Session Date: 09/26/2025
Session Begin
Calthel had gotten sun stroke during the last session so he is recovered by the time the party returns to the inn. Recent events are explained over dinner, as we as introductions made for Calthel, Ravyn and Eleri. After dinner, Ships asks Calthel to identify the Rider Kalyptos’s sword. Calthel identifies it as a crystal blade: a pale steel sword with there diamonds in the blood groove where the target takes extra 1d8 radiant damage when hit. You can use a bonus action to shed bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet, to cause it to shed dim light for a 10-foot radius, or to douse the light.
Controversial Headmistterss: Baroness-Consort Prestina
- Calthel knows she tied Baron, wasn’t married way back when
- The Baron is off on the continent fighting in the War so she’s currently in charge
Baronness is expanding the number of towers from 4 to 6 and while preparing students with a broader variety of programs is not a bad idea, the teachers incomes come from the number of students who study under them, so it’s potentially slashing 1/3 of everyone’s income. Her public claim is that while this is supposed to be a preparatory school for the Grammaries, in practice, it’s not leading to as high a likelihood of placement in a Grammary as it ought to.
Previous Headmnistress: Valdinac pg 7 my notes
- Had a stroke that has left her rather unwell
We rest for the night.
The Night
Ships has a dream:
*He’s down the street and is fully dressed once more, down the street from the inn. He’s fairly certain he’s dreaming, but that knowledge comes and goes. He looks behind him and there’s just more street, which leads to a netmaker and wagon wheel repair shop. He looks around more closely - it’s late at night, but there are still some people moving around: some people still in the common room of the inn, some people downhill closer to the docks - nobody’s paying attention to him. He picks up a rock, confirming he’s corporeal. He tries to fly, but never leaves the ground. He looks around and notices his bootprints only are where he woke up standing, they do not go back to the inn - other than that, there’s the usual wagon ruts in the dirt. He feels like the moonlight is really bright, but when he looks up, there isn’t any moon: this makes sense as it’s the night of the new moon, but where is the moonlight coming from? There is an Archfey Bodach Greycloak somewhat associated with the moon, but not specific actual moon deity, as he recalls. He climbs up to the window of his room and sees someone sleeping in his bed. He stealths into the room to see who’s in the bed: his foot catches the window and makes a loud noise, but the window doesn’t break. He feels a moment of vertigo as they roll over in the bed and he recognizes himself. *
Sarras wakes up, her alarm going off. She dons her armor and weapons and checks her door, listening to see what’s going on. She hears a bell-like thud coming from Ships’ room. She finds ships, but glowing, climbing into a bed where there is Ships, not glowing. She lowers her sword and asks if he has any explanation, and he comments that for a dream, you’re wearing a lot more clothing than expected. She tries to grab glowing Ships ear and fails.
Sarras manages to grab sleeping Ships’ ear, which makes glowing Ships feel it, and Ships is starting to think that maybe this isn’t a dream. Sarras tweaks his ear and Ships yelps in surprise and he realizes immediately this is not a dream. He immediately says that he doesn’t know what’s going on and that he’s him, and he apologizes and says he thought he was dreaming, and asks if they should get Calthel. Sarras agrees that this is probably something to speak to Calthel about. She leaves to wake Calthel. As she’s gone, Ships uses prestidigitation to close the window - which works, but it feels weird.
Sarras wakes Calthel and all of the commotion wakes up Ravyn. We crowd into Ships’ room and Calthel recognizes that there are a few things to allow someone to walk in their dreams, but it doesn’t match anything that he’s immediately aware of because it’s a little different. Sarras asks if Ships has done anything different, and he says no, he’s eaten the same food as us, practiced the same spell exercises as always. Calthel touches him and it’s like touching a waterbed: the first moment is solid, then it gets wobbly.
Calthel eventually casts Identify on Ships, leaving a hand on him for 11 minutes. Over the course of the casting, he gets the dragonborn version of goosebumps. It’s a magical ability called spectral duplicate that is affecting Ships rather than a proper spell. Sarras casts detect magic and determines that it’s effectively a third level necromancy spell.
SPECTRAL DUPLICATE - LEVEL 3 NECROMANCY - As a bonus action, the target creates one spectral duplicate of itself in an unoccupied space it can see within 60 feet of it. While the duplicate exists, the target is unconscious. A target can have only one duplicate at a time. The duplicate disappears when it or the target drops to 0 hit points or when the target dismisses it (no action required). All damage the duplicate does is psychic damage.
Ships says he was practicing the memory exercises out of the Ars Notoria - a Celeviran book on learning eidetic memory and basic primer for a collegiate or monastery wizard’s curriculum. Calthel gently tells him that there’s no way those exercises caused this, it would have happened before if it were the case. Sarras asks
Lore notes:
Animating undead if you’re not a member of the clergy is illegal, but necromancy itself is not illegal.
Ships recalled fighting a strange imp-like creature at the Marquis’ castle when we stayed that had a similar ability to this. Ships asks if he’s been possibly compelled, and Sarras says no, it doesn’t seem so.
Sarras continues to go through Ships’ things and we get to the bone knuckle dice that allow for speak with dead: there’s something strange going on with them that is similar to what’s happening to Ships.
Calthel finally gives sleeping Ships a shake and he wakes, causing glowing Ships to disappear.
The Grammary of Divination or the Monastery where Sarras is from would have information about the similar ability from burbalangs (the little imp guy). If it is a known spell then the Grammary of Necromancy in Mouldweir (in a different Duchy) would have information. It would be a 3-4 week round trip to send an inquiry.
Sarras thinks that it might be best to isolate the dice since we don’t know if they’re dangerous or the cause of this event. Sarras confiscates the dice and then retreats to her room to write letters to the monastery and the Grammary of Necromancy to see if they know anything about the above spell and related magics.
The Next Day
We get up the next morning and acquire a lead-lined box for the dice, which weighs 4 lbs. Sarras picks up a few of the boxes, just in case. The seller asks if the boxes should have locks and keys, which Sarras thinks is a good idea - with locks and keys it’ll be 25gp per box (5gp without locks). We opt for the regular boxes without the locks at this time. She can grab a separate lock for 15gp, which she haggles down to 12gp with the caveat that we go to him and not his competitors for as long as we’re on Compass Tor. He sells vessels and vessel accessories. She commits to that.
Students have a half day today in classes.
Headmistress Valdinac
We head our way up to the cathedral to try to get a private meeting with Valdinac. We walk over to the Cathedral. Valdinac is up on the top of the red tower, having a lively discussion with her two attendants about nonmagical means of predicting the weather - she is far more lively and cognizant than when the rest of the party saw her before. It’s as if her presence is shining through her body. It’s been about five years since Calthel’s seen her, but she looks almost 20 years older - little and shrunken and arm’s shaking, but hearing her carry on feels very much as herself, remembering parts of this lecture.
Valdinac looks over at Ships and has a puzzled expression, saying she did speak to a very respectful young man yesterday. She fears that her memory for faces isn’t what it used to be. Calthel notices that the left side of her face has that characteristic slight drooping and her left arm is shaking more than her right.
The party knows she took ill about 6 weeks after she was let go a year ago, about the same time the rector took ill.
Calthel apologizes for her loss of position, which makes Valdinac angry and bitter and a little nasty (uncharacteristically so) toward the Baroness, using “that woman” as the descriptor of Prestina. The attendants look really alarmed at that subject being broached, but she hauls herself back after a couple minutes of ranting - she’s not doing a deep dive on the context, but it’s very clear that Prestina had some maneuver to get Vladinac fired. Vladinac mentions she taught for 14 years and then was headmistress for 40, but this woman who hasn’t even been to one of the Grammaries, has notions of education.
She comes back from that and does some talking shop about the Grammary of Divination, some points which are a little tricky for Calthel to respond to (referring to things where he did not necessarily do so well in the school). About twenty minutes into the gossip, she will sigh and falter and rub at one of her temples a little.
Ships can tell that something is changing about the conversation. Ravyn can tell it’s her vocabulary: she’s losing words as she talks, but she is clever enough to mostly successfully talk around those words. Her vocabulary goes from being very high level to a stoned teenager. She’s still talking about the same sorts of things at the same level, but she’s just suddenly missing huge swaths of the words that she’s reaching for.
Calthel suggests that perhaps Sarras can take a look at her to try to ease some of the symptoms of her condition, and Valdinac allows her to try. Sarras tries protect from evil and good and there is no immediate response, and then she follows up with divine sense - nothing pings from Valdinac, and both of the attendants ping as good. She uses two points of lay of hands to help with a headache. Sarras apologizes for not being of more help, and Valdinac explains that the pain in her head was eased, but the acolytes will insist on attempting, and the gods only give so much magic to one soul in one day - surely there’s a better use than trying to plug up the holes in a sieve. Sarras replies that any relief is a worthy cause, and we have plenty of resources - it’s not a waste. Ships chimes in that Sarras has cured many people of injuries, aches, pains, illnesses, and (looking at Valdinac’s eyes) poisons.
Sarras asks if she’s been diagnosed with a specific disease, and she explains she had a brain storm and she was lucky enough that it did not stop her heart, lungs, or lose her wits entire. Beyond that, no. Sarras says that brainstorms have many potential causes. She has one last thing she’d like to try and she expends five points to try to cleanse a poison/disease.
As she lays on hands, she asks why Valdinac chuckled about the brainstorm cause - Valdinac says just a foolish old mage, who found herself no longer good for her standard occupations who got well and t-t-truly angry about it. When it happened, she could fell the veins in her throat like iron bars (heavy sigh). The attendants come forward and make soothing noises and ask her not to dwell on it.
The attendants keep freaking out whenever subjects come up that piss her off because - as far as they know - that’s what caused the brainstorm. We also get that they are shooting dirty looks and a little bit of suspicion at us and, to Calthel, it looks sincere.
The lay on hands does not cure anything, but she does tremble less.
Valdinac asks Calthel what the strongest spell he can cast is, and he says spirit shroud. She says that he needs to focus, then, as she would like the last apprentice she took to master the spell that took her position: that woman cannot do it. Lady Glamis has the power, but not the technical skill (yet). So, unlikely as she is to make a breakthrough in the middle of the semester, and as unlikely as she is to teach that woman again, it will have to be Calthel. The spell is Valdinac’s Conjured Helmsman. She describes some of the particulars, but essentially it creates a conjured mind that can give skills and knowledges necessary to operate a ship even if one does not conventionally possess those skills. Calthel promises he will.
Valdinac says that if his breakthrough doesn’t come as soon as we’d hope, then Lady Glamis has scrolls, but they’re such a crude means of instruction, they don’t teach the nuances. Calthel reassures he’ll learn it appropriately and they dance around the possible situations why they might need such a spell.
Valdinac’s claims:
- The Baronness did not go to any Grammaries
- Valdinac did teach the Baronness at one point
It’s not impossible that Valdinac’s bitterness is due to a personal grudge.
Sarras thinks about what could cause a brainstorm and she can think of a lot of causes, but no way to test any of them. Ships has seen one before and he knows that healers can sometimes tell by the balance of their humors if someone is susceptible to such a thing. There was a very high-strung older crime boss who was thought to be untouchable in a fight who effectively assassinated by somebody who would simply repeatedly infuriate him. It is unlikely, but it is not impossible.
We decide to visit Lady Elspeth Glamis and ask around the school at next session.