Location: New Vasselheim, Othanzia, Issylra
Date: Whelsen, 29 Brussendar 845 PD (calendar of Exandria)
Party Members:
- Rinn – half-elf sorcerer/rogue
- Stubby – half-elf artificer
- Tāmerai – gnome bard
Absent Party Members:
- Bob the Therapist – changeling warlock with a couch for a familiar
- Tunk – bugbear monk
To-Do List:
- Determine whether Tunk and Bob should get shares (since in character we know they intend to return to us, while Flora and Jeremiah will almost certainly not), or if we should divide it only among Stubby and Tam because we stayed, or if Rinn should get a share to cement him to us (Stubby & Tam conversation)
- Examine the books we got from the white dragons’ lair; determine whether any are useful, or entertaining, or worthless; sell the worthless
- Assemble a collection of items to send back to Whitestone and/or Xhorhas
- Loot the everlasting gobstopper out of Old Vasselheim.
Stubby:
- Go to the shady mushroom dude or Ivy Hall to sell more poison (remember to decant acid or poison or something from the Alchemy Jug each new IC day!)
- Upgrade to armor
Tāmarai:
- Blacksmith/armorer/weaponmaker AND jeweler: can I commission more darts like the ones Tam wears in her hair? For how much money?
- Visit the Cobalt Soul Tower and ask if they have a ‘public-accessible’ book section, and if I maybe could copy down some things if I find the right book. Also ask if they have even a partial map of OV as it now lies in ruins.
- Distribute business cards to Luxon temple, Xhorhasian Embassy, Cobalt Soul (they love taking notes about cultural experiences, right?), fine hotels and restaurants, cultural/community center, et cetera. Offer to demonstrate/lead tea ceremony.
Whelsen, 29 Brussendar 845 PD
On the evening of 28 Brussendar, a messenger arrives with a message for Rinn. The message asks him to come to the Slayer’s Take for breakfast and meet with Otel.
Stubby
Stubby sleeps fitfully, and as morning approaches, she begins to dream lucidly. She is aware that she dreams, and tries to remain asleep within it, fighting wakefulness.
A voice hums. It’s her mother’s voice, except that it is not the mother she has known. This is a future version of Vex. She wears a hood and can only be seen in profile, but Stubby knows this profile well. Her hair, falling forward from beneath the hood, is strongly greying, her skin losing elasticity. With her half-elven heritage, this marks her age as being, oh, at least one hundred years. She is still glamorous and beautiful, but the beauty is now of autumn, not summer. She sits on the floor of an empty room, rocking back and forth. The hooded robe is one of a very old fashion, resembling ones that Stubby has seen in paintings all over the family castle, paintings from right around the time of the Calamity. There are chalk markings everywhere around the room, magical runes and glyphs like the ones Uncle Gilmore used to draw.
Dream Vex clutches a piece of chalk, its powder staining her fingertips white. She stops rocking to make another mark, cackling all the while as the runes flare a sickly, moldy, bruisy green. Another voice joins hers, also cackling. Dream Vex rises to her feet. The other voice stops laughing and says quietly, seductively, “I can help you.”
Rather than respond, Dream Vex looks right at Stubby. She can see her. Only one of her eyes is visible; the other is shrouded in the hood. But the visible eye is not the same color as Vex’s. She reaches out a withered, rotten hand to point at Stubby. Stubby is locked in place, her heart racing, as she feels pulled towards Vex — is it Vex, though? — by an invisible rope.
A shadowed, black form interposes itself between them protectively, declaring, “No! Not this,” and then Stubby knows that no, this is definitely not Vex. This is someone else, something else. Something bad. He throws his arms out; black-feathered wings extend to shield Stubby from…whatever is wearing Vex’s appearance. The interpolator speaks again. “Remember this name: Kas.”
Stubby’s body jerks, ripping her mind abruptly from the dreamscape and into the waking world, adrenaline coursing through her sweat-soaked body, hairs escaped from her nightly braid now sticking to her face, which is red from internal struggle. It was a dream. It was only a dream.
A raven feather rests on the blanket near her pillow.
She flips over and grabs the notebook and pencil she keeps near her bed for jotting down tinkering ideas. She flips to a random empty page and writes down all she can remember, pencil scratching furiously on the paper. When she finishes, Stubby dons her armor (over her mussed, sweaty pajamas) and gauntlet, then breaks into a run straight to the temple of the Raven Queen, not even remembering to leave a note.
The Waking World
Sleeping minds are not waking minds. A noise or feeling that happens to the body may be perceived as immediate, when in fact it has been several minutes between the noise and the response. Therefore, the rustling of writing, armor, and running does wake him (or else it’s the slamming of the door), but possibly not immediately. Even so, he experiences it as immediate, and hops out of bed to throw open the sliding screen separating his room (Stubby’s former room) from theirs. “Get up,” he says loudly to the sleeping Tāmarai, who responds with a single whimper of ‘five more minutes’ flavor… nearly a full minute later. Exasperated, he throws a pillow towards her. “Get UP! Stubby’s gone!” Not the lightest of sleepers, it takes her another several seconds to understand the information being conveyed, but when she does, she sits bolt upright and stares at Stubby’s bed, where the feather still rests. “She has gone to find her uncle,” murmurs the gnome, dressing with a rapidity that Rinn finds very gratifying and running out the door after him.
The sun is still rising, but the street is mostly empty. The lamps are off now, though, and Lightning Tetsuo walks down the street shirtless, carrying a ladder. Like you do.
Temples in New Vasselheim are almost all perpetually open and populated, though (mostly) more sparsely at night. At the Raven Queen’s temple, a handful of acolytes and priests walk the halls, variously covered in anything from normal (black) attire all the way up to full burqa and niq’ab. They nod at Stubby, having now seen her almost daily for a week as she comes to feed the ravens. Today she sketches the briefest bow, hands over a coin and accepts a handful of birdseed, and walks out to the courtyard to sit in front of the perch of the one called the Old Man, scattering some seed for him and any other ravens who happen by. She has placed various objects in most of the temples she’s visited. Here, it’s a water-compass. She spins the needle around as usual, watching for it to slow and stop and settle down to face North again. It doesn’t. Instead of settling, the needle wavers back and forth. The water darkens from clear to red. Blood. The sky darkens, and the entire atmosphere seems to shift from early morning and sunrise to the cool twilight of evening.
A female voice from behind her says, low and soft yet eerily, perfectly audibly, Why are you so scared?
Stubby turns to see a beautiful woman wearing solid black armor. The Deathwalker’s Ward, which Stubby has heard described often. The Champion’s armor, but this is no Champion. The smile is not a cheerful, friendly one, but the smile of one who has seen Enough. Everything. The smile of one who knows the answers to questions Stubby would never even know to ask. She gives Stubby a look, not unkind but curious. Stubby takes a long moment to process just what and Whom she sees, then bows. “Hi. Um. I had a dream. Vax was there. You were there, too, I guess? With him?”
My Champion, replies the Raven Queen. He beseeched me to allow him to watch over you. I have allowed it. Why are you scared?
“I saw my mom. Vax’s sister. But not… not her. It wasn’t her.”
You saw a shadow of a time that was.
“Yeah, I time I guess I was in. Before.”
You were out of time, and it has affected the ripples of the world. Actions are not without consequences. You can have live without death; death has no meaning without life. But when life and its rivers change, the things we alter will have implications you could never dream. Did he warn you?
Stubby checks her notebook. “Yeah, a weird voice speaking to my mom. Or through my mom? And Uncle Vax got in the way.”
What did it say?
“There was a weird cackle,” Stubby replies, checking the notebook off and on to verify her memory with what it looked like when she was fresh from the dream. “And a green light, and the voice said ‘I can help you’. I got sucked in, but then Vax got in the way and told me to remember the name Kas.”
Then you must remember that name and hold it fast. Great damage was done in Vasselheim. Our powers here are… difficult due to these magics that have been unleashed. You will find many temples speak to the gods but the gods do not always speak back to them. I am here to speak to you. Do you choose my path, as your uncle did? He did so under duress. Do you know the truth of his story? Did your mother tell you all?
“Kind of?”
Your uncle gave his life to me, to bring back your mother. For that I asked only for his service, and he became my Champion. But you are not your uncle, nor are you your mother. Your path, the paths ahead of you, are your own. But if you choose to walk my paths, to uphold my principle that life and death have their purpose and meaning, and you steal from neither, then I will be with you in all things. Kas chose my path many years ago. I was with him. Through him, I worked miracles.
“Kas. Okay. Um…”
You will not learn of him in New Vasselheim. You may learn of him in the ruins that were. If you are brave, go to my temple there. I will speak to you again. You do not have to decide now. But if you come to my temple, I will assume you have decided to walk alongside me.
The figure does not turn, does not even pause, yet Stubby senses that her attention has flicked elsewhere for a moment before returning. Your friends are coming.
The Raven Queen’s wings flutter, and then Stubby is surrounded by other feathers. A swarm such as Stubby has never seen before rises all around her as corvids fill the air, swirling and swirling. A male voice softly echoes, We are with you. The sky clears, and it is early morning again, with its approaching warmth and sunshine. Many feathers lie all around on the ground, as they often do here, but there is one in Stubby’s hand that wasn’t there before. A pinfeather.
Rinn and Tāmarai appear, following the ravens to Stubby. (On the way, Tāmarai tosses coins towards an acolyte, calling out “Thank you very much for your service, we are so sorry not to chat properly, thank you!”) They are just in time to see the birds lift away from her, leaving her standing there half-crying, grinning, confused, and definitely overwhelmed.
“We were worried sick! You’re fine? Are you fine?” Tāmarai’s voice, always well modulated, nevertheless sounds more stressed than Stubby has ever heard her, even during the dragon attack on Whitestone, as she fusses over her charge.
“Remember the name Kas. Don’t forget it!” Stubby replies immediately. After a moment more of staring at her friends, she sits right down on the ground. “She was here. The Raven Queen. Talking to me.”
“Herself? Her own self? In person? Not a messenger? Not an avatar? Her own, true self?” Tāmarai asks, and Stubby verifies each question with a nod. “Gracious!”
Stubby tells the two of her dream, adding, “Rinn, we went to the future a little bit, so that’s weird, and I talked to my mom there, and now this dream, and…” she vomits a much truncated description of the unexpected trip to and back from Draconia, though she does not name the place, and then of the dream she had. At some point, an acolyte approaches with a tray of three cups of tea; but when she sees the compass bowl full of blood, her eyes go huge and she backs away, making a gesture of self-protection (non-magical, but superstition is a thing). “…So I need to go to Old Vasselheim and talk to the Raven Queen there. She said I can learn about Kas in her temple. He was her champion.”
She fiddles with gauntlet and an egg-shaped thing that Sentri came out of; a mech-magpie unfurls from it & hops about. Blue-black metal, with silver symbol of the Raven Queen over one eye. This old-ass raven, she’s seen before, but not that marking. This time he’s showing it to her. He’s known as the Old Man, and if he takes seeds from you, you’ve been blessed. She gives him some seeds and then starts playing the Mirror Game with Sentri. Sentri makes little churps at the OM, OM chirps back, the communication breaks down because Sentri only makes noise rather than language.
The acolytes have all mentioned at some point or other during that week that if the Old Man takes seeds from a person, that person has been blessed by the Raven Queen. Stubby offers him seeds, which he takes and eats, then starts playing the Mirror Game with Sentri.
The Old Man seems to be a bit amused at this somewhat inferior copy of himself. Stubby sends him a Message, saying “Thanks for keeping me company. Sentri’s still in the works, she’s not fully functional yet.” The Old Man listens and keeps an eye on Stubby, interested in her. Beside his perch, the bowl of blood finally begins to fade and become water once more. The Old Man pecks at it with his beak to make it go TING, then flies away, pleased with himself.
One of the other nearby temples has a loud gong that chimes on the hour, and it rings now, announcing the sixth hour after midnight. Almost on cue, three stomachs rumble, and Rinn remembers he was told to come to the Take for breakfast. Ma Kosti, their cook, makes incredible food and it’s always presented so beautifully as well (not that Rinn cares about that, no, absolutely not, but honestly the little egg-rice-vegetable sculptures and diaramas are so cute… but no, Rinn doesn’t care about that at all). Rinn takes off, saying he’ll meet up with them later at home or at the temples where he knows they intend to go.
Rinn:
To the left of the entryway is a public living area. At the moment, the captains and their assistant are having a lively celebration of singing, chanting, pounding the table in time. There’s a new person at the captains’ table, a goliath called Vimak Katho-Olavi (they/them) the Dawncaller, who’s been with the Take since just after the founding of New Vasselheim. He’s done some Outside work (outside the city walls), and is an armorer. The raucous assembly are congratulating him with song and breakfast beer for being promoted to assistant captain as Vladesoc’s replacement. They blush; they’re happy to be sung to, but not sure why, as they’re just a simple goliath after all. Yorrik, the dwarven captain from Inside (inside the city walls), pounds his assistant captain Pansy, a tough halfling woman, on the shoulder.
She responds with, “Oh, fuck off, you have to tell him.” “You’re an asshole.” Friendly, loving banter. She looks up at Rinn, and despite their relative heights, makes him feel like he’s the shorter one. “So, the funniest thing happened, kid. Thieves’ Guild showed up last night. Made us a whole, formal apology, and now they owe us favors — thanks to you!” She thumps Rinn on the shoulder, and boy, does he feel it. This is a bad bitch.
“Uh, you’re welcome.” How else to respond, Rinn isn’t sure.
“You did a good job, kid. I see why Otel likes you.” Pansy has never been warm or friendly, usually just polite. This is the closest to warm that Rinn has ever seen her look. She thumps him again, this time in the chest. “So, from the Inside team, you get our thanks. You made our lives a lot easier.” Seeing Rinn looking like he’d like to be elsewhere, she waves him off. “All right, Otel’s got dibs on you today, so go ahead, go. He’s over there.”
Rinn gives her a nod and slips through the crowd to Otel. The tall, thin drow sits at a back table away from the big group and closer to the kitchen, where it’s much hotter than elsewhere in the common room. He looks up from his coffee and his papers. “Grab a seat.” Rinn sits. “I let Pansy tell you that part because she’s so excited, but yeah, the Thieves’ Guild is very sorry about that colossal fuckup.” This ellicits an actual, if small, smile out of Rinn.
“Well,” Otel continues, “I got some news for your contracts you asked about. We don’t have anything for the items your friends found wherever they were. We don’t have any call for them right now, so if you have to sell them right away, do it at Ivy Hall, or in Copper Wall. I can give you names of places, but nothing’s going on at the moment. Those are for higher level spells, and right now nobody can cast ‘em. But hang on.” He rifles through papers, handing one over. “This will see you get regular Take rates at Ivy Hall. Any of its shops or departmens. Can’t haggle, but you’ll get our usual 2-5% above regular asking price. Now, about Old Vass’.”
He slides over a rolled parchment. “I got a map of the old place. Nobody’s got an accurate map of what it looks like now. I wrote where I knew things were gone, like where the Take was. That’s a crater, but things were still exploding when we left so we’re not sure how bad it is or how many more craters there are. We don’t have any open contracts for anything there, but I talked to the owners. If you can get us a list of places that are destroyed and places that aren’t, and a good map, there’s a mapmaker who’ll pay really good prices for that, depending on how good your map is. The Take’ll give you a good payout for a list of monsters up there so we’ll know what to bring along when we have to go there. Cobalt Soul says no one who’s come back can give a good description. Only one was even able to speak in Common after. The other one spoke Undercommon, and he didn’t know it before.” He pauses to allow himself space for a change of subject. “So how’s it going over there at the embassy? Any more surprise attacks?”
“No,” replies Rinn. “After they took Abe back, they haven’t returned.”
“Honest Abe might show back up to apologize.” Otel gives a little half-grin at that thought. “He’ll be working night shifts and paperwork for a few years. You know we have an understanding with the thieves’ guild, right? We don’t shoot them, they dont’ shoot us. We stay off their turf, they stay off our turf. Abe crossed that line. You can tell the kids the thieves’ guild won’t be interfering with them.” This makes Rinn smile back. Just a little. “They can probably even walk through the Rat Docks now without being so much as pickpocketed. So… You’re really going up to OV?”
Rinn nods, saying nothing until Otel’s look urges him to go on. “The other two have reasons to go.”
“Take this from me for free, kid. They’re probably okay, going up there. Whatever landed them here seems to have some strange consequences. They can probably get up there safely. But if you start to feel like there are a bunch of eyes watching you, or you hear a weird voice, you de-ass that area, you got it? I’ll take care of any breach of contract, because your life isn’t worth it. Your brain is one of your best selling points, you don’t wanna fuck that up.” He’s got that Good Uncle vibe going on. “Do you know when you’re heading up there?”
Rinn shrugs.
Otel, used to that by now, just goes on. “No horses. They’ll spook if you try to take them more than halfway there. It’ll be a two-day walk, probably only one night on the road. But I’d do one night on the road and one outside the walls, and go in well rested. Plan ahead, because there’s a lot left in the city but no telling what quality it is, or if it’s safe. If you find anything you think is of interest, we will pay you good rates to bring it back to us.” The emphasis isn’t just for show. He’s not talking about new shoes money, new dagger money. He’s talking about new horse and wagon money. House money. Maybe big house money.
Rinn is impressed, not that it shows. “Okay. No idea what they’re planning to look for up there.”
Otel chews on his lip, looking pensive, then sighs and leans back. “Ma Kosti, can we have a couple more of your good coffees?”
Ma Kosti, a tiny, plump human with grey hair in a bun, shows up with tray of coffees so good they don’t even need cream, though she’s put some in Otel’s, and also has Rinn’s coffee the way she’s noticed he likes it. The tray doubles as a charcuterie board with perfectly sliced, beautiful breakfast items like it’s been made for fancy people dining at a high-end restaurant. “It’s nice to see you again.” She reaches as if to pinch his cheek, but stops herself, trundles off to kitchen. Everyone at the Take is Ma Kosti’s kids. (She also has at least three kittens in her kitchen at all times, fostering them out as they become old enough. Her biological empire increases daily.)
As something of a delaying tactic, Otel takes his time blowing across the surface of his coffee to cool it a bit, then sips a couple of times. Eventually he gets to what he’s after. “Ever hear why I’m here? The rumor?”
“Just that you were in the Take before the explosion, and you stayed here.”
“I joined before the explosion, but not by much. I’m obviously not local.” Otel gestures at his drow self. “My cousin works at the embassy. We came for an important artifact from Xhorhas. We knew where one was. The other, we were pretty sure they weren’t going to tell us. So I joined the Take.” He makes it even plainer: “I was infiltrating. I chose to stay here and not go back to the embassy because I feel I can do more good for Xhorhas and for the people of New Vasselheim. But there’s that item we’re still looking for. We, my Den. Do you have any idea what that is? A Den?”
Rinn doesn’t, so Otel explains. “In Xhorhas, we have blood family, but we also have Dens that are part blood, part found family. People who have similar interests and goals, who bind themselves together. My Den, Den Tasithar, we have lately been devoted to recovery of the lost. We worship an entity that is misunderstood by most people outside Xhorhas. It allows us to be born and reborn in endless cycle. We carry the lessons from our past going forward, and it betters us as individuals and advances us overall as a people. The item we seek allows this rebirth to happen. Which means, as it has been here for thousands of years, there are many souls that have a spark of our divinity, our god, within them, waiting to awaken. I look for them, and I look for our items. When I find them — mostly people, so far — I introduce them to my cousin, and he and the ambassador handle things as they see fit. I tell you this because the gnome you’re with is from Xhorhas. I know where she is from and what she is. I am… familiar with her household. She can be trusted.”
“I think I’ve figured this out.” Rinn is no dummy, he can tell who’s good people, but he can also tell that even good people may be problematic, so he’s still on his guard.
“The House she’s from does not lack guile,” Otel says with a knowing smile, “but for as long as her goals and yours align, she’ll be beneficial. But if she finds that item, I’m asking you — as a man, Otel, not as your superior, as someone who knows and trusts you — that you will tell me if she finds any items that she seems to believe are those of the Xhorhasian Empire. It’ll be impossible to miss the look on her face if she finds the one we seek. Heaven knows, the last time I saw one, it let me see into my lives. As for your other one, I am not sure what to make of her. Some of the” he makes the three-finger salute “Rebellion apparently misunderstood her relationship with the Empress and thought she was the daughter of the Empress brought back from a thousand years in the future. Suffice it to say that their misunderstanding has been corrected.”
Rinn is quick to confirm, “Stubby is not any sort of friend or connection like that to the Empress.”
“One hopes.” Otel gives his coffee another good swig. “However, now that people are aware that she trusts the Empress as much as the rest of us do, you should find things less painful here. Warn her that it is becoming known in certain circles that the Take and the Thieves’ Guild are aware of her ladyship’s position. You did right not telling me, that was a correct choice. There are always four correct choices and a whole slew of bad choices. Just pick the best one, as you see it. It’s fine. But I have to ask, is it true they’ve befriended the Vonns? Those crazy motherfuckers?”
“She builds things, they build things.” Rinn says it simply and plainly. “They had things to talk about.”
There’s a faint, distant *BOOM* from outside. “Must be 6:30am. The Vonns’re at it again. Right, I won’t keep you, but have breakfast while you’re here if you like. D’you want us to get your room cleaned while you’re out, or leave it alone?”
Rinn decides to get his things, but doesn’t fully answer the question. Otel (correctly) interprets that as a request to keep the room, and says he will have it cleaned for whenever Rinn comes back to it. “All the damage to Old Vasselheim has made New Vasselheim a home for all of us. I kind of like it here,” he adds, “except the part where the sun wants to kill me.”
Rinn takes the maps he’s been given and takes his leave, though not before glancing at Otel’s stack of papers. He’s drawing up a contract for the Temple of the Everlight, where they need specific items, fairly common, found to the south of the city. His non-dominant right hand glows as he touches it: this is a binding contract. Very, very binding. It ensures that clients pay the agreed-upon fee, which protects the Take and its workers, and also guarantees that the Take and its teams won’t be ripping off the clients. Rinn hadn’t seen him cast the spell before, but he has signed similar ones.
Meanwhile, back at the Raven Queen temple…
Stubby has calmed herself, a little at least, and so she brushes the sweat-and-dried hair out of her face to go seek out an acolyte. Tāmarai follows her, silently carrying the tea tray back. The acolyte takes it from her as she asks Stubby, “Is all well?” Stubby answers that she needs to go to Raven’s Crest in Old Vasselheim. In the ensuing, brief discussion, it becomes clear that the acolyte has assumed that Stubby’s uncle was an acolyte who served at the Raven’s Crest many years ago. She’s also noticed the clever gadget that Stubby left for the temple, and suggests meeting the Vonns. Eventually, she goes to fetch Gleason, a priest, as Stubby indicates she’d like to speak to one.
Gleason turns out to be a very, very thin elf. He looks stretched, and not necessarily in a pleasant or attractive way, and of indeterminate gender despite the faint traces of a beard (most unusual in an elf!). “Maria,” apparently the acolyte’s name, “said you need to speak with me.”
Stubby confirms that they can speak freely without being scried upon; Gleason shows off his anti-scrying necklace, saying that it’s one of three known to exist in New Vasselheim. When asked, he also says there’s another — in the old city. Stubby says that that’s where they’ll be going, at the Raven Queen’s invitation. He looks taken slightly aback, but decides that if Herself told them to go, they would probably be fairly safe there, compared to most people at any rate. He asks permission, then checks them both with his Simple Identify spell. “You’ve been Touched,” he tells Stubby, and then Tāmarai, “You’ve been soaked in.. Ah!” he breaks off, looking at Tāmarai’s clothing. “That makes sense. Then the rumor is true, that you simply appeared here?”
Upon having the story outlined for him, Gleason sits down exactly where he stands, stunned to discover that the dragon attack, the party’s being yeeted to a different time and place, and the One Day War, were all on the same day. If he was not sitting down before, he would sit once Stubby told him about Vax. Gleason apparently needs more coffee. He wonders whether what happened to the party caused the explosion, or the explosion caused what happened. His mother has taught him, “Don’t fuck with time,” but clearly the time fuckery was not the party’s fault.
But finding out that Stubby saw her mother through the communication stone, and this whelms him further. “There is now a timeline in which your mother saw you once and never again?” This worries him more than all the other things Stubby has said. He lost a son in the explosion, and knows firsthand what that does to a parent. “What would she not do, to have her daughter back?” he says meaningfully, referring to Dream Vex’s apparent alliance with Vecna. “Your mother told you that your father never stopped looking. Depending on her tone, that could be significant. It could mean that she did stop looking. Then, given you mother’s history, is anyone more equipped than your mother, than one who helped to imprison Vecna, to enable his return? I see now why the Raven Queen wishes you to come to her. To have the Raven Queen owe you a favor is a fantastic thing. What did she say you need from Raven’s Crest?”
Stubby tells him about the name Kas, and Gleason echoes, “The first Champion, the one who dismembered Vecna. A paladin of the Raven Queen, the one who chopped off Vecna’s hand the first time he rose to power. The sword of Kas was in our tombs.” As the two girls watch, Gleason splits in two, like forking into two people. One is more ghostly than the other. They speak together, but not in unison. Corporeal Gleason says, “The Sword of Kas was given us by the Raven Queen after the fight with Vecna, but before he left the world forever.” Ghostly Gleason says, “The Sword of Kas was wrested from destruction and kept as a trophy for those who defeated Vecna.” (The latter is the story Stubby is used to hearing.) The two rejoin, and seem unaware of what they have said.
Being from a culture that uses dunamancy, Tāmarai recognizes that they have just witnessed two simultaneous, conflicting timelines. “Did you see?” she asks Stubby, and Stubby responds by causing her gauntlet to cast Minor Illusion, showing Gleason what the two of them saw.
He responds with “Holy fucknoodles!” Gleason takes a moment to process and recover the more genteel use of language. “I think perhaps you did not return to the exact timeline you left.” Tāmarai expresses that they must find a way to reintegrate the timelines. Gleason doesn’t know if that’s possible; Tāmarai doesn’t either, but knows that it is essential, so they must make it possible. The question remains, however, of cause versus effect.
“My current goal might be to find the sword and possibly find out if one version of my mom is worshipping Vecna.” Stubby is beyond disturbed. “Little weird for this early in the morning.”
“Early morning vision quests are never good,” Gleason philosophises. “One moment,” he turns towards another acolyte, not Maria. “Would you get for me the map of the old temple, please.” The acolyte scampers off, returning moments later with a stack of maps and floor plans for several floors of the Raven’s Crest, all below ground except the top one. The lowest, basement 4, has labels including Tomb of Champions. “We keep the weapons of champions here,” he points, “but I do not know if this map indicates what you will find. The Raven Queen may not send you to the temple I know. She may send you to the one from your time, if it is different. Vox Machina used the four trammels, and the one from the Raven Queen went through his heart…”
“They had three trammels,” Stubby breaks in, “and the one from the Raven Queen broke.”
Gleason decides aloud that this is the point of divergence. “Do you have means of speaking with your family — your family of this timeline?” Stubby and Tāmarai both nod. “Ask them of the sword.” Stubby offers to send them a letter if he would like to write one. “Where are you living?”
The two explain about the embassy, adding that the Empress is apparently one of their relatives. Gleason drops his book.
[Insight check: Stubby: The more people talk about the Sword of Kas and say that name aloud, Stubby remembers that Keyleth yeeted it and it wasn’t used in the final fight.]
Tāmarai suggests, “There are people who look alike, but are not siblings. Such as cousins, grandchildren and grandparents… I feel that the empress is almost certainly a descendent of Lady Vex’ahlia and Lord Percival. And she wants Lady Victoria to survive so that she can watch Lady Victoria suffer.”
Gleason opines that if Empress Lydia is a descendant of Vex in a timeline when Vex follows Vecna, she is enacting revenge. If Stubby’s disappearance destroyed her family, this would make sense. If only I had a history book from each of these timelines…”
Tāmarai remembers that she has one, recently thawed and read by the trio, from the dragons’ lair. She brings it out, and Gleason peruses it briefly. It’s a pre-Calamity book, albeit in reprint. For a bit of good fortune, one of the pages on which he focuses contains details that he has learned very differently. He flags down another acolyte (actually, the same from before) and asks Maria to fetch his copy of this book. Maria brings it, and Gleason flips to that page to compare the two. Pages 4 and 5 contain completely different drawings of the Raven’s Crest. The text begins the same, but diverges widely. “This different timeline begins even before the Calamity. How much have you studied of time, Chronurgy magics?” Neither has studied much, and Tāmarai doesn’t indicate that she has a little more experience, not with Chronurgy but with people who have studied and used it.
Gleason explains, “Every time we turn right or left, use magic to give us favor, make any choice at all, we create another time in which a different choice was made, and thus time is forever branching and changing and going into other distances. Death is inevitable, and the Raven Queen is the Omega, the ending of all things. All things will end. All will die. Some will be reborn, and others move on to whatever is next for them. The Raven Queen ensures that those who need to pass on, do so properly. Necromancy is, by and large, an improper use of this pattern. The problem is that if every choice changes time, when you leave a time branch to go to the future, as you have done, it’s possible that where you came from no longer exists. Some believe you can always go back; others believe you cannot, but return to a similar one instead. You are forever branching, forking, traveling, separating. I do not know if timelines can be merged. I would visit the temple of the Luxon and ask Saphy. She may know. This may be outside their studies. It’s something I know only theoretically.” He gives them leave to take his maps, which are copies of originals, and therefore theirs now to keep.
At this point Rinn arrives and is shown to where they all are, sitting on pews in the chapel. Two of them are visible from behind, anyway. Just the very top of Tāmarai’s hair-monument is visible. The girls explain that he is with them, and can be trusted, so Gleason continues what he’s saying. “This book says Kas was a follower of Vecna. You know him as a champion of the Raven Queen. Maybe that is the proper timeline… Well. You need to go to the Luxon temple. Ask for Saphy and tell her I sent you. She is your best bet for dunamantic advice. We’ve had some drunken discussions about these things. There is something else: The Raven Queen chose you, to some degree, but walking a path that a god has set for you is not a requirement. The path is offered to you, not commanded. Even the Raven Queen will not force, only give choices. While the legends of your uncle suggest otherwise, it was a choice he made freely. You have a choice as well. You do not have to go to the Raven’s Crest. You are not obligated to walk her path. Being chosen by a deity, any deity, is quite a bit to digest.” He sighs. “As my wife says, who knew that keeping scads of relics and magic items all in one place would be a problem!?”
Stubby wonders if they go to the Platinum Sanctuary, will the Horn of Orcus be just sitting around? Gleason devoutly hopes not. He says that they can come and ask for him at any time, and he will be summoned for them. If they can’t, Stubby replies, she may send Sentri, whom she shows to Gleason. He admires the craftsmanship. Then he sends them off to their next visit and settles into the existential crisis they’ve handed him.
Interlude:
The streets fill with people taking their midday break. The morning has been a bit much, so rather than go right away to the Luxon temple, the three do some of their needed errands together, shopping for the household and for their planned trip into Old Vasselheim. As they go about their business, the town cryer passes by, making announcements. “Another ship has been sunk outside of New Vasselheim! Cause unknown, no known survivors! If you knew anyone on The Dancer’s Mother, please see the dockmaster at the North Docks! … There is a rumor of a bear who walks like a man, seen outside the town walls! … There will be a demonstration sword fight at the Green!..” Details follow. It’s a slow news day. The trio head home to eat.
During their lunch, Stubby grabs a box from their room and hands to Rinn. “Made you something.”
Rinn’s Gloves of Negation, version 1:
These are a pair of navy blue leather gloves with subtle copper embroidery in the shape of diamonds that extend up the inside of the hands to the pads of the fingers. It wraps around the cuffs where there are small blue tourmaline crystals on each wrist. On either side of the crystal is what looks to be 2 elongated copper “beads.” When you look closely they are very fine sheets of copper wrapped around thin strips of vellum that are then further attached to the banded copper embroidery. All of it makes a meticulous decorative circuit of embroidery. These gloves are meant to be subtle, per Rinn’s style, with only the gems and capacitors on the top of the cuffs.
The crystal will glow faintly, as will the wire between the capacitors, when Absorb Elements is cast into it. It will hold the spell until it is depleted in the process of negating a burst of uncontrolled elemental magics, wherein the glow will dissipate.
Stubby also nervously mentions that she is working on a more compact version that could hold a permanent enchantment, but wanted to have something done quickly for him. “You should never be afraid to hug someone.”
Rinn takes the gloves and stares at them for a very long time, then wordlessly puts them on, unable to speak or even look at Stubby for a long while. Then, eventually, he does. “Thank you.”
She broke him.
Temple of the Luxon
The Three Amigos walk past the Raven Queen temple, past the Temple of the Everlight, past another several temples and shrines (including a weird shrine that looks from some angles like a cloaked and hooded figure and from others like a dick statue). Tucked in a corner, situated so that other buildings keep it perpetually in shade, stands the Luxon Temple. A human sweeps outside, chatting away with a dwarf who’s cleaning the door (goodness knows how many hands touch a doorknob every day, not to mention whatever street animals piss on things to mark their territories). Both have skin that looks to be of shades found outside Xhorhas — pale beige to dark brown, full of eumelanin, rather than the cyanomelanin more common in Xhorhas — so, they should be speaking in Overcommon (“Common” around here), but they’re not. They’re speaking in Xhorhasian (called “Undercommon” in these parts). But not fluently. They appear to be practicing.
My name is… What is your name?
Thank you. You’re welcome. Nice to meet you. Can you speak Common?
This is a book. I am a student. Are you a student? I am a teacher.
I have an apple.
May I borrow a pencil?
Which way to the palace?
The human seems better at it, but they’re obviously both still just learning. A half-elf comes outside the door and listens for a moment, corrects them, and reassures them in Common, “As the memories come back, these things will become easier. If you–”
Just then, the party approach, and while there’s a little curiosity about Rinn and Stubby, all eyes swiftly fly to Tāmarai. The half-elf bows immediately. The human bows awkwardly, after seeing the half-elf doing it, as does the dwarf, and Tāmarai returns a graceful bow to them both. The dwarf then asks, “Are you shikomi? …Why do I know that word?”
“The memories sometimes come randomly. This will continue to happen,” the half-elf answers before addressing the group. “May we help you?”
The group indicate that they were told by Gleason to ask for Saphy. The half-elf suggests the human go and find this person, and though the human seems nervous about going into the “scary” room, he does go. The half-elf then asks the party, “Are you Consecuted?”
Tāmarai answers that they are not. “These are my ashishtan.” Stubby wants to know what Consecuted is, and Tāmarai and the half-elf briefly explain that it relates to the word ‘consecutive’.
“It is novel,” the half-elf adds, “to be able to speak of our religion openly outside of Xhorhas. The future is a wonderful place!”
Saphy appears, a hunched-over half-elf woman of warm brown skin and a cloud of washed-out, yellow-white hair. [Think Nichelle Nichols, but less glamorous.] Tiny bead-eyes sparkle like a grandparent who sees right through everyone. “Gleason sent you? I see why. Yeah, yeah, these are fine, I’ll take ‘em inside.” Hunched over, she is not much taller than Stubby. She leads the group inside, giving Rinn an odd look as if wondering what the ‘local’ kid is doing there.
Her office is reasonably tidy, for the most part, but the walls… They’re covered in wide swaths of the dark local slate, polished smooth, and those walls are covered in turn with chalk marks. Formulae, drawings, things barely understandable or identifiable. [Modern equivalent: Wall of Weird, with newspaper clippings and thumbtacks and red string.] “Of all the possibilities,” she half-mumbles. “I’ll be damned! You make it through six lifetimes, you think you’ve seen it all. Now, I don’t believe I’ve seen it all. Not anymore! I see why Gleason sent you here.” The group explain their errand and lay out everything that they’ve discussed this day. “Well, kids,” Saphy responds, “we got ourselves a good news, bad news situation. Bad news: I don’t have any way to send you home. Good news: Sounds like the Raven Queen has an idea. And since she’s the end of all things for those who don’t come back, that means she might know how to tie your threads back together. She wouldn’t send you out on a wild-goose cha– Well, actually, she has in the past. She has ideas. Got her own plans. In whatever timeline you stepped your toes in, you said,” she directs her attention towards Stubby, “your mother told you your father never stopped looking for you?” Stubby nods. “Depending on her tone, that maybe means that she did stop. But does that sound like the mother you know?”
“No!”
“Right,” Saphy continues, tapping a pencil she’s gathered from her desk in thought. “So right now, I got a theory. My theory, you jumped in somebody else’s timeline. You guys going missing maybe is a constant. Some possibilities can be changed, but some can’t. There’s a spell I know, Fortune’s Favor. You know it?” she fixes her tiny, bright eyes on Tāmarai, who hesitates, then nods. She knows of the spell. “Right. Well, Fortune’s Favor gives you a chance to choose another possibility. But sometimes that possibility turns out exactly the same, because you found a possibility that can’t be changed. It’s what we call a fixed point in time. So if we assume your vanishing is a fixed point in time, it’s likely what happened is you went into someone else’s timeline, called the wrong home in their timeline, and came back to an altered timeline.
“The book you’ve got, being from pre-Calamity, is weird. So either you changed history, or you’re still in the wrong time. I don’t know which is which, but if the Raven Queen says you have to look into Kas and his sword, maybe the answer to Kas is that the history of Kas that matches your history, that’s how you fix time.
“So, you go to the tombs in the fourth basement. That’s where they keep the Tomb of Champions. If Kas’s tomb is there, you’re in the wrong time, but if it’s not there, we’re in the wrong time and you can fix us. Probably. Time travel’s a bitch. That’s why you don’t do it, if you can help it.”
Tāmarai wonders if Gelidon’s magic may have been what sent them awry. Saphy asks how old Gelidon was, and when the girls mention that she was ancient, responds with a cackle that is only half source in amusement. “Ha! Well, you’re fucked! Maybe. I don’t know of any dragon that can cast a spell powerful enough to send you eighty years in the future, or unstick you in time. That’s a big deal. But a pre-Calamity mage sure as hell could. Do you still have that mathemagic book?” Tāmarai hands it over, and she peruses for several minutes. “Right. Remember this: people haven’t studied dunamancy should not fuck with time. This Emror’s formulae are wrong. Now,” she snaps the book closed and hands it back, “what is it you really want?”
Tāmarai speaks for them both. “We would like to return to our own time, to reconcile the timelines, and to heal Stubby’s mother in the time in which she is mad with her grief.
Saphy taps her pencil a little faster as she considers, murmuring aloud, “What I wouldn’t give for a vial of the empress’s blood. This would be so much easier… But she’s surrounded by so many people, and that guy Ryo is freaky. ‘Master of Spies?’ I never saw anyone that works with him. So either he’s got no underlings to be master of, or he’s really good at hiding them, and either way, that’s dangerous.
“So! You want to go back to your timeline. Whatever veered you off your path, I think the explosions caused your time travel. Sounds like this Gelidon set up a Gate spell to yeet her back home if she thought she’d get killed, and you kids accidentally tripped it.” Saphy’s brain whirrs with ideas, possibilities. “But it happened on the same day the explosion here happened, and it fucked up the rifts. There’s one rift near Whitestone, right? Magic could’ve come pouring out of Zephra and sent you elsewhere. These rifts, they don’t ever close completely. I wonder if the Luxon could send you home.”
As Saphy talks, Tāmarai stares at the walls, memorizing their appearance for later. Saphy, oblivious to this, continues. “One thought is that I can look into your possible paths. I know you now, so I got a vibe off of you, but I’m not used to studying past paths. Normally people don’t jump paths. If you could undo the destruction of Vasselheim… Wait, what if that’s a fixed point in time? Seems like the sort of thing the gods would do if we got too uppity.” Her musing breaks off and she asks the girls, “When are you heading off to Old Vasselheim? And how experienced are you with magic?”
Stubby replies, “Tomorrow.” Tāmarai names her most advanced spell, and says that she can cast it twice a day if she’s fully rested. Saphy smiles and reaches into her desk for a bag, which she pulls out. “Six.” They look; the bag contains six very good quality pearls. “If you find six in Old Vass’, I’d appreciate you bringing them back for me, but I don’t require it. Now, you,” she adds, turning towards Rinn, “Where do you fit into all this? Where’re you from?”
He explains that he came from Zadash, on Wildemount. Saphy muses that he must have made it on the last ship that made it to Issylra. “All the ships’ve been sinking. Tentacles coming out of the water. It’s weird. Other people have told you you’re special, right kid?” Off of Rinn’s uneasy look, she lets it go. “But they’re from one timeline, and you’re maybe from another. Did you see Gleason split in two?” Rinn allows as how he wasn’t there at the time. “Oh. Well, you know from Kas, right? Kas that was a follower of Vecna?” Stubby and Tāmarai nod, and Saphy looks smug as she’s figured it out. “Ahaaaa. I think you’re in the right timeline, and the temple of the Raven Queen is the one that’s fucked up! I think she’s asking you to go fix her temple, and I say this because I got a memory that doesn’t match your story. See, I’ve lived here my whole life. Two lives, actually. My life before this, I was a full elf, so I’ve lived a really long time, kids. Even though I wasn’t reborn right away; not everybody is. But I remember when we planted the Birth Heart. That means the Luxon I was Consecuted into happens to be the one we recovered, the one that’s at the embassy. But I remember the founding of the temple, too. When they rebuilt the Raven Queen temple here, they said they were designing it after the same one, but it doesn’t look the same to me. I thought maybe my memory was a little bit off because I died, came back a few years later, and it was different. But if Gleason said there were four trammels… There were three. One broke, I don’t know how, but this guy Grog wasn’t allowed to go shopping.”
“The Raven Queen’s trammel,” Stubby says slowly, “was the one that broke.”
Saphy snaps her fingers. “That explains it! When you break a magic item, things get wonky. So that’s what probably happened. If I was the empress and wanted to fuck with you, that’s where I’d start. I’d start the one place that would be able to arm up against me — especially if I’m siding with Vecna. Look, Old Vasselheim wasn’t the cradle of civilization. It can’t be, right? The first people didn’t know how to build cities. They started being people, first, then learned how to make houses, and then they started building them closer together and became cities.” Three nods; it does make sense. “I think the Luxon started everything. Luxon’s older than a god. Chicken; egg. Sorry, I get into theories. Go to Old Vasselheim and check out that temple. If you see a double temple, the one you expect and the one Gleason expects, well, there’s your problem. The fact that you haven’t seen double images anywhere see but the Raven Queen’s temple, that tells me that’s the point of divergence. But this is good news! You’re in the right time! And you, young man,” she fixes a gleaming eye on Rinn, “whatever your path is, it seems to be wrapped up with the paths of these two. That could be good or bad, but don’t worry about that. For now just stay with them. Keep ’em from blabbing — you’re the one that knows how to keep your mouth shut. You’ve got sense. Now, I don’t know if anything’s gonna hold for you in Old Vasselheim. I can’t see your future, that’s not something people can do. I can tell you the roads of your past, show you some possibilities, but nobody knows for certain. Gleason doesn’t understand that. He’s only got one life to live and sees it as a single path, but there’s fractals. We don’t know where we’ll end up until we end, you know what I mean? The Luxon gives some of us a chance to continue our paths. Your path is with these two, for now. In you I see a possibility, and I don’t know what it means, but I do see it. Greatness, that’s one of your possibilities. Failure is another. And you’re thinking Fuck you, that sounds like everybody, but you wouldn’t be tied in with these two if you weren’t destined for something bigger. These two being sent here? You being on the last boat? That’s not coincidence. If another god comes and talks to you, any of you, you listen, hear me?
“And to answer a question I can see on all your faces, no, I’m not psychic. Just fuckin’ old. I was a goblin once. You don’t live long, but it’s a lot of fun! So. Questions?”
Rinn hesitates a moment, but decides to go ahead. “Last week there was a night when there was no storm, but lightning hit a hill…”
“Makeout Point?” Saphy wiggles her eyebrows. “I heard about that. That was weird. You saw that?”
Quickly (maybe a bit too quickly) Rinn shakes his head. “I wasn’t there. I just wondered if you’d heard or knew anything about it.”
“Well, lightning is pretty much the Storm Lord’s schtick. What kinda gods you worship?” she asks him.
“I don’t.” He clams up, but there’s more. There must be more. His gloves are powering up.
“Fair. What about you two?”
Tāmarai replies easily, “The Luxon is, obviously, our national revered one.”
Saphy gives her a sharp look, then says, “I gotchoo. And you? You’re with the Raven Queen?”
Stubby thinks about it. “Well, there’s a lot going on in my family. She’s one of them. Oh!” The shorter half-elf holds out her arm, and Sentri disengages from her gauntlet, forms into its magpie self, and lands on the gauntlet. “I made this.”
Saphy is impressed, saying that she remembers when people started making things like that. “Yours looks better. Just don’t go reinventing guns.” Stubby looks guilty. “Ah. I see you. You ever heard the expression, Mortals plan, gods laugh? We say it, not because gods actually laugh and try to screw with us. We say it because we don’t know what’s next. We make plans. They don’t work out. Gods didn’t do that to us, though. By the way, don’t visit any hell dimensions. I think you’re here to stop Vecna from rising.”
“Again,” adds Rinn, and is rewarded with a sharp and appreciative look.
“Right, again. Whatever timeline you dipped your toes in and created this evil version of your mother… Well, anyway, this traumatized and grieving version of her… Yeah, it follows, doesn’t it? You gotta stop that. OH! That makes sense now. The empress is here to set things in motion that will let your mother have whatever power will let her talk to Vecna. You gotta stop her. You gotta send the empress back to her own timeline and keep her there. Or kill her. Whatever, either works.”
Having spotted Tāmarai checking that the anti-scrying candle is still on and working, Saphy says, “Oh, yeah, those are easy to make. They take a long time, but they’re pretty easy. The necklaces that do the same thing, though, those are really hard to make, and there are only three that I know of. One’s in the Platinum Sanctuary. The Raven Queen still has hers. But the Platinum people, they had two. Your mother’s got one. There’s one somewhere else. I think. Places you could look… Well, all the major temples might have one. Everlight, Platinum, Raven’s, Dawnfather. You know them all. And there might be one at the Birth Heart.
“You’re going tomorrow, you said? Bring food, blankets… Go by foot. Horses would just spook and run. It’ll be about two days’ walk. Spend the night outside, though, don’t go in until you’re rested and fresh.” The advice is a repeat of what they’ve been given before, but it’s taken well as an underscore of how important it is.
[Note: Saphy’s Wall of Weird formulae deal with how to determine what a person will be reborn as, and how to find the ‘lost’ connected children. She accepts a hair from each of the trio’s head to try to sort out their paths while they’re in the old city.]
As they’re about to leave, Saphy tells them to come back and see her when they return, and she’ll hopefully have more understanding of their threads.
Stubby has one more question. “I’ve been chatting with my parents, but we haven’t talked about this relationship to the empress. Should I tell them about that, or leave it out, do you think?”
“I don’t have kids right now, but I did in a couple previous lives,” Saphy replies. “Parents freak out about their kids. Do they already know you want to go to Old Vasselheim?” Stubby nods. “I don’t like keeping secrets from loved ones, but I don’t think anything good would come of telling her what you suspect about the empress. Yet. Maybe when it’s all done and dusted and you’re at home, you can tell her more. I’ll say this, though. If you can get a hair off of the empress’s head, I would pay you anything for it. You’d think that woman would cut her nails or lose a hair somewhere, but there’s not a scratch on her even after the One Day War! And it’s creepy, and here’s another creepy thing. If she’s from the future, what the hell does she know?
“Okay, kids. I like you. Come back soon. Come with questions, come with answers, whatever, just come back. But not today, I wanna start playing around with this shit.”
End scene.
Take your meds.
Hydrate.
Don’t forget to love each other.
Is it Game Day yet?