Evening, Kelehess 25th - Morning, Kelehess 26th
(28 days total, 17 days left until the New Moon)
Dinner
After some much-needed downtime, dinner was ready, a large spread of geese, boar, vegetables and bread, complemented with a dark red wine and cool spring water. For the most part, the group enjoyed their meals, passing conversation between stuffing their faces (Hulda and Jeda, I'm looking at you!). However the question still loomed over Bart, would he direct them to Provia or not?
Dishes
Kaylan, grown tired of asking the half-elf, moved into the kitchen and began doing dishes. Cathartic in the scrub and dry, she was soon joined by Bart with a dish towel. He tried one last time to convince her not to go, which for many reasons she expressed she must. Bart, angered by this, said nothing more and, once the basin was emptied, stormed off to his room.
Comfort
Once it was divulged that the group would be heading to Provia, despite the Inquisition presence and general Kingdom xenophobia, Petunia got very upset. She implored the group not to go and then, still upset over Frederick, excused herself and fled upstairs. Hulda followed after the girl, finding her crying softly in a window seat. The urias did what she could to ease the girl's pain, but the barbarian soon found herself with questions of her own. Petunia asked just how they planned to get into the city, or out, or how they would accomplish whatever it was they wanted to do in the city. Hulda didn't know.
Pie
Higliac, annoyed with how emotional everyone was being before dessert, demanded the pies! Pie was the answer to all life's problems, or so he thought, and truth be told it did ease a lot of the tension as peach and apple were served. Everyone fell in love with the desserts, but most especially Portia. On hearing that Provia had a wide variety of pies, even ones with meat in them, she began experimenting with the left-over boar.
The innkeeper got wind of potential sales and offered them pies before they left tomorrow, but the group declined, not wanting to put the upset Petunia to work. When the subject of mead was brought up though, Higliac and Giers' talking eventually did lead to a sale of 5 bottles. While not as finely-brewed as Etherian, Kingdom mead packed a larger punch.
The Map
Bart returned in a huff with a map in his hands, a map of Provia. Fairly recent (drawn within the last 5 years), he spread it out onto the table and described what little he knew of the place and how to get there. He offered the group sale of his horses, which eventually they declined. He also had cloaks and hoods for them, what little they'd do for Hulda and Portia.
Innocent Game
Bart wished the group well and went to retire, while Higliac took up his spot at the check-in counter. Giers, Portia and Hulda weren't quite sleepy enough and the mead began to flow. Soon cards followed and some flirting... Hulda cringed through most of it, but wasn't opposed to taking the game upstairs where strip games commenced. Portia was taken off-guard by Giers' suaveness, but wasn't opposed to hit, and the bird boy enjoyed getting his mac on.
The Stranger
A stranger entered a few minutes before the card game went upstairs, a very tall man with brown robes that extended beyond his hands and feet, and whose hood masked all of his face. He paid well for his entrance and had a seat near Marrow by the fire. He'd clearly seen the group and appeared to be unconcerned, VERY unusual in the Kingdom.
Jeda joined him a few minutes later, sticking her feet and hands in the hearth coals to warm up. Hulda even moseyed on over to offer him a drink, which he brushed off with deep, commanding and giant-like voice, "I've no business with you."
As the urias moved back to the game a little dejected, the Stranger spoke to Jeda, "But I do have business with you..."
Jeda gave him her usual attitude, guessing who he might be or what, but she eventually provoked his ire and he stood, pulling off his hood to reveal a blinding light Jeda could all but squirm in. Yet to the rest of the inn, he appeared as if he was lounging comfortably, smoking a pipe. Jeda called for help, but the tipsy group told her to leave the poor guy alone.
The Stranger sat back down and spoke plainly enough: he wanted the Black Heart and the Heart of the Wild. They were stolen, he claimed, from The Vault of Nines, and he didn't have much time. Jeda asked why, to which he answered he could not tell for fear that information would be disastrous in the hands of those not willing to comply with his wishes. She postulated he was not all-powerful, or else he'd simply take them, to which the annoyed stranger responded that he disliked resorting to violence or killing unless it was absolutely necessary. He asked for them again, warning there was another close on his heels who also desired the Hearts.
Jeda began to get a bit frantic, demanding to know who and why, even as the hearth fire flickered and the Stranger rose. He asked her one last time and, when rebuffed, sighed heavily and rued her human half, for it seemed humans always opted to take the hard road. He turned and left, even as Jeda pulled on his robes for him to come back, even as they continued to pull and extend as if she were tugging on a bolt of the cloth. He left and shut the door behind him, and the tiefling followed after mere seconds later, but what she nearly ran into as she flew into the night was not the Stranger. Jeda found a fog of utter void amidst a growing wind. Within the absence of everything, that place of perfect black, she knew the essence of horror.
The Coming of the Dark One
Jeda saw the endless darkness where terror was birthed and fled like a madwoman back into the inn, even as the blind Higliac tried to comfort her in her panic. The door slammed shut, suddenly a terrible wind picked up and all the lights of the inn went out, hooded or not. The windows began rattling violently, and soon even the walls. Dirt kicked up wildly outside and trees bent like grass blades.
The group flew down the stairs, soon joined by the Weeping Stone family. Giers bravely threw open the door to discover what was the cause of this sudden rainless, thunderless, lightningless storm and Jeda's babbling fear, only to confront the same pure terror. He stumbled back, forgetting how to breathe as the void overwhelmed his senses. The door swung shut as if the storm inhaled, then all the windows blew out. Kaylan ushered everyone to the basement, concluding the shadow and elemental magic was beyond any of them, even as the wind blew off the door and knocked over furniture. The gales carried a language with them, something discordant and painful to hear.
Once in the basement, some huddled between the wine racks, while others fought to hold the door closed. It was a losing battle, as something stepped onto the floor above like the touchdown of a cyclone. It blew the basement door off the hinges. Jeda's fear spawned a shadow door in place of the real one thanks to Black Heart, but soon the walls holding the door came off as the entire inn exploded and flew skyward.
Black Heart quickly expanded its shielding of the group, obscuring like a dark glass the entity before them, the "Dark One" of shadow and blue mist whose form was vaguely humanoid and who carried a scythe-like staff. Twelve feet tall at least and surrounded by a shadowy funnel that bent or destroyed everything around it, the being was a terrifying sight to behold.
Shadow Wild
In a desperation even the Hearts shared, Hoppers and Black Heart worked as one in defending their keepers. Black Heart created a shadow barrier akin to a spider's egg, while Hoppers anchored it with thick roots from the surrounding forest. Yet once the Dark One's gaze fell entirely upon the group, it began to undo. Hoppers, still recovering from the Battle of the Twisttongue, couldn't maintain the roots and they tore away, caught in the funnel. And Black Heart's egg shell began to crack and flake away, swallowed upward into the maelstrom, unable to sustain its creation when pitted solely against this being's will.
Jeda begged for the entity to stop and all the voices and languages in the winds answered with some bemusement, "No."
Ezariel Strikes!
And when the night was darkest, the shadow egg cracked and the group entirely exposed, a single bolt of lightning struck from heaven into the Dark One. Eyes quickly registered it a being of pure light, which grappled with the being of pure dark. Their struggle produced crackling energy and sparks, even as they crashed and fell with blinding speed, into the forests, through the clouds, miles here, miles there, never in one place more than a few seconds.
All the howls and ululating languages of the winds condensed into one nightmarish voice. "You only delay the inevitable, Ezariel."
To which the being of pure light, Ezariel, in that deep, tremendous voice of the Stranger replied, "They will never be yours!"
A third light shone in the dark then, golden and warm, which instinctively beckoned the group into the woods. Thunder crashed, yelling, "Go!", while the wind seethed, "Ssssstay!" The group collected themselves in a hurry and fled into the light. All strife faded as the white consumed them, comforted them, washed them of doubt and fear...
The Grove
The group woke the next morning in a grove of apples and pears, the sun shining, the sky brilliant blue. Though autumn, today seemed a glimmer of summer past, warm but for the shock of dew. Rising, they found themselves intact, but note quite whole.
Bart shielded his family, telling the group to get away from them. Petunia, likewise, feared the group and lamented the loss of their home, though perhaps fear of what transpired was most dominant in her sobbing. Higliac, however, showed restraint, compassion even, believing what transpired wasn't the group's fault at all, but forces beyond any and all of them.
Kaylan wished them well and gave Higliac all the coin she had as small compensation. He refused at first, but eventually took it more to comfort the half-elf cleric, who looked perturbed to say the least. But Hoppers, at Portia's bidding, provided the greatest gift, returning Higliac's sight through a miraculous use of the Heart of the Wild's powers. And so the family of three left for the woods, moved, changed.
The rest of the group took time for apple and pear breakfasts, eventually discovering they were in the groves just outside of Provia itself! Though early in the morning, the farmers would soon be about, and already the sound of Nors language and carts was coming up the way...
Experience: 200 xp each (7,188 total)
Magic: None
Loot: 4 bottles of Weeping Stone mead (Giers), 1 bottle of Weeping Stone mead (Jeda)
Money: Kaylan (- all coinage), Giers (-8 gp)
NPCs:
The Stranger/Ezariel, hooded being who wanted the Hearts and warned of another that would come; he turned out to be the being of pure light that pitted himself against the Dark One and saved the group
The Dark One, a terrifying entity of shadow and wind who wants the Hearts
What is the Vault of Nines?
Who is the Ezariel?
Who is the Dark One?
What exactly are the Hearts?
No comments:
Post a Comment