H&Y Infinite Open Table Session 16 (The Fire Festival)
Characters:
Flamagio (Reeves) + Eclair, Sylvio
Stelle (Kimani) + Baguette
Schmelly (Mr. PT)
Starting Date: Summer 34, 6023
The PCs present decide that since the Fire Festival starts tomorrow near Quillbury, they just wouldn't go out on an adventure and go to that the next day.
Fire Festival
Summer 35, 6023
At the Fire Festival, the PCs see in attendance most of the major factions they've interacted with so far. In attendance:
- Jack-o-Lanterns (Finbarr, Harisko)
- Redmountain Clan (Rolof, Eydis, Megara)
- Order of 8 (Ariadne, Gatekeeper, Ignatius)
- Loreto
- "Adam the Warlock"
- Buzzing Temple
- Many townsfolk and miscellaneous adventurers
Schmelly played a shell game with Finbarr, confusing Finbarr with his Coin-on-a-string spell. Unfortunately for Schmelly, the winnings to be had in the game were the coin so Schmelly just ended up winning their illusory coin back.
Eclair, Sylvio and Vincent (Flamagio's Companions) all went drinking with the Redmountain clan. Sylvio took a bunch of shots of honeyed liquor made by the Buzzing Temple coalition all at once, then passed out under a bar table. Vincent and Eclair played five-finger filet with Eydis Redmountain and talked shop, trying to pry some information out of the Redmountain spymaster.
Stelle discusses politics and horse trading with Harisko, Loreto and Rolof. Harisko grumbles about new salvage crews out of Fairvane attracting all the new talent in the region, Rolof suggests a deal with Redmountain to hire some of his forces to shore up Harisko's need. Loreto lets slip as well that there are a multitude of treasure-laden ships upriver from Lake Dak that he wants to get a cut in.
Flamagio discusses magic and recent happenings regarding the Cult of Bellerophon with "Adam the Warlock" and Ignatius. Ignatius explains that he is Ariadne's former apprentice and protege, he's now her right-hand man while running the tower. Adam explains that his name is actually Vikram the Peerless while pointing out his former apprentice to Flamagio, an elf named Faustino.
Ignatius explains the political web of the Underworld to Flamagio. Essentially:
- The duergar are the descendants and inheritors of the original dwarven empire that ruled these lands long ago
- The under-elves are descendants of invaders who came in silver ships from the sky to steal from the dwarves and escape their enemies;
- The gnomes are the ancient enemies of the elves and their gods, they have forsaken nature magic in favor of fleshwarping and metal artifice they call "science". They followed the elves here in order to exterminate them.
- The duergar were beset on both sides by a war they weren't even involved with, they buried their empire under 1000' feet of rock and stone to shield themselves from these invaders who came from the sky.
- The elves "won" in that they control the majority of the duergar imperial core, but they're still fighting off gnomish and duergar forces to this day.
- The Cult of Bellerophon is a new-sh faction that's formed in the last few centuries formed out of duergar and elves wishing to leave the conflict behind and seize power on the surface instead. They're nebulously allied with the duergar currently.
Schmelly recruits a farmer (Isaac) and his buddies to the Church of Morkath by helping him burn down his neighbor's field under the cover of "Fire Festival fun." Schmelly instructs his new priesthood to start a collection amongst whoever they can get to listen to them, he's looking to get a chapel built on the burned out field now that the farmer who owned it is destitute.
The PCs spend the next 5 days partying before burning away the year's sins at the end of the Fire Festival.
Foggy Forest Fun!
Summer 41, 6023
Rolof asks Stelle to go look into the deaths of the Redmountain platoon that went into the Foggy Forest near Dakssonhold. The party buys supplies and heads north to Dakssonhold.
Summer 42, 6023
Party gets to Dakssonhold, pulls the ship in close to shore and heads into the woods.
Flamagio finds a baneberry bush and harvests 6 slots of them.
The party continues onwards on the game trail they've been following. They feel like they're being watched, a fact that is proven when the first spear comes out of the woods, thrown by a troll.
6 Trolls in total attack the party. Stelle and Flamagio keep a few at bay with their new Web spells while Schmelly and Eclair keep the other half at bay with their spears. The party is able to eventually kill half the trolls via the power of lucky rolls and the use of Sylvio's Tome of Lightning, this scares the rest off into the woods. Party harvests some troll parts from the dead and continues in deeper to the woods.
The PCs find a large perfectly round circle of trees with no undergrowth. At the base of the tree in the center they see 6 of the dead orcs, covered in their own blood. The tree at the center is an ancient rowan tree and oozes a powerful magic aura. The party takes one look at the tree and decides that they're not going to mess with it and turns around to go look somewhere else for the rest of the orcs.
Walking back along the path, they are greeted with branches blocking the path where they weren't there earlier that day. Stelle pulls her axe to cut the branches but is admonished by a telepathic voice that speaks in deep, powerful tones. Stelle leaves her axe on the ground as tribute to the woods and the party is allowed to leave, so long as they leave immediately.
The party runs as fast as they can out of the woods, getting to the edge fairly quickly. They see the 6 dead orcs from earlier laid out in a neat row, laid out right along the edge of the path. The party quickly loads the bodies into their cart and escapes the woods, returning the bodies to the skeleton crew of Redmountain troops still at Dakssonhold.