Thalia's Story—Part 2

 Thalia stalked and beat up Nolan

She got caught up on current events from Jafos and staked out the House of Raius. She discovered an Arcanist arriving at the House.

Thalia's Story-Session 1

 After convincing Levi O'Than to let her take Jacam with her, Thalia had Loniel send them just outside the gates of Nylana. They sneaked in, Jacam turning into a ladybug to avoid detection, and Thalia climbing the walls.

She went to investigate the home of her mentor, Orun Boask, and was caught unawares by an avian guarding the home. 

This session was done pretty late, so this was the whole thing.

Vovaenis—The Lost God of Life

The Hearkener's Prophecy

The Hearkener's Prophecy is a book written by the Hearkener of the God of Life, whose name was Vovaenis. The book contains the religion of Vovaenzol, and thus the history of the creation of the world and of mortal kind. Reading this enlightens Loneil, and he gains a higher level of knowledge of everything from it. Importantly to the party, it ends with the Prophecy, a clear statement of what needs to be done: "I shall build the Godly Tomb, though my God is not dead, but lost, and send them by this word to that Godly Tomb, where they shall restore him. I fear for the survival of the world; if their enemies should prevail at that day, and Traia lose either her power or destroy Shaefev's divinity, then the world, even the universe may fall from their discord—yet Traia's own limited power prevents my writing here the full solution. But as Vovaenis wishes, if they can bring their master to that Godly Tomb, and call him forth by his True Name, he will be restored."

The book is engraved on iron plates, and greatly rusted in many sections. It doesn't contain much more than the non-standard creation story and actual prophecy of the Hearkener.

Vovaenis has been missing since nearly the beginning of civilization. The Chaotic Cavaliers discovered all of what is now known about him, including that Luzak is his wife. Depictions of him nearly always include him embracing Luzak and grinning from ear to ear.

Session 28—Ambushed in the Mithril Hall

When night falls, the shade of Kasadek approaches, claiming that he means no further harm, but needs to take the King of Orosa with him. Kasadek is trying to fully break Jousus's hold on him, and if asked will say that he must finish his deal with Orosa if he is to beat back the God of Death. Secretly, Kasadek desires to take Jousus's place. If confronted about his intentions regarding Thalia, he will grin wickedly and say that he has fulfilled his duties there, each of the children of Nylana is either fallen from grace, enslaved, cursed, or killed now, and it should satisfy his deal with Orosa. Once that obligation is accepted by Orosa, Kasadek will be an unbound shade, free to do as he will without a master.

If he is given the knob, Orosa will be freed from it, and he will accept Kasadek's end of the deal. Upon doing so, he will begin to fade away, as if going to his afterlife. Before he can completely do so, a dark energy takes him and he becomes a demon and tries to attack, but is still bound to the doorknob and is unable to.

Loneil wants to get them to Asbouria, to have King Shathund make the Eye of Issald into the Okloroun, or Traveler's Sphere. On the way, they see the armies of Gods and Nations fighting Traia and the Liad, and it's looking bad. Ancient and famous cities are razed. On the way to Asbouria, they stopped at a ruin that Anira remembered was along the way. Loneil met them there and resuscitated their humming bird guardians.

When they arrived in at Kinzar in Asbouria, the dwarves received them well and brought them to the Mithril Hall, where they were to meet King Shathund. When they entered the hall, the Cult of Kathelia was waiting to ambush them, and promptly hit Loneil in the face with a bag, sending him into unconsciousness. 

The fight was long and brutal, the cultists had brought Minotaur Brutes with them, and used high level magic to avoid the party's attacks. Over the course of the battle, the Cultists teleported Loneil (and the Eye of Issald with him) out of the room, and nearly killed Levi, Anira, and Philip at different points.

In the end, the cultists lay defeated, and the party wounded and missing both a God and a King.

Session 27—The Temple of the God of Life

The temple is located in old Venrith, out in the ruins from when Saurians were the rulers of the region. Ahnrik's mother knows the exact location, however there is nothing there now but the faint trace of the old foundation, and a ridge outlining the long-gone outer walls. It has been this way since Ahnrik's mother was a young hatchling.

She was the keeper of the Temple Secret, which by now is nothing more than what she's already told Ahnrik, a Saurian Mage, descended from the Ancient Priests, would enter the temple and bring back their god. This has been passed down from generation to generation, and while there is a distinct likelihood information has been lost, she gets defensive and upset if anyone suggests as much.

When asked for anything else about it, she mentions how it used to be that mothers would tend their eggs here to hatch, when she was young, rather than hold them inside until they felt their child stirring for the hatching. (anyone who gets a raise on their smartsroll can determine that this practice of holding the egg is new, an adaptation to slavery and oppression to protect the young from enemies. A raise [or knowledge Saurian Biology check] gives the insight that this prevents Saurian mothers from having as many children, which limits the population and ability to resist)

When doing this, tripods would be built of stakes pounded deep into the ground, with a swinging basket suspended to hold the egg. Inscriptions would be gently etched into the egg shell each week by the father, with the mother's supervision, and the largest piece of shell on the hatching day would be used to name the child.

 There was almost no room to walk in the area, for how many tripods there were, except in a large square space in the center, which was left empty. Ahnrik's mother explains (if asked) that there is stone under the ground there, and the stakes could not be pounded deeply enough for the traditional child basket.

While the whole area is flat, this area is the flattest. Under 2-3 inches of packed earth is a great stone slab covering a tunnel entrance. The tunnel is pitch black, sun or torch light don't puncture it, but Ahnrik's Light spell burns it away. The main party goes down, leaving Kurik, Levi, Eli, and the Saurians with the ship.

The tunnel is lined with hieroglyphs, and further down pictographs of: Saurians fighting Liad; Saurians trading with, feasting with, and then being taught by Liad; a god creating Saurians; the same god creating Liad. The god is tall, smiling from ear to ear, fatherly and peaceful. A raise on smarts, knowledge linguistics, or knowledge archaeology will allow someone to begin learning the hieroglyphs based on the pictographs—a success will allow someone to understand the basic storyline of the pictographs.

At the end of the tunnel the darkness persists, but the room opens up into a vast hall, lined by pillars and alcoves in the sandstone. When Ahnrik enters, translucent, faint white figures appear in the corners of the eye, and occasionally faint glimpses of translucent white Saurians can be caught, staying hidden, but watching with anticipation. The closer Ahnrik gets to the end of the hall, the more this happens. There are no other rooms connected. At the end of the hall there is a twelve foot tall statue of the man from the pictographs, tall, smiling, and wearing a handsome but commonplace robe. The statue is painted, and shows the god has bright green eyes and average brown hair. He is laughing at Luzak, who is embracing him.

At the base of the statue there is a solid black book, with black pages as dark as the tangible darkness in the room. When Ahnrik picks it up, white letters appear on the cover that read My Memories of Vovaenis, My Only Love. A ghostly image of Luzak appears as he reads, and says aloud the first words in the book as he reads them. 

"Ahnrik, if you are reading this, then it is time to dispel this book, and return my memories to me. You must bring it to light, out in the open. " When he finishes, sauraian wraiths appear chanting in a forgotten language. One with features familiar to Ahnrik gestures for them to leave.

While most everyone was down in the temple, the cult of Kathelia arrived in a flying ship crewed by Velgan orcs. A few of the cultists have cast a barrier of fire around the section of ship that holds the infused sunstone, and are hacking it out, Eli, Levi, and Kiev fighting them off. Meanwhile there are others ready to fight the party that exits the temple. They also have Kurik and Yalwa forced to their knees by two burly orcs, each with a sword to her throat, and archers stand nearby with his greatbows ready to shoot her. The majority of the Saurians ran to a safe distance

Jacam demands the book, in exchange for her life, and they will let everyone go free, once the ship is sufficiently sabotaged, at least.

Thalia confronted him, but I don't remember anything she said, except the stinging remark "You would say that, seeing how much you care about your own family," which Jacam bristled at but didn't respond to.

At this point the fight started in earnest. Ahnrik immediately cast a dome of darkness over himself and destroyed the book with a jet of light, and Anisha, Anira, and Akari meanwhile successfully resisted a sleep spell cast by Jacam.

Various members of the group sustained injuries from the Velgan archers, and both Philip and Gretsa were incapacitated. Anira used her summon ally potion from the witches convention, and her summoned sentinel took out a couple orcs.

There was some trouble casting spells on both sides, but Akari managed to play her telekinesis spell, lifting Jacam to throw, but not before Thalia had gotten him into a headlock, preventing Akari from injuring Jacam.

More injuries were sustained from Velgan greatbows, and Eli finally managed to cast his growth spell on Levi. Now the size of a leviathan, Levi grabs the flying ship and scrapes its deck across the ground, killing half the cultists on the ground.

Kiev takes an arrow to the shoulder and goes berserk, taking out half the cultists on board the ship, but outside the barrier. 

Thalia finally managed to force enough poison down Jacam's throat to knock him out.

Levi gave the remaining enemies a chance to surrender, but they responded with further attacks.

Eli took out the remaining cultists, and Akari launched the final Orc down the entire set of stars to the temple.

More things happened, but it was very late IRL, so I'll reinclude/revamp them at the beginning of next time.

Sessions 24-26 Recap

Do I remember exactly what happened, and when?

No.

No, I do not. So here's the update, as best as I recall.

The party decided that the best place to find answers about Ahnrik's family would be in the city's castle, where they learned on the streets is where records about slaves are kept. As they arrived, they say a group of Kathelians entering. Thalia snuck in with them, and eavesdropped on their conversation, where she learned that the Cult of Kathelia knows that they're here, and are determined to kill them. In Drodrugh, however, the cult is rather weak. 

Everyone else, meanwhile, also got in to look for records. I don't remember how, but I believe it involved bribing the guard.

They found their way to the slave records and asked about information on Saurian slaves, Ahnrik acting as the group's slave, and translating for them. The record keeper was quite suspicious of them, and Ahnrik was sure that he knew who he was, so after looking through the records and learning that all the Saurians had been sold to the temple of Traia, the party kidnapped him. 

Using a spell to shrink the keeper, the party got outside and interrogated the record keeper, who it turned out knew nothing, but was just suspicious.

Thalia met back up with everyone, and they went to infiltrate the temple. 

They entered through a ventilation grate, that let them in on a blood canal. They searched the place as well as they could, and after a bit of wandering, the Eye of Issald began to grant Anira an ongoing Reveal Arcana effect, which allowed her to see all sources of power within the temple. This allowed them to avoid unwanted confrontations, and they soon found a group of slaves with a fair number of saurians. A fight with the priests of Traia guarding the slaves turned out to be a challenge, as it turned out that the slavers had a puppetry spell on them, forcing the slaves to fight the party as well. In the end, the slavers were killed and the slaves freed. During the fight, Amisha's token cried out at the deaths of all the other Priests of Mocaeis, its lights going out until only hers remained. They informed the group that Ahnrik's family had been taken up to the Hearkener's room, near the top of the temple.

Before any investigations could take place, Anira saw the aura of Mocaeis come in, surrounded by auras linked to Traia. The party decided that this needed to take priority over Ahnrik's family for now, and followed the god's aura down to the base of the temple, where the head priests and even the Hearkener of Traia were gathered, preparing to sacrifice Mocaeis to bring Traia fully into the world. The party intervened, with the help of the slaves, and took out the priesthood before they could accomplish anything.

They then went up to the top of the tower to rescue Ahnrik's family. They found them trapped in an earthen room, encased in small stubby trees. Thalia poisoned the trees using her bone-blade poison, and the trees withered enough to get the family members out. Ahnrik's mother indicated that the preisthood of Traia was after Ahnrik specifically to prevent him from doing something, saying that their family had been the keepers of the lost temple of the Saurian God, the god of life, and that Ahnrik would be able to do something important there.

A Summary of Drodrugh

Drodrugh

While not the capitol, Drodrugh has been home to the "court" of Velg for several years. There are two prominent factions: Nogrum's Horde, and the Liad, with Nogrum having a slight advantage in power, thanks to the priesthood of Traia. Nogrum himself is away at war with Rocg, and doing well judging by the spoils his armies are sending back. While he is away, the city is being ruled by General Luroz and Silok the High Priestess.

Slave Trading

Luroz oversees the policing and civil projects, primarily slave management, including the auctioning of imported slaves. Slave traders are required to show their Mark of Rights, a tattoo of a chained fist, gained by defeating a gladiator one on one. The mark is made from the blood of the gladiator, should the slaver win, and would-be slavers without one are typically sold as slaves themselves. The current slaver's mark fights feature Saurian Gladiators that have been blinded. 

The High Priestess

Silok manages the "Church" of Traia, primarily by conferring the priesthood on willing officers and sacrificing slaves and prisoners. Those who hold the priesthood of Traia are in various states of transformation, between their native race and being a form of earth elemental. The newest initiates have dry cracking skin, leaking blood particularly around the eyes and mouth. Silok herself is little more than an orcess skeleton shrouded in a form of flowing sand. Despite rumors in other nations claiming that Nogrum is Traia's Hearkener, Silok fulfills that role personally. There are rumors that she is working on restoring Traia's power to full strength, however anyone suggesting that Traia is not already the supreme goddess in the presence of a priest is purged, sometimes on the spot, and sometimes as a "volunteer".

Religion of Traia

The doctrine of Traia is straightforward: Shaefev is a liar and a thief, and all traces of him must be purged. As mortals require his influence (water) to survive, they must be purged of him. This is the only, all-important commandment.

The priests also teach those who will listen the "true" history of the gods, that Traia and Shaefev were once the perfect parents of all creation, until Shaefev stole back his heart by infidelity, destroying her at the same time. They teach that his touch ruined Zaerel their daughter, turning her against Traia, and all her children joined the conflict against her.