Astvanor Session 156 (12/13)

[cinaed]

Session 156: Day 20 of Saedan (12/13)

When Audacity got teleported from Spring’s tower, he was brought to this place, a festering rot surrounding him. Where the beautiful glade had been, the purplish mushrooms and river are still there, but the rot is beginning to spread through and destroy the illusion.

He, too, can see the tower in the distance. He takes a few experimental steps before he crouches to dig through his bag for dry clothing. As he bends down, he notices that something in the edge of the glade in these mushrooms starts to shift. The ground beneath many of these mushrooms is moving.

He knows that he knows a lot about creatures and things in the Feywild after encountering a few. There’s certainly something underneath these mushrooms, but it’s hard to tell what it is.

Audacity waits, watching the mushrooms to see if they settle down. They do calm and go motionless a few minutes later, just in time for the rest of the group to appear in the glade.

Audacity immediately tells them that there’s something under the mushrooms.

Hava mutters an unhappy great before she gently puts a hand on Az’s elbow and says she doesn’t like this, casting Death Ward on him before Az rushes over and hugs Audacity.

Audacity blinks in surprise as Az says he’s sorry, he didn’t realize the patron would do that. He leans back a little, putting his hands on Az’s face and glancing at the others to ask if the patron kept lying. When Hava nods, Audacity tells Az that as someone who just found out his parent didn’t think he was worthless, Az’s mother gave up everything to save him. She loved him.

Az thanks him and says he doesn’t know why his patron is like that.

Audacity says it’s a form of control, like his father was trying to do to him. Az’s patron is helpless without him.

Yolov says that Audacity is right about his mother, but the patron was lying about everything else too. They’ve met his sister and his sibling and his father, they all love him so much.

Az says it always sounds convincing when he’s with them. Then he says they should get back to the tower as quickly as possible.

Yolov agrees, looking around and immediately worried for Summer and Winter.

When Galowen asks Yolov what they’ll do when they get there, Diana answers first, saying that they’re going to kill them. Yolov looks at Az and says quietly that their patron won’t let him go. If his family line has connections to his patron, will they go after someone else in his family if he tries to leave?

Az admits being worried about his nieces and nephews.

Yolov says that they’re probably going to get attacked by something getting to the tower. If there was an ice roc guarding Winter, there will be things likely guarding Spring.

As soon as Az begins to move forward, some of the mushrooms across the river shake violently and rise up. They form two enormous mushroom creatures that loom over the group and begin to lumber towards everyone. They make shuffling sounds, the stench of rot wafting from them.

Audacity feels the last of the cold leave him as he rushes forward towards the closest one and tries to hit it with his staff. The first blow makes contact but it feels like hitting a tree. He curses before he adjusts and hits with the second attack. This time he bruises the mushroom part. He punches it for good measure.

Diana joins Audacity, carving into it with its shortsword. It roars a disgusting, filthy noise, the smell of old, rotting earth hitting her in the face. It’s enough to make her recoil and miss with her second strike before she recovers and gets it again with her back hand attack.

Adrin moves forward to bite the mushroom creature as well.

The mushroom creature looks rough, a good chunk of its white flesh already carved off as it turns and bites into Diana’s arm. She grunts in pain.

Galowen eyes the water, seeing that the river looks deep, before he goes to try and finish off the mushroom creature that everyone has been attacking. He sets his sword aflame as he strikes it twice with the Fey blade.

The mushroom creature burns to death, spores washing over Adrin, Audacity, and Diana and stunning all three of them as Galowen manages to shake off the spores. He watches their eyes all enlarge, their expressions peaceful as they stare into space.

Diana feels peace, seeing a glade with all of her favorite people, the Hooligans, Adrin, Keyleth, and her newly discovered girlfriend Krystal. Audacity sees the cistern under the monastery, but Galowen is there with him.

Hava watches this and keeps her distance from the remaining mushroom creature. She casts Eldritch Blast, hitting it twice and slowing its movements. She also summons her spectral tentacle.

The mushroom creature attempts to sluggishly move closer, managing to get on the small path over the river.

Az joins in with the Eldritch Blast, two of them striking the mushroom creature. The mushroom creature is blasted backwards forty feet, sending pieces of mushroom flying everywhere. Where it was knocked backwards, Az sees some sort of movement.

The stomps of its feet as it scrambles forward reverberate through the earth. Even when it stops, the party can still feel the reverberations until an enormous, fifteen foot divot forms and a conglomeration of wood shifts.

A gigantic mushroom with a small head and two mushroom limbs and woods emerges from the ground. It lumbers forward, lunging to loom over Audacity, who’s closest, and then lets out a noxious roar. Spores spread across the glade, striking everyone except for Diana. Yolov and Az are poisoned.

Yolov moves Es to float next to the giant mushroom and casts Lightning Bolt through both mushroom creatures, scorching them as he dashes over to stand next to Diana, who smiles toothily at him.

The smaller mushroom creature bites Hava.

Audacity shakes himself free of the stun and yelps in surprise at Galowen’s proximity as Diana remains under the effect of the spores.

Galowen steps up to the large mushroom creature, his sword still alight, and sears away a portion of the wood and the mushroom.

Hava uses Misty Step, disappearing in a swirl of mist and reappearing behind the smaller mushroom to a small rock cropping in the river. Then she throws three Eldritch Blasts at the smaller mushroom creature, two blasts slamming into it.

Sabara attacks the smaller mushroom, sinking her teeth into it. She rips off one of the mushrooms and makes the mushroom creature scream. The cry weirdly tugs at Az’s memory, echoing his patron’s voice as he hits it with a single Eldritch Blast.

The mushroom creature looks to be on its last legs. Medrash flies over, his stinger burrowing into its maw. When he yanks his stinger out, the mushroom creature crumples to the earth and explodes into spores as well. Medrash hovers there, his pupils expanding.

The giant mushroom creature strikes down twice at Galowen. As it roars, everyone hears a voice hissing that they are done with these games and warns Az not to make them hurt them.

Az goes from celebrating Medrash to standing there rigidly.

Yolov casts Chromatic Orb, a flaming ball slamming into the mushroom creature before he shakes off the poison.

Audacity slides around to the other side of the mushroom creature and strikes out at it. Both blows connect, and he punches it for good measure. The mushrooms are bruising under his blows.

As Diana remains affected by the spores, Galowen hits out with his sword twice more. His sword flashes radiant flame as he carves into the mushroom creature, the flame lapping across the wood and the mushroom and the dirt holding the creature together.

It burns with a howling, visceral wail.

There is silence for a moment before there’s a resounding boom from the tower.

Az hears in his head, the patron’s voice hissing what he thought bringing their former companions here would do. Az says that they rescued them along the way, that’s all.

The ground bows and knocks everyone down as the earth itself is dragged towards the tower.

The patron hisses that Az cut down the gifts they made. His friends have the audacity to call them a liar in his own home, when Spring has known Az since he was a child.

When Az asks if his patron will let him leave, there is a sound of scrapping metal and a wail like the nails clawing Az’s face. They are all dragged forward and into the tower, which has changed. There is now a rotting excuse for a throne, from which the patron asks Az if he would leave them.

Az says they asked him to kill people.

The patron says Az has taken lives, crushed the oxygen out of someone’s lungs and felt the release of death.

Az argues that he’s never wanted to kill anyone.

Spring tells him that he looks at the path of greatness that they have made for him, knows that they stand on the precipice of what he could be. Spring reaches out a gnarled hand and rises a smaller throne beside them. Then they show Az a mask carved out of a deer skull, much like the one that comprises their own face.

They tell Az that he is theirs, the son of some mortal politician and a fishmongering bitch. This is his last chance to be something more.

Az tries to take off the bracelet but it doesn’t budge. He shakes his head and says that he doesn’t want to be their champion.

Spring’s neck snaps to the side. After all they’ve been through, their only champion tries to deny them. Spring leans their head back and says it’s too bad, Azeldonne Turen. They repeat Az’s name a second time.

Then they pick up the skull mask and ask, “What did you do when we first met? When you sat in my parlor and drank my tea? When I reached a hand to take yours, what did you do?”

Az says he introduced himself.

His patron asks what he gave him.

There is a moment of quiet before Az says he gave them his name.

The patron turns the skull towards him and it bursts forward, fitting over his face before he can even move. The mask latches over his face and he feels the overwhelming presence of his patron. It’s all he can hear and see and smell. When he looks, for a moment, he’s his patron and they are Az. There is one form, just an extension of Spring no matter what Az does.

It lasts for a heartbeat before Az feels two arms wrap around him very tightly and firmly.

Hava hugs him and he hears her voice in his head. She says, “He doesn’t deserve you.”

A blue-green wash of ocean arcs around him as Hava finishes casting Magic Circle.

The mask falls off Az’s face and lands with a shattering noise, broken at Az’s feet.

His patron steps down off their throne. He says that Az has made their choice, even as everyone scrambles to ready themselves for a fight. Audacity tries to cast Hold Person and feels it have no effect on the patron. Diana puts the Purple Worm poison onto her shortsword. Yolov casts Mirror Image, suddenly four Yolovs appearing in the throne room.

Az’s patron waves a hand, and both Winter and Summer drop, bound, beside the group. Winter looks furious. Summer just looks embarrassed.

Forgotten Summer tells Az that he made Az sick so that his mother would give him to them. But it’s fine, he’ll rip his blessings from Az’s bones and drain his life like he did his mother. Maybe then their pitiful mortal corpses can rot, side by side. They’ll try again with something better.

Az’s patron tilts their head back with a gentle sigh and steps forward, circling the group like prey until they are standing behind the Hooligans, cool and uncaring before they all breathe in poison that erupts from the Archfey.

Az and Galowen are both blinded as the spores sear their eyes.

Then the patron teleports away.

Hava looks around at the group. She debates with herself for a second before she casts Circle of Power. Then she sidesteps Galowen and moves further away from the patron.

As she does, Az’s patron lashes out at Galowen.

Diana casts Searing Smite on her shortsword and stabs at Forgotten Summer with the white-hot blade. They lean back from the force of the blow and then snarl at her. Diana tells them they are weak and will die a weakling.

Forgotten Summer says they’re killing her third.

Diana hits them again.

Blinded, Galowen shuffles further into Hava’s protective circles. He channels Caletras’s divinity, presenting his holy symbol and rebuking Spring, which the patron resists.

His vision clears as the patron extends a hand as the purple mushrooms begin to glow. Everyone with magic but especially Az can feel the mushrooms tug at their magic.

Az is also blinded, but flings three frantic Eldritch Blasts towards his patron. One manages to strike them, but as Az’s blindness fades he sees the patron looking at him with something almost like pity.

Az calls Medrash over.

Spring gestures to Az and Medrash and tells him that he won’t kill Az first. He knows what is important to him. He goes to cast Power Word Kill on Galowen, and when Yolov attempts to cast Counterspell, he feels the spell get yanked and absorbed into Spring, healing them.

It happens so quickly, Galown watching Yolov’s familiar spell arc towards the patron before it disappears. The scent of rot disappears, and Galowen finds himself standing before a single tiny mushroom and an enormous hoof.

Three things strike him. Number one: he’s dead. Number two: his friends are alone, in danger and disarray. Number three: if he doesn’t get back fast enough, someone else is gonna kill this guy before him.

Audacity, directly in front of him, watches Galowen die. He freezes and drinks the fire potion before he breathes out a breath of flame at the Summer Prince’s vine restraints, singeing his clothes but leaving Summer’s perfectly sculptured but scarred chest otherwise intact.

Summer shakes out his hair and says he’ll do what he can to help.

Audacity just nods.

Yolov looks at his outstretched hand, which has failed in another Counterspell that led to someone’s death, before he takes the staff of the Arctic Fox and casts Booming Blade upon it, rushing up to the patron and striking them. Thunder booms and stays, lingering around the patron.

The Winter Prince frees himself as the patron says they’ve changed their mind about Az. After they have stripped Az of all his friends, they will still have use of him. They will use him as a corpse festering with rot. Either way, in the end he will serve them.

They extend their hand again.