Session 57: Pheh and Saliled (August 15, 2024)
Last session, our heroes panicked about what to do after the unexpected execution of Alsa Peonybark. With the help of some dolls, they…disposed of the body, gave a doll a knife, and then headed out to plan a spying mission on Harris Kelner.
The party decided to split, with Heph and Maho heading to a bar owned and operated by Digk Büt to inspect Maho’s katana, and Elias and Rormir heading to Steam Williams to find and observe Harris.
Heph and Maho walked in to find the goliaths on the latest stage of a bar crawl, having a drinking contest with a patron while all other customers watched excitedly. Heph cast Identify on the katana, and was suddenly transported to a cozy, cluttered wooden room where a gnome he recognized as Leo the Grammarcist was working. The old artificer recognized Heph and handed him the completed bracer to try on, impressing on him the similarity between his own path and that of Sentin, and the importance of choosing to use his skills for good. Maho appeared back in the Widow Seer, this time with an old woman behind the desk, the Seer herself. She gestured towards her infant daughter in a nearby crib, and spoke of how she learned the ability of foresight in order to protect her. And now, with her presence in Maho’s katana, some of those skills will be hers as well.
Meanwhile, Elias and Rormir planned their entrance into Steam Williams. Upon witnessing Harris walk in, they entered behind. They failed to convince the receptionist that they had a private room with Harris, and also failed to convince Harris Rormir was a representative of Sentin after he snuck in as a spider, and so they resorted to the most effective of strategies: violence. They knocked out both Harris and the receptionist, and then carried the dwarf’s naked body through the streets back to Tertel’s, meeting up with Heph and Maho at the bar on the way.
There at Tertel’s they met the wooden mannequin, holding out its hand expectantly. Rormir gave it Harris’s wet towel as a gift and it collapsed, seeming somehow disappointed. They then headed to the attic, where they found Delilas sitting on the bed. She began to say that she had returned with the supplies they wanted, but was interrupted by a crossbow bolt whistling from the now-uncovered vanity mirror, striking her in the chest.
- A mirrored version of Delilas steps out of the mirror holding a
crossbow, looks at Elias and tells him she can explain she just
needs to do this first, and then launches a few more shots at
Delilas, but neither hits
- The Delilas on the bed turns to Elias and asks what is happening, the three of them have a brief conversation, and mirror Delilas is insistent that there can only be one Delilas and she needs to do this quickly, then the mirror version runs back to the corner and hides
- The Delilas on the bed is confused, and dodges
- Elias notices Mirror Heph seeming to approach the mirror to also pass through, then smacks the mirror with Jarles, then smacks it with a dagger, cracking the mirror but not destroying it
- Mirror Heph steps through, casting 4 bolts of Magic Missile at Heph, and says he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else, there just needs to be one to merge all the power
- Rormir asks Heph what to do, Heph, starting to slowly piece together what is happening, and he suggests Rormir destroy the mirror, Rormir walks up to Mirror Heph and asks how they met, and mirror Heph tells him they met the same way, they had only diverged a few days ago
- Rormir asks Mirror Heph where his other half is, and Mirror Heph motions to the mirror, where Rormir sees his and Elias’ reflections, and looking at his reflection he mouths “are you me?”, and the reflection behaves properly as a reflection
- Mirror Heph tells Rormir that he and Elias haven’t diverged, and Heph diverged on the Dune Skimmer when Mirror Heph figured out the mirrors and Heph didn’t, and he needs to kill Heph to merge their powers into one
- Rormir attempts to entangle the Delilases and Mirror Heph, but Mirror Heph is able to save, then Rormir Wild Shapes into his starry form, launching a shot at Mirror Delilas, but misses
- Heph casts Shatter, breaking the mirror and unfortunately peppering Elias with shattered glass, dealing a bit of damage, and Mirror Heph seems a bit exasperated, saying it won’t do anything
- Maho approaches Mirror Heph, swinging at him with her Katana but missing, and Elias asks if Mirror Heph would be Pheh, and in response to Mirror Heph acknowledging he isn’t the original Maho swings at him two more times, dealing some damage and restraining him
- Mirror Delilas launches two more psychic daggers, dealing a bit
of damage to bed Delilas
- Delilas launches two psychic daggers back, hitting both and dealing a bit of additional damage
- Elias sneaks up to Mirror Delilas, stabbing at her with Jarles, but missing, then steps between the Delilases, pointing his sword at Mirror Delilas
- Mirror Heph launches a Shatter spider at Heph, fully focused on him and seeming to completely ignore Maho and Rormir
- Elias moves past Mirror Heph, who doesn’t attack him because he says they are friends, and takes two shots at Mirror Delilas, and a third shot with his starry form
- Heph steps out from behind the table where he was hiding, and launches a porcelain doll at Mirror Heph’s face, then steps out of the room, closing the arcane locked door, and Mirror Heph responds “shit”
- Maho uses Giant’s Might to make herself bigger and tries to grapple Mirror Heph, but he manages to avoid getting grabbed due to his squat nimbleness
- Mirror Delilas tells Elias to get out of the way, to
which he responds “make me. You might be my sister, but you did the one thing
I can’t tolerate, you messed with my sister”, and she decides to rip free of
the vines and walk towards Delilas rather than risk attack past
Elias
- Delilas tries to stab at her mirror self, but doesn’t manage to land either shot, but looks towards Elias and says “sneak attack?”
- Elias smiles and stabs at Mirror Delilas with Jarles, but she deflects the shot with a psychic blade, saying “I’m glad you get to see my new tricks”, and he stabs at her with a dagger from his off-hand, landing a solid blow with that one and saying “You get to see one of mine” and then turning to Jarles says “You’re slacking”, and then implies he’s going to replace Jarles with the dagger, “New Jarles”
- Mirror Heph tries to shatter the door, but doesn’t manage it and the door holds firm, and he again says “shit”
- Rormir says “everyone needs to stop right now, this is not how to restore balance”, then drops entanglement and casts Thunder Wave on Mirror Delilas and Elias, who both manage to save, but the damage to Elias seems to cause Mirror Delilas to get even angrier, and then Rormir shoots his starry form at Elias, telling him “you need to stop, this is not the way”
- Heph opens the door, sticks his tongue out at Mirror Heph, which Mirror Heph does back, casts Thunder Wave and pushes him back, then slams the door again
- Maho tries to slash at Mirror Heph, but doesn’t manage to land a blow, then steps back, throws a rock at him which he blocks with his shield, then steps up to him again
- Mirror Delilas and Mirror Heph’s forms start to shift
and warp a bit, and they look at each other and say we need to make this
quick, then both look towards Delilas
- Mirror Delilas swings at Delilas, but only one lands but Maho redirects the attack to Mirror Heph, dealing some damage to him
- Delilas swings back at Mirror Delilas, landing both attacks with a sneak attack bonus, bringing her to death’s door
- Rormir tries to remind Elias about balance, to which Elias says “fuck balance” and misses whacking her with Jarles, but lands a shot with New Jarles, knocking her unconscious, and Mirror Heph again says “shit shit shit shit” and looks very stressed
- Mirror Heph sees Mirror Delilas go down, and looks a bit surprised that Elias took her down, and then looks at Delilas and says “you need to land the killing blow”, and then moves closer to Delilas, covers his mouth, and casts Message to her, then he yells at the door “I can’t hold this much longer, make sure she delivers the killing blow, if you’re anything like me, and you are because you’re me, you’ll know this is necessary”
- Rormir uses Zephyr Strike to move out of melee range, and launches some shots at Mirror Heph, telling him that he should be smart enough to figure out how to do this without killing anyone, and he manages to hit him twice, dealing a fair amount of damage, and telling Mirror Heph that killing part of himself is not the way to restore balance
- Heph cracks open the door again, messages Mirror Heph saying “You know Rormir is right, this isn’t the way” to which he responds “it is a way, but you can kill me and I won’t stop you”
- There is a brief discussion between Rormir and Elias, discussing that they should subdue Mirror Heph to resolve the situation peacefully, and Maho grabs Mirror Heph and shoves him down to the floor, moving him closer to Elias
- Mirror Delilas and Mirror Heph both shimmer more
aggressively, and Mirror Heph reminds Delilas that
the time is now and she has to do it
- Mirror Delilas succeeds on a death save
- Delilas looks at Mirror Heph, looks at Mirror Delilas, says “he’s right, there doesn’t need to be two of us”, and stabs at Mirror Delilas, only landing one blow and leaving Mirror Delilas at two death save failures
- Delilas looks apologetically at Elias, who says “I trust you”, then pulls out Jarles, turns to Mirror Heph and says “but I don’t trust you!” and lands a really strong hit on Mirror Heph, then swings again with New Jarles, managing to finally knock him out
- Heph runs back into the room, looks over at Delilas,
and asks what Mirror Heph told her, and Delilas
mentions that Bloody Mary killed her double and is the
better for it
- Heph tries to convince her that killing her doesn’t make any sense and the logic is very flawed here, but Delilas isn’t convinced and move to strike Mirror Delilas
- Rormir casts healing word on Mirror Delilas to protect her from Delilas, and says to Mirror Delilas that if you know yourself you can be in balance with your mirror self
- Maho grabs Mirror Delilas and holds her on her other side, trying to keep the Mirror people separated from each other
- Rormir tries to communicate with his Mirror self that they need to work together, hoping to diverge himself and use his Mirror self to help Mirror Heph and Mirror Delilas find the right path
- Mirror Heph opens his eyes and weakly says to Heph “finish it”, but Heph responds “there has to be a better way, none of this makes sense”
- Delilas looks exasperated at Mirror Delilas being healed
- Suddenly Mirror Heph and Mirror Delilas seem to snap
out of existence, and for a moment we see an imprint of the Mirror entities
for a moment before it fades
- Looking into a fragment of the mirror, Heph sees himself looking disappointed, but he can’t tell if he is himself looking that way or not
- Elias runs over to Delilas, who says she hates it here, and Elias says yeah, these people
- Heph questions Elias about this planar nonsense, and Elias explains that their home phases between the Fey Wild and this plane
- After some debates about how planes work, Heph finally gives up, a bit frustrated about Elias’ imprecise explanation
- Delilas gives Heph the materials and gold she managed
to find, which Heph takes and thanks her for
- Delilas asks about the memory extraction and if there is anything her crew can help with
- She explains what Mirror Heph told her in a bit more detail, there are two spectral planes, each exact copies and more or less equivalent, but occasionally a divergence occurs, very rarely, when an individual realizes their nature and is able to act differently than their counterpart
- It is very difficult to do, but it can happen, and Mirror Heph realized what gains could be had by having only one across both planes
- Rormir points out that Sentin may have also figured this out, he is also very smart
- We also remember that Bloody Mary and
Sentin know each other and are both from
Fleetwood
- They grew up together
- Elias tries to pickpocket a shard of mirror from Rormir, but Rormir notices but pretends he didn’t notice it, and grabs another one, and Elias gives it to Heph, and Rormir takes it back, and Heph grabs another one
- The group discusses the plan a bit, and Heph decides to make the mask remover and rest up the rest of the day