tries to convince the woman that the party should just go alone and be paid more
- And also thus reduce the risk of others dying
- To try and demonstrate this, he shoots an arrow slightly off-center into the “o” in the name of the skimmer, “The Hog”
- Elias makes it glow a bit and releases a lavender smell
- The Genasi woman isn’t really convinced, and just says if the party is the best they should just go prove it
- The party boards the ship and everyone gets settled in and they prep the ship
to go
- The sails are unfurled and thread woven into them in runic patterns glows in the desert sun, propelling the skimmer forward faster than wind alone could manage
- They get into a conversation with Isabella, her family went to the Bad Zamdorf spas on vacation but she hasn’t heard from them in a while
- She asks about our families, Heph talks a bit about his parents and smithing
- Elias seems to be a little panicked, and is looking for his brass device, he displays it using prestidigitation and asks if anyone has seen it
- Elias asks the devotees, where he notices there are two Piki Barbats
- One has a pigeon, and is clearly Ana
- She holds out the device and asks Elias if he is looking for this
- She stole it while he was sleeping
- Ana asks him about it, and Elias grabs it back from her and tucks it away
- Ana tries to get Elias to open up about the device, and Elias seems very nervous when she reveals that she knows what is written inside of it
- Elias pulls her aside and tells her it is time to leave, and that she is fired
- She tells him she prefers Elias to Zacharias, and Elias tells her that she is a deceptive person and offends her deeply
- She seems very upset
- Rormir steps in and suggests that maybe Zacharias needs to trust Ana a bit, and he will reveal things in his own time
- He should trust her with his dick
- Ana says, on that note, I’ll be going
- She turns to Heph and Rormir and suggests that they be more insistent about finding out what Elias is keeping from them, as it may be relevant
- Elias just walks away from the conversation and Ana just disguises herself as the bowsprit half-heartedly
- Heph has a “Message” conversation with Ana to retain her services to help get to the bottom of Elias’ deal
- She agrees, and Heph and Rormir briefly discuss the issue and decide to be nice
- Rormir tries to send Karrl to comfort Elias, and Elias shoos him away while calling him an octopus
- The cultists are confused about the hawk being called an octopus, but just go along with it
- Isabella tries to connect it to the Sand Kraken thing maybe
- Karrl comes back and just shrugs his wings a bit
- The skimmer arrives, the Genasi woman gives a brief speech, and people start
to disembark and head into the fog
- The party ties onto each other with ropes so they don’t get lost, and head into the fog in a V formation, with Heph leading
- The fog smells like the ocean, similar to the air from living along the coast and the air is much cooler than the surrounding desert
- They set out to head towards the center of the fog, seeing shadows of cairns that never seem to get any closer despite walking directly towards them
- Heph and Elias roll decent survival checks, Rormir not so much
- Rormir notices a shadowy figure standing in the fog during one of the flashes of turquoise light, and is completely convinced the figure is Sentin Thornwillow, who is the center of all imbalance that Rormir has encountered since coming to this world
- Elias and Heph see Rormir looking off into the distance, but don’t see whatever it is that Rormir sees
- Rormir fires off an arrow, Sentin is unfazed, looks at Rormir, and walks off slowly
- Rormir dashes towards him, but can’t seem to get any closer no matter how fast he runs
- Rormir assumes that it’s due to his magical powers
- Heph calls out to Rormir to stop, and plants himself, and just barely manages to prevent Rormir from getting any further away
- Elias just keeps walking towards the center of the fog, and just sees nothing new
- Rormir is questioning whether Sentin is real, but is still quite convinced
- Rormir shoots him with an arrow, which seems to hit him in the shoulder, and he turns around and glares at Rormir with glowing red lights where his eyes should be
- Rormir feels a pain in his chest and takes some psychic damage
- Rormir briefly feels like it couldn’t be real (barely missing the save DC), but shakes it off and remains convinced that it is definitely Sentin Thornwillow
- Elias comes back to Heph and asks if he knows what’s going on with the fog
- Heph doesn’t know, so Elias says he has an idea, cuts the rope, and runs off towards the edge of the fog