2023-01-14: Things get Weird

The twilight feels heavy and still at the sudden absence of sound after Khoraka and Phelan go dashing off into the woods. The remaining Freaky Greys look at each other and, in shock, try to decide what they are going to do next.

The mirror lies face down on the ground. It pulses and glows slightly. It looks almost like it is breathing. Ferric picks it up. It’s warm to the touch, and it smells vaguely like his favorite fire root tea. But he puts it into his bag without looking at its face.

Snow is concerned that as long as Khoraka remains intoxicated by this thing, he may double back to find her. Not wanting to put her family in danger, she decides to spend the night alone in the trees out in the wood. Her brother Thunder isn’t thrilled with this plan… but knows better than to argue with his big sister.

As darkness descends on the Savalirwood, Ferric sets up the Camper’s Respite as a decoy while he and Erash retire to Snow’s parents’ home.

Weird to weirder

Overnight, there’s no sign of Khoraka. But in the morning there IS an unexpected resident of the Respite — Phelan, barely breathing, soaked in blood.

Erash quickly gets him stabilized and casts a firebolt to get Ferric’s attention. It works, and Ferric comes running to help, and Phelan sputters back to consciousness, but something else happens too…

Erash’s hands start to itch uncontrollably. As he clenches them and shakes them, they fall right off. New hands sprout from his wrists, but as they do, the two previous hands scuttle on the ground and run with alarming speed in opposite directions towards the edges of the clearing. Erash manages to catch one of them, but the other gets away. 
Unsure what to do next, Phelan puts the animated hand in a jar and punches several holes in the top. Based on a few crude gestures, the Hand is NOT happy. At all.

Erash is pretty certain he now knows the second of the three curses placed up on him by the dying Styrix. He asks Ferric to remove the curse placed upon him. While Ferric can’t guarantee which curse he will be able to affect, he does his best.

Erash is concerned that his hands won’t stay where he puts them if he casts another spell. To test things, Erash, Ferric, Thunder, and his spitfire cub Silver Bell make their way to the river near the encampment to try out a few higher level spells. Erash’s hands stay put, so either it was a one-time effect or it’s the curse Ferric managed to lift. The fireball he casts gets Snow’s attention, and she joins them shortly thereafter.

🔮Erash’s curses as they stand…

1. He felt breath drawn out of his lungs that coalesced into a vaporous flameskull in front of him before dissipating.
2. He cast a spell and his hands fell off. He did grow new ones, but the old hands remain animated and seem to have a lot of attitude.
3. ???

The dark of night

As Phelan slowly recovers, he tells his friends what happened the night before. He tracked Khoraka over several hours, making sure he didn’t double back. The two fought, but Khoraka is extremely effective against a single target, and Phelan barely made it out in one piece. He struggled back to the clearing before passing out in the Respite.

There were numerous things Khoraka was muttering about while they clashed. All of them seemed related to disappointing the various voices in his head.

1. Being unworthy, unfit to lead, having failed someone or something.
2. Having failed “Goody Tessie” and her sister in his quest to get her a rug for her feet and avenge their mistreatment.
3. Growling at some other painfully beautiful voice in his head that apparently wouldn’t stop crying.

Mirror, mirror

The FGC decides they have to know what the mirror and the woman within it wanted with Khoraka. They opt to have Phelan, who is still close to passing out and completely spent, attune to it in his stead. With guidance from Ferric, Phelan stares into the mirror, not thrilled with what he sees, but fortunately not afraid of it. He freezes for a moment, then cocks his head, listening intently. He speaks to the mirror, saying “I’m sorry, darlin’, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” And then he gently puts it down on the ground beside him.

He describes the person he saw within: A late-middle-aged woman with windswept white hair. A grayish mantle of osprey feathers, decorated with small avian skulls.  Austere air. Not the normal crone one associates with hags, but clearly a sorceress.

She referred to herself in the third person — as Goody Tessie — and suggested Phelan bring her the mirror at a certain tree deep in the Savalirwood. She instructed him to leave it there. He has a clear picture of it in his mind, and knows exactly what direction he was supposed to set off in.

Psychology of a warlock

Deeply concerned for their friend, the party starts to try to unravel what is actually going on with him.

Phelan confides a few things he has learned over time that seem relevant to Khoraka’s incoherent ravings, and the group starts to put things together.

The weapon

Emmi confided to Phelan over dinner that Khoraka, and his weapon, are mixed up somehow with a Marilith — a six-armed demonic general with a snake’s tail. Khoraka explained more about that weapon to Emmi than he had to any of the party. He described a statue he sees in his dreams, and she helped him identify it. She was deeply troubled by this, but unsure what to do about it. She was considering doing some deeper research into the link between Mariliths and a flail like his. They’re always pictured as wielding swords.

Snow points out that his weapon also appeared in a stone frieze on the walls of the Yuan-Ti temple they infiltrated. When she was talking with Shard, the Tabaxi bard they rescued, mentioned a legend that a champion who carries that flail will lead an army of elite serpentine warriors into battle so Zehir can swallow the world. But the wall also showed that same whip as being trapped in some kind of magic field.

The woman

Goody Tessie (no last name given) is clearly the originator of this mirror and she clearly wants it back. She mentioned to Khoraka that Snow had attacked her “sister.” Which must mean Not-Candle (nobody knows her real name), and that communication must have happened VERY quickly.

The mirror when the FGC got ahold of it was in the possession of a huge, powerful matriarchal harpy on the opposite side of the continent, who was leading a raiding party looking for residuum.

There’s another mirror that Erash recovered from Not-Candle’s possessions, but examining it further, it’s cracked across the glass and has been intentionally dis-enchanted. That one is iron with an ornately braided wrap of golden hair around its handle.

Erash knows enough to know that these aren’t standard hag items, but seem to be consistent among the hags they are dealing with.

The weeping

Phelan tells his friends that this isn’t the first time Khoraka has muttered about crying. Maybe something about bandages? Phelan wasn’t sure what any of that meant. But he knows Khoraka dreams about it. Usually it’s the last thing before the nightmare wakes him up.

This sparked Ferric’s memory of a whispered confidence he received from Kumas, who pulled him aside after they removed the curse that rendered Khoraka feebleminded. He warned Ferric that his friend’s nature was unusual, a fallen Aasimar, one descended from angels but pulled from the light. And that he should keep an eye on him, lest he tread further into darkness.

It also triggers a memory of Snow’s. A legend common to these parts — of a blinded Solar that wanders the Greying Wildlands. In fact she thinks she may have even met them once. Or maybe that was an overactive imagination in the face of being attacked and nearly killed by a pack of wolves early in her career as a guide. (Cue existential angst radiating off of Phelan.)

Of Gods and Monsters

Snow knows one person in the village who might be able to tell them the story of the Solar in full. Wild Quilt, one of the tribal elders, is also their Storyteller.

Quilt welcomes them in and offers them tea. She is delighted to see Snow again, who promises to exchange new stories for old ones. They are clearly old friends who have spent long winters together telling tales of far away places.

As they settle in, they ask Quilt about the Solar. Her voice draws them closer as she spins her tale, a master of her craft.

In the days of The Calamity, when the city of Aeor fell, the gods waged war with one another. Many powerful angels and demons on both side fought alongside them. They were slain in vast numbers. One known as Xalicas, a powerful solar beloved of the Prime Deities, was injured so badly that she could not be restored, even by their divine magic. For untold years, Xalicas lay broken and blinded here, in the Greying Wildlands, becoming one with the world, until she had the strength to move.

Now she wanders our land, lending her power to those who would stop unnecessary war, stand up to tyranny, and defend the innocent.

Legend says that Xalicas is silver-skinned and wears a clean white bandage around her eyes. She is wreathed in scars, and while one wing shines with warm and holy light, the other is blackened and burned.

Ferric offers fire root tea, and they all settle in for another cup. On a wild hope, the FGC also ask her if she knows any dark tales of the five-headed flail and a Marilith. She frowns slightly.

Of this, I am less sure. But our talk of the Calamity, of Gods and monsters, of angels and demons reminds me.

The gods had their champions, both good and evil. And they bestowed upon them items of great power to aid them in battle. These were collectively known as the Vestiges of Divergence, and the Arms of the Betrayers. The Betrayer Gods are said to have forged these sentient weapons with the living essence of some of their strongest and fiercest warriors.

But these weapons have been lost over the centuries. Perhaps they have been destroyed. Perhaps they sleep. Or perhaps they are restless, craving the bloodshed of being wielded once again. Anyone taking them up in arms would shake the very foundations of Exandria.

The group asks her whether the flail could be one of these weapons. But when they describe the whip as it looks when Khoraka summons it, vs how it looks when he sets it aside, she shakes her head, her frown deepening.

Such a weapon would not be banished so lightly, nor would it be so humbled as to appear as anything else. It does not sound as though the weapon your friend bears is one of the Arms of the Betrayers. For which you should be grateful. But these demonic voices that command him… perhaps they are all linked in some way.

And with that sobering thought, the group sips their tea as another twilight descends on the Savalirwood, wondering what the hell sort of deal Khoraka has gotten himself into.