Session Date: 01/31/2025
Whew, it’s been a while! Session 28 was in November. That session was mostly used to work on breaking the encoded letter’s cipher, and I was unable to attend. :(
After The Tunnels
We had just escaped the tunnels with the creatures and it is early evening. We opt to return to the Baron Llwyn’s and Sarras opts to choose to tell the Baron about the suspicious creature in the lake and the tunnels filled with the suspicious demon creatures, and the Baron starts lashing out at everyone around him. While he does lash out toward us, he doesn’t do so as much and is definitely lashing out toward his household more than anything. When Sarras tries to keep the peace, the man stops and glares at her, then storms out of the room.
The prominent members of the house (wizard, both sisters, wife, and chaplain) quickly evacuate the room toward the apartments and leaves us in the room with the musicians and some of the kitchen staff. The room is silent as we all make sure nobody comes back, and when we are sure it’s safe, the musicians begin playing again. Sarras suggests that Ships and Brother Decimus find a quiet place to work on the coded letters that we had found while she and Calthel stick around to answer questions and try to help keep the peace.
While the others go to work on the letter, the servants go back and forth. It’s clear that they don’t particularly wish to go back there, but there’s no ongoing issue that seems to be an active problem. Sarras and Calthel both notice that while the staff are alarmed and nervous about the Baron being in this state, they’re not shocked and they’re not disoriented. There is a sense of unpleasant routine. It might be a notable event, but it’s not unique.
Sarras can tell that the household is not entirely bought into the information of what we’ve found is actually real. They’re used to the Baron saying things and finding people confirming the Baron does not make him more credible, but makes us less credible.
Ships & Decimus Decoding Session
The two retire to a back room after borrowing the light orb from Calthel and learn the command words. The two work on it for a few hours and manage to get some of it solved:
On the occasion of the wasting of Colholm, many of us were sent into the Isles. My charge was here, the Isle of Grislith, where I discovered much amiss. Whatever doors were thrown open with the emptying of Colholm, more opened than intended. Beneath the mountain here, in the depths of the caries (caves), something had begun digging upward. The nature of the creature I cannot say as I have never seen its like. There is something of a dragon about it, and something of the beetle, ant, or wasp. Its claws are fierce. The elders spit acid. They are swift and industrious, and treat soil and even stone as water. They are breeding, and they are growing, and yet, they are the spawn of evil, not its cause. They slew me, but they are not the movers nor the threat. The Wasting did not start with them. There is something that they fear, which keeps them for now to the depths. I know not what. But I know that it does not live here below. Their fear is upon the heights.
The second half is still a work in progress - we have a few pieces of it figured out, but we definitely have the last line solved:
A pattern of hatreds long dreamed of, beyond anything of our making. Beware it, our true foe.
The Wasting of Colholm (now Dufholm) was when the entire population of the island vanished into thin air. The paladins were sent to the other Isles after that had happened.
As a reminder: the creatures are cruthix. They’re bred from a drake (unintelligent draconic creature without wings, used by dragons as guard animals) and some unintelligent insectoid fiend. The creatures are not fiends or directly from the hells - they’re of a mixed heritage, the tieflings of the animal world per se.
The Entire Group
We review what Ships and Decimus found together. The section about opening more doors than intended implies some contemporary information that Calyptos has that did not survive the past hundred years. This could be due to the changing of understanding of what happened, or he found out something that nobody else ever learned - it’s unclear which of these it is. This does imply numerous portals deliberately opened, and extra portals accidentally opened. Could be from this side, or the other side - unknown.
It’s clear that Calyptos had some way of knowing what the intended effect, or the difference between what was and was not intended. The latter could imply he had an understanding of who was doing the rituals and whether the cruthix were a mistake, or something else of that nature. It’s clear that he had some knowledge that led him to say with confidence that there were unintended effects.
It’s clear that the cruthix were not intentional when it came to what happened as he doesn’t know of their nature, and that they did not start The Wasting.
Calthel thinks about all of this and what records may exist and if they would reasonably have survived to this day, per Sarras’ prompting.
Sarras knows that there are three places that this information may remain:
- At her abbey specifically
- If it were here, she would have heard of it probably (she’s not sure though)
- Local magical school of Compass Tor
- May not have an advanced understanding, but they should have records of notable magical events
- The Grammary, the higher magical school where Calthel studied
Calthel (nat 20):
- The Grammary absolutely knows that there’s nothing like that and it’s safe to assume that at some point while he was poking around in the library he would have looked that kind of thing up and there’s nothing there
- The best lead would be whatever records are at Compass Tor
Decimus:
- The abbey absolutely does not have any record of exactly what happened, but they also don’t have a record of exactly what Calyptos’ last assignment actually was
Sarras suggests we talk to Ser Lothar before we leave as we do not believe that the Baron’s house likely cannot properly defend themselves from this threat in the tunnels.
Over Night
Sarras suggests we share rooms and so Sarras, Calthel, and Ships share one room, with the others in another.
During the night, Sarras hears raised voices approaching from elsewhere in the castle. Sarras beckons Best Largest to come in, but before anything can happen, shrieking and hysterical sobbing comes from the stables. The rapid march of boots ensue after, and the sounds all seem to be moving through the audience chamber toward the guest quarters.
Sarras and Ships rush out, with Calthel casting dancing lights and then following. There are six bleary looking armsman - none wearing armor, most in nightclothes rather than uniform tunics - with their swords belted on. The baron’s sisters are also both in their nightgowns, with the sister on the right with the whole front of her nightgown smeared up and down with blood, along with her hands and the underside of her chin. She is going to point a crooked finger our way and yell at the guards to seize us.
“Combat” begins. Calthel uses his familiar to scout ahead and the owl familiar finds the baron and his wife dead in their room, and he announces this as he manages to hold person the sister that is aggressively casting spells at us. We begin to back off and get out of the castle.