Astvanor Session 102 (2/3)

[cinaed]

Session 102: Day 19 of Veksdan (2/3)

Alerted to the spiders, the party carefully and quietly makes their way up the stairs. They can see the large room. In the middle is a dried up fountain with two figures holding bowls. There are fragments of mosaics on the wall and missing gems in what part of the high, vaulting ceiling that they can see.

There are four purple spiders skittering around the floor, where there is an enormous amount of webbing turning the terrain difficult. The spiders don’t seem to have noticed the group yet. One is busy adding more webbing, another is chewing on something.

Diana turns herself invisible and holds herself ready to attack the closest spider.

Audacity attempts to leap over the nearest webbing to get to another spider, almost getting his foot stuck on the sticky webbing. He stumbles but manages to catch himself in time. He strikes out at the spider, cracking its carapace and breaking off one of its mandibles. It begins to bleed this strange whitish-silver blood that drops towards the ground before disappearing.

Hava casts Channel Divinity, the twilight falling over her friends as her Spiritual Weapon strikes another spider.

Galowen moves around the web to flank Diana’s spider. He stabs twice into the spider, his blade glowing with radiant energy as he smites on the second blow. Glyn darts around the webbing to join Galowen.

Diana uses the spider’s distraction to stab it through the throat, killing it.

Az can hear Yolov sigh quietly to himself as he surveys the room, having seen Audacity almost get caught in the webbing and the others having to dodge around it. He says to Es, “This is an exception.”

Are we doing it? Es asks excitedly. He is always happy to do magic with Yolov, but this is different. While there are arguments about Es’ sentience, much in the way there is an argument about Medrash, and whether they love Yolov and Az or were magically created that way, this is raw, undeniable, pure unbridled excitement and joy.

Yolov casts Flaming Sphere through Es in the middle of the newest webbing. The entire web goes up in flames and begins to burn.

Through Es’ babbling delight, Yolov catches squeals of fear above them.

Az edges around the burning web and sends a witch bolt towards the spider being menaced by Hava’s Spiritual Weapon. He then sends Medrash over to Audacity to distract that particular spider.

One spider rushes towards Galowen, biting into him. Galowen can feel the burn of poison, tempered by his magical breastplate, even as the spider disappears.

Diana turns invisible once more, darting across the room to join Audacity and Medrash in attacking one of the other spiders, killing it. Adrin moves carefully around the burning web as well.

Audacity moves to the next spider, hitting it twice with his staff and stunning it.

Before it can recover, Hava kills it with her Spiritual Weapon and prepares a guiding bolt. For a second there’s no visible living spiders, and then everyone can hear the sounds above them as three more spiders crawl around the ceiling one hundred feet up.

Galowen glares up at the spiders since they’re out of reach of his sword. He reaches for his handbow, inserting a walloping arrow bolt. It hits but doesn’t knock the spider off the ceiling.

Yolov sends Es up twenty feet and casts Chromatic Orb through him. The cold strikes the spider Galowen had injured, freezing it rock solid. It falls and shatters into pieces at Galowen’s feet.

Az moves closer and casts two Eldritch Blast at one of the other spiders, hitting it right underneath and sending it slamming up against the ceiling and falling down to the ground with a painful crash. Before the spider can get up, Medrash stabs his tail into its throat and kills it.

The other spider skitters halfway down the wall and disappears just as the previously vanishing spider appears in front of Hava and Yolov.

Hava shrieks in surprise and hits it with a guiding bolt so hard that it explodes.

Yolov sees that webbing is blocking off the exit to the next set of stairs that Cassone told them about. Diana is still standing there next to a dead phase spider. He waits to reposition his Flaming Sphere until Diana moves away from the webbing.

Looking around for the hidden phase spider, Az goes over to the dry fountain. There are no traces of webbing there, but someone has deftly and carefully moved a brick out of its bottom. It reminds Az of when Yolov uses his Mage Hand.

When the last phase spider reappears, Galowen sends Glyn to charge at it. Glyn slams into it, his antlers dripping that whitish-silver blood that disappears.

The spider attacks Audacity, its fangs biting into him, though its poison doesn’t have any effect. Diana bolts over to the spider, slashing its thorax and killing it as Yolov sends the Flaming Sphere to burn the web in front of the next staircase.

Everyone stands there for a moment, braced for more spiders, but none come.

Az climbs into the fountain, mostly disappearing from view as he tells everyone he found something. He looks at it closer, but doesn’t glean anything more as Yolov clambers down as well and peers at it too. The missing brick is right next to the two statues of women holding bowls. It’s hard to tell what was removal damage and what was damage from age.

Yolov searches and finds the missing brick. He’s about to put it back in its space with Mage Hand when Az suggests they get out of the fountain first. As Az tries to climb up, he slips and cracks his head against the bricks before Galowen lifts him bodily out.

Yolov’s Mage Hand places the brick carefully in its place. The group watches tensely before realizing nothing is going to happen. Most of them begin to study their surroundings. The bottom floor had been dedicated to Tsaliora, but this floor is dedicated to Relatya.

It is very familiar to Galowen. He recognizes the half-destroyed mosaics: the sun over the trees is a depiction of the creation of his goddess. He’s seen this before, just as he knows that across from it is a depiction of the creation of the sun elves. They’re the same mosaics as the ones in the temple where he grew up.

Galowen realizes that they’re maybe two weeks of travel to where he grew up if they started heading north now. It’s the closest he’s been to home since leaving.

Cassone and the others are going through the supplies, cursing out the spiders for destroying some of it and how much this is going to cost them.

When Yolov removes the brick one last time in case that triggers something, he notices there is a small divot in the brick where something was hidden. He realizes that a key was hidden here and removed within the last few weeks. He asks Cassone if she knew about anything being hidden in the fountain and she says no, they just use this place to hold their goods.

Yolov, trying to figure out the timeline of Maeve and the Stormbringers, asks if Maeve knows about these tunnels and could have used them in the days before the Lost Mistake arrived. Cassone confirms that Maeve knows and uses these tunnels, though she reiterates that she had no idea Maeve was even nearby.

Yolov attempts to make a rubbing of the key but it doesn’t come out very clear.

Hava urges everyone to keep going, urgently enough that Audacity wraps a supportive arm around her.

They make their way upstairs, struggling through more webs, before they reach a room filled with rubble, debris, and boxes. The exit is blocked by rubble that has been there a very long time. Cassone leads them all to a hole that has been carved out, leading them through darkness into light.

They step into the frigid cold once more.

Most of the group is distracted watching their feet as they pick their way through the rubble and icy ground, but Audacity, Diana, Galowen, and Hava’s eyes are immediately drawn up the mountain.

The first thing they notice is frozen, ice-covered mud. There is snow lining the pathway and the trees. They spy a sickly purple haze. It’s too thin and flickering to be noticeable from a distance, but now that they’re closer they can see that the highest peak of the Kastvar Mountains is covered in this purplish-gray haze.

Audacity spots a path through the snow. Cassone points at it and explains that this will lead them to the dwarven roads. She warns that the dwarves will be snarky and rude, but Cassone can say that the Hooligans are with the Lost Mistake and it’ll be fine.

Cassone adds that they’re headed to a town to offload their goods, and the party debates going with them.

Audacity spies a shadow moving unnaturally in the treeline and immediately hits it with his staff. It cowers under the blows, pressing itself to the ground. Audacity and Hava look down at it, reading its body language as it makes itself as small as possible.

Hava kneels down and asks if it can hear her. One small smoky tendril reaches up and hovers there. Hava reaches out and touches the tendril. It feels like passing her hand through cold mist as she asks Evie if she senses this.

Evie says that there are things that shouldn’t be here. Hava asks if it’s dangerous and Evie says anything taken from its home will be dangerous and lash out. Hava asks if it has a language, Evie points out she can’t speak languages either.

Evie adds that there is a large fracture nearby as well. Hava guesses the mountain peak and Evie says it seems likely before Hava asks her to talk to the shadow and puts the bead into the shade. There’s silence for a moment.

Cassone leans over to Yolov and asks what Hava is doing. Yolov says she’s talking to it. Cassone asks about the bead, and then decides she doesn’t want to know.

Evie says that the shade wants to return back to the Shadowfell and will follow them to the fracture. When Hava tells the party, Yolov asks if other creatures wish to go home as well. Evie tells Hava that it is unlikely. Most creatures will have come of their own volition.

Yolov studies the map he copied from Loren, realizing that the caravan would’ve been traveling on the same mountain as the fracture and must have disappeared on the peak beyond the dwarven roads. Otherwise the previous search parties Loren sent would have found it. The dwarven roads will get the group closer to the peak.

Hava gives the shadow a small, reassuring pat before Cassone leads them up the path until the icy dirt gives way to cobblestone, Jeremy hauling the cart behind him. They walk upwards, climbing a mile and then two, before they turn around a large boulder and spy two large statues.

One is a large, beautiful dwarven woman holding two swords. The other is a man in similar armor with a hand raised up towards the sky and a spellbook in his other hand. They are situated in front of a large and low doorway, ornately carved. It looks as though it leads down.

Before it are four armed dwarven guards.

Cassone sidles over, chatting with the guards and passing over two bags. The guards look at the party with suspicion, wearing matching emblems of an upturned hammer, with two hands in prayer underneath it. There is a phrase on the emblem.

Diana reads the phrase in Dwarvish: May the stone sink forever deeper. She reads it out to everyone in Dwarvish until Hava puts a hand on her shoulder and reminds her none of them speak it. She struggles with translating it into Common, and struggles with Elvish when Hava suggests it.

Finally a dwarf translates it into Common, and tells them not to try and sully it with Elvish. He looks at Diana and says she speaks the stone-cutting language well though she’s one of the trees. Diana tells him that she learned from a dwarf who was very nice.

He agrees that dwarves are very nice. He strokes his beard and nods respectfully to her. Diana touches her chin and nods back, earning a remark that she was well-taught.

The guard shouts down the darkened walkway in Dwarvish: “Let this one pass through unimpeded!” When Diana asks about her friends, he says that they can go along with her if she keeps them in check.

Diana promises she will and says they’re scared of trees. The dwarf says there aren’t many trees below. Diana gets offended when he tells her to control her lizard as well. He laughs when she says that’s her sister, clearly not believing her.

As they head to the door, Hava politely asks one of the guards if another sea elf came through. She is shocked when the guard says there was a cross one with other people who came through a few days ago, headed east. He doesn’t know where exactly she was headed, but adds that there are some towns and an underground lake with a nice beach there.

Cassone mutters that she could’ve saved money if she knew one of them spoke dwarvish.

Az studies Galowen, sensing his sadness from observing those mosaics, and decides to ask him about it later when they have some privacy. Meanwhile Hava and Yolov console Diana over the dwarf’s insult to Adrin as they begin to head down the dwarven roads. It is a dimly lit path.

Cassone tells them to keep their eyes down as they head east, towards the town the Last Mistake plans to offload their supplies and the direction Maeve went.