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--- legend_of_the_ark [2025/08/16 09:14] – external edit 127.0.0.1
+++ legend_of_the_ark [2026/03/08 08:39] (current) – [Session 16: Where The Sign Will Be Shown] spiffgent
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 [[Karver Dyshand|Karver]] roused [[Cairo]] early in the morning. He dutifully informed the Tabaxi that many of the villagefolk were suspicious of the coincidence of the adventurers' arrival and the destruction of the well, and that unless their name was somewhat rehabilitated, they would lose [[Taronsawk]]'s vital support. [[Rioux]], [[Otto]], [[Granger]] and Cairo made contact with [[Vel Olson]] and his expedition, and in the few days it would take for the path to [[Alasandell]] to excavated, they decided to help where they could.
-[[Keith]] and [[Adaerys]] did a village tour, meeting first [[Moira Mudshovel]] and learning various avenues for help from her (who, as Keith suspected, claimed not to be one of the original Pioneers). They promised to find [[Elgsmet]] for [[Granny Sezin]] to help a deathly ill abandoned girl, while the others learned of [[Whiteshields]] that had failed to arrive from [[Kenen Cartwright]]. [[Maria Argsman]] told of a town to the North, [[Godscall]], with vital farming equipment that had become abandoned since the Wall had appeared. [[Hali Evernus]] told Rioux of stolen grain, while Otto and Granger were informed of an alleged garrison of Strom-Kreft by the extremely elderly [[Thaurivald Mithrilmirth]]. All the while, talk continued of fleeing or remaining in the face of [[Akselmarch]].
+[[Keith]] and [[Adaraeys]] did a village tour, meeting first [[Moira Mudshovel]] and learning various avenues for help from her (who, as Keith suspected, claimed not to be one of the original Pioneers). They promised to find [[Elgsmet]] for [[Granny Sezin]] to help a deathly ill abandoned girl, while the others learned of [[Whiteshields]] that had failed to arrive from [[Kenen Cartwright]]. [[Maria Argsman]] told of a town to the North, [[Godscall]], with vital farming equipment that had become abandoned since the Wall had appeared. [[Hali Evenus]] told Rioux of stolen grain, while Otto and Granger were informed of an alleged garrison of Strom-Kreft by the extremely elderly [[Thaurivald Mithrilmirth]]. All the while, talk continued of fleeing or remaining in the face of [[Akselmarch]].
 The ragtag band agreed that the wagons from Godscall would be very useful in their other endeavours, and so set off for that at once. A dead bandit was discovered on the road, while after a night's rest, another was found in the snow not far from the town, hanging as a warning. More strung bodies were discovered on the path into town as the adventurers went off-road. The wagons were quickly found, and a horse tracked to the abandoned town centre - along with a Plate-armour-bearing Giant with a Greatsword.
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 When the party attempted to enter the well, having found two couplets of some kind of poem, King Fitzroy appeared to try and prevent them, sealing the shaft with fire. Cairo dove down the well anyway, shocking Fitzroy enough that he could get past. Rioux and Otto pounced. The monk held Fitzroy's arms while Otto wrenched the staff from him — only to uncover that the staff itself was a misdirection, and that Fitzroy had retained his power. Rioux dove into the well, suffering great harm as a result, while Otto attempted to duel Finrick, getting in one good hit before he was stopped by the loyal Ilfruír. Keith, spurning Elf King Finrick's apparition, grabbed Otto and saved them both by teleporting deeper into the well...
+===== Session 15: Fire In My Brain =====
+**25th – 26th Dariksay**
+Rioux found a small tunnel leading out of the well's basin, and once everyone else had arrived in the acrid water, the party led themselves in Elf King Finrick's old and secret study. While most of the party investigated the desks and models, Rioux and Cairo explored the archaic and cryptic writings of Finrick on policy and rulership. When Cairo tore one of these documents in half carelessly, the ghost itself was summoned. It was stayed, by Rioux's begging and Keith's infested threats, to stay back for long enough for the party to learn two key facts: his ghost was still here because it wished to drive out interlopers; and Finrick used to be a wiser, more just king that would have easily recognised Fitzroy as a pretender and fool. Rioux read his own words back to him, and the wind was taken instantly out of his sails. His temper fell, and he muttered that something dangerous beneath the castle called Gyre Carline was locked away, before disappearing into his exhaustion.
+The path downwards was locked, and the key was around a Tortle statue precariously close to a magma chamber. After a wise rest, the party engaged the statue, which quickly sprung into life. The party's strongest attacks found no purchase on it, so Otto grappled it and wedged its arm away so Callie could lift the key from its neck. It pursued relentlessly, until Otto dragged it away, and Rioux eventually pushed it into the magma. With the threat removed, the party progressed downwards, into a chamber filled with dead demons that seemed to have once been Dwarven children.
+Beyond, was Gyre Carline. Callie's devilsight revealed its full form, of a huge swamp creature with elongated arms and rough jaws, and a single cyclopean eye. In a whispering voice, it promised great power and destruction to the party, but it was locked behind indestructible metal bars. Everyone, especially Rioux, was wary of its promises of rampant destruction and its nature as a capricious fey creature twisted into a demonic form: no matter what, they seemed to lack the ability to release it. Further exploration revealed a huge magma pool with a portrait of Elf King Finrick inside of it, undoubtedly how Fitzroy controlled him.
+When Callie flew magically to retrieve it from the boiling rock, Finrick's Turtle leapt from the magma, now with its armour seared off. Callie, Cairo, and Otto unleashed their full might at it while Rioux threw darts from the basalt shore with surprising ability and precision. A risky move to fly over it by Callie almost brought her into the lava: Cairo's reactions failed to rescue her, while Rioux's spectral arms caught the warlock just in time. Keith was completely unaware of the battle, and tried to free Gyre Carline behind the party's back: he found an invisible lock, but failed to destroy it. Otto, with a well-placed shot, felled the animated guardian.
+With Finrick freed and returned to his full power, he pledged to help the party remove Fitzroy, and he revealed that the riddle the party had found fragments of would unleash Gyre Carline. Keith thought he had it, but before he could speak the answer aloud, Cairo cast a silence spell, to allow a full discussion. Keith and Callie wanted the fey's power: Rioux and Cairo would never unleash a demon. Otto was the swaying voice, but was eventually pulled to the Clerics' side: with dissatisfaction, the party turned in for the night. While they rested, Cairo shared his prayerbook with Keith, who noted down one close to his heart.
+In the morning, Keith and Callie, under invisibility, snuck to Mary-Ann Sow's tower, and enlisted her help in striking against Fitzroy now. While everyone took positions hidden in a bush, Sow summoned a huge illusion of Gyre Carline. The plan was for them to use the distraction to sneak the witch to her tower to produce a greater illusion to scare him outside while the rest of the party took positions. However, Fitzroy was more cowardly than expected, and instantly ran from his boarded-up keep to enlist help from the guards. Once he saw through the illusion, Otto immediately sprung to almost disembowel him while Keith swung wildly with his hammers. Callie and Cairo ran above the keep, speeding to the tower just in case it was required anyway, and through Fitzroy's wild flaming attacks. Rioux ducked in and out of cover to make strikes on Fitzroy, while Cairo kept the innocent away with a wall of fire. Fitzroy wasn't felled in time, but Finrick's intercession and horror kept him from annihilating the party at once. Keith struck the last hit on the Peasant King, and did so non-lethally, hoping to interrogate him as to his power later.
+===== Session 16: Where The Sign Will Be Shown =====
+**26th – 28th Dariksay**
+Fitzroy was bound and gagged, and was interrogated as soon as he was roused by a fly-shrouded Keith. He told (under Cairo's zone of truth) how he had been approached by an angel and given Ahm's mastery over demons to stand against Akselmarch (although enslaving his town and occupying the Turtle was his own idea). Keith's blood ran cold when he revealed the name of the angel: Aristotle. The town gave the party the gold that Fitzroy had stolen as thanks, and Otto negotiated a deal whereby the party would take Fitzroy to Armick Helcullen and would avoid leading Taronsawk to their own town, in exchange for a small donation of grain. With Mary Ann Sow left in charge of her tower again and Fitzroy and Maria in tow, the party set off for Taronsawk once again. In the night, Keith asked his patron why he had given greater power to Fitzroy than he had to Keith: Aristotle replied that he simply needed the heroes distracted from Taronsawk for a few days, and that he had no need for a soldier in Jean-luc anymore.
+In the pouring rain, the party rode back to Taronsawk in the evening to find the whole town in church. Cairo and Rioux told Armick of all that transpired, and everyone cheered the return of Maria. He too had his own news for the adventurers: Karver had discovered a map of the highest level of Olson's Ruin, and it indicated there were easily-openable tunnels leading South, to friendly and live Dwarven towns that could accept the town if they ever needed to flee. The town could remain in place longer with this new escape route opened, seemingly a solution that satisfied, for now, everyone. Upon hearing the news, Rioux suddenly collapsed in a state of shock, claiming they had received a vision of Ahm that portented doom for the town.
+Rioux excused herself to a cloister while everyone went their ways for the evening: Keith to drink, Callie to patrol, Otto to wait for Rioux, and Cairo to investigate a wide perimeter of the town to search for Moira, glimpsing her briefly in a flash of lightning. The Tabaxi discovered that the graves of the Dwarves had been exhumed, including Taron Territ's, and concluded that Karver had taken the map from the graves. When he looked at the stone again, he saw that the writing had somehow transformed: Thaurivald translated it as "REMEMBER US, THAT ONCE LIVED" and pointed out that it contained the mine sign for The Fleeing Dark, a Dwarven sign of finality.
+The party reconvened, and Rioux explained what had happened earlier: they had received a vision of the town ensared in black tendrils, stretching from ground to cloud, and they knew from similar such visions that this foreshadowed great calamity. The party attempted to piece together the meaning, believing that it possibly indicated an Akselian attack, but still concluded that the tunnels in Olson's Ruin was the town's greatest chance at survival. Later in the evening, a tearful Moira reappeared to Cairo, to discuss the Light and whether or not every sacrifice made in service of a goal was truly worth it: she was consumed by thoughts of turning back time using the Poteus Ark to before Taron had died.
+While they talked, and Keith dreamed of the Fleeing Dark, the fires from Akselmarch started at the break of dawn. A cloud of red-hot shot descended through the air, with seven striking Taronsawk: one hit the tavern, and Moira disappeared in the carnage; others tore through the ground and farmsteads. Keith and Cairo attempted to tend to the wounded while Rioux went to find Moira at her house unsuccessfully. Otto took a second to survey the situation while Armick Helcullen gave the order for the town to arm themselves, and reasoned that the shots came from over the Wall, and that no attack was imminent. Armick readied to fight in case an attack would hit immediately, but hearing from Otto that there was indeed a window, he instead gave the order to retreat. He had seen someone struck directly by a shot from Akselmarch's Gonnes, and had no faith that Akselmarch would wait for them to dig their escape tunnel.
+Keith and Cairo failed to contain this order, so Karver took it upon himself to physically stop Armick Helcullen, thinking that their pact had been broken: he told his supporters to get the grain stored in Maine-Roche so that the Helcullens could not unilaterally order a retreat. Armick waited for Karver to lead his supporters away, before killing the man who had apprehended him, and calmly gave the order to the remaining villagers to start fires in the houses of those seeking to break into his manor: they who wanted to stay would not allow their homesteads to burn while they attempted to breach the manor. Cairo attempted but failed to scare them off from this purpose with a //Wall of Fire// while still convincing some of those at Maine-Roche that fires had indeed started. Keith threatened Helcullen to stop his course, but neither man would back down, and Armick attacked. Cairo used a harming spell on Armick to try and force him to back down, but the spell ran wild, and he died in utter disbelief at the creatures that had let themselves loose on his town. Moira watched all of this happen, and resolutely decided to run for the Poteus Ark and undo all the errors that had transpired. She delivered a //Divine Smite// to Cairo, and warned the party not to try to stop her plans, before disappearing behind an Angel Door that hung in the air.