cinaed

Session 155: Day 20 of Saedan (12/6)

The second the bird lands, the Summer Prince reaches for his hip and curses in Sylvan that only Galowen understands. It’s some of the most vile swearing he’s heard in his life.

It reminds him that Archie was significantly weakened when the Hooligans met him, and he only had some powers because of his few followers. The Summer Prince is not taking his uselessness well.

Audacity looks at the Summer Prince and asks if he wants his sword, and hands him his shortsword when the Summer Prince nods. Then he gauges the distance to the frozen river below them. It’s sixty feet. He races forward to drop Fireball onto the ice where he saw the hand last.

Everyone watches as an enormous gout of flame explodes out over the ice, a rush of heat that the party can feel, though the cold of the space blunts the sensation.

When Audacity looks down where he dropped the Fireball, there’s weakened ice there. Then he hits the roc with his staff, stunning it. Even as he lowers the staff, cold seeps into his bones and burns his skin.

Hava casts Twilight Sanctuary before she casts Spiritual Weapon next to the roc. The spectral trident strikes it as Yolov sends Es forward and looks over at the Summer Prince and remarks that this creature is probably guarding the place and can’t be scared away.

The Prince looks up from where he’s been studying Audacity’s shortsword in hand and tells him that it’s not a real creature but instead a manifestation of their captors.

Yolov says he understands and moves over to the edge of the cliff overlooking the river before he casts Fireball on the roc. The flames engulf it, turning the carved detailing of its face and wings from an ice sculpture into a half-melted, refreezing smoothed out chunk of ice.

The Summer Prince shouts in excitement, saying this is exactly how they should be fighting with honor and fire, looking like he wants to pat Yolov’s head.

Galowen looks down at his Ring of Shooting Stars and sends out three motes of light that engulf the roc in flames as well. There is a splatter of ice water as his wings are melted down to nubs.

Sabara rushes forward and bites into the roc as Az casts Witch Bolt as well, lightning crashing into the roc.

The Summer Prince attacks with the shortsword, realizing it isn’t magic and is mostly useless, and looks at Audacity with betrayal before he curses under his breath about useless material plane weapons.

Audacity offers him his quarterstaff earning a skeptical look before he turns and strikes out at the roc again. This time the stun fails and the creature’s eyes narrow and locks on him. He strikes it again even as the cold seeps significantly into him. He cannot feel his feet.

Hava attacks again with her Spiritual Weapon, shattering the roc with a wave of her hand as the spectral trident spears through its neck and the fragments and fractals of the shattering ice spread thick throughout the body of the half-melted roc. Huge chunks fall off, cracking the ice beneath the bridge and over the cliffside.

Immediately the Summer Prince goes to the edge, swearing under his breath. He’s trying to gauge how much it will hurt on impact before Yolov tells him he can ensure no one gets injured falling.

Audacity jumps down and the Summer Prince does as well, Yolov following after and casting Feather Fall as Az is pushed by Hava off the edge. As soon as they all land, the cold is almost unbearable, sinking through their shoes. None of them are dressed for this, their exposed skin burning.

Az starts to shiver and then there’s a gentle prickle of warmth as the Summer Prince puts his hand on his shoulder and wards off some of the chill.

Yolov leans down to examine the ice and look for any sign of the Winter Prince. The ice is colder than natural ice would be, much like the roc, permeating an aggressive coldness, seeking to cause pain. Its intention is to push things away.

When he looks closer, he does not see water on the other side of it. It looks like a reflective glass, like a mirror, but instead he sees a landscape and a sky looking back at him. He looks for one more second and then another before hands press against the glass right in front of him and he sees a face made of cracking ice.

He’s not looking up at Yolov, Yolov realizes. His hands and knees are pressed against the glass, looking down at Yolov instead.

Galowen’s sword feels colder than it ever has been.

Yolov asks everyone to step back before he casts Thunder Step and teleports the Winter Prince out of the prison. As soon as he does, the Winter Prince tackles him into the snow banks by the river, demanding his name and what he does. Yolov tells him his name and explains that they were sent by Tari.

The Winter Prince asks why Tari would ask people from the material plane for help, and Yolov explains about the fused together prisons and how they’d already been planning to free Spring because of Az, but they wanted to free the other two as well.

The cold continues to seep into everyone as the Winter Prince releases Yolov and helps him stand up. Then the Winter Prince walks over to Galowen, tall enough that he almost meets Galowen’s eyes directly.

He asks Galowen where he got it.

Galowen says he got it on a ship on the material plane.

The Winter Prince says everyone is always getting things from the material plane. He asks if he’s been using it well and Galowen says he thinks so. Galowen offers him the sword and the Winter Prince takes it, the blade immediately icing over.

It is entirely encased in ice as the Winter Prince looks between Galowen and the sword and offers it back to him. Galowen takes it. The ice slowly starts to dissipate and the Winter Prince clicks his tongue and says this is the problem with material realm fighters. He says Galowen has no respect for the aesthetic of fighting.

Az mutters under his breath that sure, he’s the one with the rat bastard patron.

The Winter Prince says Spring is a rat bastard but at least Az has some style.

Az says someone in the party has to be the fashionable one.

The Winter Prince tells Galowen to hold the sword properly and encrusts the sword in Galowen’s hand. Then he tells Galowen to try and do the other one. Galowen doesn’t understand what he’s asking.

From behind the group, the Summer Prince says that material plane mortals are less familiar with Fey magic. He offers his hand in the direction of the sword and while the blade is still sheathed in ice, it’s also sheathed in fire.

The Winter Prince tells him that it is intuitive and instructs him to think about ice in his veins. Galowen does, and the blade’s ice solidifies. When he thinks of fire, it becomes sheathed with fire instead.

As Galowen studies the blade, the Winter Prince whirls on Az and demands what on earth possessed him to make a bargain with the most absolutely horrible Fey in the Feywild. Az dodges the question, and the Winter Prince’s nose twitches in disgust as Az says he is rescuing his patron, the other two are just extra.

When Audacity says they’re mostly here because Spring threatened horrible things to them all, the Winter Prince asks if Az was presented with horrible visions of a terrible fate with rotting vines.

Az admits he does, and the Winter Prince insults Spring again. As they argue about Az’s patron, Az says they’re going to rescue them and tells the Winter Prince he can stay here if he wants. Yolov says they promised Tari that they would get him out, and Az grudgingly agrees that they’ll bring him.

Az starts to march off towards the next fracture, and Yolov catches up with him to say that he wants to be clear after yesterday. He thinks it’s admirable that Az wants to free his patron from this torture but he also knows that Az’s patron has threatened them all and that he and their friends will defend each other if they attack any of them.

Az asks why they would attack them and Yolov points at his scars and says they already have. Az says they won’t this time and Yolov says he hopes so before he pats Az on the shoulder and tells him that they will protect him. He’s their friend.

Then he falls back to ask the Summer and Winter Prince a few questions. The first is the effect the destruction of the material plane would have on the Feywild. After explaining about the Sunken Ones and the Sworn Edge, Yolov is told that it’s a dumb plan but also won’t affect them. They don’t care about those gods.

Yolov also tells them about Elathias and his forcing warlock pacts on people, including children. He asks if either of them would be willing to be Rial’s patron until he reaches adulthood and let him choose whether to continue the pact.

Before the Summer Prince can answer, the Winter Prince says he will. He tells Yolov that Rial can contact him with this. The Winter Prince whistles and draws out a small ice pseudodragon from the shattered roc. He gives it to Yolov and tells him to give him to Rial, but not to let Rial let him eat anything.

Medrash squeaks at the other pseudodragon and they touch noses before Medrash briefly gets his tongue stuck to the ice pseudodragon. The Summer Prince unfreezes him as the Winter Prince asks Az where he got that pseudodragon and Sabara. When Az says his patron gave him Medrash and the Autumn Archfey Sabara, the Winter Prince looks indignant.

Az holds Medrash in his arms protectively as the Winter Prince huffs and says that it was always Autumn who was giving away his things. He points towards Medrash and says that his design. Az asks what he means, and the Winter Prince says he designed and created drakes and pseudodragons. He scolds Medrash on his current state, his soft scales and obvious lack of use of his stinger and sighs when Az says he wasn’t trained on how to strengthen Medrash.

They reach the fracture.

Az takes a deep breath and steps through first, the others following behind, Yolov casting Mage Armor on himself.

The place smells of spring. There is a replica of Az’s tower back home. There’s a door waterlogged with thawing ice and the melting freeze that had once kept it solid. Crawling up the sides of the long, slender tower are rotting and decaying vines. Instead of animals coming out of hibernation to start a slow march towards summer, instead of the gentle beginnings of a flourishing forest, there are the dredges of decay.

There are animals frozen to death, beginning to fester as the world begins to warm after being frozen in time. It feels like a slow beginning. Underneath their feet the earth is soft and wet, the grass starting to poke through the once frozen earth. It doesn’t feel the way that spring should feel or wants to be.

There’s no sense of a growing hope here.

The clouds are heavy and dark, like an impending rain refusing to do more than drizzle and just leave everything waterlogged and rotten and cloying. Vines that once climbed up the sides of the proud, tall tower are clinging on with nothing but sticky post-freeze decay.

There’s a window at the top of the tower and a door at the bottom.

Az has never started at the bottom of the tower, but he’s here now. He squares his shoulders and opens the waterlogged door.

Inside it is a beautiful space that has been abandoned to time. There are no windows except the top one from outside but inside, there are many windows covered in filth. Rotting plants cover every window and wall, spindling vines trying to reach out and flee the place.

The steps are water-logged as well but they hold under everyone’s feet as they ascend to the single door. It’s straight and narrow.

Az checks that his friends are still with him before he pushes open the door. He recognizes the inside, though it is altered. There is the table, rotting, and the teacups though they are filled with moldering things. Seated in his patron’s chair is a creature made of sticks with antlers and overgrown with moss and lichen and topped with a deer skull.

The deer skull snaps to look its empty hollow eyes at Az, who jumps a little despite himself.

His patron outstretches a clawed hand to Az’s shoulder and says that they see him made the correct choice.

Az says that he promised he would and he keeps his promises.

His patron tells him that his friends can leave.

Az says they won’t but they’ll behave. When the patron asks if he doesn’t trust them, he says it’s not that he doesn’t, but his friends won’t go. His patron tells him that it’s time to talk about his destiny, and Az says he has other things to do first in the material plane, but the first priority is to get his patron out of this prison.

When he goes to pat the clawed hand, it tightens on him.

Hava grabs his other hand and whispers that this isn’t right.

Az’s patron asks him where they would go, and scoffs when Az says out of the Feywild. They don’t want to leave, they want to rule with Az as their champion.

Audacity tells him that’s ridiculous. They’re the one who almost killed Az as a child. With a wave, the patron makes him vanish. They refuse to say where they have sent him, just claiming that he’s fine.

In the ensuing argument, Az tries to get Audacity back and is told that he doesn’t need friends and that he needs to listen to his patron. He is nothing without them, the worthless son in that house, which makes Hava and Yolov exclaim isn’t true.

Yolov tells Az that his father loves him so much he threatened to kill them all if anything happened to him.

Az’s patron waves a hand and tells them that if they want Audacity back, they can go find him. They all feel the stomach lurch sensation of teleportation before they find themselves in a glade with large glowing mushrooms and non-wilted flowers and a glowing lake.

The second they all touch down, they feel the illusion shift and sense mud and rot underneath.

In the far, far distance is his patron’s tower.

When Az looks around, he realizes the Summer and Winter Princes aren’t with them.