Location: Vorugal’s Lair
Date: Folsen, 24 Thunsheer 840 (calendar of Exandria)
Occasion: The incipient party are outside the lair of Vorugal the Frigid Doom.
Party Members:
- Bob the Therapist – changeling warlock with a couch for a familiar
- Flora Zosna – loxodon paladin
- Jeremiah Callows – human cleric
- Stubby – half-elf artificer
- Tāmerai – gnome bard
- Tunk – bugbear monk
Roughly Midday
The group discuss their choices: visit the kobold refugee camp; investigate the part of Emror’s map simply called “His Lair;” look on the grounds of the now-missing castle (or, seek the whereabouts of the castle); find the other building that might have a Threshold Crest in it; or go back to Emror’s tower. No matter which choice they make, they have to walk down the same path from Vorugal’s mountain lair, so they get started while discussing it. Along the way they hear Twiggy, chittering near the path, greatly surprised to see the group still alive after visiting Vorugal’s lair. [Meta: DM informs us that we are now in the pantheon of deities among this group of twig blights. They’re so cute, I hope we never fuck that up.]
After that brief encounter, the group continue down. Tunk notices footprints: a little larger than Tāmerai’s, extremely wide at the toe-end; heels worn down, with a hole in one of the soles, demonstrating that the wearer walks unevenly, but 15-20 years ago these were especially well made boots. The stride is even and regular, not ‘sneaky’. There is a stirrup line in one of them, and possibly the other, but that one is harder to read because of the uneven walk. However the footprints are shod, not bare, so none of the group can tell what type they are. There are signs someone was fishing here, probably within the last 24 hours or so. Some of the group realize that they were not fed kobold because there was no other available source of food, but because Emror… likes kobold meat.
The group finally decide to visit His Lair. The road is well maintained, even weeded. Someone cares to remove sharp pebbles that could hurt a soft-footed or bare-footed creature. In this context, it’s weird. Flora smells fish being cooked somewhere near the lair. A shrub near the path suddenly erupts in chittering twig blights, who run off into the cave. Soon and old, old silver Ravinite comes to green them. Cembiten (they/them/any) introduces himself, noting of the twig blights, “One trusts you.” They accept a cookie from Jeremiah, but then fixate on Flora. She is “The One!”
Cembiten drops to a knee before Flora. “I have waited for you! I was told you would come! You seek your people, the Lost Tribes, yes? I have seen your people in the north. You are foretold. The way you speak with your people, I do as well. I am not alone. I am not abandoned by those who came before me. They love me. They protect me and warn me, as they do you. We are the same. I was not told you would actually come.” [They stare accusingly at empty air full of ancestors.]
Cembitan gets to their feet and beckons and leads the group back into their cave, which is very different from both Emror’s keep and Vorugal’s lair. Not fancy at all, but there’s what’s left of a throne. Looks to Stubby like what Vex described of Tophor’s throne. It’s taken some war damage, but it’s recognizable. “This I saved to keep objects of power from Emror. The ‘last’ Ravinite,” he adds with some disdain.
They ask Stubby if she was here in Before Times, but she shakes her head. Cembiten relates, “I have a memory of you. I think. No, you were a boy in my memory. It cannot be you.” It was, it turns out, her uncle Vax. “Your uncle was very strange.” Cembiten also knew and served Tophor. They urged her to take the Crest lest it be misused, and hoped she would leave it in Whitestone at the “pyramid” underground. Tophor did not return.
Cembiten has little good to say about Gelidon. He believes the group accidentally stepped through “one of” Gelidon’s portals. “When she came here, things would stabilize. We would age as normal. But the time in the sky would stop, and it stopped yesterday. Have you heard of a Threshold Crest?” The group tell him what they know, but do not go so far as to tell him they have one. The meeting goes easier after that. Also, Cembiten thinks Emror is gross for eating kobold, so they and the group will get along fine. They warn them not to touch Threshold Crests together unless they want to see the Astral Plane. GOOD TO KNOW.
They relate that Emror and his master slaughtered Ravinites and used their deaths as power for their magic. At the start of the civil war, they captured Emror and locked him in his tower. “We left him there in his basement, but when the wars were over and lost, I escaped by luck alone. I should not be here. I should be dead. But the city… Where he is now, he embraced the mad mage, and now he sees without eyes and hears without ears, and he is blood.”
History and Arcana checks reveal “mad mage” lore: There was a rumor of a powerful, ancient dragonborn sorcerer who had been defeated, but whose soul was still free. It sounded a lot like a warlock pact to everyone. [Tāmerai knows more: she was told chilling tales of an evil known as Flynn, an evil mage whose soul was trapped in a green gem, and could control and see if bound to a living creature. Flynn was incredibly, incredibly dangerous and would steal children, sell your grandmother for her socks, and all of this kind of stuff. Blood magic to a horrifying degree. “Don’t do blood magic, kids” commercials were about this fucking guy.]
Cembiten: Emror bound himself to Flynn, the all-terrifying. I am bound to a higher calling, as are you, I can see.
[Bob: The little voice that said you’d get your degree sounds/feels angry, like Flynn is a dirty word.]
Jeremiah: I’ve seen people who want power more than they want what they can do with it.
Cembiten: That is an apt description of Emror. He was such a lovely child… Time has… We were frozen. Time did not pass, but we aged. Now, time passes a little. Not as much as I would like. But we lived in an undying time because of the magic. These calculations are right, but what they have omitted is that he needs you, your blood, your power. Willing souls to help him cast the spell. There is no guarantee he would do that, and allow you to live. With these crests, Emror has enough power. When I last knew, he had found one and Gelidon had one. One is in Whitestone, and the fourth I was unable to find myself.
Insight checks: We believe the SHIT out of Cembiten. (Ben rolled a 22!)
Cembiten: I have written a history. [book handed to Jeremiah — starts with the day after Vorugal was defeated. Talks about how they went through everything, promised they’d make a statue — which we saw — for Tiberius, how they rebuilt things, decided to fly again. Handwriting gets a little shaky, and it is apparent that it was very hard for him to write it. Mages wanted Ravinia to fly again. Their government and paladins weren’t sold on this. Everything tracks with what Stubby already knows about Tophor and their brutal civil war. Emror’s master slaughtered the government to give power to the mages to make the city fly. Very, very detailed. There’s a drawing of Flora near or at the end of Cembiten’s book, where he talks about finding The One. Weeeeeeeird.]
Flora: It seems I’m where I need to be.
Cembiten: You are almost where you need to be. I must take you to your people, to save them. My family swore an oath to the Loxodon of the north, and I will see it through.
Flora: Then I will follow.
Cembiten: You have seen the green gem? If it is taken from Emror, he will not be able to use your blood to cast his spell. I could use it to get you to where you should be.
Flora hears voices: <Indistinct whispers: Granddaughter, daughter, aunt, sister>. You must hold the Crest and show them. They can be trusted.
Flora pulls out the Crest from the Bag of Holding. For Flora, everyone else freezes. Stops. No birdsong, no crickets, no wind, the cookfire smoke freezes. The Crest is terrifyingly powerful. She feels it. It could be used for way more than moving a city, a mountain. It starts to blind her. The warmth of her matriarchal line comforts her. It is stronger now, as strong as it was when she sat in ceremony with her tribe. As she is filled with their love and warmth, she feels a cold that doesn’t scare her. It’s expected. Her life led to this moment, with this stone and these people. And Cembiten suddenly moves. “It is time.” They look at her and fall to their knees again. “You are the One.” They are flanked with their ancestors, as Flora often is in her dreams. Thousands of tailless dragonborn. “I will watch your friends, Flora. I will stay for them. You will face what is next, alone. But you are needed by your people. You are not the last, you are the start. The spark.” He taps her forehead and the stone flashes light. Flora hears her ancestors cheering, singing the song of far-striders beginning a journey. Then they recede to that inner place from which they always protect her. As the warmth from this magic fades, Flora is cold. It’s colder than Whitestone, Ravinia… This is where she should be. Nothing but snow, ice, and a river of lava. Alone, a little underdressed, and without the stone. And she hears a horn she has not heard since leaving her people. The sound only a loxodon can make, trumpeting the strong of homecoming. One trumpet, then another, and another. They are woolly, more mammoth than elephant. “The One is here! She has found us!” And so she has.
The rest of us: We see a flash of light, and the stone hits the ground, and Flora is gone. And Cembitan is reaching across the stone as if touching Flora’s forehead. “She is the one.”
Take your meds.
Hydrate.
Don’t forget to love each other.
Is it Game Day yet?
Loot:
Jeremiah has Cembiten’s book detailing the history of Draconia/Ravinia as Cembiten has known it.
Questions:
Ask Cembiten:
– where Gelidon keeps the second Crest she has, since we only found one in the lair.
– if they know what Emror’s other capabilities and dangerous items might be.
– if they can send us home the way they apparently sent Flora.
– if any other creatures or sentient beings live here, that we should be wary of.
– if they know Flynn’s other abilities or the scope of his powers.