The party meets Mayla to discuss the Middarmark Prophecy and a Dark Elf Observatory beneath Vestigård Manor. They debate keeping its power secret, angering Mayla. Belanor and Hilda reconcile. The group ventures into the Underdark, where a giant kidnaps Alice. Dedric leaps after them.
Fenn attends the Salt Dryads, Hilda has become recluse and distant, and Sergeant Valen and Alice Hayworth are seen closer together; meanwhile, Dedric, Urist, Bucklebrick, and Balanor discuss the Middarmark Prophesy and ponder what the signs mean and why Runa’s shade showed Dedric the secrets beneath his ancestral home.
Bucklebrick wants to ask Mayla the Blue about the lay lines mentioned in the prophecy and finds her using a paper familiar he’d kept earlier (or she put there)1.
Astrid’s Hearth
Bucklebrick and Dedric find Mayla asleep at Astrid’s Hearth, in the commons among a pile of books in a cozy nook. Bucklebrick wants to examine one of the books out of curiosity2, but she awakens and squirrels the books away, Bucklebrick covers for himself by spilling beer all over everything and pivots to asking about the Middarmark Prophesy while Mayla uses a simple spell to clean up the mess.
The conversation twists into Mayla coercing information from Bucklebrick and their feelings about Belanor being awfully “protective” about what they discovered below in the Dark Elf Bazaar.
Mayla then requests the conversation be somewhere casual ears cannot overhear3 and recommends a place that Dedric felt safe in childhood. She gives him an origami crane (another paper familiar) and breathes life into it. “Say my name once you’ve found that place.” She leaves the familiar with them.
Back at the Vestigård Manor
Bucklebrick grabs Urist and tells Belanor that he and Dedric believe Mayla doesn’t trust him or is up to something.
Belanor agrees to remain out of this private meeting and hear about it later.
Brokkr’s Anvil
Dedric’s childhood safe spot is on the rooftop of the city’s blacksmith shop. Bucklebrick speaks Mayla’s name to the familiar and she manifests as a shadow out of the chimney, her rooftop steps glamoured like the grace of a cat. Here is what they find out from her:
There is a magical arms race between magical factions and access to magical lay lines and their locations is a closely held secret. The Drune, an ancient and evil magic cult, wants to monopolize this.
She believes the players have found a Dark Elf Observatory beneath Vestigård Manor that can reveal those lines of power and allow one to travel instantly between them.
Cutaway Scene: Belanor & Hilda
Hilda confesses to Belanor that she resents the elves and their long lives. Humans are short-lived and need to take any magical advantage they find to get ahead, and knowing her worth as a musician would be valuable to her (she wanted to use the scales found in the dark elf bazaar on herself).
Belanor apologies and confesses his admiration for the lesser races and then comments “Would you give a dagger to a toddler” implying giving powerful magic to people that don’t understand it is dangerous, enraged at the condescending remark, Hilda storms off with a “fuck you.”
Belanor isn’t impressed.
Brokkr’s Anvil, cont...
Mayla tells Dedric, Bucklebrick, and Urist that humans are short-lived and need any magical advantage, but who this magic ends up with is an important consideration.
Bucklebrick muses on the complexity of using lay lines to move about and the potential to destabilize the global economy.
Mayla muses that the fates have decided that humans should inherit this and who better than Dedric, whose house sigil is an eight-legged seed of legend that can travel to the underworld?
Dedric is unconvinced, this power breaks the world.
Bucklebrick and Urist muse about keeping it a secret for now as the world isn’t ready for this yet and wants to destroy it. Mayla is overwhelmingly against this but asks if she can use part of its power for her order if they’re going to do this.
The players leave with Mayla uninvited to the next excursion but will report back what they find; angered by this, she bursts into a murder of crows and flocks away.
Vestigård Manor: Belanor & Hilda
Belanor follows Hilda and tries to rectify the situation. Hilda confesses she comes from a large family of talented sisters but she’s been “the shit one,” until she found music much later in life. Belanor tells her any long-lived elf knows good music they hear it and she doesn’t need a magic device to tell her this.
This settles Hilda down and they make peace—“fucking wisdom of ages...”
Camp Phase
Bucklebrick borrows a bunch of fruit from the Vestigård Orchard and makes fruit leathers, a halfling favorite on the trail. The night was otherwise safe and uneventful.
Deep Carbon Observatory
This is the third dive into the deep carbon observatory and Fenn is going with them this time. He casts a light spell, summoning four wisps to help them traverse this dark place.
The group moves to the last unexplored place, the assumed location of the observatory.
The Void Stairway
The party shudders knowing the ghoul giant lurks in the shadows nearby and they hastily make their way down the stairway overlooking the Underdark. Alice screams. The giant has snatched her and flees below them, without fear Dedric leaps into the void after them.4
[Session Ends]
Major Decisions and Actions
The party is filling Mayla under “tenuous ally” for now.
Complete their investigation into the Underdark Observatory.
Treasure
None were collected in this session.
Character Development Moments
Mayla is clearly creating a rift between the and the rest of the party and Belanor, or maybe the elves as a whole.
Do witches know when you’re lying?
Alice made a helmet out of the Rainbow Shell she collected previously.
Belanor doesn’t know it but Hilda likes him more now, he’s a voice of kindness she has trouble telling herself.
Vaathor-Vash shifts between male and female bodies.5
Unresolved Plot Threads
Mayla was looking at a bestiary of angelic creatures, but why and for what?
Who will reverse-engineer these ancient dwarf artifacts?
Next Session
Capture conflict: Get Alice Hayworth back before she’s eaten whole—Crunch!
Investigate the rest of the observatory the dark elves secrets.
2024-07-25-TB2E
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I don’t honestly remember, but let’s assume Bucklebrick kept one of her paper familiars. ↩︎
This was a gamemaster error on my part, Vaathor-Vash was originally a female Warlord, but I screwed up and forgot twice, now they gender bend; but what is male or female to the evil spirit of a Lich lord? ↩︎
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